Chef Messy

5 a.m. haiku

Am so very tired.

Why are two kids in my bed?

Plus a sock monkey?

Conversations with Matthew: The Monster Under the Bed

"Did you know that there's a monster under your bed, and while you're asleep he comes out and practices putting your entire head in his mouth?"

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah!  I figured out how to get rid of the monster under my bed, though.  First, I vacuumed him up, and then I made the vacuum spit him back out, and then I put him in the outside garbage can, and then I held the lid down until the garbage truck came and took him to the dump."

"Um, OK."

"You probably better do the same thing with the monster under your bed, because pretty soon he's going to be done practicing, and he'll have it all figured out, and then you won't have a head anymore."

a thing or two about a thing or two

1. These are the Valentines that Matthew made for his class this year.  I have two really good reasons for not posting them until now.

2. Here's reason number one, a little valentine gift from our friendly neighborhood pathologist Steve.

 

Last week I had a gall bladder.  This week I don't.  This is what's left of it.  I'm much enjoying the fact that these are in a jar and not in my body where they were wreaking enough havoc to land me in the emergency room at 4 a.m.

I would also like to add that I no longer possess any unnecessary organs.  My friend Dan tells me that I'll go on thinking this is well and good until I find out that the unnecessary organs were the source of all my superpowers.

3. Here's reason two.

 

I don't get a lot done these days, and when I do get it done I don't have much time to blog about it.  Time is flying.  Someone asked me the other day if I had been watching the Olympics, to which I had to respond, "What? The Olympics are on right now?"  I can't remember the last time I spent more than ten minutes watching TV.

Jonah is four months now.  The little whopper is up to a gigantic eleven pounds, which lands him at a percentile score of zero-point-zero-zero.  This means that 100% of babies are bigger than Jonah.  And that is why he is starting cereal.  Here's what he thinks about that.

Yay! People food!

In other four-month-old news, Jonah now laughs, gives kisses (big, wet, slobbery ones), rolls from his belly to his back (but not vice versa, not so much because he can't, but because he won't), refuses to get out of mom's bed, and still wants to party all night long.  He is great fun, and, anyways, isn't everything funnier when you're sleep deprived?

That's what I tell myself at the third wake-up call of the night.

4. Matthew reported to a relative that he went on a date.  With "his woman."

It wasn't really a date.  It was just sledding in our neighborhood.  There was no smooching, hugging, or hand-holding, and all activities were chaperoned by two moms and a protective brother.

Still, I think it's cute that he has a crush.  Plus, it makes him less wimpy on the sledding hill, and I'm all for that.

5. While I was recovering from surgery, we made a pocket monster.

I try to give him stuff to make so that he doesn't destroy the house while I'm busy doing other things.  I'm thinking, though, that if he can figure out how to put together a pocket monster, he ought to be able to figure out how to scrub a toilet, and sweep the floor, and fold the laundry, and cook me dinner, and...

What, like you didn't have kids for exactly those reasons?

6. And I caught up on some other things.

What?  You mean it's been four months since you gave me that gift?  I don't believe you.

7. And I made some good food...

 

...which we may or may not have eaten on ugly, plastic IKEA plates.

 

Three words: Bread Dough from the dairy section, pressed garlic, egg whites, and italian seasoning.

Plus salami and italian dressing.

OK, that was way more than three words.

Also, the dishes from the yummy food may or may not still be in my sink.

8. Ryan rebuilt my computer again today.

And I do swear that I did not wonder for even one teeny tiny millisecond if he would destroy all of my files in the process.

Nope, I didn't.

Which is good, because all of my files seem to be here, and now I have the ferrari of computers.  You should see how fast photoshop can do a radial blur on this humdinger.

You probably have no idea what I'm talking about, do you.

9. Ryan also brought me flowers for Valentine's Day.

Even though we promised no gifts.  He always cheats, but he's a good soul.

The flowers may or may not still be in the plastic wrap in the wrong sized vase on my kitchen counter.

10. I may or may not have time to blog again until my children leave for college.  Just sayin'.

more about schlepping than the environment, but whatever

I made the switch to reusable grocery bags about two years ago.  It was partially an environmental decision, but it was partially also a decision resulting from my annoyance that our house was being invaded by five million flimsy plastic bags that we were never going to use for anything.  What I didn't know at the time was that those reusable grocery bags are AWESOME.  You can fit five or six flimsy bags worth of groceries in one big bag, and then you sling it over your shoulder and your schlepping is done.  So much simpler than running back and forth to your car fifteen times for all those silly little bags.

I'm all about environmental choices when it means more convenience for me.

Anyway, so when I saw this pattern on Posie Gets Cosy, I got all excited.  Not only could I have giant reusable bags that are so good for schlepping, but they could also be cute!  Hooray!

 

A few words on this pattern, though.  A) Those reusable bags are cheap.  They aren't cute, but most grocery stores sell them for about a dollar.  The fabric for this bag is more than a dollar, unless you are using from your stash.  B) Those reusable bags are a lot sturdier than this one.  They stay open by themselves.  This one does not.  If I were to make any more of these, I'd definitely add some sort of interfacing.

All the same, it's a fun little pattern and it will make your grocery bagger smile  He might be smiling because he thinks you are a crazy hippie, but whatever.  Good for schlepping, I repeat.  Who cares what the grocery boy thinks.

elijah the elephant

My friend Miriam, knitting superwoman extraordinaire, knit this amazing elephant for Jonah. He loves it.

 

 

 

He's been talking to it since he was a newborn, but now that he's finally figured out how to hang on to it and give it a big smooch he's having a lot more fun.

Thanks again, Mim, we love it.

twenty-minute increments

I really, really like sewing.  It just amazes me to see things come together from little, frayed scraps of fabric and string, and I've always enjoyed getting lost in a project for a few hours.  But I don't have a few hours anymore.  I have whatever I can squeeze in during Jonah's twenty-minute power naps.  I don't mind, though.  It's amazing what you can get done in twenty-minute increments, especially when you pick projects that are small and easy.

 

We've been down to one pathetic potholder for about a year now.  I'm famous for leaving them places when I take goodies to potluck dinners.  I can always seem to remember the dish, but never the potholder.  And then last week I burnt a giant hole through the one that we had left, what was left of it.  (I also have a knack for burning giant holes in all sorts of things.)  When stuff needs replaced around here, I do my best to just make it.  Why be crafty if you can't put it to practical use, you know?  So, I rounded up some scraps and now we have a potholder again.  You can make a potholder in twenty minutes.  And then you have the illusion that you are actually productive, even though the odds of you actually cooking anything that requires a potholder anytime in the near future are slim to none.

Conversations with Matthew: Extracurricular

"Once spring soccer starts, we're going to have to pick one of these activities to give up.  You've got way too many things going on."

"Hmm.....like, how about kindergarten?"

Conversations with Matthew: "My Woman."

"Is it almost Valentine's Day?"

"Yep. In about 2 weeks."

"Oh, good.  I'll have to decide what I'm going to get my woman."

"Your woman? Who is your woman?"

"Tori.....And Piper."

"Tori AND Piper? Matthew, didn't anyone ever tell you that girls don't like it if you have more than one woman?"

"Well, see, Piper is in morning kindergarten, and Tori is in afternoon kindergarten.  So, I don't really have to worry about it."

which partially explains why my house looks the way it does

So, hey, I haven't blogged in a month.

I've had good reasons.  For one thing, everyone in the family has been sick, except Jonah (thank you, BF-ing!).  Actually, I've been sick with several things.  In the last month, I've fought off two ear infections, a nasty respiratory infection which caused me to have a fever of 103.8 for an entire week, and I'm also likely going to have gall bladder surgery next week.  There have been multiple bottles of antibiotics and emergency room trips involved.

It's been fun.

Also, my Christmas tree is still up, I can't remember the last time I got eight hours of sleep, and the school is threatening to call child protective services if Matthew misses one more day of kindergarten.

But other than that, life is good.  Jonah is a great baby.  Ryan is doing Ryan stuff.  Matthew is busy building things out of junk.  There is no guarantee in this house that anything you throw in the trash is actually going to stay there, not if Matthew can find something else to do with it, which usually he can.  Also, we have to carefully guard any office/craft/art/cooking/cleaning supplies that aren't nailed down, or else they will end up in "the machine."

 

The important thing to realize here is that you cannot, I repeat, CANNOT connect the black wires to the red, orange, or yellow wires.  If you do that, it will zap you, and your brains will come oozing out your ears.  The black wires can ONLY be connected to the green wires.  This is very important.

So I'm told.

 

But I see some brain-zappers here, now that I look twice.

posie nutcracker doll

My main New Year's resolution for 2009 was to either get skinny or to get pregnant.  Well, I didn't get skinny.  Rather, I got very, very fat.  But that was because I also got very, very pregnant.  So, I'm calling it an extremely successful year.  My New Year's resolution this year is to either get skinny, or to get very, very fat again.  My other New Year's resolution is to finish all the random unfinished projects I have hanging around here.

For example, this little nutcracker doll, which I made for London LAST Christmas...

 

Wasn't she the cutest baby ever?  I could die of cuteness.  On one hand, I want Jonah to be a newborn forever.  On the other hand, I can't wait for him to be a chubby little crawler like this.

 

Anyway, I gave her the doll last Christmas, but the skirt kept falling off, so they gave it back to me so that I could fix it.

And it only took me an ENTIRE YEAR to get around to it.  That's just how I roll.

 

London likes that she "has pretty yips."

channeling our inner foo fighters, etcetera

We all used to attempt to go out and party for New Year's Eve.  And then one day we realized, "Wait, we ARE the party."  So, now we just count down the new year at my parents' house every year.  It's loud and fun and the kids stay up with us, and then I'm sure my mom and dad are pretty happy when we all go home.

A party of this scale means that everyone has to have a job.

Dad's job is to plan enough food for all 12 of us.  He usually hears wrong and plans enough food for 1200 of us.  That happens when you get old and your hearing starts to go...

I don't know who else was in charge of catering, but I know they were pretty much crazy.

Jen is in charge of party hats and prizes.  It is required that at least one hat each year ought to involve bikini tops.

 

Matthew is the videographer.

 

Jonah is in charge of sleeping through the entire party.

And, of course, every good party needs a band.

 

I am the drummer.  I am ALWAYS the drummer.

And these are my backup musicians.

 

I have to watch out for this one...

 

...He can get a real attitude.

Happy New Year from the Kendell Family!

sledding: an activity we do so that we can have hot chocolate when we are done

My sister and her family live in Las Vegas, so snow is a novelty for them.  Sledding is also a novelty.  We had to make sure to take the cousins the first snowy morning that we had while they were here.

Gavin had to test the snow to make sure it was safe for sledding...

And Matthew had to be tossed down the hill the first couple of times, as usual, before he decided that he was going to have any fun.

 

But after that they had a good time.

 

 

 

 

If only there were a way to avoid those big treks back up the hill.

 

 

Lollipop also had her first go at sledding, and here's how it went.

 

 

"I go sledding.  It is SCARY."  London is very articulate for her age.

I was amazed that the Las Vegas kids lasted in the snow as long as they did.  Long after I was ready to go inside, Gavin was trying to convince me to stay and play at the park.

 

 

It's nice for Matthew to have a sledding buddy besides me and Ryan.  Wish these guys were around all the time.