- Brian bought some new detergent this week. It's called "tropical paradise" or something very appealing like that, but I think it smells like men's antiperspirant. I first noticed it while I laying in bed trying to keep from vomiting on Tuesday. I caught a whiff of it on my pillowcase and thought "What in the heck has Brian been doing with my pillow? I think I'm going to throw up! It smells like he's been rubbing his armpits all over it!!!" I asked him about it later, when I wasn't so close to puking and he said "Gee, I really like the smell. Guess I know why now."
- Grace told us last night that she wished she was Congolese instead of Chinese. We asked her why and she said she wanted hair like Haven's.
- We are trying to refinance our house. If it happens we will have a much lower interest rate. An appraiser came to our house on Friday. Brian had been cleaning the house for almost 8 hours straight. She was here for less than 15 minutes, including the time she spent outside. I'm glad the house is clean, but obviously it was wasted on her! Pray for a good appraisal.
- JoJo has learned to scale our fireplace. It is like watching indoor rock climbing. Really quite amazing for one so short. But it is also very disappointing because the mantel was the one last place in the house he couldn't reach. Time to box up the last of the breakables until he moves out.
- Speaking of JoJo, he still doesn't have much to say. He sometimes pretends to talk into my calculator and says "Hi", but that's about his only clear word. Oh, and he can say his own name (he hears it a lot, as in "JoJo get down"). I guess his brain is really concentrating on this climbing skills. I'm sure they will turn out to be very important to his career as a Cirque du Soleil performer someday.
- Manny, on the other hand, is saying Hi, Night Night, Jump, Up, More, Daddy, Mama, JoJo, Banana, along with lots of other grunts and groans that sort of sound like words. He is not, however, scaling the fireplace.
- We discovered that Manny loves popcorn. He eats it in big handfuls like the Cookie Monster eating a cookie "ummm nummm nummm, nummm!"
- Our garage currently looks like an episode of Hoarders (don't you love that crazy show). There is a small path between the garage door and the door into our house. It is filled to the gills mostly with stuff for our garage sale coming up on March 31. But some of it is stuff that we have had to move out of the house to keep JoJo from climbing any higher. Hope the appraiser didn't include that in her report--"lovely home in except for the hoard in the garage".
- Grace just told me that when I was sick last week I "walked like Grandma". Wait until she realizes I'm actually old enough to be her grandmother!
- Haven is very mad at me right now because he wants to wear shorts to church and it is very cold outside so I said no. He told me "You hurt my feelings. You don't get Christmas or any treats." We may need to rethink our parenting strategies.
- Finally, I've managed to get all my entries for the giveaway compiled and here are the wonderful winners:
Fields of the Fatherless book to Laura Bowers
Lion King DVD to Amy Klug
More Love t-shirts to Julia Givens, Jenny Baker, and Stacey Dauphine
Silpada jewelry to Kellie Kitchens
If each winner could please contact me either by email or Facebook message and send me your mailing address, we will have those prizes out to you this week.
Thanks so much to all of you who have donated or purchased items from our MORE LOVE Store. We are almost halfway through our first rose puzzle. Almost 250 donations. Help us get that rose finished and hanging on the wall before our love bouquet of daughters is all together. It's getting closer!!!
