Spreadin' the Love

One of the blogs I read, pretty much every day, is Confessions of a Young Married Couple.  Katie and Chris keep this blog, Katie writes more frequently, but they each have a page, if you will, devoted to their perspectives on marriage.  As a young couple.  (Hence the name of their blog, right?  I'm such a dork.)  They also have a little boy, Bean, and he is one of the cutest things you will ever see.  Along with their stories about the challenges, joys, struggles, and whatever else they face in their life together they write about their life as a young family.  Bean is quite entertaining. 

Katie makes me laugh out loud.  She is a funny girl who is not afraid to lay it all out, whether it's good, bad, or ugly.  Her humor, her positive outlook, and the way she is constantly looking for and seeing the delightful in her life keep me coming back to her blog.  I'm not the only one who keeps coming back; I don't even know how many people read her blog...thousands, tens of thousands, millions?

She began a new feature this year in which she posts about one of her readers a month, and do you know what?  This month, she asked me to answer some fun questions, and then she put my picture (yikes!) on her sidebar.  I feel so honored! 

Wait.  Tomorrow is April 1st.  This isn't a big joke on me, is it?  Oh, that wouldn't be funny, now.

Well, I've already seen the post so I know that it's for real...and what I discovered is that I am very much into run-on sentences.  Why didn't anyone tell me?  I am also quite chatty if you ask me a question, so you are forewarned if you ever have the inclination to ask me something. 

If you have come by from Confessions of a Young Married Couple, then welcome!  I hope that there is something here that will make you smile, or better yet laugh out loud.  Sometimes I get serious, but...I'm working on that!

Regardless of what else you may find, you can be sure that there will be a lot of this:

(that is the color version, duh, of the I Heart Faces picture)

this:

and this:

It's what I do every day, so it's what I blog. Thanks for taking the time to check out the five Walkers.  We just keep putting one foot in front of the other, like everybody else.

There's Always a Place for Drama

At I Heart Faces this week, they are looking for dramatic black and whites, pictures that are sensational or moody.  That is interesting.  Most of the pictures I take are of my kids, and while those three are plenty dramatic and moody, I am not sure that it's the kind of drama and moodiness that is being called for in this challenge.  That being said, I did take a picture last week that I thought captured a certain something and I figured it was worth a shot.  So, here goes...

When I do take my camera along with me, I take a lot of pictures.  Michaela is quite used to me clicking away, whether it's in Target or on the soccer field, in our dining room or in our yard.  She is always ready to smile.  It's hard to get a picture of her not smiling.  Of course, there are always the silly faces.  (I don't know where she gets that!  Ha!)  But most of the time, she sees the other side of my lens and immediately grins. 

At Christian's soccer game the other day I caught her with the zoom, so she didn't know that I was taking her picture.  I remember snapping this shot quickly and then going back to the game, so I didn't really know if it would turn out or not.  I also didn't know exactly what she looked like.  Once I saw it on the computer I was so happy.  I love it...I love her hair (the girl has such pretty hair), the tilt of her head, the way she has her lower lip caught under her top teeth.  I wonder what she's thinking.  Or what has captured her attention.   I like the negative space; to me it shows that there is something in the distance that she has her thoughtful eye on.

The color version of this picture is pretty, too.  I'll show it to you someday. 

There are an insane amount of photos entered into this challenge already...I am very curious to see what photo the guest judge, Tara Whitney, chooses as her favorite, as well as the runners-up.  Black and whites are so lovely, and there are so many different ways to convert (I'm assuming most of the pictures are digital).  Have fun perusing over at I Heart Faces, or get dramatic yourself and add a photo to the challenge!

Soccer on a Saturday, "Dis Ewayne", and Retail Therapy

Michaela is playing soccer again this spring.  She has played with a couple of different teams since she is homeschooled (the YMCA here forms the teams according to grade and school) and this is her second season with this particular group.  She never seems to have a problem making friends with the girls even though the others are together every schoolday. 

Michaela's team is one of the best teams in the...league?  It's not a league, but I don't know the word I ought to use.  At any rate, I think they were one of three teams that had an equal amount of wins, losses, and ties in the fall.  This season they have won all of their games so far.  They are aggressive enough to keep the ball at the opposing team's goal and so when Michaela plays defense she looks like this...

or this...

It kind of made me laugh and it kind of made me sad.  She looks so alone.  There is a teammate to her right on the opposite side of the field, but for a while they didn't do a whole lot!

The other team did make their way to Michaela's team's goal several times, so the action finally got a little closer.

And she did get her foot on the ball some, though I didn't catch that on film (digital, whatever). 

She got her hands on the ball, too...a throw in...

It was a pretty day, a little on the chilly side, but once Christian and Eliana ran around for a few minutes they were all right.  Actually, Eliana was fine from the beginning, but Christian fussed about the cold for a while when we first arrived.  Here is a formula that will help you out in the future:  late night + early morning = SUPER CRAB.  Use it wisely.  Or be wise and don't use it.  Glad I can help you out with these parenting skills...I've got 'em coming out the wazoo. 

Do you know what?  If I went to the doctor and he or she informed me I had a wazoo, and that something was coming out of it, I would be afraid.  That's what.  Also, I don't recommend googling "wazoo".

Speaking of coming out the wazoo...or someplace close...here are my children, two by two, who will hopefully rescue you from the strange place I've taken you just now.

They had a good day.  I am so grateful that they love each other so much.  Even though there are many moments when they antagonize and irritate one another like oversized gnats, for the most part they love to be together. 

Here is something fun.  Well, for me anyway.  After the game (which they won) I dropped the kids off at the house of a sweet lady we know from church (I've talked about her and her husband before) and then I went shopping.  When I called to ask "Dis Ewayne" (or Ms. Elaine for those of you who are not up on your Eliana speak) if she was up for them coming over (this was her idea yesterday) she squealed and said,"I can't wait!"  They couldn't wait either!  Ms. Elaine and Mr. Rex have a hot tub over at their house.  I packed up changes of clothes, swim diapers, and suits and we headed over there.  They cast me nary a glance as I tried to say goodbye and tell them I'd return soon.

You've heard, I'm sure, of the fabulously fun line that is making a brief appearance at Target, "Liberty of London"?  Well this, my friends, is the face of "Liberty of Dallas", and its appearance at Target (and then Kohl's) was even briefer than that of "L of L", but you better believe it was just as fabulously fun (if not quite as whimsical and oh-so-lovely)...

Look!  There are no children in the back of the car!  Only Christian's trash.  Nice.  I headed to a couple of different stores, with my long-alfalfa hair coming out the top of my head, my wrinkles, and my bags.  I perused every single sale rack that Kohl's had (in the women's department).  I can't even remember the last time I looked at a sale rack, much less twenty-six of them.  Shopping with children does not usually allow for filtering the items you can count on one hand that are worth picking up from the thousands of items that are all jumbled up amongst the clothes on the heavily discounted racks.  (Did you understand that sentence at all?)  It took some time, but it was rejuvenating. 

When I returned to pick up the kids I found that they were languishing without me.  They had no idea what to do or whom to turn to in my absence.  The very meaning of their lives had been rocked to the core since I had been away, and they now were facing an existential crisis of epic proportions.  Abandoned, desperate, and traumatized, that's what they were.  Just look.

I wish they could have had more fun.  Maybe next time. 

Obviously they did have fun, and they got good and worn out, too, which was good for me by bedtime. 

It is a good thing that they were able to crash (relatively) early tonight.  Tomorrow morning Michaela and Christian are singing in the two sanctuary services at our church; this is a Palm Sunday tradition and it is so lovely.  I am a genius and knew not to use the never-fail late night + early morning = SUPER CRAB in order to prepare for such a thing.  I will now fare thee well before I have to apply this formula to myself. 

--edited to add, 5:00 a.m.:  Apparently playing soccer and throwing up are highly connected activities at our house.  Poor girl!  But she did get it all in the toilet. 

It's Trite But It's True...

Monkey see...

Monkey do...

President Bush, Gooooaaaal, and Puke (Also a Flood in My Kitchen)

Warning:  Post may contain TMI (Too Much Information), unless you are my mother in which case there is never too much information, and what does that mean anyway?

Yesterday was a weird day.  Christian got off to school, and now that I think about it he was a bit fussy and he even said he wasn't going.  We didn't think anything of it because it can be a regular part of our morning routine, and when he says that it often means he's very tired or he doesn't want to be late.  Sometimes we get him to school late because the traffic is so bad.

That is a joke.  We live four houses down from his school.  We have no excuse, it's just that we are the, apparently, very poky Walkers.  Walkers, get it?  Ah-hahaha.

That afternoon I picked Christian up from school and we visited with someone at the church who told us a little secret...President Bush was going to be attending a service later in the day.  I was disappointed to find out that he probably (read:  our friend laughed at me and said,"Right!") would not be able to walk up to our home and meet us. 

I mean, it's just four houses!

I guess it's hard to do much outside of the scheduled, um, schedule with all of his agents and stuff.  I understand.

I thought I might possibly sneak a picture by taking the kids on a walk.  Before we left might be the only time in the history of my motherhood where I was like,"Hurry!  Hurry!  Let's go for a walk!  It'll be fun to circle the church six times!"  I'm pretty sure that I saw some of the men in his detail, but that's as close as these eyes got to seeing "Dubya".  Wouldn't it have been fun for me to get a picture of Mrs. Bush and him with my kids?  Here.  Use your imagination...

PICTURE OF PRESIDENT BUSH, LAURA BUSH, AND MY THREE KIDS

Isn't it a good one?

After our walk, we went home to finish getting ready for Christian's soccer game.  Eliana walked up the sidewalk like this...

If you can call that walking.  I kept having to tell her to stand up or move over since people who had parked up the street for the service at the church were walking down the sidewalk toward us.  Lovely pastor's family, we are. 

We finally headed to Christian's soccer game (which gave me a good cover for walking around with the zoom lens on my camera, I thought there might still be a chance to catch the former Prez).  The soccer season has started and our boys...well, they have a lot of heart, they have a lot of fun, but they do not have a lot of aggression (at least as far as the game goes).  There are a couple of boys who will go after the ball, but rarely will anyone take it down the field fiercely.  This leads to very few points scored (like, so few, they score zero).

However, yesterday something really fun happened.  Christian scored a goal!  I just happened to get this picture before play started back up...

It makes me think of Babe Ruth famously calling his homerun.  (I just watched The Sandlot.  It's fresh on my brain.)  Maybe Christian knew what he was about to do.

Because I have excellent photography skills, I totally missed the actual shooting of the goal, but here he is afterward...

I think he was excited.

For quite a while.

He saw a lot of action in the game...he defended their goal (even though it looks like their coach is kicking this ball)...

He got to kick the ball in from the side...

He dribbled the ball up the field (like I said, this is the kind of thing that doesn't happen very often)...

He is an intense little guy...

and he definitely puts his all into the game when he's playing.  I love his expressions.

We got home, and he got showered while I started cooking.  I am just so crazy that I made breakfast for dinner (or the messiest meal you can possibly make and why would you do that on a night after a soccer game).  They love it, so I make it, even though it looks like a natural disaster just blew through my kitchen once I'm finished.  And then Eliana went into the kitchen to wash her hands (pancakes=sticky fingers) and I was getting ready to help her when she called out,"Mommy!  Tum here...I need you help me."  I think there may have been an "Uh, oh."  I went in to find that she had turned on the water, which normally would be fine, but someone had pushed the faucet all the way over to the left.  All the way over as in no longer over the sink, so that the water poured out on the strip of counter behind the sink and then around both sides and down the front of the cabinets.  So, it really did look like a natural disaster had struck.  That or we were doing a homeschool lesson on Niagara Falls.

I halfway cleaned up that mess with some towels, both the cloth and paper kind, but it was getting close to when Eliana needed to go to bed and the water plus the huge mess that breakfast (for dinner - did that confuse you?) made was too much to deal with in full at that moment, so I left it for later.

Eliana went to sleep fairly easily and then I got the other two in bed as well.  Christian was very tired and willingly let me brush his teeth.  Then we went up to his room and he settled into his bed.  He asked me to tell him the story about when I threw up as a grown up.  I told him about how one Christmas I was sick, while we were at Grandma Diana's.  I was all by myself in the room where Mike and I were staying, and everyone else was out opening presents.  It was sad!  I told him how Aunt Wendy came and gave me some Tylenol, but for the most part people stayed away.  I also said that whenever I had to throw up I would go over to the toilet, do what I needed to do, clean myself up, and get back in bed. 

Great story, right?  We had to leave on a plane two days later, I think.  SO NOT FUN.

Anyway, I told him to be quiet and close his eyes.  Since he was asking me these questions about being sick I asked him if he felt funny or anything.  He was noncommittal on the subject.  I had a feeling that the rest of the evening would not be a barrel of laughs. 

Michaela had come in his room and gotten into bed with him.  He has a big bed and sometimes they sleep together.  I sat on the foot of the bed for a while, and then went downstairs in order to start cleaning the kitchen.  A little later I heard footsteps upstairs, and my radar went crazy.  I hurried up the steps and turned on Christian's light just as I heard him moaning from his bathroom, calling out,"Mom!  MOM!" 

I have no photos of this portion of our day, and you are so glad.  Because of all his talk before bed about throwing up I told him that if he needed to do anything there was a trash can beside his bed, or he could go to the bathroom and use the toilet.  He decided to do a little of everything, I suppose. 

Poor guy...I think it came totally out of nowhere (although when I said that to him, he said,"Yeah.  No.  It came from here..." and made this bubbling up motion with his hands right around his tummy) because it was in his bed, next to his bed (from one end to the other) up the side of his Lego table, all over the outside of his trash can, and then in the bathroom, here, there, and everywhere.  I was in shock.  I seriously didn't know what I was going to do. 

And there was Michaela in the bed, an inch away from total grossness.  I managed to get her up, and she looked at me like I had six heads when I told her I wanted her to take a shower.  I decided that as yucky as the no-shower option was that she could go on to sleep in her bed and take a shower the next morning.

Christian got cleaned up in his shower (for a minute there it was the only place in the bathroom throw-up free), and then I set him up downstairs with easy access to a bucket and the bathroom.  He eventually went back to sleep for a bit.  I got busy cleaning, never mind the kitchen.  I did a pretty good job with his room, I took care of his bedding, and part of the bathroom.  I started cleaning the kitchen around 1 am.  At this point I was waiting for someone else to blow, so I was pretty wide awake.  I checked on them all frequently, and continued with the cleaning until around 3:15.  I finally lay down and hoped to get a little sleep.  Christian called out for me often, though, wanting a sip of water, or feeling like he was going to throw up again.  Around 5:00 he finally did, and then went back to sleep.  I dozed for a couple of hours, in between fighting the sensation that I was actually feeling sick and Christian calling out for me, and by the time it was getting light outside, he was hollering,"Mom!" again.

It was not a restful night.

I'm worried that tonight will not be very restful either.  Just a mom feeling. 

There really is no point to what I'm writing.  Just that you never know what any given day is going to bring you.  I hope tomorrow is a little less all-over-the-place.  Pun not intended.