Friday Fun For Friends (delayed until Sunday)

Okay, I must confess. I have not posted... I tried. I asked for a little help from my husband but he failed me. I waited patiently for him to stick a picture on here for me because I was in Abilene without access but he failed me. Here would have been Friday's post...


Some know them as Kevin and Brenda. Some know them as Uncle Kevin and Aunt B. Some know them as grandma and grandpa. I know them as madre and padre. For all those out there without Spanish skills, that means mother and father. Some might think, "Your parents? You would hang out with your parents on a Friday night?" And my answer is, "Yes." I would hang out with them with a fox and I would hang out with them in a box. I would hang out with them in a chair. I would hang out with them anywhere. I do so like Kevin and Bren. Thank you, thank you, and Amen.

Some things I like about them are as follows: stink, stank, stunk... Whoops. That would be how I feel about the grinch. Sorry!(side note: I would like to memorize the whole Grinch movie someday!)

My mom and dad are fun to be with. Some would say you need fellow members of the body of Christ to confirm truths verses falsehoods rather than relying only on pure instinct. And so I have confirmation because many of you have spent time with them and will concur that it is so. They're so fun we had to take a sabbatical form the NW for that very reason. We were like, "It's so fun to be with them we are so overwhelmed with funniness. We better take a trip to Texas for a little while." They're also not parents that still try and tell you what to do even when you're a grown-up. That's good. They are so cool that we postponed leaving on our honeymoon just to hang out with them. (that's not entirely true.) Anyways, I would just like to give a shout out to my parents who are also my friends and say that if we could hang out with you tonight we would!

The superhero power I would wish for my dad would be magnetic powers because then he might even get more people to come to his new church. And for my mom it would definitely be a body of steel so she doesn't cut off any appendages while using cutlery. And she'd be stuck to my dad forever!

Big fat chicken

Laughter is great. I am blessed to have a house full of laughter. I'm funny, Ben's funny, my kid's are funny... The only one that's not funny is our bird. that's probably why the Metcalf's pawned him off on us! Sometimes it can be hard for our kids, especially Izzy, to decifer when we really mean it and when we're being silly. Unfortunately she generally assumes that we're kidding which is not very helpful. If I tell her to put her baby in her room she responds with, "Naaaah". Do it or I'm gonna throw your baby in the bushes with the spiders!
At dinner tonight Aiden told me to eat my big fat chicken. (By the way, we weren't eating chicken.) My children think it's really funny to say big fat chicken ever since last Thursday, or so. The rule is that you can't call someone a big fat chicken because calling people any name is not nice. so when Aiden was reprimanded for saying big fat chicken we came to the conclusion that he was obviously not calling me a big fat chicken so we just encouraged him to stop being silly and eat. "Big fat chicken" seems to bother Ben. the kids were still giggling and not eating and I was no help at all when I told Emma to eat her big fat beans or she'd sit at the table all night. Like she was really gonna eat beans after that comment. More giggles. And, yes, we even got a giggle from annoyed boy. I've got to figure out a way to record a dinner conversation. It would be very entertaining.
Another thing that doesn't work so well with Izzy is laughing around her when it's at the t.v. or something because she always wants to know what you're laughing at. I was watching a cartoon with her and I had to explain, every time, why something was funny. that's not really very fun.
As my final point I'll telll you that I think Izzy might have started that whole chicken thing... we were at the table eating lunch last week and Aiden randomly saidwith a perplexed look on his face, "Izzy, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" and she leaned forward and said... "Chicken?"

Friday Fun For Friends

F.F.F.F is what I'm going to call fridays now. Normally fridays are great days to get together with friends, right? Well, that's a little difficult for us... So, instead, on Fridays I'm just going to talk about our friends. It's a mystery who will be next... and don't think, "Oh, poor me, boo hoo. she hasn't talked about me yet." Or, "I'm only her sister, she's never gonna talk about me..." I'll talk about plenty of folks so just enjoy the ride!

Today, as you can tell, I will be sharing about our good friends Christy and Aris Vartanian. Yesterday they had their twins! It's very exciting and I thought they deserved to be first! I don't have pictures of Jake and Amelia so I could only put a picture of Mommy C and Big Daddy with their favorite people, of course!
Aris and Christy are great spontaneous friends. We love calling people up and asking them to come over for a movie in 15 minutes. They come. They're really fun to be around and we like to laugh a lot. They are also our Survivor Buddies. We always watched Survivor every season. Those were good times. Intense times. But we made it through, every season!
Aris is the only true winker I know. He always winks. "Just Joking" wink. Or "we know what's going on but they don't" wink. Or "I'm winking at you and you have no clue why" wink. Winks really say so many things.
Christy had the challenge of being an any day friend while also mantaining a full time job or being in school full time. that takes talent! Sometimes she'd even come over to the house after work and she hadn't even fed herself! that's sacrifice!
Well, I love these guys. They're probably going to be sucky friends for a while since they have newborns but at least we won't have to suffer. We'll probably talk to them as much as we did before they were getting no sleep...
And now, the super hero power I would wish for Christy is elasticity. can you imagine how awesome that would be with twins? And for Aris I would wish for... lightning fast reflexes. I also think that could come in handy!
Talk to you later, friends!

Ummm...

I'm not sure what I'm going to write about this evening. I walk around my house daily and come up with fantastic ideas about what my next post will be about. The problem is that I have to go to the church building to get on the internet and by the time I get away I have no recollection of my greatest of ideas. either that or I only remeber part of an idea. Telling everything but the punchline is not really enjoyable to read.

We have cable t.v. Not just any cable. Dish Network. We also have a dvr... Does Emma have to freak out when I vacuum in the living room while the t.v.'s on? Nope. We just rewind. It's great. Sometimes I think it actually takes more time to watch a show though. My husband will actually pause the commercials, go get some ice cream, and sit and wait until he can fast forward through all of the commercials. It makes me think of Aaron Metcalf. He hates commercials. He has this idea that commercials are significantly louder than the shows.(I know they are but I can't give in to Aaron's wacky ideas.) So, he mutes the commercials. He would love life at the Ries' right now!
I haven't taken the time to look at the menu and pick out things that I want to record everyday, all the time. If I can do that, when will I ever clean? For now, I've decided it's best to just pick a show that's on at that particular time! Crazy idea, I know. My kids are staring to get into it, though. Aiden will say, "Pause it, mom, I have to go to the bathroom." Unfortunately for Izzy, it's not all it's cracked up to be. All she wants is Elmo. sometimes Dora. She doesn't want all of Sesame Street. She only wants Elmo. So I just stick in a movie when it's her turn to pick... We may have very large and freaky bugs out here, but we've got cable. Who could ask for anything more? Except maybe a friend or two...

Let's get crazy

You know how people ask,"What would you do if you had a million dollars?" Or even a thousand? Or even a hundred? What would you do with $20.73? That's the real question. Don't you think that's a much more relistic question? I mean, it's actually something we would think about in our lifetime.
I really think it's important to think about. Would it be food? Shoes? Diapers? We might as well all take a few minutes to think through our priorities and decide what's most important.
I would...give $2 to a homeless person, $5 for a good fastfood meal, and $13.73 for a really nice camera. Do they have really nice cameras for $13.73? I was really wanting a digital one that has a lot of zoom. At least 5 to 7 megapixels, too. Let me know if you find one in that price range 'cause that's all I got!

A Collage of Thoughts

WHO DO YOU THINK WILL BE OUR NEXT SUPER- MODEL?

Those pictures were taken last week while at our family reunion with Ben's mom, brothers, and sister. We had a good time and the cousins really loved being together. We've got quite a handful now. Most of the adults were done by the third day but we finished the week with gusto anyway. We were at a LBJ Lake which was a great place to be. They had good grass, which is not an assumption anyone should make (You know what happens when you assume!), and we were right on the lake front. It was great.

My last comment has to do with drinking. There are some things that are okay to drink and some that are not okay to drink. For instance, you probably should not drink any chemicals. That would do some damage! You should not drink a gallon of milk, either. Have you ever seen anyone keep it down? But I have heard that some things are okay to drink. Alcohol, per say, could be a drink of choice... or even V8, which, to be honest, I have never tried. I've also heard that urine is actually very sanitary and would not cause damage to one's internals. And so, I hope this is the case. For in the bath tonight my son peed into the hands of my youngest child and she drank it. Who's idea this was, I can only guess. I was completely disgusted. How revolting! Nevertheless,I am thankful for that particular piece of information otherwise, I really would have freaked out! Please let me know asap if I am incorrect on this information. It may be too late...

I like throwing things. For pleasure, that is. Not in anger. Some do. I don't. This evening was really beautiful and my kids were already in bed and so Ben and I went outside and threw a baseball back and forth. It's fun. It's relaxing. I'll throw a frisby, a football, other types of ballage. I must add in here that I owe my football throwing skills to K.C. Miller who taught me everything I know. And trust me, my skills would amaze you. I'm glad Ben and I bought frisbees a while ago. He also bought me my own baseball mit. It's great. Throwing's great.

And just in case you were wondering, I'm not so good at kicking things...