I was reminded of when my Mom found her first. Hers came in a group of 3, and she said that she had one for each kid.  I panicked and quickly scoured my head for any more greys.  And then I thought, "What if this is only the first that I can see? What if this one that is prominently in the front of my head is just a sign of what's hiding in other more obscure places on my scalp?" 

Annabelle walked into the bathroom and since she's usually pretty good at making me feel better about things (she has a great outlook on life)  I pouted and showed her the tiny grey hair I had just plucked out of my head.  "Look Bella", I whined. "My first grey hair."  

She looked at it and then looked at me and said, 'Hmm...yeah. Mama, that's probably NOT your first grey hair." 

Then she spun around on her little twinkle toes and waltzed out of the bathroom.

DISOWNED.

        8. The correct response when a fellow male classmate brings a Unicorn Pillow Pet to school on         pajama day. (Julian)

        9.How fortune cookies are always right, and what "vague" means. (Julian)

        10.Why 9 year olds don't need iPhones.  (guess.)

        11. Why hammers are supposed to be heavy (Julian)

Click on photo to see it bigger

I have decided to participate in the 12 on the 12th photo/scrapbook project being hosted by Elizabeth Dillow from Ella Publishing Co.  I'm excited because I don't feel any pressure to complete a scrapbook page with my photos, and I don't feel like I've failed if all the photos come from my phone + Instagram app.  Twelve photos on the 12th day of the month? This I can handle  :)

January

1.  Bella's early morning preening. One of her "New Year's Resolutions" is to be easier and get up earlier in the morning. She's doing really well so far, and I have to say, I love this goal.  (Ezra's goals are to "eat more 'healfy fings', and to do more running.  Julian is to try to always do the things he knows he's supposed to do.  We'll just say he gets his lack of follow through from his Mama. ;) 
2.  Coffee for two. Ran out of creamer. Blergh. 
3.  My clearanced Starbuck's Christmas mug, holding all of my favorite marker pens. Every morning starts with signing of papers before sending kids to school. 
4.  My favorite B&BW lotion, doubling as an ice scraper. 
5.  Early mornings with Ezra. (He has afternoon preschool) He found Toy Story 3 on the iPad and was pretty excited about it.  
6.  3 gloves missing their mates. On our coldest day so far. Stinkin kids. 
7.  Did I mention, coldest day so far? My eyes water from the cold, so this is me waiting on my car to warm up after my first class of the day. (Oh yeah, I am back in school. You would know this if I still blogged.) 
8.  Bags. One for school stuff, one for errands and library books, and my purse. That cute flowery one is in the $2.50 section of the Dollar Spot at Target RIGHT NOW! GO!  It's way cute and has a zipper.  
9.  Annabelle enjoys the responsibility of picking up Ezra from after school each day. Again, a task that I can appreciate. See above re: freaking cold day. 
10. FOUR. After school. :) 
11. After my Thursday evening class let out early, I was able to stop by Julian's Cub Scout meeting. The boys constructed a bird house. It was my favorite project so far. Julian, however, did a lot of complaining about the heaviness of hammers. 
12. My favorite time of day, ready to cozy up in my favorite chair and watch junky tv shows and clip coupons. I should mention that Dustin was in this day too, but Thursdays are the worst day for us to see each other. SO, he's represented by the green coffee mug. ;) Hooray! One month down, 11 to go! 

*Julian's cursive practice.  They don't learn cursive in 1st grade and he was impatient, so he created his own version*

"Once a ponea time a tiger danst in a candy stor and the candy cam to live. The candy danst too.  Then the tiger aet the candy. Then the tiger spets the candy out. Then the candy danst agin."

"Wen is a raney day I like to be lassy. I like to be lassy beakus ther is nothing to do. So I jest stae in bed and woch tv. I play vedeo gams too."

"One spring day I went to a boling aly. I lernd how a boling set gose. Then we bold and had pizza and rote bere. Then lots of lits came on. Then ther wus a vedeo game sekshin. I wun a prizz. Then we played lazzr tag. I wus the green teme but the red teme wun."

" I feel sad when my brothr ters up my Lago Magsens. It mackse me mad."  (Lego Magazines)

"Faks about Julian

I like candy.

I like to rade. (read)

My skin is aprcot.

I like to run.

I like tortolline.

I like to pant. (paint)"

Wons a punu time that was a town cald chikinsvill. Evrey wun is a chikin so it is colld chikinsvill."

"One day I wint to the moll. My Mom lost me and I wus all ALLONN!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I fawnd sumwun. Theay said go awt the ohponidor.  (open door)  I said are you awt of yor mind?  So I did. I wint home and I got a popsicoll."  (this never happened)

"Over brak I had two cresmesess. I got mor toys then evrr. I got a wii game too! I got so much toys my room is a mess. I got a Yoshi bak pak. It can onle hold one toy. I got a postre too."

I am no small woman, so it really takes a lot for me to mention people with large bodies, but at one time I could look around the room and see an enormous man in overalls, sans shirt, a girl who was SO tall, that I'm positive if I stood next to her, she could use my boobs as a chair, and an elderly woman in a tank top, with arms so large and misshapen that I prayed that my children would not look in her direction, for they wouldn't be able to contain themselves from blurting out an unintentionally rude comment.

It wasn't just that she had large arms, but she had dimples along her arms in the strangest of places.  I'm familiar with fat elbow dimples, I may have a few of my own, but these were like nothing I had ever seen before.

Apparently, they were like nothing Ezra had ever seen before, as she caught his attention and he blurted out, "Oh WOW.  WOW Mama, look!"  I was doing my best to shush him, even though she sat too far away to hear him.  Before I could stop him, Ezra said, "She has BIG muscles!  Wow, Mama, I bet she's REALLY STRONG!"

It was one of the most precious compliments I had ever heard. He was in awe of this ladies muscles. At moments like that, I really appreciate his naivete, and will do what I can to cultivate it.

via mindibartell.typepad.com

thanks so much for all your well wishes :) we really appreciate them. we wanted to keep it a secret a bit longer, but our little bella....she was too excited. turns out that she told EVERY visitor to my parents house during her visit last week.

see, the whole point of waiting to announce our news, was to not take away attention from sweet Jocelyn's arrival. however, every one of Jocelyn's visitors asked Annabelle, "Bella, so what do you think about this sweet baby?" and her standard answer was a quickly spoken run-on sentence (I'm sure so nobody could stop her):
"you now what i think, i think my momma's gonna have a baby and it's a secret and it's only this big (thumb and forefinger indicating one inch) and it's in her belly RIGHT NOW!!!"

so yeah, i guess our jig is up. we're due sometime in December. no clue when. it could actually even be November or January for all I know. I've never been that good at remembering some things. So my best guess is mid-December, until I can see a doctor and get a better idea.

One day while visiting baby Jocelyn, Julian woke up from a nap to an empty house. He came to me sleepily and pointed to J's bassinet. "ba-bee saw-a man?" (he calls her baby Salomon, which is her daddy's name) I told him that Baby Jocelyn went bye-bye.

For some reason, I thought it would be a good time to let him in on the little secret. I said, "Juju, did you know that Mama has a baby in her belly?"

Juju touched my belly, a little confused, and started crying. Seriously, boo-hooing. At first I thought he was mourning the loss of his role as the Baby of the family, and then I realized my mistake. He thought I had eaten Baby Jocelyn.

Once she came back to the house, he was much relieved, and has been carrying around the baby doll that Mom got the kids for Christmas ever since. He is intent on being a good big brother to this new little one. I just have to teach him that we don't carry babies around by their legs.

**********************

Edited May 8, 2011

Julian IS a good big brother, but he's even better to his baby doll.  He's had that thing all this time, and though dirty and stained, "Baby Godzilla" sleeps in his bed every night next to his collection of stuffed Yoshi's. :)

1. We can finally afford to buy fresh berries again.

2. It's not too cold for Ezra to run around in his undies, searching for "hot spots" on the floor from sunlight streaming through the windows.  He mostly likes to watch floating dust particles and play with his shadow.  

3. The daily event of searching the window well for baby bunnies who don't look before they leap.  :)  

Dustin likes to think that these bunnies are the babies of bunnies from previous years.  He thinks the Mama's say, "Now if you are ever separated from me, look for the Mommy or Daddy that own this yard.  They are very nice with children that will try to love you just a smidge too much, but they will help you find your way back to me.  And a bonus: they have no pets."

Thank you, Watership Down, for making me believe that all bunnies speak with a British accent.

He is talking to me on his phone while walking down the sidewalk and mentions that now that the weather is nice, there are people on every corner, raising money for some cause.  One group wants to save some building, another wants money to save a river, each cause more deserving than the next, of course.

He is very annoyed by these requests.  

He mentioned that last week a man jumped in front of him on the sidewalk, obviously trying to lure him into  a charitable place by throwing his arms in the air and declaring, "HEY HEY! YOU are going to LOVE this."  

CJ throws his arms in the air and replies, "HEY HEY! I don't talk to strangers", before continuing on his way.

I love that this tall, intimidating looking, nearly 30 year old man still uses the "Don't Talk to Strangers" line.  

On our last trip to Arkansas, the Tooth Fairy paid through the nose for a tooth pulled on the last night of our visit.

So this past week, Annabelle pulled a tooth and asked me how much I thought she could get for it.  When I said she would probably get the usual $1 bill for it, she scoffed, reminding me that she could get $5 for the same tooth in Arkansas, EASY.

(I did not mention that she would be lucky to get anything the Tooth Fairy could dig out of the couch cushions, if she continues to lose teeth on the day BEFORE payday!) 

Before placing her tooth under her pillow, she penned this cute little note to the Tooth Fairy,

"Dear Tooth Fairy,

Can I get 10 dollars? You do 'relise' that this is the 13th tooth that I've lost so far."

Annabelle

PS  I LOVE MONEY

*Puppy dog eyes do not work on the tooth fairy*