A Tale of Two Ties

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The week before Father's Day all the children in our Primary decorated ties for their Daddies to wear on Father's Day. The Dude very happily decorated this tie:



Personally, I think it is a very fun (and nicely designed!) tie but the Spozo did not. Luckily, the Dude was not there when his father first saw the tie in which he said, "Yuck. I'm not wearing that. Ever." And then went on a rant about how its not fair that Dads have to put up with nasty tacky junk for Father's Day. (The Spozo wishes to insert here that he never rants.)

But because the Dude has a memory, and he knew his Daddy was supposed to wear a tie decorated by him to church the next Sunday, it was imperative that we have a tie the Spozo was willing to wear. So the Spozo sacrificed one of his very own ties for us to decorate with a little more art direction. The Dude felt that sparkles were the most important feature to a cool Daddy tie, so we went sparkle shopping and the Dude had lots of fun besparkling the tie. Behold:



The Spozo groaningly put on the tie early Sunday morning before leaving for his meetings (I had let it be known that if he "forgot" the tie it would be brought to him). He complained about the sparkles getting all over his suit. He rolled his eyes. BUT by the end of the day, he declared that this was now his Father's Day Tie Forever (and it wasn't just for the benefit of the Dude's ears).
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the 1st Pink Lego Creation

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from the much anticipated Pink Lego Set.
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the Sita turns 3!

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We spread the festivities over several days:

The actual birthday:



The party:







The cupcakes:




We're so glad we've got our Sita-que-bonita!
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Meet Baby Moses

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Yep.

I don't get it either.
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Sposa, Plumber Extraordinaire

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After spending a couple hours cursing myself, I am feeling triumphant right now.


Why the Cursing:

I was washing things in the sink and the water was starting to rise, so I flipped on the garbage disposal to get the drain flowing again. I noticed that a sippy cup was getting dangerously close to the drain, so I shut off the disposal quickly. But not quickly enough.

The sippy cup was stuck in the garbage disposal. I tried pulling it out, but it was wedged. I tried getting some leverage around it to push it out. No go. I tried wiggling it. It just went in further. After attempting all this in greasy increasingly lukewarm water, I figure I should try getting the water out. And so I push the silly cup all the way in.

This is a very bad idea.

Now the cup inside the garbage disposal with no hope of getting out (Although the water is drained now!). I toy with the idea of being helpless and begging the Spozo to fix it when he gets home. After all, he installed the beast. He should know how to disassemble it and rescue the cup. But. I decide that it can't be too hard of a thing to fix, and I really CAN do it myself.

I spend time unscrewing various screws under the sink that I hope will loosen the dang thing and let me get the stupid cup out. 5 screws later, I am still no closer to getting the disposal loosened and I can't find anymore screws.

Why the Triumph:

I finally remember I have this wonderful resource called the Internet. 2 searches and 5 pages later, I find this gem. And it works! (Well, after I give up on disconnecting the electricity and just go flip the fuse off outside.) The garbage disposal is now cupless and I have put the disposal back together and I can't see any water leaking anywhere.

So the house is still a mess, the children haven't gotten their naps (they've been running wild during this whole episode), and all the under the sink junk is on the kitchen floor, but the garbage disposal works, and by gum, it's all thanks to me!

(Let's just ignore the fact that it wouldn't need fixing if it weren't for me!)
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the Jury is still out

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The Sita has been fairly resistant about learning to read. Whenever I tried even a little to get her to look at words, she just buried her face. So now on the second or third or fourth book in a row she asks me to read to her, I make it a condition that she will "help" me read if I read the rest of the book.

She memorizes stories so quickly it's hard to tell if she's just remembering the word that is supposed to come next or she actually recognizes the word. Sometimes it's fairly obvious because she's got the whole phrase or sentence memorized, but other times, she just says the next word that I'm pointing to.

Since we aren't constantly getting new books, I haven't been sure which she's been doing (or a bit of both). But we just got a new issue of The Friend, and as I was reading a story for the first time, I decided to do a little test. (By the way, have you tried their online interactive site? My kids are in love with it right now!) I started reading (and pointing to the words as I read) and then I would pause and point to the next word. She would say the right one most of the time! Sometimes it took a couple guesses, and sometimes she was way off. I'm not quite sure that she wasn't just guessing the word from the context of the sentence or a combination of the context plus the first letter of the word, but still!

I'm so excited for her.

Words that she seems to recognize consistently:

Jesus
go
up
Mommy
Daddy
no
on
Evelyn


Words she seems to get some/most of the time:

bed
door
room
girl
boy
dinosaur
children
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