Monday, March 31, 2008

House Rules

My family came to visit for Spring Break last week and we were laughing about some of the funny "rules" that were created when we were young. Here are a few and I'm hoping that my brothers and sisters will help me remember others:

1. No "bad-wagging."
This comes from the expression "don't jump on the bandwagon," which my mom taught us when we would try to help her discipline another sibling. I guess something got lost in the translation!

2. No using the bathroom during dinner dishes.
Using the bathroom after dinner became an easy escape from helping with the dishes so it was quickly added as a family rule. But somehow when my brother McKay was a teenager and decided to fall asleep after dinner he was exempt from the kitchen duties. Mom told us we would all be happier if he slept.

3. If you miss the bus to school you have to clean the kitchen before you get a ride.

I guess we were slow to wake up too many times so this was an incentive to catch the first bus instead of the mom bus.

4. Milk refills only when you've finished the inch in your little cup.
Always Mr. Frugal, my dad would only pour us one inch of milk in our little kid cups and when we complained, he would promise more if we could finish it.
5. Work is good for the soul!
Another "rule" from dad. We heard this every Saturday morning as we started some kind of family project: wood cutting, cleaning his office, etc.

What were the "house rules" when you were growing up?

Monday, March 24, 2008

Easter Eggs & Wedding China

Trevor was a big fan of Easter! To him the eggs were just small, colorful balls/rocks that needed to be thrown. Not many hard-boiled eggs survived the egg hunt. Thanks to my family for the basketball hoop egg basket!








Here's our little man dressed and ready for church!


I wanted to celebrate with more than an egg hunt so we also had a "nice" Easter dinner. This gave me an excuse to break out our wedding china, which has never been used. Now I'm surprised that we even registered for china but hopefully it will become more useful. I couldn't bring myself to use the whole set including teacups, so we settled on nice plates for dinner and dessert and nothing was broken--yeah!

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Walking!

Trevor took his official first steps two weeks ago! Since then he's gotten better little by little with lots of encouragement from his anxious parents. Can you tell he's our first?

By the way, Trevor didn't run smack into the camera at the end of the video. Just mom's arm--ha ha!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Sabino Canyon Sunset Run










Usually when I run a race the course goes through a regular park or neighborhood, but this weekend the course was beautiful! It was a 10K right up the road through Sabino Canyon. A few runners even pulled out cameras to take pictures while they ran.

About a mile and a half into the race I came across water flowing over several bridges. I had not expected wet feet but mine got soaked!

Since the race took me almost an hour, my family had time to look around the canyon. Trevor loved the rocks, of course, and Birch got to play with his camera. Tom and Nicole, my in-laws, were also visiting for the weekend and it was fun to take them to one of the prettier places in Tucson.




Thursday, March 6, 2008

Wow! Mom never lets me do this!

This afternoon I left Trevor outside with Birch for two minutes while I grabbed something in the kitchen. When I came back, I found the hose on and two very happy boys: a muddy one and a guilty one!