pumpkin madness

So last weekend we had some friends over and we carved pumpkins! There is a picture of our finished pieces. It was so much fun and it was nice to see some people. Parker was a HUGE helper, he thought it was the coolest thing. He kept taking all of the pumpkin lids off and looking inside. I think he kept thinking "I know this was full of stuff a minute ago!" There are a few new words in his vocabulary now. He says "bubbles, outside" which sounds more like ouchide and he shakes his head yes and no with the correct word now. He is growing up TOO FAST! He can also drink from a straw, which I know most kids can do long before this age but for some reason he never wanted to try and drink out of one. Well now he wants a drink of everything! And he follows me around the house saying "Mo Mama Mo" even when I have nothing to give him. It's amusing. He also "helps" we with school work. As long as I give him a sheet of paper and a pencil he will help me with "sool" which is what he calls it. Love to all I know I haven't posted in forver! Homework and student teaching is getting the best of me I am afraid!

my cave

So, many of you have been asking how things are going. I NEED TIME!! There is NOT enough hours in the day to get everything done. I am trying to prioritize and just get the MOST important things done, but sometimes I feel like I am not doing a very good job at it. I have so much to do, and yeah I know here I am typing a blog! But in my mind this really helps reduce my things to do because now I don't have to answer the questions! So, we're doing good. Gordon is out of town Mon-Fri as some of you know. It's been hectic, homework, writing papers, homework, taking care of Parker, cleaning. You know busy day stuff. It's been really hard with Gordon being gone and some days I just am amazed I am able to get anything done. My child is into EVERYTHING!! But, thus far I have failed nothing (well one measly little math test...but I actually got one of the higher grades in the class) so I guess somehow I am getting it done. And even though I have not vacuumed the house in longer than I would like to admit there is no dirty dishes or mold anywhere. We're also all running around in clean (mostly) clothes, so I guess everything is getting done somehow. I just can't think about energy levels. On a better note my mom took Parker and I to the fair yesterday (it was his 1st time ever) and it was a nice break from writing papers and studying. Even though we only spent a few hours in the general population it was still nice! Parker wanted to pet the cows, of course I told him we couldn't, GROSS!! So, to everyone that ever reads this, caffeine is my best friend, lamps and my kitties keep me company in the late hours and pony tails have become the norm. I will hopefully talk to some of you in person when I can come out of my cave that has become my existence, a good time line for this would be after December 10Th :) Have a great week!

Pen snobbery

There never seems to be any time to do anything, yet somehow almost everything gets done. Although the laundry never seems to be finished, it is like a large animal of sorts waiting to attack me as soon as I step into the laundry room. Recently I bought some really nice pens. I mean, these are the pens that God intended people to use, they’re smooth flowing, perfect color and never seem to run out. Unfortunately for me they are rather pricey, but I have recently realized that my hand cramps do not care about price, just quality. So last week I decided I was going to become a pen snob, and yes it has gone straight to my head. Well, the other night I was getting ready to dig into a very long and labor intensive paper and I needed my snobby pen in hand. I proceeded to look in the obvious places, you know, the desk, chair, bed, dog toy bin, child toy bin and everywhere else a pen might escape to. After fruitless efforts of looking for my long lost expensive yet worth it pen I decided to give up and lower myself to the .99 pen from Wal-Mart. Just as I sit down to start writing my 19 month old son runs up to me yelling “Mommy, Mommy Mommy!!” Very loudly and very urgently. Of course I was at first inclined to ignore him and yell at my husband to come and get him. You must realize this was my only moments of free/quite time that I had sat aside and allotted just for this occasion. But anyway looking up at my son I see him running at me with fist high in the air holding something thin and small. His hand is an oddly stained dark color (from who knows what, and after living with him for these last 19 months I really don’t even try and speculate until I can get close.) As he is quickly approaching me I get a good look at his clothes and realize this dark substance has somehow traveled to his clothes as well. “Odd” I think. As he leaps into my lap proudly displaying whatever it is he has obviously won and grinning as large as he can. He hands me my sad, chewed, bleeding snobby pen. At that moment in time I can honestly not say if I was more upset about his clothes and inky hands or my dilapidated little friend that had only had the privilege of serving me but once in its sad and pathetic little life. Of course I wanted to yell, and cry and all of the above, but the look on his face made me stop. He had been looking ALL over the house for that pen for me, and even though he had, unfortunately for all of us, decided to take a chew while retrieving the pen for Mommy, he had still found it. So, on our way to the bathroom I tried (calmly tried) to explain that we cannot chew on pens because it has ink in it and it’s bad to get that in your mouth. Of course I am sure he didn’t really care, it has cool colors in it! Luckily this small sad moment also forced me to do some laundry, so there’s one chore down that I didn’t previously have done. I guess there is a silver lining in it after all. I have decided to traipse of to the store today and by myself another snobby pen. Hopefully this little troop can survive the Thornley household a little longer than its fallen comrade before it.

copy cat

Well, after such a wonderful first week of school I am feeling very confident about this semester as a whole. I am now going to buy a bicycle so if anyone has any suggestions feel free to throw them out there for me. Parker has done really well with me being gone so much, of course next week he starts PDO so I think that will be much more fun for him than staying at home all week with various people. Of course on Tuesday he stayed with Connie, and they apparently had a blast, of course tomorrow I will get a better story I am sure. My mom went and picked him up so she didn't really tell me any funny stories. I feel like Parker has grown up just in this week. We've started trying to potty train him (just getting him used to the idea) and this morning he went in it!! We think. You see we weren't exactly watching him 100 % so it could be from him..or his sippey cup. It's up for debate. But I would like to think he went in it. He also imitates everything Gordon does, I tell him he's being a copy cat and he throws his head back and laughs.(Which is something else he LOVES to do, I think he's being sarcastic because he crinkles up his nose while he does it, but it still makes me laugh) This morning we went to the store to get various things and Parker wasn't sitting in the cart he was walking (as he LOVES to do and rarely gets to). Gordon was squatting down looking at something and Parker walked up next to him and squatted down just like him and started pointing to things and looking at Gordon. It was SO CUTE! I would've LOVED to have had my camera. He says "dere" now, which I am interpreting as "there" although I could be way off. Anyway, that's not much news but I just wanted to share the "first" moments with the crazy "potty"time thing.

traipsing off to big BIG kids school

Well, today was my "official" day at big BIG kids school. Gordy and I used to call SPC big kids school so when I started applying to Tech he told me I was going off to big BIG kids school. The first day went pretty well. I wasn't hit by a bus, run down by a fellow biker or kicked in the head. I also had my shoes tied tight so I wouldn't get in a fight. I found my classes pretty easily and found a parking spot right off the bat. Of course I was there before 8, and there were hardly any left! Today I only had 1 class so tomorrow I feel will be the real challenge...since I somehow have to make it to 5 classes. But I am feeling much more confident than I was last week. And I KNOW Gordy loves me because last night he surprised me by taking me to the campus and walking around to the different buildings to find the quickest route. You see when I say "I would be lost without Gordy" it is not some figurative cutsie thing, I mean it literately. I would really be LOST without him, because I have NO sense of direction or a head for maps AT ALL!!! But he was so cute last night holding my hand and showing me landmarks that I could remember to help me find the right building. Because to me besides the library and the business building they all look the same. At least after all of these years he has finally learned I can not get a sense of direction by scouting out a bush or looking at the direction of the sun. All that does for me is want to make me sit in the shade and try not to stare at the sun too long before I go blind. I guess if I had been in the Army I would appreciate these things more, but alas I can not. So, here's to me sitting in my quite (Parker is napping thank you God!) cool office enjoying this moment instead of having tire marks on my forehead or roaming aimlessly around campus thinking "Man I thought I parked here!" And to all of my friends that went to Tech you should also be happy that Gordy helped me because you might all have a frantic phone call from me asking to help me find where I am :) And oh yeah Brandi I have your number now! Haha. So here's to a great semester, if all (or at least most, lets be realistic here) days go this well!!

No baby

Everyone has always told my "Kids grow up too fast." I always politely agreed with them, and now I find myself telling other people that. I have just gotten home from visiting my family in St. Louis and when we get home Gordon tells me that Parker has changed while we were there. Of course he is always growing taller (no really he is, one morning I went to put an outfit on him he wore the day before so we could run to the grocery store and it would no longer snap at the bottom.) Don't ask me to explain that, it just happened. So I have been watching him today trying to figure out exactly what Gordon meant. Of course I see Parker every day and here recently all day everyday. When I was in school I would go to pick him up and be amazed at how different he looked than what was in my mind's eye. Sometimes I still catch myself thinking that he is still a baby. Which I only think for a second as he runs the other way laughing or jabbers to me in his own language. So, here is some changes that have occurred in merely one week. He says "yeah" but only to something he wants or wants to do where last week it was "yeah" to anything, including a nap or bedtime. He takes my hand and walks me to the changing table when it is needed. (Don't worry we've gotten a potty chair and are currently getting him comfortable with it as told by multiple books and mommies we should do.) He can bite into an apple actually chewing the chunks up where before he couldn't bite into it and if he did it was reduced to mere dribble down his nicely stained clothes. He can also meow like a cat when he sees one (no really, I thought it was actually the cat this morning) I was surprised to find the cat in the other room and Parker pointing to the empty doorway meowing. Before it was a silly sound and not really recognizable by others. He can also take the back off of the remotes, which means no more play time with them. He also officially has 13 teeth, I think, of course this count could be off it was just merely done by identifying the amount of dents in my skin. I think that is about it, of course everyday there is something new, it's just so hard to keep up. Gordon swears by the time he gets home on Fridays Parker will be driving. Oh and one last thing he does, which is very funny, when you ask him where the baby is he says "No babeeee"

Traumatic cooking experience

Well, I was not going to share this story because as you will be able to soon imagine it is highly embarrassing. The only thing good is that my family hates computers and even more so the Internet, so I am safe in assuming that they will never read this. The other day I was feeling very inspired and decided to cook a family meal that would be different. Because you see I have this feeling that we eat the same things all of the time, which is really not so much a feeling as an actuality. So I get out my little cook book and I come across a wonderful sounding recipe that involves chicken, cheese tortillas and some various other parts. Of course this sounds very easy (and wonderfully delicious). So Parker and I go traipsing off to the store to get all of the essential ingredients. While I am standing in the produce section of our local grocery store I must have looked very lost (Of course you must understand I rarely buy fresh things that are unknown to me). I try very hard to stick to known substances which would be the major food group items. But for this recipe that I can already see Gordon raving over I needed fresh parsley. As I am standing there and Parker is looking at me like come on mom! a very nice older gentlemen that works there asks me if I need help. Of course I am not one to turn down free advice (especially not from him because he miraculously always seems to be where I need him when I need him and his advice has yet to fail me). I tell him I do indeed need help and I tell him what I need. He immediately turns to the section (obviously marked parsley) and pulls down a beautiful bundle of the aromatic green bundle. He asks me what I am using it for, and I tell him what my intentions are. He kindly informs me to remove the end form the skinny stalks before putting it in my soon to be delicious mix of things. I go home and start making it. Gordon gets home and starts helping me (because little did I know you have to cut things up, stir the hot boiling oozing cheesy stuff AND get the tortillas ready) all at the same time. To an expert this is nothing, to me this is a disaster. So while Gordy is stirring things I proudly produce my fresh parsley from the fridge. I wash it off tear the tops off and proceed to throw it in. As I finish the last bit of throwing the parsley chunks into the melting lava that was at one time cheese Gordon yells "WHAT are you doing!?!?!?!" Of course since I naturally have a sweet nature and am not at all given to panic I answer "putting in the parsley" which he then says to "You have to cut it up!! LOOK at the picture in the book, they are NOT hunks they are tiny pieces." Of course my first thought is to remove the large hunks of parsley, which at this time is looking more and more like spinach from the moulting lava. Of course after 5 years of marriage and being able to read me pretty well, Gordy at once says "just leave it, it'll be ok." Which is his code way of saying "I am not putting burn ointment on your fingers every 4-6 hours and cooking dinner!" So we mix the rest together put it in the tortillas and place them safely in the oven. As we are eating my fabulous dinner we had to occasionally pull out chunks of a spinach like substance that oddly tasted of parsley. Needless to say we did not eat all of the 12 chicken cheese things that it made. My dreams of a beautiful amazing tasting dinner was out the window, but who cares right? We didn't starve AND we got some good tips for next time we cook something that requires fresh items. Needless to say I don't think I will ever make that again, the huge chunks of parsley will haunt me forever. And when I go back to the store I will not be sharing my horror story of how the parsley ruined my wonderful dinner to the kind elderly gentleman that had faithfully guided me in the right ways of cooking for countless years. I just can't let him down.