What????

Okay, I have to post this one. This afternoon when Cora got dropped off from school, she came in the door and told me yet another disturbing story. It went something like this:
Cora- "Guess what happened at school?"
Me- " what?"
Cora-' There's this boy in Mr. Stein's class named Nate, and he asked me if he could touch my private.
Me- (subtle gasp) "what did you do?"
Cora-" I told him No Way and ran away."
Me- "Good. Then what did you do?"
Cora-"I went and told his teacher"
Me- " And what did his teacher say?"
Cora- "He said that he'll talk to him."

Yikes. That's scary. On one hand I am so grateful and very proud of the way she handled it, and so proud that she told me. But on the other hand, I am bothered. Here Cora is at 5 years old and has had two similar experiences. What are these boys seeing/hearing? What is going on in these boys' houses?
I made sure that I praised Cora for the way she handled it and for telling a teacher and me, and I made it a topic of conversation at dinner, so that if Jess has a similar experience, then she knows that it happened to Cora and she knows how to handle it herself. I am thinking that when we have the money, that getting the girls enrolled in Karate might be a good idea. That way, they can beat the crap out of these little punks. Again, it baffles me what kids are exposed to especially at such a young age. Where are their parents? What are the parent doing/not doing? Anyway, for those of you who read this with young kids at home, make sure that you talk to them about these and many other things so they know what to do before they need to know and don't.
-Carol

Nesting and a Fairnaval

Carol is the room Mom for both Cora and Jess's classroom. And as such she has been getting ready for the fall festival. I don't really know why they call it a festival, festival implies food in abundance, and I saw very limited food, and it certainly wasn't the kind of food I would call festival food. Thus it was more of a volunteer carnival, minus the throw up rides. A lot of games that are overpriced and useless prizes that the kids think are the best. As you can see I opted to take the girls to get some face painting and hair paints. They like that a lot. They also had a bounce house, which the girls went in right at the start. For Carol's part she had me build a bean bag toss which I should have taken a picture of (I did a good job). That was for Cora's class, for Jess's class they already had a lollipop tree. Carol organized the parent volunteers and gathered the lollipops, made the bean bags, and a whole bunch of other things I probably didn't realize she was doing and I know she didn't realize she was going to be doing. All in all the girls had fun and it was a good time, though I must say that blazing Christina Agullera's Genie in a Bottle to a bunch of elementary students might have been a little inappropriate.
Also as you can see from the ticker, Emmett will be here soon. Carol has been piling up projects for herself before he gets here. She has one blanket done, and I think she has postponed number two until he needs it. She is also boying up some plain white burp clothes with camouflage ribbon. We are all excited for our new testosterone laden bundle to arrive. Especially me, though I don't think he will be up to wrestling for the beers for a day or two. After that it is no holds barred.
-JOSH

No, not really

Cora and Megan (whom we pick up from school some days, she is in the Ward).
Jess and Maren (I think Maren is trying to get me to eat her sandwich for her).
The beloved grill! Not just by me the whole family is reaping the rewards!!!
Well, there really isn't much to announce. Things have been fairly quiet in the past weeks. Cora is doing well in school, as is Jess. The first two pictures are of lunch today. Carol thought it would be fun to go and eat lunch with her, so we loaded up some lunch for Maren and Jess, and headed to school. They had a good time and Cora was super excited to have us join her. I also think she was excited she didn't have to sit by the boy with the cafateria lunch. The other day she told Carol and I, on separate occasions, that one of the boys that always wants her to save him a seat gets the cafateria lunch and his lunch "stinks", she says with a wrinkled nose. The last picture is of my beloved grill. Cast iron grate, smoke box, heating rack... it is the best. I think I mentioned some time back that I really missed grilling. Well, I have had that grill for about a month and a half and I have already burned up about 50 pounds of charcoal, and half of the apple wood I brought back from Utah. I might have to have Mom and Dad bring the other tote when they come out. In the recent weeks I have smoked three chickens, and at least that many roasts. And steaks, oh the steaks.... I didn't realize how much I missed a good steak, and I have come to the conclusion that no restaurant can compete with a home grilled steak, and Carol's garlic mashed potatoes. Can you tell we are food family. Or at least Carol and I are. Maybe that is why the girls are so picky. Anyway, that is about all of the news on our end, hope you are all well. I still think ending these things feels awkward...
-Josh

Bikes

On Saturday, we hit some garage sales and picked up some bikes for the girls. I had been looking for quite some time for bikes on craigslist. The girls are always using the neighbors toys, and I thought that it was time to get our own. So Josh suggested we try garage sales (which is so out of character for him). We are both pleased with our finds. We picked up Jessica's bike for $10, and went and got her a helmet for $8. It's kind of funny that the helmet was almost as much as the bike.
This is Cora on her new bike. Yes, it is a boys bike and it is a little big. But once we told her that Josh would paint it, she was happy. We got Cora's for $15, and her helmet for$1. After we were done "shopping" we went to pick out some paint for Cora's bike. She picked out pink and aqua for her colors.
Maren absolutely loves her bike. She can't reach the pedals, but she can get some speed using her feet. She is quite the daring thing. She pushes her "bike" up the incline of our driveway, gets on, turns around and cruises down the driveway without slowing down. It freaks me out every time. The first few days, the girls spent hours outside. Now when Cora gets home from school, the girls usually want a snack and then head outside until dinner. Then it's outside again until it's bed time. It is a complete contrast of the time that we spent out doors in our old apartment. I love it!!! And so the better part of the late afternoon and early evening, I am outside monitoring, my kids and the other children of the cul-de-sac. Someone has to.
Well, I am in need of some advice. Everyday this week, Maren has either taken off her diaper after pooping and wiping it on objects or reached down her diaper and gotten a handful and wiping it on objects ( including herself and clothes). I don't know what to do. I can't follow her around with my nose at her bum waiting to catch it before she does. I am just tired of cleaning it off places I shouldn't have to. It's really gross to clean crap out of fingernails too. Anyway, I am on a role here. I have posted twice in a row. Wow.

road rash- a posting by Carol

On Friday evening I went out front to call the girls in for dinner. They were a few houses down in a neighbors driveway playing. Cora and Jess responded quickly to me, but Maren was a little slow. As I was walking over, I asked Maren to come home for dinner. She started running down the drive and her cute little legs couldn't keep up with her and she had a little run-in with the cement. She hasn't been very nice to herself lately. Maybe it is her age, but she seems pretty battered lately.

Josh and I had an alarming experience yesterday. Cora was playing outside for a few minutes while dinner was cooking. I thought she was playing alone, but was playing with a boy from her class ( who lives a few houses down) and his little brother. They seemed to be playing fine. I called her in and I asked her about what she was doing and if she had fun. She proceeded to tell me what she was doing and then she said, "and Justin showed me his penis." Ummmmm, What???? I tried not to overreact and down play her experience. Josh asked her as casually as he could what happened, and then I told her she did the right thing to tell us that. Later Josh went and talked to the boy's dad about it. At first we weren't sure how to handle it, but decided that if it was our child we would want to know. Justin's dad was very receptive and appreciative and said he would talk to him about it. So hopefully it won't happen again and it will just be a non incident. Well, that is pretty much all that has happened around here lately. Hope you all are well.
-Carol

No hug for you!

Yes, those are snails. These are a few more of the pictures we took while in Utah. The girls found a whole bunch of snails, and loved the fact that they could stick to the wall. The picture of Carol and Michell is entitled "no hug for you only high five!" said with an asian accent. Michelle and Carol would tease each other after watching the girls gymnastics. I don't know if you noticed if a girl did decent she got a hug, if not so much only high five. Michelle thought it was hilarious. Almost as funny as "your mom." I wasn't to disappointed to have a change of joke. Love you Michelle.
-Josh

Back to school!

I haven't down loaded all of the pictures from Utah, but here is a short sampling. We had a birthday party for Maren and Jess since we were in Utah for Jess's birthday and since Maren doesn't know the difference. It was fun for the girls. They got to swim and eat and swim, and then open presents. Aunt B got them the cute dresses to match (thanks B), and since we didn't get to go see Skye (Maren wasn't feeling well, and we decided it would be better to save the money) Carol took some pictures around the house in there cute new dresses. Beyond that, we are back in Texas. The drive home was beastly but I am getting better at the staying up all night. I pretty much launched right back into work, I had some meetings on Friday, and started TAing today. I am still trying to track down some lecture slides for the class I am teaching this semester, but I don't have to have that until a week from Thursday (sigh of relief). The girls started school today, Jess is in Pre-K and has the same teacher as Cora had last year. Cora goes to Kindergarten and will be at school all day. Carol was struggling with that thought last night. She is also having a hard time deciding how to balance out having Maren alone for a whole morning with the fact that when the baby gets here she will have to share Mommy again. We don't want her to get used to having no competition and make the transition that much harder, but we also want to give her as much one on one time as we can before she loses that chance. So it is a tuff (that spelling is for Michelle via NKOTB) line to walk. Besides that not much is new. We are heading to Waco for the Labor day weekend, and then school school and more school.
-JOSH

This tube kind of defeats the purpose, you can't flip it. Also it beat my back up pretty good, but the girls loved it, and it was fun when we got grown ups on it and actually got up to speed.

A little wake surfing. Lots of fun.

Uncle bones took Cora on the surf board, she loved it.

I don't know what that face is about, most of the time Jess was loving it.

Maren taking a drink. For some reason this is one of the few pics we got of her.

We have been horrible at remembering to bust out the camera on this trip. Although, up until Saturday we haven't been doing anything super exciting. The Cardon's took us out on their boat Saturday (THANKS GUYS). The girls had a blast. Even Maren did well. I could not believe how good the water was. I have never been on Utah Lake for over an hour with out at least a little bit of waves. But it was glass for the whole time, at least 3 hours. So that is all the news for now. I will probably post again soon. We are having to cut the trip a little short; I have to get back to school, and work, ugh. Although I did get a teaching position this semester which rocks. I am nervous and excited. If there is any more news I will post it next time (probably from Texas).
JOSH

House Pics

So as promised here are some pictures of inside the house. I didn't get to post one of Emmett's room/my office. But you get the idea. I have almost everything hung up and put away, and by the end of next week I hope we will be completely moved in. It is so nice to have so much room.
The first picture is of the living room, then the kitchen, Carol's and my room, the girls room, and the toy room.
Well, we made it to Utah. It was actually easier for me to drive through the night this time. I think it has to do with having the winding canyons on the last leg keeping me more alert. That was a huge struggle going back to Texas after Christmas break, because the roads are just long and straight. There will be some pictures soon, but till now the camera has been in the truck, oops. But it is out now. And now I have to go scream at my children for being to loud. J/K...

Scarring

There will be no pictures with this posting and you'll be grateful by the time that you get done reading this. Just this last Tuesday, the girls and I needed to get out of the house and they had been begging me to take them swimming. So I gave in and took them to an indoor pool in Denton.
Well, I needed a locker to hold our shoes, towels, money, keys etc. So we four walk into the locker room portion and there stands a down syndrome girl (in her forties or later) completely naked. And the girls caretaker walks in behind us and kind of blocks the doorway. The caretaker is telling the girl to get her swimming suit on. And guess what my girls are doing? Yep, they're staring... At this point, I am quickly yet subtlety finding a locker that would position us looking away from this scene. Well, to make things more fun, the locker keys have to be purchased before hand. So, thankfully that gave me a good reason to get out of there. I figured that by the time that we got back with a key, we would hopefully be alone in the locker room. As we were walking out to get a key, Jessica not so quietly says " I do NOT want to see that again." How can I keep a straight face and try to teach her to keep comments like that to herself? Well we timed it just right!!! The same girl was putting her legs through the holes of her swimming suit. So the girls also got to see how she took her time getting her suit on. Then she finally left. Yay!!!
We had a good time swimming. However, 5:30 arrived and I needed to get home so that I could get dinner started. So we got out of the pool and Jess and Cora expressed a need to go to the bathroom. After that, we went into the locker room to get our stuff and who should be there? yep that's right, the down syndrome girl and two others all naked. Oh sweet!! We timed it perfect....again. This time I was franticly trying to get the girls shoes on and adjusting the girls heads in the meantime. Jessica asked me why I was moving her head. "To give those ladies privacy." Clearly privacy is not something that they're concerned with. Luckily I got the girls done in record time and dashed out of there as soon as I could. How fortunate we were to be able to see that twice in one day.
We haven't heard anything from the girls about this experience, so hopefully they aren't too scarred. Anyway, I hope that you got a good laugh. I laugh when I think of Jessica's comment : "I do NOT want to see that again." I second that. Aren't you glad I didn't post pictures? The visual imagery is enough.
-Carol