This Is Why I Love Joni Starling

Well, this is one of the many reason, anway.

Two days ago I said to Josh, "Babe, did we leave our checking account book on the Starling's bookshelf? I wrote a check for the yard people there for Joni to give to the lady, and I haven't seen the book since." Josh looked for the check book where he thought it was, didn't find it there, pretty much said he had no idea, and the conversation was dropped.

Yesterday I walked down to the mailbox to see if there was anything in there, and what did I find, but a package from Joni! (Or, Jomi, as she is more affectionately called here.) I opened the package on my way back to our house and practically fell down in the middle of the street from laughter. For inside the package was the answer to the question I had posed to Josh the night before:

In case you can't read it from the picture, the letter says:

Dear Josh & Beth,

We found this on our bookshelf after you left and thought you might like it back. If you find that a few checks are unaccounted for and a bit of cash is gone from your checking account, blame Sammie and Reese. They have recently taken up online shopping and they don't have credit cards yet.

Josh got quite a kick out of it too. The best part though, she wrapped our checkbook before sending it back to us:

Honestly, who does that? Joni does that, that's who. And that is why I love Joni Starling.

PS - Joni, when you get all settled in, in Cali, call me!

When Did Mornings Get So Stressful?

Oh, that's right. Mornings started getting stressful when this guy:

aaaaaand this guy:

stopped getting enough sleep at night, causing unnecessary meltdowns and freak outs and crankiness galore. What's that? You want to know why they stopped getting enough sleep at night? Well, I'll tell you.

As I mentioned in my last post, the boys are sharing a room here. Fortunately, my boys LOVE each other and have a blast together. Unfortunately, this means that instead of going to bed at 7:30 and falling asleep (usually) within an hour or so, they now go to bed at 7:30 and play and laugh and screech and sing and have a jolly good time until 10:30 or so. Oh, you read that right, 10:30 or so. That is 3, count them, 3 hours of playing before finally going to sleep. That means they are now getting 2 hours less sleep than they are used to getting and need to get.

I'm at a loss here. I have no idea how to get them to go to sleep at a decent hour. I have no problems with them playing for a little while, but I would really like for them to settle down after an hour, say, and be fast asleep no later than 9:00. When my mom was here she would go in (around 10/10:30) and sit in the room with them, keeping them quiet until they fell asleep (around 11). I don't want to have to do that. Obviously if there's no way around it, I will, but I'd really rather not.

Before it comes to that though, I'm wondering if any of you have any ideas as to what I can try, or what works for your kids (if you have more than one and they're sharing a room, that is). We've tried going in every 15 minutes, every half hour, etc. We've tried just letting them go and wear themselves out. We've tried yelling, spanking, asking nicely, etc. What makes it hard though, is when you walk in and see this:

Because, you know, once you start laughing too, you've lost the night's battle.

I Just Wanted To Share

For those who don't remember or have never seen "The Elephant Show", it usually ended something like this:

I taught this song to my kids and they LOVE it. We sing and do the hand motions and everything quite often. Now, I haven't blogged about this yet, and maybe some day I will, but we put the boys in a bedroom together here while my mom was still out. They thoroughly enjoy themselves in there, and the other night I had the best time listening to them as Zeke would sing the above song, and Deacon would cheer. I did my best to catch this on video.

That being said, this video is not the greatest. I had to film the door, otherwise it would have ruined the moment if I got busted opening the door at all. Also, there's a lot of background noise (dog barking) and he sings softly at first. SO, I would recomment starting it, then stopping it right away so it can complete it's buffering/loading/whatevering process. Then I would click to the 28 second mark and enjoy.

Also, I got April's pictures up on Flickr today. You can click here to go see them, or click on the box of ever moving, ever changing pictures on the left side of the screen. Sorry there are so many pictures of mountains. 1. They're everywhere up here. 2. They're GORGEOUS. Talk about God's amazingly beautiful creation. 3. The pictures come from my mom's camera as well as Josh's camera so there are twice as many to begin with than if it was only my camera. That being said, I will try and get May (so far) up there soon, and I will try to post a little more often now that all of our stuff is here, and most of it is unpacked. So, um, that's all. Toodle-pip!

I Wanted To Let You All Know...

Our stuff gets here in the morning! Whoo!

And that's all for now.

Pow! Pow! Pow!

Look out! Here's more bullet points coming at you:

*I failed to mention in my last update my time at the DMV. Times, I guess I should say. I went last Thursday, before my tooth cleaning appointment, to try and get my Alaska driver's license. Well, I sat there for almost an hour while the same TWO people hogged all the action. I went back later in the day, while the boys were napping, to try again. After sitting there for almost an hour again, my number was finally called and I was told I would have to take the driver's test. Which, by the way, Josh ASSURED me I would NOT have to do, and that getting my license here would be EASY. So, I took the test and promptly failed. They allow you to get four questions wrong, so once you get your fifth wrong answer, it just turns off (it's computerized). Well, it only took me seven questions to get five wrong. Yeah baby! In my defense though most of the questions I got wrong were Alaska specific. So, I left without a license.

*Picking up where we left off now...Wednesday I dropped Josh off at work in the morning, so my mom and I could take the boys to the zoo. After we got home, and I blogged and what's it, Josh texted to say he had found himself a ride home so I wouldn't have to go get him. An hour later or so, he pulled up to the house in my car! Whoo-hoo. Now I just have to get that license thing taken care of.

*Thursday I got my wisdom teeth pulled. The oral surgeon and his assistant were both very nice and I'm assuming everything went smoothly. Afterwards though, things did not go very smoothly. I spent (and this is gross, so skip to the next bullet if you want) the rest of Thursday (literally from the moment I walked in the door until I fell asleep for the night) throwing up blood. It was awful. It took until Friday afternoon before my stomach felt anything close to normal again, and I could contemplate eating. And by eating I mean swallowing since I'm not allowed to chew anything.

*I'm not allowed to chew anything (that was a repeat statement for those who did skip the rest of the last bullet). I go back tomorrow for a follow-up visit, and was told I'm not allowed to chew until then because my top teeth extend a little past my bottom teeth and they're worried I might get food stuck in my holes if I chew. So, it's been a diet of macaroni and cheese, ice cream (tough, I know), yogurt, pudding, and apple sauce for me.

*They let me keep my teeth. They're pretty gross, and I'll post a picture sometime. I have to take it first. When I was asked if I wanted them I very clearly said no. I still got them somehow.

*Sunday, Josh, my mom, and the boys went for a drive. They found a neat little boardwalk area type thing and played with rocks and sand and cigarette butts. They saw a bald eagle and a moose too. It was a beautiful day and they had a great time. I stayed home and napped.

Now, here's a little bit of backstory. There are squirrels living in our house. We hear them constantly chattering, running, climbing, falling, behind the walls and such. We see them running around outside. We see our insulation falling from the roof. Josh has set out traps and such, but they are ninja squirrels and do fall for them. In fact, a trap had actually caught one, but he somehow managed to get out of it. They've figured out how to open the trap, grab the peanuts, and then go on their merry way. Ninjas. Now, here's my last bullet point and closing picture for the day...

*Last night, Josh got two of the squirrels. And by got them I mean, he got out the BB gun and shot them. There are now two fewer squirrels running around out here. The house has been very quiet so far today. We'll see if/how long it lasts. My hero.

Sorry for the blood.