Harvest party at church & Matt's Birthday

Run for your lives..... it's global warming!

so, if the earth is getting warmer and warmer why is it 30 degrees in october in OHIO? this is absurd. last week, we had several days with highs of near 80. last night's low was 30. where did fall go? did we just skip it this year? did i not get the memo? this is just the latest in a year of bizarre weather for the midwest. we get floods, tornados and earthquakes. 2008 will forever be remembered as the year we had a hurricane in ohio. category one hurricane. in ohio. now we appear to have completely skipped from summer to winter. do you know how hard it is to dress children appropriately when it's 32 when they get on the bus and 72 when they get home. how do you dress for that? i saw on the news the other night that the ocean level in alaska is shrinking due to the glaciers melting. um, wouldn't melting ice cause the levels to rise? am i missing something here? i also read that the global temperatures have increased one degree in the last fifty years. one degree??? alert the media and get out your sunscreen folks. i don't mean to be glib (well maybe i do) but this is the crisis i keep hearing about? back to my original point, if the earth is getting hotter and hotter, why is it so darn cold in ohio in october? i know that most likely i'm going to recieve comments from lots of put out environmentalists. i'm ok with that. if you can give me some proof then bring it on. where's al gore when you need him?

as stated by my kids

with four kids, it's inevitable that there's lots i will forget. i already find myself saying "when i was pregnant with one of the kids..." or "when one of the kids was a baby...." but i cannot remember which one! so about two years ago, i bought this inexpensive journal and started trying to write down every time they said something really funny or memorable. well, about a week ago i realized that i hadn't written in there in a long time. and guess what, i can't find it. story of my life! i started that notebook because i can't remember these things, now i can't remember where i put the notebook. i had so many funny things in there... for example, when the bean was about three years old, i told her to clean her toys up. later that afternoon i asked her why she hadn't done it. she said she forgot and then told me (in all seriousness) "you know i have short term memory loss." what three year old says that? or even last night at dinner, it was the princess' turn to pray. she said "dear jesus, thank you for this yucky dinner. thank you that daddy goes to work so we can have money for mommy to buy this food and tell us we can't get a new toy at the store. amen" uh, that's not exactly what i had in mind when i asked her to say the blessing. at least she's honest. or when the princess was still small enough to sit in a booster seat and she fell out of it at dinner one night. zaza hopped up and helped her back to her seat without us asking. when we thanked him for being such a kind big brother he replied "i just do what i have to do". these are the things that are so fresh in my mind now, but i know years down the road i will forget. as they get older, the hilarious statements will come fewer and farther between. they will eventually be intelligent, well spoken adults (we hope) who won't say things like "pajina" when the doctor asks if they know what "private parts" are. they won't inform the cashier at kroger that mommy looks pregnant but she's really not (thanks zaza). they won't even ask me each night when being tucked in if they are still my "favorite yittle grill" (that's assuming that the princess eventually outgrows the speech impediment AND eventually decides that she no longer wants to be a little girl) those days will live on only in my memory... or my notebook, if i can ever remember where i put it.

a few new pics. a morning at the park with the mr, a trip to the zoo, my nephew's first birthday, me and the girls.

blogging

i've been thinking alot today about online identities. i'm reletively new to the world of bloggers. i started mine in the last year and have also started reading others. it's funny how in a short period of time other bloggers start to feel like friends. i feel as though i know these people. i had a situation today that reminded me that i know nothing about these people. they are just screen names in the vast space that is the internet. it also made me take stock as to whether or not i am careful enough about my identity and that of my children. i went back through my postings and realized that although i do at one point mention the state i live in, i do not give a city or my last name. but then i also realized that i give all four of my children's names. and how likely is it that anyone else has four children with the exact same names as i mine? so i've decided to remove their names from my site and use nicknames. you just can't be too careful, especially when your kids are as cute as mine are:) what are others' thoughts on this issue?