pyrotechnophobia

he's definitely not the pyromaniac of the family yet. for the third year in a row, ryan has hated fireworks. it started when he was 11 months old—he was lying on the living room floor, and through the mini-blinds he caught a glimpse of the "pretties in the sky", and freaked out. it was the same story at 23 months. we brought him outside to look at the fireworks and he instantly screamed.

so this year we decided to go buy some kiddie fireworks to do with him. we got chickens, roosters, a turtle, tank, parachutes, flowers, fountains, sparklers, smoke bombs, etc. we played it all up for him, saying we'd have fun and blow them up after dinner.

since fireworks are illegal in kansas city, we went to a nearby legal city to set them off. we got our chairs set up, and daddy handed ryan a couple fireworks. what he did next cracked us up. apparently when we said we were gonna blow up the fireworks, he associated that with birthday candles...!





after ryan "blew up" most of the fireworks, it was daddy's turn. unfortunately i didn't warn ryan what they were gonna do! he liked the sparks at first (notice his cute little laugh!), but when that first chicken whistled, he freaked out. pyrotechnophobia again. and when daddy "bloke" (broke) the chicken, it set him over the edge!




ryan cried for the rest of the time and repeatedly wailed "no want it fireworks, no want it fireworks....!!!!" so daddy told him we could leave. i put ryan in the car as ben set off some more fireworks. and wouldn't you know? things suddenly got much better (as you can see at the end of this video!)



all i can say is, for spending $20 on fireworks and only setting off about $1.50, it was definitely worth the funny videos we got!

not me! monday

so if you've read my blog lately, then you already know what's been happening around here this past week. i was a little too stressed to have many not me! moments that were blog-worthy, so today we're gonna take a walk down memory lane... today i'm NOT gonna admit to some pretty stupid, embarassing, and unknown facts from my childhood days. enjoy...

when i was probably six, i was NOT way more naive than samantha is for her age. i didn't know what any "bad" words were, and even if i did, there's no way i would ever say them in front of my parents. well one night my mom's friend FROM CHURCH came over and we were going to show her our baby chickens. (yes, my family used to raise chickens.) none of them would come out from under their box, so i did NOT decide to call them the A-word. in front of my mom. and her friend. thank God that my dad wasn't there! when my mom asked me what i said i did NOT stammer and say "uh, i called them axes..." this is NOT one of my favorite memories of getting in trouble. probably because my mom was so shocked, and also because she doesn't remember it!

one morning before school, as i had just about gotten my bangs to poof just right, i did NOT decide to curl them one more time before heading out the door. i grabbed the curling iron and stuck it in my hair right next to my scalp. i was NOT horrified when i took it out and my bangs were standing straight up. i did NOT look like cameron diaz in there's something about mary. and my bangs did NOT have a bright red substance in them. after freaking out, i did NOT discover that my curling iron had been resting up against my red candle. it did NOT melt the wax all over my curling iron, and then it did NOT harden in my hair. i did NOT try to brush it out—youch!—and pick out as many pieces that i could on the way to school. i did NOT walk around all day with little pieces of wax in my hair, making me look like i had bad dandruff. and i did NOT throw away that evil candle when i got home.

i have always had a small, weak?, overactive bad bladder. call it what you like, but i've always been the one who has to use the restroom ALL.THE.TIME. so when i was about 13 years old, the thought did NOT cross my mind i wonder if one of those huge, uncomfortable, ginormously thick maxi pads would work if i had an i-need-to-go-NOW emergency??... my curiosity did NOT get the better of me and i did NOT experiment one day—thankfully in the confines of my bathroom and not out in public. because it did NOT fail to work as i hoped!!!

what have you NOT done this week? or last month? or 20 years ago?!

wedding mishaps

my bloggy friend ace is hosting wedding mishaps today. and this comes at a perfect time, seeing as it was our anniversary on monday. what an opportune moment to reminisc about the good & not so good events that took place 7 years ago!

at first i was having a hard time coming up with mishaps. all i could think of was crying bawling in the bathroom at mcdonalds 2 days before the wedding because my mom told me we were going to have lemonade at the reception. lemonade. i was crying my eyes out about LEMONADE!! (remember that mom?!) now i look back and laugh equally as hard about it as i remember crying! and i realize i was maybe a slight bit stressed and a tad bit more PMSy!

but as i went through today, thinking back to that day, a few things came to mind.

morning of the wedding: our reception was going to be outside at a park with a big white tent (without sides) for everyone to sit under (the tent was going to be right next to a pavilion where the food and cake were going to be). so that morning my parents and some other people were getting stuff set up. it was a beautiful day! we prayed away rain for weeks before, but forgot to mention anything to God about the wind. it was a beautiful windy day and stuff was blowing around and off of the tables. my parents had the tent people put a side on the tent, but that didn't help with the pavilion part where all the food was going to be. so my parents went home, dug through their camping gear, and grabbed all the tarps they could find. they went back to the park and somehow secured the tarps to the side of the pavilion. although it didn't look the greatest, in the end it was better than all the food flying around!

right before the ceremony some of the groomsmen were decorating the car. that's not such a bad thing, right? until the spray foam/car paint stuff that my soon to be brother in law was using exploded all over the front of his tuxedo. and it wouldn't come out. i was hid away in my little room (so ben wouldn't see me) and i knew something happened, but no one would tell me what. ben's sister was scrambling around to fix the problem and after the ceremony i found out that she put black mascara on the front of her husband's tux to hide the color. and it worked... we were even able to return the tux without additional fees!

the ceremony went pretty well. no one fainted, it wasn't too hot, and ben didn't cry too much (when we were standing there he had tears in his eyes and i was smiling and kinda laughing at him. ahhh... he was so cute!). but... my pastor forgot ben's last name. so at the end when he announced us he said, "...i now present to you mr. and mrs. ben... *pause*...ben...." everyone started clapping so we didn't have to tell him what to say. but yes, we are mr. and mrs. ben ben.

reception: remember how i said it was a beautiful day? well it was... to us minnesotans! but ben's family came from missouri and illinois and they were FREEZING. i guess we didn't take them into consideration when we planned an outdoor reception. but thankfully walmart and target came to the rescue---they were much warmer with their hoodies on!

i originally planned to write about our honeymoon mishaps... but maybe i'll save that for another day!

so go check out ace's blog to read some more hillarious wedding mishaps! and join in on the fun! even if you're not married, i'm sure everyone has a great wedding story!

me? i'm gonna go have a glass of lemonade...

thankful thursday

today i am thankful for memories. this past week i have been thinking a lot about memories from my childhood and different traditions that were a part of our Christmases. how my sisters, my mom, and i would go trudging through the snow behind our house for hours trying to find a suitable tree.... how we would decorate the tree while listening to ray conniff on the record player.... how we would make cookies and decorate them but weren't allowed to lick our fingers if we got frosting on them.... how we would go to grandma and grandpa k's house on Christmas eve and bring all our presents from home and open them there and then bring them all back home.... how we'd listen to the innkeeper's dream with all the lights off on Christmas eve.... how we'd wake up to breakfast in my (and becky's) room on Christmas morning....


these are memories that i've missed so much. i guess because when i got married and moved away, we didn't have any traditions or memories right away. but last night i realized that we've made new memories -- our own memories.

last night samantha and i decorated the Christmas tree. she's helped me with the ornaments probably since she was two and a half. it was so fun to see the joy in her eyes and the excitement on her face when she'd pull out an ornament that she remembered from last year. "OH!! MOM!!! I REMEMBER THIS ONE," she's say with so much enthusiasm.

last year when we were all finished decorating the tree samantha said, "now we need to turn off all the lights and sing silent night." and so we did, never thinking that she'd remember it. but yesterday she said the same thing. "mom, when we get all done putting the ornaments on the tree we need to turn off all the lights with just the Christmas tree on and we need to close our eyes and sing silent night and tell Jesus our wish and praise God." and so we did again.

we didn't get the tree done until 11pm, but we were all still up. even ryan. so with all the lights off we all sat around the tree, told Jesus our wish, and then sang silent night. it was so peaceful to hold samantha on my lap, listen to her squeaky little voice singing an octave higher than me, and think about next year when we'll do this again. she has made a wonderful memory for our family.

today i am thankful for memories. old memories that i'll be able to pass down to my children, favorite memories that bring tears to my eyes just thinking about them, and new memories that we'll be able to revisit in the years to come.

what are some of your memories?