I hate to brag

but my child is pickier than yours.  Seriously though we have quite the eating issues with Brother B.  It is definitely compounded by the fact he was an amazing eater as a baby/toddler even after all his swallowing issues.  

Since he started 1st grade, this is the first year he is eating lunch at school.  We decided to make him buy lunches hoping that he would learn to try new things.  The first couple of days went great because they had chicken nuggets.  Since then he has refused to eat anything at least twice a week.  

I got a call from his teacher last Thursday about it.  She said "I just found out Brigham hasn't been eating anything for lunch several times a week and I'm very concerned about it."  It was a tad annoying how many times she said "I'm very concerned.".  I told her that we were fully aware of him not eating, but it still took about 10 minutes to get off the phone with her.  At this point I was a tad worried that I was going to get CPS called on me even though all the advice I've ever read about picky eaters says it is okay for them to skip meals here and there.  I decided to hedge my bets and call the pediatrician.  They said it was okay for him to miss lunch as long as he ate a small snack.  

All of this started to wear on me though and I began to wonder if this was just turning into a contest of who was more stubborn, me or Brother B.  Turns out I broke first. I packed him a lunch today.  It is certainly not the end of the world, although Ephant isn't happy that she still has to buy lunch.  I told her that when Brother B hits 3rd grade he'll have to buy lunch again too.

Here is what Brother B eats if you want a sense of how picky he is:

Peanut butter sandwich
Fast food cheeseburgers
Hot dog (no bun so far)
Pizza
Chicken nuggets
Plain chicken
Grilled cheese
Cheese crisp
Kraft macaroni and cheese

bean dip
Pancakes
Bacon
Waffles
French toast
Toast
Cereal
Fruit snacks
Crackers
Scrambled eggs

chocolate chip granola bars

Randomness

Taggin' It Up Rules 1: Each player starts with 8 random habits/facts about themselves. 2: People who are tagged need to write a post on their blog about their eight things and post these rules. 3: At the end of the post you need to choose 8 people to get tagged and list their names.

8 RANDOM THINGS:

1. I won the Christmas card art contest in 1st grade. (I got a bag full of goodies donated by local businesses, it was so awesome)

2. I attended 4 different elementary schools, 2 middle schools and 2 high schools

3. I took piano lessons for 10 years, but am terrible at accompanying.

4. I have terrible problems with anxiety, especially postpartum.

5. I would read all day if I could.

6. I'm an OCD clean freak, but I don't mind germs.

7.  I hate talking on the phone, except with my family and very close friends. 

8.  My favorite candy bar is Butterfinger.

Okay, 8 people:  Marv, Kim, Terra, Angie, Amilkia, Joce, Chris and Stacey.

Fefe's Not So Great Trick

I was just thinking the other day how we haven't really had a climber yet.  That day Fefe decided it was fun to climb the slide ladder.  She doesn't know how to slide down though so once she gets to the top she jabbers for a bit then gets upset when we don't get her down.  Of course, as soon as we get her down she climbs back up again.  One time she climbed up when I wasn't in the room. I walked in for a second to get something and when I left she was so mad that I didn't get her down.  She does the exact same thing when she climbs the stairs.  She can scoot back down, but only after we put her in the right position to do so.

Get me down!

Caboose of Fire

Saturday was Pacific University's "Run for Sight".  It is an annual 5k.  I ran it for the second time (last time was 2 years ago).  I did awesome!  I just pushed myself really hard and ran it in 30.06 minutes.  The lady you see behind me started passing me the last block, but I said "no way is someone with a jogging stroller going to pass me", so I turned it on and beat her :)  I managed to get 2nd place in my age category, although that wasn't too hard since there are mostly students running the race.  I was just glad to beat my personal best.  Especially after twisting my foot two days before the race.  I almost wasn't able to run, but I went into the podiatrist on Friday and got my foot all taped up.  Now it is time to build up to a 10k next June.

Jenn, Jared and I, we all had our Ipods with some great playlists:

Stand Up

Fefe decided to add standing to her repertoire on Thursday.  She did it first thing in the morning and it was so cute.  That night, close to bedtime, she decided she was sold and kept doing it over and over.  I think all the attention and clapping was a big incentive.  It is funny because both our girls now have perfected standing before walking and the boys just walked first.  I imagine she'll be walking within the next couple of weeks.  Notice how red her cheeks are.

Long Awaited Change

Tuesday was the long awaited D day.  We finally had new carpet installed.  It is just the front room and stairs so far, but it is a good start.  It is a diamond patterned carpet made out of the Tactesse nylon (super soft).  I always get shocked everytime I walk into that room because I was too used to the way it was before.  It is definitely a pleasant shock though.  Those of you with a discerning eye will notice the other addition in the room.

Before:

After:

Did you see the 50" Panasonic plasma?  Movie night on friday was awesome!

Random Events

Poor Fefe.  We're just preparing for living on the streets.  The box is from our new stereo, yay for surround sound.  Our front room looks less cluttered now because we got rid of J's humongous box speakers and stereo.

The kids thought it would be fun to dress up.  I thought the picture turned out well simply because they all happened to be looking at the camera at the same time.  Not a simple feat.

What started out as fetching a soccer ball from the sprinklers turned into water fest 2008:

Mouth

What is it with my children and mouth stuffing?  Both Ephant and Fefe were/are particularly bad at it.  Fefe happened upon an open cupboard and decided these yogurt fruit snacks were delicious.  After sucking off the yogurt covering of the 10 she had in her mouth she proceeded to spit them out all over the slide.

Stories

I've been building up some funny Loofa stories, so enjoy!

J took the kids to Home depot last Saturday. While they were looking at deck stain a lady came into the same aisle with her big dog. Loofa crouched down, looked the dog in the eyes and said. “Are you going to eat me? I’m delicious, I am.”

While we were waiting in the exam room at the doctor’s office I told Loofa to get out of the way of the door and he said "why?".  I said because a Monster is going to come through. When the doctor came in, he said “you are not a monster”.  The doctor didn't quite know what to think about that.

While driving to the aforementioned doctor's office Loofa said “I see a forest, is that where the monsters live?”

A couple days ago I was getting Fefe out of the car when Loofa saw a motorcycle. I heard him exclaiming "my precious", over and over. When I turned around, he was hugging the motorcycle.

Wowie

What a week.  The kids started school on Wednesday.  So far I'm very satisfied.  Both the kids have new teachers (their school has at least 6 new teachers this year).  They were very enthusiastic about how much they like them.  I'm making them buy lunches this year too.  It is part of my overall strategic plan to combat their pickiness.  Brother B is loving it because he's had chicken nuggets and pizza this week.  When I asked him, he agreed that it is much better than packing a peanut butter sandwich every day.  The other good news concerns the boy that kept chasing after Ephant last year.  He was in her class initially this year, even sitting right next to her (I quickly rectified that one), but since the other 3rd grade class was smaller they transferred him into it yesterday.  What a relief.  Ephant feels a bit sorry for him because he had to leave all his other friends too.  She is glad though to not deal with him anymore.

Wednesday night we had our Relief Society Enrichment Service Auction.  It went really well!  I was a bit nervous having a new auctioneer since Jenn did such an amazing job the last few times we did it, but our new auctioneer did great.  It was a lot of fun.  We have TONS of new student families in the ward this year so I'm hoping this was a good introduction to the ward for them.  I made a placemat bag for it and almost bid on it myself...

Thursday night we had a work party in Northwest portland at one of J's coworkers house.  They live in a humongous early 1900 house.  It was pretty neat.  I really like that section of Portland.   That's where Papa Haydns is, they have my favorite dessert of all time, Bocconi Dolce.  I tried to make it one time and miserably failed.  It is a pretty eclectic area beyond that, with little streets and small shops.

J is about ready to stain the deck today so hopefully we'll put up pictures of it soon.  It is pretty much the finishing touch for our yard.  I'm about done planting.  Our apricot tree that I posted about earlier is really determined to live too.  I chopped off all the branches way back when so that it is pretty much just a stump, but it looks like a bush now with how many suckers it has put out.  I'm tempted to leave it and see what happens with it.

We're slowly but surely working through an essential to do list before we can even consider moving.  We got quite a bit of the small stuff done over labor day weekend.