Just Ignore Them

I feel bad for Makayla some days. She is bombarded with boy stuff all the time. Lightsabers, cars, Transformers, Spiderman, etc. She puts on her princess attire and the little men run screaming in the other direction.

Sometimes it's a game to her.

Sometimes it hurts her.

So she and I have a date everyday to be girlie. We dress up, dance around and watch a princess movie. Right now, The Little Mermaid is her favorite but Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella are near and dear to her heart.

We love it!

But there is still a problem.

Boys.

They hear the word "princess" and they avoid us like the plague.

Or do they?

Here is Bryce just passing through to grab a toy. Uh-huh.

What I love is when boys pretend to not watch the princess movie. I'll look out of the corner of my eye and see one of them peeking around the corner and the other peeking over the couch. If asked if they would like to come and join us, the vehemently deny watching said princess movie and run off.

Untitled from Rachel Witbeck on Vimeo.

Now we just ignore them when watching the princess collection...unless it's just too tempting to raz them about it. They are too easy to tease sometimes!

I love it!

Here's another video of Makayla loving her movie and in this case Bryce is actually hating it!

Untitled from Rachel Witbeck on Vimeo.

Bribes/Motivaton

I am not above bribes. I call it "motivation" and I "motivate" my children on a daily basis and usually it gets results. But Preston is a tricky one. He thinks about what I want done and what he gets in return and decides if it's really worth his time.

The bribes are starting to get bigger.

Preston has been dragging his feet with riding his bike without training wheels. The bike he's been riding he got for Easter when he was 3 years old. He looks pretty ridiculous riding it but he would not give it up.

So I "motivated".

On the Thursday before Easter, I presented my proposition to Preston. Just note that this was taking place on the walk home from school and there were several comments from Bryce but mostly they just involved calling Preston a baby so they weren't very useful to the negotiations.

Me: Hey Preston. You see that kid riding his bike?
Preston: Yeah.
Me: He doesn't have training wheels.
Preston: *sigh* Yeah.
Me: Don't you want to ride your bike like him?
Preston: But mom, he's older than me anyways. I'll ride it when I'm big like him. Does that sound good?
Me: How 'bout you and I make a deal.
Preston: *eyeing me suspiciously* What deal?
Me: Welllll, if you can ride your bike without training wheels before Easter I might be able to talk to the Easter bunny and get you a new bigger bike.
Preston: REALLY!!!!
Me: Yeah but you gotta be able to ride it really good without stopping. Do we have a deal?
Preston: *considering the deal and getting suggestions from Bryce* Oh alright.

Here he is the next day! No training wheels!

The cheering section.


Going along for the ride but will not even talk about taking the training wheels off.


And the Easter bunny came through with a new bike. Which he tried for all of 2 minutes and told me to tell the Easter bunny to take it back. Apparently he felt it was too big. At that point bribery was out of the question and threats of losing all bikes came to pass. He then learned how to ride his new big bike. We knew you could do it Preston! You did awesome bud! Way to go!

Spring

We thought our backyard was dead. Our house sat vacant for almost a year so the yard looked to be a total waste. I was thinking of all the time and money it would take to get it beautiful back there.

Then spring happened.


Or I think it's spring. It might be some hybrid between spring and summer. But I'm not even getting into that since I'm scared out of my pants thinking about how we're going to be cooked alive this summer.


But behold! Our yard is ALIVE!

This is our fig tree. Does anyone know what to do with a fig? I'm at a loss.

Kinda Extreme Makeover

The floor in the whole house were just nasty when we bought it. The carpet smelled like dogs and amount of dog hair and urine in the carpet were enough to make me reconsider getting a pet. All the floor had to go! We got carpet right after we got the house but we've been shopping around and trying to put what's in our heads to reality. It takes time. So here's our front room we just finished. It had the ugly, horrible carpet and ugly, horrible tile.

See the urine!!!! Ewwwww! That's why I'm taking pictures and Erik's doing the dirty work. :)


Almost ready to start putting down the floor.


(View from kitchen)

Finished! It only took a week but we got it done. Well, I should say Erik got it done because my job was to wipe the glue off the floor. But I'm dang good at wiping up the glue!

(View from upstairs)

Now we just have to get the tile in and we're done with our ugly floor! Yay! And if you come over, I bet you won't be able to see where we colored the cracks with a Sharpie.

Pictures

Here's some pictures that we got not too long ago. I've been waiting forever for a certain talented, awesome friend take our family pictures. Yes Carrie, I'm talking to you! But unfortunately, cosmic forces are determined to keep us apart so I had to move on.

But through a friend I found April. She is so sweet and super talented!

I love these pictures! So take a gander and the Witbeck crew of 2010!

Friends

While in Portland, we had the great blessing of making some friends who lived just down the road from us. They became our friends in spite of my quiet, shy, awkwardness. Tom and Betsy became people that we could count on if we ever needed them and when Erik was gone for 2 months they became my salvation. Watching the kids when I needed to go out, me borrowing Betsy for the night, etc. Their son Logan is Bryce's age and both our boys loved him. When we told them we were moving, they asked if Logan was coming along. Bryce still asks to walk down the road to see Logan. We miss you Sass family!

Here is a quick message for Logan.

Untitled from Rachel Witbeck on Vimeo.

Holy Cow

When Erik left us behind to start his new job I didn't realize how much things would change. I mean it's a huge change to move from Oregon to Arizona and start all over again and remodel a house and play grown ups and all that stuff but there was an even bigger shock then all that.

Erik met some people while staying with his sister Kirsten. Especially one person in particular. They talked a lot. Erik became very interested in this person's point of view on items. He started reading books from this person and that's when things started changing.

Erik started giving me little hints that things were changing. He was feeling very different about some things. I nodded and said "uh-huh" when appropriate but didn't really think he was serious about any of it.

Little did I know that he was totally serious. He had decided that he wanted to become a.....


VEGETARIAN!!!!

He leaves for 2 months. I finally get my husband back and he's a vegetarian. Now I have to figure out how to cook vegetarian meals that I would actually eat as well. I already hate making dinner now this???? And coming from Oregon, I just view this whole thing as some hippies poisoning my husbands mind. *cyber snort* Tree huggers.

He informed me that becoming a vegetarian had nothing to do with animal cruelty or anything like that (if you know anything about Erik you'll know that he doesn't really care how animals are treated so this wasn't a real shock). He told me it had to do with the way the animals were fed, the chemicals injected into the meat, hormones in the meat, etc.

I have to admit, it was convincing to me. I don't like any of that stuff either but I don't want to be vegetarian. I like meat. I love hamburgers, and pepperoni pizza, and tacos, and shredded beef burritos. It goes on and on. I don't really want to be a vegetarian. But when it comes to eating something I see as harmful or being a veggie head......I'll give in and be a veggie head.

So for months we've been eating rice, beans, pasta, and vegetables. (and so you know a little about me, I don't like vegetables. Yes, I'm like the children and I prefer to not eat veggies. Sue me.) It hasn't been all that bad. Some getting used to but not too bad.

Then Erik comes home from work one day. He's been talking to someone else. Uh-oh. I'm digging in my heels if he wants to be vegan. I've given up meat I'm not giving up all things animal.

But no that's not it. He wants to buy a cow. Well, half a cow. We know what it's fed, no injections of any kind, and no hormones added. Plus it's all lean meat.

I'm so confused. But you know what, we haven't had any meat in the house for months. I'm not going to try and change his mind on this one. I sat there and asked questions about cost and "are you sure you want to do this?" like I should while leaping around in my head with joy. Meat! We can have meat!

So we did it. And this meat is waaaay better than anything bought in a store. I've put in my dues as a vegetarian and have been rewarded!

A stocked freezer brings tears to my eyes.

Tacos are definitely on the menu! :)

The List

We have a lot of things we need to do for this house and this is our checklist:

1. Unpack-check!
2. Paint every single wall in the rainbow house-check!
3. Carpet-check!
4. Install 5 ceiling fans-check!
5. New appliances-check!
6. Organize so we don't have a mess-half check!
7. Paint trim
8. Tile
9. Hardwood floors
10. New countertops
11. New cabinets
12. New furniture in every room (big plans for this one!)
13. Rip out all the left over shrubbery in backyard and buy new
14. Art for walls
15. Potted plants and other filler for the house
16. New bedding on everyone's beds to match the new paint
17. Win the lottery sometime in the very near future

That's about it! Shouldn't be too hard. I'm feeling very optimistic that we can get this house ready in about let's say, oh, in the next 10 years or so!

Maybe I should add "try to convince Erik we need professionals to kill the bugs" in that list somewhere.

Kids These Days....

I want you to look at this picture of words that have "aw" in them. Preston brought this home from school and I believe they were supposed to come up with these words on their own but I'm not sure. But look at the words and see if any of them seem a little....odd.


*I'll give you a hint: The last word seems to be some sort of undergarment for women.*

I'm just going to blame the school system.

The Rainbow House

We currently purchased our first home. Yay! But we have been working like dogs to get this house in livable condition. I took this video the day after we closed. Some may like the colors used and there's nothing wrong with that. I will still love you for your faults! :) These colors were picked out by someone who took care to put them up and probably really enjoyed them. We do not enjoy them. It's a matter of personal taste....and bleeding eyeballs. I seriously can't stand to look at these colors. There are different colors everywhere which is where the kids started calling the house "the rainbow house". Bryce cried when we started painting "the rainbow". I actually like rainbows, just not on my walls.

So here's the video. It's kind of grainy due to my little point and shoot camera I took it on but I think you'll get the general idea. Oh, and one more thing. I was kind of rushing this video because I was really freaked out that there would be bugs and spiders and scorpions at every turn. Sorry about that.

Untitled from Rachel Witbeck on Vimeo.