3 Cheers for Summer!

Mt Whitney

Click on the picture to see the amazing pictures from Adam's Successful Summit of the tallest mountian on the Continental United States!!

No Time, Any Problem

So, I was hanging out with Ivy today and she did me a favor, so I told her, "Thank you, Ivy!"

She replied, "No time!"

. . . HuH?

Then Lizzie and I realized that she was mixing up the two phrases "No problem!" and "Any Time!" to make a new phrase: "No Time!" Which naturally led us to the other mixed-up phrase: "Any Problem!"

I was thinking about it and decided that this has kind of been the Stewart family motto this week.

Broken Transmission? "Any Problem!"

Need a new hairdryer? "No Time!"

Accidently broke the pool filter which was just replaced? "Any Problem!" "No Time!"

I'm hoping we can get un-mixed up soon here, because this family motto is getting expensive! :)

Sockless on Mount Whitney

I found Adam's special REI hiking sock last night when I was folding the laundry and watching Arrested Development with Erin. He was looking for it frantically on Wednesday night before he left on his big trip. Whoops.

This morning he called me from here:

The one-socked mountain climber on the highest peak in the contintental United States. I hope that one of your feet was nice and warm.

These conditions are not ideal. Just call him Bear Grylls.

Eli's Dream Jobs & Nightmare Jobs

This morning at breakfast, we received a telemarketer phone call. After I hung up, I told Eli how I had a job doing that once during college, and Eli suggested that I do my "dream job" instead. So I asked him, Eli, what are your dream jobs? Here's the list he rattled off. I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote them down:

Eli's Dream Jobs:
1. Ice Cream Taster
2. Trampoline Trickster
3. Computer Whiz
4. Mattress Tester
5. Freestyle Swimmer
6. Holiday Window Painter
7. Oatmeal Maker
8. Playhouse Builder

Then he told me some jobs he "would NEVER do, even if someone paid me a million dollars!"
1. Shark Catcher (could get bitten)
2. Trapeeze Circus Person (could get badly hurt)
3. Perfume Mixer (the smell)
4. Toxic Waster Cleaner (really gross stuff)
5. Ship Captain (it could be exactly like Titanic!)
6. Computer Smasher (That I would never do.)
7. Electrician (could get electrocuted)
8. Bee Catcher

This is going to be a fun summer!

Everything Changes~

Lizzie got her braces off! (This was Phase 1, Phase 2 will come in a few more years!)


Oliver found his toes! (It's like there's toys dangling from the ends of my legs - how fun!)

Stinky Potter

I have a sensitive nose. Maybe it comes from being the daughter of an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor. Maybe it's because I had to drive a car in high school with the license plate "Dr. Nose." Or maybe it's from being pregnant four times, and eventually your nose becomes a lightning rod, if you will, for odors that are "off."

This week, I took a nap on an uneventful afternoon, and when I awoke, my nose told me that something wasn't quite right. I smelled a scent different than any other I had smelled before. It had a tang to it, almost a metallic hint. When it was really strong, it felt like I could taste it on the tip of my tongue. This was worrisome. I checked the outlets, lamps, anything electrical. I had Adam check the attic and vents to see if there might be trouble up there. I was able to narrow it down to one room - the front room. I was starting to become slightly paranoid that we were getting chemical metallic poisoning. Maybe it was that new oven element! Maybe I should get my Carbon Monoxide detector out and see if it had anything to say about the matter!

Having found nothing out of the ordinary, I began accosting every person who entered our home:

{Ding dong }
Hi! Stay right there and breathe deeply! Yes, I know you just wanted to drop off something, but I need your nose right now!
Okay, the porch smells normal, right? Now, come into my house. . . slowly. . . slowly now. . . okay: Breathe. Deeper! That's better. Keep breathing. . . Do you smell that?!?! Don't you think it's kind of metallic?? Can't you almost taste it on your tongue? Isn't it driving you crazy?? ME TOO!! Do you know where it is or where it's coming from? Help me! I'm going mad!

At which point they would turn and run.

After three (3) days of this, I consigned my fate to the reeking aroma, concluding that maybe after we started showing symptoms, it would be easier to diagnose. I could practically feel a rash coming on.

On Saturday, Adam and Eli were gone all day at the Fathers & Sons Campout, so I thought this would be a good time for Lizzie to finally open the package that had arrived for her from her Grandma Vickie. We hadn't had time to properly enjoy it, and since I knew what was inside it, I thought it would be more fun to open it when she could really get into it.

We sliced the skinny packaging open to reveal a GIANT LARGER-THAN-LIFE-SIZED Harry and Hermione pointing their wands directly at us! It also revealed a GIANT LARGER-THAN-LIFE-SLIGHTLY-METALLIC-ODOR that almost knocked me over! ah HAH! How had I not deduced this before?! It was that stinky paint they used to make the stand-up cardboard Potter and sidekick Hermione. You can't smell them in the movies, but they really do stink.

The smell was worse, now that it was fully unleashed, but the mystery was solved. And Harry and Hermione are going to de-fumigate in the garage for a while before they're allowed back into the good graces of our home.

I want YOU to stop stinking up my living room!

Lost: Another Tooth

Our Little Poetess

Was given an award recently as a district winner in the poetry contest. It was for her poem "The Chase". Here she is with her teacher, Mrs. Willis:

Blond white girls were in the minority at this party.

Reunion

Grandma Palmer hadn't seen Oliver since he was 1 day old, and Grandpa Palmer hadn't met the Big O yet. What a sweet reunion this was!

And yes, I do have three other children, but they are going to have to give the spotlight to Oliver for a little bit longer. Sheesh, they've been basking in it for the last ten years! We've got some catch-up to do!

What?

Guess who went swimming!!

He wasn't so sure about it, and this was pretty much his expression throughout the entire experience: (Look at his cute toes! )

Classics & Creatures! - What a night!

Our concert was last Saturday night - whew! What a great time!

Tia conducts the CCC: Erin enters as the "Dew Fairy" to awaken the sleeping chidren (from Hansel & Gretel)

Erin really did knock the socks off of everyone there! What a star!! We love you, Erin!

Lovely flowers for us at the end of the concert! We have the best choir families in the world. :)

Looking oh so professional!

I loved how one of my friends put it: "There was something so poetic about you sisters growing up singing in children's choirs together, then now to have you conducting the children's choir with your sister soloing with you." It was a sweet experience, and one of the highlights of my musical life, to be sure!

Roly Poly!

Oliver has been rolling over all morning! :) :) :)

It is so much fun. I think when you're a butterball like Oliver is, it's easy to just roll around!

Thanks for the picture cord, Jenni! :)

Visitors

Erin and Oliver finally meet! He's thinking about it...wait...

Yep! He's decided that he likes her! :) Yeah for Auntie Erin!

Lost: One Front Tooth

We just can't quite seem to pull it together over here...our camera cord has been missing ever since we got home from Coronado, and I have lots of amazing photos that I can show you if you just come to my house and squint into my camera screen. Until then, we have the camera phone.

Here we have some self-portraits by Eli on the day he lost his tooth at school!: He's been a real late bloomer on the tooth-losing process, so this was very exciting indeed!

The oven and I are BACK!

Guess what arrived in the mail today??

Yep! A new element for our oven from GE.

It was easy to install, after much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and two trips to Home Depot.

Guess what's in my oven right now?

Chocolate chip cookies.

Through this trying ordeal, I have learned a lot about myself. I've learned that apparently, I can't blog unless my oven is in order. I'm sure my schedule had nothing to do with it, or the fact that we went to Coronado, or that Adam, Lizzie and Ivy were sick or that I am feverishly trying to prepare for this concert...it was all because of the oven.

The universe is aligned once again. Bloggers beware.

A special THANK YOU to the many kind readers who posted non-oven chocolate desserts!! Some of you even went so far in your sympathy as to bring us baked goods. Truly, you kept us going. How could I ever thank you? And, Leslie, how did I forget about Scotcheroos??!! Shocking, to say the least.

I have to go now. The oven timer is ringing, and the smell of warm chocolate is in the air. :)

Coronado, 2010

Click on the picture to see a whole album! :)

I'm on a Diet

The name of my diet is the No-Baked Goods Diet. And I am an unwilling participant.

Our oven broke three weeks ago (the bottom heating element cracked into two!) and neither Adam nor I have been able to bake anything since. The oven is fixable, but things have been rather crazy at our house, and fixing the oven has been put on the back burner. ;) It's not too big of a problem for dinners - we have the grill, the crockpot, the stove-top. But it's wreaked havoc on our desserts. Ice cream is a popular option with the kids, but unless I'm pregnant, I really don't care for cold creamy desserts. I like my desserts hot and chocolatey.

The first week was the hardest. Every evening after the kids were in bed, I would stare vacantly into the pantry. Ah, me. No chocolate, no warmness, no nothing. We did have some unbaked cookie dough in the refrigerator, though, looking forlorn with no hope of being baked. What was I to do? I took care of that cookie dough within a few days.

But after that dough was gone, it seemed gluttunous to make a batch of cookies that would never see the heat of the oven. I resisted the urge.

So here I am three weeks later. I made a chocoate pudding pie last week. It was fine, but cold. :( I've polished off any extra Easter candy, but you know it's mostly the waxy chocolate and it's kinda gross. Tonight, there is just nothing nothing nothing yummy for dessert.

Ho hum. Boohoo. I guess I'm on a diet.

Cousin!

Hi there, sorry it's been awhile since I've posted...I was knocked flat with a flu for several days, and it's been catch-up ever since!! Anyway, here's my darling cousin Tamara who I got to see for a few fun hours last Thursday. Just wish she lived closer - we had so much fun and probably fit in more words per minute than is humanly possible.