Oh Dear... These Are Something Else

We have a professional photographer at our church who was taking photos for our online church photo album last week, and we managed to create some doozies. These had me doubled over laughing when I saw them. It's curious how Justice managed to look so hilarious in most of these.

In this pic Wren was kind enough to add some spit up to the mix.

I guess if we have to declare a winner this would be it!

Mama's Day Out

We're adjusting to life in New Jersey and finding ourselves liking it more and more, but one thing that isn't improving is how much we miss our family and friends. In fact the longer we're here the more reality sets in that we are very far from our families and many of our friends and that's not going to change any time soon. (Although of course we are deeply enjoying getting to know our new church family.) But one thing we love about New Jersey is the fact that we can take a short bus ride into NYC! Josh is blessed with Thursdays off and over the last few weeks he has given me the day off to go wherever the wind takes me, and so I've ventured into NYC on my own... that has been a sheer delight. The first time I went I decided on the advice of a gal from church to walk as far down 5th Ave as I could, so I walked from about 50th St all the way down to 18th or 17th when I was totally pooped and still had to return to catch my bus on 42nd St. So walking downtown from the bus station in Midtown is not possible for me, I discovered!! Last Thursday I figured out how to board the subway from the Port Authority where my bus arrives and rode downtown to the 9-11 Memorial. All along the way there were signs that said you have to have an advance visitor's pass to enter the memorial, but I thought I would just walk down to the entrance to see if I could see in through a crack in the fence. When I got there one of the employees asked me if I wanted to go in, but I told her I didn't have a pass and thought that would be that. She said it was a light visitor traffic day and they were giving passes to the public!! So I got to go in!! After passing through airport-like security I entered and was completely amazed. It's impossible to understand the scale of these huge pools through a photo. It was pretty awesome. And the towers still under construction were pretty awesome too. So after that I went to an espresso bar, drank a mocha, and knitted for a couple hours. All in all I'd say it was a pretty nice day.

1 World Trade Center... when completed it will be the tallest building in North America at

1,776 feet!!

South reflecting pool

North reflecting pool

While downtown I happened by Zuccotti Park and got my Occupy Wall Street on... jk actually it was totally empty.

aforementioned mocha

aforementioned knitting

Wren and Her Subjects

Wren has pretty much stolen all of our hearts these days. She is undoubtedly the princess of the house, and the boys are all too happy to make themselves her devoted subjects. I just want to say that I do take pics of our boys too, but they are so difficult to make sit still long enough to take a pic and Wren is just so easy at this stage. Thus the many pics of her in this post. Plus she's just really cute, if I may say so.

Big girl just tried baby cereal for the first time today! She definitely enjoyed the experience, though I don't know how much of it actually got into her stomach. More and more she is looking at whatever we're eating longingly, so I thought I would give it a try. It was a hit!

Gotta love the Halloween bib. First one I grabbed.

We are so grateful for this precious baby girl!!

A Story of Parental Failure

This guy is really something else. He can make you do things you always said you'd never do. Here's an example from last night. I took the boys (and Wren- still not used to that!) to Chick-Fil-A for lunch yesterday (who knew Chick-Fil-A was in New Jersey?? YAY!!) and we had a wonderful time. When they asked for a snack later in the day, I wanted them to eat some fruit since lunch was a nutritional bust. Howie ate his without complaint, but Justice is another story altogether. To make a long story short he eventually ate a little but I wanted him to eat a bit more before having anything else to eat. He was set on eating some animal crackers right then, with no more fruit before. I was weakening and weakening... this is embarrassing... and I finally told him to take one more bite. It was an apple slice, and he threw it down on the floor. I told him that was not ok, but then he kicked it under the dishwasher. I found this so hilarious that I was laughing behind my hands. I gave him another one and told him to eat it, and he pushed that slice far under the dishwasher with a maniacal giggle. At this point I lost it, and he too was laughing his head off. He definitely won that round. Although defiance is not funny, you wouldn't know it from that interaction. Gotta work on that doing what mama asks with a cheerful attitude.

Fun With Photo Booth

Who knew how much fun you can have with Photo Booth?? Instant entertainment.

Words I Hate, & A Surprising Twist

There are many words that I hate. Hate to say, hate to hear. I hate some of them because of how they sound, and others because of what they remind me of. Here are some that I can think of off the top of my head, although there are many others.

1. Nuts. I HATE this word. I also do not care for the food by that name. If I have to refer to this item, I choose to call them specials. And I do NOT eat them.

2. Portion. Nastiest sounding word ever.

3. Moist. Just picture someone saying this as they bite into a fried chicken leg, chin glistening with grease.

4. Loaf. Say this word slowly, and you'll see why it's so awful. It just sounds terrible.

5. Lump. Josh and I both agree. This is disgusting.

Now for the Surprising Twist:

Josh and I bought a Nook.

Why is this surprising, you may ask? I hate the word "nook." It makes me shiver to say. Why, oh why, would you name your tablet (another shiver-inducing word) Nook? Barnes and Noble, what were you possibly thinking? Let's look at the competition in this hot market. Amazon: Kindle Fire. Very nice name. Not offensive in the least. Apple: iPad. Though I'm not crazy about this name, it's not that bad. I think they could have thought of something better, but it's not horrible. But the NOOK??? So you may ask why we picked it, and that would be an excellent question. It came down to economics. A family from church gave us a Barnes and Noble gift card, so the Nook would be the wise choice. But if I were a tablet namer, I would pick something both pleasant to say and mildly descriptive of the product. How about the Portal? The Portal to the internet? Or how about the Time Waster? Haha, just a joke. Anyway, I find that I have a hard time saying that I own a NOOK. I think I'll just change the name to Hook for my own purposes. Their symbol is a lowercase n, so if you just give the n an extra stick on top you have a lowercase h. Also I've always scoffed at the tablet craze since it was unclear to me what they did that was so important, but now I have one. I know my sister Marnie will find this particularly hard to believe. Open mouth, insert slice of humble pie.

Reflecting on 2011 In Some Fairly Inconsquential Ways

I was thinking today about some things that marked the year 2011 for me. So here we go... some of the random things that figured prominently in 2011 chez Desch:

1. The Johnny Cash Children's Album. This is a fabulous CD and has had much, much airtime at our house, starting in St Louis and continuing here.
2. Transitions of all kinds. From St Louis to Peoria to Teaneck, from a family of 4 to a family of 5, from student to pastor, from marginally sane mom to officially insane mom (mwahahahaha), from sedan to minivan, 1 car to 2 cars, from reasonable rent to ridiculous rent, from Grace & Peace to Grace Redeemer, etc.
3. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I could sing the theme song backwards in my sleep.
4. Missing friends. We said goodbye to so many dear friends in St Louis and it's hard to come from such a tight-knit community to starting over again in a new place.
5. Weather catastrophes and power outages. The snowpocalypse was forecasted in St Louis at the beginning of 2011, and although that was massively overblown, I'll still count it. New Jersey has held weather surprises, including a hurricane and fall blizzard, with several power outages of varying lengths thrown in for fun.
6. Library fines. Although fines are not particular to 2011, they were a continuing theme. I paid fines to close out accounts in St Louis, I paid fines in Peoria over the summer, and I'm paying fines in Teaneck. I actually discovered after we moved to Teaneck that I had packed a Peoria library book with our books. Dangit. You can believe I started getting notices about that. I paid the replacement fee and now it's ours. But I don't even like the book. The irony. Someone should name a library wing after me. Seriously.
7. Somewhat pathetic NFL watching. Usually we keep up with the NFL season religiously, but Peyton sat the whole season out and in Teaneck you watch either the Jets or the Giants. Period. It's been a bit of a downer season for us. But we're still watching the playoffs and cheering for the downfall of the Patriots, as usual. At least there's no opportunity for playoff heartache as usual with the Colts. I think I only listened to Mike & Mike twice the whole season. That is highly unusual.
8. Bad diet. This has been the year of the horrible family diet. We started packing the kitchen up in April, which led to a lot of Papa (Johns) in da house, then moved in with my parents where we let the boys have the full grandma and grandpa experience for a whole summer which meant lots of sweets, then moved to Teaneck and prepared to have a new baby in 6 weeks. That meant more pizza. Then Wren was born. At this point our new pizza place of choice (Victors) was practically on speed dial. Then we found this AMAZING licorice at Whole Foods. I would be content to be buried alive in it and forced to eat my way out for survival. Then we discovered how much we love bagels. Yeesh. One of my new year's resolutions was to start cooking again, and that means more than putting a hot dog in the microwave, pouring a bowl of cereal, pulling the wrapper off a lollypop, and preheating the oven for chicken nuggets. This is embarassing but I am in need of accountability. Please hold me to this.