tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64620579928097286342023-06-20T23:18:44.322-05:00i-jabberonjenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-16246258580960623462010-07-19T23:21:00.003-05:002010-07-19T23:28:42.044-05:00this is what happens... part 2in the pool saturday maddy pulled my bathing suit out and peered inside. i asked what on earth she was doing.looking at (owen)'s food, she said.jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-87342491244704992912010-07-13T20:00:00.011-05:002010-07-13T20:15:29.198-05:00this is what happens to someone who also forgets the 18 m well-baby examyesterday, alarmed that owen was in his second day of non-stop diaper runs, i racked my brain.what on earth have i been eating?!only after checking off everything i'd consumed the previous three days did it occur to me that one had nothing to do with the other.owen is 21 months old, and i think he stopped nursing seven months ago.jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-36510795086195800212010-06-21T22:39:00.004-05:002010-06-22T19:10:55.296-05:00*big much and tiny bit she'll now say.our new inside joke. how much i love my maddy.the first time she said "tiiiiny bit" narrowing a gap between her thumb and finger until they almost touched, i gasped in laughter.one very bad valentine's vern gave me a bear. it is white with a red shirt reading, "i love you this much!" his paws are clasped tightly together, held there by magnets in each. vern jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-66087881816671071442010-06-21T21:30:00.004-05:002010-06-21T22:39:16.340-05:00me, toomaddy's first words were 'baby' and 'abby'. her first sentences were in fact her name said over and over and over again in varied inflection. eager for lunch, arguing with her brothers, cuddling. she was only ever saying her name on unending replay but what we heard was "feed me first!" and "caleb. back. off." and "i love you so much."her first sentence containing two distinct and separate words jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-51294912225940251102010-06-17T11:50:00.002-05:002010-06-17T13:22:18.306-05:00i writewe spent weeks researching laptops last summer before investing in an hp hdx 16. the first time we turned her on, she froze. within three months, the 't' button had broken off.i finally let her go to be fixed and in the month it took hp to repair and send her back, i lamented not going apple. though no one chided me for that. not that specifically. apparently every(non-mac)else has a dell jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-64294047048374048672010-05-04T18:42:00.007-05:002010-07-19T16:43:50.592-05:00around here we grate our own cheesethere was a joke going around when i was a kid that i belonged to the milk man. an old joke that became overtly tongue-in-cheek when applied to me.i did not like meat. especially the red meat my family raised. how else could one be born to a family of hard-working nebraska cattlemen and not appreciate God's cannery unless they were, indeed, the milk man's?i used to object that i didn't like jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-66336474870339413092010-04-12T12:51:00.008-05:002010-04-12T14:09:32.881-05:00sweet and hearti sit all day. all. day.i sit so much it is increasingly hard not to be in a sat position even when i can lie down flat.there is not a lot of calorie burn in sitting. reaching. bending. my body can hardly make use of what i already eat in a day.and yet there is a lot of extra cheap fuel sitting around in easter baskets. i do believe i spent all last week nabbing a reeses buttercup egg here, a jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-39771573650460527912010-04-06T11:36:00.000-05:002010-04-06T18:00:37.044-05:00the "so? what do you do?" of iti heard version #211 of the never-ending banter regarding who has the most demanding 24: the mom who spends part of her work day earning a paycheck from outside the home or the mom who spends her entire time working for her family within free of charge.to quote my own verbose mother: whatever.it's such a pointless debate, and i'm thankful to be surrounded by friends who don't. one who felt a jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-53097850837050023362010-04-05T22:02:00.002-05:002010-04-05T22:24:27.940-05:00did i forget Christ lives?no.i was thinking how somewhat strange it is that every year people get all bubbly about God's gift to us. sometimes as if it all just happened. now. like, yesterday, and they themselves saw the stone rolled back and empty clothes, folded. Christ is risen! He LIVES! well. yeah. did you just join this party? do we not celebrate this faith every week? it makes me chuckle the jubilation somejenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-67142406589433059392010-04-05T22:01:00.000-05:002010-04-05T22:01:49.389-05:00bunny notesfunny what one finds in her blog drafts. this is officially one year old:i remember easter my sr yr of college only for how i spent some part of the holiday sitting on top of our bathroom counter at 118 talking to vern with the door shut. i'd never sat on that counter before. it reminded me a little of sitting on the kitchen table talking with mom as she cooked. the bathroom because by then i nojenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-6039904821461250302010-03-16T08:37:00.003-05:002010-03-16T08:49:51.271-05:00what i thought before i fell asleep last nighti can look at my kids fifty times a minute for fourteen hours and feel like i never really saw them all day.the most impressive thing to me about God was his massive, intricate, layered, and unending creation. now it is His sight.jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-18734581996772931752010-03-15T21:09:00.003-05:002010-03-15T21:17:11.354-05:0025 things about me i will not post on facebook: a revision5. we spent 10 days in kaua'i. i realized there my best friend is indeed my husband joel. we have a jim, jo, jill. vern always gets his attention in a crowd. just like our oldest will say his dad's given name in a sea of daddies, i say vern. sometimes he calls me fred. it makes no sense. best friends' inside jokes rarely do.jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-18551530474147386302010-03-07T14:09:00.003-06:002010-03-07T17:04:26.708-06:00From that day on, if I was ever going somewhere, I was running!commitment, courage, determination, fantasy, perseverance, and strength.according to lady footlocker and disney parks, these are the qualities of a true princess. and specifically, today, of the athletes in disney's princess half-marathon.i've known megan as a brownie, band geek, cross-country runner, harry connick stalker/jean claude cry-baby, drama queen, quiz bowl champion, tuba baby eating jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-67266069679419020092010-02-04T17:01:00.009-06:002010-02-05T13:40:39.694-06:00i'll file this under: "and that's ok, too"i admire my girlfriends who are always composed and civil with their husbands. even when these husbands say or do some pretty outrageous things.composed.civil.calm.at all times.that is so not me.i have a threshold that my husband can and has met every now and then, and in those moments i am anything but composed, civil or calm. in those moments i am raw and intense and completely exposed.in thosejenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-41563911495129173122010-01-20T22:26:00.008-06:002010-01-22T16:11:12.587-06:00salvationwhen i said good-bye to my great-grandmother for the final time at clarkson i also asked that she let her daughter-in-law helen know how much i missed knowing her. i didn't say that bit out loud. i thought it really hard and hoped with all my seventh grade might my comatose grandmother could pick it up in the air as she passed through to heaven. like a note you find in your lunchbox at jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-68677970430509538732010-01-19T10:40:00.010-06:002010-01-19T13:54:18.038-06:00sanctuary, a prequil to salvationmy cousin is the sister God gave me, and there are studio portraits of us as babes, toddlers and pre-schoolers our mothers had taken to prove it. He blessed me with more, but she is the one who shares with me that familial heritage and knowing. she knows how our grandpa's neck smelled. she knows how the back of my mother's hand felt. she knows how our family sounded when they laughed in chorus. jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-52383228257319737662010-01-02T11:44:00.000-06:002010-01-04T15:47:15.946-06:00where was i again?i cannot multi-project task.annual green bay vacation photo books. postings of current pictures in on-line albums. finding my desk and the receipt for maddy's duplicate hat and mitten set. Christmas photo books. meal plannng. baby books. blogger. neither can my computer. so as it forbids me from looking through my friend's Christmas album on snapfish as i upload ours to shutterfly, i thought somejenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-30118129725501569802009-12-03T22:54:00.008-06:002009-12-04T07:55:17.366-06:00the shed listthis morning i wrote a list titled "things that are weighing me down: this week's shed list". it was ambitious with unfulfilled tasks having gathered mass for the past year or two. i encouraged myself that in seven days i might feel oh so much lighter.lighter despite the pan majority of m&m peanut butter chip oatmeal bars i've eaten in the past four days.i have perfected the ability to put jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-65652347008080676832009-07-27T21:50:00.000-05:002009-07-27T21:51:16.589-05:00put the lime in the coconutyou know when you start to write down a lyric and suddenly question whether the words you've strung together for years upon decades is how the song really goes? if you're one of those who just realised jeremy spoke in class today when you've been telling everyone he was smoking grass?yeah, well.put dem bot together...den you'll feel better.i do not like coconut. but i was thinking the other day jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-60614182592905096872009-07-16T19:33:00.003-05:002009-07-16T20:51:18.162-05:00life is an adventurei spent six afternoon hours in a resort house twice the size of my own while vern golfed with his peers on dupont's dime. the views were fresh and clean. i was trumped by ornery vertical blinds and a riddle of steps. so, too, was owen. he napped. he batted the coiled door stop. i got a sunkist that now only reminds me of the three-hour gestational glucose test from the cooler. i read 'the glass jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-39269759873091317662009-06-30T21:19:00.007-05:002009-07-13T22:10:04.709-05:00thrilla nitethe former miss mj2 asked what our favorites of michael jackson's were. funny how it's hard to pin songs down when they are so absorbed into a moment. i really just don't know the answer to that.my very first boyfriend was paul w_ts_n. it seems his grandfather had the meat locker in town. our favorite song was "let's get physical". for my birthday he once gave me a three-charmed heart necklace injenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-13258516973954655942009-06-30T11:45:00.009-05:002009-06-30T17:17:20.053-05:00water-proofi read an article in a parenting mag the other night that suggested i ask for a water-proof cast if one of the kids breaks a limb this summer.i about fell off the toilet seat. i wasn't using it. i was pretending to be for some solitude.when my grandmother finally disclosed to grandpa the huge lump she had on her breast, they traveled as far as california in search of doctors' advice and treatmentjenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-4217515424932736242009-06-24T12:22:00.002-05:002009-06-24T12:30:22.655-05:00i don't even know what to sayour ob's nurse was from parkersburg. her husband was a football coach there. her cousin played at the time for the chiefs. we loved our ob appointments. she left just before we were pregnant with maddy to join wartburg. the college i graduated from in '98. it's fun to see her in alum stuff. we thought of her when the tornado whipped through last year. we watched her on tv, and were so jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-53454007354217832722009-06-19T15:46:00.006-05:002009-06-19T16:51:43.249-05:00not so itsy bitsyi thought i would get me a new suit for our numerous waterpark and sprinkler-run adventures this summer. now that summer has indeed arrived with its two bff's: mug and storm.in march, i had high hopes of resurrecting my favorite black number. the last time i wore it vern had to help get it off. by that i mean he had to hold my suit bunched around my waist with both hands while i gripped the bed jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6462057992809728634.post-43015657203006667952009-06-16T14:25:00.006-05:002009-06-16T16:18:46.710-05:00what i thought as i caught up on blogsspecifically my friend's regarding their memorial day:she wrote about how growing up her family attended our hometown's service although they did not have any family buried there.i thought about how we used to visit our family plot with my great-aunts and uncles. it was always fun as they'd share stories about my great-granddad, grandmother, my dad's kid brother. once four- or five-year-old carl jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15777484909197307964noreply@blogger.com1