A Pause

Last night, while reading books before bedtime, the little baby book we were reading for Sable asked the question, "What do flowers smell like?" I turned to Capri and asked her, not knowing myself how I would answer this surprisingly deep question. After only a moments thought, and with a big smile on her face she said,

"Flowers smell just like fresh air."

I paused, totally surprised at how perfect her words were. "Yes Capri, you're right. Flowers do smell JUST like fresh air."

I'm 31 and am only now realizing this.

She's 4.

It's good to know that at least one of us in this family seems to be thinking clearly. Sorry Mom and Dad, you're stuck with me to take care of you in your old age (not that you're old now, but ya know. . .) I've got Capri to take care of me, old age here I come!

Tidbits

1. Rome is totally potty-trained! He's been so for several weeks, since about 2 days after our Silver Dollar City trip. He managed to accomplish this awesome feat before he turned 3 and before mother's day. Needless to say it was the best mother's day present I could have gotten. Rome, you the man.

2. Sable's favorite thing to do lately is to pinch me. She loves this and apparently thinks I do too. It's like her lovey, she always does it when she's on my lap snuggling or trying to fall asleep. She starts with my arms and moves to my neck. It would be cute except it REALLY hurts. She has this ability to separate my skin from my muscle - or at least that's how it feels.

3. A while back I asked the question, what does "Start me a second" mean? I neglected to reveal the winning answer, it's. . . Annie again! She guessed that it means send back-up, which is pretty much right on the money. Annie, seeing as I never got your first prize mailed - you'll now be getting two prizes very soon (meaning whenever I actually make it to the post office).

4. Sable loves to eat. She will eat just about anything edible, and a few things that are non-edible. I've actually yet to find food she won't eat. This includes raw tomatoes and grilled zuccini. In fact, the quickest way to make Sable happy is to stick some food in her mouth. She is, as I like to say, "my eatingest baby". It is for this reason, and also because when I look at her she looks back with huge eyes and says "Maaaa-maaaa" that we are seriously considering renaming her, Sable "the goat" Runyan.

5. Capri is also becoming a great eater. This is, to put it mildly, the most fabulous thing to ever happen to our family. On February 20th she decided that she was sick eating literally the same two meals everyday. Out of the blue she asked for some of the pasta Jeff had made for himself. It was so amazing, we took some pictures.



She is now eating all kinds of foods, and we can all eat the same dinner - TOGETHER - at the table. Sometimes Jeff and I will just look over at each other thinking the same thing, this is a dream come true.

Jeff the Chameleon

Over the years, since we've been married, Jeff has been told MANY MANY MANY times that he "looks just like". . . somebody. Apparently Jeff should be the most famous person on the earth with all the famous people he "looks just like". Tell that to Hollywood, we lived there for two years and couldn't convince ANYONE to put Jeff's name in lights.
So here they are, all the people that Jeff has been told he looks like. However, it's not in order of occurance - just in the order we could remember them when we finally got around to making a list.

For reference here's a picture of the stud himself.

Jeff’s look-alikes:

1. Antonio Banderas as Zorro


2. Elvis (This was even his nickname at the Police Academy)


3. Jesus (Jeff's hair was VERY long, and this came from a little kid in church)

4. Little People figurine (This came from a kindergartener)

5. Demon from Charmed (We don't watch Charmed, and have no idea who this person was talking about. But this guy, Julian McMahon is our best guess)


6. David from Roseanne


7. Quentin Tarrantino (This one Jeff takes the MOST offense to)


8. Steve Martin


9. Robin Williams


10. Tom Cruise (This one Jeff takes the LEAST offense to)


11. Roger Federer


12. James Van Der Beek (AKA Dawson)


13. General Hein (Animated character from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within)


14. Bruce Willis (This one I take the least offense to)


15. Young Neil Diamond


16. Morrissey


17. “That guy on the Sopranos” (We have NO idea whatsoever who this would be. But Jeff would often get some high school student looking at him like he was a member of the mafia when he would substitute teach.)

18. Pierce Brosnan as James Bond


19. Bono

The funny thing is that when I met Jeff I never had the thought, "He looks just like. . ." I just thought he was handsome, period. Later as I got to know him I started to call him "my Duncan MacLeod". This is the main character from the series Highlander.

Turns out he looks just like him too!

The Party Continues

Saturday was Rome's big "Superhero Party". We invited friends and fam to come dressed as their favorite superhero to the Kansas City Superhero Academy. Jeff wore his uniform and led the activity for the kids to train and become "true" superheros. The kids were really cute and Jeff was really cute and well the whole darn thing was really cute.
He told the kids that to be a true superhero they needed 3 things:

1. A superhero name. Jeff was "Police Man". Rome was "Spider Man" and Capri was "Capri Marina Runyan".

2. Equipment. They were each given their own flashlight and then he told them to make a "Superhero hand". It was pretty much making their hand look like a gun. I give Jeff major points for this. He knows how I feel about guns and when he used the words Superhero hand instead of gun, he looked right at me with a little glimmer of "that's for you Aby" in his eye.

3. Bravery. Jeff told the kids that being brave didn't mean you never get scared, it means you do something even though you ARE scared.

Jeff showed them how they were going to look for, find, and capture a "bad guy". In this case, the bad guy was Curious George. Perhaps George got a bit TOO curious if you know what I mean.
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They each got to go down into our dark basement with their flashlights and help Jeff find and capture Curious George. They all really loved it (we only had one kid get scared) and were VERY proud of themselves.

Personally, I was proud of Jeff. It's cheesy I know, but I can't help it. No, police work isn't going to be Jeff's lifelong career - hopefully. But for now, I am REALLY proud of him. His job is very hard, very dangerous and pays very little. But still, he is doing something that is very real. And there are so few times in life that you experience something so real. It's kind of hard to explain, and I'm way off the subject of Rome's party, but still. . . It's something that has been on my mind. Maybe I'll get my thoughts together on the subject in another post.

Back to the party, cake was next. Both Rome and Capri absolutely L-O-V-E the cakes at Walmart. This is seriously the part of their birthday they look forward to the most. Capri has had the theme and cake for her 5th birthday picked out since pretty much the day after her 4th birthday. And Rome had decided on Spiderman months and months ago. Pretty much ever since he discovered Spiderman. EVERY time we go to Walmart I get asked a dozen times, "Can we go see the cakes??!!" When I say yes, they literally dance like little sprites in front of the bakery department and sing praises to the cakes. So needless to say, when I finally brought out Rome's Spiderman cake it was the culmination of months of waiting. Of course he promptly put his hand in the red frosting and got it on the carpet.
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Rome scored some great gifts, including an awesome Pirate Ship from his Grandpa Greg and Grandma Lori. Thanks so much - he plays with it every day! He also got a cartload of clothes from Mar-mar and Larry. Perfecto! (PS - Cathy, they all fit!)

When everybody had gone home we looked at Sable and this is what we saw. We have no idea how she ended up like this, other than we know that frosting was involved. Poor ignored baby!


So another birthday bites the dust. Next up, "Strawberry Shortcake". Oh and Mom, NOW Strawberry Shortcake wears pink brimmed hats. Got any ideas on how to make that??? Seeing as it was YOU that put the idea of hats for everybody into Capri's head and she has mentioned it to me approximately 1.8 million times since, I think it's only fair that you figure it out.

Happy Birthday Rome!

May 10th was Rome's third birthday! We all had a great day long celebration and felt very lucky to be able to do so since Jeff was off duty.
Rome's day included:

A Haircut
Jeff is already saying, "It'll grow back!". He's handsome as ever of course, but we loved his "long locks"!

Chuck-E-Cheese


Cake and Ice Cream

Presents
Notice how we didn't quite get all the cake off his face.

Some facts about our handsome boy:

1) His full name is Rome Valentino Runyan. He was named for the city of Rome. Even though Jeff served his mission in the Rome, Italy mission it actually never occured to us to use that name. It wasn't until Jeff spotted it on a box of tissues in our kitchen at the time that we thought about it. We had NO other geographical boy names on our list that we liked.
His middle name comes from a tv show we were watching. There was a Ferrari test car driver named Valentino. We both loved the name, and in fact until we found the name Rome we had nearly decided to just go ahead and name him Valentino.

2) He was born in Palm Springs, CA and weighed in at 9 lbs. 9 oz. My body KICKED him out - he was actually born 10 days early.

3) Rome LOVES to lounge. He can find a comfy place to lounge ANYWHERE. He has even been seen relaxing on our hard, scratchy, brick fireplace hearth.

4) Rome is a very, very nice boy. Some have even gone so far as to call him "the nicest kid ever". He has his moments of course, but on the whole we'd tend to agree.

Happy Birthday Rome! We love you so much buddy!!


Mother's Day

I didn't get anything posted for Mother's Day but I had a really swell one. I got some really cute cards, chocolate, and Jeff signed me up for the June Crop at Archivers (exactly what I wanted, in fact I put the ad for it on the fridge and said to him, "This is what I want for Mother's Day.") Jeff also made a really delicious pasta with meat sauce, it was so good we ate it for lunch AND dinner.


To all those "Mother's" out there, I love ya!! We've got a tough job, but it really is the best job. I feel so fortunate to have so many awesome motherly examples around me in my friends and family.
The following is a from a short talk President Hinckley gave at General Conference in November of 2001. Most of the address has been taped to our refrigerator since nearly the beginning of Jeff and my marriage (we were married in September 2001). I have read this part more times than I can count.

"I hope that every wife will look to her husband as her dear companion, the star of her life, her supporter, her protector, her companion with whom she walks hand in hand “equally yoked.” I hope that she will look to her children as sons and daughters of God, the most significant contribution she has made to the world, her greatest concern with regard to their achievements, and more precious than any other thing she has or could hope for."

Silver Dollar City, Ye Ha!!

So like I said in the previous post, last week we took a quick trip to Silver Dollar City (SDC). This is, to put it lightly, one of our most favorite places to go. It is an amusement park in Branson, MO - right there in the middle of the Ozarks which couldn't make us happier.

Jeff and I are serious lovers of roller-coasters, blue grass, and old-timeyness. SDC is the only place we know that satisfies all those loves in one compact area. It also has "big cookies", funnel cakes, and lemon ice, which satisfies our shared love to eat.
Through gentle prodding, loving whispers ("SDC is the BEST"), and most importantly, genetics, our children also share these loves. They both LOVE Silver Dollar City, albeit in different ways.

Take Capri:
Capri is the genetic product of two people who both, as previously stated, LOVE rides and roller-coasters. This has produced a girl that will ride anything. Seriously, ANYTHING. On this trip she was finally tall enough to ride Powder Keg.




Capri rode Powder Keg three times in one day, and once the next day. She would have ridden it ALL day long if we had been willing. But even Jeff and I have our limits.

Now Rome:
Rome is the genetic product of two people who like rides but also don't mind spending a whole day just poking around and looking at stuff.

This has produced a boy that is happy to wander around, wander off, and take interest in the little things off to the side that nobody else might notice or care about. Like a full sized dog lawn ornament. I didn't take a picture of this but I seriously wish I had. Rome called it "his dog" and would have been perfectly content to hang out with "his dog" all day long. He likes rides, but not on quite the same scale as Capri. The "Happy Frogs" were his favorite. Again, I didn't get a picture but I found this one online. Notice the little girl in the background. I think she may be a superhero of some sort.


Finally, Sable:
Sable is the product of two people who REALLY like to eat. This has produced a girl who, well, REALLY likes to eat. She is, as I call her, "my most eatingest baby".

Sable was, I feel certain, the best behaved baby in all of Silver Dollar City. She never cried, she never fussed, she was just content to eat yummy blackberry funnel cakes and lemon ice and whatever else we shoved in her mouth.


So that's pretty much it.
The weather was gorgeous, the first day in the park there were NO lines, and we got to ride everything we wanted to ride.
Oh yeah, I didn't mention how Rome was fighting a serious potty war the second day of the trip that landed us in the SDC bathrooms for about 2 1/2 hours total. But that's probably something you don't want too many details about. Or pictures.

The House Began to Twitch. . .

For all those who read/saw the news and are wondering if we survived the recent bout of Tornados here in the Kansas City area I'm here to tell you, we didn't even know about it till this afternoon.
Seriously.
Apparently something like 200 homes and businesses were destroyed and we were none the wiser. We were driving home from a couple days jaunt to Silver Dollar City last night when it all happened. The sky kept lighting up really bright from lightning way off in the distance, and we got a little rain while driving, but that was our entire experience of the storms. Our house? Totally untouched.
So mom, relax, we are not currently circling up, up, up, on our way to Oz.