Satus

I thought Satus should get his own intro, too. Here he is, our gorgeous 8 month old mutt. We adopted him right before Thanksgiving last year at the tender age of 8 weeks. He was found somewhere near Yakima, WA, so as his name he got a placename from around there. We found him at a special adoption event in Seattle. The Tacoma Humane society never seemed to have puppies, and we couldn't get an older dog because of the age of our boys, it just wouldn't be safe. I wanted a girl to at least have some balance in the house, but I knew Satus was the one when I saw him in Kevin's hands, all cuddly and soft, so we took him home. He just slept on my lap politely the whole ride home. It was like having a baby again, but much much much muuuuuch easier! He is a perfect match for our family and I just know he was meant to be with us. You haven't met a gentler, milder doggie. His hobbies include chasing Micetro, barking at the doorbell, going to the dog park, madly licking people, visiting his girlfriend boxer Minnie, stealing food from the kitchen when we leave, ruling the back yard and catching frisbees. He dislikes baths, yelling, being bodyslammed and squished by Neal and being left alone. Mostly, though, he lounges around the house in close proximity of his people. He is the guardian of the house and of my sanity. I like him a lot, if you haven't noticed. :)

The cool weekend and other things

We had a great weekend that has unfortunately ended now. Somehow, I wasn't uptight and hardly got upset at my 4 boys. You know, hanging out with Kevin only on weekends is weird sometimes. I'm used to doing or not doing things in my own time and my own way all week long, so on weekends I have to readjust to two people being in charge! But we had a good time, and we painted some stuff. We bought two cans of spray paint and I painted two chairs and Kevin painted a power wheels car. I have to say, if you haven't spray painted anything lately, try it, it's lots of fun! Why two chairs, you ask? The plan was to paint 4 but I ran out of paint. And now I am not even sure I like the new color...

Here is the story behind the chairs. These are dining room chairs, and I got them second hand. We have a cool set that we got for free, the table is cool and round, and the chairs are nice, but very heavy and hard, so the kids never sit on them, because they can't move the stupid things and hurt their legs trying to climb on them. Instead they resort to wandering around the house with food in hand or not eating at all, resulting in damage to the carpeting and my nerves. Anyway, I found these other chairs at this place down the street called St. Vincent DePaul ( I frequent te place) for $3 apiece, and only one of them is slightly broken (I fixed that with a hot glue gun, he he he, I only do useful crafts, you see). They are much lighter and have padded seats, and the kids have been very willing to use them. I am very thrilled. But they are black metal and even I can tell they don't match the light wood color table, so I had to paint them. Weirdly they don't sell "light natural wood color" spray paint at Lowes. The one I got is close but I am not sure it will work. I'll ask Anne Marie in the morning if I catch her before work what she thinks of it. And I am planning on carpet cleaners to come and save the carpet, so all should be well now.

Also, I am posting a picture where you can actually see Kevin.

Neal

Neal, born January 3, 2005, is very different from his older brother. Neal is very stubborn. Ben doesn't eat much, claiming that he doesn't like the food, but Neal will eat a ton as long as it was his idea. If you try to talk him into it, he won't eat a thing. Same thing with talking -- Neal can say quite a lot if he wants to, but if you ask him to talk, he's silent. The other day he wanted to play with cars, and so he pointed at the car bag. I asked him to say "open, please," but rather than comply with the request, he changed his mind about the cars and pointed at the books. I asked him to say "book, please," and he just got mad.

Neal loves animals. He enjoys giving hugs to the dog. Of course, he also likes wrestling the dog and head-butting it, but I think he's just playing. Neal wasn't much of a TV watcher until recently. He saw the Teletubbies for the first time and really liked them. Then he saw a Piglet movie, and now when Ben's watching something he likes, Neal will point at the TV and say, "Pooh" in a very plaintive voice.

Neal does great in Nursery now. He just needs a few minutes to acclimatize, and then he'll point at the door and tell me to go. He has been saying prayers, too, which he enjoys. I'm not sure he likes Sacrament Meeting, though. He has figured out that if he says he has to go to the bathroom, we'll take him on a walk in the hallway. This Sunday he left three times.

Vacuuming ("gauk," as he says) is Neal's favorite activity, but he'll do any kind of cleaning. He'd also drop anything for a chance to go outside. What he enjoys most, though, is copying whatever Ben is doing. Last night at dinner he carefully watched every bite Ben took and made sure he ate exactly the same thing and took drinks at the same time.

Benjamin

Ben was born April Fools' Day, 2003. He is a very imaginative boy, which makes life a lot of fun. (Today, for example, we were superheroes who had to save the town from a bunch of tornadoes on the horizon. He constructed a tornado-catching device, called a "sucklepets", that would suck up tornadoes when properly calibrated.) Ben is often scared to be by himself, probably because he can't turn his imagination off.

He loves TV, especially Spongebob Squarepants, and hates going to bed. Ben also likes to play computer games and "TV games" (x-box -- he likes "the robot game" best). Ben is learning his letters and can't wait to go to school. He's very protective of his younger brother and is careful to make sure that Neal is not left out of anything.

Ben currently wants to grow up to be a doctor so he can find out what is wrong with people like Dr. House. (Sometimes he wants to work at a bank, though.) Yesterday Ben was jumping on the trampoline and landed a little funny. He claimed his leg was broken, and said he would need to walk with a stick like Dr. House.

Today we were driving back from a garage sale (the craigslist posting looked promising, but the actual selection was dissapointing) and Ben said, "Hey, that looks like Daniel's Z-Y-O-S!" Anda and I looked at each other, neither having understood. But he repeated himself, and Anda noticed that the car in front was similar to Daniel's, and she made the connection: "Oh, you mean SUV!"

Anda

Howdy!

I am a mom to two boys I gave birth to (Ben and Neal) and two other boys I just choose to live with (Kevin and Satus). I am so glad that you can see the dog's name written down, because now I don't have to explain - no, it's not Sadist, it's SATUS. Weird name, I know. Well, he's a DOG. He'll be fine.

I am 26, Kevin and I have been married for almost seven years and I am from Latvia. I stay at home, you could say, but really I try to get OUT of home a lot. I have no friends nearby and it seems I'm not good at making new ones. Any helpful tips will be appreciated.

Also, I don't know what language I should use on this blog. I guess I'll use whatever I feel like. Enjoy!

Kevin

Yes, this is a picture of me. I'm underneath all the blankets. This blog is my idea, prompted by various stimuli: Andrea's suggestion that we should have one, Megan's many requests that her friends start blogs, and my desire to record some of the events in our life in a way that is more fun than keeping a journal. Maybe if I let my friends know that we're keeping a blog, it will ameliorate some of my guilt at not keeping in better touch with them.


So, a little about me. I am a very simple person, in a complicated sort of way. All I want from life is to spend time with my family and have a never-ending supply of freshly-baked cookies. I don't have many hobbies, but I'm going to start a new one: camping. I took the boys to the stake father-son campout a couple weekends ago, and we had a lot of fun. I didn't sleep too well, because Neal kept pushing me off the foam pad onto the cold, hard ground. But in the morning we had a great breakfast, played soccer, chased monsters, and went out in a rowboat. I thought it was a much better way to spend the weekend than watching TV and going shopping. Yesterday I bought a tent that is big enough for all of us so we can try it again. I'm looking forward to it.

Hello, World!

This is our very first post on our very first blog. I'm going to post a short description of each of us--Kevin, Anda, Ben, Neal, and Satus. Hope you like us!

Oh, BTW, all text and images posted on this blog are copyrighted, all rights reserved. I know a good copyright attorney, so think twice before stealing!