We were very fortunate this year to have run into the makers of some very special customized pianos. They are called Piano Pals, and this is the first of their line.
These “collectable” kid pianos are really cool…and the kids love it. They want to be on it all day long! Time to arrange for lessons!
It’s been a tough few weeks, with all the news of a little girl named Destiny that popped up in the news so suddenly. I didn’t know the little lady, though she lived less than 20 miles away. But her name is what first caught my eye.
Destiny.
You see, Destiny is also the name of a special little girl in my life. And so to read the tragedy of this innocent little girl that died less than a short car ride away, and to know she shares the name of another girl that I hold in my heart of hearts so dear.
She’s been around for quite some time, helping in small, unseen ways. I love her dearly, and I fear for her in this, all too often, terrible world we live in.
dear sweet child
i saw the news today and there was your name
only it belonged to another sweet child, now of tragic fame.
she vanished one night from her own backyard
friends and strangers searched near and far
but no one could find her for more than a week
hope was waning and the future looked bleak
where was the girl to be found?
two doors down?
that poor 5 year old girl was dead and abused
at the mercy of the pervert now accused.
what kind of world do we live in, my sweet?
it makes me want to make a retreat
and take you away to somewhere secure
some place safer than her’s for sure
i will protect you
Two of the kids ran into my office today, a little concerned about what they had found, and Mikki said, “We saw a live spider outside!”
I told them that spiders lived outside, so that was okay for it to be out there.
Davon then said, “Yeah, and it had looooong legs!”
Mikki added, “That’s because it was a Daddy!”
Another one of those funny things Mikki says is when she is describing something that is completely black…She says it’s PINCH BLACK…
Around the dinner table the other night the little ones were getting a bit rowdy. So we talked about how they needed to BEHAVE at the table.
Cute little 3 year old Mikki piped up, “Mom, I AM haved!”
So last night we were driving home, and cute little Mikki is pointing out Christmas lights and decorations as we go. On some of the rooftops are inflated snowmen, santas, etc., which we have helped her understand are just “pretend” and not real. She was initially concened about their safety it seems, so that settled it for her. She just thought they were cool, now.
But then as we rounded a corner to turn up State Street, another commercial building had more inflatables on it. And she cheerfully announces:
“If I were on the rooftop, I would be pretend, too!”
OK, so cute little Mikki has done it again!
I was waiting to be picked up by Tam, who had all 3 little kids in the car with her on her way to get me. I was talking to them on the cell phone, and when Mikki got on the line, I asked her if she could see the big beautiful moon out. It was HUGE! She looked for it, but told me over the phone that she could not see it in the sky.
I knew it was in the southern part of the sky, and they were travelling north to come to me, so I said, “Look out the back window, Mikki.”
She gasped as she caught sight of it, and exclaimed into the phone to me:
“There it is! It’s behind us! We passed it already!”
My little 3 year old sweetie is the darndest, cutest thing there ever was. She says the funniest smartest things, and I want to start keeping track of them here.
Today we pulled into a parking space, but instead of going in nose-first like normal, I instead backed into the space. Mikki, from the back seat, exclaimed, “The Car is On Backwards!”
ROFLMAO!!!
I am looking forward to life settling down a little and all of us settling in. I don’t have especially high hopes of that happening, but it’s nice to think about. I think it will happen, though.
I came home from work yesterday and found that Tam had unpacked and arranged everything in the “Wood Room” so that it looked wonderful! I call it the wood room because I am not sure what else to call it. It is the only room in the house that has all hardwood floors. It’s not really a living room, and it’s not just a dining room, though this is its primary function. This room is the first room you enter when you come in the front door. We have a couch along the left wall (because it’s too big to take downstairs into the living room, and there’s already a couch down there that’s too big to get out of the place, so the owner left it for us instead of chopping it up and removing it in pieces–it’s a nice couch downstairs so we are glad to have it there!) and a couple of bookshelves. The stairs down are across the room to the right, and the kitchen is further to the right (a right u-turn from the front door will land you at the kitchen counter). Between the stairs and the kitchen we have our fridge (a second fridge since the place comes with its own), and the stand-up freezer. In the move, we acquired a second clothes dryer, so it’s currently next to the freezer until we decide we want it downstairs in place of the other dryer or not. I joked during dinner last night that it looked like I was eating in the appliance department showroom floor…LOL!
For a housewarming gift, since this will be our home for the longest period so far in our marriage, I bought a nice little wall clock that does Westminster (and one other kind of) chimes every quarter-hour and it’s now on the wall in the Wood Room. Hearing that clock reminds me of home as a child when an old German Grandfather clock in our living room would sound of like it. It’s fun, and the kids love it when it gongs the number of hours.
This place is really shaping up to be a place that feels like home. I just wish it felt like that outside the door. There is no place for the kids to play unsupervised. With the population being what it is in the condo complex, it’s hard to feel safe letting the kids just run around and play at will. We have good reason to fear child molestors or other dangers. To remind us how legitimate our concerns are, there’s this website (http://utah-sex-offenders.com/) that keeps us grounded. It ties into Google Maps and the Utah Sex Offenders List to show us how many offenders are within a mile of our home. SCARY!
Here’s a view of our last place we lived, and who was nearby as a threat to our kids!
This guy lived just around the corner!
I am not going to post the address to our new place here publicly. If you know us, you have our address through other means. But know that there are actually EIGHT offenders living within a mile of our place now. The last place (and there is no way you could have guessed it by driving the cozy little neighborhood) had SEVEN. Unbelievable. At least in the last place, the kids could ride their bikes across the street to play with their friends and we weren’t too concerned. There were fewer people to get to know, and people who didn’t belong there stood out. In the new place, we live in condos, and there are just too many people to get to know them all, too many coming and going, too many visitors, too many ways for someone who doesn’t belong to go unnoticed. And that offender list is only of people who got caught…there are more of them…
Our goal is to be ready to move in a year into a much safer place where kids can play freely, and we can really settle in for a while. Here’s hoping!
