mystery solved.

many thanks to you who cared to wonder what was in the photos in this post.  i appreciated your comments and guesses, but you were ALL WRONG.  i think.  i can’t exactly remember what you guessed and i’m too lazy to look right now.  xoxoxo anyway.

here are the answers:

1) last week i noticed that the rubber plant on our back porch was COVERED in white caterpillars.  they weren’t doing anything, just hanging on.  harper and i counted 12!  went outside the other day and i guess i was there at just the right time because every single caterpillar was chowing down like it was their job.  i must’ve stayed outside at least 5 full minutes watching them eat.  if you’ve never seen them eat, it’s almost like a human eating an ear of corn really fast…side to side.  i felt like a little kid because i couldn’t stop watching them.  i was really disappointed with the pictures i got…first time i’ve ever really wished i had a micro lens.  [unfortunately, i just looked them up and i think they will be moths when they come out of their cocoons…too bad.  would’ve been cool to see some pretty butterflies out there.]

2) sort-of a long story, but there are two old ladies in our building that the girls and i have become friends with because we see them all the time.  last week each of them came to our door on different days bringing 3 macy’s boxes.  they had bought clothes for all the kids.  the oldest woman, carmen, is adorable.  she’s spanish and unkempt most of the time and has a dog (juliet) that is like 400 years old.  anyway, the boxes that she brought not only had clothes in them, they had little…goodies.  random candies and even that 50 cent piece.  so adorable.

3) lastly, was a picture of ripped shorts.  the kids and i were heading out to run errands…can’t remember where or why, i just remember we had somewhere to go.  anyway, i got all the kids strapped in the car and went to get in my seat and i still have NO idea how, but my shorts got caught on the lever that lowers the seat back.  they got caught and i pulled away, and they RIPPED up to my…um…backside.  i considered posting a picture of me wearing the ripped shorts, but i was too self-conscious…that’s how high the rip went.  haha.  as soon as they ripped, i started laughing really hard and harper asked me why i was laughing.  i said “i’m sorry girls, but we have to go back inside so i can change my shorts.  they just ripped.”  in true kid-selfish fashion, harper kept protesting saying she didn’t want to go upstairs and i didn’t need new shorts.  i just kept laughing and got them out of the car and upstairs (all with one hand because the other one was busy holding the ripped material together).  ryan called me as i was getting them out of the car and i didn’t even say hello, i just said, “i’m SO glad you called me right now because i needed someone to laugh with!”

=

so in yesterday’s post i asked for questions.  i recieved a measley THREE.  better than nothing, i just feel alot of pressure to make the answers really good.

kristen asked: If you could choose any job in the world (and it never interfered with being a mom), what would it be?

i would only want to have a job that i was successful at (meaning i had alot of fun doing it and made enough money to live off of).  hard to pick, but it would be either an artist (painter) or a professional surfer (girl #2 is named after one…layne beachley).

emily asked: How did you meet your husband?

cliche’.  met him my freshman year in college.  he was in my little orientation group, but was hardly ever there because he had soccer practice like 4 times a day.  we also had a class together first semester and i can still remember him borrowing a pencil from me one time.  funny story, though: one of my brother’s childhood friends, matt, went to the same school we did (PBA…go fish!!).  i didn’t hang out with him, but we would speak to each other when we saw each other…usually in the cafeteria.  there were a few times when i said hi to him walking through the cafeteria and he just looked at me weird and didn’t say anything back.  i always thought it was wierd, but i wasn’t good enough friends with him to say anything.  when i finally was introduced to ryan, i realized that he looked alot like matt.  then i realized that it was ryan that i’d said hello to several times.  i mentioned this to him when i got to know him a little better and he said that he remembered and that he’d always thought i was so weird for randomly speaking to him.  we dated from the summer after freshman year (1998) until we got married in august of 2002.  no one else i’d rather spend my life with.  (oh, and it turns out that right around the time i started saying hey to ryan in the caf, matt had been kicked out of school for having a girl in his room or doing drugs or something.)

kati asked: If you could have any ability that you don’t already have, what would it be?  (Be good at a different sport, have super hero powers, anything!)

honestly, i think i would want that snapping thing that mary poppins had.  i would love to be able to get cleaning done literally in a snap so that i could spend more time doing more fun things like crafty stuff with my kids or painting or reading blogs books.

these were added after my original posting:
Amy asked: What’s your favorite physical characteristic about each of your kids so far?

this is a seriously hard question.  for harper (4 yrs), i think it has to be either her eyes or her hair (even though right now i wish it was a little shorter).  layne (2 yrs)’s is probably her little smile or just the way her body moves…i know that sounds wierd, but she just has a very distinctive way of dancing and walking that makes me smile.  maitland (3 mos) has just started really smiling and responding alot lately, so that has to be my favorite thing about him right now.  and also i am crazy about his little hot dog toes.

and: What’s your favorite thing about each of their personalities?

funnily enough, i immediately thought of things i don’t like.  yikes.  anyway, here goes:  i love that harper is creative and dramatic (that one bites me in the butt all the time, though).  layne…super duper sweet and loving.  maitland obviously hasn’t shown us too much as far as personality goes, but he seems to be fairly laid-back which is a good fit for our family.

alyssa says:  How did you meet Ryan and how did you come up with your kids names?

obviously already answered the first one.  as far as the kids go: 

harper ann – we had a list narrowed down to three.  i came up with harper because i love to kill a mockingbird by harper lee and because we had a ben harper song in our wedding.  on the drive to the hospital at 2 in the morning, we both admitted that harper was our favorite.  the “ann” comes from both of my moms’ middle names (one is with an E, one without.  we just liked the way it looked without an E, so we stuck with that).  i still love her name, even though it is becoming more and more common (annoying!).

layne katharine – second on the list that we’d had for harper.  already told you who she’s named after.  katharine is my name and i liked how it sounded next to layne.  she didn’t have a name until her 3rd day of life…it was driving everyone crazy.  we almost named her “july”.  yeah.  i know.  i’m super glad we didn’t.

maitland buerke – his name is the only one that ryan and i had ever mentioned to each other before we got pregnant.  actually, it was mentioned when we first started dating.  ryan told me he was from maitland, fl (in orlando).  i said, “oh that’s cool…i had a summer camper named maitland and i always thought it was such a cool name.”  he said, “wow, i had a fishing guide in the bahamas named maitland and he was a super cool dude and i’ve always thought i’d like to name my son that.”  when we knew we were pregnant with a boy, i still liked maitland, but the novelty of it had worn off quite a bit, so i decided to do the list thing again.  ryan pretty much hated all the boy names that i liked, so i just told him he could pick the name and i’d approve it.  i honestly don’t think he ever considered anything else.  buerke is my maiden name, so that one was easy.  we may have used it for his first name if there was no E in the middle…too many opportunities for mis-pronunciation.

41!!

my first year out of college i taught at a christian school in hollywood (FL, not CA).  i taught a potpourri of classes, a few of them being English.  i have always loved English…used to diagram sentences for fun (NO LIE).  at the beginning of that year i was trying to figure out ways to get the students to be more creative in their writings so i bought this little book called “The Writer’s Block”.  it was full of like a hundred ideas for things one could write about.

wordpress started a new site that is something like this.  it’s called Plinky Prompts.  i am so excited.  there are many days when i’m in the mood to write, but just don’t feel that i have anything worth saying at the time.  anyway this happens now, i’ll be paying Plinky a visit.  this was a prompt from a few days ago: 

“10 Years From Now, What Do You Hope Your Life Will Be Like?”

 i hope that i will be living in the Lord’s will for my life, that my marriage is still solid and happy, and that my kids are still a joy to be around (and that the middle school girls are as drama-free as possible).  i hope that we will be involved in church and that my kids have a hunger for the things of God.  i hope that we are all healthy and that we have a great time playing sports and doing things as a family.  i hope that i am better at alot of things (cooking, photography, discipline, my quiet time, getting up in the morning).  i hope all of our parents are still alive and healthy.  i hope i will have maintained strong friendships.  

i really hope we don’t still live in this condo.