Molly Piper

So I’ve been using a new computer lately that my son Orison designed and made himself. Impressive, right?

Flip it open…

He’s even concerned for my safety while using this largely untested prototype:

I’ve been doing all my blogging on it lately…

So someone Tweeted me that my child-naming techniques are famous. I clicked on the link and there it was…

Look at the paragraph that starts with Whitsun. Then they wrote about ME and how we name our children!!! Whoever, you are, Jodi, thanks for submitting us!

I’m always honored to be mentioned in the same blog posts as Beyonce! Makes me want to dig out some gold glitter stilettos and (attempt) to shake my jelly!

(by the way…I do not think you’re ready.)

In case any of you are late to the baby-naming party, Beyonce & her man Jay-Z had a baby and named her Blue Ivy. Kinda cute, I think! She didn’t consult me on it, but that was probably because she didn’t know I was available.

Here are my posts about baby-naming, for any of you curious out there!

• Our Child-Naming Philosophy

• Why Morrow John?

• About Our Twins’ Names

And, Beyonce, whenever Baby #2 is on the way, get in touch and I’ll consult (if I’m still available).

Orison led the charge in writing these letters to Santa on Christmas Eve. He even served as scribe for Morrow for his letter!

Thankfully we already had a remote control car for Orison and a clipboard lying around the house to give him. A friend of ours ran an 11th-hour errand to pick up the construction paper. Orison was thrilled!

Morrow didn’t seem to notice or care that he didn’t get anything on his list. I think probably the power of suggestion (read: Orison) was responsible for most of the things on there anyway.

And bonus points for anyone who can tell me the source for the question to Santa, “Did you have a good summer?”

I apologize for the poor quality of this video (taken with my phone), but I just had to show you why I don’t blog anymore.

I had walked out of the room for a minute and then found all three of them up on the bed when I came back. I have no idea how they did that! And then they were all rockin’ out and dancing together. It was awesome.

This is why I rarely have bloggable thoughts. Imagine this kind of energy, all day, every day–awesome and exhausting.

My husband Abraham started a new blog. You might know that he’s run 22 Words for a long time, but just recently he started a more personal blog where he can be more of a…well…person.

Anyway, he wrote a really funny post about how he’s been trying to manage the incessant potty humor going on between our two oldest boys.

BONUS: There’s a short video, too!

Happy Friday, everyone. Next week I’ll have a fun giveaway, so be sure to check back!

from left: Superman, Mario, Princess Peach, Luigi, Spiderman, Batman

I can’t stop laughing at how portly Morrow/Batman looks in this picture! He’s actually pretty small for his age, so it’s just killin’ me!

As you can see, Orison was ready for action and couldn’t wait to get started conquering trick-or-treating, but Morrow obviously didn’t remember the experience from last year and took a few houses to “get” what was going on.

For instance, after he went to the first house, I said, “Okay! Go get some candy!” to entice him to chase after all those big kids. He holds up his haul (one piece) and says triumphantly, “I already got candy!”

He would’ve been thrilled with one house. But his candy-craving-kid gene was activated very shortly and today as I was putting him down for nap he looked at me all sad and serious-like–”I want to go trick-or-treating again.”

Here’s another pic of our superheroes (and Morrow looking more excited):

The babies spent the evening being fawned over and photographed by Grandmama and Aunt Talitha. Don’t they look so cozy?

I found this on the table this morning.

This past weekend we took the family to central Wisconsin for a few days away. Now that we have a school-aged kiddo, our time away has to coincide with fall breaks and such–still getting used to that.

We left Wednesday night and I drove while everybody slept. I typically do the lion’s share of driving on road trips. I don’t mind it, I can stay awake pretty well, and then I don’t have to be the one turning around every 10 seconds to hand something to a kid in the seat behind me.

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful, which was just what we needed. No internet connection, friends. NO INTERNET CONNECTION! (Which I believe is directly responsible for us getting 9+ hours of sleep every night. Glorious!!!)

I found out that Orison’s a kid after my own heart, a true lover of Little House on the Prairie DVDs (which Morrow calls “House on the Fairy”). We watched a good bit of Season 1 together.

Funny about my love for Little House… I thought it was horribly boring as a kid and never watched it. But then after I was married and had Orison, Abraham went back to school full-time (and was working full-time). Needless to say, I had a lot of alone time that year and a half.

Since it was in the days of yore (pre-Netflix and streaming video, dontcha know), I had to busy myself at night with these things called DVDs. A friend of mine owned all the seasons of Little House and convinced me to take the first set.

I had no intention of liking it, but then how can you not shed a tear when the man who can’t speak makes a bell for the church with the help of all the children of Walnut Grove? Or when Pa makes a prosthesis for the girl with the limp? How does that not get you right.there????

Anyway, just thought I’d confess publicly that I’m a Little House junkie. And I’ve turned one of my sons into one, too.

(He’s kind of a sensitive kid, but I have to say both Abraham and I were a little shocked when he started openly weeping and lamenting during Stuart Little when Stuart decided to leave. He also laughed the hardest I’ve ever heard him laugh during the final wrestling scene of Nacho Libre.)

In other news…

-The twins went on their first hayride at the local pumpkin fest thingy.

-We played a lot in the yard because the weather was sublime.

-The kids went crazy in the open cinder block basement at night.

-And did I mention that I slept 9 hours each night?!?!

It was a super good weekend. Hope you all had a good one, too!

A friend tweeted about this SNL skit and so I watched it. It has Melissa McCarthy in it. ‘Nuf said.

Recently  I had the distinct pleasure of meeting my online friend Marla Taviano!

Marla was in town for a speaking engagement and found a few minutes to stop over at my house and chat! It was a blast. I’m sooo glad it worked out for her to come!

We sat in the gorgeous fall afternoon and talked blogging, speaking, life, schooling… like old/new friends.

Then all too soon, it was time to go. Which of course means “Get a picture! We have to take a picture!”

Then we started talking about how funny it is to meet people in real life from the internet and how they always surprise you in some way or another–height, voice, accent, hair (aHEM… Shaun Groves). It was at this exact moment that I turned to her and said,

“Yeah, I knew you’d be tall. How big are you?”

Then *SNAP!* goes the camera.

Thankfully we had a good laugh about it. Marla has a sense of humor (thank GOD!) and didn’t get offended by my blunder. I guess I’m so used to talking to toddlers that I forgot I was talking to an adult!

The internet has made the world so small in some ways. Personally, I’ve had good experiences meeting people from the internet, which was such a scary no-no thing 10 years ago.

I’ll never forget hearing about what BooMama said right before the Compassion Bloggers reunion last December.

(And you have to conjure up your best deep-South accent)

Well, y’all…time to go meet up with a bunch of people we met on the internet…”

Have you met up with online friends in real life (IRL, if you will)? Does it still weird you out?