Interview with Elijah

 This is a cute idea. Copy this note, ask your child the questions and write them down exactly how they respond.

Interview with Elijah --- age 5

1. What is something mom always says to you? I love you

2. What makes mom happy? cleaning my room

3. What makes mom sad? hating her

4. How does your mom make you laugh? tickling me

5. What was your mom like as a child? she was like me

6. How old is your mom? 24

7. How tall is your mom? very

8.What is her favorite thing to do? kiss me

9. What does your mom do when you're not around? work

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? for throwing parties

11. What is your mom really good at? working

12. What is your mom not very good at? she's a little good at baking

13. What does your mom do for her job? work

14. What's your mom's favorite food? carrot

15. What makes you proud of your mom? working and getting more money

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Hannah Montana

17. What do you and your mom do together? go to the park

18. How are you and your mom the same? because I love you

19. How are you and your mom different? she works and I play

20. How do you know your mom loves you? because I was in her tummy

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? McDonalds

Interview with Noah

 This is a cute idea. Copy this note, ask your child the questions and write them down exactly how they respond.

Interview with Noah - age 9

1. What is something mom always says to you? Clean your room

2. What makes mom happy? obedient children

3. What makes mom sad? disobedient children

4. How does your mom make you laugh? tickling me

5. What was your mom like as a child? i don't know.... ummm smart and likes to read books

6. How old is your mom? 39 almost 40

7. How tall is your mom? I don't know

8.What is her favorite thing to do? read books

9. What does your mom do when you're not around? goes on the computer and works

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? I don't know

11. What is your mom really good at? ignoring us

12. What is your mom not very good at? fixing stuff

13. What does your mom do for her job? work from home

14. What's your mom's favorite food? chicken kiev

15. What makes you proud of your mom? protecting us

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Vicky from Fairly Odd Parents

17. What do you and your mom do together? laundry

18. How are you and your mom the same? we can whistle

19. How are you and your mom different? I don't like school

20. How do you know your mom loves you? because she buys me clothes and stuff

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? she'd love it if she got tickets to American Idol

but he's just a sweet little boy...

Interview with Jeremiah

 This is a cute idea. Copy this note, ask your child the questions and write them down exactly how they respond.

Interview with Jeremiah - age 7

1. What is something mom always says to you? Clean your room

2. What makes mom happy? when we obey

3. What makes mom sad? when we don't obey

4. How does your mom make you laugh? tickles me

5. What was your mom like as a child? not fat

6. How old is your mom? 32

7. How tall is your mom? 69 inches

8.What is her favorite thing to do? watch American Idol

9. What does your mom do when you're not around? work

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? singing

11. What is your mom really good at? teaching

12. What is your mom not very good at? nothing

13. What does your mom do for her job? be on the computer

14. What's your mom's favorite food? her homemade pizza

15. What makes you proud of your mom? when she makes her homemade pizza

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Demi Lovato

17. What do you and your mom do together? work on AWANA

18. How are you and your mom the same? we don't have birthmarks

19. How are you and your mom different? she's a girl

20. How do you know your mom loves you? because she kisses me

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? the grocery store

Flowers for Mrs. Weinstein

an ode to capless markers....

Have any of you seen this commercial? It is for throw away Glad storage containers. The mom is a nazi requiring stiff collateral before ever giving out a storage container of leftovers. Until VOILA Glad (or whatever brand it was) saves the day with their disposable storage containers?

I feel like that mom....why is it that my children seem to take markers as a challenge to lose the caps? And why is it that it seems to only take 1.3 seconds before a market without a cap dries up? And why is it that when the caps are left off of all these markers and one starts to clean up looking for the matches, one can find MANY caps and MANY markers but none of them match?!?!? Should I start requiring them to leave collateral or super glue the things to their tiny little hands? What? What? What? can I do to save my markers AND their caps?

Yesterday was drive-in movie night at AWANA. As part of this special night, the children were supposed to bring a box or basket to be their "car." They were supposed to decorate said box or basket to look like a car. Now in spite of my conviction that all crafts and crafting supplies come straight from Satan, I decided to cave and get on the bandwagon for this project. I (in an uncharacteristically prepared fashion) remembered that boxes were needed, and thought this was a great time to finally purchase grocery boxes. (I had been wanting to use them to sort hand-me-downs that don't yet fit and toys and such because they are uniformly shaped and UBBER cheap....as Kastner children destroy EVERYTHING they touch I figured I wouldn't cry too many tears when they destroyed my $0.99 organizers). Soooooo on Saturday when I was at the grocery store, I REMEMBERED to ask the cashier for boxes. This item had been on my grocery list for at least 3 weeks and I just never remembered to ask by the time I got to the register. I was SO proud of myself as I watched Ally pick up the phone and call back to request my boxes. (No I don't know ALL of the cashier's by name....this one is one of my babysitters.) Soooo she gets off the phone and informs me... "we don't have any boxes." Typical, I finally remember to ask. I act in a prepared way, requesting the boxes a full five days before they are required and.... they are out! Whatever.

So yesterday [because my momma didn't raise no dummy], I called up to Pick N Save and asked them to please check if they had boxes. After being put on hold, being transferred to the grocery department, being put on hold again, I was finally told "YES we have boxes." Later in the afternoon I went to Pick N Save, proceeded immediately to the Service Counter and asked for 4 boxes please. The poor little high school guy manning the counter had just finished dealing with an older lady who was IRATE that her $1 off Advil coupon had not been figured into her total. Now he had to deal with me. He hung up the phone from calling back to request my boxes and said, "We don't have any boxes." I promise I counted to 10 first (ok maybe only 3), and I said, "I called up here this morning because I did not want to make a trip up here with four kids in tow for nothing. I was told you had boxes. Please ask again." Well.....somehow this time when he called, they had boxes but they were on the truck and it would be a 10 minute wait. FINE. I headed towards the bakery to get the kids their free cookie. As we returned to the Service Counter, Jeremiah said, "Mom, that wasn't 10 minutes." I know Miah now we get to wait....and wait...and wait.

My children actually waited in a manner that I was JUST fine with. They were pulling each other's hair. At least two of them screamed at the TOP of their lungs. Three tried to activate the nearby fire extinguisher. It was true Kastner Chaos. And guess what? For once, I really didn't care. Let the other patrons and the staff put up with us....they TOLD me they had boxes. I dragged my four children out of their shut-in, homeschooled life and into the grocery store and now they were making me wait (waaaaaaay longer than 10 minutes). They could put up with the Kastner's in their glory. Finally the "manager" who couldn't have been much more than 16 (I would have said 12 but I don't think they give work permits to 12 year olds) came up apologetically with my boxes. I don't think he was really sorry, but I think he realized at the last moment that I was Tracey's cheer coach... so he treated me nicely.

Anywhoo.... VERY long rabbit trail off track there... back to my ode to lost markers. So we return home FINALLY with our boxes and I pull out the coveted art supplies, knowing full well that I am going to regret this. I started with, "Absolutely, positively, no paint."

"But mom-"
"No paint."
"Mom-"
"Nope."
"Plea-"
"NADA! Not gonna happen ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

Well that was the beginning of the end for every single marker in the Kastner household. All day long I have been finding caps and markers [but none together]. You know if you step on a marker cap barefoot and it hits you smack in the middle of that soft arch of your foot... it's almost enough to make a Christian cuss. I actually have one green dry erase marker and one yellow dry erase marker with caps(which actually brings up another rabbit trail....what in the WORLD is the purpose of a yellow dry erase marker? it doesn't show up very well and so if the purpose of dry erase markers is to write say on a white board so others can see it from far away how in the WORLD could anyone find any use for a YELLOW one?!?!?!) . I have (I am pretty sure) lost all of my washable markers (and probably all of my sanity too). I currently have four caps and three markers on my desk but NOT ONE OF THEM MATCH!

So this is an ode to capless markers....I can blame no one but my own self. I knew that crafts and art projects were from the devil yet still I let my children decorate their fake car boxes. Whatever, I need to just get over it and go put markers on my Wal-Mart list I guess.

An ode to my amazing husband....

 First a tiny little marriage moment for everyone: In the Love Dare, it talks about how your heart has two rooms for your spouse

1. the appreciation room: the place where you store all the great, loving, romantic things your spouse has done... such as remembering your birthday, bringing you flowers just because, taking care of you when you were sick

2. the depreciation room: the place where you store the memories of the icky things they have done... forgeting a special anniversary, hateful words said in the heat of an argument, etc...

The book encourages spouses to flee the depreciation room whenever they find themselves in there rehashing all the horrible things ever done and to spend as much time in the appreciation room as possible.

So this morning I found myself standing in the appreciation room admiring many things about my husband, and I thought.... "hmmm...I should proclaim some of these things from the mountain top... what an awesome way to let my husband know all the great things I'm thinking about him then to post them for all of creation to read." So here goes.....

This morning my husband arose at 6:15 a.m. He is a bit under the weather and is fighting off some sort of bug, but still he dragged himself into his work clothes and departed the house only a few minutes late to head off to job number one. He will work his full shift there and then draf himself off to job number two to work another eight hour shift. During the weeks that he feels healthy, he usually makes it until about Wednesday before feeling as if he can't wait until the weekend, but this week he is already there. But still on he goes trudging off to work to provide for his family in spite of how grueling it is.

I have a hard time explaining how incredibly loved this makes me feel. He is exhausted. He misses us. He gets absolutely NO down time during the week and only 5 hours of sleep each weeknight, and he willingly does all of this because he loves us. It is a rare thing to be loved so extravagantly. I am so proud of him and so grateful that my children have a father who is modeling for them responsibility and a strong work ethic.

Sooooo I just came up with an idea.... it is a challenge to everyone on my facebook list who has a spouse.... you know those 25 things lists circulating.... I challenge you to do this: make a list of 25 things about your spouse that you appreciate.... post it here on facebook for all to read... tag your spouse and a bunch of your friends who have spouses.... if you get tagged DO IT! I bet it will make your spouses day!


25 things I appreciate about John J. Kastner
1. he is the hardest working man I have ever in my life known
2. no matter how destitute we are, he will still give the shirt off his back to help someone else out
3. he loves Jesus with all of his heart, soul, mind and body
4. he loves me so extravagantly....if he has only $10 left for 2 weeks and I want chips & salsa, he will go and spend that last $10 on me without even batting an eye
5. he is fiercely loyal
6. he loves his children and will do anything for them
7. he is very straightforward...you ALWAYS know exactly where you stand with him
8. inspite of the crusty exterior shell, he is nothing but a big softy underneath
9. he relates VERY well to teenagers....loving them no matter what their faults and holding them accountable no matter how difficult that might be
10. he is a big child always playing, joking, and having fun
11. he shouts AMEN in church when the sermon is good even though right now our church is ridiculously quiet and passive... he doesn't care if it speaks to him, if it deserves an AMEN he's gonna shout it no matter how dead and quiet the sanctuary is
12. he dreams BIG dreams and believes GREAT things of God (and me)
13. he thinks I'm HOT even though one can hardly find the normal person I used to be inside this fat girl body
14. he could beat the crap out of anyone he came in contact with....this makes me feel VERY safe...
15. he is really HOT (for his age...right Amanda?)
16. he pays attention to the little comments I make and then turns those into nice things to do for me....if I say hmmm I've always LOVED Faith Hill.... before I know it he'll surprise me with her new CD.
17. he is my ROCK in times of chaos.... when the kids split their head open or knock a tooth crooked.... he is ever calm and he knows IMMEDIATELY if we should rush to the hospital or take care of it ourselves
18. he is tough, tough, tough but not afraid to be sensitive too
19. he puts up with all my crazy fears and worries
20. he is FIERCLY jealous....that makes me feel valuable to him
21. he sacrificed his truck and his car in order to cut costs
22. he ALWAYS wears socks.... I just think this quirky thing is adorable
23. he "cleans up" real nice
24. he is an AWESOME griller....everything he puts on our Weber is DELECTABLE!
25. he is teaching our boys to be gentlemen (I don't care if this ticks off any feminists out there.... I LOVE it!)