What's New

Some of you faithful readers have been waiting a while for another post. I apologize. Spring has sprung in Southern Wisconsin and we have been spending less time indoors. Here's a rundown of what's new in the Bentz household.

• Isaac's left tooth has finally broken through the gum. It's been awhile since he's had any teeth up there! The right tooth may take a little longer due to nerve damage that happened when he nearly knocked it out two years ago.


• We're going to have an InterVarsity intern live with us for 3 months over the summer. Her name is Sarah. She's from Virginia. We spoke over the phone and we really hit it off. I'm looking forward to meeting her in person. The rent we'll receive from her staying with us will help offset the loss of my babysitting income over the summer. Shane and I are thinking of putting her in one of the kids' rooms and moving the kids into the same room while she's here. We could put her in the roomy bonus room, but it gets very hot in the summer. However, that would probably be the best place for her if we get an air conditioner.


• Shane is building a huge shelf for our storage room in the basement. It's going to be a much nicer place to store all of our Sam's club buys. We always have plenty of paper towels, toilet paper, canned veggies and fruit, cereal, napkins, and whatnot.


• Shane's Mom and Bill came up and stayed with us last week. It was a lovely visit and we hated to see them go. The next morning at breakfast, Allie asked me, "Are Grandma and Papa coming over today?"
• Shane has two days of meetings coming up on Monday and Tuesday and will be working about 12 hours those two days. Please pray for God's will to be done as big decisions are being made that may affect him.
• Have you noticed the poll in the right-hand margin asking you to vote on whether I keep my gray hair? Well, I finally decided to color it dark brown. It was too dark at first but now it's showing some "natural" highlights. The salt and pepper look is not for me. Maybe in a few years when I have more gray, I'll let it go au naturelle. For now, I'm going to have to be chained to the coloring bottle.
• I'm still doing exercise classes at the gym. I'm not losing any weight but at least I'm gaining muscle and building endurance. If only I could break my love affair with sweets, I might get somewhere!
• Shane bought a big HD tv recently. It's for the basement when we get it finished. For now, it's on our dresser. I love sitting on our bed folding laundry with the tv on.
• I have one more Stampin' Up! workshop to do next month, and then I'm retiring. I'll keep selling Stampin' Up! products for anyone who wants to place an order, but no more workshops for me. As long as I still sell $300 a quarter to meet my sales quota, I'll keep my active status. For right now, I'll be able to place orders through the end of the year. After that, I don't yet know.
• I got a laptop for my birthday last week. It's been nice to take it all over the house and even outside while the kids are playing. No more wondering what the kids are up to downstairs while I'm using the computer. Now I can go where they go. It's pretty sweet! Thank you, Bill, Kay, and Shane!
• Allison is doing a great job writing her name and is showing more of an interest in words. She likes to put a bunch of letter magnets together and ask me, "Mom, what does this spell?"
• I signed the kids up for a slew of summer school classes in July. Both kids will take swim class at the Oregon Pool. Allison will also take a pre-Kindergarten class for 4-year-olds. Isaac has an earth science class and a math game class. Isaac will also be in t-ball. He's excited about it. I can't wait to take some home video of one of his games! By the way, summer school here in Oregon is nothing like the remedial bore that I had to endure as a kid. It's very popular here, and classes fill up in minutes. Our school system has a lot to offer and I'm so glad we're in it!
• Shane and I went out to dinner for my birthday. That morning I had a restaurant in mind but I couldn't remember the name of it. So I searched online and made reservations and that night we went there. Only it wasn't the restaurant I thought it was. On the way, we actually passed the restaurant I had in mind but couldn't remember the name of. But we decided to check the other place out. It turned out to be a super fancy place. We just about died when we saw the prices on the menu. The average dinner was $50. That's just for one person. I was like, my birthday isn't worth this much! So we made up an excuse to the hostess and left. We went to the other place and was told that the wait was 45 minutes! Yikes! We called the sitter to let her know we might be late and we even debated going to yet another restaurant, but everything turned out ok because we were seated after only 20 minutes. It was a delicious Italian meal. I never had spinach fettucine noodles before, and now I'm hooked. Yum.
• Our dear friends Nathan and Kelli and their one-year-old son Eli are coming over for brunch tomorrow morning, so I'd better hit the hay or I'm going to be toast in the morning! Ha ha! Later!

Concussed Myself

I'm having a heck of a morning.


After I dropped Allie off at preschool, I took Brock to the new Target to go shopping for something. It's a really nice store with a grocery. I decided to buy some things for tonight's dinner. Meanwhile, Brock kept asking to visit the toy department, so we went there for a couple of minutes after I finished picking out groceries. We checked out, ran back to the car in the chilly pouring rain. My hood kept blowing off so I held onto it while pushing the cart and running, which was tricky. At the car, I fumbled for my keys and wished I had keyless entry. I secured Brock in his carseat, closed his door, opened my door to pop the trunk (as my key no longer works in the trunk), getting drenched and windblown the whole time, and as I closed my door, hunching over, the top corner of my door hit me square on the top of the head. I saw stars for a second, thought a few choice words, and threw the groceries in the trunk pell-mell and left for home as quick as I could so I could give Brock his snack and put ice on my head. Then I remembered I forgot to buy what I went there for in the first place...

Eeeek! More snow coming!

We're under a Winter Storm Warning until Friday evening here in the Madison area. 5 to 9 inches are expected.

The following is an excerpt from an email I just sent to a friend: "I'm tempted not to look at the snow -- maybe I'll just close our blinds, turn up the heat and we'll sit in our shorts and t-shirts and play games and eat popsicles. And if anybody says the "s-word" (snow), they have to watch one of my musicals with me while I sing LOUDLY to every song!!! HA! HA HA!!! :) Just kidding, of course. Hehehe.... With our crazy weather it feels good to have a sense of humor about it."

Gotta go and feed my ever-growing, constantly hungry kiddos!

Funny Quotes

I came across these quotes by Red Skelton last night that I just had to share with someone. Enjoy!

"I haven't spoken to my wife in 18 months. I don't like to interrupt her."
"Congress: Bingo with billions."
"I keep taking my wife everywhere -- but she keeps finding her way back."
"We always hold hands -- if I let go, she shops."
"I married Miss Right. I didn't know her first name was Always."
"All men make mistakes, but married men find out about them sooner."
"Any kid will run an errand for you, if you ask at bedtime."
"My mother told me something I've never forgotten: 'Don't take life too seriously, son, you don't come out of it alive anyway.'"