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Saturday, April 26, 2014

Without Further Ado (Otherwise Known As An Avalanche of Pictures)


Easter was fun! And guess what? We had an egg hunt. I'm sure you're shocked.
 

Each kid had their eggs hidden in a different quadrant of the yard. James is old enough to have a challenging hunt, and Chappy did a really good job of making him look.
 

This girl. She makes silly faces. She did, however, take a break from the facial gymnastics to find some eggs.
 

James got his loot and sat down to sample the wares.
 

After the hunt, we busted out the Cascarones! Rachel and Phil sent these to us from Texas and they were fun! Basically a blown out egg stuffed with confetti.
 

Nothing like celebrating the Resurrection by smashing eggs on each other, right? :)
 

For some reason, it was especially satisfying smashing eggs on Dad's head. Aren't they cute?
Don't tell my teenage self I said that, OK?
 

This girl and her expressions...
 

She's a lovely little piece of work
 
  
I absolutely love, love, love her grin in this picture! 


And here she is being goofy again.
 

Here she is, hamming it up with Chappy. She told him 'don't kiss me with your furry face!'
 

Which of course he did, and we all laughed
 

Aunt Sal even got in on the fun

And this is why I had to get my hair blown out with the air compressor. Good bye, confetti! Hello, volume!

The End

Friday, April 25, 2014

Quotable Quotes

First of all, I promise I will get Easter photos up soon! Second of all, this is what happened this morning:

James said 'Fart' approximately 14 times in 5 minutes. I gave him a time out in the bathroom, because that is where that stuff belongs. When he came out, he said "Mom, I will not say anything profound all day." Ha, ha!!!! I had to explain he meant 'profane' not 'profound'. No idea he knew either word. :)

Monday, April 21, 2014

My Day (Be Glad It Wasn't Yours)

So, today...it all started off innocently enough. The weather was gloriously beautiful and wonderful and springy. We put James on the bus and Katie, Tyler and I took a long bike ride. We came back, dug in the dirt, planted some seeds, and set up our picnic table umbrella. Then we hopped back on our bikes and rode Katie to school. It was very nice. After that, we went to a friend's house who is moving and she bestowed upon us a whole bunch of groceries she did not want to pack. It was kind of like Christmas, only with cans of tomatoes and bags of pecans. Everything was fine and dandy til the kids got off the bus and proceeded to each have their own personal meltdown, properly staggered so as to maximize the frazzled Mom factor. Then while I was making a fine dinner of leftovers (ha!!) I dropped a glass which hit the leftover cilantro lime chicken I was going to eat. Of course, it broke in the food. So I cleaned it up, and had a sandwich instead. While I was filling someone's cup, I found out the hard way that I had missed a piece of glass and it jammed itself into my toe with as much gusto as meteor striking earth. At the same moment, Tyler started freaking out about something earth-shattering, like 'I dropped my fork!' or something equally trivial. So I was dripping blood on the way to the bathroom while he shrieked in background and Katie told him in her best Mommy voice 'Mama's bleeding. Bleeeeeeding. She can't help you right now, OK? She hurt herself.' I removed the glass, slapped a bandaid on it and went back to my peanut butter sandwich. Tyler brought himself back to earth and we had a relatively calm dinner. Afterward, we decided to take another walk and I slammed my finger in the door. At that point I contemplated the likelihood that I would have some freak bike accident, but threw caution to the wind and went anyway. Thankfully no bike accident, and if you're counting, yes, it was our third bike ride. I returned home to find out that I had somehow inadvertently locked a chicken in the garage, which subsequently scared the poop out of it. Literally. Somehow, at some point, I ended up getting the kids into bed and I am not drooling or twitching (yet) so I consider that somewhat of a success. That, and all my (bruised) digits are still attached. It's the little things.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Creek

I am sure you are all dying to know how I got such voluminous hair, but you will have to wait. Until then, here are some pictures of the kids playing at the creek a few days ago.










Saturday, April 19, 2014

Easter Festivities

Easter festivities are underway, and I shall blog about them another day. However, I will give you a sneak peak because this picture makes me laugh really, really hard. I will give you a hint: my hair was styled with confetti and an air compressor. Considering our Thanksgiving tradition involves marshmallow guns, you shouldn't be surprised. Stay tuned....

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

A Few Random Notes

  • The weirdest thing happened to me. There is a young mom who I often see hauling her kid in a stroller to school late. I don't know this lady from Adam. On Tuesday I was getting the kids in the car to drive Katie to school and she yelled across the street 'Oh, are you going to the school? Is he in class with your daughter? Will you take him to school?' I told her yes, thinking all the while that I would NEVER put my kid in a car with a stranger. I tried to introduce myself but she really wasn't listening. She told the kid 'be good, because this nice lady is going to take you to school!' and left. Bizarre. 
  • James proudly came home today with a new collection, stashed away in his beanie. 52 pencil tips to be exact. He has apparently collected them off the floor. You know that weird kid in school who collected belly button lint? Well, apparently that's my kid. I made a comment to James and he said 'You're teasing me, aren't you?' and I was busted. But pencil tips? It's a strange one, but I told him that he certainly picked something unique to collect.
  • The weather: what the heck, man? It was 75 one day, 45 the next. I am ready to pack away the coats already!
  • I help in Katie's class every Wednesday and the kids now call me 'Hey, Katie's Mom!' and I think it's pretty cute. Today they had to write about a store they went to, and I think at least half of them wrote about Toys R Us, known in our household as the Devil's Lair. Shhh! Don't let them find out that people actually take their kids there!

Friday, April 11, 2014

The Pet Stink Bug

The other day, I had the following conversation:

Tyler: Can I keep this stink bug for my pet?
Me: Only if you name him Cletus and sing him Happy Birthday.
Tyler: OK, I will call him Cweetus. La, la, la...happy birthday...la, la! I am going to keep Cweetus in my ex-covery drawer.
Me: You mean your 'Discovery' drawer?
Tyler: No! My ex-covery drawer!
Me: OK
Tyler: (tucks Cletus in for the night)

Overheard the next morning: Drawer slides open and Tyler proclaims 'Uh-oh, Cweetus is dead!'

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Every Day Festivities


Life in our house is pretty funny, except when its not, which is another story altogether. But this kid, 
he keeps me laughing.


He wanted me to take pictures for Auntie Rachel and Uncle Phil. Not to be confused with Uncle Nil, which is really Uncle Nate, but confused with Phil. Get it? Nil?

Today he told me after we dropped Katie off, 'Hey, it's just you and me now. We can have some peace and quiet.' With no sense of the irony of that statement.

He's pretty awesome, even when he does his super scary face. I assured him that no doubt Uncle Phil cried for his mama when he saw this one. Frightening, I tell ya!


And this little thang? She's pretty special too. While James is not interested in all the fanfare that goes with theme days at school, Katie is ALL OVER IT. 

She had 'Mismatch Day' and asked me to pick out her most un-matching clothes. It was kind of fun!
 
She even wore mismatched shoes, which would drive me crazy to wear but she didn't care! I suppose any day you can rock both a cowboy boot and a sequined boot simultaneously is bound to be a good day.

After school we busted out a Cheyney classic: shaving cream. Mom used to let us loose with a bottle of it and we would make all manner of pies and finger painted masterpieces. My kids decided take it a step further.
 

The end result: happy children who spent the rest of the day smelling like old men. 
Meanwhile, James is perfecting his barrel walking skills. He can go across the entire yard! One of these days perhaps I can get a video up. It is pretty impressive.

Thursday, April 03, 2014

Super Chicken

 
 Desperate times call for desperate measures, and sometimes for dressing a chicken up as Superman.


A few days ago, we decided it was such a time.


The hen was not impressed


She prepared for launch


And then I prepared her for lunch...just kidding. 
The funny part was when she landed, the cape flipped forward and tripped her. When she realized she couldn't walk, she just resigned herself and sunk to the ground. Poor chicken.

Afterward, Super Chicky took the chicken cape for a spin.

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

James' Poem

James wrote a poem in school and was chosen to read it over the morning announcements! Here is his poem:

I'm On The World

Please slow down...
The world's going
Too fast, I might
Get dizzy. In the
Winter the world's
Up-side-down
What if I fall
O
  F
    F
What if the gravity goes to space?
We all might fall off!