28 January 2011

1.  Last Saturday we had Tate and Avery's family birthday party.  We decided to save everyone a trip and combine their parties this year.  We had decided long ago decided to play kickball at the community center.

E admitted to me as we were driving back to have the rest of the party at our house that while he loved the idea of the kickball party, he was skeptical about how it would go when everyone from age 3 to 58 were playing the same game {including some seriously competitive twenty-somethings!}...but it was really fun!

Thank you to everyone for making the party a BALL!  {More pics coming to PDP soon!}

2.  Monday I had a workshop at school all day so E decided to take the day off to be with the kids.  T had the day off as well so after Aves was at school the boys headed to Wampach's {E's favorite grease hole...er...I mean local establishment} for breakfast.

This {bad} picture was probably about the last moment everyone in our house was healthy this week.  All three kids have had the stomach flu on separate days.  We are sick of both poop and puke over here.  TMI??  So sorry.


3.  Wednesday was E's 34th birthday.  We couldn't go out because Beckett was sick that day, so E got Buffalo Wild Wings to bring home and I went and bought a cheesecake for dessert.  Sorry, E for the boring b-day, but we sure love you!

4. I have decided this week that my kids are old enough that I will now lock the door when I go to the bathroom or take a shower.  They are mature enough to survive for a ten minute shower without killing someone themselves {or a sibling} and I could really use just a few minutes of peace.  =)

5.  The cushions in our house were scarcely on the couches this week.  Between being cooped up because of winter and cooped up because of being sick our kids turned our living room into a fort, into beds on the floor, and into an obstacle course several times each day.  I ALMOST have them trained to get them back on the couch with the zippers facing the inside of the couch.  The next step will be making sure the side of the cushion with the juice stain goes on the bottom!

21 January 2011

Last night I was thinking about what I would blog about today.  I have NOT ONE picture on my camera from the week.  It was one of those weeks.  As we were tucking the kids into bed (all in Beckett's bedroom lately which I LOVE...I've been trying to get them to sleep with each other for YEARS in hopes that it means they will stop crawling in with US!) I was thinking about all the funny things they've said lately.   So I snapped one pic and here are your five, Kids Say the Darndest Things Edition...

1.  Beckett:  Mom, why can't Tate scream like a girl?  

Me:  Well, probably because he's not a girl.

Beckett:  But Mom, JACKSON AND I can scream like girls!

Me:  Oh believe me, I know. 


2.  One night I came home and the kids were calling E by a new nickname.  After I heard them call him "Rapunzel Pits" about 5 times I finally had to give in and ask.  E said "Avery asked me why boys have hairy armpits.  I told her it was because that's just the way boys are.  Then she started calling me Rapunzel Pits."  Nice.  Please don't do that in public, children.


3.  As we were leaving ECFE on Tuesday night Beckett's teacher told me that he was playing house and pretending he had triplets (that were actually Care Bears).  She said he pretended to put them to sleep and then laid on the kids couch they have in their classroom and told his teacher he was "watching an ADULT movie."  EEEK.  I tried to explain that we often rent 2 movies on a Friday night...one the kids can watch in the family room while E and I watch an "adult" movie downstairs.  Beckett always comes downstairs and asks "Is this inappwopwiate?"  She now probably thinks E and I watch porn.


4. Tate recently lost one of his front upper teeth.

Tate, yelling down the stairs:  Awwww, Man!  Still a tooth!  No money, Mom!  The Tooth Fairy forgot again!

Me:  Oh no!  What is her problem?

Tate:  Yeah, seriously, what is her problem?!

Oh Tater.  If you only knew.


5.  Last night Aves asked the question every parent dreads...

How do babies come out of mommys' bellies?

Ummm...

Cricket...Cricket...

After a few mumbles under my breath to E about what was appropriate I decided to give her a modified truth that I thought was appropriate for her age.  Before I could say anything she said "I think they come out of Mommy's belly buttons" to which Tate interrupted "but sometimes they have to have surgery to cut them out!"  Avery burst into tears and said she never wanted to have a baby because she didn't want surgery.  So instead of Sex Ed 101 for 5 year olds I just tried to console her that Mommy, both grandmas, and both aunts who have had babies didn't have to have surgery, but that even if she did (I told her Kelley had Braxton and Brielle that way) that she would be just fine.

YOWSERS.  That's enough for a Thursday night.

14 January 2011

1.  Friday, 12:30.  Just getting to zee blog.  I was getting ready to take Aves and Olivia to preschool this morning when Avery started crying and said she didn't feel well.  After taking her temperature and seeing that she was ghostly white, I decided she would be staying home and that since E had a full day of meetings that I needed to stay home today.  I am 99% positive she is having a mild reaction to the Kindergarten booster shots she got at the dr yesterday.  I quickly dropped O off at preschool, drove Aves and Beckett to my school {of course Aves fell asleep on the 15 minute car ride} to get things together for the afternoon and to correct papers this weekend, drove home and wrote lesson plans and emailed them to school, wrote the nursery schedule for church, and am just now thinking I should maybe be cooking lunch or at least getting out of my pajamas and brushing my teeth instead of blogging.  =)  Oh well.


2.  I actually don't mind all this snow that much.  I don't drive during peak hours or very far, so most of the time it isn't so bad.  But I am officially sick of it being a plans-killer...you have something fun planned and then have to cancel because it isn't worth it with the weather.  That was until last Friday night...we were supposed to head to the cabin that night but the schools out there were canceled and roads were bad due to drifting, so we decided at the last second to stay here until Saturday morning.  Just about the time we decided to stay,  Tracie called and said they were having a last minute dinner party with a bunch of high school friends.  Rach and B volunteered to keep our kids overnight.  We had a great time with Tracie, Ryan, Brent, Cindy, Brian, Jan, Jason, and Kara...lots of laughter and is always so good to catch up.

3.  After our unexpected night here in Shako, we headed out to Hector for Grandma P's Christmas and then onto the lake after that.  Kara and Brad spent the night out there with us so we got plenty of one of my favorite things on earth...

I could honestly listen to Kip play and sing for days at a time.  She is very talented.  She always has a new song that puts my skills to shame...this song being our whole family's current favorite that she plays.

4.  The kids and E got to ice fish for the first time this season {Beck's first time ever!} on Sunday.  E had a case of the stomach flu but stuck it out anyway.  I went out to try to snap a few pics but Tate was mad that I was stomping too hard with my boots and scaring all the fish away {I don't think it was me...they didn't catch ONE all day!} and Beckett just wanted his snow pants off so this was all they would give me...

Thank goodness Aves would smile for me, but I had set the lighting wrong so she is completely washed out...

FAIL.  So I said screw it and snapped one last pic as I was running back to the cabin to play Yatzee with my mom...

5.  E's flu lasted through Monday night and Aves had it on Monday, too {yes, that's two times she was sick this week and two days of school missed in case we're counting}.  When she was home she wanted to watch Ramona & Beezus about a hundred times.  I have to say...I have read Ramona Quimby books many times over the past 25 years, both as a 3rd grader and TO my 3rd graders... and in all that time I never imagined Hobart Kemp to be hot as Josh Duhamel.  Yum.  In fact, maybe I'll go fix us some pb&j and put it in one more time for my sicky this afternoon.  I MAY even get that last Christmas tree in the basement put away.  Have a good weekend!

7 January 2011

1.  We spent the last night of 2010 with our besties as usual.  We take turns with the Pankakes hosting every New Year's Eve.

While we were pleasantly surprised that E made it until midnight this year, we realized that we are getting old...I was drinking soda and Gary, Kelley, and E were drinking coffee by 11 pm during our game of cards to stay awake.  We forgot to take our annual picture until 1 am when they were ready to leave...can you tell the excitement was gone by then?  =)  Overall a great night...it was the first year all 5 kids made it to midnight with us and there were lots of laughs as usual.

2.   I always take all the Christmas decorations down on New Year's Day if not sooner.  Usually we have Avery's family birthday party to get ready for and get them out of the way by then.  This year we spent New Year's day playing games, putting together puzzles, napping, and watching movies.  There are still 3 Christmas trees up in my house.  Kind of makes me itch thinking about it, but still haven't had the time to take them down.  We have decided to act like this was a choice, so we have still been lighting them every day.  I think they are reaching the end of their run.  Anyone else have their decorations still up?  No?  Alrighty...point taken.  I will get them down.

3.   Tate got a game for Christmas from Great Aunt Becky called "Loopz".  At first he didn't know what it was and didn't know what to think.  Once he tried it he was hooked and so were the rest of us.  One day when Roger and Becky were over we had left the kitchen and when we came back we didn't know where they were.  We found them in the dining room having a Loopz contest.  On Sunday night Kasey and Brady got into a Loopz throw down as well.  I love how serious their faces are in these pics...

4.  I had to teach my husband how to open the child locks on our cabinets in the living room this week.  Equally frustrating and hilarious.  I am going to add it to our list of things that needs to be done every night.  Tate: practice piano, do spelling, read us a book, do math homework.  E:  practice opening child locks 5 times. 

5.  It has come to my attention that in my rush to get out the invitations for Tate and Avery's family birthday party that I forgot the date on the invitation.  DAAAAAAAAAANG.  I hate it when that happens.  After the crazy late-night week this has been and seeing that the party is in two weeks, I decided NOT to reprint them and am just sending them out as is with a little "Oops" insert.  If you get your invitation in the mail...please just forget that it doesn't say "Saturday, January 22nd, 2011" mmmkay? Thanks and we hope to see you then!