Time for another photo update!!!

In absolutely no particular order comes these pictures to you. Enjoy viewing our recent weeks of summer!

This is Ashley and I having a kiss.
Annie and I hugging after an exceptionally long afternoon of just getting home from Brandon's for 2 weeks and breaking down a bazillion times. You can see the sleepiness all over her eyes!

The swings were not up on our new playground-of-death before they left so the first thing they did was get on and swing!

I went through this phase. There's multiple close-ups of my face or pieces in here. Whatever, I think it's fun.

Brandon's girlfriend's parents have this truck. Minus the tow part, it's Tow-Mater from Cars. So the kids HAD to climb in and get a picture in Mater.

He must be blinking but he's so serious looking up there. He's turned out to be quite a little gymnast on that bar!

Just getting up. Or down. Whatever. From the other side you can see his fully formed 6 pack!

Annie ready to get off now. She was trying to convince the big kid who got her up to get her down but I wanted a picture first.

She did like it before she didn't.

Ashley is trying to see what Annie's doing. I think it's such an Ashley picture.

Alex trying to figure out the crossword puzzle at Shari's. It's cute because he hasn't figured out the answers are on the sheet so he's always impressed when I know exactly the right word to try in the spaces. Sometimes it's really not what you'd think so I'm glad they have the answers there!

Ashley was counting for hide and seek but was so excited by her warped face in the doorknob she could barely remember to count. She still got to 10 before I got the picture framed. I still like how this turned out.

A Mom and Ashley hug.

This is totally an Ashley face. Mostly it's an "I caught you doing something" face. You can almost hear the "ooooohhhhh ho ho!" come out of her mouth!

There's her cheese ball smile!

Annie wanted a kiss picture. So she made her eyes all big (it's a long story). It looks like I'm pinching her or something but I'm not. I swear, it's all on her own.

Ashley suckered me into helping her hang. The look on her face is annoyance with me as I was just then told to take my hands off so she could do it by herself!

But I didn't go far!

Alex is just cute. And somehow I don't get enough pictures of him. So I post the ones I get.

He's just so damned handsome!

And we have Annie's goofball face. She's actually hamming it up about something else right here but I don't care. I'm letting you draw your own assumptions. Because I love this face when she makes it.

I also love the heck out of this face!

And we're back to Ashley swinging. It's what she would do all day every day if we let her. The best part is she knows how to pump but she gets tired and starts asking us to push her. So the little boys come over and push her gently. One in particular is really sweet about it. They were in pre-school together and are just sweet friends.

And my giant close-up smile. There's eyeball pictures too, somewhere on facebook. But I'll let you find those on your own.

Last but certainly not least is Aiden. While the kids were gone we spent a lot of time with Goretti's family. This is her kids' guitar. Aiden put the strap on and played. So I took a blackmail picture that is just really cute.

And a video of Alex on the bar.

Alex Turned 9!!

Alex had his birthday this Tuesday. The kid has made it to be a nine year-old. I'm impressed. He is maturing faster than I can keep up with.

He's got this girl he is crushing on that plays with him basically every day. Annie wants to be just like them but she doesn't understand why it is okay for Brooklyn to pull his hair and tackle him but not so okay for her to do the same things. Especially since Brooklyn spends a lot of her time playing with Annie and Ashley, too.

Luckily, Alex is just so dang awesome he tolerates her trying to figure this out while she beats up on him. A year ago he was hitting back and hurting her. This year, he understands that he is bigger than her and so he just takes it until he feels the need to say something to the grown ups. It reminds me of an older lion being beat up on by the baby lion. Just taking it until he's not any more.

We had his party early so his friend who was moving could attend. I was a little unsure what we should do with his gang of 8-10 year old boys but we made it work. It was a little bit awesome, I'm afraid. Starting with the weather: We were due for nice weather but the day before his party the forecast changed to thunderstorms.

We ended up doing a lot of his party outside anyway as the weather held up perfectly until an hour after everyone left.

We played a ton of games. The first one was a game where you make a mound of flour with a bowl, put a whopper on top of it and take turns making cuts with a butter knife. Whoever makes the cut that makes it fall in has to retrieve it with their mouth.

This was a fun game until one kid inhaled so much flour he threw up a bit.

Ashley was adamant about getting a turn to fish for the whopper but once she did, she made the same mistake and took in half the powder. Oops!

Then we played upset the fruit basket. Or some modified version of it, for those of you who know this game. We had 3 kinds of fruit and a caller. The caller would yell out 1 or 2 types of fruit and those had to get up and change chairs. Whoever is left standing is the new caller. Or you can yell "Upset the fruit basket" and EVERYONE moves. It was awesome until the kid with the broken arm got bumped into a little to rough.

We put a blanket over Alex and told him to take off the last thing he put on today. He took off his socks. Wrong! So he took off his shirt. Wrong! Before it got graphic, we let another kid try it. He totally got it and whipped the blanket off as soon as we said "go". But it's a fun game. The other kids wanted a turn, too. But since the joke was already told, I don't know if they wanted anything more than to be undressing under a blanket in front of a bunch of people.

9 year old boys are strange.

We took them outside and let the kids feed Alex the leftover whipped cream from his cake "frosting".

And then Alex chased them to exact revenge.

We played murder which some of the kids were really good at and some of them couldn't understand if you paid them.

Then there was cake and always the last thing is the Silly String fight in the backyard.

All in all, it was a good party.

And we are proud of our boy who is so smart and so funny and so snarky.

We love you, Alex!

What it's like

We went to Applebee's for dinner last night (Wednesday night is "kids eat for 99 cents night"!). The girls had to go potty so we let them walk each other back to the bathroom.

While they were gone our food arrived. Alex took a big dunk of ketchup on his grilled cheese sandwich and bit in.

Then he started making strange noises.

After several attempts to guess what was wrong (it was a really big bite) he decided to fingerspell it ASL style.

K-I-N-K-

"It's kinky?" I asked.

-E-

the laughter ensued.

-R

Aiden guessed it, CANKER in his mouth. OH!

Then I went to check on the girls since it had been a long time since they left us to go potty.

I walked in to bathroom and heard them talking to each other.

There was a large, old, disabled woman trying to get herself into one of the stalls.

I knocked on the handicap stall door (where I take them if we all go together, I totally understand why they went in there) and asked how it was going.

Annie informed me that she couldn't reach the toilet paper and Ashley, who was walking around in there) couldn't get it to give her any.

I made her unlock the door and I went in to help.

While they were unlocking the door the old lady came back out of the stall she was trying to get into and asked if they were finally done yet.

I apologized and said it would just be a minute.

Annie ended up having to finish her business in another stall which only took a second but I was embarrassed that this old woman had to wait for my kids so she could do her own business.

I helped Ashley wash her hands and then Annie emerged ready to do the same. This old woman had moved about 3 inches from the counter (not for spite, just because she was that slow and sore). Annie started washing her hands and I asked the old woman if she needed a hand and apologized once again.

She informed me that she can do it on her own but she's just sore from waiting so long to use the handicapped stall.

I apologized once again, again and went back to our table.

I suppose she thinks I should teach my kids NOT to go in that stall but this is the first time this has happened in all my years of taking kids potty. I am not about to change this habit of theirs. Frankly, Ashley still needs a little help once in awhile and Annie is able to help her.

Am I wrong?

After we got home we took the kids out to ride bikes (except the one who behaved poorly and got an earlier flight to bed). At one point I listened to Alex asking his friend, Jared, how he spits. Apparently Jared and made some comment about Alex's style (which I didn't know he had or was doing...). They were riding around the corner I was stationed at so I only heard the beginning of the answer but I giggled to myself about the things boys ask peer advice for. They are SO unlike girls.

... and then I had an aneurysm

We took the kids to the museum on campus this morning. There's a lot of animals and some skeletons and stuff (and it's free!). The girls had both been before but it was new for Alex. And since he's very science minded, he loved it.

We got done and went to Pizza Hut for lunch. (I love it when we can save up Book It certificates and eat for the cost of drinks!)

When we got home I took the kiddos outside for some running around time.

And then I noticed the wind. And how cold it was. There was another mommy out before us and since she was still out, I couldn't wimp out that quickly.

And then the rain started. And we both wimped out.

One of the neighbor kids wanted to come play which brought us to 4 kids and 1 adult (Aiden was resting his painful shoulder).

I decided the girls and I could play Sorry! while the boys played in Alex's room. But the boys wanted to play, too. So Ashley and I were on a team.

If you'll remember, Sorry!, when played with multiple kids (especially mine!) goes on FOR-EV-ER.

And since it was an hour and a half into one game before Brady decided he'd had enough and suddenly had to go home, I was starting to be bothered by my eye twitch that had started.

Here's the thing: Alex is a constant source of humming, singing, whistling, and general noise. And he was playing with his Bakugan he'd brought to the table. So his focus was somewhere else.

Annie was humming, singing, whistling, and standing next to her chair while she tipped it up and back to the floor over and over again.

Ashley, who has spent the most time with Aiden, wouldn't stop cleaning up the stack of discarded cards. Unfortunately, she's 4 so she kept fixing the one stack and knocking over the other one. And moving them further and further apart. Plus, we were on a team so I could help her strategize. This meant I had to convince her yes we could use that card (after the first unusable Sorry! card is played, we lose focus) and which guy we should use it with.

Brady also had a Bakugan with him (which he broke and Alex spent half the game fixing between turns). But the part that would drive me nuts was the part where he'd reach for his card before the turn before him was done (or really even started). And the part where he'd pick up his card and hold it, then set it on the table in front of him, take his turn, and have to be reminded EVERY SINGLE TIME to put his card back in the discard pile.

Ho-ly cow. That's all I have to say.

Annie's Inner Smart-Ass Rides Again

Alex had a school musical thing a couple of weeks ago. One of the songs was about how everyone is different but that is what makes us special.

Tonight I sang a song with the kids and then they all decided to take center stage and sing one by themselves for the rest of us.

Alex went first. He decided to sing the song about differences (this is why I brought it up, y'know).

The verses are something about "I don't look like you, you don't look like me" and then "I don't talk like you, you don't talk like me" and finally "I don't WALK like you, you don't walk like me".

As Annie and I lay on the couch with her head snuggled up under my chin it was a very sweet moment in the living room.

Until Annie muttered "I waddle".

I started laughing so of course Alex wanted to know why. We told him and then Annie felt the need to defend her comedy by assuring us she does not, in fact, waddle.

I think it was because he was using sign language for the key words in the song (ala elementary school production style). The sign for walk could easily look like waddle.

I think it was just a great excuse for Annie's inner Smart Ass to saddle up and ride again.

Our Son is a Ladies Man

Alex has a little crush on this girl in his class named Taylor. We harass him from time-to-time about it, but for the most part take it easy on him.

Taylor apparently overheard Alex telling their teacher that he would be gone for awhile on Friday. As Alex tells it, Taylor seemed very concerned that he would be gone for a long time and was very relieved that he would be back on Monday.

I went to pick up Alex up from school on Friday so we could head off to their dad's house. We found his class playing outside, after much running around the inside of the building trying to locate them. We were trying to find our way back into the building (darn security measures and the locking of all but the front doors) and passed Taylor and her two little friends sitting on the ground watching the class play.

"Byyyyyeeeee Alex," they all sing-songed in unison whilst waving their little hands and batting their little eyes at him.

I giggled.

Alex said, "I'm glad she doesn't seem so worried that I'm leaving now. Now she just wants me to safe a trip, I think."

After gathering his things from the classroom we headed to the car.

"You want to know what I've been dreaming about lately?" Alex inquired.

"That Taylor is kissing you," Annie and I both joked.

"No. But I have been dreaming that she loves me. And I think she does."

Ahhh, to be in "love" in grade school again. How fun. And cute. And sweet.

An Otherwise Boring Afternoon...

Alex came home yesterday with a joke:

What does a dragon call a knight in shining armour?

**answer at the end of the post**

After they got their snack I took Alex and Annie out to play. Apparently I had forgotten how windy it was earlier. There was one other kid outside. Alex ran off to play with him so Annie was stuck eating her apple with me.

She informed me that the boys were playing some game with Zorro.

"... and he's the... well, like the villian or something." she told me.

I LOVE that "villian" just rolled out of her mouth as she was searching for an even better word.

Then she danced on the bench and sang a little song about the "tragic plank".

I don't know where she's coming up with these words, but I love hearing them come out of her mouth.

When Ashley's bus got here we had to head to her doctor appointment.

We took her prescription (YUP, she's got the pink eye) to Rite Aid and headed to the Dollar Tree while we waited for it to be filled.

Alex looked at the empty store front between them and said, "Dinner in Minutes seems to be desserted."

I told him that was funny and he didn't know why that was funny. I restated it to him so he could hear it.

The rest of the day I asked him to tell his funny joke to people and he kept thinking I meant the one about the "dinner thing".

No, I meant the other one. But I'd make him tell both since he's SO proud of the accidental funny he made.

Then we had to try to explain to him what a pun is. Have you ever tried to do that? I still haven't managed to, but I tried. When you need an example, they are no where to be found.

***The dragon calls the knight in shining armour a foil dinner!

Children aren't the only thing that got in anyway

The other morning I woke up, came blindly down the hall still rubbing my eyes, got a drink of water, and went back to bed.

About an hour later the kids were up so I got up, went down the hall to get them some breakfast, and got stopped by Annie.

She was sitting on the living room floor. It's not where she was sitting that stopped me. It's what she said.

"Why is there a giant WORM in our living room?"

"WHAT!?!?!?"

That's me, in case you didn't know.

I stood, frozen to my place, 5 full feet from the offending creature that was wriggling on my carpet.

I wanted to scoop it up and throw it outside. I could not move.

I used to be the girl who would throw worms at people (namely Lisa) while we were weeding Dad's Eternal Garden. (It was eternal because the weeding never ended. In fact, my fingers keep making Freudian slips and typing WEDDING the garden. It's totally what it felt like)

I was NOT afraid of worms. Somewhere in the years after that, where I have not touched worms, I lost my ability to touch them. Darn.

Alex saw me standing there petrified and asked if I would like him to pick it up and put it outside.

"Yes, please" was my answer. What I wanted was to offer him $20 to get the !$%#( WORM out of my house!

So he did. It was that easy.

Now, I know we have a good amount of air that gets through around the doors and one window. Since I'm pretty sure worms cannot crawl up the building and get in the dryer vent, I'm assuming that is how it got in. The door, not the dryer vent.

BUT- It was still alive so it couldn't have been inside for very long, right?

And the cats didn't eat it. Of course this means nothing since our cats don't know they should eat other strange things and turn up their noses at even tuna.

But I would have expected them to have played with it had it been in very long.

But HOW did it get in? And WHY did it come in? And how can I make it NEVER happen again?

Did you just hear what I heard?

Last night at dinner Alex was telling us the best part of his day (maybe you'll remember this is something we do every night, or close to, to foster gratitude and optimism).

He really enjoyed playing a new game at recess. It's based on a book series he's reading (the name escapes my brain for a minute. It's early).

He was telling us how you can go from this level to that level. Then he threw in a word which sounded suspiciously like some dirty Spanish word I may or may not have heard in high school.

He told us you can be come "duh Pooty" (phonetics, people).

Aiden and I looked at each other and tried really hard not to laugh.

"What was that last level?" he was asked.

Suddenly he knew he was saying it wrong.

I didn't know he was saying it wrong but I DID know that word was NOT going to be okay. At least not the way he was saying it.

"Deh Pooty" he again said. "it's spelled D-E-P-U-T-Y"

DEPUTY!! Oh, the world was right again.

It makes me wonder what he has thought his deputy badge from Texas (ala grampa 'miff) said all this time.

Just for Fun

How it looks at our house:

Alex sat on my legs so I made him fall through and then caught him. He is the incredible folding man-child!!

Ashley was adamant that the picture be taken this way. So she's a supermodel in training.

And Annie. This is the second picture since the first one, of course, has her head at a 45 degree angle. She's so freakin' cute with pigtails!! I love that she lets us put them in her hair. And that her hair is long enough to have them, again.

Easter Dinner

Annie was swinging her leg in some pretend fit and almost kicked Aiden.

Aiden: If you kick me, I'll kick you.

Annie: Okay.

Me: Maybe we should all get in line and kick her.

She knew I was kidding.

Ashley: I have to tell you guys something. That, Annie is my best and my funniest and my funnest. And I don't want to kick her.

Then she leaned over to me and whispered: But I would get in line to kick Alex!

Alex: Hey!

Annie: I don't want to kick Alex. Maybe we should all get in line to kick Ashley.

Me and Aiden: We're not going to kick anyone.

Me: Ashley did not want to kick you, you cannot kick her. If I catch anyone kicking anything...there will be problems.

Alex: You mean any people.

Annie: And not the cats.

Alex: well, yeah, not the cats. So no kicking anything.

Alex: Well, except for balls. Because balls were made to be kicked.

Annie: Yeah.

Alex: Well, some balls.

Alex: Most balls are made to be kicked. So no kicking anything but the balls that are meant to be kicked.

Me: OHMYGOSH! Enough!

I feel like I have had Easter in Monte Python's Search For the Holy Grail.

What is that up in the sky?

Oh!

It's the sun!

And it's surrounded by blue!! I was forgetting what blue looked like. I only remembered gray.

We took the kids outside today for 4 hours. Awesome goodness of all things holy!- it was great!

There was no screaming or crying or fighting or killing of the siblings/parents/children. How do you argue with that? You don't.

Alex's sense of humor was on point, as well. The kids were riding bikes and playing Batman. Them playing Batman made the bikes transform into cars. As one of the neighbor girls pulled off to the side to stop she announced she was going to get gas. Each of the kids who rode past her while she got gas were told she is getting gas.

When she told Alex she was getting gas he said, "oh, I didn't see you eating any beans!"

That boy, I'll tell you what.

He is SO my kid.

A Professional Whiner at Work

Last night as I was preparing to pass out in bed (10:00) Alex came out of his room for the nine-billionth (or third) time. He is the master at coming up with reasons to get out of bed. He does not just ask for a drink of water or some other minor league item. No, he has reasons that are beyond the realm of conceivable by most people.

Why was he up again? Because last Halloween while we were trick-or-treating I took a piece of gum from his treat bag. He threw a righteous fit about it so I told him I would give him another piece to replace it. I thought I had but last night he informed me that I had not.

There was crying about the injustices and when we told him this was NOT something he gets to be out of bed for, he went on and on (this boy can really get worked up) about how no one understands his brain and how his mind works. (really, I would say I don't know where he gets it from but I do. It's in my genes. My sister does the same kind of thing. Never was it me, just her. But I guess he got it from that gene pool. Or maybe it's from his dad. He argues like that all the time. hmmm)

Anyway, the argument wore thin and he was seeing his loss in sight. So he reminded me that the girls had some M&Ms left over from a science project with their lunch the day before. And we never gave any to him to make it fair.
I talked to him about prioritizing. How the gum was not going to be worked out right that minute (or ever, I eventually told him) and the M&Ms would not be doled out at 10:00 at night. Then we talked about how he's been in his bed for three hours, more or less, and he was missing all that sleep over a 5 month old piece of gum and 2 M&Ms.

He was still sure it was child abuse in some form but he did go back to bed. The weeping and wailing stopped eventually and he went to sleep.
*****

What's the dumbest thing you've had fits about in your house?

D'ya know what I mean, DANCING?

After spending the day outside yesterday (between science projects) enjoying the sun and warm-ish-ness we were due to pay the Gods of the weather. They collected payment by making it rain. The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so we sat in our house on this cold cold wet day. Oh yes, we did.

By this evening we were sick of each other. This was made evident by the screaming and fighting that was going on. So Aiden came up with this really great idea.

We all piled into our bedroom and found spots on the big bed. Aiden manned the computer desk and we watched dumb animal videos. You know, the ones from Purina or youtube. We laughed and laughed and laughed. There was no more fighting. There was no more screaming besides the laughter.

When you hear these kids laugh out loud at cats falling off couches or growling at mirrors, you know this is where you are meant to be. Ashley and Alex felt the need to give us non-stop instant replays of the animals' antics but even that was tolerable.

The problem with abandoning Purina's website for youtube is that youtube.com does not really care what goes on their videos. They don't ensure all the content is kid appropriate.

One clip we came across started with a baby in a carseat (or something) with a Cabbage Patch Kid. He rolled over and was rocking himself like he was going to crawl. Clearly, these people were not excited about the almost crawl as they ran their video camera. So while the adults got irritated, the kids were super excited to watch the dancing baby. This caused Aiden's face to turn SO red from laughter, not embarrassment.

Little did he know that after the dancing baby would come dancing bunnies, dancing doggies, dancing cats, dancing cows, and a dancing goat. The kids were laughing and laughing.

I kept talking about how the animals were so much fun, look at them dance, Aiden, don't you think it's so much fun to watch the animals dance?

He finally managed to suck in enough air to regain a normal-ish color of face and turned the video off. This caused a lot of whining and grumbling from the kids. Until another video was started and allowed to play having been deemed clean.
*****
Soon it was time for bed and the kids and I were hanging out in the living room. We skipped story reading and just sang the "A Alligators All Around" song (see previous post - not like the last one but a month ago or so). The lyrics are:

A, alligators all around
B, bursting balloons.
C, catching colds,
etc
etc
etc

Alex must have been in a mood to prove he was a boy through and through so when we all moved on to "C, catching colds", he went back to B and pronounced it would be "B, bursting BIRDS" and dissolved in a fit of 8 year old boy giggles.

Drawing on the Griddle

In preschool they do this thing where they will put paper on a hot plate and let the kids use crayons on it. There's lots of supervision so don't freak out.

I keep saying I want to try it but I am too bad of an artist to actually let the teacher I work with watch me do it.

Last night we had pancakes for dinner so I thought this would be a great time to draw on the griddle. If you decide to try it, I found that 250 or 275 was a good setting. If you go slowly at first the crayon warms up and it's slicker.

I highly recommend it.

What I made:

Here's Ashley and Alex. Ash can't not look at the camera. She started changing crayons every 2 seconds once I got out the camera.
Alex's
Ashley's

Aiden didn't even know I was taking the picture.

Annie is posing at not posing.

What she made: