Puzzling Questions

This morning as I was taking the kids to school, Gabriel asks from the back seat, "Hmm, I wonder why they call them sixlips? There are eight in a pack."
What? Where in the world did that come from?

When you can't find the 2 year old, it ALWAYS means trouble.

Sunblock (brand new bottle)

Baby Powder (those ARE BLUE jeans)

Yesterday was such a beautiful day. We had the windows and doors open. Kids running thru the house. It was great. All of the sudden I realized that Jacob hadn't been around for about 10 minutes. Everybody went on a hunt for him. I found him when I saw an open van door. I rounded the corner to the van and an overwhelmingly smell hit me in the face. Baby powder. A Lot of baby powder. As Joseph said, it could have been worse. It could have been the contents of his diaper. The seats, the floor, my wallet, the carseats, and especially him, were covered.
It reminded me of the time when Joseph and Parker were about 8 and 6 and they had these guns that you cocked and they popped when you shot them. One day I walked upstairs to a storm of baby powder. You could barely see thru the haze. They had filled the barrels of the guns with powder and shot them. I think that they had seen a western and were reenacting. Powder is a lot easier to clean up than sunblock however.

This morning I woke up to cries of, "Jacob is white! He dumped out the sunblock!" Jacob can crawl out of his bed. Usually I hear him tromp down the stairs, but this morning I was sleeping hard. It was about 6:45 and Gabe and Abby were already up and watching t.v. I was trying to get a little more shut eye.

I came racing into the kitchen, and sure enough he is fingerpainting with a very aromatic white liquid all over the computer desk. Lovely. The whole desk smells like sunblock no matter how much I scrub.

As I sit here typing I have this urge to kick off my shoes and run my toes thru the sand. I wish I were at the beach right now.

Abigail Grace

Abigail gave a talk on Sunday about family responsibilities. She did a great job. This is a picture of her before church with her "freaky" hairdo.

Jacob had to get in on the action too.

Muscle Man

Someone has been working out in his spare time. Joseph will be SO jealous of those muscles!

Kids Say the Darndest Things

A couple of weeks ago, Gabriel had a Circus day at school. The parents could come and listen to their kids read and enjoy snacks. When we were sitting at the table with Gabe, I was asking him who certain kids were in his class. When I asked him who the kid was in the green shorts he said, "His name is Ben. You know like a hot dog ben". ; )

Last Sunday I was fixing Abigail's hair. I put it up in pigtails and flipped it thru the ponytail holders. It was so cute, but apparently she wasn't too fond of the look. She said, "I don't like it! I look like a freak!" (that is courtesy of her big brothers)

One day Gabriel was "riding" his bike. He had on all the necessary paraphenalia, ie. helmet, pads. He said, "I can ride any board. Skateboard, surfboard, boogieboard, snowboard, because I am a frofessional board rider!"

One morning I was nursing Matthew and Jacob came and sat down beside me. He looked over at Matthew and pulled up my shirt and exclaimed, "No Datchew, No bite mama!"

This morning, Gabriel and Abigail had crawled into our bed and they were talking to Joe while I was pretending to be asleep. For some reason the topic of Christmas came up and Gabriel said, "You know what I want for Christmas dad?" Joe said, "No, what is it?" Gabriel said, "I want my big boy teeth." Joe asked him if he had lost any baby teeth and Gabriel said no. Gabriel said, " I want big boy teeth because baby teeth are for weenies". (another one courtesy of the big brothers)

This week a cat has shown up at our house. I love it. Joe, not so much. He is not an animal lover. If it doesn't come in the house, shed fur, and generally make a nuisance of itself I am ok with it. The reason I love it is because we live in the woods. The woods have mice. Get the picture? We have not figured out if it is a boy or girl. The kids were talking and trying to figure out a name. Gabriel said, "Well, we will just wait and see if it has kittens or puppies and then we will know if it is a boy or girl"!

"Twins"

Gabriel honestly thinks that I can't tell them apart when they wear these pajamas. Jacob throws a fit when he can't wear them because they are in the wash. This will be the closest thing that I will get to having twins!

Lessons Learned

Below is a list of lessons that we learned on Wednesday. Hopefully they will be remembered and not repeated.


1. When it is 5:00 and mom is in her sweats making supper and receives a phone call stating that her YM are supposed to be on the other side of the county in 1 hour, it is not going to happen.


2. When mom freaks out and tells, (ok, yells) for everybody to GET READY NOW! she really does mean it.


3. When you stand outside and throw snowballs at the van and generally goof off when you are supposed to be putting brothers and sister in the car while mom is trying to get dressed, you will get yelled at.


4. When mom tells you not to get off the porch because you will get mud all over your shoes and you get off the porch and get mud all over your shoes, mom will throw them on the porch and you will go to church in your socks.


5. When you try to knock the snowman over with a limb off the tree and get a really big splinter in your hand and it requires further time from mom to get it out she will probably not be very gentle. (sorry J)


6. 2 year olds DO NOT know why a sidewalk is cordoned off.


7. Their mom however does.


8. NO amount of yelling will stop the 2 year old from running to the ONLY door we ever go in at the church, thus running thru the JUST POURED wet cement.


9. It is VERY hard to run while in heels across the dark yard, which is not grass but mud due to the machinery, carrying a baby in his carseat.


10. That sidewalk workers do have a sense of humor (as this probably happens more times than they can count).


11. Your 5 year old will interupt New Beginnings just as you have sat down at the front of the chapel to play the piano.


12. It will not be good news.


13. Cabinets will fall on 2 year olds if they climb up them.


14. The doors will break off.


15. He will sustain many bruises, bumps, and be afraid of the cabinet for the next 2 .5 minutes.


16. He will attempt to climb the same cabinet that tried to kill him 15 minutes later.


17. The 8 month old baby can eat 5 crackers in the pew and make it look like a whole box of Ritz crackers exploded.


18. New Beginnings will be interupted just once more from the 5 year old informing EVERYBODY that the 2 year old has a piece of paper in his mouth and that he won't take it out.


19. It takes $65.00 to fill up the gas tank on a suburban.


20. That it is not wise to bug and generally ignore mom at "certain" times of the month.

No wonder I have so much laundry

This pile of towels is what happens when SOMEBODY leaves a bathroom door open allowing a CERTAIN 2 year old to enter and wreak havoc upon the contents of said bathroom. Not only were these towels just laundered and folded (and actually put away, which is the real miracle), the water was left to run for about 3 hours. Thank goodness for the little drain holes at the top of the sink! Thank goodness we also have a well or I am sure the water bill would have rivaled a pool fill during mid summer! I guess he decided to wash them all by hand in the sink. What a good pioneer boy he would have made! ; )