Happy Birthday Grampa

We helped Grampa celebrate his birthday yesterday and today.

After donning the gift bag costume Jack said, "I'm a present. Anybody want me?"

Wes liked the cake:

Love Thy Neighbor

Last Thursday the window guy was coming and I didn't remember exactly what time so we opted to stay home and wait for him. While the little kids were sleeping, Jack and I made some chocolate chip cookies. The Martha Stewart in me (time rarely allows her to show herself anymore) thought "we should make little packages of cookies for the neighbors and attach our contact information." I had visions of delivering brightly colored chinese-takeout-style containers complete with coordinating tissue paper and hand written cards to each of our neighbors, welcoming them to the neighborhood, congratulating them on pregnancies, new babies, etc. Given that I don't have the time or courage (remember this adventure?) to take my children into a Michael's to find those oh-so-adorable containers let alone write personalized cards for each of the neighbors, we ended up with 6 cookies (my original goal was a dozen each, but we didn't have enough chocolate chips and/or we have too many new neighbors) in a Ziploc with a 1/4 sheet of paper stapled on the top. It doesn't even have a bow or a picture or anything. The final result does not live up to my expectations at all.

Despite that, it has provided a good lesson for Jack who thinks we should keep all the cookies. As I was packaging up the cookies he kept whining about how we needed some for us and we couldn't give them all away. The first scripture he memorized was Mark 12:30 - Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. This gives me a chance to teach him the next verse - Love your neighbor as yourself.

Carefully measuring and packing the brown sugar

Showing off his apron

Getting ready to scoop dough onto the cookie sheet

Before anyone thinks I'm a terribly mean mother making my son give away the cookies he worked so hard to make, I should let you know that I let him enjoy one of the most delicious things life has to offer...licking the beater.

Someone Needs an Anatomy Lesson

Who allows their daughter to play with bulldozers?

Or dresses her in a onesie that has #1 Boy written on the front?

And then takes a picture of it?

And then posts it on the internet?

In my defense, as I was going through the clothes that could be reused, I just saw the yellow onesie. I didn't open it to see that it actually had #1 Boy written on it.

The Effects of Hot Sauce

I know some people use a drop of hot sauce on the tongue as a punishment for lying; a creative deterrent that I was going to use myself. Until...

I think I failed to mention in this post that we had someone coming to look at the house to give us a quote on finishing the basement and installing a deck at 4:00 Saturday afternoon. So between the adventure that was Saturday and the estimate that lasted an hour, there wasn't much time for dinner prep. It took a lot of convincing, but Sean agreed to go to Qdoba for dinner (please read the previous sentence with as much sarcasm as you can muster since Sean lives for burritos and free food and Qdoba happens to have both - kids eat free on the weekends). Sean is looking forward to the day when he can take the boys there and they can race to see who can finish their burrito first. Okay, I might have made up the racing part, but he really is excited about the boys enjoying burritos. I don't think it will be long - the boys seemed to enjoy their kids meals and the hot sauce that is a necessary condiment added to each bite of everything at Qdoba. Take a look.

A little background before you watch:

• The orange sauce in the small plastic tray on the table is hot sauce
• Wesley enjoyed dipping nearly every chip into the sauce and subsequently "dancing" in the video to Wham!'s Everything She Wants
• Jack is dipping his quesadilla in the sauce and then licking it off.

It's also worth mentioning that shortly after this video was taken our older son expressed some digestive upset complete with "hand on belly" gestures. We weren't sure if it was the hot sauce or all the dancing.

We are no longer worried about sugar or caffeine having ill effects on our children*...just don't give them any hot sauce!

*Grandparents: the statement above was made for dramatic effect only; please do not construe this to mean that the children should be given sugar and/or caffeine.

It Started Out Like Any Normal Saturday

You know, the kind of Saturday that you start out thinking "Let's do something fun and different so the kids can experience something new" and then bravely pack them up and get in to the car for a short adventure. Our short adventure turned into a most-of-the-day voyage that left me convinced that I would never be leaving the house with the children ever again.

First stop?

Clue #1: Elise in a stroller wearing Jack's coat because her mother didn't plan ahead

Clue #2: Fresh veggies, blue tarped tents and strange* blurry men in the background


Clue #3: The $2 bag of kettle corn that Jack spotted immediately upon arrival and didn't stop talking about until we had secured a bag and it was safely in his grip

That's right...none other than the Burnsville Heart of the City farmer's market. We picked up sweet corn, green beans and a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Oh, and some kettle corn.

*I only mean strange in the sense that we didn't (and still don't) know said man. He may be very nice and not odd at all. It's just that, well, we don't know him.

Next stop?

Clue #1: Does anyone recognize this bright red ball?

You guessed it...Super Target! The farmer's market didn't have tomatoes, lettuce or the smattering of other things on my list so we had to hit Super Target to pick up the final few items I needed to host a barbecue on Sunday afternoon. This trip was amazingly fast and contained very few of the following statements:

"Don't touch that" "Hands to yourself...that means don't touch" "Stop running" "Follow Mommy" "Come back here" "No, you may not eat candy from that giant bin of candy calling your name" "Jack, you're not a worker" "Please hang that back up"

It was a rather nice trip in which both boys earned their cookies and no one had a tantrum.

Now I bet you're thinking, "They should be heading home now. It must be about lunch time and surely they need to get their perishable food items (tomatoes, milk, cheese) into a much colder environment than the car." Not a chance.

Our next stop was a two and a half hour impromptu stop in which:

Clue #1: We ate lunch consisting of Wheat Thins, sliced turkey, swiss cheese (not for Wesley of course), apples and, yes, kettle corn

Clue #2: Elise was content just hanging out with Mommy

Clue #3: Elise got tired and crabby because we stayed well into nap time and sleeping in the stroller that doesn't lie flat just isn't good enough

Clue #4: The boys' activities were restricted to sitting in chairs reading the only two books that we happened to have in the car

Clue #5: It started out great - Jack was happily reading about how great Grandpa is

Clue #6: Wesley was happily reading about a new vehicle for our favorite female arachnid

Clue #7: It started to go downhill when Wesley decided eating the book was more fun than looking at the pictures

I knew I'd lost control when:

Clue #8: My beautiful bouquet of flowers sat on a countertop out of water for way too long**

Clue #9: The milk we had purchased ended up in the "pop" fridge alongside the Dr Pepper and Pepsi

Clue #10: The boys might as well have licked that garbage can inside and out for as many times as they touched it and then put their hands directly into their mouths

Clue #11: Jack got ahold of the camera

Clue #12: They found the candy machine

Clue #13: I thought this was worth photographing

Any guesses yet?

This is where I spent two and a half hours alone (as in no other adults that were responsible for my children were present) with my three young children...during lunch time...and nap time

On our way to Super Target I noticed that the car was squeaking. I called Sean. He called the auto shop. Lucky me, they could get us in right away. We finished our shopping at Super Target and promptly headed to the auto shop where I waited 30 minutes for them to look at the car and then park it right in front of the door for another 20 minutes before the man behind the desk talked to me about it and found out that I, indeed, wanted to go ahead and get the brakes fixed (the squeaking culprit). Then we waited another hour for the right parts to be delivered before they took the next 30 minutes to replace the rear break pads. At least the car doesn't squeak now.

**In an attempt to salvage the flowers I tried pouring some water into the plastic bag that the flower vendor wrapped around the wet stems. Well, the bag had two holes in it. I didn't realize this until I moved the bag slightly and water started pouring out of the bag onto my lap and the floor. So now I had a wet lap, a wet floor, no napkins and a bag full (but not quite as full as before) of water. Styrofoam cup? Why not? Oh, but the water didn't go into the cup. It went all over the counter. Still, I have no napkins. I gave up and just laid my flowers in the water just hoping they'd survive.

Sorry about the spacing on this post. I can't fix it.

I Got This Email...

and attached was this video. The subject of the email was "Why Middle-Aged Women Shouldn't Drink." Appropriately titled. I laughed so hard (and still do every time I watch it) tears were streaming down my face. Just thought I'd share the joy.

We Could Have Named Her Snake...Eater

Elise outgrew the baby bath (imagine that) so she graduated to the big tub and since she's a good sitter, she gets to bathe with her brothers sometimes. Hmm...is "gets" the right word? So far they have been relatively calm when she's in the tub. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that they each have about 2 square feet of bathtub in which they can move around. Our toys still seem to be predominantly masculine, but Elise doesn't really care what she puts in her mouth plays with so we haven't invested in girl toys, hence the snake she's devouring.

Rub-a-dub-dub, three babes in a tub

This towel was originally gifted to Wesley, but Elise pulls off a ladybug so well that we usually wrap her in it after the bath instead of Wesley.

In other news (assuming bath time happenings are actually news)... We planted Stargazer lilies in our garden and they are finally blooming. The orange variety (very scientific and Latin, huh?) bloomed about two weeks before mine and I was second guessing the Stargazers and contemplating adding the orange ones in the future. Once this one bloomed though, I decided it was worth the wait.

And in further news (again assuming blooming lilies are newsworthy)... Our nieces were in town from Colorado for a couple weeks. They stayed with Sean's parents, but visited us both Tuesdays they were here. They were troopers on those mornings when they were forced out of bed too early to think and made to endure the antics of three active children all before - gasp - 8 am. Here are all 5 of the cousins: