every day an adventure....

My son Kellen, cracks me up. I absolutely love seeing the world through the eyes of a 4 year old. On almost a daily basis he makes me laugh out loud with his thoughts on things. Today was no exception. 

He and I were driving to work our shift at the school fun run. We had just left the dollar store. (Which is another 'joy' in my life. I totally dig dollar stores...seriously.)  We were stopped at an intersection with our blinker on , waiting to turn when he says from the backseat, "why do you have to turn your winker (a.k.a. blinker) on?" I said, "It tells the other cars that I am going to turn." He thinks for a moment before responding, "but how can they hear it?" For a moment, I didn't understand what he meant but then, suddenly, I got it. From his little booster, way in the backseat, the blinker has always just been something that makes a clicking noise inside the car and nothing more. I wonder how many other things we adults do in our daily life that makes absolutely no sense to these little people.....?

Soon after,  we arrived at school to begin the fun run. Today was 'Hawaiian day' and I must say, Kellen was quite adorable in his getup. Much to the delight of the students, (and the dismay of the adults) Kellen was given a squirt bottle to cool off the runners. He had very little restraint as he enthusiastically sprayed and unfortunately, managed to get the principal square in the face once or twice. He (the principal) actually tattled on Kellen to me...."he's not even asking if we want to get sprayed!!!!"  I wanted to say, "no tattling! Work it out yourselves"! I don't think he thought it was as funny as I did........

Lake fun!

Ahhhhh....what a great (and busy) week! It started out with a bit of craziness: Kelli and Tom having school day performances of their play, the kick off of the fun run that I help coordinate for the school and a forecast of cold rain for basically every day....which pretty much always makes a 'fun run"... not so fun. Fortunately, the weather cooperated and the kids had a great time. Poor Kellen, (who gets drug around with me for all of these events) ran approximately 8 miles. The best part of that,( besides the 2 hour nap that followed each run), was this.....it made me feel MUCH  better about all of the fast food he has eaten this past month. Between school obligations, play practices, driving here....driving there......general life business......we're gone a lot. Somehow I must have missed the mothering class on packing food with you when you're going somewhere. I forget about 50% of the time and the other 50%, I'm just too lazy.  I think he is probably the only 4 year old who needs cholesterol screening! Thank you Mc Donalds!

Friday evening the boys and I headed to the lake for the weekend. Tom and Kelli joined us on Saturday after their performance. It was great fun! Not too warm but still a wonderful time of hanging out, eating, watching movies, campfires, friends, family and fun.  

I got a kick out of the kids and their creativity. 

Note the picture at the top of them "tubing". 

(A tube being pulled by a pedal boat.) They have done this before and it always makes me chuckle. Although with gas at nearly 4 dollars a gallon, they may be doing a lot of this in the coming months!

Now we're home and gearing up to begin another week. Of course, I will spend the next 4 days thinking its the wrong day because of the Memorial day monday holiday......

 

Sunday.....floody Sunday

I recently had a girlfriend say to me as we pondered the challenges of raising sons, "every mother should be required to have at least one boy". I couldn't agree more. Don't get me wrong here....I adore boys!!! Its just that until you have had one living in your (once clean) house, you really can't begin to imagine how much mischief they can get themselves into. Today was one of those days....

After an enjoyable afternoon of being outside, I was up in my room finishing up my shower/hair drying routine when both my boys came bursting through the door shouting "emergency, emergency Mom! Hurry! You flooded the basement!" I threw down the hair dryer and ran after them. As we ran, my mind was whirling  thinking "I flooded the basement??? Me???" I had, just 30 minutes prior, been out by the pool using the hose but couldn't imagine how I could have caused a flood. Surprisingly, the boys took me out the front door...hmmmmm.......to the hose I had not been using. Sure enough, when we got there I could plainly see that we had a BIG problem. There gathered around the window well, which was full to the top with water, were 4 little boys armed with sponge Bob sippy cups, trying to bail out the 18 or so gallons. As I quickly took it all in, I noticed the squirt guns all over the yard and the rumpled (not nicely rolled) hose. (I flooded the basement????) Through the window I could see the shimmering of the water floating on top of the carpet. Clearly.... the 'flooder' was one of my boys. (Although I really appreciated them trying to blame me!) I had a little hissy fit in the yard which I think all of the neighborhood kids really enjoyed and then grabbed a bucket and started bailing.

The remainder of my beautiful, sunny Sunday was spend sucking up water out of the basement. We managed to fill up the shop vac twice. Yes, twice. (I think it holds 20 gallons). 

As I sit here tonight, the fans are running and its only a matter of time before the entire house smells like mildew and urine. I think the heat will really be a nice catalyst to the spread of the odor. Not to worry.....I did, after the drama had passed, get forgiveness from my son (who had eventually admitted that he was the one playing with the hose) for my 'mommie dearest' moment and reassure him that I love him to the moon. ...... And I do!

Sunburns, Wal-mart and opening night.....

Miraculously, in the last 24 hours, the temperature here has climbed from the 60's to the mid 80's. It may hit 90 tomorrow! What the heck? (You were right Al Gore!) Of course, being the conscientious mother that I am....I sent my children out with no sunscreen. We are all completely fried. (I'm sure once the blisters stop weeping they will feel much better.)

With all of this sunshine, I was inspired to head out for my once yearly visit to the local, neighborhood nursery. (ok....actually WalMart). Kellen and I were having a wonderful time. A sort of 'hallmark movie moment' where mother and son are strolling through the flowers, sharing the task of pushing the cart..... As we walked, Kellen (who is just learning his numbers) would excitedly shout out the numbers on every sign. "Mommy, this flower is One- nine- zero", "this is "two -five- zero". Wal-mart (unfortunately) has a LOT of signs. 45 minutes later he finally tired of this game and resorted to trying to fit his big self onto the flat platform style shopping cart that was by now, loaded with flowers. I decided, as I was rescuing yet another geranium from 'hurricane Kellen', that it was time to go. We got in line with the other 642 cranky, hostile (sweaty) shoppers. The line was painfully slow....but Kellen was attracting a fair amount of smiles and giggles with his chatter. Suddenly, out of the blue, with approximately 89 people listening, he looks at me and says, "There are a LOT of zero's at wal-mart". Of course....I knew just what he was talking about...our number game from earlier! Unfortunately, everyone around us assumed he was talking about them and making a snobbish generalization about people who shop at Wal-mart.....

It is in these moments (and they happen to me often) that I am like a deer in headlights. I stand there staring straight ahead....completely blank,  other than the desperate, pleading prayer to disappear.

Nobody thought he was all that cute after that. 

Let's just say the next 12 minutes in line were a bit awkward.

On to the evening and the opening of  the musical"annie"!!! Tom and Kelli were both in the play and were awesome! Kelli lit up the stage with her portrayal of lead orphan" July" while Tom (although he only had 1 line) did a stellar job as the judge. After the performance, Tom handed  out( self-made on a copy machine) autographed head shots of himself to his 'fans'...  I'm pretty sure they were not "spokane children's theater' sanctioned but the director sure got a kick out of it!!!! 

I am so proud of them both!  Kelli, you have such a great commitment level. I am amazed at all you do! Tom, it warms my heart that you would take on this role simply as a way to participate in Kelli's passion.

 

The only downside to the evening was the fact that the theater, when firing up the ol' air conditioner, discovered that it was broken. We had to use a spatula to un-stick ourselves from our seats at the end of the night!!! 

Welcome!

Hmmm...this is harder than I thought. Where to begin??? It seems a little boring to give you my life story because....well frankly, it's not all that exciting. And also, I'm really expecting that most of you reading this already know me.  Here are the basics: I am a stay at home mom of 3 awesome kids (Kelli, Keaton and Kellen) and 1 fabulous husband (Tom) . According to many who are close to us, we have a lot of  fun in our house. I don't know. My view on the 'fun level' in our home is that we could do better.... actually, I'm not sure my family would really say that I am very fun to live with at all. I have my fair share of cranky days. I yell. I nag about everything.  Its more like this..... our lives often feel to me like an episode of Seinfeld....crazy, random, every-day interactions that are...... when I step back and take time to find the humor...absolutely hilarious (although not always funny "in the moment") . Just today, my youngest, Kellen (4) pointed out that the unfortunate part of my being a girl is that I don't have a .......um......penis, and instead, have to pee out of my butt!  The good news is that he said this only to me instead of like, in line at costco or something, which is usually where he decides to declare this kind of stuff. 

Stay tuned for more!