Turkey Dinner

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Although Christopher informed me that since we don't have any visitors this year that it's not really Thanksgiving, just Turkey dinner.

I'm Not The Best

 Bowling with the kids on their day off from school.  They keep asking if I need them to bowl for me.  Yes, I'm that bad.

Mother Daughter Evening

 

Payton and I are sitting outside, doing a little reading tonight.  I love Jake's nose peeking up on the other side of the table.

I practice

This weekend, Mom, Larry, and Andrea were here for Christopher's birthday.  Somehow, Larry, Andrea, and I were chatting about nationalities.  And I was wondering if Jewish is a religion or a nationality.  (I believe it's both)  And then I was wondering about Muslim.  Is that a religion or a nationality?  Larry said that lots of nationalities practice the Muslim religion.

Payton was listening in to the conversation.  At this point, she pipes up and says, "I practice cartwheels."

I will call him Super Balls

Christopher and Ron have been watching America's Got Talent a lot lately.  There is one act that just seems to have Christopher mesmerized.  There is a guy that gets all of his friends to kick him in the groin as hard as they can.  He does try to spice it up a bit y bmaking a skit out of it, but still... Ouch!  Christopher just doesn't get why any one would ever do that.  He asks Ron a lot of questions about it.

The latest skit has the kickers as bad guys and the kickee as the super hero that eventually saves the day.  After watching it, Christopher turns to Ron and says, "I think I"m going to call him Super Balls."

Fantastic Sams

I took Christopher to get his haircut at Fantastic Sams.  When it was over, he said, "I don't know why they call it Fantastic Sams.  That was not Fantastic."  Granted she was a little rough shaving his head for his mohawk and he has been spoiled by the treatment he usually got from my awesome hair chick, Kim.  Plus, Kim always had cookies, suckers, birthday gifts....  We miss Kim.

Strawberry Picking

Monday night, we went strawberry picking.  I figured we'd just go down and spend a little time just picking enough for the rest of the week.  When we got there, the sign for picking said you had to get a minimum of 10 lbs.  Seriously!  10 lbs!  Of course, this is the first year that I wasn't planning to make jam.  So we tried our best.  Or maybe I should say I tried my best. 

The kids ate more than they contributed to the bucket.  And, of course, they wouldn't sit still long enough to let me get any good pictures of them in the field so I have a bunch mid-movement like this...

This is probably the best one I have of the kids together.

Here is one of Payton holding up a strawberry just before she eats it.

And this is what happened to my "help."  He just gave out.  Nice!



I can't wait for the kids to stop riding the bus

Everyday, the kids have some sort of issue when they get off the bus.  Usually it's just tattling of some sort:  Chris/Payton had to sit at the front of the bus, the neighbor girl did this or that.  A lot of times, it involves the neighbor girl.  I know my kids are not completely innocent in all of this.  I think they've all just spent too much time together on the bus not being supervised much.  Maybe it's just the end of school tensions rising up.  Today Chris came home complaining about Payton and the neighbor girl.  They hit him and called him names and he pushed them back, etc.  The biggest complaint was that Payton called him "Poopie Head."  Payton's response was that she didn't call him that, she just wrote it down.  And it's true she did.

I can't wait for the bus riding to be done.

Can you buy me another bikini?

We ran to the store tonight to buy Chris some new jeans since he's definitely had a growth spurt in the last few months.  While we were there, Payton says, "Mom, can you buy me another bikini?"  I tell her no that she already has 2 at home.  Then in her whiniest voice she says, "But Mom, what if we go to a hotel that has a pool and we are there for 9 days???"  Oh the horror of having to repeatedly where the same 2 suites over and over.  What would people think?

Bless me Father for I have sinned....

It's been 5 minutes since my last confession....Seriously.

Chris made his first confession today.  He was super nervous.  The whole fam went to the church to provide moral support.  For weeks now, we've been working on his Penance book and talking about what is a sin and how to make up for it.  Stuff like that.  We've talked about what types of things he could tell the priest without actually asking him what he is going to say.  I figure he needs to learn that it's a personal thing between him and God. 

So just as it's about his turn to go, he turns to Ron and says, "Dad, what's a sin and what's not a sin?"  Really?  You are asking this now?  So Ron blurts out a couple of things and off he goes.  He goes in and confesses and makes it out pretty quickly (just like all the other kids).  He goes up and gets his certificate, lights his candle, and comes back to sit with us. 

Then the panic sets in.  Apparently, toward the end of the confession, he started to draw a blank and couldn't remember the rest of what he was going to say.  And now he's getting pretty upset that he didn't mention it all.  So we told him he could go back in if he wants.  Then he asked his teacher if he should.  She also said he could if he wanted to.  I can see it now.  "Bless me Father for I have sinned, it's been 5 minutes since my last confession.  Yes, I'm really that bad."

Anyway, we told him that he could just confess whatever he forgot the next time he goes to confession.  He seems ok with that plan.

What's that guys name?

While driving in the car, the kids started having a conversation about a character in a movie they had seen.  Payton insisted the character was named Rebecca.  Christopher thought the character was named Ba-chew (which I think he got from a book we read called Ba-choo about a sheep that has a hard time sneezing).  Finally, they asked, "Mom, who is that furry guy in Star Wars?"

What we learned from The Sound Of Music

In addition to the many great songs my kids have picked up from watching The Sound of Music over and over again, we've also learned a bit about history.  We've had quite a few conversations about Hitler.  We talked about the Holocaust and the horrible things that happened.  We've talked about how the US went to war.  And we've talked about how this happened a long time ago.  Once they figured out that Hitler mainly persecuted the Jews, Chris said, "It's a good thing Aunt Andrea wasn't around then."  He's so sweet.

On a side note, Payton calls Freuline Maria "Coraline Maria".

Payton has a crush

Our 8-year-old is having a friend stay the night at our house for the first time ever.  Our 5-year-old has a huge crush on this boy.  The boy goes up to Ron and says, "I know your daughter likes me and it doesn't freak me out at all."  Ron replies, "Well, it freaks me out."

Payton stuck this post-it note and stuck it on his back

The Dangerous Book for Boys

A few weeks ago, Chris brought home this book from the school library:



He refused to let Payton and me look at it since we would learn all of the secrets about boys.  And that would be bad.  So he and Ron poured over this book a couple of nights.  I could hear them talking about things like fishing and slingshots.

Then last week, he brings home this book from the school library:

So I asked him what he was doing with the girls version of the book.  He said it was so he could learn all of the girl secrets.  Sigh...  They start so young...





Idaho kids

While I'm making dinner, Payton is laying on the floor in the kitchen coloring while she's talking to me.  During our conversation, it comes up that Grandma Karan calls them her Idaho kids.  Trying t be silly, I said, "You don't live in Idaho anymore.  Maybe you should be the Wisconsin kids now.  Do you think Grandma knows you live here now?"  Payton said, "Yes, I think Grandma knows we live in Wisconsin."  Then she paused and looked up at me and said, "Or maybe she's lost her mind."

Random conversations

Today, I picked up Chris and Allie, the neighbor, from CCD.  On our way home, Allie was telling us about how she gets to go to Orlando with her mom in a few weeks.  And she even gets to miss school.  Then she was telling us how she was afraid to fly.  Chris was filling her in on all our travels and how he used to fly all the time when we lived in Idaho.  Then he said he "even planed here when we moved here."  Moral of the story, "planed" equals "flew."

While making dinner, I, yet again, tried to cut off my little finger while chopping the lettuce for our tacos.  I really shouldn't be allowed to use sharp objects.  Payton followed me to the bathroom where I was getting a band-aid.  She asked if I was going to get a finger band-aid.  Good idea, I forgot we had those.  Although when I looked in the box, there were only 2 left (my kids use band-aids for just about every ailment they have).

Me:  Great, there are only 2 left.
Payton:  Really, that's great?
Me:  No honey, I was being...
Payton: Fantastic?
Me: I was going to say sarcastic but we'll go with fantastic.  I like that much better.  :-) 

Santa is a thief!

Payton had a birthday party to go to this weekend.  Since I had a gift card to Toys 'R Us from all the Christmas shopping, we went there to pick up a gift.  Ron and Chris were wondering around while Payton and I tried to decide what to get her friend.  They went back by the bikes.  Chris noticed that the one that he got for Christmas was missing.  Ron asked him what he thought happened to it.  Chris replied, "Maybe Santa stole it and gave it to me."

A Tale of Three Wash Clothes

I was out for the evening so Ron had the task of herding the kids through their showers.  With Payton, she still needs a little bit more help and direction.  Usually, I just go with whatever as long as she ends up clean.  So when her turn was up, she went to the bathroom closet and got out three wash clothes.

Ron:  Why do you need three wash clothes?
Payton:  I need three Dad.
Ron:  But, why?
Payton:  One to play with, one to wash with, and the other one.