What's Going On Here?

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Mud Season

After the long ride home (yes, that's a bubble)

It only took a few minutes for Sawyer to be awake enough to find a good activity.

What a sweet and helpful thing to do!

(She was really only checking to see if Sawyer was stuck. Out of curiosity)

After Church...

This is what happens after church. We walk out to the parking lot and the kids climb the melting snow hill while we say, "Time to get in the van!"

Today we got to go to our family favorite: Kam Shing

The food comes fast, it's family style, cheap, and they have BIG round tables.

Best of all, there's entertainment for Sawyer.

Sorry, those are my up-since-4am-eyes.

Loooong ride home.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

It's usually when I'm up to my elbows in dinner preparation that something like the following happens:

"MOM, there's a bug in our house! Where's that thing?"
" What thing?"
"That THING... I'll get it."
He means the fly swatter. Wait, we store that WAAAY up high!
"Sawyer, where are you getting the fly swatter from?"
(Yelling from the other room) "I'm not gonna tell you." (Because we keep it WAAAY up high).
Before I can extricate myself from step-number-three-of-Cream-of-Broccoli-Soup,
Sawyer appears brandishing the fly swatter, intent on his mission.

"Mom, I can't get the bug."
"I know, it's really hard to kill a fly, but..."
"Can you do it?"
"I have to finish the dinner first, but could you please stop swinging that thing around?"
"Okay, I'll put it here on the table 'til you're done--"
"ACTUALLY, fly swatters should NEVER go on the table, because they're so...."
"Special?" he suggested.
Things kept WAAAY up high, usually are.

Friday, April 4, 2008

You Know You're Too Busy When....

It's dinner time, the timer's beeping, the oven mitts are missing, the chicken is smoking, the water for the potatoes is boiling, the gravy is clumping too fast, and you hear this....

"Mom! Sawyer called me 'stupid'."

"Sawyer, you're not allowed to call Tristan stupid."

"I won't do it again!"

(Tristan taunting in the background) "You're gonna get a spankin'!"

And you don't notice there's silence for awhile because you've found the oven mitts and the chicken can be rescued, and the gravy can be saved and the potatoes are done, and then your son comes in from somewhere and says:

"I washed the stupid out of my mouth, I did, wif soap. It's all gone. See?"

Poor little self-sufficient boy.

Spring is in the Air!

You can feel it.....

And you can SEE it.

Take a Number....

Today is renew your healthcard day! Would you like to see what that looks like? It started off innocently enough, with us tooling along in the van to drop the kid's off at Miss Trisha's house. Apparently we were a little TOO absorbed in our thoughts. A lone voice from the back seat called "Dad.....Dad...?"

"I just saw da place we go to Miss Trisha's house. Back dare...."

Sawyer was the only one that noticed that we had tooled right by our turn. Back dare.

Backtracking just a little, we carried in the schoolwork and waved goodbye to the kids so we could go to this--inviting place....

Although the outside did not scream take-a-number-get-in-line,

The inside did not disappoint us.

I think they achieved the look they were going for here: NEXT!

I trepidaciously snapped this shot, thinking any minute a government official was going to swoop down saying: "You can't DO that in here!". But we got out without incident, and with 2 more years of guaranteed "free" health care. Woohoo.

Now, what were the kids doing back at Miss Trisha's?

Cleaning out her basement! Miss Trisha graciously employed slave labor to get the job done. Everything you see in the picture was carted out by kid-hands.

(All of this being after school, of course)

And then it was time for fun.