A Theological Conversation...

Upon overhearing Tristan ask me if he could be Spiderman in heaven, Sawyer had a question of his own:
Sawyer: Mom, are there games in heaven?
Me: YES, wonderful games.
Sawyer: Yahooooooooo, I want to go to heaven!
And he went skipping off to join his brother.
Tristan: SAWYER, first you have to get old and old and then die, like Grandpa Charlie. Remember? He's in heaven.
Sawyer: Can I stay there forever?
Tristan: No, when everyone's in heaven, then we go to the new earth.
Sawyer: (silence)
Tristan: And you can't go to hell. It's closed.

Kiki yelling from the other room: NO! It isn't made yet!

Tristan: That's what I meant.

At School Today...

This was supposed to be a straight forward post about how the kids did in school today.
But as you will see, most of time we just don't have a straight forward family:

The junior highers did English in Greyson's room.

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The boys did Bible in the kitchen....

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Tristan did reading on the couch....

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Sawyer barricaded himself in is own "house" to do the alphabet.

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And Tristan earned his Cass The Cat Reading Award:

'I have read 10 Phonics Practice Readers' the certificate says.

"Look what it says Tristan!" I said as I pointed to the letters W-O-W, hoping to inspire him.

Tristan, thinking I wanted him to read it, began trying to sound out the word,

"who?" he guessed.

"Woe?" he guessed again.

"WOE?!" he said incredulously.

I guess the 10 Phonics Practice Readers he finished did not include that word.

What to do with a Pinata

She's Thirteen. Her favorite present was from Grammy and Grandpa.
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This is what the girls did at the party. (I promise there were guests. They are all on the other side of the room).
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And this is what the boys did. Self preservation is usually not at the forefront of a boy's mind, but they did stop shy of using sticks with this one.

Dangerous Things to do With a Camera...

"Hey Mom, look! This is my eye."

I did not know they were shooting point blank.

It's Never Too Early to Teach Them History....

We discussed politics around the dinner table last night. And we tried to impart the importance of this election. After discussing both candidates I was curious to know how much Sawyer had absorbed.
"Sawyer, who IS the President?"
"Tristan?" he answered.
Hmm. Let's try something else.
"Are you Canadian, or American?"
"Canadian?" he answered.
"NO. We live here, but where are you from?" I queried.
"A hotel?"
About this time, Tristan had had enough and yelled across the room in his best big brother voice:
"SAWYER, the President is GEORGE WASHINGTON!"

No Picture Could Capture This....

God has given moms a highly tuned sense of hearing. You can tell when your child is fake crying, mad crying, and that crying that makes you leap to your feet because you know that something is terribly, horribly wrong.
You are not going to believe this. My van can mimic the something-is-terribly-horribly-wrong cry. The first time I heard it, my heart hit the dashboard and I twisted around to yell "What's wrong?!" only to remember that I was kidless that trip. That was my van making that noise, I thought creepily to myself. I gave a shudder and drove on.
This was not the end of it, however. About the time it takes you to forget that your van has the ability to imitate the last dying gasp of a human being begging the only one in earshot for help, is about how long my van waits to try the noise again.
It gets me every time. Shockwaves rush through my body because God has designed us to respond to the terribly-horribly-wrong sound with RUN, SOMEONE NEEDS YOU! It's not even a loud scream. It's more of a faint, very human, cry.
Francois knows. He's the valet that parked my van once. See him driving up? See him hopping out and chucking the keys into my outstretched hand? See him break the anonymous wall, look into my face with a nervous laugh and say, "Scary noise!". Francois and I were connected in that moment of time. We both knew what it meant to have the super hero save me mode thrust upon you, when no one needed help.
A few other people have heard The Noise too. It usually goes something like this-
"What's that sound!?"
"It's my van."
"No. Really. What's that sound?"
So I have an open invitation for all you thrill seeking sky divers and bungee jumpers. You gotta hear it! It's an adrenaline rush you'll never forget.

Mr. Wing Say....

The kids know that the cookies you get after eating Chinese food are really not "fortune" cookies. They just think they have nifty little messages in them. But Mr. Wing sure got this one right....


Guess who's cookie was housing this fortune?


That's right.