To Infinity and Beyond!

How We Spent Our Saturday

Ken had to work all day on today and I spent the day battling a terrible headache and a sore throat, so we had a very relaxed day.

As I said to Ken when he got home, "I don't think hell has frozen over, but they are experiencing a cool breeze today because Kenny has been an angel all day!" He dressed himself without being asked 5 times. He ate all his breakfast without complaint. And when I asked him to clean up the toy room he said, "Sure Mom!" and happily cleaned the whole room. He volunteered to help do things for Nathan and tried to help me because I wasn't feeling well. It was great! He can be the sweetest most loving little boy.

While Nathan was napping, Kenny and I did this:

252 pieces with countries that didn't exist when I took 7th grade geography!

Ken got home about 3:00 and we all went outside in an attempt to engage our sons in some type of actual sport. Ken and I threw a baseball back and forth and got Kenny to play with us for a few minutes, but that boy is all about pretend play (yesterday it was race car) and he has no interest whatsoever in organized sports.

We went to Dairy Queen with my mom for dinner and the munchkins went to bed. Not a bad day.

And last, but not least, a little reminder of why this blog carries this name.

Gotta Love 'Em!

Tagged- I'll Play Along

A-Attached or single: Attached

B-Best Friend: my husband is my very best friend. I have many other best friends for different parts of my life.

C-Cake or Pie: double decker dark chocolate cake with ice cream and hot fudge. I'm all about chocolate cake!

D-Day of Choice: Any day I get to spend the day with my family. I love what I do for a living, but I miss my boys when I'm not with them.

E-Essential Item: If I knew I was going to be stranded on a desert island and could only take the essentials, I would take toilet paper and chapstick (who wouldn't?).

F-Favorite Color: PURPLE, followed closely by yellow and pink

G-Gummi Bears or Worms: worms.

H-Hometown: Well, we've been here for 5 1/2 years, so I guess I've become a gulf coast Texan. But I grew up in Iowa.

I-Indulgence(s): Yankee candles. I completely addicted. Their stores are are a are like a Hawaiian vacation for the nose. It makes me happy.

J-January or July: Probably July (school's out!)

K-Kids: I have two of the most beautiful little boys EVER! I know I'm a little biased, but look at them- they're adoreable!

L-Life is incomplete without: My family

M-Marriage Date: July 1, 2000

N-Number of Siblings: I am the oldest of 5 kids in four years. We are all married now. My husband is the second of 4 and most are married. So I have 1 sister, 3 brothers, 3 brothers-in-law, and 6 sister-in-laws.

O-Oranges or Apples: Oranges, if they're sweet.

P-Phobias or Fears: rodents. Namely, their tails. I can take just about anything else. Oh, and dead fish. Creepy.

Q-Quote: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

R-Reason to Smile: Have you read about my children and my life. You'd smile too!

S-Season: spring and fall. I love them both because I'm always ready for the change they bring.

T-Tag Someone: Any one who hasn't done this yet.

U-Unknown Fact about Me: I love to build with Legos. I seek out reason to buy my boys new Lego sets so I can play with them.

V-Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animal: I'll take that medium-rare please.

W-Worst Habit: I should own stock in green Blistex. I have officially been addicted to chapstick for 14 years.

X-X-Rays or Ultrasounds: ultrasounds. They usually bring good news. Unfortunately, I found out that sometimes they will break your heart.

Y-Your Favorite Food: Steak, chocolate, BBQ, chicken salad, Mexican food, almost any food.

Z-Zippers or Zebras: Weird. I guess zippers. I would be annoying to have to button everything.

MEN!

I emptied the hampers into the laundry baskets. I carried the baskets downstairs. I washed both loads. I folded the laundry. And I carried the baskets upstairs.

(In case you forgot my stance on laundry, click here.)

One basket had adult clothes- mostly my hubby's shirts.
The other basket had sheets and towels.

While I was hanging up my hubby's shirts, I asked him to please put the towels away. He happily agreed.

A few hours later after we had put the boys to bed, I went in our room and saw a laundry basket on our bed. Inside the basket were (you know where this is going) the sheets and a single washcloth. I looked at Ken and said, "I thought you said you'd put the towels away?"

"I did put the towels away, honey."

**Deep breath**

"Hon, will you please put all the things in the basket away."
"Sure! All you had to do was ask."

Boys Will Be Boys

It finally happened. Honestly, I was expecting it sooner. I am amazed it took this long.

What am I talking about?

Kenny cutting his hair!!

But he didn't stop there, he cut his shirt. His brand-new shirt!!!

He said it was an accident and I believed him until it slowly started to come out over the course of the evening that he cut his shirt because he wanted to know if the scissors would work. I noticed at dinner his hair was cut. That was when the full confession came out that he purposely cut his hair and shirt.

It was bound to happen. Lots of kids do this at his age and Kenny is most certainly the type of child to do such a thing.

The Hunt

Happy Easter!

After many years of last-minute-holy-crap-tomorrow is Easter planning, we finally had a last-minute-holy-crap-this week is Easter year. We're making progress!!! This was most likely due to my wife being home for spring break. After dying Easter eggs on Saturday night we put the kids to bed at the reasonable hour of 10 o'clock. Morning came quickly -too quickly for some (I'm not going to name names [as my wife points in my general direction...] Why are you doing that? Stop it! What? It's me? Whatever...), and we all headed off to church. That is Chiara and the boys headed off to church, while I was given a laundry list of things-to-do-
in-the-next-five-minutes-so-that-you-won't-be-late-
for-church-but-I'm-going-separately-so-that-I'm-not- late-just-in-case-the-laundry-list-takes-longer-
to-do-okay-see-you-bye! (Sorry for the dashes and the run-on sentence, but that's how I receive tasks and information most of the time.)

Tick-tock, tick-tock, my cell phone rings...

Me: Hello?

Sweetie: Hi-I-forgot-to-grab-the-checkbook-on-
my-way-out-so-would-you-bring-it-with-
you-when-you-come-because-I-couldn't-
find-the-checkbook-and-I-didn't-want-
to-be-late-for-church-so-would-you-bring-
the-checkbook-thanks-oh-and-would-you-also-
get-online-and-find-out-what-our-account-
balance-is-so-that-I-know-how-much-to-
write-the-check-out-for-and-don't-be-late-
I'll-see-you-in-two-minutes-k-bye.

Thirty-five minutes later, I arrive at church...

We had a good meeting that consisted of my wife substitute teaching in Primary. While she taught a lesson to 10 five year-olds that she had planned 10 minutes previously, I slept supported her by sleeping in the corner holding up pictures, and showing the kids how dorky a grown up looks when they do the actions to head-shoulders-knees-and-toes, etc...

We came home and I supervised the boys while they napped (that is to say that I napped while they were napping) while Chiara got busy in the kitchen.

...I'm soaring through the clouds in the helicopter I just bought...

LINDELL'S HERE!!!

Oh... the kids are up, time for my nap supervision to end. I visited with my friend while Chiara finished up in the kitchen. Eppie and Papa came to over and we had a lovely ham dinner. I must say I've really outdone myself. I married a great cook!

After dinner, the women-folk cleaned up, while the men-folk did the manly job of going into the back yard to play Easter Bunny. Once the Easter bunny [holding up fingers like quotes] left, we let the boys out into the yard to go on an egg hunt. (Just to clarify, the women-folk had finished their cleaning by this time and had joined back up with us men-folk).



As you can see, the boys have a very different understanding of what an Easter egg hunt is supposed to be.

After the hunt was over, Kenny decided that he had had so much fun with the first hunt, he needed to have a second one. I told him that while that sound fun, it wasn't a good idea, because once his eggs were on the ground it was fair game for Nathan to pick them up. Of course Kenny had a perfect understanding of what I had said and followed my logic completely...



Five minutes later Kenny is shrieking at the top of his lungs, screaming in hysterics, because Nathan is taking his eggs. Now I must explain that Nathan is not actually taking eggs out of Kenny's basket the way a mischievous three year-old would, he's simply fulfilling the "hunt" part of the second Easter egg hunt that Kenny has decided to host -with his eggs -out of his basket -for him and HIM ONLY to hunt. So much for logic and reason...

After getting Kenny to contain his outrage of the horrible injustice that had just occurred, Mommy rejected capitalism completely and took all the eggs from both the boys and divided them up evenly. This process was done three separate times because a certain five year can spot a communist plot for what it is, and took it upon himself to assist in the process. (One for me, one for you. Two for me, one for you. One for me, one for me. etc...) Finally getting the eggs distributed evenly, we thought the chaos was over...

Easter Egg Hunt, Round 3
Hosted by: Kenny -one who cannot listen to grown-ups, EVER!

This time Daddy and Papa got in on the action, charging in on the "hunt" from opposite sides of the field. Poor little Kenny stood in the middle, frozen with terror, desperately hoping to split himself in two so he could protect his precious eggs from the giant vermin that were attacking. Papa got one, and Daddy got three. It was a bad hunt for Kenny.

Communism once again took hold and the eggs were distributed evenly, and before a little boy who could not listen had a chance to start another egg hunt, we quickly rushed everyone inside.

(It is of note that somehow, even with the immediate rushing of everybody inside, Kenny still managed to host another egg hunt in which Kenny got all of the eggs, except for the three that Daddy got. He was giddy and gleeful that he had finally won. Kenny had more eggs than daddy. In his words, "Daddy only has three of my eggs, and I have all rest of the eggs!" Even though this arrangement just didn't seem quite right with him, it must be correct since it was his reasoning. Kenny was both perplexed and happy.)

Once inside, all the contents of the platics eggs were emptied in to baggies before the eggs were sent into banishment for another year. I HATE PLASTIC EGGS!!! During the next five minutes, the boy that takes an hour to eat three bites of dinner consumed more than half of his Easter booty. Nathan had two.

After company left, the boys went to bed, and went to bed, and went to bed, and went to bed, and finally went to bed -around 10 o'clock.

Happy Easter!!!

Dye Eggs, Dye!

**This picture has nothing to do with the post topic, but I wanted to keep a picture of our Easter dinner table.


We dyed Easter eggs. I went to the grocery store at about 3:00 in the afternoon to get my shopping done for the week and I forgot to get eggs. So I went back to the store at 6:30 to get eggs. I bought a few more things for the Easter baskets, some eggs decorating stickers, and no eggs. So I went back to the store at 7:00 and got eggs. This is what children do to your brain.

Everyone had a great time! Look at the concentration on these boys faces!

Ken also sticks out his tongue when in deep concentration.