Leanna Kay

Whew!

2011-08-13T16:08:00.001-07:00

Finally got my book all edited and posted. Check it out. http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/80750

Saving the Country, One Quarter at a Time

2011-07-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

Our family recently returned from a trip to Washington DC. While we were visiting, many of the radio stations were discussing the mounting debt crisis and possible solutions. I might just be a small-town girl from Indiana, but it was clear to me there were many ways to solve the country’s financial crisis right there in DC. So let me offer some suggestions.

1) The Obama children are off school for summer vacation. Why not turn to the trusted way of generations of kids for earning a few bucks in the hot days of July? The Obama girls could set up a lemonade stand on the White house lawn. Tourists could buy a cup of lemonade for the reasonable price of $200 or be brought to the ground by the Secret Service. Your choice.

2) Speaking of untapped White House resources, I saw Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden. I’ve seen bigger veggie patches in window gardens in New York City. If she really wants to help the country out, she should consider a bigger spread and start selling tomatoes to reduce the national debt. At $500 a veggie, we could put a dent in that debt number in no time.

Do you see the vegetable garden that every news organization talked about when it was planted this Spring? Yeah, neither do I. It's a tiny blob on the side.

3) As we were visiting DC, we saw many monuments and museums. Which brings me to several ways we could reap financial savings. First of all, many of the memorials had pools with big signs forbidding the throwing of coins. They said such an act would defile the monument. They say “defile,” I say cha ching…free money!”

Big fountain = big potential for quarters.

4) And speaking of monuments, there are some sort of sculpture memorial to every ethnic group we’ve ever wronged. Let me take care of this so we can stop the madness.

Really, really sorry

We’re all really, really sorry already.

There, I said it with sad puppy dog eyes and kitten faces. So let's move on and stop building "guilt" monuments and paying workers thousands of dollars to scrub off the daily influx of pigeon poop.

Not sure how we wronged the Easter bunny, but from the size of the monument, it must have been pretty bad!

5) Now let’s talk museums. We visited the Hirshhorn which is this huge round building next to the Mall in Washington. Let me give you an idea of where your tax dollars are going.

There was one room that had nothing except yarn hanging from the ceiling. I looked closely expecting this yarn to be made of something special like locks from Hercules’ head. Uh, no. Plain yarn like you’d buy at WalMart.

How about we stop hanging the stuff from the ceiling and crochet something useful out of it? I’m sure people (and by people, I mean the weirdo artsy types who sit around pontificating on the deeper meaning of yarn hanging from ceilings) would pay big bucks for a beanie created from artsy yarn. Even if it didn’t contain the DNA from Greek gods.

6) The Hirshhorn also has one large room dedicated to darkness. The exhibit is called “Black Box” and essentially it’s a room you walk into that has the lights turned off so you see nothing but darkness. Some artsy type with a yarn beanie was talking about how it was "life changing." I bet she’d love my basement, maybe even enough to make a large donation to the national debt.

7) Guarding all of these national “treasures” were dozens of watchful guards who made sure you didn’t get close enough to actually touch the yarn, cause that stuff’s irreplaceable. $2 a skein at WalMart. I’m just saying.

There were also lines on the floor to keep you a respectable distance from the sculptures. Cause it would be a crying shame to lose a national treasure like this:

By the way, the national treasure is the sculpture, not my son. Though he's a treasure in a different way.

Or this:

Notice all the pictures I took are outside. No cameras were allowed in the actual building. Not sure why. I'm thinking it was to prevent uneducated non-artsy bloggers from making fun of the yarn. (Did I mention, $2 a skein at Walmart?).

Or maybe the flash photography would ruin the life changing experience of being shoved into a dark room and told it was art.

At any rate, there were plenty of museum guards to tell us to keep our cameras in our bags and our grubby fingers to ourselves.

If we really have a money problem in this country, we could send those guides to more lucrative sites. Like the White House lemonade and veggie stand.

POOR GEORGE

2011-05-23T12:16:00.001-07:00

Every year we get a bird nest under the eaves in front of our garage. It’s a nice safe place, protected from the elements and high enough to keep the little birdies away from our dog and four cats.

This year, Lauren happened to go outside just as the baby birds were taking their first flight from the nest. All of them made it except for one. This little bird swooped down into the yard right in front of the dog. The dog stepped on the bird and broke it’s wing as Lauren sprang into action and saved the bird from more traumatic injury.

“Mom, it’s hurt.” Lauren looked at me with the clear blue innocent eyes of a ten year old who still believes Mom can fix anything.

“We’ll put it in the cat carrier in the garage and protect it until it’s wing heals,” I assured her, envisioning one of those warm family moments from TV where the kids nurse the baby bird back to health and marvel as it flies away in a few weeks.

Cue warm family music..... But wait a minute. We’re not a TV family.

I was still having warm, fuzzy bird healing thoughts so I named the creature George just as the boys came into the yard to see what all the ruckus was about.

“How do you know it’s a boy?” one of the kids asked.

“It’s not. If it were it would have a....” Drew commented.

“You’re an idiot,” Chris said. “Birds don’t have penises.”

“Okay, genius,” Drew said, “so tell me how they procreate.”

Both boys looked at me with expectant faces as if to say, Yeah, Mom. How are bird babies made? I realized my mom was right. No good deed goes unpunished.

I distracted them from the topic of bird sex by gently placing George in the cage and sending the kids off to dig for worms.

Cut the warm family music and cue the horror soundtrack. George lived for a day. Then he got kind of listless and stopped moving.

Lauren opened the cage door to check on him and accidentally left it open. Apparently we also accidentally let the cat in the garage. When we got up this morning, the cage was filled with feathers and the cat had a satisfied expression on its face. Poor George. He’d have been better off nesting at a TV family’s house.

ICK! ICK! DOUBLE ICK!

2011-04-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

Fridays are typically the day I go through the kids’ backpacks and remove all the papers for the week. So when Chris brought his home today, I thought nothing of diving right in and pulling everything out.

Now, let me preface this by saying I’ve pulled some weird things out of my kids’ backpacks. Wads of chewed gum. Bits of macaroni noodles which came detached from art projects. Rubber snakes earned as prizes for good classroom behavior. I thought nothing could startle me. I was wrong.

As I pulled out the papers, it looked like Chris had made an interesting art project. The paper was folded in such a way that I couldn’t see the title. It looked like this.

Then just as I was asking Chris what he’d created, the paper unfolded and it was clear what I was holding.

I dropped the paper and screeched. “Mouse bones? Are these really mouse bones?”

“Yeah, Mom. We dug them out of pellets of dried owl puke.”

“Owl puke?” I ran into the bathroom to wash my hands. “I was touching owl puke AND mouse bones?”

Chris affirmed that this was indeed what was now on my flesh. Washing my hands might not be enough. I might have to sterilize them in boiling water.

Next time I’m putting on rubber gloves before I venture anywhere near the boys’s backpacks.

Spring Break Fun

2011-03-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

We're back from a week in Virginia. We stayed out a house near Chesapeake Bay and took the kids to Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown to cram their heads full of historical fun facts. Hey, our parents tried to make vacations educational and now it's our turn. Mwa ha ha!

On the drive down, we tried to convince the kids the house we'd rented looked something like this.

Here's the actual house we rented.

The house had kayaks and a canoe, but at low tide, it was mostly mud.

Chris thinking the mud is the best fun he's ever had.

Lauren wasn't quite so thrilled.

Yorktown had bunches of cannons which were fun at first.

And then, there were lots of battlefields which look to kids like nothing but fields of dirt.

Or as the kids said repeatedly, "Look, Mom. More historic dirt!'

Williamsburg was more fun. Probably because Drew got a historic hat.

Really, the hat was so cool he never took it off.

Jamestown was pretty neat too. There were ships we could visit and learn about sailing in the 1600s. The boys learned they would have been old enough to be cabin boys. Cabin boy sounded cool until they learned they were the kids who emptied the slop buckets. Suddenly being a kid on an educational vacation in 2011 wasn't quite so bad after all!

Still wearing that hat.

Chris relaxing in the kayak.

And yes - STILL wearing the hat!

HAPPY TENTH BIRTHDAY LAUREN!

2011-02-21T11:19:00.000-08:00

Wow, double digits. How did you go from the tiny baby I once held easily in my arms to the girl you’ve become?

I’ve been very privileged as your mother to have a front row seat to watch you mature for yet another year. I love that you’re so thoughtful and caring about others, even me. When I asked what you wanted for your birthday dinner, you said anything is fine.

“No, really. It’s your birthday. Tell me what you want,” I encouraged you.

“Well I love that lobster bisque you make from scratch,” you told me. “You know. The kind with the real lobster?”

“The real lobster I can only get from the grocery store an hour away?”

You must have seen the look of horror on my face because you quickly said, “That’s okay mom. That’s too much trouble. How about you just make me something easy instead? Like the turkey we had at Thanksgiving.”

You’re getting turkey cutlets and a store bought cake. But I know you’ll be thrilled nonetheless.

I love the way you embrace life so fully. Every day is an adventure and you make it fun. We don’t just cook together, we create amazing things which are almost too pretty to eat. Your one kitchen rule is that anything can be improved with a liberal amount of pink sugar sprinkles.

You can turn the most menial task into something so special. We don’t just dance, we turn the living room into the audition site for a dance show. We don’t just do laundry, I fold while you bring me into an adventure from the current book you’re reading.

I love that you still like to read to me. I love that we have our special books that we only read together. I love that we can talk about the mean girls in the book (did someone say, “Cheyenne?”) and you’re always appalled by the things they do.

You try so hard to do the right thing, but I know it’s hard for you. You want so badly to be liked by everyone that you’ll sometimes stand by and be quiet when you should speak up. These moments tear you apart and though I never want to see you suffer, I’m glad that you have such a keen sense of what’s right.

You’re getting bolder and more sure of yourself with each day. You’re no longer afraid to speak up in class. You no longer cry if your best friend is home sick. You’re able to take constructive criticism from your teacher without it breaking your self-confidence.

You’ve come a long way in the last year and I for one cannot wait to see how much you’ll mature and grow as you begin the journey to age 11. Happy Birthday to my precious little girl.

Looking
Angelic before being Baptized.

Ice skating with the boys.

Getting ready for the Christmas play.

Our skating rink...er driveway

2011-02-01T07:21:00.000-08:00

The kids woke to a big treat today. No school and the driveway had the perfect sheen of ice to work as a skating rink. (We're selling admission tickets if you're interested and willing to sign the "we won't sue you if we die" waiver.) :)

Here are some photos of the fun:

The kids doing their skating moves.

The driveway usually isn't the best place to sled!

Extreme Close Up!

Here's me right before I broke a hip - just kidding!

Fun in the Snow

2010-12-17T15:25:00.000-08:00

Look, Mom - it's a purple heart!

Hi Dad!

Look at my Picasso - uh, it's kind of cold. How about I just make this a blue dot?

Sled Riding with the Kids

2010-12-13T17:29:00.000-08:00

                                                              9:50 a.m.

ME: Hey kids, let’s get our snow clothes on and go outside to play.

KIDS: Sounds like fun.

                                                         9:50 – 10:00 a.m.

LAUREN:   Mom where are my gloves? Can you help me with my snow pants? I can’t get my boots zipped tight enough.

DREW:: Chris is wearing my boots. Make him take them off.

CHRIS: It’s the only pair of boots that fit.

ME: Didn’t you tell me in October that you had boots that fit.

CHRIS: Uh….

DREW: He never tried them on. He was playing Pokemon and he didn’t want to save.

ME: Chris, give your brother back his boots.

CHRIS: (Insert lots of whiney complaining about how Mom just doesn’t understand how if you don’t save during a battle you’ll lose your Ompah Lumpas or some such Pokemon nonsense)….

                                                          10 a.m.-10:20 a.m.

ME: Give your brother back his boots now or else… (Insert lots of mom threats like – or else you’ll be scrubbing grout all day and you’ll have to scour the stove and clean out the cat’s litter box and scrub the entire earth.)

CHRIS: Here’s your stupid boots. (via air mail).

ME: Just get your snow clothes on so we can have a fun family moment sledding. (Teeth gritted)

DREW: Mom, Lauren’s wearing my snow pants.

LAUREN: No wonder they were so big. Mom, can you help me unzip the pants, take off the boots, remove my gloves and start the process all over again.

CHRIS: Mom, I don’t have any boots.

ME: Wear mine.

CHRIS: They’re girl boots.

ME: (glaring). Put on the boots.

ALL KIDS: Mom, can you get these gloves on? Tie my boots? Zip my snow suit?

                                                           10:20-10:30 a.m.

ME: Lauren, put on a hat.

LAUREN: I don’t want a hat. They’re itchy.

ME: Your head will get cold.

LAUREN: No, it won’t. I’ll just put up my hood.

ME: (ten minutes of patient explaining as to why a hood isn’t warm enough followed by me giving up.) Okay, go out without a hat then.

                                                                   10:30 a.m.
Our feet finally hit snow after forty minutes of getting dressed.

                                                                   10:31 a.m.
(yep, one minute later)

LAUREN: Mom, my head’s cold.

ME: Get a hat.

LAUREN: But hats are itchy.

DREW: Can we go sled riding?

                                                         10:31 – 10:36 a.m.

Fun sled riding with children.

                                                                      10:37 a.m.
DREW: Mom, my face is cold.

CHRIS: Here. (throwing snow in brother’s face as if a face full of frozen water is just what he needs to get warm.)

DREW: Mom!

LAUREN: My head’s cold.

CHRIS: Here (repeating the snow throwing process at his sister.)

LAUREN: MOM!

ME: Okay, I’ll fix it. (Me throwing snow in Chris’s face.) There, now you're both even.

KIDS: We’re going in.

ME: Wasn’t that a fun morning of sled riding?

KIDS: (glaring and giving me the kind of look I didn’t think kids got until they were teenagers)

                                                  10:36 a.m.- 11:00 a.m.
(inside removing all snow clothes).

                                                   11:00-11:30 a.m.
(mopping up mud and melted snow )

                                                             11:34 a.m.

KIDS: Hey Mom, wanna go sled riding again?

Circus Time

2010-11-17T11:25:00.000-08:00

DREW: "Mom, do you remember that one time when we were kids?"

ME: "What time is that?"

DREW: "The time when you threatened to give Chris to the circus? And I cried and I begged you not to?"

ME: "Yes, why do you ask?"

DREW: "Can I change my mind?"

Swedish Day

2010-10-17T18:29:00.001-07:00

We went out to dinner last night, forgetting it was Sweetest Day until we saw the line at the restaurant. Lauren kept looking at us funny each time we brought up Sweetest Day. Finally she asked, "What's so special about Swedish day anyway?" Apparently she was expecting Vikings.

The Pitfall of Honest Pilots

2010-10-06T04:42:00.000-07:00

I recently flew with a friend who’s a nervous flier. Not that I’m calm when I’m in an airplane. Actually, I’m the person whose fingernails make the indentations in the armrest if there’s any turbulence during the flight. I’m also the person who listens intently to the flight attendant as she goes through the safety instructions.

You never know. Maybe some emergency instructions have changed. Maybe the airline added a new emergency escape pod and I’ll be the only one who knows about it. Since I’m obviously the only one paying attention, I’ll be the first to escape the burning plane as it barrels toward earth with the gasoline igniting ready to blow the plane into tiny unrecognizable debris. You never know.

So my friend and I are on the plane. We’re strapped in. We’ve heard the pre-flight instructions. I’m pretty sure I can find the emergency escape pod. We’re mentally prepared to go. But we’re not moving.

Nothing. For a half an hour we sit until the pilot announces there’s a mechanical problem with the plane. Could we have the pilot who lies and tells us we’re just waiting for clearance from the tower? No. We have to have clueless, honest guy who goes into gory details.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a problem with the thrust on the plane. We have two so it shouldn’t be a problem. We’re probably not gonna die, but you should familiarize yourself with the escape pods just in case.”

My friend and I put a few fingernail marks in the armrest as we wait for about thirty minutes for the next announcement. The thrust problem is fixed and the plane moves two feet back from the gate. For a minute. Then the pilot pulls the plane back in and gives us another detailed, brutally honest assessment of the condition of his death machine, er plane.

“Folks, when we were doing diagnostics on the thrust unit, we discovered our navigational system is out. We probably won’t die, but we might end up in Kansas, which is worse than dying if you think about it.”

So for another hour, we sit on the plane wondering if we’d have been better renting a car and taking our chances with the nuts on the highway. But finally the plane takes off and my friend and I spend two hours getting a whole lot closer to God.

We don’t die. Nor do we have to use the escape pods. And we don’t end up in Kansas. So I guess it’s all good.

Identify the Mystery Item

2010-09-27T16:42:00.000-07:00

I went to a beach wedding over the weekend. (Congrats Jeff and Lynette!). At the reception, all the guests were given a bag filled with beach-themed favors. In the midst of the wedding excitement, I didn’t pay much attention to what was in my bag. But as soon as I got home on Sunday, the kids anxiously watched while I poured the contents onto the living room floor.

“Cute luggage tags.” Lauren held up a flip flop shaped favor.

Chris grabbed the M&Ms and made short work of those.

Drew was fascinated by the flip flop key chain.

And then came this.

“Is that a bookmark, Mom?” Drew asked.

I looked at the package for help, but there were no identifiers. “I don’t think so, honey. It’s too thick for a bookmark.”

“It’s a pen, right Dad?” Chris took it over to his mechanical engineering father who works with complicated machinery all day long.

“Well, it does unscrew.” Bob removed the top and peered inside. “But I don’t see any ink.”

Drew piped up. “I know! It’s one of those old fashioned pens you use with the bottled ink. You probably have to dip the end in ink to get it to work.”

“I don’t think so.” I examined the item closely and tried unscrewing the bottom. No clues there either.

We put the item on a table in the living room and all afternoon as we passed it by, we'd come up with another possible use. Table decoration? Hole punch? Sand digger?

When we couldn't stand it any longer, I called my friend, Sandy who’d also been at the wedding. Immediately she replied, “it’s a wine stopper. You know, for storing a bottle of wine after it’s been opened.”

To her credit, Sandy didn't laugh. Much. And she saved the name calling for when she got off the phone and told her family how naive we are.

I shared this information with Bob who gave me a strange look because obviously we don't drink much wine and on the rare ocassion when we do, it's nothing fancy.

"Why in the world wouldn’t you just screw the top back on your bottle of wine if you don’t finish it?” Bob asked.

Then he paused and added, “Better yet, why would you even open a bottle of wine if you’re not going to drink the whole thing?”

Obviously we don’t get out much.

Site is up and running

2010-09-22T07:43:00.001-07:00

Check it out at http://www.samiesisters.com/

Yeah, THAT'S IT!

2010-08-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

In making his point on how prevalent adultery is, our minister told us of the day he turned on the radio to hear people confess to cheating on their spouses. One woman called in and explained that she’d been so mad at her husband for not getting her a good enough Mother’s Day present that she’d called up her best friend’s husband and slept with him in retribution.

Hearing this, my phone-phobic husband turned to me and whispered, “See honey. That’s why I never answer the phone when your friends call.”

Honest Advertising

2010-07-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

We took the kids tubing this past week in Gatlinburg. This is a very touristy spot with lots of choices of tubing companies. I chose the one that advertised clean bathrooms.

“Do you really think they’d tell you the bathrooms were filthy?” Drew asked in that smart tone only an eleven year old possesses.

“Yeah, Mom,” Chris jumped right in on the conversation. “You think they’re going to put in their ads ‘our pit toilets overflowed years ago. You’d be better off peeing in the river’?”

“Here’s a better one,” Lauren chimed in, “our bathrooms are so dirty, you’re guaranteed to catch some sort of disease.”

That’s all it took for everyone to pipe in with their own worst ad slogan.

“Our tubes float at least half of the time.”

“We have life jackets. The same ones used on the Titanic!”

“Tube with us. You won’t live to regret it.”

“Want foot fungus? You’ve come to the right place!”

“Showers? Isn’t that what the river’s for?”

You’ll be glad to know that the bathrooms at the tubing place were actually clean as promised.

However, while floating down the river, I did get thrown off the tube – twice. I swallowed river water and lost my shoe. But none of the ads promised this wouldn’t happen so I guess I can’t complain.

******
Some pictures of our week.

Mining for "gold."

Wading in the creek.

At the top of Clingman's Dome.

Back from the East Coast

2010-06-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a week in New Jersey/New York/Philadelphia with Chris. Each year I've been going out east to visit a college roommate and bringing one child at a time. Finally, it was Chris's turn!

Here he is by the Liberty Bell. Chris is all boy and breaks everything he touches. We swear that crack wasn't there until we took this picture.

Here we are in front of Constitution Hall where the Constitution was signed. It was hot and I think the historical significance was lost on Chris because all he wanted was ice cream.

Riding the ferry into New York.

Below is the World Trade site where they're currently constructing new buildings.

I let Chris have the camera and he took pictures of every gravestone he saw.

This is the Toys R Us which had a ferris wheel and their very own photographer who would take your picture for a price. I think they might have had toys too, but I'm not sure.

On the subway after a looooooong day.

Overheard...

2010-06-09T18:39:00.001-07:00

"Chris: "Stop talking to me like that. I'm a man!"

Drew: "You're not a man."

Chris: "Am too. I have underarm hair."

Drew: "Two underarm hairs do not make you a man."

Out of the Mouths of Babes

2010-05-26T18:53:00.000-07:00

I have three good morsels to share.

First, this was from Lauren:

I took the kids to my nephew's eighth grade graduation tonight which ended up being a full Catholic Mass. As communion started, she leaned over to me and whispered very loudly. "I like the Baptist church better because we don't all have to share the same cup."

The next one was from Drew:

Lately the kids have been pushing the limits and I've had to remind them who the parent is in this relationship. Tonight we were having a discussion about how our family is not a democracy.

"Don't I get a vote at all?" Drew asked.

"Sure you do. Mine just counts a whole lot more," I said and my dad who was sitting nearby added, "A kid's vote counts for one and a parent's vote counts for a hundred."

Drew's response? "Well then, you just need to have a lot more kids."

A final one courtesy of Chris.
Our school ends really late this year (June 10) because of all the snow days. Another local school got out yesterday much to my kids' dismay.

"Mom, if we went to Lawrenceburg we'd be on summer break," Chris pointed out tonight.

"Yeah, so?" I asked.

"Can we transfer to Lawrenceburg until June 10?"

The Best Birthday Present Ever

2010-05-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, probably not.

My nephew Joe just turned 14. For his birthday, I gave him a spade and a bottle of water along with this note.

MAKE YOUR OWN FISHING POND!!

Congratulations! Someone very intelligent and generous has purchased this one-of-a-kind gift for you.

Have you longed for years for your very own fish pond? Do you watch your neighbors in envy as the pull fish after fish from their ponds? Have the thousands of dollars in excavating fees kept you from having your own dream pond?

Well, dream no more. With this “do-it-yourself pond” kit, you too can realize your dream. Just follow these easy instructions and soon you’ll be eating the fresh fish you’re sure to catch.

STEP ONE:

Use spade to dig a very, very, big hole. Approximate digging time = 63 months. Digging time will vary depending on whether you dig without complaint or whether you’re one of those whiney sissy babies who starts complaining when your fingers fall off after 23 straight days of digging.

STEP TWO:

Pour water into hole. Water supplied is not enough for a typical sized pond. To purchase additional bottles of water, log on to www.you’re-a-big-sucker.com Bottles are a mere $2.95 each. (Suggested purchase for a normal size pond would be approximately 3 million bottles.)

ENJOY!!

**Additional kits can be purchased for the low price of $19.95 plus shipping of $53.00. Tell your friends. Tell your family. No one should have to live a life without their very own dream pond.

I haven't seen my nephew digging yet. Maybe he's waiting for me to help so I don't miss all the fun.

Pond Slime

2010-04-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

The kids and I recently made a mistake of epic proportion. We sent Bob to the grocery store with coupons.

Bob cannot resist buying something if he can save money with a coupon. (Love ya, honey and I do realize we’ll need that denture cream some day so thanks for stocking up). He returned from the grocery store with a carload of bargains which happened to include a can of cooked greens.

I don’t know where you find greens in nature, but I suspect it has something to do with the kind of green slime you find near really stinky ponds. The slimy consistency and noxious flavor of greens is increased ten-fold by canning them and letting them sit on a grocery shelf for months until some unsuspecting shopper with a coupon happens along.

I tried to keep my opinion to myself because my kids had never tried cooked greens and I didn’t think “disgusting pond slime” was the way to sell it. No sooner had we sat down to eat when the complaints started.

“Mom, this is really gross. Do you hate us?”

“If eating vegetables like this is what it takes to grow into a healthy adult, I’ll just die now, thank you very much.”

“Did Dad have a coupon for these?”

After tasting them himself, Bob swore he’d never buy them again even if lured to do so by a coupon.

He also had a coupon for children’s vitamins. Buy one, get one free. Good deal, huh? After the kids tasted them, they swore we were trying to poison them.

“But, Dad bought two bottles,” I said, ignoring their complaints. “Just eat them.”

Realizing, we weren’t going to budge, the kids hatched their own scheme.

So far, no vitamin burglar. But the kids did convince me to try one. Let's just say these vitamins make canned greens sound like heaven.

It's Official

2010-04-15T04:51:00.000-07:00

Lauren is now a Girl Scout.

We had our bridging ceremony where the girls left behind their days of being Brownie Scouts (or Baby Scouts as they liked to say because as third graders, they're much too mature to be toward the bottom level of scouting.)

They're now full-fledged scouts and I have about a hundred pictures to prove it. Bob gave Chris the camera during the ceremony and because he's never been allowed to use the camera before, it was like letting a kid loose in a candy shop. I'm surprised he didn't fill the memory card.

Below you can see Lauren in front of the giant cake my Mom decorated for the troop. Apparently artistic skill skips a generation 'cause if I would have done the cake, it would have been covered with sprinkles. Sprinkles and that's it!

Here we are getting ready to light the candles. We practiced this about a dozen times because I didn't want to go down in Girl Scout history as the scout leader whose troop lit their hair on fire during the candle ceremony.

Here's Lauren anxiously waiting to take off the Brownie vest.

It's official.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS!

2010-04-07T12:26:00.000-07:00

Happy 11th Birthday, Chris.....A month late. I’ve finally taken the time to sit down and write your birthday tribute. Life has been going at warp speed lately for me. Warp speed is your favorite speed setting, so I’m betting you understand.

You go through life with the kind of energy people my age admire and envy. Actually many of your fellow fifth graders can’t even keep up with you. You’re the fastest kid in both the fifth and sixth grade. Your need for speed has served you well this year as you started competing in 5-ks. You didn’t always win, but by the time Mom or Dad crawled to the end you were at the finish line polishing off your third or fourth juice box, ready to go again.

I can’t believe another year has flown by as you rocket your way from being my little boy to being the man I can already see you becoming. I know that this man will be honest with a clear sense of justice. Already, your favorite words are “it’s the only fair way.”

Every year you watch the NCAA tournaments with great excitement. You insist we all fill out brackets for a friendly competition to see who will win. There are no great stakes (winner picks ice cream), but it’s the competition that draws you in.

This year, you looked over my shoulder as I flew through the brackets with no idea of what I was doing.

“How are you picking your teams so fast, Mom?”

“Alphabetical order,” I answered honestly only to receive one of your customary “that’s not a fair way.” I’d have picked based on toughness of mascots had I known any of that information. Though in hindsight, Butler’s Bulldog totally could have kicked butt against the Duke’s Blue Devil and Butler lost so maybe that wasn’t a good way of picking either..

Ironically alphabetical order carried the day after the first round of tournaments.

“Maybe that wasn’t such a bad way to pick after all,” you were able to concede because you’re always willing to try something new when your way doesn’t work.

You’ve been learning a lot of new things this year. Earlier this month, you cooked an entire dinner by yourself. I stood nearby, giving hints like “you probably shouldn’t put hot pepper sauce on grilled salmon” and “don’t reach inside a hot oven without a mitt.” Not only did you make the whole dinner without major injury, but it was delicious and you were rightfully proud of your efforts.

I’m not sure where this next year will take us. But wherever that is, I’m sure you’ll finish first. Be sure to save Mom a juice box because by the time I finally make it to the finish line they’re usually all gone.

Here you are with your first place win.

MY pumpkin!

This boy loves his Grandma!

It's never too cold for you to play basketball!

You lost a bet on the Superbowl (stupid Manning)!

Your battery is finally wearing down after a day at Epcot.

We Survived

2010-03-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a week-long trip to Florida with the kids. We survived the alligators, the heat, the out-of-control drivers and we made it 32 hours in the car without any of the kids killing each other. (There was that one close call when a war broke out over a stuffed animal midway through South Carolina, but there wasn't any blood, so it doesn't count.) The fact that all of us are still intact can mean only one thing - we're GOOD parents!

Here are some pictures of our adventure.

Here we are at Animal Kingdom on a safari tour minutes before an antelope parked its butt on the roadway causing the whole thing to shut down until the animal decided to move. Don't all the safari animals know they work for Disney, not the other way around?

Here the boys are "sharing" Mickey's Sorcerer hat at Disney Hollywood. This is five minutes before the fight broke out about who got to take the hat home. Just kidding!

Here we are waiting 45 minutes for a two-minute ride.

If we squeeze together tightly enough, maybe we won't be cold.

Grandma and Grandpa even joined in on the fun for one day. That was all the "magic" they could take.

The boys tried on hats from every country in Epcot.

And last but not least---

Happy 11th Birthday Drew!

2010-03-09T11:31:00.000-08:00

It’s been a great year watching you grow and mature, each day taking a step closer to becoming the man you will one day be.

This year I got to take you (and just you) with me to Maine to visit my friend, Nancy. It was so much fun watching you tubing, swimming and building castles on the beach. When Nancy mentioned a lobster bake with burgers for the kids who didn’t like lobster, you almost rioted until you learned you could eat the lobster too if you wanted to.

“Why would anyone pick a hamburger over lobster on the beach?” You asked me, clearly puzzled by such bizarre behavior.

During our wait at the airport, I enjoyed your detailed explanation of a book you’d recently read called the Lightening Thief. You encouraged me to read it too and when I did, you were all too eager to include me in your imaginary world.

Your ability to create pretend worlds and live within them overwhelms me sometimes. Dad just bought you the Dungeons and Dragons game and all I hear now are commands about the Dreck Elf fighting the Kobold Slinger with his arc power. Okay, I know I got that all wrong, but I just cannot keep up with all the details you so easily keep separated in your brain.

Besides being imaginative, you’re also inquisitive. We’ve taken you to church since you were little and you’ve always been the one to most challenge the minister with your deep thoughts. If God made the world, who made God? What kind of material would one use to build an arc big enough to house animals from the entire world? If God’s so nice, why did he flood the world and kill almost all the people?

Recently your questions became deeper and showed a more mature understanding of our faith and the power of God. I was so proud when you were baptized in January, but I’ve been even prouder of you since. You’ve made a real effort to incorporate your faith and moral behavior into everyday life. You’re kind to the kid at school who endures teasing from almost everyone else in the class. You let your brother play with your Star Wars lego plane even though you spent two days building it and there was a real possibility Chris would break it. And you pray every day for your brother and sister to understand Christ’s salvation and want to be baptized too.

I am so blessed to be your mother. I don’t always speak your language. I may never know what a Kobold Slinger is. I might not know what tree grows in the forest of Zandera. But even though I’m sometimes a foreigner in the World of Drew, I love that you invite me in and try to show me that trees can turn into elves if you’re smart enough to see the pattern in the bark.

Hanging out in Maine.

You found this sign in Tampa and
instantly took ownership.

Baptism Day - before and after.

Ready to "annihilate" your pumpkin.

Trying to drown out the noise of our terrible singing at your birthday party.