Adventures of the Clowdi

Who Needs a Teepee When You've Got a Library

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:49:00 +0000

You will need two pieces of information to truly appreciate the following story. First, Emma has been building a diorama for school this week about Indians. She has created grass (made out of colored rice) and a stream and there are plans for a teepee. Katherine printed out some pictures of buffalo and Native Americans to glue on cardboard and place in the diorama. Second, our local library has a display case inside with arrowheads, pictures, and other Native American items.

Now for the story.....

Before bedtime tonight, as I was reading to the older two kids, Sophie was asking Katherine about the diorama. Katherine explained to her that it was a school project that Emma had to do and that it was about the Indians and where they used to live.

Sophie looked at Katherine and said, with complete confidence, "I know about the Indians. They used to live in the library. They left all of their stuff there."

You have got to love the 4 year old perspective.

Snow Day

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:36:00 +0000

I put some pictures up at my blog All Blogs Lead to Rome of the kids playing out in the snow. This is the most snow we have gotten here in a long time. Go check out the pictures.....

Christmas Lights and Chick-fil-a Cows

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:04:00 +0000

Sorry it has been so long since we last posted. I plan to be better going forward, starting with.....

Tonight our family went to a pretty neat walk through Christmas light display with some good friends of ours. Before we met them to head out to the lights we ate supper at the Chick-fil-a Dwarf House in town. (For those of you who don't know, a Dwarf House has a regular Chick-fil-a on one side and a full serve restaurant on the other.) After eating, and on the way to meet our friends, this is the conversation that occurred between myself, my 7 year old son Jace, and my 3 year old daughter Sophie:

Jace: Why do the Chick-fil-a cows say "Eat more chicken"?

Me: Because most fast food restaurants serve things like hamburgers. You know what hamburgers are made of?

Jace: Cows.

Me: Yep. So the cows want us to eat more chicken because then we aren't eating hamburgers.

Jace: I get it. So the cows want us to eat more chicken so we don't eat them.

Me: Yes.

Jace: What I don't get is why do they want us to eat more chicken? Why not some food besides chicken that is not hamburgers?

Me: Because the cows are advertising for Chick-fil-a and Chick-fil-a serves chicken sandwiches so they want us to eat Chick-fil-a food. I guess if they were just random cows that didn't want to get eaten they might mention other foods but since they are Chick-fil-a cows, they say "Eat more chicken." Regular cows could say "Eat more pigs" I guess.

Sophie: Pigs are not yummy!!

You can always count on entertaining conversations at our house.

Sophie and the computer

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:57:00 +0000

So the kids have a new (old) computer in their room now. It's a desktop and they are used to using our laptops so they are still adjusting to the change, especially Sophie since she hasn't ever used one before. She has a Dora game and I turned it on for her this morning and left her to play while I went to feed Maddie Rose. After a couple of minutes she came out and said she needed help because her game turned off. I asked her if she pressed any buttons and she said yes. So I asked her which one? She said "The one that says don't EVER press the button that you just pressed ever again" Really? There's a button that says that? I must have missed that. Turns out it was the power button. Apparently it speaks to Sophie...have to look into that.

You can't really trust anything Sophie says because she tells a lot of stories that are completely made up...but she tells them very convincingly so if you don't know that there wasn't an actual swarm of bees that stung her at Mimi's house you might believe her.

She's also a little confused about what an allergy is. She's heard us talk about allergies since Emma and I both suffer from them and somehow she has decided that she must have a problem too. So when she doesn't want to do something (like put on her shoes or put something away) she tells me that she can't move because she's run out of allergies. (energy?) This excuse hasn't worked for her yet, but she keeps trying. Good news, though...she was standing near me earlier and she found her allergies in her ear. I guess she can do things now.

Jace is funny too. Last night we were watching tv and a commercial came on. Jace got all excited and said "I LOVE those Mr. Moustache man chips" (Pringles) He was also telling me a story about something that happened last year on "Happy Fool's Day" (you know, April 1.)

Sophie is a funny girl

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:26:00 +0000

We are working on potty training Sophie. She knows how to do everything, but just isn't very interested in doing it. We've tried bribing her with m&m's and stickers and a potty chart with little success so I came up with another strategy...I told her that once she is potty trained and we can stop buying pull-ups that she can start getting an allowance like Emma and Jace. So today she asked me "What is that smell?" (never a good sign) and then told me she had to go potty. She was already dirty at this point so I told her that she had to let me change her first and while I was changing her I reminded her about our allowance deal. After she was clean, she went in the bathroom to go potty and when she came out, she said "OK, I'm all trained up!"
Somehow I'm not convinced...but it would be great if it was that easy.

And another bonus Sophie story - we were in the car the other day and she sneezed twice. She said Oh! I had two bless you's in my nose.

And we're growing older too.

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine) — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:11:00 +0000

Tonight at dinner Emma informed us that she likes to read books that happened a long time ago. Her example: you know, the books that start off like in the 1980's. She felt bad when I told her that was when we were her age. Of course, I guess that does seem like a LONG time ago to her.

Emma's growing up...

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine) — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:38:00 +0000

Last night we were on the way home from church and Jace told us that he'd had a bad dream the night before and he hoped he didn't have the same dream that night. So, to get his mind off of it, Sheldon asked the kids what the best and weirdest dreams they've had were. Emma started telling us about this very involved crazy dream she had. Then, at the end, she suddenly covered up her mouth and said "You're not going to put that on the blog are you?"

Poor kids these days, they not only have to be worried about their parents embarrassing them by telling stories but also by the stories being immortalized in cyberspace.

Animal Noises

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine) — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:19:00 +0000

We were on our way home after dropping the kids off at school today and Sophie decided she was going to make animal noises. I hear her in the backseat oinking and make an appropriate comment about her sounding like a pig. Then all of a sudden I hear this repeated high pitched squeal. I asked her what it was and she said "a tapir." Oh, of course, how silly of me. A tapir.
Thanks Diego.

Life with Sophie

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Tue, 12 May 2009 02:04:00 +0000

So, Sophie got stuck in her pillowcase tonight in bed. I don't know what would cause the idea of taking the pillowcase off her pillow and getting inside of it to occur to her.....but I do know that when she gets in there she can't get out by herself.

Kisses and Hugs

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:18:00 +0000

Emma was sitting on the couch tonight next to me entertaining Maddie Rose, who was in my lap. She was talking to her and tickling her and Maddie Rose was cracking up at her. All of a sudden Emma said "Oh." I looked down and Maddie Rose had dived down, grabbed Emma's arm and tried to eat her. Fortunately, she has no teeth yet so at this point, it's pretty painless when she tries to eat you. I said, "she tried to bite you" and Emma said, "No, I prefer to believe that she was kissing me." A few minutes later, Maddie Rose grabbed Emma's nose. Emma said that she was trying to hug her. At least she has a good attitude about it all and loves her baby sister.

Appreciation

noreply@blogger.com (Katherine) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:20:00 +0000

I just got back from taking Sophie and Maddie Rose for a walk...or technically a stroll since I was the only one actually walking. When we came to a stop in the driveway, Sophie jumped out of the stroller and said "I 'ppreciate it." I thought that was sweet that she enjoyed the walk and time with me, so I asked her what she appreciates. She said "I appreciate that Daddy loves me."

Bedtime can be painful

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:17:00 +0000

If you miss your pillow when you lay down....this might happen

But as long as you can still smile, I guess everything will be alright.

Dear God,

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:21:00 +0000

We encourage the kids to pray, and saying the blessing is a good time for them to practice. Sophie has asked to say the blessing every night for the past week or so. Being 2, her prayers can sometimes be pretty entertaining.

Her blessing at lunch today went as follows:

Dear God,

Thank you for creating us and for allowing us to have band aids.

Amen

Easter morning

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 11:48:00 +0000

Easter morning has arrived again. The kids got up this morning and began the annual hunt for their Easter baskets. Once they found them, they got to see what the Easter bunny brought. As usual, everyone got a chocolate bunny.

Sophie was excited to see her bunny, so excited she exclaimed, "A chocolate platypus!"

Lost Teeth in Jaceland

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 22:35:00 +0000

Jace lost his first 2 teeth today. He did it in a way that only he could do. While we were eating supper tonight, scramble eggs and toast, Jace told us that he had something hard in his food. He took it out of his mouth to look at it and Katherine said, "Jace, that is your tooth. You lost your first tooth. Let me see your mouth."

At this point, Katherine noticed that both of his bottom front teeth were missing. When she told Jace this, he said, "I maybe lost the other tooth this morning." Turns out, he was eating a piece of candy on the way to school this morning and felt something hard in his mouth. I told him that he probably swallowed his other tooth. He told us that he took it out of his mouth to see what it was. I thought that maybe then we would find it in the van, maybe in his seat, on the floor, or in one of his cupholders.

He quickly squashed my hope, however.

He said, "I took it out of my mouth to look at it to see what it was, and then I put it back in my mouth."

So now I have no doubt that Jace's first lost tooth is indeed lost....forever.

And that is how you lose teeth in Jaceland.

Pictures of the Princesses

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 01:43:00 +0000

Princess Maddie Rose

Picture of Sophie as a turtle (her description, not ours)

The proud artist

Princess (and artist) Sophie

Sometimes there is meat in my shoes

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:56:00 +0000

We had a very interesting conversation on the way to church tonight for TLC. Katherine was telling the kids about a cat she had when she was a kid that use to catch and kill bugs and then put them in her shoes. Katherine, not knowing that there were bugs in her shoes, would put them on, crunch the bugs, and become quite irritated at her cat. Pretty interesting, huh?

It gets better.

Sophie chimed in with this conversational gem: "Sometimes there is meat in my shoes."

Me: "How did the meat get in your shoes, Sophie?"

Sophie: "Sadie put it there." (Sadie was our dog. We gave her away about a month ago.)

Katherine: "Where did the meat come from?"

Sophie: "It was in a bowl. Sadie got it from her bowl."

Me: "So, Sadie got the meat from her bowl and put it in your shoes?"

Sophie: "Yeah"

Me: "What happened next?"

Sophie: "I put my shoes on and crunched the meat."

Katherine: "Oh wow, then what?"

Sophie: "I got mad at it."

Jace: "You got mad at the meat?"

Sophie: "Yeah, Sadie put the meat in my shoe and I stepped on it and I got mad at it."

Jace: "Then what? Did you take the meat out?"

Sophie: "A cat took the meat out of my shoes."

Katherine: "A cat? Which cat?"

Sophie: "Domino took the meat out of my shoes."

Katherine: "What did Domino do with the meat when she took it out of your shoes?"

Sophie: "She put it back in Sadie's bowl and then I was really, really happy."

Me: "So, to recap: Sadie had some meat in her bowl. Then she put the meat in your shoes and you got mad at it. Domino took the meat out of your shoes and put it back in Sadie's bowl and then you were really, really happy?"

Sophie: "Yeah."

Happy Birthday Jim

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:45:00 +0000

Maddie Rose 6 month pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:15:00 +0000

Super Sophie

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:09:00 +0000

Sophie is a super hero. I know because she told us today that she was.

What is her super power you ask?

Making chocolate. I know because, again, she told us.

Pretty super, don't you think?

Father Daughter Dance 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 14:49:00 +0000

Here are some pics from my date with Emma Grace last night...

Trick Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:32:00 +0000

So Jace asked Katherine the other day "Is magic real?". Katherine told him that no, magic is not real and that magicians use tricks to make it look like they are doing things with magical powers.

So Jace asked Katherine this question next: "So Santa's reindeer can't really fly?".

Trick questions...........

Sophie-isms

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:36:00 +0000

Roast Beef Cottage - The popular girls toy "Rose Petal Cottage"

Ridge Fairy Tale Park - Ridge Ferry Park in Rome, Ga.

More to come soon I am sure........

Jaceland

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:40:00 +0000

I am fairly certain that my only son, Jace, spends most of his time in a land unknown to most of us. This place, which must be extremely interesting because my son spends much time there, is known in our house as Jaceland. Jaceland is a place not like our own and because of that many interesting things come from it.

Case in point:

When asked about breakfast at school the other morning by Katherine, Jace responded by telling her he had eggs. Katherine asked what kind of eggs. Jace told her that he didn't know the name of the kind of eggs but they were the kind with mountains and rivers in them. For the record, that would be scrambled eggs.

If you feel lost or slightly woozy after just this brief journey into Jaceland, don't feel bad. It is, as I said, a place not like our own. I sometimes fear that if I remain there too long myself, I will be unable to return to our own world.

Jace is very smart and creative and Jaceland is a reflection of all that. It just doesn't always translate easily or well over here.

More from Jaceland soon I am sure.

At least we know they are paying attention

noreply@blogger.com (Sheldon) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:03:00 +0000

A little background information is needed for this story.

Every month in church, the kids learn a new Biblical virtue. Each virtue has a memory verse that goes along with it. Last month the virtue was resourcefulness and the verse was Colossians 3:23 which says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord and not for men."

Now that you know the background........

Last Saturday we went to a friend's house and ate supper with them. They used to live across the street from us and their boys are good friends with Emma and Jace. Jace and Cole had been having a great time playing with each other all day. As supper began to wind down, Jace asked to be excused even though he really hadn't eaten very much. Jace always gets hungry before bed so we have been talking to him about eating more supper. I told him I thought he didn't want to eat any more because he wanted to go play with Cole. We told him to eat more now because we were not going to eat again at home later.

Once we got home and started getting ready for bed, of course Jace let us know he was hungry. We talked some more about eating more supper and put him and the other kids in bed. A few minutes later as Katherine was walking by the kids' bedroom, Jace called out to her. "I know why I didn't eat more supper" he said. Katherine asked him why and he responded, "I was working at playing with Cole with all my heart."

Good to know that he is learning at church.