Ummm, Excuse Me, Little Boy?

On Saturday night we attended a very lovely annual garden party, although this was our first year being invited to the "event of the year" for our area. We had to prep the kids, of course: This is an adult party, you need to be on your absolute best behavior or your little butt will be spending the night in the car. The appetizers came out including lots and lots of shrimp cocktail. W and M ate about 15 pieces each while A insisted, "I don't like fish." But guess who ate 5 salmon mousse puffs? Then the main service started with the caterers dishing out the food. A thought this was the coolest thing, that he could go stand in line and they'd give him anything he wanted to eat. After a few trips to the serving line I figured he'd gotten the hang of it, so when after a while he asked if he could go get some more food I just said, "Sure, go get whatever you like." Unfortunately I didn't realize that now dessert was being put out so the buffet was self serve. A few minutes later Eric came over to say, "I just found A in the buffet line." Yes, he had permission to go there. "Well, did you know he was standing there with 5 people in line behind him, digging with his hands through the pasta salad and picking out all the olives?" YIKES! Mortification and Embarrassment! Eric continued, "The lady behind him said, Oh, that's okay, I don't like olives anyway so thanks for picking them out for me."If there was ever a time when you want to disappear...I just hope the hosts didn't notice or there go our chances for a repeat invitation next year!

Indispensable

You know that game where people ask you what things you'd want if you were stranded on a desert island? Well, if my family were stranded anywhere, the one thing I couldn't live without is duct tape. It seems like I use it daily. Here's just a small sample of the things I've made with duct tape:

1. hatchet (made from a rock and a stick)
2. handles for a knight's shield
3. several parts of a cardboard box rocket ship
4. joints holding together a cardboard box princess castle
5. tool belt
6. police officer handcuffs
7. knight helmet and armor repairs
8. wart remover
9. trampoline net fix
10. strap for a broken croc sandal

Anyway, you get the idea. Today, gasp! we came to the end of our vast supply of duct tape. Believe me, W scoured the house looking for more. We found clear tape, blue tape, Scotch tape but not one more inch of duct tape. He even tried prying the very end of the roll from the cardboard but it didn't work. So he was resigned to building his scythe out of the empty duct tape roll, a stick and a rubber band. Looks like it's time to stock up on this indispensable ingredient to child happiness. And how much did I spend on his Christmas toys again?

Pretty Peonies

I had to pick these from my flower garden yesterday after a huge, torrential rain storm that totally flattened my plant. The blooms were just too big and heavy to stand anymore on their spindly stems. I thought this made a pretty picture and wanted to share it! Too bad we don't have smell-o-vision.

School's OUT!

Yippee! Hooray! School's Out! For me, that means: no more dragging myself out of bed to make pancakes that no one likes; no more scrambling around the kitchen making lunches that no one eats; no more searching under the bed/couch/toybox/dirtyclothesbin for W's homework sheet/library book; no more dragging M out of bed and enduring her kicking and pouting and refusing to get in the van to take A to school or no more dragging M out of bed and having her go totally boneless and yet again refuse to get in the van to take A to school; much, much more housecleaning and cooking; much, much more dealing with mud/water/sand/salamanders/toads/frogs/bugs in the house; and packing up for our trip to see the Grandparents this summer. For the kids it means: yay! TV all day! So far W has watched 4 hours of the Discovery Channel's "When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions" (at least it's educational) and approximately 3 hours of Spongebob (it teaches social skills? Yeah, that's what I'll tell myself). I've told them that for today they can watch all the TV they want but tomorrow they're mine. School's out also means staying up late to look at the stars; cooking about 1 million s'mores with Daddy;hunting for salamanders/frogs/bugs/mudholes/sand; and a big trip on an airplane to see the Grandparents. Let the fun begin!

Sunburn on my shin

This is the obligatory "It's so hot here we're melting" post. The heat and humidity these last few days were just BRUTAL. I felt so sorry for our poor friends visiting from Park City, Utah where it was a cool 48 degrees. At least they could hang out in our basement which was slightly cooler than the rest of the house. But of course the air conditioning in the car is broken with a $600 repair bill so that fix isn't happening. Besides, with the cost of gas, who can afford air conditioning? This is how we coped with the heat in order to not melt:
on Saturday: let the kids go shopping wearing nothing but underwear. Also, spent the entire afternoon playing in the water in our new Boogie Boards. Very fun in the current.
on Sunday: gave up on sitting in church with no fans or a/c and three little kids. Went for a walk on the lawn instead. I have to admit, I preferred it that way, too! Spent the rest of the afternoon in the basement.
on Monday:sweated, sweated, sweated. Hey, at least it's one way to lose weight, right? I think we actually ran out of ice in the ice maker. Slept in the basement again.
on Tuesday: Thank goodness for rainstorms! We had some really wild weather with tornado warnings and major thunder and lightning. The best part? No more humidity! Hooray!
I think we can all agree that summer is here with a vengeance!

Ode to a Fish

A few days ago the weather was so gorgeous that Dad decided to take the boys down to the river. Ignoring all my cautions (wear shoes, watch out for poison ivy, take the lifejackets) off they set for a grand adventure. The inventory upon returning was: two small minnows, 25 tadpoles, 5 pet snails who still reside in our bathroom and one, as yet unknown, wicked case of poison ivy on W. The bucket full of goodies sat outside on the deck for a day or so and M would go out and watch the fish swimming and stick her hands in to play with them. Everyone was abiding in peace until Wednesday. On Wednesday, M wanted to "hold" the fish. I told her, no, you can't hold the fish because the fish needs water to breathe. Then I went about doing the endless dishes or endless mopping or endless laundry or whatever I was doing at the time. About a half hour later M comes to me with a sippy cup half full of water saying: "Fishy needs help." Uh-oh. I look in the bucket. It's empty. "Sweetie, where are the fishies?" I ask. She looks at me with her innocent blue eyes. "In my shoe." Of course they are. Where else would you look for fish? Actually, she had dumped the entire bucket onto the deck and all the small tadpoles fell through the cracks leaving the bigger fish to catch. It's pretty ingenious, actually. When W came home from school he got a very heartfelt apology and hug, "I'm sorry I killed your fish," from his little sister. He and A made a casket for it out of paper and tape, wrote a nice note about the fish and buried it in the flower garden with some lovely flowers to mark the grave.