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Kids. They do the craziest things sometimes. Want a peek into our lives?

Last week six year old Sprinkle decided to pick a fight with a fourteen year old boy. Fortunately for us the boy was patient and mature enough to come tell us he didn’t appreciate getting spit in the face, at which point I profusely apologized to him and then spent the next 45 minutes dealing with Sprinkle. Ugh. We then tracked down the boy and he apologized, but good grief!! Can I just ask what our 47 pound child was thinking???!! Today I caught him karate chopping another neighbor boy, all in the name of fun until he caught one back in the mouth.

Have any of you met the Advanage team - those guys and gals from the inner-city who travel the country going door to door selling all-purpose cleaner? Oh my, Keith stopped by here on Friday evening. A very well-dressed, energetic young man came bounding up the stairs and proceeded to lick the straw on his spray bottle cleaner to show us how safe his product was. He got out permanent marker. He bounded down the stairs and removed the oxidation from our van’s headlights. He bounded back up and washed our sliding glass door and started in on our oven. I was tired watching him. Needless to say, Father bought a bottle of the magic liquid for a bargain of $38. (Fannie called the company the next day to return it.) I appreciate this young man’s hard work, and the intentions of my husband but almost forty dollars??? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m still laughing. No, I should say I wish I were laughing. At least father and I are speaking again, lol. I’m still scratching my head about the guy, though. He commented on having the exact same phone I do - a black chocolate from Verizon. He was out of minutes, could he borrow mine real quick? Sure, how weird, but sure. He typed in the number but didn’t know how to make it call. Hmmm. . . . something strange going on here. . . . I’ve done a bit of looking around the internet about these guys, and found a lot of interesting things.

I’m fairly certain Fidget broke his toe today. All weekend long we’ve been working on the problem with running. Tonight the bookcase got him, and as he’s moaning and crying and I offer to get him some medicine he starts bawling harder. “I think we’ll need a LOT of medicine mommy.” Poor child. Fourth piggy on the right crying wee wee wee all the way home.

But what simple things cheer this child up. I handed him a magnifying glass with one hand, held my camera with the other and got the picture above.

Sparkle is reading up a storm. I grabbed one of her books the other night because I was so desperate for something to read in bed, and found the most surprising content. Needless to say, the much needed “sex talk” has now been given. Nothing like a good old library book for fifth graders to prompt that whole discussion. Anger at God, periods and where babies come from to name a few. Now I must say it was handled well, but my issue is that it was handled at all, and not mentioned on the jacket. Still stewing about that one. . .

Other than that, life is jolly. There’s a new stock set in Studio Amy called Wishing - just some fun, dreamy moments meant to inspire. Here are a few samples:

Happy Wishing!!!

Horizonal Headstands

Okay, bad blogger me lately, eh? SO many funny things happen in this house everyday. I wish my computer could just type my thoughts and then let me moderate every night, lol.

Tonight Sprinkle wanted to learn how to do a headstand, so I explained the whole tripod stance to him, then instead of me actually showing him (I’M THIRTY FOUR, you know) I googled it and showed him some images. So off he went to the living room and began his attempts. By the end of the night, we were all rolling and laughing. SOOO funny.

Here’s Sprinkle. Sparkle’s coming next and it’s worth it to stick with this post, lol. (Trust me!)

Whoops, a little too far now . . .

Woohoo!!! He conquered!

And now Sparkle . . . notice her look of horror, most likely mirroring my own, lol.

And this. This totally cracks me up. She was balancing, fully believing she was in a perfect tripod perpendicular to the floor. When she saw this picture she about wet her pants she laughed so hard at her own silliness. (And yes, she’s given permission to post these. She’s at that age where I feel I should now check with her first.)

And all the while father was on the couch watching first Hillary’s then Obama’s speech tonight. Yes, you can tell we were at it for quite some time.

And should I share the story of our coffee pot? Father was convinced it was broken. For about two months, it would only brew ten cups of coffee instead of the normal twelve. Every morning he would stagger to the kitchen, make a pot and scratch his head when the water trickled down at the end to a measley ten cups. So he would add more water. Every morning. Two months.

All the while I watched with a steaming hot cup of coffee in my hand, smiling, wondering why he kept weakening the coffee. Finally the other morning he was about to throw the whole thing out and run to the store for a new coffee maker. And finally I realized what he was thinking, and that he didn’t realize that at about eight cups I would grap a cup and then let it finish brewing. And when that realization dawned on both of us . . . what a beautiful thing to have harmony in the morning after all this time, lol.

We love our coffee pot once again.

Falling Coconuts

I was reading an article this morning, trying to calculate my risk of dying from a falling coconut, and found this statistic: MORE than 2,500 left-handed people are killed every year around the world from using equipment meant for right-handed people. The right-handed power saw is the most deadly item.

So all you lefties - be careful. All your righties, stay far, FAR away from lefties with power tools.

And yes, these are the things I’m doing. I SHOULD be making the bed and answering emails, but before I got close to the bed I had to analyze my risk of dying from falling OUT of the bed, you know. These are serious issues. I’m SOOO glad I didn’t see any sharks in the shower. . .

Tickle Wars

Fidget was playing with some legos tonight when I dubbed it an official tickle fest. See? Here he is all serious and playing so well. . . I love this angle and how HUGE his feet look.

Then he’s beginning to realize that mommy is doing more than just crawling around on the floor with a camera. (Yeah, that’s a normal occurrance around here, unfortunately. . . )

And then a full-fledge battle was underway. . . I think we both won that one, heehee.

One more Video

THIS song brings me to tears every time we sing it at church. One of these days maybe I’ll be able to get through it, but man alive what a challenge those words are to sing. Sometimes there IS pain in the offering, yet we are still to praise.

How Great

What a blessing this has been to me this week:

The Power of Ebay

Oh the power of ebay. The children were being somewhat enthusiastic yesterday afternoon, so I told them we needed a family powwow at the dining room table. (Little did they know we were really going to have a yatzee fest . . . ) Sprinkle was leading the bad behavior pack, so we had a little fun at his expense.

This is the look we got when he found out we were selling him ebay, and the family powwow was to decide what to say about him to garner the highest profit:

And we went on and on . . .

But their behavior was SOOOO good after that, heehee. Then just a few more moments around the house today. I got a new lens this weekend, so have been enjoying the playing with it. Woohoo! Can a nerd have more fun?!

And the “Mom, I LOVE water!” comment is still cracking me up:

And this is just a pretend sweet moment. He was really being quite ornrey about it all:

And that has been my day. Mother’s Day was wonderful - I spent a few hours with my mom and dad, just chatting and talking theology. I’m so blessed to have parents I can do that with. And so blessed by them in so many other ways. I love you, Dad and Mom!!! Thanks for all you do.

Promoting Well

My dad forwarded me this card he got in the mail this week, and it’s just cracking me up. Pardon my cold heart, but man, talk about hard sale! I can’t even begin to imagine being exciting about winning their drawing. Am I missing something, lol?

Smile

If this doesn’t make you smile, your smiler is broke. Happy Tuesday,world.

Mornings at our House

We have a very steady routine at our house every morning. Namely, the kids get up before they’re coherant and wander zombie-like to the living room where they do this:

(Can you believe that hair?! She’s actually looking at the camera, lol.)

And there you have it. The way we start our day - every day, without fail. Now I’m off to motivate them toward some cheerios.