They say the funniest things...

Nick came in with one of his favorite Nerf guns just now. I was sitting on my bed, and when he pointed the gun to "shoot" me,  I played along, squealed, and fell over "dead".  I lay there to wait and see what he would do.  He didn't say a word, and I didn't move.  After about 30 seconds, he climbed up on the bed with me.  He put one hand on top of the other, and starting pushing on my ribs, CPR style, yelling "Breathe, baby, breathe!  Breathe, baby, breathe!". 

If I wasn't already laying down, I'd have fallen over laughing! 

It's a Dangerous Game

 Ethan just came running up to me and said:  
Hey, mom!  I know a dangerous game.  It would be called 'fire-in-the-hole musical chairs'.  You would put fire on the chairs, and then put on fire stuff (fire retardant stuff, I think he meant), and then you would turn on the music, do-de-do-di-loo....and then the music would stop and you'd sit down on the fire!  Told you it was a dangerous game.

How do you respond to that?

SUCCESS!

This is an old post that I had started, but never posted,  for some reason.  

It's from November '08, but here it is anyway... Better late than never!  

The picture is from October 2008...they've grown so much!!

S-U-C-C-E-S-S!!!!!!!!!

Tonight, instead of Nicholas yelling at me MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMY!!!!!
when he wanted more drink, he yelled,
PWEASE, PWEASE, PWEASE!!!!

It's the little things....

Oh, and before I forget...
The six-year-old question of the day:
(on the walk to school this morning)
Mom, why do birds poop?

Priceless.

Green Eggs & Ham...It's What's For Dinner!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

  

 We love Dr. Seuss at our house.  We have a whole tub full of books devoted to him on our bookshelf.  Even this blog is partly inspired by him.  (The other part of inspiration was my awesome blogging Sis-in-law!) See that quote over there on the right?  Yep...Those of the words of the man himself.  It's amazing what wonderful advice for both children and parents are in those fun little books.  Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks so either!  Zen Mama's blog today was about Dr. Seuss and all his wonderful goodness.  Check it out for some really great book quotes, and a little background on the man who would have been 106 today!

I pulled out our box of Dr. Seuss books while the boys were at school today.  We have several, and usually read at least one at bedtime every night.  I found a previously-very-grumpy Nick happily reading them on Ethan's bed.

Ethan soon joined him and was happy exploring some of the ones that don't usually get picked for bedtime stories.

 

Then, it was dinnertime, and the boys decided to be brave and put "Green Eggs & Ham" on the menu.  Yes, we really had that for dinner!

They are always so happy to get to cook something together in the kitchen!

 

Nick declared, "I'm going to kill the eggs!" 

Teamwork!

They worked together and took turns whisking the eggs.

 

Next, Ethan added the green food coloring.  He's holding it in the picture, but it doesn't show up much against his green shirt!

  

They whisked some more....

The finished eggs turned out a nice and somewhat pretty green.  Kind of a "Grinchy" green.  Appropriate, right?  The picture doesn't do the color justice at all.

They wanted their picture with the Grinchy Green Eggs

Nick also wanted green ham, so I smooshed some around in a baggie with the food coloring.  The result was beyond disgusting, but Nick loved it.  The green still isn't showing up enough, even in this picture!

Nick with his Green Eggs & Ham dinner

And again, about to take the first taste...

Ethan didn't want the ham.  Can you tell he's less excited about actually having to try them now?  I'm sure he's thinking, "I do not like them Sam-I-am!".  

 Nick LOVED that nasty green ham.  Go figure.

Totally fake "I'm going to try this" pose....

I'm having second thoughts about this.....

Okay, it's official.  I tried them, and I do not like Green Eggs & Ham!

Still gobbling up the green ham!  I DO so like green eggs & ham!  I like them, Sam-I-am!!

I think I might just need to search out and get the rest of the Dr. Seuss books to complete our collection!

The grumpies

We've all managed to catch the stomach bug that's going around, and feel yucky, to one degree or another. I won't go into the details, trust me you don't want to know.  Let's just say I woke up from a really bad nightmare yesterday to an even grosser reality.  Now your imagination is working...and it's probably worse than what you're thinking.  'Nuf said.

Today is the second day in a row for the boys to be stuck at home together, feeling not-so-great.  Yesterday, they played nicely, and just generally enjoyed (as much as you can) being sick at home in their pjs.  Today?  Not so much.

We've all three got a case of the grumpies.  Lots of arguments, taunting, and several rounds of tears.  Thankfully they come and go pretty quickly.  

Case in point?  The knock knock joke:

After a minute or two of arguing about who-knows-what...

E: KNOCK... KNOCK!!!! (In the GRUMPIEST voice imaginable.)
N: WHO's THERE??? ( In an even grumpier voice, if you can believe that...
)
E: Giant lego man.  (Not so grumpy... almost sounding like a normal human...)
N:  Giant lego man who? (Almost said with a smile in his voice...)
E: Giant lego man fell on the floor (as he throws the lego man across the room...)
Both:  Laughing together hysterically.  Go figure.

Like I said, at least the grumpies leave as quickly as they come!

UPDATE:  While writing this, I noticed a very loud lack of fighting coming from the next room.  In fact, I realized that there hadn't been any noise in there for about 30 minutes.  Hmmm..  must investigate.  Want to see what I found?  They were in the cabinet together... quietly playing their handheld games with the door closed.

I couldn't help but laugh and run for the camera.  Boys, even on the days you're driving me crazy, you always manage to make me laugh!  I love you.

Help!!!!!!!! I'm STUCK!

"Help, mommy! I'm stuck!" 
About six months ago, this wouldn't have meant anything serious, but it is obvious that we've now got a pattern going here.  Nick has gotten some part of himself stuck in some thing at least three times.  The first, definitely the worst.  Check it out:

That's a piece of wood with two holes in it.  It goes to this cool wooden top that their cousin gave the boys.  So, of course, Nick sticks his finger in the smaller hole.  And it gets stuck.  "Mommy.  I'm stuck in a bwock.  Wook at "I" finger.  You get it offa me!!"

Of course his finger swelled up as soon as he tried to pull it off. We tried to get it off with some soap and water. Well, that backfired because the wood started to swell up. His finger was turning purple. Next we tried baby oil. But the wood and the finger were swollen up enough that we couldn't even rotate the block around. Can't get the baby oil between the block and his skin. It was completely stuck in place. Did I mention that this happened 30 minutes before it was time to pick Ethan up from school? No pressure there. So, we have a finger turning blue, somewhere else we need to be, and no way to fix it. We ended up calling Grandma and Papa to come help. They held him and the block still, while I used a hacksaw to gently....slowly....carefully.... cut ( Oh man, was that nervewracking!)... through the wood. Eventually we got a slice cut into it big enough to fit in the end of a screwdriver and twist the wood apart. Whew. I definitely don't want to repeat that particular experience!


Next, he got his little hand stuck in this small fabric pocket. It was just big enough for him to get his little hand into, but when he made a fist to grab whatever was in there, he couldn't get it back out. "Help mom! I'm stuck in the bwoo (blue) couch!" At least that one was any easy fix. Just had to tell him to open that hand and he was free.


Most recently, he got himself stuck again.  He can't resist any sort of daddy related tool or item left lying around the house, and here is the result.   

Do you see the roll of duct tape?  Doesn't look too bad, but he's wedged it up past his knee, so that it won't come back off.  "Um....mom?  I need a wit-tle help pwease...I'm stuck!"

Even he is just laughing while I'm asking, "Again??  Really?!?"  At least it came off again this time without a hacksaw.  Ahh...the joys of boys!