Awesome Photos of the Week

I took some pretty sweet pictures this week that I figured you'd all want to see.  I chose four to share with you.  

Photo #1 is of a drawing Ethan did with a friend.  I gave them a white poster board and they proceeded to draw a war scene.  There were bombs and helicopters and soldiers and this:

In case you can't read that, it says, "You're not the only one with a gun bleeeep."  I think it's both awesome that he censored the swear word and awful that he felt the need to include it at all.  

Photo #2 is of the tie-dye shirts I did with the boys.  I helped them place the rubber bands where they wanted them to be, and the boys did the dye all by themselves, as is apparent by Trent's muddy colors.  He used almost an entire bottle of purple dye.  

Mine turned out pretty awesome, but you'll have to live without a picture of it for now.  And by the way - these were super easy and fun.  Good summer project.

Photos #3 and 4 are of a science experiment that Cameron did.  For his birthday, his Aunt Natalie and Uncle Kamaki gave him a kit with three science experiments.  I hid them in his closet knowing that it would be good to save them for summer.  Below are the results of experiment #1, which had to do with bacteria.

We made the agar in the petri dish and then swabbed the inside of the bathroom doorknob and smeared it on the agar.  Then on the right half of the agar we swabbed some antibacterial cream (Neosporin-type stuff).  As you can see, no bacteria grew where we used antibacterial creme, but on the side without creme there is nasty looking crud growing.  Orange, black, white - gross bacteria.  

But then we moved on to another experiment.  We divided another petri dish in half and two of my children swabbed the insides of their mouths, making sure to rub their Q-tip on their gums, teeth and tongues.  Then each child smeared their sample on their half of the agar.  (I'm not using names to protect the poor children here.)

As you can see, one child had a relatively clean mouth, while the other child grew all kinds of nasty looking white junk on their side.  Unfortunately, that nasty black spot is exactly on the equator of the dish, (though it looks otherwise in the picture), and there is no way to be sure who's mouth that bacteria came from.  But I think it's safe to assume that it was Child B.  Maybe someone forgot to brush their teeth?

Now I Get It

I've always kind of laughed at all those moronic mothers who complain that all they do is taxi kids around, or that they are so busy they don't have time to cook dinner. 

I usually label them Drama Queens or Pity Partiers... 

But then Andrew went back to school.  

Allow me to apologize if I've ever thought you to be a poor time-manager, complainer, whiner, etc.  Because I totally get it now.

The last two weeks of my life have left me spinning.  EVERY NIGHT we have at least one, but usually two or three of the following - baseball games, baseball practice, soccer practice, soccer games, dentist appointments, church meetings and scouts.  All done with one car and driver because Andrew is always at school or work. 

Add to that homework and chores, dealing with insurance about the car accident Andrew was in, filing taxes, turning in paperwork for virtual school for Cameron, babysitting a two year old every Thursday, speech classes for Trent, Easter, five dentist appointments, parent teacher conferences, and the usual errands and such, and you will understand why my kids had peanut butter and jelly for dinner four times last week and why I have gone through about five Dr. Peppers a day since April hit the calendar.

The really scary part of all this chaos is that baseball and soccer don't end until June.

Can you hear my hysterical sobs that are starting to morph into maniacal laughter?  It's scary.

(Here's a few pictures proving that life isn't all stress and miles on the car.)

Andrew and I, Seaside, Oregon, Spring Break

Cameron crossing from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts after receiving his Webelos badge and his Arrow of Light.  (Whew!)  (Andrew was at school.)

Me, my fat neck, Makana, Kellie and Natalie at Wicked.  Not sure where the rest of our group was.

Cameron at the JUGS Tournament the day before Easter.  Why is it called the JUGS Tournament?  I don't know.  I was afraid to ask.

Some kids at the opening of the Rock Pizza in Hillsboro.  Yum.  And yawn.  It was late.  Trent fell asleep at the table.

Easter egg coloring.  The end.  :)

Playing Hookie

Right now Andrew works Saturdays and has Sundays and Mondays off.  A few weeks ago we decided we wanted the older boys to be able to come with us to the zoo on a Monday.  That meant we'd have to let them skip school.  Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do - right?  

Whenever we go to the zoo we take way too many pictures of animals doing nothing that look just like all the other pictures we've taken of animals doing nothing...  

Except for the lizard picture.  That one was special.

So anyhow - this time we decided to take more interesting pictures at the zoo.  Enjoy.

And this was the look on Trent's face when we told him he was eating an elephant ear...

"Say what?"

He then proclaimed it "yucky" and let the older boys finish his share.  And because I love Drew and want you all to know that he got yucky elephant ear, too, I'll post the picture of him, even though I'm in it and look hideous.  Honestly - the things I do for equality...

That was our day off at the zoo.  And every morning since, Cameron and Ethan ask if they can skip school again.  So - minus ten mom points for me.

Home For The Holidays

In the twelve Thanksgivings that Andrew and I have been married, we've never once stayed home for Thanksgiving dinner.  We're always off to his mom's or my parents' or a huge extended family gathering.  They are nice dinners.  I have always loved them.

But they're also a bother.  We have to prep our culinary offerings, travel with them to wherever we're expected, keep our kids entertained and out of trouble, and then we have to go home with half a pie.  Which means that the day after Thanksgiving is always spent cooking a turkey with all the trimmings, just we we can enjoy the "leftovers".  Most especially The Seven Phases of Turkey.

This year, Andrew and I find ourselves an hour away from him mom, twelve hours away from my parents, and within reach of a solitary, no-travel-involved Thanksgiving.  We're staying home this year.  We'll be all alone.  No transporting food, no begging children for good manners, no "take-two cooking marathon" on Friday.

We've been looking forward to the simplicity and hominess of this opportunity for months.

And now that it's a week away, I'm worried I'm going to hate it.

I'm worried I'll miss the hubub of family, the excitement that only a large group of rowdy people can inspire, the noise.

I'm afraid I'll spend all day in the kitchen, alone, while the boys play video games upstairs and Andrew watches football - completely ignoring those of us who aren't speaking to him from a television screen. 

I'm worried that I'll be lonely.  

I hope I don't regret this.

Best Mom of the Year Award

When I was a kid my parents let me and my sisters watch all kinds of horror movies.  I've talked about this before, so I know it isn't news to you.  The two movies that scared me the most as a kid were The Shining, and IT.  

I was about eleven years old when I saw IT for the first time.  I was sitting about three feet from our TV in the dark living room with my parents and sisters, and I was totally into the movie.  I'm not sure if I understood it all back then, but I loved to be scared and that freaking clown was doing the trick.

In the middle of the movie my dad slipped out of the living room and into the garage where he found an orange, curly haired wig in the Halloween costumes box that had been used in an Annie costume at some point in the past.  He put the wig on, crept back into the house, crawled behind the couch and jumped out at us with an evil clown chuckle.  

We all screamed and peed a drop, and Dad was laughing so hard he couldn't breathe - he just wheezed while his shoulders shook.  Mom pretended to be mad at him, but she couldn't keep the amusement out of her voice.

Tonight, I'm pretty sure I achieved that same level of Master Child Terrorizer that my dad earned on that night watching IT all those years ago.

My kids are hard to scare.  They've seen more scary movies than I ever did as a kid, and not much gets to them.  

The list of my kids' conquered scary movies looks something like this:

I Am Legend

The Village

The Sixth Sense

The Birds

Rear Window

Signs

Sleepy Hollow

The Shining

The Others 

Alien vs. Predator

Tremors

...and surely some that I am forgetting.

And so far - not much hype in the nightmare department.  I feel something between awe and disappointment.

But tonight I let Cameron and Ethan watch Halloween with me.  Let me tell ya.  For some reason, this movie was a whole 'notha story.  I think the difference came in the thriller vs. slasher film factor.  

Halloween scared the crap out of them.  They were both sitting on my lap and covering their faces with pillows and plugging their ears.

It was super awesome.

So the movie ended and I am giddy with fright-power.  I told them it was time for bed, but neither of them would go up the stairs first.  So I went first.

But I didn't just go first up the stairs...I bolted up the stairs as fast as I could and turned off every light on my way.  They were left in pitch blackness downstairs while I covered my mouth with a cupped fist and breathed as loud as I could.  Sounded just like Michael Meyers.

Ethan was crying that whiny, panicked kind of cry that doesn't produce tears, but sweat and heart palpitations.  He kept saying, "Mooooom!  Stop it!"  

I couldn't help myself.  I laughed just like my dad did.  Wheezy, shoulder-shaking giddiness.

I turned on all the lights and told them to come upstairs.  

Both Cameron and Ethan ran straight to the bathroom when they passed me and locked themselves in.  I guess it's because I kept breathing like a psychopath.  So I decided to keep playing.  I shook the doorknob and scratched the door.  It was good fun.  They came out eventually, but I'm pretty sure I could have kept them in there all night if I'd wanted to. 

They're totally having nightmares tonight.  Good thing Andrew's not home so when they crawl into my bed later there will be room for everyone.  

So whoever passes out those "Best Mom of the Year" awards can just go ahead and mail it to my house.  Thanks.

(P.S. - Just in case you are an insane, knife-wielding wacko, I wrote this last weekend and posted it today...so Andrew is home now.  No need to come visit.)

Butterfly Funeral and Flying Logs

My brother came to visit this week, and boy did we have fun.  He's a 6'7" man-child with really big feet.  He teaches my kids insanely inappropriate things, which is fine, because I can't be expected to cover that arena alone.  This visit included lots of sword fights, gun wars, playstationing (that's a word), and only one neighborhood kid in tears.  The tears happened shortly after this:

But you know what they say - Don't dish it out if you can't take it.  We didn't want stinking neighborhood kids infringing on our Joel Time anyhow.

The best part of Joel's visit for me was the day that we all, including my sisters and their families, spent at Moultan Falls in the Battle Ground, Washington area.  Bit of a drive for us Oregonians, but we spent a lot of time there as kids, so it was a must.

I'll spare you the boring details of our day, but there were two parts that are worth mentioning.  The first is the Butterfly Funeral.

Joel found a butterfly that was mostly dead.  I suggested that Joel build a raft to float it down the river on, because surely the butterfly would appreciate a river burial.  Here's what he came up with:

Impressive, right?  By the time Joel finished the coffin-raft the butterfly was completely dead, so it was ok that we lit the raft on fire to add a little Jedi flair to the funeral.  (Potential forest fires be damned, we were in mourning.)  And now, I give you - The Butterfly Funeral.  Please keep in mind that Andrew was completely sober when he was laughing like a maniac, and that the entire service would have lost its hilarity if Matt had not thought to sing the theme song to Reading Rainbow.  I freaking love my family.

My second favorite part of the day was the idiotic game that the adults played, but with which the men never tired.  We all stood in the ice-cold water and threw logs at each other.  Good game, right?  This created tidal wave type splashes that made the men's "little boys" run for cover in their body cavities.  That water was dang cold.  

Most impressive was how the men all took turns without fighting and how they never realized how stupid this game was.  Not that it wasn't strangely fun.  (P.S.  I could barely lift that big log as high as my belly button without crapping my pants.  That sucker was water-logged and very heavy.)

Joel can come for a visit ANYTIME.  He's super fun.  :)

Friday Night In The Ghetto

It's Friday night in the ghetto, and that means that Andrew is outside playing catch with our boys under the street lights.  It also means that he is playing catch with half the kids in the neighborhood.  The ones who don't have dads, and the ones who have fathers that are too busy getting drunk to play catch with them.

Andrew knows most of these kids by name.  He knows which ones are left-handed.  He knows when they've gotten better at throwing the ball.

A dog has gotten loose and its owner chases it through the shadows, calling its name.  

A tricycle sits abandoned on the sidewalk.  I think it's Trent's.  

An occasional breeze brings with it the pungent odor of cheap cigarettes.

As it gets darker people seem to talk louder.  There is chatter up and down the street about a cat fight between two moms.  All the kids are discussing what the other kid's mother called their mother.  We're glad to have missed that show.

It's almost dark.  A few porch lights come on to aid the street lights in stretching the football game just a few more minutes.

Some parents call their kids inside.  Some don't seem to even care where their kids are, much less when they come in for the night.

Andrew says goodbye to the last orphan child to leave the game of catch.  Then he enjoys a few minutes alone with his boys.  Bicycle seats are adjusted for growing legs, helmet straps tightened, manly hugs distributed.

The night's first yawn makes its appearance and it's time for balls and bikes and foam swords to be collected and put in the garage until tomorrow.  

All of the boys troop inside and the screen door screeches a close to a pretty lovely Friday night in the ghetto.

What We've Done This Summer

Enjoyed many visits from our favorite ice cream truck.  Everything he sells is one dollar.  That makes my life easier, because I don't have to tell the kids they can only pick something on the bottom row of pictures, or the last three items from the right on the second row down.  You know how that goes, right?

Celebrated three birthdays.  Drew, Ethan and Andrew are all a year older now.  And the birthday crowns I make a flippin' awesome.  Screw humility - I know I'm a cool mom.  My favorite of the parties though, was Andrews.  Playing Balderdash with some of his siblings and their spouses was more fun than I'd had in a long time.  Tears streaming down the face kind of fun.  The only downside was finding that chocolate covered gummy bears mixed with three other kinds of candy plus two Henry Weinhardt's Vanilla Cream Sodas will make your stomach hurt really, really bad.

Went to the Japanese Gardens.  One of my favorite places ever.

Watched the Dragon Boat Races during the Portland Rose Festival.  We were rooting for the team named "Dragon Butts" because they are obviously cool.

Watched fireworks.  Got eaten by misquitos.

Explored several new parks.  Caught crawdads at one, developed tennis elbow from pushing kids on the swings at every single one of them, got a bit of sun at most, and now I don't glow in the dark.  Well, my torso still does.  

We've also seen a juggling show, been to Lego Club, watched a magician, toured the Farmers Market, played paintball, read lots of books, invented cookies, tried to grow plants, made salt-dough aliens, had sleepovers, and gotten pretty good at dodge-ball.

I'm beat.  But I'm having fun.

Smarties At The Park

We went exploring in our new neighborhood the other day.  We were on a mission to find "the pirate park".  I find it kind of irritating that none of the parks in this town come with parking lots.  They're all tucked away into watershed areas or something so you have to walk in.  It's like a passive-aggressive way to get us to save the planet by driving less.

I digress.

So we found the pirate ship park and my kids were enjoying it tremendously.  Kicking soccer balls, shooting down slides, swinging until they puked, etc.

And not too long after we'd been there, an Asian woman and her two kids came into the park via the longest walking trail.  Yey them!

And they were blabbing away in Chinese or something, and my kids were like - Whoa.  (They were impressed.)  So these Asian kids were obviously bi-lingual because they were talking to both their mom and to my kids.  They can also probably read, even though neither of them could have been older than three.  And I wouldn't be surprised if they could have taken apart the mother-board of my computer and programmed it to make toast when I turn it on in the morning. 

We live near Intel.  I'm going to go out on a politically incorrect limb here and say that being near Intel means that half of our town's population is Indian or Asian.  Those folks tend to be the techy type.  My poor kids are going to continue to run across more of these kinds of super smart children, and about a year from now I fully expect them to have crappy self-esteem.  

So I'm watching my Drew and my Trent play with these two Asian kids, and it was cracking me up.  Trent's babbling away in his language that consists only of the consonant "D" and the vowel "A", and he's wearing a diaper even though he looks like he's four.  Then there's Drew who intentionally lands on his head every time he goes down the slide. He then rolls for about three feet through the sawdust, pretending to be injured and leaps up to do it again.

The first time the mother of the genius kids saw Drew going down the slide and then witnessed the hit and roll she sucked half the atmosphere into her lungs, and her body got stuck between helping him and waiting for me to take the opportunity to be a responsible mother.   

Physical hesitation mixed with mental infuriation is a funny sight.

Andrew was sitting next to me on a bench and he started to laugh and congratulate Drew on his performance.  The Mother of Geniuses looked over at us and asked if Drew was OK.  We said yes - in the sense that she was inquiring about.

My kids are awesome.  And they need to learn another language if they're going to keep up with their kindergarten class.

A Day At The Coast

Today we went to the beach.  Sounds sunny, right?  Well, we went to the Oregon coast, so this was not the case.  But if you wait for sunshine before you do anything outdoors here in the northwest, you better love the inside of your house an awful lot.

We started out with a trip to Mo's.  Really awesome clam chowder.  The boys were watching the seagulls float on the wind when suddenly one dropped a "bomb" on the window directly in front of their faces.  They both screamed.  Like, literally screamed there in the restaurant.  It was fairly embarrassing, but I got over it in time to take a really classy picture.  Cameron took no direction from me, but he is certainly my child, no?

 The wind was blowing hard.  That wasn't a lot of fun, but we stayed on the sand long enough to get a group shot.

 And then it poured.  We were instantly soaked.  I had Andrew take a picture of my hair because, Dang, I'm hot.

 So then I put a hat on because no one should go into public looking that tempting.  And we went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  (You hear that Crystal B.?  The actual factory where they make your sharp cheddar.  Mmmm...)  Andrew took this picture.  He kinda stinks at it, but I love him anyway.

Here's a picture of giant cheese logs.  Ethan's question was:  How do they cut the cheese?  "With their butts", I replied.  Duh.

 It really was that orange in the cheese room, in case you're wondering.  Weird, huh?  Here's Ethan helping to make the cheese.  

And the picture Drew asked me to take of him.  Perfect placement, if you ask me.

In addition to cheese, they make ice cream at the creamery.  Drew had never had such a huge cone.

And here I am with my Mountain Blackberry cone.  It was disappointing.  I kept looking at Cameron and Ethan's Bubble Gum cones and wishing I hadn't felt pressure to not embarrass Andrew by ordering one myself.

Next time, I'm totally getting Bubblegum.

Week(s) In Review...Middle of September

There really are too many pictures to choose from, but here are a few of the things we did on our trip to Washington...

We ate at "Yummy Mongolian Grill".  It tasted good, but be careful how much oil you put on your creation.  I was on the toilet quite a lot after this one.

We went to Kid's Club - best invention ever, and I'd like one for my backyard, thankyouverymuch.

We went to the courthouse for Robel's adoption, (naturalization?), and also sealing at the temple.  Sadly, no picture of that one.  Doh.

Andrew and Todd went on a kick-butt bike ride.  Andrew's favorite part of the trip, so says he.

We chilled.  With bike helmets on.  Safety first.

We swam in Grandma's tub.

And met Juliana.  To-die-for cute. And she loved me.

So we cuddled.

And we went to the zoo.  Tommy and Michael both yelled at me for taking their picture.  Apparently they are not as big attention whores as my kids are.

We saw some Norman relatives.

And went to the beach.  Swings on the beach - awesome.

And to the Rose Gardens in Portland.  I love that place so very, very much.

We caught fish...(and criminal records...doh again)...

and snakes!

And we visited.  Mostly at decibels that prevented any actual communication.

And we finally took that group shot I've been meaning to get.  

And in spite of everything that kinda sucked and/or went wrong, we had a good time visiting with everyone.