A daily journal of our family's crazy hijinks and how this mama of 4 tries to survive them!

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Kids Say the Darndest Things....

Josh, on climbing the rock wall at the playground: I need to go barefoot because my skin is not slippery!

Josh, after listening to the Pina Colada song: If you like enchiladas......

Meghan, very indignant about something her sister has said: Katy, that's prepostocy! (I'm assuming that's a cross between preposterous and hypocrisy.)

Katy, found out last night that she was going to be the ONLY angel in the Christmas play at church. When I asked her if music from heaven would be playing as she entered the room with profound holiness, without missing a beat she said: No, but there should be!

Tyler, while being forced against his will to listen to Hannah Montana for the bajillionth time: Where's a guillotine when you need one?!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

The Hunt for Red Apples....

I love fall! It is my most favorite of the seasons! So many things happen that make you happy. The air turns cooler, or at least it's supposed to. The leaves change color, pumpkins, gourds and hay bales adorn yards and the MIGHTY VOLS play football! (Go Big Orange!) These are all fabulous signs of the season.
The beginning of fall also marks the time for our annual family trek to the apple orchard. When I say family trek that is exactly what I mean. It is a two hour trip, one way, usually involving a caravan of vehicles and several cell phones to keep in contact along the way. You'd think we were crossing the Sahara! This has become a much looked forward to family tradition! We all load up in our perspective cars and head out of town. I'm sure there is an orchard closer by, but what fun would that be? We drive over interstates and on country backroads through the mountains to reach our destination. Our "apple time" begins with lunch at the wonderful on site restaurant. We eat our fill of fritters and fried chicken then we go apple shopping! Pickins' were a little slim this year because of the drought, but we did manage to load our cars with apples, jellies, gourds, mini-pumpkins and a couple of bags of candy!
It seems like a long ride for short shopping, but I don't mind. This year our cars were filled with not only apples, but four generations of family, and I think that's pretty special!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

I'll Take Mine Well Done Please....

So recently, as I have been counting calories and exercising until I think I will have a stroke, I have been paying very close attention to all the news on dark chocolate. This is ground breaking people! Do you realize that we now have an excuse to eat chocolate and say that it's healthy?! FABULOUS I tell you! I have always thought that chocolate should be considered a vegetable since it originally comes from a plant, but no one important wants to listen to me...go figure.

This has made my trips to the grocery store so much more fulfilling. Apparently, the stores figured out that this would mean big bucks for them, so they started putting bags, yes bags, of dark chocolate at the checkout counter. How convenient! Now I, being very concerned about my health and all, purchased a bag of healthy chocolate the other day. I carefully carried it to the car and after turning on the air so it wouldn't melt, I painstakingly unwrapped one small square. I inhaled the sweet aroma, and was just about to place it on my tongue to slowly melt away when what from the backseat do I hear? One of those annoying precious kids asking for a piece. Can you believe that? Meghan had the nerve to ask me to share my chocolate! Because I am such a wonderful mother, as I have said many times before, I passed a square of pure delight back to her. I could hear the wrapper being ripped from the sweet decadence, and then horror. "I don't like it, it tastes funny." Can you believe this? Fortunately she had only tasted one small corner so I did what any half insane self respecting mother of four would do. I took it from her grubby little hand, rewrapped it and put it back in the bag to eat later myself! Whew! All was not lost!

After savoring my own piece and dropping a few pounds, I asked Meghan why she didn't like it. Her reply; "I only like medium chocolate." Well that's great! More well done chocolate for me!

Things That Make You Go...I Just Really Can't Begin To Speculate!....

There are many things in this world that can fascinate or even puzzle us. For instance, the "Seven Wonders of the World", the ingredients in hot dogs, do these shoes go with this outfit or should I buy new ones? These are all very important questions.
Josh asked an important question of his own as our "host" was seating us at a local restaurant the other night. "Is that a boy or a girl?" Oh yes he did! And yes it was within earshot of our friendly host, ie. the person in question. (6 year old boys never ask quiet questions)
I could feel the blood draining from my face! Did "he" hear? Would "he" be mad? Does "he" look that way on purpose? All these questions were racing through my mind. And as for my response to little Joshy, what was I supposed to say, I didn't know either! I told him "it's a boy". I was not completely confident that this was the correct assumption to make, however "he" had facial hair.
As you can imagine, I spent the rest of my dinner experience trying to figure out...boy, or girl? First of all it was the voice. Not quite feminine not quite masculine. I realize you can't judge a person by the depth of their voice, but it would have been a smidge helpful. Next came the shape. There wasn't one. Not a hint of anything girly, if you know what I mean. Of course there were also several piercings. Now don't get me wrong, I am a fan of some piercings, I even have some of my own, one in each ear! These piercings were not of the cool nature though, they were downright strange! Anyway, after gorging on BBQ, I always eat more when I'm deep in thought, I was finally redeemed when I heard him introduce himself at the next table as Matthew. What a relief! Matthew, that's a good, strong, biblical name that a man can be proud of!
Part of me hopes that Matthew heard little Josh's question. Not to embarrass him, but to send the message that maybe he should choose a gender and stick with it...if not for his own sake, then for the sake of all the mothers of loud six year olds who aren't afraid to ask questions!

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Demolition Derby....


What's a girl to do when she feels her space isn't flowing properly? Ask her husband to knock down a wall of course! Now mind you that her husband may not be too keen on the idea at first, something about money and rerouting duct work. But as soon as he knocked that first hole in the wall to "see what was there", he was hooked! The most excitement came when the kids realized that they could punch, kick or baseball bat the wall down. This kind of stuff doesn't happen everyday at our house! An offense like that will usually get you a good spanking or grounded for the next century, but not this time....BATTER UP!!



In a house that you didn't build yourself, you can never be too sure what will be underneath when you start yanking down important structural items. We were fairly lucky. We will have to reroute duct work and build a facade to make things look symmetrical, but other than that it will be fabulous! The space is now completely opened up and flooded with light, and since the floors are a little uneven, we agreed we will need to redo them also! I'm so excited!!

Maybe we could start a side business: Homeschool Demolition and Destruction Services; you build it we tear it down!