sam works on biscuit joining his table

Teenagers Call That "Dinner"

 

Getting ready to go out to dinner

 

Swordfight

 

Self esteem anyone??

Unless I wear pink glitter dresses every day (Abbey’s choice) the boys are the ones I ask if I look presentable before I go out. Here are the last few weeks of comments:

1.       Don’t wear dresses that show your knees. No offense but your knees are kinda ugly.

2.       Don’t wear eyemake up you look like a witch.

3.       You look pregnant in that outfit.

4.       Kid, “You need to do something with your hair.” Mom, “Well I’m just going to the post office. How bad is it?” Kid, “Well no one is going to scream or pass out or anything but you really need to do something different.”

5.       Mom, “How do I look?” Kid, “Well you aren’t wearing eye make up, so you don’t look like a witch…”

6.       Mom, “How is this outfit?” Kid, “I don’t like it, but then I haven’t liked anything you put on today.”

7.       Mom, “How about this?” Kid, “You look like a fat old woman from 1982.” (This one really cracks me up)

Lol! What is with boys anyway! It is a darn good thing that I’m not very sensitive and I don’t put too much stock in their opinion!!! However, I clearly see we need to do some major adjustment on how we answer the question, “How do I look?”!

Update

Okay Boyd update. Matt has enjoyed his employment at the State of Wyoming but felt God leading him to a new position. A few weeks ago he accepted a job in Laramie, Wyoming. He starts on Tuesday. We are putting our California house on the market and eventually our Lagrange house on the market and the rest of the family will transition to Laramie when we find a place there. In the meantime Matt has an apartment and will be home on weekends. Elijah is going to go with him the first week to check out Laramie. So that is the update. ; ) Today we were discussing what to send with Matt and Elijah and decided they would take the coffee pot. Luke overheard the plan and asked with a voice of concern, "Wait. What is mom going to do without a coffee pot?" I answered, "I'll use the teapot." Luke responded with, "I'm not sure I want to live with ..." Then he stopped his sentence because he thought it would be insulting but the truth is DOES ANYONE want to live with a mom who doesn't have coffee!!!???

My latest crazy weekends

sigh, I am using the blog to vent/unwind.

In the last two weekends, we have had one dislocated knee, one big big big wrestling loss, one car breakdown at 1 am in the middle of nowwhere, one barf in the middle of the night at a hotel, one lost wallet, one credit card destroyed in the washer, one brand new lost retainer at state wrestling, one college test forgotten and the teacher doesn't accept late tests, and one poison control call at 3am due to ingested antifreeze by a human after said car break down, and nobody's Awana verses are memorized.

I am done. done. done.

Sayings

Dad, "hey hey hey! What is all this pounding?!"

Titus, "these screws were loose so im hammering them in again."

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I told Abbey to go get her pjs and get in the tub. When she came back she was only holding her pajama pants and explained, "I couldn't find any of my toppings."

Mighty Hunter, part Deux

Silas and Josiah were hunting prairie dogs when silas spotted a rabbit. Joe shot it with a .177 rifle. They field dressed it and brought it home where it sits in our fridge. We have a call in to the game warden to see if it will be safe to eat.

Intruder

Matt came home from work early today with strep throat. We were both up alot of the night with his loud painful swallowing and searches for medication and then food to take it with.

Even on a good night Matt is not the kind of man of the house that investigates the sounds in the night that wake me. So I have learned to investigate it myself or ignore it.

Matt recently adopted a dog (a dog which is explicitly not my dog) which he lets in the house. Tonight I kept hearing noises in the kitchen. I got up to deal with the dog but found he was asleep in his kennel with the door shut.

I began to investigate further. I could hear scampering but didnt see anything. I opened the front door and began to search the bedrooms when I thought I heard something scamper out the door. When I couldnt find anything I shut the door went back to bed.

Two hours later Elijah came and woke us up saying that there was a feral cat trying to jump out his window. He had heard it trying to get out and when he pulled back the curtain it ran out of his room and into the house somewhere. Matt was already awake with the hacking and wheezing so he got up to help.

The three of us began to search. It took about 20 minutes but we found the wild eyed feline hiding between the wall and the piano . We set up a barrier and opened the front door and matt used a broom handle to scare it out from behind the piano . It bypassed the open front door and jumped over the barrier and ran into the other side of the house. So we began our search over again.

We found it back in the Elijahs room and this time we were successfully able to shoo it out the door. At one point it was running straight for me and I did scream like a scared little girl which Im sure was the key to getting it out the door.

We think it came in sometime during the day when the kids left the garage door open. This is actually the 3rd time we have chased wild neighborhood cats out of our house in the middle of the night. I had hoped one benefit of the dog would be less feral cats in the house at night.  He is only a few weeks old so maybe he will pick up the cat chasing skill eventually.

Gideon's dinner

We told the kids to get their own plate during leftover night. This is gideons plate.

Guest book

Dad has taught the children how to speak spanish...start every word with "el" and end every word with "ah" or "oh." For example, el coucha and el tablo. Silas signed the guest book at my dad's funeral as "el silasa" :)

Sayings

Dad: "Elijah, why are you eating dog food?"
Elijah: "Its better than salad."

Silas: "The great thing about sleeping outside in a tent is its cold, wet and miserable."

Sad Day

Papa passed away last Wednesday and his service was yesterday. Lots of family came to town and his service was packed. The memories were good but saying good bye was hard.

As to be expected after the service during what was about to be family picture time, Luke got stung by a bee on the face and then got punched in the face by an older brother giving him a fat bloody lip. The same older brother was then showing his bloody knuckles to Titus who "brought his face down too close and fast and hit my fist" also getting a fat bloody lip. So pictures will include one swollen eye/cheek (bee sting related) and two fat lips. It'll be a gem.

The Mighty Hunter

Elijah shot this antelope buck today. Great Job E!

He brought home the antelope heart "so that mom can make soup." He must really think I'm some kinda pioneer woman. Maybe I'll chew the hide for him so he can make leather.

Actually our friends husband says he will tan the hide with Elijah so my teeth might survive after all.

Matt's lunch

I have passed the responsibility of making Matt's sack lunch to one of my sons. It is his job to make a sandwich and throw in a few healthy snacks.





From time to time Matt has suggestions for his lunch.

Today he didn't make any suggestions, he just told me what was in it.

"I had an interesting lunch today."

"Oh really what was in it?"

"A carrot with stem attached and dirt still on it, 2 green limes, 1 whole orange bell pepper, 1 package of powdered hot chocolate mix, and 1 runza."

I think the boy took "healthy snacks" to a whole new level.

Signs the boys are growing up

Matt has cracked ribs. Uncle Matt's brand new deck broke.

The stories:

We went to visit Uncle Matt and Aunt Kelly this summer. While there Uncle Matt and Elijah got in a wrestling match on their second story deck on which a hot bbq was cooking burgers. The women (Aunt Kelly and I) were interested in avoiding burns and saving the burgers so we shoed them down the stairs off the deck. At the bottom of the deck is the wading pool and Uncle Matt decided he had had enough getting beat by the whiphersnapper nephew and it was time to throw the boy in the pool. The whippersnapper settled on a piece of deck with which to cling to as not to get thrown in the pool. In the end the deck proved no match. All three (piece of deck, Uncle Matt, and Elijah) all ended up in the pool.

The evening was spent repairing the deck and drying out phones and cameras which had been forgotten in their pockets during the dive.

Cracked Ribs
Matt does always wrestle but when he does...

Elijah ended up crumpled on the floor complaining of neck pain. I ignored him as he plays hard, tends to be a vocal patient and nothing is ever wrong. Matt on the other hand felt terrible and hovered over Elijah apologizing and kicking himself for wrestling to hard and not knowing his limits.

Elijah soon roused himself and hobbled to bed (if I had mentioned chocolate milk in the kitchen there would have been a "miraculous" recovery). Matt too retired for the evening and began to pull down the covers only to discover he couldn't make any torso movement without pain. "My ribs" he groaned "Elijah kneed me in the ribs and they hurt really bad." I couldn't help myself. "Right here?" I asked socking him in the ribs. "AGHHH! YES! THERE! AGHHH" I had found the right spot and nailed him perfectly. Hehehe. It brought me great joy.  For several days now deep breaths, coughing, sneezing, sitting, standing, laying, pushing, pulling you name it causes him to groan, moan and cry. BAHAHAHA. I find it especially funny because he was so concerned about injuring Elijah.

toothpaste

Titus came around the corner with a disgusted look on his face. In his hand he had a tooth brush and the container of triple antibiotic ointment.

Abbey teaching the boys

Abbey, "If you eat your boogers, you have to go to the doctor and get poked in the foot."

Of all the strangest things

Does anyone know why there is a pancake floating in a bowl of water in the basement?

Luke: Oh yes. I'm growing mold. Its my experiment.

perfect sense.

***

Matt came home Friday night to a bathtub full of tomatoes. Sometimes he just shakes his head and doesn't bother to ask.

***

Matt pulled a plate out of the back of the cupboard this morning and found the plate already contained fresh pancakes.

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Our church had a BBQ Sunday afternoon. While we were there one of our favorite friends shared with us that one of our boys was selling tomatoes around town. We knew some of them were doing that but what we didn't know is that this one had removed the good ones and was selling only rotten ones.