Beartooth Mountains Boppit

Following the Red Lodge, MT parade, we filled up on a vacation soda, and then sweets from the Montana Candy Emporium and then trapped the kids in the car for the forty-five minute drive back to the ranch. Needless to say, we took an opportunity to appreciate the beauty, stretch our legs, and get out of the car.

Kid Soup for Dinner

If you saw my facebook post from last night, you’ll know that Zach was pretty cute. (“Best.Christmas.Ever…Family Time,” etc.)

Today, not so much.

We were outside preparing to put up Christmas lights, when I looked over to discover him proudly grinning at me from the neighbor’s driveway. He was still standing in front of the neighbor’s Beemer. Olivia had since moved on. They had both spattered the car with red-dirt mudballs. On all sides of the car. The red dirt was dug up from the augmented “driveway” the neighbors put in. It’s full of little pebbles.

&*%$!

So, the kids went to their rooms, for quite a long while, while I hosed down the car and washed it up a bit. Then we loaded into our car to go buy (using money from the kids’ piggy banks) a chamois the kids will present to Rhonda tonight, when they apologize.

Sheesh!

I guess it’s my fault for not watching them closely enough and not having already had the you-should-never-throw-mudballs-at-the-neighbor’s-BMW talk yet.

Who’s coming over for dinner?

Playdate

Zach's buddy Drew came over for a playdate after school on Wednesday. They did so well together, *see report to Drew's cute Mama. I did have one wee-ooo moment, however, when I believe I glimpsed the future.

It all began innocently enough at lunch, after prayers were done, and food was being ignored by me two and devoured by normal-kid, Drew. To set the scene, I'll share that Olivia was sitting across from Drew, and Zach was at the head of the table, between them. Oh, you've seen the video, you know how it was. So, Zach was busy chattering away, as usual. Olivia, not to be outdone, was also trying to impress "her" friend Drew with a running monologue as well.

Maybe they're on the same wavelength - or he's figured out her speech, if so I'll need some lessons, please - or perhaps it was just that she was in his line of vision, but there was a stretch of a couple of minutes when Drew responded to Olivia, and had tuned out Zach.

Wee-ooo, wee-ooo...

I just thought: some day, down the road, Zach's going to have his buddies who will come over, eat our food, watch our TV, leave crumbs all over the place and the toilet seat up, and probably genuinely be his friend, but they might also one day discover that he has a cute little sister.
!!What?!!

And where will Daddy and his shotgun be? And Zach. He'd better be ready to embrace the roll of "big brother."

Right now he's just content to embrace her. And that's super sweet, and his friends probably think Olivia's more of a pain in the rear. We'll enjoy that for now.

*Report to Drew's Mom:
Overheard:
Drew: (I missed the statement, but it included the word “die.”)
Zach: Don’t say die. (Pause…) Did you know that after you die you become an angel?
Drew: (ponders for a few seconds, then) Cool.

Drew ate ALL his pb&j, and banana slices. Had hot chocolate at 2pm. And the boys sang the Superman prayer several times during lunch. They also recited the Tick Tock prayer.

The boys did awesome. Drew was so sweet. When Olivia pulled Zach’s hair hard enough to make cry (and consquently be sent to her room), Drew asked Zach if he was okay. I thought that was so kind of him.

They ran outside for a few seconds after lunch, presumably to earn themselves a cuppa hot chocolate. But I made them wait.

They read a book on dinosaurs together, and played two or three games of Cars dominoes. So cute.

They did an awesome job of entertaining themselves and were pretty good about letting Olivia hang out too, when she was awake. [But, hmmm, I will be keeping my eye on those boys around O...]

They had great time making a train and tunnels in the basement. Guns (jeez!!) were quite omnipresent.

They did crash on the couch to watch some PBS cartoons for the last 30 mins, which I thought was okay since they’d been hanging in the freezing basement and could use a little quieter time.

Bottom line, he was a dear. It was fun to have him!

PS - Thoroughly annoyed by the spacing/formatting issue here. Not pleased, and not at all sure about how to correct it. Apologies.

Mom takes a phone call...

How do YOU eat your DQ?

Introducing...

..."MisCHIEF" and "MISSchief!" Guess who's who?

These are two new labels, by which I'll periodically categorize posts. Just wanted to clear up what they mean! BOTH are mischievous.

The Moral of the Story?

The moral of the story is...
Don't sleep in, unless you're prepared to deal with the consequences.

Eek, so, yes, I overslept on Monday morning, after a wakeful night. When I woke, I jumped up because I heard some noise in the kitchen.

Here's what I found:

1) One little Poppet, still sporting his pj's, complete with a half-sucked throat losenge stuck under his armpit.
2) The refrigerator door, wide open (for how long, I wonder?).

3) Aforementioned Poppet crouched under the table with a sopping wet napkin, "Ine cleaning up da mess, Mama."
4) Above the Poppet, the source of da mess:

* Not one, but two gallons of milk, pretty much empty.

* A 1.75 quart pyrex bowl (because they're low enough on the pantry shelf) filled to the brim with a half a cup of Cheerios and most of the rest of the milk that didn't overflow onto the table and floor.

* The box of Cheerios, in case more were needed.

* One of Daddy's bike bottles filled three-quarters full of, yes, more milk.

* Several other kid cup options, that probably weren't cool enough for a breakfast made made by the "aww-by-mysewf" Poppet.

* Various other random things that maybe we can chalk up to the toddler too?

5) Close up of the spread.
6) In other morning activities (seriously, this all occured in less than 20 minutes. Why can't I be that productive?), Little Poppet had retrieved the craft scissors (note to self: store these higher up) and some paper to do some cutting.

We all need to go through this at least once, right? At least it wasn't pancake batter and a hot stove???

Wet Duet

Grandma Marty and Zach had been doing a fab duet series, but this one got a little off track...