I Still Like You ...

Rachel tonight discovered that Robin's belly button has become quite protruded due to the large pregnant belly. Rachel: "It's okay, Mommy, I still like you."

... Like the Dickens

Parker tonight:

"Daddy, does the Dickens really hurt?"

Side Effects of Chocolate

Yesterday in church Parker informed me very matter-of-factly that if you eat chocolate then your skin gets darker.

I told him that, in reality, it was really staying out in the sun that turns your skin darker. He thought about this for a second, then, pointing to one of the deacons passing the sacrament (who happens to be black), conjectured that the deacon had been out in the sun a long time.

ummmmm, no, sorry Parker. Some people just come that way. Eating chocolate won't do that to you.

Funny the mind of a child trying to figure out the world around him.

Pictures of the Kids

Some pictures of our kids for your enjoyment.

If you want to see more you can find my page on Facebook, request me as a friend, then peruse the photo albums I've posted there.

My $75 Back-Ache

So we have been planning to have the side patch of yard by our drive-way paved over with cement, and in preparation for that I've expended quite a bit of time and energy removing the sod and the underlying layers of dirt from that patch. We had a contractor over last week to estimate how much it would cost to lay the cement. At that point I had removed all of the sod but only about a fourth of the area of dirt down to the required 4-inch depth. I asked him about whether I should continue to remove the rest of the dirt myself or just add that to the cost of his estimate to have him do it himself. At that point he said that it'd be real cost-effective for me to remove the rest of the dirt myself.

Okay ... so I spent about 2 hours last Saturday digging up dirt and transporting it over to our garden. Even broke the axle on our cheap old wheel-barrow, necessitating a trip to Lowes to get a new one. But it got done. Whew.

Killed my back.

Then the guy gets back to us this week with the estimate. Turns out that he would've charged about $75 to remove the rest of the dirt.

Ugh.

Pressed Into Service / No Chocolate Milk for Grown-Ups

On Sunday at church Robin asked me at the start of the 2nd hour if I would step in and teach the CTR 5 class at the last minute. Well, okay. It really wasn't a problem. Was kind of fun and not too stressful. Ethan and Parker are in that class so it was fun to be their teacher for a day.

The lesson was on the childhood of Christ. At one point we were talking about what kinds of things Jesus would have eaten or drunk as a boy. This got the classroom full of 4 and 5 year olds off on a tangent about their favorite kinds of food and drink, including chocolate milk. I said to them, "I love chocolate milk." One of the little boys in the class got an incredulous look on his face and informed me in no uncertain terms that "grown-ups don't drink chocolate milk!"

I was unaware of this prohibition on the drinking of chocolate milk by grown-ups, so I queried the whole class, "Do grown-ups drink chocolate milk?" The resounding response?

"NOOOOO!"

Just keep that in mind the next time you're eyeing the chocolate milk. If you're a grown-up, it's against the rules.

New Stuff for Van

so on Saturday we picked up our van from Innovative Car Audio. We had them install a new DVD entertainment system in the van. It's very exciting. Now maybe the kids will stay calm for more than 5 minutes when we take 4-hour drives to Hurricane.

Some Fun Kid Stories ...

Here are a few fun kid stories from the past couple of weeks ...

Story #1

Ethan and Parker were waiting by the front door one morning waiting to be picked up for pre-school. The following exchange took place between them:

Parker: "Are you wearing your race car shoes like me?"
Ethan: "Yes."

Parker: "Are you wearing you're yellow shirt too?"
Ethan: "Yes!"

Parker: "No one will be able to tell us apart!"
Ethan: "That's right ... but we will know!"


Story #2

Robin was showing the kids pictures from the latest ultrasound and explaining about the new baby boy growing in her belly. She was pointing out in the pictures where the kids could see the arms, the head, and the kids were really eager to see the new baby. Robin came to the part of the picture that tells us that the new baby is a boy.

Robin says "this is the baby's boy part, this is how we know the baby is a boy." Parker got really excited and, pointing to that part, said "He's got a belly button, just like me."

Robin replies, "No, that's not his belly button, that's his ... 'bummy'" (we really haven't discussed the proper vocabulary for male anatomy with the boys yet). Parker got this scandalized look on his face and Ethan pipes up, "You mean the baby's naked?!?"

Story #3 [the continuing saga of Rachel's terrible fears of dinosaurs]

The fallout continues from letting Rachel see Jurassic Park 3 about a month ago. At various times, she has informed us that she wants to move from this house because it has dinosaurs in it, and she wants to get a new t.v. that doesn't have dinosaurs in it.

The other day Robin was telling Rachel how glad she is that Rachel came to our family. Rachel responded by saying that she's glad to be in our family and that if she had come down to another mommy and she say Robin on the street then she (Rachel) would want to be with Robin. Then she thought for a moment and, apparently having a change of heart, said that if she had come down to another family then she would not have seen the dinosaur movie. :(

But then Robin, wanting to help Rachel achieve a little perspective on the situation, said to Rachel, "you know what, some day you will not be scared of dinosaurs." Rachel seemed to take courage at that thought and voluntarily decided to sleep in her room last night. She has been sleeping in the boys room across from our room most nights. And on those nights that we do convince her to sleep in her room, it has to be with the light on and with the understanding that when she gets up in the middle of the night she can come upstairs and sleep in the boys room.

So things appear to be improving on that front.