You'll Grow Into Them

Check out those humango slippers on James!

Apple Picking 2009

A Love Letter

Dear SEARS,

At first I had no interest in you. My reason for not loving you is shallow...I know. But lets be honest, on the looks side, I have seen better. I was a little embarrassed to walk through the mall carrying a bag with your name on it. You know, it is kind of like being seen holding hands with the nerdy boy.

Alas, I have matured. Now I proudly carry your bag through the mall. I confess my love for you to the world. There is no shallowness to your loyalty.

In fact, you are so loyal, at times I feel as though I am taking advantage of you. Should I be confessing this to you?

Please stay the way you are. Don't change because of peer pressure. I love you just the way you are. I mean who else would allow me to exchange this...

bought May '09

and this...

bought April '09

for a brand new pair of shoes and jeans just because my child wore through them before they grew out of them?

So please do not fire the single (as in not married and childless) executive who came up with your kidvantage warranty program. They would be too naive to survive in the world anyways if they came up with this program.

love,

a mom

ps-I love SEARS, but I think shopping affairs are ok, so any other mom who washes clothes that look like the pictures above should check out the warranty offered on their kids clothes. There is enough love to go around.

In Other News

Phase III of our boulder wall is in the works. This is what we built on Saturday:

Our neighbor (bless him and his family) showed up Saturday morning in our yard with a huge crowbar and work gloves. This was unsolicited help...and he stayed for 3 hours...on a Saturday! Who has neighbors like that?!?!?!? He gets the "neighbor of the year" award. Maybe even the Nobel Peace Prize.

So, not only did we move and stack all the rocks for the face of the wall, but we had to back fill the wall with more boulders so it wouldn't fall over. We did all this and only had two smashed fingers...one on my hand, one on Christian's. You learn pretty quick to keep your fingers out of the way after getting them squished between two boulders.

We are about half way done I think. I'm sure no one is interested in our backyard rock wall, but I'm so proud of it. Our little muscles are moving those huge things!

In other happenings, I feel like I am at war with the creatures trying to invade my house. Right now I'm battling groundhogs and spiders.

I feel really bad, but I stuck poison down the 6 groundhog holes in our yard. Just so you know, I feel bad squishing an ant, so it about killed me to poison Punxsutawney, but he and his posse were making craters on the castle grounds. I guess we will not know if winter will be six weeks longer this year...but come on, we live in Massachusetts...of coarse it will be longer. Plus, weather.com has got Punxsutawney beat any day, not just February 2.

My second battle is in the basement. I decided to evict the Halloween decorating committee after I got bit by a BLACK WIDOW Saturday night. Yet another trip to the poison aisle at Lowes will solve that problem, and no I don't feel bad killing them. A mama duck has to protect her ducklings.

And finally in other news, my bribe bag is empty:

That's a lot of bribes.

Pop

We took a can of soda from Christian's office the other day.
Soda is not something my kids have often.

James cried after every sip...
but he kept drinking.

Daniel called it "spicy"

You Can't Trust Giggles

I would guess that showering is a daily challenge for most parents with young kids. I'm sure everyone can relate to some degree with locking all the doors and taking the key into the bathroom with you, making sure each child is occupied with something, and then racing as soon as you shut the bathroom door. It is as if you are trying to set a world speed showering record.

Inevitably, as soon as you are indecent and just wet, you hear a squabble going on or a knock on the door with some request. You get pretty good at brushing things off. Then throughout your 3 minute shower and dressing, you hear a range of noises from delightful giggles to insistent commands. Sometimes you hear tears.

Well, Tuesday's shower started out normal, but I heard no squabbles. In fact, I only heard laughter and screams of delight as little feet pitter pattered back and forth in front of the bathroom which connects our two bedrooms. So I stood in the warm shower a little longer than normal.

In case you were wondering, I had 6 rolls of toilet paper in the hallway linen closet before my shower.

There were 0 rolls in the linen closet after.

Phase II

The progress is slow, but it is coming along. Hopefully we will not have to rent anymore heavy machinery for this job. Now we have to rely on our muscles to move them rocks.