Attack of the Zombies!!!

They've invaded!!!

Peek-A-Boo

Yes, that is Brandon's toe peeking through the hole in his shoe. No, he didn't tell me about it. Yes, he chose to wear these in public for a few days. No, I didn't notice it until the shreds of leather and stiching started dragging around.

The Lunch Lady Always Knows...

Last night we went to the Open House for the older boys' elementary school. Brandon and Tyler are still at the age where they're excited to go back to school, rather than dreading it. After making our way into the cafeteria to find out which teachers and classrooms the boys have, it was time to visit the Lunch Lady to make sure we had money in the accounts to cover lunch for a few weeks. The school serves both breakfast and lunch, but our boys only need lunch because daycare feeds them breakfast every morning before taking them to school--and they know they are not to eat breakfast at school because it costs extra! As we were finishing up with Tyler's account, he told the Lunch Lady that he couldn't remember his student number. She immediately said "Don't worry--you'll remember it easily because I remember you always eat breakfast and lunch every day." As Bryan started laying into little Mr. Tyler about this, I saw Brandon hiding around the corner. He knew he was next and didn't want the Lunch Lady spilling his secret. Fortunately for him, she didn't say a word about it...this time.

We met the teachers--they seemed nice and normal. I have to say normal because one of the kindergarten teachers last year seemed a little off...kind of like Miss Lippy from Billy Madison (she appears about halfway through this video) :



Tyler was a little bit nervous about being in a strange new classroom, but found out that his best friend is in his class this year (they were in separate classrooms during Kindergarten). As we made our way down the halls to leave, we ran into more and more of the kids' friends. And with each one, we asked which teacher they had--if the boys were in the same room, they'd rejoice and hug. If they weren't in the same class, they would just shrug and move on! We had to remind them that just because they weren't in the same class, that they could still talk and be friends!

I can't believe it's already time for school--the days seem to go by faster and faster these days. One day I'll turn around and they'll be off to college!

Bear Scare

Here we are, hiking up a mountain in Estes Park, and the boys just wouldn't slow down and hang back for us old folks. So Papa Bear taught them a lesson.

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Creepy Crawlers Part II

So I just posted about the boys wanting to bring their creepy, crawly friends into the house to sleep with at night (OK MOM--I'm paying for my raising now!)--Imagine stumbling into your little boy's room early in the morning to see this (look hard):


I almost peed in my pants. Jen over at Buried With Children has a similar story.

Creepy Crawlers

The dollar store is a magical place for little kids (and their moms!) Look at what they scored this time with their bribe for behaving at Wal-Mart.


These things have entertained them for hours on end outside--and I now have less bugs and spiders to worry about! The only problem is that they wanted to bring their new nasty "friends" inside to sleep with them at night--!!



About those spiders...we DO have black widows around the house and the kids know to stay far away from those. I still couldn't help but be a little wigged out when they caught some other spiders to add to their collection--what if one of those creepy things managed to bite them?? I'd have to catch the damn thing just in case the bite caused a sever reaction! I HATE SPIDERS!!!

But it wasn't a spider that got the first bite--it was an ordinary black ground beetle. Got Tyler right on the finger. I didn't even know those things had teeth (or pincers, or whatever they are called on beetles)--I picked one up with the tweezers and found out right there that they do, in fact, have very rigid, sharp little jaws!

Belated Birthday Post

We have been terrible about birthdays this year. We actually jipped the boys out of full-blown birthday parties this year because Bryan & I were both working so many strange hours at work. We took them to the Great Wolf Lodge for a weekend to make up for it, though.

Here is Brandon blowing out candles on his cake:

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And here is what he did with some of his birthday money--the sound really doesn't do it justice.

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Yeah--thank you so much Granny--he'll be sure to bring it with him next time he visits!

Brandon's Epic Novel

Once upon a time, my sweet, funny baby boy Brandon would bring home innocent but hilarious books from his school library. Here is what he brought home this week instead:

What's even funnier is this guy's website--check out the text version of his life here. Even though I totally rolled by eyes when Brandon brought this book home, I secretly love him for it because I get to see through the eyes of a child again and snicker at things like this.

Snow Angels

It wasn't long after this when I decided I had to go out and join the fun! (turn music off at the bottom of my blog before viewing)

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We Were Dreading This

It happened. I've been dreading this day for a long time. I got the phone call at work yesterday from Bryan, and was immediately catapulted back to this little fiasco here.

Brandon has learned the mother of all bad words--the F-word. Where did he hear this word? I had flashbacks to this moment. Bryan & I are known to cuss like the sailors we are at certain moments--but we are careful around the kids, and are really careful when it comes to this particular word.

He was caught trying to spell it while riding in the daycare van. "F-O-..." Apparently, he and one of his friends were sitting around trying to think of all the bad words they know. Things like "butt", "fart", "hell", and "boob"--mostly innocent words that we don't approve of due to the fact they they ARE little boys and easily get carried away with bad manners while using those types of "bad" words. After Brandon listed off all the bad words he knew, his older friend told him that he knew one more... Thankfully, they don't know the meaning of this terrible word, and it wasn't learned through hearing it from us.

Bryan had a good talk with him about bad words and the reason we don't say them, and clearly explained that if his little brothers magically start saying this word--Brandon will be blamed.

Brandon's Commandments

I discovered this taped to Brandon's door this evening. Turn off the music at the bottom and listen to his explanation:

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He made those rules for ME. Nevermind his brothers who routinely break every one of those rules while in his room (or anywhere else in the house, for that matter.)

Learning the Hard Way

So Bryan was doing man-things for supper outside (making fire and cooking meat on it), all the while sternly reminding the kids to stop kicking and throwing balls around the grill, stay away from the grill, don't touch the grill it's hot, etc... Baby Monkey decided, as usual, to buck Daddy's instructions and touched the grill when Bryan turned his back for a second. It's not nearly as bad as it sounds, or as it could have been--he recoiled immediately with just minor burns across three of his fingers.


Seems like he inherited his stubborness from his Daddy, and has to learn things the hard way like his Mommy.

Sippy-Cup Caper

Over the last few days, I have noticed missing sippy-cups. Here is where I keep finding them:



Yep--they had milk in them and they were frozen solid. Couldn't even get the lid off them! Little Nick-Nick has finally learned how to open the fridge/freezer doors.

Our Little Jedi Knights

Our kids are obsessed with Star Wars, particularly the animated movie that came out on DVD recently. Can you tell?

P.S.--Tyler's absence is due to a post-flu ear infection.

Man of My Dreams

I can't resist the urge to share these embarrassing photos of the man of my dreams. No, he hadn't had any beers for this.

That would be our 4-year-old's batman mask with the batman cape draped over his head. For the full embarrassing effect, I am also posting these to Facebook.

He's No George W. Bush *UPDATE*

*UPDATE*--see bottom of post!

We made our weekly trip to Wal-Mart today, where the crowds of people who skipped church to buy grocieries in preparation of the "storm" were more than irritating for me and my kids, who didn't want to be there anyway. Alas, the weather man forecasted a 60% chance of snow. All hell breakes loose around here at the mere mention of snow, even though we get a few inches every year...come on, people! Well, this year the weather people have been wrong at least 4 times about their predictions of snow. They get everyone excited, and in the last hours before the supposed storm hits, they revise the forecast to just rain or nothing at all. And here we are again, a few hours before this "60% chance of snow", with a revised forecast of just some rain. What a bunch of crap.

Anyhow, my story began with our trip to Wal-Mart. On the way home, Nick started throwing a fit because the wind wasn't blowing the right direction, or something like that. We were already irate from dealing with too many people at Wally World, so we just decided to bite our tongues and ignore him. We eventually heard the sound of velcro amongst the toddler sounds for "F-You"--indicating Nick was taking off his shoes in protest. The next thing we knew, a shoe was flying into the dashboard--barely missed Bryan's head. As we overcame our shock, the other shoe was already in the air. This time it hit the intended target--Bryan's head. Bryan evidently does not come from the George Bush lineage, as he did not inherit the gene for dodging flying shoes.

*UPDATE* Just as I finished writing and publishing this post, I glanced outside and to my surprise, the snow is falling! It is icy snow, and it is coming down hard. And not melting. Oh, and this is still after the weather man just recently reversed his snow forecast and changed it to rain. The man can't win!

Blood and Tears

Well, we almost officially had our first trip to the ER with one of the boys today--not for being sick (we've had planty of ER trips in that category), but for obatining a very deep gash to the brow bone that really should have stitches. Courtesy of his 2-year old brother, Tyler was on the receiving end of a flying wooden block. The amount of blood this little wound produced was really disturbing, and the fact that it was imediately above his eye made it look that much worse. It took us a good 30 minutes to get it to stop bleeding enough to put some liquid bandage on. Because the gash is smack in the middle of his eyebrow, a regular band-aid would rip all his hair off.

The Victim

So I'm sure you all are happy to hear that it wasn't something that our oldest son did--this time it was the youngest. And we know that with three boys, there will be plenty of blood and trips to the ER for one reason or another as they grow up.

The Culprit

Evil Boy Genious

You know all that ranting I did yesterday about how the teacher is crazy for putting a first grade boy in detention for playing "guns"??? Lo and behold, the little f##ker fessed up and confessed everything in detail to his father this morning, after I had already left for work. Daddy then called the teacher to confirm these details, since he is obviously a master-manipulator. Yes, he was warned several times to stop shooting his friends with his hands. So the little sh!t took a piece of paper and drew a gun on it. Got caught with that and was explicitly warned about the rules again. THEN the little genious took a bunch of Legos and built his masterpiece, and proudly displayed it on his desk--the mother of all guns. That's it--detention. The school rules say suspension, but the teacher actually had mercy on this devious little first-grader. She and Bryan had a detailed conversaion about how great Brandon is at manipulating people--so we're all onto him now. The evil genious will have to find a different way to take over the universe. And he will be in detention this week, and we will be speaking with his teacher on a daily basis to see how he's really been behaving at school...

And you know what? Today he brought home a smiley face--meaning he was a perfect little boy for his teacher today. Ugh.