Charlottesville and Strawberries

I finally dragged myself, with the kids, out to Charlottesville to visit my sister. She's been living there for almost 2 years, I think. It's not that I haven't seen her in all that time; we see each other in Richmond fairly often. The drive wasn't as long as I expected, just a little more than 2 1/2 hours. Not bad.

Cakes slept the most on the drive there, Silly slept about an hour and Bubba didn't sleep at all. He was playing with his baby, nekky-mole, and pillow. He talks to his baby, which mostly consists of saying "ha-wo beebee" and he was sticking his feet inside his pillow case saying "wook at toosies." He's pretty interested in toes.

We packed up after church Sunday and rolled out to Maddie and Steve's house. The kids were terrified of their dog Zoe at first. Cakes got over it. Silly got over it for a little while, but then he was scared again. Bubba screamed his head off for the first few minutes and didn't want to the dog anywhere near him, but by the end he would smile at the dog as long as she wasn't too close. Zoe was very well behaved, but my kids are only used to their small, old, lazy dog.

Steve made us dinner, my kids ate about as much as they usually eat, which isn't much. Maddie had cots for Cakes and Silly to sleep on. I don't think they were actually asleep before 9. Bubba went to sleep just fine, but woke up around midnight and didn't want to be in the crib anymore. I put him in bed with me, where thankfully he stayed in his own space and didn't pester me all night (which is what he would have done in my bed at home).

Steve made us breakfast in the morning too. I did warn him and Maddie that my children do not know what "quiet voices" are, nor do they understand the concept of "too early in the morning to be so loud". (Hm, maybe that's something we need to practice before we go stay at the beach with my family and drive everyone insane with their 6am wake up call.) At some point Cakes asked me and Steve if she could watch TV and he found her a cake show to watch. Later on I came into the kitchen, passing my three kids sitting quietly on the couch and said to Steve, "Now you know why parents sit their kids in front of the TV." He also learned why toys with batteries are super annoying.

Once we were all ready, the kids and I plus Maddie went strawberry picking. We passed 4 huge peacocks on the way to the berry patch. Two of them were just walking down the middle of the road oblivious to the cars behind them. I wish I'd had my camera out.

The kids got right to work hunting for good strawberries. They did a pretty sweet job too. Silly insisted that I fill the box from one side to the other and not just randomly toss the strawberries in any empty spot or on top of each other.

Just getting started



Cakes helping Bubba



 





Me and Silly picking



I just now noticed that each "team" ended up with one red shirt and one blue shirt. I guess we were picking strawberries for about an hour. Maddie said strawberry picking is a lot more fun (and work) than cherry picking, which she and Steve had just done Saturday. We ended up with 10 lbs of strawberries. Don't worry, they will all be eaten. Lots of them have been eaten already, starting with eating them in the car on the way back to Maddie's house.

Bubba ended up with shorts completely covered in strawberry juice, Silly ended up with it all over his shirt. Having it all over their hands and faces was a given.

We had a nice little family cookout, which of course included strawberries among all the other super yummy things. We hit the road again around 3:00. All three of my kids were asleep before we got back to 250, which is only 7 miles from my sister's house. Silly woke up long enough to ask for the water bottle, take a drink, then pass out again. He actually woke up maybe three times to take a drink, but never said anything and went right back to sleep each time. I kept myself occupied singing along to some favorite CDs and didn't hear peep out of the kids until we were in Newport News. Awesome.

Maddie told me later that she'd found a squished strawberry in the bedroom, but didn't realize she was the one who had squished it so she tracked strawberry juice all through her house. Sorry Maddie! I'm really glad my brother has a baby now and can't wait for Maddie to have some too because being the only one around with little kids makes me feel like such a nuisance.

Still a Smoothie Thief

Remember this post? Well, not much has changed. We went out to eat tonight at one of the millions of smoothie places around here. Bubba was hogging Scott's smoothie and I kept trying to get him to taste mine. He finally took mine, took a sip, looked at Scott and his smoothie, took another sip of mine, then gave it back to me and stole Scott's again.

Scott took his back once Bubba put it down. A minute later Bubba took my smoothie, gave it to Scott, and stole Scott's smoothie again. He was totally trying to pull one over on him. We were trying not to laugh hysterically.

On the drive home Silly was trying to get Bubba to say "what the heck" then there was a shirtless guy on a bike. Bubba gasped and yelled, "Shirt! He not ha' shirt! What d' heck?"

Field Day and Preschool Finale

Silly is officially done with preschool. How can that be? They had a little program Thursday night. The kids sang lots of songs. Scott got the whole thing on video. There was one little girl who knew every single word to everything and shouted it all out the whole time. It was pretty hilarious. Silly wasn't very excited about the whole thing. He was at least moving his mouth most of the time, but he wasn't interested in the hand motions for most things.

The one song that he was clearly really excited to sing was "I've Got the Best Father in the World." As soon as he heard the music start he looked right at Scott, sang every word and grinned the whole time. It was awesome.

Can you see him in the middle of all those tall girls?



Who is that big kid?

 Friday was his last day of school. They played outside almost the whole three hours. Wednesday his teacher sent home the last of his stuff. She'd given each kid a plastic bag and apparently called them "goody bags" he was pretty bummed when he got home. He took everything out and said "This isn't a goody bag, it's just paper!" I think he was expecting candy.

Cakes had Field Day Friday morning. I had to drop Bubba off with a friend, took Silly to preschool and asked a friend if he could sit in their car until it was time to go in so I could hurry on over to Cakes's school to help out. Helpful friends are awesome!

I was put in charge of the potato sack races. It was pretty fun, and only one class was difficult. I did get a little sunburn on my neck and now have a serious sandal tan.







Waiting her turn




Climbing in




Hopping back




Three legged race, although, I never saw anyone race. They just tied the kids' legs together and then walked around a bit. That was lame.




Cakes with her class

 That's pretty much it for fun stuff planned by other people. I'll have to plan my own fun from here on out.

What I woke up to

You know you're up too early (especially on a Saturday) when you've already been up for hours, yet you're still saying to yourself, "Oh, wait, I can't call her yet, it's too early." And I know by the time it isn't too early for phone calls, I will forget all about it.

The boys crawled in bed with me not too much past 6:00, Scott had already left for work. I kicked them out when they got too crazy. Then Cakes told me not to come out because she was making me a surprise, so I stayed in bed for a few more minutes. She brought me scrambled eggs and butter-bread (she didn't know how to use the toaster oven).

I finally went out to the kitchen to see this mess I'd left for myself last night - a whole days worth of dishes, which included dinner for the missionaries. Some little helpful Henry had already started the dishwasher, which was mostly empty.

This is not a very unusual sight at my house, for those of you who've never seen it messy. This is why I frequently wake up hoping my realtor won't call saying someone wants to see the house in a few hours. Yikes!

And this is pretty constant -

One of those same helpful Henries (what's the plural of Henry?) is always pushing a chair over to something, usually something he's not supposed to have. But hey, I did straighten up my pantry this week. It was getting a little crazy in there. I noticed in all our house hunting that I have way more stuff in my pantry than other people.
The kids brought all the laundry to the laundry room, so now I'm tackling this:

It is now barely past 9am and the dishwasher is running again, fully loaded this time. Load 1 is in the dryer, load 2 in the washing machine.

After taking these pictures I looked to see what else was on my memory card. I confiscated my camera from the boys at some point yesterday. After deleting at least 50 pictures of my computer screen (Silly was multitasking, playing computer games and taking pictures) many of them with little pink fingers over the lens, I did come a cross a few decent pictures of Bubba.

Just an average morning around here.

Family Flag

Today was Silly's last official day of Joy School. Thank you, thank you, thank you to my awesome mom friends who let me talk them into being Joy School moms this year. I hope you had as much fun as I did. I'm already trying to figure out who might be willing to teach Joy School with me when Bubba is old enough...any volunteers?

This last Joy School unit is all about family and one thing the lessons suggest is a family flag. I have seriously been pondering our family flag since Cakes was a little Joy Schooler 4 years ago. And I bought this wool felt somewhere around then too, but haven't done anything with it except continue to ponder every now and then. Well, Monday I finally decided to pin it down, literally. Here's what I have so far:

For Family Home Evening this week I showed everyone our flag and asked them why a star and an anchor are good symbols for the kind of family we want to be. They said some good things about stars - a new star appeared when Jesus was born, you can wish on stars, they're pretty. Anchors were a little tougher, but eventually Silly started going on and on about ships in storms without anchors will get big holes and sink. We read Hebrews 6:19 and Mormon 5:18 and talked to the kids about having testimonies and what we can do to keep ourselves "anchored."

I asked everyone if they thought we should have a family motto. Scott suggested "Hold the line" which is his favorite movie line (any movie with that line in it somewhere is on his list of favorites) and actually, strangely, I kinda like it. It's one of those lines you could stretch to apply to other things. It's growing on me...

Then we voted on a family cheer. Three out of five family members voted for the following:
Bowens
Believe
Obey
Work
Enjoy
Nurture
Silly voted for "nothing" and Bubba had nothing to say. I have to add that there is a shortage of really good words beginning with the letter 'n'.

So, all I have to do now is make my mom teach me how to sew this stuff and let me raid her never ending supply of embroidery floss. Eventually I'll write our cheer and motto and put our names around the five points of the star (the kids were a little concerned that there was no spot for Charlie. Hmmm...). Scott said I need to do something between the star and the anchor. I'm still pondering.

Tonight is Silly's preschool graduation, and tomorrow is Cakes's Field Day so I'll have plenty of pictures to add soon, but here's one from yesterday:

This is Silly's preschool class. Everyone pitched in and we bought his teacher a new rocking chair for her room. I brought it in yesterday and most of the other moms were there the give it to her and show the kids. One of the moms gave me flowers for the bright idea of a new rocking chair and for collecting the money and coordinating eveything. It was fun! And Silly was really excited to be in on the secret.

Almost Birthday Boy

We went to Richmond this weekend to celebrate Silly's upcoming 5th birthday. Cakes was dying to meet "Baby Layla" so I took her over to Clark and Whitney's house. Silly really wanted to come too, but it was already bedtime and I knew he'd just be a crazy loon if I took him over there.

Luckily Riza and Melissa were there with Riza's camera since I left mine at the in-laws. Cakes was in heaven, and Layla seemed perfectly happy. As soon as we left their house Cakes was already saying she wanted to hold her again. They are the only girl cousins on the east coast (the other girls are in Arizona, Washington and Albania!) and they are the only brunette girls. I supposed that could still change for Layla, but I doubt it.

 

Saturday I made Silly's birthday cake. The only thing he said he wanted was green frosting, and I saw this idea for a green monster cake at Target, so I went with it. Silly documented the decorating process.

 

He refused to let me give the monster more than two eyes (because he wanted to eat the other marshmallows). Then I tried to talk him into making it a strawberry monster (strawberries were his other birthday party request) by stuffing a strawberry or two into the monster's mouth just for fun, but he wouldn't go for that either.

His present opening commentary was hilarious as usual (the boy has no internal dialog, luckily its usually funny and not embarassing). He went all over the room to get his presents from behind the chairs and then into the middle of the room to open them. Carrying Mamie's present he said it was heavy, then the first thing he pulled out was a bag of Goldfish saltines and said, "Why would Goldfish be heavy?" but then he looked at what else was in the bag and saw cans of soup. I wondered why mom asked me what he likes to eat. He's always asking for soup.





Excuse the blurriness, my camera's battery was dying.

Clark pulled out his ever-present pocket knife when Silly couldn't get the tape off this bag. Silly said, "Why would Clark have a knife?" we all just laughed, because Clark always has a knife. And if my dad had been there he would have had one too. They're very handy people to have on hand for birthdays and Christmas.







He was thrilled to get more real tools. He'd had a sobbing meltdown at bedtime a few weeks ago over some of Scott's tools that we took away from him. Now they have some matching tools. Silly has barely let them out of his sight since his party.



He'd been waiting to get this space set for a long time. He gave the alien part to Bubba.





He opened clothes from Betty and Jerry, and immediately tossed them aside saying, "I said I didn't want clothes!" Which is what he says whenever he gets clothes for a gift. But apparently this fire truck shirt was something he's seen and liked when he was with Gummy and Grandaddy over spring break. Betty made Silly look at the shirt to see that it was the firetruck shirt he wanted and then he was happy with it.

Then it was time for cake. Those candles were supposed to be sparkler-like, but they weren't very sparkly and also very hard to blow out. Cakes had to offer some assistance. His other irthday food requests were strawberries and veggies he could dip in ranch. No problem.
He played quite happily for the rest of the day with his tools and his space shuttle.

Cakes got some more Layla time. Bubba was quite interested in touching Layla's feet and hair and he talked to her. When I asked him if he wanted to hold her he said yes, sat down, held her for less than two seconds then pushed her back at me. In spite of Bubba's snub, she liked him quite a bit too. She talked at him and tried to grab his shirt.

Silly held her for a few minutes too. He liked her much more than I expected him too. We're all so glad to have a new cousin!

His actual birthday was not very exciting, being smooshed together with Mother's Day as it happened this year. He didn't seem to care. Monday he took rice crispy treats into preschool to share with his class. I was with two other preschool moms today getting ready for their picnic tomorrow and they both said the first things their boys talked about at pick-up time Monday were the treats Silly brought and who got which kind.



Rotten Kids

We seem to be going through a mean, sneaky, lying phase with Cakes and Silly. Today was the pinnacle. It ended in them being sent to bed at 5:30 with only butter bread and milk for dinner. And that was being nice, letting them have butter on the bread and milk instead of water.

The lying has been going on for a while, always about completely stupid things like whether or not they brushed their teeth or put something away or ate something they weren't supposed to eat. They don't lie well enough to know which lies are easy to get caught in. I guess that's something to be grateful for.

Cakes was supposed to be practicing the piano. I specifically told her to make sure she practiced  everything, filled in all the blanks, and answered all the questions. She played one song and told me she was done.
M: Did you fill in all the blanks?
C: Yes
M: What about these two right here?
C: I didn't see those.
M: That's why they're highlighted. What about this song on the next page?
C: I didn't know I had that song
And on and on and on; can't find a pencil, but hasn't looked, looks in the piano bench where there are four pencils staring right at her and still swears she can't find a pencil.

And then Silly is never ending with asking him to put something away and he says he did it, but really he didn't. He sneaks food all the time. He already had a granola bar and a bag of chips, yet I catch him sneaking chips and eating another granola bar. I saw him sneaking up the stairs this afternoon, knew he was up to no good and told him to freeze. He has chocolate on his mouth and is still chewing, yet swears he's not eating anything.

And then as soon as we get home from his gymnastics class he went and got the rest of the granola bar out of hiding and finished eating it; which is apparently why he wanted the keys so he could rush into the house, retrieve his contraband and run out into the backyard to finish it, hoping I would see. But I went into the back yard and not only catch him, but catch Audrey standing on a patio chair picking the tiny little apples off the apple tree. I've told them 100 times not to pick apples off the tree, but they do it anyway. And apparently they've done it so much that now they need a chair to reach more tiny apples. I was at a loss for the right thing to do, so I did the wrong thing and called my children sneaks and liars.

Then they started fighting and being mean to each other outside. For some reason fighting doesn't bother me, you know, just the usual he has what I what kind of stuff, but I can't stand it when they are just flat out mean to each other. That was the last straw. I made them come inside and sit on opposite couches, told them not to say a word until Daddy got home, which luckily for them happened about two minutes later. I told Scott I didn't know what to do with our mean, lying, sneaky children. We talked it out with them and explained that when they are dishonest, we have to keep a closer eye on them because we can't trust that they'll do what they should do or what they said they'd do. We decided on some painful consequences (no friends for Cakes, and take away the current favorite toy for Silly and no TV or computer for either one of them). Scott did a great job of explaining that the only thing they had to do to avoid those punishments was to do what they're supposed to do. Silly mentioned getting a reward and Scott told him there would be no rewards, other than the reward of not getting in trouble and getting to play with who or what they like best.

I left to get a few things at Sam's Club and bought dinner at Chik-fil-a, including shakes, for myself, Scott and Bubba while Scott put Cakes and Silly to bed with their meager dinner. When I got back he told me Silly just went to his room and didn't seem to mind (he's very tired on top of all this) but Cakes was furious and told him she takes back all the times she said she loves him.

Ah, the joys of parenting.

Animal Shenanigans

Silly's preschool went to the zoo Wednesday morning. We were afraid of getting rained out, but it turned out to be a great day.

This is the cage for the wild homo sapiens. Silly is hanging out with his three buddies.

Silly wishing he had some camo on

I've been to the Norfolk Zoo many times and I think it is a great zoo. You can always see the animals and most of the time most of the animals are doing more than just standing or laying down in one spot. We got quite a show watching the lions though. The lioness was hanging out in the doorway of the lion "cave" when all of a sudden she takes off after this goose that was walking around in the grass on the lion enclosure. She was thisclose to catching that thing too.

 

The goose took off into the water and then swam around just out of reach, honking at the lioness. It was awesome.

Then we're looking at the new tigers who were laying in the grass minding their own business, when one of them gets up, starts walking around, then charges at this little girl looking at them through the big window. Guess they haven't figured that whole glass thing out yet.

Then Wednesday night my mom came up with Riza, who's been staying with her for the last few months while she was in the US for heart surgery. She wanted to see the Atlantic ocean before heading back to the Philippines. We went to the beach for maybe 10 minutes, but it was super windy. Mom tried to fly some kites, but the wind was just too wild. Bubba sat in my lap whimpering under Cakes's jacket the whole time. Silly managed to get soaking wet in the ocean. I didn't imagine he's do more than stick in his toes since I'm sure it was freezing, but I suppose I should know better by now. Cakes played with wet sand, since it doesn't blow into your eyes.

When we got back to the car I stood Silly in the trunk and took his wet clothes off. At least I'd packed jackets so he had something else to wear on top, but he was stuck in wet bottoms for the rest of the day. He was worried about people seeing him when I carried him from the trunk to his seat, but I told him he was fine because he had on camouflage underwear. He went with it.

We went to the Aquarium so we could get our money's worth out of our membership that expires May 4th. The coolest part was the huge tropical fish tank, of course. Mom wondered why they didn't have any real coral or anemones and such. We found out in another part of the aquarium that they have a coral nursery where they've got all kids of things growing to add to the giant tank some day. Good to know.

 

I had a gecko and a skink scare me. I was staring into the gecko's terrarium with several other grown ups, searching and searching for the gecko, when he suddenly moved right in front of my face. We were all looking for green; he was kinda purplish. Then I looked at a skink, looked away at something else, then back at the skink and he had his mouth wide open, hissing at me. I don't know what it was with me and animals this week.

No aquarium trip is complete without a visit to the sharks and rays.

That very blurry head is Bubba's; they have this little submarine for shark watching and it has lots of little switches and lights.

 

Cakes actually touched a few rays. Bubba just did laps around the tank, up onto the platform and back down again.

I failed to mention that I let Cake and Silly play hookie in order to hang out with Mamie. Silly just had Joy School, and I don't think he's missed a day before. I sent Cakes to school but then picked her up at 9:30 just for fun.

Words not in spellcheck - sapiens, skink, and hookie. Hm.