Watch your step!

PCPops is on a roll. Another couple doozies came out of her mouth today.

"Everyone loves Mommy...even God!"

Wow. Thanks for the vote of confidence. The all-loving Creator who keeps everyone under His care even loves me!
~~~

PCPops asked me who I would choose to die in our family. After I replied, "No one." She shook her head, "Mommy, you have to pick someone."

Me: Okay, I pick myself.

PCPops: (incredulously) You would pick you? (without a pause or a breath) I would pick Daddy. (Poor Daddy is sitting across from her at the table, mouth agape at the brutality just issued from his beautiful, smiling, cheerful red-headed daughter.)

Me: Daddy?! Why would you pick Daddy?

PCPops: When he died I would take his money. Probably $25! With $25 I could buy you a new mouse pad (she bit a hole in my gel-filled ergonomic mouse pad) and still have maybe $5!

Before the thoughts of "How in the world has she learned to off someone to get their money?" and "What have I done to fail this child so completely?" finished scrolling through my brain she had already changed the subject to some completely nonsensical and silly topic.

She's five. And when you've got a question that needs to be answered, you answer it with all the logic that your half-a-decade old brain can summon.

Let's just hope for her sake that Daddy doesn't "accidently" drink rat poison and we find ourselves $25 short in our bank account...

Don't argue unless you're right.

This happened last night during our little advent ceremony. The kids get coins each night and put them in Jesus' Birthday Present, after Christmas we give the money to Jesus (usually our church).

PCPops: (as she drops the money in, she puts her lips up to the coin slot) Happy Birthday Jesus!

Me: Sweetie, Jesus isn't in the box, you don't have to say "Happy Birthday" into the box.

PCPops: Mommy, Jesus is everywhere in the world. That means he's in the box! (into the box again as if to make her point) Happy Birthday Jesus!


I had no reply. What could I possible say to such irrefutable logic?

Turning 4!

Tank turned four in the middle of October. It was a full month for birthdays. Dug had to travel so much that he missed my, Dodge's and Tank's birthday. Luckily Nana and Poppa live only 3.5 hours away now and we got to spend my and Tank's with them.


Here's the birthday boy. He asked for a rainbow cake. I was so thankful. Not much to look at, but the little guy was happy and that is all that counts.


To make his birthday exciting (and to try to hide the fact that we didn't wrap anything) we hid all his presents around the house. Brother Dodge began the hunt with hiding his Phlat Ball present in the couch. Very quickly we realized that Tank didn't understand how to play "Hot, Cold." Dodge patiently taught him as best he could.


PCPops hid her gumball machine in the pantry. She was so excited for him to find it so Tank could "see how it worked and maybe share." When this pic was snapped, he still hadn't quite figured out what it was. Once big sis explained it, though, it was "super cool."

Scoochy and Tank are astride her present, a rather large T-Rex. When she asked if she could get it for him, I looked at what I thought was the price and said, "Sure, $9.99 is under your $10 limit." I don't know what I was looking at. When we finally had everyone's present picked out and we were running late to meet up with Poppa, I was hurrying through the check-out hoping Tank wouldn't escape Nana's "distraction techniques." The checker rang up said dinosaur and up popped $19.99!! In normal circumstances there is no way I would fork out $20 bucks for a big dino, but I was hurried, a little tired and feeling a bit pushover-y. Tank was so thankful for my fragile state. He loved his new "Bigfoot."


(Sorry mom and dad for having to post this goofy picture of you.) Tank's favorite present by far was his new bike from Nana and Poppa. How could he not love that thing? This present, above all others, pushed him from babydom to Big Boy-hood.


When we asked him what he wanted for his birthday, Tank's first answer was "a horse," in which we had to explain the difficulties and expense of such a large animal. When we realized he meant a stick horse, it all became possible. As soon as he saw his horse, he was galloping away. (Helps that a button on his ear makes a galloping noise.)

And here are the crazy four, happy. Which makes mommy happy. :-) In case you're wondering, we had cake and presents on two separate days, which would account for their wardrobe changes. Presents, of course, were on the actual birthday. Cake was suspended a day.

Bolhas, Gelado e Divertimento

(hopefully the title is portuguese for bubbles, ice cream and fun)

I know I'm so delinquent on this blog. You'll forgive me, I know.

This post should have been written the last week in July. Now that I should be showing pictures of leaves falling and pumpkin patches, you're getting an eyeful of ice cream and sunshine. Also, we're in Houston and these are in Oregon. Oh well.

At the end of July my beloved college roommate Heidi and her beautiful family came up from Brazil to visit the States. She went to Brazil for a college thing, met a handsome pastor, married the chap and now lives in the Amazon changing lives. While they were here, the kids got to play with their two children for the afternoon. We had fun goofing around and even learning a little Portuguese.

Here is Sarah. The kids were so excited when they figured out that if they were wet they could actually hold the bubbles.

Tim tries to stretch the bubble to its limits. Major difference between boys and girls. The boys were all putting the bubbles to the test. The girls were decorating themselves with them.

Scoochy and Sarah with their bubble buddies. Unfortunately, right before I snapped the picture, Sarah's buddy popped.

Concurrently with the bubble machine we had the sprinklers on. It wasn't quite warm enough for the Brazilians, but to the Oregonians, if the sun is out, it's warm enough.

Ice cream time! Tim enjoyed a cone while patiently answering the kids'questions. For instance:

Scoochy: How do you say green?
Tim: In Portuguese? (he always asked that, it made me laugh)
Scoochy: Yeah.
Tim: Verch. (yeah, I know that's not how it's spelled, I'm doing it phonetically, k?)
Scoochy: Verch?
Tim: Yeah.

Princess Cutie Pops enjoying her cone. Man, just look at that hair. It is such a pretty color.

The whole group drying out from the sprinklers, enjoying some ice cream and some warming rays in the only bit of grass that isn't wet.

Okay, I included this one because I am amazed at how handsome and old this boy is getting. Sorry, total mom-bragging but I couldn't help it. It is one of those "Wow!" pictures that you take every once in a while and they actually turn out.

Jamison Square + Friends= Fun!

On the way home from Texas we spent the afternoon at Jamison Square with our buddies.

Here's three of the girls, in height order: Mercedes, Princess Cutie Pops and Scoochy.

Uh oh! Here comes trouble.
Samab, Princess Cutie Pops and Tank, all in formation.

Can you say "Hot Mama!"?

Deadpool and Dodge trying to break the law...of gravity, that is!
Guffaw! Guffaw! (I know, pretty bad.)

And last, but certainly not least, Lil Red.
Can you get cuter than that?

How to become a ninja - Part 1 - Look like a ninja!

Our family loves ninjas. Dodge had a ninja party for his last birthday and we all love the ninja movie Iron Monkey. (Think Hong Kong Robin Hood.) My favorite webcomic is Dr. McNinja and we love watching Ask a Ninja. One of their favorite games as siblings is to dress like ninjas and fight "The Bad Guys." They run around the house and ask me for Ninja Missions, during which I have to come up with highly ambiguous yet poetical objectives for them. For instance, "Go to the land of the sky clouds and save He Who Has The Long Snout from the evil Scorpion Tongue. If you do this you shall be honored with the name Flying Arrow." Basically, I just told them to run upstairs and bring me Dodge's stuffed elephant, Ay-Ay, after pretend fighting whatever they encounter. Sometimes they interpret my missions completely different than what I hint at and it's really interesting to see what they come up with. Today, Tank would like to show how you, too, can be a ninja!

First, find a t-shirt with long sleeves.

Second, put the t-shirt on your head so that your face is looking through the neck hole and the rest of your head is covered.

Third, tie the arms around the back side of your head.

Last, adjust the neck hole so that only your eyes are showing.

Tank is posing as "Fire Ninja" here. The great thing is that anyone can use this method. Just use the size of t-shirt that you wear. The only problem is that a kid size 3T or smaller will have a bigger head than his shirt arms can reach around. Just use a bigger tee.

And that, my friends, is how you can be a ninja!

When life gives you lemons, draw pictures of them and rake in the dough!

Lemonade stands are such a thing of the past. Last year the crew tried a "Filtered Water" stand. Not too much luck. This year they struck gold with...Art! Yep, that's right. They drew a ton of pictures and sold them for $.25 a piece. In the end they raked in about $10! I was pretty impressed with their entrepreneur spirit. Of course, I'm sure they wouldn't have been half as successful if we didn't live two blocks from a university, but hey! What's that they say? Location, location, location!

The gallery!

One guy who came by didn't have any money. He told them to draw his old-school bicycle and he would buy it the next day. The kids, thinking it would be a popular subject, thought they should draw a number of the bikes. Scoochy drew the first one and then Dodge and Princess Cutie Pops held her drawing up to the window and copied it. Those bikes were the first ones to go the next day. So chalk that up as a little homeschool economics lesson in supply and demand.

The proud owner of a Scoochy original!