Fainting Brothers

Sometimes I realize that I have to say things as a mother that I never thought I'd hear come out of my own mouth.  I just said to the boys: "Stop fainting and go to bed."  Joey and Andrew are pretending to be fainting goats instead of going to sleep.  Just one of those gems of motherhood, I guess.

The Master

Matthew draws on EVERYTHING.  We have confiscated all writing utensils in the house.  He is also a master of getting out of trouble.  He must have learned a thing or two from Joey (who is the master of changing the subject while being interrogated).  Sometimes Matt grabs my face while I'm lecturing him and he says, "Shhh" or, "You okay?"  Then I have to smile.

This time, he tried a new technique.  When I brought him in to his room -- which was colored on every wall with crayon, from the floor to the height of his reach, I pointed to this particular section:

and started telling him why this was not okay.  He looked at me very sincerely, and said, "It for Eric!"  Well, fine.  It for Eric.

It has been snowing non-stop for two days, so Dad and the kids have shoveled numerous times.  Grace was allowed to go out one of the times, and she came in looking like this.  We had to defrost her.

 

Since the weather has been horrible, the kids have been couped up in the house.  One of their favorite games is hide and seek.  I found Joey.



Updates

 We were getting ready for school the other day, and I couldn't find Matt.  It was garbage day, and the neighborhood behind us gets their garbage picked up first.  So this is where we found him: looking out his back window for the garbage man.

Then he took a break to dance a little bit.  I guess watching "Dancing with the Stars" at Grandma Jane's the night before rubbed off on him.

Then he started playing with the garbage can, and this happened:

I said, "Are you Oscar the Grouch?"  And he said, "Yeah!"

Last night we had our quarterly boys' room cleanup, where we tear apart the boys' room and get all their junk out.  Those boys do the strangest things.  I found a broken cracker and an orange in one of their toy bins, and other gross and disgusting things in their drawers.  I'll just say this: Boys are gross.  And no wonder it stinks in there.  Half way through, Andrew turned to me and said, "Mom, does this stress you out?"  After he said that, I stopped being surprised and angered at the state of their room, and just finished the job without flying on my broom.

Last night we got the first real snowstorm of the year.  I have to say, we had a fabulous fall.  It was real fall weather, even up until yesterday -- it was 50 degrees and we were playing at the park.  But today it is in the teens, and the roads are icy.  Matt keeps looking out the window, saying, "Uh oh!  What happened?"  He is disturbed by the snow covering everything, and he says, "Grass dirty.  Rocks dirty.  Pumpkins dirty.  Mail(box) dirty."  He was VERY upset when he saw his beloved garbage can "dirty".  I told him we'd clean it when it gets warmer.  In 5 months.



Sleepovers

The kids had another "sleepover" this weekend.  They love the idea of sleepovers, but we don't actually ever let them sleep at friends' houses.  Occaisionally they can go over to Papa's house for the night.  So they have invented "sibling sleepovers".  They will all change beds and go to other rooms for the night.  For example, Grace usually ends up in Joey's bed, Andrew sleeps on the floor, and Joey sleeps wherever he lands.

We re-arranged Grace and Matt's room so there is now room for a tent.  That's where Grace slept Friday night.  She absolutely loved it, and slept soundly through the night.  The next night, the tent was moved to Andrew's room, and he slept in it, with Grace and Joey in the bunks.  I've decided it doesn't take much to make my kids happy.  That's something I'm really thankful for, especially on Symphony weekends.

Getting Ready for Bed

Weird things happen at bedtime around here.  I'm not sure exactly what my kids are thinking when they do things like this:

They do them all the time.  But really, people, why?  Why color all over yourselves with marker, or all over the wall, toilet, or table?  Why dip the toilet paper in lotion and leave it hanging from the roll?  Why stick your hand down your diaper when there is poop in there?  Why pull out all the clothes in your drawer for no apparant reason?  Someday, I'd just like to know.

Also, it gets really crowded in the bathroom at bedtime.  We have three bathrooms, so why this happens, I'll never know.

2010 Family Pictures

Today we took advantage of the last reminants of good weather around here for awhile.  We went over to the Zoo for some family pictures.  It was an interesting morning, keeping everybody clean until we were done.  They didn't turn out half bad!

Halloween

We had oh-so-much fun for Halloween!  Grace got to wear a costume to Preschool, and she chose to be a red Power Ranger, of course.  All the other girls were something female.  But that's okay.  I like her just the way she is.  For the Trunk-or-Treat at church and for Halloween, she chose to be a crayon (one of my childhood costumes!).  Matt was an M&M the first day, then decided to be a puppy -- except he was in a lion outfit.  Whatever.

The boys were Clone Troopers the first day, and then Joey decided to be Obi Wan on Sunday.  He's going to look good in a real beard someday.

We reserved Sunday for Trick or Treating only at Grandmas and Grandpas houses.  It was quite a lot of fun, including our trip to Momma Harris'.  Katie was not available (she was making herself beautiful for the following school day), but Matt survived.

We hope you all had a great Halloween!