Hungry Boy

J - Mom, I'm starving! Will you make me something to eat?

Mom - We have beef stew, taco chili, chicken fried rice, egg drop soup, or white chicken chili in the fridge. (All leftovers from homemade meals this week.)

J - Sick!! I mean something good!

Mom - I'm pretty sure you know how to make Ramen noodles.

J - Ooo, yeah. Will you please make it for me??

[An ongoing yet never changing conversation in our house...]

Mom Pace

I walk fast. You may or may not have noticed that but if you spend much time walking with me you'll see that I have trouble going at a leisurely pace. Wait, I think I've mentioned this before... Yep, here ya go.

When the J was little, (from the time he could walk), he's had trouble keeping pace with me. He would hold my hand and say "Mom slow down." Or I'd be cruising along and realize he was running to keep up with me. I did try to slow down but really he had to learn to move it. To this day he is more of a dilly dallier than me. Until today.

Today I had the J take me to the library to switch out some movies. I was moving as fast as my little surgered self (gall bladder removal last week) could and he was several paces ahead of me. I said, "Are you running a marathon?" He laughed and said, "No, I'm just going my mom pace."

That gave me a good laugh. Which hurt. ;)

Don't You Love Getting a Surprise in the Mail?

I mean really, who doesn't love getting a little unexpected surprise in the mail? This afternoon I got home from work and thought I'd check the mail on my way in.

I opened the box and just as I was about to reach in I saw, to my great surprise, a snake!! For the record I said, "ooo" but I didn't scream. I thought that was pretty good. And then I promptly moved far, far away from the mailbox. I've seen Indiana Jones and you just never know what these creatures might do!

Now, I'm sure this is a garter snake and they say those are harmless but really I've never had the urge to know that first hand. So I informed Dad and the J that until one of them removes it the mail will stay in the box. (This is a clearly defined "man" job!)

My guess is that those lovely junior high kids thought they'd have a little fun - at my expense. Rude.

Meet Bosco

The J got a dog this week! Meet Bosco:

Isn't he cute? He's getting used to us and as I watch him I'm coming to see that he'll fit in just perfectly around here. He likes to bury himself in Js comforter to sleep just the way J does. Then I watched him eating this morning:

He takes food out of his bowl one piece at a time and lays them out on the floor then eats them one at a time from the floor and I thought "where have I seen that before?"

See? He fits right in with us already!

A Comic About Me?

The J saw this comic earlier this week, cut it out, and showed it to me with a huge smile on his face.

(Ok, you might just have to click here to read it...)

When I read this my only question was "Almost July? How did she get all the way to July before she started planning summer vacation?" I'm just sayin'...

Then I saw the next day's comic:

(and here...)

Oh my heck!! That's the exact dynamic in my little family. The J doesn't like to travel and I love it. This is us to a T!

Part 3 - Wrapping Up Our Summer Adventures

Here's the final installment of "What I did on my summer vacation with my Little Hs."

We had lots of story times. You can see that I have three sides so that I can fit three kids perfectly:

We enjoyed Ice Cream Soda day even though it was rainy. Actually the kids loved it! They put on their rain gear and played in the rain for a long time.

Speaking of water, we had a spontaneous Flotsam day. Have you ever read the book Flotsam by David Wiesner? It's a great book for kids - no words (or very few? can't remember at the moment), wonderful pictures and the kids make up the story as you go. Anyway, we started out by doing a science experiment to see what things float and what sinks. In our back yard we have sea shells scattered along the pebble walkway so the kids went out and gathered sea shells, rocks, sticks, leaves, etc. and their bowls just started to look like bowls of flotsam:

To continue on the floating experiments I gathered up lots and lots of pennies then we made a boat out of foil, floated it in a big bowl of water and added pennies one at a time to see how many the boat could hold before it would sink. Naturally they all needed their own big bowl, foil, and pennies because that's so much more fun. And it was the best thing! They played for over an hour without fighting or whining or anything. And they probably would have played longer if I hadn't called them in for lunch. Water just works wonders for kids, doesn't it?

One day we made shark shirts for the boys and a buddyfly shirt for Mia. These were really fun and easy to make but I'm really annoyed with the shirts themselves (Hanes t-shirts) because they shrunk so much when we washed them. So obnoxious!

One of the highlights that the kids really loved was movie night! We set up our projector to watch movies on the family room wall. The kids made signs for the movie and concessions. Tiernan sold tickets and treats: popcorn in movie style popcorn bags, taffy, and fudge (since it happened to be national fudge day), and pop! Josh was the ticket taker and Mia made sure everyone was invited and attended the movie. The kids set up blankets and pillows on the floor and we closed all the curtains to make it as dark as we could. (I'm not nice enough to let them stay up until it is dark before we even start the movie.)

This was so popular we had another movie night the next week and the Little Hs can't wait to do this with all their cousins in Durango later this summer. So much fun!

We went on lots of picnics in the park - too many in fact since the kids have said they don't want to go on any more picnics! Wow. I never would have expected that. :)

What a fun visit with my Little Hs!

Back Seat Drivin'

This weekend Mom, Becky, Mia and I went to Durango for Jodee's (soon to be sis-in-law) bridal shower. Yay!

On Friday night we all went out to dinner for Danny's birthday and we (the girls) followed Danny & Jodee back from the restaurant to the motel. Now, as you may already know, mom is a notorious back seat driver. Well, we were stopped at a red light and when the light turned green Danny pulled forward and waited to turn left. (Did I already mention that Danny & Jodee were in one car and we were in another car? That's important to remember.) There were two cyclists in the cross walk walking their bikes across the street.

Mom said, "Look out Danny. Don't hit those people."

Me, "Oh my gosh. You're back seat driving from another car."