The Things These Kids Say...

I'm pretty good about telling my family and friends about the funny things my kiddies say but I often forget to write them down.  So today I'm going to rattle off a few of the gems that have flowed from their mouths...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Claire is currently on a spelling kick.  She loves repeating how to spell the handful of words that she has mastered.  About a month ago we were sitting at dinner one night...

C: I know how to spell cow!

Me: Okay...how?

C: M - O - M!

Me: That spells "mom".

C: Ohhhhhhh!  Then how do you spell cow?

I could have curled up in a ball and cried but I decided that I wouldn't let a 4 year old ruin my night and had a good laugh instead.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I took Claire with me to the AT&T store one day and in the middle of our visit I had to take her to the restroom in the back.  The toilet paper contraption was well out of her reach (really...ridiculously placed fairly far from the commode) so I pulled some off the roll and handed it to her.  She took it with a sigh and said, "Toilet paper is the BEST."  Yes, yes it is.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

We were at Max's office a few days after the previous toilet paper episode when once again Claire had to use the restroom (what is with these kids?!).  I took her down the hall and upon entering the stall, I offered to get some toilet paper for here since once again, I didn't think she could reach it.  She quickly told me she could do it and reaching for the roll said, "Watch...and learn."  I watched.  I learned.  She was right.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  

A while back I bought a big box of frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts.  Since the box itself wouldn't fit in the freezer downstairs I pulled out the individual resealable bags and stuffed them in wherever I could find room.  That night around dinnertime, I sent Hudson downstairs to grab a pound of butter from the freezer for me.  He came back upstairs and said, "It sure was nice of the guys at the store to cut all that chicken into heart shapes for us."  Some of the breasts weren't separated or cut apart and so really, some of the pieces did look like hearts.  It just struck me as funny that he thought that the store actually went to the trouble of cutting them that way.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

One day last week Claire was begging to play games on my iPad.  I repeatedly told her "no" and she persisted until I was really firm with her.  A few minutes later we were in the kitchen when she came over to me and asked me to be quiet for a second.  I obliged and she put her ear up against my thigh and said, "Your body says I can play on your iPad."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I know I have more stored deep in the deep abyss of my short term memory somewhere...hopefully I'll find them one of these days so I can post more.

Your Mess? Your Job.

Two nights ago after my boy brushed his teeth, I pulled out a Clorox wipe, handed it to him and pointed to the toilet.  He looked surprised and asked why he had to clean the large yellow spot back behind the seat.  I informed him that if he makes the mess, he's going to have to clean it up (I've only made him do it a few times in the past...my bad!).  His response was, "But it wasn't me!"  Uhhhhhh.  I played Captain Obvious and reminded him that his sister can't miss and hit the toilet back there and that he's the only boy who uses that bathroom.  Not surprisingly, his answer changed: "But it's not from today."  Uhhhhhh.  It was still you, buddy.

It was actually fairly amusing to watch him cleaning up that spot.  He very gingerly held the folded-over wipe with two or three fingers and put almost zero elbow grease into it, doing only - and I mean only - the bare minimum needed to get the job done.  He tried to hand the wipe to me and I quickly pointed at the garbage can.

After his little chore was done I pulled out another wipe and did a quick wipe down of the bowl's rim and seat as I told him that he's going to start doing toilets.  He was about as THRILLED as a diabetic on Halloween.  Too bad, kid.  It's happening.

Easter Weekend 2012

If you ask me, our Easter weekend was just about perfect this year.  For me it started Friday night when I hard boiled about 18 eggs in preparation for dyeing them Saturday and making them into deviled eggs on Sunday.  For the first time ever I had one egg partially split open during the process.  I've had eggs crack before but this was different...it  ended up with about 1/4 of its contents pouring out of a crack but said contents were still cooked and attached to the crack/shell.  It was weird.  Another failed egg was floating in the pot when I went to run cold water over them.  You can guess where that one went!

Saturday afternoon we went ahead with the candy & Easter egg hunt that was supposed to happen Friday morning.  There was still plenty of snow on the ground up here but we all put our kids in their snow boots and let them "hunt" anyway.  We had candy all over the sidewalks and candy-filled eggs on plants and bushes and all over the yards both in and out of the snow.  The whole thing only lasted a little over 30 minutes but the kids had a blast.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate better next year so we can do it the right way!

After the egg/candy hunt, the kiddies and I dyed the hard boiled eggs.  I know that there are some people who dread the process but I look forward to it every year.  I think it's so much fun!  I failed to take pictures of of the finished products this year but I was very happy with how they all turned out.  The kids had fun experimenting with dipping their eggs in different colors (I always do just that with a few of my eggs as well) but I think my favorite one this year was a pretty deep but kind of bright purple one that I turned out.  I left it sitting in the water/vinegar/dye for a good 30 minutes and it was so pretty!  The only egg that didn't turn out like I hoped was my "death egg" (dipped in and dyed every color until its good and ugly).  It's tradition in our family to do one (or more) every year and for whatever reason, mine didn't live up to expectations this year.

On Easter Sunday we opted not to let the kids have their Easter baskets until after church.  We toyed with letting them find them beforehand but decided that like Christmas, we wanted the day's initial focus where it should be...on Jesus Christ.  They kids looked great in their Easter duds and were good as gold at church.  We then tortured them even longer once we got home and took several pictures out back before allowing them to go inside and find their baskets (very complexly hidden out in the wide open on the chairs by the fireplace).  While the kids were trying out a few candies, the Easter Bunny came again and hid our dyed eggs all over the backyard so that the kids could hunt for those.

Once the real egg hunt was done, the rest of the afternoon was spent gorging on candy a bit (kids), making deviled eggs (me) and relaxing together as a family.  Can I just say that I LOVE the deviled eggs my mom taught me to make?  Yum.  We then went to hubby's parents' place for dinner and had a really nice time visiting and playing with in-laws, aunts & uncles and cousins.  Dinner was great as always.  My mother-in-law's ham really is the BEST and I feel bad for you if you've never had it.  To cap it off there were two desserts...a homemade from scratch no-bake strawberry cheesecake and a multi-layered chocolate cake/torte with fresh raspberry sauce.  I helped myself to both and counted the calories null, void and non-existent since it was a holiday.  I'm salivating right now just thinking about the cheesecake...

P.S.  Just have to toot my own horn...I just ran spell check and I made zero errors on this post.  This very seldom happens for me as I tend to type fast and check later.  I'm very proud of myself.  Toot, toot!

Spring Break

My last post generated more comments and visits to my blog than I've seen in a long time.  I should babble on about not blogging, writer's block, my lack of gumption and all that nonsense more often!  That being said, I'm actually going to do a real post...

Last week was our kids' Spring Break.  Aside from a trip to the library and the park, we didn't do much with our first couple of days.  Not wanting the remaining days off to go to waste, the kids and I tried to make up for it from Wednesday through Friday.

WEDNESDAY

That morning I took the kiddies to Kangaroo Zoo.  It's a fun place for the kids to be noisy, run around, get all sweaty and wear themselves out for a while.  Once they'd hit their energy limit (which I'm always shocked actually exists) I surprised them with a trip to a farm store nearby.  They had dozens of chicks, ducklings and baby rabbits for sale for the upcoming Easter holiday.  We weren't permitted to hold any of them but one of the employees was nice enough to hold both a chick and a duckling so that the kids could pet them.  It if weren't for the lame-o zoning laws and such around here, I would have come home with a handful of chicks.  They were SO cute!

Next it was off to a really nice local grocery store, Harmon's, where we chose what we each wanted for lunch from their deli, salad bar, bistro, Chinese buffet, etc.  Aside from the great fruit and such that all of us shared from the salad bar, my lunch was hands down the most expensive and worst tasting of the three meals...NASTY Chinese food.  It smelled fabulous when I was serving it up and I was so excited to give it a try.  What a total waste of money.  Sorry, Harmon's, but I would pick the hole-in-the-wall cheap place here in town or Panda Express over your Chinese food any day!  And either one of them would have cost me about half of what I spent.  Thankfully the kids both made really delicious (and inexpensive!) choices...Claire had homemade macaroni & cheese and Hudson opted for the fried chicken.  Next time I'm going for the deli/bistro.

After lunch it was across the shopping center to a really nice new play structure out in front of the theatres.  A friend had mentioned the playground in a FB post a day or two before so I figured that as long as we were in the neighborhood, we ought to give it a shot.  I was so glad we did...the ground was covered in nice rubber bark (bouncy to walk on - kind of fun!) and the play structure was made to look like a tree house, complete with a couple of "board" ladders, a climbing wall, "stone" steps, etc.

Our last hurrah for the day was a trip to another theatre (closer to home) to see Mirror, Mirror with Max.  It was such a fun movie!  I thought the beginning scene with Julia Roberts - aka the Evil Queen - giving a bit of a prologue was very interestingly done in terms of animation and very funny in some of the things she said.  The whole movie really was entertaining and generated some good laughs.  We all enjoyed the movie and while it wasn't the greatest flick ever (I never want to say movies are super awesome...gets peeps' hopes up too much), it was a good choice for the whole family.

THURSDAY

We were headed into SLC to stop by a cousin's place in Sandy that morning so I decided to make the best of being that far south.  After our visit there, we headed to IKEA for lunch.  I know it's not gourmet food or anything but I seriously LOVE their meatballs with gravy, potatoes and lingonberries...I also get a side of steamed veggies every time.  And most importantly, the kids and I always get a piece of their chocolate cake to share.  It is so very tasty!  I would gladly pay Harmon's prices for an IKEA meal.  It just goes to prove that cheap things aren't all bad and pricey things aren't always good!

After IKEA we headed down to Thanksgiving Point to go to the animal farm/park.  It was fairly cool with a very cold wind outside and while I was sorry to have worn short sleeves and that none of us brought jackets, I was glad that I'd made the kids wear long sleeved shirts that morning.  In spite of the cold, we had a wonderful time.  I've always been a sucker for animals and springtime is my favorite time to visit there with all the baby animals and such.  While there were a few animals still expecting babies (two cows, two ponies, a couple of goats, etc.), there were already a number of chicks and lambs there, three of the lambs having been born just hours before we arrived.  The kids loved petting and feeding the goats, the big draft horses, a few bunnies and a couple of the lambs that came over to the gate.  They also enjoyed their pony rides...Hudson rode Cosmo and Claire was on Elvis.  I'm hoping to make it back down there soon so we can see the goat kids and foals that were due any day.  This was the only day that I remembered to bring along my good camera...

FRIDAY

We stuck around home Friday morning as it had snowed 6-8" overnight.  We were supposed to have a neighborhood Easter egg hunt at 11:00 that morning but it was postponed for Saturday in hopes that the snow would be melted.  Instead the kids had a blast playing the snow while I shoveled our driveway and walks.  After lunch I took them downtown SLC to see the new City Creek shopping center.  I took Claire there for a quick visit a couple of weeks ago but didn't get to see everything so it was fun to really explore this time around.  We did a bit of shopping (Disney Store, Go! Toys & Games, Macy's) but mostly just walked around and took in the sights.  Fountains are always a favorite, the waterfall is really something and watching trains and people from the sky bridge was fun...but the hands down favorite for all three of us was the trout pond.  I think we could have easily sat there watching the fish dart around all afternoon.  We were there for a good 2-3 hours and I was shocked at the end when both kids complained about leaving.  "Please, just one more store!"  is not something I usually hear come from my almost 8-year-old boy's mouth.

That night it was a last minute dinner from Papa Murphy's pizza since I hadn't thought ahead enough when I was home that morning.  Not that take-and-bake pizza is normally something to rave about but if you haven't had it, you really ought to give their Herb Chicken Mediterranean DeLite pizza a try.  They use olive oil instead of sauce and it has chicken, spinach, sun dried tomatoes, feta cheese and a sprinkling of herbs on top.  Three words: yummy, tasty, delicious.

I think that's about it for our uber-exciting spring break...

Next up: Easter!