I, Princess

The boys are in VBS this week, so it's just been me and the girls in the mornings. Emilia's been feeling a little left out by not getting to stay and do the crafts and stuff with the boys, so I've been trying to do fun stuff with her while they are gone. Yesterday, we went to the zoo. Or "to the animals," as she says.

We spent a lot of our time at the zoo watching the chips play. When we first got there, all of the chimps except for the little baby were sleeping. But by the time we walked away, the little baby had woken up all of the chimps and they were running around creating chaos (helped along by the roll of toilet paper they had been given and had strewn all over their room).



Also, by the time we left the chimps, a storm was-a-brewing. So, we headed for the car...

but didn't make it out in time.



After getting quite wet, we went to Krispy Kreme to console ourselves since our zoo trip was cut short.



Emilia kept putting on the hat and saying,

"I, princess."



Yup. She's a princess to me!

Humor

My kids make me laugh.

Or make me WANT to laugh, even when I can't because it's not appropriate and I'm the "MOM" and have to be old and humorless and not crack a smile.

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Micah was looking at my legs this afternoon and laughed and said, "Hey mom! Look at your legs! They've got little dots all over them! Josiah, come see!"
(it's been a couple days since I've shaved...)

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Josiah got mad this afternoon and just before storming out of the room he turned around and said, "I'm so mad I could almost say the word STUPID!!"

I tried hard not to laugh. I'm not sure what this did to my face, but it must have looked scary to Josiah because he calmly said,

"But I'm not going to."

And left the room and went outside.

And then I bent over with laughter.

History Lesson

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
--George Santayana

I love living in town with most of my family. True, there are times when it's not all sunshine and rainbows, but that is far outweighed by how much I love sharing my life with my family.

For almost 10 years now, my mom, sister and I (and our kids, as they've arrived) have met at my grandma's once a week for lunch. We call it "grandma day." I love grandma days. I love talking to everyone and hearing about their week, catching up on each others lives and hearing everyone's stories. Love the stories. I love having the women in my family to laugh and vent and help figure out life with.

My grandma has some of the best stories. She grew up in rural Minnesota in a time very different from my life and I just love hearing about her life. This is a story she told me not too long ago, and boy, am I glad she told me!

One of my grandma's sisters was in charge of making bread for their family. One morning, after mixing the bread and setting it aside to rise she had to leave and left my grandma in charge of finshing making the bread.

"All you have to do is wait until the bread rises to the top of the bowl. Then punch it down, shape it into loaves and put it in the oven."

Simple, right?

Well, my grandma was BUSY, you see. She was in the middle of something JUST as important as bread for the family. Her job couldn't be abandoned merely for bread!

She was elbow deep in making MUDPIES! And she forgot all about the bread.

When she remembered and ran inside to finish her sister's loaves, the bread had risen over the top of the bowl, down the side and onto the counter. Ahhh! That wasn't supposed to happen!

Since she wasn't she wasn't the usual breadmaker, my grandma wasn't exactly sure what to do. Her sister said the bread would only rise to the top of the bowl. Now what would she do??

What would YOU do?

My grandma's a smart and creative lady. Apparently, she leaned more toward the "creative" side as a child.

She cut off the extra dough and buried it outside.

The rest of the dough was shaped into loaves...only they were a bit smaller than usual. No one knows why...

75 years later, in my kitchen last week



THANK GOODNESS for my grandma's story or I might have buried all that perfectly good dough out in my backyard.

Art Work

Josiah's comic book:








Micah's art creation:



The story of Micah's creation:
First, you have to picture it without all of the light green stuff. The person is nana and she is stepping on the snake so that it wont eat the dark green bug. But the blue smudge to the left of nana is a whole bunch of bugs, but the green snake did not realize them! Oh, and the blue wiggle by nana's hand is a worm. Then, along came another snake to get the bugs that the dark green snake didn't realize and a whole bunch of bugs came to save the other bug from getting eaten by the dark green snake. The end.

Emilia's artwork from church on Sunday:

It's a Hard Knock Life

Earlier this morning...

Emilia: Whatcha doin', Mommy?

I'm turning on the air. What're YOU doing?

Emilia: (slightly exasperated) EVERYthin'.

It's just crazy what they expect a 2 year old to do these days.

Emilia: (sighs) Yeah.

(I'm surprised she didn't say, "Tell me about it.")

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This part of the post is called:

Workin' the system

Emilia has been using the potty occasionally. As a reward, we give her a few M&M's. (This is relevant later in the story.)

At grandma's on Friday Emilia had eaten all of her lunch except for her carrots and broccoli. She asked for dessert. I told her she had to eat her vegetables first. She sat at the table and messed around for awhile.

Meanwhile, the rest of us finished our lunches and then grandma pulled out the brownies. For those of you who don't know, my grandma makes THE. BEST. BROWNIES. I've tried to make her recipe and can't. My grandma ALWAYS has some of her brownies in the freezer, and really, they are best frozen, although fresh from the oven is also quite tasty and even just room temp. I guess they're just delicious however you eat them, but we all prefer them frozen. So anyway...grandma pulls out the brownie container (which has always been the same container, we all know what's in it, including Emilia who has been known to throw her hands in the air and scream "CHOCK IT!" when she sees it. But back to Friday...).

Emilia: "'Ssert?"

No, sweetie, you've got to eat your vegetables.

(my grandma also had M&Ms on Friday.)

Emilia: (hopefully) Nem-nem's?

Not until you eat your vegetables.

Emilia paused for about half-a-second.

Emilia: I need to go potty.

You need to use the potty? (In the past 4 months she has ASKED to use the potty ONCE. She typically tells us after she's taken care of business)

Emilia: NEED TO GO POTTY!

Ok, let's go.

I take her to the potty and take off her diaper, which has clearly been peed in recently. I sit the manipulator Emilia on the potty. She S-Q-U-E-E-Z-E-S a few little drops out, throws her hands in the air and screams,

"NEM-NEM'S!!!!!!!!!!!"

I would also like to note, that even with working the system like this, and in spite of getting some M&Ms as reward, she still ate her vegetables so that she could have a brownie for dessert. My grandma's bownies are just that good.