The Twin Poops

Faith went to use the toilet the other night and she yells at me:

Faith: MOM, THERE'S POOP IN THE TOILET!
Me: just flush it
Faith: It's not my poop
Me: then it's your brothers
Faith : OH MY GOD! MOM, HIS POOP LOOKS JUST LIKE MINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Big Parenting Brag

As a parent you sometimes second-guess youself when raising your kids. Speaking for myself I know that probably on a daily basis I wonder if I'm raising my kids right, or if I'm raising them to be the anti-Christ.
Either way, it's a worry of mine. But then there are days when something happens that makes you think that you're on your way to molding your children into productive Americans. And a few weeks ago Ethan confirmed that I can indeed take the empty shell of a child and mold them into someone that isn't destined to be a prisoner, a Barry Manilow groupie, or a manager at Pizza Hut **not there's anything WRONG with being either of those people** cough cough.

Ethan: Guess what, Mom?
Me: what?
Ethan: I checked out a book today at the library and I found $20 inside.
Me: A real $20 bill?
Ethan: Yeah
Me: I don't believe you. Let me see it.

**now this is the most interesting part of the story, because you might notice that I assumed that when he found the $20 he kept it..he is my kid after all**

Ethan: I can't show it to you, I gave it to the librarian.
Me: You did?
Ethan: Yes, and she gave me a pencil and a poster as a reward for it.
Me: wow, that's awesome Ethan. That's was exactly the right thing to do
Ethan: I know. But I wanted to keep it but I told myself that the right thing to do was to turn it in.


My heart just grew a little bit bigger that day for my son.

Fun on the Farm

We went to Tom's Farms today, the weather we have here in early January mimics springtime. It's in the low 70's and beautiful outside.

She is tutu cute

Faith's friend John William bought her a gorgeous pink tutu for Christmas this year, she wore it for 3 days straight, only taking it off to sleep and go pee. Doesn't she look adorable!?! She wears it around the house and will dance and say, " Look at me, I'm a ballawina". She just loves it.

Seriously..

Could my kids get any cuter? I don't think so.

Rockin' in the New Year

Travis decided ( because I have no input in the matter since I'm a girl and couldn't possibly realize the importance of electronics) that for New Years Eve he would take Ethan to the store to buy Guitar Hero World Tour for us to play as a family. Mi no comprendo. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Ethan just get Guitar Hero 3 for his birthday? I was very confused, and if I was Snoop Dogg I would say that I was very confizzled. Ethan wanted to go buy it because he had xmas money burning a hole in his pocket, so I was clearly outnumbered . Faith didn't get to vote because she was too busy trying to stuff those really small shoes onto her Polly Pocket so she could care less.

So I digress, I sent the boys out to buy their new toy. It was getting dark on New Years Eve. In years before marriage and kids I would have been at home primping myself to go to some party where I might drink too much and use too little of my brain. Travis would have probably been at some retirement home volunteering with the old folks and reading them Shakespear Sonnets ( not really what he would have been doing, but I like to think that before I came along he sat home alone on New Years Eve dreaming about me). But instead, I was at home making spinach dip and waiting for my family to come home with a new video game. My how times have changed.

Once they got home from the store we set up the band equipment. It was really cool. Faith was interested mostly with the drums and the drumsticks, I'm sure she was wondering how the cat would like it if she smacked him with one. Obviously the cat ran upstairs.

I know now why Travis and Ethan wanted this. It's super cool. We now have 2 guitars so we can battle each other. We also added a microphone and a drumset. Call us the Partridge Family, but without the incest between David Cassidy and Susan Dey.

So we spend the last day of 2008 playing together as a family, and it was fun! Ethan proved to us over and over again just how awesome he is on the guitar. Faith jammed at the drums, and Travis showed off his vocal talents. I did a little bit of everything, but mostly was the photographer. I got such a kick out of watching them have fun.

Sad to say, no one made it midnight except Ethan. But it was definitely a fun night.

Let the games begin!

months of shopping for the perfect gifts, dreary panic over trying to find a place in this house to hide them, and then spending numerous naptimes wrapping gifts in the living room while simultaneously watching ALL MY CHILDREN ( you'd think it was easy, but it's not. One shouldn't handle scissors while watching a soap opera..it's dangerous). All that work and in 20 minutes flat it's all over with.

And what does one get for all that work? A big pile o' hell to clean up.

But most importantly, we get the smiling faces of kids who can't believe how lucky they are to have a mountain of new toys to play with.

Christmas smiles are better than any smile in the world, because they are made by magic.