Make-up Artist

Frankie was a bit too quiet today while I was putting away laundry upstairs. Ignoring my motherly intuition, I finished the job at hand before going to check on him. I had to say goodbye to an entire tube of lipstick (the color looks better on him than it did on me anyway) and then spent quite awhile washing his face, hands, feet, legs, shirt and inside his left ear. 

This is what I found:

It's about time

After 11 years of parenthood, we (and by we, I mean Seth) have finally made them a sandbox, and they are loving it. We had friends with a large amount of very fine, beach-like sand out in their pasture, and they were generous enough to let us take a truckload of it for free.

It's beautiful sand for playing in, perfect for making sand-castles and burying people. And it took us about 5 minutes to realize that we have created for ourselves a new battle. In addition to being as fun as beach sand, it's as sticky as beach sand. So every time the kids play in it, they are covered in a clinging sand that doesn't easily rub off. We've filled a little pool as a washing station for the kids and have the back porch fully stocked with old towels in hopes of keeping the sand from getting all over our house. Time will tell whether this endeavor was worth it or not. So far so good....

Hired!

I'm thinking of giving Charlie primary job of answering the phones here. If I can get to the phone in time, I can usually tell if it's a scammer or telemarketer, but occasionally the kids beat me to it and end up answering.

Charlie was with us as Seth was telling us about a new scam call that had been hitting homes in our area, and we were talking about the importance of never giving out any information over the phone to people who call. Charlie wanted to know why so I said something to the effect of the callers just being after our money.

The very next morning, the phone rang and Charlie answered it. I could overhear a man asking to talk with "your Mom or Dad." Instead of handing me the phone, Charlie narrowed his eyes and said, "Wait....Are you just trying to take our money?"  It ended up being an impressively believable recorded voice  (impressive because it was apparently able to tell that a child had answered the phone), so there was no reaction to Charlie's impertinent question.

Winter fun

First off, I offer my apologies for writing about snow and winter when we are just beginning to thaw out and forget that a month ago we were buried in over a foot of snow around here. I meant to share these picture sooner, but you know, kids, life, blah blah blah. 

Anyway, we did manage to have quite a bit of fun during our extended winter here in MN. During the late March blizzard, I was gone for the weekend so Seth was on his own with the kids. When I came home, I was greeted by the biggest snowman I have ever seen and a very impressive igloo-type fort. The fort doesn't look that big, but we actually fit 7 people inside it at once (one of them was Seth so we didn't even cheat by squeezing in only tiny people). Both of these feats are something this mom would never be capable of doing with the kids - my best snowmen usually end up around 3-4 feet high. Seeing this made me once again thankful that our kids have such an adventurous and creative dad who can do those things with them that I'm too small or feminine (or lazy) to do. 

Speaking of things I would probably never do with the kids, Seth also brought the boys ice fishing this winter with our brother-in-law. It took Charlie about 5 minute to catch this guy! Looks like he has his Great-Grandpa Lawrence's knack for fishing!

Grandpa Lawrence (on the right)

More questions from Charlie and other observations

Why are there such things as scary dreams? I wish we could delete nightmares and scary dreams.
Why did dinosaurs live before people and why did they all die?
Why do people wear earmuffs and why do they look so weird?
Why don't hornets have horns?
Why don't moms fart?
Do our tongues go all the way down to our tummies?

"I know why Reed's name is Reed. Because he likes to read.
And Noah's name is Noah because he likes to say No.
And my name is Charlie because I like choring (doing chores). Except I don't like to do chores!"

Charlie: Mom!! There is a black coat on the back porch!!
Me: Ok.
Charlie: It can sting people!!
Me: What?
Charlie: Black coats sting people!
Me: (going to look) Do you mean a yellow jacket?
Charlie; No, it's black! It's a black jacket.

Hidden cuss words

"Dad! You said the B-word!"

That was Sam when he overheard Seth say the word "obituary."

On the same line, Charlie has asked me more than once, "How come there's such things as swear words?" I have found that's a difficult one to answer. I've been getting lots of those lately:
"How come you couldn't have had me first so I would be the oldest?"
"Why does there have to be coldness?"
"Why are there such things as germs?"
"How come men can't have babies, too?"
"Why are there bad people?"
"Why do good people do bad things sometimes?"
"Why do girls have to pee sitting down?" (that one I could answer). 

He's a deep thinker, this one.

Quote of the Day

"I'm Anus!!"

This was enthusiastically shouted by my nephew, Reed, today. The kids were watching the movie Ferdinand, and each kid right away picked the character they wanted to be. Sam wanted to be Ferdinand, Elena picked Lupe (the calming goat), and Reed was a bull named Angus.

He just got the name a little wrong. Fortunately, none of the other kids were familiar enough with the term to notice.

Happy Easter Fools Birthday!

April 1st marked 3 celebrations for us. In addition to Easter and April Fool's Day, it was Elena's 11th birthday.

The kids started the day with the Easter Bunny giving them prank gifts with clues to find their real gift. The few toys they got are all old toys they already had.

Sam followed his clue, but found a pack of hot glue gun sticks that I had left on the counter the night before instead of his actual gift. So when I came down in the morning, he said, "Mom! Is my only gift really this pack of glue sticks??"

Then we celebrated Easter with Seth's family. We brought chocolate with surprise fillings (olives, grapes and mushrooms), and set them out on the counter. Food does not go untouched at the Myhre gatherings so it wasn't long before people were getting pranked. By the time we had been found out, there were 4 left that no one would touch (all olives and mushrooms). Frankie spotted them and wanted one. After arguing with him a bit, I finally gave him one. He liked it so much he finished the rest of the bowl! I guess he's young enough not to have any preconceived ideas on how a truffle should taste.

As one last prank, we stuck a "dented your car" sign on Seth's sister's car, and left our nephew's phone number. We finished the night with a mini-birthday party at our house - because after all the goodies on Easter Sunday, what we really needed was cake and ice cream. Elena did a great job decorating her Easter-themed cake.

At the end of the night, Seth and I went to bed and couldn't figure out where our top sheet went. We finally figured out that it had been pulled all the way up and tucked in at the top of the mattress so it looked like the bottom sheet. Underneath, we found a note from Elena saying "April Fool's!" Given her birthday, I guess we shouldn't be surprised that our daughter has started to effectively prank us. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Dinnertime with Frankie

Last summer I took several videos of Frankie eating with the intention of sharing them on the blog so we could always remember how mealtimes were when he was 1. When it comes to making messes with food, Frankie takes the cake. It didn't help that he always refused to wear a bib or sit down while eating. 

These are a little dated now, and I'm happy to report that he is much better. Still messy, but not quite so extreme or deliberate. I'll also add that with most of these videos I would have normally intervened sooner, but I wanted to capture how he was uninterrupted and in his natural state.

This first one occurred when I sat him down to eat rice and beans and then quickly ran to use the restroom. When I came back out, this is how I found him. It cuts off at the end, but he was trying to rub refried beans on the bottoms of his feet when I finally reached my limit of tolerance.

Eating yogurt...he dropped his spoon and improvised:

And here he is eating a cup of applesauce:

Charlie quotes of the week

"Sam! You didn't do that on oops. You did that on purpose."

"Oh, I think that I found myself a cheeseburger." (singing Cheerleader)