Giant Lincoln Logs

One of Seth's favorite toys as a kid was his Lincoln Log set. So I guess it's not surprising that he found a way to make a huge version of them for a pergola out on our patio. It's not quite finished, but we're looking forward to growing grapevines on it and having a little outdoor dining area. 

The kids and Coco all like climbing on it. The height combined with the occasional nail sticking out provides the kids with some quality risky play, which kids today apparently lack on a huge scale. So far Charlie has been very cautious about going up and Frankie is well aware that it is too high for him (Seth lifted him up, and Frank immediately wanted to come back down - a first for him!) so for the time being I don't think I need to worry about the smaller ones climbing up and falling off. 

Anyway, here's the project so far (can you spot Coco?):

A hodgepodge of quotes

Over the past few weeks, I've just been writing down cute or interesting things the kids say (mostly Charlie) so I won't forget them. These might be more interesting for me than the readers of the blog, but at any rate, here they are.

Charlie, looking in the mirror after I cut his hair shorter than he expected: "Why did you cut it so short?? I'm not Charlie anymore!"

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

Frankie, jumping up and down with excitement after I unlocked the garage door: "Yay!!! You did it, Mom! You did it!! High Five!" He's like my own personal cheerleader following me around to congratulate every tiny accomplishment.

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

As we were getting ready for bed Charlie jumped down from the top bunk to the bottom, and his ear must have made a strange sound. He was trying to describe it to me (doctors, feel free to chime in on what the heck he might have been talking about): "When I jumped down from bunk, my ear made a noise like 'Ho-lo-lo-lo-lo' except bumpier. No, not like that, it was like 'Mo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo' except, no, it was like 'ho-lo-lo' but a lot bumpier...(this when on for awhile)...it was like the bumpiest thing in the world."
Shortly after that, as he was supposed to be falling asleep: "What if someone yelled in my ear so loud that my eardrum fell out....I hope that never happens. Cuz then I would keep saying 'What did you say? What did you say?' but I wouldn't hear anyone......I really hope that never happens to me...... And what would it feel like if you just stuck your eardrum back in after it fell out?" He seemed pretty dubious when I told him that eardrums don't fall out, they just become damaged or burst.

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

Charlie must have heard someone use the "Good News, Bad News" delivery of information recently because lately he has been using this method of talking to people.
"Mom, I'll give you the good news first....The good news is Reed is home! The bad news is sometimes robbers break through windows and steal stuff."
 And this one: "Frankie, the good news is this breakfast is yummy. The bad news is (here he dramatically broke into song) We're going down for real!!!"

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

As we were eating I noticed Charlie was spending quite a long time focusing on his belly button. When I asked what he was doing he said, "I'm trying to get some quinoa through my belly button into my stomach.....Uh...now it's stuck."

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

Frankie gulped the last of my coffee the other morning, then looked at me with is cheeks puffed out as he held the coffee in his mouth. He must have decided he shouldn't have taken the last of it from me because he suddenly leaned over the cup and spit it all back in. Then he handed the cup to me and said, "Here you go! Drink it!" (I did not.)

And just for fun, here's Frankie singing The Wheels on the Bus:

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!