Simple Misunderstandings

This weekend I worked on painting our office (the next step is flooring!).  Katrina was helping me paint and she asked me where Greg was.  I replied (evidently not so clearly - I must have been speaking quickly), "He is upstairs working on some other things."  She replied in a surprisingly calm voice, "What is he smothering?"

Other than the painting and flooring project, life is just merrily rolling along!  Ethan can now write sentences and I love reading them (words are written as they sound - spelling isn't important yet).  Katrina can read just about anything and loves to start new books.  We have plenty of snow for sledding, although it will probably melt some this week.  The kids are staying busy with bowling lessons and Katrina loves her ice skating lessons.  They learned how to spin last week!

Things That Make Me Laugh at Our Home

So lately there have just been some things around this place that stop me in my tracks and make me laugh.  One such thing happened when I was walking out the front door (the area in front of it is our "time-out" spot) and looked at the bottom of the wall and noticed that one of the children, both deny doing this although I have my number one suspect picked out, had written "Etha" there in black crayon.  Fortunately, we don't have anyone named "Etha" here as Ethan insisted - wasn't him.  Whoever it was, they were clearly feeling trapped like a prisoner over there, found some stub of a crayon, and felt the need to write his/her name so that someone who cared might one day find the name there and know of his/her woes. 

The other thing that strikes me as being funny is that one of the lightswitches in our bathroom has a top hat sticker at the top of it.  I wonder what the thought process was of the child who stuck it there.  Whenever I turn on the light, I think in my head, "Well, how do you do, Sir Lightswitch?," and feel like I should make a slight nod of my head in recognition of this mighty regal lightswitch in front of me.  Perhaps I need to get out of the house more, but still makes me laugh.  That lightswitch is all dressed up with no where to go.

Another funny thing to me - Ethan has taken over the shelves on the TV stand.  At the end of the day when we sit down to watch TV, I look into those cubbies and there is a whole world under there sometimes.  Sometimes there will be nine zhu zhu pets lined up in a row looking at me, sometimes there will be a whole Lego scene, sometimes stuffed animals, and currently his money is lined up neatly in there as he is trying to save up money to buy some Legos.  And I think it is a subtle hint to us that he doesn't want us to forget that he is trying to buy Legos.  Hint hint, mom and dad. 

Lastly, one of my funny things here is Cat School.  Katrina has almost daily sessions of Cat School with all four cats.  She gets them all rounded up, locks them in her room, and gets to teaching those cats.  On her walls you can find her lessons - working on writing their names, spelling, sometimes math . . . all of the essentials really that a cat needs to know these days.  I can hear her threatning them with time outs if they don't hold still, telling them what their homework is, telling them they need to listen - it is her very favorite game.  So funny to stand outside her door and listen.

Just some funny little things from up here in Michgan.  Hoping that you find funny things in your home today!

Turkeys, Turkeys Everywhere and Sunsets

Here is a funny picture of what I came home to the other day.  Notice Sarah, the black cat, on the far left side of the picture.  The turkey closest to her was pecking on the glass at her.  Sarah was fascinated.

Here is a picture of a beautiful sunset.  If we are sitting at the kitchen table, two people face this view at dinner time.  The other two people have their backs to it.  Prior to me taking this picture, Greg had commented on how pretty the sunset was and I turned around and wow, it was gorgeous.  Sunsets this beautiful happen a lot up here.  I'm not sure if being close to a huge body of water makes the sunsets prettier, but Michigan has amazing sunsets.  I almost feel like applauding sometimes they are so magnificent.

Homework

I didn't tell a little story that happened when we were getting ready to go sledding the other day.  I had taken Ethan's coat off to put his mittens on and was pulling on one of them kind of hard to make sure it was all the way on.  My hand slipped off and my knuckle hit the poor kid on his lower lip.  He cried and cried and there was a bump there for about 10 minutes - it had to hurt and I felt horrible about it.  Well, we had to work on homework later that day and one of the things he had to do was to write a sentence and draw a picture to go along with it.  I asked Ethan what he wanted to write and he said (in a nice slow voice like you would use if you were talking out loud while you were writing), "My mom punched me in the face."  Great.  I ended up getting him to write about playing Wii, but geesh!  The guilt!

Last day of winter break. . .

Oh, how I dread the end of breaks.  Greg and the kids head back to work/school tomorrow and I am silently hoping for a snow day (even though that wouldn't cancel work for Greg as I'm sure he would point out if he were reading this).  We finally have some snow, although not as much as they said we would get.  We have about 3-4 inches.  We went sledding this morning and discovered that when you only have 3-4 inches, it is not a good idea to use a blow up sled.  One of them popped within the first five minutes - it was quite a ride down though!!  I need to invest in better sleds, I think.  We had a great break though which included trips to Build a Bear and the Children's museum.  However, I think the kids favorite parts were playing a card game over and over (Sleeping Queens), playing with the cats (Katrina's favorite part - Chewy has been dressed up in more outfits over break and Sarah the cat just watches from a distance now looking relieved that she is not the one being dressed up - Chewy is also very good at "sleeping" in a baby crib and he doesn't seem to mind wearing a bib), playing Wii (Ethan), and eating candy from Christmas stockings (both of them would agree on that one).  I also enjoyed eating way too much candy over break.  Happy 2012 to all of you!!

Official First Day of Winter Break

So here is a little view of what we have done on our first official day off.  Ethan has done several puzzles and Katrina has had "cat school" where she was trying to teach the cats (unteachable, she decided) and then she decided that if Chewy couldn't learn, he would be a baby.  Now they are both making bookmarks and are both whistling next to me.  Overall, a great first day!

Signs your baby isn't a baby anymore . . .

So although Ethan is five now and I realize he isn't a baby anymore, there are still moments where I can't believe how grown up he is.  The other day we were playing in the basement and he said, "That's phat!".  Can't quite remember what he was describing, but he used this word correctly.  Then the other day he was pretending to surf on a couch cushion that was tilted up (he is a firm believer that couch cushions are merely giant legos waiting to be built into something) and he was yelling for me to watch him do a surfing trick.  He yells out in this teenage sounding voice, "That was sic!"  Not even hip enough to know if you spell that word with a "k" at the end or not, but I'm thinking it is such a hip word that it can't possibly have a "k" at the end. 

Today are holiday parties at school.  Katrina's party is 90 minutes long - that's a heck of a party.  Ethan's is an hour long - then we have one more day and we're on vacation!!  I think I'm more excited than the kids.