$350 later.....

After 4.5 seasons (at approx. $70/season, not counting cleats, shin guards, gas, balls, team treats, and final parties) Cameron finally scored a goal in a soccer game late in the 3rd quarter!

According to Cindy, he had a huge grin the rest of the game and was playing 'on point.' (Allyson and I were watching Kenner's game.)

This also meant we had to get ice cream--Cameron selected 1/2-gallons of Moose Tracks and Cookies and Cream.

By the way, the outcome of the two games was approximately the same--1-6 or so. Their respective losing streaks are still going strong!

Tit for tat? Or was that tits for Taps?

I was waiting for the kids to get themselves ready for bed last night, and I was somewhat surprised when all three of them (Ally was already asleep) marched into the room with huge grins on their faces and huge.....tracts of land.....on their fronts.

Each one of the kids had put something (or multiple somethings) under their shirts in an attempt to show some cleavage.

Erin called out, 'Drum roll, please!' puffed out her lightly augmented chest, and began beating on them like tom-tom drums. TAPTAPTAPTAPTAP. (She obviously used something somewhat hard.)

Then Makenna--with a coy southern drawl--belted out, 'Jest look at mah big boo-bies!' (The effect was somewhat dampened when the tube of kid toothpaste she was utilizing fell out.)

Cameron finished up by pointing at the major jutting mass under his shirt and excitedly exclaiming, 'Look at me! I have a 'Cyclops' boobie!'

Really, I don't know where they get this.....

A budding scientist....

After going put to bed tonight, Cameron called out and I arose to answer the call.

He was hot and wanted me to turn his ceiling fan on. (He even kindly pointed out where he was already sweating--behind his knees, etc.)

I smelled something musty in his room, and, crinkling my nose, commented, 'Something kinda stinks in here.'

Cameron replied in an off-hand,matter-of-fact tone, 'That would be my butt.' Then, ever ready with alternative hypotheses, he continued in the same way, 'Or, it could be your butt.'

Yes, he is also a budding conversationalist.

Gossamer Duds

We have related previously that Allyson loves to hold onto anything silky, be it undergarments, blankets, or even clothes that are currently being worn.

It is great fun to watch. As soon as she touches something soft and silky--even if it is just a tag on a shirt), she immediately pops her right index and middle fingers into her mouth and rubs the silky softness with her left hand. If she happens to touch it with her right hand first, she does a 'border shift' (gunslinger lingo), letting go to put her fingers in her mouth while simultaneously grabbing it with her left hand.

One recent morning, both Cameron and Makenna purposefully put on silky clothes to see who could win Allyson's affection. I don't know who won, but they seemed to have a lot of fun with it!



In this photo, you even get to see how sleepy it makes her!

TV--The Great American Wasteland

Another Erin anecdote....

She and some of the other kids were watching TV just before bedtime, and when Cindy came in to tell them to turn it off, there was a small rebellion.

Being the perfect mother, Cindy sweetly--yet stressing every syllable--told them, 'Turn off that dumb TV! I don't want my kids to be spending all of their summer vacation with their eyes glued to the boob-tube!'

Erin quickly piped up, 'But I LIKE boobs!'

The Meanest Mother in the World

Cindy was taking the kids swimming at the "Y" today, and while driving Erin started a sentence with, "When I'm a Mom..."

Cindy quickly cut in, "You'll be perfect! You will let them have whatever they want , whenever they want. They will be able to eat candy and treats all day, watch movies and play computer as much as they want, stay up as late as they want and have sleepovers every night. You will buy them anything they ask for when you go to the store and they will get Happy Meals every day, and never have to do any chores. Is that what you were going to say?"

"That's right!" Erin pertly replied.

"Yeah," Cindy thought to herself, "I probably won't want to visit those grandkids much....spoiled!"

Moms are no fun at all!

Erin (and also Cameron) were quickly grounded from the computer this morning, and sometime in the afternoon Cindy caught Erin sitting at the computer doing something.

Erin begged Cindy to 'Just let me input the password, pleasepleaseplease' because Erin truly and sincerely had no intention of doing anything else besides that, but Cindy, being wise to the ways of Erin 'Take It to the Limit' Elizabeth, just gave a motherly snort and said 'No.'

Adding to the English lexicon, Erin whined back, 'You're just a....a....a RUINER! A great big RUINER!

Cindy just smiled quietly yet smugly to herself and sauntered away.

Princess Time....again....

I took 'Kenner to her soccer practice (she is by far the tallest kid on the team, and one of the most aggressive too--is she really our daughter?)

After practice, I opened the car door for her, saying 'Please get in, your highness,' and she giggled like crazy.

When we got home and I started to get out, she went, 'A-hem! Who is the princess?'

That was my cue to go around and open the door for her too.

Playing catch-up!

Well, our vacation is over, my major translation project is done, so hopefully this blog will start blossoming again.

Then again, it may wither on the vine like a couple of the zucchinis in the garden!?

Day 4 (for some reason the Title section of the blog is disabled right now....)

With Cindy and the kids off in Utahr, I have found ways to keep busy at home.
So far:
2 bedrooms painted (including the ceiling in one of them)
1 prehung door installed
12 pieces of door trim painted
1 big section of replaced drywall sanded
1 stair rail painted
3 6-panel interior doors cut, drilled, and chiseled and ready to paint
Some other little stuff....

It is Sunday, so I am now going to take a nap!

Angel in the Backyard

Halloween isn't the only occasion of phantasmagoric images of the supernatural.

For example, we had an 'angel-sighting' in our backyard:



As you might expect, the snapshot is rather blurred, but the golden gossamer wings and the halo perched[?] at a jaunty angle leave no room for doubt.

We also had an apparition appear in the whirling eddies emitted from a smokebomb:



If you look close, you can also see two more ghostly images to the rear left. Could this be the Virgin Mary and her babe?

Curious minds want to know!

Biker Girl!

Being the not-so-doting parent, despite Makenna's pleas I never seemed to get around to taking her training wheels off. (Of course, she hasn't ridden her bike much, so I didn't think she could do it yet.

Cindy, being the doting parent, took them off a little over a week ago, and took her up to the school to practice.

One push, and she was off, and never looked back!



Yeah, yeah, when I got home from work I gave her a big hug and told her how proud I was of her. (Cindy had had to threaten Cameron to keep him from blabbing the news to me first!)

Free babysitting!?

At the invite of some longtime friends down the street, the kids spent 2.5 hours at a local church attending (Nazarene) Vacation Bible School (or 'VBS' as Erin is quick to remind you).

The VBS runs for 5 evenings and is cowboy-themed, and when we went to pick them up, we noticed lots of quaint signs, such as 'Satan, Bite the dust' and 'WANTED by God.'

The kids had a ball--there were games, food, treats, and crafts. On the way home, Erin entertained us by singing bits and pieces from the hip-hoppin' songs of praise, but, not surprisingly, it was Makenna who put it most succinctly, proclaiming from the back seat, 'I like Vacation Bible School better than our church!' The only thing that Makenna had a complaint about was 'They start their prayers too fast--I wasn't even ready!' (Naturally, we understand this, as usually we have to wait for her to get ready every night for family prayer.)

The girls have already invited friends to go with them tomorrow night, and Cameron is thinking hard over who he wants to ask to go with him on Wednesday night. (Does this count as being a member missionary??)

As for Cindy, Allyson, and I, we did the only reasonable thing and went to a new (to us) restaurant to try out their salads, and then did a bit of shopping.

Only 4 more nights to enjoy! I sure hope they don't grow tired of it!

Now I know why....

....I don't do home repair projects when the kids are around.

The kids have rediscovered that my fuse is about as short as frog flatulence when I am working on a project.

The project: Replacing the ugly old disfunctional louver coat closet door with a 6-panel door. Accordingly, there is measuring, remeasuring, shimming the door to fit squarely, re-shimming, adjusting the shimming, removing cracked shimming, etc., etc.

Not to mention quite a bit of painting.
Imagine 3 kids simultaneously painting on a $50 door with white glossy paint.
Also imagine a father wanting to get it done--and done right--so that he can move onto the next item.

I must've had a hole in my head to do this before they leave on vacation.

Anyway, hopefully the paint will have dried enough by Monday to lay this puppy to rest....

Picky Eater

Allyson is finding more and more ways to communicate and to show that she understands.

When we say 'prayer,' she folds her arms (at least for a couple seconds).

And now, when we put something up to her mouth that she doesn't want to eat, she goes 'ppppptttthhhhh!'

Depending on the day, that can be most anything (except for chocolate, marshmallows, ice cream, and pretzels, of course).

Now we HAVE heard them all!

It's bedtime. The kids are all in bed.

Then Cameron comes out and goes into the bathroom.

After awhile, Cindy goes in to investigate.

Cameron's excuse: "My eyelashes are too long, and so I can't go to sleep!"

Cindy told him that he needed to stop trying to cut them--they are needed to keep rain out of your eyes--and get back to bed.

Bullseye!

As a result of Cameron’s BB-gun experiences at camp, I unhid and unlimbered my BB-pistol on Tuesday and Thursday night and all 3 big kids took turns in the back yard. (Actually, Cameron pestered me, and then Erin joined in….)

I must say that Erin’s grip is as steady as a rock and as such she was shooting pretty well, and on the second night she hit inside a 1” bullseye from 20 feet.

She was all twitterpated, and ran inside to tell Cindy the news. (For some strange reason, Cindy refuses to be around while I am teaching the kids to shoot.)

Yeah, it was probably luck, but I guess I will have to start practicing more myself!

UPDATE 1: I took off a bit early from worky-worky and Erin begged me to get the BB-pistol out. I did, she got another bullseye. I would've been perturbed if I hadn't gotten 3 myself....

UPDATE 2: Cameron came home on this last day of day camp with a nifty new bead--he had hit the bullseye with the bow and arrow!

Cub Scout Camp: Cindy in Action Part II

As if killing an innocent spider wasn't enough, Cindy also had the audacity to tell Cameron that what the good preacher was teaching them all at camp on Monday was a bunch of hooey!

You see, part of the daily program is to have a short talk/sermon by a local preacher. Well, on this first day the preacher gave a short talk about unconditional love. At one point he put up a banner with the words "GOD" on it, and then talked about the Prodigal Son.

He then asked a question that raised Cindy's eyebrows. 'What creature did God send to this earth to show us unconditional love.' Cindy's eyebrows almost went into orbit when he turned the banner around to show the answer.

It was 'DOG'!! (Get it!? 'GOD' backwards!)

He then waxed eloquent about how dogs show us unconditional love. He even brought his own dog up as an example, where the dog promptly started growling at the boys. The preacher (I use the term loosely) quickly apologized, stating--somewhat contradictorily to his sermon--that his dog didn't like strangers much.

At this point Cindy looked down at Cameron, and asked, 'Cameron, who did God really send who shows us unconditional love?' He gave the correct answer (that would be 'Jesus') and then Cindy reinforced it, continuing, 'That's right Cameron, Jesus shows us unconditional love, not some dumb mutt!'

I guess the preacher didn't catch this exchange, as Cindy came home dog-tired but not dog-bit!

Cub Scout Camp: Cindy in Action Part I

Cindy was one of the adult leaders on Monday, and in retrospect we see that it was probably not such a good idea. And it had nothing to do with the 95-degree weather or the humidity.

No, sadly, her blatant speciest ideas got her into a lot of trouble.

As Sister Nature (i.e., the sister of Mo' Nature) was giving a presentation to the masses of Cubdom, one of the boys in the back where Cindy was standing was playing with a rather large daddy long-legs, and after his leader told him to drop it, it began crawling towards the other boys who were listening to S/N give her spiel. As it got closer, the boys began parting like the Red Sea to avoid it. Trying to be helpful, Cindy nonchalantly took a couple steps forward, unobtrusively (yet daintily) ground the spider under her toe, then sauntered back. I'm sure we was smiling from a job well done! She did notice, however, that Spider-boy had a frozen rictus of horror on his face.

A few seconds later, S/N for some reason decided to talk about the happy denizens of nature and asked the boys which of their fauna friends they were allowed to kill while at camp. She went on to explain that while it was perfectly fine to kill mosquitoes, other insects--such as spiders--should be spared.

At this point, Spider-boy pointed accusingly at Cindy and yelled, 'She just killed a spider!!!'

S/N replied, 'What kind was it? A daddy long-legs?' Getting an affirmative, she went on, 'They don't hurt anyone, and shouldn't be harmed.'

It's a good thing that Cindy had already sated her bloodlust, otherwise S/N and Spider-boy might have also gone home that day with sensible shoe treadmarks. As it was, she muttered to den leader, 'It was just a dumb spider, and the kids were getting freaked out!'

A boy's paradise.....

Cameron has been going to Cub Scout day camp every day this week, and is he having a ball!

Every day they get to shoot BB rifles, shoot a bow, play lots of games, learn Cub skills (knots, decoding, compasses) do crafts, get sprayed by a fire truck (in a pouring rain!) and--Cameron's favorite--shooting slingshots. On Day 2 he scored a direct hit at the slingshot target and got a special bead to string on his leather bead-holder thingy.



He had heard that they get to whittle a piece of soap on Thursday, so on Monday night he practiced, taking a bar of hotel soap and whittling it into a million little pieces.

Unfortunately, on Tuesday it was announced that the younger boys (Cameron's age) would not be using knives to whittle. Instead, they would be getting a popsicle stick to whittle with. He's rather disappointed, but we got a good laugh out of it!

Ain't it a great mental picture! He could even dig out one end of the soap, insert the stick, and pretend he has an ice cream bar! And knowing Cameron, he would probably get some kids to lick it!