I enjoy writing my blog for a few reasons, most of which relate to me and maybe some for my kids--so they get to read a little bit about the antics of their younger days--the good, the bad and the hilarious-- and hopefully it provides a bit of humor and encouragement when they get in the parenting stage.  So, today, and hopefully in future days when I can squeeze it in, I would like to try to capture "the good, the bad and the hilarious" of recent days. If I actually end up doing what I aim to do (why do I put these goals into words so that I can read about my lack of bloggie goal achievement at a later date?) these posts might get awfully boring when they are older but for now I have plenty of material, so here goes . . .

THE GOOD

 *Jack is definitely going to be an athlete. He loves all things sports related--give him a ball and he is happy as a clam. Ryan found him in the dark laundry room the other day putting a dryer ball in an unused kids b-ball hoop again and again and I am certain we never taught him that. He has a mean overhand throw.  Before you get too impressed you must know that he is 16 months old and not walking!  He is quite normal I assure you but he just prefers crawling. He has holes in the knees of all of his jeans and he has ruined all his shoes. Our church nursery requires that you be 12 months AND walking to move on to the next classroom. Jack just keeps waving at the other babies as they leave and welcoming in new ones. I am pretty sure there is family that recently graduated a baby and are about to have a new one to put in the nursery. Jack is kind of like the Fonze of the church nursery. Hey may just transition to child care provider at some point and just scoot around taking care of the other babies. However, there is hope on the horizon for he has started to stand independently--mainly because to give whatever ball he is throwing more trajectory. He has taken a couple of shaky steps so I think we might be having a breakthrough soon. 

*We started doing an official chore chart recently and the kids love it!  I am now realizing another huge benefit of kids :). They are feeding the dog, taking out the recycling, emptying the dishwasher (not well of course) and even trying their hand at vacuuming. It is definitely not a perfect performance but hey, cleaning is my a love language of mine and so my heart his full. We will see how long it lasts

*The weather has shown some real promise lately. Ben has peed outside at least 3 times in the last week and has come outside literally half naked (bottom half unfortunately) at least twice. Signs that warmer weather is a com in'


 









*We made a couple trips to Krispy Kreme lately. Kids think it's awesome to watch those little guys floating by and you can't beat a hot donut.














THE BAD

*When I was working a weekend shift recently Ryan was holding down the fort for the day and he texted me this:

Apparently the dog had pooped when we went to church and forgot to put her in the crate (but hey, everyone made it to church fed and with underwear on so we really thought we were on it) and she pooped in the twins room on their BEIGE carpet. So, here is where the details get fuzzy because when Ryan found it there was poop smeared all over the carpet in various patches. So someone who is still at large smeared poop around. Yes, I know there are many questions to be asked here but so far they have not been answered and I was not there. Let's leave it at that. Jack had already been put down for a nap when Ryan found the mess and he quickly ushered the others down too in order to deal with poopageddon. So, Ryan in his words "Put on my super dad shirt"Thankfully our young neighbor was able to come over while Ryan busted it to Costco and purchased their most affordable steam cleaner. He took Ben the troublemaker with him (stay tuned) who had a glorious time. Thankfully he got it all out and most importantly kept his cool. Everyone was bathed to be sure that the poop smearing bandit, whoever it may have been, was washed of their crime--literally. I for once was happy to be at work and also thrilled to have a steam cleaner--so much so that I immediately steam cleaned the entire basement after my shift!  

THE HILARIOUS

*I mentioned to Ben that we were going to get his haircut and his reply was "Why, because I am not beautiful?"

*I'm choosing to put this under the hilarious category and not the bad category. Ben has been getting into all sorts of trouble during his nap. The other day Ryan went into Ben's room and he had pulled the heating grate off of his vent and then he said to Ryan "I didn't pee down there" which means "I actually peed down there".  Ryan investigated and yes, there was a small amount of pee in there. Thankfully his bright idea did not occur after a large volume of water had been ingested. 

*This was a recent text from Ryan with a couple of funny quotes from conversations he had with the girls when I was at work






























*We recently had friends stay with us and they have 4 kiddos as well (similar ages to ours) so it was a houseful to say the least. Everyone was doing surprisingly well but then my friend's son (age 5) came waddling downstairs into the kitchen holding a red balloon that was nearly bursting with at least a gallon of water! He calmly asked, "hey mama, can you tie this?" It took a moment for it to register with the moms but we quickly rushed to his aid and thankfully were able to transfer to dangling balloon to the safety of the kitchen sink. He had filled it up in the upstairs bathroom (with Grace as his accomplice), walked all the way down the hall and stairs and then into the kitchen without it rupturing. Miraculous!