"Mom, will you please read us this??"

Indeed

2009-11-29T21:17:00.002-07:00

Lilly brought home a 9-1-1 info booklet from pre-school. Lilly and Will were both sitting at the counter with me while I was flipping thru it so I asked them both, "When do we call 9-1-1?" William had a quick answer, "When there's a fire." I agreed but asked further, "When else do we call 9-1-1?" William had another quick answer, "When we make a big fire by accident without asking."

(We stopped talking so as not to encourage any more great ideas.)

He's got IT!

2009-10-03T22:20:00.003-06:00

Oh, yeah! It's finally happened! One of my kids was finally funny so I get to write another blog! None of the 5 kids have done or said anything funny since June 18th so it was such a relief when I overheard this awesome conversation between Will and his friend Colten.

First some background information: Will and Colten are great little buddies. They live about 25 yards from each other. They're less than a month apart in age. They make sitting through Primary bearable for each other. They both like to use vacuum extension tubes as swords and lend each other theirs when the other's goes missing. When they're together they can more easily exclude girls and other sissies. They both like to slay imaginary animals. But if either of them were to really encounter something scary, they'd both scream like women and run. Even though I know that's the truth, they maintain the toughest exteriors when they're together.

Last Friday rolled around. At 5:00 Will had a birthday party. Not just any birthday party, a girl's birthday party. A girl who was in Will's class last year and remembered that she wanted to invite Will this year to her birthday party and did just that. Will was worried he was going to be the only boy there. (He was, by the way, but came home intact.)

At 4:45 I called outside to Will who was throwing rocks in the dirt with Colten. I told him it was time to get ready for the birthday party. Will came running in but his conversation with Colten continued as they yelled back and forth across the field:

Colten: "You're going to a party?!? Whose party?"

Will: "Uuummm...I can't remember the name!"

Colten: "Where is it?"

Will: "I don't know. Far away I think!"

Colten: "How old is he going to be?"

Will: "I think he's going to be....uuuuhhh....I think IT'S turning 7! Bye!"

Artistic Beauty

2009-06-18T23:54:00.007-06:00

Remember in "Toy Story 2" when mint-in-the-box Stinky Pete is plopped into a little girl's backpack and Barbie with graffiti all over her face turns to Stinky Pete and says, "You'll like Julie--she's an ARTIST!" Well, at our house we say, "You'll like Lilly--she's an ARTIST!"

Firstly, she's a make-up artist:

And lately she's been showing off her flower-arranging skills by leaving bouquets on my bedside table:

And boy oh boy! Has she been sharpening her eye-hand coordination lately! She started with paper....

...but plain old paper got boring so she took her scissors to my new geranium, creating a new artsy look to my bathroom:

And since I just don't have the creative eye to create proper decoration in my bedroom, she spruced it up with bright red crayon all over my bed and bedspread (pictures couldn't do it justice) and even in the entry on the tile, down the hall, on the glass and on the doors.

Look, she chose smiley faces to cheer us all up!

And lastly, she drew a pencil mural for her favorite brothers just outside their bedroom door and she even made it life-size, just for them. She sure loves them!

"Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost." -Isak Dineson

Comfort Food

2009-05-19T21:25:00.010-06:00

Anne loves to cook. And to bake. And to eat cooking and baking. And to leave nice big messes for Mom to clean up afterwards. She loves macaroni and cheese. She loves homemade macaroni and cheese. Usually when she asks if I will make macaroni and cheese I answer, "If you'll help me make it!" I thought about letting Anne make a batch all by herself. I only thought for a minute about the cake she recently made that she forgot to put flour in. And I only thought for 2 or 3 minutes about the microwavable macaroni and cheese that Anne left the water out of.

Yummy. Smelled that one for over a week.

Needless to say, I helped Anne with her homemade macaroni and cheese. I let her start the sauce of butter and flour and spices while I worked on the noodles and cheese. When it was time to add Anne's sauce to my noodles and cheese, I was having a hard time combining everything. It was just seperating so much. I thought it was because we were in a hurry and didn't cook the sauce long enough to get it thick. Oh, well, gotta hurry. Popped the really soggy dish in the oven, only to pull it out and grab the paper towels to swab up all the grease off the top. I mean, I know this is a comfort food dish but sheesh, I should feel a little more guilty about enjoying this one, it's just so greasy! After blotting and blotting and blotting and blotting with only more grease flowing up to the top, I started getting suspicious and asked Anne about the butter. She replied she put in a cup just like the recipe said. So I looked at the recipe. Yep, half a cup is called for.

My solution: let it stand for about an hour, stir like crazy and keep heaping it on my 37-pound 3rd-grader's plate. Hmmmmm, commmmmfort.

I love Anne.

(Go ahead, click on the picture to get the FULL effect):

Excuses, excuses...

2009-04-18T15:35:00.025-06:00

I'm late posting--it's been more than a month. I was too busy with Spring Break:

Are you saying I'm...?

2009-03-17T22:49:00.001-06:00

The other day I was sitting with Oliver on the porch (in the sun!) when the kids (big kids) came home from school. Our neighbor Shaun Pace pulled up in his little white car and kids started piling out of it. This was unusual as normally it is Shaun's wife pulling up in her big minivan. (Like that oxymoron?) Anne ran up to me on the porch and panted, "Wow! The Bishop drove his car today and me and Isaac and Emily and Kaitlin barely FAT!!!!"

We'll Sure Miss Him...

2009-02-18T14:39:00.012-07:00

Memorial Day 2002

We were up very late as we were out playing for the holiday and it was 11:30 PM(!) by the time I was getting Anne in bed. After she was in bed, she yelled from her room, "Mom, we forgot to read the scriptures!" My response from the other room was, "Well, we'll have to read two tomorrow--it's too late now."

Anne's next inquiry was strange: "What if the President gets mad?"
"What President?" I asked.
Anne (very annoyed) responded, "You KNOW--the one who talks on TV!"
Mom: "What president? President Hinckley?" (made most sense to me)
Anne's response was now not annoyed by rather unsure: "No, the one who talks in wars..."
"President Bush?"
"Yah."
"He won't get mad. Good night."

Go Mike!

2009-01-28T13:23:00.003-07:00

Surprise! It hasn't even been a month!

So Lilly is a singer. Dave noticed this too and commented recently, "She's got music in her!" Indeed she does. The other day she was singing Angels We Have Heard on High while she was coloring: "Come little saw door him!" But my favorite was when she was singing Michael Row the Boat Ashore -- I liked her version better: "Michael row the whore ashore!"

I'm sure the picture in your mind is the same as mine, just admit it.

Maxwell Calvin Waddell

2009-01-16T22:45:00.004-07:00

Isaac very often wears his wolf suit. And makes mischief of one kind and other. But he's never been sent to bed without his supper. Yet.

Anne gave Max I mean Isaac a Calvin and Hobbes book for Christmas. He loves it. I started finding it beside his bed in the morning. I would move the book to see where it would be the next morning. It was always back by his bed the next morning. Soon a flashlight started showing up with the book. Isaac started being less and less cooperative during the day and the dark circles under his eyes became very apparent.

One morning the book and the flashlight weren't there. I was nice enough to straighten up his bed. Aaahhh, there they were: under the pillow.

I needed to take things into my own terrible claws. So one night about half an hour after putting Isaac to bed, I snuck back into Isaac's room. He was rolled up into a cocoon snoring loudly. I was almost convinced...until I found the Calvin and Hobbes book under his cocoon and, searching a little harder, I found the flashlight waiting for me...

...and it was still hot.

Smart Little Buggars

2008-12-14T23:42:00.002-07:00

So I need to hurry and write something before it's been a month since I've written something. Oh brother.

I have to go back a few weeks (or has it been a few months? I can't remember? Oh brother) to an incident I had with Lillian.

Lillian is definitely imaginative. Let me start with how the incident ended and work backwards. I was sleeping on my bed. I should put "sleeping" in parenthesis. I wasn't sleeping. I was lying on my bed. (I almost wrote "laying" but I could hear Mom in my head saying, "Chickens lay eggs.") So I was not laying or sleeping on my bed but my body was on my bed. I was very out-of-it. I had the stomach flu. Again. Lilly came screeching in from the living room, crying hysterically and scolding me, "I told you not to do that!! I told you not to put those in there!!!" (repeat 7 times) I roused myself enough to find out where I was and I tried to settle Lilly down. What had I done? I could barely understand her through the sniffling and snorting, "I told you not to put the bugs in there!! I told you not to!" Even in my bleary-eyed state, things clicked in my head very quickly. "Bring me your pot, Lilly," I commanded as coherently as I could.

There they were. Two nice, fat, wiggly, white, completely disgusting worms wriggling around in the little play pot that Lilly was cooking something (not worms!) in just a few minutes ago.

Backing up: I had been trying to stay in the living room with Lilly that morning while I had the stomach flu so she wouldn't be lonely. I think being lonely is better than being accompanied by a barfing mother. When Lilly saw that I was sick and lying on the couch, she was kind enough to bring me her miniature play pot to serve as my throw-up catcher. She liked the idea of the play pots so she got the rest of them out and left one on my arm as a precaution I'm sure. Then she found the acorns to play with--the acorns she and Will had painted (?) with Grandma and Grandpa. She rested an acorn on my arm so that I could "participate" in what she was doing. Not long after that I had to make a run for the bathroom so I dropped the acorn in her pot and told her to cook it for me while I was gone. After the stop-off in the bathroom, I placed my body on the bed and drifted off, only to be awaken by Lilly's accusatory screams.

Like I said, it took a few minutes for my groggy mind to put it together but I was still amazed: How did those little things know to hatch out of that acorn right at that exact moment? I couldn't help but sneak out a little laugh.

Smart little buggars.

(Whew, made it with 20 minutes to spare before a month was up! Oh brother.)

Why Will! What a big nose you have!

2008-11-14T23:12:00.002-07:00

Lilly and Will in the kitchen. Lilly crying. I come in and ask, “What’s the matter?” Will answers, “I didn’t hurt her. She fell right here.” (Hits his head on the island on the opposite side of the island Lilly is on.) I respond, “No, she wasn’t even on that side.” Will runs around to the end of the island, “Okay. How about right here? (bonks head) She hurt herself right here.”

Nice try, buddy.

Epilogue

2008-10-30T15:06:00.002-06:00

Just in case the last post seemed a bit too cutesy:

A little while ago I noticed the Snuggle Puppy poster on the ground in Will's room (with everything else he and Isaac own) and when I peered a little closer I noticed markings all over the Puppy. I also noticed a Bic pen lying on the ground with everything else Will and Isaac own so I asked Will what all the markings were. They were arrows. Not the kind in a compass, the kind Robin Hood owns. Apparently Snuggle Puppy is now Slaughtered Puppy.

Oooodalolly ooodalolly!

Puppy Love

2008-10-06T09:49:00.000-06:00

So the other day Will's teacher called me during school. I answered the phone rather nervously, wondering what was wrong. She informed me that Will had won a coloring contest and as a prize, he could choose a poster at the Book Fair and could I come and help him pick one out? Yes, you read that right: Will won a coloring contest.

I went after school and took Will up to the Book Fair to see the 3 giant boxes of posters he could choose from. He was clueless as to what was going on. I told him we would look through the posters in one box and then after he saw them all, he could choose. The very first poster we saw was a cute little puppy. We continued to flip for a few minutes past all kinds of posters of teen idols, Spiderman motorcycles and lots of "sweet" shiny sports cars. Three-fourths of the way through the box, there was a pink poster with hearts and a grey kitty. After seeing them all, it came down to the pink kitty or the snuggly puppy. A hard decision but the puppy came home with us. How appropriate for the snuggle bug of the family.

Say What?

2008-09-17T22:31:00.005-06:00

So I decided to be really careful with which picture to post on the blog today. I went with the safe one.

Tonight I was reading The Tale of Despereaux with Isaac and we got to a sentence that said something about someone maneuvering something down the hallway. Isaac's eyes got really big and his mouth turned into a grin and he said, "Oooooohhh...naughty." I was a bit confused. I asked him to explain. He said, "It said 'pooping.'" It did? I missed it. Is my reading comprehension lower than my 3rd grader's? Most likely but that's beside the point. I asked him to elaborate some more so he explained, "It said 'manure-ing.'" Oh! I giggled. I re-pronounced the word, this time emphasizing the "v" in the word and explained as best I could what "manueVering" is. Not quite as exciting as manure-ing. Do we have a new verb? Nah, I'm sure teenage Chris already came up with that one...

Wrap-Arounds

2008-07-10T11:54:00.019-06:00

So today's theme is "Wrap-Arounds." Lots of different wrap-arounds.

When someone like Mark Mulcahey thinks about a wrap-around, something like meat wrapped around meat pops into his mind I'm sure.

I've heard of these. Someday I'll eat one.

When I think of wrap-arounds, the first image in my head is the blue wrap-around skirt with the tie knot at the top I remember so vividly my Mom wearing during most of my childhood. Mom, you get points for frugality, talent (I'm sure you sewed it yourself) and for being consistently skinny to fit in the same skirt for years. I looked for a picture of the skirt and this is as close as I could find:

Another wrap-around is me trying to wrap my mind around buying diapers again.
And changing them all day every day. And soon having smelly ones in the garbage can. Hum. Still wrapping around that one.

Closely related are the paper roses that are suddenly blooming in our bathroom. See, Lilly has been attempting to take care of her needs in the bathroom independently by taking a 30 foot length of TP and wrapping it around and around and around her fingers and then it's supposed to be "used" but instead these little blooms end up all over the bathroom floor. And 5 or 6 roses end up in the toilet but not flushing DOWN the toilet. I don't know if one of these has ever been actually "used" for the purpose for which they are so carefully created.

Anne has always had a knack for being able to wrap her mind around the reality of things:

August 17th, 2005 was when Anne got 2 letters from Grandma and Grandpa Sykes who are in Long Island. Anne wrote them letters and they wrote back. Anne read them silently and after she read Grandpa’s letter she chuckled and commented to me that Grandma must have written that letter and signed Grandpa’s name. I asked why she thought that and she told me that it was because it said, “Love, Grandpa” and Grandpa didn’t write that because Grandpa doesn’t do stuff like that.

And at the same time, she's able to wrap her arms around her little sister:

On Friday, June 10th, 2005 after Lily had her 2 month check and immunizations, Lily was very sore and cranky after her shots—every time we moved her or touched her, especially around her leg area, she just fussed and cried. It’s not like her to be so fussy. We all felt so bad for her. Anne and I were looking down into her carseat and expressing our sympathy for Lily to each other and Anne remarked to me, “I wish I could take her place.”

Will's favorite wrap-around:

I found a conversation that I had with Isaac when he was 5, almost 6, that demonstrated what he was trying to wrap his mind around back then:

During breakfast Isaac started asking me deep questions that I was interested to hear: “How did God become alive?” I told him I wished I knew and I thought that when we got up to heaven we’d be able to understand the answer to that question and lots of other answers to questions like it. Isaac was pleased with that answer and started getting excited as he thought of more things he would understand, “Yah, like ‘How did He become a baby?’ and how He got made and how nothing appeared before we were up in heaven.”

Indeed. Still wrapping around that one too.

Also, I started looking through iPhoto with the kids last night and noticed how well Pa has got Lilly wrapped around his little finger:

As for now, I think I'll spend the rest of the day unearthing a blue blankie to wrap around someone new in a few days...

More Moab Please!

2008-06-02T14:35:00.009-06:00

So we went to Moab for Spring Break a month and a half ago but since I'm behind on everything by at least a month and a half, it's time for me to write about it. Here are the best parts of the trip:

The trip started typically. Dave instructed the kids to all go to the bathroom before they got in the van to leave the house: "I don't care if you have to go or not, you have to go before you get in the van!" So we pulled out of the driveway and headed about a mile away to the gas station and before we got there, Anne had to go to the bathroom! Awesome!

We found a pretty cool lizard after it warmed up enough for the lizards to venture out. (The first morning was really cold, see first picture. One older guy passed Lilly and admired her Daisy Duke shorts and said, "Here I am in long underwear and she's marching around in shorts!") The kids were all excited about the lizard and they scrambled around on the rocks to watch it for awhile. Finally, Isaac got impatient because it was keeping us from starting our hike: "Come on you guys! We're spending too much time on him! It's not like he's Jesus or something." Our hike commenced immediately.

Lilly looked amazingly similar to how she looked in Oregon:

And Will looked amazingly like his dad:

And the arches and 70-degree weather and the thousands of friendly Mormon families and the crystal blue skies and the bacon and eggs for breakfast in the hotel lobby and the fact that we took only books and no movies and the kids survived and even got along and just that it was a really perfect trip were good things too.

How Could I Forget?

2008-05-05T14:55:00.006-06:00

Oh, I have a blog?! That's right.

Yesterday was Fast Sunday. Isaac was claiming death was on his doorstep all morning. I told him if he felt fine about it, he could have a snack before church. He didn't. He survived through Sacrament Meeting with all kinds of excruciating facial expressions and his tongue lolling out. After he went to Primary, his Primary teacher came up to me and whispered that during the lesson, she had asked the class what the Sacrament was. Isaac piped up, "Breakfast!" (Thank heavens his teacher thought it was funny.)

The other day Will and Lilly were sitting by each other up at the island. Lilly is turning into a bully and while I wasn't watching, she chucked something at Will. Will immediately called to me that Lilly threw something right at him and that it hit his eye! But don't worry, it was okay because he had closed his "eye shield" just in time! Whew!

Lilly is singing all the time these days. Half the time I can decipher the song by either the tune or the words but usually only one of those at a time. A lot of the time it's a recognizable melody but with completely made up nonsense words. So the other day I recognized the tune of "I am a Child of God" and when it came to the part of "teach me all that I must do" she sang the beautiful words, "Cheat me all that I want to..." Hum. Close enough??

Anne is very interested in this blog. Well, she used to be when I used to write things in it (on it?). She will ask to read my blog and sit in front of the computer for long periods of time, reading and re-reading everything. She'll laugh just like she's never read it before and then she'll give me a suggestion: "Mom, you could write about my blanket." I usually say "okay" and then I go for a month or two without writing about anything. So today I found a journal entry about Anne and her blankie that I thought I would put in. This was when Anne was 8 1/2 years old:

Wednesday, March 15, 2006 I was washing Anne’s blanket which is always a traumatic time and unfortunately I didn’t have it done in time for bedtime. I put Anne to bed and assured her I would bring the blanket in to her when it was done and she should go to sleep in the meantime. So that was that and then I got a long phone call and went into the laundry room for some quiet and so turned off the washing machine during the rinse cycle with Anne’s blanket inside. I continued on the phone and about 45 minutes later heard Anne bawling from her bed—she was wailing, “I neeeeeeeeddd heeerrrrrr!!!” Eventually David came home from Scouts and went in and lectured her at which point Anne got up, went to the washing machine and pulled the blanket out of the rinse water, threw it into the dryer after sloshing 5 gallons of water across the floor, wrote me a note saying, “Dear Mom—Please start the drier. Blankie is in there. Anne.” I had to put Blankie (she is a person, after all) back into the washer, re-start the rinse cycle, take only the blankie out of the washer and put it into the dryer so it would dry extra-quick and then take it into Anne when it was dry. Anne was propped in bed with about 10 pillows behind her and her arms folded across her and it had been about 2 hours since I originally put her down.

I couldn't possibly add anything more. The end.

Riding the Wave!

2008-03-07T14:26:00.012-07:00

So it all started one day back in December when we were getting ready to go to Pack Meeting. I told Will the normal stuff like, "Get your socks and shoes and coat on and wash your face off..." and blah blah blah and then I added something atypical: "...and comb your hair!" We must have been in a hurry because I don't normally turn hair responsibilities over to kids under the age of 8. So I was delighted when Will came to me in his socks and shoes and coat and messy face with dripping wet hair. He told me excitedly, "I did it with a knife!" At first I freaked but then realized he couldn't remember the name of a comb and got it confused with a knife. Phew. Off we went to Pack Meeting where Will's hairdo was greeted with much appreciation from some of the other mothers. None of the fathers would notice something as important as a 4 year-old's first hairdo.

The weeks passed and Will got better and better at doing his hair with a knife and realized he could get it big and cool. The farther up it stuck and the fluffier it was, the better. It started drying in ways I didn't even know possible (and in ways I would have been so jealous of in the 8th grade!) and Will decided he was the awesomest thing on two legs. I'll just let the pictures speak a thousand words.

I AM the beef...

2008-02-12T19:22:00.001-07:00

Here are two ways two of my kids have flattered me lately:

Will: We were reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar for a bedtime story and we got to the part where the hungry little caterpillar becomes a big fat caterpillar and Will stopped and asked me, "Was he as fat as you?"

Anne: I was getting dressed in my closet when Anne unexpectedly walked in on me and I shrieked and asked, "What are you doing?" She just answered, "Oh, I just came to put Dad's jeans away." She handed me my jeans and left.

Waahh.

Here's the beef...

2008-01-31T13:24:00.001-07:00

So here are my favorite kids' quotes recently:

I noticed that Isaac had started to take his own initiative to shower lately. He was getting up early in the morning and showering, being careful to leave his wet towel lumped somewhere. After a few times of Isaac doing this, I noticed that the "kid shampoo" had been in my bathroom for the last week or two but Isaac had been showering in the other bathroom. Hum. So one time I asked him what he had been using to wash with when he showered? He answered casually, "Oh, a cryptus smoothie." Hum, how mysterious. I had to go peek at his secret cleaner and there is was: Suave Citrus Smoothie. Good enough. Now let's just hope he's been using the cryptus shampoo (that was hidden) and not the cryptus conditioner (that was out in plain sight).

Will helped me make some deliveries this month. I didn't do Visiting Teaching visits, but rather "drop-offs" and while we were out, we took some stuff to some people that had just had babies. Three-fourths of the way finished, Will got back into his seat and declared, "Mom, this is awesome!" I asked him, "What's so awesome, Will?" And he responded, "All this doing!"

But my favorite was when Will was helping me again, this time browning the hamburger and onions for the spaghetti sauce. After some of the grease had leaked out of the meat and it started to jump and spit, some of it splashed on to Will. Of course I did the whole, "Oh, Will, are you okay? I'm sorry you got burned!" And Will leaned into me and started rubbing my shoulder and back and reassured me, "Oh, it's okay Mom. I still love you anyway!"

Cream O Weber

2008-01-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

So we haven't had cottage cheese forever! I don't know why, we're just not in the habit I guess. But the other day it sure looked good at the store so I got a big container of it. At home, I offered some to Will. He didn't remember "cottage cheese" by name but when I showed him some in a bowl, he got excited. He dug right in and declared, "This is good! It's made out of crumbs and milk, huh?"

I love taking showers...

2007-12-22T21:08:00.000-07:00

...because when I get out I find little surprises. Like this:

Let's hear it for fine motor skills, Lilly!

Silly Rabbit!

2007-12-05T10:20:00.000-07:00

Has it really been that long since I posted???

So I was thinking lately of (Great) Grandma Sykes and how she used to call us "honey lamb" sometimes. I decided to give it a try for fun. When I called Will "honey lamb" he looked at me weird. Lilly's turn. I was helping her out of the van when I told her, "Jump down, honey lamb." Lilly got mad and told me, "I'm Lilly. I'm honey rabbit!" I quickly agreed and was quickly puzzled. She does love that stuffed rabbit of hers, that must be it. Maybe.

Hum...

After a few minutes, it sunk in: what I usually call Lilly is "honey bunny"! No wonder she was so mad. Silly Mom.

The Ham

2007-11-13T23:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I didn't do a post last week so I'd better do two this week, right? Well, mostly I need to do one because Will hasn't had his fair share of blogtime. (That sounds so lame.)

So I was reading over my journal from June of this year and found some grand stuff on Will and I couldn't decide which part to put in so I decided to put it all in! It starts with Father's Day:

Tonight I was putting Will down (David was gone—had two meetings on Father’s Day night! I had to swear about that!) and before I started singing to him while he was lying in bed I was softly kissing Will’s elbow. I was kind-of doing it absent-mindedly and not giving much thought to it until he took his arm away and started blowing fiercely on his arm, turning it over and over trying to get down to his elbow. “What are you doing?” I asked him. He answered, “Nothing… (pause) trying to get something off…kisses...I don’t like them on me.”

Sheesh, sorry.

So after Will sanitized his arm, I sang him the Nephi song, “I will go, I will do, the thing the Lord commands…” and then Will told me it was time for him to sing his song. What?? Will has never sung me a song. He’s just now saying the prayer by himself! So Will launched into his own beatiful one-lined song, “The thing is a predatory thing!” Ah, music to a mother’s ears.

Yesterday at 7 Peaks (I was at 7 Peaks alone with the 4 kids—Dave was at Youth Conference) I was in the wave pool with the kids and Will morphed into some kind of animal. (I never found out which kind of animal it actually was.) He started stalking around in the water, biting the waves with his mighty jaws and scooping up fish in what must have been claws. He came over to me and told me that he was Keek-cess and that I should watch how Keek-cess swam and caught fish which I did with much interest. I’m sure everyone around us found my Keek-cess son very interesting too.

Today after church Keek-cess returned. This time Keek-cess was jumping off the fireplace mantle. And at bedtime, Keek-cess had a new improved name that Will had to say four times to get right and I had to repeat eight times to get right: Keek-a-boo-cuss-es. I wonder if he will remember that in the morning? I guess that’s why I keep a journal.

June 19, 2007 Will held up four fingers, “What does this spell?” I answered, “Four?” He corrected me, “No…cinnamon roll!” Then he held up seven fingers, “What does this spell?” Anne added her two cents and she answered, “Ten!” Will got mad, “No! I’m spelling food!” He was pretty mad and added the correct answer, “Cereal.” Lastly he held up 10 fingers, “What does this spell?” Of course I was cluelss so he explained, “Oatmeal.” Good to know.

Also on 6/19 someone tooted and added, “Excuse me.” Will responded, “You’re welcome.”

Sniff, sniff, peep, peep...

2007-11-11T22:37:00.000-07:00

January 17th, 2004 we were at the gas station getting gas in the Geo and the three kids were scrunched in the back. Anne and Isaac were going at it fighting like cats and dogs and I was so frustrated I asked the kids, “Are we going to have to leave someone here?” and Anne immediately burst in to panicked tears, “You said that families can be together forever!!”

Also...

It was sometime in January (I don’t remember the exact day) but we were having dinner and for some reason we were talking about Easter. Isaac had a vague memory of last Easter and he was associating Easter with those horrid sugar-coated marshmallow “Peeps” but he couldn’t remember exactly what they were. He asked, “When it’s Easter can we pick eggs and see what’s in them and get the bawk-bawks?”

Do you think "Bawk-bawks" are the grown up version of "Peeps"?

Isaac's Wack Job

2007-10-31T08:23:00.000-06:00

Another post from my April 2003 journal--boy, I'm having fun reading it! Someday when things slow down (ha ha ha ha ha) I'll post something "never before published." As for now, cut and paste it is!

Recently I spent a day on the laundry room, organizing, straightening, de-junking, etc. Soon after I finished, Isaac went in the laundry room and I can’t remember who made the first comment about it being clean but he immediately picked up on the fact that Anne’s robe (in the dirty laundry basket) was kind-of hanging out, 3/4 of the way in, some of it on the floor. Isaac pointed that out: “One cloe is kinda on the floor, huh?” Apparently “cloe” is singular for “clothes.”

Along those same lines, a few days later, I had Will on the changing table and had a major diaper on my hands and I was preoccupied to say the least (Will has lightning fast hands when the diaper is undone) and in came Isaac carrying something in his fingers for me. A wonderful time to receive something from Isaac but he dutifully explained, “Here mom--here’s a ear wack.” My response (still processing): “Thank.”

Cloe is to clothes as wack is to wax.

Time for Anne and Isaac...

2007-10-18T09:36:00.000-06:00

Today's blog is a cut-and-paste from my 2003 journal. At this point, Will is almost 2 months old, Anne is 5 and Isaac 3. Oh, and "lunchgroup" was a pain-in-the-you-know invention where a group of about 5 girls Anne's age traded turns having lunch at each others' houses. I'm such a beefer. (Oh, oops, too much personal info.)

On Saturday, April 5th, 2003 the kids had some interesting prayers. Anne has been practicing bearing her testimony in her prayers lately. She said the dinnertime prayer and my favorite line was, “And I know Heavenly Father is a true prophet...”

That night at bedtime prayers Isaac said it and his train of thought went somthing like, “And Heavenly Father created us and He wanted to create us and bless the food and it’s not the food time and it’s not dinner....”

Monday, April 7th was Anne’s lunchgroup here and while the girls were eating Will woke up and started crying and we started talking about how Will was hungry and wanted his lunch and Madison piped up that her baby eats here (pointing to chest) on her mom (her brother was born 12/19/02 before Will) and blah blah blah. Anne was quick to point out that Will ate the same way and she also explained to the girls: “Moms have the milk and dads have the Priesthood.” Is that how that trade-off works? I guess it would not work to have both, true.

Off on the right foot...

2007-10-10T12:55:00.000-06:00

Let's get this straight: It was inevitable that I someday start a blog. After all, Bekah just told me about Dad's bookmarks on his Mac and I thought, "Methinks it's time to add another." Plus, all my friends are doing it. I'm like, the only one on the block that doesn't have like a blog address. And today in one of our email exchanges (that I always have to repent for afterwards) Bekah addressed me as "Blogger." Hum.

But really, I do like writing. I used to write in my journal. I don't know what happened to that. Can writing a post on your blog count as writing in your journal? Oh, good. But don't worry! This isn't going to be about me. A few weeks ago Dave FORBADE me to ever have a blog. I can't remember the last time David forbade me to do something. Wait, he's never forbidden me to do anything. Actually, what was worrying Dave was that if I had a blog the details of our life were going to be hung out like laundry for the whole world to read. So let's get this straight: this blog will not contain personal information about the blogger. When I kept a journal I didn't even write much about me in it and so you can rest assured, Dave, that this blog will be the same.

I chose the blog title "Mom will you please read us this??" because I thought of the journal Mark Mulcahey sent in 2002 that I filled with quotes and little stories about the kids (Anne, 4, and Isaac, 2, at the time) and how Anne and Isaac now constantly bring that journal to me, pleading, "Mom, will you please read us this??" So I'm going to write about the funny things my kids do and say. The intended audience: Bekah and Dad (to help keep the dinner conversation on a lighter note) and Emily if she ever gets a new job and has time to waste on reading a blog and Dave if he gets over being mad that I disobeyed him. No one else will have the blog address. Let's not get our hopes up too high either. I'll feel like I'm doing good if I can get a quote posted once per week.

So with all that established, I will start with a really juicy story from yesterday. For background, Lilly has been in panties going on about 3 weeks. She's done so well but you already knew that because you know that my kids are so smart they scare me. And you. So yesterday morning I was in the shower and Lilly came in crying and I peeked out the shower door to see she was standing there naked. Hum. She was telling me, "Fall dooowwwwnnn!!!" Hum. It seemed kind of puzzling that she seemed so upset. She usually bounces back fast from a little fall. But it WAS weird that she was naked and upset. I still wasn't that worried because as you know from the Provo Police Department I don't worry about my kids as much as pet owners worry about their dogs. So I finished my shower and chased Lilly down to stop her streaking which she was thoroughly enjoying at this point. To fetch her clothes I had to go down the hall to Isaac's room and mid-way down the hall was Lilly's purple plastic potty (okay, it's not purple but I couldn't resist). Hum. Lilly was accompanying me and told me, "Show Mom. Fall down." Oh dear. I first felt the carpet. Damp. Rather damp. Then I slowly lifted the lid: sure enough, there was what was left after the rest of the stuff had slogged out onto the carpet. Both kinds. I peered into the bathroom. Yep, there too. Then I thought about what Lilly had gone through: "Oh, mom's in the shower. I've got to "go"! Well, I can at least get all my clothes off. There. I know how this goes. Whew, I made it! Mom's going to be so happy! I'll go show her! (lift, grunt, slog...step, step, trip, slog, fall...) WWWAAAAAAAA!!! (run, run, run...) Mom! Fall dooowwwnnn!! Oh, mom looked at me. I'm better now...and I'm still naked! Wa-hoo!" (twirl, twist, dance, dance dance, spread spread spread germs all over the rest of the house)

I just could not get mad one bit. Just so dang disgusted. But disgusted with a smile on my face while Lilly was watching.

The End.

Have I whetted your appetite for more stories? This is a good one to share at the dinnertable tonight. And there's no way I can post blogs like this with any regularity. Will and Lilly have spent the last 20 minutes scotch taping their baby dolls into their blankets. Oh well, at least I can now officially answer to the title of "Blogger." Thanks, Bekah!