Holy Growthspurt, Batman!!

James has grown 1 full inch in the last month! Boy does THAT explain alot! Shoes that I just bought him about a month ago, which I bought a 1/2 size too big, are close to being TOO SMALL! He's eating like a horse, and doggone he's been lazy in the morning (needs more sleep it would seem). Holy moly, who knew how agressive one of these spurts could be! Now I need to go shopping for new shoes and probably pants, too! Sheesh.

Completely unrelated: Sterling showed James a can of Manwich, as he's planning to make Sloppy Joes tonight. James said, "Yay! Chili Hamburgers!"

Happy Halloween, Ya'll!

Another awesome Halloween! The day was gorgeous, and the neighborhood kids covered our bushes with "cobwebs", threw the football around, and had a Sterling-led bike ride around the lake. Naturally, they needed to recharge with some ice cream sandwiches before running around SOME MORE! (I can't believe Sterling didn't fall asleep by 7pm).

It cooled off by evening, and wasn't outright cold, but was a little chilly.. perfect Halloween weather! After a dinner break / costume change, all the kids regrouped for the neighborhood candy circuit and loaded up! It still astonishes me, but these kids were COMPLAINING about how heavy their candy bags were getting... poor things.

An awesome day all around! Pics posted at the Shutterfly site.

That's all, folks!

They went HOW FAST??

According to James, he went "exscreamly" fast on his bike the other day. I said, "do you mean *extremely*?", and he said, "no, when you go so fast that you scream, it's exscreamly fast!".

Also, totally unrelated, but did you know that the first few words to "YMCA" are "young man, get your pants off this song...". Yeah, neither did we. Thank goodness James cleared that up!

I only worry sometimes...

Every day, since James has learned to ride his bike, we hear, "can I ride my bike today?!". The only exception is at night, when he asks, "can I ride my bike tomorrow?!".

So... there's no school today, and guess what that little monkey is doing? Now I get that it's exercise, which warms you up, but it's been a tad nippish today.. it's about 61 degrees right now and he's riding around in short sleeves. I asked him if he wasn't cold, and he said, "Mommy, don't worry about me". I reminded him that, as his mommy, it's my JOB to worry. His response? "You can worry about me being hurt, but don't worry about me being cold".

Just so long as we have the rules downpat.

New pics!

You asked (well, not really, but Sterling gave me a hard time...), so here they are! Recent pictures! Here's a sample of what you'll find on our photo site: YMCA Soccer Season, State Fair, James learning to ride his bike! ACT NOW!!!

FINALLY!!!

The boy learned to ride a damned bike! We put a bug in his friend Max's ear, and Max got on him to learn... and we have SUCCESS!!!

How many 6-yr olds does it take to play Mario Cart Wii?

Three. One to hold the wiimote, one to hold the toy musket, and one to hold the Nerf gun.

Just... ew

I was upstairs yesterday when I heard James rummaging around downstairs. Monkey that he is, when he needs something from the upper cabinets, he just scrambles up on the counter to get them. So I heard cabinets bumping, and the fridge opening, and I thought to myself, "self, you need to get down there and find out what your boy is up to!"

Much to my chagrin, he informed me that he was about to make Chocolate Milk Orange Juice. Sure enough, on the counter was a glass, a crazy straw, a spoon, the Hershey's syrup, Milk, and... Orange Juice.

I quickly informed him that he could have Orange Juice OR Chocolate Milk, but not together. He negotiated for just chocolate orange juice, which... still... EW!!! WTF?!?!

Eventually we settled on chocolate milk, but he reminded me, "Mommy, you know I like weird things".

(yes, he does like weird things... his favorite sandwich is mayo, bananas, and honey. Before you ask how we even came up with that little gem, it's a hybrid of PB/Mayo/Bananas* and PB/Honey/Bananas.)

(* and yes, I think both of THOSE are gross, too, but Sterling does not)

Wedding Etiquette

James comes up with some whoppers at times. He came in today and said, "mommy, it feels like I'm going to a wedding". What?!?! "These shorts don't feel good.. they feel too small, they feel like wedding shorts". We surmised that for some reason, they just felt a little too stiff / formal (yeah, I know, they're SHORTS... we're talking 6-year old logic here). Sooo.. we changed into some different shorts.

Then I asked, "how do you know what it feels like to go to a wedding?". and he said sometimes they pretend they're having weddings on the playground. Now, he's mentioned, once or twice, that there's a certain young lady from his class last year that he'd marry, if he had to get married someday! I asked him if he'd asked her, first? He said, "NO!!". And I explained how you typically have to ask someone before you marry them. I explained how Daddy had asked me, "will you marry me", and then I said, "yes, I would love to".

It kills me how differently kids look at things.. his next question was: "can I chew gum at the wedding?". I said, "well, when you get married, you normally give each other a quick smooch, so you probably don't want to have gum in your mouth.. it might fall out and land on her pretty dress or in her hair.". He thought about this for a second, then said, "maybe after the cake.. I don't want gum in mouth when we eat cake either. Hey, I know, I can keep it in my pocket until then!".

And folks, I'm here to tell you, 20 years from now, it will STILL be that simple for him. His wife will be worried about the caterer, the music, if everything's on schedule, the photos, if everyone is having a good time, did they register for the right stuff...

.... and he will be worried about when he can chew gum. He'll maybe add "beer" to the list of things to keep him occupied.

Aren't we punny?

Honey and Grandaddy drive a Prius, and it has a little backup camera so that you can see what's behind you. Obviously, James thinks this is the coolest thing ever, and when Honey got in it today, he ran behind the car and said, "Honey, can you see me?" and started to put on a show. He continued to entertain, until I said, "James, it's not a toy", to which he smartly replied, "but Mommy, it says TOYota!". Har har.

Updates and first day of school

Wow, the summer really flew by! Here are a few random things I've been meaning to jot down, along with new school year updates!

This summer, at camp, there was a day when James hurt his little knee. I said, "oh, did the counselors help you?" and he said, "yes, Ice came", I said, "oh good, someone put ice on your knee?", and he replied, "NO, Ice is my COUNSELOR" (they all have wacky nicknames).

I said, "Oh! And what did Ice do?", "she brought ice".... wasn't that what I asked?

So Ice is actually 2nd in command of the after school Y program at James' school this year (yay!), and to make things easier, she's now going by "Skittles". We're wondering if that's what you get now if you get a boo boo.

James has also started YMCA Soccer! So far we've made it to 1 practice, missed a game, and missed practice yesterday because of rain. So, this Sat is his first official game, and we'll see how THAT goes!

This morning, out of the blue James asked me, "Mommy, is it magnetic?", and I said, 'Hunh? Is what magnetic", to which he replied, "the thing I'm thinking about...?". What the...!?!

Lastly, today is the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! James' teacher this is Mrs. McAnarney (hope I spelled that right, it took me a few tries to pronounce it right on meet the teacher night!). She seems super nice, they have a bunch of field trips this year, and it sounds like there will be SCIENCE, so the boy is super-pumped up!

Whew... and now you are caught up!

Lake

What a busy summer! We spent our last official weekend of summer at the lake, where the kiddos and the big kids had a great time. Here's an awesome pic of the men folk tearing into some grilled chicken, looking, as Aiden put it, "like cavemen".

... and here are the kiddos.. so silly!

What the (*&(*&$^@%$# does that MEAN?!?!

This week, James has decided to speed up my descent into insanity by refusing to provide a straightforward answer to any question I ask. Instead, he responds with "beep beep" or "bbrrzzz" or gives me the answer I didn't want, followed by "opposite!". So Mommy's catchphrase for this week is "James, use WORDS!!!" Is it too much to ask?

Scooter King

This boy... we have been trying to get him to ride his bike for like a year now! He's a little freaked out about the training wheels being off. We did get him to ride a bit today, and once he crossed that off the list, he was done.

.. his fear does NOT extend to the scooter, which he can get completely off the ground!!! Thank goodness I made him wear his helmet, he was scaring the crap outta me!

Beach...pics... POSTED!!!

Holy crap, I finally got over 200 pics uploaded to Shutterfly (of the over 800 that I took at the beach). Geez louise!

Take a look or walk the plank, ya scurvy dawg!!!

Grooooovy!

Can you guess what this week's camp theme was? This shirt was a do-it-yerself-er the day before Thumpin' Thursday, when they really celebrate the theme o' the week (did ya guess it?).

I'll bet you're jealous....

For those of you unfortunate enough to have a canineless household, I thought I'd put together a short list of things you're missing out on:

1. You can just leave stuff lying around on the floor, edge of the counter, or table, and it will still be there when you come back. No one will have chewed it up, used it for a game of tug, or just moved it somewhere else in the house. Where's the fun in THAT?
2. All of your underwear are probably intact (see item #1). No excuse to go shopping for new lingerie!
3. Sure, you've been telling yourself you'll get around to cleaning the carpet, but nothing shuts down those tired old excuses like a fresh pile of poop, or throw-up containing items 1 and 2. Our carpets have never been so clean (albeit for very brief intervals).
4. There's an element of surprise when you go down the stairs at the same time as two dogs who are trying to anticipate exactly where you are going to be in the very next second, so that they can beat you to it and occupy the same space at the same time. Physics refreshers, served up by the minute!
5. You're never *really* clean until you've been licked with the same tongue that licks... um... well, you know. Nothing like stepping out of the shower, fresh as a daisy, and then getting a second once-over to lick the inferior clean off of you, replacing it with "doggie clean".
6. Were you tired of that old chair in your living room? Using as a chew toy not only keeps your dogs teeth clean (saves on vet bills!), but gives you a reason to replace something that you though you liked*.
7. We get so much done every day, since our dogs are good enough to wake us up at the ass-crack of dawn. No more lazy lying around, wasting the day!
8. If you ever thought you'd forget that it was 3:00 SHARP... Merle will let you know with a kindly nip on the asscheek that lovingly says "it's time to eat right NOW". Without this miraculous mutt, you are missing out on a daily opportunity to keep your clock synched.
9. Just when we thought we were missing the early years with our son, along comes a puppy that pees everywhere, every time we leave the house. Miss those diapers? (well, kinda, yeah, maybe we should get some for the dog).. it's like we still have a baby!
10. And the number 10 fun thing you are missing out on by not having dogs: the joy that comes with them fighting/playing around the house (they look like the Tasmanian Devil), and feeling the need to be touching one of us while they are doing it... we always get included in the fun! It's even better when they run around your legs so much that it builds up static... free energy! How's THAT for green?

*mom, we really do like the chair and are going to get it fixed. if you don't know what I'm talking about, then never mind.

Have you EVER...????

... seen a child THIS NASTY? I told him, "James, I don't want you coming home this nasty again tomorrow", to which he replied, quite patiently but insistent, "Mommy, I'm going to come home nasty every day.". Awesome.

To top it off, his buttons were all off by one, so his shirt was buttoned up crooked. There was sand in his hair and TEETH, and on the way home he actually said, somewhat surprised, "wow, how did sand get behind my ears?". Your EARS?? How did it get in your TEETH!?!?

There's no in between!

Last week he gets kicked out a day for hitting someone, this week he's Honor Camper. Go figure!

It's good to have goals

.... like staying alive. That's a good goal.

Sometimes that boy is so doggone sweet I could eat him up. I was putting James to bed just now, when he put a hand on each of my shoulders, looked in my eyes, and said, "I hope you don't die". I said, "aw honey, what made you say that?", and he said, "I just hope you don't die. I hope you stay the same age you are right now". (Sterling helpfully pointed out that I probably wished I could have stayed the age I was about 20 years ago.. thanks, fathead).

I told him "I try to take pretty good care of myself, I exercise and I eat good stuff, and I always wear my seatbelt, I think I'll be around for a while, but I sure love you for saying that!". There were lots of hugs and "I love yous" (to the ends of the universe, and around Saturn, and to the next galaxy, and back), and we snuggled for a bit.

We always end our nighttime snuggle/chats with "Are you going to have good dreams? Are you going to sleep tight?". He confirmed, and then said, "and don't forget... don't die, ok?". Deal.