Kids Draw the Funniest Things

I saw a very funny picture done by a second grader on another blog (Stretch Marks-Click here to see the picture) and was inspired to look through the file I kept from my teacher days. I taught both first and second grade for seven years (until my second daughter was born) and over the years I heard and saw some funny things. My brother (who never reads my blog!!!) once told me I should write a book. Isn't it weird how when you are in the middle of something it doesn't seem so unusual (or you might fail to see how someday you will want to remember it)? At the time I thought, "Every teacher has a million of these stories, no one would care about my stories." Every teacher does have a lot of these stories but they are still funny. When I saw the picture on the other blog the first thing I thought of was this from a card one of my precious second graders made...
I was job sharing with Donna Hoffman which meant she taught in the morning and I taught in the afternoon. Donna had some eye surgery and was out for a couple days so our students made her some cards. When you read the top of the card (pictured below) you begin to understand that the picture above actually shows green glasses and eyes and NOT a bikini and well...
I hope this makes you smile like it does me!

Philosophy of a Snow Day

************Added video today at the bottom of the entry********1-30-09*****************

Ahhhh, the irony of a snow day. Or three snow days in a row. Or three snow days this week that followed 1 snow day last week. You'd think I'd have time to write blog post after blog post. But alas, this is my first since last Sunday. Why is that? Well, I think I've developed a theory so sit back and enjoy the ride...

Have you ever found yourself saying something like, "If only there were twelve more hours in a day!" I think that a snow day is God's way of giving you those twelve extra hours. Now stay with me here, I realize that this only applies to people who have a vocation that allows for snow days too (teachers, stay at home moms) but it works for us. Here is a day when all of your plans are changed. No one expects you to make it to a meeting, club or practice on a snow day so suddenly, your schedule is cleared (and you didn't have to do anything drastic like go to the ER). All of those things you have been putting off (catching up on 3 years of scrapbooking, cleaning under the stove, writing Christmas thank you notes) can be accomplished! Oh but wait! Why is it that after two consecutive such days, not one thing has been done, and your house is actually messier than before the snow days? Where did all those hours go?

In my case, I did spend the hours doing something I wouldn't normally have done. I spent hours playing with my children, hanging out with my familyand staying up until midnight watching "Office" reruns with my husband. And really, what good is an updated scrapbook if you don't have things like these to put in them:Above: Doodle as a walrus


Doodle insisted on pulling Mator in a sled to Grammy's.
That's a lot of ice.
Here's a video that I finally got to work from out new video camera! Yeh!

All Bundled Up

Debi, over at "Who says 8 is Enough" has a fun challenge for Sundays called Baby Picture Sundays and this week's theme is "Bundled Up". I really was excited about this theme because well, basically I can use it to irritate my spouse. See we get some cold weather around these parts and a snowsuit for babies is a must. Also, I am a cheapskate and rely on the kindness of family members to give us lots of wonderful hand-me-downs. Every once in a while there is something that, how should I say this, isn't quite my taste. But the practical side of me usually wins out. Especially when it comes to a snowsuit that will be worn for a total of less than 12 hours before you pass it on to someone else. So while this snowsuit is perfectly wonderful at keeping my children warm, Andy has resisted its use for every one of my children claiming it is more of a punishment than life enhancing device. Too bad! All three have worn it and not one of them complained-here is Muffin in 2002:
Here is Doodle is December of 2007 with one of my favorite hats on her head:
And here is Mator (from last week) in another adorable snowsuit that unfortunately makes her look like the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man but again, she's warm!
And this is one of my favorite winter pictures ever-Mator was about 7 months old and we had an impromptu winter party at our pond with sledding and skating. Here she is in the backpack watching everyone else:

So there they all are - All bundled up!

Doodle-isms Part II

Doodle, who will be 5 in April, is at a wonderfully blessed age. She is learning new things every day and connecting those things to what she already knows and sometimes, that collision of ideas creates some pretty cute thoughts.

Here's a link to something I wrote earlier about cute things that she says-click here.

Last Saturday she had a couple new moments of brilliance:

1) We were having a sleepover in my room which means that Doodle and Muffin get to sleep in our room for the night. The fun usually involves a fight over who gets to sleep on the couch versus who has to sleep on the mattress on the floor. I try to go to bed at the same time so that I can be in on the "sleepover" fun.
We usually play a game we call the "color game". This involves one of us asking another questions like, "What color is Uncle Todd's car?" or "What color were the plates at the restaurant?" and the legendary, oft repeated, "What color is Grammy's toilet?". We vary the level of difficulty depending on the player and level of sleepiness. Doodle will always ask someone, "What color is the earth?" (By the way, the correct answer is - "Green for the plants, blue for the water, brown for the desert and white for the snow.")

This particular night we were all pretty tired when Doodle announced,
"I want to play a NEW game and make one up."
Her sweet, supportive older sister immediately announced, "I'm not playing, I'm too tired." PAUSE.
Doodle's sweet, hopeful voice, "Mommy, are you going to play?"
"Of course honey, I'm tired too but I REALLY want to play."
At this point Doodle begins to explain the rules which sound like a mix between American Idol and kick the can-not exactly the "wind down for bed" kind of games that we usually play.
PAUSE
"Mommy, are you SURE you want to play?"
"Yes honey, I'm really going to try."
"Well, feel free to say no."
At which point I burst out laughing and tell her how much I appreciate her kindness and I will take her up on that one!

2) As we were getting ready to go to her cousin Annabelle's 6th birthday party I could see that Doodle's gears were turning.
"Mommy, I don't get it. How old is Elle going to be?"

Me- "6"

"But I don't understand."

Me-"Well, she was 5 on her last birthday so she will be 6 on this birthday."

"Wait, I think I understand! So, each year, you are one year more!"

Me- stunned silence as I imagine the years of therapy that might be required if the word on the tip of my tongue actually exits my mouth -"DUH!" Thankfully, that money can be invested into college fund because I did manage to keep it in.

Isn't four just a great age?

This picture of Doodle at Epcot a few weeks ago may explain a few things...


Just kidding! This is really my dad's beer and Doodle was quite impressed with the size of the mug!

Wordle- a new toy!

Another blogger that I read ( Who says 8 is Enough?) had this link on her blog and I thought it was neat. Look mom, see what I (well, the computer randomly generating things) made!

"> my creation

go to www. wordle.net to make your own!

Winter Magic at Buckeye Lake

On Sunday, we got to spend the afternoon outside celebrating my niece's 6th birthday at Buckeye Lake. Usually we enjoy swimming and going on boat rides when we are at Buckeye Lake but winter time fun can be quite different! The Lake was (mostly) frozen except where it wasn't. Yeh, I can't explain all of it either except to say that I was really only nervous once- when one of the four wheelers appeared to be sinking into the mushy part of the ice and my brother had to lasso it and pull it to a stronger part of the ice. Anyhoo, not to worry grandparents, we were very safe!!

**** To see the whole album of pictures, even the stinky ones I didn't delete, go to the end of this post******

We arrived at the party with about 30 of my brother and sister-in-laws friends and everyone brought a little something to do-there were four wheelers racing around the ice (and some of them were towing sleds full of kiddos), a couple ice boats, ice skates and there was one snow mobile but I'm not really sure if they were with us or not. The kids were outside about 2 1/2 hours and Muffin and Doodle never complained once. It was about 20 degrees though and that was a heat wave compared to the -14 degrees it hit on Thursday or Friday.

Annabelle is my brother Frank's oldest daughter and she is so much fun to be around. She is happy doing just about anything as long as she has company. Here she is in all her glory celebrating her 6th birthday with Doritos and loving every minute!!I only realized as I typed this that Doodle took off her mittens to drink her hot chocolate and eat her Doritos. That didn't last long though because anything exposed quickly became painful.

Doodle was very excited to try skating for the first time with skates that I used as a child. Muffin had to use my skates (size 10 thank you very much) because we couldn't find hers (that's what happens when ice skates become a summer time toy-you can't find them in the winter) and she actually did pretty well too. Here she is just helping Doodle:
Mator spent a very small amount of time out in the cold. She hung out a lot in our van watching Nemo. She's like her mommy, she doesn't like to be uncomfortable for long. Here she is admiring her snowy mittens:
Here she is riding the four wheeler with Andy. I liked this shot because she is actually smiling (not grimacing as the weather might suggest).
Here is Doodle digging in the bank of the lake. The kids had a ball digging around and Muffin even unearthed an entire seagull carcas. Yeh!
Here is Annabelle's little sister, Wilson. She is 3 1/2 and cute as a button. She didn't last too long either though and went back to her cozy house with her Mimi.
I think that this is Andrea's brother Tyler with his son (I think Mitch because Scott was on Erin's lap) pulling another boy on the tube. This was the best shot I got to show how that worked:
What an awesome time followed by wonderful food and fun times at Annabelle's house that evening. Yes, I was very careful on the ice with my healing knee which incidentally, is healing great! Thank you Lord!