This Kid Cracks Me Up!

We put on a big pair of pj's tonight and the pants sag. As a joke, I pulled the pants up Urkel style. Ryan laughed and said, "Mom, I look like I have a baby in my tummy." Hilarious that he would associate it with maternity pants!

Ryan on Swimming Lessons

It has recently occured to me that Ryan must be growing up. He has quite a few friends who he plays with on a regular basis, including two five-year-old boys in the neighborhood. The bigger boys have always been competitive about who is first and strongest and biggest but Ryan seemed oblivious to it all until just recently. William is taking swimming lessons and Ryan will sometimes talk about it with me.

Last week -

Ryan: "William is bigger than me because he takes swim lessons."

Me: "He does take swimming lessons. You could take swimming lessons too you know. You aren't too little. You can take swimming lessons whenever you want to, just tell me when you're ready and we can sign you up."

Ryan: "Okay, I will. I will be really happy when I get bigger. You're really nice Mom."

Then today it went like this -

Ryan: "I'm really big. I'm bigger than William."

Me: "Well, William will always be older than you because he was born before you were born."

Ryan: "No, I'm bigger. Mom, I need to take swim lessons."

Me: "Okay, sounds good."

Ryan: "Let's go."

Me: "It's pretty late right now. (7pm) We have to sign up for swimming lessons. If you are ready then we can call someone and sign you up for a class. Then you can start going to swimming lessons. You will need to put your head under the water if you are in swimming lessons."

Ryan: "But I don't really like to do that."

Me: "Well, maybe we can wait to do swimming lessons until you're ready to put your head under the water."

Ryan: "Does William put his head under the water?"

Me: "Yes, he does. They taught him how and he isn't scared. You just have to hold your breath like this (demonstrated)"

Ryan: "Okay, I'll tell you when I'm ready for swim lessons." (then a minute or two later) "Moms put their heads under water don't they?"

Me: "Yes, we do."

Ryan: "Big Mommy!"

Creatures of Habit

I am speaking of children. Each morning as Derek prepares to ride off to work on his bike, Ryan and Katie convince him to first go over to the grass to look for snails with them.

It is usually the same, we find a few, and Ryan picks them up and shows us. For the fat ones Derek exclaims, "That one is Jabba" (Star Wars) and then Ryan puts them back and we go inside and wave goodbye to Derek through the window.

The kids always want to stay outside but I am rarely in anything besides my sweatpants that I slept in the night before and my hair is ALWAYS a frizzy mess, so I don't like to stay out there like that. Recently, I was able to shower and get ready before Derek left, so we stayed outside and had a snail race. Such a thing is probably nice and boring to all but a 3 year old boy.

We lined them up for the race and Katie was in such a bad mood that in her crying fit, I think she killed about 3 of them. darn it! The snail race was a riveting scene, believe me. *yawn*

There were 9 snails in the race. If the slideshow works for you, try and guess who was the winner. If it doesn't work, you aren't missing much. ;) Still, you can try this link.

And the winner is....

me!

This is what I won. Which pattern would you pick if you were me?

(Thanks to Gina and Jodie for letting me borrow your cute kids.)

15 Things I Learned From My Mother

1. "Nothing matters, only feelings."

2. Simplify life – and laundry.

3. Heavenly Father answers prayers.

4. "If we aren’t supposed to ACT like the world, why do we EAT like the world?"

5. "If you didn’t get dirty, you didn’t have fun."

6. Start early to teach your kids – they learn WAY faster than you’d expect them to.

7. Things shouldn’t always be equal – that wouldn’t be fair.

8. The Lord needs valiant servants, not fence sitters.

9. Music can invite the Spirit of Christ.

10. Come on, let’s go SHOPPING!

11. You don’t have to do things the same way as everyone else to be a good mother.

12. If you want something, go out and work until you have it.

13. If you sacrifice for the Lord, he will pour out His blessings upon you.

14. If your mom wants you to do something, you are going to end up doing it anyway, so you might as well say “okay” the first time.

15. Put Heavenly Father first in all things.

Putting life lessons in list form never quite does them justice. I am grateful for these few things that I have learned and even more for those things that I have been taught that cannot be worded in a short sentence, but would take a book to truly express.

Happy Mother's Day Mom. I hope I grow up to be JUST like you.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

If you are a parent and want a little Mother's Day chuckle, click here. (Oh, and if you can't figure it out, you're supposed to click on the flowers on the side.)

This is mostly a test. It worked for me, so hopefully it will work for everyone else as well. This is a video of Katie doing a few animal noises, maybe one of these days I'll actually get her to talk on video. Notice that you can see the indentation in her forehead. This video was from a week ago, it's not quite that bad now. I hope it goes away eventually!

You have GOT to be KIDDING me!

A friend emailed me this link and I am just rolling my eyes about it. Darn liberals!

Children, 'bad for planet'.

Feeding the Ducks

One of our favorite Sunday activities is taking a walk around the lake and feeding the ducks. Derek got a few good pictures so I thought I'd share.

Don't worry Mom, I was right there next to Katie - just outside the picture. I wasn't going to let her fall in.

This big white duck was SO funny. I promise that it got so excited to be fed that he was wagging his tail just like a puppy! PLUS, he was panting like a dog too. I could just imagine his tongue hanging out. He was fearless as well and ate two pieces out of Katie's hand (nipped her twice, but it didn't seem to hurt her)

What is different here?

Let's play a little game. Guess the reason why Katie looks a little different.

a. We recently found out she is distantly related to Julia Roberts.

b. She went in for a collagen injection.

c. Ryan was "helping" her up and instead succeded in pushing her flat on her face, therefore giving her a fat lip.

Oh, and if you look closely, you'll notice the indentation she still has from hitting the step. She also has a bit of bruising on the inside corners of her eyes. It's slowly fading though.