Table and Tornado.

I've said before that when you become a parent that they should hand you your baby and then a magic eraser and package of flushable wipes. Well now I thave decided that they should also send you a "Congrats you've made it to two years old!" gift and they should also send it to all grandparents as well.

What is the gift I'm talking about?? It's a table! And not just any table, it's THIS table:

Because the Free Rule is not into effect, we had to buy ours at Costco and it's fabulous. It's heavy duty so that it won't tip over if a child happens to stand on just a corner of it with no other children on it (not that it's happen, oh say 900 times, in the past two weeks). It also wipes up easily (you could even hose it off- have NOT tried that yet, thank goodness) and it folds FLAT and is simple to put up and take down.

And company likes it as well. We haven't seen Mommy Cat in a few days and were thinking something happened to her so imagine my surprise when I walked in the kitchen to see her enjoying our newest addition. (Carson left the screen door open in the kitchen)



Shortly after evicting Mommy Cat, Carson, being on a roll for the Child of the Year award, also put the table to good use and pushed it over to reach a high drawer. The high drawer that contained scissors, which he's not allowed to play with (remember my last post and his hair??).

Apparently he had decided that he wanted some ice cream and wasn't able to open it with just his fingers.

Sad that is was MY ice cream, and the last one at that. And BTW, these taste a lot like the Snickers ice cream bars and are only 3 points. After tossing it in the garbage I retreated to my bedroom to make my bed while walking around with Kaitlyn attatched to my leg.

I was hopeful that things would calm down but then, THEN, a tornado rampantly destroyed my front room. Ugh. Or I guess you could say it was Carson.. but maybe there isn't much difference...
Really, I want to know how he manages to do this in just a few minutes.

I drop to the floor and crawl around (because then Kaitlyn doesn't feel the need to be attached to my leg when it's on the ground) and start tossing items into piles to make it easier to put away. TMI, but I have to pee. So I hop up (walking quickly so Kaitlyn can't get me) and just as I reach the bathroom, Carson screams and his little world crashes down on him.

He saw a SPIDER on the ceiling and was screaming loudly enough that all of the neighbors were also aware. And I thought the bees (aka flies) were bad!!

As I walked back to the front room I cringed because I was quite certain that Carson had already started his attack, in the two seconds I was gone, to eliminate the spider. So of course I grabbed the camera. And what do you know, I totally called it..

He had dragged the table in and was standing on the picnic table. And look again to the top left of the window.. see that? It's a roll of toilet paper. Mid air.

Carson was very dissapointed that I wouldn't allow him to continue his attempts at the spider. Foiled again by mom.

Imagine my surprise when I asked him to take care of the TP and put it back in the bathroom and off he went.. no fight or anything!

But when he didn't return after a minute, I knew all was not well. At this point I figured I'd just take the camera with me.. cause it's obviously one of those days.




My little hmm at the end is because I wanted to laugh but knew I shouldn't... his little sorry was so cute! Even if he IS naughty.

Which leaves us to my bathroom. You know how some people have special towels that are saved for when company comes over? Well apparently in my crazy little family, it's going to be a new roll of toilet paper. Nice.

For those of us that live here, this is what we'll enjoy.
Let's hope the tornado moves along to someone else's house....

And something.

IN GOING with my just posted blog about nothing, I thought I'd hurry and share my day of something.

Today is such a Monday. I normally try very hard not to stereotype but come on now! Monday is just asking for it!

My oldest decided 15 minutes before school that she *might* have a bad day and she wasn't going to school. I did not agree. She cried and threw herself on the couch while I pondered if this was really happening or if I was just having a bad dream. A big fat pinch confirmed it was indeed real. Talk about feeling like the worlds worst mom as you demand they leave the house and go to school. Especially since she was kind enough to point that out to me as well.

Then, Kaitlyn woke up. She is apparently in a very giving mood today. She was nice enough to poop in a just changed diaper (warning, this paragraph contains poop talk!!) and then have it be explosive. Which got on the carpet. Thanks for that, Kait! Have I ever mentioned that I love our Rug Dr.??

Carson must have sensed my love for Mondays because as I sat at the kitchen table checking my email, I heard (with my mommy power hearing) snip, snip, snip.

Me: Carson, what are you doing?
Carson: Nussing (as it sounds)
Me: Carson, do you have scissors?
Carson: *silence*

I walk into the front room (cause you KNOW he's doing SOMETHING) and sure enough, he has scissors.

Me: Carson, what ARE you doing?
Carson: I cut my hair! (insert his big cheesy and proud face)

Figures.

At least it's not too drastic.. I did have to make it a little shorter so it wasn't quite so choppy.. you can kind of see on the left how it's a bit different. I'll knock on wood though, could have been worse!

I let the Carson and Kaitlyn play outside on the deck for a bit once we were home from taking Hayden to school (we were 10 minutes late, in case you were wondering). Thought I'd share one of my good ideas.. we were going to get rid of this kitchen since Kaitlyn got a new one for her birthday but I decided to put it out on the deck to trap/contain the kids on. It keeps them from playing in the litter box, I mean sand box, which you can see on the right of the picture.

And here's little missy again.. so cute. She loves to sit on stairs.
Sadly, she's becoming naughty. She's figured out how to plot aganist me. Guess the older kids finally got to her... darn it!

I just walked past my garbage can and want to know what I found in it?
A fork. The brush that goes to the dustpan. A picture book from when Aubrey was a baby. A newer package of bathroom cups (used as snack cups). And my nice lipgloss! From my purse! Which meant I had to dig around in the garbage to make sure none of my other nice things made it in there.

Sheesh.

And lucky me, it's only 2:30. I still have the rest of the day!

I'll end with this picture of my new favorite flowers. I just LOVE them!! And even better, they were on clearance at walmart for $2.50. :o)

Marci says they're Lilly's.. I told Drew last night and apparently he told me that three times yesterday but I don't recall.. so if any of you find my brain, please return it. Drew thanks you in advance.

Do any of you happen to know if I can grow these????? (we have some day lilies on the side of the house but I don't remember them looking like these)

Yikes, now I really have to go.. I can hear Carson dragging a kitchen chair around.. never a good sign.

Nothing.

I love doing nothing. Yesterday, we were very busy doing lots of nothing.

Drew, his brother Lock and Aubrey played massive amounts of Frisbee and the sun burned our skin (which we did not discover until last night). As they flung the frisbee back and forth, I walked around the quarter mile track, that is behind my house, six times. I walked alone. I walked pushing a stroller. I walked holding hands with Carson (which was a rarity- he never wants to hold hands since he's always running off). I walked carrying Carson, which in all honestly, I could have gone without. He can get heavy!! I walked with Hayden while listening about level II of Lego Star Wars. Again.

I sat on wet grass as a spectator while Kaitlyn walked around. I listened to Carson scream, for a long time, about Potato Bugs. If you remember back to my letter to the local flies you'll have an idea of what I'm referring to. Hayden protected Carson by either squishing them or collecting them. He was even nice enough to keep the families together in the stroller until I came along and made him dump them out (ew!).

And then our nothingness evolved to the basketball hoop in front of our house and the front stairs. I'm really efficient in sitting and keeping an eye on the kids and bringing refreshing beverages to those playing.. so I went with that. At one point, Marci joined me and we sat and burned together. Well, at least I did. grrrr

Kaitlyn was simply adorable in her big floppy brimmed hat and Carson's green sunglasses. I could seriously eat her up.. devour her. Well, minus the runny nose. Never, the runny nose.

After a break from our nothingness, Drew and Lock went to the store to purchase a football. Hayden retreated to play level II from Lego Star Wars. Carson yelled out the window in hopes that the others would return. Kaitlyn napped.

Drew returned with three small bags of groceries, a football and two new camping chairs (which will probably never be used for camping.. remember? I rock at just sitting!!). We have a joke that if Drew actually goes to the store (he typically detests it), he always returns with a bag of Tostito's scoops, cheese dip, no real food and will have spent $100. Any guesses what happened yesterday?? This is why he doesn't shop. *sigh* Good thing I'm madly in love with him.

My step-brother came over and the (big & little) boys and Aubrey retreated back to the field to toss the football around. I gathered the leftover veggies and dip from the previous night's bachelorette party and warmed up the just purchased cheese dip so that everyone could enjoy upon return. And we did.

In going with the day's theme of nothing, Danno had the usual conversation with Carson about him looking like Bam Bam in which Carson returns with "I'm not bam bam, I'm Carson!" Carson never gets tired of this game. In fact, he now says it to.. oh, everything. I try to tell him he's a good boy. He says, "I'm not a good boy, I'm Carson!" Thanks for that, Dan.

Drew also convinced Dan and Lock to help him move his 55 gallon fish tank as the stand we have (we got the tank/stand off of freecycle years ago!!) is not doing so well and Lock gave us his nice one. Drew drained it a LOT and then the muscle men moved it without much sweating. Very impressive.

Then we had yummy grilled chicken for dinner. Poor Drew was caught in a sudden down poor as he was plating the chicken.. he was soaked (it was a little bit funny.. sorry drew.. but it was!) as he protected our dinner. The sacrifices he makes for our family!! ;o) He's the best.

And that, was our perfect day of nothing.