Karma

For Christmas, Amy and Dave bought the boys an iPad.

They are so lucky--and spoiled!

It's probably one of the most prized possessions among the three boys.

Sadly, on Monday it took a tumble and didn't survive.

Luke set it on the porch railing as he was making a mad dash for the ice cream truck.  It just flipped right off and landed face down.  

The glass on the front was shattered.

Luke was super upset about it--like angry upset.

He was so mad at himself for letting it fall.  He was certain it was ruined and he had wasted the $25 he had spent on the various apps.  

No one else got upset.  

It's a fixable thing--expensive, but fixable--but he wouldn't listen to reason.  

He finally came around after we forced him to go to the lake with the rest of us.

Oddly enough, earlier the very same day, I was eating lunch with Henry at school.  I don't know why, but he started going around the table asking the other boys if they had their own iPad.  When one would say no he would ask the next boy.

After the second time he asked, I told him that it didn't really sound very nice.  By the fourth time, I flat out told him that it kind of sounded like he was bragging that he had one and that he needed to stop.

I hated calling him out in front of his friends, but bragging isn't really something that we strive for.

It seems to me that the iPad breaking may have been caused by Luke's bad luck, but was ultimately due to Henry's bad karma. 

Swimming in March

We decided on a whim to pack up a picnic and take the dogs out to the FOP Lake tonight. 

The boys wore their swim trunks, even after I warned them that it was far to cold for them to swim.

When we got out there, the water was, in fact, freezing. 

They didn't care.  

Henry and Josh were wading around in waist deep water and even dipped up to their shoulders a time or two.  

Luke was smart and only went up to his shins.

The spray from Maggie and Cooper shaking off was enough for me!

9 Miles!!

On Sunday, Luke, Henry and I rode 9 miles on our bikes.  

9 miles!!


The biggest bike ride we've taken is the 2 miles it takes for us to get to Gran's house and back, and even that sometimes wears me out.


What started off as a quick bike ride around the neighborhood ended up being a trip to Gigi's and then some.


When we decided to go for it, I didn't really have a lot of confidence that we could make it all that way.  


Her house is a good 5 or 6 miles from our house, almost the entire way is busy streets.  Henry's also pretty new to the the whole "going on a bike ride" thing, so I was afraid it would turn into a major stress of me continually reminding him to be careful and watch for cars.  Plus, I only had my phone with me--no sunglasses, no sunblock, no blistex, no money.  I was not prepared!


I figured that at the very least we could call Ben and he could come pick us up where ever we tuckered out at!


I'm really glad that we decided to go.  It made for an absolutely perfect day, and it was so much fun!


The whole way there, Henry said hi to everyone we passed and kept telling Luke, "You really should say hi, or at least wave, because that's being polite."  He also kept telling me what a good job I was doing.  I love that boy!


Once we made it to Gigi's I mapped out our route and we went exactly 7 miles.  None of us could believe it!  


The boys rode their bikes around some more and then we decided to go ride and get some ice cream--another 2 mile round trip.


After that we called Ben to come get us.  


We had enough energy to head back home, but I really didn't want to push it.  Plus, we were all a little sunburned thanks to our lack of sunblock!


The boys want to try a round trip next weekend.  That would be about 12 miles there and back.  


I have no idea how we made it 9 miles, so I really can't imagine 12!  


That sounds completely overwhelming!

Counting My Blessings

Ben's cousin died today.

He went in his sleep.

It was completely unexpected, and, until they do the autopsy, they don't really know what happened.  It was possibly a heart attack, but that's really just a guess.

He's not really that much older than Ben, and that absolutely scares the hell out of me.

We ignored chores today and spent our time playing........because you just never know.

Where Have I Been?

This is the third year that a pair of bald eagles have built a nest on an island at Twin Lakes.


I have no idea how I managed to not know about them until now.

We took the boys to see them yesterday, after my dad told me about them.


We didn't get to see the eagles but we could see their giant nest!  


I don't hardly ever drive through the Twin Lakes parking lot anymore, but when I do it takes me back to when I was little. 


Up until I turned 5, we lived across the street from the old Sears.  I have fond memories from living in that little brick house! 


One time we were riding our bikes--well probably trikes--around that mall and we got an up close look at a nest with eggs in it.  It was exciting!

Another completely random memory is gazing through the trees at the Taco Tico sign.  We thought it was so neat!  My mom says we used to walk there all the time, but I don't remember that at all.  We must have eaten a lot of taco burgers, though, because those delicious things go right along with that house in my head!


We are going to take the boys back another day to see if we can spot the eagles.  It's kind of fun hanging out around there--reminiscing!

Randoms from Ollie

Josh Oliver has been wearing these pjs pretty much every other day, and they always seem to look like this.

Buttoned all crazy, a t-shirt underneath (although that may actually help him out), and generally the collar is tucked inside the shirt.

I use to help him fix it, but I've given up on him.

I'm pretty sure it's exactly the look he's going for anyway!

Also, he intended to have that dorky face in the picture, even though I tried to convince him to look normal.

We'll just call him Little Johnny from now on!

*     *     *     *     *

Josh Oliver found a tub that I had written his name on a long time ago......

J--"Hey did you know that thing has my name on it?!"

M--"It does?!"

J--"Yeah!  He, or she, who ever wrote my name on it, sure must have been a big fan of mine!"

I'm not sure where "big fan of mine" came from but he uses it a lot these days.  Every time he says it he points both of his thumbs back at himself.

He's on his way to being one cool kid!

*     *     *     *     *

A few weeks ago, Josh Oliver was chatting away while I was doing something else.

I was only half listening.

Suddenly I heard him say...

J--"I don't like it when I have dreams about God.  They scare me."

C--"What?"

J--"I don't like it when I have dreams about God.  You know the ones where I'm Jesus.  They scare me."

I have no idea what that was about.  He moved on to something else before I could ask him.

It's possible that it's his way of telling me that I make him go to church too often!

*     *     *     *     *

He is a crazy kid!

Heaven

Henry's hamster, Bubblegum, died Tuesday.

He's heartbroken.

We don't really know what happened to her.  Gillian just found her curled up in her bed.

 *     *     *     *     *

Last March, Linda told Henry that if he had 5 school days in a row with no issues, she would buy him a hamster to keep at her house.

That boy tried and tried.  He came close a couple of times, but his silliness and chattiness always got the better of him.

By November, he started getting really down on himself because he just couldn't do it, no matter how hard he tried.  The well intentioned bribe started back firing on his self esteem. 

We decided we had to do away with the bribe. 

Linda took it off the table and then surprised him with one for Christmas. 

It was a good compromise.

Oddly enough, when he started school back up after Winter Break, he had 5 green days in a row right off.  It seems to have been a one time deal, but I'm glad he knows he can do it.

*     *     *     *     *

When Henry came into my room Wednesday morning, he was teary-eyed.

He told me that there is a good and bad thing about Bubblegum dying.

"The bad thing is, is that she died.  The good thing is that when I die I will get to see her again."

 He makes me so proud.......and so sad.

When Am I Considered A Regular?

Josh and I spent yesterday afternoon at our friendly laundromat.

It's the 2nd time in the last month, and probably the 4th time in the last year.

I refuse to buy a new washer and dryer. 

I am my parents' girl, after all.

Unfortunately, our dryer went out after almost a week of me doing the absolute minimum around the house because my leg was so swollen, infected, and painful.  (Don't feel too bad for me--I brought it on myself.) 

We had so much laundry piled up.  

Ben was out of undershirts.  Henry was out of uniforms.  Clean, matching socks were hard to come by.  I had no choice but to spend some quality time at the laundromat.

I will say that it is an absolute pain hauling everything there and back, but getting such a massive amount of  laundry completely done in just a couple of hours makes it totally worth it!

Plus, I've had to do it enough times that I'm pretty efficient at the whole process.

While we there I saw a girl who clearly was there for the first time.  I watched her for awhile just for kicks.  I also got a little annoyed when I saw someone using one of the dryers that I like to use. 

I then suddenly realized that me--a girl who has always had her own washer and dryer--shouldn't be in a laundromat enough to have machine prefrences and pick out newbies as soon as they walk in. 

It's pathetic, really.

Our dryer is once again back to working.

It turns out it broke this time because I tried to shove it too close to the wall, which then had a domino effect. 

I have no one to blame but myself. 

It's been a theme for me lately.