The Hulk

A few weeks ago, I taped The Incredible Hulk on FX. Did I just write taped? Wow, still stuck in the last century. I meant recorded, TIVO'd, DVR'd. You get the idea. Ben has now added The Hulk to his repertoire of superheros. Lucky for us, The Hulk doesn't really have an outfit. Ben puts on his blue boxer shorts with no shirt and he thinks that is a perfect costume. There's one problem though. He wants to be painted green.

He asked about 20 times yesterday and since we didn't have karate or gymnastics and it was bath night, I figured I would indulge him. We still have leftover face paint from when he was the wicked witch for Halloween.

He was so impressed with how he looked. He tried to look mad for me, but he still just looks cute.

In other news, the school district sent some guys out this morning to clean up the mess. It took 2 guys about an hour and now they still need to do something with it on their side.

I'm glad they took care of it so quickly. Hopefully, they will at least do a monthly check on their vacant land and clean it up from time to time. If not, I'll just unleash The Hulk on them.

Around Our House

I just sent the kids off to school. It's just Noah and I again. Spring Break is over. We had a nice time, but I'm glad the kids are back in school again.

Here's what has been going on at our house.

David and Ben dressed up as the dynamic duo and solved a bank robbery.

**Ben had no pants on, so the cape is strategically placed.
Literally, Ben will give out the lines and if you don't say them right or look the right direction, he asks you to do them over. He should be a movie director when he grows up.
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I made a pumpkin cake for some friends. Well, I gave them a few slices and we ate the rest. I just used them as an excuse to make and eat a cake. It was yummy, even Noah thought so.

Actually, he only ate the frosting. I can now add cream cheese frosting to the list of 6 things that he will eat.
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Our neighbor got a ton of oranges from her friend in Phoenix. She gave us a huge bag because she couldn't eat them all. Yum. Freshly squeezed orange juice is the best.

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Emily and Ben attempted to defy gravity.

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In our housing development, the home owner's association hires landscapers to maintain the common areas. They do a great job, and they better for the fees we pay. Behind our home is a giant field that was supposed to be a Junior High School. That project crashed with the housing market. We have an empty field behind us that belongs to the school district, so our landscape company won't touch it.

Two years ago, we had the major flood that was a result from that field being improperly graded. We called the school district and they took care of it right away. Of course, we were left with about half of the landscaping rock as we had before the flood but whatever.

For weeks, David has been complaining about the tumbleweeds that have built up on the other side of our wall. They were getting so high that we could see them from our side. We kept saying we would call, but never got around to.

If you have never seen a tumbleweed up close, it starts off as an ugly bush. Then it dies and dries up, and tumbles in the wind. It's a huge ball of stickers at that point. If you want to see one in action, check out my video here.

After a night of high wind gusts, we woke up to this in our backyard:


Nothing says "good monday morning" like waking up to 200 tumbleweeds in your yard, and we can still see them at the top of our fence, so more are on their way. If we can get them to clean up the mess in our backyard, we are still left with the stickers and seeds from the tumbleweeds. We'll be using gallons of weed killer all summer long.

I think the school district gets the worst neighbor award. And that says a lot since they beat out the ones with the dog that barks all night and the other one whose pot smoke fills our evening air once in a while.

Spring Break Creativity

My kids have never uttered the words "I'm bored." Thank God because I used to say that all the time when I was a kid. As a parent, I'm sure it's annoying. Instead, my kids find something to do (or I'll give them a broom). Having the week off is forcing them to tap into their creative side. Even if it does mean segregating the house. Emily made this sign for one of our bathrooms.

I like the yellow sticky note, "you tank" instead of "thank you". You get the idea though. What I don't understand is "only girls. And my mommy". Am I not a girl? I'll try not to take offense. She even decorated the inside of the bathroom with stuffed animals.

She also coached her brother into making a sign for the other bathroom. This is supposed to say "Girls are not allowed."

I went through Ben's old clothes for Noah and pulled out lots of 18-24 month summer clothes since it's been so nice out. Figures the forecast is calling for snow on Monday. Ben has a hard time giving up some of his favorites like this spiderman shirt in a size 18 months. Ben is 5. Surprisingly it fit everywhere but in the length.

This morning when I got out of the shower, I was greeted by some ghosts.

One more day of Spring Break...I think I may actually survive.

We Are Not Crows

When I woke up yesterday, I decided to not get on the internet. Okay, okay, it was still down. I had no choice. So, I took the kids to the park. We decided to ride our bikes. As the crow flies, the park is about 1/4 mile away. But we are not crows, so we had to go through the neighborhood. It took us 30 minutes to bike about a mile to the park.

The kids had a blast playing.






We had a snack and headed back home before Noah's nap time. Noah was riding in style in the bike trailer.

Ben was constantly lagging behind us. That's why it took 30 minutes to get to the park. He still isn't confident yet on his new bike. The training wheels have one higher than the other on purpose to get him to learn balance, but all it did was freak him out.

Emily was constantly waiting for us.

See that field behind Emily? Our house is right back there. That is the field that the crow could fly to get to the park. And there is a little dirt path that leads to the end of our street through that field. I thought we should be like the birds and cut out the big loop around the neighborhood. Plus, I was tired and ready to be done. We went down the dirt path. Big, big mistake. Huge.

Ben freaked out because his training wheels were jumping too much on the rocks. So, I loaded him up in the bike trailer and put his bike on top.

Then came the hill. I don't remember there being a hill, but there it was. About 10 feet long and as steep as a swing set slide. Normally not a big deal, but on a bike pulling everything but the kitchen sink, a big deal. A very big deal. I started to walk the bike down and realized about 2 feet in that this was a huge mistake. But, I couldn't turn back. Momentum was taking us down the hill. I ended up at the bottom in a tumbleweed. Ben and Noah were having a great time. Ben even said, "Wow, let's do that again." Not in a million years little man.

Now, Emily was freaked out and afraid to walk down the hill. I pulled 100 stickers out of my pants and walked up to get her bike. Then went back up to get her. Just a few hundred feet to the end of our street. We can make it. Nope. Emily's chain came off. I wasn't about to try my hand at being a bike mechanic at that point. She walked her bike down the dirt path.

Finally, the end of our street. Six houses from our home. Emily wants to ride Ben's bike. I switch them out and she starts off on his. It's way too short, but she is managing until she tries to go up the curb. It's different with training wheels and she falls. We finally head up our driveway...walking our bikes.

We are talking about how horrible that path was. And Ben summed it up best with a line from the Grinch, "We did our worst and that's all that matters."

Today we played it safe and went to the library...in the van!

A Day Without Internet

I have the same routine every morning. I wake up, kiss my husband and children good morning, pour a cup of coffee and get on the computer. I think this is similar to what most people do. What did I do 15 years ago? Turn on the TV maybe or open the newspaper?

Yesterday, I was doing my routine when the internet went down. Oh no. I restarted the modem and did the few other checks to make sure all was okay. Still nothing. I called our internet provider and talked to someone for 45 minutes. My kids were hungry and it was our first day of spring break, but I NEEDED the internet. At the end of the call, I was told there was an outage. Lovely.

So, I took my kids shopping. There were bargains to be had at our two drugstores, so off we went. This trip is usually done while Emily and Ben are in school and it's just Noah and I. He's easy to keep content with some goldfish crackers or M&M's. But when his two older siblings are walking around the store, he wanted to walk around too. And before you know it, all three of my kids are walking around, touching and moving every item in the store. I lost control of my kids quickly. So I did what any mother does and bribed them to behave with jelly beans. Don't judge, it worked.

We headed home. Surely the internet would be fixed by then. Nope. I called again and heard the outgoing message that they are aware of an outage in my area. I wanted to speak to a representative to find out how long this outage was going to take. I'm told there isn't an outage. What? We troubleshoot various things for 45 minutes. She does something and finally tells me there is an outage. Duh, I'm the one who told you that 45 minutes ago. I'm frustrated.

All the while, my kids are sitting inside watching movies.


It's a gorgeous day outside and when I say gorgeous, I mean warm, sunny, slight breeze...perfect.
So, we went outside to play for the entire afternoon. I pushed Noah on the swing for as long as he wanted, which was over an hour. I helped Emily with some tricks on the trapeze bar. We laid on the warm concrete porch and watched the clouds and thought this one looked like a dinosaur spine moving over the moon.

The internet was still down and I didn't care.

After dinner, Emily wanted to go on a walk. So we went. Me, Emily and Ben on our bikes and Noah in a backpack on David while he walked Rocko and Katie. We are dogsitting for my Dad and Suzy.

When we got home, the internet was still down. I took a nice hot shower and we watched The Bachelor and before we went to bed, I checked one more time. It was working. I sent one e-mail to a friend and the internet crashed again. My fix lasted only 2 minutes.

It's obviously working today as I'm blogging. But, it was rather eye opening to go an entire day without access to a computer. We don't have fancy phones either, so there was no way to get any sort of internet connection. Could you do it for an entire day? I now know I can, but maybe I should spend a little less time in front of our computer and a little more time with my kids.

Before and After

Everyday before I get Emily from school, I get a few moments of silence. My boys are good in the car. I make myself a cup of tea or coffee and head off to the school 15 minutes early. We wait in a line of cars for the bell to ring. And herein lies my few moments of silence. I have a stash of magazines or a book that I keep in the car, and I get to relax.

But Stars, they aren't like us. I'm pretty sure that their days do not include stealing 15 minutes of alone time in a car before they do their part of carpool for the day. And I'm pretty sure that they don't have a 5 year old dressed as Spiderman hiding in the car.

That's what Ben does while we wait. He sits in every seat in the car. Whatever makes him happy and keeps him quiet works for me.

Then, the bell rings and I see my girl. In celebration of Read Across America and Dr. Seuss' birthday, she made a hat at school.

Which included dressing up like The Cat In The Hat.

I love that she is still so innocent and thinks it's cool to wear this get up at school. In a few years, she'll find this embarrassing.

And within minutes, my carpool kids load up and I'm driving home with the Ipod playing and 5 kids in the car all talking at once. I'm yelling at Emily to roll up the window and sighing heavily because Ben just spilled something that will need to be vacuumed when we get home, and I'm recalling how lovely the "before" moment of silence was.

Then Ben yells out "pull my finger" and burps. We all erupt with laughter and I realize the "after" moments are pretty sweet too.

Tied

When Ben isn't being a superhero, he hangs out with his brother during the day. Sometimes they do something simple like color.

Yesterday, they went to explore in the backyard. I walked out a few minutes later to make sure Noah wasn't eating dog poo. Instead, I found him at the top of the swing set with Ben.

Ben said he climbed the ladder. So, I watched and he did it again.

He was rather pleased with himself.
Then, he went down the slide.

I was impressed. Usually it's a process of getting them used to the ladder and teaching them how to go down the slide. He watched Ben and got it. He did it over and over and over. Fantastic.

So today when they went outside, I didn't think much of it. Until I heard Noah screaming a minute later. Ben didn't see what happened, but Noah was at the bottom of the ladder. This is what his face looked like after I cleaned off the sand and blood.

The score is now:
Noah 1
Ladder 1
Here's hoping Noah wins tomorrow.