What Theme Parks Look Like with Five Kids

We took the kids to Universal (for free, thank you employer) back in April. This is largely how we spent our day: eating junkfood and waiting. Riveting.

Well, that was awkward.

Before I go into excruciating detail about our trip, I had to share my favorite thing ever. Possibly.

You've met my son, Miles, no? Miles is six and has just recently finished Kindergarten. This makes us laugh because if you know Miles, you know that he is no ordinary Kindergartner. It helps that he is one of the oldest children in his class because his birthday falls a mere 24 days after the cutoff. But in general, he's just a really cerebral child.

On the last day of school, Miles brought home his Kindergarten writing journal. These are always entertaining. So, I paged through it. I'm so glad I did. So often, when the kids come home, I just toss everything right in the trash. I have a loathing for random papers hanging around my house. At any rate, I flipped to the front of the book and was entertained by some of the year's first drawings.

 For example. This one from October of 2011 dictating his plans for Halloween. I am told by both Miles and his teacher that she does not help with spelling, grammar or punctuation in these journals. So, every apostrophe is his own.  And the drawing. Just awesome. Have I mentioned how hilarious I find it that my children always draw themselves brown? It's true. They are brown.

The next entry that had me laughing was this one:

In case you didn't know that Christmas is really about Christ. For the record, we do NOT own an ornament like the one Miles drew. But now I need to get one, apparently. 

Then we came to this entry. 

Mine too, buddy. At this point, I'm getting a little concerned that his teacher might think we're religious zealots. Don't get me wrong, we love the Savior and going to church, but we aren't coercing these entries.

I'm not sure if you can read this one completely, so here it is: "My baby sister, Libby, is the cutest person in the world. She would win first place in a cute contest! Would yours?"

Doesn't that just melt your heart?

The next entry deserves a preface. At my husband's employer they have a video game and movie lending library. You can bring home games or movies for a couple of days and if the kids have been particularly good, Matt will reward them with a video game. 

We love that he ranked his favorite games at the bottom. Apparently Indiana Jones is a no-go. 

Finally, this was the very last entry in the journal. And the one that sealed our fates as the parents of "that strange religious wacko kid."

 The tears. Running down my face. Oh mercy!

Oh Miles! We love you so much and are so proud of you! 

What I Got For Mother's Day...

 Well, I asked for a LOT of things for Mother's Day.  To be specific: These and maybe one of these. Or perhaps something perhaps maybe a little bit like this. I could go on.  But ya know, sometimes the money just isn't there. Which is fine. Really. Especially since we just booked a cruise (I know!!!) for June.

So in the end, what I told the husband I would like was some pictures of me with the kids. Simple enough, right? Ha. Ha. Haa...

Uh, Libby... over here. At the camera. Not the squirrels. Also, I require children to cover up my roly poly midsection, thanks.

 Um. Miles? Dude. And really Abbie? The book???

 Can we just pretend I only have four kids and Photoshop Abbie out of this one? Matt wondered if she might be turning into one of those weird EMO kids with their Harry Potter and non-showering. We can't let this happen.

 So, we let loose a little. Make a funny face. Sure. Great. According to the husband I look Nazi deathcamp skinny in this one (so I went and ate some cookies).

 I finally took Abbie's book away and made her actually join the rest of us (she looks thrilled). Shout out to Anna for looking perfectly posed in every picture. She gets it from me.

Then Lucas decided to stick his hand down my shirt and tickle me in the er... cleavage? Yeah, photoshoot over.

P.S. Check out my hair!!!?!?!

Boys. Sheesh.

Recently, I found this lovely flyer designed by Miles.

Best Burp Contest 

Do you burp a lot? Why not go win 1st or 2nd place in the contest? Then what are you waiting for? Lets go!

I'm not sure whether to be completely disturbed... or overwhelmingly proud. Not a single misspelling. And I did NOT help him with this. 

I'm going to go with mildly troubled.

The Plain Truth

 I would, just once, like to get a really nice picture of the husband and I.

 I'm not complaining. 

This isn't terrible. 

But you know, I like him. 

I'd like to capture that essence of love that exudes from us. 

That "je ne sais quoi" that is "us."

Oh, who am I kidding? This picture does the job. 

He tolerates me at best, I think.

Safety First.

Nevermind the lack of knee, elbow, or wrist pads. Nevermind the lack of helmet. Nevermind the fact that she's rollerblading in the middle of the street in front of our house.

Please note that my child, who up to this point hated reading to the point of weeping and wailing at the mere mention of it, cannot seem to put her book down long enough to rollerblade! Hallelujah!

Bowl.

We received a coupon in the mail for some deal on bowling for the whole family. And even though we're not great bowlers, we have a good time. Bumpers are always a good thing!


Abbie and Anna would approach the lane and almost LOB the ball. I just know if someone was tossing bowling balls on my hardwood floors, I would NOT be happy.


I foolishly didn't think that Lucas would be all that interested in bowling. Really. His favorite word is "ball". Duh.



So, Matt sacrificed a couple of his frames (although, lets be honest... not the best bowler) to Lucas.




And Miles, well... Miles is of the age where he wants to do it all himself. Hefting the 6 pound ball out there, and shoving down the lane... which takes about 2 minutes to reach the pins. But what he lacks in ability, he makes for in enthusiasm, right?


No pictures of me. But you can imagine the stares an 8.5 month pregnant woman might receive at a bowling alley. (Insert joke about smuggling a ball here.)

And for the record... I totally won.

A cautionary tale

Let me preface this story with an apology. We've been to the beach 6ish times this summer and this was the first (and last time we'll probably go this year) time I took the camera. You're not missing much. Sand. Water. Sun. You get the picture, right?

So, on to the story.
My sister, Rachel was in town and so we decided to head to the beach. It's the free-est thing we can take out-of-towners to do. And it's fun. Unless you're anal retentive about getting sand on you/in your car like a certain someone I'm married to. I digress.

The kids are actually really great at the beach. They play in the waves. They play in the sand. We have a couple of kid-sized boogie boards, so we feel they're relatively safe. They eat a lot of snacks and if you're Lucas, some sand too.

The kid is slightly obsessed with the sand. Slightly.

He likes to play with it, and has been known to attempt to eat entire fistfuls. Must be the salty grittiness he's in love with.

He spends his entire time at the beach bouncing between playing in the sand/shallow water and eating snacks from the cooler. What you see above is a combination of sand, Cheetos, and snot. Delightful, eh?

He also likes to pretend he can do headstands. Or something. We're not sure why he started doing this. But needless to say, his head gets quite uh... sandy.

Toward the end of our beach visit, I managed to get all the kids together-ish for a picture.

And Lucas threw sand at everyone. Abbie's expression sorta says it all, doesn't it?
Then Lucas proceeded to do his "headstand." Please make note of impending wave.

Yeah, those waves. They're merciless.

And really, nothing stings more than salt water and sand in your eyes.

Moral of this story:
a. no headstands on the beach
2. throwing sand will come back to bite you in the butt.
c. i have the cutest kids

We're Cruel

Sometimes, you just can't help yourself.


And the tag that came on your most recent un-American purchase, sends you into fits of giggles. And so you do this:


Yes. We're cruel, but he doesn't know it yet.

A funny thing happened.

I learned how to use chopsticks when Matt and I were dating. He's obviously Chinese (or at least some Asian ethnicity, right?). I'd always wanted to learn, and he taught me. I'm actually quite good, if I do say so myself.

Tonight, because we had free babysitting provided by the Husband's Employer, we decided to go out to eat. We appreciate Asian foods of all kind: Chinese, Thai, Korean (oh the Beef Bulgogi!), and Vietnamese (I'm less of a fan of Japanese, though I do like me some Yakisoba Noodles).

Tonight was a Vietnamese night. We headed to our favorite place. We were seated very quickly, and then proceeded to hem and haw about what to order. While we sat around deciding, our waiter brought us some water. And some Spring Rolls.

And a single napkin with a fork. And set it down right next to me.

What?!

No, he didn't bring Matt a fork. Just me. No, I hadn't asked for a fork and yes, we already had chopsticks at our table. I sat there for a moment, appalled. I looked up at Matt. We were both a bit in shock! Did that just happen?!

I really wanted to be offended, but instead it just kept sending me into fits of giggles. One fork for the whitey!

I think I was just discriminated against!? Or maybe Matt was!

In which I earn the title "Cruelest Mom Ever"

You know you're my kind of "mean mom" if you've ever taken pictures like these.

You know. Just for posterity's sake.

So I can attest to how dirty he can get while eating his breakfast.

That mixture of yogurt, crusted snot and last night's dinner is really attractive.

But wait. What's this face?

Oh no. It's definitely THAT face. But instead of having some decency...

You just keep shooting.

You know, for posterity's sake.
Oh, come on! You know you look like this while pooping too!)

Don't we all feel better afterwards? I know I do.

The nerdiness of my husband reigns supreme.

My friend noted that today she reached 300 posts on her blog. Congrats!

Which lead me to wonder exactly how many posts I had... you know, to be competitive and all that. So I clicked over to my blog and noted this:

I started this blog on January 5, 2007. As of December 31, 2008, I had EXACTLY 300 posts. I pointed out the coolness of this (almost exactly 2 years and exactly 300 posts) to my sweet husband.

His response: "ZOMG!" Literally.

Are you an internet dork? If so, you know what OMG (Oh My Goodness!) means.
Don't know what ZOMG! means?

Why does he have to be so mean?

And don't worry Maleen. You'll overtake me soon. You post with much more regularity.

To Catch a Thief...

Or in this case, not a thief, but the main culprit, and instigator of the crime. Let's view the evidence.
Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:
Exhibit C:I think judging from the photographic evidence, we can deduce that Exhibits A&B, while seemingly caught red-handed (or white-faced), probably did not dump the offending carcinogen
on themselves willingly. Note Exhibit C. Her lack of death-causing powder leads us to believe that she may, in fact, be our criminal.

Proof that I'm totally mature.

If you're easily offended this is not the blog for you.

Story Part One or Why I Think This Is Hilarious: Forever ago, I belonged to a message board with some of the most hilarious people I know. I'm pretty sure it was Val's fault (blogless) that we all started using "THE WORD" again. I say again, because it's not a word I've used since... 4th grade, maybe?

Story Part Two: At my husband's work they have a roundabout for dropoff, etc. People were driving entirely too fast through there. Almost like in Roller Derby (geez! anyone remember that!?) when they would slingshot each other through the rink... where was I? Oh yeah. So, they decided to put in some deterrents. To the rest of the world: Speed Bumps, right? Well, apparently they made the speed bumps a little too tall and they failed to paint them for the first couple weeks. So, everyone and their brother were totally bottoming out. Finally, they put in a sign.

Here is where you see just how totally mature I am: I went to my husband's work today with no intention of seeing him, just to take this picture.

Also, do you think that the M. here stands for Men? Wow. That is fast!