It's Sunday Again

How do the weeks fly by so fast? Or, really, the weekends. Weekdays seem to move slower, but the weekends? Zip! And I am left with a huge list of things to do and a sense of failure. I either have to learn not to care or make shorter lists!

Yesterday we left the house at 9:30 am, just me and the boys, to go visit friends about an hour away. We arrived and the boy explosion began. She has two boys and add my three we were seriously outnumbered. Know what? They all did great. We even took them out to lunch and it was fine. We rolled back in the house about 4:15 with three very tired boys and the vow to do this again very soon.

I took Buster in for the last round of booster shots on Friday. The female vet came in and as she leaned down to look at him, she asked if we had anything we wanted to discuss. (I had Ahren and Seth with me) Ahren immediately piped up and announced that 'dogs do not have butt cheeks but he did', to which Seth then added, 'and he has a red thing that comes out of his wiener'. The vet looked confused (I am assuming she didn't quite understand what they said) and started to say 'what' which of course would lead them to repeat and expand on their doggy wisdoms. Instead I cut her off, plopped them on the bench and told them to please be quiet. Apparently in our home-schooling we have not left out the important aspects of dogs......

When we do a big cleaning day around here, I usually pay 25-50 cents per chore. I break them down into smaller more manageable jobs. Instead of telling them to pick up their room, I hand them the lego tub and tell them to put all the legos in it. I send them to get a trash can from a bathroom and dump it, then return it to the spot they found it. Stuff like that. Levi can handle bigger jobs and those are usually the 50 center ones. Wipe all the fingerprints off the huge windows across the back of our house (there are 8 of them) or scrub a toilet with a toilet wand. Levi earns more but he does more. He is so funny, though. he won't spend all his money. He puts it in his bank instead. He has saved over $100 but he doesn't want to open a savings account. He would rather have it here so he can pull it out and count it. He is so much like my brother Joel!

I was sweeping floors the other day and had the Food network on in the background. I paused a moment and looked at the screen and commented that Rachael Ray must have been on vacation because she was so tan. Chris said, 'Honey, that is a black woman'. Doh!

I always try and introduce the kids to new and different foods. Levi and Seth are really very adventurous. They love spicy food, lots of 'grown-up' foods and ethnic foods. Ahren has trouble with new or different foods. He has always had trouble with food that is harder to chew and swallow and I think that set the stage for his eating habits. He would still eat all mushy foods and have me spoon feed him if he had his way! I have decided that every Sunday we are going to have a food adventure. Try something new and different. I may let the boys pick it out at the store or I might surprise them. Then each week I will tell you what we tried and how it went over. I will let the boys help me prepare whatever it is, and that helps them accept a new food. I am going to create little foodies!!!