Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Strange Things Kids Do

Here are a couple of strange things I was thinking about the past couple of days that my children have done. I think I have strange children (I am not complaining however). I was cleaning all my lettuce and repackaging it when my kids asked me what I was doing. I told them and they wanted a piece. I gave them a piece. They finished it and asked for more. Mine love lettuce, olives, and tomatoes. I know of so many kids who won't touch those things. I am truly blessed in those areas.
Last Saturday my husband who is a wonderful, loving father took my two older kids out to McDonalds for lunch. He then took them to the dollar store and told them that they could pick out any one thing they wanted for 1.00 (not a bad deal). So, one of them picked up a toy hair dryer thinking she could dry her own hair with it. It would take a VERY long time to dry all her hair. The other child picked out a set of three dolls with clothes. Cute dolls. However they come apart so easily that they leave legs, arms, and heads all over the place. It looks like CSI in my house. Oh look, there is a leg here, an arm there, and Oh look, Grissom, we found the torso over there. Oh oh, the head is missing. Sorry, too much CSI. Anyway, it is quite disturbing. I don't know how much longer I can have my house looking like a crime scene.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Midnight Fun

I love my neighborhood. The occasional midnight excitement would be so hard to give up.
Something interesting like this following story happens about every 6 months or so. I think this one may be a case of Spring fever amongst our youth who have nothing else to do.
My husband and I were watching one of our favorite shows from the 80's (okay that dates us) The A-team when I heard a bang. I didn't think too much of it until I heard what sounded like something crashing into the house. I went upstairs to see if the kids were all in bed. They were and sound asleep.
I sat back down on the couch to finish watching the show and I heard another bang. We looked outside and saw about 4 teenagers standing at the corner (we live near a busy corner that connects our neighborhood with one farther to the west). They proceeded to walk up the street, then walked down our part of the street (I didn't see this, but my husband did). I was debating calling the police because we had some problems with wayward teens before.
As I was thinking about it, a police car showed up and questioned a car pulling out of the driveway up the street (where I personally had seen the teens last). Then another police car showed up and my neighbor ran out of his house and talked to him while pointing down the streets. I assumed he called them.
Just as he was talking to the police, the teens passed in front of our house and the police stopped them for questioning. Thankfully, they were cooperative.
My neighbor ended up calling me soon after this to explain what was going on. He thought he heard gunshots and looked outside and there was smoke in the air near one of the teens that was hanging out in the street. This is something that is foreign to our neighborhood to this point. I thank the Lord for that.
To make a long story shorter, the street was blocked by 5 police cars including the paddy wagon; two of the four teens were arrested; the other two were taken home; and it is believed that it was fireworks that we heard.
Two problems: fireworks are illegal, and there is a curfew in Rockford of 11:00 on weekends, I believe.
The funny thing is that the neighbor was having a party and they were all outside telling one of the kids to run and laughing at him. Poor kid, as if he was not embarrassed enough.
To make matters more interesting, one of the police cars was still parked in the middle of the street after all the others had left and another car pulled up behind him and put his lights on the police car. The police man flashed his lights at the car behind him and that car backed up and sped away like the driver was mad that a police man would block his way. Oh the inconvenience of life!! What a dummy!!
If these things keep happening, moving will be oh so wonderful. I really do like my neighborhood and would miss the people I have come to know.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Puke, Pepper, and --- Fish Food?

Today was a day where if it could go wrong, it did. I woke up and went in the baby's room and was greeted by an unmistakable smell. Apparently sometime in the night she had gotten some kind of stomach virus. I will spare all the details, but we were reminded what she had for dinner the night before.
So, I showered her, dressed her, then gave her some cheerios to eat. I also fed the other two kids their cereal and went upstairs to take care of the mess in the crib. No easy chore. It was everywhere.
I then proceeded to eat my breakfast amidst the cheerios that the baby spilled on the floor because she did not want them.
While I was eating breakfast, I heard the words, " Mom, Brianna spilled the pepper." It was one of those times I wanted to say, "who is your mom?" and run away. I came around the corner and saw what apparently was the whole container of pepper all over the table in front of her.
I told her since she spilled it, she had to clean it up. She wiped it all onto the floor, hence making a mess on the floor.
I then proceeded to sweep the floor while my nose was stinging from all that pepper. Ugh!!
Later in the morning, I was reading some e mail and I hear "Mom, come look, we fed the fish. Come count how much food I put in." I went over to the fish bowls and saw, to my amazement, probably several hundred Betta pellets in each bowl. The entire top of the bowls were covered.
It was not part of my plan to change the water today, but it quickly was introduced. Now the fish have new water.
I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow will bring.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Weekend of Family Fun

The girls and I had gone over to a friend's house for the afternoon to watch a movie and gotten home a little after 6. My husband was all ready home and says to me "did you know that the tax refund check is in?". I said, "no, it is, good." He said that he wanted to surprise the girls with a trip overnight somewhere fun with a pool like the Dells, Springfield, or something like that. He had been thinking about it for a few days and decided that if the check were to come in before the end of the week we would do it.
That night I did some laundry and packed the kids suitcases without them knowing it. I went online and checked into some pricing at various resorts in the Dells area. I also checked a water park resort here in Rockford and one in Chicago.
We finally decided on Great Wolf Lodge . We had been there twice before for my husband's company picnics (which they pay for I might add) and really liked it. They have a really nice kid area as well as some new larger slides for adults or big kids.
I made the reservations and my husband packed the car. Finally somewhere around 2:30 am we went to bed.
When we left we just told the girls that we were going out to lunch and a drive. When we arrived at the resort the girls looked at it and said, "this is a hotel, why are we at a hotel?" My husband said that I went in to get a map (which is partly true because usually they give you a map of these kinds of places and a guide of what to do). When I got back in the car after "picking up the map" we went to park. That is when we told them what we were going to do. They were shocked that we packed their bags while they were sleeping (sounds like a movie).
The girls had a great time at the waterpark. They enjoyed the kid areas. Even the baby had a great time. She kicked, paddled,and slapped at the water. She even waded in the small kidde pool as well as rode down a couple of slides in the toddler area.
My older girls loved the kid slides (the white slides) and even tried a tube slide and a couple of the larger slides. My husband asked the girls if there was anything they wanted to try before we went home. One of them said "the green slide". I said "what green slide?" She said "the one by the green bucket." My thought was she would just go up to the top and then turn around and go back down in fear. So I took her up to where you climb through the fort to get up to the slides and made a deal. I told her that if she goes down the slide, I would stand under the bucket (it drops 1000 gallons of water on those standing under it) by myself and let them watch. Apparently she liked the deal because we got to the top of the slide, she sat down, and almost before the lifeguard could say "go", she went. I could not believe what I was seeing. I followed her down. She loved it and talked her sister into trying it. I made the same deal. Of course, I stood under the bucket and let them watch.
One of the girls really loved the big slides and she could not get enough, much to my liking. Finally I have kids who will go on the bigger slides with me. yay!! I was so tired out after hiking up the steps with a large tube on my back so that my girls and I could go down the slide. My arms are tired from paddling down the lazy river to get out of the water to do it all over again. Finally, I made my husband go down the slide with them.
She even said she wanted to try the larger tube slide which she ended up being too small for as she is not quite tall enough. In the end, I don't think she would like it anyway as it was dark and fast.
We intended on getting back a little earlier on Sunday so that we could go to the evening service at the church, but the girls were just getting into the larger slides and we wanted them to be able to really get what they could out of the waterpark.
What a great weekend of family fun. I am looking forward to the next time.