DAMAGE!! - MAYONNAISE!!

Silas was playing around this morning and getting into trouble (as usual). I wasn't paying much attention to him until I heard him repeating in an ornery voice, "Damage! Damage! Damage!". I asked him what he was saying. He just looked at me and repeated, "Damage!". I then asked what damage meant. He said, "Damage is a NAUGHTY word." Can you guess which one he meant??? I said, "OHHHHHH that's right, damage is a naughty word and you should NEVER say it again." I can't image where he heard such things!?!

Also, the boys have been playing a lot of army type games outside since school has been out. Apparently they have plenty of opportunities to use the May Day distress call. The other day we were driving in the pick up when Silas started calling out his May Day distress - "Mayonnaise, mayonnaise we have a man down." Yet again he was very CLOSE to the real word.

Silas is tagged!

1. What is something mom always says to you? "Don't spray water on the windows"

2. What makes mom happy? "Stop doing it"

3. What makes mom sad? "My squirting water on the windows." (Funny how Silas' answers are all centered around the last thing he got in trouble for too).

4. How does mom make you laugh? "When you tickle me I giggle."

5. What was mom like as a child? "Toys, cars and dump trucks."

6. How old is your mom? "Too old." (NICE)

7. How tall is your mom? "This tall".(He put his hand on top of my head)

8. What is her favorite thing to do? "Sit on the computer all day." (Busted).

9. What does your mom do when you're not around? "Go to bed."

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? "For parades, with trailers and firetrucks."

11. What is your mom really good at? "At not scrabble."

12. What is your mom not very good at? "Not games."

13. What does your mom do for her job? "Do chores."

14. What is your mom's favorite food? "Salmon."(I liked it like two times in my life).

15. What makes you proud of your mom? "Being happy"

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? "Nia-hoa Kailan (sp?)

17. What do you and your mom do together? "Stay home while Dad's at work."

18. How are you and your mom the same? "We both like mac 'n cheese"

19. How are you and your mom different? "We're the same."

20. How do you know your mom loves you? "Buy horses".(NICE TRY).

Silas tags Kyle and Roger!

Count Down to Homelessness

Tami keeps reminding me that I need to write more often on our blog. We finished meetings early this morning for church so before we all go back, I have time to write a few things.

We will be out of our house on Saturday. We close on Friday but the people buying it have given us until Saturday to get out. We are pretty much out of our house now though with almost everything we own in storage. The boys said they wanted to go camping this summer, it looks like they are going to get their wish.

So far, we don't even have a contract on the house we are trying to buy so we are going to be officially homeless in about 6 days. I can't wait. The boys like living in hotels because they have pools, they bring you dinner in your room and they make the beds and clean the bathrooms for you. After looking at their logic, I have to agree. Plus, you get new neighbors every day.

I tried to convince Tami that we should buy an RV but she didn't like the ones I had picked out. I told her that brownish type shag carpet is back in style now but she just isn't as current on things like that as I am.

No one seems to understand why we are so willing to wait and wait for the poop house but that's okay. We were talking about it the other day and realized that we have never bought a house from a person. We always buy from banks and the houses are always empty and usually very trashed. This one is no exception.

Before I end this, I wanted to give our good friends the first opportunity to come get some free manure if we end up buying this house. We will load it for you. All you have to do is haul it away and put it in your flower beds or garden. We won't be doing this for just anyone so hurry before I start selling it on Craigslist!!

Spammer Student

Yesterday Isaac came home from school with a notice informing us that the school was on Tornado lock down and handwritten at the bottom was Isaac's teacher, Ms. Frank's, personal email address. Isaac told me that she gave him the address because he wanted to send her all the cool emails he gets from his uncle Gabe. Gabe is definitely the cool uncle and apparently has a friend who works at the Houston Zoo who sends him fun animal pix from the zoo. So last night I decided I'd better check Isaac's email to see if/what he'd sent her. Much to my chagrin I found 11, yes ELEVEN emails to Ms. Frank. Ten of which were forwards and one where he asked her age. To be fair, we all would like to know her age as Caleb and I have joked about hooking her up with Gabe. So, to add to her long list of emails I had to so send an apology email as well.

Me: "Oh my goodness I am so sorry! I just checked Isaac's email account and saw that he emailed you 11 times. Talk about a serious spammer! He has an uncle in Houston who is the "fun" uncle because he's single with no kids and loves to play on Isaac's level. He sends him zoo pictures and other funny things that apparently he really wanted to share with you. Sorry again, in the future I'll try to monitor before he sends NOT after. Thanks,Tami"

Her Response: "Hi Tami-No problem---I had not written him back because I wanted to double check with you to make sure you knew he had asked for my email account before I responded. He waited so patiently for it after school--he obviously had a mission in mind.The district system is not accessible right now so I had planned on waiting until morning when I would have access to your address.He has talked about his uncle numerous times and all the pictures he sends him with the various animals, etc. They were entertaining, especially after the crazy weather day today. It was a side of Isaac I had not seen before with all the emails. He made me laugh especially when he asked my age. If you are okay with it---when/if he writes I will just bcc you any correspondence/replies.Again, no worries, it was completely innocent. I am still cracking up. At least he was still excited to share something with his teacher on the eve of his last day--Jennifer"

So funny! Isaac is really a sweet, tenderhearted boy!

Boot Scoot Bootie

Jude is now 8.5 months old. He doesn't crawl but does sit quite well. I just sat him down on the floor with some toys and came to play on the computer. He's still sitting up but he's about 4 feet from where he started. I didn't see it happen but I'm assuming it was a boot scoot bootie maneuver! BTW, at this same age (8.5 months) Elias and Silas were walking. Isaac was walking at 10 months.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Silas: Hey Mom, do you want to play rock, paper, scissors? You be the paper and I'll be the scissors.

Me: Sure I'll play but I want to be the rock so I can break your scissors.

Silas: No, you have to be the paper so I can cut you.

* I guess he's just in the learning stages of the game. BTW, I learned the game as "Paper, Scissors, Rock". It flows out of your mouth so much better that way!

Oop-pay Farm

Tonight as we were taking another load of our things to our storage unit we began having a discussion about what we'd call our Farm/Ranch whatever you call it. We were saying it'd be fun to put a sign above the driveway entrance with our "name" on it. We brainstormed and came up with these ideas: Zimmie Ranch, Zimmer Farm, Mountain Vista (a play on Caleb's parents Ranch name - Valley Vista) and Zimmie P Farm (P is for poop). Then Elias came up with the winner.... "Oop-pay Farm" Oop-pay is Pig Latin for Poop. I had to say we all loved it. I'm sure we'll never feel like we need to actually spend money having a sign like that made but it was fun to think about. BTW, we don't know for sure if the Poop house will be ours or not. We'll hopefully find out sometime next week if our offer has been accepted.

It Was a Joke

It seems that some people think Caleb's Mother's Day Tribute was serious...Sorry to say he was just being funny. Some of those things MIGHT be true occasionally but for the most part they're NOT!

Isaac's Acrostic Poem

M -Mother
O - Outstanding
T - Terrific
H - Heart
E - Eat
R - Rabbit
ps. Don't forget to read Caleb's post below...I wouldn't want you to miss my Mother's Day tribute!

Happy Mother's Day

"Dad, now can I have some strawberries since it is Happy Mother's Day?"

That was Silas asking me if he could eat the strawberries. We make breakfast in bed for Tami and this year it was crepes. Silas didn't want to wait to eat the strawberries though.

Happy Mother's Day Tami!!!

We decided we would write a few things that Tami does that make her a wonderful mother.

1) She gets up early every morning and makes hot breakfast for the boys.

2) She never complains about all the activities the boys have going on.

3) She never says an unkind word to anyone.

4) She never raises her voice at the kids.

5) She always has a spotless house.

6) She makes my lunch for me every time I am in town for work.

7) She sews and cooks and cleans and never complains about any of them.

8) She doesn't like to shop and she doesn't like to have girls night out because it takes her away from her family.

9) She is always has something positive to say no matter what the situation.

10) Sorry Tami, I can't read the last three on the note you left me.

Happy Mother's Day!!! We love you.

Your Boys.

Rich Man, Poor Man

I know that we've mentioned in the past that early on in our marriage we thought that if we raised our children the same they'd turn out basically the same. This hypothesis has been repeatedly proven wrong. My latest proof of this occurred this week. The boys' school has finally subscribed to an online lunch account recharge and low balance notification system. I got on there on Mon. to see how much lunch $ they had left for the remainder of the year. I figured out that in order for me to NOT have to pay the school any more money they would each have to have cold lunch three times sometime during these last 3 weeks of school. I explained the situation to the boys. Right away Isaac checked out the lunch menu and discovered that for the last week of school the lunches would be "manager's choice". To him this means all sorts of wonderful things like pizza, cookies, ice cream bars, etc. To me this means whatever is left over in the freezer that they need to get rid of. So in anticipation of the coveted Manager's Choice lunches Isaac made and brought his lunch to school for the next three days. Planning ahead and even sacrificing hot lunch on a chicken fingers day (one of his favorites) so he could be prepared for the "bigger reward". Elias on the other hand is equally excited about Manager's Choice but has not made any efforts to have his 3 cold lunch days. So I expect that when the last week of school comes he'll be brown bagging it. This isn't the first time we've noticed this difference in the two boys. Caleb and I have always said that we'd pay half for any purchase the boys wanted to make as long as we thought it was worth while (eg. Good - bike, scooter, football, book - Bad - video games, trendy toys we know they'll forget in a day, etc.). It's interesting to us the Elias who's had 2.5 years more earning time than Isaac has about $200 less in his bank account than him. Elias spends much of his time searching for things that we think would be worthy to blow his money on while Isaac can be reasoned with. When we tell him he probably wouldn't like it in a week or if he waited for his B-day or Christmas he'd probably get it anyway than he'll change his mind or just wait.

Oh my!!! As I'm sitting here writing this I'm witnessing another example. Elias has a field trip today so he HAS to bring a cold lunch. He is currently trying to bribe Isaac into making him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Right now he's offering 50 cents and Isaac is bargaining for more. HILARIOUS!! So, if any of you out there know of a way to be successful in life while always taking the easy way out and blowing your money all the time please let us know so we can adapt our parenting style to help out one of our children!!

The Manure House

We found a house that we really like and it seems to fit in with all the other ones that we have bought in the past. The bank owns it and it needs a lot of work. It comes with 7.5 acres and years and years worth of projects for the boys to do outside. We made an offer but we have to wait for another person's offer to expire.

My parents were in town a couple of weeks ago and we were trying to distinguish between all the houses we were looking at. We started calling our favorite one the poop house because the people that lived there before had a lot of animals. They had cows, sheep, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, dogs and everything else you can think of. Let's just say they didn't keep a very neat and tidy place. The poop house sounded a little bit crude so I took it on myself to change it to the manure house.

The house is completely stripped inside. Whatever isn't stripped is dirty, nasty and gross. The outside has more out buildings than I have ever seen. If we end up getting this house, I am going to ask the fire department if they want to come out and practice on some of the buildings. I wonder if they would let me light them? I really doubt it.

We also have some other really good news. Tami got a storage unit for us and my brother Gabe helped us get all of our heavy things (minus the piano...they have professionals for that) into the unit. We should be able to get everything else by ourselves. I'm sure he really wanted to come up here for a vacation and move heavy items. In the process, he was also able to see what it looks like underneath a toenail. He was helping me carry something out to the trailer and he hit is toe on the edge of it and separated his toe nail from his big toe. We got to spend some time at the Longmont clinic so they could clean it all out and put it back on.

It ended up working out okay because Elias had some type of infection and he had to come to the clinic too. Since I was already there with Gabe, I was able to sign Elias in before he even got there. Tami will have to write about the infection because I don't remember what it is called. It looks pretty nasty though and it is right on his face.