Hey Good Lookin'...

A couple of weeks ago, I woke up to the following:

"What's Cookin' Good Lookin'??"

I opened my eyes to find a very smug looking 4 year old standing over me. Thank you Saturday morning cartoons, your influence is immeasurable!

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The other night I heard Dach crying out in his sleep around midnight (which is extremely unusual for him). I went in to check on him and he was saying,

"There's water under my bed!!"

"No sweetie - it's okay. It's just a dream!"

"NO! There's water under my bed!!"

"No, honey - you're dreaming. There's no water - you are okay."

"NO!!! THERE IS WATER UNDER MY BED!!"

And with that, he flung the top half of his body over the side of his bed and rummaged around under his bed. A few seconds later he reappeared with a full cup of water...

"I was saving this for later!"

And he promptly gulped it down and went right back to sleep.

Pics from Easter..

Just some pics today. I'm deep cleaning the house today as Eric is going on a Men's Retreat this weekend and the kids and I are heading to Jen's for a "girls weekend" *well, a "girls with 8 kids in tow" weekend*. Her birthday is Saturday, you know!!!! I have to super-clean the house as I come home at 12:30pm on Sunday and 30 minutes later I'm hosting a church event with 20 people here. Yikes!!

Once again, a perfect pose from the children *rolls eyes*. At least we'll look back at the photos and remember what life was REALLY like:

We came home from church and the kids had to go on a treasure hunt to find their baskets...

Lined up at the start of the treasure hunt:

Racing up the stairs trying to find the next treasure hunt clue:

Next was the egg hunt outside:

After dinner, we ended the evening with coloring eggs:

And finally, a family pic from Easter Sunday:

"Humiliate-a-thon" Now showing @ a Costco near you...

So a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded why I don’t leave the house with 4 children in tow! I had to take Dach to the Dr. for a cough and pick up a disc of photos and a pizza at Costco. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? The Dr.’s appointment was at 2:15pm and I needed to be home around 5pm because Eric had gotten a sitter and was taking me out to dinner and a movie. The Dr.’s office went fine…and then came Costco.

I arrived at Costco at 3:15pm. PAH-LENTY of time to make it home before 5pm!!

It was supposed to be quick. Fill RX, pick up photos and grab pizza. 15-20 minutes tops! I dropped off the RX and as I was walking away the guy says “That’ll be ready in 45 minutes.” *WHAT?!* Fine, whatever – it’ll take longer to take it somewhere else at this point. I pick up the photo CD, hit all the sample stations, grab a pizza to take home and cook, and then have everyone look at books for 30 minutes. As we are walking back to the pharmacy, I notice that there is a photo missing off of the photo disc. We head for the photo dept. to have them fix it. “That’ll be 6 minutes.” Ok, I’ll grab the RX and then swing back. *Good thing they are on opposite walls of the store!!*

This was about the time that Zane announced his legs were tired and that we needed to “GO HOME NOW!!!” ie: “Why do have to go to boring stores and look at boring things etc…”

I rounded the corner to the pharmacy and nearly choked! The line was 6-8 people long! I’m not kidding – it went halfway down a Costco aisle. “We have to have the prescription - we’ll just have to wait.” The time was 4:10pm.

Something snapped in all 4 kids when they realized the scope of the line. Zane started playing tag and wrestling with anyone who was willing, Dach started running in circles, Georgia informed me that she was dehydrating and that she had to find a drinking fountain “RIGHT NOW”, and Maisie talked N.O.N.S.T.O.P. to the man standing directly behind us including informing him of every possible use and benefit of silly putty.

Every time someone disobeyed, I made them do 10 push-ups as a consequence. Zane was crowned the winner with a combined total of 50 push-ups by the end of our Costco tour.

About 15 minutes into the line, Zane decides to climb under the shopping cart. Unfortunately, his foot got wedged between the grating when he was under it and he was unable to get it loose. He was able to get one leg out and began hopping around on one foot while frantically trying to get his other foot loose from the cart. This of course caused the cart to crash up and down repeatedly while he screamed for help. I had to get down on all fours and try to free his foot. FINALLY – we got it free!

Minutes later Dach begins to compete (with Maisie) for the attention of the man standing behind us. “I’m FOUR years old. I was THREE – but I’m FOUR now!!! I used to be ONE.” *Then to my HORROR…* “MOMMY?! REMEMBER WHEN I WAS A BABY AND YOU CUT MY PENIS OPEN SO IT COULD BE CLEAN?!?! DO YOU REMEMBER THAT?! DO YOU??!!?!?!”

Shoot. Me. Now.

[The background: We just watched “The Nativity Story” last week and they circumcise baby Jesus in it. The boys asked what they were doing -AND BECAUSE WE WERE APPARENTLY SMOKING CRACK THAT DAY – we gave them a brief overview of what circumcision was, and informed them that they had been recipients of it.]

~~And after that brief intermission, we now return you now to my humiliation~~

Since I couldn’t leave THAT statement “hanging” out there, I stumbled to fix it.

“Um…yes dear. Remember, that is called a CIRCUMCISION and it was performed by a LICENSED PHYSICIAN!!”

We had the immense pleasure of standing in that line for a FULL thirty minutes. Then after we FINALLY picked up at the RX – we went to stand in the regular line to purchase the pizza. We did not leave that store until 5pm. I was there for a total of 1 hour and 45 minutes.

I would HIGHLY recommend this experience to prepare you for a relaxing night on the town with your husband.

I was so strung out by the time I arrived (where Eric was already waiting with the babysitter) I was a flustered mess! We went to Tony Roma’s because we had a gift card that we had been given months ago and were FINALLY getting to use it. We ordered our food and then realized that neither one of us had the gift card on us. Good grief!

Then we ended up missing the movie, because we had the wrong time and by the time we got to the theater, we would have been 25 minutes late.

We ended up walking around the mall and chatting which was fun but I tell ya – I was on edge the whole night just waiting for the next thing to happen. It’s no wonder people develop twitches…

April-pa-loo-za...

*contended sigh*

Yet another satisfying April Fools day in the life of Natalie. Oh, where to start...?

Prank #1 - Well, when I ordered the video camera (see previous entry) [from www.prankplace.com for those who asked] I also ordered a roll of that yellow police line tape that says "CRIME SCENE - DO NOT CROSS" I had planned to wrap the neighbors house (across the street) in it to freak out our other neighbors. I snuck out at 1am on Saturday night dressed all in black *insert Mission Impossible music* and used up the whole roll.

The next morning when I woke up, the tape was gone - "Shoot - what happened...?" WELL, apparently - I didn't account for the fact that my neighbor's 20 year old son would come home at 2am from working late, see his home wrapped in crime scene tape, think that his parents had been blugeoned and go bolting into their bedroom in a PANIC in the middle of the night. Um - oops. My bad.

A photo of their front door:

Prank #2 - I made a "fake person" in the living room to freak out the family when they woke up. It was a pair of Eric's pants stuffed with crumpled newspaper and posterboard with newspaper taped to it. Zane jumped out of his skin when he turned around and saw it. All day long it kept freaking all of us out (yes - even me):

Prank #3 - Called my mom and informed her that Eric had been asked to pastor a new church about 5 hours away and that we would be moving there in the fall. She bought it - hook, line and sinker. I then proceeded to call my younger (and usually VERY gullible) sister to inform her of the same. She didn't answer so I left it on her voice mail hoping she'd listen to it before she figured out what day it was. [aside - EVERY year I call my mom and sisters and prank them early in the morning with some grandios story before they figure out that it is April Fool's day. I get them EVERY year without fail.]

Prank #4 - We took a picture of our senior pastor's face and blew it up to lifesize and left a copy of it on every chair on Sunday morning. At a specific time during church - the whole congregation held the "masks" over their faces. It got a good laugh from our pastor.

Prank #5 - *this was my personal favorite* I dumped out my "tip jar" and put $49 worth of nickels, dimes and quarters in a ziplock bag to put in the offering basket when it was passed at church. It was FOUR POUNDS. FOUR POUNDS PEOPLE!!!!!!!! I sat in the 2nd row from the front and plopped it in. It was almost the size of the basket. I cannot even begin to describe how funny it was watching EVERY SINGLE PERSON hand that basket all the way up every row! Each time someone handed it off - the receiving person's hands would suddenly sink about 8 inches down from the unexpected weight of the basket. OH MY GOODNESS - it was priceless. P.R.I.C.E.L.E.S.S. I was sobbing I was laughing so hard. Four pounds people!! If you are not crying just thinking about it - you should have your sense of humor revoked! The tithe counters made me buy it back with a check!! They wanted nothing to do with it. *wipes tear* "Is there ANY better day than this...?!"

Prank #6 - This one was a GIFT to me from my sister! My sister - for whom I had left the voice mail prank about moving away - calls me in the afternoon and says very smugly, "I KNOW EVERYTHING YOU SAY TODAY IS A LIE! YOU CAN'T FOOL ME - I KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS!! YOU AREN'T GOING TO GET ME THIS YEAR. YOU MAY BE ABLE TO FOOL MOM BUT I'M ON TO YOU!!! I REMINDED MYSELF EVERY DAY THIS WEEK THAT TODAY WAS APRIL FOOL'S DAY! I WENT TO BED LAST NIGHT TELLING MYSELF OVER AND OVER 'TOMORROW IS APRIL FOOL'S DAY. BE PREPARED. DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING SHE SAYS, IT'S ALL A LIE. DON'T LET HER GET YOU' HA!!! YOU DIDN'T GET ME!!!!!!!!!!!!"



"Wow. You're right - I didn't get you. You are too smart for me. Good thing I didn't put you in a state of total paranoia this past week! And good thing I didn't cause you to lie in bed in a tizzy last night about the fear of being pranked..."

Prank #7 - The video camera in the bathroom was a total success with the guests we had over that day. I'm pretty sure they think I'm nuts!

Well, it was a wonderful day and I was thoroughly exhausted by the end! The kids loved it so much that they were up at 7am (earlier than on Christmas morning) pranking each other.Here is what the girls did to the boys' room with a roll of masking tape:







Merry April Fool's Day to all and to all a Good Night...