Little Big Problems

Have you ever noticed how little problems can become big problems, especially when you have kids? I love my kids to the depths of my soul.  For reals.  They are my life.  But they drive me crazy.  My kids sometimes think that thee tiniest, most ridiculous things are deserving of making a HUGE deal out of.

We have FREQUENT battles over such vitally important things as: who sits where in the car, whose turn it is to pick the TV show, and who gets to stand right in front of the sink while everyone is brushing their teeth. (Seriously this one got sooo bad they all have to take turns brushing their teeth now).  Lately, the things they choose to fight about seems to be getting weirder and weirder and dumber and dumber. Here are some examples of actual things my kids have fought about recently:

• We have two identical little green plates from Ikea.  Cora and Dax had an epic shouting match over who got to use the one they perceived to be ever-so-slightly lighter green.  Like their lives depended on it.  They are THE SAME PLATE.
• Cora and Arden nearly came to blows because they both wanted to sit on the same corner of the ottoman while they put their shoes on.  The other three corners of the very large ottoman sat empty.  
• All three of them were screaming at each other about whether "Baby Peach" in Super Mario Kart is Princess Peach's little sister or her daughter.  (I personally think that Baby Peach is just a younger version of the same princess, but I dared not put forth this theory for fear of getting screamed at).
• There was a very big fight about whether a stuffed dog was a girl or a boy.  "It is a boy, because its collar is green!"  "Nuh-UH!  Green is not a boy color!"  "Its a GIRL because her fur is WHITE!"  "NUH-UHHHH!" "UH-HUUUUH!"  Etc, times infinity...or until timeout at least. 
• And my personal favorite, they have had multiple fights over who gets to SAY THE PRAYER at dinner. It is so spiritually uplifting to hear Cora and Dax both start saying a prayer at the same time...they both increase in volume until it is "prayelling," which of course quickly dissolves into whining.  Here is an example:  "Dear Heavenly Father, thANK YOU FOR THISHEEEEEY!!! I WAS PRAYING FIRRRRRRST!!!  MOOOOOOM!!!!).  I am pretty sure God is plugging his ears at this point.  I know I am.
• Don't get me started on trying to play Candyland with these yahoos.

This is just a very, VERY small sample of the stuff that gets argued about at my house.  There is nothing these guys can't fight about.

Good thing they are so dang cute.  

I love the way that Dax calls his favorite cookies "Snickerdoodle-Doos." He is always getting in trouble for trying to sneak extra ones when he thinks no one is looking, just like his dad.  I was sleeping on the couch earlier this week (Preston has a stuffy nose, and has been snoring insanely loudly), when something woke me up in the semi-darkness of early morning.  I sat up and looked around over to the kitchen, and there was Dax, trying to sneak the entire Tupperware full of the cookies I had baked the night before up to his room.   (He succeeded in a similar attempt with a box of Fiber One Brownies a couple of weeks ago.  I found five or six wrappers in his bed at the cabin one day.  He got his own punishment from that transgression, poor kid.  Clearly, though, it didn't ruin his taste for illicit early-morning treats).  

Cora makes me laugh every day with the things she says.  The other day I found her looking at her toes in a concerned way.  I asked her what was wrong, and she held up a piece of black sock-lint.  "Mom!" she said, her little brows furrowed, "I keep finding this hair between my toes!  Do you grow hair in your toes too?"  

I love how excited Arden is for her birthday next week.  She cannot think about anything else.  She has been planning her party for weeks, already has requested a chocolate cake with white frosting, and has already got a list of people she is inviting to her party all ready on a clipboard so she can write down the info for thank you notes.  Makes me wonder...at what point do birthdays become something to be dreaded?  Truth be told, I am starting to dread not only my birthday, but the kids' too!  Arden CAN'T possibly be NINE YEARS OLD, can she?  Make it stop.

I face my own little big problem each week on laundry day.  My problem is socks.  Why would socks be such a problem, you ask?  Because...

They.  Don't.  MATCH.  I would just throw them all in the garbage right now, but I know if I did that, next week I would have the EXACT SAME PILE on my bed at the end of laundry night.  As soon as I throw one away, its friend shows up.  Hence the ever-increasing sock pile.  It is my own fault for buying so many cutesy socks.  Only plain white or black from now on!  It may seem little to you, but socks make me want to scream.

I suspect that Olive may be relocating the socks to places unknown.  Socks are one of her favorite chew toys...slightly behind Cora's pink boots.  Bad dog:

What is the dumbest thing your kids fight about, or that you used to fight with your siblings about?

Little Valentine Thoughts

Happy Valentines Day everyone!  

The kids have Presidents Day off of school, so we decided to head out of town to (you guessed it) Bear Lake.  I am sitting under a cozy blanket, listening to the kids downstairs, NOT going to sleep.  I am trying my best to ignore it though.  I had visions of sledding and skiing this weekend, but it was in the 50s today, even up here.  There is hardly a trace of snow to be found.  It is completely weird, but I have GOT to say, I am really, REALLY enjoying it.  I know we need the water, and I do hope it snows like crazy (in the mountains) before the winter is officially over, but my heart still gave a little flutter when I saw these little foolhardy beauties sticking up out of the ground the other day:

LOVE it.  It may have been a rash decision on their part to show themselves so early, but I was happy to see them anyway.   With the weather in the 60s in February, and the lack of inversions, I am calling this the best winter EVER.

Yesterday was the "Valentimes" parties at the elementary school.  I LOVE how excited the kids all were.  They all had their Valentines all addressed and ready days and days in advance.  I foolishly signed up to help at both the kindergarten party and the 3rd grade party (I help at Dax's class every other week, so the girls get the parties).

First was the kindergarten party.  Cora was very excited for Valentines Day.  I don't know if you know this, but Cora has usually got some little boy in her class or other pegged as her "boyfriend." Sometimes more than one.  I am not sure if they are always on board with being her boyfriend, but sometimes they are.  Lately it has been this guy, who is totally, completely on board:

Cora had been talking about "her boyfriend" for a while.  Cora came home from school a few weeks back with a sticky note from his mom with his number on it.  Turns out he had been talking about Cora so much, she figured we better do a playdate.  It turns out he lives just up the street and around the corner from us.  The little love birds have been having pretty frequent playdates since then.  I did overhear him once in the playroom trying to convince Cora to do "eskimo kisses" (rub noses together), but she said "Nooo waaaay!" Atta girl.  Let's all just hope she remembers how to say 'no way' to kisses from her boyfriends when she is a teenager.    

Anyway, back to the party....the kindergartners had great fun playing games, making cookies, and doing crafts.  The kinders also exchanged Valentines (of course), and Cora has been sugared up pretty much ever since.

After a short break, I headed over the 3rd grade party.  Arden, unlike her little sister, will not admit to liking any boys, but I know she does because I hear her and her friends whispering sometimes :)  Scary.  Anyway, the 3rd graders were pretty much doing the same stuff as the kinders...cookies, games, crafts.  I was in charge of the craft, but we only had 10 minutes per group instead of the 15 I was originally told, so we consistently ran out of time before most kids were finished with the project. I was running around like crazy trying to help everyone as best I could, and I must admit that by the end of the party, I was exhausted.  So sorry to the moms who had a half-finished puppy puppet to work on last night!

No rest for the weary though, I had to run home and try and get everything packed for our weekend trip.  We headed out on time, but we had to make a detour along the way.  Dax had left his beloved stuffed buffalo, "Buffy," at Preston's brother's house a while back, and he was missing his buddy pretty bad.  Our little Buffy rescue mission took longer than we thought, so we changed our plans and stopped in Logan at Texas Roadhouse to celebrate my Dad's 64th birthday, instead of eating at Bear Lake.

The kids were superexcited that we ended up at Texas Roadhouse...partly because they love to eat 17 rolls each and then not eat any dinner, and partly because they know that if you celebrate your birthday at Texas Roadhouse, you get to sit on the "Birthday Saddle" while everyone says "YEE-HAW!" for you.    

Grandpa, however, didn't seem to want to climb up on top of the birthday saddle, and refused to leave his cozy spot in the corner of the booth:

The server tried to help convince Grandpa by saying that if he sat on the saddle, he would get some free ice cream.  When the kids heard that free ice cream was involved, they quickly volunteered to sit on the saddle on Grandpa's behalf.  For a fee, of course.  They all wanted ice cream, so they all three squeezed themselves up there in the saddle.  They sure looked cute doing it:

We finished the drive up the canyon in the dark, and got unpacked a little after bedtime. While unpacking, I discovered that Dax had snuck his entire stash of Valentines into the back seat with him, and pretty much destroyed all the candy on the way up here.  Wrappers EVERYWHERE.  Nice.

This morning, Dax (of course) woke us all up early, but at least that meant I got to see this beautiful sunrise:

We all had a fun, lazy Valentines Day.  I got to go for a beautiful run this morning (BEST WINTER EVER!) and then we spent a lazy day watching movies, doing crafts, and playing outside.  Grandpa was trying to spread some gravel around that yard, and Arden kept stealing his shovel when he wasn't watching.  Olive came along with us, of course, and has had a great time going on walks and playing with her friend, Annie, from next door.  It was a pretty low-key day, but fun anyways.

I hope you all had a fun Valentines Day with your favorite people too.  Happy Valentines Day!

The Things I Wonder About At 3 A.M.

As I may have mentioned, Preston is a snorer.  Especially if he has any kind of sniffle, or cold, or allergy or anything remotely close to a sniffle, cold, or allergy.  Or if he is perfectly healthy and just laying on his back.  Usually, I will roll him over once or twice, and if the snoring continues I relocate to the couch.  A week or two ago, my relocations were getting pretty frequent, so Preston gallantly volunteered to sleep downstairs one night so I could actually spend a whole night in my own bed.  I happily went to sleep.

Around 3 a.m., I rolled over and saw this:

(It was really dark so I couldn't tell at all what I was taking a picture of, so everything got a little cropped out of the frame.  But, if you can't tell, next to me is Cora, dead asleep all curled up in a little ball with her knees up to her chest.  Snuggling right next to Cora's hindquarters is Olive, and unfortunately cropped out of the picture, she is laying on her back with her hind feet pretty much straight up in the air.)

After I did a double take, here is what ran through my half-asleep brain:

When the heck did Cora get in here without waking me up?  Wait...
Does that mean that a stranger could come in my house and get right in my bed with me without my noticing?  Nice.

Aw, she's so cute.  She is sleeping just like a little baby, with her knees up like that....Wait.

How in the world is it comfortable for her to sleep like that?

And the dog is sleeping like a person, flat on her back.  Except a person's feet don't fly up in the air. Dogs are weird.  In lots of ways.  They can't sweat.  They run really fast.  It totally bugs me when I take Olive on runs and she is barely above a walk while I am going as fast as I can.  Dogs also eat their own barf.   Wait...

Why is the barf-eating dog taking up half the bed?  She has her own bed on the floor.  Well, I read somewhere that dogs are pack animals and like to sleep with their pack.  I wonder if I am the alpha dog.  Who am I kidding?  Cora is obviously the alpha dog.  Wait...

Are Cora's legs falling asleep?  What if all the blood flow is cut off, will she be able to walk tomorrow? And, at what point in your life are you too old to sleep in the fetal position like that?  I don't know if I ever slept like that.  Wait...

What are the odds that this is the one night that Cora accidentally pees the bed?

Why don't I have a waterproof mattress cover on this bed?

Should I try to move her, or would that wake her up?  I really don't want to do a tantrum right now.  Best not to risk it.

Hmmmm...if she is staying here, she doesn't look very covered up.  But the dog is on top of the blanket.  If I try to pull the covers up, will it wake up the dog?
If the dog wakes up, will she want me to take her outside?  It is cold, I don't want to take the dog out in the middle of the night.  Even if she doesn't want to go out, will she wake up Cora?  I guess I will just leave it how it is.  It is actually pretty cute.  Wait...

Should I take a picture of this?  Yup.