Oh Lulu

Walking through the grocery store meat department and Lulu suddenly says, "Mom, Maurice from my class eats kitty-cats. His mom even said he does."
I looked at her, a little troubled and said, "Maurice eats kitty-cats? Real kitty-cats?"
"Yes. His mom even said."
I am horrible because I happen to know Maurice's mother is from another culture. I thought maybe cat is a delicacy there.
Poor Emma was just grossed out.
And then a light bulb went off for us both at the same time.
Miss Lulu's favorite candy bar is a Kit-Kat. She calls them "kitty-cats".
It didn't seem so bad after that.

Lulu: Mom why do you like coming to JoAnn's so much?

Me: Because craft stores make me happy. Doesn't JoAnn's make you happy?

Lulu: No. Candy stores make me happy. And toy stores.

And The Hits Just Keep Coming

As if my baby having the audacity to grow up isn't painful enough, Sass has to go and start changing herself. For a few weeks now . . . okay all summer, I've been ignoring signs of maturity in Sass. But one thing could not be ignored any longer. The girl is a monkey. The hair on her legs has gotten so dark and so long that she stopped wearing shorts about 3 weeks ago to hide them. I've been putting off the inevitable because I felt she was too young, but really I've never seen hairier legs. So I helped her shave today. We used the electric razor. The girl had so much hair that I had to recharge it twice before we were through. And we weren't really through when we stopped. It was time to leave for church. You guess which is the before and which is the after. And yes those are Sass' legs not Awesome's.

Lulu turns 4. *sob*

Today Lulu turned 4. Yes that IS the sound of my heart breaking. Nobody told me how hard it would be to watch your baby grow. Anyway. She wanted a Rapunzel party. More accurately she wanted a Tangled party. Of course to have a Rapunzel party you have to have hair. So we made a large braid. And we had to have a tower cake. This is how it started. It was my first time building a support structure for a cake. I felt very "Ace of Cakes". I mean look at it, PVC was involved. The finished cake. The plan was to cover the PVC in rice crispy treats and cover that in fondant, but the rice crispy treats would not stick to the pipe. So. I painted it. There would have been more details if I had had more time.This is the flag banner that I made. I cut those pennants out myself and hand painted each of those suns. Then I tediously hung each one on the string. Never, Lulu dear, forget the details. Or your mother's desire to make things memorable for you. Or just her insanity.We played "Pin the Nose on Flynn".Remember that braid I made? Yeah we used that for tug-of-war.Then we played a game I call "tangled". I split the kids into teams of two and gave them a roll of yellow streamers. On "go" they had to tangle one person on their team in the streamer. They loved this and we would probably have played it multiple times if it hadn't be gale force winds out there.We also played hide 'n seek, a favorite of Rapunzel and Pascal.
These are all of Lulu's besties. Well all but one. Most notably missing would be little S. Pommerville. We will forgive her absence seeing how she lives two states away.
Mother Nature tried desperately to thwart my plans but we casually did our best to ignore her. The kids just moved inside when the wind nearly carried them away and ran amok in the house. Good thing I spent days cleaning up EVERY ROOM. That way it was a clean slate for their chaos. I did buy some wish lanterns to send off (I mean come on you can't really have a Tangled party without lanterns). But score one for MN because it was much to windy to light those. Despite that little snafu it remained a fun party.
Love you Goosie Lou.

Little Grasshopper

Back in early summer I asked "Who wants to play soccer this year?" I was asking the older kids, specifically Ethan and Emma. Lulu immediately replied that she did. I talked to her about it. I told her if I signed her up that meant she really had to play. She told me okay. I discussed this with her several times before I officially signed her up. She seemed to understand and agree with the requirements.

So we are clear, the above photo is a misrepresentation of Lulu as a soccer player. The following is more accurate. She will play with her daddy. And NO ONE ELSE. If Lulu doesn't know you she is extremely shy around you. Before her first game she had two practices. Both of them she refused to leave her parent's side. She didn't like the other people watching her. Knowing this I resorted to bribery on game day. I told her she couldn't have her birthday party if she didn't play. I brought some M&M's with me and told her she could have five every time she went on the field (by half time I told her I would give her the whole container if she would just run with her team, she didn't even have to try to kick it). I told her if she played I would buy her a new bike. Finally with five minutes before the end of the game she agreed to go on the field. IF. If I went with her and ran around with her. I'm weak. I caved. I ran around the soccer field with her. I did put my foot down and wouldn't let her hold my hand. It was the only way, people. The only way to get her out there. She even kicked it once. But just once.

*BIG SIGH* This is going to be a long season.

Yellowstone take two

I'm a planner. I like making lists and doing research. I plan trips months in advance and reserve places to stay. Awesome is a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of guy.
Monday he came home and said he thought we should go to Yellowstone for the weekend. Have you ever tried to get any form of accommodation in the Yellowstone area in August with less than seven days notice? It was nearly impossible. Fortunately we have some friends that live close to Yellowstone. Well closer than us. Within two hours. So. We invited ourselves up for the weekend, cuz we're classy like that.

The night before we were supposed to leave my mom asked if I had heard about the funnel clouds spotted in northern Utah. Ethan has a mortal dread of all natural disasters. Mix this with his natural born tendency to worry and you get a nearly panicked child. He immediately asked if we could fly to Yellowstone instead or driving. Umm, no. All along the way he worriedly watched the sky.

(By the way that isn't debris flying around, those are bugs that had unfortunate meetings with our windshield).

As we neared Rexburg, Idaho, the skies turned black and it was obvious a downpour was in front of us. Ethan's eyes were huge and he asked, "What is that?" Lulu, sitting next to him, asked what he really wanted to know, "Is that a 'tomato'?" We explained that no it was not a "tomato" if it was a "tomato" we would probably have lots of wind. And the mass would be swirling. And you would see debris like shingles and car parts and cows and a witch on a bicycle flying through the air. So clearly it was no "tomato". It was still ugly. And looked scary.

We made it to the Pommerville's home without incidence. It was a load off Ethan's mind. The next day both families headed to Yellowstone park. We had gone earlier this summer but if you are keeping up than you may remember it snowed when were there. And there were road closures. And snow. And temps in the 30's. And snow.

This time we got to see Old Faithful.

This time the kids were happier (most of them) and Olivia made a new best friend in our friend's little girl.

Sassy was on crutches and was less than enthusiastic to walk around and see geysers.

This time we saw more animals-three bear, a lot of elk, some bison (no herds), a wolf, and lots of these:

Very aggressive chipmunks. These critters came towards us. As I was taking this picture he kept coming closer-less than a foot away. It was a little creepy. The only animal I really wanted to see but didn't was a moose. I was boo-hooing about that when Sass said, "Hey mom, turn around." I turned around and saw four moose. The cutest moose ever.

It was an great last minute trip. We loved hanging out with the Pommervilles. Thank you for your hospitality and all around awesomeness.

Ethan figures out the truth at an early age

"Mom why are you so crazy about cleaning and safety and lots of other stuff. I think you are just crazy. "

He also asked me on the way to Wal-Mart, "I saw this question on the computer, 'how do you get pregnant?' so mom how DO you get pregnant?"