Shopping Cart Shenanigans {and the mom's who photograph them}

Yeah. So things are nothing short of chaos around this place about 97% of the time, right? Well, this Christmas break absolutely failed to disappoint. Sometimes I wonder if that is good or bad. Anyway....there I was, doing dishes, when I hear WAY too much laughter flowing from Remy's room. Of course, that much laughing can mean only one thing.....

all

kinds

of trouble.

So I make my way to the bedroom, camera in hand, and this is what I see:

Hmmm. Good thing I brought the camera, right?
Apparently, it is a boy's DNA to do dangerous things with a shopping cart, regardless of the size or quality of said cart. Needless to say, I stayed to snap a few more shots.
Things got a bit rough right away...
and after only about two or three times down, my common sense kicked in, and the shopping cart shenanigans were put to a stop.

For now at least. Will I ever get used to this?

cute {boys}

We all took a trip to Brodie's school last week for his class party. It was insanity, but totally worth the slight (to severe) headache. He loves going home with mom before school is actually over. It really is the little things. Isn't it? Remy wondered the halls with me, which was all too cute. Tai spent most of the time with Brodie making projects and meeting his friends. I did, however, catch this gem of a shot:

Really? These moments make me happy.

Pete Schweddy's Got Nothin' on these Balls!

And we're back!!!!!(In creepy radio personality voice). Oh, how I've missed you, and I can only surmise, that the feeling is mutual. So, I've been on hiatus from my obsessive blogging, but I assure you that it was only to make it through what is the insanity of the holiday season. Though I have been slacking, I promise that my children have not taken any breaks from their typical insanity.

Rewind.... about a month ago, a friend of mine brought this amazing little treat to our small group. It was heavenly. It was these delectable little balls of peanut butter and rice crispies enveloped in a rich chocolate shell. Mmmmmm. I decided that this would be my contribution to our Thanksgiving holiday celebration, so just days before Thanksgiving, Matthew went out and obtained all necessary ingredients, and the countdown began. For days, which folded into weeks my kids asked me "What is all this stuff for?" and "When are we making the special treat?" "Mom! You said that we could make our desert today!" They were right...

I was slacking. Not completely out of character for me, I must say. Still, there is no excuse for making small children wait weeks to make junk food. None. Needless to say, Thanksgiving saw no such treat, but the day before Christmas eve, they cornered me.

"Mom, let's make a delicious treat." Tai is hilarious. Love him. He then says "I will wear my chef clothes!" For those of you who don't know, Matai is going to be a chef, and he is completely serious about it.

"I want some CHef clothes too!" Says Brodie (mind you chef has a very hard "CH" sound. He doesn't believe me that it is pronounced shef. Kids and all of their newly obtained knowledge!) However, we only had one costume and he had to make do with an old Home Depot apron. He is creative.

So it began. I can't even tell you how many times we had to stop to wash hands when a wandering finger made it's way into a salivating mouth just seconds after being reminded NOT TO LICK!!!! Ahhhh! Stressful as it was, (and very, very messy), in the end, we had these wonderful little treats that I am sure rival SNL's Schweddy Balls. Matthew has taken to calling them the Kruk Family Jewels. Not sure this will stick considering it is a stolen recipe! Anyway.....here are the chefs:

Brode Man

Every now and then this little man surprises me. He likes to think that he is a total tough guy. He is, in fact, just as sweet as pie. Today, we made cookies at Nina's house and Winnie came over too. They had a blast playing hide and seek for what seemed like a zillion years. Brodie found the perfect hiding spot, and it took Winnie and Matai about fifteen minutes to find him (I had to tell him to come out). Winnie, who is their little cousin, wanted a chance to hide, so she ran to her spot, which was just about in plain sight. My brother whispered to Brodie "Can you let her think that you don't know where she is? Pretend that you can't find her for minute." Brodie just said, "I know that." He humored her for a few minutes, and all was well in world of cousins. He is so cool.

Again?

See Remy.

See Remy enjoy an Oreo McFlury.

Mmmmm. Looks good. Right.

See WHERE Remy found his McFlury.

Gross Rem. Now, this is first time that this has happened since my last garbage eating post, I swear. However, it is the absolute worst garbage eating event as of yet. Lets hope it is the last.

Ahhhh!

For those of you who thought that perhaps my Remy could not possibly get any cuter than this:

I regret to inform you that you were

very

sadly

mistaken.

As a result of our newly diagnosed stigmatism, Remy is now sporting his very own pair of specs.

And holy geez, it is freaking adorable.

Really?!

tickle {tickle}

Kids are weird. I don't know that I will ever be ready for some of the whacked out things that come out of their mouths, or the strange things that they actually physically do. I can, however, promise that if something ridiculous happens, my camera will be near by....how else am I going to blog, right?

Dinner time, Friday night. I'm totally lazy by Friday, so pizza it is. The divying up goes as follows, Brodie usually eats three whole pieces, Matai eats one whole peice, and Remy gets one piece cut up into smaller bite sized peices (we use scissors, it makes it super easy. Write that down). Today, little Rem-dog finished his 'za and wanted some more. Dadio decided to give him a whole piece this time. So, super excited little boy picks up his slice and says "Oooh. Coool." So cute. I, of course, run for the camera. No joke this is what happens. Little man strips his slice of all of it's cheese, and proceeds to tickle his pizza. Observe:

"tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle" Ahhh, he is so cool.

the fight of the century!

Now, let me just say, that you will ONLY see this here. A never before seen smack down for the history books went down in my very own kitchen. Oh yes....

Snake Eyes

vs

Batman

Things got off to a rough start. Snake Eyes is a bit unsure of his skills.

Batman took the lead pretty early in the game.
Oooh! An injury sustained just moments in. And I quote: "Ow! He hit me in the part of my head that makes my brain work!" ....that would be his temple.

Poor Snake Eyes.
No mercy. He learned that from Johnny.

Can you believe that jump kick from Snake Eyes? Batman is totally Zen.

Batman has a soft spot for the underdog. He helped Snake Eyes with some minor repairs to his weaponry.

There you have it. The perks of motherhood are many. This will be legend.

I a play.

Dear Tuberous Sclerosis Complex,

You suck, and Remy is going to destroy you.

Picture this:

Remy, in his playpen...it's 10:43 pm, and he should have been sleeping hours ago.

I hear, "Look! Look!"

I look over to see him pointing at his own picture on a shelf on the wall. Too cute. And super exciting I might add. Just a couple of minutes later, my incredible, amazing, beautiful, child (who is missing a huge chunk of his brain) says this:

"I a out"

I say "I know you want out, but it is night night time."

He replies "I a out. I play."

Grinning like a lunatic and with flutters in my own belly I say: "No, it isn't time to play." To which, I get the quintessential toddler response. "Why?"

Ha! Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached two!

Eventually I hear him, while sitting on the floor of his playpen, holding his Mickey Mouse (which he ferociously makes out with on a minute by minute basis) he says this. "No night night. No night night Mickey."

Really?!

Can anyone BE

this

amazing?

Him. He IS that amazing.

good times.

"Mom! Now can we make the gingerbread train?"

"Yeah mom. We want to make a gingerbread train. We have gingerbread men to put in it from Nina's house."

"Please! We reeeaaalllyyy want to make the gingerbead train!"

We probably had this conversation about 39 times in the span of four days. I could not figure out what it was about the gingerbread train that had them so worked up. Finally, on day four, I had no excuse. No real reason why we could not assemble this piece of work. So we did. As you can see, Matai was

so.

so.

pumped.

So there we were, breaking up the cookie pieces, opening the various frostings, and taking stock of the the differant candy varieties that would adorn said train. I mean, these kids are shaking they are so excited. Still, I can not figure out why they are so happy to put this thing together. It is, after all, just decoration, right? About six minutes into the decoration process, I hear the question for the first time.

"Can we eat it now?"

Ah. Now it all makes sense.

Mommy's little {garbage eater}

Blah! Can I just say that there is no way on this crazy planet that one can be prepared for what raising three boys will entail. Obviously, it is an adventure, one that leaves me nautious some days, but still, an adventure. I adore NEARLY every second of raising my little freak shows, but still....come on! Now tell me, have I disgusted you all enough with my previous posts, or are you ready for more? I say

bring.

it.

on.

Right? Ok, so Remy's latest and greatest: He LOVES trash. He loves to play in it, eat it, throw it around, crawl in it, stomp on it. Whatever. So typically, I just reroute the little punk, but this time, I needed documentation. I needed to remember this. I wanted a picture, because though atrocious it may be, it is semi-normal. He has to stand in front of the can to feast, which he does, regularly.He also has to reach really far down inside without falling, another good therapy exercise, right? Right.... Here he is shopping:

So busted.

He knows too. That is what kills me. He hears me coming and just works faster so that he can finish before I can get my hands on him. Maybe he does have a little of me in him after all.

Oh, here is one of him snacking on a cheerio he found on the floor near the garbage. Listen, no judgement. If your child has never eaten garbage, or dirt, or old food on the kitchen floor or lady bugs (Matai's chosen delicacy), then maybe I will sign up for your parenting class. Otherwise, lets just enjoy the story, k?

Oh, and did I mention that he is walking? Yeah....walking.

~sigh~

~double sigh~ I.love.him. Garbage breath or not.

genius

This kid. Oh....this kid. I love this kid for reasons that I cant even put into words. He is quirky, and sensitive, and silly, and spaztic, and creative, and strange, and beautiful and....completely insanely genius.

Brodie is crazy proud of the fact that he can now read chapter books. He read his first one at home this week, and was super psyched to use a bookmark at the end of chapter five so he could go to sleep. Even more impressive to him than the fact that he can actually read said book, is the fact that he can't read it all in one sitting, and therefore it is necessary to utilize a tool designed to mark his place. Oh, to be excited over a book mark. These are the days. Right?

By the way....report cards came to day. Again, I say, genius.

You're kidding...right?

This is SO not what I had planned on writing about this morning. I had a super cute story laid out, with adorable pictures and sweetness. However, things have changed. Things have transpired in this household that 1. can NOT be ignored. 2. changed the way that will be cleaning the boy's bathroom. and 3. made me want to vomit.

This boy.....

....looking innocent and sweet and to the untrained eye....clean, is gross.

So this boy, this beautiful little child, has a problem. He CAN NOT pull himself away from anything engaging in order to go to the bathroom. Now you see, I don't desire to be the blog-mom who gets readers based on fart and poop jokes, but it just so happens that I am, in fact, surrounded by farts and poop. Yuck.

Alright, now picture this. Super cute bathroom, used by super cute boys, smelling like an outhouse. I don't get it. I have been bleaching that floor constantly, and still, it stinks. I only go in there to clean, and to make sure that it is presentable for guests, which is no small feat when it is used by little boys. While the stink is a constant in our hallway bathroom, this past couple of days has been a little more intense than in recent history. Last night, I was collecting laundry, and when I went into "THE bathroom", I hit a wall of stank. I think I even gagged a little. I had to find the source. So, I pick up the laundry and take it to the laundry room. I clean the toilet seat and bowl and then scrub the floor around the front of the toilet. Still smells. I move around to the side of the toilet to clean behind and.......that is when I found it. At first I thought that some laundry had just gotten back there, but upon further investigation, I learned that this was not the case. As I reached around and picked up a pair of underwear, out it falls. Oh yes, poop. and under that first pair of disgusting Pirates of the Caribbean underwear was a pair of soiled Star Wars underwear. And you guessed it, under that pair of soiled Star Wars underwear, was a pair of poopy tighty whities.

Really?! Stashed poopy underwear? Where on earth do they come up with this stuff?

Needless to say, we questioned the suspect, received a full confession and he has been given his sentence. No Wii or computer, because they are life suckers that do not allow him to get up and POOP!

Wait a minute.

Yeah, so I guess that 10 years ago, if someone would have told me that the back of my car would look like this:

I would NEVER have believed it. Skateboards and helmets and knee pads and elbow pads and wrist guards and strollers and a walker and toys and blankets for the drive in and probably a few old french fries too. The thing that I love so much about my life is that is so far from anything that I ever could have imagined. I mean, I guess that I knew I would be a mom and that I would marry someone one who loves me insanely. That I would have a healthy and loving marriage with and amazing man. Still, it is crazy, and

filled

with

boys....

~sigh~ I am in love.