Playing Spring Catch-up

Whew! It's been busy around here, but today I'll try to do the catch-up thing.
My brother's family came for a short visit on April Fools day, which was also little Michael's third birthday! He's such a cute little stinker, Joseph and him are going to get in a lot of trouble someday, they like to build on each others ideas (I can just see: "Hey! Let's go outside!" "ok, let's climb on things." "Ok, let's climb on the roof" "ok, let's run around on the roof" "ok, let's see if who can get off first" and etc.) My mom was also able to come, too, so we had a fun family party, with ice cream of course! And even though it was a Thursday we had pizza. Felicity was little put out, she kept telling me we couldn't have pizza until Friday. Farris had to continue his April Fools day tradition. He picked up the boxed theater candy, one box for each of the kids. They excitedly tore into it and ta-da! found rocks. It wasn't quite as good as last years fish joke, but the kids were giggling. I'm pretty sure Michael tried one of the rocks to see if it tasted good. But then Farris was nice and they all got their candy. And then we were picking up rocks off the floor for awhile...The kids had spring break that next week, so we headed to Idaho on Friday, staying at my sisters house in Ogden over night. Joseph went with Robert and Tasha, bless them. We caught conference on the radio and then at Chad and Tarilynn's house (well, Seth and I slept through the second session. It's a good thing they print everything in the Ensign). On Sunday after conference -and a yummy dinner, thanks Tarilynn! --Farris headed back home for his work week and we went to my parent's house. Mom and Dad are re-doing their kitchen, which turned into also redoing their pantry...so they had to re-do the bathroom to make the pantry bigger, and since they were taking out a wall for the kitchen, they had to redo some of the living room, and if they are doing all that, they might as well do the laundry room, too. Whew! It's starting to look great, if their house was here we'd move in. With most of the kitchen cabinets, the oven, stove, and flooring gone, Felicity just looked around, gasping, "How come Grandma and Grandpa ruined their kitchen?" I love the word aghast, so expressive, and that was Felicity. We're excited to go back this summer to see all the new improvements in place. The kids had fun playing all around the house with cousins, on grandpa's gigantic swing set, with all those the books (Felicity loved this cowboy chapter book, who knew the Princess/Fairy girl would like it so much?), and with all those toys in the family room. Caleb had so much fun playing with construx! We're looking on eBay for his birthday present now. We also got to eat lunch with grandma at the school. Felicity even stayed behind one day to help grandma clean up the cafeteria. On Thursday we met Farris in Twin and headed over to his family's house. Farris' family loves to play games, usually card games (well, and the wii, too. Caleb beat the pants off everyone bowling. He got a 200!). We played Pounce. Anybody ever tried that one? I'm thinking I'm going to have some Pounce parties here so I can practice. I need to beat Cindi! Or at least Sam and Geri. Or Farris. Someone, anyway. On Sunday we headed back home. Our daffodils have bloomed and our tulips are getting tall and budding out. The roses are leafing out, and the little seedlings we started in paper cups are getting long and leggy! They need to be planted soon, if it would stop snowing here, anyway. Spring is coming and I'm lovin' it.

Sooooo, anyone want to try Pounce?

Blecccchhh!

OK, if you're squeamish, don't look, but this is hilarious. In a slightly demented way...
http://sweetgrace.typepad.com/the_inadvertent_farmer/2010/03/freaky-friday-funniesmice-marinade.html#comments

So Sorry!

I just found out that one of my songs on my playlist was changed (NOT by me) to a horrible voice saying horrible things. I'm so sorry! I have no idea what happened. So, I removed the song list and I'm thinking I won't be putting it back until I figure out what happened. Sorry if you were offended, 'cause so was I!

What I've been up to...

The last of November and most of December I practically lived in our guest/storage/CRAFT room. Grrrr. I was a grumpy mom and my floors did not get mopped. So when I was all caught up with the current projects (I have several projects that are sitting and waiting, and waiting), I put the cover on my sewing machine and left. Then the last few weeks, babies started to be born all over the place (with more on the way. Luckily, none heading my way) and I found this cute tutorial for Eddy Caps:
http://mushroomvillagers.wordpress.com/the-eddie-cap-tutorial/
And now I've made three. Plus a couple pairs of baby booties, here's the tutorial for it, too:
http://heatherbailey.typepad.com/heather_bailey/2006/06/bitty_booties.html
My sister in law had an adorable girl named Charley so I added this flower to the hat: http://cuegly.blogspot.com/2010/03/craft-concoction-friday-burlap-ish.html
And of course I had to make it all harder on myself and I added my own spin to everything. The Eddy caps tutorial is for a four year old sized head, but I needed it for babies, so I reduced it down about a third. You can find average hat sizes all over on google if you can't measure a head before you make it. First, though, I made one for Joseph (he's close enough to four) to make sure it all went smoothly. I have silly pictures of him in it, but grrr, my camera is still not communicating with the computer, so no posting. I found out that where she says to baste, really, it's much easier on yourself if you actually do it. I hate basting, but sometimes it's important. And then I had the thought, why don't I line it and make it a reversible hat? So I figured it out (The trick is to make the two band strips the same width instead of one smaller, and then baste it all together so that you can stitch it so it looks nice on both sides. This will make more sense after you read the tutorial. Or come to my house and I'll show you! ) For the ribbon flower I used regular ribbon instead of burlap, and I sewed it instead of using the hot glue and glue dots, but then I hot glued the petals all together on a piece of ribbon, and added a circle of flannel with button on the front. Then, because I made the hat reversible, I sewed snaps onto both sides of the hat and a snap on the flower so you can move it to whichever side you want to show (I made sure to put the poky half of the snap on the flower so it wouldn't poke the poor baby's head). I'm going to make more of the flowers, they're easy and Felicity loved them. And I have a lot of cute nieces! Ohhhh, if I have green ribbon, I could make a St. Patrick's day one...hmmm, I better get on that.

ok, ok, just one more...

I know most of what I've been blogging about lately is the silly things that my kids say, but this one really made me laugh. I'd been explaining to Caleb what a Butler was. He mentioned it to Joseph, who (in shocked tones) said "CALEB! Say BUM-ler not BUT-ler!"
Hee-hee. Can you tell what we've been reminding Joseph not to say lately?

2-Second Post

Just a quick hee-hee moment from the kids tonight: Caleb and Joseph were singing "I've been looking for the railroad" tonight. When we tried to explain to them that it was "working" they just giggled, I guess they thought we were teasing.
Then, before bed Farris asked Joseph if he was going to be happy in the morning (sometimes we have problems with that), and Joseph answered. "Yes, I'm going to play and say funny things." At least he knows his job in our family.

Sharin' the humor

My parents visited this weekend and took us out to eat at a Chinese Restaurant. Of course at the end of the meal we got the check with a fortune cookie for each of us. The fortunes always make me laugh, but I don't take them seriously (see, I put one to the test once. When I lived with my sisters in Salt Lake for a year, I got a fortune that said "You will be married in one year." We laughed and put the date on it, then carried it around in my day planner for a year. True scientific experiment.) Anyway, back to the point. Mine said "Share your abundant humor with others at this time. They need it." Don't we all at this time! But I live with four little abundant humor-machines (and one big one), so I'm going to share away. At first I thought I could just offer a chances to babysit, but then I decided to share it with everyone who reads this blog. Although if you would like to babysit... And to make this a Humor Fest, please leave some of your own stories in the comments and we can all lose a little stress.

First, Joseph's fortune said: "You will soon be changing your present line of work." So I'm wondering if that means he's going to stop being a barber, an Artist (on the wall or couch, usually), a boxer, a Super Hero, or a professional Irritator of the Sister. I'll keep you informed on which ever he gives up.

Tonight at dinner, the kids must have caught a sharing the humor vibe, because they began their barrage of Knock-Knock Jokes. Farris shakes his head and says"It's just like Pa Grape says 'You just don't get it.'" (and I've never been to Boston in the fall...) Caleb began: "Knock Knock!"
We said: "Who's there?" Caleb: "Banana" Us: "Banana who?" Caleb:"I'm a banana, come in and eat me!" So then Joseph chimes in. Joseph: Knock Knock!" Us: "Who's there?" Joseph: "Banana!" Us: "Banana who?" Joseph: "Banana eye!" (hysterical laughing) Caleb: "Banana eye who?" Joseph: "Banana eye CHICKEN!" (More hysterical laughing)

Joseph has been on an "anything chicken, is funny" kick for awhile. The other day when my parents were here, we were talking about what Farris would say if the kids were gone. I said"He'd say 'where's my kids?'" and Joseph said "No, he'd say 'where's my CHICKEN!'" I think he gets it from the Child side of the family.

The funniest story I've heard for awhile is from my sister Melissa, who works at a Walgreen's Pharmacy. She said that a small, wrinkled old man came in, saying he wanted this drug that he had heard about. He said that it made the guy on T.V. feel younger, stronger, faster, healthier, lose weight, etc. Then he slid the paper with the name of the medicine written on it across the counter to my sister. It said "Triathlon."