Junk Drawer...

You know that drawer in your house, usually in the kitchen, that seems to have become a home for all of the random items that seem to have no where else to go? They don't really belong to any certain category, so they all just get glommed together in a big, random drawer. Well, here is the junk drawer of blog posts...


*Our third car garage is a separate and lovely space, with tools and peg-board and a dart board and generally boyish kinds of stuff. The boys (all three of them) have claimed this space and nicknamed it "The Man Garage." Ha ha, funny funny, inside joke. Until I heard the darling nine-year-old neighbor girl say the other day, "Hey, Mitch! Let's go get some of the toys out of the man garage!" Nice.


*While the boys and I were flying back from Michigan last Sunday (Mike had to take a different flight), I approached the gate lady and asked her to reassign our seats, as I was in 5D, Matty was in 9B, and Mitch was in 11A. The lady looked at me (with the hooligans right there), and said, "Well, yeah. The thing is that the flight is completely booked so I really can not switch seats just because you want to sit together." My reply, "Well, yeah. They are 4 and 2, and I really do not want to sit together, but I probably should, and I bet that the people sitting right next to them right now would love for you to figure something out." Duh.


*We returned home to find a series of notes and checklists in our kitchen that the darling neighbor girl (aka, the catsitter) had written to herself. This is a favorite.




*I love being a mother of boys, especially boys' boys. Boys who love to work. With tools. You never know when you are going to walk around a corner and see things like this. Plastic power drill. Box of real screws pilfered out of the man garage. Bag of goldfish.

*Speaking of boys who live in my house, the following are not uncommon sights. You never know when you are going to find a pile of rocks just sitting on the kitchen counter. This would be the work of Matty. He is our rock guy.


Or wander into your kitchen to find bungee cords strapped to your chandelier. Thank you, Mitch.

The truly sad part is that I did not even really notice the rocks or the booby trap until the neighbor girl (gosh, she is showing up quite a bit today) walked into the kitchen, made a strange face, and started asking me questions.

*I had the pleasure of subbing in Mitch's class this past week, observing first hand what a strange ranger the boy is. They were talking about the letter Ss, and beloved Ms. Pam showed them a picture of a seagull and asked them if they knew where seagulls lived. One child (not mine, but it is still funny) shouted out, "In the Wal-mart parking lot!" Too true, little one, too true.

*At any given time, my younger (and usually more dependable and normal) child will wrap himself with toilet paper, state for the record that he is a robot, and run around yelling, "Danger! Danger!"

*And finally to the bottom of the junk drawer, Mitch received an awesome "Explorer Belt" for Christmas from Mike's parents. Talk about right up a kid's alley. It came equipped with gloves, a magnifying glass, a notebook, and a spade. Mitch takes it everywhere, and has taken the liberty to include some more items that he can surely not live without. (Recently, a friend referred to him as MacGuyver. Spot on.) Here he is with his explorer belt.

This is actually the second take of the this photo, because the first one looked like this.

Currently, his explorer belt contains the aforementioned factory stocked items, as well as Mitch additions of Hershey's kisses, several small twigs, a green marker, a Go Diego Go figurine, a starfish, 4 screwdrivers, 2 wrenches, a Diego helicopter thingy that he "uses as a hook in case he has to climb things", a Candyland card that has two green squares on it, a small table leg (don't ask), batteries, Band-aids, and a picture of himself in his Halloween costume when he was three. Wow. He is going to make a kick-ass boyscout.

Because I am really bad at sitting down and writing in a "baby book", I use this blog to chronicle the lives of my young children. Mostly, the stories involve them being completely ridiculous, and our attempts to deal with them. I also try to capture milestones and big events in their lives so that they can look back at this someday and laugh and learn.

Well, with the fun times also come the difficult ones. I am saddened to say that Mike's father passed away a week ago, at the young age of 61. He was a loving husband, father, and grandfather, and we will miss him terribly. We flew back to Michigan last week for the services. It has been a difficult week, but there was a beautiful service and we reconnected with cousins, family, and friends we have not seen recently.

Rest assured, I'll be back with zany stories and hooligan pictures, but right now I want to tell my kids that their Papa Ed loved them very much, and we will do our best to share stories about him as they grow, to keep his memory alive in all of our hearts.

When in Rome...

Do as the Romans do. When in South Carolina, go to Monster Jam! We attended the monster truck show in Columbia. I was a little unsure of what to wear, being that all of my camo was in the wash, but I did settle on some nice jeans and a sweatshirt. Nothing overstated, I thought. Turned out I was terribly overdressed. I had on sleeves.

Here are the hooligans, pre-show, showing off their collection of monster trucks. I have to admit that these were not purchased at the show. Neither the trucks nor the kids. No, we already had these beauties in our possession.

See the gleam in their eyes? They were so very excited!

Here is the pre-show warm-up. This is a woman, aptly named "Cannon Lady" being shot out of a cannon. No lie. The boys were not sure quite what to make of this, but I am monitoring their behavior closely. I can just see Mitch stuffing his little brother into a contraption and trying to shoot him across the room while my back is turned. Or while I sit four rooms away blogging.
Here is what Matthew looked like the entire time. He did not move. He did not blink. He was completely spellbound. Bodes well for the future, huh?

Action shot. Here is"Monster Mutt" flying high over some unfortunate automobiles. It had big floppy ears and a wagging tail. Needless to say, the boys loved it. I'm sure to walk out into the garage soon and find some sort of paper tongue glued to the front of my Honda Accord.
And here was the big winner of the day! Direct from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina...."It's Digger time!" Apparently Grave Digger jumped higher, crunched up more stuff, and flung more dirt at people while spinning around in a semi-out-of control state. Congratulations to Grave Digger!

And that, my friends, concludes our visit to the Monster Jam. Carry on.