A Pet Possum

I think we have all established my hatred for opossums.

I have written about them in the Praise and Coffee Magazine.  (You can read that article HERE.)  This story remains a favorite for a lot of readers and even more friends.

If you "search" my blog, you can read one of my VERY first blog posts EVER (back when I thought we weren't an interesting enough family to ever blog...imagine that.)  Click HERE to see a portion of what I have written over the years.

So when the boys caught this commercial on tv, they roared with laughter.  They greatly enjoy tormenting me with opossum's.

You can see the commercial here....



We had errands to run today and the boys were still chattering away about the commercial, having now watched it for the upteenth time thanks to youtube.

S4 chirped from the back, "Daddy, can you get us a pet possum?"

"Sure", my husband whole heartedly agreed.

"No!" I yelled.

S4 giggled.  "I think he would be so cuddly."

"He would eat you alive!" I cried.

"I could trap one, wouldn't cost us a thing," S1 offered.

"No, absolutely not!" I declared.

"That possum wouldn't eat him alive," my husband offered, "Elly May had one and it never ate her."

"Yah, it was nice!" S4 agreed.  "Hey, we should name it.  How about PP?"

"No possum of mine is going to be called PP," S1 stated.

"I forbid it!" I yelled above them throwing names out.

"What does 'forbid' mean?" asked S4.

"That she can't wait for the pet possum," his Daddy tossed back at him, just as quick as could be.

The boys cheered.  S1 was nearly dying laughing.  They had the thing named before we made it much further down the road.

"I still forbid it!" I stated again.

"Hey, Daddy, I have a GREAT idea," the brilliant S4 began excitedly.  "When Mama goes to Praise and Coffee on Thursday, lets have you catch one for us and then we can surprise her with it when she gets home."

All males agreed this was brilliant.

The lone female did not.

Lost in Bugs

Today, on my buffet, next to an old photo of the boys and I on a long ago Mother's Day, sits a container of bugs.

Yes, bugs.

While this may be common place to my friend Mary who has a daughter who would be able to name all the bugs by their proper names and have an entire habitat set up for them in a blink, even with my boys this is not common.

Usually, the bugs and critters stay outside.  But some insane creative teacher has decided that the students should begin a bug collection.  S2 and his friends are taking this very seriously.

He assures me the bugs stay in the container and never ever could get out.  I have not dared to ask what the container holds.  But today, as we drove home in the suburban....I'll pause for you to realize how confined a suburban is....he opened the lid.  "The spider needs a little air," he explained to S4.

Spider?

Later, as I looked on my computer all curled up in our lazy boy chair luxiously drinking coffee, a large black spider scurried across our carpet.

My cat ate it.

I will not tell this to S2.  

I am not sure just what is expected of the kids in this project.  I know I keep getting asked, "Mama, what's this bug?' as he prepares to drop it in the container.  I never can concentrate on it long enough to tell him.  

"A bug....I don't know," is all I get out.

The song "My favorite kind of bugs are DEAD" by Buck Howdy is now running constantly through my head.

But this....this really has me worried.

As S2 ran off to class this morning - wait, he ran to the door, he wasn't actually running in school (in case any teacher may happen to read this) - I stopped to give S1 his hug and let him know we were having spaghetti for dinner tonight.

"Uh, Mama, I thought you should know...S2 is planning on bringing a snake to school."

"What? When?"

"He's going to check with his teacher today."

"He hasn't told me."

"I'm not sure he was going to."

"Ummm, uh, thanks for the heads up," I stammered.

"I figured you would want to know," he shrugged as he meticulously put away his homework and lunch.

What's worse - if there could be a worse - is that they caught ANOTHER snake today.  That makes TWO snakes living in the water tank turned natural habitat outside my dining room window.  One for them, one for the school.

Sigh.

If a snake gets a ride to school, I guarantee you, dear readers, I will be blogging about it.  But for my sake (and sanity) I truly hope it doesn't happen.

Yoga AKA Torture

Does this image fill you with peace?

I seriously would love to do that.  And looking at this picture of the beach and a perfect pose makes me a little bitter, I must admit.  Okay, a lot bitter.

I have two very dear friends (who shall remain completely anonymous) who are slightly older than me.  They have been dispensing advice to me and I have been mentally taking notes.  But now I have been trying to follow through with their advice and not just taking notes.

My husband loves to tease me that he can't wait to find my first gray hair (Stephanie will keep this from happening for a good long time. If you are in West Michigan, you should be booking her to do your hair too.).  But the thing is, I am obviously not getting any younger and I want to do all I can to make getting older easier instead of painful.

Enter yoga.

One of my anonymous friends has had back and neck pain.  She is slight in frame and skinny as can be, even if I do bring her cookies, dumplings and such.  The doctor told her she needed to try yoga because - get this - one of her side muscles had shrunk so much it was causing her entire leg to go numb.

How did this happen?  Because she, who plays softball with veracity and works to stay in shape, has a job that has her sitting for long stretches.  Her not stretching caused this problem.

I figured I may as well do yoga too to keep this from happening to me.

I rented a yoga video from the library (library's rock, people.  Embrace them!) and when all my family was far away at school and work, I tried yoga.

First of all, I do not get having my spine feel as though it has roots into the ground and my head is crown of light.  Once I got past that and tried not to snicker at their seriousness, we began the stretching.

I've always been flexible, I thought, and did not think the Yoga For Beginners would be too tough.

Ha.  Ha.

I started easy enough, but then they did some crazy-you-should-never-bend-this-way-pose and suddenly I am craning my neck to see the pose and trying to not get my nose too close to the stinky carpet (WHY do we have carpet?) and wondering if I will ever be able to get up from this position and sorta wishing Jake were home to help me if I break something.

I heard my body crack in many places.

I moved in many positions I did not know was possible.

And when they went in to corpse position, I sighed with relief for surviving.

My cat jumped on my tummy as I laid there, as if to laugh at me for doing a cat stretch at one point.

And this is beginning yoga.

The video instructor promised I would feel energized and at peace.  I felt sore all over my body and dug out the motrin.

I tweeted this....
I attempted yoga today. I think I heard the women in the video laughing at me. I do not feel amazing like they promised...try super sore.

This response to that tweet totally cracked me up.....

@life4boys I have tried yoga videos so many times and it is terrible. I did not feel the air pour into my inner soul cleansing my body.

At our Praise and Coffee online night, I kept moving positions.  Every way I sat hurt.

Yoga is painful.

But, it did stretch me and if I am that sore I must be that inflexible and if I am that inflexible I may be on the way to numb limbs like my friend so I figured I had better try the video again.

So this Saturday morning I tried again.  I wanted to have it done before The Pioneer Woman's show came on.  My husband was leaving for the day, S1 was gone to a friends, S2 was going with Daddy and the two little ones were doing bike races.  I figured I could just get the warm up done while my husband left and that would get me done with the torture in time to drink coffee and watch how to make chocolate cake.

Except my husband found me entertaining so he kept coming back in to see how I was doing.  I would be in the middle of some downward dog type pose or some funky bird pose and he would have all sorts of smart comments for me.

I recalled how my friend had just told me that I should NEVER do yoga in front of Jake and I had solemnly agreed.  And here I was, the very next day, doing yoga poses in front of my husband - who was suppose to not be home, I might add.

The boys just thought I had gone crazy.  They would walk in, look at me, shake their heads and go back outside.

Humiliating.

And when I was done I found the time for the Pioneer Woman's show had moved.  Perfect.

And the second time doing yoga is just about as painful as the first time.

The things I will have to do to have a good, movable life when I am ancient old - however, even when I am ancient old I will be WAY younger than my now starting to go gray husband and will be able to dance a jig around him if I continue this regime.  At least that is my evil plan.  It keeps me motivated.

And once my husband reads that evil plan, he will start doing yoga and will do it with ease, I am sure.  Men are evil that way.

If anyone has any advice for me, please let me know.  Have a video you really like? Pass the title or isbn number on my way.

If you don't hear from for a long time, I did some weirdo pose, my spine went CREAK instead of "relaxing" and I am stuck in a knot in my living room.  Bring help, motrin and coffee.

Online Praise and Coffee Night

Tonight, I will be consuming large amounts of coffee.  In great amounts.  Tonight is our first ever

Online Praise and Coffee Night.

Can you join us?

Just follow the link I'll provide, ask to join as a guest, and you enter a "chat room" where you can actually Sue, Mel, Ronel and maybe me too.  No one else need a camera, you all get to type your conversation.  As in the MAGAZINE, we will be focusing on mom's.

I am super excited.

If you would like any back story of the night, here it is.....

My husband has been gone.  He is due to arrive the same time that the online praise and coffee begins.  I will have to give him a big ol' kiss because I will be so excited to see him.  I will try to make sure the camera is off of for that. ;)

Seven is the time my boys will be wandering the house trying to get ready for school tomorrow.  I guarantee you that they will try to get in on the fun.

To add to the hilarity of the night, the electric company is updating something or another tonight and we will be loosing power from nine tonight until eleven thirty.

Um, the next Praise and Coffee night starts at ten.......

So at ten I will be at Sue's with my computer in her dining room...which is conveniently right next to the coffee pot.  Bless her.

My job will be to let you all in on the conversation and tweet away during the hour long get together.  It would be so great if you could join us!

Here is the information.....https://www.facebook.com/events/177809579005951/

If you are friends with the blog on facebook or follow me on twitter, you can get the information there too as well as share it on your own fb's and tweets as well.

If you want an idea what we will be discussing, check out our MAGAZINE.

I can't wait to "see" you all there!

More information....HERE.

To go direct to the chat room, click HERE.

The NEW Magazine is HERE!

The Magazine is here!

This edition focuses on mother's and mom's and mothering...which is really all the same thing.

We have some new additions to the magazine, including Andy Paige for our fashion!

 Sarah Short has an amazing carrot cake recipe.

I introduce you to Brigitte Donoho.

We have articles about Kate Battistelli, an article on the Mom Initiative, the Generous Wife....

Sue has some amazing articles in this edition. She talks about finding out Josh has diabetes, and the day she first laid eyes upon Lauren.  Both make me tear up.

Ronel has an article on wrestling and moving on, Mel has one on preparing for her son to graduate.

Rachel Hammond has a powerful post on Pinterest and her Mom Colored Glasses.

There are just a ton of great articles in this edition.  A lot on mom's, a lot on marriage and some great support groups for women as well.  We were excited as it all came together to see all there was to share with all of you.

It's a great new issue of Praise and Coffee magazine.

Can you tell I am a wee bit excited? 

Check it out and let me know what your favorite articles are, will you?

Thanks!

And don't forget....THIS Thursday we are doing an ONLINE Praise and Coffee night!  All you have to do is log on to the link we will give that night, you don't need a camera on your computer!  We can't wait to chat with you all on our first Praise and Coffee Night Online! Hope to "see" you there. 

How to Pose for a Great Picture

On Easter, I was determined to get a photo with Morgan.  We just don't have many good ones and I love her dearly.  Like, so very dearly. And I want a photo of us!

When I had told Jake we needed our annual family Easter photo, he had wanted us to line up against the siding of the church, with it's green mold climbing up the side.

Um, no.

Morgan and I were all about finding a PRETTY place for a photo.

She took some great photos of us and then handed the camera to Jake to take some photos of us.

With a bunch of editing, Morgan got our photo to turn out this amazing.

But, unbeknownst to us, Jake had set the camera on video and THIS is what he got at first....

If ever you think we look amazing in photos it's because we love instagram and we take a zillion so you don't ever see us giggling, trying to keep from crying from the wind, attempting to look pretty and not blow away and keep our hair in place.

This video that wasn't suppose to be caught of Morg and I makes me smile.  I'm going to love it for forever, I think.

Because how to pose for great pics is this.....laugh.

Every photo I love the most were the ones that we were just being us in.  And that's when you catch the beauty of it all. 

Making Easter Breakfast for Our Church

This post is going to be picture heavy.

S4 was given the camera.

He took nearly NINETY photos.

These are just the highlights.

You have been warned.

A request went out in our Sunday School class (before we started teaching our 3rd ad 4th grade class) to have volunteers to make Easter breakfast.  For some reason we volunteered.

So, at some time around four in the morning, my husband got up on Easter morning and woke up his two oldest boys to get ready to go to church and make breakfast.

Jake checking to make sure we were working as he ate bacon.

 I know this may be hard to believe, but he was uber annoying this morning.  He flipped on the lights in the bedroom, blinding me at the early hour that it was.  He poked me the ribs, hauled the blankets off of me, asked me a million questions but mostly it was, "You gonna get up? Huh? Huh? Huh? You gonna get up? You're lovin me right now, aren't you?"

S1 and Brock on eggs or bacon duty.

 I was glad when he left.  I need coffee before dealing with him like that.  Because I was making pancakes and I would be bringing the little ones, we made a decision I would show up a little later.

Fruit kabobs.

 When I showed up, I was wearing jeans and my favorite slip on shoes because I was working in the kitchen.  My hair was piled up in a wet bun on the top of my head.  This was tough for me, and I am just going to admit that.  I like to super dress up for Easter.  It's been my "thing" for forever.

Morg's blueberry and chocolate chip scones.

 But the fun we had in the kitchen this morning, WAY more fun and WAY more worth it!

AMAZING cinnamon rolls.

 We were joking and laughing and flipping pancakes, spearing fruit, frying bacon, mixing coffee.  Did I mention the joking and laughing?

A pretty flower arrangement.

 Curt mentioned it was like the New Covenant church...to which I asked, "Where is that at?" and he rolled his eyes as Emily nearly died laughing.  "In Acts?" he answered me, sarcastically.  Oh, I get it now...like when the church first started.  Those first Christians musta had a lot of fun then because we sure did!

Morgan

 We could not have pulled it off without Link and Kate Pape who just stepped in and stepped up to make sure we had all the sausage links, bacon, cinnamon rolls, pans, pots and probably a zillion other things I didn't even know they did.

S2 and Curt working on pancakes.

I was on pancake duty and Curt, I found out, is the pancake master.  He was keeping a close eye on us to make sure that we made the pancakes properly.

Curt who is apparently a pancake professional.

I wasn't worried we would mess them up.  I mean, I've been making pancakes for YEARS.

Moma and S2 making pancakes.

And I was right.  S2 and I did a great job making the pancakes that Curt mixed up and plopped on griddles for us.  We were a good team, I think even Curt agreed.

Kate and Link Pape. They totally rock and MADE this morning!

All the time we were in the kitchen cooking up a storm. S4 kept walking around taking photos.  Like I told you, there were over ninety that he took.

S1 and Brock making eggs.

It was fun to see the boys helping so much.  Not so much the little ones, of course, but S1 and S2 cooked the entire time we were there.

My handsome man and Link (who would like to add he's pretty good lookin too, I am sure!)

And as crowded as we were in that kitchen, as sleep deprived as we were, we all just kept laughing.

Em, who is a hoot and I love to pieces, and me.

It helped that my husband was dispensing advice on how to be romantic and how weeding the garden is really a date and how he is so romantic that we don't need dates.  (Um, hon, we do!)

Super blurry me and Morg.

I am really blessed to have this group in my life, in my family's life. We were all part of the Sunday School Bill had started and we have grown so close.

S1 and S4, awwwwww!

We made such a great team and made such yummy food that I am rather certain this is going to become an annual thing for us.

You should have heard all he had to say, Hubs NEEDED the spatula to the head!

Which I knew as soon as I walked into that kitchen and caught the look in my husband's eyes.  He was having way too much fun doing this.

The cappuccino maker kept us caffeinated, including the kiddos like S3.

We all pitched in to clean up and in no time flat all the dishes were washed and dried and we began the process of reloading all the things we had hauled into the kitchen to make the food.

Brock loading up on caffeine.

I had grabbed a black skirt to wear that I had just picked up at Goodwill.  The black skirt is all flirty twisty poofy.

S4 would like you to know this is a good picture, it shows the whole table.

It was super windy out and when we went to get our annual family photo taken I was quite sure it was going to give someone a good show.  I should have just kept the jeans on.

I'm hungry again just looking at these photos!

But after my husband suggested us getting our photo taken against the white polebarn siding of our church and Morg and I nearly shouting "NO!" we stood behind some green bushes and had some phtotos taken.

Tables laden with breakfast food.

In that moment, with the wind whipping around us as we laughed and tried to snap some good photos, it hit me.

Yup, that is my handsome man adding the eggs to the table.

This is probably my most favorite Easter ever.

And we were now ready to eat!

When Sunday school started, I won the snack contest because I had actually brought a snack for the class while Curt had not - haha!

The food...

After Sunday school the sleepiness was hitting us.  Our group was found in the kitchen chugging orange juice and coffee to stay awake.

All our kids were the first ones in line to get food!

At church we watched our kids choir of nearly all boys sing.  I was thankful the hole in S4's knee didn't show too much.

Kate and I loading up on coffee in our new church mugs. I drank a LOT of coffee!

When we returned home that afternoon, we crashed.  Hubs and I fell into our bed and fell asleep.

The people who came to eat our amazing breakfast.

The boys zoned in front of the tv and folded socks.

The coffee table, I loved this. A joker (ahem, KEVIN!) had to show off his food though. Guess he thought it was THAT good...and it was! :) 

Later when Jake grilled cheeseburgers for our non traditional Easter meal, when we bowed our heads to pray, we thanked God for the gift of Easter.  

The coffee table. Sigh of love for the beauty of it. Oh, and who drinks decaf coffee in the morning? Curt and I agree they must be losers!

We also thanked God for the gift of Friendship.

New coffee mugs with Easter eggs.

And the blessing of making breakfast.

So grateful for this man, Bill.  Here he was helping S1 tie his tie.

Morg came over tonight to have a cheeseburger we had saved for her.

S1 picked out this whole outfit at Goodwill and he is as proud as can be to have a suit and tie!

And she agreed too, this was a great day.

Lilacs and other flowers that decorated the tables everyone ate at.

 We have been laughing at the 90 plus photos taken today.  Sheesh! S4 with a camera is a scary thing!  But how fun to record our special Easter day!

Family Photo

Because these are the memories I do believe they will treasure for a long time to come.

Kids Choir, there are a LOT of boys at our church!

Happy Easter, everyone!

Husband Disregarded the Warning

I gave my husband fair warning.  

He completely disregarded it.

He likes to live dangerously, I suppose.

Let's begin by stating the fact that it is spring break.  And there is now a fridge on my front porch...filled with worms.  

MovingRightAlong.

Wednesday I woke early and had my coffee slowly, watching the sun rise as I cleaned my kitchen.  I was the only one awake and it was a rather lovely time.  When S4 stumbled down the steps he greeted me with the sweetest, "Good Morning, Mama".  You know when they say something in such a way that makes your heart melt? It was that sort of greeting.

My nephew's have been staying with us on Wednesday's and I wanted to have the house cleaned before they arrived.  L is nearly three and H is about nine months.  At nine months he crawls and I have realized our house is FAR from being baby proofed.  On this day I decided I needed to mop our floors.

I asked the boys to pick up their stuff.  The fighting began. "That's not mine."  "Yes, it is." "No, it is not." "Yes, it is." "Mama, so and so is not helping!" 

And somehow cleaning turned to wrestling.

Wrestling makes mama shove them all outdoors.

S1, who I realize all the time is a huge huge huge help to me, was helping Daddy at work so it was the three youngest.  Three is not a good number when it comes to brothers, I'm thinking.

Anyhow, I went to mop the floor.  I had *this* itty bitty much of lysol left so I dumped some bleach in there to make it extra powerful clean.  I turned the water on as hot as it would go.  I dropped my amazing tornado mop in the bucket, thankful Renee persuaded me to buy a mop so that I no longer had to scrub the floor on my knees - that was honestly my thought, I can not make it up - as my mop handle literally rusted right in half.

I did not even know it was rusty!

I couldn't dump the water out because it was all the soap I had so I poured in some cold and began scrubbing the floors on my hands and knees.

The boys had been warned to stay outside but suddenly S4 burst into the door and was rattling off his emergency so fast I had a hard time making out his words.  S3 just stood there dramatically sobbing loudly.

S2 had thought it would be a great idea to let the bunnies have exercise.  Spot the bunny had decided that hopping was so great he managed to hop himself to the middle of the road.

So, I am standing there in pj shorts...ones that cover what need to be covered but nothing to be seen in. I had on no bra and an old t-shirt.  

But a bunny was on the brink of death. 

I pulled my husband's sweatshirt, slipped on my shoes, and ran for the road.  The bunny had made it safely back to our yard and we had the tricky job of catching him.

Thankfully, the hop had wore the little thing out and S2 scooped him up.

S3 put Spot back in the cage to rest.  He was pretty sure he had had enough exercise. We all concurred with that idea.

I finished scrubbing the floor, jumped in the shower to wash off the mud of the floors (I will spare you their gross state) and when dressed I was feeling all could be right with the world again I saw this.....

Granted, you may not know what THIS is.  It is mud.  The boys had decided to make mud to smooth out some bumps in the driveway.  Were there bumps in the driveway?  None that I knew of!  And know they were sinking in mud that covered their shoes.

What is that step?  Oh, just the first step onto our porch to enter our house.

I may have turned into mean mom then.  I made them all take their shoes off before they entered the house...but really, I knew my hour mopping the floors was going to prove naught by the end of the day.

The boys picked a flower to apologize.

So I wrote this to my husband on Facebook....

Dearest husband, before 10am I had cleaned the kitchen, did laundry, folded and took care of said laundry, bandaged wounds, stopped quarrels, mopped all floors on my hands and knees cuz the mop broke, saved Spot the bunny from certain death and only had 2 cups of coffee. All this BEFORE my nephews arrive. By the time you get home the house will be trashed and at this rate I will be an exhausted mumbling crazed woman. Be extra nice to me and bringing a gift home may be a wise move. You have been warned.


He called about this time to say as the route would have him go he would be driving by the house so we took ourselves out to the road to wave hello to him. (I may super love this photo)

My nephews arrived and the fun began.  I had, by this time, recuperated from the morning and had began to fill up on coffee.  I had clothes on the line and the managed to pick up enough bb's and air soft balls to cause me to wonder if they had a mini war in the house while I was sleeping.

When H woke up, he was all grins and smiles and cuteness for me, as usual.

Dinner was done and the dishwasher was loaded.

I kept busy all afternoon with H and L.  The boys had a blast but there were cookies to dispense and milk to be poured and just the natural hub bub of five boys...one of who was just crawling.

When my husband called to tell me he was on his way home, he was surprised to hear our nephews there.  "Didn't you read what I tagged you in on facebook?" I asked.

"I started too," he admitted, "But it was too long.  Hey, what are we having for dinner?"

I. Did. Not. Scream.

When my husband pulled in, the table was set and the food was on the plates.

Was I exhausted and running on the fumes of coffee? You bet.

As we were eating the lasagna, my husband told me how great it was (brownie points to get him out of his hole!) and then he said, "Hey, did you make this with sausage?"

"Mmhmm," I grinned, "It adds a nice flavor, don't you think?"

He cut up a piece of the sausage.  "Did you cook it until it was done?"

Silently fuming.  "Yes."

"Are you sure? I mean, did you use the my meat thermometer to make sure?" He caught the look in my eye.  "I, um, am, um, sure it is fine or, uh, done."  When he didn't think I was looking he cut another piece of sausage up to check for pinkness.  He saw I had seen him and quickly ate the piece of sausage telling me how good it was.

S1 laughed.  "Daddy, I think you just dug yourself in a hole."

After dinner, I told the boys to clear the table and make sure that everything was picked up because it had been earlier today and I wanted it that way when we went to bed.

"I did not mop these floors for the house to look trashed," I said, standing up from the dinner table to make yet more coffee.

"Hey, did you mop the floors?" My husband looked at the floors.  "Hey, you did!  Wow, they look great!'

I smiled, tilted my head and said, "You would know this if you had read my too long message to you."

He grinned.  Swatted my butt as I walked away. "You can't stay mad at me, baby."

And he's right, I just can't.

Because what are clean floors compared to this?

The joy of my boys' faces on a good day playing outside, catching snakes in the sunshine.

But did I curl up in my husband's arms that night and fall immediately asleep?  You better believe it.

Grocery Shopping With Four Boys

I survived.

Barely.

Monday was the only day that really worked best for us to grocery shop.  I have been planning on going since we are in charge of making all the pancakes for the Sunrise Breakfast at our church (THAT will be a blog post!) on Easter.

That doesn't mean I wanted to go.

I despise grocery shopping. Some people love it and rave over their deals.  My plan of attack is to get in, get what we need, get out.

It rarely goes that way.

We loaded up the suburban and headed into the cement city.  Imagine my surprise when I looked in my rear view mirror to see this....

 He made it unable to forget I had four boys in tow.

I had S1 snap the picture.

When we arrived at Sam's Club, I had all the boys stop and pray with me.  Am I the only mom who does this?  I pray we make right choices, that we find what we need, that we stay safe and then I repeat that we need help making wise choices.  It's so hard to get just what you NEED when you are out of everything.

The boys did awesome.

We filled two carts, loaded the suburban and filled the cooler we had brought with us.  Then we tootled on over to the Goodwill store.

Sometimes you go to Goodwill and find NOTHING.  Sometimes you go and find amazing things.  Today we found amazing things.

I looked at S1 and said, "Whatever you find I will get you.  You need clothes.  Now, go look in the men's section and see what you can find."

I then went and hid in the little kids section so he would not see how sad I was that he had to shop in men's.  The poor boy has nearly outgrown everything and there isn't a soul who can help us with hand me downs for the boy - er, young man -.  He found shorts, dress shirts, a suit - yes, a SUIT - and pants. He was beaming.

S2 scored on a pile of shorts that we actually had to limit.  S3 got a pair of beach shoes.  S4 got himself a summer's worth of shorts.

I found skirts (no dresses, hahaha!), workout pants (in case I ever plan to work out) and jeans.

We also found brand new water boots for my niece and an adorable purse for her...which was some debate because mama wanted the fancy spancy one for R but the boys were adamant we get the nice, filled with pockets not super fancy one.

Boys.

Checking out took us FOREVER.  But after spending nearly an hour there, we needed these clothes.  But checking out proved - tough.  They couldn't figure out how to check us out and it took a good 15 minutes or more before we could walk out of there. As frustrating as that was, the boys were still great.

We had to stop at another store for detergent and a few other things and melt down began.

It was proving to be a long day for them.

While they were doing okay, they were reaching the breaking point and I was worried about them enough to forget to pick up the blonde roast coffee from Starbucks I have been waiting so long to try and had planned to celebrate (or use for coping through) spring break.

We arrived home (finally, with S2 and S4 zonking out for the back roads trip) and they helped me unload groceries.

 They were ever so helpful, were they not?

I got busy taking care of groceries and the boys started digging through our goodwill bag.

I think I received no less than ten hugs thanking me for the clothes I bought.  Unbeknownst to me, S2 has been teased at school about his shorts being too short and he didn't want me to feel bad that he didn't have any more so he hadn't said anything.

S1 is beaming to have a few things that actually fit him.  The fact that he has a suit makes him feel all grown up.

S3 wants to wear his beach shoes to bed.

S4 thinks his shorts are just great, just so great and not too fancy and just great.

So, really, it was a great day.

Exhausting, but great.

Not so exhausting that they were too tired to move the fridge to the front porch and put worms in it (trying not to think about that as I type) but great just the same.

The Post My Husband Wants Me to Write

Here is the post my husband wants me to write.

I, for the record, do not want to.

You will then know how hillbilly we are.

It all started with a phone conversation.

I texted my husband to let him know I would be taking the boys into the huge cement city (that's what we call it) to load up on groceries.  We have reached that point where we are out of everything.  My boys are growing by leaps and bounds and leaps some more, this means they never stop eating.

I wasn't sure if we could get into Costco and shop for a trial run (sounds like we can't) and so I am headed to Sam's Club, where we do have a membership because they sell bags for our farm stand and that's when my husband says, "Make sure S1 looks for containers for his worms."

Worms.  Our entrepreneurial S1 has been collecting night crawlers at, well, night.  He has them stored in an old camper tub behind his shop.  He did this last year and did quite well.  He started with the warm weather we had last month and has quite a few hundred.  He collects them in coffee cans and then shows them to me as I am lying in bed.  I then scream and he then laughs and takes them to the tub he keeps them in.

So THEN my husband says, "Yah, then we will move the fridge onto the porch."

"Wait, what?" I asked, nearly choking on my coffee.

"Yah", he says, "Didn't I tell you? We are going to move that fridge from the shed to the front porch so you can just sell the worms from the house."

My dear blog readers...that means a fridge, on my porch, along with my bunnies living there.  And while I have worked hard to keep the view from the window I look out of most often flowery and cute, I see that ending quickly.  Cuteness will be replaced with hillbilly.

The fridge will have a bright orange extension cord going from porch and into the window to keep it running.

"Great," I say, "that means I will go from night crawler season to asparagus season to strawberry season with a fridge on my porch."

"You'll clean it, of course but, I know, it's going to work great."

I just drank more coffee and we moved onto the subject that DirecTv has dropped my beloved Fox 17 from its line up so we can't watch anything on Fox now.  

"You can in the bathroom," my husband suggested.

Forever ago, my husband lamented the fact that we did not have a tv in the bathroom and how cool it would be.  Yes, bathROOM.  We have one bathroom.  He lamented so much that I put a tv in the bathroom, we hooked up the box so it could get just local channels and my husband rejoiced.

I won wife of the day for that one.

It is rather handy to have the news on in the morning as you get ready to head out, I will admit.

But it's not like I super broadcast the fact that it's there, you know?  It just seems wrong somehow to have a tv in your bathroom.

My husband wants me to call DirecTv and get some awesome deal hammered out for us since they dropped our station.  I am more the "I'll be super sweet and blog about it" person and my husband is the "you WILL work out a deal with us RIGHT NOW" sort of guy.

"You know what you should do?' (I inwardly braced myself as he continued.) "You should set up a bunch of chairs in the bathroom and get a picture of you all watching Fox 17 in the bathroom.  That would be a great blog post!"

"Uh, no," I said.

"Oh come on!" he laughed, but was very serious, "It'd be great!"

"Because, husband," I explained, "It's bad enough that soon I will be the hillbilly house with a fridge on my porch.  A fridge with worms! And then we'll have a picture of us all in the bathroom...."

"One of them could use the toilet as a chair!" he interrupted.

"Yah, might as well put up the picture of all the boys shooting their guns off the porch too," I added.

"We could be the town's welcoming committee then!" he laughed.

Oh. We so could.

This is why people think we should have our own reality show, I swear.

Anyhow, here is the post that my husband wanted me to write (minus any bathroom pictures) because no doubt this will all happen.  Heck, the boys target practicing off the porch on a rainy day already has.

I am just holding my shaking head in my hands as I finish this.  Can NOT believe I will push publish.

Good grief.

What hillbillies we really are.

Well, we are off to Sam's Club to drop a small fortune to keep the boys fed so they can continue to hunt worms that I'll sell from the front porch.

More spring break stories later.....