My Husband Was on the Red Green Show

On Thanksgiving, the boys were watching the Red Green Show.

Because they wouldn't be caught wasting their time watching the Macy's Parade with their Moma.

Anyhow, my husband suddenly asked the boys to rewind it a little.  And then he hollered for me to come see this too.

They had finally made a character that was my husband nearly to T.  Seriously.

My husband has this weird love affair of Buick Century's.  We currently have FOUR in our yard.

And he also has this thing with disposable coffee cups.  You know, those "to go" cups?  Yah, he loves those too.

We have talked about his love of coffee before.

And here was a skit on the Red Green Show that had us all laughing.

So, I took out my flip cam and taped it off the tv because I couldn't find it on youtube or on Red's website.  Sorry for the graininess of it, we have an ancient old tv.  Literally.

But you'll get the idea.

Enjoy!

And for a blast from the past, read our post about when We Met Red Green.

Try to Explain Girly

All the boys are watching Red Green which spurred me on even more to write this post.

Sometimes, I like to be extra girly.

In a house full of boys, that is difficult to pull off.

I curl my hair sometimes. Hubby watched me recently. "Really? You want to spend all that time on you hair? It's just hair....." (Some of my friends are still not talking to him about that comment.)

Or when I tried a new braid and side bun look last week and asked Jake if it looked cute and he said "Yah, I suppose. It's got bobby pins in it so it's cute, I guess...for a librarian."

I love make up. I do. I am a sucker for new colors and new nail polish and mascara that will really make your lashes look like you have fake ones on (didn't work for me...). But the boys do not get it. I can put my make up on and sorta have styled hair in 15 minutes....That's what happens when you have one bathroom and five boys wanting to know what takes so long in there. I can hear them thinking "Girls..." with a shake of their head and a roll of their eyes.

I like heels. I like skirts. I like to get all prettied up and get to stay prettied up. I can wear my jeans and hooded sweatshirt and be just fine, which is good, it's what I wear nearly every day. Right now I am in sweat pants, a Clippers T-shirt and a ratty old sweater that I love.

But this Sunday I really threw the boys for a loop. They stared. They could not understand me. I topped all other weird girl things...

I wore nylons.

Black ones.

With an above the knee dress.

S4 had to see my feet. Because my toes were black too he informed me that I made him feel "nervous". I told him I would take them off when we got home. When he realized they were like pants, he was sorta okay with it.

I got home and put on jeans and shuffled about the house in bare feet. This made the boys feel much relieved.

I never knew nylons could be scary.

Boys.

We Met Red Green

Every Thursday night, at 8:30, our entire household stops moving and for a few moments there is complete silence....until the laughter begins. All my boys...all five of them...line up on the couch and watch with anticipation for Red Green to come on PBS.The boys have watched and watched this show. If ever one of them is grounded from tv, they usually get ungrounded just so they get that Daddy time to see Red Green, that's how popular he is in our house.

I often think that Hubby and S1 watch it as a tutorial show, since we seem to fix a lot of things with duct tape.

We had heard that he was going to be at Rylee's Ace Hardware Store in Grand Rapids on a particular Sunday. We had heard if we brought our own roll of duct tape we would get in faster. So we left with enough time to get us there half an hour before he was to arrive so we could indeed, meet THE Red Green.

Rylee's Ace Hardware was a store I did not knew existed. Now that I do know, it is probably not a good thing. As soon we walked in, there Fiesta dishes everywhere and aprons and kitchen tools. Husband reminded me we were here to conquer Red Green, not conquer browsing so we got in line with a man who had a Red Fox in a carrier (I kid you not) and stared at all the duct tape in front of us. It was the good stuff, not the dollar store stuff we buy. 3M duct tape, NAME BRAND stuff.

It was with mixed emotions that we learned in order to get a signature of Red Green, we had to buy that fancy duct tape for five dollars a roll.

Husband painfully parted with 20 dollars, but it seemed a waste to just get a signature on such nice duct tape so he ran the good stuff out to the suburban (which was across the street because the place was filling up so quickly) while the boys and I learned we had to wait to be called in the next group...twenty minutes or so from then. We were all of five people away from being in the first group to meet THE Red Green.

But we were in a hardware store so the boys wandered off to look at boring fishing poles and hardware stuffs while I wandered here..........

And then drank the beauty of all the colors in.

I just so wanted to bake in the test kitchen!

And the aprons, the hand towels.....

Do you see these colors? How can they not make you happy?

Fiesta ware, people. FIESTA dishes! I have never in my life seen so many Fiesta dishes. I was sure I was dreaming, afraid to touch them less the vanish...or my boys bumped me and I broke it and then had to pay for a dish I have always wanted and purchased just to never have.

Yes, people looked at me oddly as I snapped all these kitchen pictures. But I HAD to share them with all you girls who are reading this not caring (or even knowing) who Red Green is. These photos are for you so you can mention them to your husbands who will, no doubt, want to read this just to see what we thought of the read Red Green. You don't think he knows who Red Green is, but dear, he does. He does. It's a man thing.

It didn't take long for husband to see that if we didn't get in line, we would be far far far back in line. Knowing how close we were to be in the first group, knowing Red Green was THERE, we had just seen him!, knowing his garden was calling his name, he left me in line and began to scout out ways to get in the line he knew we should be in.

He couldn't find a way.

So we stood in line about fifty people back.

And then the waiting began.

Since they had us all snaking along the back of the store that no one really cares to shop in, we had long isles empty of people. It didn't take long for the boys to start realizing that the duct tape would make good racing toys. And the isles would be good racing ground.

Red Green would have been proud had he seen this.

Now, a little know tid bit about my husband. He meets the most eccentric people in the world, I swear it is true. (I don't believe I fall into this category) We stood next to, and I do mean RIGHT NEXT TO, this man.

This man, we came to find out, was conceived in a chicken coop. Really. He says it's why he is sort of a bird brain. His words, not mine.

His parents had bought a farm and while they were building a house they lived in the only building there, the chicken coop.

He was full of all sorts of information on past movie stars, past Red Green shows (he knew them all), every show ever on PBS.....he knew broadway shows and books and literature and every story he began began with "I have a story about that".

Seriously.

Anything we mentioned in passing, he "had story about that".

We would have been annoyed had we not been so bored. And when we found out he had been a life time Marine (sort of came as a surprise in one of his "I have a story about that" bits) we had to have some awed respect for him as well.

I am not exaggerating one little bit. This man talked the whole entire long hour or longer we were in line.

The WHOLE time.

As we got closer to Red Green, there was a woman with a little table selling shirts, hats and the movie Duct Tape Forever. The boys nearly burst they were so excited they could own a movie with Red Green in and not just have to wait for him to be on Thursday nights. We purchased one movie....I mean, you sort of feel you should standing there in front of her like that.

Besides, how could you not when you seen the look of sheer elation on the boys faces?

And then, as we rounded the stacks of ladders and rows of paint cans, there he was, Red Green.

S3 and S4 could hardly believe he was real and wasn't sure what to think. They just kept staring and looking at him.

S1 and S2 were so excited they could hardly speak.

S1 did have the kind heart to ask Red Green to please sign his roll of duct tape three times because he had two friends at school that he always always always talked Red Green things over with. And he was so nice, he did.

He also signed the new movie we just had bought. The movie the boys now have memorized.

I love this picture. S4 has to check it all out.

S3 wanted to know if Red Green was watching us on tv. I knew what he meant, he wanted to know if Red Green seen us on Fox 17 in the morning. I held my breath as he asked this but the good hearted man answered patiently, "I sure do. Every time. I'm in that tv looking back at you!"

S3 was in awe.

This dear Red Green took longer than he needed to to sign every roll of dollar store duct tape, answer the boys questions, pose for pictures (I took nearly ten or more). He was patient and kind and good natured.

The boys were shocked he didn't speak in Red Green dialect, but as his normal Steve Smith self. But that didn't stop them from calling out as we left "Keep yer stick on the ice!"

And all in all, it was a forever memorable, happy, well worth the time in line sort of day.

Even husband agreed.

Morning Mishapes

As most of you know, I watch my now ten month old nephew on Thursday and Friday's. He is sooo super cute. Adorable. To watch Jr, I get up at four in the morning and watch him till some time after lunch. He is a huge joy in our family for the few hours we get him.

Today, the alarm was going off when Husband bolted straight up in bed. “Quick, get up! The alarm is going off!”

We had overslept by all of about five whole minutes.

But the way we woke up left me disorintated as I stumbled for the bathroom. It was worse as S2 came tumbling down the steps to ask me if he could do his reading homework with me right then. At 4 am? He had gone to bed early the night before and hadn't gotten it done and obviously it was heavy on his mind...still.

I sent him to back to bed. He had FOUR hours before school began!

Sadie was ecstatic for the company after hours of being left alone at night. She was circling me and wagging her tail excitadely. I have found her tail to be quite the weapon.

My SIL showed up and Jr was sound asleep so I chatted with her, made hubby's lunch, got his coffee ready to go for him, picked up a bit of the kitchen and seen I could easily go back to sleep for about 45 minutes.

I take any extra sleep I can get.

So, I snuggled down into bed. Where the alarms went off for hubby to get up for his day at work. But since I had crashed in bed the night before way before hubby had come to bed (I mean, he and S1 HAD to watch the Red Green Show before they could go to bed) we had a bit of catching up to do, I was headed to lunch, he was working with some new people, you know, daily chit chat we usually do over coffee at night, when I am not so soundly sleeping that when he tickles my feet I don't move (and do you think that is all that sweet to do to your precious wife? Tickle her feet as she soundly sleeps? Good thing I was so soundly sleeping.....)

Hubby took Sadie for a quick walk and when he brought her in, she leapt for joy upon me, kissing my face and letting me know she was indeed in and she was indeed happy to start a new day and she fell between the mattress and the wall where she was stuck. I laughed as I helped her out and thought about just getting up at this point, being all awake now after my wake up 'kisses'.
At which point S2 came down the stpes again to do his reading homework, again. So, I stayed in bed to hear him read and being the wonderful, caring moma that I am, I fell asleep. His story dealt with Miss Spider and one of the words he didn't know was 'dung'. And I recall wondering why 'dung' would be in such a kids story....but I must have thought bed was warm and cozy and I fell sound asleep.

Sound asleep.

To be awoken at 7:05, to the sound of four boys coming down the steps to get cereal.

How does this happen to me?

How do I manage to have a full day BEFORE seven in the morning?

At least this morning I had coffee in the house. And I made it super strong as I flew around making sure we were all indeed in the suburban before we left. And we did, indeed, make it to school on time before the bell rang and with no tears.....THAT is an accomplishment!

And this, folks, is just a few hours of my life...in the morning, the time when I need the most quiet and darkness and caffine to slowly wake up. Welcome to my wonderful life!