A Clean House

I got strep throat this weekend. Yes, I know. Totally lame. Perhaps the lamest thing about me being sick is how dirty my house gets so quickly. This time I took careful notes. I watched my three cohabitants. Did they pick up after themselves? Did they step over trash or actually pick it up? Do they put things away after playing/using it?

After some very scientific data gathering, I have concluded several things:

1. Levi is cleaner than Josh (no that is not a typo)
2. Claire is cleaner than Josh (again, not another typo)
3. Josh is really sloppy

Poor guy, I really do complain to him ALL THE TIME about picking up after himself, but this weekend is when I realized that he has actually been surpassed by his two children. And Claire is only 17 months old. Kind of sad really. I blame his mom.

JUMP!!!

Levi's new favorite activity is jumping off of the couch and onto the floor. Usually onto a bunch of pillows. The catch is that I have to take pictures of his jumps. After each jump, he has to preview the picture to make sure it is good enough. If not, he has to jump again and I am instructed to take a better picture. 99.99% of the time, he has to re-jump. Here are a couple of the better pictures.

Carkeek Park

With the fabulous weather we had last weekend, Leslie and I took the boys and girl to Carkeek Park. With sand, water and trains, it is probably the best park in Seattle for little boys (and girl)Claire is SO cute! She had a blast keeping up with the boys.

Claire loved the water.
Levi, Will, Claire and Luke.

Levi and Will wanted a picture with their tongues sticking out.

Yes, Claire loved the mud too.

The best part about Carkeek Park? The trains. Look how close we are to the tracks! The boys would wave and the conductor and the entire train as it went by. We must have seen ten trains that morning. Some were passenger trains and the rest were cargo trains. To make the day perfect, one of the trains was carrying brand new construction equipment. It had a couple dump trucks, an excavator, a digger and a cement roller. The boys were SO impressed. We also saw a train that had about ten cars of wood chips. Will and Levi decided that this trains job was to build playgrounds.

The Farm field trip

On Friday, Levi's preschool took a field trip to The Farm in Snohomish. The Farm is on Ebey Island and it is positivly georgeous out there! Here are a couple pics:

Ice Cream

When I was growing up my mom used to make ice cream by hand. She had a vintage ice-cream maker made out of wood. It looked a lot like this:

She used to make the BEST coffee ice cream! It was absolutely to die for. Every year our church held a fall harvest festival and my mom would make homemade ice cream for the booth and this was the only time that she made coffee ice cream. I would crave it all year...

This is probably the reason why I love coffee ice cream. I have tried a lot of brands too, searching for my favorite. Well, the search is over. I have found the best store brand coffee ice cream! And, it is at my favorite store: Trader Joe's!

Try it... It is SO good.

I am counting down the minutes until it is socially acceptable to eat ice cream... and that is right about now. Bye.

PS Just to be clear, this ice cream, while rich, creamy, and coffee-y, is still not as good as mom's!

Recent conversations with a three year old

Reasoning in kids is pretty funny.

Two things happened this morning that proved Levi's level of reasoning is sometimes a fine precise tool, and at other times, quite elementary. Immediately after waking up this morning Levi told me that his foot hurt. Here is our conversation:

Levi: mom, my foot hurts.
Me: why does your foot hurt? Do you remember what you did?
Levi: no. Mom, do you have to cut it off?
Me: (ha ha haing) no, we don' t need to cut off your foot! You need it to walk. How else would you get around without feet?
Levi: (looking at me as if I was the stupidest person on earth) I would walk on my hands mom. (duh)

Thirty minutes later we were downstairs and his cars are everywhere. I ask him to pick them up. Then I step on one. I ask again. Step on another one. Then I get mad. Make a couple of threats that involve no tv, throwing away cars, etc. and tell him to pick them up again. Sure enough, I step on another one. Now I am mad. I get down to eye level, "Pick Up Your Cars! I Keep Stepping On Them!!!" And he asks me "why do you keep stepping on my cars mom??" Exactly, why.

Also this morning, as I was making coffee, he comes in the kitchen and we had the following conversation:

Levi: mom, it smells like poop in here.
Me: poop? It smells like poop? Why would you say that?
Levi: Say what?
Me: Say that it smelt like poop in the kitchen.
Levi: I didn't say that. You did. (Levi exits the kitchen, leaving mom dumbfounded)

I do have to say in Levi's defence that the kitchen probably does stink. Our recycling needs to be taken out SO bad, but our outside recycling bins are OVERFLOWING with cardboard, plastic and paper that I have to wait till the trucks come to empty our recycling containers.

Why Erik, why?

I like Survivor. I watch it religiously. Well, religiously on my own time. See, Survivor is on Thursday nights right about the time when I do my greatest work. Bed time.

First I sing "Puff the Magic Dragon" an average of four times. Kiss Kiss. Cue Josh. Then Josh tells marvelous stories about driving to Alaska to meet Mommy or searching for dinosaurs in the forest. Kiss Kiss. Cue Mom. Then the grand finale, I sing "Bob the Builder" two times. Then Josh or I run up and down the stairs bringing water or toys to the demanding things called children.

So Friday nights, after the kids are in bed, Josh and I will watch Survivor. OH MY GOSH. I cannot believe Erik! What a dork! Just in case anybody is interested (I am sure that I am the only person who cares), but it was down to five people. Four mean, conniving, ruthless, deceitful women and naive Erik. Well, Erik won the immunity necklace! He guaranteed himself a one in four shot at one million dollars! Also, this season of Survivor is titled "Fans vs Favorites." Erik is a fan; meaning he has watched every season of Survivor. Since he was 14. He is now 22.

So after winning the immunity necklace, what does he do... HE GIVES IT AWAY!!!!!!!!!

He was immediately voted out. No surprise there.

Perhaps the funniest thing is that Josh could not finish the show. When it became apparent that Erik was kind of sort of maybe considering this outlandish plan, he had to go upstairs. He did not watch the end! When he came down after the show was over and found out how dumb Erik was, he lost it! Kind of cute how much Josh cares about Erik! Well, I guess cares is quite an exaggeration.

No... I want water

Today Claire said her first four word sentance. She usually is a two-worder, so going to four was great. My brother is in town and he made everybody pancakes for breakfast. Claire was almost done with her second pancake and wanted down from the table. She said "down". I got a piece of pancake on her fork and asked her if she wanted more pancake. She said "no, I want wa wa!" (wa wa is water)

She is growing up so fast!