Overheard

Matt: "Alex, get your head away from my bum. Bekah, get your bum away from my head."

Matt :"Alex, eat over the table." 

Alex: "Okay, Eyeball Bucky."

Alex: "[sound effect] I shot you with my laser."

Matt: "I blocked it with my shield."

Alex: "I shot you with a special laser that goes through shields."

Matt: "I have another shield behind that one that you didn't know about."

Alex: "[sound effect] I melted through that one with my hot lava shield melter."

Matt: "The invisible man stepped in front of it and saved me."

Alex: "No, the invisible man died from a heart attack when he was 50."

Matt (to Alex): "You named my bum Don?"

Best one to date

Matt brought me an over-sized bowl of Lucky Charms (well, the generic kind, but just as good) on Sunday morning for mother's day. He said, "I thought about making you an omelet, but I figured it would be time wasted." Right you are, honey. I can't do that heavy breakfast stuff first thing in the morning (as good as it is--I prefer it for dinner). Besides, I have a slight addiction/obsession with cereal. What's more, I buy the healthy stuff, so this was a nice surprise.
In high school my boyfriend came by our house to surprise me. He saw me through our glass door stuffing my face with a giant bowl of cereal accompanied with a giant spoon. He just laughed and so did I. With 7 kids and all that ice cream and cereal eating, a clean, normal sized bowl and spoon were a rare find. You were probably more likely to find said spoon in the dirt in the backyard, carelessly chucked aside after being used as a shovel.
Anyway, back to present time. The other kids picked out black licorice for me--score again. Matt hates it ("the taste reminds me of an old man" was his commentary), so I've had a black licorice fast for a few years.
We had my step-mom's specialty marinated pork tenderloin with roasted asparagus, roasted red potatoes, homemade whole wheat rolls, and honey glazed carrots for dinner. Q: How do you finish off that kind of perfection? A: Chocolate Mousse.
Just when I thought things couldn't get much better, I opened a painting and narrative from Alex.

"We love you mom bekus of transformrs" That kid cracks me up. Here's what is says at the bottom (spelling corrected):  "My mommy's hair is brown like a chocolate bar with ice cream pieces. My mommy's eyes are brown like chocolate milk. The end."

Wednesday

It has already been a week since one of our funnest days in Michigan. Thanks to Mary for graduating, because on their way back from that, Grandpa Robin and Grandma Linda were able to make a stop here. After dinner we made a mad dash to Alex's kindergarten concert. He had not wanted to go until he knew G & G were going to be there watching. Good timing on their part. Also, Alex happened to have a random day
off of school and Matt happened to have a random day off from "work" so we had the whole day to frolic.

My dad took us to the movies to see How to train your Dragon while Linda played with Keturah back home. Not to be outdone by her husband, Linda took the kids swimming in their hotel pool.
Linda and I went food shopping, Matt and Dad went BBQ shopping and the combination that evening was magical. I think that is the most fun I've had in my kitchen. All the times Mary bragged about having Dad's bbq whilst I was exiled in the opposite half of the country can now be forgiven. And to top that all off--ice cream sundaes. Heaven.

Fabrication

We all love Keturah. She gets the most endearing, lovable names that we can come up with: stink bomber, pooper, chubbs, butterball, stink machine, etc.
So Alex says, "Keturah, you're a poop factory."
Matt adds, "Alex, if Keturah is a poop factory, then you are the whine factory."
Alex retorts, "And Dad, you are a toot factory."
Rebekah chimes in, "And Mom is the pregnant factory."

If there were a picture to go with this post, it would be one of me--one of those "cute, pregnant belly" pictures. Yeah, I don't do those. I look the same as I did the last 3 times at 7 months, so if you were lucky enough to see me one of those times, imagine that.

Goose Poop

In one month we went from this:

                                                                                    To this:

We went to Ann Arbor and rented a row boat for a couple of hours to enjoy the warm weather and Matt's vacation time. We had a lot of fun trying to row with a broken oar and the wind working against us. Keturah is the only one who didn't take a turn rowing, but she got splashed plenty to make up for it. And I  learned something new about geese. We came right up to a goose family that didn't want us near their egg, so they hissed at us. Didn't know they could hiss. Maybe it's a Canadian thing, eh? There were a ton of geese. I tried to find a spot on the grass to sit down and there were none to be found that were sans goose poop. 
Have you ever noticed that all the different words for poop are 4 letters? Poop, crap, terd, loaf, do-do, dump, etc. I know there is another one, too--but this post if for the kids.

Carnivore

I'm not sure what inspired all this, but my kids have had a thing with where meat comes from. They know perfectly well that it is animal muscle, so they always ask what animal it came from, what part of the victim it is, and how we came about having it on hand.
I'm cutting chicken breasts before dinner...

Bekah: What's that?
Me: Chicken.
B: But what animal did it come from?
Me: A chicken. You know, the bird. Bok, bok.
B: Is he dead?
Me. Yes. Definitely dead.
Pause.
B: Does he even know that you're cutting him?
Me: No, I don't think he cares right now. He's dead.
B: What part of his body is that?
Me: His chest.
B: And you got part of his chest at the store?
Me: Yep.

Once I caught her making sawing motions, so I inquired after the purpose. She was cutting a little army man up for his meat to feed to Megatron.
We might have a future butcher in our midst.

A lot to live up to

 This new baby has to be pretty cute to be able to compete with these three...

I'm not trying to brag, because if you consider what kind of gene pool they had to work with, you'd think they were genetically engineered.

Oh, I hope her eyes stay that color.