Happy Year of the Snake

Today is Chinese New Year.

We did absolutely nothing Chinese-y.

 

But I do have this that Reed brought me the other day.

It's his "Chinese writing".

 

I think the red character is one Ayi did when she was here, so it's real.

 

The rest are Reed's interpretation of the Chinese written word.

 

I'm going to pretend it says: Happy New Year! Have a great year of the Snake!

Fashion Fabulous Friday

Super hero cape, optional.

 

 

I Have Boys. They Are Bad.

I always thought JR was a wild and crazy boy.

Then I met Kyle and Reed.

 

JR's had his moments, but the other two take the cake.

 

And by 'take the cake' I mean Kyle colored on JR's piano keys.

 

Reed witnessed the crime; then tattled.

 

Thankfully his vandalism was done in pencil. 

His excuse? "Reed wouldn't let me play the piano, so it's his fault."

 

He took his punishment from me, and since I'm the "mean one", I'm not so sure why he was scared for Jason to come home from work....except that Kyle likes me best, so maybe he thinks Jason's the "mean one".

 

He assumed the under the coffee table hiding place position when Jason walked in.

 

And being the awesome mom I am, I snapped a picture of him and laughed.

His Cherokee Name Should be "Bullets Over Broadway"

Continuing with the gun/hunting theme from yesterday (and you know I love a good theme), JR had his first 4H shooting sports practice last night. Unfortunately, Jason wasn't able to take him, which left me as the designated non-shooter.

 

 

Now, you may be thinking none of this sounds like a big deal, but as I found out, JR had never actually loaded his gun.  Which left me having a "here's how you load the gun" lesson from Jason.
A lesson that may or may not have been interrupted with me running into the closet to hide when I thought a bullet might accidentally come flying out of the gun, ricochet off the wall, and kill me. But I digress.

 

 

I was so nervous about having to take JR to shooting practice and load a gun, I could hardly think of anything else yesterday. 

 I mean, asking me to load a gun (and give JR shooting tips) is like asking Jason to match Beyoncé's Super Bowl routine step-by-step. (Which is what I was actually doing during half time...just to prove to my children how "cool" I am.)

 

 

I was telling Caroline how scared I was, to which she replied, "That's awful! I can't think of anything worse!"

Thank you! I've lived with these Ingersolls so long, I was starting to think I was the weird one.

(BTW, Caroline could also perform Beyoncé's Super Bowl routine if the need arose.)

 

 

 

Turns out, the 4H kids have to do all their own loading, so when the time came for JR to practice, I basically pulled the damsel in distress act, and was able to get one of the leaders to show JR how to do it. 

And after a few minutes, JR looked like an old pro (and I got to stay out of the way).

 

 

 

JR loading his gun. (So glad it wasn't me!)

Go JR!

(Though I'm guessing there's no cheerleading at these things since you can't hear anything.)

Bird is the Word

So after seeing the "excitement" that was Phineas and Ferb Live, you might be thinking that poor JR was left out.

Um, no.

Jason, JR, and some of our neighborhood friends took off on a pheasant hunt in Kansas this weekend.

I never get the full story of what happens on these hunts (I guess hunting trip are like Vegas trips).  All I can really piece together is that pheasants were hunted and fun was had by all.

Thankfully, Jason did snap a picture or two for our viewing enjoyment.

This picture just cracks me up.

First, Nolan has a toy Nerf gun. Then, the girl of the group, Anna, is the one holding the dead birds!

I could fill a scrapbook with just "portraits" of these two in camouflage.

 

JR and Anna

(Anna is our favorite dog, Zoe's, "sister".)





The hunting group  (AKA: Jason and JR plus 3 sets of our neighbors.)



 

LIVE!

The big day finally arrived.

Phineas and Ferb Live!

 

Thankfully, we were able to make it to the seats without having to buy any $20 popcorn, snow cones, plastic hats, light wands, or balloons. 

 

Much in part to:

A. The promise of an after show trip to Pinkberry if we passed on the $35 nachos plate

and

B. They were one of the first 100 kids to spin the Belco Theatre Wheel and won a free Phineas!

 

 

 

 

Checking out the stage.  The actual spot Perry the Platypus will stand!

(Can you think of anything more amazing?)

 

 

 

This is what their "I'm ready for the show to start!!!" faces look like.

 

 

 

They loved the show and were happy to hear all their favorite songs

 (they even sang mine..."Squirrels in my Pants").

 

 

They've been wanting to ride one of the downtown bicycle rickshaws for quite awhile, so as we exited the theater we spotted one and rode over to Pinkberry.

(This was the best picture I could get to capture the moment...not terrible considering we were speeding through the downtown streets of Denver on a rickshaw!)

 

 

The Phineases were excited about Pinkberry.

 

 

But probably not as much as these guys.

 

 

On the way home, Kyle proved he's been hanging with big brother, the actor, quite a bit.

He said, "I really liked the show. Good thing nobody forgot their lines!"

 

Fashion Fabulous Friday

Goggles.

 

Not just for the pool anymore.