I Did Yard Work

And shockingly my title is not a veiled reference for something else. I actually did yard work. There's not much yard work to be done when you live at 7,500 feet mountain elevation. Grass doesn't grow easily in such an environment, so our yard is essentially bark mulch. But my dad pointed out that if I would cut back all the brown, dead "leaves" from the giant monkey grass looking things, that the green would start to come in and look really nice. And since my dad should have his own TV show when it comes to pretty yards, (Yard of the Month should be his middle name) I took his advice. I got to work yesterday afternoon while everybody was outside playing, and Jason even noticed when he came in! He asked me what I used to trim the plants.
Me: scissors.
Jason: You mean like the ones in the kitchen?
Me: No, I found some in the garage, they're now our yard shears.
And you know I have a picture for you of my handywork. I'll be sure and update you as they grow big and tall thanks to my scissoring cosmetology session on them!

When I Grow Up

Is it still called 'stereotyping' when our children have so obviously already mapped out their futures?

JR: Hanging out in Asia with Hot Women. (And yeah, I'm pretty sure he'll figure out how to parlay this into a career. If his daddy had known that was a vocational option he sure would have!)

Kyle: Fashion Stylist to the Stars

And Reed: The Athlete

Safety First

The Tip

I have a little tip for the teacher who doesn't like 2 year old Ingy boys at her "performances". (And I keep putting 'performance(s)' in quotation marks because in the Jan Book of How to Put on Show, lip sync doesn't cut it. And if there was lip syncing going on, you can bet I would have at least choreographed a fabulous hand routine to go with it. But that's just me.)

So what's my tip? Monster Trucks.

We took JR, his friend, Kelley, and The Babies to the monster truck show yesterday and the little ones were so in awe they hardly moved a muscle.

The hat was free with purchase of cotton candy.

JR and Kelley showed their awe and excitement in a slightly different way.

During intermission they were giving rides in a monster truck. We sent JR and Kelley down to check it out and they came back and said, "The lady said the rides are $10 a piece, but she told us to come back after the show and she'd take care of us." And take care of them she did. They got to ride in the monster truck, she gave them flags, and then they met the drivers. Being a cute little boy sure does work wonders!

Arbor Day, Schmarber Day

This morning I attended a full blown, 2 hour, every elementary school in the district, tree extravaganza. Complete with songs, Kyle and Reed acting like 2 year olds, and me having a knock-down-drag out-fight with one of JR's teachers. (And since I probably shouldn't say which teacher it was, I'll just say that he only goes to this class twice a week, and doesn't do P.E. or art.)

First, JR.

Here's the only time I saw, and only picture I got, of the poor child. (More on why later.)

Kyle and Reed actually did good for about the first 15 minutes of the show. We saw Smokey the Bear, listened to the mayor talk, and made it through about 3 elementary performances.

Here's Kyle reading the program. Reed was in my lap. All was good.

Now had the Arbor Day Show (from here on out known as ADS) only been 15 minutes, we'd have been great. (And when you think about it, 15 minutes is a super long time for 2 year old twin boys to sit still.)

But the show wasn't 15 minutes, in fact, it was AN HOUR and FIFTEEN MINUTES before JR got up to "perform".

But before we get to JR's "performance", let's talk about what Kyle and Reed did for that hour in between:

(By this time I had moved to the corner of the gym with them.) They slapped each other with their caps, ran around on their squeaky shoes, cried when I took their squeaky shoes off, had to leave the show while they cried, ran out the gym and tried to run out the front door.

Needless to say after an hour of trying to keep them under control, I was frazzled. There was another little 2 year old boy there and they started running around with him. Unfortunately for me, they started running toward the performance area. Now the other mom and I were trying our best to keep them from running up there, but I think it's much more distracting to see kids plus and adult running past, so we didn't chase after them. They probably ran up there about 3 times, and apparently 3 times is all JR's teacher can take because she marched over to me and told me if I was going to let my kids run around (like I let them do that because I'm such an incompetent mom) then I need to take them outside.

Me: When are they going to sing? As soon as they sing, I'll leave. And, besides, YOU have kids. You should be more understanding.

(On a side note, this teacher happened to be eating out with her family the night we made all the napkin hats and accessories. Of course, we thought we were hilarious so we were all laughing and having a good time. Let's just say from the looks on her face then, she was not amused with us. But then again, her children were so well behaved they didn't need to make napkin hats.)

I also then told her: I'm tired of you being pissed (yes, I used the word "pissed") about my kids all the time. You basically stoped the show at Family Night to go give my kids 'go to hell looks' (Yep, I said that too. My mom is queen of the expression 'go to hell looks', and really, it is the best way to describe "that look".) I'm doing the best I can. If you don't want 'families' at Family Night or these shows, then don't invite the kids! (I didn't mention JR's "performance" at family night in this post since I was still huffy about the afore mentioned "looks" my kids were given.)

She then told me something about how I couldn't talk to her that way and walked off.

And here's the best part. So every other school in the district had performed by now. Some had poems and speaking parts, but almost everybody did a song. All of the songs were sung a cappella. And one of the schools even used sticks they had picked up in their yards to keep the beat (That was really cute.) So what was JR's "performance"? Well, his teacher turned on a CD of other kids singing to have our kids "sing" a long with. So yeah, I waited an hour and fifteen minutes for a lip sync number. Great. If I want to hear other kids singing I'll watch American Idol. And the other best part? JR was nowhere to be seen. Can you find him? Nope. Me neither.

So even though the ADS was a community event advertised all over the place, apparently 2 year old twins whose mother can't control them were not welcome by certain teachers. I wish they had put that in the flyer, it would have made my morning so much easier!

The Queen of Updates Too

Update 1-Praise The Lord! JR has given up on Turn off the TV Week. He made it two full days, and it wasn't even the TV that got him. It was the Nintendo. I found him playing that Nintendo like a man possessed. He did better than I could have done. I'm not sure I could have made it 2 hours.

Update 2- My parents made it back to Texas in record time. There was dust flying and tires screeching after my dad got a call from their house sitter that his peacocks were missing. (And I know that sounds like I'm trying to make some witty double entendre, but no, he literally got a call that the peacocks were gone.) As of this posting, the peacock search is still ongoing.


Update 3: All About Me- My cooking injury continues to remind me how my place is so not in the kitchen. Not only does it hurt and itch at the same time, but now I keep thinking I've got some freaky tattoo every time it catches my eye.

Queen of Dinner? Yep, That's Me.

Once again, I give you my amazing culinary skills.

And tonight my dinner menu was so spectacular my praises were sung by everyone under our roof.

31 cent scoop night at Baskin Robbins.

Dinner is served!

Besides ice cream, we also got to enjoy: balloons, the fire truck, and seeing pretty much every resident of Durango.