Junk Yard

My mom and I have one very serious thing in common. We love sweets and junk food. And when I say "love", I mean we really don't care about eating anything else...except Mexican food, of course. Jason likes to say that if my mom and I ever lived together and only had to worry about feeding ourselves we wouldn't have any "real" food in the house. I'm not sure what he means by "real food" since Oreo Cakesters, Nutty Bars, and those pink cake cookies with the sprinkles that you can buy in bakery departments are quite real. (Not to mention delicious.) My mom and I are completely opposite from Jason and his mom. Jason's one that would rather eat a hamburger than a candy bar, and once while ordering Blizzards at DQ JR said, "Granny Sherry wants a salad blizzard!" I freely admit my love of junk food. If there are pop tarts in the house, I just sit and think about them (until I go eat them). And as I was telling Jason the other night, I'm quite sure that just like my TV boyfriend, Adam Richmond from Man Vs Food, I could complete The Kitchen Sink Challenge (a 2-gallon sundae with 8 softball-sized scoops of ice cream). Okay, so maybe not. But I could put a good dent in it. And although I like to joke about things here in Durango, I'm very serious about one place: The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. I believe it's the original RMCF, and although it's quite touristy and you can actually visit them in malls throughout Texas, I don't care. I love it. And I've recently become a fan of one particular item...the M&M covered marshmallow. I get one everytime I can, and it's now JR's favorite too. JR had some friends over yesterday and after lunch they were all too happy to accompany me to check in on my marshmallows. Here they are before I passed out the goodies. And just like after eating any "real" yummy food, I had to pass out the Wetwipes when they were finished!

The Right to Bear Arms

I'm actually in shock over how cute JR's school picture turned out. He's not making his squinty smiley face, crazy eyebrows, and you can barely see the red spots on his chin from his Chapstick issues. I'm not a fan of school pictures, and I certainly didn't have high hopes for this one. The child was wearing a sweatshirt hoodie as he left the house, so I was bracing myself for his hair to be in every possible direction. But what I wasn't expecting is that one of my child's appendages would be missing. Check out his left arm. Oh that's right, he doesn't have one! Pretty conspicuous if you ask me...the native Texan that hunts wildlife and has parents that don't bike hundreds of miles on the weekends has his arm mysteriously disappear in his school picture? Hummm, coincidence? I think not. Anybody have the number to Fox News? I smell a conspiracy!

The Great Pumpkin

As I mentioned, yesterday we rode The Great Pumpkin Express to The Great Pumpkin Patch. (On a side note, TGP Patch doubles as The North Pole when the Polar Express starts up.) After meeting Charlie Brown and Lucy, we spent about an hour and half at TGP Patch. The kids had a blast with all the activities, but as you'll see, I think they had the most fun in the hay maze selecting their pumpkins.

Kyle was probably the most excited about the train ride. You can see in the first two pictures he's holding his own train that he brought along for the ride. Here he is running at a full Kyle sprint towards the train as it was pulling up.

I Couldn't Make This Up

We just got back from riding the Great Pumpkin Patch Express. I'll have pictures and an update soon, but I just have to report what I saw. On the train home I noticed a woman with short hair that had a tattoo on her neck. It caught my eye as an odd tattoo. Surely it wasn't what I thought it was. On closer inspection, it was exactly what I thought it was. Now y'all know how I feel on this subject, so you might not believe me when I tell you that her tattoo was...wait for it...the recycling symbol. I kid you not. Green arrows, the whole bit. I told Jason about it and we've now lived here long enough that his reply was: "I'm not surprised."

Interview with a Vampire...I mean, Harry

The kids didn't have school yesterday. (Not sure why, probably because the school district figured the kids needed some extra days to work out before ski season starts.) So I took JR and Harry down to Farmington to have their haircut and for me to sneak in a quick trip to Target and Hobby Lobby. Harry woke-up about 10:40 yesterday, which was totally fine...I wish I could sleep 'til 10:40. But then he slept all the way to Farmington and back (It's about an hour and 15 minutes one way). I just assumed he must have sat up all night, as teenagers do. So when we got home I said, "Wow, Harry, What time did you go to bed last night? You must have stayed up late."
Harry's reply: No, I went to bed at 10:30.
Me: Really? You must be really tired to sleep all the way to Farmington and back.
Harry: No. The sunshine makes me sleepy.
Me: What? How's that, the sunshine is supposed to make you feel awake.
Harry: No. The sunshine puts me to sleep. At school if the sunshine touches me, I want to take a nap.
Me: Huh. I guess you must be a vampire then.
To which Harry started laughing (he loves the Twilight movie). He then told JR, "JR, you better watch out! I'm a vampire!"
Now Harry has told us all along that he doesn't like sunshine (and we have tons of bright sunshine here in Durango). I just thought it was him being Chinese. (The Chinese will never admit anything is better than something they have in China. They're very communist that way.) So we just assumed his dislike of the sunshine was because he only gets to see it about 6 times a year in Beijing due to the pollution. But, no. Seems I've got a Chinese exchange student that loves to eat, and happens to be a vampire.

Chapstick-A Tale of Woe

So instead of dying of embarrassment, I'll just go ahead and put it out here:
When JR got home from school yesterday he casually mentioned, "Oh, by the way, Mommy, you don't need to put any Chapstick on me tonight. I got some at school." Knowing that JR doesn't take Chapstick to school I pressed further.
Me: What? Whatd'ya mean?
JR: I went to see the doctor at school, and he put some on me.
Me: The nurse put Chapstick on you? Did you ask him too?
JR: No, Mrs. (I forgot her name, but she's the music teacher) sent me. And then the doctor put it on, so you don't need to put any on me tonight. Okay?
Me: The teacher sent you to the nurse for Chapstick?! Oh my goodness! I'm so embarrassed!
JR: I know! Can you believe she would send me down for Chapstick?
Me: I'm not embarrassed for the teacher! I'm embarrassed for you...and me!
I can only imagine what this woman must think of my mothering skills. But as y'all know, I'm trying my hardest to get Chapstick, Blistex, lotion, I think I even tried to sneak some Neosporin on this child. You should see the dramatics during the "home doctoring" sessions. Squeals, jumps, flailing, and flinching don't even describe the half of it. And actually, I have no idea where he gets his hatred of moisturizing. Jason has Chapsticks strategically located in our house, car, and his office. And I'm so greased up that I usually have to de-grease before leaving the house. But now that I've shared my tale of embarrassment for all to hear, I think I'll go ahead and give the school a call. I need to find out what they put on his face...it actually does look better!

Mary Lou Who?

I keep forgetting where I live. If I had remembered that I live in Extreme Fitness Land, I would have realized that the 2nd lesson of Tiny Tots is of course when you let your children hang from the regulation height gymnastics rings. So not kidding...2nd lesson and we're already dangling from the rings. Guess that means the 3rd lesson they'll break out the palmal horse. Now you know I've always got pictures, but there's just no way I can whip out a camera while I'm waiting to catch my children that are suspended 18.86 feet above the ground. (I looked it up.) But, never fear! I have completely reenacted the scene for you in illustration (except for the teacher, but she's not a main character in my story, so I left her out).
Now, as you can clearly see, I had to stand on the giant blue mat and hoist my kids up to the rings. (I'm so short I could barely get them up there.) I then had to wait for Ring Swinger to let go and make sure he didn't land on Other Brother who was crying at my leg wanting it to be his turn. (Kyle could hang on longer, but Reed could pull his legs up by his face.) And you'd think that would have filled up their hanging quota of the day, but I actually had to pull them off the door handle as we were leaving the building.
And if you're wondering when I had time to create this little portrayal...Well, I actually did it while Kyle and Reed were busy "drawing" their own little masterpieces. Note to self: colored pencils are now about 15 minutes worth of entertainment.