The Joys of Microwave Cooking

"Mom!  21 seconds I have a breadstick DONE from frozen!!"
"Cool."
Sung while dancing, "Oh yeah!  Uh huh!  I did that!  Oh yeah!"

Just keeps gettin' better

"Mom?  I need you to smell something for me."
"What."
"I need you to smell my shirt."
"Oooooookkkkkkk..."
sniff sniff
"Ugh!  What is that?!"
"Pee.  When I was going to the bathroom I forgot to pull my shirt up far enough."
"WHY DID YOU MAKE ME SMELL IT???"
"Because I wanted to know if the smell was still there."
"Yes!  It is!  Now go upstairs and put on a clean shirt!"
An evil cackle erupts as he runs up the stairs.

~End scene~

Better

While the boys were in the bath last night, I removed the amazing tree decorations from the previous night and rehung the lights.  Once they were out of the tub, and wearing at least underwear or a diaper so they would STOP PEEING ON THE FLOOR SAM, I had the boys help me hang the ornaments.  I think it turned out pretty darn nice.

Sam is very excited about the tree again this year...

Don't be fooled by his cuteness.  These were taken after he rammed his little shopping cart into the tree...twice...while looking at me and smiling.

Clever Boy

We borrowed a friend's trailer yesterday to get our Christmas tree.  It is super helpful this particular friend lets us use his trailer whenever we need it, buuuuuuut there is usually something in it that needs to go to the dump before we can put our stuff in it.  Yesterday was no exception.

We picked up the very full trailer and headed to the dump to unload it.  Travis was grumbling a little bit about how much was in the trailer and while I was equally annoyed, I figured looking for a bright side would be in order since we were on a fun tree shopping trip and there was no sense starting it off with yucky mindsets.  That, and both boys were listening.

So, I said, "Well, how about we think about it this way...instead of having a financial payment to make for the use of a trailer, we have a manual labor payment to make for the use of a trailer.  We don't have to pay any money for it, but we still get to use it whenever we need it."  Before Travis could agree, because of course he was going to agree with me, Alex piped up from the back seat, "Yeah!  It's symbiosis!"  Uhhhhhh, wat.  He continued, "Yeah, we get to use his trailer and he gets a clean trailer.  Everybody gets what they need.  It's symbiosis!"  I agreed that is in fact what it was and asked where he learned such an awesome word.  "Ocotonauts and Wild Kratts."

And people say TV is useless.  Ha!

The Holidays...

...they are upon us.  After a weekend of driving and a ton of great time with family we decided to get some Christmas decorating done.  First thing on the list?  Get the tree.  It only took two stops and a lot of chasing boys through stacks of trees, but we found a great one.  We set it up, but I didn't put the lights on right away so we could let the branches relax a bit.  That was too much waiting for Alex, so he asked if he put at least one strand of lights on and just a few ornaments.  Knowing I was most likely going to have to take off whatever he put on, I let him at it.  With the help of his brother and two friends, he created this masterpiece:

As Mariah aptly commented:  #nailedit.

A, B, C, J...wait.

Every Monday, Alex gets a list of 15 spelling words and every Friday, he takes a spelling test.  So, every night we go through the list.  This week's list had some doozies on it.  Barge, place, badge, space, etc.  At first I was just thinking they were doozies for a 2nd grader, but then...

One of the words was bulge.  For some reason I had it stuck in my head that bulge is actually spelled "buldge."  And I kept correcting Alex.  Like every time.  Travis even said from the living room, "Huh, I wouldn't have spelled that with a D." but I just thought he was saying that so Alex didn't feel bad about not knowing how to spell the word.

You guys.  This went on for 2 days.  I kept telling him to spell it "buldge."  Until finally last night I actually looked at the list instead of my normal glance at it to know what word to have him spell next.  And I was all, "WAIT!  NO!  I WAS WRONG!"  And then I had to start the process of unteaching it.

This may not be his most successful spelling test.

Hiiiiiiieee

It's been almost a week!  Whoops.  Not much goin' on in the Ol' Julius House.

Sam is so much a two year old it is making me nutso.  His current favorite mode of communication is scolding me, usually followed with a hitting attempt.  So that's fun.  He's still pretty cute, so I guess I'll continue to fight this battle instead of giving him to someone for Christmas.

Over on Alex's side he is showing signs of pre-pre-teen fun by claiming everything, other than the TV and his tablet, is too hard and he'll never be able to do it right.  He's the worst at everything!  He will never get it right!  Gaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

Fun all around.