Action Andrew

Yes, it’s been a while. Yes, life is crazy. Yes, by now we have already told most of you the stories I am about to relate in this blog. We are now recording them for posterity’s sake and apologize if you feel jaded for having to hear the same story twice. Let’s pretend they’re fables…

ANDREW AND THE POPCORN BAG

One day Andrew was wondering through the pantry when he heard his name. “Where are you?” Andrew asked innocently. “I’m up here” came the reply.

“Are you in amongst the cereal boxes?”

“No.”

“Are you amongst the jellos?”

“No.”

“Are you by the oatmeal?”

“Yes.”

“Are you the popcorn that I have been desiring this long while to keep safe in my belly?”

“YES! Go ask your mother to make me for you!”

So Andrew went to ask his mother. But his mother, knowing the hour of the morning and the necessity of being hungry for a good lunch, said, “NO WAY!”

Andrew related the news to the popcorn bag with tears in his eyes. “Do not cry little one. You can make me yourself when your mother is not around.” And Andrew’s eyes gleamed with past tears and future happiness.

When his mother was in the shower Andrew set out to accomplish the desire of his little heart. He scaled the crags and slot canyons of food pantry. Just when he was about to give up because his toes were slipping off the painted wood he spotted the little popcorn bag tucked into the corner of the second to highest shelf.

With all too much ease he positioned a bar stool in front of the magical box which ate raw food and threw-up cooked food. He placed the popcorn in the box unawares of the screaming bag: “Hey! NOT YET! You have to unwrap me! You have to lay me flat! Don’t cook me too….” Then he pushed buttons until the box sprang to life.

His mother was getting dressed in the bathroom when Andrew walked in with a charred mass of paper and plastic. “Look Mom, I made POPCORN! It doesn’t taste very good.” And with that, he threw it away. His mother burned cinnamon and other spices all day and still the smell lingers.

MORAL: If you are a food item, don’t talk to Andrew.

ANDREW AND ALL THE KEYS

One day Andrew was standing by the front door when he heard little voices (the poor child really needs some help). “Where are those voices coming from?” Andrew wondered out loud. “Up here, Shorty!” replied the keys by the front door.

And so it began everyday Andrew would stand staring up at the keys, and the whole time they would yell down taunts and insults from the perch on high. They felt safe in the knowledge that Andrew could not reach them. No, not even with the help of the accomplice Bar Stool.

One day, the keys were teasing Andrew when Andrew decided enough was enough. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to send my tiger up after you!” threatened the little boy. The keys just laughed. A tiger could not reach them.

True to his promise Andrew returned with his tiger. With a mighty fling Andrew’s tiger leapt at the keys. The keys laughed. The more the tiger came at them the more they laughed, and then something happened. The tiger got one of the keys and dragged it down to the floor to Andrew.

At first the keys were truly frightened but when they realized that it was very difficult for the tiger to get them and that it only happened every once in a while they returned to their old ways. Andrew was very discouraged.

Then one day Andrew was playing with his brother’s retractable stick which measured the lengths of things. Andrew sat and the floor and and pulled and pulled on the stick until it grew longer and longer. Soon Andrew looked up and saw that the stick was as long as his tiger could leap high. As long as the keys were high off the floor.

Now the keys live in fear and Andrew takes them down whenever he wants.

MORAL: If you are a pair of keys, don’t smack talk Andrew.

ANDREW AND THE TOASTER

One day Andrew poured a whole bottle of syrup into the toaster.

MORAL: If you are Andrew’s parents don’t get involved in other projects before cleaning up breakfast.

ANDREW AND THE SILENCE

One day in church it was really quite. Andrew thought that it was so quite that he should do something about it. He started yelling “Honk! Honk!” louder and louder to try to get people to make some noise.

MORAL: Don’t take Andrew to church.

Crazy Kids

I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated the “conversations with kids” series. It’s just been a little crazy. Mostly because of Andrew.

BEN

Ben has been trying to make a run for the title of perfect child as of late. His efforts have been stymied by a particular room cleaning episode and his habit of forgetting to tell us where he is going to play, but other than that he’s been wonderful. He is all about riddles and jokes still and will laugh at just about any one that I tell him whether or not he understands it. He must get that from his mother .

KALLIE

This little girl is starting to run shy on puppy dog eyes. Her game lately is to impress her friends by trying to slyly break the rules while they’re over and then get away with it. That blew up in face when she got to the point of losing friends completely. Whoops. How many years does it take for the kids to figure out we’re serious and we don’t make empty threats?

Her obsession lately is practicing things that she thinks will impress her classmates at school and checking her mouth daily for signs of loose teeth. Hoola-hooping and jump roping have been the skill to boast on the playground lately and Kallie will sit and practice in the driveway and fantasize about how impressed her school mates will be when she can link several jumps in a row on the jump rope. Tonight she told me that in 14 days her bottom 2 front teeth will be loose because she can already bend them backwards but not forwards.

ANDREW

Oh dear. Where to start? He has become quite the dominant little fireball. He doesn’t do anything that he doesn’t want to do for himself and he does a multitude of things that are driving Katie over the edge despite her patience.

To start, Andrew has lately taken to believing that he has the power to dictate when people should end their talks or prayers. Whether at home or church, if he decides it should be over he rolls his eyes, puts on his best ‘this is soooooo boring’ face, and starts repeating over and over in various intonations and volume levels “In the NAME OF JESUS CHRIST, AMEN!”

He won’t listen to either of us unless the reward is substantial or the punishment is severe. When Katie and I took a nap on Sunday we woke up to the contents of the freezer defrosted on the kitchen floor beautifully arranged in a half gallon of honey. The other half gallon of honey was found keeping various crackers and treats in the pantry from spontaneously floating away.

He’s finally found a way to get past the double barrel lock on the front door as well. After realizing that we had found the one spot in the house he couldn’t scale to, he figured out that the keys were still not out of his reach. Now he’ll sit there and tirelessly through his stuffed tiger up to knock the keys down. We have no solution to this problem yet.

Today he realized that Katie had just cleaned all the floors. So he managed to get the dogs to step in his puddle of glue and then prance around the house. No, the glue was not still wet when we found it.

First Bike Ride of the Year

A couple of weeks ago we were feeling a little aggressive so we packed up everything for a bike ride up to Provo Canyon. It was perfect, the hot sunny day had suddenly acquired a nice cloud cover to cool us off and make the ride pleasant… sort of.

By the time we were leaving our neighborhood there was a light refreshing sprinkle. As we made our way along the Provo river brief showers of rain began to come and go. When we approached University Ave. the temperature dropped and the rain was biting. We took refuge under a giant pine on the corner campus and waited out the storm until we felt like we had a window large enough to make it home. Since none of our bikes had mud flaps, by the time we got home Kallie and Ben were plastered with mud up their backsides. To give you an idea of what the conditions were really like Andrew, who normally has to be chained inside the bike trailer, would not leave it even to eat lunch in the refuge of our pine tree.

Father’s/Son’s Campout with Papa’s Ward

Grandpa invited us (well, the boys) to their Father’s/Son’s Campout. Unfortunately, for mom this fell on Mother’s Day Weekend. We’ll just leave it there before we get her all riled up again . Ben and Andrew were SO excited. Thanks to mom, by Friday afternoon we had the car loaded up with just about every goody and treat you could imagine wanting along with all the gear we would need to brave the wild 1/2 mile from Mona’s residential zone.

The campout was at Burraston Ponds, which gave the promise of fishing and canoeing. Unfortunately, the sign for the turn off to Burraston Ponds was nearly blank from weathering. We were the first ones there and we were going on internet directions without the GPS. After about 1 1/2 miles into farmland I pulled over at an auto garage (seriously, I don’t know what it’s doing out there but I’m pretty sure cows haven’t learned to drive yet). For some reason, when talking to certain groups of people I alter my dialect unintentionally. I don’t know why, but it’s something I’ve always experienced. So as I approached a group of 3 guys in overalls shooting the breeze I rolled out my query in some sort of hick twang. As soon as I spoke I prayed I would be able to keep it up lest they think I was making fun of them. I had visions of getting the crap kicked out of me while Andrew and Ben watched from the car. I was kindly informed that if I back tracked to the top of the hill there would be a huge sign marking the turn-off that I would just slap myself for missing the first time.

As it turned out, when I got to the top of the hill I felt like going back to slap the guy. The ‘huge’ sign was about 3’x3’ and it was so weathered it looked like a piece of rusty sheet metal tied to the fence. If you tried really hard, you could make out the lettering that once existed.

Given that we were crashing someone else’s campout we didn’t know who to look for at the ponds. We decided to do some fishing while we waited for more familiar faces. After Ben caught himself a tree branch and we got frustrated with having left our recent fishing supply purchase somewhere other than the tackle box, we decided we could drive back into Mona pretty quick to a fishing supply store we passed on the way. Of course, it happened to be a wholesale fishing supply store that very adamantly did not sell to the public. Really? A wholesale fishing supply store in Mona? Who do they sell to? Not to any other local public fishing stores as far as we could tell.

Stymied again we decided to go for a short hike while we waited. Ben found a new potential hiking stick, but soon found enough flaws in it to discard it.

Soon after, Uncle Alex and Uncle Dan arrived and we procured a choice camping spot. We got the tent set up and went for a little canoe ride while Dan and Alex tried to figure out how to set up a tent. It did make you wonder if they’d ever really been Boy Scouts. Caden, got fed up with trying to show his dad how the tent really worked and joined us.

 

Having finally got a place to sleep somewhat assembled, Uncle Alex decided to sink a raft. We’re not really sure where he thought he was trying to go.

We also enjoyed fishing and smore’s and lots of good stuff.

I know that the pictures make it look like an idyllic bedtime on the campout, but that was far from the truth. I mistakenly let Andrew get overtired and ended up having to put him the car screaming so that I could take him for a drive. Luckily, that did the trick. That wasn’t the worst part of the night, however. Throughout the night we were treated to the loudest chorus of cows I have ever heard. I couldn’t stand it. Finally, 4 1/2 hours later I was up for the rest of the day. I’m now inspired to write a hit new smart phone game called “Angry Cows” where, as opposed to an existing game, the cows are NOT the aggressors. I envision it as an educational tool for kids to learn the different cuts of meat a cow can be divided up in.

Saturday, was a lot of fun. We broke camp, fished and canoed, and made official monogramed hiking sticks from rough cut maple staffs.

First Bike Ride of 2011

 

Back in April we got the bikes out and took our first ride of the year.  It is so nice now that Kallie rides her own bike!  We took the trail down to the lake, about 5-7 miles round trip…I think.  It was still pretty cold outside and very windy, but the kids had a lot of fun.  Kallie did amazing on her first ride and made it to the lake just fine.  The ride home was a little harder since it is all uphill, but for a 5 year old doing such a long bike ride….and it was her first…she did amazing!

Andrew loves the trailer.  He gets his Mickey blanket, a game, a drink, a treat, and he is good for hours in this thing.  It’s great :)

The lake. How beautiful!!!  I swear, we took more pictures of the scenery than the kids!

Kal enjoying her chips at the lake.  It was so windy and cold!  We didn’t stay too long for fear of the storm clouds ahead (other picture)

Benjamin

 

Andrew showing me his orange fingers from his chips

“Mom, it’s too cold to smile!  Put the covers back on me!”

Group shot

The final stretch has water on both sides.  The water was so high this part was covered with water just a week or so before.  There were tree branches and everything all over the side.  How pretty!

Looking back at the clouds we were going to have to bike through.  We made it home with a few minutes to spare before the rain poured down.  We weren’t so lucky with today’s bike ride!  That post will follow later :)

Isn’t it beautiful!  This is one of my favorite bike rides around our house.  It’s not too long for the kids and it is on a trail so there are no cars to worry about.  I’m so excited for summer!

Family Fun Run

Ben and Kallie’s school hosted their first ever family fun run.  We decided to sign up!  I have to admit I thought they were going to cancel it since it was snowing on and off, but they didn’t so we went!  Chris even came home early from work to join us.  We just did the family freestyle mile.  Kal and Ben decided to ride their scooter and Chris and I run/walked it. (It’s really hard to jog when you are surrounded by little kids, strollers, scooters, etc on all sides.)  As soon as they blew the horn to start the race Ben took off.  He was the SECOND person to cross the finish line!  He was so proud and so excited!  That’s why in all the pictures below he is holding up two fingers.  When we jogged in Ben had already eaten a bagel, had water and a hot chocolate and met up with his friends.  It was a really fun thing to do and got us all excited for a summer full of races!

Kallie on her scooter.  Yes, we are only 1/2 mile in and we had to stop and get drinks.

Chris and Andrew

With so many kids all coming in at the same time there was actually a line to finish the race.  It was really fun to see so many people come out and support the school.

 

Ben with he trusty “Big Wheelie”

Kallie and her medal

 

FINISH LINE!!!!!