Moab, Utah...

...is so boring.

See how "bored" they look?

(daddy's mountain bike trail)

at the end of a long day, when the hiking and scenic drives were growing stale for BR, he was fortunate enough to stumble upon one final breathtaking view:

Yes!

he is 3!

a basketball cake and some new trucks--a little boy's dream come true.

Happy Birthday, Riceball!

Uncle Dave is (still) more awesome than Mommy

As I tucked him in earlier this evening:

Me: "How much does Daddy love BR?" (here I was expecting a kind of "SO much!" answer or something)
Br: "Uh, three."
Me: "Huh? Okay... How much does Mommy love BR?"
Br: "Three. (whispering) Now say 'Dave'!"
Me: "Okay, how much does Uncle Dave love BR? Wait, let me guess: three?"
Br: "No, no. Seven!"

getting ready for 3

Br's birthday is coming up, and we have been planning.

"BR, only two days until your birthday! Are you getting excited?"
"Yes! I'm going to have a basketball cake and a chocolate cake!"
"Uh, no, the basketball cake IS a chocolate cake."
"I know, you can mix the basketball cake with a cake and I will taste it and it will taste like chocolate!"

He has requested trucks and basketballs as presents. He also informed me that A. would be giving him "one of his trucks" as a present. "Wait, she's going to give you one of the trucks that is already yours?"

"Yes!"

"Is that fun for you?"

"Yes! I love my trucks!"

So there you are folks, save your pennies. Here is a child who is utterly content with what he already owns.

an education in gullibility

L. loves to learn, and she loves school. Her Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. G., is fantastic. (I think)

As you might know, L. rides the school bus. The bus picks her up outside of another school that isn't being used as such anymore. It's more of an office building of some kind now. When the weather is bad, we wait inside the building where it is dry.

Earlier this week, L. and I were waiting inside the empty building, and one of the security cameras caught her eye.

L: "Does that work?"
Mom: "Probably not, since the school is no longer open."
L.: "But the lights are flashing."
Mom: "Uh huh. Yeah, look, I don't really know, ok?"
L: "Mrs. G. says that when the light is red, it means someone is misbehaving, and when it's yellow, everything is fine."
Mom: "What? Did she really said that?"
L.: "Yes." And then her eyes got real wide. "Oh no, look! It's flashing red!
Well, it must be someone in another hallway because I know it's not me!"

________

________

The other day she came home and asked me about leprechauns, what they look like, could we see some images on Google, please? Sure, sure, fine. She was asking so many questions, though, I thought it best to clarify that they are not real. They don't really exist, you know that, right?

L: "Well, Mrs. G. believes in them. She says they are real."

(Oops, I didn't mean to ruin the classroom fun. But oh well, I couldn't back down now.)

Me: "Well, they're not. But it's still fun to celebrate St. Patrick's Day."

On Tuesday, they laid out "leprechaun traps" and left them overnight to see if they could catch any on Wednesday. I wondered what the teacher was planning.

Me: "Oh, do you think Mrs. G. might dress up as a leprechaun tomorrow?"

L (rolling her eyes): "Mom, she would never fit into that paper bag."

Me: "Paper bag? Oh, I know! It will be a toy leprechaun that you catch!"

L: "What? How would they get in there?"

So I dropped it. She came home after school on Wednesday very excited to tell me all about the day's events. I asked her about the traps and she explained that the leprechauns were "so tricky" and they left behind some of the gold and clover leaves and some of the feathers from their hats, too.

Ah, clever one, Mrs. G., I thought.

But L. wouldn't stop talking about it. She had to tell me about everything that had happened that day. All the snacks, games, who was wearing green, and on and on. Forty five minutes after she got off the bus, she was still talking and I was getting a little tired of it all, to tell the truth. The leprechauns who had snuck into the classroom in the night had apparently wreaked a good bit of havoc. They had turned the calendar and the class schedule and some other items upside down and left other tell-tale evidence of their visit.

Finally, I understood why she was so insistent: "Now do you believe in leprechauns, Mommy? Do you? Because who else would have done all that?"

favorites

the most recent nonsensical exchange

L.: "Daddy always plays that game."
A.: "No, he sometimes does."
L.: "You're wrong, he does almost every day."
A.: "That's because it's awesome."
BR: "Silly, A. You're just tricking us."

logic and consequences

Remember this? Well, maybe associating the two was a mistake. Yesterday it became apparent that BR does not exactly understand how they are related.

He told L.: "When I do poo in the potty, then ice cream comes."

not another boring and cold winter evening

Tonight, the kids each received an invitation to a Dinner Party. The rule: they had to dress fancy.

We primped with Aretha cheering us on in the background. All we were missing were some of Olivia's boas.

A. and L. took over the camera for awhile.

there was dancing...

fine wine... (i mean, juice)

and delightful conversation.

Ella Fitzgerald helped set a quieter mood for dinner, and everyone was simply charming. Or, as L. put it, "Oooh, A. you are magnificent."

st. pat's

Who knew that our st. paddy's day parade here would be so huge? We sat at the very beginning of the parade for two hours and all of the floats had still not crossed the start line. It was awesome. (But after two hours, we were kind of ready to go home.)

Here are some of the highlights:

irish dancers and irish wolfhounds (of course.)

Baby C. started to wail every time the music would start up.

I guess he and Gramom agree about bagpipes.

(Leia: notice that she wore her new special broach?)

I wished i could have been this guy in the parade. how cool is that.

a little bit of a breeze and he could have been airborne.

more irish dogs


plenty of antique firetrucks

Pretty much what you might expect at this kind of parade so far, right?

Now check out this next set. Bet your parade didn't have any of this stuff:

alpacas:

longhorn cattle:

st. bernard rescue people on a float, in green togas:

Iwo Jima memorial (with child actors):

But my all-time favorite (though completely mystifying) participants were these guys:

The kids loved every second. I couldn't blame them, it was awesome!

On the way home, I asked them their favorite part? It was unanimous: "The candy."