It's sprung!

Spring that is. Whatever were you dirty-minded people thinking of?? ;) Yesterday was fairly nice weather. Lots of sun. I cleaned out our car and went through the car wash. Today I got the kids sandbox cleaned and other various items that were outside alllll winter. It feels so good to have done something. My kids also had a great time playing in the mud puddle that formed at the bottom of the hill from the hose water. I decided that their hard plastic baby pool that can no longer hold water, would make a perfect little container for a child-size garden. I'm really looking forward to doing that and getting it all ready for them in the next month or so.

My daughter also has a friend named Ralph. He's not the kind of friend that she can have over or watch a movie with. Instead, Ralph is an earthworm. We met Ralph earlier this year when we were transplanting some trees during some nicer weather. Occasionaly she'll ask about Ralph, how he is, when she gets to see him, etc. I keep telling her not until the spring when we get our garden ready. Today, however, we saw some of Ralph's cousins. Bon and I named them Diego, Hector and Vamanos. They were much smaller and not as plump as Ralph, so of course they couldn't be his brothers or sisters. Diego, Hector and Vamanos were quickly shriveled up and um...well...dead under the sun's rays. I washed them into the grass with the hose, so they'd be harder to find and freak out about. She did ask about them before we went inside. I told her they moved to the grass where it was softer. Now, with earthworms, I know that if you chop them in half, they'll still live and just grow another half or whatever. But since I re-hydrated them somewhat, can they just come back to life?? Will we be blessed with the presence of Hector, Diego and Vamanos again?? Man, I need a life. :)

Also, notice the ease of naming earthworms that we have. However, we cannot come up with a name for this baby....

Bananas

We went to Kroger tonight as a family. Yay, what an exciting time! On the way there, Bon said that I should know exactly what we need, so that we don't waste any time deciding over things. Um...okay. Sometimes he's so dorky it's irresistible. lol Kroger also had a bird flying around. I thanked the cashier as we left. That bird saved our sanity. "Did you see the bird? Oh look!" Instead of "Sit down right now!" or "I told you ___" (fill in the blank with the appropriate reaction...such as, "to get your feet inside the cart", "not to touch that", etc...). But if you're wondering why this post is titled "Bananas", no, I'm not going to quote the Gwen Stefani song, but I'm appalled and just saddened that there were NO bananas available for purchase!! Sure, they had those little tiny two inch ones that cost $1.29 a pound. But I wanted big ones that would satisfy my kids banana loving bodies!! None! I almost cried. I grabbed a quarter of watermelon instead and will probably eat it all myself, due to the stress of not having any bananas.

Our last snow (please let this be the last of the snow)

I am so ready for spring. I think that's the general attitude for most of the blogs I read. Even though we had a mostly mild fall and winter, this season has seemed to drag on and on and on and forever!! Being the good mom that I am, I decided to bundle the kids up and take them out in the snow before it melted away until next winter. We used some sleds I got from Target on 75% clearance a month or so ago (score!) and played with those in the backyard. Then out front we went to build a very small snowman. He's maybe 2 feet tall and has a prosthetic icicle for an arm, but other than that, he's pretty cute.

Smack talk from a 3 year old

Our daughter has become obsessed with playing games. Sounds fun and innocent? Well. Heh. We have this game for the X-box called Fusion Frenzy. Totally easy and fun games to play. (I say easy as if I'm really good at them. Truth is...I suck.) These are the "games" that she wants to play. So yesterday I indulged her while the boy napped. We played for a while and she was having fun. (And I'll admit I was too.) Before each game would start, I would ask what color she was and usually she'd pick a color that the computer was playing. She usually won playing that way too. So her "real" color (person) either didn't score or was 4th place. During one game, she says "Ha! You'll never beat me now!" in a Swiper the Fox sort of way. I said "Are you smack-talkin me?!" "Yeah, I'm mack talkin you." Sweet! lol And today her and the boy were fighting and I turn and see her pinning him to the floor! Holy wrestling moves Batman! Pretty soon we'll need to feed her vitamins and make her bench press her own weight. :P

Is it Friday yet?

I have so much to do this week, that I wish it was already over. We finally decided where we're having our daughter's birthday party and so now I have to call a butt-load...I mean, a bunch of people and invite them. And prepare the party. My husband is a total last-minute, throw it all together and it'll be fine kinda guy, but I tend to stress and worry over these sorts of things. I guess you could call me a people pleaser. Oh well...someday I hope to be the kind of person my husband is. I think life would be a lot easier.

We had some friends over last night for FHE (family home evening, a time to be together as a family). Then the wife and I went shopping. We had a good time. At least, I had a good time. I can never really tell if she is really having a good time or faking it so that she won't make me feel bad about not having a good time. I was able to get away from the kids for a couple of hours, so that's always a plus in my book.

Well, I should get on with my day and make more phone calls. "Hi, we'd like to invite you and the family to R's birthday party on Saturday." Anyone wanna come? We'll have pizza and cake. :)

My son...a little rambling post

He's a cute little bugger. Our son is 21 months or so and honestly one of the cutest kids I have ever seen. I'm not just saying this because he's mine, but because it's true. :) Every Sunday we get up and go to church, this Sunday being no different. We get there late (like an hour late), because it was a late night and we didn't wake up in time. The kids get to go into nursery and love it in there. The boy is a bit timid when going in, but once he sees the puzzles and starts playing, we (whichever parent drops them off) can leave. We always ask how they were, in case they were rowdy, when we pick them up. And almost every week, the nursery leader tells us that they were fine and states that our son had crawled under the table to rest. Today I went in to pick them up and our son was laying on a blanket with another one on top, his arms flung out to the side and his head turned, watching the other kids run around. Totally motionless. The nursery leaders informed me that he had crawled into the toy box and proceded to try and nap. So they, of course, laughed at how odd that was and decided to put him on the blanket and cover him. Apparantly, he had laid there for half an hour, motionless, but not daring to close his eyes. Cracked me up! I mean, what toddler decides to lay down and sleep when he is among other toddlers?? It was adorable and something that I'll always get a little chuckle out of.

Stop getting sick already!

Last week I started infecting the whole Retrac household with the flu/stomach bug/24-hours-from-hell thingy. Our son got it on Thursday. Everyone was peachy-keen the whole weekend and then Bon calls on his way home from Indiana yesterday that he feels ill. Once home he tells me that upon reaching Richmond, he can't hold it in any longer and as he's pulling off the freeway, he's puking out the car window. I really feel for other commuters and anyone who lives in or around the Richmond area. That is something I could go my life without seeing. He recovers quickly and is feeling good today. But at 11 pm last night, our daughter decides it's her turn. Sweet... The smell of her puke makes Bon's stomach turn and gurgle, so he spends the night in the bathroom (just sleeping, but away from odors). I'm left with the girl who is puking every 1/2 hour or so until 4 am. Then once at 7. She was polite about it though. At one point I put the bucket under her and she said "no thanks" and then started gagging more. We had put a few towels on our bed to catch any misses, since she did like to turn her head mid-heaving. And her diva-ness was also revealed as she yelled "WIPE MY MOUTH!" at one point. She's only been sick once today, and we both had a good nap. Let's just stop this puking madness!!!

Loving teases

So over the past few days, anytime something humorous happens, Bon will tease me about "this is going in the blog". Well, since my short (and long) term memory have been sucked almost dry since having kids, I can never think of what it was exactly that we thought was so funny. I do have something that *I* think is hilarious, but would others?? You tell me... Bon has a friend that is getting married in April. Not too funny...in fact, very nice for him. Well, the funny and head-scratching part is that they are having a Midevil themed wedding. (Midevil...is that spelled right?) If Bon decides to go, they want him to dress up. In describing the outfit to me, Bon said "Robinhood". So now all I can think of is my dh dressed up as Peter Pan with a mix of Puss in Boots (from Shrek 2). Are your cheeks hurting yet?
(By the way...that is NOT Bon in the picture to the right...)

Here's another funny part of the story. (please do continue to read, as it gets extremely funny...) We think the wedding is the same weekend as Easter. And Bon has agreed to dress up as the part of the Savior for some sort of presentation at church. So in one weekend, he'll be Robinhood and Jesus Christ. How lucky can one guy get?!

We found out last Thursday that we are having a boy! We were both hoping for a girl, but we've hoped for a girl for all of them and have only had 50/50 success rate. Sorry son, we really do love you and think you are the cutest boy on the planet! Your brother will be right behind you in line on that cutest boy thing. We don't have any names picked out. Our son was nameless for a day and a half. Once we named him, we realized that both his and his sister's names mean the same thing. So with this one, I'm thinking of finding something similar. I think that would be cool. I suggested Benson to Bon last night and he gave me an incredulous look (maybe he even swallowed back some vomit that had come up...). He said it sounded like the butler's name in Diff'rent Strokes (?). Then he kept up on the subject of butlers, like the guy on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. So I will take back my offer of naming our son Benson. Just so that our son isn't doomed for a life in servitude.

Wrong number

My husband has an unusual name. It's one of those names where people actually say "is that his real name?" or "is he foreign?" Yes, it's his real name and no, he's not foreign. It's also a name that gets corrected a lot..."don?", "ron?", "jon?". No it's Bon with a B as in boy, bravo, boo-boo, get down and Boogie...

So I always feel bad when (and this actually has happened more than once), we get a phone call and the person asks for "Don". My reply is usually to make sure they repeat who they want and then if it's still "Don", I'll tell them they have the wrong number. Today, however, I didn't ask him to repeat it, and now I feel bad. Maybe he did want Bon and he said Don instead and I just hastily told him that he had the wrong number. He did sound sort of suprised that he had dialed wrong... Oh well...It's been over 10 minutes and he hasn't called back. "Don's" not even home anyway. ;)