This is funny....

WHY GOD MADE MOMS

Answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions:

Why did God make mothers?

1. She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.

2. Mostly to clean the house..

3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?

1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.

2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.

3. God made my mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of?

1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.

2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?

1. We're related.

2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's mom like me.

What kind of a little girl was your mom?

1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.

2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.

3. They say she used to be nice.

What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?

1. His last name.

2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?

3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did your mom marry your dad?

1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my mom eats a lot.

2. She got too old to do anything else with him.

3. My grandma says that mom didn't have her thinking cap on.

Who's the boss at your house?

1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because dad's such a goof ball.

2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.

3. I guess mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What's the difference between moms and dads?

1. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them..

2. Dads are taller and stronger, but moms have all the real power 'cause that's who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friends.

3. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your mom do in her spare time?

1. Mothers don't do spare time.

2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your mom perfect?

1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.

2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?

1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.

2. I'd make my mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it not me.

3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

Summer school

We are still waiting to hear whether Missouri will support Summer school or not. Both Ben & Maggie qualify for it & I dread to think how far they will fall behind if they don't have it. We have been told that a decision will be made on May 7, it doesn't give us much time for a Plan B if we need it. The Post Dispatch had an article about it this morning, I'm hoping this means that it won't be cut for the kids that really need it.

Ben's (very small) birthday outing

Ben wanted to go to the City Museum for his birthday & we told him he could take 3 friends with him. By the time, we actually went, one of his friends was grounded, one of them forgot and the rest of his family (apart from me) dropped out. That left Ben, Jackson & me. Ben was a little disappointed at first, but the two boys got along very well together & it was probably much easier than trying to keep 4 boys happy with each other. The rooftop is open at the weekends right now and so we spent most of our time out there. Ben & Jackson climbed to the top of the infamous (to us) wire sculpture.

We had our usual round of injuries. Ben hit his eye and cut it open, it looks spectacular but he won't let me take a picture of it. Jackson hurt his leg and limped for a little while, but he is fine now. I told them that we're going to have to stop going there if they can't stop getting hurt!!!!

Is this the first of many conversations?

We have always told Ben that he is adopted from Ukraine. He understood the whole concept a lot more when we went back to get Daniel & Maggie. However, that was 4 years ago now. He mentions Ukraine every now and again, especially since he started doing gymnastics recently. However, yesterday he asked me how & why we chose him. I have always told him that Sam chose him from the other children that we saw, but this time Ben wanted to know what it was about him that made him stand out and I could tell that he really wanted to understand it. I told him that Sam said that he looked like he belonged to us and that we thought that his birthday being the day before my Dad's was some kind of sign. Ben told me that he wished that he had been in my tummy and that I was his Mum in that way. I told him that I will always be his mother & he will always be my son. I also said that we were lucky because we got to choose him whereas when you give birth you just have to take what you get. He laughed and was happy.

The end of the day....

Well, after the B&G banquet, Jan & Julie came over and brought Ben more presents. It was an exciting end to the day. We ate his cookie cake (see verdict previously on this) and then we had some fireworks that they set off. All-in-all, a highly successful day

Blue & Gold banquet

Way back in May 2009, we must have thought it was a good idea (or there would be no problem) to hold the scout Blue & Gold banquet on Ben's birthday this year. Since Sam & I were organizing this event, Ben's birthday definitely took a back seat this year. I spent the previous two weeks sorting out the banquet & buying everything we needed. It felt like a wedding, a huge amount of organizing, buying and stressing for a quick 1 or 2 hour event. As with weddings, everything went as planned and no-one noticed if there were any glitches. The boys are all supposed to wear all of their paraphernalia and Ben got to wear his new Webelo hat and scarf.

The theme of this year was "100 Years of Scouting". We decorated the room in blue & gold as last year

All the boys got a huge amount of achievements, but I think Ben topped them all. He had a huge envelope full of things, 6 belt loops, 10 achievement pins, 2 brag vest patches and 10 arrow heads. Now I have a lot of sewing to do!!!!

Ben's birthday

Ben was 9 today. It just does not seem possible!!!! However, here it is. He wanted a karaoke machine for his birthday, actually more the microphone than a karaoke machine. We went to Best Buy & bought a machine that was able to play CDs and DVDs and I thought it would be perfect for him. However, once he opened it, it turned out that the microphone was hopeless. We looked on-line & it turned out that this is a common criticism & so we had to return it and get something else.

The "in thing" at school right now is to get a cookie cake from Sam's club. Ben was no exception and got a SpongeBob cookie cake. I don't know what it tastes like to the kids, but all the adults agreed that it was terrible!!!!

Dinner at Fitz's

Ben always requests that we eat dinner at Fitz's for his birthday. This year was no different, so we went there on Friday night. Sam's mother was in town, so we had an extra guest. I think that Ben's lure is the free sundae that he gets for his birthday Maggie loves to make funny faces whenever she sees the camera pointed towards her!!!!

Here is the birthday boy on his last day at age 8!!!

Pow-wow at Wash U

After everything else we did yesterday, I took the kids over to Wash U to the 20th Annual pow-wow. When I lived in St Louis before, they had these events all over the region & I had been to quite a few of them. Sadly, this is the only one left within a 100 mile radius & I really wanted the kids to see it. I was shocked by how few people were there, but maybe there were a lot more there in the afternoon. Maybe no-one really cares about them any more. I think they are great events, it's an ideal opportunity to get a glimpse at history & traditions in a way that you can't get otherwise. The kids had a great time, but they were really tired after everything else they had done earlier in the day.
They had 3 drum teams there, this one was from Arizona & most of the drummers were also participating in the dance competitions.

Tree planting, April showers & other stuff

We had a scout-laden morning yesterday. The girl scouts were handing out bags for their April Showers event, so I dragged Ben & Xavier out with us to help. The pick-up is next Saturday & we will be way too busy with the Blue & Gold banquet to help out with that, so I thought we'd better make as much effort as possible this weekend.
We went straight from that to the tree planting event in Rock Hill. The boy scouts were planting trees for the City. We planted 5 trees in Oak Haven park. I was expecting them to be much bigger, but they were dry root samples about 2 feet high, they will have to be hardy to survive. The dynamics of the troop are interesting. There are a few boys that just get right in with everything, others that goof off and do nothing and a few that don't even try to hide the fact that there is NO WAY they are doing anything!!!!

Look at the size of this specimen, you can hardly see it on the photo!!!

After we were done planting trees, the City had a big BBQ with hot dogs & soda, so the kids were very happy. We left there and went straight to a beer-makers gathering so that Sam & his buddies could get some instruction on home brewing & sample some offerings. It was a perfect afternoon to sit outside and breathe in wafts of hops cooking over an open fire.

More pots from class # 3

We picked Ben's class 3 pottery up last night. Once again, he did a great job with them all & I now have even more receptacles to use in the house!! He struck a hard bargain with me & got $10 out of me to buy his pots off him. I pointed out that I had already paid for his class, but obviously it wasn't enough. I guess I did pretty well because I negotiated him down from hundreds of $ to the $10 I actually paid for them all. This is my favourite one this time..... He used completely different colours this time & you can see he had a theme going with the stripe down the middle....

Guess what everyone is getting for Christmas next year.....

All about Maggie

Maggie is always entertaining-in both good & bad ways. You just never know what to expect from her. Some of the latest offerings:-
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something black on top of the dolphin that is on top of her bookcase. Turned out to be her pirate T-shirt. I guess she really flung that one far. When she takes her clothes off, she throws them across the room, you never know where you will find them but this was the most spectacular
She has started writing on things in the house. The other day I noticed she had scribbled on her lampshade (it's glass). Yesterday, I noticed that she had written her name on her plant pot!!!!
When we were walking out from school, she said to me "Look Mum, there are two dogs. They are both the same". At this point, I couldn't see the similarity. Then she said "They're both white". One was a black lab, the other was a black & brown dachshund. Sorry, I just could not see how they were the same....

My little daisy

Maggie is so excited to be in girl scouts, even though they seem to be so disorganized and don't do very much in their meetings. I think she just likes to be able to do something that Ben does!!!!

MAP testing

This is a big day for Ben, his first day of MAP testing at school. The school have done a great job of getting the kids excited to do the tests rather than them being apprehensive. The kids all made T shirts to wear every day of the test, their kindergarten buddies have all made encouragement bags to help the third grade kids and the principal has donated a huge box of goodies for everyone to help themselves. Ben is really looking forward to it. They have tests on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday of this week & next week. We know there is no way that Ben is going to pass any of it, but we have just told him to do the best he can (and check his work!!!!)

Ben's school project

Ben's first grade teacher sent me these pictures of when he did his school project about her. They were so good that I had to post them!!!! They got to compare belly sizes...

Easter (part II)

I actually managed to get Maggie into a dress for church on Easter Sunday!!! It wasn't easy & she protested loudly. She even tried wearing pants underneath it (twice!!). I think they looked quite presentable for a change....

We went to church with Jan & Julie and we did our usual balloon release at the end of the service. The wind was blowing in the opposite direction to every other year. The balloons avoided the trees for once!!!!

Ben & Maggie got to do their second egg hunt of the day

Ben got to do his favourite thing, hang out with a little old lady.

Easter egg hunt (part I)

The Easter bunny left 70 eggs at our house this morning, and this isn't even our major egg hunting event of the year!!!! The bunny managed to hide the eggs by 6:30, which is good because the egg hunters were up at 6:50 and ready to go. The weather is beautiful this year, it was 56 this morning and should be in the 70s later today. This is the nicest Easter Sunday in a long time-last year, it was barely above freezing when they were hunting. Ben was very good this year and made sure that Maggie picked up an egg for every one that he found. I was quite impressed. Maggie was almost as excited as Ben was about egg hunting this year. They are both changing and maturing.

This year, the bunny put more eggs in the front and side yards than in the back. This is because last year, the bunnies ate through some of the plastic eggs!!!!

The kids were so loud that they woke up the neighbours. So, John came outside & hunted eggs with them. Then, he asked them if they wanted to put out his eggs & that just made their day. I think Ben was more excited about that than hunting for his own eggs!!! John even gave them $2 each for doing it!!!!

They did the usual ritual of opening their eggs to see what was inside them & they allocated them all into snack bags for later pleasure!!!!

Dyeing Easter eggs

Another of our yearly traditions is to dye Easter eggs with Arline. This year, we went to her house to do them. Easter is Arline's favourite holiday and so she makes lots of baskets and bags to give to everyone. Ben & Maggie got to help her put them together this year. She has also the tools for dyeing eggs. We had a lot of fun dyeing eggs and making patterns on them. They were quite spectacular when they were done.

Maggie loves wearing plastic gloves at every opportunity that arises.

Kemp auto museum

The boys in Ben's cub scout den have all earned their bear badges so they can start working on their Webelo stuff. They went to the Kemp auto museum to fulfill their transportation badge requirements. They all had to make seat belts and then they listened to a history of the automobile. We had never been to this museum before. I didn't think Ben would be that interested because he really doesn't show much interest in cars, but he said that he really enjoyed it. I think it helped that we had someone that took them on the tour and told them all about the cars. This is one of the most valuable cars in the collection and once belonged to Hermann Goring.

The museum is really well designed. The cars are all highly polished and the lighting is designed so that the cars are all gleaming, it is very impressive.

Afterwards, the guy that was doing the tour let the boys sit in the front of his VW beetle. It is pretty old and he has restored it to former glory...