Tag: Matthew

Halloween Festivities

For the past several years we have been ‘Booed’ by someone. I am pretty sure it is the same person every year but we can’t figure out who it is. Being ‘Booed’ is when someone leaves a treat or goody bag on your porch without you knowing it. When you get Booed you are supposed to hang the little sign on the front door that says “We’ve been booed!” and then you Boo two other people. Kind of a more fun version of a chain letter. The kids love it. Emilee likes to just leave it on the porch for them to find sometime, but Alli and Matthew like to ring the doorbell and run to test their speed and sneaky skills.

On our way to deliver our ‘You’ve Been Booed’ treats.

Some years I am more into Halloween than others. Either way I am ready for it to be over by the 31st. This year is kind of on the down side for being gung-ho for Halloween. Fall came really late so the hot weather made it hard to get in the mood. The kids like to help me put the decorations up. I am into more cute and silly Halloween decorations. Allison and Emilee (totally just being an Allison follower) keep begging to get more creepy scary Halloween stuff. I am not into that part of Halloween at all. Matthew and Ryan aren’t either so luckily the girls are out numbered.

Allison gets her creepy gross Halloween fix when she picks out her costume though. Last year she was a dead bride, this year she spent over an hour at the Halloween store looking for the perfect ‘disgustingly creepy’ costume. I walked a fine line between not raining on her parade and swaying her away from ones I really didn’t want.  She was wanting a scary clown with blood all over it. Unfortunately (or was is?) her choices for that costume were eliminated by not being available in the right size. She settled for a jester costume that had no blood on it but has gloves with long creepy fingers and a mask that is definitely scary clown material. It didn’t take her long to test her scariness and she was not disappointed. She hid in Matthew’s bathroom and scared him to death when he came in. I told her she couldn’t do that again but he walked around paranoid waiting for her to jump out anytime he couldn’t see her for two days because he didn’t trust her. He finally decided to hide her costume until Halloween so he didn’t have to worry about it. I was glad he thought of because I didn’t trust her either. It worked for about a week, then she found it. There is now a battle of hide-n-seek with Allison’s costume going on. If you hear the sound of bells (her jester hat has bells on it) you know you are going to get scared.

Allison-creepy clown.

Emilee walked around the store pointing out all the creepy stuff but settled on a cute little bat outfit. She told me it is the bat ‘Mavis’ the vampire turns into from Hotel Transylvania.

Emilee- Mavis the bat

Matthew wasn’t with us when we got the girls costume so he is going to reuse his costume from last year-the grim reaper- but call it a dementor from Harry Potter instead.

Matthew- Dementor

The girls and I went to a pumpkin patch together. There are many options around here. Emilee has been really wanting to go to the Deanna Rose Farmstead. It is a fun place with lots of different farm activities and animals to pet or feed or ride. They also have a hayride out to a pumpkin patch in October so we decided to go there and do both. It was pretty fun. We have gone to the farm many many times over the years.  I have to say it is a little more relaxing now that they are older to take them places. There were lots of mom’s with babies crying, toddlers rolling in the mud, or running off. I’m not complaining about them. I have been there, I get it. I help redirect a kid, and lend a hand when I can. I am just enjoying the less hands on approach I can have now. This is the first time we tried the pumpkin patch part though. It wasn’t ridiculously overpriced and the patch was pretty compact and had enough activities to keep them busy for a while. We all got to pick a pumpkin as part of admission too. Usually we go to the pumpkin patch but we will buy our pumpkins later at the store because I’m a stick in the mud and won’t spend $10-$20 PER pumpkin at the patch. Call me crazy. I call them crazy for charging that much for a pumpkin. We ended our time there by stopping at the General Store and getting a few pieces of salt water taffy. I don’t eat it very often but I like salt water taffy. They have yummy flavors too. Some of our favorites are caramel apple, root beer, cinnamon, and strawberry banana.

There is always the school trunk or treat and the church Chili-cook off (which I won last year-see my post ‘Why I Avoid Cooking’ for more details) followed by the trunk or treat, class parties and more. There is no shortage of candy by the time Halloween is over.

We usually carve our pumpkins a day or so before Halloween. This is a picture from carving pumpkins last year. I think it captures everyone’s thoughts quite well. Matthew is trying to touch it as little as possible and repeatedly saying how gross it is. Allison is completely  fascinated and loves everything about it from the smell to how slimy it is. You can’t see but Emilee has a spoon and is pointing and directing every cut Ryan is making but will not touch the pumpkin herself. Ryan took one for the team and is carving the pumpkin for Emilee. I am gagging over the smell while I take the picture. Every year I try and hype up the ‘lets paint our pumpkins instead’ option, but it is fun to put a candle in them and see the carving when your done so they have powered through carving them so far. 

I actually got a carving kit this year. It was worth every penny. I had the top cut off and the entire pumpkin gutted in under two minutes. Cutting out little spiders and other things was a piece of cake too.

For the last six or seven years on Halloween dad makes home made root beer with dry ice and we have pizza for dinner. We call the root beer ‘Witches Brew’. Then we get in our costumes and go trick or treating.  Most of the time the McDonald’s come over and eat and go trick or treating with us. We usually split up into a slow group and a fast group after the first few houses. I don’t know how many more years we have before the kids want to start doing their own thing instead, maybe we will keep doing it together even when the kids don’t but just stay home and play a game instead.  Matthew did end up going trick or treating with a few of his buddies. He had a ridiculous amount of candy when he got home.

Wood Bat Baseball Tournament

https://www.facebook.com/MidwestSportsProductions/videos/191881291712966/

Spoiler alert, the boys won the tournament. For the Championship Game there was a Midwest Sports Production reporter that filmed it and afterwards interviewed Matthew, Derrick and his coach. They just posted the final article/video to their Facebook page today. Matthew is in it quite a bit.

It was their first wooden bat tournament. They played a game earlier in the week and used wood bats to get used to it and it was not pretty.  One strike out after another. Matthew was pretty frustrated and was not looking forward to the tournament. He put in some extra batting time and Ryan got him his own wood bat that was the right weight and he was feeling much better about it. They played 5 games, won them all and only allowed 7 runs total in all 5 of those games.

The games were all good games against good teams, and our boys played well. Everyone was on top of their game. They hit well, fielded well. It was really fun to watch. A friend of Matthew’s that is on his football team played with us because we needed an extra player, his name is Xander. We are actually trying to get him to join our team so it was kind of a try out for everyone. He is a naturally athletic kid and is a great baseball player too. He played catcher a lot of the time or second and I think he and Matthew really boosted each others playing. He had some amazing throws and stops and he kept the energy up for the team.

The team as a whole was playing great but Matthew had the best weekend of baseball he has ever had. I am going to do some mom bragging for a while so get comfortable. It is so fun to watch him play, he loves it, he gets it, you can see him watching and thinking and he is good at it. He doesn’t have to wait to be told what to do by the coaches he is already doing it when they call it out. His batting average usually bounces around 400-500. It was 778 for this tournament! He was CRUSHING it! He got several doubles, and a triple. He thinks he might have gotten his first home run if he was using his regular metal bat. He and Xander scored all 5 runs for one of our games. He is our fastest runner. He loves his nickname- Cheetah (or if Allison is around she cheers for Cheeto to tease him). We missed one game because we were at church. We arrived for the last half of the second overtime inning.  As soon as Matthew got there his coach put him in as a pinch runner and he scored the tying run and then the person behind him scored the winning run.

He couldn’t miss all weekend it was awesome. Pop flies, grounders, line drives, anything that came near him he got it and gunned it to whatever base to get the out. Nothing got by him. They got a couple double plays too. There were a couple runners that thought they could steal a base than ended up in a pickle. Watching him chase someone down in a pickle is awesome. You can just see him turn the speed up a notch. It is nail biting to watch but it is great how they all know their parts and execute the play and back each other up.

This video is less than 10 seconds long (Xander’s mom took it and shared it with me) but it captures one of their plays and how awesome they were working together. I am not a sports announcer as you will soon find out but I am going to explain this video anyways. Then Matthew will have proof that I knew what was going on and wasn’t just sitting there eating my peanuts. (Love you Matthew 😉)

https://www.facebook.com/jessica.meinig/videos/10155600367720957/?t=2

There was a runner on first and they new he would probably try and steal second on the next pitch so the coach signaled Xander (catcher) to catch him stealing. So Xander calls a high pitch from Frankie (pitcher) so he can start to stand up to catch it. Matthew (short stop) also gets the signal. Frankie pitches a perfect pitch straight across the plate but just above the batters head so he won’t swing. As soon as he releases the ball he steps to the side so Xander has a straight shot to Matthew. The runner on first takes of to steal second but Xander has already jumped up to his strongest throwing position when he catches the ball so he is ready to throw it immediately to Matthew who has cut across to the other side of second base and has his glove out in the path of the runner to catch Xander’s throw that hits his glove with a nice pop right before the runner slides directly into it and is called out. Bam! In 7 seconds you have a perfectly executed defensive play by some cute, talented, fun, baseball loving 12 year olds. Not to mention what all the other boys did- center and second backed up Matthew, first was ready in case he tried to come back, right backed him up etc. It is so fun to see all of them getting better, trusting, supporting, learning, and growing as a team.

 

Best. Weekend. Ever.

This past weekend was an amazing weekend on all accounts. It was one of those weekends where the stars aligned and everyone was happy and the right amount of busy, relaxed, and enjoying each others company and activities that were going on. It was Parent Teacher Conferences so on Wednesday there was just a half day of school and then no school again until Monday. When the kids got home we went through the backpacks and got all that stuff done and hung them up so we didn’t have to think about it again until Monday morning. I went to the conferences and they were all fine. That night Matthew had a makeup baseball game that we went to. The girls both had a friend to play with so they were off at the park having a grand time. Both teams agreed to use wood bats because the tournament we played in over the weekend was a wood bat tournament. It didn’t go well. The boys had been practicing but all of their timing was a little off and it was kind of a sad game. Matthew decided to get over it by going to his friend Jake’s (also on the team) for a sleepover that night.

Thursday Matthew was at Jake’s most of the day and the girls and I went to a pumpkin patch. We had a fun little time. We did a hay ride, tractor ride, jumped on hay bales, went down slides, saw lots of animals, did a mini cornmaze (the best kind of corn maze), played in a giant bin of corn like a sandbox, and picked out some cute pumpkins. We topped it of with a favorite treat of salt water taffy on our way home.

Friday we played some games. One of our favorites right now is Trouble. Emilee thinks she can control the dice by wishing hard enough and crossing her fingers. It’s pretty funny when she guesses the right number. Friday night the girls gymnastics place was having their monthly parents night. The girls love it, they go and eat dinner, play games, and do gymnastics from 6:30-10:30. They have a blast and are still not ready to come home at 10:30. Matthew had three of his baseball buddies come for a sleepover Friday night. It was what he wanted to do instead of a big party this year for his birthday. We ate dinner at Pie Five, his favorite pizza place and then we went and played a couple games of laser tag. After that they came home and played night games outside for a while and watched a movie. I’m pretty sure they all had a great time. They all agreed to go to bed a little earlier than usual for a sleep over because the next day we started the Wood Bat Tournament.

Everyone woke up and it was hilarious seeing four boys get ready to go to their game. Ryan made us all a yummy breakfast and we went to the games. It was chillier so we were bundled up and snuggled in with blankets. I love it. We do spend a lot of time at baseball games but it is a fun time. The girls have fun at the games too. Sometimes they sit with me and watch but most of the time they run around in a pack with the other younger siblings at the game and play at the play ground or play tag or whatever they come up with. Emilee and her friend spent the whole day making homes and feeding their stuffed animals with grass that they would collect. Allison is one of the older ones so she likes being in charge and watching the kids. She played ‘the best game of tag ever’ most of the day. Then there is the food. We bring some healthier options but the girls love getting some nachos or an icee, or pretzels. They have hot chocolate now too which we all love. The boys played AMAZING and won the entire tournament with a 5-0 win record.

Champions! First Place!

Alli had a birthday party she went to at the community center pool. Best friends and swimming in her favorite pool-double win.

Sunday we made it to church on time and without fighting in the morning. That is a miracle in itself. The primary is practicing for the program for the next few weeks. It is always an exciting time to get to sit on the stand and talk and sing in the microphone. Matthew had his first class with his new deacon quorum. He was also given the Aaronic Priesthood by his dad. Uncle Ross and Brother Sawaya helped in the blessing too. That night he was able to go to his first youth fireside. He came home and was telling me all about how media can be addictive and we should be careful what we watch and limit what we watch. I tried not to look to dumb founded as he told me all this ‘new information’ he had learned. I tried even harder not to say, “Matthew I have told you that almost every day for the last half of your life.” I am glad hearing it from a third party helped it actually stick a little between the ears instead of a pass through.

We all had a really nice weekend. There was a lot of quality fun past due family time. It was hard to let it go and return back to real life on Monday morning. I won’t name names but there were more than one kiddo sad enough to start the tears that they had to go back to school. On the way back from baseball we got ice cream, Emilee was eating it but had to take a nap before she finished because she was so tired. I looked back and her hand was inside her ice cream bowl and she was sleeping.

Emilee napping in the middle of eating her ice cream.

 

 

 

Catching up with Matthew

Matthew turns 12 this month! It is CRAZY how fast the past twelve years have gone since he was born. He decided instead of a big party this year he wanted to do a sleepover with a few of his baseball buddies. They came over Friday night and we ate pizza and went and played a few games of laser tag. Then they ate way to much junk food and played video games. They had a baseball tournament the next day so they woke up and had crapes for breakfast then we got ready and went to the game.

His birthday was on a Monday and our schedule was pretty full in the evening of football practice and piano lessons. Grandma and Grandpa Terry were in town watching the Terry cousins so they came over and we celebrated on Sunday. He wanted a cookie cake. Allison dropped Matthew’s birthday cake two years in a row so we now have a rule that she isn’t allowed to transport his birthday cake at all. The cake safely made it to the table to have candles blown out. We opened presents. He got a few sizes of dumbbells and other things to start his weight collection he wants to have and a microphone headset to play video games with and a few other things.

We decorated his room with lots of balloons and notes about how awesome he is and we had shrimp for dinner-his favorite. I double the amount I make every year and it still isn’t enough for him to get his fill.

Every year on his birthday for the last few years Matthew challenges his dad to a race to see if he is faster yet. Every year he thinks it is his year but so far Ryan has held the win. Ryan says he will not be able to beat him until he is an old man and it is embarrassing for Matthew to say he can beat him.

He is now in Young Mens too. He will get the Aaronic Priesthood this Sunday and pass the sacrament for the first time with his dad the week after that. The Deacon president and a leader came over and talked to him about stuff on Sunday. I think he is excited to go to Young Mens. He is not a big scouter. He likes the activities and camping (in good weather) but he isn’t to concerned with getting all the badges and things like that. He was excited to go to an activity tonight that wasn’t just for scouts. We are planning on doing baptisms with him at the temple soon as well. Lots of changes!

This is my last year with my tweenager, then he will officially be a teenager. He is getting a little bit of the mood swings and some attitude sometimes but he is a good kid. He is a stubborn kid just like his dad and in the same way his dad is. It is like a Ryan mini me. Good thing Ryan knows how to handle himself. 🙂 Matthew has a good head on his shoulders. I’m excited to watch him continue to grow.

He is adjusted to school for the most part. He has a little bit of a negative attitude about it though. We have been talking a lot about how to enjoy things and make the best of it even when it ‘isn’t fun’. He took an assessment that helps them think of possible career paths based on how they answer some questions. I remember doing that in high school and it told me I would be a good airline pilot. I think of it more of a fun ‘horoscope’ test, than valuable information. His answers said he would be a good, zoo keeper, vet, or professional athlete. Except for the vet part (he can not handle even thinking about blood, body parts, or needles without freaking himself out) he thought it was right on track. He tried art and choir for his electives this semester. He likes art, his choir teacher is about a bog a stick in the mud as you can get and makes everything miserable so he is going to switch to life time sports next semester. Hopefully at the new middle school next year the choir teacher will be better and actually involve some singing in the class and he will be willing to try it again.

He played a tournament with the Raised Royal Baseball team he is on a few weeks ago. It is a combination of two teams and they only play tournaments in the Fall. They did really good. In the two years they have played they have never lost so they started getting a little cocky and careless and ended up taking second in the tournament. They could have easily one if they kept their discipline. It was a good learning lesson for them though, and still fun to watch.

 

September Memorable Moments.

  1. Emilee is sitting on the floor staring at her feet. All of the sudden she gets quite concerned and says, “Mom my toes are broken and I don’t know what happened to them.” Apparently she was trying to spread her toes and she could spread the ones on her right foot but not her left, after trying many times she was concerned they were broken. I explained to her that they were not broken sometimes you just can’t spread your toes. Every now and then I ask her if she ever got her toes fixed and she usually says something along the lines of, “No. I don’t know what is going on with those toes.”  She says it in a very matter of fact tone, like she has been putting a lot of thought into it on a regular basis.
  2. Matthew has a blanket that he fell in love with the second it touched him when he was just a few weeks old. He has slept with it since then and the think looks like it has been ‘loved’ to death. I have sewn it almost as much as I can to keep it in one piece, but it is getting pretty shredded. I went into say goodnight to him one night and was laying by him and talking for a little bit. He was twisting his blanket around in his hands and there was a lull in the conversation. Then he said, “Mom just feel this blanket, rub it with your fingers just like this, and twist it around your wrist.” I tried to do what he was showing me and he said, “Isn’t that amazing how comfortable and satisfying that feels!” He then showed me all the favorite parts of his blankets and the best way to sleep with it. I loved that he tried to explain the amazingness of his blanket to me. It made me chuckle.
  3. I was working in the yard and Emilee called me to see something. I walked around to where she was at, she was pointing at a tiny little hole she had found by the window and said she thought that is how all the flies were getting into our house. I told her I thought it was because of the door she left wide open behind her while she looked for little holes.
  4. This one isn’t even my kid but it made me laugh anyways. I went to lunch with Allison at school the other day. Towards the end of our lunch the next group of kids came in and sat down to start eating. I would guess they were second graders. As we were sitting there visiting I noticed one boy who had brought his lunch from home take the apple out of his lunch and make a ‘ewe gross’ face. Then he casually took the apple and hung it from his hand behind him as low as it would go then dropped it on the floor under the table. Allison saw it too and we both looked at each other and laughed. She knew exactly why he dropped it and thought it was hilarious. Little stinker, I should have figured out who it was and told his mom. He would have wondered how in the heck she found out. Hahaha! The mom network, that’s how! Anyway, I told Alli to just bring her food home if she wasn’t going to eat it, and we finished our lunch.
  5. Emilee has always been a momma’s girl. Being in my presence is great but we have a family joke (that is kind of true) she prefers to be physically touching me whenever possible. While this is sweet, it can be frustrating at times too. Like in church when it isn’t her turn to sit right next to me she holds her hand out in my direction and gives me ‘puppy dog eyes’ and silently sobs for all of sacrament. All day kindergarten has been a big adjustment for her. Once she is there she does fine and has a great day but bedtime before and the morning of can be a little rough. She has said things like this many times but one night it made me smile when she was being particularly dramatic and said, “Mom, I can’t go to school tomorrow. It is so long. I can’t go that long with out touching you!”
  6. Emilee is not a morning person. This was one of her funnier ways of showing us she still wanted to be in bed rather than up eating breakfast.

How many packs do you have?

So Matthew works out a lot for baseball and football and he has recently become interested in getting strong well defined muscles like his arms and his abs. The other day he was explaining his plan to turn his four pack into a six pack and then an eight pack to Ryan and I. It was a very entertaining conversation. Allison and Emilee overheard it and Allison decided she was going to get an eight pack first and then keep going until she had a twelve pack. So the past week or so we have seen a lot of sit ups and crunches and many unknown exercises that apparently strengthen your abs. The funny part is the way they talk about it, they don’t really know what they are talking about. Allison skipped up and told me that she her two pack was now a three pack after doing sit ups for thirty seconds. I play smacked Matthew in the stomach the other day when he was being a smart mouth. He quickly replied that I missed because he blocked it with one of his packs.  Emilee asks us to tell her how many packs she has all the time or just picks a random number to say she has. What a bunch of goof balls.

Matthew’s Football

Matthew decided to try football this year. It is a little crazy with practice and game schedules because he is doing baseball too. He is liking it but hasn’t taken to it as easily as other things he has tried. He is a little nervous about contact but he is getting better. His last game he recovered a fumble and scored with a touch down. He was pretty excited. We happened to be playing a team that one of his baseball team mates is on, his dad is one of his baseball coaches actually. He also likes to take pictures so he took some of Matthew for us and got some of his touchdown run too. Someday I might add becoming a better photographer to my list of things to learn to do. I really appreciate all the people that take pictures for us.

Fall FINALLY arrived!

The past few years I have noticed that I really enjoy the changing of the seasons. I am ready for the change and the different activities with each one.We were at a baseball tournament and football game a few weeks ago. The temperature was 89 but with the heat index it felt like over 100. It was so humid and stagnant. Ugg! It was like that from the beginning of September to just this week. Then we had a little rain storm and it cooled down and the next morning it had that cool crisp fresh feeling in the morning. Aaahhh! I love it.  We got the Fall decorations out, I put Mums in my planters, we have been having yummy soups for dinner, and going on walks to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Allison has decided that her new gymnastics place is better than she thought. She is progressing quickly. I felt like she was on the cusp of being able to do a lot of things for a while at the last place we went for gymnastics. I switched her to a new place I thought would be a little more aggressive in getting them to progress. I started Emilee in a class too. Allison was pretty upset at first and said it was awful and they didn’t know what they were doing. I told her to give it 6 months before she ‘insisted on switching back’. She has been there almost two months now and a few weeks ago she admitted its pretty fun. Her and Emilee both look forward to it every week. Now I am trying to get her to do the same thing for her new piano teacher.

Matthew and his friends like to play night games sometimes. Another fun Fall activity is having an evening fire pit with the neighbors and roasting some marshmallows.

We usually take turns eating dinner with Ross and Lauren at one of our houses on Fast Sunday. This month we went to their house. When we were cleaning up dishes I was wiping off a counter and when I looked up this little guy was hanging on the rim of the cabinet.  He is probably only about an inch tall. Ross got him at a white elephant party. He is a drink marker, he hangs on the edge of your cup. The one he happened to get at the party had Ryan’s name on it. I thought it was pretty funny.

 

I volunteered for a few things since school started. I am enjoying it trying some new things. I volunteered to do dental screenings at elementary schools. I go and evaluate the kids teeth and let their parents know if they need to see a dentist. I am going to be a co-leader for Emilee’s girl scout troop. That one makes me a little nervous. I think it will be fun but it is a pretty big troop-17 girls. I hope I don’t go crazy. I am helping two of the kindergarten teachers once a week with prep work stuff too-copying, laminating, whatever they need. I have a goal of helping at Harvesters Food Bank once a month too if I can. That with all my regular stuff keeps me pretty busy. I like it.

September Happenings.

Wow! The last few weeks have flown by. School and activities and other things are in full swing now. There is always something going on.

We finished the last weekend in August off by going to The Great Wolf Lodge for Aaron’s birthday. We had a great time! We tried all the slides, all the pools, and tried almost every kind of ice cream by the time we were done. Matthew was done around 3 after a full day of swimming. We had to drag the girls away at 4 to get back in time for baseball practice. Six hours of swimming wasn’t enough.

Allison and Matthew seem to have adjusted to school and handle their schedules pretty well. Emilee is still struggling a little bit. She seems to have a little bit of separation anxiety. She was nervous but doing okay, until last Friday I left her crying on the curb at school and thought she was going to follow me home. A teacher helped her make it to class but her teacher said it was a rough start to the day. Monday I walked her into class. The rest of this week I told her if she was a brave girl and got out of the car everyday this week and walked in like a big girl, I would come eat lunch with her on Friday. That worked pretty good. I think that will be our deal for the next couple weeks. Once she gets there and going she does great and has a good day. It is just hard to wake up and go in the mornings. We invited a friend Laney over today that she met in class. They are pretty good buddies and she lives just around the corner so that will be nice to have a friend close by.

Emilee having a hard time accepting it is time to wake up and get ready for school.

Emilee went to a birthday party last week and was so excited to tell me that she got to fight Darth Vader with a purple sword when she got home. I love it when kids get so excited over fun simple things like that.

Last week was really rainy so football and baseball were canceled and moved to this week. That makes this week extra busy, but Matthew had his first football game last night. His coach has been talking with him about needing to be more aggressive and commit to his tackles more. He has been struggling with that and getting pretty frustrated. Last night at his game he was not going to play to much because his coach wanted him to get a little better at tackling first. Another player broke his arm at school so Matthew took his place. He is still a little timid but he did better than he has ever done at tackling. He took a couple people down and evaded a couple tackles. He was pretty proud of himself, so were we and so was his coach. His coach told him he figured out Matthew was a little surprise he wasn’t expecting.

I was going through some papers the other day and I found this little note that Matthew wrote for his dad. Every year on Matthew’s birthday they have a race because Matthew thinks he is faster than Ryan and Ryan has to prove he isn’t.  Matthew wrote this for Ryan to intimidate him before their next race. Hahaha!

Matthew’s intimidation note to Ryan.

My birthday was nice. Ryan gave me an Apple Watch, it is pretty handy. He said I have no excuse for not answering or texting him back quickly now. I spent the day reading and relaxing and watching chick flicks. I went to lunch with some friends and we went to dinner as a family. The kids cleaned my car really well for my present. It was at my request and it is still a work in progress but they said they would get it done by this weekend. I watched a movie called, ‘All About Steve’ as part of my relaxing. It has Sandra Bullock in it, who I really like. The reviews were not good but I decided to watch it anyway and it was hilarious. It was supposed to be more ridiculous humor, and it must have been right up my alley because I was laughing a lot. It was a nice day. I did notice that most people asked me how young I was, instead of how old I am. I’ll take that as a sign that I am starting to head more towards the ‘older’ category instead of the ‘younger’ category.

I started the next phase of repainting my house. I picked the colors when we bought it and I still like them but the builders painted with flat paint. So I have been gradually repainting everything with a better paint when the wall gets so dirty that I can’t stand it anymore. I really hate painting, but I love a freshly painted wall. Especially one that I can wash when it get dirty. I also put most of my Fall decorations up. Not my Halloween yet, just Fall. I love Fall. I love being able to sit out on the porch and relax and enjoy the weather. I love that the Holidays are getting ready to start too.

Allison is really liking gymnastics. I switched where she was taking classes because she had stalled in her progression for a while. She wasn’t happy about it but I told her she had to give it a few months and she would notice lots of improvement. She has been there for about a month now, she is not complaining when I pick her up any more and she has gotten better in several areas. She is excited about it again and work on it at home a lot more. She is often doing sit-ups or arm exercises to help herself get stronger.

 

Genetics are strong.

Many years ago my two sisters came upon some stink bombs that they were very excited to put to good use. I was not living at home anymore but they filled me in later. I can’t remember what they did with all of them but I know one ended up in the 18 hole at a mini putt putt golf course and could be smelled from the parking lot, where they observed from afar and laughed their heads off. Another one ended up in my brothers room and I have been told many times since that was probably the maddest they had ever seen him. They still laughed their heads off, just at a safe distance.

Fast forward a decade or so and…

Allison wanted to do a little shopping with some of her money that she had recently acquired. It usually starts burning a hole in her pocket the second she gets it so she wanted to go to 5 Below and see what treasures she could find (5 Below is a step or two above a dollar store, but everything is $5 or less) She meandered around and eventually found the prank aisle and thought she had enough money to get a whoopee cushion, fake little pieces of poop, and a small aerosol can of ‘fart smell’. (Insert emoji slapping its forehead) Luckily, she did not have enough to get all of those things, but despite my efforts to find something not in the poop category to spend her money on she put back the whoopee cushion and took the other two up to the front to pay.

When she checked out she actually only had enough money for one. I again told her we could go find something else but she agonized for what I am sure the people behind us in line felt like was forever over her decision until finally deciding to just buy the stinky spray (insert emoji with fallen disappointed face) After making her purchase she then skipped out to the car pleased as punch with herself.

On the way home she decided to test it. I should have seen this coming but didn’t think through needing possible rules for the stinky spray before we even got home. She sprayed it in the car and immediately started complaining that it didn’t even stink and she was going to email the company and tell them ‘their fart spray stinks because it doesn’t stink.’ Mean while, I am driving the van and was unfortunately sitting in a location in front of the direction she sprayed the stuff. It did stink! It was foul and disgusting and unlike a ‘real fart’ it didn’t dissipate after a few seconds (actually got stronger), or by rolling the windows down. It was disgusting and of course Allison thought it was hilarious. I immediately laid down some ‘stinky spray rules’ (never saw that coming before I became a mom) and told her no more spraying it in the car or other enclosed spaces.

Allison is the worlds best negotiator though and she baked up some story to spray a little in Matthew’s room as a joke on him because he pulls little pranks on her all the time. I could tell this was the entire grand plan behind getting the stuff in the first place so I told her she could do it one time. Matthew does pull lots of pranks on her.

Allison decided to sneak in his room when he went down for breakfast on Sunday morning before church. She sprayed some stench in his room them came down to eat. Matthew went upstairs to shower. Alli was bouncing with excitement waiting to hear his yell, or gagging sound or something. Nothing. He showered and got dressed then came out. I figured he tried the ‘just ignore it’ tactic to make Allison mad. I forgot about it and finished getting ready in my room. Allison was not ready to just move on though. She went in his room and sprayed some more. She made up some excuse to have Matthew come upstairs to his room, which he did…nothing. Didn’t react in anyway. He went back downstairs. Allison was not to be deterred though. She sprayed more, a lot more. So much more that it came out of Matthew’s room and down the hall and Ryan started to smell it from his closet. (Side note, Ryan was not happy I ‘let’ her buy the stink spray. He said it was a ‘bad choice’ and he ‘wished I wouldn’t have let her do that’ (insert emoji rolling eyes)) He came out to see what was going on and was ‘assaulted’ by the horrible smell now filling the hall and floating down the stairs. I don’t know what reaction she wanted from Matthew but she got one from Ryan. All previous stinky spray rules were erased and a new one was put in place.

NO stinky smell sprays are allowed to be used, stored, or even brought into the house or they will be thrown away and destroyed immediately with no compensation to the owner.

Apparently bad smells make Ryan pretty grumpy. That isn’t a big surprise, he is always telling the kids, ‘Don’t be the stinky kid.’ By this time everyone was getting annoyed and gagging at the smell, except for Matthew who was down stairs with his nose in a book oblivious to everything. While I was opening windows and getting some Febreeze I asked Matthew if his book was so good he couldn’t smell the stench overtaking the house. He said, “No, but my allergies are so bad that I can’t smell anything.”  I told Allison why her prank didn’t work and she was pretty annoyed. HAHAHA!

So we finished getting ready for church and headed out the door. When we got to church Matthew came and sat between Ryan and I.  I kept catching whiffs of the smell. I guess there was some that settled on his clothes when he was in his room and hadn’t had enough time to go away yet. Alli sprayed A LOT of it.  I was making a game plan to get some smelly lotion or oils from someone to help cover the smell but by the time sacrament was over the luckily the smell was gone. By the time we got home the smell was gone from the house too. I did one more round of Febreeze in Matthew’s room so that he was safe from being the stinky kid after sleeping in his room all night. Allison’s remaining spray may or may not have been misplaced. All in all though I think she felt like it was a great purchase.