The happiest place on earth?

Last week we returned from our family vacation to the Magic Kingdom. The last time we went there, Max was only 2, and doesn't remember anything (except refusing to ride Dumbo after standing in line for 45 minutes)
This time, Max turned out to be quite the little daredevil, he wanted to ride all of the rides. His favorite ride turned out to be Space mountain, however, he still wanted me to ride with him so I could hold his hand.
He really didn't like any of the rides where he got wet. Splash Mountain is my all time favorite ride, and I really wanted a photo of the look on Max's face so we sat him in the very front. I completely forgot how wet the front seat passenger would get.
Max was not amused.
And as for those stupid ride photos, why do they all make me look 40 lbs heavier than I think I am?
Stupid cameras.

The best quote of the day came from Max, after a mix up on the seating for Space Mountain. He wanted to sit in the front seat with his dad, but at the last second, he got confused, switched seats with his sister and ended up sitting in the second row. To say that the kid was furious would be an understatement. We argued with him for a while, trying to make him understand that HE was the one that switched seats (he got turned around and misunderstood where everyone would be sitting) but he kept blaming everyone else for him not being able to sit in front. Finally he looks at all of us, throws up his hands and says "EVERYONE SAYS THIS IS THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH, BUT IT REALLY ISN'T!!!"

While we were passing one of the shops in Adventureland, we saw a huge pile of pillow pets, Minnie mouse, Stitch, Goofy, Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh and Max's favorite Perry the Platypus.

Max had brought his birthday money and he had just enough to buy the Perry the Platypus Pillow Pet. (I dare you to say that ten times really fast) (No, seriously, go ahead, I'll wait.........)

We convinced him that we should come back at the end of the day so we didn't have to carry Perry around with us all day.
That evening, after watching "The World of Color" in California Adventure (really awesome show! I highly recommend seeing it. I spent the whole time trying to figure out how they did that) we made our way back to Disneyland to purchase Perry, and Brielle wanted to buy a Minnie Mouse pillow pet for herself.
We stopped at the Emporium near the entrance and got Minnie, but they didn't have any Perry's. In fact, the guy working there said he didn't think they even made them.
We made a mad dash back to the shop in Adventureland. We saw a kid walking around the store holding a Perry the Platypus pillow pet. I couldn't see any more so I asked the clerk. Apparently the other kid had bought the last one.
I asked the clerk if she knew of anywhere else they might have one. I even picked up Max and told the lady to look at his sad face.
She made a few phone calls, and there were none to be found.

Max was very sad that night, Brielle had Minnie, but there was no Perry for Max.

Riding back to the hotel on the shuttle, Max fell asleep. Max did not wake up to walk into the hotel. I guided the sleepwalking Max into the hotel while CJ video taped him stumbling around. The hotel staff got quite a kick out of him as he tried to lay down on the floor while we were waiting for the elevator, then he tried to lay down on the elevator floor, then the floor in front of our room door.
When we got inside our room, he finally ended up landing with his top half on the bed, and his feet still on the floor. He slept this way for about a half hour until we took pity on him and put him in his pajamas.

The next day we went to the beach. At first the kids weren't too excited, but when it was time to leave, we couldn't get them out of there. Aaron LOVES the water. I think if we lived there, he would become a surfer. While we were there, Max needed to use the restroom, so we had CJ take him to the restrooms back by the parking lot. They had been gone quite a while, and I was starting to get worried, so I called CJ on his cell phone. I got no answer. A few minutes later I tried again, still no answer. Finally, my husband went looking for them, soon they showed up, CJ had miscalculated and went the wrong direction.
He had also left his cell phone in the car.

That night we attended an Anaheim Angels baseball game. Our hotel was close enough that we just walked to the stadium. As we walked in the gates, we all got a Hula Dancer doll. Aaron immediately turned around and asked me if he could sell his on eBay. My first thought was that we now had a bunch more crap to stuff in the car on our way home.

The next day we went back to Disneyland. We got up super duper early and made it there in time for the special early entrance. We went straight to Space Mountain and Max got to ride in the front :)
As we were passing one of the shops in Tomorrowland, I looked in and saw three Perry the Platypus Pillow Pets on the shelf! Max grabbed one and we bought it immediately. I learned that the store would hold Perry for us until it was time for us to leave.

Win, win!

We spent the rest of the day riding as many rides as we could before it got too crowded. At one point we split up, I took the older boys on Splash Mountain, and Brielle took Max on Thunder Mountain Railroad, while hubby hung out on a bench, waiting for all of us.
We got back to the bench, but Brielle and Max were nowhere to be seen. We waited for quite a while, then I went looking for them. (sound familiar) Due to a miscommunication, they went to the wrong bench and got lost.
Brielle felt really bad, and CJ tried to console her by saying how much worst it was when he and Max were lost. They argued for several minutes about which one had the worst experience getting lost, when Max looks at both of them and says "HEY! I got lost TWICE!!"


By about 7:00 that night, we decided we were all Disneyed out and decided it was time to leave. We went and picked up Max's Perry, bought a bunch of suckers for souvenirs and took the shuttle back to the hotel.
We still hadn't eaten dinner, so we found the nearest Spaghetti Factory and went there. It was after 9:00 when we got there so we were all tired and hungry. About halfway through his mad-n-cheese, Max snuggled up against me and fell asleep.
We now have video of him sleepwalking out of the restaurant, and back into the hotel.

The front desk staff were quite entertained.

Our last day in California, we went to Pasadena because CJ wanted to visit Caltech. I can't believe that our kid is old enough for us to start visiting Colleges.

That afternoon we went to the beach again. Again, Aaron spent his time diving into the waves. We had to keep telling him not to swim too far out because he was making me nervous.
I told Max he should really go put his feet in the water. A few minutes later, he came back soaking wet, with sand covering the entire front of his body. Apparently, a wave hit him, and knocked him over.
Max shook the sand off of his arms and said "I WOULD LIKE THE BEACH MUCH BETTER IF THERE WASN'T ANY WATER!"

Poor Max.

We did have a great vacation. We also got to visit my husband's family who lives in the area. The kids got to pick lemons from the trees in their back yard (they have lemon trees in their back yard!!)
and make fresh strawberry lemonade! The family all commented on how tall all of the kids are, and on how much Max looks like his grandpa :)

Quite possibly the best Max quote EVER!

Yesterday my husband was teasing Max, and he asked him if he had a girlfriend.

Max grinned and said "I like Kate!"

When I commented that he was a little too young to have a girlfriend he said........

"Look, if I don't start meeting girls now, I'm going to live in this house FOREVER!"

Top two Max quotes of the week

#1

Max: "Last year I was in Kindergarten and I didn't have a life. This year I'm in first grade and I have a life."

Me: "What is different this year?

Max: "Well, last year all I did was play Mario Kart, this year I go to school all day and play Mario Kart."

#2

Me:" Max, You are so cute!"

Max: "NO I'm am not cute! Boys don't want to be cute, they want to be HOT! I'm HOT not cute!!"

Cheaters never win........or do they?

Mario Kart is a favorite Wii game at our house, Max has become an expert at maneuvering through all of the different tracks.

We recently set up the Wii so it will connect to the internet, and one benefit of this is that the kids are able to play Mario Kart online and race against people all over the world. It's been fun to see all of the places where the other players are from.

Last week, Aaron discovered a way to cheat and win every time he races. I asked him if he really felt OK doing this, and he said that from now on he would only do this at night when all of the other racers are from Japan.*

Tonight, Max was about to enter a race online, and asked Aaron how to cheat so he could win.

Brielle said "Max, you shouldn't cheat, that isn't very nice. Think about it, what would Jesus do?"

Max replies................... "Is Jesus Japanese?"

*Not sure why this would make cheating OK.

Edited to add: I just asked Aaron why cheating would be OK if the other players are from Japan, and he said that if he cheated and those he beat created an angry mob to come and beat him up, it should take a lot longer for the angry mob to get here from Japan than it would if it was an angry mob from around here.

The event which caused me to realize that I should never again consult my five year old son for fashion advice

Max has an incredible memory.
He is able to memorize and recall many things. This would be a skill that would prove to be rather useful in school, unfortunately, Max prefers to use this talent to memorize lines from his favorite movies. (sometimes it seems like he memorizes the whole movie....)

Last week I needed to go shopping to find a dress for a semi formal event that I will be attending. Now let me tell you that Max HATES shopping. If we have been in a store more than five minutes, he begins to whine....."Mommmmmm!* You're taking too long!"** Then proceeds to drag himself around behind me, making himself look as miserable as possible.

You get the picture.

I knew that I would need to take Max with me to the dress store, so before we went, I stopped to get Max his favorite lunch at McDonalds. He ate all of his food, and seemed quite happy. He hardly even flinched when I told him that we were going dress shopping.

As we were walking into the store I heard him mumbling "Can we order a pizza? No, you just ate lunch. Can we get stuffed crust? OOOOOOOHHHHHHH! Stuffed crust!"
I was about to tell him that I wasn't going to get him a pizza because he had just eaten lunch, but then I realized that he was reciting a scene from his current favorite movie "Despicable me"

I didn't think much of it, and we continued through the store, grabbing an armful of dresses for me to try on, with Max following behind me, whining about the fact that I was "taking too long, why are you taking so long mom? We've been here for-ev-errrrrrr!" then throwing in a few random scenes from the movie. I finally decided I was ready to go to the fitting rooms.

Max is too old to go inside the room with me, but too young to be left outside, so I took him in the fitting room, and he decided just to turn around and keep his nose in the corner while I was changing.
I tried on several dresses, but I didn't really like any of them. I finally tried one on that I liked, but it was a little tight. I asked Max "Hey buddy, what do you think? Does this dress look nice?"
Max turned around and looked at me. He paused, then he lifted his eyebrows, tilted his head and smiled so I thought he was going to say I looked nice, or that he liked the dress, and he said........

"OOOOOOOOHHHH! Stuffed crust!!"




*I've always been amazed at how Max can take the one syllable word "Mom" and turn it into 3 or 4 syllables.

**Max has not yet learned his father's technique to put a quick end to a miserable shopping trip. All he has to do is say "Just buy both of them*** and let's go."

***This works wonderfully for ME when I can't decide between two pairs of shoes, two purses, two dresses, two coats..........

Quick Quotes.

Today Brielle was quite distressed because she witnessed two 9th graders "making out" in the hall at school.
Upon further investigation, she told me that they were just hugging.




Yesterday, upon seeing the snow on the ground, Aaron said "Well, at least now the radio station can play the Christmas music legally."





Tonight Max told me that I was "the most good person ever."

I think he wants something.






And that concludes my post for today, thus fulfilling my obligation to post every day for NaBloPoMo.
Tune in for tomorrow's post, I promise it will be better, I'm bringing back everyone's favorite* blog game "Word verification Wednesday!"



*OK, so maybe it's not everyone's favorite game, but there are two or three people that seem to enjoy it.

Duh!!!

Brielle went to girls camp last week. On the last day, they woke the girls up at 2:00 a.m. and they hiked to the top of the mountain to watch the sun rise.
Brielle was telling us how cool it was to watch the sun rise from the mountain top when Max said (in his most condescending voice)


"Brielle, the sun doesn't RISE, the earth is SPINNING!!"

The unfortunate fate of my future grandchildren

A few nights ago at dinner, Max didn't want to eat any of the food I had fixed. One of the kids told him that he needed to eat vegetables so he could grow, but Max still didn't want any.

"Max, if you don't eat healthy food, you won't grow any bigger, you want to get taller, don't you?"

Max rolled his eyes and said "Yes, I want to grow bigger so I can be a dad!"

I asked him how many kids he wanted to have and he said he wanted to have 5 kids.

"What are you going to name them?" Brielle asked, and Max replied "I'm going to name one of them Human."

"Human???" we all questioned in unison.

"Yes" Max said, "Human Chen. I'm going to name one of my kids Human Chen."

Starring Max as Peter Pan

Tonight's dinner conversation.

Me: "Hey Max, would you like some corn?"
Max: "No, thank you."
Aaron: "But corn will make you grow taller."
Max: "I don't want to get taller."
Brielle: "But if you don't get taller, you won't be able to drive a car, or go to college, get a job and your own house........."
Max: "No, I don't want to grow up. I love mom SO MUCH that I want to be 5 FOREVER!"

M.Q.O.D. (Max quote of the day)

Yesterday was such a nice day! I had a ton of work that I should have been doing, but Max wanted me to come to the back yard with him. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to spend some time in the nice warm sun with my cute little guy, so I put my work on hold and we went outside.
Max ran to the swing set and hopped up on one swing and I sat on the other one.

"Mom, " he asked sweetly "aren't you going to push me?"

I started swinging myself and said "I thought that this year you were a big enough boy to be able to push yourself on the swing."

He rolled his eyes, threw his hands in the air and said......

"BUT WHEN I PUSH MYSELF, I DON'T GET ENOUGH VELOCITY!"






Methinks we've been spending a bit too much time with Bill Nye the Science guy.

Another cute Max quote

I was hugging Max today and said "Max, you'll always be my baby!"
"No mom, I'm NOT a baby!" he protested.
You're right" I replied, "You're not a baby anymore, but you'll always be MY baby!"
He hugged me tight and said..............

"And you'll always be my grown up."

Random....random....random......

Yesterday when I picked up Max from preschool he told us that the leprechauns had visited his classroom while they were at recess.
"Before we went out to recess my teacher poured some red juice for snack, and when we came back inside it was green, and there were footprints all over the floor and ceiling! They got into my teachers papers and mixed them up! They switched around all of the cubbies and then they dumped out all of the toys and we had to put everything away. The leprechauns just messeded everything up!"

I'm beginning to wonder if the leprechauns might just be living at our house.

***************************************************

Max: "Hey mom! Do you want to hear me say a bad word?"

Me: (curious) "Ummm, sure?"

Max:: "A BAD WORD!"

***************************************************

Max quote of the week.

"Plates are like bowls, only they don't have the inside part on top."

***************************************************

A few days ago, we finally decided to let the kids get their own email addresses. Now they sit in different rooms and email random comments to each other.
Yesterday Brielle said "You know, I just thought of something. Instead of emailing each other, we could just walk into the other room and talk to each other."

***************************************************

I recently noticed that my stash of Diet Dr. Pepper has been disappearing faster than I have been drinking them, however, nobody in the house will admit to swiping them.

I am currently watching everyone in the house VERY closely, to see who is the most awake.

**************************************************

We finally got our new dishwasher and oven. I love how quiet the dishwasher is, it isn't nearly as loud as the kids complaining about having to hand wash the dishes.
My favorite dish washing related kid quote from the last two weeks......"But I can't hand wash the dishes because I don't know how!"

Somebody got a crash course in dish washing.

**************************************************

I don't really like this time of year. Mother Nature comes out and says "Look, it's spring!" And I look around and the grass is getting green, my daffodils are starting to grow, I start to get all happy and warm..........
Then it snows and Mother Nature says "PSYCHE!"

My most favorite Max quote ever............I think

Yesterday Max climbed up next to me on the couch and started kissing my face. He gave me a bunch of really fast kisses.
I asked him why he was giving me so many kisses and he said......

"Because I love you SO, SO, SO, SO MUCH!.............today."

For the three people who are still reading my blog.....MAX QUOTES!

Max has a small American flag which he keeps in his room. We have taught him that it shouldn't be allowed to touch the floor because that would not be showing respect to the flag.
Several days ago, Max insisted on being carried everywhere. "Mom, carry me!" "Dad carry me!" "CJ, carry me!"
I said "Max, you're almost five years old, why do you think that we should carry you everywhere?"
"Because if my feet touch the ground, it would be disrespectful!"

****************************************************

"If someone was on space without a space suit, then they would fall and see the ghost of Christmas presents."

*****************************************************

"Everything I hear and everything I see gets stuck in my brain."

*****************************************************

"Can you hear my heart? It's beepin' fast!"

*****************************************************

"I'll think about it with my brain because my brain knows everything."

Four going on fourteen

Today Max was wearing a new pair of pants that he received as a gift for Christmas. They didn't have an adjustable waistband like his other pants do, so they were sliding down a bit. As he walked around, he was holding them by the sides to keep them up.

"Hey Max," I asked "Do you want me to take in those pants for you and make the waist smaller so they fit better?"

"No, they're OK" he said as he hiked them up again.

"But they're falling off of you."

Then he says to me "NO they aren't, if they were falling off of me then I would look LIKE A TEENAGER!"

Do you think that maybe the kid has been watching too much TV today?

All day today, Max has been going around saying.....

"NOTHING DOWN AND NO INTEREST UNTIL 2011!!!"

Breakfast, take two!

Yesterday morning when Max woke up he immediately came into the kitchen and asked me for his breakfast. I told him that he could have his breakfast as soon as he got dressed and he said "OK mom, but you should fix my breakfast while I'm getting dressed."

He walked into his room and I continued doing whatever it was that I was doing at the time. I didn't fix his breakfast because I had no idea how long it was going to take him to get dressed, and after that toasted frozen waffle gets cold, Max won't touch it.

Just a few minutes later, Max came walking back into the kitchen, fully dressed.

"Where's my breakfast? You were supposed to fix my breakfast while I was getting dressed so I could have it when I came out,"

I said "I didn't fix it yet because I didn't want it to get cold."

Then he threw his arms in the air, turned around, stomped back into his room and said.......

WELL THEN LET'S JUST TRY IT AGAIN!"

Just so you know, Max did not get his breakfast until after he apologized to me for being rude, and then asking for a waffle nicely, using the word "please." (and I may or may not have required him to say "Please dear mother")

Botox, shmotox

Today Max asked me "Do we take old stuff to the recycle?"

I told him yes, then he asked "Do we take old stuff to the recycle and then they make it into new stuff?"

I told him yes again, then he asked "Do we also take old people to the recycle?"

p.s. I'm still looking for craft ideas from yesterday's post.

Is my cooking really that bad?

Tonight at dinner, it was Max's turn to say the blessing on the food.

Just before he finished, he paused and added...........

"And please bless us that tomorrow night we can go out to eat for dinner."

Max the comedian

Tonight as I was tucking Max into bed, he said "Mom, tell me a joke!"

Me: "Knock knock."
Max: "Who's there?"
Me: "Boo!"
Max: "Who's boo?"
Me: "No, Max, you're supposed to say boo who?
Max: "Who's boo!"
Me: "No, boo who!"
Max: "Boo who!"
Me: "You don't need to cry about it."

Max looks at me blankly.

Me: "Get it? Boo hoo like you're crying?"
Max: "Tell me another joke."
Me: "Knock knock"
Max: "Who's there?"
Me: "Dwayne"
Max: "Who's Dwayne?"
Me: "No, you say Dwayne who?"
Max: "Dwayne who?"
Me: "Dwayne the bathtub, I'm dwowning!"

Max looks at me blankly.

Max: "Tell me another joke."
Me: Knock knock."
Max: "Who's there?"
Me: "Banana"
Max: "Who's banana?"
Me: "No Max, say BANANA WHO!"
Max: "OK"
Me: "Knock knock."
Max: "Who's there?"
Me: "Banana."
Max: "Who's banana?"
Me: "What?"
Max: "Banana who?"
Me: "Knock knock."
Who's there?"
Me: "Banana."
Max: (giggling)"Banana who?"
Me: "Knock knock."
Who's there?"
Me: "Banana."
Max: (giggling louder)"Banana who?"
Me: "Knock knock."
Who's there?"
Me: "Orange"
Max: (giggle giggle) "Orange who?"
Me: "Orange you glad I didn't say banana?"

Max stops giggling and says:

"Was that a joke?"