How many family members does it take to pull out the wiggly tooth of a very whiny six year old?

Three.

#1 to tie the string around his tooth and the other end of the string to the door.

#2 to hold the kid's head still.

#3 to slam the door.

Yes, Max has lost his first tooth! (or had it forcibly removed.............)

It was most definitely ready to come out, the new tooth has already popped through. Now if we can just trick him into letting us tie the string around the other loose tooth.

The reason why someone in our family will be getting an entire case of scotch tape for Christmas.

Today the kids were making ornaments to decorate the new Christmas tree that we got for our kitchen. (What, don't you have a tree in your kitchen?) (OK, so I may or may not have purchased the tree as incentive* for the kids to do something that I wanted them to do) (and I like having a tree** in the kitchen) I had planned to decorate the tree with chili peppers or something like that, but today the offspring*** were too excited and decided to take matters into their hands and use a case of printer paper to make ornaments for the new tree.

They made tons of snowflakes, a big paper chain and a really cool star for the top.

Max is an amazing kid, if he has access to a bunch of paper, scissors, tape, crayons and a stapler, there is no limit to what this kid can create.

Earlier today, Max was working on a new creation for the tree when it appeared that he needed some tape. He asked everyone if we knew where the tape was.

Due to the fact that Max is generally the only one who uses tape, none of the rest of us knew where it was.

I even checked in my super secret tape hiding place, and there wasn't any tape there. (apparently, Max discovered my super secret tape hiding place)

Max was continually growing more agitated, and kept asking us where the tape was. (because everyone knows that asking someone the same thing over and over and over will make them know the answer)

"Where is the tape?"

"Who hid the tape?"

"Why won't anybody help me find the tape?"

"Why am I the only one looking for the tape?"

And finally.........

"IT'S NOT FAIR THAT I'M THE ONLY ONE LOOKING FOR THE TAPE!!!"

I calmly suggested that he look in his room because he WAS the last one to use the tape.

"IT'S NOT IN MY ROOM!!! SOMEBODY TOOK IT!! I NEED THE TAPE!! WHY ISN'T ANYBODY HELPING ME LOOK FOR THE TAPE? IT'S NOT FAIR THAT NOBODY IS HELPING ME LOOK FOR THE TAPE!! WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS ............

Then he spotted the tape sitting on the kitchen table right next to where he was standing. "Oh there it is." he said simply, then grabbed it and walked away.

Here is what the tree looked like when the kids were finished. I actually like it! (The huge decorations kind of cover the fact that the tree is incredibly scrawny) The big square snowflakes were made by Max.

*Some people prefer to call it bribery, however, I feel that bribery is such an ugly word.

Bribery is when someone says "I'll give this to you if you do something for me" and incentive is when someone says "Do this for me, and I will give you this"

See, completely different.

**And I use the term "tree" very loosely. It was $20 at Wal Mart

***The boys actually wanted to drape the tree with cords and cables from multiple electronic devices.

Things I learned at church today

Last night we got a phone call asking if we could substitute teach Max's Primary (Sunday school) class today because his regular teachers were sick.

I've heard it said that the person who teaches the lesson usually learns more than the ones being taught.

This is true, today I learned several interesting things from this group of six year olds.

Things I learned at church today

#1 Ashley's little sister likes to stick her hands in the toilet.

#2 Jeremy's little brother has eaten poop.

#3. Brinley's baby sister is turing one next week, and her mom is pregnant.

Spam spies?

I have been getting emails from Groupon for a while now.

I can't remember if I actually signed up to get these, of if they got my email address by less ethical ways, either way, I've been getting at least one email a day from Groupon.

At first, they were offering me deals on things such as salon services, massages, weekend getaway packages at nice hotels. They also told me about discounts I could get at nice restaurants, flower shops and theaters.

A few weeks ago, I started to notice a trend in the type of deals being offered to me.

First I received several offers for a discount on lipo/laser treatments.

Next, they sent me offers for a discount on teeth whitening.

At first I didn't think much of it, but then over the next week, I recieved offers for laser hair removal, Botox, Microdermabrasion, sunless tanning and yoga classes.*

I began to wonder if someone from Groupon was stalking me..........

I really began to worry when they suggested I get a good deal on their carpet shampooing and house cleaning services.

Have Groupon spies been in my home???

I really hope that they haven't been spying on me, especially after getting the email, letting me know of the great deal I can get on"colon hydrotherapy."

*I'm choosing to be offended.

Halloween recap

This year Halloween was a little different because my kids school had all of their Halloween festivities on Friday :0)

Usually this would mean that I would be staying up late, working on costumes Thursday night instead of the night before Halloween, however, CJ is too old to go Trick-or-treating (plus, at 6'4" he looks even older than 16) Brielle wasn't allowed to wear a costume for school, and Max decided to use one of CJ's old costumes.

This meant that I only had to make one costume!!

I was excited about this, because Aaron's costume would be super easy. (I may or may not have thrown it together Friday morning)

Apparently, it was also super difficult to understand. No one in our neighborhood could figure out what he was.

Here it is, can anyone guess what his costume is?

I will be quite impressed by the first person who guesses correctly.

Max's costume was perfect for him because...

1) It's his favorite food

2) It was already made and I didn't have to do anything.

3) It was padded so every time he tripped (because the costume was a little big on him) the padding would break his fall.

There is a hole for his face, however, he was being shy.

CJ stayed home and handed out candy. I wanted him to dress as a vampire, but he was being a bit of a party pooper.

He also handed out too much candy* because we ran out!**

The best part of the evening was when we had one piece of candy left and Max waited at the door to pass out the last piece.

A large group of kids came to the door and Max waved around the package of Whoppers and said "ONLY ONE OF YOU IS GETTING CANDY!!" He dropped the candy in the bucket of the little girl at the front of the group, then turned the candy bowl upside down "SEE! IT'S ALL GONE!" Then closed the door.

Due to the fact that I didn't need to make costumes yesterday, I was able to make some treats. A friend posted the link to this recipe for pumpkin muffins on Facebook, and I knew I had all of the ingredients,*** so I decided to make them.

They are FABULOUS! Pumpkin with cream cheese filling! MMMMM!

They were really good! They even looked good, and with my track record of making really ugly food, I felt that this was an accomplishment.

I didn't realize until last night that I accidentally put twice as much pumpkin in the recipe than it called for. I guess I just assumed that I should use a large can instead of a smaller one. They were really moist and delicious, so I think I'll double the pumpkin every time I make them.

I do have on bit of helpful advice if you decide to make these delicious muffins. When you are mixing the pumpkin/sugar/eggs on low speed in your electric mixer, be sure that when you turn the mixer off, you actually turn it off and don't accidentally turn it on high.

You will end up with pumpkin all over yourself and almost everything in your kitchen.

Trust me on this one.

*We had more kids come to our house this year than ever before. I think this was due to the really nice weather and the dozens of carloads of kids being brought to our neighborhood from who knows where. Apparently, when a few of the neighbors start handing out full size candy bars, and word gets around.

**The candy I don't like ran out. The bag of Three Musketeers was left untouched in the kitchen.

***Not really, I ended up going to the store halfway through making these to get salt, pumpkin pie spice and powdered sugar.

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!"

If yoga people can't cough, can they sing and dance at Wal Mart?

Max has spent the last three weeks in first grade, and appears to be doing just fine. I kept trying to convince him that he was going to miss me too much and I should come with him to school, but he is quite sure that I shouldn't be there.

I even offered to join him for lunch and stay for the second half of the day but he appears to be adamantly against me doing that.
He is even opposed to me standing outside and watching him through the windows.

Deep down I think he really misses me.

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Just out of curiosity, how long do you usually wave your hand in front of the towel dispenser in a public restroom before realizing that it isn't automatic and you actually need to turn the handle to get the towel out?

Not that I've ever done that.

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Earlier today I found Aaron in the kitchen holding a funnel with a balloon attached to it. He hid behind the counter and filled the balloon with flour.

He was dissapointed that he wasn't able to fill the balloon completely, but then he got a wicked grin on his face and said "Hey, I bet if I filled up a few hundred of these, sat them on the lawn then run over them with the mower, it would make a HUGE MESS!"

This is the same child who came up to me a few months ago and asked me if I could get him some liquid nitrogen.*

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Over the last few weeks, I have found a need to outlaw unnecessary sounds in our house. It's amazing how many sounds are made around here for apparently no reason whatsoever.

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Last night while the kids were finishing up with their homework, I laid on the couch and must have fallen asleep and dreamed that Aaron was in a yoga class because when he coughed loudly and woke me up, I yelled at him "YOGA PEOPLE DON'T COUGH!"**

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For some strange reason, I usually end up at Wal Mart every Saturday night with anywhere from one to four kids.
Saturday night at the Wal Mart is an interesting experience. During the shopping, Aaron generally spends his time dancing around, trying to get caught on the security cameras and having his picture posted on People of Walmart dot com.***
There is usually at least one motor home camped out in the parking lot, sometimes more. It's fun to watch how these campers make themselves at home there, we've even seen some set up a barbecue and patio furniture next to their RV.


Last Saturday night was a little bit special, however, because as we had finished our shopping experience and left the building, we were greeted by this.****

*Yes, he sometimes frightens me.

**Hey, you weren't there, it made perfectly good sense before I woke up completely.

***What can I say, at least he has a goal.

****I'm not even sure that they were all playing the same song.