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!"

Help solve the mystery

Last night around 9:00 p.m. our doorbell rang.
When we got to the door, there was no one there, however, three notes were left between the door and the screen door.

Note #1 said

What's your secret?

Note #2 said

I know you are in the witness protection program

And note #3 said

I know you are Aliens.



What do you think it all means?
Why was there no punctuation used on note #2?
Why does the note writer think that they know so much about us?
Why did they use three pieces of paper when they could have fit everything they needed to say onto one?
Why is this the most interesting thing I can find to blog about?


Why?

Why?

WHY?


Any of your ideas would be appreciated. Leave me a comment.

Thank you.





And just for the record, we are not Aliens, nor are we in the witness protection program. (Not that I would admit it if we were, because that would kind of defeat the purpose of the witness protection program now wouldn't it.)
(But we're really not.)

And the only secret that we might have would be that great big flying saucer in our shed, but I didn't tell you anything about it, mkay?

Things that are not awesome - Grocery store edition

I discovered at 10:15 p.m. that we needed a few things from the grocery store. "No problem" I thought, I'll just make a quick trip over to our closest store, they're open until 11:00.

I walk quickly through the store, trying to find the things on my list. Unfortunately, the grocery geniuses had recently decided that all of the merchandise was in the wrong place and had moved everything around.

I search every isle trying to find the items that I came for, and finally just settled on the most crucial of groceries because I couldn't find where they put the other stuff.


Then I happily walked off to the check out stands only to discover that they close the regular check outs at 10:30. It was 10:45.


Now the only option for me was the self check out.


I loathe self check out.


Seriously, I really, really intensely dislike having to scan my own groceries.
Since this now was my only choice, combined with the fact that we really needed milk, I decided to just suck it up and deal with the stupid self check out.


I waited in line with the other people who were grumbling about the stupid self check out, and watched while the one and only worker assigned to the self check out ran back and forth between the 4 different stations, resetting the machines, deleting things that scanned twice, figuring out how to scan stuff that wouldn't scan...............


It seemed to me that if the store were just to have this same guy open a regular check stand, that everyone would have made it out of the store much faster.


FINALLY, it was my turn.
I took the first item out of my cart, scanned it then put it in the bag.
I took the second item out of the cart, scanned it then put it in the bag.


So far so good. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.


I scanned a gallon of milk, however, I didn't think it should be put in a bag, so I returned it to the shopping cart.


The stupid self checkout machine started beeping at me "PLEASE PLACE THE ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA!"


Only there really wasn't room to place the gallon of milk in the stupid bagging area. I found a spot very near the edge of the platform to sit it in so that the stupid self check out machine would stop yelling at me.
The next problem was that I was buying three gallons of milk. There was no way that I could fit two more gallons of milk in the stupid bagging area.
But I had me an idea!


I scanned the second gallon of milk but instead of trying to find room in the stupid bagging area, I put it back in the cart and lifted up the first gallon of milk then sat it back down.
I was feeling rather clever until "DO NOT REMOVE ITEMS FROM THE BAGGING AREA! PLACE THE SCANNED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA!!!"

I must have looked like I was going to cry because the employee assigned to the self check out came over, scanned the remaining milk, typed some special code into the stupid machine then put the milk (all three gallons) into my cart.

I thanked him, then picked up the tomatoes from my cart.

Were you aware that tomatoes come without a bar code?

I was standing there, wondering what I should do, listening to the stupid machine tell me to "SCAN NEXT ITEM OR PROCEED TO CHECK OUT!! SCAN NEXT ITEM OR PROCEED TO CHECK OUT!! SCAN NEXT ITEM OR PROCEED TO CHECK OUT!!"

I finally figured out that I needed to indicate that I was buying produce, then place the tomatoes on the stupid self check out scanner to be weighed. Easy enough, but then it asked me what kind of produce it was.
Stupid machine, they're tomatoes.
A screen came up with all sorts of different produce. I scrolled my way through all of the fruits and vegetables until I found the tomatoes.

Do you have any idea how many different varieties of tomatoes there are?
I was pretty sure that the store didn't stock even half of the different tomatoes that were shown on the stupid machine.

I kept looking through the tomato pictures, trying to find a picture that looked like my tomatoes, or just trying to remember what the sign said about the tomatoes that I was trying so desperately to purchase........

Self check out employee guy came over and typed in his magic words until my tomatoes showed up on the screen and the stupid self check out machine was able to charge me the correct amount.
Self check out employee guy then needed to go rescue a teenager who was attempting to buy a candy bar, but his stupid self check out machine wouldn't scan the candy bar.

That's right folks, ONE candy bar, and the kid couldn't get it to work because the stupid EVIL self check out machine didn't recognize the item.

I picked up the tomatoes and put them in my cart........returned them to the stupid bagging area so the stupid, evil self check out machine would stop yelling at me again.

I finally got to the last item in my shopping cart. It was a small pan of brownies from the clearance area of the bakery. (Hey, I said that I only got the most crucial groceries)

I scanned the brownies, which had been marked down from $5.00 to $2.00, and much to my dismay, the stupid, evil self check out machine charged me full price!!!

Now, I was beyond angry. As much as I love brownies, there was NO WAY that I was going to pay $5.00 for them when they were marked $2.00!
If I had been using a regular HUMAN cashier, they would have picked up on that and fixed it even before there was a problem.
Fortunately, the self check out employee guy came to my rescue once again (I did have to wait for him to help another teenager who was buying a bottle of Gatorade) I explained to SCOEG that my brownies should have only been $2.00. This time he typed something into the computer on is desk, and magically, it changed the price on my screen.

I had finally scanned all of my items, so I proceeded to check out. Eventually, I made the stupid, evil self check out machine understand that I wanted to pay with a debit card, then made the payment and left as quickly as I could. (following the instructions of the self check out to "REMOVE ALL ITEMS FROM THE BAGGING AREA!")

I'm pretty sure that from now on, if it's past 10:30, I will drive across town to the Wal Mart so that I can have the option of NOT using self check out if I so wish.
Plus I'll get the added bonus of seeing the peOple of Wal Mart, which is something that I don't usually get to see at our local grocery store.
Another thing that will not be seen at our local store would be the grown woman, yelling at the stupid self check out machine "I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF TOMATOES THESE ARE! I'M GOING AS FAST AS I CAN! I CAN'T PUT THAT MILK IN THE BAGGING AREA, THERE ISN'T ROOM! I'M SCANNING AND SCANNING THIS ITEM, WHY CAN'T YOU SEE IT? THE BROWNIES ARE MARKED DOWN TO $2.00!! I REPEAT, THE BROWINES ARE MARKED DOWN TO $2.00!!
WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME NOT TO TAKE THE ITEMS FROM THE BAGGING AREA? JUST 20 SECONDS AGO YOU TOLD ME TO PUT THEM THERE!!!!!"

Apparently, I really am that clueless and pathetic - garden edition

The good news is that there's a bunch of plants growing in our garden!!

The bad news is that we're not really sure which are the ones we planted and which ones are the weeds.
Today, we* will bring pictures of cucumber, pumpkin, watermelon, pepper and zucchini plants out to our garden with us and pull out everything that doesn't look like the pictures.

*And when I say "we" I most likely just mean "me", because so far this year, the kids haven't been incredibly helpful with the whole "helping with the garden" thing. For example, yesterday I asked one of my offspring to go and water the garden, and said offspring replied "Um, I don't know how to do that."

So today, I will also be teaching the children how to spray water on dirt.

Actually, to be fair, the kids did help with the planting of the garden. They had input on the buying of the seeds, and they did some of the planting.
In retrospect, I probably should have done a better job of supervising the planting because they planted an entire row of zucchini.

The kids said that this would be OK because they really like zucchini............




Yes, I can hear you all laughing through the computer.

I plan on using this as an example of how they should believe what I tell them. Hopefully later this summer/fall, when we have so many zucchinis that we have to start storing them in the kids rooms, they might get a clue and understand that I might occasionally know what I'm talking about.

Does zucchini freeze well?

Do you know why it's so important to lock your car doors at church during the summer time?
It's because if you leave them unlocked, when church is over, you will find your car full of zucchini.

Yesterday I had a friend tell me that I can give her any extra zucchini that we have, I don't really think she has a clue to what she might have coming.

I can see it now, zucchini bread, zucchini brownies, zucchini pancakes, zucchini pudding, zucchini ice cream.......

I bet you can't wait to see all of the creative uses we find for zucchini!





You know, if you type the word zucchini enough times, it starts to look funny.

In my pretty garden

Pulled weeds.

Can't move arms.

Stupid weeds.

Stupid, stupid weeds.

Safety rule #1 - Do not run around with a garbage can over your head

I took Brielle, Aaron and Max to IKEA today. The boys saw some garbage cans for $1.99 and decided that they each needed a garbage can for their rooms.

As soon as we got home and brought our purchases in the house, they created a new game called "Put the garbage can over your head and walk around bumping into things."

I warned them that this could be potentially dangerous and they should take the garbage cans off of their heads before someone got hurt.

I mentioned this several times.

They ignored me, and this game was great fun until Max bumped into Aaron and he fell over.

"HEY! THAT HURTED!" He screamed as he sat on the floor rubbing his head.

I pointed out to him that this was the very reason that I suggested that they not play this game, but naturally, a few minutes later, they had the garbage cans back on their heads, bumping into things again.

Soon they had another collision, this time sending Aaron's can off of his head and landing on my bare foot.

"OUCH!" I yelled.

Max looked at me and said calmly "Um.....yeah.......I bet that really hurted."

Wii are going to have a great summer!

Today is the first day of Summer vacation! We were on a year round school schedule for 7 years and this year we switched to a school with a traditional schedule, so is the first time we've had more than 3 weeks off between the school years.

I can't tell you how excited I am about this!

10 whole weeks of sleep in days.

No homework to worry about.

Not having to remember to fill out reading logs.

Not having to remind children to actually turn in the reading logs. (if they've actually managed to fill them out)

No lunches to make.

10 whole weeks of sleep in days! (yes, I know I mentioned that before, but it's my favorite!)

Another favorite thing about this time of year.....................

SANDALS!

Because when we wear sandals, we don't have to worry about finding socks!

(seriously, this is a huge deal in our house. I bought Max 12 new pairs of socks just two months ago, and we can only find 7 of them, and out of the 7 that we can find, 3 of them have huge holes in the heels and should probably be thrown away, but we keep them because Max really likes wearing them) (I have NO IDEA why he likes wearing the socks with holes in them)

When the kids realized how much free time they were going to have this summer (or how much free time they perceived that they were going to have this summer.....HA! As if I would allow them free time, I can think of plenty of things they can do to keep busy!) They were quite concerned, and one of them mentioned that they really needed to have a Wii to make it through the summer.

Just then, Max came dancing through the room.

I said "Why do you need a Wii? You have your little brother, and he is WAY more fun than a Wii!

Eye rolling commenced.

So here you have it. The top ten reasons why Max is more fun than a Wii!

10. He doesn't keep score.

9. He doesn't run on electricity. (He will run entirely on PB & J sandwiches.) Hence, he will still work during a blackout.

8. You can change the rules as you go along, and he probably won't know the difference.

7. If you're losing and Max is winning, he is easily distracted. Tell him that his teeth are green and he'll go into panic mode until he can get his teeth brushed and you won't need to finish the game if you don't want to lose.

6. He sings Journey songs.

5. He has a vast supply of random science facts. "Mom, did you know that when you're looking at something, you're not actually seeing what you're looking at, you're actually seeing the light bouncing off of whatever you're looking at." (Yes, he actually said that to me last week)

4. At any given time, he can quote you 7.5 episodes of Spongebob.

3. He dances to the music from the local weather channel.

2. He cheats at Hi-Ho-Cherry-O

And the number one reason that Max is more fun than a Wii.....................

When you roll an imaginary bowling ball at him, it will knock him over EVERY SINGLE TIME!