April Fool!

I'm a creature of habit (and my kids have very short memories). We'll be celebrating dinner tomorrow the same way we did last year, with meatloaf cupcakes (complete with mashed potato frosting) and sushi made with rice krispie treats and fruit leather:





What silliness will your family endure tomorrow?

You know, some people just pay someone to do this stuff.

Today started innocently enough: a fairly short to-do list and reasonably nice weather. We started with a quick trip to Home Depot for fire ant killer (yes, we douse our yard in poison on a regular basis - those fire ant bites really hurt) and composting bags. Then the fun began - pruning a couple of trees. Easy ones. After about an hour, it was decided we needed a chainsaw. Back to Home Depot. Chainsaw purchased. Realization that we need new gas can for oil/gas mixture. Back to Home Depot, and gas station. Chainsaw running, children terrified. Tree trimmed. Trimmings dealt with. Family exhausted.

Next weekend: plant something in these pots so the children will stop hiding in them:

"Mickey Mouse No Eat Me"

We are taking our annual family vacation in a few weeks, and are busily preparing our fragile psyches kids for an adventure in the happiest place on earth.

The marketing machine that is Disney has started to send us things, including cute little luggage tags that arrived in the folder pictured on the right.


To me, this looks like a very happy mouse meeting a little boy. To a 2-year-old Pink, this looks a little more intimidating.

Pink: Mommy?

Green: Yes, sweetheart?

Pink (with fear in her eyes): Mickey Mouse no eat me?

Green: No, Mickey won't eat you, he's smiling.

Pink (in a suspicious tone): Mickey mouse nice?

I'm patting myself on the back for not scheduling a breakfast with the big-headed characters.

Daddy really knows how to plan a surprise

Red was out of town for most of this past week - starting on Saturday. Blue is learning his days of the week, and will tell anyone that will listen that "Saturday is the day that Daddy stays home all day". When Blue found out Red would be working on Saturday, the look on his face nearly broke my heart.

When Red's trip was finishing, and the timing looked like he might be able to take some time off today, we looked around for fun, and found A Day Out With Thomas. We didn't tell the kids where we were going, just loaded them into the car. When we got there, and they figured it out, I believe Blue said something like "You are the best dad in the whole world". Not bad for the price of a couple of train tickets!

Here's the gang earlier today, loving Thomas(even with the sometimes-gale-force winds):
And Blue posing with a "mural":

Pink's favorite part was the 'petting zoo'. Honestly, just a little penned-in area with some very stressed-looking animals, but she loved every minute of it. I loved that they provided a ginormous bottle of hand sanitizer to use upon exiting.

Pink's favorite conversation right now is to ask what something is called and how to use it. After I talked her into a Harold the Helicopter (yes, I know the names of the Thomas characters as well as all the Disney Princesses and Fairies...don't get me started) tattoo, she didn't quite know what to make of it, so she asked dad:

Pink: "What this name?"

Red: "That's a helicopter"

Pink: "What do with it?"

Red: (um, where do you go with that?) "You give it a kiss" -- and so he did:

Honestly, I was a little disappointed when we pulled up here - it looked like kind of a small production stuck in the parking lot of a very sad train museum, but I was totally wrong. This was perfect for the kids - just the right scale not to overwhelm them, but with enough different, short activities to keep their attention.

Hooray for Thomas!