What a draining day!

I woke up this morning thinking it would be a day much like any other. But a day in the life of a mother never is just a mellow day.

We had an incident yesterday in church that left us a little shaken. A parent of one of the kids was helping out in Bug's Sunday school class. We have seen this parent around and had a few run ins with him as his son and Bug are also in the same 1st grade class. Let me just preface this by saying (in the most Christian like way I can) that this man is not a very pleasant man to be around. He has little patience with children and especially mine. In his opinion his son can do no wrong. What is sort of funny about this, is that his son is just as rambunctious and high spirited as Bug is. They (for the most part) get along really well. But like all kids this age they do have silly little dramas and they do squabble. They sort of have a love/hate relationship.

Thus far it has always been my opinion to let kids learn to fight their own battles until they seek my help. Or tattle and then I have to get involved. So I have stayed out of their squabbles.

Then enters this Father. Now a little in his defense...I do enjoy talking to his wife. She and I have become friends just by proxy. We drop off and pick up kids at the same time and our kids are in church activities together. However.....this Dad is always rude to me and makes a point of asking me questions like "So I wonder what Bug did to my kid today" or " It sure would be nice if Bug didn't teach my kid such terrible behavior" or "gee...maybe if you didn't have so many kids you could get his behavior under control". (Ok I added that last one in. but that's the way he looks at me. It feels like that is what he is thinking. He is an only child and has a only child so that makes him an expert of child behavior)

Well let's cut to the chase here. So yesterday we go to pick Bug up after the church service and his teacher pulls my husband aside. Apparently this guy was helping out with the Sunday school class and had seen enough of Bug's "behavior" and decided to take matters into his own hands.

He took him aside , got in his face and yelled at him telling him" not to ever talk to his kid again." Now to a 6 year old this was really traumatic and really shook Bug up. He said that the way he was acting, he thought he was going to punch him or something. The teacher told us that she was really uncomfortable and thought this was very inappropriate.

We were LIVID!!!!

So we calmed Bug down and reassured him that whatever he did, no matter how bad, did not warrant that. We felt awful that this happened. Especially at church where we are taught to resolve things peacefully and talk it out.

So we got up today and I had to go in and talk to his teacher and let her know that Bug and this other boy can't have any contact. It seems so ridiculous, but I honestly just don't want to provoke him. After this, I would be scared to think what he would do to Bug if he found out that they were still talking.

So my husband gave this man a call tonight and told him "Look, the boys won't talk as long as we can help it. We have done everything we could do on our end. ...Oh and by the way....don't you EVER talk to my kid again unless it is in a heart felt apology. If you have an issue with him....you come to us. " Big man!!! Scaring the pants off a 6 year old child! He didn't even believe that Bug was bothered by the whole thing. He didn't say he was sorry or anything. He had no idea what he had done. He told my husband "sometimes you just have to speak sternly to boys" My husband was like "Yeah ok fine, talk to your own boy like that but leave mine alone!"

I'm trying really hard here just to turn the other cheek. But it gets tricky when your kid is in the middle of it. The mama bear in me just wants to rip this guys eyelids off. But in the meantime all I can do is just sit back and pray that he will realize what he has done and apologize so that the boys can be friends again. Because out of all of this...Bug really only had one friend at this school and now he lost him. Thats the saddest part.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Today's sassy look

Well as I have mentioned before Sunshine can't seem to do anything without some sort of sporty costume accessory. Today is no exception.

And here we have a fabulous crown with the 23rd Psalm printed out on it. However you wouldn't know that, mainly because she has covered the words with foam stickers.

So basically she sits around eating lunch wearing her paper,Psalm, foam sticker crown.

Sure...why not.

Cowgirl Sunshine

Ok I know....third video of the day. But I promise I'll stop here.


This one sort of pulls it all together though. Sunshine has been on this Horses/cowgirl kick for ...oh....about 3 1/2 years. Add in her love of the death defying.....an this is what you end up with.

By the way...I just want to take this moment and apologize for the crummy video quality here. I know my Dad is somewhere screaming at his screen right now. But I just don't have very good light in this room and I was more interested in catching the moment than I was about making it perfect. I can see now that I chose poorly :(

Look out Sugar Ray...

Ok, so i know I have talked a lot about the wonders and greatness of the Wii. But I really had to give you a visual of just how amusing it really is. It's fun just to watch other people play it.

Mind you, this is my 6 year old beating the snot out of a virtual punching bag. It seems innocent enough, but what cracks me up here is the intensity in which he does it.

And of course the victory dance at the end doesn't hurt either ;)

A challenge...

I challenge any of you to sit and watch this baby and not at least crack a smile.

I have no idea who this kid is, but man, this cracks me up.

If you can watch this and not at least grin let alone laugh....you are broken my friend and need some help.

Big night in!!!

So what do we do on a thrilling Friday night you may ask? We gather around the wii for another round of virtual sports playing. We are hooked !

As you can see here, we ALL have gotten into it. Sunshine totally kicked my butt at tennis. She's fierce. I mean it, don't let her see your fear or she'll take you out. ;)

Feeding the ducks

So when you raise a family on one income (mom stays home and raises kids) you are sort of forced to get creative with fun things to do that are cheap , but don't feel cheap.

One of our favorite things to do only cost about $2 for our whole family. We buy 2 loaves of bread and go feed the ducks. We have a protected wetland within walking distance from our house so we brave the rain (Please, we're Oregonians, that was a joke) and head outside.

This time of year they are getting ready to nest so they can be really aggressive and hungry. As soon as we showed up they practically ran towards us knowing what we had for them.

There were regular old mallard ducks, and a bunch of Canadian geese. There were even some cool looking farm geese. Plus in these parts if there are swamp like conditions, there are nutria. Now if you aren't from Oregon and aren't familiar with nutria, they are like a cross between a beaver and a muskrat. They are pretty harmless to people, but they can make dams and a mess out of a yard pretty quick. They are considered vermin, but they are still kind of cool.

We got a couple cool pictures of the nutria and all of the ducks and geese too. We were amazed just how aggressive they were. My husband was able to get a goose to eat out of his palm and pet it at the same time. Usually they can be pretty nasty. But I guess we got him on a friendly day :)

recipe for disaster

1-wheat tortilla

1-oz peanut butter

1-oz homemade raspberry jelly

1-oz cream cheese

roll up like a burrito and VOILA!! You get a magnificent sticky mess that you will have to scrape out of his ears and eyebrows.

mmmmmm!!!!

Giddy up

So I don't really have anything clever to say about this other than this is just Sunshine watching TV.

Whenever possible, it is impairative that you do everything in costume. Today she's a cowgirl. you know, riding the range....watchin Dora. Whatever. This is what cowgirls do.

Ahhh the chicken and the road....

Ok normally I hate those horrible "cutesy" emails that get passed around. In fact if I usually just delete them if I see that it is just a foreword about how 70 angels will fly and grant wishes if I only send this along to 90 of my closest friends.....blah blah...

But this one actually made me laugh out loud. Which isn't easy to do.

My favorite is Jerry Falwell.

Subject: Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

DR. PHIL

:

The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on 'THIS' side of the road before it goes after the problem on the 'OTHER SIDE' of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his 'CURRENT' problems before adding 'NEW' problems.


OPRAH

:
Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

GEORGE W. BUSH:

We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

COLIN POWELL:
Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road....

ANDERSON?COOPER - CNN:

We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

JOHN KERRY:

Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

NANCY GRACE:

That chicken crossed the road because he's GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN:
To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART:
No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS:
Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY:

To die in the rain. Alone.

JERRY FALWELL:

Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see the plain truth?' That's why they call it the 'other side.' Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media white washes with seemingly harmless phrases like 'the other side. That chicken should not be crossing the road. It's as plain and as simple as that.

GRANDPA:

In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS:
Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.

JOHN LENNON:

Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

ARISTOTLE:

It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

BILL GATES:

I have just released eChicken2008, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your check book. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken. This new platform is much more stable and will never cra...#@&&^(C% ........ reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN:

Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON:

I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE:

I invented the chicken!

COLONEL SANDERS:

Did I miss one?

DICK CHENEY?:

Where's my gun?