Totally squashed

Tonight I cleaned off the garden since it's supposed to freeze the next couple of nights. If you recall, during my first big pick of squash, I picked 41 squash. Tonight, I picked 35 squash. So, let's add...

41 first picking squash + 35 clean-off-the-garden squash + 5 earlier picked squash + 3 taken by grandmas squash = 84 squash

Now let's divide...

84 squash / 8 plants = 8.4 squash per plant

I think next year I'll go with 2 plants. If I need squash yet next year. Which is unlikely.

(My apologies now if the post title means something immoral, unsavory, or in some other way offensive. I meant it in no such fashion.)

Nice try, Evan

Scene: Kendra (who has a cold and is therefore irritable) is crying a sad, fake cry without stopping. Evan has a kaleidoscope that he's using as a camera.

Evan: Kendra, that's not a very good picture face. Put on your smile, and I'll take another picture.

If only it had worked...

If I were me

Evan: I was thinking, "If I were me, where would I hide it?"

Bonus points to Mommy for not laughing too hard. Double bonus points to Mommy for not making a crack about if it wouldn't be quite a stretch to pretend you're yourself.

Card from Evan

Evan just made me a card. On the front, it says: MOME (mommy).
Inside it says:
LUVV EVAN (love Evan)
NGOY TUDA (enjoy today)

Best card ever!

While they _____, he ______.

While the girls were at home doing this in their table-and-blanket fort,

Evan was at preschool learning that "when you get fire on your clothes, you should

."

If we had continued

If we had continued having children at the same rate as Evan, Kendra, and Laura were born, this* would be what you'd see** in our house right now***:

*But the baby would look like ours instead of like Josh and Suzanne's.
**Except we never let our kids hold our babies.
***However, our kids never cared about our babies, despite their complete adoration of baby Jordyn.

Anything can be a boat

Evan and Kendra love playing boats. Their Little People and other small figures ride in boats all the time. Anything can be a boat. A chair, a box, a toy car, a lid, a tub, a book, and apparently a sunbeam.

Right before taking the picture above, I heard Kendra telling their Simpsons characters to get in their sunbeam boat.

The characters of course obeyed and had a nice bright, warm ride in their sunbeam boat.

In case you're wondering how a sunbeam boat works out in actual practice, it doesn't work very well. The boat may move on its own (very, very slowly), but the kids couldn't exactly choose where to drive the boat or how fast. After a few minutes, the Simpsons were left on the kitchen floor while Evan and Kendra went to find alternate forms of transportation for them.

They're getting so big

We're all getting so big and doing so much. Mommy can hardly keep up. Here are some of the things we do lately.

I wear oven mitts so I can be like Mommy.

I look at a book while a movie is on ... some of the time.

We color together nicely at the little table.

I tuck myself in to my big bed with a blankie and book (always with my feet sticking out of the bed), even though I still sleep in my crib.

On the rare days when Mommy tells me I need to rest, I settle myself quickly on the couch with a pillow, blankie, and a book to read. And I sometimes ask Mommy if I can have a sippy cup of chocolate milk while I rest quietly.

I help Daddy do big jobs like wash the windows outside.

We snuggle in a chair together to watch a movie.

(No, Evan's not strangling Laura. She's trying to hold his arm with her chin.)

We're all getting so big!

Not Me! Monday

I did not let my son wear girl boots to church yesterday. When he asked for a pair of boots to match the girls, I definitely stuck with my original answer of "you don't have any boots that would work for church". And there's no way that when I found a pair of black boots his size in the shoe tote that I let him try them on. Nor did I tell him the decision was up to Daddy. And, Daddy of course did not answer with, "as long as you don't pull your pant legs up." Nope, no way any of that happened!

That same boy did not tell me at lunch today, "the reason I don't like broccoli is because it makes me sneeze, and if something makes you sneeze, that means your allergic to it." He did not proceed to cough a little and then say, "see? I'm allergic to broccoli. That's why I don't like it."

And, while we're talking about that wonderful little boy, I'm sure it was not him who told me, at my parents' house during supper on Saturday night to, "chill out, Sheloni". He would never call his mommy things like Sheloni, nor would he say phrases such as "chill out" to me.

While putting the afore-mentioned boots on the kids before church yesterday morning, I did not come to the realization that I had both girls in the same size of boots. They're 21 months apart in age, so there's no way  their feet are the same size. And since I learned my lesson while looking for shorts last spring, I absolutely knew better than to measure their feet. Since I knew better, I did not have them sit down with their feet sole-to-sole this morning and discover that Laura's feet are less than a half-inch shorter than Kendra's. I am not going to have this problem with shorts, shirts, and even shoes. But, while we're talking about it, I did not check the girls pants side-by-side last night so I could check the validity of Kendra's statement that Laura's pants are "my shape" and that Laura's pants are only an inch shorter than Kendra's. Not me!

Rosy cheeks and God

Scene: Sunday lunch, after church and Sunday School. Mommy is looking at Evan and Kendra's Sunday School papers while they eat.

Mommy: Evan, can you tell me what the parts are on this face you drew in Sunday School?
Evan: That's the eyes and the nose and the mouth, making an "Ah!" (excited gasp), and those are the rosy cheeks.
Mommy: Which ones are the eyes?
Evan: This one and this one.
Mommy: Oh, ok! And this is the nose. And the mouth making the "Ah!". And these are the rosy cheeks?
Evan: Yes. Do you know what the spots are?
Mommy: No, I was going to ask. What are the spots on the rosy cheeks?
Evan: Those are the roses. Not like the roses that are flowers. But just the roses that make rosy cheeks.

----------
Scene: Still Sunday lunch. Daddy has now joined us. Mommy just read a story aloud out of Evan's Sunday School paper (or maybe it was Kendra's).

Evan: How come we can't do that?
Mommy: What? Create stuff like God?
Evan: Yeah, why when we make things do we have to make them, but God just said "let there be".
Mommy: Because He's God, so He can do that.
Evan: But Daddy looks like God.
Mommy and Daddy, speaking at the same time: What? Daddy looks like God? No, Daddy doesn't look like God.
Evan: Yes, he does. He's an adult.
Daddy: I look like God because I'm an adult?
Evan: Yeah, and you have black hair.
...small lapse of time...
Kendra: Why did God rest?
Mommy: You mean when he was done creating everything? To show us that we should rest. We should work hard, but then we should take time to rest.
Kendra: And now is God sleeping?
Mommy: No, God doesn't sleep.
Kendra: But Jesus does.
Mommy: Well, Jesus would have slept when he was on earth as a man ... I think.
Kendra: No, Jesus sleeps now. And God.