All Work and No Play...Is Just Not Possible in My House

My darling children woke up this morning, ready to push the boundaries.  Norah has been trying her hand at negotiating the rules...all the time.  Finn is obsessed with butts, and insists on working them into practically every sentence and loves reaching out and grabbing the butt closest to him.  Sully has developed a new game, which he calls "Slappy Face". It is delightfully simple and has only one goal -running up to someone, shrieking "Slappy Face!", and then slapping their face repeatedly with both of his hands.  By 8:30, I was at my wit's end, and all I was doing was settling fights or arguing with my little lawyer-in-training. So I rounded them up and told them if they had energy to make poor choices, then they had energy to do the work I had been trying to do but couldn't because of their behavior. I gave them the three chores I dread most: Norah had to scrub the floor, Finn had to clean the walls and cabinets, and Sully had to wipe down the appliances. Of course, all three found this incredibly fun, and I was informed that this was a very good consequence, and Norah would actually enjoy cleaning the floors whenever they are dirty. But, it wasn't a total loss.  For 45 minutes, I didn't hear "butt" once, my authority was not questioned, nor did I have to dodge little ninja Slappy Hands. And, my kitchen is (a little) cleaner.  I'll take it. 

Silly Little Monkeys

 Norah had her "dance program" last night through the Dike Rec Dept.  For the past 5 weeks, they have met every Thursday for an hour.  There were two girls from the UNI dance team that helped them learn the routine.  It was so cute, and of course, Norah loved every second of it.  The boys were actually able to enjoy this too.  We showed up at 7:15, Norah performed at 7:20, and we were back in the car at 7:30.  My kind of program! I have to admit, the talent level was comparable to when she took dance lessons at Heinz Academy, and a lot less pretentious...and annoying. I was just relieved it was an appropriate dance for little girls to be doing.  No hip grinding or mysterious rolling on the floor.  Just good clean bopping around!

Here are pictures of the boys doing their thang.  Sully helped me make pumpkin bread today. He had trouble with the spatula being so big, so I had to scoop up the batter for him.  Finn wasn't doing anything special, just wrestling poor Archie, but this is a pretty good depiction of what he does everyday, if you can also picture Finn getting up and running around in circles over and over in between pouncing on Archie.

Soccer! Or, How to entertain two boys who really need a nap

"Soccer is boring, Mom. Can we go yet?"

"Look Mom, I'm staying behind the yellow line!"

 

Norah had soccer practice today. We were all a bit worn out from all the fun we had with Grandma Deanie, Pepeka, and Rose, so this was a bit of a challenge right from the start. The soccer field is very muddy from all the rain, so I was carrying a blanket, the diaper bag, three chairs, and trying to herd three children across the parking lot at the soccer complex.  I packed snacks and juice to try to help the boys make it through the 90 minute practice, but they went through those in the first 10 minutes.  Between the crying, the trips to the bathroom, Sully trying to join Norah on the field, and Finn saying that he really doesn't like soccer and we should go home, I think we watched a solid two minutes of Norah's practice.  From what we saw, Norah is mildly interested in the concept of the game, but really enjoys chasing the ball around. Just think, we get to do all of this next Sunday too.  I'm with Finn.  I really don't like soccer, either!

"Our House...Is a very, very, very fine house"

Dennis has been so good about taking pictures of the progress of our new home, so I decided to throw a bunch in that show all of the work that's gone into it so far.  As you can see, the kids are most excited about all the dirt and machinery that we have around here. And, we have plenty of both just lying around!  This week has been a battle of wind and rain.  The contractors are working really hard to get the roof on this week so that the plumber can come in next week.  Easier said than done when we live in a wind tunnel!  It seems like they have one good day followed by three rainy and windy days.  But they are working very hard and we are so pleased with how quickly they seem to be getting things done. The top picture is what the house currently looks like. I can almost picture myself on the front porch, sitting in the sun!!!

Hey Let's Go Hawks! Spring Practice 2012

We had a blast in Iowa City this weekend. We went down for the Hawkeye Spring Practice and scored some Hawk Gear and also got to take in the Practice.  The kids got their faces painted and put down lots of stadium food. The weather cooperated while we were at Kinnick, and Dennis was delighted that the kids actually seemed interested in watching the players, rather than just eating the food and getting new Hawkeye clothing, like their mother. That was until Finn asked a young man sitting next to us to take him back to Peggy's, and when that didn't work, he just left on his own.  Little stinker!  Thankfully he was only "misplaced" for about a minute...Thanks to Peggy for putting us up in her home for the weekend!!! It was great fun!

They're Everywhere!!!

 We are surrounded on all sides by people working on our house! Today, the crews came out full force to dig the trenches for the rural water, and we had excavators out digging a big hole to bury some cement from an old building. So the boys were able to watch the action from all the windows in our living room.  Sully prefers to actually stand on the window sill, because he feels that gets him the best view.  We had to sit in the car for a few minutes and watch the excavator dig the hole - the boys could have been out there all day watching that.  I had to bribe them with corndogs to get them to come inside. The boys loved all the commotion, but I felt like we were living in a fishbowl today - everywhere I turned, there was a machine! Made me be on my best behavior - just in case someone was watching us.  Who knows?  Maybe the construction crew has just as much fun watching us as we have watching them??