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DIRTY
09.24.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on DIRTYBradley added the sand to the patio the other day. The sand is supposed to hold the bricks into place and discourage weeds from growing up through the cracks.
First he brushed it in with the broom, then he added water to help pack it down. That is when the kids got excited. Out came the pails, the shovels, the little army men and little animals that would get buried in the sand and water.
Gigi was into building sand castles while Jude was the hose god. You had to ask NICELY for water.
I have to say, I haven’t seen my children this dirty or this happy in a long time.
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Hut Hut Hut
09.22.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Hut Hut Hut
So we went to the store today and found more “Hut Huts”, as Jude calls them, after the marching song he loves so much from Toy Story movie Army Men.
This time we scored Confederate Soldiers, Union Soldiers, and Western Guys… (the artists formerly known as Cowboys & Indians). At first I had to convince him that these grey, blue, & harvest colored guys (apparantly it was ALWAYS Fall in the Wild, Wild West) were indeed as cool as the Green guys we have been lining up and playing with. Upon opening them I took great pleasure in the poses they chose for these Civil War guys. There is a Union soldier who looks like he is serving up legal papers, although I presume he is handing over an accord. It is fun to set them up and then have that guy walk up to everyone and say things like “You sir, have been served!”, “Are you Mr. Lee? Robert E. Lee? Well You, Sir, have been…” you get the idea!
Even the Little Green Men aren’t above the Union of our great United States.
“Are you Mr. Lee?”, “Yes, What can I do… DOH!”
Apparantly the Little Green Men tried to start their own secession movement somewhere in Wyoming. Even the Green Army Men showed up to break up that one… hurray for a common unifying enemy, I suppose.
Oddly, at least in the greater context of things, our Hut Huts don’t normally wage massive campaigns of death and destruction. In fact they are usually chilling with Rex the dinosaur or making pretty geometric formations alongside the bucket of Little Green Men.
I enjoy how simple it is to pick up a dollar bag of Army men and not have to fret about the investment he is losing in the yard and around the house. Although I gotta say that while they are puny, they can really take a grown man down when you are stumbling through the house in the twilight. Must be their combat training!
I love this time in our life when a truly simple pleasure can occupy our time. I think we are going to teach the blue and grey about aquatic missions this afternoon. They may have had the first Ironsides rolling through the Atlantic and the Mississippi, but I think they will be stoked to check out our Star Wars vehicle flotilla. Perhaps we will have to do a photoshoot for that one too!
Looks like the grunts are considering taking out that legal paper delivery boy! I love my childhood… I mean JUDE’s childhood.
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Zoo with the Newbies
09.21.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Zoo with the NewbiesThis summer we made some new friends. Since we moved down here from Bellingham we’ve pretty much been an island. We kept our same friends we’ve had for years (and who we love dearly) but time and distance keeps us from having loves that connect very much with a decent level of frequency.  It’s not anybody’s fault, just a natural progression of growing up. We met Jamie at karaoke where we heard this amazing voice. We approached her and soon realized how very fun, very cool and very much we had in common with her. She can sing Aretha and Adele like nobody’s business, is an amazing mom to four girls, and is a hoot and a half to laugh and play with.
One of the best parts about hanging with Jamie is that she comes with little ones built in. She also has a 3 year old and a 7 year old, and pluses out the whole thing with a smarty pants 9 year old and a 16 year old who inherited her parents’ songbird qualities.
The two 7’s couldn’t be more similar in interests, clothing style and diva-like attitude. They linked arms the moment they met and have to be pried apart at the end of any playdate. Gigi and Lilly were fast friends and show signs of being best friends for a long long time.
The two three year olds, on the other hand, have a love/hate relationship for sure. Jude and Natty call one another prince and princess and declare their love for one another in the inhale of a breath and with the exhale they are tussling over foot room in the wagon and swearing off one another forever.  I included these three pictures not because of their quality, rather because you can see in their faces the irritation and pure annoyance they have for one another at this particular moment. I think it is hilarious!
This is Gigi with Adri (like Audrey). Adri is the kind of kid who wants to hang around the grown ups to listen to what they have to say.  She asks brilliant questions about how things work, the processes for how things are made and a million of other things. The good thing about Adri is that when she asks you a question, you can put your whole thought process into the answer because she is the kind of nine year old who listens to long drawn out answers. She is actually interested.
And what a better way to cement a friendship than to go to the zoo. It was a fun day!
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DND
09.20.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on DNDHello folks. It has happened. We reconnected with some super cool people and had the best time doing something we’ve talked about for years: we started a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I have never played, but am always up for Zork-like creative and imaginative games, while poor Bradley spent his childhood toting around the Dungeons and Dragons books with nary a soul to play with. Well, it is safe to say that we’ve found our friends to play with!
The thing is, it was super-cool awesome. Even more awesome than I thought it would be. And I’m not even kidding! Granted, it took a while for us to make the characters, decide on their powers (I went with an Elf who I called Medusa, Denise was a half orc named Helga, Bradley was the Bard called Colin of Portlandia, while Mark was our ever clever dungeon master). I was amazed when we finally began the campaign (against evil, we are the good guys) how invested I quickly became in this imaginary world.  Denise started us off right by throwing her hand high over her head and bellowing out to the bad guys to, “Unhand that woman!” And soon thereafter we had killed and pillaged one guy and frisked the other down for information and freebies then we followed the woman in question home. Soon thereafter we were lead to a warehouse where more baddies did bad stuff and we snuffed them out too! (Yeah, there is a bit of bloodshed to be had…)
Next time we meet up to resume the campaign, I will be quite excited to jump back into the imaginary world of DnD 3.5 without even having to make a character first. In no time I’ll be floating around on my flying disc telling my magical golden monkey to kick some bad guy booty. And no, I’m not even kidding. My character is in possession of those skills.  Yeah. I’m pretty awesome.
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Cookie Thief!
09.10.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Cookie Thief!Ok, so we keep a stash of cookies or some-such in our bureaus upstairs… It is a slow burn, if we remember, we go Aha! And we don’t have to go downstairs. Well I went Aha! Followed by Uh Oh, because the fresh bag of cookies was all gone. Tami didn’t eat them and at that moment Jude strode in. I didn’t think he even knew of this stash and yet he looked at me, startled, and said, “I ate them Dadda”. “Gigi ate them too”. The secret lives of children and their parents stuff. Damn, I need a safe in there.
