A Daily Dose of Mischief

We recently spent a few days in California visiting Disneyland. The fourth day we were there we went shopping in Downtown Disney. There were a lot of fountains there. #3 loves water, and he loves looking at fountains and ponds...anything having to do with water. Heck, he even likes puddles. Downtown Disney had a lot of fountains. He stopped at every one of them. They all had money in them from people tossing in loose change. Who knew every fountain was actually a wishing well? Seeing all the money in the fountains as well as a previous discussion about the high prices of things like water and snacks in Disneyland led #3 to comment that Disneyland has so many fountains because they are greedy and want everyone to give them all their money. Hmm...who can argue with logic like that?

Today was day two of our kids' first-ever trip to Disneyland. That gave them one day of experience under their belt to see the nature of a wide variety of rides and the anticipation, anxiety, fun, fear, and surprises they bring. Learning quickly the unpredictability of some rides, #4 (age 5) was trying to prepare himself to deal with his fear of the unknown as we waited in line for the new Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. After fifteen minutes of curiously watching submarine after submarine 'swim' past us through the colorful, bubbling water...and realizing that riders sit below the water level, he finally asked with sincere, honest concern in his voice, "Will they open the windows?!"

A conversation from today... #5: I wish I was a germ. Me: Why? #5: So I could see inside my underwear.

As D was about to leave for work after lunch we were standing in the kitchen talking. I guess I was standing too close to him or something because #4 came in, looked at us and said, "Are you doing the looooove thing?" I said, "What do you mean? This?" and I kissed D on the cheek. #4 said "Yes!" then ran into the living room which is divided from the kitchen by a blanket that we hung there to keep all the heat from escaping the living room. We heard him yell to the other boys that we were doing the loooove thing...which of course caused the other boys to shout out their disgust. Then, interestingly enough one by one they started to peek around the blanket into the kitchen. I think they secretly like knowing that we looooooove each other. As I walked D to the door I kissed him goodbye and since #1 was standing there I made sure to kiss D loudly. #1 screamed. Then as I walked back through the kitchen #4 came in and said, "I heard #1 scream, I...

Sunday is our sabbath-day. The sabbath day is supposed to be a Holy, spiritual day of rest...and for the most part it is except for the weekly four-hour-war: Church and getting ready for church. I imagine everyone understands the challenge of getting young balls of kinetic energy motivated enough to get dressed in uncomfortable clothes in anticipation of sitting through long meetings of people talking about abstract things that are hard to understand. For that matter, maybe that's exactly how you feel getting up every morning to go to work or school. Unfortunately my wife has to fight that battle alone because I'm at church early preparing for the next battle.The next battle, for me, starts out calm and sweet and peaceful as I see five bright, shiny boys in white shirts, smiling wide as they open the glass doors of the Church to greet me. This is part of their strategy...start off disguised as sweet and reverent so the gullible parents will be thrown off guard later. (As a pare...

Three Targets! 10 seconds! The Challenge: Hit each target in sequence as many times as possible within the time limit! The Prize: The pride of knowing you did it! -------------------- The Downside: The principal has your dad bring you back after school to clean the three bathroom urinals and the walls in between them. The Determination: #3 (age 7) says next time he will do it without hitting the walls. Oy Vey!

I was doing this post for my other blog as part of Scribbit's Winter Bazaar. When I got finished I realized I had published it in the wrong blog, but decided not to delete it since it was such a fun activity for our family. Its not our usual Daily Dose fare, but here you go anyhow. Do you remember shrinky dinks? Those fun plastic sheets you could color on and shrink in the oven? This last summer, my older sister told me a method for making your own shrinky dinks at home without having to spend a lot of money. Its also a great way to recycle... First you will need a plastic take-out food box. The key is to get one that has a number 6 in the recycling symbol. Many restaurants give these boxes out for leftover food. You can wash it, dry it, and reuse it for making shrinky dinks. We have gotten boxes like this at Shari's restaurants and they also use them at many grocery stores for salads and etc. After my sister told me about this method of making shrinky dinks I went to our loc...

Since I have another blog aside from this one, and this blog is dedicated to the escapades of our five boys and the future escapades of #6 (we don't know if its a boy or a girl) who is due to make an appearance in June, I thought I would add my wonderful husband as a contributor to this blog. He also has a blog of his own , and has had many experiences with the mischief of our boys. I hope you will give my husband dmo a warm welcome! I am sorry we haven't had a post up in about a week. We were hit by some big storms and were without power for a few days. We are all doing well and getting back to normal everyday life. The boys enjoyed a week off from school, and today was their first day back to their usual routine.

Last week a friend brought our family some very delicious cookies. By the end of the night only six cookies remained. During the getting-ready-for-bed commotion, we heard him counting the cookies. When he realized there were seven of us and only six cookies, we overheard him selflessly exclaim, "Oh! I guess one of the adults doesn't get another cookie."

When I posted about #4 aka K winning the coloring contest last week, we didn't have his winning picture. Yesterday he brought it home from school, so I scanned it to share with you! A picture is worth a thousand words as they say...pretty good for a five year old.

The other day at dinner #2 was asking us if the boys' shortness is inherited (a couple of the boys are a little shorter than average, but they aren't really that short). I told him that since none of the men in our family have reached six feet tall, it probably would be the same for the boys. Then I mentioned that you have to be over six feet tall to be considered tall for a man. #4 piped up with: "So Dad's not really a man!" I think he misunderstood what I said...

#4 won a coloring contest at school that was sponsored by the fire department. His picture was chosen as the best in his class and as a prize he got to ride a firetruck to school today! He was pretty excited about the whole thing. Here are a couple of pictures... D got to ride along too! A perk of parenthood! Here is #4 all buckled in!

The other day #3 and #4 were washing dishes together and #4 was singing a song from Blues Clues. #3 threw water on him to get him to stop singing the song. #4 cried. D asked them what was going on and #3 said he threw water on #4 to get him to stop singing that baby song. D: Thats not how you get him to stop. #3: Yes it is, he isn't singing it anymore. He's crying instead. Logic my friends...

I have written a couple of times in the past about having pet snails . In fact we even asked for suggestions on what to name the two snails we found and adopted a couple of months ago. I apologize for not getting back about the name decision...there were just so many good choices that we never really narrowed it down. However, recent events in the lives of our snails have made me realize that they needed names...so we decided to go with John's suggestion of Esc and Argot...even though we have no intentions of eating them. A week or so ago I went in to feed the snails and noticed that one of them had been digging way down into the dirt in their fishbowl. Right on the outside corner I could see something through the glass. I realized that it was a clutch of small white eggs. Esc and Argot were parents! As the days progressed we noticed more holes and more clutches of eggs. There are three sets for sure, and we are fairly certain there is another set that we had not been able to see f...

I just realized I haven't blogged on this blog for over ten days...the horror! Actually I have just been very sick and mostly in bed for the last week. Because I was in bed I didn't hear the boys say as many cute things as I normally would. Update on #4...the mole biopsy came back clean...so yay ! And he will have that lovely curved scar to show for it the rest of his life! We went to my sister's house yesterday for her annual pumpkin carving party. The kids dress up in their costumes, and we all carve pumpkins and eat good food. Its great fun for all. We actually don't really take the kids Trick or Treating...we just have a family movie night and eat junk food and have fun together. The pumpkin party is like their Halloween so the dressing up is there. Being sick, I had a hard time getting their costumes together but we made do. Here are a few pics. Jango Fett vs the Jedi... #1 being the good sport he is decided to go as a black hole at the last minute... What was ...

#4 had a mole removed from the side of his head today. It was a relatively small mole, but somewhat new, and had a few things about it that were flags to the Doctor, so they wanted us to have it removed just to be safe. We had to be at the hospital at 7:30 this morning. This involved getting everyone up early and dropping the three older boys off at a friend's house so they could ride the bus to school. Then we were off to the hospital with #4 and #5 in tow. Once we got there, they checked us in right away, took us down to weigh #4 and take his blood pressure (#5 kind of freaked out about that because for some reason he thought they were trying to electrocute #4 with the blood pressure machine). Then it was a waiting game. I had brought some paper, pens and stickers and #4 drew some ninja turtles, while he and #5 watched an episode of Clifford. Finally the doctor showed up, and it was time for the surgery. D took #5 to the foyer (D doesn't like blood) and I stayed with #...

Once upon a time there was a glowing green house, and there was this guy with black hair, and a stick, and glasses, and his name was Harry Potter. So Harry Potter went into the glowing green house, and he looked up, and didn't see anything, and then a big oreo smashed him and he was NEVER SEEN AGAIN...

My kids seem to need a lot of attention. Most kids are that way, but it seems like my kids really want the attention right when I am feeling too busy to give it to them. Notice I said the word "feeling". Often this feeling comes when I am trying to make dinner and they are all clustered around me begging for food, dying of boredom, or just bugging me. Last week I was making Cheeseburger Soup (which is VERY good by the way). The boys were restless so I put some of them to work. We have four potato peelers (because if they think something is fun and you never tell them its actually work, they will enjoy it more!) so some of them started peeling potatoes, and some of them started peeling carrots. My four year old is pretty good at peeling carrots (except for the few inches he misses on one end). Their least favorite part is picking up all the peelings that missed the garbage can. I have a small hand cranked food processor. I have seen them at the store advertised as sals...

#3 came to me today and said, casually, but in all seriousness, "Mom, did you know our towels, the towels we use to dry off after we take a bath or a shower?...are like tissues for Heavenly Father and Jesus..." I said, "Why is that?" #3 answered, looking at me like I was weird, "Because they are bigger than us..."

#3: Technically, everyone is allergic to being burned up. So true...