Happy Father’s Day!

iarepilotswife — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:05:19 +0000

Here is Father’s Day message from 6 of the kids for our Deployed dad.

Two of the kids are out of town but they miss Dad just the same.

I’m beginning to suspect my kids aren’t normal.

iarepilotswife — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:51:39 +0000

Q. What do most people do when a Tropical Storm comes rolling through their area?

A. They go inside.

Unless they’re my kids.

Despite the blustery conditions and the persistently pouring rain, my kids played soccer in the street during Tropical Storm Andrea last week. And it wasn’t like they just got bored and decided to go outside. They were all like TROPICAL STORM! LET’S GO OUTSIDE AND KICK A BALL IN THE STREET!

Tropical storm = hours of entertainment.
Apparently.

Cake. Melted.

iarepilotswife — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 20:32:29 +0000

For reasons I’ll go into later because it’s a long, bitter, somewhat angry story, we are no longer using our air conditioner. Not only does that mean the house is a little warmer than we’re accustomed to, it also means we can’t leave cake sitting on the counter for more than 4.3 minutes without it melting into a pile of unflattering, yet still delicious cake-mush.

Yes, it’s that humid here in sunny Florida.

And after six boys in a row, it would be Lucy who knocks her own teeth out.

iarepilotswife — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 12:58:56 +0000

Okay, so it wasn’t teeth. Just tooth.

Yesterday Lucy slipped or something climbing into her chair to finish her lunch. She’d gotten down from the table about 5 times already and was in a little bit of trouble and knew it so she was trying to get back into her chair as quickly as possible. Next thing I know she’s lying on her back on the floor under the table, minus one primary canine tooth.

As you can tell, it’s not all that noticeable even when she’s smiling. That one tooth took so long to come in anyway, waiting until most of her molars were in, that it almost looks normal for her to not have it. She seemed fine after the Motrin kicked in, acting like her normal sassy self. However, after numerous attempts to bite into her corn dog at dinner last night she put it on her plate, sighed heavily, and said, I can’t eat this. I just can’t eat this.

I guess it’ll be yogurt and bite sized foods for her for a week or so. I’m sure she won’t mind the special treatment at all.

Want to go for a fun dip in the pool on a hot day? Don’t hold your breath.

iarepilotswife — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 20:26:08 +0000

Kait isn’t much for following rules I guess. She sent me this picture of herself holding her breath by the “No Holding Your Breath” sign at our community pool.

This sign really confused Matthew who proclaimed outloud, How can we put our heads under the water or do anything fun if we aren’t even allowed to hold our breath? I don’t want to go to the pool now. I’ll just keep going to the beach.

There comes a time in every parent’s life when they realize that they have sort of maybe missed teaching some crucial life lesson somewhere. Like if somebody says it might be poison ivy, don’t rub it all over yourself.

iarepilotswife — Mon, 06 May 2013 12:28:10 +0000

Scene -
The kids have walked down to the park near our house with some friends. It’s a sunny day, around 80 degrees. Birds chirping, kids laughing, yadda yadda yadda…

Gabe’s friend Matt: Hey, I think this is poison Ivy, guys.
Gabe: No.
Joe: Yeah, I’m pretty positive that’s poison Ivy.

Joe takes one for the team and touches it with his index finger tip.

Joe: No, it isn’t stinging me. I don’t think it’s poison ivy.
Gabe: IT ISN’T POISON IVY! I’LL PROVE IT.

Gabe proceeds to rub a bunch of it all over his arms to make his point.

SEE!

Kait wanders over to see what the commotion is all about: Um, guys, that’s poison Ivy. GABE, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?!?! YOU’RE AN IDIOT!
Gabe: Oh. Crap.

So Kait sent him home, along with 8 year old Ben who also touched it. I had them wash well with dish soap and hopefully they both managed to remove all the poison oils from their skin.

I asked Gabe if he minded me putting this story on the blog and he said, No. It’s funny. I’m going to be famous.

I’m not even sure why I’m posting this.

iarepilotswife — Sat, 04 May 2013 12:43:24 +0000

So I’m sitting here on the couch minding my own business when suddenly my oldest child is stuck in a box in front of me because she’s turning into a cat or something apparently.

While Kait was trapped, Joe ran up and drew a face on the box and Kait hollered that she was finally Lionel Richie.

The resemblance…
Astounding.

Basically the best pose ever in the history of the world.

How to be the best mom ever. Also, I couldn’t think of anything to blog about so I put a wading pool in the kitchen.

iarepilotswife — Fri, 03 May 2013 12:58:26 +0000

The kids were getting used to warm weather and the beach and wading pools because we live in Florida and that’s how it should be. It’s all a lie though because it’s rainy and in the 60’s and it’s been depressingly dreary for days and when did we move to Seattle?

Despite the fact that it hadn’t stopped raining at all yesterday, Sam asked me if he could please play in the wading pool anyway and I said sure and then I brought one of them into the house because I’m awesome like that.

I was smart and filled it with warm water and I put soap in it too so it doubled as a bath for some multi-purpose entertainment.

Then I realized I hadn’t thought through how I was going to empty it but that’s pretty much how I roll most of the time lately.

So, I spent a couple minutes emptying it out with pitchers until it was no longer heavy. Then, Joe, Kait, and I lifted it up to dump the rest in the sink and that was a tiny huge mistake and so then it tripled as a floor cleaner.

I know. I’m a freaking genius, people.

It took about 10 minutes of my time, cost me a total of approximately zero dollars, and apparently I’m the best mom ever now.
Well done, me. Well done.

Our stale bread brings the ducks to the yard.

iarepilotswife — Thu, 02 May 2013 22:26:43 +0000

Who knows what it is, but the ducks seem to like our backyard.

Lucy wanted to pet them with vigor. Even though the ducks didn’t seem too frightened by us I kept Lucy behind the screen because I am pretty sure the ducks have not seen the likes of her friendliness before. She tends to be disturbingly loveable when it comes to fur and feather. It can come across to some as a bit aggressive. Just ask Joe’s water dragon. He’s more than a little leery when in the same room as Lucy.

Sadly, the ducks have not come back to visit in many days because a few somewhat disagreeable children that do not belong to me decided to chase them around with palm fronds and loud squawking.

Kait suggested I teach them a lesson by dressing up as a giant duck and chasing them back. And have lasers for eyes. It told her I thought that was maybe going to far. She rolled her eyes.

Anybody know where I can get a giant duck costume with lasers for eyes?

And here we have Kait being a tree. Specifically a fruit bearing tree because she thinks all other trees are pointless and useless.

iarepilotswife — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:04:22 +0000

I had to buy a new planter for Joe’s tree. He was given the tree by a neighbor years ago when it was just a seedling. It had started growing in the neighbor’s grass and he yanked it out and asked if Joe wanted it. I never thought it would live but it did and now we’re trying to avoid planting it in the ground until we live in a more permanent location so we’ve been increasing the size of the planter yearly to keep it portable.

We usually just keep it hidden away in the backyard because I’ve never counted it as a pretty tree, but when the leaves started coming back a couple months ago it was so bushy and big that I decided not to dislike it anymore and moved it to the front porch and planted it in a nice big red vase style planter and created a pretty little porch-scape.

But before I could complete the transfer Kait hijacked the pot and pretended to be a tree for a moment.

This is my grown, adult, 18 year old child, people.
This is what I have accomplished with my life.

We’re so proud.