Fat dog.

Brent and I noticed that our dog Copper had been rapidly gaining weight. We don't feed him scraps from the table on a daily basis and the kids forget to feed him at times...I know...we're bad dog owners...but he's looking more like a sausage dog than a weiner dog. I found out why just a few days ago...

As I was on the computer ordering my books for school, I heard him eating his dog food.

"What good kids, I'm glad they remembered to feed the dog"...were my thoughts...

I then turn around to see that he's nowhere near his dog bowl. I could hear him chowing down. I followed the crunching sounds and found him eating out of his food bucket. He lifted the lid with his nose and when he saw me his ears fell back, tail tucked in, and he avoided all eye contact.

He was caught red-handed...poor dog...

The mystery has been solved and Copper no longer has access to his all dog can eat buffet...

My poor little fat dog...

Our lunch trader....

I meant to post this on Sunday....sorry..

This morning I decided to make some of my delicious homemade bread. I couldn't stomach eating the store bought stuff...While it was baking, Alycia said to me..

"Mom, I have to tell you something...At school last year, I grew tired of the bread you made and traded it with my fellow classmates. You have no idea how many kids wanted to trade my "homemade bread" (pb&j). I got multiple offers!"

"Hmm....well did you get anything good?" I asked.

"Yeah, I got a couple of things for just one sandwich." She answered.

When I told Brent about this, he wondered if she sold it as "homemade bread" in order to get a good trade.

When we got home from church today, I decided to make some of my favorite chocolate chip cookies. I'll have to post them to the family recipe blog sometime. Anyhow, as they were baking I could smell their delicious aroma. I thought to myself...someone will be coming down the stairs any minute now. Alycia was the first to arrive.

"Hey Mom. Do you know how many kids in my class would want to trade when I brought out the monster cookies you would make during snack time? I wouldn't trade if there was just one....well...I would trade half of my cookie for something...but it would have to be a really good trade though..."

I'm a bit speechless.
Should I be happy that I have such a resourceful child/tween that cuts deals?
Or should I be honored that she had multiple offers when trading?

Summer is here! Time for some drama....

June has come and gone. The kids have been out of school and I've had the chance to catch up on the happenings of their little lives. The first few weeks after school let out, the kids were so nice to one another. Well the something's happened and they now get on one another's nerves.

"so and so didn't brush their teeth, and they have dragon breath."
"so and so poked me, so I poked them back....it's not my fault they're crying"
"so and so is killing me with their death breath"...gagging sounds

I can go on for forever with the drama that I'm dealing with. I remember as a young mother watching other moms at the store. Some spoke kindly to their children when they misbehaved....some looked frazzled and chewed the kids out with no regard as who was observing...some just ignored the behavior and went on doing what they were doing...others caved in and gave the child/children what they wanted. Hmm...I'll be like the first mother...were my thoughts...

I remember thinking...I'm going to be so patient and loving towards my kids always...I'll never raise my voice to them...If I just give them all the love and attention they need, they'll never misbehave...my kids will never talk back to me, since I'm such a nice kind mother... hmm...
yeah right!

So what happened yesterday? We were at Sam's Club getting some last minute items for our trip and I brought both kids with me.

"So and so whacked me in the face"...sobbing.
"I didn't do it on purpose, I was just skipping and swinging my arms and accidentally hit so and so. It's not my fault so and so's face got in the way."
"Apologize" I said.
"So----rrrry".....
"so and so didn't mean it!" sniffle sniffle.
"so and so stuck their tongue out..."
"so and so is giving me the evil eye..."

I think this was the straw that broke the camel's back. My patience by now had dwindled.
"Fold your arms, no swinging, no bumping, no talking, no evil eyes, NO nothing! I don't want to hear one word from either one of you. Silence!"

(audible sniffles from both kids)

As we pass the little old people at the sample booths, both kids say "oooh. Can I get a sample?"

"No, you two were not kind to one another and misbehaving. No samples."

sniffle, sniffle

We pass two sample booths and both kids look pitifully sad.

"Would you like a sample?" said the little old lady with the samples.

"We CAN'T... our Mom's mean and said we were misbehaving so no samples for us."

gasp.

You would think the little old lady would have some sympathy for me...Nope...she made the "shame on you" face to ME!

Nice huh?

I guess the drama will never end, huh?

Bad dog owner....

We had just gotten back from swim lessons, when Joseph notified me that Copper got into the Nutter Butters. I was not happy. I don't like very many store bought cookies, but these are my absolute favorite. I know it's silly to yell at a dog and ask it questions. But I proceeded to do so.

"Copper! Did you get into my Nutter Butters?"

Ears tucked back and tail also.

"Bad dog Copper!"

Dog runs to the back door to be let out.

I open the door and tell my brown enemy what a bad dog he is. I feel a little bad since it's 102 by then, but the dog needs to learn his lesson, right?

I instant message Brent and tell him how bad of a dog he has. How he ate all my precious Nutter Butters.

There was a bit of a pause. I'm sure he was laughing.
"Uh, I ate the rest of the Nutter Butters. There was nothing left but crumbs." Brent wrote.

My heart sank. Poor dog. He got yelled at because someone decided to leave the empty bag out...

Am I a bad dog owner or what? So sorry Copper.....

Revenge of the Turkey.....

As many of you know, we are Arizona transplants. In Arizona it gets hot in the summer....like insanely hot...110 degrees is the norm during the months of June, July and August. I am somewhat of a bargain shopper and if I find a smokin' deal...I'll buy a ton of it. Well I found some turkey on sale and stocked up (I have a nice sized freezer for such occasions)...

I must warn you...this will be a long post and may not be very pleasant....

It was late July and I had put one of my prized turkeys in the fridge to defrost to feast on later. Well...I kept putting it off for about 3 weeks. Not good. Well we ended up not eating it. I double bagged the stinky beast and put it in the big black trashcan our city provides. The bad news about this is...they had already picked up the trash that morning and we'd have to wait a full week until they came again.
So not good...

The trashcan smelled worse as the days progressed. We could no longer lift the lid to put our trash in, due to the stench of death and ginormous swarm of flies protecting it. We ended up leaving the trash bags next to the deathly black beast. The story gets worse...


Our next door neighbors invited us to swim in their pool and bbq. As he was grilling, he turned to his wife and said..."oh man...Monica... it's those dogs again. They stink!"He later turned to us and said..."I hate those dang (edited) dogs next door!" What we noticed was that his grill shared the same wall as our black beast. We could see the small cloud of flies where the beast stood. The grill and beast were just 6 yards away from one another. All we could do was nod and say..."yeah...those dogs really stink, you have bad neighbors." (were we bad or what?)

Trash day finally came. Yippee! I thought for sure my brave husband would do the manly duty and put the remaining trashbags into the beast. Nope. He actually left early and had to be at the office earlier than usual. Who had to do the horrible deed? Yours truly...yeah..'lil ole me... I had tears in my eyes...I was scared I'd be attacked by the flies for disturbing their carcass...Oh the stench was terrible. I was on the verge of throwing up, it was soo bad. I did the deed, then rolled the beast to the curb. There were several high school students walking to the (school) bus stop. They got to about 10 yards of the beast, crossed the street, while holding their noses.
So embarassing....

I never felt so happy to see the green trash truck. Lucky for the trash man, the garbage truck has the one arm bandit...so he never had to get out and get near the black beast. The beast was now empty and would be back to normal...or so I thought....I opened the lid and to my horror...it still had the stench of death and about several inches of white maggots occupying the bottom of the beast. I screamed! (so glad no one was around)...I called Brent on the phone immediately. His suggestion was to call the city and to get that bad boy replaced. I called them and they said I could put the beast in my van and exchange it at their facility.

"Are you INSANE! I will NOT have that thing funktify my vehicle!" was my response.

Her advice "Pine-sol usually works with the stench." she said.

The first thing I did was pour a gallon of Clorox into the beast to kill its friends living inside it. Next I poured 2 gallons of Pinesol I had bought at my last Costco trip. Yeah! Take THAT beast!

Later that evening while the kids were in bed (approx. 11pm), Brent rolled the beast to the curb, put the hose in it, and started filling it with water. It was quite the site, I mean Brent's choice in wardrobe was interesting. He had a bandanna on his face to filter the stench from the beast, work boots and shorts. Once the beast was filled, he kicked it over, filling the street with dead maggots. He hosed the street until the body of maggots reached two houses down. He then proceeded to clean the beast with the additional Pinesol I had purchased. When the stench got to be too much he'd say "hit me", I would then spray Lysol in his direction then run quickly back to my safe spot. We realized one of our neighbors was outside observing us (he was on a smoke break I guess). All I could say to him was "hi" then I avoided all eye contact with him.

Well this experience taught us a lot about Arizona summers and how important trash day is to us. I can't say the beast's smell returned back to normal, every so often it would have a funk that made you want to gag. I was so happy when we sold our old house and moved and didn't have to deal with the beast another summer.

So sorry new owners....

So there you have it...this is our "revenge of the turkey" story I had referenced in a past posting. Brent tells this story so much better than I could write it. I hope you enjoyed it!

Wilbur

Who doesn't like Wilbur from Charlotte's Web? He's pink, adorable, and lovable....

About a month ago, I went to Joseph's class to observe. I love looking around and checking out the paintings and drawings kids have displayed in the classroom. It's always interesting to see what projects they're working on.

As I was observing, I came across the paper bag drawings the kids had of Wilbur...One of Joseph's classmates came up to me and asked if I wanted to see Joseph's picture. I said "sure"....
To my horror...this is what MY son drew...
Isn't this Creepy! Where did he get this idea from? We are VERY careful in what our kids watch and even their video games...When I asked Mr. Joseph why Wilbur looked different...he replied..."I wanted him to look different and scary." What's with red eyes and fangs dripping with blood???

When Joseph's classmate showed me this version of Wilbur...he said..."Joseph's mom...Joseph's Wilbur is REALLY scary"....

What must his teachers think of us??????

....being a Cub Scout wolf leader....

I've been a Cub Scout Wolf leader since January, and it's been fun....
I will not post names of the boys I have, since some parents may have access to my blog....

Yesterday our meeting was on having Good Character traits....

One of the questions was how can it be difficult to tell the truth when you've done something wrong...

Cubscout A said "Yeah, it can be really hard sometimes. Like the time I got an F on some schoolwork and got a red marker and changed it to an A"..."my mom got upset with me"...
"or the time when I was playing with a ball in the living room and hit my mom's favorite vase...I tried to glue it before she came home...I told her a bird came in the house and broke it"..."she REALLY got upset with me...but I ended up telling the truth...she was glad I finally told the truth"... (yeah..I'm sure)

Cubscout A can be quite entertaining to have around. I'm sure if his parents knew what he tells us, they would absolutley DIE..... I know I would....

When I was first asked to Cubscouts, I have to admit I was not thrilled...

But now....I really enjoy it...having six 8 year olds in my house can be challenging but I really enjoy it! I'm so glad Cubscout A will be with us for a while...he's such a crack-up!

BTW- I will never divulge who Cubscout A is! Never!