De-onreyintator

Honestly, I have no idea how to spell this. We have a De-onreyintator at our house. If you ever watch Phineas and Ferb (disney cartoon), the bad guy has lots of "intators" that he makes. Well, when our kids are onrey, we have a De-onreyintator to get them out of a bad mood. That really means that get to be tickled by Jeff. Sometimes it does well, other times not. However, it frequently visits our home and seems to work.

Freaking out

Oh, and one other thing. Addi was playing hide and seek with Jeff yesterday. She hid, he found her. He hid in the exact same place, but she went through the house and couldn't find him. She went downstairs looking for him and he wasn't there. She came upstairs and said "I am totally freaking out" because she couldn't find him. She's four. She eventually found him, and laughed and laughed. 

text from Kelli

I got this text from my friend today about carpool. It cracked me up and so I had to save it:

Clayton kept kicking Zach as we drove home. I told him if he did it again he would have to walk home in bare feet because he chose not to put shoes on when we left. Of course he did it again so I told him I was going to pull over. Addi said, "Don't worry, Clayton. My mom is mean too." Then Nate says under his breath, " Not that mean. Our mom has never made us do anything like that!" I didn't want him to cross the street so I stopped at the bottom of our street and told him to get out. He wouldn't so I had to get out, go around and physically pull him out....all to run up the sidewalk 3 houses! I am just "so mean!" (Sarcasm) We all laughed as he ran up the street. Even he was laughing:)

Addi

Each of my kids have a journal. We aren't very good about writing in it, but I can occasionally get them to write things in it. When things aren't too crazy, I make them write in it at least once a week, especially in the summer. 

Today, Addi pulled down her journal to write in it. She isn't quite reading yet, so her writing is generally lines that she draws. After all, she is only four. I was listening to her write in her journal today. She "wrote" (really said), My name is Addi and I can do whatever I want". It made me chuckle. As challenging as she can be at times, I hope she continues to have a determined spirit and will be able to accomplish whatever she wants.

And then there was tonight. We say family prayers every night together. The kids each take a turn saying their prayer, and then we said a family prayer as well. I've also told the kids to thinking about what they are saying since Nathan can get into a rut and say the same prayer verbatim every night if I let him. So, Addi said a very long prayer where she was thinking about what she was saying. Parts included "and Jesus loves prayers",  as well as "please bless us that we will get to go lots of places, but not too many places so we don't get to be spoiled brats", among other things. Jeff, Nate and I were doing the best we could to not burst out laughing. I have tried very hard to make sure the boys don't always give into Addi so she doesn't become a spoiled brat. Apparently, she has been paying attention.