Carpool Line

Luke's teacher brought him out to the car last week for carpool line.  She is one of the carpool "loaders" so that part didn't alarm me.

I opened the side door, smiled and said, "Hey, Luke" like I always do.  As she was helping Luke get into the van, she said, "Luke really impressed us today with his vocabulary."

My heart stopped.

My eyes widened.

My face fell.

I was horrified.

We all know that "Luke impressed us today with his vocabulary" is really nice preschool teacher phrasing for "Luke said a bad word."

I was bracing myself for the worst.

"Uh-oh...um...what exactly did he say?" I asked trying to maintain my composure.

She looked at my face and immediately sensed my panic.  "Oh no, nothing bad at all.  I mean, he really did impress us.  We were doing an activity and he used the word 'extraordinarily'.  The other teacher and I were impressed that not only did he know the word, but he used it correctly in a sentence." 

I. Was. So. Relieved. And. Overjoyed. 

"Well, he does watch Word Girl on PBS,"  I said. 

The next day, this is what came home in his class folder.  They were studying the letter "U" and they painted an umbrella then drew something underneath it.  The top of the page (got cut off on the scanner) said "Who is under my umbrella?"  Each child drew a picture and the teacher recorded the child's response.

Luke said, "A people who has one eye and extraordinarily long arms."  I think I can see the long arms and the one eye. 

I'm so proud of my little wordsmith!

Did Someone Call A Repairman?

Kevin wanted to get his lawnmower ready for the spring season.  I can honestly say I had NO IDEA one must "get his lawnmower ready" for the spring cutting season.  I guess it involves sharpening the blades and tightening the doohickeys and what have you. 

Kevin found a guy that comes to your house and takes care of it all.   How convenient is that? 

Mr. Lawnmower Man showed up and Luke was fascinated!  He has a toy lawnmower that he loves (we've had it since Fletcher was 2).  So Luke decided he needed to get his lawnmower ready for the spring cutting season too.  I wanted to go outside and video him, but I knew as soon as he saw the camera he would stop what he was doing.  So I videoed him as best I could from the front door through the side light window.  You can see Mr. Lawnmower Man in the background.  Seriously, it was one of the cutest things ever.  At one point Luke went and found a bungee cord to figure out a way to suspend his lawnmower like Mr. LM was doing.

I'd Like To Thank The Academy

Our church has a Chili Cookoff the same night as the Super Bowl every year.  Kevin decided he would compete. We originally thought he could make gumbo and call it "Louisiana Chili".  But time got away from us that weekend so the gumbo was out.  Instead he found a chili recipe that uses roux as a base.  We have some delicious hot garlic sausage that we had shipped here from Louisiana.  We can't find anything around here that even compares to how good it is!  So he used the roux and the hot garlic sausage and made chili.

It was definitely spicy and delicious.  Everyone wanted to try it. 

I was one of the three judges.  I am sure that had nothing to do with him winning.

Nothing at all. 

If You Could See Me Now

Forgot these were on my camera. 

One particularly cold Saturday morning, Fletcher decided he wanted to put on his insulated camo outfit and go outside to look for deer (or maybe birds or squirrels).  Luke wanted to do it too.  However, Luke's camo is just a thin costume from the costume box so I had to dress him in lots of layers first then put the costume over it because there was NO WAY he was wearing a coat over his camo. 

 The looked with their binoculars. 

 And talked a significant amount.  I just watched from the window.  No way was I going out there.

 They talked a lot too.  And yelled.  And Luke might have even sang a couple of songs if I recall correctly. 

Can't imagine why they never saw anything.

800

I just realized when I sat down to write today's post that yesterday was my 800th post. 

800 times I've sat down at the computer to write about our boys, our life, our home and all things random. 

Almost 4 years. 

Sometimes I go back and look at the old stuff I wrote. 

I'm so glad I wrote so much of this down.

I hope one day my boys (and their wives and their kids) will enjoy reading about their childhoods. 

Happy 800th post, Snickelfritz Lane!

Wacky Wednesday

In honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday, Luke's class held Wacky Wednesday last week. 

Can you tell he was not into it at all? 

I think Fletcher was a little sad that his school wasn't participating.  Boring school uniforms.  



Pioneer Diorama

Fletcher's 2nd grade class has been studying pioneer life in history.  They each had to make a diorama of what the interior of a pioneer house might look like.  Here is Fletcher's finished project:

Can you see the quilt on the bed?  The Bible on the table?  The candle on the table?  Coffee mug?  Loaf of bread?  Cooking fire?  Door?  Window?  Pioneer dog?  Pioneer wife rocking the pioneer dress and head kerchef?  Gun rack above the bed? 

Kevin lovingly pointed out to me that the pioneers probably did not have scopes on their rifles back then. 

Details....

A Little Crazy

Well hello there, Snickelfritz Lane a.k.a "poor little neglected blog."

I know. It seems we haven't spoken in weeks. 

I'm not mad at you.  You have just dropped very low on my priority to do list.

Why?

Well, there's been this little thing called Luke's ear infection, a visit from Grandma and Papa Charlie, a Spelling Bee at Fletcher's school, and just life in general.

Oh and one more thing....

We found out last week that we are moving.  Kevin got a promotion at work.  He is now "Vice President of Operations."  I keep telling him I will make him a cool name tag with his new title to wear to work, but he's not taking the bait.  When I call him at work, I ask him why he doesn't say, "Kevin ______, Vice President.  How many I help you?"  He was not amused.  But I am very, very proud of him and his accomplishments.  His company knows a good thing when they see it.

Anyway,  we won't move until after Fletcher finishes school.  So probably early June.  We have a very sweet, very qualified lady in our church who happens to be an awesome real estate agent and she is going to help us put our house on the market.  We spent a large part of Saturday and Sunday decluttering and packing up nonessentials to put in a storage unit so our house looks ROOMY and SPACIOUS and UNCLUTTERED.  Just like you see on those HGTV shows.  However, I don't think any of those people on those shows have two little boys with 19,348 Legos and several or 23 "big machines" filling up our playroom that used to be a dining room. Oh, and I'm pretty sure the HGTV people don't have a dog that sheds so much hair we have dog hair tumbleweeds rolling down our hallways the day after everything has been vaccuumed.  So we could use your prayers that our house will sell quickly in spite of our severe shortcomings in the tidiness department. 

We did tell the boys. They seem to be doing ok with it.  Fletcher goes back and forth from thinking it will be a fun adventure to knowing that he is really going to miss his friends and his school and his church.  Luke is just glad we are taking him with us. 

So over the next few weeks and months, I'll try not to neglect you too much, Snickelfritz Lane.  You get to come to our new (rental) house too.  As long as you don't play with Legos and don't shed. 

P.S.  I think there is a way to sign up for updates so that when I do put up a new post, it notifies you in your email.  I just don't know how to do it.  Maybe you have to "follow me" which sounds a little creepy and stalkerish.  Does anyone know?  Anyone?  Bueller?