{Alien Abduction?}

Tuesday mornings are rough for me, because I do laundry on Monday nights and am usually up until at least 1:00am. Yesterday was particularly difficult because I had also been woken up separate times in the night by both Will & Olivia.  When they came to my room at 7:00am, I sent them downstairs to get breakfast with the promise that I would be right behind them.

It took me a little longer than I intended to get going, and s I started down the stairs, I stopped at Olivia's room to turn off her light and noticed her bed was made, an anomaly, for sure. I then checked Will's room, and his bed was made as well!  I ran down the stairs calling out, "Will! Olivia! Where are you? Someone kidnapped you and made your beds!" I rounded the corner into the kitchen, only to find them already dressed, eating breakfast they had made themselves! I again joked, "Aliens! What have you done with my children!? Give them back to me!" We all dissolved into a fit of giggles and endless hugs.

Their surprise, not only made my day, but turned what could have been a stressful and rushed morning into one of our best mornings ever!

{Beauty Drink}

The other day, Olivia picked up a bottle of water I left on the counter and asked, "Why do you drink so much water? Is it because drinking water makes you beautiful? Because it's totally working mom!"

{Party Principals}

Recently, Will & Olivia's school held a fundraiser to raise money for a new playground. The fundraiser was called "Pop Pop Read A lot Challenge". The children earned one kernel of popcorn for each minute they read at home. At the end of the fundraiser, the kids had a Popcorn party with the kernels they earned.

I heard the following story from a few different people, including our Principal.

Apparently, Will was hanging out with his friends and classmates during the party when he turned around and saw our Principal, Linda Creighton.  His face lit up and he said excitedly, "I was just saying that it's not a party unless Mrs. Creighton is here and then I turned around and here you are!"

She was so tickled by this and told several other parents throughout the party.  I love that we have a Principal who gets to know our kids so well that they miss her when she isn't there!

(And she is truly amazing. She not only knows the names of all the kids, but she knows who their parents are and who their siblings are!!)

{Reality Star}

This morning Olivia brought me a sweet card she made for me. I thought it was so special I started taking pictures of it so I could post it on Instagram. I needed one more picture to complete the collage of four pictures and asked if I could take one of her. Olivia got immediately bashful and asked, "Are you going to put it on the Internet for everyone to see? Because I don't live my life on the Internet!"

{Kindergarten Perseverance}

Recently, I was cleaning the kitchen and enlisted the help of Will & Olivia to put things that didn't belong away. Olivia had left her "100 days" hat on the kitchen table for several days, and since I had already taken pictures of her wearing it, I asked her to throw it away. It's a pretty obnoxious hat with 10 "tentacles", each representing one of the 10's (10, 20, 30, etc.) coming up and out from the band that goes around her head. At the end of each tentacle is a star and on each tentacle they put 10 stickers. It's a silly and fun hat, but not an easy to store hat, which is why I had taken a picture of it in the first place.

"What?! Why do I have to throw it away? But I worked so hard on this at school!"

"Because Olivia, we don't live in a house big enough to keep every single thing you guys do at school. We have already taken a picture of you wearing it and that's going to have to be good enough."

"Look, Mom. Before I made this hat, I didn't even know how to count to 100 by 10's...10..20..30...40...50...60...70...80...90..100...but I persevered!!!"

After I picked my jaw off the floor for her {correct} usage of the word "persevered", I told her we could keep the hat.

{Health Nut}

In our family, we try and make healthy choices. We're not perfect, and we try not to be ridiculously strict, but on the subject of candy, we try and follow our Virginia Pediatric Dentist's advice to only let the kids have chocolate, if we let them have candy at all.

For the most part, both Will & Olivia are good about following this rule. But that doesn't mean that there aren't times where they will still ask to have a sucker when they get their hair cut, or want to eat a jolly rancher that came in their birthday party goody bag (really parents? Can you please help us out by not giving our kids sugar at every turn????).

So, yesterday, being Valentine's Day, was one of those hard days. Everywhere I turned there was more and more "illegal" candy and I felt bad having to be the broken record of "no".

After school, my friend Angie hosted a Valentine's Day party at her house. She planned tons of fun activities including, Bingo & decorating sugar cookies & cupcakes.  She also had an activity where the kids make flowers using paper petals and a dum-dum sucker.

While outside, my friend Katt, attempted to give her little boy a Butterscotch sucker and Olivia stopped her. "No, no, no. Don't give him that one. Give him this one," she said grabbing an apple-flavored sucker. "It's apple, which means it's a lot healthier for him."

We've got some more work to do.

{Madame Smartie Pants}

It's a sad day when you realize your kids are wising up to your tricks.  A few days ago, Olivia asked me if I could read her mind. I've told the kids before that I can read their mind and usually can guess pretty close each time. I figure it will come in handy when they are teenagers if they think I can read their minds, so I told her yes and she asked me to prove it.

I told her to think of something and I would tell her what she was thinking.

"Okay, Mommy, I'm ready. What am I thinking?

"You tell me and I'll tell you if I was right," I countered.

"No way! You just want me to tell you and then you will say that's what you were thinking even if it wasn't!"

Caught red-handed, I started to laugh and so did she.  "I can read your mind, Mommy!"

{Art Ego}

Today, Will came home from school with artwork he created in his after school Art class. They were both really great pieces and I asked him if he would like to hang them up in his room.

He looked at me, with all seriousness and replied, "Ummm.....mom, these are too good to just hang in my room. I think these need to be hung in our living room."

{Birds, Bees & Super long Gestations}

As we were going upstairs together this afternoon, Olivia informed me that she is already a mom. My mind immediately went to the line about Eve being the Mother of all Living before she had had a baby. I thought perhaps something along those lines had been shared in Primary recently. However, she continued with, "...see it takes a long time for babies to be made...they are already growing in my tummy, it just takes a really long time."  Huh, I replied. Where did you hear that? "I learned it on the Internet!"

{Interference}

On Saturday, our friends and neighbors invited Will & Olivia over for a play date. When Michelle was getting ready to walk W & O home, she realized her youngest boy, Andrew had a messy diaper. Despite him wanting to go with her, she brought him to his dad, Rocky for a diaper change.  Rocky was a little bugged because he was trying to watch the 49ers game and Andrew was crying about his mom leaving him. Rocky hurried and changed Andrew's diaper and raced to catch up with Michelle. He handed over Andrew abruptly to a surprised Michelle, exchanged words, and ran back home to finish the game.

Olivia looked up at Michelle and said, "Looks like you married the wrong husband!"

Update: I was told this story by Rocky at church on Sunday - you would have to know Rocky to fully appreciate the story - but he is very mild-mannered - very nice. He admits that he was annoyed and may have been abrupt in his delivery of Andrew. I asked, "Don't you have a DVR so you can pause the game." He revealed that he is too cheap to get one. I told him in jest, "You should. It will save your marriage."

Update 2: I was relaying this story to Phil and Olivia was nearby. I asked her what did Michelle say? "She just laughed and said, I think I did!"

Rocky apparently shared the story in Bishopric Meeting and it's been spreading like wildfire.