An open letter to-

Dear dog,

Please stop eating the siding every time you want back into the house. I would let you in the house if you didn't insist on eeating toys and shoes while you were in here.

Dear Teenage Neighbor,

Please stop blaring your car stereo so loud that aliens on Mars can hear it. I don't think there is any way you can even hear anything but the bass when you blast it so loud... plus, you are driving a Subaru Outback. That does not make you gangsta.

Dear rain,

You have been falling for nearly a month and a half now. If I wanted to live where it rained all the time, I would move to Seattle or Indonesia or something. I have mushrooms growing in my flower garden. We all know I never water the garden, so you can see my dilemma. The mud inside my house has become an issue. Enough is enough.

Dear children,

No, I will not let you eat marshmallows for breakfast, no matter how much you throw a fit. Not even if you have dragged out your tent and have built a "campfire" in the middle of the living room. Marshmallows turn you both into raving lunatics within 2 hours. (Yeah right, sugar doesn't cause hyper-activity!) I already have the dog to deal with... I don't need the two of you chewing on the walls also.

My Children are Rotten

The conversation I had with Riley after sending to the potty before leaving the house:

Riley: "I went potty!"

Me: "Good job!"

Riley: "No I didn't... ha ha ha!"

The Bane of My Existence

Want to know who really grates on my nerves? i just know you're thinking it's the crazies down at Wal-mart. Well, they do, but that's not who (or is it whom?) I'm talking about.

Could it be Bill who has suddenly been struck with a case of amnesia when is comes to replacing the toilet paper roll? No, with a quick demonstration, I think I have re-taught him that skill.

Nope, it's this character:


Now, before you all jump on me and start yelling things like, "Ah, she's so cute!" and "Look at that face. She's so adorable!" Let me explain.

Lucy dog only has three hobbies and they all annoy the crap out of me.

1. She is a shedding pig. I swear that dog puts out 2 pounds of hair a day. I literally have to vacuum twice a day. And I don't want hear that I should brush her more. I do brush her, but she tends to try to run away from home when I do that task. I believe she actually flipped me the bird the last time I tried that task.

2. She barks constantly... bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark! Annoying, right? And it's not like she even barks at anything in particular. She just sits on the deck and barks when she hears a bird sing, or sees a leaf float by, or if an airplane flies overhead, or if someone starts their car 4 blocks over. I think you see my point.

3. She is a food thief. Her favorite person in the world is Riley. Not because of any other reason other than his hand is mouth height. His snacks are easy pickins'. He's like her own mini-smorgasbord. Here's the proof:

"Why dear Lucy, what's that in your mouth?"

"Oh, I see Riley once again didn't get to finish his lunch."

Dinosaurs!!! In the back yard?!??

In our backyard, we have a Little Tykes climbing set with a dinosaur theme, similar to the one above. There is a spot at the top where the creative people down at the Tyke builder place had the great idea to put dinosaur tracks into the plastic so it looks like a real dinosaur walked across the play thing-a-ma-gig. (This is where people who know Tate start to wonder if these tracks scare him and he won't play on it it because of them, but no, he actually likes them.)

For some reason, the kids have suddenly started playing dinosaur hunters. We've gone from "driving" race cars, to being Lightening McQueen (Please tell me you know who that is?) to suddenly being cavemen overnight. I have no idea where this came from because believe me, Tate wouldn't watch a dinosaur movie... too scary!

Now, here's the funny part... Riley comes running in the house last night yelling that we have a dinosaur print in the back yard. I'm thinking it must be a doggie print in the mud. (Have you seen the size of my dogs... they could use some saddling up.) Or maybe he was talking about the prints I mentioned above. Nope, these are not those.

He leads me out to the bottom of the deck where the posts are cemented into the ground and low and behold, there are prints there! Only there the hand prints of the former owners daughter... not dinosaurs. Darn.

Remodeling or How I Almost Ended Up Wetting My Pants

I put on the kids' new favorite movie, Max and Ruby, and went downstairs to do some laundry. While the kids were finally occupied and not hanging off of my leg, I decided to take a look around the basement and plan my newest remodeling adventure.

I took a look in the back bedroom (aka the pit of despair) and came up with a plan for getting all my books organized and have it still function as a craft room. It will take a bit of work, but not so much that it can't be done in a short amount of time. I then meandered over to the laundry room for my next planning mission. This is where all hell broke loose.

I was looking around, planning how to make it brighter and more functional. I was also trying to plan when I would get the trusty vacuum downstairs to take care of the cobwebs that seem to accumulate this time of year, when suddenly this giant "thing" came crashing onto my head, covering my eyes, nose, mouth, and even my hair. It came out of nowhere, making me jump out of my skin. Was it a giant spiderweb? Perhaps a bat, a rat, a howler monkey? Nope... a stray four year old with a butterfly net. This is why animals in the wild eat their young. Hello new gray hair!

After a 20 minute tantrum over not wanting to get dressed, here is the conversation I had with Tate:

Tate: "I'm going to run away from home!"

Me: "Would you like me to help you pack? Take a granola bar."

Tate: "I'm going way far away!"

Me: "Well, I'll miss you."

Tate: "Will you come with me?"

Me: "That kind of defeats the purpose of running away, doesn't it?"

The Randomness of boys

Why????