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?"