The kids asked if they could make dinner tonight, sounded like a good deal to me.

They called it an all you can eat buffet.

Listening to them prepare it was half the fun.

Cooper insisted on being called Chef Cooper, and Isabelle said that was okay as long as he understood he was the third ranking Chef. Chef Charlie was first and Chef Isabelle was second and THEN there was Chef Cooper because he was the littlest and still learning. Cooper was okay with that.

We had…

 Day old scone and Fig Newtons.

A smiley face cheese plate, by way of a sliced cheese stick.

Bagels with salmon cream cheese. (The lemon is for a splash of color on the table.)

Chex mix, crackers with cheese on them, and yogurt.

Bologna pizza, Chef Charlie and Chef Isabelle’s secret recipe.

The plate was full but on the way to the table, apparently some of it got eaten, I mean went missing.

We also had white bread cheese sandwiches and neon yellow  macaroni and cheese.

All washed down with pink lemonade.

They even did the clean up… 

The only thing missing was Daddy!

He’ll be home soon though and I saved him some bologna pizza!

Mmm… He is going to be SO HAPPY!

;-D

When you were little did you ever make your parents dinner?

Did you have a specialty?

My husband was preparing a talk for church and he asked me my opinion about a verse he was thinking about reading.

1Samual 19: 23-24

We then discussed how if something like this happened today it would be called insanity not prophesy.

Charlie asked Why?

So we asked him this question…

If someone came up to you and told you that they were… say… running around in circles, because God had spoken to them and told them to, what would you think?

Charlie replied “I would think that was crazy… Why would God tell them to run in circles?”

 The possibility of God having a conversation with someone  didn’t seem odd to Charlie at all.

Charlie is 11.

At what point in our lives does it become insanity if someone says God has talked to them?

I went to visit Cooper  for his Fun and Funky Field day.

After his kindergarten tug of war, standing in line waiting to wash our hands, a little girl approached Cooper.

She leaned in conspiratorially and not so quietly whispered…

“Cooper, Jordan’s in the bathroom crying, don’t tell anyone!”

Then she moved on to the kid standing next to us and said…

“Jordan’s in the bathroom crying. DON’T TELL ANYONE.”

Tonight while I was making dinner Cooper sat down for a conversation.

He was wearing his pirate patch and looked quite solemn.

Cooper- “Mom, call me Shark.”

Me- “Okay Shark, Why am I calling you Shark? I like Cooper.”

Cooper/ Shark- “Cooper is the name of a car, a little car, Shark is way cooler.”

Me-”Ahhh I see. Well why don’t we call you Drake? That’s your name too, and it’s cool.”

Cooper/Shark- “Drake means dragon, and that’s cool, but I like Shark better..”

Lifting his eye patch he got a look of pure joy on his face…

Cooper/Shark/ Drake- “I KNOW! I can be Shark Drake, a Shark that spits flames is way cooler then a little car.”

Now how does one argue with that?

(I’m so glad Spring is here, I actually think I’m going to want to go take pictures again.)

It’s the first of December and all day I’ve been thinking about what I would blog.

On the way home from yet another dentist visit my most stubborn child provided it.

Cooper, hit his older brother.

It wasn’t hard, and I’m not sure it wasn’t unprovoked.

When I told him that he would have to go to his room for ten minutes when we reached home he replied -

“NO! Mom!  I am only going to do the things I WANT to do and not the things I DON’T.”

To which I replied in my most menacing Mommy voice

“You better think about that one again Mister cause you know what will happen if we get home and you DON’T go to your room?”

I hear a quiet “Spanking time?” from the back seat.

“Yup.” I said.

More quiet in the back and then Cooper says…

“Okay, I have decided I WANT to go to my room.”

You just gotta love’em.

Took my Crew to the NWM Fair yesterday!

It was pretty empty while we were there, the Buckley Steam Engine Show is going on now too.

Everyone was probably there.

Have to get the yearly shot.

MY poor mom, I know she was bent in half because she didn’t want to get her white pants dirty…

She’s going to hate me for posting this BUT I LOVE IT!

Gotta go! Fishing Tournament to help with and then off to DETROIT!

What’s on your schedule this weekend?

We are spending a few days in Detroit with my Brother in law Mat, my beautiful Sister D and brilliant Nephew Sam.

Yesterday we went on a search for the Fairy Doors of Ann Arbor!

HERE

The first door we found was the scariest and least expected.

Charlie found it and said that doesn’t look like a Fairy door!

When we looked at the map we found that it isn’t! It was a Goblin door… the kids wouldn’t knock on it because they didn’t want to get carried away by goblins.

Ironically it was the only door they didn’t knock on all day!

I think the Goblins were spying on us,  this lamp is right by the door…

There were Fairy entrances all over.

Some of the doors hung in midair.

There were always little gifts of money and candy left.

The kids had to knock on every one.

Some they could even peek inside of.

There was always another door on the other side leading to, presumably, the Land of Fairy.

This one also had a little fairy toy store in it.

There was a door at the Library… of course in the FAIRYTALE section!

We ran into two other families that were on the same quest for the doors and we gave a map to one other family to get them started on theirs!

We found at least five other doors but I don’t want to ruin it for you if YOU ever decide to go looking.

It was nice, FREE entertainment and I loved it almost as much as the kids did, okay, maybe more.

What’s the silliest thing you’ve ever done on vacation?

Some of you mentioned  that you would like to stay in a light house.

There are several in Michigan  you can do that at.

If you want to find more go…

HERE!

You can stay at the Northport Cat’s Head light station.

You can be the lighthouse keeper for a week at a time.

The actual light station is down farther on the beach, this house is now too far up on the beach to be used.

The kids and I also went swimming and rock picking with my friend Megan that day too.

Cooper facing the waves like Neptune.

My little mermaid

Isabelle left me a little message that she knew I would find while I was looking for rocks.

Today we took Ben  to that beach and came home with a sand bucket full of Petosky stones and Charlevoix stones!

A partial Charlivoix stone

Overheard in the car on the way home.

*Kids arguing over who gets the shower first when we get home.*

CHARLIE: Rock , paper, scissors, two out of three!

ISABELLE:  Rock I win!

CHARLIE:  NO! Paper, I win!

COOPER:  Rock, paper, scissors, can’t beat the WAVE OF DOOM!

*makes waving motion with tiny hand*

It was a great day!

Hope yours was too!

Cooper is going through a stage… I PRAY that it’s a stage. 

He is more then a little stubborn and rude. I keep reminding him to be nice or be polite but…

Yesterday he was wearing his Spiderman costume, which he does often, he insists on it. We were in a restaurant and the owner looked at Cooper and said  “Well hello Spiderman!” and Cooper yelled at him… “I’m Cooper! This is a costume. I’m NOT Spiderman. I’m was pretending!” I apologized. I made Cooper apologize. Then I commented to Ben that I hope  Cooper grows out of the stage soon. Ben assured me that he would and then he reminded me of the stages our other children have gone through…

Isabelle had a fear of weather and natural disasters. All of the New Orleans stuff was happening around the time she was four. That one wasn’t horrible, it just took some reassuring and some  talks about rolling with the things life throws at you. I also believe she had a disaster escape plan, but it wasn’t really easy to understand as it was written/drawn in the language of four year old.

Charlie was obsessed with death. Yup… death. He had planned his head stone, he wanted Transformers instead of flowers. He wondered about how people died and when and why. The kicker was one day when he was standing in a line near an old woman with a cane and he turned to her and said “Are you waiting to die?”  I think Ben almost fell over from embarrassment.

I think I can handle a little rudeness… Still I hope it passes soon.

What stages have YOU had to deal with?

I did  a photo for Saint iv’s count down to XDK. My number is TODAY!  LINK 

It was great fun taking the picture, but I am more than sure my children wanted to hurt me… I made all three of them pose for at least fifteen shots with tiny little cut out magazine numbers on their tongues.

What’s the point in having children if you can’t use them for count down pictures?