Mr. Personality

Let us take a moment to consider my youngest son. He is full of surprises. Some of them are cute and funny surprises. Occasionally, they are NOT. I didn't, for instance, fail to enjoy the shouts from the bathroom recently of, "Oh, no!!! Timofee peed ALL OVER THE PLACE!" Yes, we are still potty training. No, I am not yet winning. At any rate, the surprises are more often funny than not. Here he is, fresh from the shower, and wearing Mr. Potato Head's spectacles.

Here, I believe he was supposed to be cleaning up his toys. For the record, I told him to put his toys in the bin, not his tush.

I'm fairly certain that there's a pull-up somewhere on his person. I'm not making any promises, though.

Finally, even though Timothy is not in this picture, he was the cause of it. Moses was sitting innocently on the table (alright, to be perfectly honest, Moses is rarely ever innocent) when Timothy decided he needed to be encompassed in videos. Look, Ma, a fortified kitty!

If any of you are feeling down, I'd like to offer you the use of Timothy for a day. My hourly rates are very reasonable, and I guarantee results. If you are not fully happy to see me arrive to pick him up at the end of the day, I will happily refund your money!

My cats are strange

The following pictures are NOT an example of excellent photography. They ARE, however, an example of trying to catch something on film without startling the subject of the picture into...dropping his ear of corn. It was Father's Day. We had played on the slip 'n slide (and by "we", I mean NOT me), we had cooked on the grill. We were sitting in the living room relaxing. Then we noticed that Moses was behaving in a peculiar manner. He was slinking around the coffee table, looking suspiciously like a cat about to steal someone's dinner. Since dinner was over and done, we waited to see what would happen. He circled the coffee table for several minutes. Then, when he was fairly sure no one was paying any attention to him, he stood up on his hind feet and began gnawing on the corn cob on my plate. There was no corn left, mind you, but he didn't let a little thing like that stop him.

Eventually, he decided it would be best to pull the whole thing off the table, so as to get a better grip on the cob.

Meanie was feeling left out, so he decided to try some corn, too. If he had started the whole thing, it would've been less surprising, since Meanie appears to think he is a cow. Every time the front door opens, he darts out and sits on the front steps to eat some grass. He won't go any further than the steps, but he doesn't feel his day is complete unless he's grazed.

It's rather irritating if you happen to be in a hurry, because you have to stop and retrieve a cat every single time the front door opens. But let's get back to the question at hand: Why are my cats eating corn on the cob???

Here's some video of it. Because I finally figured out how to put video on a blog!

And so, it begins...

I have now downloaded my pictures. How is it possible that between June 12th and July 14th, I took 365 pictures? At the current rate of things, Chris should be able to finish putting all our pictures onto Flickr sometime around 2019. If he's lucky. So, first things first. We bought a slip 'n slide. The kids enjoy it. Chris didn't seem to enjoy it that much. I have video. Hopefully, I will be able to put the video on for your viewing...amusement.

Gabe had to come up with a new and innovative way to slip 'n slide, of course. He preferred to do it on his swimming kick board.

Timothy prefered the method of lying down and one end and propelling himself with his hands. His performance was not unlike that of a seal on land. It was amusing.

The whole thing ended up turning the back yard into a soup of mud and grass. Not that the back yard was that impressive to begin with. I consider a little mud a sacrifice well worth making if it entertains the boys for more than five minutes at a time.

Clearly, it did. But they were not nearly as entertained by the slip 'n slide as I was by Chris on the slip 'n slide. Apparently, there are certain...ahem...parts of the human anatomy...that don't enjoy the slip 'n slide experience as much in adulthood as they did in childhood. This is what I'm told, anyway. You wouldn't catch me on one!

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...I present Chris, on the slip 'n slide!

I'm living in the movie "Please Don't Eat the Daisies"!

I'm so far behind on blogging, I'm not sure I'll ever catch up. It would help if I would remember to dump the camera card. It would help if I didn't have children who interrupted every aspect of everything I do. Then again, if it wasn't for that, what would I write about? So, here's what's coming soon to a blog near you:

Scout Camp
Fishing
Fourth of July
Random nonsense of the summer

In the meantime, I felt that I should tell everyone about the kind of day I had. Timothy played outside today, and he brought me a large bunch of clover flowers. He also brought me dirt, rocks, a watering can he filled in the dog's water bowl, and a cat. Luckily, it was our cat. Anyway, as Timothy is apt to do, he repossessed the flowers shortly after he gave them to me. I didn't pay too much attention. Guess I should have. He came out of his room later and announced that he had eaten all the flowers. I said he hadn't. He said he had too. He opened his mouth and showed me. There were little bits of flower stuck in his teeth. Thankfully, clover flowers are not toxic. I didn't want to have to call poison control. Again.

While Timothy and I were having this fascinating conversation, Chris was in the background, trying to figure out what was wrong with the VCR. It was making a horrible moaning noise when tapes were rewinding. It was also devouring the tapes. After an hour or so of fiddling with it, he figured out the problem. Someone had shoved a tube of liquid graphite into it. VCRs don't care for liquid graphite. But, as my mom pointed out, better this than shoving flowers in the VCR and eating the liquid graphite. THAT would've certainly required a call to Poison Control. Again.

Lastly, after fixing the VCR, Chris decided to figure out why the DVD player wasn't working, either. He informs me that DVD players don't work very well when they have three DVDs in them at once. You learn something new every day.

Knit Witch is giving away yummy yarn...

So I HAD to enter her contest!

Knit Witch's blog

Check out her gorgeous alpaca yarn! I want some! Then I will roll in it when the moon is full! Did I just type that?

My sister is an awesome photographer

All of you who know her already know this. I just have to point it out again because today she posted pictures of my boys on her blog:

My very handsome sons

Check them out! I am bursting with pride over them and her, both!

Chris has a new hobby...

And Moses has a new tormentor. He doesn't seem to mind all that much, but then again, we are pretty sure Moses is from outer space. I think this was Chris' way of exacting revenge upon a cat who WILL NOT leave my yarn alone. Not the synthetic stuff, no, he never gives that a second glance. It's only when I have really yummy kid mohair or silk and Romney wool that this part of his personality surfaces. Hiding it from him is not an option, since he knows how to open doors and unzip zippers. Chris has this theory that if we wear him out enough, he'll just sleep and night and not destroy stuff. So here you go. Cowboy Moses.

Next, we have Corporate Climber Moses. He's tired from a hard day at the office.

Chris, I would watch my back, if I were you. I think Moses has figured out how to use the camera. You know that picture of you asleep in Timothy's bed? Yeah, that was ALL him!