Funny kid sayings

I love the things kids come up with.  My kids sure keep me laughing!


Lydia:
Blake left his wallet home one day and needed us to bring it to him at work.  Since it was Spring Break, all the kids were home so most of them wanted to go to see daddy at work.  Nathan, Michael and Katie wanted to stay home.  So I took Anna, Lydia, Elizabeth and Caleb.  When we got there, we were starving so daddy took us to lunch on a "daddy date".  The girls love going on daddy dates!  He decided we needed to try Thai food.  I was very skeptical and the girls were even more skeptical.  Well, Anna was excited - she's very adventurous and has taste in food like her dad.  Lydia was worried (of course Lydia was worried, she worries about everything!).  She was worried that she wouldn't like anything and almost cried when she found out they didn't serve chicken nuggets.  Once she tasted it though, she really liked it - to the surprise of all of us.  She said, "Dad, this is really good!  Can you bring us here for lunch every time you forget your wallet?!"


Michael:
I asked Michael, "Would you mind getting me a drink of ice water?"  Michael,  "Yes... I mean no... Ugh! [grabs his head in frustration] I hate that question 'would you mind?' The answer is always the opposite of what you mean!"

Katie:
A cute prayer Katie gave a few days ago:  (First a little background:  Katie loves to watch the first Harry Potter movie.  She loves the part with the troll and she rewinds it over and over and over so she can see "the troll in the dungeon" part.  We had a video of it that she literally wore out at the troll part from rewinding it so much.  We're constantly telling her not to push buttons or she won't get to watch any shows.  The other background that you need to know is that we were considering going to the Omaha Zoo over Spring Break at the time.)

So here's her prayer:
"Heavenly Father, thank you this day.  Thank you our family.  Bless the food.  Bless us we go to Omaha Zoo.  Bless us we can watch Harry Potter and the Troll, and I not push buttons.  Name Jesus Christ, Amen."

Isn't that just cute?  I love Katie's prayers!

Lydia:
While we were at the Omaha Zoo, Lydia found some beautiful parrots that were making a whole lot of squawking noises.  She squawked at one of them and it squawked right after her as though it were talking back.  She got so excited!  She skipped away from the exhibit saying, "I can talk 'parrot' mom!  I squawked at that parrot and he squawked back.  Ha!  I guess he understands me.  But I don't even know what I said!"

Elizabeth:
On the way to the Omaha Zoo we saw a big factory with clouds of steam billowing out.  Elizabeth saw it and got so excited.  She said, "Look mom, it's the CLOUD MAKER!"  I said, "Oh is that where clouds come from?"  And she answered, very confidently, "Yep!  See there's a dragon with it's mouth open and a teddy bear.  That's where all the clouds come from."

Michael has a broken leg

He was doing a handstand in P.E. last Thursday and landed on the back of another student.  (He emphatically adds that the other kid wasn't hurt.). He limped around that night and Friday morning and it seemed to be getting worse. The thing that made me take him in though was a weird bump just above his knee that was a little swollen, was extremely painful to the touch and just didn't seem right. I thought it was a pulled muscle or ligament or something because he could walk and move it (although he couldn't bend it), but it turned out the bump was actually a broken bone.  The crazy kid walked around on a broken leg for a day and a half!  We spent FIVE INSANE HOURS at urgent care! When I say "we" I mean me, Michael, Crazy Elizabeth and Crazy Caleb all stuffed in an ultra small room.  We survived but just barely.  Michael has a brace for now till we see the orthopaedic doctor tomorrow.  I'm anxious to see what they say and how long it's going to take.  The sad thing is that Michael JUST started track last week and was doing awesome.  I'm so sad for him for him that he probably won't be doing much track this year now.

He's in denial and refuses to admit that his leg is broken.  He keeps getting mad at me that I'm telling the whole world.  I told him that I was going to put it on my blog and he freaked out.  I find it funny that he's so annoyed by it.  He definitely has the Hodson stubborn gene!  He finally agreed to let me put it on my blog when I told him the grandparents wanted to see pictures of him.  So here's Hop-along-Michael.  (That's what Blake calls him because it drives him crazy and Dad's job is to drive the teenagers crazy, right?)

Homework assignment: pop bottle biography

Anna had an interesting homework assignment over Spring Break.  She had to read about a famous person, do a report about him/her, and then turn a 2-liter bottle into that character.  (Yes, raise your eyebrow here.)   When I first read that assignment I wondered how in the world we'd accomplish that, but we did it!  Anna chose to do her report on Celine Dion.  (YES!  That's my girl!  Mom's the BIGGEST Celine fan ever if you didn't know that.)  It became a family project.  Anna wanted a beautiful pleated dress like the dress Celine wears when she sings "My Heart Will Go On."  She told me what she wanted, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work.  Then our "3-D Genius" Michael got involved and designed a dress which looked amazingly like the dress Anna wanted.  So I pleated the material for her as Michael suggested.  Well, it wasn't really pleating in the real sense... I'm not very good at sewing and I sorta made it up as I went along.  Then we had the challenge of the making a head.  The teacher suggested using a foam ball, but we waited too long and I didn't want to go to the store, nor did I want to pay money for this project.  We thought of using clay, but that would have taken a TON of clay (which meant a trip to the store) and it was too heavy. So again our "3-D Genius" Michael showed Anna how to make a head out of aluminum foil and then cover it with clay.  Anna really enjoyed making the head.  She added makeup (of course - this is Anna we're talking about) and then  made curly hair out of clay as well.  She did a great job on her "Celine pop bottle". She was so proud of her work!!!  And while Anna did most of the work, it was also fun that it was a family project.  Here's Anna with her project:

Omaha Zoo

We went to the Omaha Zoo for Spring Break this year.  Usually we don't do anything for Spring Break, but Blake was working in Omaha and we have a family pass to the zoo so I loaded up the kids and off we went!  It's about a 4 hour drive and the kids did AMAZING in the car.  We all had so much fun!  The weather was beautiful, the kids were good, everyone was happy... it was just an all-around fun mini-vacation!

I packed a lunch for the way up, and one for the way back, the hotel had breakfast and we bought pizza for dinner so it ended up being a really cheap vacation.  (Well, until I went in the gift shop at the zoo.  More on that later.)

First here's a little side note... I was making sandwiches for everyone (for two meals) and I thought it was a pretty amazing sight to see this "assembly line production".  Here's how to feed 9 people for 2 meals for under $9.  (Cheap, but it takes work.)  These are all cream cheese sandwiches because I didn't want to deal with peanut butter around Caleb.  Look at this assembly line!  lol  This is "round 1":

Add some Rice Krispie treats, a box of Teddy Grahams and a box of Cheezits and viola - lunches for cheap!  (I just brought the whole box of Teddy Grahams and Cheezits and a roll of snack bags and we distributed them in the car rather than going to all the work of putting them in individual bags at home.)

Anyway, I just thought that was a pretty amazing pile of food.  So now some Zoo pictures.

Katie's absolute favorite thing is the "white crocodile".  She LOVES crocodiles and talks often about the Omaha Zoo's white crocodile.  Here he is, an albino crocodile.  They're very rare because they get sunburned and die in the wild.

And I thought this was her looking at the crocodile, but there's glass in this picture.  I don't know what she's looking at, but pretend it's the crocodile because she looks like this when she's looking at the crocodile.

 Michael, Anna and Elizabeth standing on an octopus.

The penguin exhibit is MY favorite so I have lots of pics from there.

 

Next we went to the aquarium.  They have the coolest aquarium... I think I could spend all day in there!
 

Of course Nathan loved reading all the info he could find:

Caleb really liked the fish.  You can see that he's saying "fish" here.

Anna listening to "the ocean" in a shell.

 Not the best picture quality, but I love how fascinated Lydia is with the sharks.

This is my new FAVORITE picture!  Nathan and Michael had fun showing Caleb all the animals.

Anna and a HUGE turtle.

Michael, Anna and the huge turtle.

 At the end of the aquarium, you have to go through the gift shop to exit.  I think I posted about a previous gift shop in the hospital that I couldn't pass up.  I'm seeing a theme lately that I just can't pass up gift shops.  As I mentioned earlier, of course I had to buy them all stuffed animals.  What's a trip to the zoo without stuffed animals to remember your adventure?!  I think I had the most fun in the gift shop!  Their stuffed animals are in a few of the next pictures.

Here's the jungle (or rainforest - I can't remember what they actually named it, but it was humid and jungle-ish).
Michael crossing a scary rope bridge which I refused to get on!

In the Desert Dome.  Nathan liked this place a lot because there were snakes.  Ick!

On our way home, we stopped at a rest stop.  Caleb was absolutely in heaven to watch all the semi-trucks go by on the freeway next to us.  The kids waved at every semi and 2 even honked at them.  I think this was the highlight of Caleb's trip.  He's obsessed with cars and trucks!

Night 2

He slept till 6am, ate and went back to sleep till 8:00!  Yay!!!!  I know it usually gets worse before it gets better, but at least we're making progress. 

Oh and I forgot to mention that Caleb has slept SO, SO, SO MUCH better since he got his tubes last week.  It started the very first night he got them and has continued for the last week, so I know it's from him getting tubes.  He sleeps a whole lot longer at night now and even for naps.  While he still wakes up to eat, it's usually only once.  And he doesn't wake up screaming.  He used to sleep around 9 hours at night (with LOTS of wake-ups in between).  And now he's sleeping 10-11 and only waking up once or twice.  His nap was usually only about 30 minutes before he'd wake up screaming.  Now he naps for 1 to 2 HOURS... and he wakes up happy.  Hehas never in his life woke up happy in all his 18 months... until now.  I LOVE tubes!!  And SLEEP!!!

Trying out a new room situation

So Caleb is 18 months old and still doesn't sleep through the night.  He can fall asleep by himself, but I have to sit in the room with him.  Yes, I know - this is my own fault and I take full responsibility.  What can I say, he's the spoiled 7th kid!  So for a long time I've been toying with the idea of letting Michael sleep in Caleb's room.  My sister and I were talking and she said I should just put a mattress down on the floor and try it for a few days to see what happens.  Well, when I told here there's already a twin size empty bed in there and there has been the whole time (duck my head here), she wanted to hit me from a thousand miles away!  So after much encouragement from Blake and my sis, I finally decided to give it a try.  Last night was the first night.  Michael is thrilled to share a room with Caleb.  Right now Nathan and Michael share a room and they're at each other's throats constantly.  They get along sometimes, but both boys... well actually all 3, seem to think this is a good plan.  So about 10 minutes after Caleb went to bed last night, Michael had to get up and woke up Caleb.  Grrrr!  I was so tempted to just send him back to his room and call it done.  I have a very hard time with any kind of change like this so giving up fast was an easy option for me.  But I decided to stick with it for a week and see what happens.  Tonight I put Caleb in bed and he fell asleep so I left.  Not 5 minutes later he was up screaming.  This time I didn't go in - I wanted to see what would happen.  Michael talked to him for a minute saying, "Caleb, it's Michael.  It's ok."  I was standing outside the door and heard the conversation and I have to say it was so CUTE!  Those two are so close and just adore each other.  Caleb still insisted he wanted mom and still screamed. But to my complete and utter amazement, he only cried for maybe 5 minutes and that was it!!! Can you believe it?  I can't!  Could this be the start of him sleeping through the night?  (Oh wait, I didn't just say that?  Because that would jinx me to say it out loud, as we learned in my puke post.  So scratch that!)  But I'm so excited to see if this works.  I'll keep you all posted...

Puke!

How's that for a title?!  Don't worry, I won't give too many details because I know my father in law reads my blog sometimes and he has a weak stomach so I don't want to gross him out.

Someone asked me on Saturday morning if our family was well.  I told them yes, all 9 of us are healthy.  BIG MISTAKE!! Saturday night a stomach bug hit our house with a vengeance!!! 6 out of the 9 of us got it between the hours of 11pm and 6am... including me. Mom's aren't supposed to get sick! What a night!!! They just kept dropping like flies.  I had 4 kids puke within 5 minutes of each other. It was like a chorus. Fun times!!! We just about ran out of sheets and towels and buckets. My washer has been running non-stop. Luckily Blake was well on Sunday while I was sick so he took care of everyone, but he got it Monday and so did Anna. That makes 8 of 9... Lydia is the only one who hasn't had it.  I keep waiting for her to get it.  She had a birthday party to go to Monday that she REALLY wanted to go to, so she said a prayer that she wouldn't get sick and she's convinced that her prayer was answered. I have to agree because she seems fine.  Anyway I HATE stomach bugs!!!! I'm never answering that we are all well ever again!

Caleb got tubes today

The tubes are done and all went well!  I was worried about how he'd do not eating all night and then all morning, but he survived and didn't really cry much.  They let him play with a Little Tykes fire engine while he waited so he was happy as can be (at least for the first hour).  We had to be there 1.5 hours before the scheduled surgery time and he did good for about the first hour.  Then he got hungry and tired and whiney (with good reason, he was up at 4:30am and hadn't had any breakfast).  But the procedure went great and fast and he woke up really easily.  Recovery has been AMAZING for him!  I've never seen a kid bounce back so quickly from surgery. (And this will be the 6th set we've lived thru as a family so I know what I'm talking about.)  He was kinda fussy for about the first half hour and on the way home.  But after we got home, he started playing and laughing and was like a different kid... a happy kid!  He took a 2.5 hour nap which is soooooo not like him.  He usually only naps for 30 minutes max.  But he napped well and long and was up running around and laughing like nothing happened.  Hopefully this is the start of no ear infections, better sleep, and a happier baby!

Oh and I bought him a bus at the gift shop.  I have a weakness for hospital gift shops.  (duck head in fake shame here.)  I bought Lydia a stuffed animal after she had surgery for her arm, so I just had to take Caleb to the gift shop to get him a present to "help him feel better".  (Yes, it's just an excuse to buy something for him and spoil him!  And I think I get this from my grandma and mom.)  I originally wanted to get him a stuffed animal, but he saw the cars and busses and about jumped out of my arms onto the store shelf.  So I let him choose and he picked a bus. He loves it.  Of course he does - he loves anything with wheels!

Here's Caleb with the fire truck waiting and waiting and waiting for his turn for surgery.  Don't you just love babies in hospital gowns?!  So cute!  And it makes them look so little!

Our LOUD house

Holy cow the kids were crazy last night! (Worse than normal even.) The kids had so much energy after dinner so rather than try to fight it, I just went with it. We put on loud crazy music and I just let them run it all out. You can barely hear the music in the video, but it was really loud. irl.. and the kids were even louder. The song starts out kinda slow (so be patient for about 40 seconds) and while it's slow they all do this little "warm up dance" and then when it gets loud and crazy so do the kids! I love how Caleb tries to imitate the other kids at the first of the song with his cute little dancing legs.

So this is what our house looked like after dinner (minus Nathan who is being a typical teenager and hanging out in his room all day away from the family).

I guess it's a boy thing!

I think it has to be a "Y gene" thing... boys and "weapons".  No matter what you do or how they grow up, boys just have this "inner knowledge" of weapons. lol.  How do they know about guns when they've never really seen them or been around them?  Caleb found Blake's power converter for work.  (I guess that's what it's called... it plugs into the cigarette lighter and gives him 2 outlets rather than one.  See, even I don't have a clue what the heck this thing is. I had to ask Blake.)  So Caleb found the power thing and was waving it around and shouting "pshoo, pshoo, pshoo!"  How does he even know what a gun looks like, let alone what to do with one?!  He's never seen a gun in real life or even on a movie.  And yeah I know - he has older siblings so that's probably the answer, but they're not really into guns.  Michael has some Nerf guns which is where he probably learned it I guess.  But it just surprised me that he picked up on it so intuitively when he really hasn't had any exposure to guns.  How does he know what noise to make?  And how does he even make a noise like that?  lol.  It reminds me of the time when we wouldn't allow Nathan and Michael to have swords at all so they resorted to taking the blind cords off my blinds to have a sword fight.  Or the time they bit their cheese slices into the shape of guns.  (Roll my eyes here.)  I guess it's just a boy thing!  lol.

Katie and Celine

We took Katie to see Celine Dion at the movie theaters for her birthday. There was a "movie" out that basically documents Celine's world tour "Taking Chances".  So that's what Katie wanted to do for her birthday. She was beyond excited! And she had a great time at the movie theater watching her favorite Celine. She did her "happy dance" all day before we went and all during the movie too. (Her happy dance is basically flapping her arms up and down. She's done it since she was a baby whenever she's happy.) And all day she kept saying, "I'm so HAAAPPPPY!" We listened to "Celine loud" in the car both ways. Katie loves to hear Celine songs at ear-piercing volumes. Since it was "her day" we gave in and let her pick the songs and volume. We all sang along in the car and had a great time. Oh, and it was just the girls that went... Mom, Katie, Anna, Lydia, and Elizabeth. The boys weren't really interested... they stayed home and painted the house. (I don't understand how that is better than Celine, but I got a painted room out of it and didn't have to bring Caleb so I'm not complaining!)

Here are the girls waiting to go to Celine. I took about 10 pictures of them and every single one of them was blurry because they couldn't sit still in all their excitement. This is the least blurry:

 

Katie and Lydia in the theater waiting for Celine to start (yes, I'm a dork and took pictures IN the theater. lol) Really Katie was happy, she just doesn't smile for pictures.

 

Anna and Elizabeth waiting for the movie (and trying to steal MY Coke!)

After the movie we had cake.  Katie requested a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and horses, so that's what she got.  She's the Chocolate Queen!  Michael begged and begged me to let him frost and decorate the cake.  I'm a control freak about stuff like that, but he was so excited that I just had to let him.  He did a great job!