Summer Adventures Part 2: The Funny Farm

After a brief stop in Branson, MO to see our dear friends the Duttons, we made our way down to Rosebud, Arkansas ancestral home of Bapa Sherwood. :) My dad was actually born in Arizona, but a few weeks later his family moved to a farm in Arkansas where they would work hundreds of acres and raise 14 children. They lived in a little trailer which has grown over the years through self-built additions into a big house. I loved bringing my boys to the place where I spent many Spring breaks and summer vacations as a child. The boys slept in the bunk room where my dad slept as a boy and where I used to sleep when we visited. The gigantic table is the same, the chalkboard wall in the hallway, the old hammocks and tire swings outside. This place is a trip down memory lane. We had a great time at the reunion and the boys especially loved participating in the Sherwood family rodeo. A big thank you to all of my extended family who opened their homes and hearts to us and made us all feel right at home even though it has been years since we've been down. They are Southern hospitality at it's best. Okay, enough chatting, here is the barrage of pictures from our time on the farm.

The boys got to ride miniature horses, courtesy of uncle Gary, and ride on four-wheelers.

They also climbed and tunneled through stacks of haybales stored in the barn. Benjamin got stuck in between to bales at one point which was very traumatic, but he recovered. Here they are in the bunk room.

I always loved the stirrup steps to get up to the next bunk. I wish you could see my dad's and uncles' names all painted on the frames of the beds. If I'm remembering correctly, six of the boys shared this one little room.
During our stay, the boys and I did a lot of stomping around in our boots. Too bad we can't get Marc to wear any. We're still working on it.

The rest of the pictures are from the rodeo. Elijah won the roping for his age division. I made it through the first round for the adults, but then had the unfortunate experience of roping myself instead of the dummy on the second go around. I am not a natural. Gina, my Jewish sister-in-law, on the other hand could probably go pro and this was her first time touching a rope. Both the twins did some calf riding. They each stayed on for about three seconds. Benjamin spent most of his time building sand castles. The content of said "sand" is questionable. Tobias just wanted to climb the fences and sit with Bapa. We all had a great time.

Jami

Benjamin is a funny kid. I guess most 3-year-olds are, but he's mine and he's incredibly stubborn so I really need to believe that he is also cute and hilarious. He does this thing, where he can't make up his mind and, in essence, has an argument with himself. I.E. He needs make a choice between two flavors of yogurt. "I want strawberry!" So, I start to hand him the strawberry, "No! I want strawberry banana!" I put the strawberry back and start to hand him a strawberry banana when he changes his mind again. This can go on for a while, Gollum-style, so I usually end up having to issue an ultimatum so that our day can move forward. No matter which flavor I choose for him, it usually ends in tears and time-out because he inevitably attacks me once I've made a final decision for him. Here is a picture of one of those times. We were away from home, so time-out was in his carseat.

No, that is not faded lipstick and smudged mascara. It is the fateful combination of him having eaten a red popsicle and drawn with a black marker which left smudge marks by his eye when he rubbed it with his bemarkered hand. I felt bad because he was so upset but it was really hard not to laugh.

One evening at scripture time we were discussing the story of Adam and Eve. We got to the part about the serpent and the boys were all fascinated by the idea of a talking snake. Benjamin then declared, "Yeah! The snake's name was Roger." Now we know. All this time I thought that snake was a representation of Beelzebub or something. Nope, just Roger.

On our recent road trip Benjamin was definitely the terror of the trip. We put his carseat in the front row of passenger seats so that Marc and I could easily reach him if he started causing trouble and also so we could pick up the approximately 2 billion items he would drop during said road trip. Anyway, short of strapping his carseat to the roof, there was no where we could put him where he couldn't reach at least one of his brothers so we had some pretty major poking, hitting and swiping things issues on our drive. Benjamin does NOT keep his hands to himself. This means that Marc or I would have to periodically intervene by holding Benjamin's hands in ours. Of course, Benjamin did not appreciate the incarceration of his extremities so he would start screaming as if we had cut off his hands instead of just immobilized them. Every few minutes we would ask if he was ready to keep his hands to himself. He would pause, mid-scream, consider the question, furrow his brows and sulkily answer, "No." Well, at least he is honest.

We got to go swimming with Uncle Matt and Aunt Gina while we were in Arkansas. Benjamin loved to go off the diving board and have them catch him. He would climb out of the pool and declare in his little elfin voice, "I want to jump off the cardboard!"

One final thing about Benjamin, he makes his own sound effects. I am still waiting for him to start singing his own theme music, but when he is running around and jumping and climbing he utters an unconcious stream of "Hup! Ha! Vrrrrrrrooom! Whoosh! Hup! Hup! Hi-ya!" All day. As far as I can tell, he's not even pretending to be a superhero most of the time. It's just Jami's jam.

Summer Adventures Part I: Kansas City Here We Come

Stop #1 on our epic cross-country summer road trip was the Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City. After 12 hours in the car, the kids would have been happy to arrive at any hotel, but they were ecstatic when they saw that the room included a kiddie cabin with its very own TV! The only confusing thing was that they could not pause, rewind or save the cartoons they were watching for later. Some tears were shed over the thought that they might never know how this episode of Tom and Jerry ends. Does Tom catch Jerry, or not?!? However, all sadness was forgotten when they saw the awesome indoor water park. The best part? There was only one slide that they were too short to ride. I think they could have stayed there all day long but we finally pried them away with the promise of finding somewhere awesome to eat for dinner.

Gabe is showing off his swim trunks and his muscles.

I'm pretty sure that warning sign says that the top bunk bed is not intended for children under the age of 8. Too bad Tobias can climb ladders.

Benjamin loved sleeping in the cabin.

And we did indeed find somewhere awesome to eat for dinner. If you are ever in Kansas City we recommend the T-Rex Cafe. It's every little boy's dream to eat amidst herds of animatronic dinosaurs with the periodic rumblings of erupting volcanoes and meteor showers. We lucked out and all the kids meals that night were on sale. Score! Even with the big crowd, we felt the service was great and the food was actually delicious!

Our table was right next to Elijah's favorite dinosaur- parasaurolophus!

Bad triceratops! Put Gabriel down this instant!

I'm not sure if David John is excited or scared by the t-rex right  behind him.

I got a kick out of the restroom signs. If Tobias can have T-Ricks or T-Rex as a nickname then, as the only girl in the family, I am totally going to start going by She-Ricks or She-Rex.

This is the outside of the cafe. I think that's an Apatosaurus skeleton. Whatever it is, it's huge!

Although our stay was short, we really had a good time. And, hey, any trip during which security personnel have to bring a child back to us only twice should be counted a success.

I love the varied faces of our boys in this Great Wolf Lodge picture. It was the only one where they are all looking at the camera. Tobias managed to get his wolf ears off before the picture took. Stinker.

Big Bad Baby Wolf

Prime Time

So, last week I turned... are you ready? 31. Yep. I am OVER 30. I actually had a great birthday. For the first time, my boys spontaneously decorated for my birthday. It was super cute.

The streamers with hearts hanging on them made the living room a little bit difficult to negotiate. I loved the adorable asymmetrical stars by the shelves in the back.

Elijah left me this sweet note. In case you can't decode his "doctor handwriting like Daddy" here is a transcript: Happy Birthday Mom, Here's a Very Very Happy Birthday, *heart* Elijah Ricks *smiley face* Hug, Very Happy Birthday, *heart heart heart heart heart* Elijah Ricks

Gabe clipped this darling Happy Birthday sign onto the blind strings which he tied to a rocking chair as "decoration". In addition to the decorations, this was the first year where I actually felt that my boys were more well-behaved for my birthday than on an average day. I'm not sure if, in previous years, I just had some ridiculous idea that your birthday should be a good day and therefore I expected too much from my kids but the last couple of birthdays had been pretty lousy boy-behavior days. In fact, I think they made me cry on my birthday for the last three years. Since 31 marks my prime (I know I previously stated it was 29, but c'mon, wisdom comes with age, right? My prime is definitely 31.) maybe the boys could sense the gravity of the situation. Maybe they were tuned into the cosmic vibrations of the planets aligning in my favor and responded appropriately by not fighting with each other. I mean, according to my horoscope the planets Mercury and Uranus can get along on my birthday and they are literally not even in the same orbit, so brother getting along should be easy. Of course, my horoscope also claims that I am a health fanatic with a gift for sports.... so yeah.

For my birthday I really wanted a pair of real cowgirl boots. So our wonderful next-door neighbor watched our kids while Marc and I went out boot shopping and then headed over to a friend's house for games and dessert.

THESE boots are made for walkin'.

Here I am with my dear friend Alisha who made quite possibly the most amazing birthday dessert that has ever existed in the whole of time and space. It involves made-from-scratch brownies, fresh strawberries, cream and some sort of forbidden magic. It tasted even better than it looks if that is possible. I also want to point out my awesome birthday t-shirt which proves that I am a nerd. I think almost no one loves it as much as I do, but in case you are a weirdo like me you can buy one here. Anyway, it has a picture of a monocled and top-hatted culture in a petri dish who is saying "Quite." (He is saying it with a British accent. I'm not sure one can utter the word "quite" without a British accent and anyway, who would want to?) The caption below the picture reads; "Figure A: A Cultured Culture". I think one reason I love it so much is that it reminds me of my friend Molly who is both cultured and super science-nerdy.
Besides the amazing boots and shirt, I also asked for Marc to play "Just Dance" as a gift to me. Marc, as a rule, does not "just dance". He will slow dance with me, he may even attempt a little swing but free-form fast dances? Forget-about-it. The problem is, he can't see how down-right adorable he is when he is dancing. Maybe I am a mean wife for asking for something which he finds terribly embarrassing, but I think even he will tell you that he had a great time. He totally rocked a guitar solo dance part. That's my man.

We returned home far later than we should have to relieve our next-door-neighbor. He is a delight and regaled us with his harrowing tale of little boy wrestling, rustling and eventually hushing. He said he would be willing to babysit again and he knows we are Mormon and everything but next time he will need a bottle of Jack Daniels in the fridge to help him recover after putting everyone to bed. I know how he feels, or at least I would if I hadn't just hit my prime. I no longer feel fatigue. After I'm done writing this I plan to *yawn* go run *big yawn*   t e n       m              i                      l                  ezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

My Boys Rock

So we decided to grow a vegetable garden this year. I'm not sure if we will actually get anything out of it because I have a black thumb, but we thought we'd give it a shot. The only problem was that our house had no ground prepared for a vegetable garden. The boys and I spent many hours outside tearing out bushes and tilling the soil. The boys loved using the hoes and rakes although I had to constantly remind them that gardening implements are not weapons, unless you are waging war on the weeds.

The garden beds on the side of the house posed a bigger problem- they were filled with lava rocks. We don't own a wheelbarrow, and I doubt my boys could wield one anyway. So, how to move 32 cubic feet of rock? Ricks Boy Bucket Brigade of course!

I had grouped the buckets together to take a picture but Elijah said, "Wait Mom! I will make it look like something special." He then preceded to put the unsightly non-matching buckets off to the side and made a pleasing pattern of the blue and red buckets. Yeah, he's definitely an aesthete.

That's right, we shifted all those rocks by hand. We loaded the buckets by hand, hauled them to the flower beds that could use some more rocks and dumped them out until those garden beds were rock-free.

Now that's what I call getting your hands dirty.

It was extremely satisfying uncovering and tilling all that earth. I loved walking on it in my bare feet. There is something intoxicating about working with your hands, preparing a home for your little plants and then watching them grow. Maybe if I didn't have a black thumb we'd actually be getting some produce by now, but for this year I'll count it a success if anything stays alive until the first frost in the fall. Next year, maybe I'll have the Ricks Boy Bucket Brigade hauling fertilizer. My hard-working boys rock.

MAY I be excused?

So, my blog is in a sorry state of affairs. It has been almost two, TWO months since I posted! I am planning to catch up and predate a bunch of posts because, c'mon, it just looks better in my blog book that way. So if there are a bunch of posts between April 16th and this one, the dates are all LIES. Nope, don't believe it. I have been a total slacker. I mean, May was crazy, just crazy! However, not crazy enough to justify this long of an absence. As a punishment for my inexcusable blog neglect, I forced myself to watch the music video of Milli Vanilli's "Blame It on the Rain" and then write the following parody. If you would like to punish yourself for some misdeed, you can watch it on youtube and sing along using my new awesome lyrics.

"Blame It on the Train"

I really meant to write this
Oh so long ago
But the words, they weren't coming
Writer's block, you know?
Now I wish I would have blogged
And I'm feeling so un-cool
I let time get away
Now I'm writing tons today!
Gotta blame it on somethin'
Gotta blame it on somethin'

Blame it on the train that was whistlin'
Blame it on the kids that did cry at night
Eleven PM, here comes the train again
Blame it on the train, yeah, yeah
You can blame it on the train

Should've gone to bed much earlier
So I wouldn't be tired
'Cause all the kids will be up
At five-thirty and be wired!
If I hadn't been so busy
I would be all up to date
I'm gonna write again,
But it just won't be the same!
Gotta blame it on somethin'
Gotta blame it on somethin'

Blame it on the train that was whistlin'
Blame it on the kids that did cry at night
Eleven PM, here comes the train again
Blame it on the train, yeah, yeah

You can blame it on the train
'Cause the train don't mind
And the train don't care
You can't sleep when it's comin'
Blame it on the train that was whistlin'
Blame it on the kids that did cry at night
Eleven PM, here comes the train again
Blame it on the train, yeah yeah

Okay, dear readers, have I suffered sufficiently for my sins? May I be excused for my horrific blog performance in May? I hope you'll say "yes" and that you will stick with me despite my inconsistencies. After all, it wasn't really my fault. I really had writer's block, and a lack of time and a lack of sleep, and I think we can trace all of it back to those dastardly Dickinson nocturnal trains. Blame it on the train. Yeah. Yeah.

The Graduate

Last week, David John graduated from Joy School. The graduation ceremony was a big hit. It was held at a friend's house and everything was perfect. It was beautiful weather, they had a lovely fenced in backyard complete with an awesome playhouse, everyone brought delicious food, the hosts grilled some amazing burgers and they even had a garage full of puppies. I am not kidding. Adorable, floppy little golden retriever puppies just waiting to be held and cuddled. It was a childhood fantasy land.

Anyway, when it was time for the actual ceremony David John looked adorable wearing his little cap and holding his diploma but he was a little reticent about singing the songs for the program. Benjamin, on the other hand, was belting out the words from his seat in his audience. David John kept hissing at him, "Stop it Benjamin!" The hissing got louder and louder until it was a full on shout. When that didn't stop Benjamin from singing, David John finally decided he would just out-sing his little brother so David John gave a big finish for the last song. It was pretty hilarious.

While I am relieved that Joy School is over for my sake (it was pretty harrowing trying to teach a lesson with Tobias and Benjamin running around like crazy monkeys) I know that David John will miss it. I want to send a huge "thank you" to all of my fellow Joy School moms who were so loving and patient with my rambunctious little guy. You guys are the best.