Little Mans

Good grief, I love these kids. 

I love the other little mans (and wo-mans) of the family, too, but I got no recent pictures of their smiling faces.  Definitely need to work on that.  With a better camera.  (Hint, hint, hhbl.)

Bradshaw Top Ten--January 2012

One of my resolutions this year is to do a top ten every month.  I’ve never been such a slacker before.   On top tens.  I’ve been a slacker in other areas for many, many years.  And I’m okay with that.  But I’ve never been such a busy mother of five before either, so I guess it all evens out. 

I’m not sure I can legitimately call this a Bradshaw top ten, however.  It should be called, “Whatever comes out of the mouth of the four year old top ten.” He’s the one I’m with all day long.  Well, he’s the one who speaks.  The youngest is around all the time, too, and though we all cheer and clap and laugh when he masters things like patty-cake, it’s hardly a story that’s top ten-able. 

Moving on, here are the latest and greatest happenings from our humble little household:

10)  A: If we had another baby and it was a girl, I would name her Mr. Bojangles . . . but that would be weird.  I would name her Lady Bojangles.

Mmmhmmm.  That’s not weird at all.

9) “Lamesauce on a slice of pita bread with a side of you’ve got to be kidding me”=that which I apparently wrote on a scoring sheet for a game Zach and I played.  Which I lost.  Which Lucy found one day when she was looking through that notebook.  Which she thought was hilarious and repeated at least 50x a day for the next week.  Which wasn’t even that funny. 

8) A: What’s the inside part of our bodies?  Is it aliens in there?

7) Kye-Kooski the basketball star.  Is it because he rebounds?  Nope—shortest kid on the team.  Is it because he dribbles like a pro?  Still working on that skill.  Is it because he makes all his shots?  Nope again.  Still the shortest kid on the team.  Is it the defense?  Yes, yes it is.  Heard the term “in your face?”  That’s Kye on defense.  Not super legal, but in 3^rd grade ball nobody notices except the kid he’s guarding.

6) Organization Station: there’s just something about organizing and dejunking in January.  I loooooove it.  And I usually start 7 projects at a time and then get burned out on all of them.  This year I just worked on binders: a kids’ binder with all their papers in it, a financial binder with all-things-finance in it, and a home management binder with every other single thing I can think of.  You’d think a month would be enough time to get ‘em done.  Nope, still working on it. . . sigh.

5) My conversation with Adam one morning:

A: Is the earth a ball?

M: It’s round.

A: Why does it look flat?  Will we fall off if it is round?

M: Explanation of the size of the earth and its gravitational pull, etc.

A: Where’s Jesus?

M: I’m really not sure at this second, but wherever he is, he’s doing Heavenly Father’s work.

A: Do you know who the king of the Pokémon is?

M: Nope.

A: It’s Arcius.

Case in point why, no matter how much they study, scientists will never understand the brain of a preschooler.

4) What makes Eli giggle, as discovered by his overly-anxious-to-please siblings who love to hear him laugh:

·         Playing airplane with his food.

·         Adam shaking his crib after naps and before I have picked him up.

·         Tickling his neck, back and legs.

·         Reading “Mimi’s Toes,” his all-time favorite book.

·         Adam stepping very lightly on his stomach and shaking his foot.

·         Getting scratched by Z’s goatee.

·         Dancing.

What makes him scream, as discovered by everyone within a 30 foot radius:

·         Pretty much everything else.

3) A general sadness befell the house when I told the kids it was the last year we’d be going to Gma and Gpa’s house in SD.  We made a plan to have the most fun we could this last time: a visit to DeSmet, to see the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead, a trip to the Children’s Museum of SD, a climb up the Campanile and ice cream from the Dairy Barn, lots of swimming, nonstop imagining in the Enchanted Forest, ATV rides on the back country roads at sunset, ATV rides through the black-eyed susan fields, constant cousin play, a stop at Mt. Rushmore on the way there, a stop at Martin’s Cove on the way back.  Oh, we have plans.  Boy do we have plans.

2) I: One thing I don’t think I’ll ever say as a dad is “Stop licking the wall.”

Oh, you’d be surprised buddy boy.

1) While helping Kye study for his spelling bee, Lucy threw a beanbag and hit Kye square in the face.  He fell over and clutched his chest.  After a minute, he eyed Lucy and said, “Don’t just SIT there, you’re responsible for killing a man!”

The gift that keeps on giving

For Christmas, Zach gave each of the kids a coupon for an hour of one-on-one time with him every month this year.  When the last Saturday in January rolled around, there were still 4 kids who needed to use their coupons. 

Zach and Zeek ran to the gas station (filling up my car for me at the same time) and got a slushy and a treat.  Then Isaac asked Zach to build help him build an angry bird out of Legos.  They looked up directions online and made one of these babies:
 

 Eli is a little young for a full hour of one-on-one, so after a little love and some tickles from his dad, he was done:

 Zach took Adam to the grocery store to get some stuff for Sunday dinner.  (See how Zach did service for me while spending time with the kiddos?  He's a good, good man, that Zach.)  Adam picked out a treat, and then chose to color some pictures with his daddy-o. 

 

Zach took Lucy out to get a treat later that night and spent a little time together talking.  No pictures, though.  After it was all said and done, everyone had a fabulous time.  But Zach decided to do one kid per week from now on.

Kye and Zach went to a BYU bball game a few weeks earlier for their time.  They made it through the first half and had a great time.  And then Kye threw up 5 times during half-time and they came home.  So definitely no pictures of that one.