A fine example.

James: "MOM!!! Ireson won't stop chasing me and spanking my butt! It's not funny anymore!"

Me (chuckling): "Well, what do you expect James? He learned it by watching you!"

James (shocked and confused): "Nuh Uh! He learned it by watching Daddy do it to you!"

Gee....no argument there.

Dirty Girl

So when James and Teagan give each other a "beat down" (that means play wrestle in this house) it's not uncommon for the fun and games to escalate into an all out brawl at times. James has the strength, speed and agility, of a cheetah, equipped with animal sound effects and all. Teagan on the other hand is a strong little brute as well but when she gets tired of James pinning her down...well...she starts to play dirty.

Though some may find this to be unacceptable play wrestling terms-I completely understand where she's coming from!!! You feel you have no defenses left against their strength and tickeling and teasing. So then you're forced to pull out all the stops!! Personally, I'm not above hair pulling and eye gouging if necessary- just ask James. If this is warned or even occurs then my husband knows I'm serious and it's time to stop and to alleviate my frustration he should allow me a free jab of 2 to even up the score!

Anyway, today James and Tea were going at it giggles and all....I had a feeling where things were headed and I warned James that he better let up a bit before Teagan brings out "the ugly stick." So of course she got frustrated and pulled out the all powerful "scissor legs" maneuver. This is when she locks him between her scissored legs, either around his chest, belly, and sometimes neck. I taught her this after years of hard learned "legs on" lessons given to me by my own beloved father. James has dealt with this move for a couple years now. However, she has apparently perfected said death grip by adding an even more tortureful tactic....a TOOT!!!

"Listen James!!!..I'm gonna toot on you too if you don't stop it!"
...insert rip, roar, and all here....
"See, I told you...now get off me and leave me alone or I'll do it again!"

She sealed the deal alright. In some weird and twisted way I felt proud. I might have to try that one myself...be warned Babe.

In the city of sisterly love...

James (after ther second encounter with the corner of our fireplace yesterday): "I fear now I'll have 2 bumps on my head. It's unfortunate."
Mom: "Yeah, but it's a good thing that you're still so stinkin' cute."
James: "No I'm not! I'm handsome."

Precedence: I got all the kids' haircuts yesterday and Teagan kept saying how handsome the boys looked. I wonder if he'll continue to appreciate his sister's wise sentiment when he's older.

No thinking allowed!

James wanted to practice his typing and work on what he calls his ongoing "important document." So I set him up on the computer and I told him that this would be a good time to practice his spelling and typing out the words he knows by listening to each sound that makes the word. He replied, "No Mom. I just want to type, not think. Thinking is for when we do school."

Silly me...what ever was I thinking?! I hope this isn't a sign of an under-achiever.

Big Butt Mama!!

Teagan was folding her laundry and pulled out a pair of underware from the pile because she saw a glimpse of the pretty fabric and got excited. "Oooh Mommy, these are so pretty." Then her voice changed to a tone of disgust. "Wait a second!!! These aren't mine they're HUGE!" I of course had to tell her that those were indeed my underware and not hers. Thank goodness I have good self esteem- no thanks to my kids!

Selfless arguing...isn't that an oximoron?

We were all sitting down to our normal routine of reading a billion books late morning and Teagan and James started arguing about who would let who go first with their choice of book.
"No, no, Teagan, I'm going to be selfless and let you go first today." "Nuh-uh James, I'm going to let you go first because I love you." "But you're my younger sister and I love you more so you should go first." "But I think you're the biggest, bestest brother in the whole universe, so you can go first."....and so on and so forth. Someone (I forget who) even ended up quoting scripture about "the first being last and the last being first!" Sheesh.
Well this continued on for a few minutes and even became a heated argument! They were actually getting mad at each other for thinking of the other person first. This is not the first time it has happened either. However, Teagan finally caved and went first after James said, "Okay, Teagan listen. Here's the deal. I will let you go first because that is what a gentleman would do and that is what Daddy would do because he's a gentleman. Okay Teagan?"
Big sigh. "James, okay - I will go first if you just stop talking. Okay?"
James- "Okay. Mommy go."- as in start reading before any other arguments erupt!

For Pete's sake!

Beef! It's what's for dinner...even in the middle of a snow storm?!

So we have a cow in our freezer. More exactly, 1/3 of a whole, grass fed, hormone/antibiotic free, beefy cow in our freezer. We've bought anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 for the past 4-5 years now and we love it and it's been- well...a blessing. The meat just can't be beat! I can totally understand the whole "sweet smelling savor to the Lord" thing!

So I guess you could say we're meat snobs because you just can't compare the quality of a fresh cow to what you'd get from the butcher even. So needless to say we grill all year long. You just can't beat a great steak in the middle of winter to curb the cabin fever! My neighbors even call me to ask if we're eating our cow because you can always smell when someone is grilling steak! So James is fine with braving the chill and the storms and the 2 feet of snow to grill himself a big ol' cow rump.

A few weeks ago, he came in from outside after laying out the meat on the grill, he was all giddy and goofy and asked for the camera. He just HAD to document his dinner preparation tactics and the joy he felt from having so an huge amount of meat grace his grill. I wish I could have gotten a pic of him standing in front of the grill all smiles- it was too cute. Any cow butcher would have been proud!

I need to feed...

Teagan woke up from her nap...marched into my room with a bewildered look on her face and said with a voice of absolute sinister consternation "MOMMY! Look at my belly! It's so small and so hungry you NEED to feed me. It said that."

I don't think she was totally awake because she doesn't usually talk to me like that and as soon as I told her that James was watching Pooh Bear- she snapped out of it, squeezed me and ran downstairs.

However, I can totally sympathize and totally relate. I love to eat! It's one of my favorite past times and I do a lot of it. I want a shirt that says, "I exercise to eat." I get seriously crabby when I need to feed! Unfortunate though that as adults we can't just cry out like a baby when we need to communicate that we're hungry....and now all his hungry business has made me hungry. I'm off to feed!