The Car-Wash Monster

Me: "Let's go a different way home so that we can get the car washed.  This thing is filthy."  I turn down the highway and hear a silence and look in the mirror to see Gavin's face looking a little concerned.  (Last time we went through, Gavin screamed bloody murder)

Me: "You're not going to scream through it are you?" 

Gavin: (smirking) "No."

Me:  "Are you sure?  I don't want to listen to screaming the whole way through."

Silence...for...about...3 whole minutes.

Gavin:  "Mama, (tongue click...that's his quirky sound he makes when he has something serious to say) I have to have a talk with you.  You know (tongue click) there's a monster that lives in the car wash.  He's like a dinosaur.  I don't really like monsters (tongue click)."

Me: (looking in rear view mirror...pretending to be shocked)  "You mean that there is a monster that lives in the car wash with washcloths to clean us?! Sounds awful! (looked back again to see him smirk and notice him realize how silly it all sounds)"

Gavin: "Yeah, maybe we can get the car washed." (tongue click)

Me:  "Ok, let's go."

...not a peep the whole way through. I told, both Gavin and Sophia (she screamed the whole way), about how it's like a whole bunch of washcloths rubbing against the car to scrub off all of the dirt.

 

Gavin: "Mama, I didn't scream." 

I felt pretty proud. 

$6.00 Carwash (yes that is a little pricey for what ended up being a crappy wash)
Free vacuum with lots of questions about the car drying
Conquering the Car-Wash Monster...priceless.

Shine A Light On This

"Mama! Dada! Can you take a picture with me?" 

I hear so much excitement in his voice that I'm really unsure of what is so wonderful about the situation until I turn the corner to see Gavin holding a ceramic lighthouse.  He is ecstatic and begging for a picture with this lighthouse (found at Grandpa's).  He begins talking about it as if it is gold..."feel the bottom Mama, it's so soft" (it's felt).  "Feel it Daddy, isn't it soft?"  "Isn't it so beautiful?" (as he cradles it in his arms like a baby) 

This goes on for a few minutes and he asks again and again for a picture with the lighthouse.  I chuckled and he looked at me like he was pretty serious.  I was able to convince him to wait a little while, thinking it would pass (not really sure why I didn't just take the precious picture).  We decided we would wait until after breakfast and I assumed he would forget, but he didn't.  Here are a few pictures with the treasured lighthouse. 

May this lighthouse shine light on so many other moments in our lives.  I'm glad it shone on this one.

Sassy Siblings

It has now been almost 2 years since So gracefully took the role as sibling to Gavin.  Many a moment we have had where hitting is involved, hair is pulled, and screams are heard; however, I am very much aware of the love they have for each other and the support they give (when necessary).  Somehow they just know that they can always count on each other, through thick and through thin. 

How does this naturally occur?  How do siblings just automatically know that they will do anything and love the other no matter what?  Gavin and Sophia seem to have it down to a science some days.  They attack each other one minute, tag team in driving me crazy in another, and laugh hysterically practically high fiving each other for their accomplishments in another.  Here is just a glimpse of their beautiful brother/sister relationship...my heart melts.

The "Other" Kids

So, I notice that I go on and on about our human kids, but need to take a moment to let you get a glimpse of the rest of the fam...the "fur-babies."  As you may have noticed, the blog site is entitled "Kitties, Canines & Kiddos" so I found it apropos to share a little info about them.

We had our kitties first...

Megan, the gray one on the left, actually is older, but we adopted her from my mom right around the time Todd and I married.  As with all of our animal babes, they all come with a little baggage.  Megan is a beautiful, low-key kitty that likes to blow snot rockets around our house.  Yes, you read correctly, snot rockets.  Supposedly, she needs a rhinoscopy where they will open up her nasal passages for the low low price of a billion dollars.  We decided we'll just have to live with all the snot streams...she's worth it. She's really great at massages (as long as they are not in the middle of the night)

Zen, the gorgeous black and white prowler on the right was invited into our lives when I first moved to GA in 2001.  He was my rock as I knew few people and he was a great cuddler.  These days, he has turned a little grumpy and yells a lot.  His quirks include...a special diet because of his urine crystals, heart medicine to keep his heart from expanding, anti-anxiety meds to keep him from turning into a serial killer, and is now on a heavy incontinence pill regiment as he pees just about everywhere in our house (lucky us). He has been such a great cat though.  We always get through it. We love him so.

You can't see me! This would be Baxter. He was adopted a while after we got married.  Poor fella literally lived in a crate for 2 years. He started off scared, but then the cats whipped him into shape.  Now, he is under the belief that HE is actually a cat.  This has been proven by his multiple attempts to sit on tables, tops of chairs and couches and I think I may have heard him meow once.  I think he is feeling like the left out species in our house.  Here is a picture of said cat-like behaviors.

Baxter came to us with needing a surgery to find his other testicle...yes, you read it right.  He also had infected salivary glands and has to be on a special diet for his sensitive stomach. I have to say that he is the best dog I think I've ever seen despite his weight on the cushions making the couches look like puffed out marshmallows. :)

I'm so very thankful for our beloved animals.  They make our family just a tad more interesting.

The Personality Princess

Although this is an older picture, from late summer, it depicts so much of her personality that it just has to be shared with the world.  So's personality is A+ in my eyes.  So much character, determination, and flair.  In this particular picture, So wanted to share her enthusiasm to go to Grammy's house to swim.  I think she was convinced that if she just put these on, perhaps I would give in. It didn't happen that way, but I did get a good chuckle.

It doesn't matter that her hair is flying in 6 different ways...she's happy and just doesn't care.

Isn't it an everyday thing to take off our socks and wear them as mittens around the house for an hour, picking up anything we can get ahold of and laughing hysterically when we can't grasp it?

One afternoon, I went to check on Sophia during her nap (assuming that she would have been sound asleep by then) and found her in her bed with this Russian hat, 15 books and her socks on her hands.  Must have been a frigid day in the land of So.  She kept the hat on for the remainder of the day.

Perhaps she has learned these behaviors from her brother?

Nevertheless, my heart is locked onto this little lady.  I'll travel to a million moons to give her her demanding "give me tiss mama" through the bars of any playground, at any moment.  These little glimpses into her personality make me giddy to think of everything she will become.  At this rate, she will rule the world.  BE READY...she'll knock your socks off...and use them as mittens. ;0)

Low and Slow

Gavin loves CARS movie and especially enjoys the character, Ramon.  If you have ever seen the movie, you would know that Ramon is constantly changing his paint color and is a lowrider...

The other day Gavin was sitting on the potty and pushing out a #2.  It seemed like it was taking forever so I asked Gavin what was taking so long.  He says, "I'm going low and slow Mama."  Hilarious! What, does he have a ghetto poo?

Apple looks like Bapple

Last weekend was our first apple picking adventure with close friends and family.  By close friends, what I mean is our best friends who had children that are close ages to our children.  Gavin is BFFs with Bay and they are practically connected at the hip. They also drive each other crazy.

As we travelled up and down the rows of trees, we started to do a little dividing and conquering to fill up apple bags.  Gavin asked to go with our friends and So, Todd and I went off to relax under the shade of a tree.  In reflection of this, Todd has pointed out that our son has done a lot of growing up as he stated, "Gavin would rather spend the day with his girlfriend's family than ours."  Whoa...is he a teenager already?



Ready to apple pick!



Me and my girl

 Gavin has started to rhyme his words lately.  On the way to just about anywhere you can hear in the backseat..."man looks like ran" "cut looks like hut" "dog looks like mog" "racecar looks like macecar" "house looks like mouse"....

So eating her first picked apple

Sophia spent her time crouching down to observe a group of bees on an apple.  She kept telling them "Hi bees!"

Our Apple Picking Outing

We brought all the apples home and as we are unpacking we notice that Sophia has taken a bite of every apple she can get her hands on.  I think we had about 6 apples with chunks out of them.