Lunches With Aaron

This is my third (and last) year of daily one-on-one lunches with Aaron. My older 2 are in school, and my husband can't come home for lunch. So Aaron and I are on our own. When all 3 of my boys were little, I used to wish for these days I'm enjoying now. They are pretty great. Yesterday I swirled some ketchup and mustard together to dip a corn dog in and Aaron said it looked like a seashell. He demanded (cutely) that I take a picture of it! Hooray for digital cameras. :) Every now and then Aaron and I go out to lunch "just because." Today was one of those days.

While driving away from preschool today, Aaron asked if we could go out to lunch. Of course I said yes, and then I asked him where he'd like to go. He replied, "King Burger!" Otherwise known as Burger King. :) While we were eating our hamburgers, Aaron pointed to the sesame seeds on his bun and said, "What are these things? Are they hamburger seeds?" Hee hee. :)

Aaron is quite a talker. He has many thoughts running through his mind at any given moment. When I actually listen to what he has to say I come away thinking, "This kid is so much smarter than I give him credit for." He pays attention to everything. Like one day he heard a song on the radio (which was turned down low and just background noise). It has this phrase: "Impossible is not a word; it's just a reason for someone not to try." Aaron says, "Impossible is too a word!" Anyway, one of the things he said at lunch today was that we need to buy a bluegill TV. Hmm. He adamantly said he heard Daddy and I talking about a bluegill TV and that we were thinking of buying one. Now, we DO need a new TV at our house. But I'm quite certain there's no such thing as a bluegill TV. I finally figured out he meant blu-ray player. This is how our conversation spiraled from there:

A: what's a blu-ray player?
M: it plays movies, and looks clearer than dvds.
A: grampy needs that. his eye-sees (eyesight) is having problems. his ears are having problems too. he's just having problems all over!
M: ooookay, but we're not getting a blu-ray player. dvds are fine with us.

That was my lunch with Aaron today. I'm sure my dad is glad to know Aaron thinks his vision and hearing are failing. :) Still, I loved our conversations and his chattiness. I will miss this next year. Good thing I'll be able to take him out of school now and then for some more lunch dates. Many times they are the highlight of my day.

Fall Fun

pretty leaves in our own backyard

All 3 kids still went trick-or-treating this year...but not all 3 kids went with me. Braylen's entering that phase where he'd rather be with his friends than his family. I think this phase might last a while. Like for the rest of time. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm happy to see him growing up. I'm happy to see he has some good friends. But part of me wants to hold on to those days when I was all he wanted or needed.

Originally, my 10 year old son wanted to trick-or-treat as a member of The Beatles. I was wondering how to turn him into a Beatle. Then he saved me from that task and told me he just wanted to be a hunter. How easy! Now, what goes with a hunter? A deer and a turkey of course! Aaron volunteered to be the deer. Kaleb said he'd be the turkey, and then he said no way. He went as a football player. Oh well--it was easy! :) We had a beautiful night for trick-or-treating, and I realized Ginger needs a costume next year. This year I'm sure she'd just try to eat it.

Halloween 2009

our little deer

wearing real antlers from one of Daddy's bucks!

We built our house in a new neighborhood 6 and 1/2 years ago. Therefore, we've never needed to rake leaves. Well, this year we finally had enough leaves on the ground to rake! I know, someday soon we'll wish we didn't. But this year we had fun with the leaves! The boys even fought over our one pitiful looking rake. I felt pretty silly telling them to take turns with a chore!

proud of their leaf pile

This past weekend Braylen brought his classroom hamsters home. To bad he forgot to bring their food. :) I diced up some carrots and apples Friday night and they gobbled it right up! The boys loved playing with Smokey and Midnight. Saturday morning I found them in their room, letting the hamsters run through a maze they'd built with colored duplo blocks. Braylen even covered the carpet with paper towels. I can't believe how much entertainment 2 small rodents could bring to our house. Then again, I loved my hamster when I was growing up. Nothing made them laugh more than watching those hamsters run around the house in their ball. We had some sad fellas on Monday morning, when Smokey and Midnight returned to the 4th grade classroom.

Braylen with Smokey

All smiles as they wait for me to tell them they can play!

The cage is taped because Smokey escaped at school and was missing for 3 days. He's quite a Houdini!

To wrap up this post I have to say "Happy First Date Night Anniversary" to my husband. 15 years ago today, we went out on our first date. 15 years! How can that be possible? Last week at a coffee shop the girl behind the counter saw my high school sweatshirt and asked me if I had kids at the high school. Aggghhh! Whatever happened to the days where people like that thought I was a high school student?! I told her my husband works there, and my kids are in elementary school. I wanted to say, "Do I LOOK like I have high school kids??" But I'm afraid of what her answer would be! :)

10 Days!

One good thing about living out of state from my parents: their visits! Since all 3 boys' camping trips, October flew by with my parents here to enjoy it with us. They saw Braylen's last flag football game and Kaleb march in a parade with the Cub Scouts. We went to the pancake feed at the firestation and canned 53 quarts of applesauce with my sister-in-law and mom-in-law. The boys took turns waking Grammy and Grampy up every morning, and Aaron demonstrated his super-fast lock-picking abilities. Poor Grammy was never safe in the bathroom. My dad took the boys out for one-on-one lunch dates. They sure loved leaving school to eat someplace fun with Grampy. One rainy morning, I had my parents all to myself for breakfast. We went to a small cafe and I felt like we had all the time in the world. It was so relaxing. Aaron's still obsessed with watching my mom knit. We even took him to a yarn shop with us--he insisted on coming along!

Lots of times I wish my parents lived close to us. How amazing it would be to hang out with them on a Saturday. To help them with yard work, order a pizza for supper, or call up my mom and ask her to go to the mall with me. Everyday things like that. But when they were here this month I realized something. We do all of those things and MORE when they're here. It may be crammed into 10 days at a time, but our moments together are special. The boys wouldn't snuggle in bed with them if they lived in town. ;)

The day before they left, we had the chance to something really neat together. Kaleb will turn 8 in November. For his birthday, Derek's mom and dad chose to send him to a college football game! The game happened to fall while my mom and dad were here, so my dad got to come along! Derek and I sat with Kaleb and my dad in the most amazing seats: row 10 on the 45 yard line. What a treat! Braylen sat with his aunt, uncle, and grandpa in one of the end zones. All 8 of us had a great time in honor of Kaleb's upcoming 8th birthday! My mom spent her day with Aaron. That was a gift to me. :) He's not quite ready to sit through a college game. They had a great time at a craft fair finding pottery for Aaron, among other fun times. :) This was my mom's chance to get creamed playing the Wii. Nobody beats Aaron at Wii Jeep!

The next day they packed up to go home. 10 days flew by, and yet, I feel like we savored each one. Knowing we'll see them at Christmas helps ease the pain of goodbye. And knowing our hearts are knit together despite the miles between us. So here we are, on Halloween, ready for some fun with our boys! Aaron's SO excited! He's been asking "how many days till Halloween?" since September! Costume pictures next time...

A Time For Laughter

Since this is Wednesday, I've been on the go all day. Supper preparation's calling my name. Patches need sewn on 2 Awana vests. I wonder what games we'll play in T&T tonight? Being the game leader, I should figure that out. Soon. But I've had 2 weeks of funnies from my kids that are piling up in my brain. I don't think they will last much longer. I'm also 2 weeks behind in blogging about our lives, but that will have to wait for another day... Right now I'm taking time for laughter. :)

In random order, here we go:
One day Aaron said to me, "I'm so glad we have a German Shepherd. So much money for a lot of fun. You like a pet more than money, right Mom?" Looking at my checkbook, yes--I must like a pet more than money!

After a yummy supper of enchiladas, Braylen (my 10 year old!) said, "Those were really good iguanas Mom!" Ha! Later that night, he said, "What did we have for supper? What are they called? Iguanas?" The word "enchilada" never did stick in his brain.

Volunteering in my sons' classrooms has it's perks. Like the time I went to Braylen's class and saw he was wearing a completely different outfit than the one he'd worn to school. Hmmm. Now I know he was wearing shorts underneath his pants and stuffing his long sleeve shirts in his backpack once he gets to school. Not anymore! If he wants to live to see another day... :)

One night while making supper, I could barely keep my eyes open. I felt so tired! I said, "Wow, I just don't have any get-up-and-go tonight!" Braylen said, "Mom, you're like Grandpa's Dodge Avenger. He says it doesn't have that either." I don't think I've ever been compared to a car before.

My dad is a lifelong fireman. My husband is a policeman. Anyone who knows anything about firemen and policemen, knows that they have an intense rivalry. When my parents visited us last week, my husband said this to my dad: "You know why we have policemen, don't you? Because even firefighters need heros." Hardy-har-har! :)

A couple summers ago, our church had a pirate theme for Sunday School. So when we were leaving Awana last week, Aaron tells me he sees a pirate. I was very distracted navigating through the crowds of people--imagine that--so I simply agreed with him. I assumed he saw a leftover pirate decoration. Well, imagine my surprise (and horror) when I looked up and saw a man with a patch over his eye, picking up his child from Awana! I had agreed with Aaron (out loud) that he'd seen a pirate! But it was someone's dad! Aagghh! Or should I say, "Arrrg!" :)

Aaron rides in the car with me every month to drop off our bills. The other day we were making our way to one of our drop-off points, and Aaron was trying to guess which place we were going. He says, "I know! We're going to the big blue can!" The what? Oh yeah--the blue mailbox at the post office. :)

A craft fair came to town. My mom planned to take Aaron, since the two of them were on their own for the day. The rest of us had a very fun place to go--more about that in a later post. Anyway, I wasn't sure my 5 year old son would like going to a craft fair with his grammy. So the night before the big day, I told him what he'd be doing. Immediately he says, "Oh good! Will they make things with mud?" What? Then he tells me about a cartoon he saw one time, and I figured out he was talking about making pottery. Well, there's NEVER been a working potter's wheel at this craft fair. When I tell him that, he insists one will be there. As it turns out, the little bugger was RIGHT! He saw a man working at a potter's wheel, and he even got his very own piece of pottery. A small little pot just big enough for one dandelion. :) For free. Did God smile upon him or what?!

Finally, just 2 little word mix-ups:
Aaron says "petuna" and "tulop" for tulip.
He says "re-raser" for eraser. :)

Okay, time to get back to my Wednesday Rush! But it felt so good to sit down for a bit! :)