J on Saturday came to B and said, “Do you remember what you told C if he read “Hop on Pop” to you or mom?”  B replied in the affirmative that he remembered.  B then made the same deal with J, “If you read “Hop on Pop” to me or mom, you can have a $25 toy.  In fact, if you read that book, I will take you myself to Target, Walmart or Toys R US.”

B of course thought he could still have a lazy Saturday as he expected J would take a couple of weeks to read the book.  Nope, it took all of about 7 minutes for J to read “Hop on Pop.”

So B found himself putting on his tennis shoes and taking J to Toys R Us.

J picked out a truck and trailer.  Way to go, J!  (For tricking your dad, that is…  When we got to church yesterday my mom reminded B that J had already read “Hop on Pop” in preschool last year when she homeschooled him.  Also, J has read smaller books to me already.  So, technically this isn’t J’s first book to read, but it is certainly the longest book he has read TWICE.)

You can’t tell it in this picture, but J is wearing his brother’s Halloween costume, a Darth Vader costume.  Cute, Darth Vader wrapped in a heart blanket (that he received for Valentine’s Day).  Can’t believe a scene like this didn’t make it into the movies!

Here J is all dressed up in his pirate finest…

Last year C’s kindergarten class did “Treasure Island Day” instead of “Pirate Day” due to all the pirating stuff near Somalia.  I’m glad they were able to revert back to Pirate Day.  It is way cooler.

I wonder why no one else was swimming today?!

Like I said, it was cold outside…

This is as far as I got on our snowman.  It looks more like a snow volcano.  Maybe we can work on it some more tomorrow…  I hear it is going to be another snow day for school.

One middle of the night recently, he had the munchies and got a fresh, new can of chocolate icing out of the pantry.  As of that wasn’t bad enough, he got a REALLY big spoonful of the icing and took it to his bed.  Chocolate in the middle of the night, with no lights on.  Equals a REALLY big mess…

The next morning J was getting a bath and I was helping him wash his hair and noticed something all over his face.  I at first thought it was blood, as the color was that of dried blood.  No blood.  Chocolate.  All over his face.  And his pillow.  And in the middle of his bed was a spoon with a mound of chocolate.

Yes, those are his new John Deere bed sheets.  And the new yellow and green velvet pillows that I made for him.  I was quite angry.

I walked to my bedroom to calm down a bit.  B and I did a tag-team and B took over with J for me.   B told J, “I don’t know if Mommy can clean your new green pillow.”  To which J replied, “It’s okay, Daddy.”  And then J walked over to his bed and picked up his green pillow and proceeded to turn it over to where only the clean side was showing.

I swear that Y chromosome is going to be the death of me!

We were supposed to have a birthday party at Grandma and Grandpa’s house for B’s birthday (even Uncle Rick and Aunt Carolyn were in town!), but it was canceled due to the boys’ germs.  They still sent B’s birthday cake home to us.  It was yummy!

Thanks for the cake!

Here are B and C playing B’s new xBox game…  C loves to beat up characters.  His most common phrase while playing “shoot-em up” games is, “Dad, you need to change weapons!”

I didn’t exactly fall down, but I sat down hard and cried.

I had almost finished all the laundry in the house and rounded up a few miscellaneous kid clothes that needed washing.  I washed them and then put them in the dryer.  After the dryer cut off I went to put the clothes away and found to my dismay that there had been a purple crayon in a child’s pocket.  Purple splotches covered the inside of my new dryer, my new dryer that was less than a week old… oh, the dismay.  Clothes could be replaced, the dryer – not gonna happen for another 13+ years if all goes well.

All I could do was panic.  And cry.  Then spring into action with the help of Google and WD-40.  The WD-40 did a smidgen of good.  Not much.  After 20 minutes of hard scrubbing, there was hardly any difference.  More crying.

Then my mom called to let me know about her doctor’s appointment (she has a cold) and heard all about my woes.  She suggested bleach.  Didn’t work.  Then I thought about calling Daddy.  I talked through my purple mess with him and he suggested mineral spirits.  Not sure what that is, but he said it is as strong as gasoline without all the harsh fumes.

Also, when the delivery people were trying to get all the stickers off of the washer and dryer they mentioned a product called “Goof Off.”  My dear Dad stopped on his way home from his office and picked some up for me.  I was dreading B getting home and seeing the new dryer!

While waiting for my dad to get here, I tried a dash of gasoline.  It cut the purple residue so quickly!  However it STUNK!  I washed the old sock that I was using and it reduced part of the smell.  I left it in the sink to soak until it could be safely disposed of.

My dad brought the Goof Off and he tried it.  Wow!  I would like to be the national spokes person for this product.  I can testify that it is awesome.  Smells mildly like WD-40, but works like gasoline.  Sweet!  Every household should have this product.

My dad didn’t stop at just trying to rid the dryer of the stain, he cleaned the whole inside of the dryer!  That’s my Daddy.  I sent him home with a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies that J and I made yesterday afternoon.  He deserved more than just cookies, my dryer is clean like new.  Whew.  I really didn’t want to spend the next 13+ years with purple blotches!

My dryer after cleaning the purple spots off of it:

Thanks, Daddy!

It’s a good thing that April’s tongue didn’t get stuck to the plastic.  Maybe tongues only stick to metal?

April and J playing in the snow:

J’s “snow castle:”

April chewed a hole into the pillow, not along a seam where I could have repaired it.  She then pulled every last fiber of filling out of the pillow.  Bad girl.

Here is a close-up of April’s disasterous/fun morning:

April is now reduced back to sleeping on a towel.  Sorry Grandma!