Cougar Sightings, Mexican Cinderellas, and Monopoly

Saturday was a pretty cool day, but thanks to the um....fun and games?...the kids and I have been playing, now is the first time I've been able to report them.

The Boss took some things that had been cluttering up the garage and put them on KSL classifieds to see if we could get any cash out of them, and right off the bat we sold the old bouncy horse. We should have asked for ten times as much, because we got at least 10 more calls before we could take the add down. Anyway, the lady said she'd pay extra if we'd meet her half way in Provo. The Boss had the day off, so we decided we'd take the kids for a ride. When we got to the meeting place, we saw a hotel next to the store parking lot. In the lot was the BYU football team, stretching and warming up. I snapped a few paparazzi photos and would have hollered "Beat Air Force!" out the window, but the electric motor that rolls the window up on the passenger side is iffy at best so I am not allowed to roll it down. And the Boss wouldn't slow down enough for me to open the door. Oh well.


We stopped at Krispy Kreme in Orem for breakfast and then came home to finish cleaning the garage and watch the game. It was not a rough way to spend a Saturday.

Monday was Puzey's school play, "Domatila", a Mexican version of Cinderella. We shot a two minute video of her lines, but the Blog doesn't seem to want to upload it so still pics will have to do. She played the Maid and was very excellent, but this is no surprise as all my daughters are drama queens. It was high theatre at its finest.

Lastly, I have to share some of the truly spectacular lines I heard while the kids were "Playing Monopoly" yesterday. Remember in Calvin and Hobbes when they would play Calvin Ball and make up the rules as they went? Yeah, pretty much like that.

Some excellent fodder from the Tongue of Angels

Reaggers: You can't take my piece!
Peff: Yes I can, I'm the Banker. I can do what I want.
(You listening, Mr. President?)

or

Peff: This card means you get fifty thousand bucks. And you get to be the banker now.

Or

Reaggers as the Banker: You have to go to the dance but you can't go 'cause you don't have a ticket.
Peff: where are the tickets?
Reaggers: I have them. They're ten dollars. You can't have one.

or this gem (don't ask me where he got it from)
Peff about to roll the dice: Come on, dice! Peff needs a new pair of pajamas!!!!

38...39, Whatever It Takes

'Bout Seven last night, I finally hit the saturation point on the messes and got mad enough to do a thorough scrub down of the joint. I put on my grey sweat pants, grabbed a flannel shirt from the closet, and went all Mr. Mom on the place. You could almost hear the theme from Rocky playing in the background.

It dawned on me that I have even let my beard grow out, just like the movie. I thought for half a second about shaving, but decided that if Peff didn't have to toss his Fringe blanket into the fireplace, I wasn't going to cut the last bits of hair remaining on my head. Since I needed a short term poll question until I can get the results from the treat contest, I put up an option to vote on the status of my facial hair.

Don't laugh, this is a very important issue! I watched enough football and MMA this weekend for the Man Card committee to agree to return my Card in time for Rivalry Week. I need that back!! Of all the weekends to need a Man Card, BYU-Utah is about the most important. You gotta be on your macho game, 'cause win or lose, the weak get eaten alive!! And if I make the wrong beard choice, Vince Lombardi and Jerry Sloan will be back on the porch with rubber hoses.

Anyway, It's Baking Day today, so as soon as Motor gets here, we'll be making cookies!

Next Week's Treat Poll (And a Possible Prize!!)

Once that we have finished with the spectacular Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies tomorrow, it will be time to figure out something else for next week. Since I have no preference at this point, I think it might be interesting (Is that the right word?) to turn the options over to the readers. I'll give you all until Friday to submit an idea in the comment section, and we'll use suggestions for the poll options.

Then, we'll cough up a plate of the winning goodies to whoever suggested them (*New York, Georgia and Virginia residents may want to defer the prize, some things don't mail very well).

We are an adventurous batch, we'll try baking anything, but I am not coughing up cash money for caviar stuffed, saffron coated, shark fin. I'll cook it if you want, but you will have to provide your own ingredients if it wins.


So pick your favorite treat recipe and put it in the comments. But hurry, Friday at 10 pm Mtn will be the deadline.

Worst Poll Question, Ever

I thought that at least the choices were funny, but I should have known that anyone with the taste and style to read this blog would also have the intelligence to know there is a time for all seasons.

I, of course am a firm believer in waiting until after Thanksgiving to put up decorations. I also don't let the kids watch Christmas movies until then. This is learned behavior from my sainted mother, who in deference to Beak's birthday, would not allow Christmas decorations until after the 9th of December, so that Beak wouldn't feel gypped. I say it serves her right for being born in December. But habbits are habbits, and what was that saw about "teach a child the way they should go when they are young.....something, something."

But I do like the idea of making the kids wait for fun things. Patience is a forgotten virtue in the world and I think it is exhibit A for why the earth is headed to Hell in a FedEx envelope. Hurry to do this, hurry to get to that, never learn to wait for anything. Stores open on Thanksgiving Day? Sad. It says something about us if we want to skip a day of Thanksgiving in order to faster start a festival of Thanks,Gimme. (Hey, that's a good one. I might have to use it some more!)

It does me good to see that question end up unanimous, though it makes me wonder who the morons are that are blowing it for the rest of us.

After Beak left, I couldn't bring myself to finish cleaning the joint, and when the Boss got home, we went to the store (No, I did not buy Bungee cords. Shame on you for thinking it....Oh, alright, I admit it. I wanted to, but the Boss wouldn't give me the money for them. She said it was "child abuse" or something).


After three hours at the store, (we count it as a Date), we got home and I piled two weeks worth of groceries for seven people next to a full days worth of dirty dishes and said, "Forget it, I'll do it tomorrow. So I put away the frozen stuff and the fridge goods, and left the cans and stuff where it was. Except the 10 lb bag of flour, which I decided I would pour into my canister before giving up.

Naturally, the bag slipped out of my fat fingers and hit the floor, sending a poofy white cloud of disaster all over the floor. The Boss looked at me getting dusted with flour and just started to laugh. I don't blame her, it WAS kind of funny. But I had had enough so I walked out of the kitchen and left the sweeping for this morning with the dishes (Guess where this is going!).

What I didn't notice was that I had taken a ziplock of frozen peaches out of the freezer when I put the ice cream away, and forgot to put it back. Of course there was a hole in the bag, and of course it dripped onto the counter and of course it just happened to be right above my little flour pile, and so I woke up this morning to the start of a very excellent floor cobbler.

Eeep!

All my life, people who love me have told me...no, BEGGED me to stop procrastinating, and I do mean to; I really do. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

And once again it bites me on the big ol' keester.

Yesterday was such a great day for material that I failed to post about several other good stories. We went to Provo on Saturday morning for a grand adventure, Puzzey had her school play and Oh, look! Peff, Reaggers and Bub are playing Monopoly! That won't end in a mess, will it?

I gotta go mop a floor.

Round Two

Even if no one is bothering to read this crap, it's at least allowing me to practice putting a positive spin on the disaster that is my life. After a few calls to the Boss for venting purposes, I was ready to admit that while I wasn't tickled about our budding Picassos, I could at least turn it into some decent blog material.

So after Uncle C came to get Reaggers for preschool(and deliver a straighten up and fly right speech to Bub), I felt safe in sitting them down in the living room with a cheese sandwich and a cartoon. I came into post the "fun" while the details were still fresh in my mind. What I should have done is remember that this stuff usually snowballs and that bungee cording them to a chair was the only safe option.

Just as I hit POST on the "press release" entry, I hear Beak knocking at the door. Peff and Bub raced down the steps to open the door and I got up from my chair in the kitchen and went into the living room.....

.....to find that the cheese sandwiches were strewn across the floor and the 500 piece puzzle the girls were wanting to do was now spread from one end of the universe to the other.

"Oh, SON OF A......"

Mid profanity, Beak comes up the stairs laughing.

"Sounds like Round 2", she says, looking at the convergence of Hurricane Peff and Tropical Depression Bub. "I think you lost again."

"Yep" I said. "I hope the Boss gets home soon, I've gotta get to the store today."

"What for?" asked Beak

"Bungee cords."

A Press Release

AP--North Pole

Santa's Preseason Top Twenty Poll was released today and three runts from the Destroying Angel's conference sat squarely atop the Naughty List. Reaggers, Bub, and Peff each received 7 first place votes to lead Santa's early predictions of who will be getting toys and who will be getting carbon based heating fuel for the upcoming Holidays.

The voters, a group made up of Parents, Grandparents, and the Head Elf, seemed to be impressed by the Trio's early efforts at "Gettin Nuttin Fer Christmas".

The Big Three, as they are known, got the Christmas Preseason off to a raging start with a dominating performance over the down trodden and suddenly rebuilding Fatdaddy.

Early in the first half, Peff found some colored pencils and wisely waited until Fatdaddy was distracted by a crying baby to strike. The misdirection allowed the Miniature Miscreants to attempt a modernizing of cave art by coloring extensively on the living room walls. Despite a late game rally in which Fatdaddy demanded that the three scrub the graffiti off, the fight was effectively over by half time.

"The thing I can't believe was their team speed", said a disappointed Fatdaddy. "I just went to change the baby and then, Wham! It was over before I could blink."

Pressed for further comment, the visibly shaken Fatdaddy seemed to struggle for the right words to describe his emotions.

"I just got out executed today. It was like being a no-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. All I could do was lay there and get my butt kicked. I feel like a Washington General."

The winners were still scrubbing walls and unavailable for comment. Their victory places them firmly in the drivers seat for the BCS or Big Coal Sack, which will be awarded December 25th.