Stuffed Animal Charades

I think I've mentioned before that a Curtis family tradition is to play Charades after Family Home Evening. After all, there's a spot for "game" on our FHE chart, so that means we HAVE to do it, right? Last night was no different. Fisher always starts it off and ends up just acting crazy until someone guesses something that sounds interesting to him (like "a bull stabbing the matador with his horns!" or "a dog break dancing!") then he points to whoever said it and it's their turn. Anyway, last night I was the lucky guesser, but before I could get up for my turn he says that his new stuffed dog "Bluey" guessed it before I did. So it's Bluey's turn. Fisher sets him down in front of the group, gets on his knees to whisper in the dog's ear to tell him what he should act out, and returns to the couch for us all to guess what the inanimate Bluey is acting out.

Some of our guesses:
A stuffed animal
A dog
A bunny (it's a dog with bunny ears on it)
A cat
etc. and so on.

After a bunch of incorrect guesses, Fisher decides it's time to step in. "You guys give up?" Yes Fisher, we give up.

HE'S A STATUE!!

Seriously. How clever is that?

Spring Break Report

Well, back to the grind this week! After a fun-filled week of doing pretty much nothing (I can handle not having a schedule for a week!), we are back into the swing...

We had a wonderful Easter yesterday. A perfect relaxing cap to a nothing-filled week. Remember my lack of acumen in taking pictures of magical creatures' acts last week? It struck again. Kind of. I got the video camera out to capture the kids' excitement at finding their baskets, but no stills. So maybe if I'm feeling really motivated I'll download those videos and post them for you. Then again, perhaps I'll spare you all and just post these cute pics of my beautiful brood in their Easter church-going garb. Thanks to my sister-in-law Jennifer for suggesting just taking separate pics of each kid. That seemed to be most successful (except for Case, he just did NOT want the camera in his face). I'll post the one attempt at a group shot too, for your amusement.









And now for the group shot... Note Case's strange posture. I did my best to crop Jarad out. He was holding Case in place for the picture. And Emma was doing her best to get Tess to look at the camera. See why we did individual shots?



Some more random pics from Spring Break...

At our neighborhood Easter Egg hunt Fisher was hard at work. But eggs were not his prey...



These little bb's are all over our neighborhood parks. Apparently they are treasures to our little boys, because there was a feeding frenzy in one particular area that was covered in them. We have special mason jars and empty water bottles lying around the house dedicated to the collection of these prized globes.



One afternoon my little Picassos (including our little neighbor friend Lehua) decided it was time to bust out the paints. I obliged, providing paper, fingerpaints and a large drop cloth. They were out on the front porch for a good long time so I just let them be! I went out to check on them and found this... They were so proud of the art gallery they had created on my front door! Thankfully they had let the paintings (pretty much) dry before taping them to the door. I thought it was so cute. We proudly left the paintings up for a few days for all the neighbors to see!

Happy St. Pat's

St. Patrick's Day always falls during Spring Break for us, so it never gets fully celebrated at school. Which is totally fine with me because, really, we don't believe in saints, we don't drink and in all honesty, who looks good in Kelly Green? But, to keep the kids' belief in magical beings alive, we go along. The naughty Leprechauns busted into our fridge last night and turned our milk green. Emma and Fisher were up in arms since they were "camping" on the family room floor (it's spring break, so they get to camp out at night) and they somehow missed the mischevious little creature. Tess would have nothing to do with her green milk. I had to open another gallon just to pour her white milk.

Of course I took no pictures. Hopefully I'll do better after the visit of the next magical creature (Sunday morning! Easter came up fast this year!!).

So Happy St. Patrick's Day, even though I don't really care about it.

What's Up Buck?

The older two kids were invited over to our neighbors' yesterday to play on their water slide/bounce house (yes, it's in the low 80s here now and bee-yoo-tee-ful). It was a half-day at school, so we had a long afternoon ahead of us and I was grateful for the entertainment for the kids!

About 30 minutes after they go over there, my phone rings. It's my neighbor Jen, whose house the kids are at. She is laughing (good sign) and said she just had to call to tell me how funny Fisher is (see? it's not just me who thinks he's funny!).

The kids had been playing in the water and wanted to come inside for a while. Jen told them they had to wait until they dried off before they could come inside. About a minute later she turns around and there's Fisher standing inside. Buck NAKED. She says "Fisher! Where are your shorts!?" He replies (grinning ear to ear, she says), "Well they were wet, so I had to leave them outside!" Of course he did. That's the way our little boys' minds work, right?

Bad mom? No. Mom of twins... there's a difference.

When I go to the gym I take the kids with me and they "get" to play in the KidsClub. So yesterday I finish my workout and go to pick up the kids. Mind you, I've been taking them there for a couple of months now, at least four times a week, so we aren't really strangers.

As I'm waiting for the ladies to round up my brood, Tess rides on a little push toy over to the door where I'm standing, yelling "mommy!!" One of the caregivers is standing there next to the door talking to me and doesn't see Case come running up behind Tess, pull her to the ground and get on the push toy. She looks down only as Tess is going postal on Case, screaming, hitting and pulling his hair. I reach over the wall and (very calmly, mind you, and not missing a beat in the conversation) pull her off him and I'm totally laughing. The lady says something like "wow she's scrappy!" and I say "whatever, he totally deserved it."

The look on this woman's face was absolute horror. She said "he deserved to have his hair pulled?" I say "they fight like this all the time. He pushed her off the airplane." She says "that means he DESERVES it???!!!" I kind of get a little sheepish at this point and say "well, I was kidding." And I proceed to pick Case up over the wall and begin to leave.

"Oh, he's yours too?" lady asks. It's beginning to register. "What, are they twins or something?" yes. "Oh." She laughs. "Then I guess it's OK for you to say that."

She thought I was the absolute worst person in the world! I waited until I got to the car before I DIED laughing.

Tax Season

I hate taxes. (Other than the fact that my dad is an accountant and, well, taxes are what provided our means of living when I was growing up, so I shouldn't say this, but I do. Sorry Dad.) I'm just not THAT organized. Since I quit being employed by someone else, I have come to dread this time of year. I have stacks of receipts lying about in different places/envelopes/folders and I've been trying to make sense of them and it's hurting my brain. Our accountant must think I'm the biggest space cadet. Oh well. It's almost over.

Another note from Emma

This time it was to me and Jarad.

I was cleaning up for dinner and found this beaut sitting on the table. I'm guessing it was prompted by the fact that Emma got herself grounded for not coming straight home from school. You see, Emma feels like it's her responsibility to make sure everyone ELSE gets home safely before she heads home. I think she might get this trait from my mother, who would make sure everyone else was out of the Relief Society Room on Sundays before she felt comfortable leaving. Whether or not she was RS president :). Emma has two friends who are supposed to wait for their older siblings, and three out of the last five school days, she has decided to wait with them rather than coming straight home. But this means she comes home a good 10 to 15 minutes later than she would normally, and that sends me into a tiny panic. I have loaded everyone up in the car and gone to find her more than once. And she's gotten in trouble each time. She told me yesterday "it's hard for a first grader to remember all these rules!"

So anyway, here's the note we got after Jarad had his talk with her too...



It says:
Dear Mommy and Daddy,
When are you gonna be nicer?
Love you,
EEC (her initials)

Slow News Day(s)

I haven't had much fun going on in my life lately. At least nothing anyone else would think is fun! I had to take a reading break (OK I was grounded from reading for a week) and actually spent time (gasp!) cleaning the house, helping kids with homework, working. You know, things responsible adults with a sense of priorities (ie NOT reading) would do.

So a couple of tidbits:

1. I talked to my mom yesterday who was shocked -- SHOCKED -- to read my answers on the Tag survey and find that I did NOT list the following songs to which I know all the lyrics. I'm sure if my sisters read the survey, they probably had the same reaction:
1. The Lonely Goatherd (OK anything from the Sound of Music soundtrack)
2. Copacabana
3. Delta Dawn

I decided what I need to do is create a list of songs I know the lyrics to. I think even I would be impressed. Stay tuned (pun intended), I'll post it someday.

2. Fisher is just a loud kid. No other way to put it. He'll get on a kick of saying something, and he'll just walk around saying whatever it is -- very loudly and over and over again. For a few days. Regardless of where he is or who else is around... Until he finds something else that sticks in his craw. A while ago it was "laugh it up fuzzball" from Star Wars. Then it was a word he made up as a sound effect for his crashing cars: Ka-BOOSH (Case picked up on this one too. Lots of fun for my ears). After that it was actually singing the theme from Star Wars (although he would get the main theme and Darth Vader's anthem mixed up and get upset with himself that he always gravitated toward the Dark Lord's song). The last couple of days it's been "This is my beloved Son. Hear Him." Talk about a difference in theme! I guess it's appropriate to be on a Christ kick, with Easter coming up and all. We'll see how long this one lasts...

3. Finally, courtesy of my sister in law Wyndi, another photo of the Curtis Family Multiples. Joe and Wyndi invited us over for some of her famous cinnamon rolls last week (Jarad has very few weaknesses - cinnamon rolls, Wyndi's in particular, are one of them). Wyndi snapped this cute picture of our two sets of twins chowing down. No doubt there was a sticky mess when they finished, but they sure were cute (and quiet!) while they were sitting together eating!

I just have to say...

In the last couple of weeks I've been consumed with reading two books: A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I am normally one to read a book and be done with it. It's a rare book that draws me in so completely that I am still thinking about it after I've started the next. But I cannot stop thinking about these books. Both of them were so well written and are really beautiful pieces of literature, but it's the stories that are haunting me. Because they're real.

Both books are disturbing, The Kite Runner a little more so. So let that be my disclaimer. And neither are particularly happy stories in the American sense. But if you want to read a really good ... REALLY GOOD ... book, pick up one of these.

Something new...

What? You're tired of reading my pithy answers to the Tag survey? I can't imagine why. So here's some new eye candy for you... Pictures of my kids.

Last Saturday was the grand finale game for the Fireballs. Fisher as player, Jarad as coach. They did awesome, and Fisher got his first hang-on-the-wall trophy (no, it's not a plaque, it's a trophy).




Fisher was invited over to his best buddy Preston's house last week to make a tie-dye shirt. Preston brought it over before school yesterday so the two musketeers could wear their matching shirts to school.



Many of my friends like to post their craftiness on their blogs. Food, scrapping stuff, etc. etc. Well, I've never been one to brag, but here's a meal I made a couple of weeks ago that was an utter disaster. So bad that EVEN I wouldn't eat it. It was supposed to be Porcupine Balls in a tomato sauce with rice. Please, no comments on that one. We ended up with cold cereal that night. I've been trying out recipes I'm finding on others' blogs, and this one... well, I'll just say it didn't make the list of meals I'll be making again.


Last night for our FHE treat we got extra fancy. Graham crackers with chocolate frosting and sprinkles. It was messy, but they had fun. I think my teeny tiny Tess has the biggest mouth of them all.