Hello all, from Kansas City! Forgive my lack of a Thanksgiving Day post (not like you lost sleep over it, I know), but due to various travel plans, we celebrated Thanksgiving today. Which is super fine with me because Black Friday makes me nauseous. The world turns into Gotham City on Black Friday. Anyway. I digress.

This seems like something that might hit PETA's watch list.




Ok. And I'm sorry, but right near the end there, she *seems* to mention that as her children left, she "replaced them with ferrets." Am I wrong? Or did you also distinctly hear that sentence?

Children of this woman? Are you out there? I know a few good therapists. Contact me.


You weren't really creeped out by that? You weren't? Who are you? Well, if that clip didn't creep you totally, here go:





Husband of this woman? Same offer goes for you-contact me. I swear, help is available. I also know a few places where you can get food that is free from frozen ferret.

Golly. Yeah, I guess every ferret in that inhumanely stinky wall of ferrets behind that woman will eventually die. That's sad. Really sad. I wish I had some peppy music to cheer me up...






There now. Now I feel good about this. Except that near the end there, it would almost seem that this production was in some way affiliated with PBS. I'm sorry. I guess I thought PBS was a station that played my kids some toons in the morning and at night, catered to the high class people who are interested in... I don't know... the plight of corn growers in Indiana or the life and times of some obscure jazz musician or Welsh rugby players. Apparently, PBS has room for ferret lovers, too. Now I know. But does PETA?

How many times do you think 2 boys could possibly say the word "mama" in one given day? Any guesses? Wagers? Because so far, I'm sure I'm up to about 3,453. And it's only 2 pm.

There's good news and bad news.


The bad news is that I might go mad.


The good news is that people say I'm funny when I'm mad, so at least it'll make for some good entertainment, right?

Sometimes I feel bad when I go to the bloggies of mommies who have one kid. Usually a baby around Leah's age. They blog immediately about each and every milestone, as well as each and every sniffle. Poor Leah can barely get a post in edgewise. BUT, she does still live here, and in fact, has produced 2 teeth, though I haven't blogged about it, nor can I manage to take an acceptable picture of it. She can say "mama" "dada" and "nay-nay."


Her other tricks include waving, kissing and being a bobble head. Evidence below.






Oh, I forgot, she wouldn't wave for the camera. You'll just have to trust me. She does wave.

Also, she crawls and fake laughs. Evidence below.






Also, she's just really stinkin' cute. Evidence below.



I love this little girl baby. She fills a hole in my heart that I didn't even know I had.

Cody has a burgeoning awareness of big words.

Examples:


I asked him not to go in to Leah's room without asking me. His response?

(Burdened Sigh.) "But that's just a complication!"



I asked him to please sit down at the table. His reply?

"But it's so disgusting!" (For the record: there are things at my house that actually are disgusting. This was not one of them.)



I asked him what he would like for lunch. He said,

"I would like hot dogs. And you will be so impwessed!"



After struggling to pull up a particularly stubborn pair of pants, he said:

"This is ... UGH! So EMBARRASSING!!" (Though it could have been embarrassing, I believe "frustrating" is the word he was looking for.)



As he sniffed the stinky air around baby's diaper...

(Sniff, sniff) "Someone smells ridiculous!"



Then, later on, with a different stinky diaper,

"Baby, you smell hilawious!"



After receiving the word that he would not be allowed to eat his treat before his dinner,

"You are so annoying!"

(Ok, so he did get the meaning of that one right, I guess.)

(If you're in a reader, we do have theme music today-come on over.)

For those of you who don't know, that translates into "Happy Birthday, Mr. Roboto," in robospeak.

The Robo Party!!

Pre-party, here's my little B. Bots:



Does lightening strike in the same place twice?? Yes, I submit to you that it does. Another picture of all three of my children, generally looking in the right direction and all with generally pleasant looks on their faces. Hello!

Also, this is the best record of who was at the partay: Samantha, Thomas (Nate's friend from school), Riley, Jossi, Caleb, Brianna, Toria, Code Bot, and Nater.

After that, we played a little Hot Bot. What, you don't know Hot Bot? Ohhhhh, riiiiiight, non-robots call it "Hot Potato."

Then Pin the Button on the robot (photos in the last post).


Presents:



Cake and ice cream:







And then, we went inside and while we waited for parents, some kids watched the movie Robots, while others chose to add to the Robot Hall of Fame.

Robo Mommy has stayed up late many nights the past few weeks. Here's why:

The Invites:

The Decorations:

When you first walk up to Robo Land, you'll meet the Welcome Bots, Zingo, Zango and Zot.





Aaaaaaaaand one more of Zingo, Zango and Zot. Because I think they are so cool. And also because-although they look very handmade and a little 2nd grader-ish, they actually took me quite a bit of time. Not just the wrapping everything in tin foil or the painting or the hot gluing together, but also coming up with all the ideas and then finding the recycled materials to do it with!

Nathan and I spent an afternoon creating delightful robots for the Robot Hall of Fame, at the entrance to Robo Land.










Robo-Mr. Potato Heads!! Do you love?? I love. A metalic Mr. Potato Head done with magnets and hardware?? Stopit! Here's what else I love-I think this is a way better party favor than a bag of candy because A.) Moms hate that. And B.) This is a toy-they can switch it up however they like and they can cajole their mothers into making more pieces for their bots! New noses and mouths and stuff... not hard to do-and so fun! My boys are loving these!

If you wish to attempt this project at home-I used plastic colored tape to tape off the tops. Then just a little Goo Gone on the sticky parts, magnets and hardware and hot glue and you're done. (Idea from here, and she said she got it from Family Fun.) Oh, and if you complete this project without many wicked hot glue gun burns, you've done it all wrong. (Think about it-you slap a glob of scalding hot glue onto a magnet, then attempt to place a metal washer on it... the magnet jumps up to meet the washer, often squooshing hot glue onto your fingers. Many. Burns.)

And I stuffed 'em with:



Why, nuts and bolts, of course! (Again, here.) (I'd like to take a moment to thank Target for giving me free Chex Mix a few weeks ago. Thank you, Target.) I also slapped a cute little robot coloring page in there. Done and done. I was going to add robot buttons, like the game prizes, but found that I ran out of room in those little cans. Oh well!

I guess I should show you the game prizes, since I've already referenced them. Here:



Which are actually Skittles. I'd like to thank Target again for paying me to take home Skittles. Happy to oblige.


The Cake:


(Idea from here.) And now time to state the obvious. I don't know anything about decorating cakes. Nada. Zippo. Zingo. (That's robospeak for nothing.) But here's what I've learned: if it looks okay then don't touch it. If you take something that looks okay and try to fix it to make it look perfect, you will ruin it. Just take whatever candy you can pilfer out of the kids' Halloween bag and make it work.
And I'm not one to brag (or maybe I am), but this is the best frosting I've ever made in my life. Maybe it's because I only half made it. Took the can of vanilla frosting I had on hand. Realized that Nathan had actually asked for chocolate frosting. Added cocoa powder until it looked good and whipped it. Um, it was fantastic!

And finally, the uniforms for Robo Land. My little B. Bots:

Birthday Bot, Brother Bot and Baby Bot.



And a close up of this one... 'cause it's my favorite:

Have you ever seen cuter?? I know. It's cute enough that you think I might not have really made it. But I did. (With credit and thanks given to Ryan for his mad X-Acto Knife skills in cutting the silhouettes of the bots.)

So if I look a little bleepity and bloopity (that's robospeak for tired and groggy), now you know why!

Our current back yard is much smaller than our last back yard. But it holds some sort of magic that our last back yard did not. Perhaps it's that there are two lovely old trees, a porch swing and plenty of beguiling shade. Whatever it is, my boys spend oodles more time out there. (Well, the nice fall weather might have something to do with it too, I suppose.)


Yesterday, Cody asked to go out in the backyawd. Two minutes later, I noticed this:



View from the top:



View from the bottom:



Ha ha ha, poor tired little guy. Mommy doesn't let him nap anymore, so he's got to go outside to sneak one in! :)


And since we're in the back yard for today's post anyway, I thought I'd show you Nathan's favorite activity out there. Not soccer, not racing, not stick fighting, not searching for bugs-although he does do those things as well. No, it's this:



Organizing rocks. Lining up every stone and pebble he can find. Nice, neat, orderly rows. Hour upon hour. And once he's got them all lined up on one row, he carefully moves them up a row to add room for another row to take it's place. When he was younger, he hardly played with cars. No, he lined them up. He organized them. How can it be that a boy who derives so much rightness and satisfaction from things being organized is not at all interested in organizing his personal space or the space he shares with the rest of us, hm? Why can't this neat, linear obsession translate into something useful for me? Instead, I have to caution Cody not to step on the rocks or Nathan may blow a fuse. (Cody looks at me like, "Rocks? Are you kidding me, did you just ask me not to step on rocks??")

Nathan's not quite A Beautiful Mind, but he's definitely an Organized Mind.

So... it turns out that we're changing plans. We've decided to head to Boise instead of Portland. Why? Various reasons. But the at the very bottom of them all, it's because we just feel like we're being directed there right now.

We still love Portland (name me one person who doesn't??) and we don't necessarily think it would have been wrong to go there. It just feels a little more right to go to Boise.

(And since I'm going to be living there now, I'm going to give you all a free lesson about Boise. It's Boy-Cee. See, I'm helping you out. If you say, "Boy-Zee," the real Boiseans will know you're from out of town. You don't want to be embarrassed and not even know it! And while we're on the topic, it's actually MOD Podge. Not Modge. If you say Modge, real crafters will laugh at you behind your back. I'm just trying to help you. I'm the person who will tell you if you have corn in your teeth or if you walked out of the bathroom accompanied by toilet paper or if you're somehow unzipped or undone. Yep. I'm your real friend. :)

So if you wouldn't mind telling all your Boise friends and relations that there's going to be a new chiro-man in town next year, that his name is Ryan Weed and would they please patronize his establishment because you sure like him? Or, if you don't know him, you sure like his wife, and she likes him, so therefore by extrapolation, you would too. :)

I overheard Nathan say to Cody today:

"I like spending time with you."

Cody replied,

"Yeah. Me, too."

...is Ryan Sandiego?

Well, I'll give you three clues. The first is that he's not here. With me. Which means I find myself alone. But not alone. Because of the brain damage.

Clue 2: This is where he's sleeping tonight:


A sea of pink tents and estrogen.


And Clue 3: This is what he's been seeing all day, and will continue to see all weekend:








Well. These are the tame ones he's been seeing, anyway.


You got it yet? Yep, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3 Day! (That Carmen Sandiego game was always way too easy, too.) Ryan was picked to be one of 15 team chiropractors for the event. 15 chiropractors. 3,000 walkers. You do the math. The man has been an adjusting machine! He adjusted more today than he has ever adjusted in a whole week!

I'm happy he can participate. It's an amazing experience. Just doing the slightest bit of research about it has touched me. And it's particularly meaningful, as Ryan's aunt had a mastectomy just last week. Hard stuff. So I'm glad he can be there and help in some small way. (Or maybe it's some big way. I mean, those walkers are walking 60 miles in the next 3 days! The team chiropractor might just be their best friend!)

We all know that Nathan thinks I'm not very smart. References here and here. I'm okay with it. I mean, I just assume that someday he'll realize that his mom's a genius. I can wait for it.

A few days ago, he asked me where flies make their homes and I said I didn't know. He responded, "Why don't you go to college?"

You little jerk. I've been to college. I just didn't choose to study where flies live. For-giiiiiiiiiive me.

That's why when he came home the other day and asked me if I knew who Piet Mondrian was, I jumped out of my chair as I shouted, "YES! YES I DO!"

My son had new respect for me. And finally, my college education paid off!

... since Cody read anything to you. Here go:





Absolute favorite part? "pwominade." Oh. Please never learn how to say that word correctly!!