Tonight during his personal interview Andrew informed me that he wants to learn more ninja things in preschool.  I asked him if he has ever seen a ninja.  Oh yes – yesterday at the parade.  He said that they wear headbands, white clothes, and that they break green wood with their hands and don’t even get hurt.  (That happened to be the local karate school showing off their skills on a float.)

Seeing as I am his preschool teacher, I am quite flattered by his vote of confidence.

Anchor by Mindy Gledhill

“This album is perfect for dancing with your hunny in a softly lit treehouse (*Anchor* & *All The Pennies*) or solo in a wildflower-floored meadow (*Whole Wide World* & *This Is My Song*).  It’s also ideal diaper-changing, bathtime, baby photoshoot background music (*I Do Adore* & *Hourglass*).  All of which I have done today.  Except the dancing.  Which I plan to remedy this evening.”

{disclosure:  I do not write reviews on ITunes very often.  This would be my first.  I do *adore* this musical happiness.  Part of the wonderful fun was that Mindy had it streaming on her blog for a week.  I feel in love.  ”Whole Wide World” and “All The Pennies” are my very favorites.  Jim Bob heard me listening and loving it so much that he surprised me with the download the day it came out.  Love.}

p.s.  Click on the cover art above to hear a sample.

Drewby climbed out of bed to inform me he could not wait until morning.  It was obviously urgent – he even convinced Jacob to come with him.  Then the story came out.  ”My tongue is grumbling.”

Somehow his tongue will wait until morning to be fed.

I overheard Andrew asking his brothers tonight, “Hey, do I have a water mustache?”

Jacob found me weeding in the garden.  He sat down, ate his otter pop …

and asked me that age-old question – “Mom, what’s for lunch?”  My classic response followed – “what sounds good?”  {You know, looking for ideas.  ;)}   Jacob came back with his usual, “what do we have?”  {aw, no love.}  So I said, “I can make mac-n-cheese”.  ”Anything else” was the reply.  ”Um, we have chicken strips in the freezer.”

“You just said magical words Mom!”  Now we’re talking.

He continued to finish his frozen goodness and we talked.  He said he likes to talk with me “without the craziness of the other kids”.  There are times.  :)

One of the funniest things he said that cracked me up was, “I don’t like the smell of grapes.”  ”yeah?”  I said trying to decide if grapes are really that smelly.  ”Well, grapes are okay.  I don’t like the smell of grape juice.”  okay, now grape juice does have an aroma.  Not a bad one to me, but okay.  Jacob then proceeded to explain, “It’s just part of my personality.  It’s in my DNA.”

Heh – I think that’s my favorite excuse yet – at least from a nine-year-old.

p.s.  I think those way happy smiles are from the fact that I asked him to go back out to the garden for a photoshoot after I cleaned my dirty hands up.  That’s right, a whole ‘nother pop to enjoy.  The original was blue.  :)

Andrew was supposed to be taking a nap.  His mind was obviously just racing though.  I came into the bedroom and he asked “Do bats have batteries?  … because they fly.”  Hmmm, not sure if he was thinking about Daddy’s remote control bird man that has batteries or something else that flies with the aid of batteries.  Battery-aid, ha that’s funny.  Anyway after a nice discussion about bats eating food and getting energy to fly (thus not needing batteries) he asked another important question… “Mom, do jet packs have batteries?”

In Primary today the chorister had “mystery mom” visitors for Mother’s Day.  The mystery moms took turns hiding behind a big cloud sheet while wonderful and amazing things were said about us.  Written, . . .  um, . . . by us.  ;)  The chorister asked us ahead of time to write down a lesson we learned from our mothers, reasons we love being a mom, things we often say as mothers and some fun details about us.  Then the children got to guess who was behind the sheet.  Then we were given two beautiful roses and got to sit at the front of the room as the children sang to us some songs they were working on.  Beauty!

My list was as follows:

Lesson from my mother:  Greet each day with a smile.  You are as happy as you choose to be.  It’s a lesson she learned from her grandma (Grandma Alder).  Another lesson from Grandma Alder is to always have ice cream and cones on hand.  ;)  I’m so thankful both lessons have been passed down.

Some favorite foods:  apples, strawberries, salsa, popcorn, chocolate chip cookies

Favorite music:  big band jazz

Reasons I love being a mom:  Snuggling babies, rock-a-byes and lullabies, reading lots of books with lots of little ones on my lap, running around and acting silly at playgrounds, secrets at bedtime – “I love you more than . . . ”

Things I say as a mom:  Have you washed your hands?  ;)  & I love you!  :)

It was in Jr. Primary so Joshua, Autumn and Andrew were all in there.  I think they had an idea, but when it got to the secret part they knew for sure!   I’m okay with that being the defining part of my mothering.  :)  They all ran up and hugged me.  And then again after the first song,  . . . and then again right before I left.  What a fun Mother’s Day activity.

And this one is for Katey Belle because she found it so hilarious.  I can’t wait for her to look through my blog and start giggling again.  :)

A whole handful of bright yellow dandelions was sweetly handed to me this afternoon.  Followed by an oh-so-innocent question from Andrew:  ”Is it your favorite flower Mom?”

I said “Yes” and in that moment, it truly was.

For Family Home Evening tonight we planted some seeds in little peat pots.  Each of the little ones picked something to plant.  Corn, basil, radishes, green beans, pumpkins – each had something they wanted to start.  We’re still not sure how some will do if they’re not planted directly in the ground.  I guess we’ll see.

We did enjoy two beautiful American traditions – gardening and Girl Scout cookies.

Daddy was the brave one with the pitcher of water and dirt.

After Andrew planted his corn he said, “Now what?  Love?  and Sunshine?”

Pretty much bud.

Drewby was talking in his sleep just now.  Just a-sleeping on the couch.  He said, “Is there anything on me that starts with the letter T?”  I said, “Nope.  No wait, you have toes … and they start with the letter T.”  He must be somewhat coherent because he said “Oh good” and fell back asleep.

Is it a sign that perhaps at least his subconscious is watching too much TV?