early birthday party

We celebrated Pop's birthday a day early today. Dennis got him a water gun, and we baked him his favorite angel food cake (which we topped with strawberries and whipped cream). This followed a grilled burger and brats feast, and we all happily stuffed ourselves.

Dennis played with a stick for quite a while, sitting on the top step leading down into the lake from the dock. He twirled the stick around, pretended to fish with it, splashed us with it by slapping the water, and put his toes in the lake to enjoy the cool water. He also played with the neighbor girls, running around with Pop's new water gun and hiding from each other. And David, Allison, and I took all the children on a boat ride and the kids took turns driving us around on the lake. Rusty went with us and made a new friend in Hobbs (and went on to befriend all the lake dogs); he played with the children and enjoyed the boat ride. If today was any indication, this is sure going to be a fun summer at the lake!

Dennis rode down to the lake with Allison and told her "I love my Mommy, but she sure gets me in trouble sometimes. I think she needs a spanking." When they arrived at the lake, he went off to find Gran (MY Mommy) and told her she needed to come and spank me right away. But then he handled the job himself, laughingly swatting my behind and telling me I needed to listen better. I'll do my best!

Relay 2011

This was our second time to attend the Relay for Life event. Dennis enjoyed himself and walked (mostly) 3 miles. He also played in the bouncy houses for hours. We put a luminary out in memory of David's dad, and David arrived just in time to do the memorial lap. The three of us walked it together--pretty special!

We bought 'necklaces' (loops of plastic cord) and were awarded a bead for each lap we completed. Dennis chose all red beads of course, and as we were walking the last lap, he moved the eleventh bead way up on the necklace. He said "the eleventh bead is out--the beads were playing Simon Says and he didn't do what Simon said and now he's out."

And I have to talk about his infomercial interests. He was watching a kid channel and came in to tell us about a kids cookie factory, saying "it helps kids make all kinds of animal cookies and decorate them, so I think I want one for my Transformers birthday next year." And I was in the bathroom and heard him yelling for me to come to the den. I went in there and he said excitedly "LOOK! Pajama Jeans! Don't you want some, Mommy? They have a smooth butt!!". Thank goodness I've hidden the debit card from him.

food parties

I have been perfectly useless since we got home from school. I've been exhausted and had some stomach issues, and I've been attached to the couch. Dennis was good company, but he began pacing about, searching for food shortly before David came home. David, bless him, brought pizza, and it was a supper-on-the-couch event (which drove the dogs insane with hunger and subjected us to much soulful gazing and intense snout licking). After the pizza was consumed, Dennis said "now where are those chips?" and went to scrounge around in the kitchen. He returned with a mostly empty bag of tortilla chips (which incidentally made for a delicious topping on our taco soup this week) and stood commandingly, as if he had an important announcement to make. He did, in fact. He cried "let the chip party begin!" and at our bewildered looks, said "well, the pizza party is over, so now it's time for the chip party." He passed David a chip, and when he ate it, said "no, you can't eat it yet, you have to wait!". He passed him another chip and then handed one to me. He said a prayer over our chip pieces and then we were allowed to munch them.

I'd love to tell what he did at school today, but when I asked him what he did, he said "I can't tell you. It's a secret." I do know the caterpillars arrived and were discussed in science class, and he came home with a monkey paper bag puppet, and, while I was teaching the class next door, I heard lots of children making monkey sounds. Sounded fun, whatever it was!

wild weather wednesday

I hate tornado days. Sure, they are reminders of how fortunate I am to have been missed by them time and again. I am watching the news and keep seeing devastating photos of the damage from the storms that ran rampant across our state today. They are still raging in many areas, and we don't yet know if the next one headed this way is going to miss us. We'll know in an hour or so, but it looks like things are finally slowing down.

As far as I know, my friends and family are safe tonight, and I'm very grateful. Dennis and David and I hunkered down at home, waiting for the signal to move to our "storm nest" in the hallway (thick futon mattress and pillows, created by David). Dennis was both scared and excited. He was disappointed that we never had to get in it, but I wasn't. And the newscaster just announced "and Clanton is not out of danger yet". So we might yet have to.

We've been passing the time playing with Rusty. He quite likes to play tug or fetch with Dennis. And when he gets in the mood to play, he brings a toy over and drops it in front of one of us. He and Dennis have just enjoyed the heck out of each other today! When David took Rusty out for his walk tonight, Dennis said "I need someone to play fetch with--I know! You can be the dog, Mama. I'll throw the toy and tell you when to fetch it!". Yeah, that didn't happen.

We are praying for all those families impacted by the storms.

meet Rusty

We've been toying with the idea of getting a dog for Dennis for some months now. I had decided a Springer Spaniel or breed very similar would be perfect (largely because I want one myself, I guess, and because they're so darn cute), and Dennis wanted a black and white "fire dog". So Sunday, when we were at Bob's birthday party, Becky's aunt had brought her little dog with her. I got a short glimpse of him, and Dennis went out to meet him as well. Dennis really liked Rusty, he said, and thought he was "so cute!" (and mentioned wanting a dog just like him even though he's not black and white). I casually mentioned this to Becky, said that Dennis had seemed to really like Rusty, and today we are Rusty's new family. I'm still sort of shocked how that worked out... They apparently hadn't really planned to give him up but were interested in traveling more, and when a good home presented itself, well, there you go. We're a two dog home again. We've been casually speculating about the mix of breeds that might comprise Rusty, and we think there might actually be some spaniel in him. His snout (muzzle?) and ears look very Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and his tail looks very Shih-Tzu. And though I typically don't love small breeds (because their ego is SO LARGE), this little guy is pretty personable. He's two, came with a crate, leash, and all necessary accessories, is housebroken and crate trained, and likes to fetch. He and Dennis have spent large periods of time in Dennis' room playing today. Rusty likes to fetch his toy, drop it in front of Dennis, and just as Dennis reaches to grab it, Rusty snatches it away and repeats the process. When Dennis gets the toy away from him, he tosses it and Rusty brings it back. Dennis giggled for an hour as they played variations of this game. Rusty's crate moved right into Dennis' room, and we didn't hear any "I'm scared of my room" excuses when we put him to bed tonight. In fact, I heard him talking and singing to the dog after we turned out the lights. I know it's the first night, and I hope Rusty likes to sleep late, but he seems to be working out well so far! He gets along well with the dog and cat that already live here, and hasn't irritated David at all--it's a win-win. Let's hope it stays that way! Dennis is thrilled to have, as he says, "my very own dog!". He didn't even go after the Tootsie Roll Pop Dennis is feasting on in the picture.

Go Stingrays!

I'm happy to report another victory for the undefeated Stingrays, not that score has ever officially been kept. Dennis stayed in the game for almost all of it today, a nice change. He did name his fellow soccer team members with a variety of Transformer names. I didn't know this until he came to sit out for a minute, saying he was all finished playing, and the coach came over and said "Come on, Optimus, Bumblebee and the other Transformers need you in the game!". That worked like a charm, and Dennis hopped up from his chair and ran back in. When the whistle blew to end the game, he had run back over to the sidelines, and I told him the game was over. He jumped up, pumped his arms up over his head and yelled "HEY, WE JUST WON!". He didn't score any goals today, but he did execute some nice kicks and recovered the ball from the other team at least 2 times that I saw. He did very nicely go and shake hands with his opponents after the game. One of the opponents was his good friend Colden, and there were a few minutes there that he seemed more interested in playing with Colden than playing soccer, but that ended when Dennis was running the ball with Colden hanging off the back of his jersey and trying to stop him! As always, it was highly entertaining to watch. Today's game stopped 4 times because of Shoe Delay (a coach would have to retie one of the players' shoes or a shoe would come off). I love the 3 to 5 year old soccer league!

egg-cellent day

Happy Easter! We have been celebrating the true meaning of the season for weeks now, all the days of the solemnity of Lent culminating in the celebration of the Resurrection today--how wonderful it is to worship a risen savior!

That being said, we did get a visit from the Easter Bunny this morning. I had to wake Dennis up to get ready for church, and when I mentioned that the bunny had visited, he opened one eye and sleepily mumbled "oh, I hope he brought me a rocket ship." Fortunately he wasn't too disappointed with his candy and toy and Lego books!

We had an Easter egg hunt at the lake with Dennis' good friends Laura and Mary Beth. We hid over 100 eggs. We're pretty sure they found them all! They loved that there were so many, and the hunt took a good bit longer than it did last year. And after 3 days in a row with no nap, Dennis sacked out on the couch before supper. The rest of us were watching Ratatouille, and he fell asleep sitting up. We stretched him out and he is apparently going to just sleep through. He was quasi-awake for our drive home, and made it through two bedtime stories, but now is asleep again. Big day!