Toothbrushes and Africa

This morning, Becket was a bit disappointed that he didn't have a silly singing toothbrush like the girls. The girls wiggle and brush to the tunes of Bare Necessities and Hakunamatata, his unfortunately is to the tune of We Will Rock You by Queen. These toothbrushes were given to them by a friend. Becket was pouting several times this morning and just when he would start to come to grips with it, he would rev up again and start crying. I tried telling him that he was lucky to have a singing toothbrush in the first place and maybe when this one wore down, we could find him a different one. I even showed the stomp and clap move. Still pouting.

In went my search on Google: Starving Children in Africa

Becket watched the video wide-eyed.

Since then he has not said another word about his toothbrush. In fact, conversation has gone quite the opposite direction from this morning:

Becket: "So kids don't have toothbrushes in Africa?"
Mic: "Nope."
Becket: "They don't have enough food to eat?"
Mic: "Nope."
Becket: "They don't have toys."
Mic: "Nope."
Becket: "They don't have cars or Rhinos like Grandpa Bob?"
Gretchen: "Or vans?"
Becket: "Or SUV's"
Mic: "Nope, nope, nope, and nope."

Conversation has continued like this all day. He even asked to watch the video again. Life changer.

Micki Ponders Housework

I'm curious, is house work done all in one particular day for most, a little day by day or is it just over rated and shouldn't be done until you see the dirt?

Maybe I'm the only one who thinks of this as I'm vacuuming?

I usually do it all in one day, early on in the week so I can enjoy it. I think I also start off anal and goal oriented the first part of the week and then I relax by the weekend because I'm so tired from being anal and goal oriented from the beginning of the week. I usually have to do housework again to get my thoughts in order. It's an on-going, wicked conundrum.

Exotic car update

So, some dudes came by our secret garage to work on the, you guessed it, Delorean and I got a better look at the other two visible cars, and one other under a cover. The yellow car, it turns out, is a Ferrari (330 model), which no one guessed. We had a few MGs, an Alfa Romeo, a Maserati and a Sunbeam, but the Ferrari logos are plain to see here.



The white car is actually a DeTomaso Pantera. The Larsens were the only ones to get it. You can see in this picture the characteristic side window lines and a nice red model below.





Mystery solved. Now we just need to get these guys to let us take one out for a spin.

FHE Harris Style

Family is sitting down at the table for dinner.
Mic: "What should we do for family home evening?"
Gretchen: "Be quiet?"
Becket: "We could talk about Joesph Smith, he was a good church man."
Mic: "Let's eat our vegetables and then you can have a cookie and then we'll have family home evening."
Gretchen in her dramatic tone: "I caaan't. MICAH GET AWAY BLAH BLAH BLAH AWK AWK (yes, that would be literal)!"
Mic: "Apologize to your sister, we don''t talk to each other like that."
Gretchen refused.
Mat: "Upstairs Gretchen and get on your jammies, you're going to bed."
Becket: "I ate my mushy carrots, now I can have a cookie?"
20minutes later upstairs in the girls room.
Family Home Evening Lesson topic: Healthy Foods for our Bodies
Kiss good night and the kids are in bed.
20 minutes later downstairs
Gretchen in her dramatic tone with her hand patting her chest/throat: "Mom, I'm so very hungry."
Mic: "You can eat your green beans?"
Gretchen heads back upstairs.

Shhh! Secret Agents

Mat and I like watching an occasional movie after the chitlins have gone to bed. To make our movies more enjoyable, Mat found the Indiana Jones movie with rifftrax--that means--the beloved show on Comedy Central called Mystery Science Theater, is dubbed into the Jones movie making it extremely funny and almost unbearable with it's commentary. Lots-o-tears so bring Kleenex.




After the show, we could hear a little stirring outside our window, so we carefully peeked out our window blinds. To our surprise, we found that the average looking two car garages that we thought were used for extra storage had been loaded with outrageously expensive cars.




Any guesses as to the names of these beauts? Hint: One is featured in Back to the Future.
I may have to award a prize for the first person to guess the one to the right or left.

Old Fashioned Summer Fun

We had a stake (church) picnic and wave pool party. Do you remember wave pools? I thought they were nonexistent. This one happened to be freezing, but the kids seemed to be numb to anything painful.

The kids made old fashioned bubbles out of various things. The popular one was a chicken rack used for smoking whole chickens over a fire. Who knew?



Kids did a lot of monkeying around--you think they would have been asleep by the time we got home, but they weren't.


Gretchen had a timeout for something--sad that I can't remember, but Micah decided to join her and I thought it was a cute sister picture.

Flour Power

I was just wondering if anyone knew which string to pull when opening a new flour bag? I pull every string and nothing works.

Cow Appreciation Day

Chick-Fil-A, the beloved vendor of all things greasy, had their annual cow appreciation day. It involved coaxing people into dressing up like cows in exchange for free food. The kids had a great time, Gretchen especially. She mooed very loudly most of the time we were at the restaurant, several times approaching other peoples tables just to stare them down and moo at them. We hauled out of there with probably $20 in free food and the kids had a good time.



For more video click here

The 4th West Virginie Style

We went down to the Annual 4th Parade in West Virginia and this is what we absorbed:


That's right--it's mountaineer escapading a stuffed skunk on remote control car

And the fireworks were tolerated

Happy Birthday Micah Moo, Bumbi, Bum, Mikey, Baby, Sweet Pea etc..

Happy Birthday to our dearest 3rd child. Oh! How we love thee.

A tad too free in your newly found big girl bed.



A tad too messy when eating.


A tad too crazy



A tad too curious



A tad too cute.



A tad too likable and that's why you're under our skin for life!

We Pulled Out Our Tent Stakes!

Moving cannot be sugar-coated, it's just stinky and there is no way around it. "Once a turd, always a turd" is the long running saying in our house. I haven't met anyone who has exclaimed "Yes! I LUV to move." All stinkiness aside, we did have a smoothe move due to strong manly men and their wives for letting them help us. Thanks a million. It made it easy on all of us, especially my shortness with the kids.

Kids entertaining themselves with boxes--that only lasted so long until I had to switch it up.





Becket was so bored that he decided to make himself an imaginary friend. His name was Owert and he kept smashing and stinging our toes when he was knocked down. He also made huge clunking, crashing sounds every time he hit the wood floor.


My other idea was to let them draw in shaving cream. It's a nice calm activity that should always be supervised! As you can see, I was a little distracted and I paid every bit for it. They did have fun and smelled like shower rain for a few hours after the clean up.





I finally just stuck them on top of the filing cabinet, figuring they couldn't unpack, destroy or make a mess of anything from that great height. I quite liked this idea and would recommend it to anyone moving.


We hit the road early Wednesday morning. Thank you Cutlers for letting us crash at your pad. The trip was leg numbing, but we made it in 8 1/2 hours. We also found manly men waiting here in WV to help us unload the truck, which again limited my shortness with the kids.



Mat and I (and our anal selves) stayed up until 2AM unpacking and finished the following day by 5PM. I'm glad to be married to a guy who likes to get stuff done in a fanatical sort of way.