Highlight

Today was a stay-at-home day. That means it's Saturday at our house. The kids usually love S-A-H days and the movie night and popcorn that precedes them. Anyway, today I wanted to be doing some deep cleaning, pulling out the winter coats and that kind of thing. Instead, I just hung out with my kids. The boys got haircuts, they all played in the bath and then made a game of getting lotioned up. We did normal life stuff but didn't have a time to do something by. Instead of making lunch, we snacked on gardettos and waited for Ryan to get home from work to eat a real lunch.

After lunch, I kept my word to Bethany and took her shopping. Judah, who prefers his daddy EVERY time, wanted to go with me. The only way I could get Bethany to be okay with Judah breaking in on our mother-daughter date was to tell her she could get a "special" cart. She was sold. They did well in the big W store except that they asked for EVERYTHING. Umm, no. We walked down a couple of toy isles, through the Christmas decor isles and even checked out the patterns in the fabric department before getting the things we actually needed. It was a fun time and considering I'm always on a time frame, and I never once looked at my watch. I just enjoyed my slightly frustrating time with my I-want-that-children. We left and stopped at the golden arches for an apple pie before heading home.

Back at the ranch, I mean acreage, my rockstar husband and his mini-me had purchased a live Christmas tree, had all the decorations out, lights on the tree and were ready to decorate. He's awesome like that. So we decorated the tree, snapped a few pics like the ones below and laughed at how the kids reacted to those poky needles as they tried to hang ornaments. Ryan headed to the vet clinic and his two littles bundled up to go with him while Scott and I had some hang out time together.

Scott asked me to play with him. I don't actually play with him often. We read books, we chat. But I don't do 6 year old play time with him. So, I obliged my son. And I didn't want to just oblige him, I wanted to enjoy it. And enjoyable it was. His request was to play with his Veggie Tales nativity set that just came out of the storage box. Trying to help him set it up, he kept correcting me. It donned on me that he was setting up the story and baby Jesus wasn't there yet. It warmed my heart to hear him explain. So he set up the story line and then began telling it to me and role playing with the Veggie characters. He paused in the story and couldn't tell it with perfection. Now let me say that I don't expect perfection. He's just that good with stories and so I asked if he wanted to read it in the bible. Yes, he answered, but clarified that he wanted to read it in the "Action Bible". So, we paused from the role playing, read a story in the action bible, which got him distracted and he had to share about a naughty girl, and eventually made it back to the role playing with the Veggies. Scott continued with the story line when he got to the last king visiting Jesus, I took over. That particular veggie was vertically challenged and couldn't see over the manger so I made my role fun. Is it okay that I took the short king and totally added some to the story? Here's how it went, something along the lines of :
"I can't see the baby..."
as the king stands in front of the manger. He moves behind the cow and says
"wow, you have a big rear end..."
Trying to get a view of the baby, he then jumps on the hay stack and says
"oh there He is, the King of the Jews, our Savior, I shall bow down to Him"
as he falls on his face and scoots off.
Scott thinks it's hilarious and can't wait to role play the way momma just did. The first time he tried to mimic me he couldn't even talk he was laughing so hard. Of course, I thought it was funny that he thought it was so funny and ran over to post it on facebook. As I typed, I could hear him finally spit the words out "you have a big rear end". And later when Ryan got home, it was the first thing he showed my boy with an amazing memory showed his daddy. Oh dear, what have I taught my son?!?!?!

Fortunately before Daddy got home, I left my son to role play and started supper. Bethany's request: Pancakes. While Ryan and I were cooking, the kids were each playing with their themed nativity set. It was fun to hear them in the other room. Scott was, no doubt, the older sibling in charge as we heard him say "Time to play little red school house. 5-4-3-2-1. Judah, you're supposed to zip your lips, lock them and throw your key in the trash... Judah!" There is a reason Judah got the nickname he did. Two "mickey-mouse", one "minnie", and a bunch of normal blueberry pancakes later, we sat down to eat. Mmm, I love bacon! And I love the quietness of the room when everyone has food in their mouths.

Without question, the highlight of my day was Scott mimic'ing me role playing with the king. As I was chatting with my mom on the phone about it, the thought crossed my mind that with his memory, this could go beyond the nativity sets. Look out First Baptist Church. If my son gets a certain role, he just might go hide behind one of the older girls and call out "wow, you have a big rear end". that would certainly be more memorable than him picking his nose or checking out the baby Jesus. Not that he's done both of those or anything.

(side note: The action bible is really cool. It's basically the bible stories in comic book form. It references the actual verses from the bible and has amazing illustration is awesome! Scott will sit and read it for over an hour. If you haven't heard of or seen the Action bible, check it out at the actionbible.com)