A Message from God...

Riding in the car...

Tater was playing with his toy cell phone. He was holding it with both hands pushing buttons with both thumbs 'a-la-teenager-texting.'

Tater as he's typing - "dear God, help daddy have a good day and thank you for my teachers and for Miss Barbie. Amen."

A few minutes later...

Tater - "Mommy! I just got a message from God on my phone!"

And we all say a collective "awwww, how sweet!"

(isn't that how cults get started!?!?)

Tater and Daddy Act II

Getting ready for show-and-tell with the letter J the next day...

Tater - I just don't have anything that starts with the letter J
Copper - You could take a donkey.... (leave it to Copper to make a g-rated jackass joke)
Tater - Daddy, donkey doesn't start with J it starts with.... duh duh D
(we can see the wheels spinning now)
Tater - Daddy - you start with a D for Daddy - your just like a donkey!
(after much laughter we get back on task)
Copper - you could take mommy - her name starts with J
Tater - I can't take mommy - she's too big and heavy...

(gee thanks)

And for the record - he took a jet plane...

That dirty boy...

I don't know what they did at school today... but I guess it was fun! Look at his dirty little hands!

This morning on the way to school we stopped a light and the car next to us was....

COPPER - in his squad car patroling the school zone...

Tater tot thought it was so cool to see his Daddy in his police car... as we pulled into the school parking lot he said "What a great Daddy!" (I couldn't make up something that sweet!)

Happy Friday everyone!

Copper's Fox

These are a Few of my Favorite Things...

As promised I have below my 10 favorite things list... compliments of Betty at Keeper of Skies Wife I was assigned the letter "F."

If you want to participate visit Betty's blog and leave her a message. She'll let you know your letter. If you let me know about it when you post I'll link to it too!

10 Favorite things beginning with the letter "F"

1. Food - any and all - in its many varied and beautiful forms... Copper makes some really great dishes - he's the cook in the family! I've listed some specific "F" foods at the end of the post. Alas - my love of food has sent me packing to Weight Watchers... Its a food adict's verson of AA (except we can't quit cold turkey... mmm turkey... )

2. Friends - both old and new, physical and virtual (Internet)... they are the salt that makes life interesting and preserves my sense of humor, sense of worth, and sense of reality.

3. Four-year-olds (more specifically - MY FOUR YEAR OLD) not necessarily any other four year olds... although some others are okay too... and at his next birthday we can change this to five-year-olds.

Tater-tot at a family wedding and on crazy hair day at school.

4. Family - Most specifically my husband, Copper, and son Tater-tot - but of course - Eternal (she's my sister) and her crew, Dad and R, Mom and B, extended family and the heritage and legacy that they have given me.

Dad, my step-mom, R (holding Mater) Monkey and my step-dad, B (yes the steps and exes all get along remarkably well and often intermix with each other and in-laws for family events...






Me, Copper and Tater-tot when he was just a wee thing. Note Copper's very hippie hair cut - its a thing of the past now!








My mom and Eternal aren't pictured not because I don't love them - just couldn't find a pic in the time allotted...

5. Force (as in our local police force) - May God protect our men and women in blue. If they'd wanted to be well liked and revered by all as heros they'd have become firefighters but instead they stand between us and the evils of the world and say "I'm not going to let anything hurt you. Not on my watch!"

My husband, Copper.

6. Faith - in God, in others, in the goodness of mankind, in myself that maybe I'm getting it right more often that I think.

7. Films (yes, more traditionally called MOVIES - but I'm working with the letter "F" here) They open a world of insights, points of view, humor, adventure and imagination to us.

8. Freedom

9. Fudge, Fun-dip, (technically these are candy - not food so its not a repeat to mention them.)

10. Flavored sunflower seeds (Nacho Cheese) and Flavored Peanuts (Cajun) - Okay so these are a food and thus a repeat... but they still deserve their own category... Sadly - since I called technicality on flavored seeds/nuts and candy you can now tell how much I truly do LOVE food! So pathetic!

A few bonus F's - Fritos, Funyuns, fondue, France, furniture, firewood.

Tater-ism...

In the car... as usual (he says the greatest stuff there!)

Tater-tot: Mommy, when we get home can I have a tomato?
Me: Why do you want a tomato?
Tater-tot: I'm going to squish it flat like we did in church today?
Me: Ummm... you squished a tomato flat in church? (what kookie tradition is that?)
Tater-tot: Uh-huh...

Me: Oh - you want to squish Play-doh?
Tater: Yea, Play doh!

How I knew that Tomato was Play-doh - I really don't know... it truly was an epiphany from on High...

I'm declaring Mondayto be "Photo Phunday!"

Let me just say... BRRRR... Night two of the hayride was every bit as cold at night one. But we had fun anyway. Here's a pic of me and Tater-tot braving the cold for the sake of Christmas Spirit.

And here... is Tater-tot's very first Santa picture ever! I know, what mother let's her kid get to be 4-years-old before letting him get his picture taken with Santa!?!?! I promise it wasn't intentional... just one of those things...

Tater-tot now believes that Santa is his best friend as they spent the better part of two nights "hanging out" together while mommy worked at the hayride... (Kudos to Santa for staying in character for the sake of my little boy!)

A Very Cold Hayride!

This is the county courthouse for the town where we work and go to school... It's beautiful isn't it. At Christmas they put lights all over it and run strings of lights from the top to all the businesses that surround it on the square... you can see it for miles!

Last night, on a VERY COLD hayride through town looking at lights Tater-tot saw this building and said:

"Momma! Who lives in that house!?!? It's huge!"

Everyone on the hayride laughed with us as I tried to explain that it was a courthouse and that no-one lived there.

(I tried to find a picture of it at night with the lights but wasn't able to. Should have taken my camera with me last night!)


Also, while waiting at the historic depot building for our turn on the hayride I told Tater-tot that daddy was working and that he was at the hospital.




Tater-tot: Oh no, is he hurt?
Me: No, he's watching a bad guy who's hurt.
Tater-tot: Did Daddy shoot him?

Weekend Update - BEFORE the craziness starts

Okay people - I really still need crafty ideas since my schedule doesn't currently allow for hours browsing my local craft stores! Tater-tot wants to make Christmas presents and we'll get started on them this week so give me ideas... I wish I could offer a prize for the best suggestions but I'm all out of stuff I could use to tempt you!

About the weekend... I think tonight will be our only breather... After Tater-tot goes to bed I've got to dye my hair and cover up all of this gray! But other than that - tonight is clear.

Tomorrow - I have to actually set an alarm - on a Saturday (there should be a law against it!) so we can be at the starting point of our community's Christmas Parade by 8:00 a.m. The parade starts at 11:00 so we will stand around freezing our tuckuses (what's the plural of tuckas?) for 3 hours before things even get underway (okay so its forecast to be in the 40s but I'm a Texan so that IS freezing to me).

Thanks to a brilliant committee of goofballs the parade theme is "team spirit" - What the H - does that have to do with Christmas??? So our float is a football field with "stockings hung by the goal posts with care..." and our kids are dressing like football players and cheerleaders... The grown ups are wearing referee shirts, whistles, and Santa hats.... Nothing says Christmas like "Blue-22, Blue-22, Hut!"

A few hours later - after we've warmed up... I'll start getting ready for the company Christmas party. Copper's working so I'm going solo... but its always a fun event. I actually like most of my co-workers and we always have a good time. They give good prizes too! Once year I won $100 cash and another year I won a digital camera.

Sunday might be a bit more restful even though the Church's Christmas dinner is that night and I'd like to go that won't last too long...

somewhere in there I'll need to do laundry though or by Sunday Tater-tot and I might both be showing up to Church naked!!!!

Fox

A kid named "Le-a"... How do you pronounce that?

Okay - I was at a thing last night and a co-worker told this story - second hand from his daughter who works in a nearby public school.

On the first day of school a new child named Le-a started in their school and they were trying to figure out how to pronounce her name... 'lee-ah' 'lee-ay' etc...

So they call the child's mom who told them (this is his quote of her quote of what the mom said)

"It's 'lee-dash-a.' The dash don't be silent."

*************************************
I'm still looking for good craft-ideas for Tater-tot to make for Christmas gifts... submit your ideas to me - AND if you have crazy name stories - give me those too... we all need a good laugh!

Still looking for Crafty Ideas

I'm still searching for Crafty Ideas for a 4 year old to do for Christmas presents. He wants to make something for 2 grandpas and 3 grandmas... and hopefully something that they'll actually keep... and maybe even use...

He told me over the weekend that he had a dream ("a cloud in my room while I was sleeping") and in the dream I kicked him out of the house and it hurt his body...

*frown*

I'm actually a really nice mommy.... I promise I am.... maybe I put him to bed without candy or something?!?!?

Tater-isms on turkey day...

watching a marching band in the parade:

Tater-tot: Here mommy, here are you some bee-oculars and me some bee-oculars...
(hands me a Viewmaster and has toy binoculars for himself)
Tater-tot: You just look through your bee-oculars...
(looks through his binoculars)

"WOW!!! There's GIRLS!"

Tater-ism

Tater-tot: Momma, I smell something that smells poopie

Me: Did you 'squeeze a noise'? (Tater-tot's own special phrase for passing gas)

Tater-tot: No... I think Mater poo-pooed in the potty at Grammy's house and forgot to flush...

We are 150 miles away from Grammy's and he can smell Mater's poo?!?!
That's disgusting, Mater! (Eternal! What are you feeding that kid?!?!?)

giving in to the pressure... its a "strange" thing...

Okay here is a "STRANGE" story...

Driving in my car - tater-tot in the back... I'm in my own little world until:

Tot: That's strange.... (a few minutes later) that's strange... (and again) that's strange...
(I glance over my shoulder - he's looking out the window at very 'normal' countryside...)
Me: Do you know what that word means?
Tot: No... what does it mean?
Me: Well, strange means... weird.
Tot: Strange is bad?
Me: No, its not bad... its just different.
Tot: I won't say it any more...
Me: No, baby, you can say strange, its not a bad word... I just want you to understand what it means...
Tot: oh...
Me: Strange means different... not the same as something else... uhmm... if you had 5 brown puppies and one white puppy the white puppy would be strange, because he's different from the brown puppies.
Tot: I want a puppy.
Me: No, the puppy is just so I can explain... strange is just anything that's different from other things... its not bad, its just different.
Tot: Can I put a white puppy named Strange in my back yard?
Me: No, we already have a puppy in our yard.
Tot: where is the white puppy?
Me: There is no white puppy...
Tot: (sounding like he might cry) but I love him...
Me (under my breath) I give up...

And I still don't think he really understands what strange means...

I hope the story lived up to your anticipation of it...