Snow Day!

Carla and the rest of Northeast Ohio (including me - yay) don't have school today so she gets to stay home with the kids. She had them upstairs getting dressed while she was cleaning this morning and Walker was sitting in the middle of the floor while she was trying to sweep.
Carla: Walker, you better move before I sweep you up.
Walker, laughing at her: You can't sweep me. I have too many bones.

Later, Walker asked when Grandma Lewis was coming over to play basketball. "I got my A-game and she has her W-game and that means she's gonna lose." When Carla asked him who taught him that, he said, "my dad." Now, I did teach him A-game the other night, but I never mentioned W-game. I told him and Ellie that I brought my A-game and I was going to beat them in basketball but Walker said "You're not going to win. We're going to pick you out of the game." That means one of the kids sets a pick and the other shoots. They set picks by tackling me and laying on me till the other one makes the basket. Sometimes Ellie takes half a dozen shots then comes over and makes Walker get off of me so I can pick her up to make the basket. When I'm on offense they just both run at me and tackle me. They usually win.

The other day Ellie and Kay were marching around the kitchen table because . . . uh, I don't know why. Anyway, Kay passed Ellie once and Ellie got pretty upset. "No, Grandma, get beround me!"

Duke, Duke, his name is Duke

Last week we returned one Veggie Tales DVD to the library and picked up another. Actually, that's not true. We paid about $18 to the library to replace a Veggie tales DVD that Walker shattered when he tried to take it out of the case and picked up another. We replaced a DVD about a sumo wrestler and picked one up that the kids call Otis and Duke, which is sort of like the story about naomi and ruth, except set in the medieval times, involving the great pie wars, and played by vegetables, of course. I waited in the car with the kids while Carla did the library thing.
Kurt: Ellie, what was the DVD about?
Ellie: A Sumo Wesener
Kurt: A Wesener?
Ellie: No, a Wesener.
Kurt: Oh, a wrestler?
Ellie: Yeah, that's what calls it!

Carla returns to the car with Otis and Duke.

Kurt: How about we go visit Grandma Kandel's and watch otis and duke over there?
Walker: Is Grandma Kandel's short from the library?
Carla: Yeah, it's only a couple minutes.
Walker: That's good, because I just love Otis and Duke and when it's too long I just worry about it. What's "worry"?

We pull into Mom's house.

Walker, out of the blue: Does Grandma Kandel like fruit salad when she has a major back surgery?

Baseball on his mind

I picked up Walker yesterday from preschool and took the kids to my mom's for lunch. She had a lot going on but she was able to carve out a few minutes from her schedule for us. Anyway, I called her to see what she wanted from "old macdonalds" so we could pick it up. Walker asked me what she wanted.
Kurt: A double cheeseburger.
Walker: Two cheeseburgers!?
Kurt: Well, a double cheeseburger is 2 cheeseburgers stacked on top of each other.
Walker: Oh. What's a home run cheeseburger?

Also, Walker knocked his juice box over the other day, brought it out to the kitchen, and said, "I spilled my juice box in the living room. Fortunately, it was already empty." What's a 3-year old doing saying "fortunately"?

I thought about explaining this one but I think I'll let you guess. The first one to get it right gets a prize: Last night we had fish for dinner. Walker took a bite and said, "My fish is swimming around in my belly and Jesus is going to catch it, huh?"

And finally, Walker knows how to say "I love you" in 4 languages, English, German, Spanish, and French (well, actually for French he says "Friendship door", which Ellie translated to "French door"). I think the problem there is that my mom taught him how to say it in French, which she doesn't speak. Before bed every night now, he says, "I love you, Ich liebe Dich, Friendship door." Then Ellie yells out "French Door!"

Well, me and Swoppy Joe got married . . .

We were singing songs with Ellie last night and we decided to mix things up a little so we went with some SNL classics. We tried the King Tut song first, which went well. She nailed "funky tut" but we have yet to work on the walk like an Egyptian moves. Next up was Lunch Lady Land. Ellie's version:
Hoadies and gwindews
Hoadies and guindews
Naaaby beans Naaaby beans Naaaby beans Naaaby beans
Hoadies and gwindews
Hoadies and guindews
Naaaby beans Naaaby beans, Meatwofe Samwits
Swoppy Joe, Swoppy Swoppy Joe . . .

When she was done with Lunchlady land, I guess she wanted to sing the first one again because she said, "Let's sing the Tater Tot song." I figured one more time couldn't hurt and I got her to say, "You'w my favwit Honkey." I definitely have to try to get that on video . . .

Did I mention Ellie's a kitty cat?

I know I did. A couple times. But she won't let us forget. The other day, Carla, Walker, and Ellie were eating M&Ms for dessert. Walker ate a lot of them.
Carla: Walker, you're an M&M piggy.
Ellie: I'm an M&M kitty cat!

They had quesadillas for lunch and after Ellie took a bite, she let out a little cry, held up her quesadilla, and said, "I eat this." Carla said, "that's ok, you can eat it," but Ellie kept whimpering. Carla asked her what was wrong and she put down the quesadilla, held up her hand, and said, "I eat my finger!"

Carla and Walker called me one morning this week when the roads were bad right after I had gotten to work. Carla asked how the roads were and I said they were pretty bad but not awful. Walker said, "Probably really curvy and circley, huh?"

I asked Ellie what they had for dinner last night when I got home. "Pork Chocks."

Hand me the Fisher Price 9/16"

Saturday morning I told Carla I was going to change the oil in the Jeep. Walker asked what that meant so I told him I had to work on the car. He asked if he could help and as soon as I hesitated to give Carla that it-might-be-kind-of-dangerous-and-very-inefficient-and-sure-leftovers-would-be-fine-for-lunch look, he said, "I'll go get my tools." He went into the play room and started rummaging through his tool box and I realized that I had to let him help, inefficient or not, so we went out and started working while Carla and Ellie made cookies. I got a stool out for Walker so he could see under the hood. I showed him the engine and a couple other things and, luckily, he didn't ask me what any parts were that I didn't know. After that, I put him on my new creeper (that I was really looking forward to using but couldn't because I had the kid) and slid him under the car. He used his fisher-price wrench to "loosen" the drain plug for me then hammered on miscellaneous parts of the frame.
Kurt: Walker, do you think the drain plug's a 5/8 or a 9/16?
Walker, without hesitating for an instant: 5/8
Kurt, after trying because I really didn't know: Nope, it must be a 9/16
Walker: Oh, what's "9/16"?
I finally got the plug out and the oil draining - he thought that part was pretty cool. When we were done, I slid out from under the car, grabbed Walker's feet and pulled him out, too. Then he got back up on the stool and hammered some more while I refilled the oil. I thanked him for being a good helper and he said, "I'm the workiest, huh?" Of course, he can't really say R's yet, so it sounded like he was asking me if he was the most wookie. Then we went outside to play a little since it was cold and rainy. We got the bat and balls out and played a little baseball till we got rained out. Then we went on the back porch and played some more while Ellie came out to ride her bike and play on the "spinner" (sit-n-spin). Did I mention there was a giant puddle on the floor of the back porch and that Ellie only lasts about 4 seconds on a sit-n-spin before she goes flying off the back? So, I figured, since she's already got wet pants, we might as well let her be the one to take the first trip down the wet slide so we went back outside to play a little more. Walker had his "fast pants" on so he absolutely flew down the slide and off the edge. It was pretty fun since it was my first weekend home with the kids in a while. By the time we were done and cleaned up, they were really ready for those cookies.

Yesterday, Ellie decided not to take a nap again, so she came downstairs and watched the Sound of Music with Carla. I was working in the basement, being pretty loud. That apparently disturbed Ellie during the songs because she told Carla, "I can't hear the black lady, mama." She, of course, meant the nun in her habit.

Airline Travel and Life Expectancy

Ellie, when she wakes up early in the morning: Daddy, is it blue?
She's asking if it's light outside yet but she goes by sky color.

Sunday night we went to the Super Bowl party at church for a while with Walker and Ellie then went to Bob and Kay's to pick up Anderson. Here's as close as I can get to remembering what happened on the way to Bob and Kay's:
Walker: Are we going to the Super Bowl?
Carla: No, we're going to Grandma and Papa's to watch the super bowl on the big TV.
Walker: But I want to go to the real super bowl.
Kurt: You mean like go and sit in the stands and watch like we do the leopards' games?
Walker: Yeah.
Carla: We can't, buddy, it's really far away. We'd have to fly there in an airplane.
Walker: We can fly in an airplane.
Carla: No, it would take too long and it would be too late by the time we got there.
Ellie: I'll flash it up.
Kurt and Carla: Huh?
Ellie: I will flash it up with my Dora flashlight. Then we can fly and turn the wheel on the airplane and go to the super bowl. (see, she had been looking up at the sky and knew it was too dark to fly without her dora flashlight).
Carla: Ellie, you don't have a Dora flashlight.
Ellie: Maybe I'll get one from Santa Claus.

Today, Ellie told Carla she was going to take us to the super bowl in a pink airplane with a pink wheel so we can drive it. Typical woman - takes her 3 days to make up her mind. She probably thought it was a good time to fly because it was blue.

In other news . . .
Carla: Walker, can you help me and get the clothes out of the dryer?
Walker discovers that there's only a shirt in the dryer: Mom, there's only one clo!

Walker, after learning about broken bones from Curious George and how the heart pumps blood from preschool: If you exercise too much you won't have any bones.

We read bible stories to the kids most nights before bed. Last night Ellie really wanted to read "the frogs", which means the 10 plagues on Egypt. At the end of the story, Moses tells Pharoah that the first born sons would die.
Walker: What is "die"?
Kurt: It's, uh . . . well, it's when you go to live in Heaven instead of living down here.
Walker: But when do we come back?
Kurt: Well, you don't. Once you live in Heaven, you stay there.
Walker: But I like this house.
Kurt: Don't worry, Walker, you don't die till you're old.
Walker: How old?
Kurt: Oh, probably 80.
Walker: No, probably four hundred thousand ninety-six.