Stop me if you've heard this one . . .

Because I can't remember if I posted this before. I just found it written on a sheet of paper while I was cleaning out a junk drawer. Ellie was on the back porch playing and she pointed toward the propane tank on the grill.
Ellie: Daddy, what's the black fing and that white fing?
Kurt: Where?
Ellie: On that fire fing that you cook supper on.

In more recent news . . . I was getting Ellie ready for church on Sunday morning (after Carla bailed on me to go for a stroll with her friends and enjoy some hall of fame festivities). I put on her dress and she looked at me and said, "Where's my pantie toes?"

Walker, after some deep thinking in the car: Who's bigger than who: The Incredible Hulk or Jesus?

Oh, also, last Sunday (the Sunday before I was abandoned by my wife and left alone to prepare 3 kids, 1 pot of coffee, 1 snack of raisin cookies, and 1 4-5K Sunday school lesson for church - and I got them all there in one piece and on time, thank you) I took Walker to the Streets' lake house at Mohawk to hang out with the youth group. He and Micah and Addie and a bunch of youth were all sort of wrestling around in Cory's room and, you know how when Walker gets excited and competitive he says things like "OH, YEAH, BABY!"? Well, that doesn't translate so well into a bedroom. He said to one of the youth girls: "Oh, Yeah! Get up on the bed with me, baby!"

A couple Biblical truths from Ellie

Walker got in trouble yesterday for pushing Anderson. I told him he was making bad choices and I wasn't happy with him.
Ellie to Walker, in her motherly tone: That means God doesn't love you!

Later, she was looking at Walker's train table which has a lake and an ocean on it. "This is the ocean and this is the Red Sea. And God's people can open it up and they can be safe. And the mean guys can't be safe. And the mean guys don't like God or Jesus."

Man Work

Walker: Dad, can we change the oil in the Jeep today?
Me: No, it doesn't need changed but you can help me rotate the tires on the Durango.
Walker: Okay!
Ellie: Can I help?
Walker: No, Ellie. This is man work. It's too dirty for you. You have to stay inside and clean the house.

By the way, contrary to the rumors that have recently been circulating, the Jeep is alive and well. It hit a rough patch when the gear box went out but Brad and I revived it and it made a full recovery. However, I do owe Brad a new workbench, vice, and 2 new 1/2" ratchet extensions that I snapped while I was torquing on the new Pitman arm nut. Oh well, the Jeep's running like it used to again and, who knows? 250,000 miles is right around the corner . . .

In other news, Walker tied his shoes all by himself for the first time today, the right way and everything. He was apparently super excited because we had told him that if he practiced enough he might be able to do in a few months. Along with lots of hugs and giggles, he said, "See, Mom? I didn't have to wait till the end of summer!"

Ellie's been really into cooking at her kitchen lately. She runs over and says, "I'm Rachel Ray," then proceeds to cook all kinds of weird food. The other day, she brought me an orange cheer leading pom pom in a mixing bowl.
Me: What did you make today, Ellie?
Ellie: Chocolate Spaghetti Brownies.

And Anderson . . . Well, he's been scooting all over the place and he finally learned how to feed himself his puffs yesterday.
1. Grab puff in fist
2. Put whole fist in mouth
3. Wait for puff to dissolve
4. Remove fist from mouth
5. Repeat until gone, then do the hungry, wheezy laugh that means 'More please'.

SPA - the latest in satellite technology

When we went to PA last weekend, we borrowed my mom's GPS. Walker and Ellie were fascinated with it. There were lots of questions, so we basically explained that it was like a map on a little computer and it would tell us how to get to Pittsburgh. About 20 minutes in the trip, Walker broke a peaceful silence with a worried tone.

Walker: Daddy, Daddy . . .
Kurt: What?
Walker: You're NOT paying attention to the SPA.
Kurt: What?
Walker: The SPA.
Kurt and Carla: The what?
Walker: THE SPA! You know, the thing that tells you where to go!

A new early readers' book

See Ellie.

See Ellie's long hair.

See Ellie bend over to take her pants off to go potty.

Hair in the toilet!

Skibbits

While we were on the way back from our trip, we stopped at Bob Evans for supper.
Carla: Ellie, do you want mashed potatoes, yes or no?
Ellie: Skibbits

Walker (over and over and over again): Are we in Pittsburgh or Pennsylvania?
Kurt and/or Carla: We're in both. We're in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.
Walker: No . . . no, I think we're in Pennsylvania.
Ugh.

Ellie's favorite part of the vacation - seeing the "aminals" at the zoo. Her favorite animal - kitty cats.
Walker's favorite part - sliding down the bowling alley slide at the children's museum. It was a slide that looked like a bowling lane. It was also incredibly fast.

I'll post pictures when I get the chance - probably February.

Well . . . kind of soon

Walker on his first tee ball team, the Bees. He loves diving for the ball and catching high pops. In my completely biased opinion, he's definitely one of the better athletes on the team.

Anderson laying around and smiling, like usual. He's starting to reach for people and things a lot more now, also eating his first solid foods - Cheerios and baby fruit puffs. He also spits non-stop. Not the gross spit up kind of spit, the gross buzzing his lips together kind of spit. Either way, the front of his shirt is usually soaked.

Walker loves it when we have storms because he thinks our power will go out every time (whereas, it actually only goes out about 80% of the time). He thinks that every time the power goes out, it means he gets to have a sleep over in a tent on the living room floor. He told me the other day that he prayed to Jesus that the power would go out but it didn't. He must be getting a little frustrated now because we heard him praying again in the back of the car when we were driving somewhere: "Dear Jesus. This is the last time I'm going to pray to you for the power to go out. So please make the Power GO OUT! OK? . . . I still love you very much. Amen."

Ellie: Daddy, we're not the samest.
Me: We're not?
Ellie: You're a boy and I'm a girl so we're not the samest. Walker and Anderson are boys so they're the samest as you.

I think I mentioned once before that Walker loves that horrible show American Gladiators. I really can’t blame him, though - it's mildly entertaining, but I liked it better the first time I saw it . . . when it was called American Gladiators. Anyway, his favorite event is the Eliminator at the end. He always gets really excited and says: “Daddy, when’s the Lemonader going to be on?”