Literally! Kids say the darndest things...

One of my favorite things to document is the funny things my kids do and say, but I have totally sucked at that lately. SO, I wanted to tell you about some of the recent ones-Wes will have to read this later and remind his old forgetful wife about the other ones I forgot!

Kindle is 2 now and speaks better that most of the kids in Armour's preschool class. She is articulate and always surprises people when she opens her mouth, and it is rare that she says something I do not understand. A month or so ago, she came in to the kitchen where Wes and I were cooking dinner and said "I want so buffalope." We asked her to repeat it so we could understand, so she clearly asked again for some "buffalope." I told her I did not know what buffalope was, she got upset, opened the fridge, pointed to the cantaloupe and said "buffalope!" Oh how we laughed! Buffalope! Classic! All the funnier by the fact that Ender used to mix up cantaloupe and antelope.

Solace and Ender are at this stage where they are really broadening their vocabularies, and they both LOVE words. Once they learn a word, they want to use it, and use it often! But never has a new word stuck more in the Johnson household than "literally". Solace and Ender use it in every way they can think of-even some that really don't work. In fact, anywhere most people use the word "really", those 2 kids use the word "literally". For example, Solace might say "Ender, are you literally sick?" Or Ender might say "I literally love playing Wii." You know how people will ask "Really? REALLY?" when they are not sure they believe what you said? Well, here at our house, they say "Literally? LITERALLY?"

Oh and Armour...wow he is somethin'! I don't have a specific Armour word, but it is just how he uses his words. He has some nerve and he is spunky. One night Wes and I locked ourselves in our room as it is the only room in the house we can lock the kids out of. We had put them to bed and were dome with them for the night! Armour came and started pounding on the door for like 5 minutes. Wes got up opened the door and put him to bed with firm instructions to stay there. A few minutes later he was back and we returned him to bed. This happened a few times, then it finally stopped. It stopped and we had about 30 minutes of silent bliss in which time we thought he had fallen asleep. Then another knock came. I thought "who is awake this time?!" So, I yelled out "Who is it?". A very low manly response came saying "You know who it is." It was all we could do not to crack up and send to wrong message...it was hilarious!!

Oh Johnsons...buffalope, literally and you know who it is! Literally , you do!!

Picture Day:Long, but funny read-you will laugh!

Oh friends and family! I usually consider myself pretty on top of things. I rarely miss things I am supposed to do and tend to over organize our schedule on multiple calendars where all can check and see what is going on. So, imagine my surprise when on September 14 Solace came home from school just upset and devastated and said "Mom, you forgot picture day." I though she was teasing so I asked Ender and he said "Oh yeah-you missed it, you missed it good!"

WHAT?! How did that happen?! I wrote it on the calendar...on September 21. Oops. My bad.

Well, I should mention that this had been a particularly poor morning. We had very few clean clothes as our washer was in the process of breaking down at the time and I was sick of fighting with it. So, picture that the kids are basically down to their worst clothes. And, we woke up late that morning (I hate mornings anyway and when I am pregnant, it is all I can do to get out of bed in the mornings...). So, the kids were in charge of quickly washing their own teeth and brushing their own hair. Solace actually ran out the door that morning brushing her hair as the bus honked for her out front.

Needless to say, it was not a great looks day for my poor children. So, when they got to school and discovered it was picture day, Solace was really frustrated. I may not have mentioned on here that this year for the first time, Solace's teacher is a man. We love him-he is great! But, I did learn that there is at least one downfall to a male teacher. When Solace was upset about having to go take pictures, she told him that she was upset that her hair was not brushed enough or fixed as she would like it. To which her teacher replied "that's ok, just go in the bathroom and wet it down."

Trusting her teacher, Solace did just that right before going to wait in line for pictures. According to Solace, her hair was wet and a bit drippy but starting to dry when they took her picture.

To make it worse, Ender had been told a recess that day "Do not play on the slides today-they are wet and muddy and we have pictures right after recess." He forgot. He got all muddy, so they sent him to the nurse to get something not muddy to wear. Sadly, all they had for him was clothing 2 sizes too big. So, he took his picture with muddy skin and clothing 2 sizes too big. Awesome.

Wes told everyone at work that our children will look like a wet puppy and a homeless man in their pictures.

Now, as I forgot about picture day and did not order, I have not seen these (and likely will not unless they end up in the yearbook...), However, I expect they are not good.

Fast forward to today...picture retake day. I had great intentions of baths and curlers (for Solace) last night and perfection this morning. Nope, late night out practicing a song for the upcoming program for church and we did not get home for all that.

So, this morning we woke up early enough to clean, curl, and make cute. We had picked out outfits the day before, but Ender would not let me see his until this morning ("It will be a great surprise mom") So, he came in my room this morning and yelled "Surprise!" He was wearing a nice Sunday button up shirt with tie and ripped up old jeans with his favorite shoes-ripped up old camo shoes. I asked him if he wanted to maybe wear pants and shoes that matched his top better and he laughed. Laughed and laughed. When he got his laughing under control he said "Oh mom, these pictures are only from the shoulder up-I will be lucky if the tie makes the picture!"

Solace had the same idea and wore her lovely dress she chose, we curled her hair a bit, and she looked lovely from the shoulder up-under her dress she wore these crazy capris that sort of match and she wore tall socks and Ender's other pair of camo tennis shoes (she couldn't find hers and they wear the same size). She told me, "Well, I need to look great for the picture part of me, but the rest of me needs to be ready for Gymsic today." (Gymsic is a combo of Gym and Music that the 2 teachers do together each Wednesday.)

Well, I cannot wait to see how the pictures turn out, but I swear to you, if they come home today and say, "Mom, I forgot to tell my teacher I needed retakes, here is your check back," I think I will scream...