Just a few stories...

We are never lacking in stories around here! Here are a few from the past months:

The week after new years, Dustin worked a LOT. He was at work between 4:00 and 5:00 each morning, he worked long hours out of town, and he didn't get home until late at night. In addition to that, Harper decided that she didn't want to go to bed until midnight each night that week. So for someone (me) who really has to have a little time at night to regroup and get ready for the next day, this was rough. Things just seemed to spiral out of control. I was just trying to make it to the weekend because Dustin was taking me (and Harper) out of town for my birthday while the boys went to stay with his parents. So Thursday night, Dustin gets off work, comes home late to absolutely nothing to eat, three wild kids, and a crazy wife. He did what any sensible man would do and said, "how about we go out to eat tonight." Great idea. We all get ready to head out the door and we can't find the keys. We've been working with only one set of keys for a while because we had lost the other pair already. I had seen the boys with the keys earlier in the day, but was rocking Harper at the time, so I told them to put them back on the counter. I watched them do that and we all went about our business. Well, at some point, they came back for the keys and where they put them nobody knows. For the next hour, we searched high and low for those keys, all the while asking Eli and Landon what happened to them. They took us on a wild goose chase, with ever changing stories. But one story really stuck out. It was the one that Landon kept coming back to and it was the one with the most detail. According to Landon, he dropped the keys in the toilet and they splashed like his poop and then he flushed the toilet. 

Great. Our only set of keys down the toilet. 

We ordered a pizza, put the boys to bed, and continued to look all night. 

We never found the keys.

So instead of a birthday weekend out with two of my favorite people, I get to spend my day at home while Dustin has the car towed to the nearest dealership (90 miles away) to have new keys made. The estimated cost of that being upwards of $1000. Awesome. 

As a last ditch effort, Dustin starts focusing on the other set of keys; the ones that have been missing for months. He goes to the church building to see if any keys were turned in and happens to ask just the right person who took the keys to CVS to see if she could identify whose they were. Not only did CVS not tell her who the keys belonged to, they didn't give them back to her and promised they would call immediately. That had been two months ago and we never got a call, but sure enough...Dustin went up to CVS and our other set was sitting there months later. Providence? I think so. I have to assume that God was protecting Eli and Landon from my wrath. 

So what seemed like a pretty hopeless situation turned out alright. We went ahead with our plans, but made a little time to get an extra key made for the car. It's in a very high and secret place where two boys cannot get to it. 

 

 The boys play outside a lot. They love it out there. And I love them being out there. But I never know what I'm going to find when I check on them. Just the other day, I walked out to find them with their pants down peeing up the slide and letting it run down on them. Seriously? How do they think of the grossest activities ever to engage in?

I thought I would never get through to them that hanging out on top of a flimsy canopy was not a smart idea.

Dustin just recently closed in this terribly tacky building in our back yard to turn it into a shop for himself. It is so nice and Eli and Landon think it's the coolest place ever now. He has a couple of old drills that he kept for the boys and he keeps them charged so that the boys can work with him out there. He has a whole wall of screws that they can screw and unscrew and they feel SO important working with Daddy. I thought it was a great idea until they started using their drills on everything else. Eli came in from outside the other day holding boards to their swing set. I went out to find 4 or 5 boards taken off the fort part of the swing set. I also found them taking screws out of the door frame. I have since confiscated the power drills and they can only use them under Dustin's supervision. They are just a little too good at dismantling.

We don't have quite as many funny Harper stories yet, but I can assure you that we will. Sometimes I think she has more personality than Eli and Landon combined. No matter what is going on, she always wants to be in the middle of whatever it is Eli and Landon are doing. She wants to destroy the train track they just built or knock over their block or Lego towers. It's like she gets SO much joy from making them mad. I'm sure this is just the beginning of a long and beautiful "little sister" relationship. I'm pretty sure they'll get back at her one day when they don't let a single boy near her.

Well, those are just a few things I know I'd forget if I didn't write them down. Next up is a Christmas recap.