For all of you parents out there who think that Leapfrog toys are the greatest, you'd just better hope yours never break. I've spent the past hour+ working on the bank Katie got for Christmas last year. All of the coins had been jammed up inside and wouldn't drop. To make a short story long (you know me!), I tried 14 different screwdrivers before I found one skinny enough to fit into the holes, but still fat enough at the end to grab the screws. And there were, of course, 16 screws to be removed... just to get inside the thing. Once I finally cracked it open (40 minutes after I began, mind you) I staggered backward, gasping, and grabbing my heart. You would not believe what the inside of a Leapfrog toy looks like. No wonder they're so expensive. There were at least 80 more screws (even tinier than the outside ones) and wires and computer looking stuff strewn everywhere! But, HEY, I'd come this far, right? Besides, the thing was already broken. It was already on it's way to the dumpster, so why not give it a shot??? I did and *ba-da-bing-ba-da-boom* we have a fixed bank!!! The money drops the way it's supposed to and the thing still talks and sings and counts your money properly. And only one mini screw left over!!! I'm not a mechanically minded person, so this is quite a feat for me and I must say that I'm a bit proud of me. This week Leapfrog, next week Microsoft. You just wait. HA.
That's about the most adventuresome thing to take place around here today, which is GREAT. The kids and I spent most of the day doing BIG cleaning in the play room. Again. Seems like we just did that not too long ago. Oh well, it's looking great again... until morning anyway.
Yesterday was a good day. Good church again, although we did have a long-winded preacher and then a long-winded conference moderator. (I won't say any names, but you two know who you are. Ha!) We were under a tornado watch most of the afternoon until midnight last night. So what were we to do? Load up and meet Sam and Tammy at Tortas y Mas, of course! Tortas y Mas, the only restaurant in town that doesn't have any indoor seating, just two plastic picnic tables sitting under a plywood covered porch. I'm not sure what the plan was if a tornado did come. Huddle under the picnic table??? Never saw the monster storm, although we got some terrific rain. The kids played in it for a while and had a blast!
Katie came running out of the bathroom this morning saying, "MOM!!! You'll never believe this! There is the biggest spider in the bathroom right now, I mean it's just HUGE!!! You've got to come!" Katie takes everything to the extreme, so I just sort of brushed it off. "Well, kill it then," I said. The boys ran to help, naturally. They got one of James' shoes to do the job, but the spider was behind the back of the toilet where the big shoe wouldn't fit. I hollered for them to get a smaller shoe. They did, but then they were hollering about that shoe being too little, blah, blah, blah. While all of this is going on James is telling me that I really ought to be careful about telling them to kill the spiders themselves--there are some pretty dangerous ones around and Sam might just go and pick it up, etc. I finally went to see how the battle was going and when I walked into the bathroom I immediately lost my breath and found myself atop the ledge of the bathtub. IT WAS THE BIGGEST SPIDER I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!!! Aside from a tarantula, that is. I actually thought it might be a tarantula, but James (who answered the call: "JAMES!!!!!! GET IN HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!") said it wasn't. Whatever it was, it was a gigantic, hairy, scary looking thing and quite speedy, too. It makes me proud to think that my kids were actually in the bathroom trying to kill the thing. Wow. My heroes. I understand, too, why they were jabbering about the second shoe being "too small" for this spider. ~yeeeeeeeggghhhh~ Gives me the willies just thinking about it again. Creepy-crawlies don't usually bother me that bad, but this was one ugly spider--and big enough to carry away a small child or poodle.
We've had a lot of bug news lately, actually. Katie (believe it or not!) was playing with a beetle in the back yard -- a live one, no less. Joe has been fascinated with the little snails and worms everywhere since the big rain last night. And Sam was excited because he found a bug of some kind in the bathtub with Joe and himself the other day. "Katie!!! A bug is taking a bath with us!"
Hershey has been good to provide us some laughs as well. Earlier today he went to jump up into his favorite chair, but just before he leapt he noticed that something was different. He went bazerk and started barking like crazy at the chair. It was the blanket. There was a different blanket than the one he's used to seeing there and it totally freaked him out. I remember when he was a puppy out in the back yard one day barking at a brick as if it was a rattlesnake or something. I don't mean just a few barks, either--I mean going absolutely nuts for several minutes. I thought it was a little strange, but figured he'd grow out of it. I guess not.
Well, I guess that's it for now. When you resort to talking about the dog, you know you've run out of things to say. :-) Hope you all have a great night... wherever you are!!! What's going on out there in Blogland, anyway?! Where is everybody??? Where did everybody go??? This blogging thing isn't nearly as fun as it used to be back when everybody did it a little more regularly! I mean, if I had somebody else's life to read about maybe I wouldn't ramble on about my own so much! Think about it... ;-)
~Bec~
P.S. -- I never made it down to Aunt Sue's store today to take snowman pictures. Sorry!!! I'll try again tomorrow. ;-)
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