Okinawa Spiders

Hi

Never Mind

So it turns out it doesn't matter. I was worried that I was being linked to, but it's just spam trying to get me to go to their sites. So no worries. I just have to ignore my stats, which it's totally easy to because I don't really care about my traffic. This blog is for my mom. :) Well, I started it for Luke while he was deployed, so I am way better about it when he is gone. Sorry I have been lazy. Or too busy. Or whatever it is that has made me not post anything lately. I haven't been taking many pictures and there really isn't that much to share, but there are a couple of things I will catch up on once I download stuff from my camera. Anyways, whatever, here's Mango sleeping and Apple reading. It's not even a good picture, it's just so them.

Going Private

So I have been getting a lot of traffic lately from porn sites (yay for the internet) so I am going private. Let me know if you want an invite.

Gracias.

Nostalgia

Strawberry joined the school newspaper a couple of weeks ago and is part of the comics team. She has realized that  humor is a lot more difficult than she thought it would be. I thought that I could maybe give her a little guidance so I bought her the first couple of Far Side Galleries. She and Apple both think they are hilarious. It totally brings back memories of when I would pour over our copies as a kid. And then how fun it was to read again years later when I finally got the jokes. It's so funny to read Calvin and Hobbes to them because they will laugh so hard, but won't get it at all. I love it.

A Sunday Moment

Sorry Mom. I will get some more posts up with lots of pictures soon. :)

Kid Quotes 2012

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• Apple: "I love my Uncle Peter because he is just like Harry Potter. Peter-Potter-Peter-Potter-Peter-Potter. Get it? Hahahaha!"
• Apple: "Knock, knock." Me: "Who's there?" Apple: "Chicken *neigh, neigh*!" Me: "Chicken *neigh, neigh* who?" Apple: "Oops! I meant *bock, bock*!" She wrote it down to make sure she said it right.
• Apple: "Mom, is Santa Claus real?" Me: "What do you think?" Apple: "I don't know. Oh, wait, yes I do. He's definitely real. He got me an American Girl Doll for Christmas last year and you never would have done that." I had actually told her that she would have to wait until she was 7, but Strawberry talked us into it because she knew how much Apple wanted the Girl of the Year last year.
• Apple: "Do you know the part I really don't like about school? That I have to be away from you." Awwwwww.
• Mango: "Can you do this for me?" (holding out a fork full of green beans). Me: "Do what?" Mango: "You know," (waving it in front of her face) "Heres come a airplane. Yay!"
• Apple: "I really really want to learn about how the world works, but I don't want to have to read about it." (Trying to convince me to let her watch an astronomy movie we have).
• Me: "What is that on your face?" Mango: "It just got marker on it." Me: "Did you draw on your face?" Mango: "No, I didn't do it. I think so some people do it." Me: "What people?" Mango: "I think so daddy do it." Me: "But daddy is at work." Mango: "Oh, then I think so Apple do it." She lies so much lately. It's hilarious.
• Mango: "Daddy is a cleaning boy and mommy is a dinner girl."
• Apple: "If there is a boy singing, I like it to be country music, but if there is a girl singing, I like it to be city music."
• Mango (after I told her she was too short to reach something): "I not too short! Daddy, pick me up!"
• Mango: "I got a good idea: wiggle my toes. A hunter like a forest that can walk." ????
• Apple (while watching a commercial): "Batteries coming soon? Whatever. They already invented batteries."
• Mango: "My horsie has to go to time out because her eated hers friend." Yipes.
• Mango: "Mommy, you is a beautiful driver but daddy is a crazy driver. " Beautiful is her new favorite adjective. She goes to beautiful gymnastics and eats beautiful food.
• Apple: "Why did the French person each the french fry? Because it started with french!" I love first-grader jokes. I always laugh heartily.
• Apple: "Why can't we see the stars during the day?" Mango: "How do us talk?" Strawberry: 'How do germs make us sick?" I need Bill Nye to move in for a few years.
• Strawberry (while Mango was mothering her toy panda): "Can I watch you?" Mango: "No! You can't watch TV! It bed time!"
• Mango: "We put ours food in our mouth and chew it. Yum yum yum. Then we swallow and it goes down down down all the way to ours tummies and it get full." She has been asking me how this works every time she ate for a week. It's pretty cool she was interested and kept asking until she understood. She had discovered what a full tummy feels like after she eats and wasn't sure of the connection. :)
• Mango (after using the toilet): "I only pooped one. She not have any sisters this time." She anthropomorphizes EVERYTHING.
• Mango: "Mommy, how do us close ours eyes?" This girl is always trying to think of reasons to come out of her room after bedtime.
• Mango: "I not like to use sanitizer. It make me sad."
• Mango (after saying something cute to Luke): "Daddy! Why you not say 'awwww'??"
• Apple (with Luke at the movies): "I really love you because you let me eat popcorn during the commercials. I don't love mom for that. I love her for other reasons, but not for that." It drives me crazy when people eat all their snacks during the commercials and have nothing left when the movie starts. This matters!
• Strawberry (while eating an ice cream bar): "I can handle eating off a popsicle stick until I get to the end and have to lick it. That makes me want to throw up. I hate licking wood." A genetic phobia that skipped a generation. Interesting. :)
• Mango: "It's a beautiful day! What's going to happen to me?!?"
• Mango: "Knock, knock." Me: "Who's there?" Mango: "Daddy Yuke." Me: "Daddy Luke who?" Mango: "I don't know. Jinx. Now I get a have a soda!" Can you guess what has been popular around our house lately?
• Apple (watching Legally Blonde): "I can't watch this movie. She's too happy."
• Me (talking about karate lessons for the kids): "I want a daughter who can kick butt." Apple (screams): "It's me!" and attacks Strawberry.
• Strawberry: "Mom, why do you always throw away my evil potions?" Me: "What?" Strawberry: "Whenever you leave a pan or bowl in the sink, I put things in it and make an evil potion in it that is super disgusting. Diet Coke makes really good love potions." Then she ran off laughing maniacally. We've got a witch in the house.
• Mango (very worried): "Mommy, my teeth hurt?" Me: "Why, did you bonk them?" Mango: "They going to fall down and me not like it." Apple's been losing teeth lately and poor Mango is scared it will happen to her.
• Apple (after we got a letter from her school): "It's a report that says I have to watch more TV."
• Mango (sitting on her potty): "Mommy I already did wash my hands! See?" Me: "You have to wash them after you go to the bathroom, not before." Mango: "It okay, mommy. You just kidding." (She said "it okay" like "don't be ridiculous." So sassy)
• Apple: "Leopards are the fanciest animal in the world."
• Mango: "Mommy come here right now!" Me: "Why?" Mango: "You need to come a watch me eat!"
• Mango: "I'm scared of the doctor, the dark and thunder."
• Mango: "I like mine poops. A sisters not like mine poops, but mommy and daddy really really like mine poops."
• Apple: "Why do you have a picture of the Salt Water Temple?"
• Mango: "You play a game a me? I give you ten dollars. Ten dollars? After we play a game? Please play a game?" Hmm, I may have found a way to profit from this motherhood thing.
• Mango: "Turn a yight off! Turn a yight off!" Apple: "It's the sun! We can't turn it off." Mango: "Me want to sleep! Turn a yight off right now!" Apple: "Mom, can you do something about this?" I hated going to sleep when the sun was up when I was a kid too. :)
• Apple: "Why do they make the sun so bright and the sun out of fire?" She has started refereeing to the vague "they" whenever she asks something now. It's cute.
• Mango was sitting in the kitchen whimpering. Me: "What's wrong?" Mango: "Me tummy hurts a bit more." Me: "Why?" Mango: "Me eat six ice cream!" I used to think six meant two, but I think it means any number larger than one. It was pretty sad.
• Mango: "Me going to cut yours eyes!" Me: "What? Why? That's a mean thing to say and you are a nice girl." Mango: "Me not a nice girl. I mad. Uh cuz me want daddy right now!" (He was on a trip to Chicago. I don't think she's ever said anything quite this violent before and the dirty look she was giving me was pretty serious.)
• Mango: "Mama, me good." She comes and finds me everyone once in a while just to check in and let me know. Love it.
• Luke: "I need a haircut!" Mango: "No! Yours hair beautiful!"
• Me: "You are so smart." Mango: "Yeah. I talk and I no suck a thumb so you hear me." I love that she is aware that she is in the process of learning a new language.
• Apple: "His eyes are too far apart." (She says this about half of the people she sees in movies. I have no idea where it came from or what she considers normal spacing. So funny).
• Apple: "Can I get a pet snake? They don't poop, I promise." Me: "No way, I hate snakes!" Mango: "Me like snakes! Yummy yummy inside" (rubbing her tummy). Eww.
• Strawberry: "Do you know that feeling when you are in class, raising your hand and you feel like you are about to explode because you know, but the teacher calls on someone else, even when you are holding your arm perfectly straight?" No, but I think Hermione does.
• Strawberry (a song she wrote from her dolphin pillow pet (the mom) to her turtle pillow pet (the baby)) "Good Night Song: Snuggle with me at night, sleep with me at light, but if you are gone just remember you're in my heart. Walk with me, dance with me, dive with me, swim with me. You can do anything as long as you don't leave my heart." (My heart melted when she sang it to me)
• Mango's new most-used phrases: "No fair!" "Fine!" "I tell daddy!" and "Yours fault!" This girl has attitude.
• Mango: "I not a big baby, I a down baby!" She was upset with me because I was getting rid of the onsies she hasn't worn in 6 months.
• Apple: "If I ever have a son I'm naming him Tornado because I'm scared of tornadoes and I'll be scared of my son."
• Strawberry (while skimming through the Webelos book): "Do they have to learn plucking their eyebrows?" (There was a picture of a boy looking at his eye in the mirror.)
• Apple (during a movie): "How did she know there was someone behind her? Is it because they played scary music?"
• Me: "What is your favorite subject in school?" Apple: "Dismissal."
• The other night Luke went in to check on the little girls and confiscated a package of feta cheese from Mango. In the morning I helped her make her bed and found a package of strawberries and a half-eaten apple under her blanket. At least she sneaks healthy food. But feta? No quote, just silly kid.
• I was joking with Luke about how it is only 10 more years until we can change our last name to my maiden name (halfway through our military career! Wahooo!) Apple: "Can we really change our last name? Because I really want to." Me: "Why?" Apple: "Because they make fun of my name." Me: "Who does?" Apple: "My EMenies." Me: "Who are your enemies?" Apple: "That boy I saw three times on Halloween. He runs up to me and says 'Cow! Cow! Cow!' because he wants me to chase him." Me: "Do you have any other enemies?" Apple: "Nope, just him."
• Mango: "I sneaky, Mama!" I was downstairs in the family room and she was tiptoeing down the stairs. I guess she didn't want her awesome skills to go unnoticed.
• Apple: "It's so embarrassing when they kiss on the lips." She's gotten so funny during romantic scenes in movies. She starts squirming and hiding her face. So cute.
• Me: "What's going on in here?" Mango: "Tayen did!" She's learned to blame the sisters. I wonder where she got that.
• Apple: "Some of them might be jewelry. Or some of them might be Jewish people." I don't remember exactly the context of this, but it had something to do with buried treasure.
• Me: "Am I going to be a bad Mormon mom?" Strawberry: "Yes, because you let us watch really violent movies and I like it." (Really violent in this case is Harry Potter 7)
• Mango: "Ah mine bir-day ah day!" She says this every day. She also says "Ah not Kayens bir-day. Ah not Yana bir-day. My!" I love how self-centered toddlers are. :)
• Strawberry: "I don't know what is up with boys in this generation. Whenever we go to math class, they are like, 'I want pink! I want purple' so that I don't get them." Kids these days. :)
• Apple: "If a bad guy comes in you can tell him you love him and tell him the story of Jesus." (after checking the locks for me before she left for school--sweet girl wants me to be safe)
• Mango blew a raspberry at the dinner table. Me: "Why did you do that?" Mango: "Uh cuz. I poop."
• Apple (praying): "Thank thee for having my family look good and that they are all pretty and cute. And thank thee that my mom is pretty and my sisters too."

Antietam

We finally made it to one of the historical sites that we are surrounded by. We had planned to spend the entire day in DC, but decided that since there was a hurricane on the way, we would do a little emergency preparedness and go here instead since it was closer and quicker. Antietam is the site of the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with 23,000 casualties. It was during the Civil War. Nobody really won, it just prevented the Confederates from invading Maryland. It was really a sad place to visit. War is always terrible, but civil war seems worse. It was such a beautiful place to visit though, so beautiful and peaceful. I'm not a history buff, but I love monuments and bridges. 

We found this little spot next to the creek where the girls made "leaf angels" and buried each other and found some caterpillars and just goofed around. We love our neighborhood, but there isn't all that much to explore. Places like this are perfect. On the way back, we were walking along this path with a few other people and this 11 or 12 year old boy kept glancing back at us and slowing down until he was right next to Strawberry and Luke and he leaned towards her, gave her a huge smile, and tipped his hat at her. Holy smokes, are boys going to start coming a-courting? And what 11-year-old tips his hat? Strawberry was embarrassed, but she smiled at him, thank goodness. Her way of dealing with boys right now is to run away from them. I don't have a problem with that, but a little gentleman like this deserved a smile. I kind of wanted to shove him though. She hasn't had her coming out party yet! She's not on the market. We haven't established what her dowry will be yet. Besides, with no male heir, we may need to marry her off to whoever the estate is entailed to so that I'm not forced out of my home when Luke dies.

Our Favorite Hike

We took our camera back to our favorite hike a couple of weeks ago since the leaves were changing and it is gorgeous in the woods this time of year in Maryland. We should probably be diversifying more and trying new hikes, but the kids love this one so much and it is so beautiful, it's hard to stay away. Mango is big enough now to hike the whole way by herself, and the older girls are way more confident than they used to be with climbing the rocks. It makes it so much fun.

By the time I took these next two pictures, it was getting dark and there wasn't enough light so they are a little blurry. But I wanted to show how amazing the hills look with the leaves turning orange and red. It's sooo pretty.

Happy 237th Birthday, US Navy!

Luke totally doesn't serve on ships, but this is an awesome picture anyway. Hoorah Navy!