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Saturday, April 30, 2011

Living with Pranksters

Joshua and Luke love to play pranks on each other, but rarely am I involved. So, I in no way saw this coming.

Last Saturday I returned home from grocery shopping, coming in the back door from the garage with my arms full of bags. I found my two loving and innocent boys sitting on the couch watching a movie. Luke sprung up and ran over and said, “Mommy, the chair outside has fallen over, can you go out and pick it up?”

I will admit, I was a bit annoyed. I mean, my arms were full, and his Daddy was sitting on the couch, but I really did not think he was up to no good. I replied, “In a minute, we need to get all the groceries in the house.”

As they always do, Joshua and Luke started bringing in all the bags and I stayed in the kitchen putting things away. In hindsight, I should have wondered about the glimmer in Luke’s eye. I should have noticed that he kept looking at Josh and laughing. I should have known something was up. But, you see, they NEVER play jokes on me. Never. Why would I think they were up to something?

As I continued putting away the groceries, Luke kept insisting I go out and pick up this chair that had blown over. At one point, I said, “Can you not just go and pick it up yourself?” He then said, “No, because there is a surprise for you!”

Okay, now I was the one with a gleam in my eye. My sweet husband and son had put together a surprise for me while I was gone!

Now that I understood there was a reason for me to go out back, I dropped all I was doing and Luke and I went outside. Luke stood by the wall just watching me. I picked up the chair, but nothing was there.

“Um, maybe it is under that instead,” he said, pointing at the top of a plastic tub that was laying on the patio. Again, looking back, I should have known something was up, but I just had no clue.

I picked up the top of the plastic tub and saw this.





I screamed.

I screamed very, very loudly and I stumbled back away from it.

I know in this picture, it is very clear this is not a real snake, but when you see it at a first glance and you are taken off guard, it looks real! And please note, last summer, we had a real copperhead snake on our front porch!

Luke laughed uncontrollably.

Joshua emerged from the house with a huge grin on his face.

“Did it really scare you?” Josh asked with a little too much happiness in his voice.

“Um, YES! The scream was real.” I said.

Once I started breathing normal again, I asked, “Luke, why did you do that??”

He QUICKLY pointed at his Daddy, “IT WAS DADDY’S IDEA!!!”

They will not win and they should both sleep with one eye open. I too come from a family who likes to play jokes.


































Friday, April 29, 2011

Flashback Video, Part Two

In case you have not seen it before, here is the original flashback video

You will laugh. Promise.



And just so you know, I am the kind of Mom that will show this video to Luke’s girlfriend one day. And the kind of Mom that will try to have it played during the reception of his wedding.



Today, we have flashback video, part 2. It too is cute and is good enough to totally humiliate him later on during his teen years.



When Luke was born one of the sweetest and nicest people I have ever known kept him when I went back to work. She watched him for almost two years and if not for her, I would have never made it through those two years. I have often times referred to her as our Mary Poppins.



One of the things she did for me was to keep a daily log of the things Luke did. I loved getting these at the end of the day and reading about what Luke did.



While going through some things a couple of weekends ago, Josh came across this video that she made. Joshua, Luke, and I all laughed as we watched six month old Luke eating. The little girl you will hear in the background is her daughter, who was about two at the time.





Oh, and in case Mary Poppins would like audio of her daughter to humiliate her with one day, I am fully willing to let you borrow this. And, um, well, I am sorry that I laughed like crazy hearing your daughter cry. But it is just plain funny.



Happy watching!

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

My Catcher

Back in high school I was watching TV one afternoon and saw a commercial for baseball and on the commercial there was a very cute baseball player. I tuned it to watch the Texas Rangers play later that week and determined that the cute player on the commercial was catcher Pudge Rodriguez. That is when my love for baseball started. For real. I started watching and learned all about the game.

Never have I loved a catcher like him since.

Until now.


How cute is this catcher!

This catcher did not have the amazing outs at second base like Pudge does, but give it time, I think he might. However, this catcher did NOT let any balls by him. He stopped them all and came so very, very close to tagging two players out.

This was his first time to ever play catcher and I think he did a great job. I might, however, be a little bias. Or maybe not -- later that night, Luke told me the umpire told him he was doing a great job catching.

Anyway, now that I have a catcher of my own, I am totally over Pudge leaving the Rangers.













Friday, April 22, 2011

Happy Earth Day -- Recycling


I must confess that I am not much of a recycler. Well, that is not true. The more honest answer is that I do not recycle. Anything. And in fact, I just do not care about it. Sad, I know and not the greatest start to a blog entitled Happy Earth Day.



The funny thing is that I have child who is slightly obsessed with recycling. He has been asking for a while why we do not recycle and has pretty much latched onto the idea that we need to do it to make the Earth a better place. Nothing like a six year old to convict you of something.



A few weeks back he was at it again about this recycling thing and I could not get him off my back about it. Finally I relented and said, “Fine, if you want to recycle, you find the plastic tubs to do it and it is your thing. You take care of it. Just tell us when you have the tub full and we will take you to the recycling center.”



The boy found himself a couple of tubs in about two seconds, had them labeled in about five, and in about a minute, had created a chart to keep track of the number of items he was recycling. He is a boy on a mission. And I was impressed. All I could think of was “tree hugger”. Hum…..I need to find him a shirt with that on it.



So, the Stewarts, well, the youngest one, is now a recycling nut. He announced earlier this week that the tub containing plastic to be recycled was full.

Really? How could this be? He has not been doing it for more than a week or so. Seems that we use A LOT of things that are in plastic containers.



Luke and his Daddy will be making a trip to the recycling center tomorrow and Luke cannot wait.



My Luke could not be happier about Earth Day and his impending trip to the recycling center where he will proudly hand over all the Stewart plastic of the past couple of weeks.



If given the chance, I think he would have gladly planted a thousand or so trees today in further celebration. I must find him a tree hugger shirt!



He at least feels good that he has whipped our house into shape and has us on the straight and narrow of recycling.



I love my boy.



My boy who wants to make the Earth a better place.



My boy, with a mission.



My boy who has made a difference -- a difference in me, who now thinks twice before throwing out the shampoo bottle, and a difference for our Earth.



Happy Earth Day! (I honestly never thought I would say that….or type it.)

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Easter Eggs


I have known two people in my life that could not eat enough hard boiled eggs – my Mother and my Luke.




So, when Easter comes around and we find ourselves dying dozens of eggs, I know they will not go to waste. Luke will be in heaven eating them.






While Joshua was off playing golf, Luke and I took a break from cleaning house to dye some eggs.





He was excited that one cracked and could not be dyed. He ate it right away.



After dinner I cracked a blue one and he ate it.


We may have to dye some more…..these may not last until next weekend.











Happy Easter!!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

My Brother

Yes, I have a brother. I am not sure that I have mentioned him before on my blog.






This is one of my favorite pictures of us. It just screams 70s doesn’t it??

We are almost ten years apart and as a child I did not like him much. The main reason I did not like him was that I felt certain my parents liked him more than me. My reasoning behind this thought was that they let him stay up later at night and allowed him to do more things. Apparently my eight year old brain could not figure out that our parents were not going to make an eighteen year old go to bed at 8:30. To me, this was just playing favorites and was not okay. And clearly, it was entirely all his fault.

I know my brother reads my blog, but I am not sure what he will think of an entry about him. I guess we will find out soon enough.

Some things about my brother:

• He signed me up for his soccer team when I was a baby. Our Mother saved the application.

• Has made me an aunt four times over. For the first time when I was in the 8th grade! The last two are twin boys, and the other is my sweet niece.

• He was in the Navy.

• Bought me a 45 record of Locomotion by Kylie Minogue in the 80s. I still have it. And listen to it from time to time. Yes, I have a working record player.

• He and our Dad used to wrestle a lot. I never rooted for him. I smiled big when my brother would finally utter the word “uncle”.

• When I passed out during a church play, his was the first face I saw when I came to. I could not believe my brother had come to my rescue!

• He was born on Easter.

• We often times played football in the house when he babysat me. He would play on his knees so that we were eye level. We were not supposed to do this and were often caught.
 
• He walked our Mother down the aisle at my wedding. This meant a lot to her.

• He once caught our kitchen on fire when melting wax on the stove. I am ashamed to say that I actually enjoyed watching him get in trouble for it. **Please remember I did not like him much when I was little.

• He did not believe our Mother when she told him I cried my eyes out when he left for boot camp in San Diego. It is true and is something that I will never forget. I stood at the window in the airport crying uncontrollably. I could not believe it would be months before I would see him again.

• His first car was a green Ford Maverick, which had belonged to our great-grandmother.

• Once bought me a snickers and a Dr. Pepper so that I would not blab to our parents that his car (the Maverick) ran out of gas and we had to walk to the gas station. I never told. I absolutely love snickers and Dr. Pepper and I can be bought.

• I used to call him Bubba. I am not sure when or why I stopped.

Having a sibling that is so much older than me enabled me to learn so much from him. I am forever grateful for it….and he knows it.

Oh, and today is his birthday!

Happy Birthday, Big Brother.


Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Things I have Observed

I promise that not every blog post from this point forward will be about t-ball….but, this one is….sorry. Luke had his first season game on Monday. In just the few weeks that he has been practicing and playing, he has gotten so much better.





2 for 2



2 singles



1 run



1 RBI



My boy is getting to be such a quick runner.





He listens to his coaches…..particularly his daddy.





He likes to stand on home plate when he makes a run.





He is good at stopping those ground balls.





He looks cute standing on first.





He looks cute standing on second too.





Heck, he looks cute standing just about anywhere, but I am his Momma, so what do you expect?

A Letter and a Gift

Ordinarily, I would not post anything regarding Luke getting in trouble; however, tonight will be different. I will.

Luke woke up this morning and to say he was in a bad mood is an understatement. He not only began speaking ugly words to me, but was talking with such a terrible attitude. I simply looked at him and told him I was not dealing with him since he was acting so ugly and I walked off. I finished getting ready for work and then gave Luke a hug and kiss good-bye and told him that I hoped he had a good day.

Once I left the house, I never thought again about the way Luke had acted. Luke, on the other hand thought about it all day.

When I picked him up from school I asked how his day was, he replied that it was a great day and he had something for me.

And he handed me this.







I have the sweetest boy.

I told him thank you so much and that I forgave him for acting badly. He explained that he wrote the letter on his own and it was his idea to do so. He then went on to say that he had a present for me, but that he had to put it together.

There was some commotion going on in the back seat, and then he reached up to the front of the car and handed me this.

(ps-he took this picture himself)

Tears welled up in my eyes.

I looked back at him and he was beaming.
He taped a keychain ring to the back of this lovely star. 
I asked him where the roll of tape came from and he told me that he took everything to school that he needed to make the note and ring.

He then said that his note to me had clues….he wanted us to go on a walk and play a game of SORRY since he was very SORRY for how he acted.


I could not have been more proud of him. My stubborn little boy not only realized he was wrong, but apologized in the sweetest way he knew how.