Tater on Taters

At dinner:
T: I can't eat these mashed potatoes, daddy. Daddy: Why not? T: They are just too blonde. Us: ? T: You know like mushy and don't taste good. Me: Do you mean BLAND?! T: YES! They are bland, so I can't eat your mashed potatoes daddy.

How does he even know that word exists let alone how to use it to insult Sean's cooking?! We were too impressed to make him eat them.

R.I.P.

Every winter our boiler breaks (because the house we rent is old and the boiler is even older). It can get pretty chilly while we wait for a repair man and Monday it got down to 52 degrees in here! Sadly, that was too cold for Grandpa Ron (not to be confused with our actual grandpa). Tate's little beta friend died. I actually saw him floating oddly in the morning, but he wasn't belly up on top so I thought he was just hiding from me. I had Sean look at him at dinner and he quickly recognized it. I felt dumb, but I guess they can sink too.

We called Tate over and told him that Grandap Ron had died because it was too cold. This was a really tough conversation to have with no preparation. Sean wanted to show him the body, I wanted to hide it. I said the fish went to heaven, Sean said it would go down the toilet into the ocean and "be happy there". Hmmmm, never thought through our fish theology before. It took Tate a minute to grasp what we meant, he kept saying we just need to feed him more and he will come back alive. Poor buddy. Then he cried. I actually shed a couple of secret tears myself. Not for the fish obviously I've been wishing them dead for awhile , but my heart just hurts for our little guy experiencing his first loss. Gracie and Benny were pretty sweet to him at first, although they kept saying he's DEAD, he DIED over and over. Finally, Gracie and Tate were talking and decided that if all three fish die they will "EARN A DOG!!!"
Huh? Not sure where that came from, and we told them that wasn't how it works, but they are pretty sure. I think they think it will be gifted to them from the pet fairy or something and 3 dead fish=one live puppy.
I suspect poor Molly and Tutu may have some kind of tragic "accident" soon if we aren't careful.

QOTD #243

Last night Gracie comes up on the couch to cuddle with me.

G: "Mama, you smell like fish."
Me.:"What?" (concerned face)
G: "A gummy fish that is red...but still."

Thanks. I feel a lot better now.

Better Late Than Never

Still nursing my flu here, but I wanted to post some Christmas pics before I forget.
Painting bird houses for Gma and Gpa's gift. We are trying to make more presents this year.

Christmas eve at Grammy's house

Kids with their Great Great Grandma

The kid table

Tracking santa on Aunt Laurie's iPad

Santa came! Or so we thought it would appear. I forgot the fake snow at my mom's and improvised with flour in front of the fireplace. Tate and Benny were inclined to believe they were Santa's footprints in snow, but Gracie was like "wow! Santa got into our flour and made a mess! Why did he do that?" *sigh*

Christmas morning:

Gracie's new microphone (why did Santa think that was a good idea?!) led to many morning announcements.

Tate holding Sammy, my sister's new puppy.

Christmas chaos!

We had dinner at Grammy's that night and stayed overnight. It's a lot of driving going back and forth Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We like to take the day off after Christmas and be lazy in our pj's all day. We finally headed back and the kids passed out. Three days of no naps and late bedtimes were wearing on us all. The kids and I had until Jan 3rd for break and daddy went back to work the 27th. That was when Benny got his first stitches, but that's for another time. Christmas was a crazy time, but really fun. Who knows how many more years we'll have before the magic is gone!