Let's play "Awesome, Not Awesome"

Awesome: Conversation with Patrick
P: Why do cowboys have guns?
Me: To keep them safe, I guess
P: Like to shoot tornadoes?

Awesome: Eli calls tornadoes, "tomatoes." So cute, I shush anyone who tries to correct him.

Not Awesome: Trip to the mountains
I took the kids to Beulah, up in the mountains, last Sunday when we couldn't go to church due to Patrick's contagious diseases (not the Amazon kind). I thought it would be nice to feel the spirit through nature since we were missing our spiritual dose of Primary; the kids felt otherwise. They explored for about 45 minutes, which was great, and then complained for 45 minutes, which negated the good feelings of the previous 45. First Patrick complained he wanted to go hiking, though LAST time we went to Beulah and hiked he complained the entire time (literally, from 10 steps up the path until we got back to the car) that his legs hurt, his feet hurt, he hated hiking, could we carry him, he was hot, he was thirsty... it was AWUL. So I said "no," this time and he was mad. Then, even not hiking, Patrick was "too hot in the sun," so he thought the car was the perfect place to get some shade even though we were in the middle of a forest of trees. His climbing in the car led Eli to climb in, too, and they horsed around and honked the horn, locked the doors, then tried to open the locked doors and set off the car alarm, so I ordered them OUT, back into NATURE which we had driven 20 minutes to hang out in. You can hang out in the car in the garage.  They were very upset. Patrick wanted "alone time," meaning he wanted to go off and mutter curses against mom where I couldn't hear him and swear he would never snuggle with me again (or other such nonsense), and of course Eli followed him into alone time and they muttered and cursed together.  Meanwhile, Caroline needed to go potty, which wasn't such a big deal because they had dug-out latrines to use, but they were across the road, which I had declared that the kids were NOT to go on or across. So of course as soon as the malcontent boys see us crossing the forbidden road they hightail it our way, so I've got three kids at the dug-out latrines and there is a black widow's web fully across the potty chute. Hmmm... not a good sign. I get a stick and destroy the web, and when I pull the stick out the freaking black widow spider is clinging to it! BAAAAHH!  I squish the spider and head to another web-less latrine, lecture about 30 times not to touch the potty (why is that so difficult?) and shooed various heads out of the way while someone was peeing - they would not stop trying to see down the hole! The whole time I was very impatient because Ethan was still chillin' in the big picnic blanket back at our spot and I'm sure any minute he'll be eaten by a mountain lion, so I wasn't in the mood to be investigating webs or spiders or holes in the ground filled with poop. When it was all said and done, it was filed under, "trying to be an awesome mom will bite you in the butt every time" file.

Awesome: New potty at our house!
The old one used about 16 gallons of water to flush, was SO loud, and was a really terrible flusher - we had to plunge it at least once a week and it's overflow record is through the roof. Actually, through the floor, onto the ceiling of the downstairs bathroom, which Joe then punched. So YAY for a new potty! (bonus points: no black widow spiders on it).

Not Awesome: Ethan is a terrible teether - fussiness, fewer naps, small fevers, the works.

Awesome: Ethan got his first tooth! All that teething finally paid off. Only an entire set left to go :(