Holy Smoke!

Today we took both of the boys to church. I was inspired to take them by a conversation Quin and I had the other day. He informed me that the "castle" across the street was also a church. He can also recite the Our Father and has been asking a lot of questions so I figured I should get my act together. Anyway, we went and the church didn't collapse around us so I'd say it went well. Although, Quin and Tristan are not big fans of Communion since everyone gets a snack but them. TJ actually tried to grab the priests hand and Quin complained loudly about it being "unfair" and told me that when he got home he'd have his own communion. He also thinks the Holy Spirit is some sort of leprechaun. Ooops.

I'm amazed we even made it to mass considering the night we had last night. TJ started coughing around 11pm and it got so bad that I had to give him a nebulizer treatment. Then he was still having a lot of trouble so I decided to see if steam would help. I turned on the shower and while I was steaming one kid in the bathroom, the other kid started coughing. So, when TJ seemed to be doing better, I put him back to bed and brought Quin into the steam room. Once Quin was feeling better, I brought him to back bed and all was well...until the steam from the bathroom hit the smoke alarm and made it go off! This set off a chain reaction of events that would probably have been funny to me if it weren't my life. Quin yelled and covered his ears, Joe jumped up and, in a panic, couldn't shut the alarm off. Joe pulled the detector from the ceiling, which didn't help since we have a hard wired alarm that goes to a company that then called us. So, as Joe is trying to figure out what to say to the alarm company, Quin is demaning to know why we won't turn off the alarm. Joe finally gets the alarm off and then wants to know why the shower was on in the first place and why I didn't turn on the fan. Apparently he didn't notice that I had been tending to 2 sick children for the last 2 hours and assumed I was irresponsibly taking a late night shower! After I bit off his head, we made sure Quin was OK (he was highly amused and not at all frightened) and then checked on TJ. Out like a light. He hadn't even rolled over during all the commotion.  At this point Quin is wide awake and wants to play. Q:Can we be awake now? Me: No! It's 2 in the morning. Q: It's morning? Me: No. 2 in the morning isn't really morning. Can we talk about this later? Never a dull moment around here!

The True Story of Ted E Bear

To mark my return to blogging I'd like to share with you The True Story of Ted E. Bear.

Everyone has done this school project at some point, whether it was called Flat Stanley, Ted E Bear, or something else. Each student gets to take the bear home for one weekend and write about all the great things he/she did with said bear. This weekend is our turn. When I looked at Ted E Bear's notebook there was an explanation of the project, a plea from the teachers to keep the bear clean and not lose all the "stuff" and also a bear cookie cutter with a recipe. Very cool...though I'm sure I'll lose some stuff and be scrambling Tuesday morning to find Ted E Bear's bear-undies or something.

Anyhow, you are supposed to write about your weekend with Ted in the notebook. I decided to read what other families had written so I would have an idea of what to write. First of all, Quin goes to a Catholic preschool so every family wrote that they took Ted to church. This presents a couple of problems. First, I can't lie and say we went to church if we didn't because Quin will totally throw me under the bus. Secondly, I can't bring both boys to church because Tristan can't sit still for 5 minutes in between Wonder Pets episodes, nevermind an hour of stuff he can't understand. So, I guess I'll be bringing Quin to church tomorrow.

I've packed lots of wholesome family activities into the weekend - baking, gymnastics, birthday party - and I just have to write a little paragraph about each one in the notebook. And while the story that I write in the notebook will be much like the others, I wish I could write what Ted E. Bear's real experience was like. Instead of "Ted E Bear and I got ready for bed and read a story" The True Story of Ted E Bear would include things like: "then I hit my brother with the foam sword and Ted E Bear and I went to time out together" and "Ted E and I spent an hour in the bathroom trying to poop while mom messed around on Facebook." That's the true tale of a Graham family weekend!

Backstage at the Nutcracker

This picture is of Auntie Rachael, Ashley, and I backstage at the Nutcracker. We spent the day doing fun Boston Christmas activities starting with a nice brunch at new restaurant that I can't remember the name of. It was awesome, though. Then we went backstage and got a tour of all the Nutcracker scenery and props. I think I was more excited than Ashley. In between our tour and the show, we went to Macys and did some shopping and checked out the Christmas displays. Then we headed to the Nutcracker where we had fabulous seats - thanks Auntie Rachael! Except for the old biddies with the Irish whispers behind us, it was a perfect day!