Erick William - sweetest baby in the world

Love at first sight? This little man made me a believer. Erick William is absolutely perfect from his tiny fingers wispy brown hair to his perfect little nose and curled under little toes. Baby Erick is the cutest little man ever! Is it obvious yet? Can you not tell that I'm smitten?

How to survive an alien invasion

It's a bird! It's a plane No, it's... an alien space ship? There comes a time in everyones life when they are forced to consider what they would do in an invasion of extraterrestrial beings. Would you hide? Would you fight? Would you wait on the men in black to do their job? Through much consideration, I have devised a plan for survival in the case of an alien invasion. My plan is to flee.

No, I do not mean to go running, screaming through the streets causing mass confusion and terror. If the aliens invade earth, the most logical, obvious and practical option is to just leave. Pack up your family, your dog, your xbox, and grandma and get the heck out of there!

When the mass public becomes aware of alien life on planet earth, the men in black are no longer doing their job. And if Will Smith can no longer handle the alien invasion, do you really want to stay on planet earth? No. No you don't.

You don't want to stay on earth. The aliens have clearly left their planet vulnerable. This is an excellent opportunity! So, How would I survive an alien invasion? The answer is simple. In case of an alien invasion, dust off your space gear and fill rocket. When aliens take earth, take to space! The world of man is polluted. Global warming is real! DO not try to tell me that saving earth is better than racing space ships and mastering the arts of the Jedi! Leave the alien invasion to Dr. Who and just take a long, out of this world vacation.

school

First day back to school is always a lot of fun (I guess. this was actually my first time "back") I have a few rules for setting the pace for the school year and announcing myself to the classroom.

Rules:

1. find something profound your psych professor says and disagree. Start up a debate, even if you know you are wrong and WIN. example:

Prof. Kim: "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it. Does it still make a sound? show of hands."
The whole class room (except for me) *raises hand*
Prof. Kim(clearly not seeing my limp hand) "So does anyone think it doesn't make a sound?"
Me: "I!!" *raises hand and stands up on chair* (When you are the only one, be sure to make yourself seem bigger)
Prof. Kim: "Ohh... umm... why do you say that?"
Me: well... I don't actually know, but I needed to make a splash in this class.... say something profound! "If you can't hear it... is it actually a sound? The definition of 'sound' is 'noise' or 'The sensation stimulated in the organs caused by hearing'. so if nobody hears it, it isn't sound."
Prof Kim: ".... that's right!"

Rule #2. Confuse the your English comp professor.

There is an unspoken rule in college: Sit in the same seat. Always. no matter what. this allows for the professors to associate you with a wall, window or table you like to sit by. I theorize that this will affect how your professor feels about you based on whether you choose to sit in his direct line of vision, by the ugly picture of hands on the wall, or in the sunlight so he can never see you without squinting. I decided to switch things up. First I sit in the back (twice... just to confuse him) then I move to the front. Then I move to the seat I sat in all of last semester. Walking into class on day 4 and 3rd seat, the professor decides to address my rebellion against "the rule".
Professor Cleek: "Umm... Mikaela, do you feel more 'at home' back at your old desk?"
Me: "Well, I just like to switch it up. I can never tell if you know my name because you actually know my name or if you know my name because I always sit in the same seat when you call role."
Prof. Cleek: "Actually I remember you as the girl who claimed to write an entire novel in 15 days, introduced yourself to the class as "Felicia Fancybottom", and wrote an essay about why Bigfoot was real."

Pshh.. yeah I did!

The Lord of the Jungle Book Land

IT is tradition in the Spaulding household to read a bed time story before putting the littles to bed. We have read through Dr. Doolittle, the Chronicles of Narnia, Huckleberry Finn and the current favorite: The Jungle Book. In a house of 12 kids, it is sometimes hard to keep your stories straight and this led to some confusion at the dinner table tonight.

Shannyn: "I have a pet dragon."
Elyse: :"Does is say 'RAWR'?"
Shannyn: "No, it camouflages. it says "Baaa" (We live on a dairy goat farm for anyone who didn't already know.)
Shannyn: "I feed it goats."
Mom: "one of the animals in the jungle book eats goats. Khan maybe."
Me: "Ohh I remember that book. My favorite character was the cobra that ate all the monkeys!"
Kyndra: "It was a boa."
Mom: "AHH!!! We haven't gotten that far yet!"
Me: "It wasn't a boa. it was a cobra and it ate all the monkeys after ripping down a wall and hypnotizing them all."
Kyndra:"Do you remember that one 'Jungle Book' movie where the boa was more like a dragon and it burrowed under the gold in the cave and ate people who came for the gold?"
Me "OHHH YEAH! Except for that one little guy who he couldn't see. Then the dragon snake woke up and flew out of the cave and the man in the water town shot him with his special arrow and he fell into the river and died."
Shain: "OH right and then the elves and goblins got in a fight and the dwarves died and then the eagles came and took moglei back to his town where he adapted and learned to live with the people."
Shannyn: "But then he went mad and chased a rabbit into a hole and got little."
Mom: "Then big."
Me: "then little again."
Shain: "And there was a war with the wicked queen and the mad hatter."
Me: "Off with he head - the end"
Kyndra:"...I don't think it happened that way. you guys must have your stories mixed up."

Somebody look it up. I'm pretty sure we fit Lord of the Rings, The Jungle Book and Alice in Wonderland all into one 6 minute conversation

Happy Easter!

Easter is a wonderful holiday. I love to reflect on the sacrifice that Jesus made and the victory He won. This year our family did a devotional walk through Jesus’s life leading up to the resurrection.

We had to straighten out Shain, who, on hear “Christ carried his cross to Calvary hill.” Chimed in with: “I thought he died on Boot hill?”
“Uhh… no.”
“Well who did then?”
“I don’t know, John Wayne maybe.”

And then there was Lance who had the creative idea of building our own cross to put in the front yard. It was nice. Dad and the boys worked hard building that cross and placing it in the front yard. I never suspected he had alternative motive till later when I heard mom yelling out the front door:
“Hey! Don’t crucify your brother! Put that hammer DOWN!”

Saturday evening we read about Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. It was no surprise then that the boys knew the story well enough to correct the pastor, on Sunday morning.

Happy Easter everyone, I hope yours was as exciting as mine.

Brad Paisley-I'm Still A Guy (With Lyrics)

“Girls are harder than boys.” I heard a young mother tell her friend at the soccer field the other day. “With boys, you don’t have to deal with all the drama.”
I snorted in an attempted to conceal my laughter. It became clear to me as the two young mothers continued their conversation, simultaneously agreeing that girls were harder AND there was no mental difference between girls and boys besides how they are raised, that these women had not been parents long enough to know what they were talking about OR taken basic anatomy. Living in a large household, I have been able to witness firsthand the differences between girls and boys. It has NOTHING to do with how they are raised. Girls play house while boys fight zombie bears and girls dress like princesses while boys dress like ninjas and cowboys. There are times when the two seem to get roles mixed up and my little sisters play batman and robin or the boys demand a tea party. The idea that their minds work the same though, the idea is absurd to me. An example: yesterday while we were drawing pictures at the kitchen table, Lysee, Natylee, Naithen and Layne were all diligently designing their master pieces. After several moments of hard work, they brought them to my inspection. The conversation is as follows:
Natylee: “See! It is a princess and her knight in their castle. That is me and Nate!”
Me: “Is that his crown?” *points to bubbly thing on Nates head* where he hung suspiciously suspended several feet above “princess Natylee’s” head.
Natylee (age 4) : “No.” *rolls eyes* “That is his helmet. He is an astronaut!”
“OHhh… Lysee, what is yours?”
Lysee (age 2) “Natylee, Nate, me, flower, goat, baby…”
Naithen (age 6): “Mine is a man!”
I examine his carefully crafted picture for several moments, puzzling over the large black bump on his head.
“What is that bump?”
“Oh, he was bitten by a vampire.” Naithen flips the paper over to reveal a bloody battle scene on the other side.
“Ohh….”
Layne (age 8): “Do you know what mine is?” I glance at his image. The picture appears to be shot from the view of a man looking down the scope of a rifle at a very anatomically correct naked man.
“Uhh…”
He doesn’t give me a chance to answer. Laughing giddily he explains: “It is a naked man shaking his bum at another man, but the other guy has a gun… which he doesn’t know because he is to busy waving his bum.”
These children have all been raised by the same to parents in the same house with the same basic stories, schedule and nutrition.

Another example of the differences in the way men and women think is portrayed in this song which I find highly amusing by Brad Paisley. Country music never bothers to butter up the worlds issues or cater to the whiners. Men and women are different.

You can't park on a sidewalk

I don’t speed… let me rephrase. I don’t get caught by cops because cops scare me. I know, I know: Policemen are there to help us and protect us. That doesn’t mean they aren’t scary. Maybe I just have one of those faces. One of those faces that screams “Hey, I should be tossed in prison to rot because I parked my car on the crosswalk.”

But a girl can’t be too careful. I avoid police officers, not only because they stalk me and yell at me, but also because I have one of those faces.
At the library I was approached by a young girl (14 or so) she leaned against the shelf as I was neatening books and struck up a friendly conversation.
“So, they have you shelving books, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I hate shelving. I would rather sort the dvds or anything else.”
“Yeah… it’s kinda boring.”
“So how often do you come for community service?”
“Oh, once a week.”
“That’s IT?! Wow, you got off easy.”
*shrugs* “Well, it’s just going to take me longer to get in my hours.”
“How many hours are you doing?”
“100”
“WOW! That is a lot! What are you doing time for?”
At this point I gave her a puzzled look. “Doing time?” And then I noticed her orange jumpsuit and the cop standing guard at the end of the row.
“Uhh…” I thought quickly. “Poisoning.”
“Poisoning?!” She gave me a slightly fearful, admiring stare.
“Yeah,” I sniffed and put a book back in its place. “A guy was bugging me at work, asking me all kinds of questions. I got fed up and grabbed a pencil from my purse. I stabbed him in the eye. Apparently the eye is especially susceptible to diseases because he got led poisoning.”

“Oh.” The girl backed away. “I… I just remembered I have to go… do something else.” She walked quickly away and her escort followed stiffly. I didn’t have much time to revel in my badness before a crazy cop stormed into the library yelling (and oblivious to the shushing of the librarians) that I could not park my car on the sidewalk and must come move it immediately.