Rite of Passage

Little kid...

Big kid....

Murphy, NC and Brasstown Valley, GA

The week following soccer camp was vacation week. Roger's dad and his wife invited all of us; Roger's brother, Micah, and his wife, Alisha; plus Shirley's children and grandchildren to spend a few days at their home in Murphy, NC, then on to Brasstown Valley Resort in Georgia for a few days. 18 of us in all! It was great to meet Shirley and her children and grandchildren. And my new (and only!) sister-in-law, Alisha. Our kids had a lot of fun playing with new friends, and 2 months later they are still asking when we can see them again!

In NC, we spent time at Gary and Shirley's houseboat on the lake watching the kids swim, jump off the top of a pontoon boat, ride the jet ski, fish a little, and Shirley's son, JR, brought his boat so the kids were able to tube and wake board a little, too. I hadn't been able to get into lake water since the end of April because of some dermatological surgery I'd had on my back. But by the 4th week of June, I was cleared to expose my skin to whatever funk the lake had to offer, so I tried the wake board myself. Surprisingly, I was able to do it! I even had more success than I'd had before the 8-week hiatus. Lots of fun!

Brasstown Valley was a super nice resort. Every night there we had a fabulous family dinner, all 18 of us, all arranged by Gary and Shirley. The men all played golf one day while us girls hung out at the pool with the kids. Erin even learned to swim there! She overcame her fear of going underwater and she was jumping in and swimming all over that pool. The next day, a bunch of us went for a long trail ride through the northern Georgia mountains. It was beautiful. Carrie was thrown from her horse, but that didn't stop my girl! She got right back on and finished the ride back to the stables. The entire trip was truly fabulous. A big thank you to Pa Pa and Grandma Shirley for having us! Incidentally, today is Pa Pa's birthday. Happy birthday, Pa Pa!

Victory...(tweet! tweet!)...Soccer Camp! Whoop, Whoop!

On to week 2 of summer...Victory Soccer Camp. Our church has a soccer camp every summer rather than a VBS. What would you expect in a church where both the pastor and his wife are soccer players?! There are character lessons taught daily as well as soccer skills and an elaborate World Cup tournament. They also do a cheer to rally all the campers, but I bet you can't guess what it is.

The 100 campers are divided into teams by age and each team represents a different country. They play a few mini games each day plus a World Cup game where they get points for the final World Cup games. At the end of the week, the teams with the least points play each other and the teams with the most points play each other to determine the World Cup Champion. Alec, Carrie, and Erin all played and Haley was an assistant coach. Carrie's team, Ireland, went on to win the World Cup in her age range, as did Haley's team, Italy.



This embedded slideshow is pretty small, but if you click on it, you will be taken to Picasa's website where a larger version can be seen.

Erin was quite the little soccer champ. She and Carrie and Landon are all signed up with the local Parks and Rec to play in the fall. Which is next week. But, Erin...pray for her. The child is in danger of losing her new love. She is slacking off at school and at home with her chores. If there isn't a huge improvement by the time practice starts next week, I'll have to revoke her privilege of playing. Pray for her. She needs it. And so do I.

Let's Dance!

With all the trips, camps, and summer activites done, and school back in full swing for Alec, Carrie, and Erin, it's time to share what we've been up to all this time. As soon as the '08-'09 school year ended, Carrie and Erin's dance recital was the first order of business. The girls did well and the show was excellent. What I saw of it was excellent, that is. I was the backstage mom for both girls' classes and wasn't able to watch all the performances. What I did see was excellent, and as soon as I pick up my DVD of the entire recital, I'll see just how excellent the rest of it was. Here are some pictures from dress rehearsal the night before the recital...

Erin's Tap Dance - Lullaby of Broadway

Carrie's Tap Dance - Little Shop from Little Shop of Horrors

Erin's Ballet dance - Do Re Mi from The Sound of Music

More of our summer coming soon. Next up...Victory Soccer Camp! Bet you can't guess who's the best soccer player?!

Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?

Yes. She is.

She is 13, beautiful, smart, sweet, wants to be a veterinarian, and loves little children. Unless they're from the same gene pool as she is. Then she still loves them, but doesn't love to show it.





More coming soon! Things have been so busy over the last few weeks that I haven't had time to update the blog, but soon enough you will be inundated with pictures from the dance recital, soccer camp, vacations, 4th of July, our summer party, and then the 1st day of school. 'Til then.... I'm out.

EEEWWWWWW!

There's no other title that describes these pictures better than "EEEWWWWWWW!" The kids found a dead snake today near the entrance to our neighborhood. He was a biggun, too. About 4 feet or so. And fresh. Did I say, "Eeewwwwwwwww!"?

Now, Alec is the snake fanatic in the House, but Landon was all about this dead snake today. He carried that thing around for about an hour. He even wanted to keep it and make a house for it! I put a stop to that right away. He hung the snake from our mailbox, hung it over the front porch, and hung it around his neck for quite a while. Again, "Eeeeewwwwwww!"

'Nuff said. I can't talk about it anymore. I'm getting nauseous. Here are the pics...

Look how he's swinging the tail around like a rope. Eeewwww! Bad lighting, I know. So I took another one...

Despite the look on his face, Landon was not at all disgusted by the snake. He was talking about building its house and squinting into the sun. LOL

One more time...EEEEWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!

Good times!

Like much of the eastern half of the country, we just came through a very warm weekend. Well, forget about warm. It was downright hot. Temps went from the low 70's on Thursday straight to the 90's for the weekend. The 80's never even made an appearance. Sounds like a perfect weekend to spend at the lake! When we lived in Nashville, we were moments away from Old Hickory Lake. We had a boat and spent nearly every weekend on the lake swimming, fishing, and even did a little tubing even though the kids were all really small and we had to pull them very slowly. It was a lot of fun. We had to get rid of that boat when we left there and moved to northern Virginia. There was nowhere to use the boat up there that was close enough to make it worth keeping it. So we sold it and missed it for 3 years. Then we came back south where there are lakes galore, and we knew as soon as we got here that a boat would be in our very near future. Within 6 weeks of moving down here, we were at a boat show. We left the show with a sizable stack of business cards from salesmen, 2 bags full of brochures of different models of boats, and stars in our eyes. Oh yes, a boat was in the very near future! After a few months of shopping around, a near disaster with "boat selling" scam artist, and another boat show, we finally found the boat for us. Everyone has been outfitted with life jackets and new swimsuits. We've stocked up on beach towels and sunscreen. We got a tube and a wake board. The only thing we needed was some warm weather to bring up the temperature of the water. Then the heat wave hit, and we hit the lake!

The little kids were excited about the tube, though they were also a little nervous. Everyone wanted Mommy to ride the tube with them. The big kids were excited about the wake board. We watched a tutorial video on YouTube and read lots of articles on how to get up on the board. We thought we were prepared. The first disaster happened when I got on the tube with Erin and Landon. They are not very tall, so all their weight was at the front of the tube, along with half of mine. As soon as the boat took off, the front of the tube submerged and we were knocked off. Unfortunately, we had not told the kids that they should let go of the handles in the event of a fall. I let go and watched the tube pull Landon and Erin ahead of me as it tried to flip over. They both went under water, but popped right back up with their life vests on, screaming and crying. We knew they were okay because there was no choking and gagging, just a lot of crying. We put them right back on and I sat upright in the middle of the tube to control the weight distribution. They were not happy. Even at 4mph, they wanted off that tube. NOW. It wasn't long before Landon calmed down and began to enjoy the ride. Erin was a different story. She did stop crying, but she never got around to enjoying the ride. It'll happen. We have an entire summer ahead of us. She will get over the trauma of her first tubing experience in time. Carrie was the one we were actually worried about with the tube. She was pretty afraid. But she got on with Alec and Haley and though she was scared at first, she eventually came to love the thrill of the speed, the water in her face, the bouncing over the wake of the boat, and she even enjoyed being slung off the tube on a tight turn! She surprised us all. Success! It was short-lived, however. Because next we got out the wake board. And as prepared as we thought we were, nobody could get up on that thing! I tried, Roger tried, Alec tried and *almost* got up, Haley tried. Then something bad happened. Nobody got hurt...we couldn't even get out of the water! But something else didn't get out of the water when it should have, and that was the tow rope. Our boat is a "jet boat" - it's like a jet ski all grown up. There are 2 engines that propel the boat by forcing water through them. The tow rope went under the boat and was sucked up into both engines, cutting off all power to the boat. After about 45 minutes of working to untangle the rope, we had one engine free and were able to slowly crawl back to the ramp, pull the boat out, and take it home. There, Roger was able to untangle the rope quite easily.

Sunday after church we went back out for a repeat performance. Little kids on the tube...not yet a success, but they managed to ride for about 10 minutes without freaking out. Big kids rode the tube together until they got slung off. Haley was ready to call it quits then, so Roger got on with Alec and Carrie and they had a blast. Then we did a second take with the wake board. This time Alec went first and wasn't able to get up. Then Haley went, and she got up! She rode for about 3 or 4 seconds then fell. Then I went, and I got up! I stayed up for maybe 10 seconds then felt some turbulence under my feet and decided I was going to go down gracefully rather than fall on my face, so I let go of the rope. It was a ton of fun. Roger was sore from hanging on to the tube the day before and from trying to get up on the wake board, and had decided he was going to lay low and not try the wake board that day. But after seeing Haley's and my small victories, he changed his mind and gave it a go. He did better than either of us girls. He was able to stay up for maybe 30 seconds at a time before falling off. And once, the front of the board dipped under the water causing it to stop immediately. Roger didn't stop immediately. He was pulled out of the bindings, went airborne, and was able to let go of the rope and turn his head before hitting the water. Talk about saving face! I think we were going about 30mph when that happened. A face plant at that speed would have really hurt! He did lose a contact lens, and it wasn't a painless fall, but at least he had time to realize what was about to happen before it happened. That ended the wake boarding for the day. We let the kids swim for a few minutes, then it was time to head home. What a wonderful weekend! Here are some pics...

My Favorite Invention

The "goings-on in the House" posts are temporarily on hold. I could write about what what's going on here...like the mold and tick post...but there are only so many of those that can be done without pictures. And I have no pictures. My camera was knocked off the kitchen counter TWICE. Yep, twice! First Carrie knocked it off and broke the flash cover. Super glue is a good invention, but it's not my favorite invention. It doesn't work as well as it claims it does on plastic. So, the following week when Haley knocked the camera off the kitchen counter, the already weakened flash cover was completely wrecked. The mechanics involved in lifting the flash into position were compromised before. Now they are collapsed. There are little wires in there that used to be connected to something. Now they're connected to nothing. Trying to use the flash completely locks up the camera. Not using the flash isn't the best choice for many of the pictures I take. I have been wanting a new camera for a while now. But I didn't need one. Sure, I can get my old one fixed. But I don't think I will. I have had it for 6 years and for the first 5 of those years it has had to be repaired at least once a year. I can say with a certain degree of certainty that the two drops have probably affected more than just the flash and that the camera is probably headed for more expensive repairs. So I'm considering replacing it. And I'm considering other things as well. Like inventions. If super glue isn't my favorite, what is? Computers are a great invention. They have spawned the inventions of countless other devices. And right now my favorite one is the DVR. I seriously don't know how I ever got along without one. Football season would be a complete bust for me because I would always have to watch Alabama games instead of South Carolina games. Because of the DVR, I can watch both! I can record my favorite reality shows to watch when my kids are in bed. I love to watch The Biggest Loser, Survivor, and Deadliest Catch. But you never know what real people are going to say on their reality shows. Or even what contrived characters are going to be scripted to say. Even the stuff that doesn't get bleeped by the censors isn't always suitable for little ears. So I just record those shows and watch them later. Shows that Roger and I like to watch together we save to watch when we are able to both be in the same place at the same time with enough free time to watch them. Like Heroes. I have a whole season saved for future entertainment. In the summer when reruns are on and reality TV season is over, I will have something to watch. When I want to watch something at 8:00, I can pause it until the little ones are all bathed, read to, and tucked in. I remember when Haley was little and I wanted to watch Friends at 8:00 on Thursdays. I would put her to bed half an hour early just for that "must-see TV." With one kid that's easy. With 5, you have sports practices, dance classes, scout meetings, etc. Those usually happen near dinner time. Dinner is a little later on those nights. Bedtime is usually later on those nights. But now my shows will wait! And they wait for me if there is an emergency in the middle of the show. Like a blown out night-light. Or a phone call. Or a cat throwing up on the carpet. Believe it or not, all 3 of those things happened during The Biggest Loser tonight. But I didn't miss a moment of the action...on TV or in the House. Yep, I think the DVR is my favorite invention. What's yours?

By the way, I do realize the kitchen counter is not the best place to keep an expensive camera. It doesn't live there. I had been using the camera and had put it down momentarily. I know someone would have something to say about that, so I thought I had better clear it up!

Who wants to come visit??

Anybody up for a road trip? Or for my local friends, who wants to come over and hang out? I'm sure you'd find the House a most welcoming place right now. We have a fantastic guest room. It even has its own bathroom. It's nice and cozy with a queen size bed, there is a TV and video games, there's a dresser you can put your clothes in during your stay. Or, if you prefer, there's even a nice little closet for you. And in that nice little closet, you will find a nice, big, black, smelly mold-stained wall!! That's right, MOLD. Seems that when the guys who did the trim work in the House got to the closet in the guest room, they found what they thought was a stud and nailed right into it. Only it wasn't a stud. It was a big ol' plumbing pipe. So for the last 9 months that pipe has been leaking right onto the wall. The wall in the closet in a room that is rarely used. Which means the door is always closed. Which means it is dark in there. I didn't need a degree in math to realize that wet + dark = MOLD. We called the builder right away who arrived bright and early Wednesday morning to rip out the molded wall. The insulation seemed fine, the wood framing seemed fine, but the wall was a complete wreck. And my 8th grade yearbook was a complete wreck. 2 days later I'm still wiping the pages down with bleach. Tomorrow is Field Day at the elementary school and I'm supposed to go there and help out. But our dear friend Sergio (the builder's right hand man) is coming back to the House yet again in the morning to work on the wall. He's always late, though. Today he was supposed to be here at 8:30. He got here at 9:00. He was supposed to come back at 4:00. He rolled in at 4:40. Maybe I'll see him by noon tomorrow. This morning when he was late, I had to leave him in the House alone while I drove my kids plus a friend's kid to elementary school, then I had to drive the preschool carpool. When I got back I had to grab the dog and go to the vet. As if the mold isn't bad enough, we also have ticks. Well, Dash has ticks, but he's a sweet dog and he will share them. 2 days ago I pulled 13 ticks off my dog. As long as we've had Dash we have never had any flea or tick problems, but we have lived in northern Virginia where there are no bugs. You people who live up there and think there are bugs there, you are wrong. Come down here sometime and you will see how good you have it up there. Compared to the south, there are no bugs up there. So...I get the ticks off the dog and call the vet the next day to get him started on Frontline. The appointment was this morning, so after I dropped off the little guys at preschool, I went back home and checked on Sergio, who was still working away, spraying bleach on everything left in the closet. Talked to Mike, the builder, for a few minutes, then realized it was 10:05. Luckily we live in a small town and the vet is only 3 minutes away. I cruise in there, still unshowered (and I ran this morning! P-U!), hadn't brushed my teeth, hadn't eaten breakfast yet, 10 minutes late. Dash gets his yearly checkup, shots, and heart worm test. Everything looks good. They load me down with Heartguard (which is also something you don't need in Northern Virginia, especially if your dog is mostly indoors like Dash is) and Advantix. We went with Advantix for the ticks rather than Frontline because they had some special deal going on and I got 2 free applications. Just when we think we are all set to go, the vet comes in and tells me Dash is positive for Lyme Disease. Wow. That was like a punch in the gut. He hasn't even shown any symptoms yet. He just got the ticks a couple of days ago! Fortunately, it is not as bad in dogs as it is in humans and in a month, he should be fine. He has to take antibiotics twice a day for 30 days. Finally the vet gave us our walking papers, I paid the bill, then I picked myself back up off the floor and went home. Sergio was gone. I finally got my shower. By then it was time to start picking kids up from school. Today was early release for the elementary school. I go get my kids and my friend's kid, come home, grab a quick sandwich, then head out to pick up the preschoolers. One of those was our friend's other kid, so he came back home with us. We had just a few minutes before it was time to pick up Haley. The kids were going crazy while I started to clean up the kitchen. Then my friend showed up to pick up her kids. We decided she would stay at the House with all the kids while I went to get Haley so they could play. They stayed for about an hour after I got back with Haley. It was great sitting and talking with Robin while the kids ran all over the place and the kitchen didn't get cleaned, the beds never got made, etc. And that's real...no sarcasm at all. Robin is a wonderful new friend for me and I'm glad I got to spend time with her today. Even though the House was a wreck and she cleans houses to make some extra cash, so she probably was thinking I needed to hire her. When they left, we had to go to the grocery store to get something quick for dinner because we had dance class and youth group later on and Sergio was also coming back, so I had to have something that could be prepared quickly and kept warm while I operated my taxi service. We got back in just enough time to have the kids start their chores while I made spaghetti sauce. Still no daily cleaning done and I've had 7 kids playing here today. Sergio showed up just as we were leaving for dance class. He was here just long enough for me to drop Carrie off. He was coming out as we were coming back in. He said he'd see me in the morning about 9:00. We'll see about that.

So, who's coming over? We have mold, ticks, and a dirty House to offer you. If that's not enough, I do make some darn good iced tea!

One week to go!

You may not have realized it, but in a week March will be over. It will be April. April 1, to be exact. April Fools Day! It's time to start preparing, people. There are a lot of websites out there with pranks you can play on your kids. I'm beginning my search for some new ones tomorrow! But I thought I would share some of the past pranks from the House of Payne, just in case you need a little motivation. If you have a good one, post it in a comment. I'd love to hear it!

• The ol' kitchen sprayer prank: If you have one of those sprayers on your kitchen sink that is operated by a lever, place a rubber band around it, holding the lever down. Then sit back and wait for someone to turn on the faucet. I got Haley with that one year. Good one!
• Switcheroo's : Kids sleep pretty deeply and you can move them while they're sleeping so they wake up in their brother's bed, under their own bed, or in some location other than where they fell asleep. It was great when Alec, then 8, woke up in Landon's crib. LOL! If you have a little girl who sleeps in a nightgown and also have a baby in size 5 or 6 diapers (or even pull-ups would work), put a diaper on the older daughter while she's asleep. She'll wake up wondering how she got switched back to diapers. I have also switched cereals from box to box and switched the kids' clothes to another kid's dresser drawers. You can switch their shoelaces to lace toward and tie at the toe of the shoes. The list of switcheroos is limitless!
• Hey, that's not what I thought it was!: Once I made Jell-O in the Kool Aid pitcher. When the kids went to pour a cup of Kool Aid, nothing would come out. Once I made dinner out of candy. They REALLY liked it when the peas were really chewy fruit candy and the mashed potatoes were really ice cream. That was a bad plan, though. The ice cream started melting on the plates and the jig was up pretty fast. Too bad my kids don't eat gravy or they would have gotten caramel sauce on their "mashed potatoes" like I did!
• Piddle Puddle: A classic. Put clear plastic wrap over the toilet bowl, but under the lid. If you get it on nice and tight, the unsuspecting victim won't see it. If it works, it will make a mess, but I would think it would be hilarious. Unfortunately it didn't work in the House. Alec was not an unsuspecting victim. He was very suspicious that April 1 and was on the lookout for my pranks. He saw the plastic wrap, and I was busted.
• Drive bye-bye: This was one of my favorites. The kids knew we were going to play pranks on them, so they waited all day, suspicious of our every move. Nothing happened all day. The morning went by uneventfully. The afternoon was spent at a carnival at their school. On the way home the car started acting up. It was kind of jerking, almost as if someone was abruptly hitting the brakes. Then it just coasted to a stop. We ran out of gas! Unbelievable! Fortunately, we were already in our neighborhood. Roger got out with the kids to walk home and get the gas can in the garage. When they got several yards up the road, I started the car back up and sped past them yelling, "APRIL FOOLS!" out the window. Then I had to run into the house and lock them out because they were coming after me with vengeance!

I'll have to ask my kids what has been the most memorable prank for them. I have been messing with them for so many years that I can't even remember everything I have done to them. Poor kids....they are going to be so messed up. Let me know what you do to your kids. I need some fresh ideas!

The Chore Chart!!

It's finally here! The long-awaited chore chart post! A couple of people have been asking me to post this, so here it is. You'll never believe this, but over the last, oh, 7 or so years, many moms I have known have been uber impressed that my kids do chores. Crazy, huh? I thought all kids did chores. Silly me. Here in the House, we are firm believers in giving responsibilities to the kids. Not only that, but let's be real - there is no way this many people can live in one house and the kids not have responsibilities. We start them doing chores on a regular basis somewhere around 3.5 to 4 years old. At that age they like helping and they are able to help without making more work for everyone else. Contrast that with the exuberant 2.5 year old who wants desperately to "help." Now that Landon is 4, he is finally a part of the chore chart. He has been for quite some time, actually! And the chart I'm posting here is an old one. He now has a couple of other small jobs listed in his little row on the chart.

Our chore chart has gone through several evolutions over the years. Sometimes this is due to the kids needing a change to keep them motivated, and sometimes they just outgrow their assigned chores. Right now we are in a really good place with our chore chart. And it's pretty, too! But the best thing about it is that there are quite a few jobs around here that most of them can do without help, so our current chart rotates all the chores so the kids don't have to do the same thing all the time. There are 4 different jobs each day that the 4 oldest kids do. They all have something they really don't like doing, but with this chart, they don't have to do that chore very frequently. Over the last 6 months it has worked really well for us. Here's what the chart looks like:

It's a beauty, huh? At the beginning of every month, I print a weekly calendar for each week of the month. Then I take MY markers out of the cabinet and transform it into that thing of beauty. Then I get really excited as I fill in the chores. First things first - the job of cleaning the ferret cage. Those little critters stink to high heaven just by virtue of being ferrets. Add that to the fact that they poop their own body weight every single day, and you have one stinky mess every single day. Sunday is our chore-free day, but cleaning the ferret cage is the one job that absolutely must be done, no question, even on Sunday. They do this in pairs so that the smaller ones can help, but don't have to do the whole thing themselves. They couldn't do it themselves anyway. I also Febreeze Haley's room (where the u-reeka, u-stinka creatures live) at least once a week.

The next jobs on the chart are the Monday, Wednesday, Friday jobs. If I had my way, every square inch of carpet in the House would be vacuumed every single day. That is a tad unreasonable at this point in our lives. I used to vacuum every day when we had a smaller house and 3 kids. Now I have more space and less time to vacuum it. So I handed some of the vacuuming off to the kids. They are responsible for the rugs downstairs (there are 3 of them), the stairs, and the cabinet where we keep our cats' litter box. I love my kitties, even though they throw their litter around when they dig in the box. Since one of the cats belongs to the kids, they have to vacuum the litter box cabinet. They don't feed the cats or scoop the box, but they do have to do something for their cat, so this is it. The other M-W-F job is sweeping the wood floors downstairs. On Mondays, I clean the wood floors myself, so that job is replaced with vacuuming the living room furniture. Those jobs rotate so that everybody does 3 of the 4 every week.

Tuesday and Saturday are filled in next. They are the dusting days. The kids dust 4 rooms - the living room, the dining room, the playroom, and the guest room. And again, this is a rotating job, so they each do 2 of those rooms every week. The next week they will do the other 2. Erin is not a particularly good duster even though this is an easy job. She is just not very thorough, which she isn't with most of her chores...Lord help the man she marries. At least until she has kids. She will be very well trained in making chore charts!

Thursday's jobs are pretty involved. Well, except one of them. They have to sweep the front porch and walkway. That's the cream puff job they wait a whole month to get on Thursdays. Whoever isn't lucky enough to get that one may end up cleaning a bathroom. The kids clean 2 of the 3 bathrooms in the House. The downstairs one is small, so it's pretty quick. The upstairs one is the kids' bathroom, and it has more counter space, 2 sinks (that usually have toothpaste in them - ICK!!), and 2 mirrors. The kids have to clean the toilet inside and out, wipe down the counters and sinks with Clorox wipes, and clean the mirrors. I don't make them do tubs or floors. I would have to do those again after they, so I just go ahead and do them myself. If they escape the bathroom chores, but don't get the sweeping the porch chore, they have to take out the trash. Friday is trash collection day, so they have to take out ALL the trash in the House on Thursday. Then they have to haul the Herbie Curbie down to the road and bring the recycling down as well.

Finally, I remind them all at the bottom of the chart that everyone must pick up their room, put away any laundry that is in their cubby in the laundry room, and check the basket on the stairs for homeless items that I have picked up during the day. They also get another gentle reminder. The chore chart is posted on the refrigerator with one of my favorite magnets, which addresses anyone who may question why they have to do all these jobs.....

Happy St. Paddy's!

So, after a month-long (and then some) hiatus, the House of Payne has once again reopened its doors. Glad you stopped by. Now you can see what we did for St. Patrick's Day!

We are sure there is a leprechaun somewhere in the House. Every March 17th our toilet water turns green, our milk turns green, or something else really weird (and green) happens. So this year we decided to try to catch the little bugger. A few days ahead of time, we started planning how to build a trap. The kids came up with the idea to use a tall box as the trap so that the leprechaun couldn't climb out once we had him ensnared. Alec and Carrie rigged the trap with yarn that went out the bottom of the box, back in the box about halfway up, then was tied to the flaps at the top.

Everyone knows leprechauns love gold, so we used gold coins as bait.

The yellow ball? I have no idea..... Don't ask me what it was for.

The bag of coins was tied to the yarn at the bottom of the box. When it was lifted, the trap would be sprung and the flaps would close on the top of the box, trapping the leprechaun. Pretty good thinking! And look in there. It would be a pretty steep climb for a tiny leprechaun to get back up to the top of the box. I don't think it's gonna happen. I think our chances of catching him are pretty good!

We set up the trap, decorated the outside of the box, and set a little ladder next to it so the tiny trickster could get in. Then we went to bed dreaming of what we were going to do with all the gold the leprechaun would have to give us after we caught him.

They look really confident, don't they? And when they got up this morning, they were 100% sure he was in there. Alec was totally freaked out. Carrie told him the trap had been thrown - the flaps were closed! He ran downstairs and picked up the box which started rattling with movement from inside! Man, you never saw a 10 year old boy run so fast in your life! It scared the Blarney out of him! He came running, no, flying, no, he practically teleported himself back upstairs to interrupt my shower and tell me the leprechaun was in the trap. After I was clean, dressed, and dry, I insisted they wait to open it until I could get the camera. I wanted pictoral proof of what we had accomplished!

So, the box is slowly opened and we see what was moving around inside when Alec picked it up....

Blast! He tricked us! That little stinker got away! But he left a bag of goodies for each kid. This one was tied to the yarn where our gold coins had been! That was what was holding the flaps on the top of the box closed fooling the kids into believing they had trapped the leprechaun.

They don't look so happy now, do they? Slightly disappointed, I'd say. I can't quite figure out how anyone could be disappointed with jelly beans and creme de menthe Hershey's Kisses. I guess they were expecting gold??? Mabye it was the jeering note the leprechaun left that said, "Can't catch me!" in green ink.

Oh well....we have already begun brainstorming ways to improve upon our trap for next year. Now that we know the leprechaun is really here and that he can be lured into a trap fairly easily, we just have to get the trap right. He's pretty slick, but I think we can get him. Maybe next year we'll get the gold.