It’s that time of the month again! Welcome to a Fly on the Wall group post.  I’ve written these posts before, and you can find past posts on this page of my blog.

Today 12 bloggers are inviting you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall in our homes. Come on in and buzz around my house.

Here’s who you’ll be hearing from:

  • Me, Mama O.
  • Daddy O.
  • Big Sister, age 6
  • Little Brother, age 4

Quips from Vacation

We were fortunate to be able to escape Wisconsin and spend some time in sunny Arizona as a family. We brought our GPS along, and it gave us the very helpful direction of, “Turn left onto road.”  We missed said “road” and had to circle back to find it. I don’t believe the road had a name, but this was a prime example of unhelpful directions. Gotta love technology!

While at the Sonora Desert Museum (more on that HERE), we were at a touch pool and learned about a sea creature that “poops out its stomach as a defense mechanism.” Our kids LOVED this, and kept on saying a lot of potty talk, including, “I’m going to diarrhea on your face.” So. Gross. Here’s a picture of us shortly after that comment.

Visiting the Sonara Desert Museum
Daddy and Mama O at the Sonora Desert Museum

While listening to the radio in the rental care, Daddy O. commented, “Ugh, Bulldog.” I just laughed, guessing, “Oh, you mean Pittbull?” And he did.

Early in the morning, we would see the sun rising just as the moon was setting. It was so beautiful. My son called it a sunset, but we explained that sunsets only happen in the evening. “I mix up my sunsets and moon-sets,” was his cute comment, though it IS not often that we see a moon set. Too bad I don’t have a picture to go along with it…

One day in Tucson we decided to hike on some trails in Sabino Canyon with Daddy O.’s youngest brother. The kids took off running, so I had to stop them, explaining, “You won’t see the rattlesnakes or their homes if you run by them.” Fortunately, this worked.

At this time of year, snow melt coming off the top of the mountain made the rivers and streams rather high. Some trails were blocked or required fording the river. I told Daddy O. that I had no interest in getting wet, especially since the kids only had one pair of shoes along. He agreed. Big sister had other ideas though. As we ate our snack by a small creek, she suggested, “I know how we can cross the river. We can take off our shoes and socks, roll up our pants, and go across. We can put everything back on when we are on the other side.” Well thought out…but we told her no. She POUTED her way along, lagging behind and being generally grumpy.  Finally, when we saw this dam, we told her that she could put her feet in the water.  Check out her reaction:

 

Hiking Sabino Canyon
From top: starting our hike, me at the dam area, Big Sister finally putting her feet in.

She screamed, “It’s too cold!!” (the adults were thinking, yeah, damn cold), but her mood improved greatly after she had the chance to see for herself.  At the end of our hike, which ended up being over 4 miles, Daddy O.’s brother declared, “That was the slowest I’ve ever hiked 4 miles.” Yes, welcome to our lives with kids!!

On our last morning as we packed everything up and left the hotel to get into our rental car, Little Brother exclaimed, “that was a long trip!”  And we were just getting started for about 9 hours of travel. Fortunately, the kids were troopers and traveled very well! YAY!

Back Home Again

Little Brother has kept saying, “I want to go back to Arizona.” And “I want a LONG break from the snow,” in response to me saying, “wasn’t it nice to have a short break from the snow?!”

These comments were made when we went for a little walk on a nearby trail.  Look what Big Sister found!

snake in the snow
Do you see what we see? That’s NOT a stick!

I didn’t realize snakes would venture out in the snow! Big Sister explained, “Yeah, the groundhog said it would be an early spring,” (which partly explained why she wasn’t surprised to see the snake).  Let’s HOPE he’s right!

Thumbs Up

I’m trying to get my kids to eat more veggies, so I was so happy when Little Brother declared, “infinity thumbs up for cooked broccoli.”  Another time it was only 60 thumbs up for cooked cauliflower, but I’ll take it because he ate it. I love it when I make meals that get thumbs up from my kids!

I’m sure there was more crazy things that I overheard, but that’s all I’ve managed to record for this post! For more Fly fun, be sure to click on these links for a peek into some other homes:

http://www.BakingInATornado.com                         Baking In A Tornado

http://www.juiceboxconfession.com                            Juicebox Confession

http://www.menopausalmom.com/                          Menopausal Mother

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com                            Someone Else’s Genius

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/                      Spatulas on Parade

http://singlemumplusone.blogspot.com                      Searching for Sanity

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com                         Never Ever Give Up Hope

http://dinoheromommy.com/                     Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com          Not That Sarah Michelle

http://www.southernbellecharm.com                   Southern Belle Charm

http://mybrainonkids.net                                      My Brain on Kids