Matthew the Great Helper

As kids grow older, they try to emulate what they see others doing. Unfortunately, this made my housecleaning day yesterday especially exasperating. Matthew was more than willing to help me the WHOLE DAY. Here are some excerpts from the day.

As I washed dishes
"Stop emptying my cupboards."
"Get out of the garbage."
"DON'T EAT THAT!"
After I swept and was getting the dust pan
"Oh, what a good boy sweeping . . . my sweeping pile all over the floor."
Cleaning the bathrooms
"Stop eating the soap."
"The toilet brush is not a toy!"
"That was a new bottle of shampoo!"
Folding the laundry
"Where is that pile of Joseph's shirts?" - Turns out Matthew was gathering laundry and I found them in the dirty laundry basket along with several socks and sundry articles of clothes that hadn't been folded yet
"Stop putting on those socks, I just matched them!"
"Get back here with all my hangers!"
Vacuuming
"Matthew I need to vacuum there, move out of the way. Move out of the way. Don't sit down!"
Taking a break
"Matthew, how did you open all those help windows on the computer?"
Making beds
"Come back with my blankets!"
Finishing picking up the toys
"Who dumped out the crayons?"
Finished picking up crayons
"I just put those toys away."
Finished picking up toys
"Arrg! How did you reach those crayons!"
Finished picking up crayons Actually this time I was lucky because Matthew fell asleep under the table and hadn't done anything.

If only I could harness his powers for good instead of evil!

We love visitors

Peter's brother Doug came to CT for some business and we were able to have dinner with him. The kids loved seeing family (they are starved for extended family out here!) and were very disappointed he wasn't coming home with us!

Happy Birthday Elise

Elise turned 11 this March. She and Kirsti and their Dad got to go to a ballet in the morning and then came home for presents. She had a pretty good day and loved all her presents. She was especially excited when she opened her ipod. The cake (if you can't tell) is a monkey.

Joseph gets some culture

The playgroup we go to got tickets to see a play. Lucky for me, Peter was home to take care of Matthew. Joseph had a blast watching Max and Ruby, although as we were leaving, he said, "Mom that didn't look like the real Max and Ruby." I guess he thought it would be a cartoon!

Sledding

Taking my cue from Brenda (who doesn't?) I took some camera movies of the kids first sledding trip since we moved up here. The first two are of the kids getting their feet wet on a long, less steep hill. After that we moved to a steeper spot and finished the day there (that is where you see Joseph take off). The first time he went down the slope without or help. The kid was a speed demon. Although we stopped short of letting him go off the ramp like his older brothers and sisters.