Cousins.....

Cousins are nice to have around to shoulder some of the grunt work when you're building a house....

Or if you need a sparring partner for practice....

Or a partner to make the trampoline a little bit (or a lot bit) more exciting...

They are great for sharing secrets....

Heck, if you have enough of them you can even start your own band and dance party with the leftovers...

Best part of all, they're there if you just need a hug....

Not because they want to mind you. Just because they are genetically linked to you and when holidays roll around you get to torture them with your presence, and your total lack of regard for  personal space! In other news, we went to a toy store today! Let's just say we all came away happy....

So all in all a super fantastic, cousins should be included in all vacations, day!

Family.....

Last night we arrived in Seattle to be with Shane's family for the holidays. Silly me didn't go to sleep right away......silly me got woken up by 3 very excited reunited cousins having a nerf war in the hallway by my bed at what would be 5:30am my time. No worries, I am not planning to recreate that mistake twice. The boys have been tucked.....

Well, they got tucked after I made sure one of them had a nice case of bed head before hitting the sack....

We're cool like that you know! Now I'm off to sleepy town myself....that is if those boys in the room across from me will ever stop giggling! Yay for cousins! So all in all a super fantastic, where did I put those earplugs, day! 

Paradise....

Buddy got to attend a birthday party today while I got to go to church and beg people  for money compliments of Friends of Scouting. From the pictures it looks like Buddy definitely got the better deal....

Then again, there really is no comparison (no offense to people who like to beg for money.....or like to be Friends of Scouts [that just sounds weird]). So all  in all a super fantastic, donations anyone?, day! 

Engineer?

Last night while the boys were playing hoops in Buddy's room (I'm using this term lightly, Buddy has a very small basket ball that goes with a very small hoop that suction cups to his wall), Shane told Buddy he would pay him $100 if he could make a basket from our room to his room. All day long Buddy has been doing odds and ends around the house to make some extra money to take to Seattle (they have stores there, they even have stores that sell ONLY TOYS there, which is putting Buddy into a saving freenzy)....then tonight he drew up some plans and then set to constructing this....

Buddy is now taking more money to Seattle than I am! Maybe he can buy me something for being his favorite mom? One can only dream, of course if all those dreams included cardboard, duct tape and $100 this world would be a better place!

So all in all a super fantastic, moneybags, day!

Kids...

I'm not sure how many kids Buddy thinks we have running around the house to necessitate him having to take credit for his handiwork....

Definitely not enough to make this game any less painful...

Well, that is until Buddy and I decided to team up and put Shane into foreclosure.....we're nice that way! So all in all a super fantastic, taking our credit, day!

Landscaping...

Nothing spruces up a yard like balloons do....

 Well, balloons and glow sticks....

Well, balloons, glow sticks and 3 goofy kids....
So all in all a super fantastic, spruced up, day!

Get it while you can....

Today Buddy took the Hawaii Standardized test for reading. Guess who got the top score for all of third grade.....

His teacher even said he'd never seen a score as high as his (of course I think his teacher has only been a teacher for 2 years, but we can pretend Buddy is a genius)! All the kids were bragging on him on the way out of school, and of course Buddy was grinning from ear to ear and telling his score to anyone that would listen (or basically anyone with in a 2 mile hearing distance).  I'll brag about this now, because I know next week is the math test....pretty certain you won't be hearing a peep from me! So all in all a super fantastic, reading like a super champ, day!

Chess King....

I bought Buddy a chess set for his birthday...

Which may explain why he likes playing the game in his birthday suit? Well, at least it's combining two things he loves (playing chess and being naked)!  So all in all a super fantastic, check mate, day!

Waiky 500.....

Today I took  Buddy and a friend to the skate park. Unfortunately the skate park was overrun with not only teenagers......but SKATEBOARDS (the horror). The boys didn't seem to mind a little detour into uncharted territory....

See, I told you they didn't mind! Two hours of this.....

Even I was hooked! So all in all a super fantastic, good thing Buddy is a pack horse to lug that thing up and down the hill a million times, day!

Card carrying member....

A few days ago Buddy copycatted from his BFF a book of rules for his room....

I'm not sure how much foot traffic he thinks he gets down his end of the hall, but at least he's wishing us to have a nice day. That almost makes up for the fact that he's growing up way too fast and wanting his privacy. For posterity I've documented the whole darn thing....

He even set up a "key pad" for entry into his room...

Today his safeguards were put to the test when we had a party for one of my co-workers that decided she needed to leave Paradise and go to Poo-tah!

Two of his friends were there, and to make sure they had easier room access than the other riff-raff milling around (think lots of girls and lots of toddler boys) he had me make them access cards....

Buddy came up with the idea and designed them himself! 10 points for creativity, minus 15 points for thinking a 2 year old could read or even follow the directions! Oh well, so all in all a super fantastic, accessible, day!

Cully....

I just have to toot our cul de sac's horn (wait, do cul de sac's even have horns?). Since it was a non-windy day around these parts (a rarity I assure you), Buddy got to finally play with the airplane he bought with his birthday money....

Of course after shimmying up two coconut trees and digging through a poky bush to retrieve said tree I put the kibosh on the plane flying and the locals (also known as the kids on our street) turned out to do a little of this....

Even the dog showed up...

So all in all a super fantastic, taking the neighbors with us if we ever move, day!

Weathered.....

It was really cold yesterday morning, so instead of wearing pants and a jacket like a normal person would to keep warm at school, Buddy decided this was the most appropriate attire....

The ears flop when you walk, otherwise they'd just be a pair of lame ole' slippers and wearing them to school would be embarrassing....the ear flopping takes it to a whole other level of non-embarrassing AWESOME!!!!! You know what else is awesome? I got to fill in for Buddy's den leader today at Cub Scouts and then watch some cute boys do this....

That would be the boys raising and lowering the flag on a genuine flag pole! The book only said they needed to be present for a flag raising and lowering ceremony, but who wants to do that one time when you can do it 18 times so everyone gets a chance? So all in all a super fantastic, flag folding and flag raising, day!

Tech Savvy....

When I was a kid, if I had to take care of business in the bathroom, I had to take a book to entertain myself. Buddy has taken up texting from the toilet (I'm pretty sure he's not the only one, Buddy's handiwork is on the right)....

There were even pictures.....Needless to say, I deleted those! Sheesh, kids.....well, at least my kid! So all in all a super fantastic, not sure if we were taking care of business or just having fun, day!

How to get your child tired in 538 easy steps....

Today I got be a chaperon on  Buddy's field trip to go see a Korean Cinderella Story. After the play, the kids went to a huge wooden park for a picnic and to have THE LONGEST RECESS EVER!!!  I took a picture to commemorate the event, but it's in cyberspace somewhere and I can't find it.....oh well. Buddy would only sit beside me for approximately 2 seconds for me to take the picture, then he hightailed it back to his teacher. I knew Buddy loved his teacher, but apparently ALL the kids absolutely love the teacher and they didn't let him have a moment of piece the whole time! In other news, I checked Buddy out of school right after the field trip and decided the 2 hours at the park running around just wasn't long enough....

I'm thinking of possibly installing a Buddy sized hamster wheel at our house! So all in all a super fantastic, running around day!

It's my birthday.....

It's my birthday.....so I woke up with expectations that the world would be at my beck and call, because the world revolves around me and all. About 5 minutes after I woke up, I remembered, I'm a mother, there is no world around me, just a world around him...

This was yesterday, when he was being cute and funny! This morning, not so much! He woke up from a nightmare that apparently involved me "forcing" him onto a dangerous roller coaster that had grizzly bears at the bottom of it! Seriously, if looks could kill, I would have been dead....several times over! Talk about taking away a birthday buzz! We eventually made our way to school (late of course) and then I handed him over to his teacher. When I checked in on him at lunch time, his teacher was super nice and said that as soon as I left Buddy was OK. Apparently his teacher has been taking some sort of  counseling classes and told me what I wanted to hear, but according to the Budster, part of the morning was spent crying under his desk with another part outside talking to Mr. Hartman (his teacher) about his nightmares. Oh well, by lunchtime he looked like this...

You know the world is good again when the bunny ears are out. Next birthday I'll be sure to not force Buddy onto the Bear Roller Coaster of Death. In other news, the birthday wasn't a total wash because some of my friends took me out for dessert tonight. Well, that is, after Shane made me a gourmet meal of bean and cheese burritos. Here I thought my birthday was just another day! So all in all a super fantastic, not riding roller coasters for a while, day!

Super Powers.....

Today I donated blood....

Which is not really a big deal, but I took a picture just for Shane. I was going to post the picture on Facebook to gross Shane out, but then thought better of it for the safety of his passengers! I showed him the picture when he got home and he refused to actually look at it! What a baby!!!!! Speaking of babies, mine adorned himself like this today....

Then shoved himself into this today....

Then joined silly forces today....

I'd say a day well done! So all in all a super fantastic day!

Incognito....

Ever have a kid too sick to go to school, but had some errands to run and didn't want truant officers tracking you down? We have the solution for you....

Buddy totally lucked out with being sick today of all days. I had to go to Hilo for some official Cub Scout business and Hilo actually has stores.......stores that carry things other than basic necessities.....it was awesome! We even took in a movie (pretty sure I don't have this mothering thing down quite yet, since I remember not being allowed to do anything on a sick day). Oh well, Buddy needed a new pair of glasses anyway, and here we've got two, what a bonus! So all in all a super fantastically, snotty, day!

And so it begins....

This morning I woke up WAAAAAYYYYY too early to find Buddy hard at work doing this.....

That's him tacking up a pillow case full of knick knacks set to explode on Shane's head when he walked out of the bedroom (compliments of Goodboy of course)! Buddy decided Goodboy probably needed a little dose of religion after that and took him to church with us....

Or, Buddy decided he wanted a good distraction at church and took him to church with us(I'll go with option #2), although we can hold our breath that Goodboy's pranks are going to get nicer over the next little bit! So all in all a super fantastic, totally over it, day!

My 6,985,098,847th parenting mistake....

Buddy played his last soccer game of the season this afternoon, and we are a little bit exhausted! When we got home our house turned into an airplane hanger....

I'm pretty sure Buddy has made over 500 airplanes over the last 2 days. I'm also pretty sure Buddy is a hoarder and has only let me throw away 2 of the aforementioned airplanes! In other news, somehow the topic of Christmas came up, which led to talking about Santa and Goodboy the elf! Buddy told me he was 100% certain that they weren't real. For an hour he searched the house for Goodboy to prove to me that I was the one behind it all. Finally I confessed. Remember what happened with the tooth fairy? Let me refresh your memory (click on the word memory dad, it'll take you to the link). Well, you would think that I would have learned my lesson last time. Shane was sure to rub salt in my wounds on that one. But seriously, he's 9, I thought he really knew and he was just looking for validation. He told me he was really sad to be losing Goodboy. Good thing I put on my rebound parenting pants, because the family is now taking turns of pulling Goodboy pranks on the rest of the family! Guess who wanted to take the first turn....

I'm slightly afraid...

So all in all a super  (I'd like to say fantastic, but based on the tears shed today I'll defer that), growing day!