No…don’t worry, this is not a recipe for Footprint Pizza. If you want my pizza recipe, go here.

This is what happened one day last week when I was rolling out a mini yeast pizza crust (recipe coming soon!). I had a few already finished and rising on the pan, went into the other room to answer the phone or something…and then came back to find that Malachi had been unable to resist the soft squishy look of the dough.

First it’s Justus standing on the countertops to cook…and now this.

I PROMISE that they do not learn these things from me.

More Wordless Wednesday here.

Early this week, I REALLY needed to mow our lawn. 

(Yes, I mow our lawn, even though Matt would gladly do it. I think it’s great exercise…and it’s exercise with a productive purpose…and I get good sunshine…and I would rather Matt spend his at-home time doing other things. I’m weird…but I like to mow.)  (I also like it when I’m done mowing.)

So, I needed to mow, but after our long winter and after some really windy spring days, there were a TON of sticks all over the yard that made mowing impossible.

So I came up with this fun plan for the boys. I told them that I would pay them each a penny for each stick that they picked up. I figured it would be way more fun this way and that they would likely be way more motivated to pick up more sticks than they would be otherwise.

It seems that I was right.

I can’t believe how long they spent picking up sticks. They worked SUPER hard! 

Elias ended up picking up 185 sticks….which of course meant that he earned $1.85. Great work for a six year old. (and great ability to count that high and pick up sticks at the same time)

Justus picked up 400 sticks…so he earned $4.00.

And Asa…my first born, oldest child, high achiever…picked up ONE THOUSAND sticks….earning himself a whopping 10 bucks.

So, I hadn’t counted on paying out almost 16 dollars…but I must say…it was SO worth it!! There were NO sticks left for the mower to accidentally chomp up and fling out…none! And I was so proud of them for being such hard workers. And they were quite proud of their accomplishments too!

Oh, and on another note not related to stick picking up….I made the boys a final list of school work that they needed to finish up in order to complete their school year. They finished this week (WOOHOO for ME!). 

But I have to tell you, that when Asa finished his list and came in and anounced to me, “Mom! I finished my fifth grade work! I’m a sixth grader now! I’m in MIDDLE school!” I almost choked on my breakfast. Seriously, I can not possibly have a child this old. 

;)

How hard IS IT to get ALL of them to cooperate and look at the camera at the same time? Yeah…pretty hard….

More Wordless Wednesday here.

The house is quiet for hours and hours…in the daytime…

And when they get up they pitifully ask, “Do we HAVE to go to the party today?”

And when they could care less about food. (Yesterday I had this stuff on a plate after dinner. What was that again?  Oh yeah…leftovers. I remember when we used to have those before…)

Yeah…they’re sick. Three out of four of them.

It was the weirdest thing yesterday…

We got home from the soccer field…and Elias could barely make it into the house. He practically crawled up the steps and then just laid down in the entry way right by the dirty shoes and mud. And stayed there. (Until I could move him over to a little bed in the living room.)

He then promptly fell asleep. 

Then Asa laid down on the couch….and fell asleep.

And…when I went to go find Justus a few minutes later…HE was just laying down on a couch upstairs…doing nothing. And he stayed there for a long time.

Malachi was the only chipper on in the house…and he quietly hung out with me and was Mama’s little helper.

By last night…all of them had to be carried to bed…and they all had fevers.

Justus always gets a little delirious when he has a fever…so he started asking weird questions that didn’t make sense..

And Asa (in his feverish state) was trying to answer them…

(It was sad…and a little funny to listen to…)

Thankfully they all fell asleep early in the evening…and slept well all night.

But my house is still quiet this morning and no one really wants anything to eat. (I hardly know what to do with myself when I can’t be feeding people!)

It’s strange to be home on a Sunday. And…I miss my healthy, active, loud, eat-everthing-in-sight boys. 

(Remind me of this in a few days when I can’t hear myself type…)

Justus asks me at least once a day if we can invite someone over to play…

The question usually comes as I’m changing the diaper of the one year old I babysit for…with Malachi hanging on my back…and Asa hollering in from the other room, “MOM! What does it mean to find the lowest common denominator again?!”

Okay, but today I said, “Yes, sure.” 

So he called Hannah and Sarah, since it had been a while since they had been over.

But they didn’t answer the phone…so I called back later…and they still didn’t answer…

Therefore…here is what the next two hours sounded like:

Justus:  “Mom, when do you think they’ll call back?”

Me:  “I don’t know Justus.”

Justus:  “Do you think we should call them back again?”

Me:  “No, we left two messages already. They might be out of town or something.”

Justus:  “Oh? Where did they go?”

Me:  “I don’t know if they went anywhere…I’m just saying that since they haven’t called back yet…they might have gone out of town. It could be that they are just at Wal-mart or something like that.”

Justus:  “Well, what did they need to get at Wal-mart?”

Me:  “I don’t know. They might not be at Wal-mart. I’m just saying they are probably out somewhere and haven’t gotten our messages yet.”

Justus:  “Well, when are they getting back?”

Me:  “I don’t even know where they are, buddy. I don’t know when they’ll get back.”

Justus:  “Do you think they’ll get back in about an hour?”

Me:  “I don’t know.”

Justus:  “Well when do you think they’ll be able to call us?”

Me:  “Buddy, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about their day today. I don’t know.”

Justus:  “Okay, but what if they don’t call back?”

Me:  “Then we’ll just call Benjamin or someone else to come over and play.”

Justus:  “But, why can’t Hannah and Sarah come over?”

Me:  “I don’t know, Justus. I don’t know means I don’t know. I DON’T KNOW.”

Justus:  “Oh, so you don’t know?”

(and so on and so forth…)

Hannah and Sarah never did call back…

And I STILL don’t know where they are.

Just because they are so sweet and looked so yummy after they all had their showers tonight…I had to get a picture of the boys in their jammies.

And…just because they are so silly…they insisted on doing a crazy face picture too.

Hope the first picture made you smile…and the second one made you laugh…

Mmm…I LOVE these boys!

It was a typical day for the Coppinger household. (Translate that to mean…it was loud, crazy, we ate a lot of food, and I’m ready for bed…)

The boys and I had signed up to help deliver Meals on Wheels this morning…so we tried to get a few items of school work checked off of our lists before we had to leave at 10:40. 

Well, I tried…but the boys were in slow-mode all morning…

Not only did they not get any school work done before we left…I could barely get them to get their clothes on!

They were incredibly distracted by the fact that their first soccer practice was tonight. This meant that all they could think about was cleats and shin guards at 10:00 am…even though practice wasn’t until 5:45 pm.

And they were NOT hearing me when I kept telling them to GET DRESSED in regular clothes….not soccer clothes…so that we could go do Meals on Wheels.

So, time was ticking away…and the boys are still in their jammies at 10:15. They really are not usually this bad about listening and obeying…but soccer excitement won over Mom this morning. 

Here’s what our conversations and activity sounded like this morning:

Me at 10:15 – “Boys…why are you still not dressed? We have to leave in 25 minutes for Meals on Wheels.”

Justus – “Mom, where’s the soccer shirt that Daddy got me in Mexico?”

Me – “In the dryer…but it’s too cold to wear that shirt…and it’s too early to get ready for soccer. Please put on warm clothes so that we can deliver meals.”

Elias – “Hey mom…all of the soccer jerseys are in my closet. How come?”

Me – “Because it was just easier to put them all in one spot during the winter. But…can you please not worry about the soccer shirts right now…and put on your clothes for delivering meals?”

Justus – “Mom…I’m going to put mine and Asa’s soccer shirts in our closet, okay? That way we know right where they are!”

Me – “Justus…please get out of your jammies and put on your clothes for delivering meals!”

Elias – “Mom are my shin guards in the bathroom?”

Me – “Buddy…please stop thinking about soccer clothes and get into your other clothes!”

Justus – “Hey Mom, I found my Mexico soccer shirt!”

Me – “Good…but…GET DRESSED!”

Elias – “Do my soccer cleats still fit?”

Me – “Yes I’m sure they do, but right now we’re going to wear your tennis shoes. Why are you not dressed yet?”

Justus – “Mom, we’ll need to eat an early dinner so that we can make it to soccer practice on time.”

Elias – “What is for dinner?”

Me – “Boys, are you hearing my voice? GET DRESSED!”

Me – “Malachi, let’s get your shoes on so we can go deliver Meals on Wheels.”

Malachi – “Oh, are we gonna ride bikes?” (guess he was thinking of a different kind of wheel…)

Me – “No, we’ll be riding in the van.”

Asa – “I’m going to wear my Heelies…that way I really will be delivering meals on wheels!”

Justus – “Oh, I need to go clean the mud out of my heelies so I can wear mine too!”

Me – “No! Get dressed! You don’t have time to touch your heelies.”

Justus – “Do you know where my long blue soccer socks are?”

Elias – “Oh, I better get mine out.”

Me – “NO! We need to leave in four minutes! No more talking! Get dressed! And do not touch your soccer socks.”

Elias – “Where are we going again?”

<sigh>

Okay…anyway…it might have been comical had I not been so frustrated that I was talking to two brick walls (who couldn’t wait to be playing soccer…).

BUT…once all was said and done…and we were actually DRESSED and out delivering meals…it was such a precious time.

I let the boys take turns going in pairs up to the door with the meals…and they did such a good job. I know the older folks receiving the meals HAD to have felt blessed by these sweet boys bringing them their lunch. I was so proud of them…

They are learning to be servants…(and hopefully they are learning to get dressed before 10:45 am!)

Oh, and one more thing about our day…

This afternoon…I couldn’t find Justus…

The next thing I knew he was coming into the house with a very big (but thankfully not horrible) cut on his finger.

He had been cleaning the mud out of his heelies…

With his pocket knife blade!

(Thank you God that it wasn’t worse!)

We had a nice long talk about how unsafe that was and how anytime he uses his pocket knife…he MUST ask me first…and how he learned his lesson without anything terrible happening…but that it could have been terrible…

Trust me…as he was holding his bleeding finger…THIS TIME…he was listening.