Mmmm....I love candy!

I have a very sucessful candy pyramid scheme happening here. Sure I do a little work by decorating and buying the costume but it is the efforts of the little guys under me that do most of the work. They get dressed up all cute and everything, go door to door, recite a little jingle and they get candy! Mmmm...I love candy. Oh sure, the little guys get a cut of the profits and there is even enough left to re-distrubute should the need arise. (You see, Ethan comes in half way to unload the haul so if I run out of the candy I am giving, well....) It's a good deal. Especially on a night like tonight. Its cold and he's such a cutie. Not as many kids out so people are looking to get rid of the junk and he's such a cutie!

And so, the diet and excercise routine resumes on Monday. (I need a week to binge!)

i.e vs e.g

Happy Birthday, Kirsten! I sure hope you aren't cooking tonight! (Step up, Nathan and Chris)
I know that you and your family place such an emphasis on birthdays so I hope you feel it too.
Hopefully we can manage to get together this week so I can help you celebrate. Happy Birthday!

So, last night at supper when I was receiving my weekly grammar lesson, I discovered that I have been misusing i.e.. Apparently it means 'in other words' and not 'for example'. I don't think I am alone in this error because I've seen it before but I like to learn when I'm wrong. I'm constantly learning!
I don't want to make this a post about when I'm wrong but I never used to get the cliche "Six of one; half a dozen of the other" either. For years I thought it was "six of one half, a dozen of the other" so the context in which people would use it never made sense to me. Apparently, I was wrong but now it all makes sense. I use it all the time. (If you are someone who speaks with me often, you have probably heard me use that cliche. It's because, at 31 years old, it's new to me!)
Now I'll be using i.e. all the time.
There has to be other things out there that people have recently learned that probably should have been more common knowledge. Do tell.

Wanted:

One loving and caring individual willing to watch and care for two lovely, well-behaved boys, ages 4.75 and 1. The position is from 8am to 4 pm, Monday - Thursday with lunch provided and no addition housework responsibilities added. The eldest boy will be picked up from school for the afternoons so only one napping child will remain in your care. Educational games, crafts, and activities will be expected as well as nutritional snacks. Hourly wage negotiable. Apply within.

WHO AM I KIDDING?

I just need somebody, anybody to make sure the house doesn't burn down with my kids in it, that's all. There is chocolate milk in the fridge, chips in the cupboard, and Treehouse is Channel 17. Why is child care so hard to find????

Is 12-15 dollars an hour reasonable to pay a nanny?

On a related note (kinda), Darrin is fine after his "procedure".
We are off to Butterfield Acres today to hunt for a pumpkin. Hopefully we won't have any trouble finding our pre-assigned gourd in it's shallow buriel ground of dried leaves. Thankfully it is a great day. Hope you all have a good one too!

Fish Creek Park outing

Here are some shots of the day.

Another 'blog-worthy' moment

The conversation went a little something like this:

Ethan: My dad is a good dad, right?
Me: Right.
Ethan: Do you know who is the best dad of the whole world?
Me: Who?
Ethan: God. But not Jesus 'cause he isn't a dad yet. Jesus is God's son, right?
Me: Right.
Ethan: He laid down his life, you know.
Me: Yes, yes he did. Do you know what that means?
Ethan: Nope. I just learned it in Sunday School. It's in a song.
Me: Well, it means he died for us.
Ethan: But he's not dead now, right?
Me: Right. Do you remember Easter time with the egghunts? Well, on Good Friday, Jesus died but on Easter Sunday, he became alive again.
Ethan: He died on Good Friday?
Me: Yes.
Ethan: Oh. What happens on Bad Friday?

Oh the pressure....

and I'm not speaking on behalf of my belt after Thanksgiving dinner!

I'm speaking of two things:
1) I've made it to Kris' 'Most Frequented Blogs' section and I don't want to be cut to the section below, which is the 'Blogs I visit but are updated very infrequently' section and
2) Someone has shared with me their disdain about blogging, calling it a selfish and self-centered waste of time.

I have had further discussions with this individual (at which time they apologized for potentially hurting my feelings and insulting me) and have explained to him my desire to connect with a variety of different people and to keep my distant family updated on the musings of the Whitbread household. I have enlightened him a little but I also don't disagree with him on some level.

I will continue to share my life with you, my reader(s) and ask the same in return. Life is way to interesting and comical to keep to ourselves!

I will share with you Ethan's prayer at suppertime last night:
"Dear God and Jesus, you are so, so, so nice. Thank you for my potatoes and carrots and turkey and gravy. It is fun to sit at the big table and I am going to eat now. Amen."

Chat soon.

Funny or sad? You decide.

So, at Ethan's school they have special school shirts that they wear for special occasions and School Spirit Days. (2 special's and 3 school's in one sentence - not good)
Anyway, for his class they are green and today happens to be a special day with a visit from the Vancouver Aquarium. So I was playing up the whole "green day" thing when Ethan got super excited and started jumping around everywhere yelling, "Green Day, Green Day, Green Day. They are coming to my school. Yippee! Yippee! Green Day! I love Green Day!"
It sounds so obvious when I type it out but I didn't get it at first.
Yep! He thought that by it being green day at school that Green Day would be there.
I thought it was cute and funny then it dawned on me. Should my 4.5 year old know who Green Day is?
Maybe it is a little sad too.

Dad, Green Day is a rock band ;-)

Answers revealed

VERBIGERATION - to repeat things over and over and over and over again.
ASPERGILLUM - a device used for sprinkling holy water
BAFALO - a west African xylophone
CHINQUAPIN - a tree of the chestnut family
SARCOLOGY - the study of soft parts of the body

(I maybe should have pre-read them before deciding. Grade 6ers are grossed out easily so the last one didn't go over very well!)

So the next time you are playing your bafalo under a chinquapin whilst studying sarcology, think of me.

Well, I see by the clock on the wall that it's time to bid you, one and all, so long. Farewell. Au revoir, .....

What's your guess?

At Sunday School yesterday we played a modified version of Balderdash, a game in which you basically make up answers to try to fool people into believing that you are right.
Here are some words that I gave them to create definitions for. (yes, I did assume that they did not know the correct answer!)
What are your attempts to define these words? (without looking on websters.com)

VERBIGERATION
ASPERGILLUM
BAFALO
CHINQUAPIN
SARCOLOGY

I will share their guesses another day as well as the correct answer.

Also, Happy Birthday to my big sister. Hope it was a good one.