blue climbing Ezra

I was making dinner last week when it grew ominously quiet and I wondered where Ezra was. But being busy in the kitchen, I didn't want to stop and go look for him. My mistake! He came upstairs shortly thereafter looking like this.

Turns out he had climbed on the school table, plucked a blue crayon from the turntable and went to town devouring it. Or at least he chewed it up until it was mush and made a mess with it on the wall and carpet. A Norwex cloth took it all out in a jiffy so no harm was done and he went back to demolishing the book shelf (grrrr). But why will he eat crayons but not his dinner? Little punk.

And just two nights ago he pulled this little stunt: Climbing up onto the play kitchen. I don't know how he could even do that! He was trying to make baskets into the basketball hoop with play kitchen toys. Until he pulled the hoop over on himself... He also climbs into his high chair and the kitchen table where he's not supposed to be. And of course he's all over the top of our furniture. We've never had such a monkey climber before. Such mischief he gets into!

coloring the window

Two weeks ago Samuel was upstairs while we were doing school. I came up for some reason to find that he had drew on the back porch window with white crayon. Lovely. I got my handy Norwex cloth wet and set him to work cleaning it up. I left him for like two minutes, seriously, and came back to find him finished but the norwex cloth was no where to be found. I asked and asked where he put it but either he didn't understand me or he couldn't tell me...or he was being naughty. I looked high and low and could not find it. I mean I looked in every drawer and possible cranny. No where to be found! Two weeks later it still hasn't shown up. I have no idea where it could have gone. The punk is still a destroyer baby.

mud hole adding

Just as I was finishing up my last two posts on this beautiful melting snow day, when Destroyer baby Samuel came in from outside and presented me with an adding problem to share. 

What do you get when you add this: 

...Add this mud hole: 

...together with these muddy boots? 

Answer: Muddy foot prints across the carpet! 

Yay for Norwex!

school time shenanigans

Generally speaking, Samuel doesn't cause quite as much trouble while we are doing school as he did last year. Every once in a while though he likes to remind me of what he's capable of, that he is in fact still our Destroyer Baby.

Take this tape he got from who knows where (seriously, I don't even know where he got that from). Yeah, that one is done.

That same day he really wanted an apple. I told him he had to wait for lunch. He did not wait! Little punk.

those don't go there

On the day before Christmas I was in some kind of hurry (couldn't have been the baby, laundry, Christmas cookies and lunch that I was trying to handle at the same time) when I discovered Samuel's latest shenanigans.

He likes to carry around that little bit set of Terry's and pretend he's fixing stuff like daddy. But somehow he got a hold of my pump as well...

Noah looks really pleased.

Guess he thought that would be a good place for those bits.

And just a little while later while we were making Christmas cookies (Noah and Evie were decorating and Samuel was eating sprinkles), Samuel dumped out all the sprinkles for easier eating. I was right there and didn't even notice. He's such a stinker! 

Destroyer Baby runs away

Nearly two weeks ago we went just down the road to Canyon Lake Park for a surprise birthday party for one of our friends and youth group leaders. The whole family went and waited for Meghan to arrive while it rained, poured and hailed on us. The kids were kept happy with juice.

Then Meghan arrived and they all attacked her with Redi-Whip cool whip stuff. Poor girl. Then they threw water balloons at each other. 

Even Noah and Evie helped.

Now, Canyon Lake Park is beautiful because of all the water. There are water channels and ponds running throughout the whole place. I loved playing in the water as a kid. But now I have this ongoing fear of my kids drowning, especially in a place like Canyon Lake Park where they could fall in and get sucked under ground and passed on to the next pond. But there were like 30 people at the party and we were in the middle of the park where water was at a minimum.  

After dinner together we all played volleyball. Terry and I were both playing while the kids hung out  right next to us. We were keeping a close eye on them.

Terry's pictured in the back in the navy blue of the opposite side.

However, all it takes for Samuel the Destroyer Baby to get into trouble is a few moments. Before one play of the game, Terry and I saw him nearby. After the play was over, we could not find him. 

Terry stopped playing and called out "Where's Samuel?" and started wandering around calling his name. Russ immediately ran over to the water channel, because that's where he'd play he said later. And then everyone fanned out calling for Samuel. I kept looking over by the food tables thinking he was just behind a tree or under a table. After a few moments when he didn't appear, I started to panic inside. 

Just then, someone on the path near the biggest and deepest pond called out, "Hey! Is someone looking for a kid?!" And there was Samuel. Meghan's mom was nearest and reached him first. He was just fine but he was all alone near the biggest and deepest pond in the place! If he had fallen in, the water was all murky... He could have been pulled along into the creek and found miles away. Or stuck in the bottom of the pond. Those are the thoughts that kept me awake that night. 

I never saw the man who shouted out to us. What I kind of really think is that he was an angel. 

Destroyer Baby strikes again

We should really begin calling Destroyer Baby the Destroyer Toddler since we have a proper baby in the house again. Nonetheless, he has struck again. 

Can you see anything amiss in this photo of the new furnace venting? Samuel isn't even included, but his work is...

Earlier that day Samuel and Evie were playing in the dungeon with flashlights while Terry worked away at drywall. They went upstairs and outside and after a while, I heard a very distinct "clunk" sound which came from outside and registered in the corner of the dungeon. I told Terry he should check on Samuel because of the venting (I was nursing) and he misunderstood me about the venting but intercepted Samuel with a running hose outside nonetheless. Disaster was averted because we are fairly certain he was about to fill the furnace venting with hose water. Because, you see, it was a flashlight that he dropped in that furnace venting right before he grabbed the hose!

We discovered said flashlight in the new furnace venting when Terry turned off the sprinkler later that night. He asked me why the venting should be glowing and I just knew that it had been a flashlight which made that "clunk" sound and Samuel was the one who had thrown it down there. Evie verified this the next day.

So here's Terry getting ready to try to retrieve the flashlight with a clothes hanger.

He tried to grab it for like 20 minutes and was almost successful, but had to give up in the end. The following day he used our super powerful shop vac to try to suck it into the hose, but that didn't work either. He told the repair guy about it a couple days later when our brand new furnace was making terrible noises (grrrrrr! come on, it's brand spanking new!) and the guy just laughed and laughed and said they'd have to get the flashlight out before winter. So that's where we're at. 

After Terry tried the shop vac, he built a cage around the venting to keep Destroyer Baby out.

popcorn sink

No Samuel. The leftover Target popcorn I gave you does not go in your play toy sink. Thanks for showing me where you put it though. I was wondering what happened to it.

destroyer baby...4?

A couple weeks ago, the kid's toothpaste went missing. I figured who was responsible. The one they both call "Bad baby!"

A few days later, I found the toothpaste while making a favorite afternoon snack...

No. The toothpaste should not go in the graham cracker box Destroyer Baby. No it should not. 

destroyer baby strikes again

Samuel is known by a few nicknames around here. Recently I've been calling him Little Face because I love his little face so much and he's so stinking cute. But today he reminded me (as if I needed reminding) of why we also call him Destroyer Baby.

Case in point - he attempted to destroy the camera I had propped up on the dresser to take my six month pregnancy photo. 

A couple weeks ago I was on my own with Samuel for a morning while daddy took the other two to Menards. The point: Big brother and sister were not around to keep an eye on Samuel while I took a shower. I thought, foolishly, "Surely he can't get into that much trouble in ten minutes." Pshaw!

When I descended the stairs ten, maybe fifteen minutes later, Terry and the kids were home and Noah and Evie were yelling simultaneously for me to come and see the various messes Samuel had made. The worst being the entire container of cornmeal that he dumped out on the floor and corner cupboard (while I cleaned up the cornmeal, I found more popcorn kernels that he had dumped there previously - so that cupboard got a good vacuuming). He also shook out a large box of Lipton tea bags on the kitchen floor. From there he moved on to the Nilla Wafers, which he dumped out for good measure. When I went downstairs later, not even thinking he had been down there, I found that he had got into a math homeschool box and tore everything out. Ten minutes people!

This photo from nearly a year ago completely captures his Destroyer Baby Curious George shenanigans. 

Oh, and on a different day, he got into a box of Triscuits crackers while we were doing school and dumped them all over the couch and floor in his quest for snackage (Snap enjoyed that venture). He also frequently gets into the game drawer with cards, etc. and makes a mess of that. He scavenges the buffet drawer which has random things in it like ear buds. He took some of those out of Terry's bag and destroyed them on Monday.

Even Terry's sister has had to deal with it. She watched them last week for a baby appointment (because obviously we can't bring HIM with us). As I was headed back to pick them up, Shari texted me a photo of the complete mess he had made of her living room. She knows what I'm talking about now.

I swear, it's like having a dog. No, an untrained puppy, but worse. A couple weeks ago Snap did get into the garbage, consume a huge amount of beef fat and proceed to throw and poop it up the next two nights in his kennel. Samuel is worse because he's potty training...

shenanigans

Recognized the photo below? What about the story behind it illustrating how crazy Samuel is?

Well now I have more stories. We often call Samuel "Destroyer Baby" because he gets into everything, wreaking havoc wherever he is - just this minute I had to take sunglasses away from him from a drawer he's not supposed to be in and put away files he pulled out that again, he's not supposed to be in.

But perhaps he gets it from my brother Nathan since in this photo from the 1980's, Nathan was doing something very similar to what Samuel did this week - getting into the corner lazy susan cupboard in this house. Nathan was after saltine crackers...

...Samuel was after Cheerios. Snap enjoyed this particular excursion.

I had stepped into the house for a few minutes while the kids were on the back patio playing. I went back out when I heard Samuel crying, just carrying on and freaking out. I found him stranded next on this "ledge" next to the window. Yes, I proceeded to go back inside to grab the camera before I rescued him. He was fine by the way. Anyway, he's fallen farther :P

While Noah and I were at the surgery hospital getting his broken arm re-aligned, Samuel grabbed Evie's milk off the table and spilled it on his face. I love the fact that Terry grabbed his phone and snapped a shot before he cleaned him up, just like I would have done.

And the icing on the cake is that last week after Samuel had been in the back yard playing for a while, I found two pieces of Snap dog poop in the cup holder of his wagon that he had apparently been playing with. I proceeded to go on pooper scooper duty, though there wasn't even that much on the lawn since it had only been a couple days since I had cleaned up after Snap poop dog face. I wonder what shenanigans Samuel will get into next?

destroyer baby

As I mentioned in my last post, Samuel has a new nickname: Destroyer Samuel. We started calling him that a few months ago because he makes huge messes. The older two haven't been playing with toys at all recently and so all the mess belongs to Samuel. He gets it done.

While we were doing something in the kitchen this weekend I turned around to see him doing this to the front screen door.

He took apart that spring thing! Look at him showing me the screw - he's so pleased. I took a few photos and then took it away. Little destroyer baby.