black flies

Matt here. i found this when i was searching up the cat came back. i really liked it it was on the o'canada show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIMameR5aqo. aaaarrrrgggg. chomp chomp



buzzzzzz matt iz gone for 60 minutez

Cursive Writing

It is the day before I start doing cursive in my writing book. I hope I do well. I need some help. Katelyn and I both have our own rooms. But Kate has to go through my room to get to her room. The problem is that she will leave the lights on and will not turn them off until eleven when she's coming out to brush her teeth. So I usually end up getting out of my cosy bed to turn off the lights. Then I try to go to sleep before she comes out to brush her teeth (it does not happen) So that means I go to bed at twelve and get seven hours of sleep. Any suggestions?

Sarah.

fishing

Matt here. here is how to make your own fishing rod. you will need: something shiny, a tennis ball , a thick stick, 3 paperclips, a rubber band, a 1 ft strand of fishing line, 50 feet of fishing line. a worm
1. take the paperclips & bend them into hooks.
2. take the rubber band & put it on the ball so its tight.
3. take the 2 hooks & tie them on each side of the 1 ft of fishing line.
4. hook 1 hook on the 1 ft line to the ball.
5. take the shiny thing & tie it 1 ft line.
6. take the 50 feet of line tie it to the stick.
7. tie the last hook to the 50 feet of line.
8. hook the hook on the 50 feet of line to the ball.
9. ad the worm.
10. go fishing

model airplanes

Matt here. i have a model airplane. i have the F-4 phantom II (a MIG-19 ace) we hung it up with
"invisible" 8 pound fishing line. i want a junkers-88 stuka. here is a joke about it. what do you call a stuck German dive bomber? a stuka! he he.

Matt

I swabbed my butt

I had the boys at the Health Food Store & was asking two women at the vitamin counter about mercury levels in tuna oil. (Tuna has high levels of mercury and should be avoided). Matt pipes up, "excuse me, may I ask you a question." The vitamin lady says yes. "Do you have more than one name tag?" She did! She had at least five. Matt questioned, "Do you have one that says Beanie." She was astonished. She did. Matt said, "I was pretty sure you were the one that collected Beanie Babies. I just got some new ones for my birthday." They had a nice conversation. Then Matt said, "I am also a scientist & I got a germ farm for my birthday. We made agar agar (gelatin) & put it in Petri dishes. Then they said that you could take swabs of any place that had bacteria - like your mouth & nose. So I did that but then I also swabbed my butt."

I think he made their day.

And this was AFTER Sam described to our pastor in GREAT detail about a time when Matt was constipated and then finally found release.

Sam

Sam is currently sitting on my lap reading my blog as I write it. Sam had a time where he loved math like his future girlfriend. But he grew tired of math and moved on to reading. He is now into reading. I watched him reading most of the words in his book pretty well and he's definitely past the hard part. But when he was doing math, he was really funny. He's already a wizard at multiplication. Mostly. He still thinks that 7x8 = 55, but that will straighten out soon. He can figure out what any power of ten is, though that's pretty easy.

Matt has just gone through a birthday. It was a lot of fun for all of including Matt (surprise, surprise!) We had curried chicken and rice and beans and greek salad. Then he opened his presents and one of them included a box full of K'nex. If you don't know what K'nex is, then just think of lego.... but a lot sharper. So now every night I have to look at my feet and pick out the little pieces of plastic that have somehow managed to embed themselves into my foot.

We just went for a rousing hike around a new subdivision. There is a 65 degree hill that we are waiting to slide down on our sleds. But we need to wait for a bit more snow.

Anyway, that just about sums up everythink that's happened in the past while. Hope all you readers have a good winter.

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Matt here. i have a challenge for you, make a poem using the phone. say 0700 = open. 66 = no.
226232 = Canada. 43550 = hello. 6366 = memo. the most funny one wins!

2000th post

I can't believe I get to claim the 2000'nth post yippee! I am starting french (again) and my score never goes below 97 out of 100! it makes me feel really good. I hope I can learn it. Its better to learn in a french speaking environment so I'll ask Dad to only speak french to me and I hope he will and Mom to.

Sarah

Dentist Day

We went to the dentist today. Yup. Four kids. Two hygenists. One dentist. It was strangely relaxing - as I read magazines while the kids were in the chair. It wasn't SO relaxing when I paid the bill. But I should have been thinking harder about that when I had kids. Too late now.

Here is a tidbit from a note Ron sent to a friend - explaining about Matt cleaning the bathroom floor with a toothbrush:
.
The bathroom cleaning was MEANT to dissuade Matt from wanting to get involved in the military. But as is so often the case with my kids, things backfire. He actually enjoyed doing it!! Today I have him cleaning his room military style. I went in to see how he was doing and he looked like he was rather enjoying trying to get every last wrinkle out of his blankets. It's hopeless!

P.S. The boys' room was spotless. Do you think we can get away with getting them to clean up the basement military style?

Matt the Cadet

Ron thought he would give Matt a little taste of the army because Matt wants to become a cadet. He gave him some soap & water & had him scrub the bathroom floor with a toothbrush. This was quite time-consuming but Matt did a very nice job. Later Matt said to me, "I think I would like to change my job. I don't want to clean out the dishwasher anymore. Instead I will scrub the bathroom floor with a toothbrush every day."

Yosemite Sam

I have been having a lot of fun with Sam lately. We are virtually walking across Uganda. (Dan says this is impossible ~ that you can't virtually walk across Uganda. His contention makes him less than co-operative on our daily walks). We are out walking & it is a beautiful day - like 9 C. I can't help it. I started singing "The hills are alive with the sound of music ... Ah-ah-ah-ah." All of a sudden - WHAM - someone punches me in the back. Sam is looking up at me, angry. "MOM! Don't sing. It embarrasses me." We-ll. This was too much fun to let pass by. I decided to take a vow of silence. I used pantomine to show him my lips were zippered shut & buttoned closed. After a while he had something he wanted to ask me. I just motioned a response. This went on for 40 minutes. Finally he asked what something spelled. I turned to Sarah & said, "Sarah, can you tell Sam that he can sound that out himself. Just stop after the 'D' (the word was Midland). Sarah repeated this. It was very fun for me. And strangely peaceful. But it frustrated Sam terribly. (insert evil laugh here). Maybe next time he won't punch me.

We came home & I heard yells and screams from the living room. I went downstairs to see Sam shirtless & Katelyn wearing his shirt. Strange, I thought on a number of fronts. First, how did Katelyn get the shirt off of Sam. Second, why was a 16 year old wearing a 7 year olds' shirt. It was not my children's finest hour. I thought distraction would be appropriate so I invited Sam to come with me to Frenchies & the grocery store. He was totally flopsy - couldn't possibly put on his coat or shoes. When I asked why he said, "Katelyn scratched me when she was taking off my shirt." I looked & sure enough there was a scratch. I used the oldest Mom trick in the book. "I'll put a bandaid on it, Sammy, and it will be all better." As we walked into Frenchies, holding hands, he said, "it is amazing. The pain is completely gone." I said, "Jesus healed you, sweetheart." He smiled up at me.

Birthday Madness-Two Super Saturdays coming up

January 12th begins the birthday madness week. It is more intense that the Democratic Primaries. Matt was born at 9:30 am after 30 minutes in the hospital. My 4'9" Czech doctor said, "I think ve break the vater, ve have a baby." And out came Matt. Then on January 19th at 1:30 am, Dan was born. It was -37C with the windchill. I had a contraction on the way into the hospital & Ron had the audacity to say "could you hurry it up. I'm cold." I, of course, was not feeling the cold. We have all kinds of plans & hope that Matt, especially isn't disappointed. He asked to join Cadets for his birthday, since in his own words, "I am a military historian." We said NO. He asked to get a monthly subscription to RuneScape (on-line addictive game). We said NO. We hope he likes what we do have for him.

Awake in Hali-town

In August we finally got rid of our 14 year old mattress. It was just plain worn out & Ron was sleeping very poorly. We got a new mattress & Ron was singing its praises for awhile. Then his ribs started hurting. He was waking up around 5 each morning, unable to sleep more because of the pain. Someone suggested one of those foam tops, which we got. It helped a little. Then Ron went away to meetings & slept on a different mattress. He woke up without any pain. He went to see his chiropractor who told him he was badly out of allignment. He also suggested at least ASKING about trading in our mattress. I had said, "NO WAY. We've had it for 3 months." But Ron called. They called back when they checked with the boss. She said we could trade our mattress in for the cost of a new delivery. We picked out the same model with softer springs & gladly paid the $70 delivery charge. We haven't got it yet ... Ron is anxiously awaiting a good night's sleep.

So in case you are looking for a mattress~ this business treats customers well:

Simmons Mattress Gallery in Bayers Lake. Tell them Ron & Marsha sent you.

Chittichitti BangBang

While driving on the "Eastern Shore" to see some of my cousins, our van started accelerating. By itself. This seemed somewhat concerning to us. Ron put on the brakes, pulled over & started trying different things to get the van to slow down. The van was acting as if we had put the peddle to the metal but we hadn't. We got it to kind of go down a few gears. But without using the gas we could go about 50 km/hour. We took it into the mechanics the next day. We had actually had this problem before - & taken it to the mechanic for it before. It only happens when we use the cruise control. We told the mechanic & he shook his head. "Couldn't be the cruise control. There are so many fail-safes on a cruise control. You may think it is the cruise control. But it just can't be." OK, we said, as we shrugged. We aren't the mechanic after all. The mechanic called back a few hours later saying, "we can't find the problem." We said, "take it out on the highway, put the cruise control on, and you will be able to reproduce the problem." A few hours later they called & said, "we were able to recreate the sudden acceleration & you can't have your van back. It isn't safe to drive it. But it isn't the cruise control." We said, "OK". They decided to order a second hand cruise control, just to confirm this wasn't the problem. It took a while to get. When they went to take the old cruise control off they found corrosion - which was causing the problem. By this time the van had been in the repair shop for 6 days (not really their fault - weekends happen & New Years was in there too). I think the mechanic was a little embarrassed - but we were gracious. We had gotten along OK - since we can walk to the grocery store & live near a busline, who cares? All's well that ends well. AND the bill was only $200. Not bad for a week in the repair shop.

what for my birthday? by matt

what's for my birthday? Lego? money? hockey game? slippers? ipod? books? a sled? beany babies? for supper? Curry chicken? beans? rice? to much for me. January 12. it's driving me crazy! ~ matt