Examine Your Feelings

This morning while getting ready for school, the following conversation took place.

Topher: Mom (said with a big sigh), I'm feeling obnoxious.

Me: Oh?

Topher: Yeah.

Me: You're feeling obnoxious?

Topher: (another sigh) Yeah.

Me: What does that word mean?

Topher: I don't know, that's just how I'm feeling.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

On the short drive to the bus stop this morning:

Topher: I don't think I'm going to get a job when I grow up.

Me: (pondering how to both listen without judgement and inform him that he will likely need a job): Oh? Why?

Topher: I just want to spend my time being with my family.

Me: Well, that's very nice, but I think your siblings will probably go off to college and start lives of their own.

Topher: No, I mean spend time with my own family. I want to get married and have kids and not have a job so I can watch movies with them and play games and have picnics.

Me: That sounds like a really fun idea, but how will you pay for things like food and housing?

Topher: (thinks this over for a moment): I'll just marry someone rich.

Pucker Up

"Smoochy kiss is a kiss on the lips, a kiss is a kiss on the cheek or the nose." - The laws of romance according to Topher.

Making Faces

I subbed for our ward choir director yesterday after church. While Cooper and I were in choir, Bryan counted tithing in the clerk's office and the girls were in a leadership meeting. Where, you may ask, was Topher?

He was entertaining himself in the nursery with the playdoh.

Camera Ready

My kids read the blog post from yesterday and all commented that I had the beautifying filter turned on in my camera settings. I never activate that function and Sophie quickly took credit for turning it on. I grabbed my phone to set the camera back to its normal, we-look-like-regular-humans setting.

But I couldn't find it. Certain that they could, a few of my kids tried as well. Guess what? They couldn't find it either.

I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually (surely my phone won't hide that setting forever), but for now I guess we'll all be showing up with flawless complexions in our pictures.

Photographic Evidence

"Topher, what's on your neck? Is that chocolate? How did you get chocolate on your neck?!"

Sometimes when you sneak chocolate chips out of the pantry, there's evidence.

Misheard

Sophie: Did you know that the colosseum was completed in 80 AD? 

Phoebe: 80 AD, not 8080 (eighty eighty) 

Sophie: 8080?

Topher: ADHD

Ahoy Matey!

Today while grocery shopping my eyes misread this sign. For a moment I thought it said Dreaded Chicken Cutlets, which to me sounds like a band of cartoon pirates.

Librarian Teaser

Phoebe and her friend Phoenix ran to be librarians for concert choir next year. This was the campaign video Phoebe made.

Spoiler: they were elected!

Oops

Phoebe threw hew hat into the ring to serve on student government. This included making a video to show her classmates about why they should vote for her. We did so many takes that she had plenty of material to make a blooper reel, which is what she did. With her permission, here it is:

You Shall Not Pass

I'm not sure what we've done to upset our trash collector, but they've started leaving our can right in the middle of our driveway. For reference, we leave our can on the far left-hand edge of our driveway in the morning. After the trash is collected, our driveway ends up blocked by the can right in the middle. There's a solid chance we haven't upset the trash collector and this is just a fluke. But it does keep happening...

The Happiest Instrument

Sophie and I joined some of our ukulele orchestra mates and watched The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain perform on Friday night. They were amazing! They were hilarious and their playing was insanely good. The concert felt way too short, even when they came back onstage and played three more songs for an encore.

Thou Shalt Not

Just now I was sitting in our living room, folding laundry, when Topher came out of timeout. This is the conversation that followed.

Me: Topher, come talk to me.

Topher: I love you. There I talked to you.

Me: I love you too. That's not what we need to talk about.

Topher: I'm sorry.

Me: Sorry for what?

Topher: I'm sorry I said you said I could be on the iPad, even though you didn't.

Me: Which was a lie, you know that, right?

Topher: Yeah.

Me: And you know that lying's not okay, right?

Topher: Yeah.

Me: It's actually one of the ten commandments.

Topher: What?!

Me: Yep, thou shalt not lie.

Topher: (picking up three rolls of Bryan's socks) But they didn't say thou shalt not juggle!

And then he tried to juggle the socks.

I'm not sure that he got the message.

Progression of a Capture

Topher snatched my phone during church on Sunday. It didn't take long for me to discover that it was gone.

No Elf on this Shelf

We hosted a fireside for the youth in our ward last night, which meant we spent a few days deep cleaning to prepare. I love the result and think we should have people over weekly if it means my house will consistently be this clean.

While sorting through a stack of school papers, I found this gem. Apparently Topher's class made elf applications in December.

In case you can't read his handwriting/spelling, in response to the prompt "I want to be an elf because" it says, "I'm sorry but I don't want to be an elf."

You should choose me because "sorry I don't want to."

All I Want for Christmas

The library had a Christmas sing-along last week. Sophie and I got to participate with the ukulele orchestra. The evening also included a special visitor in red. Topher is in on the game, but he went and made some Christmas gift requests: a hot wheels garage and a pet polar bear. When he saw the surprised expression on Santa's face he corrected himself and said a stuffed animal pet polar bear.

It's the Cheesiest

Yesterday for lunch Topher made some cheesy waffles, his own creation. He tore strips of mozzarella from a square slice of cheese and put the small pieces on a toasted freezer waffle. He was in process when he held up the cheese and cried out, "It's Pennsylvania! We live on the cheese!"

The Fit

When we did the back to school shopping in August, Topher picked this shirt out specifically for picture day. He hasn't worn it at all, until today. When I told him I wanted Bryan to comb his hair before school, Topher, after some pushback, said, "Fine, but nothing too churchy. How about a mohawk?" We convinced him that his hair was simply too long for that and he settled for this instead.

Making Faces

Overheard

Cooper: (to Phoebe) Hey, don't shoot the messenger.

Phoebe: I'm not going to shoot the messenger. I'm going to correct the messenger and then educate the messenger.