During kid wrestling practice, an exuberant Noah ran over to me and announced, "Mom! We don't HIT in wrestling!"

After eating most of the piece of cherry pie she requested, Elizabeth said she was finished. I saw on her plate that she had left about six cherries.

"Why aren't you eating the cherries in the pie, Elizabeth?" I asked.

"I don't like cherries," she said.

"Well, you asked for cherry pie," I reminded her. "There are cherries in cherry pie."

"I know, but I don't like cherries," she reasoned.

I guess I can't argue with her logic.

"Dad, do you remember that time you broke a plate?" Noah asked at dinner tonight. "That was a LONG, long time ago... in a galaxy far, far away!"

Elizabeth: Mom, my throat hurts!

Noah: No, it doesn't, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Yes it does! You're making me have a headache!

Mark caught Elizabeth sneaking another snack this morning.

"Little girl, you're just one big snack, aren't you?" he said to her.

"Yes, I sneak snacks, every day of America," Elizabeth replied.

Elizabeth: "Noah, will you give me a Super Wedgie?"

Mrs. F was opening some crackers for the class snack the other day, when the end broke open and spilled cracker crumbs on the carpet.

Hannah piped up, "That wouldn't have happened if you'd have done it over the trash can."

Hannah: "If I don't get to go visit my friend Rebecca soon, I'm going to form an angry mob."

On my birthday last week, I turned 38. Hope, after wishing me a Happy Birthday, said to her daddy, "Dad, I remember a long time ago when you were 38."

Overheard...

Hope, talking to Hannah and Elizabeth: "I know dogs speak French, because there are French poodles."

At 4-H last night, one of the members gave a talk on her beef project. She runs an embryo transfer program with her Maine Anjou heifers, and went into great detail about "flushing eggs" and "running them with the sperm from XXXX bull", etc.

At the end of her talk, Hannah came back to my seat and whispered in my ear, "Mommy, do cows really lay eggs?"

I am SO not ready for that talk yet.

******
On the way home, I tried to explain the cow-egg thing in simple terms, until Noah finally said, "Mom? Can we stop talking about cows now?"

Elizabeth: "Mom, Noah lost all his marbles."

Hannah has a nightly reading assignment, for which we have to initial that she has completed it. I hadn't signed her form in a couple of weeks, so I asked her if she wanted me to sign it.

"I got a new folder, and if we don't start getting it signed, it's going to get ugly," she said.

Famous names

Last night, we were watching TV and saw a commercial for a new movie, "Elizabethtown."

"Man, Elizabeth is SO LUCKY," Hope groaned.

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, when we were driving through that one town, there was a restaurant called Elizabeth Ann's, and now she gets a movie named after her, too! No fair!" she said.

While making Scotcheroos today, I was preparing the peanut butter/corn syrup/sugar mixture. Hope asked, "Is that the topping?"

"No, it's not," I replied.

"Is it the bottoming, then?" she asked.

Mom: I'm not sure what to cook for dinner.

Elizabeth: We could cook Noah! He would be juicy!

Traveling down a winding, bumpy, hilly road in rural Nebraska, Hannah piped up from the back seat:

"I'm getting noxious."

Hannah: Don't give Ainsley any more milk; she just spits it up.

Mom: What will she live on if we don't give her any more milk?

Hannah: On an island.

Eating lunch at Long John Silver's yesterday, with piped-in music standard to all fast-food joints...

"Mom, this music touches my heart," Noah said.

Noah: What are we buying at the store?

Mom: We're buying cases of vegetables. They're on sale.

Noah: Not peas, though, right? That's the one thing I don't have to eat.

Mom: New rules -- now you have to eat peas. (teasing!)

Noah: I'm going to go live with a different family.

Mom: OK, kids, Daddy is serving the concession stand at the fair for Knights of Columbus. Would you like me to go and pick up some hamburgers for our lunch?

Hannah: I don't know... are they JUICY?!

Mom: We don't like to punish you.

Hannah: Really? I thought that's what parents do best.

Ainsley has been pulling up to stand for almost 2 weeks. She is 7 1/2 months old. Several days ago she started "cruising" around the furniture. And biting, hard. And sticking out her tongue at us.

I'm SO not ready for another "into-everything" toddler already!

Driving down the highway, we saw a Humvee.

"A Hummer! Now THAT's what I'M talkin' 'bout!" Noah exclaimed.

Visiting Daddy's old stomping grounds in his college town was fun for all of us, as he reminisced about his favorite places and told the kids stories about his college days. His college town is very hilly, so he took us to one very steep hill to scare the kids a bit. ;)

Noah: "Now THIS is a hill!"

Hope: "Hold on to your jeepers!"

Elizabeth: "Everyone shut your pieholes up!"

Mom: "Hannah, why don't you try to find a girl in the neighborhood to play with instead of always playing with the boys?"

Hannah: "What boys do I play with? Oh, you mean Tristan? Never heard of him."

Mom: "You can be sure, girls, that when you start dating, Daddy will grill your dates pretty hard."

Hannah, horrified: "You're going to GRILL them?! Ouch!!!

Mom: "When I was your age, we didn't have computers."

Hannah: "Man, I feel your pain!"

Overheard conversations between the kids can be hilarious. And there are so many, that I forget to write them down.

Today we were driving to a nearby town, and the girls were teasing Noah about "kissing a Wookie" -- from a commercial about Star Wars. Anyway, arguing ensued and eventually led to Hope telling Noah that if he likes Darth Vader, then he's "on the Dark Side."

"Man, I'd sure hate to pay for electricity on the Dark Side," Hannah replied.

Hope: At camp, the archery guy kept telling us to shoot at will. Who's Will?