"Remodeling is my middle name!" Hannah exclaimed.

We're not sure why.

"Hannah, let's take it from the top," Hope said, in all seriousness, as they were "rehearsing" a song they wrote called, "Milk and Cookies For Santa."

Hope: It's so cold in here Hannah has goosebumps!

Noah: Let me see them! Hannah, let me see your goosebumps!

Hannah: Those aren't new; I've had them for two years.

Ummmmm... maybe we need to turn the furnace up a little bit?

Elizabeth: I wish I could have a rocket ship to fly up to the moon and see all the awiens.

Mom: I don't think there are any aliens on the moon, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: I know! I could order a rocket ship for Christmas, one that has fire to blast off. Orange fire, not red fire.

"Hold me... I'm so tired," Elizabeth said to me.

I hugged her tight.

"No, hold me so that my legs are not on the ground," she clarified.

Noah: Give me back my hat!

Elizabeth: SHELLFISH!!!!!!!

(she meant "selfish." We think.)

Noah came in and gave me a very big, very sweet hug.

"Noah, hugging me isn't going to get you out of cleaning your room," I said.

"Oh," he said, frowning.

Hannah: You would have to be pretty smart to outsmart me.

Hope: Lizzie is being a real pain in the thorax.

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?!