Andy & Jessica

Jude went grocery shopping with Andy today and surprised me by buying a mango. He explained by saying, “You know why I got a mango? I’m getting old. I probably have a taste bud for mangos even though I’ve never tried them.”

Levi yelled to Jude when Jude was playfully trying to chop off my ponytail with the remote control helicopter that he was piloting dangerously close to me, “No Jude!  No POW my mommy!”

“Mommy, can you lay down with me? I’m more tired than a lady bug who hasn’t had a nap in a year… . Now I’m infinity times more tired than a monkey with a broken nose. Really, I am.”

Normally red tape is a bad thing associated with government delay. But, not this time. Jude had karate last night and earned a red tape for his white belt. They do red, white and then blue tape before the next white belt with a gold stripe is awarded. Although I learned earlier that belts are awarded based more on attendance than performance (and we can only get Jude to 2 of his 4 karate lessons each week because of my work schedule and Andy’s inability to leave the house with the 3 busy boys), Jude was really excited to earn his red tape. They told Jude the red tape signifies that he had learned the fundamentals of kicking. Jude said that when the teacher said, “Jude, step forward,” that he was surprised and thought at first that he was in trouble. Jude thanked the teacher for the tape and then told me that none of the other kids had said thank you and that he bets the teacher thought he was a really polite boy.

Little Levi is such a loving, gracious little boy. Being the middle brother, he gets it from both ends. Jude smacks and bullies Levi around quite a bit and is constantly trying to parent Levi and impose all sorts of crazy rules on him. Levi often cries and says, “Jude told me.” Levi’s English isn’t good enough to finish his sentence, but it’s always clear Jude told him he couldn’t do something that Jude has no business telling Levi he can’t do. Then, on the other end, is Bobo, the little bully. Bobo loves to run up to Levi and take whatever was in Levi’s hand and run off with it. Levi is so sweet to Bobo and we’ve never seen him mistreat Bobo. The worst Levi will do is to scream or yell, “No!” It’s pretty amazing to me that Levi seems to treat Bobo the way he wants to be treated, instead of the way he is treated by both Jude and Bobo. What a sweet little boy.

Asher is super cute. He loves to get laughs. Whenever I ask him what his name is he responds, “Jude,” with a laugh. Funny guy.

One of my projects for today was to organize the linen closet. I’ve never been good at folding sheets and tend to just ball them up. It was always a struggle to find a matching set of sheet. Andy even recently bought a new set of King sheets since he couldn’t find them in the closet. I found them so that will save us some money since we can return the unopened new sheets. While I was working on that project Jude and Levi were running around and Jude was trying to scare Levi, who would cower by me. Jude disappeared for awhile which is always dangerous. He reappeared with completely green hands and black eyes. He had painted himself and was practically dripping paint. I told him he had to not touch anything until his paint dried. He asked me if I was so surprised to see him all dressed up like a zombie. I told him I was and that I was probably going to be really surprised when I saw the paints and the area he painted himself. I asked him if he had cleaned up and closed the paint. He said, “I did the best I could and I couldn’t.” Great…

Jude yelled at Levi, “Levi, you hold the iPad; I play. It’s a fair deal.”

Jude made some pink lemonade that he wanted to bring with to share during church fellowship time today. He said, “We shouldn’t make it too good or all the people will think about the lemonade and not God.”