Snake Night!

Our little monsters were playing outside on the trampoline and decided to have some kind of battle against each other. Even though Rose was still recovering from being sick, you would think they might have been slightly gentle. But no, she was right in the middle of it tackling Nathan to the ground. They all came running into the house tattling on each other, except they have gotten so smart!

First they send in the younger one to tattle on the other team, then the older one comes limping in barely keeping back tears and fuming mad... It all seems so innocent when a younger sister is telling us of the atrocities the other two have executed upon her poor brother, right! They had divided Nathan and Ginger against Darin and Rose. Which kind of threw me at first because usually they are paired the opposite with Nathan and Rose being loyal companions. Anyway, by the time Ken and I got down to the bottom of their 15th round of "but, they did..." We had heard enough and sent them outside to pull up all the weeds and dead flowers in the front flower beds. If they have enough energy to tackle each other a million times then they certainly can pull weeds.

I am still so amazed that this works everytime. I don't even know where we picked up this parenting tip. But basically kids act up because they don't have enough responsibility (aka-- chores) and so when you rectify that situation they are amazingly well-behaved! They pulled weeds like crazy and did a great job. Ken and I sat in his office watching them happily working together and shaking our head about this weird phenomenon.

Then Darin called out to me...
Darin: "Hey Mom, there are little snakes outside."
Me: "What do you mean, how long?"
Darin: "Like 3 or 4 inches!"
Me: "Those are just worms."
Nathan: "They aren't snakes."
Darin: "Yes they are!"

Then just when I thought Darin and Nathan were about to start fighting again, Darin found another one. Nathan ran inside and got a Tupperware container and Darin caught it. There really were little snakes!
Seriously, so creepy! But, I also can't stop myself from looking and messing with the little guy.
Neither could the kids.
By this time it was starting to get really cold outside so Rose stayed inside with me. It just so happened to be my baking day so I already had dough rising for dinner. Me and Rose decided to surprise all the boys with snake bread!

Seriously, Ken would walk back and forth watching us and the kids outside, while shaking his head. He totally hates the idea of catching snakes, let alone bringing them inside. And here I am totally encouraging the boys to find some more snakes and making it the theme of our dinner. I think half of the fun is getting him to roll his eyes at us:-) Actually half the fun is that he works from home so he is able to be part of these moments instead of us telling him about it after the fact.

Even Ken agreed that Rose was totally cute making her snake bread! She was one giddy little girl!

Adding peppercorns for eyes!
SSSSnake Bread!
The boys ended up finding two more snakes. They also talked their Dad into paying them for each snake, seeing as how Ken doesn't want these guys to slither around the house later this year when they are bigger. He agreed to pay them a dollar a snake. Darin and Nathan made him promise to release them in an empty field. They did not want their Dad to kill them. I think that is because they are still traumatized from the first snake they saw Ken kill.
They are about 6 inches long. Right after I took this picture one of them slithered right out. Of course, I screamed and ran like a baby inside the house even though it was 5 feet away from me. Seriously, terrifying but also SO-MUCH-FUN!
The boys caught it and put all three together.
Okay, look at this picture, isn't it creepy??? The snakes would totally climb up the side.
Trying to find some more, but no such luck.
Our three guests became pretty lively in our dining room. Probably because it was 20 degrees warmer.
Rose made us all special place mats. We were having a "special" dinner afterall. Seriously, I love that Ken indulged us in throwing a party over snakes. He really hates them, but he was such a good sport.
Especially cause I was teasing the boys and telling them I was going to cover them in dough and bake them for dinner:-) Here's our dinner. I've learned on my baking day that I don't really need to make much of anything else. They just want to stuff themselves full of bread and sometimes Hot Chocolate. We had vegetables (they had to have at least some of 4 different kinds), pineapple, and bread. I did make a cheese sauce for them to dip their veggies in, it actually was quite tasty with the snake bread, kind of like a pretzel.
Didn't they turn out so cute!
I totally caught Ginger licking her bowl of cheese clean. She loves this stuff and ate way more veggies with it then normal.
I said something about Ginger licking her cheese like a snake, so of course that meant all of them had to show us their best snake impression. It was so much fun!


The last one is of Nathan and Rose. They are loyal buddies again! Especially because Rose had to take her awful tasting anti-biotic and Nathan kept telling her the trick was to eat something yummy after she did. She kept refusing and finally Nathan grabbed a chunk of her bread and pushed it into her mouth, sweet brother that he is! Rose actually loved it and it made her finish off her medicine super fast. Rose has been so sick and throwing up her medicine so it was literally taking us 30 minutes of giving her the teeniest doses to get her to keep it down. This was actually the first meal she had kept down in a week.