Belly laughs

I'm starting again with my holiday of the day. There are a few funny ones, but today is also Armed Forces Day and World Telecommunications Day. Both are special to me and my family, and those are the things I'm celebrating today. Matt and both my parents were in the Army, and my brother-in-law is now in the Navy, but he met my sister when they both were in the Marines. And Matt's chosen field in the Army was Telecommunications, which is what he does now at AT&T. All in all a good day to tell the military men and woman in your lives, as well as the people who give us the ability to communicate with them where ever they are, how much we appreciate them.

THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU!!!

OK, having said that..... On to today's blog and my POTD. You'll understand the POTD if you read this extremly long and hopefully NOT boring rendition of events leading to the picture, which I actually took last night. If you don't need a laugh, go ahead and skip to the end, see the picture and giggle. We won't be offended. But I really hope you chose to read. :)

Last night, my daughter went to a pajama party. Her friend's mom comprimised with her daughter and invited a lot of girls over for the slumber party minus the sleep over part. And I went to my monthly crop where I proceeded to complete 4 layouts for the 100 page dash, and although I did make some purchases, they were under the tools and previous commitment catagory.

With the girls out of the house, it was guys night! It dawned on me that the boys would be on their own, and when I asked Eli what he and Daddy were going to do, he rubbed his chin and then did an *AHA* pose.

*We're gonne be MEN Mommy! We're gonna watch boy movies (Star Wars, LotR, etc. Movies Sissy doesn't like), and play WoW! AND we're gonna sit around in our underpants, making stinkies, eating junk food.*

Laughing yet? But oh wait, it gets better!

The highway our town is located on is a back roads highway, and is part of Washington State's *Pass to Pass* route. It's the highway that takes you from Stevens Pass to Snoqualmie Pass. It's a BEAUTIFUL and VERY popular route for motercyclists, and on a sunny day like this past weekend has been, little town businesses like ours are crowded with riders filling up on gas and food. It's great.

Well, on our way to take Sissy to her party, we passed a few bars and restraunts, parking lots overflowing with motercycles. Eli is watching them all from the back seat, waving when he sees a rider outside. When a large group drove by the other direction, Eli turned as far as he could to watch them disappear. When he faced front again, we hear him ask over the radio and the wind from the open windows...

*Daddy, when I grow up can I be in a motercycle gang?*

And YES there is more still!

Some of you know that Matt LOVES to play an MMO (online video game for those who don't know the lingo) called World of Warcraft (WoW). Well Eli, loves to sit and watch Matt play. And when he's not sitting there (he doesn't sit still very much :P) Eli is pretending to play WoW in real life and in his mind when he pretends, he is there. He does a really good impression of the different types of characters his dad plays. If you ever see Eli just stand there, arms at his side, legs apart, swaying a little, suddenly twitch or roll his shoulders, he's pretending to be Matias, on of his dad's main toons. Sometimes he creeps around, scrunched up to make himself shorter, taking wide steps, arms out, ready for attack. When you *see* that.. pretend Eli isn't there. He's being invisible.

Is it obsessive? I think so. There are days I ban all gaming from my house because the boys talk nothing but game talk. Sissy and I could ask what they think of this AMAZING sunshine we're having, and Eli and Daddy will start talking about how Daddy's latest toon leveled again last night. I know I am WAY more relaxed about this than most people and way more than I used to be, but hey... Eli may pretend to be in a game, but he usually does that rather than sit and play video games or glued to the tv. He actually gets out there and pretends. And Matt makes sure to ride his bike almost every other day before he gets on his computer. He also helps me with any household chores that need doing before he plays too. And he gets in there with Eli sometimes and listens to Eli's latest quest.

Why bring this up and go into this long drawn out explination? Well, Eli can pretend some pretty amazing things. Once, Matt caught him using an actual hammer while pretending to mine... Yeah, needless to say we found something else for him to mine with real quick. That birthed the Awsomeness Quests. Matt and Eli invented some quests Eli could do to earn a Vest, Hat, Gloves, Cloak, and Mace of Awsomeness. All of it was made using Matt's camo colored bike stuff, and just like in the real game, Eli had to work to earn it all. It was really cute! And the pictures made an AWSOME scrapbook layout! :P

Well, I sat down to eat the BEST grilled salmon ever (So proud of Matt for that one!) and Eli sat down next to me, acting like it was just any other day. And I had to grab my camera. He was wearing *the* earrings. The ones that Sissy used to make Matt wear when she was younger and playing dress up. When I asked why he was wearing Sissy's dress up earrings, he looked at me like I had grown another set of eyes and had a snake crawling out of my nose. You know that look when your watching a truely horrible event or movie play out and you want so badly to look away, but you are so facinated you just can't? Yup, he had that face! And in a total *valley boy* tone of voice, he proceeded to inform me that they were part of the new Pirate Quests he started last night.

*They aren't Sissy's dress up earrings Mommy! They are PIRATE BOOTIES!*



And just so you know, Guys Night was supposed to last until Sissy got home from her pajama party around 10pm, then Daddy was going to put them both to bed. I got a call at my friend's house where I was cropping around 8:10. Eli had worn himself out 2 hours into Guy's Night and had fallen asleep on the couch next to daddy right in the middle of telling Matt he was tired. Matt said it sounded something like...

*Daddy. I'm ti........*

To bad I had the camera with me!