Smurfs v. He-Man ... you decide.

This morning things were quiet.  A little too quiet.  A blissful mother and father slept peacefully and a sad little sick boy named David finally began to recover from the 104 temp he had been carrying for the last few days.  The two older babyboysbradbury are almost always awake by 7:00am so when we rolled over at 8:00 and they were still not climbing on out bed we were a bit concerned.

Then Michelle heard it.  "Gogogogogo!!" "I got him!" and "I'm gonna use the butt canyon!" No, I didn't miss type that.

They had snuck downstairs and turned on the Wii to play some video games.  This was the first time they'd been able to work their way through the tricky process of turning the tv on, the stereo and the Wii itself then adjusting the computer to get to the game to actually get it to play.  Kind of impressive if you ask me.  Interestingly though the volume was completely down...on the TV that is, not the boys mouths.

I remember being a kid.  We didn't have a Nintendo back then but the big three had Saturday Morning cartoons and those were huge--you didn't miss Saturday morning cartoons.  I remember sneaking out of the bedroom with Aaron, KK and Kellie (back then we called her Raquel).  The rule was that when mom woke up Saturday morning jobs would begin.  So it was to our advantage to stay quiet as long as possible.

We'd turn the tv on and simultaneously hit the volume down button so that it didn't start blaring immediately.  This was tricky because if you timed it wrong it would be super loud and wake up mom, if you tried to get it too close and pressed the volume before the power button then you were guaranteed to wake mom up.

If we got past the initial turn on, then we had to strike the perfect balance of keeping the volume down but still being able to hear it.  We'd err on the side of caution usually which meant that all four of us had to pile on top of each other right next to the speaker if we wanted to hear what the Snorks were saying.

Piling kids on top of each other inevitably leads to bickering, "Hey stop that!" "Move out of my way!" "You're touching me!" "Shhhhhh" "I said Shhhhhh" "You're not my mom!" "Shhhhhhh, you'll wake her up" The last sound was invariably a "whap" on the back of someone's head.

The ability to wake mother up was the great equalizer for a younger child.  I used that to get some pretty serious leverage on Aaron.  It always begrudgingly worked too, at least until Mom woke up and then he'd pound on me in private.

I later talked to my mom about it.  She says that she'd actually wake up quite early and listen to us trying rather loudly to be quiet.  And this whole time I thought we were doing a pretty solid job.

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Since I last updated this blog several things have happened.  I finished a masters program.  David is now 8 months old and has 4 top teeth and 2 bottom ones, Calvin Mackay has grown a pretty sweet afro that when properly picked out is amazing, Brigham has begun reading a book that Meemah gave him and it's pretty impressive to watch.  Michelle has been completely encompassed with being a mother of three crazy boys and I helped put on an air show here at Hill.  The boys are mad bicycle riders, Beeg without training wheels and CMB super close to dropping them.  Benson got his call to North Carolina, Susie had a total knee replacement, KK bought a new house,  Aaron went to the Ukraine, and a Mormon was nominated to be a presidential candidate.  Pretty crazy stuff.

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This is a story that Brigham wanted me to tell you.  So he dictated this to me...word for word.

Once upon a time, there were three Billy Goats and and the evil evil troll.  And also and then the bully billy goat went clip clopping over the bridge.  and then the...when he was a quarter over the bridge when he looked up the evil evil troll was in his way.  So the evil evil troll said, "who's been clip-clopping on my bridge?" And the baby billy goat (the bully goat is not a bully he's just protecting the family.)  The baby billy goat...named Davie Billy goat.  Guess what Brin is the mommy and I am the daddy--that's the rules.  And so the evil evil troll said, "I will throw you off my bridge." And he said, "the the...dad are you done typing?"  "Wait for the mommy billy goat she is more tougher."  So the evil evil troll let the baby billy goat Davie go by.  And so then next the mommy billy goat came and the Mommy billy goat said, "I will clip clop this bridge until I get to the berries so I can eat some."  So when the mommy billy goat was a quarter the way over the bridge, the troll came up and the mommy billy goat looked up.  The evil evil troll was on the bridge saying, "who's been clip clopping on my bridge?"  and so the mommy billy goat really really... jumped over the troll and came to eat the berries.  And when the Daddy billy goat was on the bridge the evil evil troll came on the bridge and said, and said really he said, "who'd been clip clopping on my bridge" in his angry grittiest voice ever.  The Daddy billy goat named Brigham went saying I was the one and now I will do this! " and the troll said, "oh ya.  And you think you're going to kill me."  And the Daddy billy goat, which we never mentioned their middle names before and they're all named Billy Goat Gruff.  And so the billy goat gruff charged into the evil evil troll which he had on his horns which were invisible bombs and the evil evil troll went falling down and he exploded right after he touched the water.  And then the daddy billy goat and all the other billy goat gruff lived happily ever end...happily ever ending...happy ever after.  The End.  You're done.  Can you tell me the story now?