Do we need caffeine Daddy?

Benjamin has been bugging me for a couple of weeks to fire up the barbecue.  I have been hesitant to do so because it has been too cold and I thought I didn't have any propane.  Saturday I decided that I was going to cook some hot dogs for lunch.  I wasn't going to be able to get the propane tank filled because the one place in town that fills up propane tanks is only open Monday to Friday from 8 to 5.  There are a couple of places that you can get trader tanks in town but I normally don 't like doing that because it is more expensive than having a tank filled and the tanks I get are usually in rougher shape than the one that I traded. I finally decided that I was going to test to see if I had propane before I went and got a tank trader.  I lifted the tank and it felt fairly heavy.  There was propane so I didn't need to go get a trader.  Before lunch we had to go do some errands.  That took about half and hour.  For some reason Benjamin thought that what was in the tank is caffeine, so the whole we were out he kept asking me if we needed caffeine.  I told him that we had propane and that we didn't need caffeine.  The hot dogs were made with propane.  They tasted good but I wonder if they would have better if they had been made with caffeine.

Social Media

I told Michelle that I sent out a tweet this morning.  She said that she did know I had twitter.  I said that I do but I don't tweet often.  Her response was something like "yeah just like your blog."  I decided to write a blog post with the links to my social media accounts.  Here they are:

https://www.facebook.com/atwoodjoe

https://twitter.com/atwoodjoe

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=113851884&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile

https://plus.google.com/111190946908265084040/posts?hl=en

Who is in charge?

We had our branch conference today and last night at dinner we were telling Benjamin that he had to be super good today because there would be a lot of people from the stake there.  I also tried to explain what a stake is.  I failed to explain well, so Kara compared the branch to his class and the stake to the whole school.  She then asked Benjamin who is in charge of his teacher, trying to get him to say the principle.  He said the mayor.   He is kind of right because his teacher is the mayor's wife.

What Country am I from?

With the Olympics upon us I thought I would take a moment to tell you which countries the people of the Atwood house will be cheering for. I of course will be cheering for Canada and Kara probably will cheer for the US. I think I can swing Benjamin to my side (thanks to cbc kids). Kaleb, however will not be cheering for either of the two countries in which he holds citizenship. He will be cheering for, wait for it…The Netherlands. The Netherlands you say, how do you know? Well a few weeks ago Kaleb spent a good portion of the day walking around saying “I’m Dutch, I’m Dutch, I’m Dutch.” He said it not once, not twice, but multiple times throughout the day. All I could think of was where did he come up with that? At one point I said “Kaleb, as far as I know you are not Dutch. You are Canadian and American and British and German and if you go back far enough maybe there is some Russian and Polish in there as well.” Well Kaleb did not like me telling him that. He looked and me and yelled “I’M DUTCH!!” as loud as he possibly could. I thought well he does like the colour orange which is a Dutch colour. I don’t know maybe there is some Dutch in there somewhere. I guess I’ll need to look. I let you know what I found out. In the meantime...

GO CANADA GO!

What are they thinking?

It has been a while since I have written so here I am.  We went on trip a couple of weeks ago and discovered that our van needed major repairs so we have a rental right now.  We don't when we get our van back as the parts have to come from Mexico.  The rental van is ok but it does not have a dvd player which meant we had to drive all the way from Lethbridge to Edmonton and back to Hanna without movies.  As we were listening to the radio the announcer said something about Facebook.  Benjamin noticed the the gas gage was showing about half full.  He said "Daddy we need gas, we should stop by facebook and get some."  Later that night we were swimming at our hotel he said that we were swimming in the CBC.

Over the last couple of days Kaleb has been carrying a couple of pieces of toy race track saying that it is his computer and says that he is skyping with his friends.

Just Wait Until he is a Teenager

So Mandy told me on Facebook that I need to write on my blog more often so here goes.  Another Benjamin quote:Last week were walking to the park and one of the neighbour kids came up to Benjamin and asked if he knew something (although I can't remember exactly what it was).  Benjamin's response was "Yeah I knew that, I know everything."

I Guess I am not a Super Hero

Conversation between Benjamin and I:

Benjamin: Daddy do you want to be a Super Hero?
Me: I am a Super Hero already.
Benjamin: Daddy, you are not a Super Hero.  Super Heroes fly and you can't fly so you are not a Super Hero.
Me:  What about Spiderman, he doesn't fly?
Ben: But Spiderman has a web.
Me:  I guess that is sort of like flying.  But what about Batman, he doesn't fly either?
Ben:  Yeah but Batman has Robin and they have a plane.

Benjamin says the darndest things.

Benjamin had his 4th birthday this past Monday (April 4th).  His magic birthday too (turning 4 on the 4th).  I thought I would write a blog about him.  If the tv show "kids say the darndest things was still on he would be a prime candidate for that show.  Here are just  a few examples:
About a year ago we started giving him money for doing jobs.  One day he was looking at his money and he said "Daddy I am going to take to the bus to the car store and buy a big green van and drive to Superstore and do the grocercty shopping all by myself."   I looked at how much he had, it was about $1.25.  Not even enough for a bus ride never mind the big green van and the groceries.
One morning I woke with Benjamin stairing me in the face.  He knew that we needed to go shopping that day and he wanted to help out so he woke me up to say "Daddy, I can babysit Kaleb and Uncle William so that you and Mommy can go and do the shopping."
A few weeks ago as we were leaving church he saw all the snow.  He turned to me a said "Daddy you make a snowball and give it to me and then I will throw it out.
For his birthday he asked for a tiny green remote helicopter so that he could go on big adventures.
Today in church Kara was trying to get him to sit on the bench.  He said no because "my underware is in my butt."  (His way of saying he has a weddgie).  And he said it loud enough for at least four other people to hear and start snickering.

Oh Benjamin will love you.

Spring Coming?

Two thoughts tonight:
1) I was at Wal Mart yesterday and I saw that they were putting out patio furniture and Barbeques.  To me this is a sure sign of spring.  Kara said that she saw seeds at Canadian Tire.  So may be there is hope, spring is coming....eventually
2) If I were to visit England or Texas or Australia or somewhere else where everyone speaks with an accent, wouldn't I be the one with the accent.

So Much Snow

We are currently in the middle of a storm that has dumped as much as 20 to 30 centimeters of snow in some areas (not that much in Vegreville but we do have alot).  Hopefully it will end sometime tonight.  It is also interesting when you can look out any window in your house and the only color you see is white.  Ok so maybe it is not that bad but it sure seems that way.  If the snow does end tonight maybe we'll take some pictures and post them somewhere (more than likely on Kara's blos or on her Facebook) tomorrow.
In other news for the first time since we've been married Kara has a dishwasher not named Joe.  Our neighbour moved and gave us her dishwasher as the house that she was moving into had a built in one.  I am free of dishes except of course for whateve can't go in the dishwasher.  Maybe we'll name the dishwasher Joe for oldtime sake.  That's all for now.  I am off to switch the laundry over.

Random Thoughts Intro

A few months ago I put about five different random statuses on my facebook page in about 10 minutes.  One of them said that I should start a blog of random thoughts.  So here it is.  I will try to remember what I randomly think about and post it here.  Here are a few that I have had over the last few weeks.
1)  I watched an episode of "The Brady Bunch" recently and I wondered why the Brady girls took the last name Brady and did not keep their original surname.
2) I had a dream recently that it was about ten years into the future and I was at West Edmonton Mall with my family.  We watched the sea lion show and then they unvailed a plaque in my honor.  I have no I idea why, guess we'll find out in the next ten years.  Maybe this blog will make me famous but probably not.
3) I used to think the the Police song "Every Breath You Take" was the stalker's theme song.  But then agian there is Cory Hart's "Sunglasses At Night."  This morning I had the thought that "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" might top both of them.  "He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake."  Kind of creppy if you ask me.