Sam's most awesome prank

Sam did something that had us all laughing.  It was simply awesome of her to think of this, execute flawlessly!, sit back and watch the results.  Pure brilliance!

Each year, the night before the kids' birthdays, I wait for them to fall asleep and go across the street to Safeway.  I buy the biggest balloon I can find.  I'm talking like the balloons that cost $16 each.  I take it home, sneak it in to their room (while they are sleeping), so when they wake up in the morning (on their birthday), the first thing they see is this crazy-big balloon wishing them a happy birthday.  I've done this every year for each of the kids, since they were born.  Just something to make their day a bit more special. 

The balloons last for a good month after their birthdays.  So it is floating around the house, and can be found in various rooms depending on what the kids do with it.  A few days after Sam's birthday, Ian is downstairs playing on the Xbox and Jeff & I are sitting in the living room chatting on the couch.  Sam comes running up to us, with her hand on her mouth trying to keep the laughter from erupting out of her body.

Sam (whispering to me):  You are not going to believe what I just did...giggle, giggle.

Me:  What did you do?

Sam:  I clipped the balloon to the back of Ian's shirt. And then I ran away.  He doesn't know....giggle, giggle.

Me:  Oh, that's awesome Sam.... giggle, giggle.

Jeff (realizing something is going on):  What did you do Sam?

Sam (whispering to Jeff):  I clipped the balloon to the back of Ian's shirt...giggle...giggle.

Jeff:  Hehehehehehe.

Ian:  (FINALLY figuring out something is going on):  What happened to my shirt?

Ian is now running up the stairs towards us, while the balloon (this really, really, really big balloon) is trailing him.   Jeff, Sam and I bust out laughing.  Ian is completely clueless.

Gosh I love this girl and that she thought this up all on her own.  So incredibly hilarious!

This is a picture of the balloon that Sam attached to the back of Ian's shirt.

Giggling

One afternoon while the kids were in Florida, Jeff and I found ourselves at Wegman's doing a little grocery shopping.  Jeff had parked the car downstairs in the garage.  We unloaded the groceries and I told Jeff I would take the shopping cart back to the store.  As we usually do, I take the cart back and he swings the car around to get me.

As I was making my way to the front of the store and was about halfway there, a man carrying his groceries was walking out of the store, towards me. 

The gentleman saw what I was doing and said, "Let me take that for you." 

I replied with, "That's very nice of you to offer, but you don't even need to use it. You are going in the opposite direction.  I can take it back." 

He answered back with, "No, really.  I can do it. I still need to do my good deed for the day."  And before I could protest again, he took the cart from me and started walking back towards the store.

At this point, I turned around and saw that Jeff had already pulled out of our parking spot and was briskly driving the long way around the garage to be able to pull up in front.

I had no choice but to turn back around, yet again, and keep walking towards the store.  This time without my cart.  And now I am following the guy who took my cart.  I am sure the guy is thinking this woman is nuts and is wondering why I am following him. 

I started laughing.  I wanted to explain why I was following him.  I wanted to tell him that my husband said he would pull up and meet me in the front of the store, after I had returned the cart.  I wanted to tell him that Jeff had already vacated our parking spot.  There was so much I wanted to explain and so little time.  I was running out of distance to fill in this complete stranger and to top it off I started giggling at how silly I must've looked to be following directly behind him and couldn't stop.   There was no where for me to go.  I had to keep moving behind him.

Finally, the guy returns my cart and turns to head in the direction of his car.  He looks at me and smiles.  In one big breath I said, "I had to keep going, my husband already started swinging around in the car to pick me up."

He replied with, "Hey, that's cool.  But my good deed still counts."   Yes, it does. And thank you for also giving me a good laugh too.

Love you like a love song, baby

Sam has taken to pop music like a fish takes to water.  It's nice really, that we can both listen to the radio and it's grown-up music.  No more Wiggles CDs for us!

Sam has become obsessed with the song, "Love you like a love song" by Selena Gomez.  It's a catchy tune, I'll give you that.  But after listening to it at least 10 times a day, if not more, you become ready for something else.  Not Sam!  She has learned how to queue the song on my iPhone and her iPad. And she knows how to play it again and again and again. 

The other day, while driving in the car, Sam asked if she could play the song on my iPhone.  I said ok and handed her my phone.  She starts playing the song and within 1 minute, I realize all 3 of us are singing along.  And not quietly either!  Ian, Sam and I are belting out this tune like we are auditioning for American Idol. Without wanting it to happen, somewhere along the way, Ian and I have all the words memorized. 

Then Sam decides to add a dash of annoying to our fun sing-a-long and starts playing the song over again, after it gets about 1/2 way through playing.  I don't think Ian and I even realized what was happening.  But we'd start off singing, then she'd hit the play button again and we'd start singing the song over again.  We are so conditioned to hearing this song play, I am pretty sure we didn't realize what she was doing.  I know it took me about 10 minutes before I realized it. 

I sometimes go to sleep at night hearing this song play in my head.  Sam also likes Kelly Clarkson's music a lot too.  But it will take a pretty powerful new song to get "Love you like a love song" to become old news.