"Mommy hit a reindeer!"

That statement, uttered by Luke several times after our traumatic event, is sort of correct. The deer (forever known as a "reindeer" in the minds of our boys - especially unfortunate this close to Christmas) actually ran into our van. We were driving on a normal city street, neighborhood on the right, open field by a big church on the left, when a deer popped out of nowhere (the neighborhood, apparently) to ram his face into my windshield, his neck into my passenger side rear view mirror, and his body into the front door. Of course, I stopped right there to figure out what happened and what I should do next. What I didn't realize was that the poor animal wasn't completely dead yet and was writhing around in full view of the twins who were strapped into their car seats. Merry Christmas, kids. Mommy killed a reindeer. Santa's sleigh will be a bit slower this year.

We're slowly getting everything fixed, piece by piece. Of course, we only have collision, and the deer wasn't insured, so this is an annoying and unexpected expense. Who would have thought that incident could cause thousands of dollars of damage? We are considering just getting the minimum done - enough to open the door again, repair the windshield, etc, but the body work can be put on hold. We're not too proud to drive around in a beat up van. The funny part is that Joe especially (sometimes Luke, too) has been asking us when we're getting a new car. Apparently, the balloons at the dealership near our house are having the desired effect. So now he says, "The car is broken. Let's get a new one." Sorry, bud, the money tree out back didn't bloom this year.

Maybe it's just Wisconsin, but over and over again, people have told us how surprised they are that we didn't stop and pick it up - all of that free meat gone to waste! I couldn't have imagined hauling that newly-dead carcass into the van with all of the traumatized kids watching. Plus, what the heck would we do with all of that nasty meat? Our doctor even told us about hitting a deer on his way to delivering a baby early one morning. He stuffed it into his trunk, caught the baby, went home, field dressed it and hung it up on his kids' swing set. These folks up here are nuts!

Other quotables from the boys:

Joe: "I love sugar!!!!" Enough said.

Andrew: "Baby Bear" Okay, that doesn't seem like such a big deal, but it's his first time saying two words together. Later that week, he said, "more book" to Scott when he wanted him to keep reading. He's so smart!

Joe: "Do you know we have two mommies? The one that is Jesus' mommy and the mommy that makes the food." Did I mention how much I love that he goes to a Catholic school?