Surrounded by cherubs

Not a great picture but I love it anyway!!

Precautionary Measures

I'm feeling better but still on my knees praying that no one else gets this terrible stomach bug!!

Here are all the details I'm going to share:

I wish I had thought about giving Z this earlier! Actually it was in the kid's pretend vet kit - but how appropriate?!


I was worried about nursing A - wasn't sure I was still hydrated enough so I attempted to give her a bottle, all she did was chew on it and spray herself with formula so I just gave her cereal with formula mixed in.


Here's B - surely he's not imitating me?!



Oh yea - I lost 5 pounds! I wouldn't recommend this as a weight loss tool!!! But I sure hope I can keep it off.

Sick, sick, sick

I hope none of the kids grow or do anything fabulous this week because I am sick, sick, sick! No details to report... just sick so be patient I will blog again when this passes.

Rolling Over

A has begun rolling over. She can go both ways but she still struggles with belly to back and when she's tired she gets really ticked off when she finds herself on her belly. So last night and twice today during nap she's rolled over and woken up angry! Poor girl.

As if that wasn't enough I think there is a top front tooth coming in. :o)

Toy Story Quiz

How well do you know Toy Story?
Do you recognize the scene that Z is recreating with his new Woody doll?

Fun with a 9 year old

I hate to admit it, but tormenting B is one of my favorite pastimes. Here's how I did it this afternoon. I made up the following song and got it stuck in his head.

Bom, bom, bom, bom - bom, bom, bom, bom
I like my lizards, when they're roaming free.
I like my lizards, when they are running away from me.
Bom, bom, bom, bom - bom, bom, bom, bom

Silliness abounds in our house!!! :)

B swimming revisited

I know that you all have seen this before but I finally have "the song"... part of the fun of creating montages is putting the right music with the pictures. I haven't felt like this one was done because I was missing the song - now it is done, and I think it's great... just like B!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

PG13

Watch this slide show at your own risk. After the kids finished eating last night I still had the camera so I snapped a few pictures of my favorite guy over the age of 9... here is what I captured. :)

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Turkey Day in slow motion

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that your Thanksgiving was as fun, enjoyable and full of love as mine. We decided to capture A's first Thanksgiving on digital camera in a play by play manner. So here it is:

B & A relaxing before breakfast

I had forgotten about the all important breakfast fun foods so we had to survive on some Honey Nut Cheerios. As you can see Jason took over that portion of the days festivities.


Max was so happy to have us home.
Here he is hanging with his favorite 6 month old.

K and I making Jason a pumpkin pie... just like his G'ma used to make (sort of, Bonnie we excluded the ginger too).


Z helping out with the can opener.

A hanging out watching the action. I had to include two pictures of this, in one you can see her cute little socks falling off and in the other she's sticking out her tongue at Daddy.

Since I bought my (frozen) turkey the night before Thanksgiving we had to defrost it in the bath tub. Due to this we didn't have our meal until dinner but I started baking in the morning and got really bored around noon - so we made sugar cookies! Um Yum!!! K&Z enjoying the beaters - although Z will tell you "I not eating beaters."

Here are my two pies. I did not make the crust like my G'ma used to, but K & I made the pumpkin pie and I bought a really cool jar of pecan pie stuff and you just have to add eggs and butter - it was DELICIOUS! My family will attest to my first attempt at a pecan pie and why I didn't attempt that again on my own. (For those of you who don't know the story it was a faux pecan pie made with pinto beans - I made it about 18 years ago so no mean comments allowed, it was when I was young and dumb.)

Here I am acting like a complete imbecile - but the turkey looks good, right?!


My constant companion during this Thanksgiving adventure. What a true loyal friend I have... in Max! :)

Here we are my babies (excluding the one taking an evening nap) with our Thanksgiving feast.


Just a cute picture of my little two year old.



A woke up almost as soon as I was done eating and said, "tators please." Don't you love the little potato mustache?


Finally we ended our day with a little holiday movie, Christmas Vacation - oh how my mind is slipping. It is rated PG13 for a reason.... we watched it last year and I said the same thing. Maybe next year I will remember!

Mixed up in this day were phone calls to our loved ones and lots of love. I have to say that I missed my G'pa Jess, Mom, Dad, Debbie, Michael, Mark, Cheryl, Shawn and last but NOT least Justin, it wasn't the same without them all. But just like the old saying goes, if life hands you lemons make lemonade - so that is just what we did and it was GOOD.

Home for Thanksgiving

I have a little quiz for you. What do a Honda Odyssey, Nike tennis shoes and a game boy zipper pouch all have in common?

Answer:

Sir Pukes-A-Lot (aka B) has administered his own unique brand of acidic justice to each of them!

Sadly B got car sick on the way to Arkansas... since he had a stomach bug a couple of days ago we decided not to risk the health of our loved ones. So we are home again celebrating Thanksgiving as a "small" family.

Manners

Z is in the process of learning the correct way to ask for something. Usually we get one of the following, "I want..", "Give me..." and then we ask, "What do you say?" and Z says, "please." So yesterday Jason gave a tutorial on the correct way to ask for something. When he was done this is what we got from Z.

"May I have blah, blah, blah, please?" We couldn't help but laugh - Jason then had to try to explain to replace the blah, blah, blah with the particular thing that you wanted. It's a work in progress! :)

Sibling Love

I have to share this story. My K has one of the sweetest dispositions of any person I know, I realize that sounds like a mother who loves her daughter but seriously she is truly a kind person. Here's an example. Z has developed a unnatural love for Toy Story and with that a small obsession with Buzz & Woody. He's convinced that when he goes to Christmas he'll get his very own Buzz & Woody, so almost daily now he says, "I go now to Christmas and get Buzz & Woody?" (Obviously, we have some teaching to do about Christmas!) Well today K earned enough points (for good behavior) in her class to get an item out of the treasure chest. She chose a Woody figurine for her brother! She was so excited to give it to him and to see his face light up when he saw it was a true pleasure. Now isn't that sweet?

For Uncle Scoot & a weekend update

Uncle Scoot requested to see pictures of the older kids. Sadly, they are not as easy to get pictures of these days since they are at school all day... so I have to request photo ops with them and sometimes they are not that excited about the prospect. But here are a couple of recent pictures of my sweet babies, B&K:

Sweet K is always willing to play with her siblings and
a cute picture of her warming up on the couch.
My conquering hero! B after his second swim meet.

Now for the official weekend update. K had her first sleepover birthday party on Friday night. She had a great time and had a lovely shade of blue finger nail polish to show for her time there. On Saturday, after picking K up, we headed to Hippy-Dippy Land. I accidentally got my family there an hour early - oops! B participated in the 100 yard backstroke, 50 yard breast stroke and 100 yard freestyle, of the ones that he had recorded times for he improved his time by 3 to 5 seconds - which we all agreed was great! Jason tried to encourage B by telling him about the stag times that he needed to achieve in order to participate in the championships in the spring and apparently told him he had a long way to go. B's response was, "way to be encouraging Dad!"
Sunday we opted for splitting up the family, one day of chasing a two year old around on concrete steps is sufficient - trust me on this one! So today B&A and I headed to town again, K went to church with some friends and Z & Jason attempted a new Toy Story watching record... 7 times in one day! They got to four! Today B swam the 50 yard free style, 50 yard backstroke and my personal favorite the 100 yard IM (individual medley) - again he shaved seconds off of his times and is only about 10 seconds from making his stag times in some of the events. I really enjoy this sport! Today I was encouraging B and telling him how great it was to have improved by seconds (I know that seems weird) and B looked at me and said, "Thanks Mom, for not being like Dad." I couldn't help but chuckle at that! Woo hoo - I'm not the bad guy this time!!
Tonight we are going to go to a church dinner, I'm sure that will be fun and then we will begin to plan for our Thanksgiving holiday.
I have so much to be thankful for and counting you as friends is one of those things!
Happy Thanksgiving!

Funny Story

I can't believe I forgot to tell you all this! I dressed A in the outfit she came home in last week and I remembered this and it made me laugh!
When we got home the kids were all at the table and they had made us a big welcome home poster. Z went running out of the kitchen smiling and laughing like a mad man when I came in and when he came back someone said, "Z look who's home!" He ran back into the kitchen, right past me, smiling and saying, "A!"
This did NOT make me sad! I was so glad that he was happy to see his little sister! :) I was welcomed appropriately after he had taken care of the important person, A!

You've waited long enough

I know all of you have been patiently waiting for pictures of our trip to Massachusetts. So here they are:

Erin, J, Barney, Sherry & A


A watching over her little cousin J

Did I mention LITTLE J?!

A & I in the wilderness of Massachusetts - trying to avoid bears. It was right about here that I tried to explain to A that if a bear attacked she should play dead... I don't think she understood.

Happy Days

I decided to put another blog in today (so you have to scroll down to see the yuck picture) and give you some glimpses into my life this week. Jason, Z & I have been fighting off a cold but it has been really nice to get back to my old routine. I have walked each morning and we've been up to our eye balls in laundry but otherwise it is life as usual and I love it! Here's some pictures that I've taken of the kids this week. Enjoy!

Aren't these fun?
They actually belong to K but Z has really enjoyed tromping through the house in them.
Yea we know they are on the wrong feet - he didn't seem to care.

Here's Z showing Uncle Alex & Aunt Erin he's ready for a cold Christmas! :)

New seating arrangements at dinner.
A moved into Z's seat and she drinks water from a cup and fruit in a little mesh bag while
big boy Z has moved to a big people seat,
now we just need to convince him to keep his hands to himself!

Finally a word from A:

How's this for weird! You come into the world and every two months some lady pokes you with needles that they call vaccinations and tell you that they are good for you. If that weren't insulting enough your daddy puts you on the bed climbs up above you and takes a picture because you have cute little pink camo band-aids on! Who knew this is what life would be like?

Here's the scoop... I mean poop

I have to admit I'm embarrassed to post this and I believe (without a doubt) that this may be the most disgusting thing I've ever done. SO... without further ado (for a LIMITED time - as I don't want to sully my sweet children's pictures with this) - the horrible picture of Massachusetts bear poo.

Here's the scoop

Hello all! I'm going to miss Erin & her family but I have to admit that I am so glad to be back on home turf. :)
As I mentioned, A was a dream baby. She did great on all four of our flights. We had two going and two coming back. The second ones seemed to be the hardest on her, she kind of whimpered when we were landing so I got the impression (since she can't tell me) that the descent was hurting her ears.
We got there on Wednesday, Oct. 31 - ask me if I missed taking my children out to fill up on non-nutritional garbage disguised as holiday fun?! I know I'm a fuddy-duddy but Halloween is in my personal opinion is the most unredeeming day of the year! So suffice to say I was not unhappy to leave the job of totting jack-o-lantern candy catchers around the neighborhood to Jason, aka Daddy. This is as good of time as any to let you know that I didn't have my camera in Massachusetts. Jason had to take the yearly Halloween pictures & I figured Erin had hers so we'd get pictures that way. So I'm sorry - right now I don't have any new pictures of my adorable two week old nephew. But here are a few of the Halloween fun.

This is B the mad butcher (thanks Aunt Erin) & K my little wicked witch.

My little jack-o-lantern - Z.

The kids ready to hit up the neighborhood for sugar and Dad ready to pass it out!

Oh yea - A has a new trick! Sit, boo boo sit! :)

I can't really tell you about every day since they all kind of meshed together to form a semi-holiday for me. Erin is doing GREAT! As I suspected she is a phenominal mommy & Alex is incredibly tender, patient and loving daddy. I honestly can't tell you how honored I was that they allowed me to interrupt their bonding time with Joseph in my attempt to be helpful.
Since I only had one of my four children I had quite a bit of free time on my hands. As I said I attempted to help in any way that I could but I got a lot of time to read my books too. I started a Bible study and also started reading about Queen Elizabeth I, I took turns with what I read.
Erin & I took a couple of walks, which was good for both of us. The second walk took us to a farm near their house that has walking trails. You should know that it is common knowledge that there are "bears in them there woods" but Erin & I believe that we found overwhelming evidence of this. How, you might ask, do we know? Well let's just say that we were careful not to step in one particular spot for fear that we'd lose our shoe in the mess!
**Okay I admit we actually took a picture of that, any bear poop experts out there that want me to send it their way? **
Our last day there was the day that my in-laws came to spend time with their new grandson and it was very nice for A to get to see them again. Our current plan is to travel back to Massachusetts, via car, at Christmas time. I'm anxious for BKZ & Jason to meet our newest family member.

Finally I want to share a praise! As I said, A did really well on all of the plane rides but on the second one on the way there we had an encounter with a not so pleasant man who apparently thought having a baby on board was less that acceptable. A fussed but did not all out cry or throw fits and these little fussy noises elicited "humphs" and grunts from this poor misguided man. Well, I prayed while we were in Mass. that we would be surrounded by more understanding people on our way home and God is good! The entire row in front of me was nice men who kept smiling and talking to A, another nice gentlemen beside me and one behind me (who complimented A) and finally a very sweet woman from NY who sat next to us! She was so kind and accepting. It really made the trip so much less stressful for me, and A in the process. So I praise God for surrounding me with gentle souls who understood or at least accepted that children are not an annoyance but a true blessing.

I didn't lie

I told you that you would be seeing me again and I didn't lie. A and I are back home in Hippy-dippy Land safe and sound. A was a little dream baby on the plane ride home and our prayers were answered, we had MANY kind people surrounding us today for our 3 1/2 hour flight more details to come with pictures tomorrow - just wanted to say thanks for your prayers and praise God we are home safe and sound.