Trick-or-Tantrum

First of all, I am disappointed...the camera that we have known and loved for the last five years, well, it is gettin old and it's losing it's eyesight...!!  I am having a really hard time getting pictures that will turn out clear...AHHH!! 


I did manage however to get a few of my cutie little kids on Halloween night.  They were so fun!!!  The older kids RACED to each door, and I was in the trails hollering for them to "wait for the baby!!"  Darn little Blazer did NOT get the whole "Trick-or-Treating" concept.  Our night started like this:


First house...I am excited and try to walk him up to the door with the other kids...he throws a "Holy Terror Fit" and I end up dragging him by one arm and eventually pick him up.  When we are at the door I try setting him down where he collapses into a full blown feet thrashing tantrum.  I try showing him the candy, but he is SOOO over it...


Second house...Carry him up to the door...show him the candy.  Put him down so he can get some....BIG FAT FIT...


Third house...give up...


Eventually I was able to show him that he would get candy out of the deal, and then he would be fine as long as both fists had a piece of candy in it.  At one point he decided to prance up to a door, where his new trend was to drop the candy in his hands and get two new fistfuls.  I then had to pick up the candy off of the porch, and put it in his pumkin basket.  This is how the rest of the night went.  FINALLY at the second to last house, he realized that he could put the candy in his pumkin and it wasn't going anywhere....BUT he still insisted on being the one to get the candy out of everyone's bowls.  He wouldn't let anyone get it for him...!! 


Luckily everyone thought he was the cutest little boy on the street, and I think he scored extra candy for it...here are the few pictures I was able to get...

Walking up to a house...

My "Trick-or-Treators"

Elizabeth Swan (from Pirates of the Caribbean), a Leopard, Jack Sparrow, and Davey Jones

Blazers own way of "Trick-or-Treating"

Something Old....Something New...

Okay, so if you look at my sidebar, I listed my goals, and part of those was getting my kids rooms painted and decorated....this was their Christmas present from us this past Christmas....!!  I got Oakley's room done...well, as much done as "I" can, still waiting on a chair rail promised by Brian, and hopefully that will happen soon...and as soon as it does, I will post pictures!!


I started the boys room this week.  When I was little I had these two dressers.  They were bought sometime in the 70's, and my plan was to repaint them and sell them on craigslist...they were a little "sad", and a whole lot outdated...!!  Check out the fabulous hardware....

Makes me laugh...

Well, I decided to change my plans...and refinish them for my boys.  I have had them since I can remember...in fact they were probably one of my sisters' before they were mine...!!  So I wasn't really ready to part with them....


I am super excited about the finished product!!  I didn't take a before picture of the small one, but it looked just as "nice" as it's sibling below!!! (Ignore the mess...)

BEFORE

AFTER!!!

I have to say that this picture doesn't do it justice.  I painted it red, but then took a black stain and rubbed it in to give it a darker wood grain texture....it looks so neat in person...i wish the picture would have shown it!!!  Oh well, I get to enjoy the fruits of my labor!!!

Just when you Thought...

Well, this could have been one of those days where blogland got me in trouble, but NO, I was working on a talk that I have to give in church tomorrow (GULP).  The kids were upstairs playing, so I took the opportunity to sit down...for the seventeenth time...to work on/finish typing my talk...yes, I have to spell it out word for word on paper, get up to the pulpit, and HOPE that I don't have to stare at my paper the whole time...

ANYWAYS....Blazer had come down while I was lost in my train of thought.  He was happily playing (which should have been a red flag...), and soon came running over to my chair with a handfull of shiny red easter egg grass type stuff that I use as tissue paper in NON-kids presents (for obvious reasons you will soon see).  I looked down to see a shiny red MESSY trail leading around the corner...I gasped and said "NAUGHTIES!!!" ...and he took off running.  I grabbed the camera that was ever so conveniently waiting for me on the desk and chased him down....

look at his innocent face...

Look at the disaster of a mess this "INNOCENT" face made...

LUCKILY, for some reason, when the kids came down, it was such a cool mess that they WANTED to help clean it up, and within ten minutes my nightmare of a clean-up was rescued!!!  Who would have thought....??  It took Oakley six days to clean her room...meaning, she didn't get ANY snacks, didn't get to play ANY games, didn't get to do any EXTRA activities until her room was clean, but hey, throw some shiny red crap on the floor, and VIOLA!!!!  It's clean...

Go figure...

Moral of the story is:  Babies think they are funny and innovative, and if the mess is bad enough, maybe you won't have to actually clean it up!!!

I just can't hide it...!!!

I'm So "excited"...I just can't hide it...!!

Well, one of the blogs that I like to frequent is I ♥ faces.  They do a weekly contest of photos taken by ameteurs (like myself) and professionals, and then pick winners.  I like to enter every once in a while when I think I have a picture that will fit the theme.

This weeks theme is "EXCITED."  They said that we should feature a person young or old that is "clearly excited and enthusiastic about something."  They also stated that it should be easily conveyed when viewing the photo...I don't know...what do you think...???

CLEARLY he is excited about something...which would be his MOST favoritest Auntie taking his picture...!!  I absolutely think my little nephew Dante has a grin that can kill!!  When he is excited...EVERYONE knows about it!! 

Love you "CHEEKIES!!!!"

An apple a day...

I have a NEW and not neccessarily IMPROVED ending to this modern proverb...here it is...


An apple a day...chases friends away!!


Once upon a time I got up early as I do most mornings to get the kids off to school.  We went through our normal routine of getting dressed, hair done, shoes on, double-checking homework, etc.  As I got Oakley's jacket on, and lifted her backpack to put it on her, I realized it was WAY TOO HEAVY!!  My first thought was CRAP, she has bee taking toys to school.  I begin the search opening the main pocket...EMPTY...continue to the second biggest pocket...EMPTY, and finally unzip the only other pocket that could hold such weight to unveil a pile of...

APPLES...

What??!! 

ME: "Oakley, why do you have apples in your backpack??!!"


OAKLEY: "Cause I like to save 'em."


ME: "Where did you get these??"


OAKLEY:  "At school."


ME: "Why don't you just eat them at school??"


OAKLEY:  "I just am not that hungry.."


seemed simple enough...to her...


I took them out of her backpack to find that some of them had been there....a while...!! 

EWWWWW...SEE???

I told her that she can't save apples from school, because they were rotting.  I held one up and asked her if she really wanted to eat it, and of course she winced in disgust.  What if that morning I hadn't put on her backpack, just like most days...how long would they have sat there decomposing...(shudder)?? 

DOUBLE EWWWW

Moral of the story is:  If you have food that you can't finish, don't put it in your pocket to save for later, soon you will stink and have no friends.

THE END

A Real Piece of Work...

So...many of you know me fairly well...some of you too well...but did you know that I won't be earning the "Mother of the Year" award this year...or in any year to follow I imagine??!!

It isn't that I have done something terribly wrong (I think) it's that for ONCE I actually did something...well, different with my kids.  I let them do a "project."  You see, this is what bothers me...we don't really do projects or crafts around here, unless you count coloring in their coloring books, and playing with

play-doh a serious effort on my part....

ANYWAYS...what it comes down to is that I feel like I am somewhat "lacking" in the mothering role sometimes, and just all too focused on the dictatorship role in the house....

 "Clean your Room..."                                                         
                                                                                        "Wash your Hands..."               

       "Take your bowl to the sink..."

                        "Don't sit on your Brother..."

etc....eTc....ETC

So, on one of these rainy days when the kids were inside all day, I decided to do a "project."  We have some big rolls of poster paper, so I rolled out three extra huge pieces, got out the paints, and told the kids to create masterpieces....whatever they wanted....I don't know that I want to even announce this on the public worldwide internet, but this is the FIRST TIME MY KIDS HAVE PAINTED WITH WATERCOLORS in our home....

AHHHHHHHHH!!!

I know...I told you...I have "issues...."

So here is what they created:

Carter's Masterpiece....

Oakley's Masterpiece...

Parker's Masterpiece...

I went out and got poster sized frames for them, so that I can see a visual reminder that projects are FUN, and that I CAN be one of "THOSE" moms...

Here is what I did with them...

Summer Lovin'...

Camping this year was SO MUCH FUN...I wish I could just put every picture up that we took...but then, well, I just took way too many!  Within the first five minutes of camping our youngest looked like this...

The second we got him out of the car, he was running, and really falling...a....LOT...!!  Not that it stopped him either...he had so much energy!  In fact, he WOULDN'T sleep the first night...he cried, and cried, and cried...I laid with him for an hour, then Brian gave it a try, then we thought..lets take him for a drive...We drove for over an hour, nothing.  Then we tried putting him in the back of Brian's parent's SUV.  We thought....hey, that is the closest thing to a pack'n'play, so we set him all up in there.  HE SCREAMED.  Finally at around 1 or 2 in the morning we gave up, put him back in our bed, and let him scream himself to sleep...we were just OUT OF IDEAS...and energy...

Luckily, the sun came up again, and he seemed to be a different baby.  He never slept "great"...but he slept enough!!  And we were able to enjoy our week...

Brian got some serious air...

Some of the crazies we camped with!! (who we love)

Blazer does this funny thing where he runs full force into Parker for a hug...I just LOVE seeing it!!

Parker and his toad...Grandma & Papa really make the trip FUN!!!

So do a few weird friends!!!!!

And there's nothing like some passed out kids....

So angelic...and DIRTY!!! WOW...

(seriously, you have to click on this to see REALLY how dirty this child is!!!)

and the best part is...

Everything starts and ends with a campfire...

BUT...you have to be careful when you take walks on the beach at night, you could become pregnant like me...

We're loosing her...!!!

Okay, so hopefully you haven't all lost interest in our family by now!! I know I haven't exactly posted ANYTHING in the last....wow...I don't even know when I posted last...dang!!

Well, it isn't that I have fallen away from blogland...it is that I have fallen into a different world....pregnancy land!!!

Yep, we are expecting numero 5!!!

(I'll give you a moment to regroup)

Well, I am happy, really, once I get out of my fog of extreme nausea & fatigue...I mean, my poor couch has seen so much of me it probably wishes it were a different piece of furniture by now, and I really couldn't tell you for sure whether I have met the shower quota for a normal person in the last several weeks...BUT

What I can tell you is that I am alive. I will get past this...and I will be bloggin' my little heart out before we know it...and if I stop telling myself that then I might not get past the next bout of puking.....SOOOO hang in there, and we will be back before you know it...!!