Floating around.

I haven't blogged for over a week. Which is never a good thing. It means I have pictures to share and not enough fun stories to go with it.. so it floats around in my head while I try to come up with something creative. But I'm a little short on sleep so nothing is producing.. and the creativity by association just isn't cutting it.

So... I'll just share pictures and ramble.

This first one is Kait on zoo day.. she loves wearing shoes and that's actually a word she says. Wait, did I ever post zoo pictures????? Hmm.. I'll have to look into that. Seriously, my memory is awful!

Nothing like a little girl wearing her daddy's shoes. :o)

Here's Drew mowing the lawn. It looks really good.. he takes such great care of the yard! Only problem is the neighbor kids that keeping our flowers. Oh the angry eyes when Drew discovers them... (me too but especially him). By the way, when I say "angry eyes" if you could use the Mrs. Potato Head voice from Toy Story when she mentiones them, I'd appreicate it. Thanks. We're considering pricing out an electric fence for the gardens.

Nothing says It's Summer time! like Otter Pops and a short hair cut. I don't actually care for Otter Pops but Drew totally loves them and all of our children have inherited the same passion. Hade looks so cute with his short hair too.. so grown up! If only he would have looked directly at the camera so you could see.. but at least you get to see his huge muscles!
This next picture showcases what a fantastic on-the-ball mom I am. I can't help but ponder which one makes me look more perfect.

The fact that Carson has no pants.

or

The fact that Hayden's are on backwards.

Any thoughts???

Lastly, just wanted to share our new furniture for the front porch. We bought it at Costco. Cute, right? Drew and I have spent several weekend mornings out on there chatting or cruising on our laptops while sipping our morning beverage. The chairs are very comfortable!

Aubrey has been spending her mornings, before school, talking to a neighbor. That's a boy. :-O

It's perfect in the evenings too. I'm very happy with our reasonably priced purchase.


My only complaint is that the children of the neighborhood are also happy with it. During the morning and early afternoon, it's shaded so they have been making themselves comfortable and are *constantly* on my front porch. Earlier there were SEVEN KIDS plus my four! Which is a problem because then it leads to a) broken flowers and therefor Drew's angry eyes (try it again with the voice) and b) because they make a mess and NEVER clean up after themselves and c) I will probably go crazy if they don't stop ringing my doorbell.

I've asked many times that they play elsewhere or just go home. I thought I was even being a little mean.. but three minutes after their departure they sneak their way back. Ugh. Any better ideas?

You let me know if you come up with anything. I'll start looking into what else I have to share.

Shameless Bragging.

Today I have a shameless brag about my older brother Dan. He's super smart and fun to talk to. I just love his wife and his FIVE kids are great. He's such a good guy.

Allow me to present his latest creation:

Tweedle Works

If you have an iPod Touch or an iPhone then you can purchase these applications! Yes, plural.. he has several variations! How cool is that??

And even better, they're GOOD ones. Everyone loves to read the comics and we can ALL use a little humor in our lives. Now you can easily read the daily comics any time you need a laugh!

I'm considering mentioning this on my resume.

Creativity by association.

And because no blog is any fun without pictures...
Dan, Me aka Mom of the year, Steve

If any of you buy them, make sure you leave a 5 star review. :o)

Slow melting & Helpful.

You know what is a fantastic invention? Slow melting popsicles. Love them! Ok, *I* don't love them.. I'm actually not a big fan of popsicles. I think it's because that's all I ate for about 3 weeks when I was really sick and pregnant with Carson. But my kids love them and I love that there is less mess, at least with the older kids.

And as of today, I have another reason why I love them. If you happen to forget that you bought them and leave them in your van when your garage is 95 degrees.. they won't be totally melted when you DO remember them! Just sayin'.

After I rescued the treats I let Carson and Kaitlyn enjoy them (I cut the bottom part off of Kait's so she'd have more stick to hold onto). Apparently Kaitlyn is a HUGE fan.. she kept licking her lips. It was so funny!!! Wanna see?

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And the pile of 'garbage' next to Carson is a little tote thing overly full of stuff that needs to go out to the recycle bin. Just so that you know, that I know, that you know that I don't have random garbage all over my kitchen. Well currently I do, but that's because I need to clean up... but on a normal basis there isn't... and um, I think I'll just move on.

I also just wanted to publicly say that I really appreciate my children's attempts in helping me stay within my Weight Watcher's point allotments. With little kids it can be difficult to not eat what they haven't even touched. Don't you agree?

Carson was a especially a shining star with this today. After our quick trip to Walmart (where I bought the popsicles) we stopped at McDonalds in there to buy a cheeseburger happy meal for him and just a cheeseburger for Kaitlyn. I split Kait's with her (it was worth the 4 points). But shortly after giving Carson his he proclaimed that he didn't like it.

My first though was that I might be slightly tempted to have a few bites. I don't like to waste food and well, it tasted good. lol But after seeing it's condition I didn't even hesitate to toss it.


Thanks, Carson!!

The Project Maker

Hayden is my little project maker. Give the kid a stack of paper, markers/crayons, scissors and a stapler/tape and he's good to go. Seriously.

You wouldn't believe what he comes up with. He's so great at envisioning what he wants and then following through. We currently have 'black spiderman' hanging up on the door that's the size of Carson. In Seattle he drew pictures of R2D2 (and a friend R3) and Darth Vadar. He also draws very detailed Star Wars and Indiana Jones pictures due to his new Lego's game infatuation. It's all very impressive.

Now to my story. The other day I was dropping him off at preschool and giving him a hug and kiss and he mentions to me that, "there's a t-rex on the little picnic table that he's making for Juan (neighbor)- please keep Carson away from it". Funny how there's always talk of protecting nice things from Carson. Anyway..

So I get home and expect to see that he drew a dinosaur on a paper.. I should have known.

Here he is posing with his masterpiece after school.


Every time I see Mr. Dinosaur I think of this.

Can't wait to see what he comes up with next!!

I hate losing.

Have you ever let almost all of your dishes pile up in the sink? Where you reach the point that if you actually want to eat then it means you have to pull out the paper plates and plastic ware or the family china?

We have.


It started on Saturday. We had a wedding to get ready for and then attend.. and Sunday it was Mother's day and *I* wasn't about to load the dishwasher. By Monday the pile was gigantically growing and Drew and I were playing the avoidance game in hopes that one of us would finally give in and attack.

Because I hate losing, I decided my best bet was to play innocent. "What? There's dishes in the sink? Really? I hadn't even noticed." All while confidently giving my children their drinks from brightly colored Ikea bowls with coffee straws to sip from like this was an every day occurance. For dinner that night we used the large serving spoons and tupperware containers to eat cereal out of. My Lean Hot Pocket was served on an elegant paper towel. Tuesday's lunch resulted in eating from spatulas and rubber scrapers.

At one point the children did question my motives and began to protest. This is shocking, but after I suggesting they do something about the situation, they happily obliged in our little game.

Drew ever so slyly mentioned yesterday, in the late afternoon, that after work he had to mow our lawn, edge and use the weed whacker. You know, to keep our lawn in pristine condition in case there is ever an impromptu neighborhood lawn competition.

Interesting. If I'm out mowing then there was hope he would lose. And I certainly don't mind mowing.. but the rest of it?? Ick. My options looked dim.

Then Drew played his final card. He reminded me that he had to work on the neighbor's yards as well. Two of them- they're paying him. *sigh*

I simply had no choice and I finally admitted defeat. Rats.

Well played, Drew. Well played.

At least we had rinsed out all of the sippy cups...

Outdoor Room.

Ok people, I'm looking for input and comments. PLEASE!

Do any of you have an outdoor room? Do you know what I'm talking about? I asked Hayden if he knew what it was and he said, "Yeah, I think it's like a little room that's outside with a little bed."

Little 'room': yes Bed: no

I was just going through this and thinking that I'm crazy to not take better advantage of my covered front porch. I love the first picture she has on there!

When our spring clean up came around a few weeks ago we threw away some items which were *covered* in cat hair since we're no longer the local community stray cat hotel (whew!). And of course the community dumpster divers promptly hopped into the dumpsters and took it all home with them. Seriously.

Anyway, so here's what I have to work with. I stepped out and took the picture.. no cleaning up or sweeping first. The picnic blanket on the swing will go back in the van later today.

This is taken from the corner by my stairs.


And this is from my front door.

So I have a porch swing that desperately needs to be stained. Anyone have experience in this area? Do I need to do anything to prep the swing or can I just slap some stain on? Does it also need a sealant or something else I'm not thinking of?

I'm thinking I need to add at least one chair and maybe one or two kid chairs. And some sort of side table.

How about an outdoor rug? Can you buy them cheap and if so, where? Is there another option out there that might work?

Towards the bottom of that blog it shows how you can make throw pillows out of those plastic tablecloths.. what a fantastic idea! I can't wait to check out Walmart's cheap selection. I've wanted to do pillows before but the idea of a pillow that might get wet from the rain and then sit there kind of grosses me out.

I really hope I get a few comments from people with ideas on what has worked with them.. I can't wait to work on this and get it started!!

A few wedding pictures.

I sadly ran out of batteries and forgot to charge the rechargeables which resulted in NO pictures from my brother-in-law's wedding this past weekend. :o( However, once Marci is back from their honeymoon I'll be able to get some (many) from her. The kids were sooooo cute!!

At the very end of the night Drew was lovely enough to scrounge around in the garage for two working batteries so that we could take a few pictures of us (like 4 before those died, lol).

If you wanna see them, they're on my weight loss blog although I'm sure you already have it bookmarked or are following along.

Go and look! Feel free to leave comments.. I heart comments. :o)

I just have to add that the wedding was perfect (well, maybe minus a few odd stories from the person marrying them.. he told one that involved frozen vomit.. yeah....). Marci look GORGEOUS and I'm so, so, so happy for her and Lock. And now that she's family, she'll never get rid of us!!! ;o)

FINALLY!!!

Whew, this has been a long time coming.

Click here.

It counts, right? Right???

Table and Tornado.

I've said before that when you become a parent that they should hand you your baby and then a magic eraser and package of flushable wipes. Well now I thave decided that they should also send you a "Congrats you've made it to two years old!" gift and they should also send it to all grandparents as well.

What is the gift I'm talking about?? It's a table! And not just any table, it's THIS table:

Because the Free Rule is not into effect, we had to buy ours at Costco and it's fabulous. It's heavy duty so that it won't tip over if a child happens to stand on just a corner of it with no other children on it (not that it's happen, oh say 900 times, in the past two weeks). It also wipes up easily (you could even hose it off- have NOT tried that yet, thank goodness) and it folds FLAT and is simple to put up and take down.

And company likes it as well. We haven't seen Mommy Cat in a few days and were thinking something happened to her so imagine my surprise when I walked in the kitchen to see her enjoying our newest addition. (Carson left the screen door open in the kitchen)



Shortly after evicting Mommy Cat, Carson, being on a roll for the Child of the Year award, also put the table to good use and pushed it over to reach a high drawer. The high drawer that contained scissors, which he's not allowed to play with (remember my last post and his hair??).

Apparently he had decided that he wanted some ice cream and wasn't able to open it with just his fingers.

Sad that is was MY ice cream, and the last one at that. And BTW, these taste a lot like the Snickers ice cream bars and are only 3 points. After tossing it in the garbage I retreated to my bedroom to make my bed while walking around with Kaitlyn attatched to my leg.

I was hopeful that things would calm down but then, THEN, a tornado rampantly destroyed my front room. Ugh. Or I guess you could say it was Carson.. but maybe there isn't much difference...
Really, I want to know how he manages to do this in just a few minutes.

I drop to the floor and crawl around (because then Kaitlyn doesn't feel the need to be attached to my leg when it's on the ground) and start tossing items into piles to make it easier to put away. TMI, but I have to pee. So I hop up (walking quickly so Kaitlyn can't get me) and just as I reach the bathroom, Carson screams and his little world crashes down on him.

He saw a SPIDER on the ceiling and was screaming loudly enough that all of the neighbors were also aware. And I thought the bees (aka flies) were bad!!

As I walked back to the front room I cringed because I was quite certain that Carson had already started his attack, in the two seconds I was gone, to eliminate the spider. So of course I grabbed the camera. And what do you know, I totally called it..

He had dragged the table in and was standing on the picnic table. And look again to the top left of the window.. see that? It's a roll of toilet paper. Mid air.

Carson was very dissapointed that I wouldn't allow him to continue his attempts at the spider. Foiled again by mom.

Imagine my surprise when I asked him to take care of the TP and put it back in the bathroom and off he went.. no fight or anything!

But when he didn't return after a minute, I knew all was not well. At this point I figured I'd just take the camera with me.. cause it's obviously one of those days.




My little hmm at the end is because I wanted to laugh but knew I shouldn't... his little sorry was so cute! Even if he IS naughty.

Which leaves us to my bathroom. You know how some people have special towels that are saved for when company comes over? Well apparently in my crazy little family, it's going to be a new roll of toilet paper. Nice.

For those of us that live here, this is what we'll enjoy.
Let's hope the tornado moves along to someone else's house....

And something.

IN GOING with my just posted blog about nothing, I thought I'd hurry and share my day of something.

Today is such a Monday. I normally try very hard not to stereotype but come on now! Monday is just asking for it!

My oldest decided 15 minutes before school that she *might* have a bad day and she wasn't going to school. I did not agree. She cried and threw herself on the couch while I pondered if this was really happening or if I was just having a bad dream. A big fat pinch confirmed it was indeed real. Talk about feeling like the worlds worst mom as you demand they leave the house and go to school. Especially since she was kind enough to point that out to me as well.

Then, Kaitlyn woke up. She is apparently in a very giving mood today. She was nice enough to poop in a just changed diaper (warning, this paragraph contains poop talk!!) and then have it be explosive. Which got on the carpet. Thanks for that, Kait! Have I ever mentioned that I love our Rug Dr.??

Carson must have sensed my love for Mondays because as I sat at the kitchen table checking my email, I heard (with my mommy power hearing) snip, snip, snip.

Me: Carson, what are you doing?
Carson: Nussing (as it sounds)
Me: Carson, do you have scissors?
Carson: *silence*

I walk into the front room (cause you KNOW he's doing SOMETHING) and sure enough, he has scissors.

Me: Carson, what ARE you doing?
Carson: I cut my hair! (insert his big cheesy and proud face)

Figures.

At least it's not too drastic.. I did have to make it a little shorter so it wasn't quite so choppy.. you can kind of see on the left how it's a bit different. I'll knock on wood though, could have been worse!

I let the Carson and Kaitlyn play outside on the deck for a bit once we were home from taking Hayden to school (we were 10 minutes late, in case you were wondering). Thought I'd share one of my good ideas.. we were going to get rid of this kitchen since Kaitlyn got a new one for her birthday but I decided to put it out on the deck to trap/contain the kids on. It keeps them from playing in the litter box, I mean sand box, which you can see on the right of the picture.

And here's little missy again.. so cute. She loves to sit on stairs.
Sadly, she's becoming naughty. She's figured out how to plot aganist me. Guess the older kids finally got to her... darn it!

I just walked past my garbage can and want to know what I found in it?
A fork. The brush that goes to the dustpan. A picture book from when Aubrey was a baby. A newer package of bathroom cups (used as snack cups). And my nice lipgloss! From my purse! Which meant I had to dig around in the garbage to make sure none of my other nice things made it in there.

Sheesh.

And lucky me, it's only 2:30. I still have the rest of the day!

I'll end with this picture of my new favorite flowers. I just LOVE them!! And even better, they were on clearance at walmart for $2.50. :o)

Marci says they're Lilly's.. I told Drew last night and apparently he told me that three times yesterday but I don't recall.. so if any of you find my brain, please return it. Drew thanks you in advance.

Do any of you happen to know if I can grow these????? (we have some day lilies on the side of the house but I don't remember them looking like these)

Yikes, now I really have to go.. I can hear Carson dragging a kitchen chair around.. never a good sign.

Nothing.

I love doing nothing. Yesterday, we were very busy doing lots of nothing.

Drew, his brother Lock and Aubrey played massive amounts of Frisbee and the sun burned our skin (which we did not discover until last night). As they flung the frisbee back and forth, I walked around the quarter mile track, that is behind my house, six times. I walked alone. I walked pushing a stroller. I walked holding hands with Carson (which was a rarity- he never wants to hold hands since he's always running off). I walked carrying Carson, which in all honestly, I could have gone without. He can get heavy!! I walked with Hayden while listening about level II of Lego Star Wars. Again.

I sat on wet grass as a spectator while Kaitlyn walked around. I listened to Carson scream, for a long time, about Potato Bugs. If you remember back to my letter to the local flies you'll have an idea of what I'm referring to. Hayden protected Carson by either squishing them or collecting them. He was even nice enough to keep the families together in the stroller until I came along and made him dump them out (ew!).

And then our nothingness evolved to the basketball hoop in front of our house and the front stairs. I'm really efficient in sitting and keeping an eye on the kids and bringing refreshing beverages to those playing.. so I went with that. At one point, Marci joined me and we sat and burned together. Well, at least I did. grrrr

Kaitlyn was simply adorable in her big floppy brimmed hat and Carson's green sunglasses. I could seriously eat her up.. devour her. Well, minus the runny nose. Never, the runny nose.

After a break from our nothingness, Drew and Lock went to the store to purchase a football. Hayden retreated to play level II from Lego Star Wars. Carson yelled out the window in hopes that the others would return. Kaitlyn napped.

Drew returned with three small bags of groceries, a football and two new camping chairs (which will probably never be used for camping.. remember? I rock at just sitting!!). We have a joke that if Drew actually goes to the store (he typically detests it), he always returns with a bag of Tostito's scoops, cheese dip, no real food and will have spent $100. Any guesses what happened yesterday?? This is why he doesn't shop. *sigh* Good thing I'm madly in love with him.

My step-brother came over and the (big & little) boys and Aubrey retreated back to the field to toss the football around. I gathered the leftover veggies and dip from the previous night's bachelorette party and warmed up the just purchased cheese dip so that everyone could enjoy upon return. And we did.

In going with the day's theme of nothing, Danno had the usual conversation with Carson about him looking like Bam Bam in which Carson returns with "I'm not bam bam, I'm Carson!" Carson never gets tired of this game. In fact, he now says it to.. oh, everything. I try to tell him he's a good boy. He says, "I'm not a good boy, I'm Carson!" Thanks for that, Dan.

Drew also convinced Dan and Lock to help him move his 55 gallon fish tank as the stand we have (we got the tank/stand off of freecycle years ago!!) is not doing so well and Lock gave us his nice one. Drew drained it a LOT and then the muscle men moved it without much sweating. Very impressive.

Then we had yummy grilled chicken for dinner. Poor Drew was caught in a sudden down poor as he was plating the chicken.. he was soaked (it was a little bit funny.. sorry drew.. but it was!) as he protected our dinner. The sacrifices he makes for our family!! ;o) He's the best.

And that, was our perfect day of nothing.