Baking Day

Baking with my kids is one of those things that I am very rarely brave enough to take on. But we have these adorable baking get ups from Grammy Kimmy, so every now and then I prepare myself for the ensuing natural disaster, and let them into my kitchen. But they have to promise to pose for pictures first :)

Say cheese!

Seriously, Mom, lets just get on with it.

I'm sure Cooper wouldn't let her do something. We actually see this face quite a bit :)

They totally lost interest in taking pictures, and even in making faces at me to discourage the pictures. But even staring at your fingers is cute when you are two and wearing a chef's hat!

Carnivale 2011

Carnivale is a huge event around here, with being so close to Venice and all. Even our little town has a huge parade, and carnival rides, etc. Jesse was gone for most of it, so we did a bit less this year than we have in the past, but the kids and I did make it down to the rides for a bit one afternoon. I only had a couple coins on me, so we had to limit what we could do, hence the kids all crammed into one car, taking turns driving:



I think they still had fun :). Next we moved on to the merry go round. Always a hit, and especially this one, as they always hang balloons from the ceiling for the kids to try to hit.



And finally, we spent our last coins on cotton candy that was bigger than any of them!

Yum...

Hiking with God

We took the kids on a hike this last Saturday. It was so much fun, we all had a great time and came back down the mountain happy, hungry, and tired. All marks of a good day :)


There were parts of the hike that were really steep, and parts where the kids fell down a lot. It got me thinking.


As we were coming up the last bit of the hill (in the picture above) it was pretty steep and the kids were getting pretty tired (Momma, too), and were slipping a lot. I walked with Zeke in front of me, with my arms outstretched toward him, not touching him, but staying close by him. And every time he would stumble, or tip backwards, he would tip right back into my steadying arms, which would enable him to get his feet back underneath himself and continue on. And every now and then the "trail" would get a little unclear and he would hesitate, or start wandering a bit to the side, so I would gently nudge him the right way, or sometimes without even speaking would just point which way I wanted him to go.

And suddenly it struck me how much like our Father it all was. We trudge along, sometimes looking up, seeing the top, remembering where we're going, but mostly we're head down, stumbling, not always even sure if we're going the right way, just trying to keep going. But right by us is one who loves us more than himself, walking with arms outstretched. One who sees the whole trail and how to stay on it. One who has a constant view of the top. One who catches us, steadies us, guides us. If we let him.

And we made it. Exhausted, but triumphant.

The boy

"Hey, Mom, look at my hair!!!"

"Whoa, it looks good, buddy! Did you wet it down with water?"

"Nope."

"Oh. What did you put into your hair to make it look wet, then?"

"I don't know." And he wandered off.

It was liquid hand soap, dripping out of his hair.


Several nights ago we were eating a dinner that apparently none of the kids were overly fond of. Jesse and I had to tell them all three over and over to keep eating their food. Then one of us noticed that Zeke's food was disappearing quite quickly all of a sudden. After watching him for several seconds, we realized that he was shoveling bites in and swallowing them whole.


The other day I was outside trimming the dead stuff off of our plants and trees, and the kids were playing close by. I heard Cooper say something about potty, so I turned around to check on them. It seems Zeke decided he needed to go potty in the grass (always exciting), but instead of finding a secluded corner or a tree to pee behind, he had gone over to the low iron fence that separates our yard from a decently busy street. And by the time I had turned around he had stripped his pants and undies completely off, and was struggling to get his sweatshirt over his head, while his critical parts were just hanging out for everyone walking or driving by to see. We had to have a short talk about being "discreet".


And by the way, when people talk about boys eating a lot, they're not kidding! Zeke ate four bowls of cereal for breakfast yesterday!

Reality check

I just got my girls up from their naps.

I opened their door to Payton beaming at me with those warm, chubby, red cheeks that are exclusive to a toddler waking up from a good snooze. I picked her up and she wrapped her scrawny little arms and legs around me and squeezed. Man I love that girl.

Then we got Cooper out of my bed and all came trailing down to the couch, where sweet Cooper said, "I would like to snuggle with you, Mommy." So I hunkered in with a little monkey snuggled up on each side. And I was feeling pretty warm and fuzzy, and thinking that being a mom is pretty much the greatest thing that could ever happen.

And then Cooper said, "Eeewwww, what's that smell?" And I said, "I don't know. What does it smell like?" "Poop," she said, and paused, and then answered her own question: "Oh, I think it's just your breathing."

Hey, we all need people that love us enough to tell us the hard truths. And now I must go brush my teeth.

Dress up

Peter Pan, accessorized with a princess crown and cowgirl boots, of course.

Swim Barbie (the anti photo taking version)

Swim Barbie take #2 (efforts at photos were supposed to be thwarted, but Mommy thinks this looks just as funny)

Ten Bucks well spent

The local grocery store sells these little board books, mostly of Disney movies. Ten bucks bought us quite a bit of quiet :)

Oh, the agony!!

I was taking pictures of my girls yesterday, as we were actually all up, dressed, and ready to go somewhere with hair done and everything! So I'm snapping away, taking really cute pics, and I notice something.

(Okay, the pic below is a little off topic, but I added it so that you can see the nasty bruise on Payton's ear. The day it first happened, her whole ear was swollen, and the entire top half was black. Only Payton...Yesterday she managed to give herself a bloody black eye on the slide at the playground. Who does that??)

It's the binky! That stinkin' binky is in every single picture!

So I took it away...

It didn't go over so well.

Oh, is that what you wanted?

Just one more thing I am excited to move beyond as the babes start to move on to the next stages of childhood.

Outtakes

I had a goal. It was to get a good picture of the kids in their matching Christmas outfits. I was even thinking that I might have it printed onto a canvas and it could be something that I could hang up at Christmas time for, oh, the rest of our lives. And then we had the "photo shoot". Believe it or not, this is the best we ended up with:


And just for all your viewing pleasure, here are some of my favorites of the hundreds of outtakes that we took.

Merry Christmas!!!

Snow

We get snow here only occasionally. It snows for maybe a day or two, last a day or two longer, and then goes back to the never ending rain. But it is a really big deal when it does, and today, it did.



Now, I've seen a lot of snow in my extensive years. Enough to know that I despise snow. Yet I have never, ever seen flakes the size of the snow that was falling here today. Some of them were literally the size of my palm. It truly did look like big fluffs of cotton were falling from the sky. I tried to take some pictures, which, of course, did not do these freak flakes justice at all. What can you do. But it was sure fun for the kids (and maybe even Mom and little tiny bit) to watch.


The bummer part is, this is the second day we've seen snow so far this winter, and both times the snow started right at lunch time. So I of course promised both times that as soon as the kids woke up from naps, we could go out and play in the snow. The first day (the day after Thanksgiving), I heard Cooper crying halfway through nap time, as she heard the rain outside the windows and knew that it was putting an end to her plans of an afternoon full of snowmen. You'd think I'd learn, but I made the same promise today, only to have the snow stop and immediately start melting as soon as I tucked the little ones into their beds.

We did find out today that we are for sure headed to Fairchild AFB in October (in Spokane, WA, hometown of all the coolest people in the world) so I suppose the munchkins will have plenty of years ahead of them to make snowmen. I cannot wait until they are old enough to go outside and play by themselves.

It was this or laundry...

It's been a while. A couple weeks ago we took all the kids to Rome to meet up with some friends. Then when we were just on the verge of a nervous breakdown, we came back home. Then we had a few days of only mild madness. Then my husband went to pick up our previously mentioned friends on a mountain in the alps (where it was required that he stay to board for a day and spend the night) while I stayed home with our three kids to clean the house and prepare it for company, to prep everything for the Thanksgiving dinner we would be hosting for our guests and several other friends, and to care for our newly spayed dog who wouldn't sit or lay down because of her new wound, and wouldn't walk around at all while wearing the cone of shame. Then our guests came, and we had lots of people around and had even more fun. And then they left.

I put our house back together. I restocked the fridge. The fridge got postponed a day, but it got done (I discovered, standing at the front door, kids in shoes and coats, that somewhere in all the madness my keys got misplaced. I had to wait for Jesse to get home that night and confiscate his key to my car). I have almost regained my sanity. And now all that's left is to clean the house. And yet, even with all the organizing and straightening, I have not yet regained my motivation. So instead of doing laundry or mopping floors, I am killing time with a cup of hot cocoa in front of the computer :)

One little story though from our days of mild madness. We were at a Thanksgiving function and Cooper fell in the parking lot and gave herself a bloody nose. It's a very long story, but lets just cut it down to: I left the function with no cell phone, at bedtime, and a bloody four year old who suddenly couldn't keep her eyes open, said her head hurt and that she was sleepy, and wouldn't answer any questions I asked her. In a panic I detoured from our house and went to our pediatrician's house, who happens to be a good friend of ours (at least for the time being...we'll see how much longer he'll take my calls on holidays and open the door for me on dark nights when something has happened to one of our kids). All that to say, she was fine, and is fine. Maybe just a little puny the next morning:

We actually have quite a few pictures of Cooper looking pretty bashed up. Maybe sometime I'll post the ones from when she fell out of the stroller onto concrete on her second birthday. The poor kid is so much like her mom...

The worst part is, Cooper looked a little beat up. Then Payton fell while we were all down at the square and scraped up her face. Then Zeke and I were playing with a balloon on Thanksgiving and my thumbnail scraped his forehead and left a big bloody scab. When some friends came over later that day, after seeing all our beaten children, she asked Zeke what happened to him. "Mom hit me."

Veteran's Day

This guy is a veteran:

He's also my grandpa. I grew up hearing the story about how his nose is crooked from the rifle butt he took to the face during the war, but in reality, he worked in a hospital. I'm not sure he saw too many rifles. My guess is it was a brawl.

This guy is also a vet:

His name is Jerry and he's married to my grandma (right there next to him). I don't know too much about Jerry's service, except that he was in Japan during the war, and has NO interest in going back (I know this because my brother and sister in law lived there for a while, and my grandma went to visit them alone as Jerry was perfectly happy not going).

Another vet:

My amazing father in law, with my mother in law and all their grandkids! He was a fighter pilot in the AF, and spent time stationed in Europe when their kids (one of whom I obviously think is pretty great) were the same age our kids are now. We pretty much live our lives based on theirs.

These guys are all vets. And also all serious athletes:

But that one in the orange sunglasses, I am particularly fond of that one. He's my favorite veteran.

I never really understood the supposed attraction for women to a man in uniform until I met this one. He's hot. In uniform or not, but I gotta say, he's pretty sharp looking in any of his uniforms. Unfortunately, at the time of this picture, his wife was about 24 months pregnant and was not looking quite so hot. More bloated and exhausted, really. Good thing that award is so big to help detract from the lady.

I think it's important that everyone understand how serious it is to be a veteran. A veteran would never, say, use a couple of his uniforms to dress up for Halloween with his wife as an instructor and a student. Especially not if his students were being mocked in the process.

There are definitely times where it's hard being married to a veteran who is still currently serving. For instance, sometimes said veteran might make you wear a parachute and gear while they practice some drill they have to be able to perform in a certain amount of time (can you tell how well I paid attention to exactly what we were practicing?)

And sometimes they might go off to war when you are eight months pregnant.

**Side note in all seriousness: my veteran missed the birth of his son while he was off helping to defend our freedom, but he came home healthy, mentally and physically. We owe all of our gratitude to those veterans who are not so lucky, and their loved ones who either live with a changed man/woman, or who live without their man/woman at all. You are the true heroes of our country.**

There are also the great times that come along with being married to an active duty veteran. Like when they finally come home.

Or when they take you to fancy functions where you get to get all dressed up.

So in honor of Veteran's Day, THANK YOU, all of you, who have served or are serving in our armed forces.