How Do They Do It?

I have always marveled at people who have children close together. M & S are 2 years apart, and that was plenty close enough.

I was watching Jake yesterday, and this is what happens when I have 3 kids all under 2.

I was getting ready to give K her bath. B thinks she can get in with her and instantly strips down and hops in faster than anything! So I gave K her bath, and I was in getting her dressed. B started saying "Oh, OH!" I asked her what was wrong, and she said "Jake is in here, and he has his clothes on." They had been playing with the rubber ducky, and I guess he figured he was missing out on the total water experience. He did manage to put her pants in the water too. Notice them on the side of the tub. So needless to say, he ran around in his diaper while his clothes were drying. B of course wouldn't get dressed until he did.

Five Years Ago

OK Randy...this is for you. You gave me a serious brain fart trying to think what I was doing 5 years ago. I can't even remember what I did last week, let alone 5 years ago.


What I was doing five years ago:
1. Getting ready to spend a delightful week at the Grand Waiela Hotel in Maui
2. Staying at home playing with 2 of my favorite kids
3. Drinking Diet Coke, talking on the phone to Heidi

Pet Peeves:
(Driving the kids back and forth to school for 6 months made me realize I had a lot of driving pet peeves)
1. People who run the red lights on a left hand turn, making me miss my turn with the green arrow!
2. People who are not paying attention once the green arrow turns, which makes me miss my turn because they were too slow!
3. People who cut you off by changing lanes, and then go under the speed limit, when there was no need to switch lanes!

Some things I would do if I were a billionaire
1. Pay off my house, and buy my kids a house of their own...for someday
2. Travel
3. Buy all the toys necessary for traveling

Favorite foods:
1. Diet Coke
2. Shakes (Iceberg, or Ab's work nicely)
3. Nice juicy stake with fried shrimp

What's in a name?

After a few discussions about the pros and cons, we've decided to try to sanitize our blog a bit. We had originally(nearly 1-year ago) intended to make this a private blog. However, as we've had old friends find our blog, (which has helped us find their's also) we feel like it is important to leave it open.

We want friends to find us. Sickos, Psychos, and other disturbed individuals are NOT WELCOME. It's the doubled edged sword of these wonderful blogs.

So, we've already edited some old posts, and will be deleting the rest after we print them for our future reminiscing. For future posts, please accept our apologies for using first-letter abreviations for names. We trust that those we know and love will be able to decipher who we're talking about.

The Vinyl Trend

I have kind of avoided the whole vinyl lettering trend. I don't know why. I always think it looks so cute when I see it, but I just haven't ever bought any. But then, I found a cute little pattern at a fabric store that I thought would be so cute in K's room. So then I thought everybody's room needed something. So, here is what we have.....



(B's Room)



(M's Room)
(S's Room)

(Kid's Loft)

(K's Room--Sorry for the yucky picture---I couldn't figure out how to get my camera to work better than this.)

But after doing this, I know why I've avoided it. Even though it was super easy to apply, my rebellion to OCD or my case of ADD prohibits me from measuring and remeasuring and having everything absolutely positively perfect. I drive poor R crazy. In this area, we are polar opposites. I should have waited and let him hang all of these up. The loft is a little crooked...oh well...it gives it character, right!

Does It Get Any Sweeter?

I'm not sure that there is much else sweeter than a baby girl in her blessing dress.




(R was roasting so changed his clothes, and then I decided to take pictures--he really didn't wear a tee shirt to bless K)


We blessed K on Sunday and she was awesome. She didn't cry or fuss at all. She was very content all day. She has been such an awesome baby. She is so easy going. I hope this personality continues.

Her personality reminds me a lot of S's personality when he was a baby. And now as a big kid, he is still such a peacemaker and for the most part is really easy going.




I had to post this picture. After everyone left Sunday, B was still hungry, so she was eating a bowl of rice. My mom and dad stuck around to help clean up. We were visiting. B was talking away. And then the next second, she was like this. Totally passed out.

You Know It's Bad...

...when you see this...



(yes, that is duct tape on our MAIN water line)













after discovering this....

...but thankfully R doesn't over react (like I do) and he can still look like this....

in the middle of a mess!

So the story is...Sunday after the blessing, I was walking on the front lawn, and it felt like a water bed. R turned off the sprinklers trying to rule out a broken sprinkler pipe, and hoping it would dry up. Monday night he started digging. The gushiest spot was at an intersection of our secondary water box and our main water box, so he didn't know what it could be. He dug and dug and found the main water line to be the culprit. When he came across the duct tape. Not so impressed. It was about 9:30 when he discovered it, so he sent a text to our builder and the sales guy. To my pleasant surprise, we had a response by 7:00 this morning, and crew was here by about 9:00, and it is now 10:19 and our water is back on and they are even fixing the grass. The line the crew gave us was that the duct tape wasn't actually around the pipe. The pipe comes in great big rolls, so if they don't use the whole roll, they duct tape it. Someone, when laying our pipe cut the duct tape, and sliced the pipe a little, but didn't realize it. So over time, the water pressure broke through the slice. Whatever happened, I guess it doesn't really matter. It's getting fixed in a timely matter and I'm grateful for that.

I now realize how dependent we are, and how much we take running water for granted.

What the Heck

What the heck happened to my nice peaceful slow pace life that I re-bonded with this slow summer? This week was absolutely insane. I'm glad it's almost over, but looking ahead, it doesn't get any better. Welcome back to life I guess. So what have we been doing, you might ask......

Well....

2 weekends ago R's sister and family came to visit from North Dakota. She was in the Air Force for 6 years, and was stationed there, met her husband (who is still in the Air Force and still stationed there) and now has a sweet little, almost 2 year old boy. We have only been able to see him a few times in his life. They are going to be moving to England early next year...big bummer. It means we'll get to see them even less. But, I am planning a trip to England sometime in the next 4 years (R, take note please). Anyways. We had them come up camping with us. We took up the Green Goblin (aka our WT boat) and the rest of the fam came up and spent Saturday on the lake with us. It was great to visit so much with Jill and Alex and M. The weather was great and it felt WONDERFUL to be on the lake again. Both M and S tried skiing. M got up for a total of 9 seconds, (5 the first try and 4 the second). S was having a hard time keeping his feet in the boots, so he didn't really officially get up. I think we need new training skis.

While Jill was in town, we had 2 sets of family pictures taken. And two sets of family parties. Fun times! It's too bad these pictures turned out so cute without K in them. R just snapped them while I was feeding K, trying to get the kids warmed up for the "pro". I didn't realize he had taken these until we got home. I think we're going to have to go back and try again with K in them!Last weekend we were going to stay home and do yard work, and then we were tempted and gave into temptation, and we went camping again. It was a great relaxing weekend. We did a little fishing (I actually didn't fish but R and the kids did). We did a little swimming. We did a little reading. The kids did a lot of playing. While fishing, M cast her line and on the very first cast she caught a fish. As R was trying to take the hook out of the fish, he thought he could feel something tugging..he pulled the fish up out of the water and sure enough, another fish was tangled with the line. It appears the 2nd fish was caught, swallowed the hook too deep, so the fisherman just threw it back, line and hook and all, so it became tangled with M's line. So her first fish was a two-fer. How cool is that!

Between soccer for everyone, dance, and church duties this has been an insane week. R has been working his fanny off all summer, but especially these last few weeks trying to finish up the yard. It looks so great! I am loving our back yard. It's going to be so much fun to have it finished. We're blessing K on Sunday, so hopefully he'll be able to relax a little after that. I'll post pictures of the yard in a while.

Hopefully things will calm down a little. I doubt it, but I guess that's what life with kids is all about. Run Run Run!

Sorry for the super huge long post and the tons of pictures. Now you're up to date with our crazy life. I hope everyone is doing well.