little HAM!
our picnic today at the neighbors - turned out to be SO nice out!

they have an amazing backyard

FUNNY or what?! This is Gus, he's 220 lbs and the friendliest dog you'd ever meet :)

the kids making their very own "grape juice" popsicles today
hey lady!

Gus' friend Diesel :)

Momma and Bean dog (nice work Jack)

Snackin'

Hey everybody! Ohh, I see Erk just pulled in. Awesome! He's been up at Don's cabin this weekend. The truck is filthy! He washed it but the "touchless" just didn't touch it :)

Thanks Nan for the goldfish! Mol and I have been snacking on them all afternoon!

Well, short and sweet, but I'm off. Hope you've had a nice weekend!

Old Fart

Hey there! Hope you all have had a nice Friday!? Feels like a Saturday to me today for some reason. The kids are all in bed and I'm thinking that sounds pretty good :) Our website had a "happy birthday sale" on Wednesday and we had our best day yet! So Thursday was spent fufilling orders! Very, very cool.

Just wanted to let you know I didn't fall in. Have a good night! This old fart is headed to bed :)

Birthday SnapShots

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Molly is TWO!

what a treat she is :) Happy 2nd birthday MOLLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not Afraid to Make a Scene

Googly Eyed

I'm in a twighlight zone right now. Just took an ambien to help me snooze tonight and well, the effects are leaving me googly eyed :) But I'm ready for bed -d - bye. The kids all went to bed real easy tonight, they were pooped too. Had a fantastic time camping this weekend, great times, good company. Did a lot of campfire sitting and laughing our butts off (especially when all of our kids were in bed for the night).

I'll try to post some pix tomorrow. For now? My eyeballs are gonna pop outta my head if I don't close 'em. Goodnight!

Unfair Age Advantage

Cute Pics from the Past Few Days

who needs a pool? :)
let's just fill up the hole (mikie dug over the course of months) with water from the hose!

handsome or what!

havin' fun -

filthy!
umm, I'm guessin that's not for you Mikie!?

our new Wednesday morning pal, Hunter - he'll come visit us every Wed morning (our neighor boy)

big yawn (Jack is big time into snapping pictures so it's fun to be in them!)

Who's That Riding the Orange Bike?

Yo yo! I'm wearing workout pants, maybe my legs will just work themselves out since I'm in the right pants? :) Getting stuff packed up for our trip = we leave this afternoon for another camping weekend. I just made some pasta salad and Molly is going around cleaning everything with an old bottle washer I found in the drawer. RARE!

I thought this video would bring a laugh today :) Sure does to me!

Good Stuff

Hey there! I'm smelling banana bread in the ol' oven while the boys are making a "foam pit" out of our couch cushions and pillows. They have lost tv for the rest of the day for various little attitudes, comments and actions today and ya know, it's really nice. They are being creative (so far) and it feels good to have them using their noggins. Ohh, and it helps that we have a list going of chores that they can get paid for today. But it will tally up tonight, bad tude? Money taken away. Good stuff? Adds up! It'll be interesting :)

I hope you're having a good day? I have a ton of great pictures to upload but I'm not sure I will be able to today or not. I'll check you all lata! Happy Wednesday :)

Watch OUT

Watch out, I'm gaining confidence and may be coming to a city near you! Don't worry, I wasn't driving crazy in a parking lot, we were parked at Arby's for lunch and Jack snapped a picture of me :)

A Lotta Recent Pix

Erk preparing his bday din din for all of us

We have another "3" candle, but couldn't find it. So we improvised :)

Erk's bday gathering - a nice time :)

happy birthday dad!

mikie chillin' with Jay while hangin' out on their VW bus :)

Cute :)

watch out, he roasts a mean marshmallow!

cute kids :)

all teeth!

at the campground beach

Early celebration

staged, YES, cute, ABSOLUTELY :)

Granny bringing the special cake she made

So cute blowing out the candlesmessy woman

the adorable crib (and a highchair) that Granny re-did special for Mousie, it used to be "Aunt Lori's" when she was a little one. CUTE!

Mu-wah! All decked out in the new goods.

the boys helped her open her presents

I Was

Ohh and if I've come across as ornery/crabby the last week or so, I apologize. I honestly was cranky :) HA!

Headed Out

Hey everybody! Happy Saturday nite! We just got home from Granny and Grampa's house. Had a wonderful time celebrating Molly's bday a little early. Can you believe she'll be TWO in just over a week!? Granny and Grampa are leaving for a nice vacation in a few days - they'll have a wonderful time :)

We've been camping the past few days but came home this morning. We headed out Thursday afternoon and knowing we were headed back home today anyway, we got up and headed here. We are all tired (Mol never sleeps well in the trailer which translates into everybody in the small space) so her taking a nap here at home and now all of us sleeping in our own beds? Fantastico!

We'll head back out tomorrow morning to spend some time and bring the trailer home. I'd love to post some pix from camping and the bday party tonight, but I'm tuckered out. Bean is wanting a bone even though I just gave her one, Mol is talking to herself in her crib, the boys are giggling amongst themselves and Erk is reading a book. Good night all!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

There are more pix, but I haven't had a chance to sort thru them yet. Erk's bday was yesterday and we had a nice time! Can ya feel the love!? :)

Pressure

PMS isn’t fun. There are no two ways about it. You can say “deal with it” or “you should know what to expect, it comes every month” but it’s not that easy. Add in a 23 month old who is crying most of the morning. I mean world falling apart. And we have plans during naptime so that won’t be a reprieve. So I give her a snack and she goes down at 11am, seemingly ready for the taking.

She talks for a while in her bed while the boys and I are eating our pb&j and then starts crying. A lot. I’m thinking “what the beak? This is exactly what you need, a NAP!” So I go up to investigate. I stop dead in my tracks at her doorway. She has removed her diaper (for the 3,984 time in the past few weeks) and peed a huge wet spot on the floor in front of her crib. Her sheets are pee filled, her bed, the carpet. I just stood there and stared with a blank look on my face.

So no nap, and we head to friends to swim today. Mol is up down all around, wants in the pool, back out, a snack, in the pool, up the stairs, in the pool, eating sand… I’m all over the place – with my bathing suit on but not wanting to get in the pool. So I find a way to keep her entertained – the occasional dip in the pool while holding her by the arms and she’s good. But I’m getting tired. So we stop. She’s a bit upset but moves past it.

Fast forward to when we got home. I’m glad to have her contained and the boys outside playing with the hose. I start to clean up the house that wouldn’t you know was pretty clean yesterday. Mol is messing around on the couch, I’m on the phone with Dad and boom, she falls off the couch. Whaps her head, but it scared her more than anything.

She is crying constantly, I’m trying to calm her, she starts acting like, oh, she is, oh she did. PUKED on me and her baby doll and herself. Now had this not happened earlier this summer at the campground when we had an EMT check her, I would have been more nervous. But we were told what to be worried about with a concussion and so far she’s fine. Back to the puke. It’s chunks of cheeseburger from our quick PMS related snack we stopped for on our way home. I sit there wondering what to do – get her calmed down and head for the shower. Stick her in there where she keeps telling me she’s “awky” and go to turn on the shower? No water. Our water wouldn’t work.

So I strip her down to a diaper (which is ever so tempting to rip off for her) and ask Mikie to keep an eye on her while I go down the basement to get the water back. Jack is yelling from outside playing with the hose that the water stopped. I quickly trek down the creepy steps and over to the bladder or whatever it’s called (obviously this has happened before, I’m not that handy J and get the water pressure back up. Mikie is yelling to me at the top of those creepy stairs that “Molly is headed down!” Umm, NO MIKE! So back up I go, put the diaper still attached baby in the shower, clean up the cheeseburger chunks and get the washing machine going. Find her some spare clothes in the laundry room. Call Dad back to tell him we are alive and Molly is fine and my phone goes dead.

Two minutes later Jack is down here telling me he left his snow globe on his bed and I had just put all of his bedding in the washing machine with pukey clothes (mine included). WHAT? Fortunately, it wasn’t in there, that would have well, been the cake topper today…

3 P's

It’s just been one of those days. Dog taking a drink outta the toilet. Molly constantly taking her diapers off insisting she went “po-poos,” grocery shopping with all 3 kids, getting nasty faces and comments when I wouldn’t buy everything the boys wanted, Mikie pulling a strip of paint right off our front porch, cleaning up dog puke, bleeding scabs, broken hairbows, chewed up rain boot (Bean did it) that Molly will never get to wear now, Jack not listening therefore taking away tv privileges for the next day (which will affect us all!), purse dumping, can’t find matching shoes (for anyone), and now Bean is barking at me.

But so it goes. Granny and Grampa just came and picked up the 3 little farts and the kids were ready to be away from me I’m sure. It’s awesome for them to spend this time with Granny and Grampa. Let’s just hope they don’t have poop, puke and privileges to mess with!

Repo

our ball that we gave a 24-hour test to, would it last 24 hours? 26 actually, then it met it's demise...

you may wonder what the deal is with the kotex box? it was the only thing i had with opening doors :) this is a "remake" of a show I watched the other night and told the boys about. They were so interested, we made it ourselves...

two "repo" guys go in to take some dude's really expensive motorcycle... all while the bigger dude (seen here in blue) is afraid a dog is gonna come get him.

but in the end, they take the motorcycle, the really ugly green guy is ticked, but all goes well.