Silly Girl

I'm not sure why I can't post videos on here anymore? WEIRD! I had a cute video of why Mol is in this clothes basket. She told me she was sitting in the "hot tub." Little did I know, she had poured a little water in the bottom. What a turd! :)

I just put Hunter down for a short am nap and now Mol is stacking frosting containers on the steps and saying she is gonna give her baby a "haircut."

Daddy and Mousie

I asked the boys to clean the bootbox...
cute Daddy and Mousie last night :)

A Walk in the Park

Yep, Bean dog went on the playground equipment! No other kids were there... it was really funny!

She actually went down a slide with Jack (so I snapped this pic but she wouldn't do it again)

a nice day for a swim in the river :)
i thought this one turned out cute -

House #1

back of House #1 (it's on the river)

House #2
House #3

back of House #3 (huuuuuuuuge yard)

House #4 (love the front, not much of a yard)

Which house do you like the best?

Trying to Clean House

Huh...

(Bean thanks you, Molly for the Cheezit snack mix, but I don't)

I have honestly been cleaning house all morning... can you tell?

What do dogs, chickens and deer have in common?

Bean and I just did something I don't think she and I have ever done. We just went for a walk/run. I guess it'd be considered more of a jog (the running parts). I feel hot and sweaty and good about myself! This morning I thought, "hey, since the kids will be at Granny and Grampa's tonight, maybe I should take the opportunity to go for a run?"

As the day wore on, the thought was less and less. On my way home from dropping the kiddos off, I stopped at McDonald's and ate crap. Then Erk and I had some cookies for dessert. Then the run felt like it had to happen. Since Bean isn't exercised nearly as much as she should be, I made the offer.

"Bean, you wanna go for a walk?"

Her big brown eyes lit up. So we went. Just as we rounded the corner on what I thought was a pretty "quiet" street around the corner from our house, a dog comes running out at us. I didn't freak cause Bean does that to other people all the time. He looked friendly enough and the owner called him in. That was the first house we passed. The very next house? Chickens! Who has chickens in their front yard?! Bean held it together pretty well as I was chuckling to myself. Before we even reached the third driveway, 4 deer come running outta the woods. I couldn't believe it! Bean went ballistic!

We kept on and jogged/walked all the way to a little baseball diamond (kinda like Field of Dreams) which was occupied so I figured I'd save Bean and I the stress of people everywhere and turn around. On home we came without any more dogs, chickens or deer. Erk says that's about 3/4 a mile from here, so it looks like Bean and I didn't do too bad for our first time out!

Baby's Time Out

SO funny, Mol and Hunter are playing and I'm folding Mt. Dirty's clean ones. I just heard Molly say,

"Baby, you go in timeout."

Then I see her sit the baby down on the chair and say to her baby,

"you don't be no-no to Hunter."

Then she hugged her doll. SO CUTE! They pick up on everything!

Molly

Just for you Auntie Pat :) A few more of Miss Mol!

Hunter is here (him and Mol are still both in jammies, so cute!) and I've got Mt. Dirty in the laundry room. That's my task at hand today. Try to climb it! We'll see, as it can be hard to switch out loads of laundry with Hunter wanting to get the dogs food. The boys happily got on the "big Velveeta" this morning and are off to their day at school. Hope you have a good one! Hope UB and AJ got there safely?

Cake and more cake

our own lil bakery yesterday
my helpers -
Hunter the other day with Jack and Mikie - they love this little dude :)
Jack's awesome frosting fort

workin' hard or umm, taking advantage?

the clown cake didn't quuuuuite turn out how we had hoped, but he did ok (wasn't there when we got to the carnival ;)

Not sure why this is sideways, but here are our cakes & all for the cake walk!

at the carnival

we had a blast at the school carnival! nice job Celene :)

hangin' at the neighbors

molly fell and scraped her pretty lil face :(

Jack smiled big (I told him I'd be showing this one to Nanny and Papa :)

Andy (our neighbors) grill/smoker/giddyup (do you see Deizel and Gus in the dog run? Sweetest dogs you'd ever meet - although by looks you wouldn't think it!)

Today

You know, everyone has their opinion, and I respect that. I'm not offended by what you said on your blog about me, Nan. Life is busy and that's just the way it goes. I may not do it the same way you did it (with more kids than I have :) but we aren't the same person and a 2 year old, is well, a 2 year old :)

I just got home from church - it was really cool, the choir director called yesterday and wondered if I'd like to join the choir this morning in singing at Maxine's funeral. She was so dear :) She died this week after a long battle of illness. She used to sit right in front of me (in the soprano section). Bless her heart. She is rejoicing in Heaven now. She always had a smile on her face!

It felt like no time had gone past (it's been over 3 years) when I zipped up that greenish color choir robe and put the collar on. Felt so good to see so many familiar faces and visit with people we don't really see much any more since the choir sings at the 9:30a service and we attend the 11:00a. One lady even told me "you look like a million bucks!" That made my day! Cute! Very nice...

I then ran to the post office (we had a 100 page digital scrapbook order to ship - that's gotta be one of our largest!) and the credit union. Later today, we'll go to the much anticipated elementary school carnival. The boys have been waiting for this for weeks! Erk is over at the neighbors grilling (aka smoking) some chicken, ribs, etc and we'll be having supper over there. What awesome folks they are.

Anywho, I'm off to eat some lunch. The kids are at Granny and Grampa's house enjoying some time with them. Off I go -

Another Crazy Day!

I suppose having a string of "bad days" is pretty normal, but I tell ya what. I told Erk earlier on the phone, "I'm gonna retire."

Whew! I took all 3 kids to the grocery store this morning for a few things we needed. Mainly all the goodies for the cake walk at the school carnival Saturday (we'll be bakers tomorrow most of the day). I had the typical "can we just look at the toys?" "Since we are here, can we go look at the video games?" Mixed with the occassional telling Molly to sit down in the cart and having her throw a nice little fit in the photo department. We survived and get out to the truck (bless Jack's heart, he bagged my groceries, he's so sweet) and there is a message and text from our realtor, a showing on the house at 1pm. My first thought was he was gonna show us a house we wanna look at. Cool! But nope, he meant a showing on our house at 1pm. Well, it was 11:43am. I called him back and said we'd make it work. So much for a "24 hour notice" eh? We get home, unload the groceries, I make lunch for the kids and try to clean, clean, clean the dirty house. Laundry everywhere, dirty dishes, messy boys bedroom. They were to clean up their room and they did a pretty darn good job except for Mikie's underwear that was hanging out of his drawer, their dirty clothes pile still in the corner behind the door and their beds all messy. So as I am literally sweating my arse off, I make their beds, vacuum up and down, clean away and even though mentally I wanted to be outta here at 12:45p, that just didn't happen. It was 1:03pm and we rush into the truck to get out. Just by a hair did we miss the people! We passed them not even a mile down the road! I bet the light was still on in the garage from the garage door opener...

Update

(you probably will wanna read the below post to fully gather the day I've had)

I just went to check on Molly and Hunter cause all is finally quiet. Molly had our bedroom door closed and was watching TV!?!?! She turned it on! Not to mention my entire nightstand was unloaded on the bed to include pens, books and my belt. What the beak!?! At least Hunter is conked...

Moldy Oldy

It’s been another one of those days. Today it was harder to control the patience factor, as the patience seemed to jump out the window early on. I woke up in a good mood. I was glad especially since I had a dream in the night that Erk told me I was gaining weight and needed to do something about it. I usually wake up mad at him for things like that (can’t help it, they seem so real at the time!) but this morning I even had an extra bounce in my step. The boys got on the bus and we waved them off to another day of school.
It seems just walking back in the door was when all heck broke loose. Molly needed to be dressed (she smelled like pee) and Hunter was ready to find anything he could on the ground to eat. Legos, chip crumbs, dog bone pieces. He works better than any vacuum we’ve ever had! And you forget when your own kids are past this stage that you have to be extra observant. As I was trying to clear breakfast dishes (which are still in the sink by the way) I smelled poop. Hmm, I sniffed Hunter’s rear. Nothing. We head upstairs to dress Mol and what a pleasant surprise. Poop in her pull-up. Nasty. So I’m having to trust Hunter won’t eat furniture or find some unknown small piece upstairs and I put him down. Meanwhile, trying to get Molly “on the potty” cause she claims she still has to go. Poop smears on the toilet seat, she’s lollygagging when in the blink of an eye, and I grab Hunter as he is almost falling down our very steep steps. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! My blood pressure tops out. Get her cleaned up while wrangling the 10 month old 90 pounder. WHEW.
Then things just went downhill (fortunately, not literally down our stairs!) and odds and ends stuff kept happening. We needed to GET OUT. I needed to get out. I had a mental list going of all the places we could “run” this morning to have something to do. Since Hunter is here until 3:30p, if we don’t “get out” these days, the day gets really long and hectic and I’m constantly on watch. At least in the car they can both be contained :) So we gather up the diaper bag and I take Hunter out to the garage with me. I have yet to put his car seat in the truck and lucky me, I get to do that while holding him. Fun to maneuver around (NOT) and I seem to lose the top layer of skin off my right arm in the process. Good thing it was just dry skin anyways :) In the meantime, I’m wondering, “where are my keys?” Where the beak are they? I look in every spot imaginable. Nope, not there, not there, where are they? Still lugging Hunter around (did I mention he’s a heavy lil dude?) and I can’t find them. I start to panic. What if I can’t find them? We have to be here all day? My list of things to do! Where are my FREAKING (I may have dropped another F word quietly to myself too) KEYS!?!? I search high and low and am about in tears. What do you know; I finally found them in the backseat of the truck on the floor. Hmm, can you say MOLLY? Whew, a breath of relief, get Molly and Hunter buckled up and run in the house for one more thing. A sample. Not a urine sample or paint sample, a potential mold sample. Yeppers. We had a potential buyer (that sounds better than a guy who has our house on his “maybe list”) notice what may be mold in our cellar entrance. It should be noted that we’ve lived here 8 years in May and I have never once gone in there! Since the sample Erk took the other day was left on top of his car and he drove away and it’s somewhere blowing in the breeze, I thought I’d be a hero and get a sample today and take care of it. Umm, I know why I don’t go in there. The doors to the outside were open so I stepped on the top step and got my bearings. Looking all around at the ceiling I can see the “white stuff” the potential buyer was referring to. Trouble is it’s outta normal reach. Sure, I have freakishly long arms, but still for me it was a reach. But I figured if I could just stand on the edge (on a few loose bricks) I could do it. If I was on tv, you would have all taken a gasp of breath because I almost met my demise! But I got the freaking sample and lived to tell ya’ll. Go climb in the truck with my two buddies and we’re off. Problem is I have no idea where to take the sample! So I call Dad who does some Google work for me and bam, I have directions. Silly me, by the name of the place I assumed it was here in our town. But no, it was downtown in the hood.
Before we head into the ghetto, we stopped at the grocery store a minute. We bumped into a friend who couldn’t get her automatic van door to close and I realized us mom’s all have these crazy things we deal with!
Anywho, we head to the mold place. Get there and they are the nicest people. The location was weird for what the place is, but they probably have cheap rent :) What do you know the scientist who would test it was right there and took the sample back immediately. So I stood there looking at the one fish in the fish tank with Molly and Hunter and Mol tells me she has to pee. We head into the head and she goes first (well, she didn’t really go, I think she just likes different restroom experiences) and I thought I’d go too since we had more errands to run and we were waiting for the test anyway. Let’s just say going to the bathroom with a 2 year old who thinks everything is “awky” and having to hold a 10 month old 90 pounder on your lap while wearing a not-so-easy-to-unbuckle-cool-girl-belt made for a few interesting moments!
We no sooner walk outta the bathroom and nice scientist guy says, “Congratulations, you have mold!” Oh, yeah us. Not to worry though, he gave me a thorough explanation and it’s a simple type (actually there are 2 types) that we can get rid of ourselves. We just need to risk our lives once more and sand it all down and then vacuum it all up. Then we can take another sample (I’ll let Erk do it this time) and they will provide us with the documents that say we are mold-free. Let’s hope it’s that easy!
From there we ran to a friend’s house to drop off some clothes (the route I took made us more in the hood than the mold place, but we found our way out) and then thought we’d venture out for lunch. Hunter kinda decided that for us since he was crying for about 10 minutes. It was close to lunchtime and he’s a hungry dude :)
So we went to a local place where we could be waited on. What can I say? That or sit in the truck with fast food and baby food being knocked outta my hands and having to sit in the backseat? Or going in for fast food and having to carry Hunter and a tray of food that he will try to grab. In we go and people think I’m some sorta hero (or weirdo) for having myself with these 2 little people. We eat and Hunter and Mol were so good. Molly did manage to drop her apple juice, causing her straw to puncture a hole in the side of her Styrofoam up and it came gushing out. But we got that cleaned up and overall the lunch experience was pretty relaxing.
Then on home we came. I debated one more errand to run, but at this point? We were ready for naptime. Get home and bring Hunter straight up to bed (it should be noted that in an effort to keep him awake for the 25 minute drive home that I gave him a fire truck and shoes to play with :)) only to find the lovely Bean dog had gotten the poopy pull-up (above noted) undone from the bag tying I had done this morning and made a HUGE mess in the upstairs bathroom. So I got to revisit the poop and was ever so pleased to see it again. Now? Hunter is still talking to himself (I took the wall hangings within reach down in Mol’s room cause he likes to try to pull things off the walls) and Mol was dropping Legos at me thru the register a few minutes ago. I asked her to stop 3 times and went up and spanked her. She gave me the bottom lip and at least now she is in bed talking to herself. Here’s to hoping for a few minutes of a quiet house before the afternoon gets away from me. Today is Mikie’s conference right after school so we’ll have to head out just after 3pm.

Hope your day is going perhaps smoother than mine???

Hello This Wednesday

nice "rain stick" Jack :) (looks like he's ready to break into the Sponge Bob theme song, doesn't it!?)


Cute kids, eh?

I know it's dark, but check out Mikie waving from behind a teacher. RARE!

So cute... the boys DK/K spring musical! We picked up Grampa on the way :) Jack was more interested in talking with his buddies up there and Mikie was comical as ever. They did so well! Maybe next year Mike will have a speaking part? He sure doesn't mind people seeing him in action!

Ohh and just when I'm ready to give Mol to the highest bidder? She gets out the Easter book this morning and keeps saying "dank you Lord!" I guess we'd better keep her :)

Getting ready for their concert (Jack is between the orange and yellow balloons)

Mikie walkin' in like he owns the place -

No autographs, please :)

Air travel with a 2 year old...

With being back home, so come the messes and laundry and dishes and smashed crackers on the floor. But it sure is good to be home. Especially for Bean dog (we missed her) and to sleep in our very own beds. I didn’t wanna get up this morning!

I forgot to tell you yesterday about the little airplane incident. We’re in the air and the “fasten seatbelt” light is off and I look over to Molly who has the look on her face. She announces, “I fart-een!” but I can tell by the look that there is more going on. Sure she’s somewhat potty trained – I have to admit not fully by any means! – and changing poop in a pull-up? No fun. So we head to the back of the plane which seems to be a narrow 3 mile walk. We bumped some people along the way and finally made it. I get her in the tiny stall and what do you know, she hasn’t pooped in her pull-up yet! So I get her situated in the 2 inches of space we have and she poops on the potty. Wonderful! Except for when she stands up and smears it on the side of the toilet. Then it becomes dry-toilet-paper-doesn’t-get-it-off and someone opens the door on us and I’m trying to remain calm while the poop gets on my fingers and there is slight turbulence. Fortunately I had brought the wet wipes with me (along with a new pull-up of course) and I’m trying to wipe the remainder from her buns. Lemme tell you, she will not “spread her cheeks” very willingly so I am getting more poop on my fingers trying to pry them things apart. After all was said and done (and we about went thru the entire package of wet wipes) I thought I had poop on my jeans. So I’m trying to look at the area behind my right knee in the 2 inches of space we have, and fortunately didn’t see anything. We get back to our assigned seat and I see I still have poop on my fingernail. Whew! Air travel with a 2 year old!

Home Safe

We made it home safe and sound :) It feels great to be home, although we sure do miss Mom and Dad already. The kids are all in bed - I'm now recappin' over a weeks worth of General Hospital!

getting ready to board our airplane today -
Mousie and Nanny enjoying some snugglin' last night

We went to see Alice in Wonderland yesterday (the weather still wasn't the greatest) and it was actually a pretty slick flick. Here is Papa puttin' some butter on his popcorn. Why can't they put the butter on for ya? Ya know? It only gets the top pieces!

Ready, boys?!