Our 3 ring circus

The best feeling in the world

2012-02-17T23:27:00.000-08:00

Connor has turned into Mr. Clingy. He always wants to be carried and sit on my lap. Of course he gets away with it because he is the baby. He has a hard time falling asleep at night by himself. He likes to sleep with "Gweggy", but Greg doesn't always want to share his twin bed with his brother. So I sometimes lay with him until he gets relaxed enough to fall asleep. (the kid gets really hyper when he's tired) Tonight as he was falling asleep, he was sucking his thumb with one hand, and rubbing my face with the other. I'm thinking to myself how sweet this moment was. I felt so at peace with the world for that moment with my little boy. Those are the moments that I try to catalog in my brain in hopes that I will never forget them. He rolled over, and scooted back to me. He seemed very relaxed, and as he was snuggling right up to me, I figured he was on the verge of falling asleep. Then he farts on me and rolls away laughing. The little stinker just wanted to fart of me! Sadly, he really enjoys farting on people. So much for sweet moments. Ahh boys.

The Ha is 9

2012-02-11T22:14:00.000-08:00

Hailey has always been our most challenging child. Regardless of all the other stuff, she is a strong, determined, and interesting child. She's the kid who will one minute infuriate you, and the next crack you up. She has such a sweet, loving spirit. Even when she's mad at you, she still loves you to death. (I literally mean to death, she will squeeze you until you are gasping for breath.)

Hailey has always had her own, distinct sense of style. If it's sparkly, glittered, or shiny, she will wear it. She'll probably beg me to buy it. She got the sequined boots for Christmas, and the sequined dress and purse from my sister. Basically, if it has sequins or sparkles, Hailey will love it. We are talking about a kid who has pleather leggings here.

Always in full exuberance over everything. It might be snowing, so she should be prepared to catch snow or snowflakes full on.

More unique Hailey stylings. She has been referred to as Pippi Longstocking for a reason.

Hailey is a great athlete. She obviously does not get them from me. I think she has found her niche in life. She has a lot of enthusiasm and energy, and she's not afraid to get hurt. Which works in her favor on the soccer field works in her favor. If only we could find a way to channel her extraordinary energyv 12 months of the year.
Hailey is truly a special child. There are a lot of things about her that few people understand. But she has a HUGE heart, and love's people to the fullest.

Connor's 4 now! (How did this happen?)

2012-02-09T23:39:00.000-08:00

I don't know how, but Connor turned 4 in January. It seems like just last year I had him, and we moved to Spokane. He has turned into quite the character. He is basically a miniature Dave. He looks like a little Dave, he's all boy. None of that tiny, nerdy Paulitz genes here. Where Greg's all space and math, Con's all wrestling and sports.

Notice the unbuttoned pants: Connor prefers sweats or unbuttoned pants so that he can enjoy the luxury of waiting until the absolute last moment to use the bathroom.

Ahh, the Superman costume. I found it at the Value Village late this summer, thinking it would be something fun Con could dress up in from time to time. Ha! He wore the costume day in, day out, like it was regular clothes. He would proudly tromp around town in that too small, well worn, Superman costume with camoflouge rain boots. It was way to small and paper thin (from wearing it every single day). For Christmas, I made him a sad, but less ragged, bigger, Superman costume, which he has refused to ever wear. So, for his birthday, my mom ordered the child a larger, less sad Superman costume. Within a few days, it was well worn and now means repairing. It doesn't get the same wear and tear as the old ( I think because it's not flannel like the toddler version) but still. When you have a kid wearing a Superman costume like it's real clothes, you get some looks. But as my dad says, I'm a free range parent.

Somehow, this is the only picture I could find of Con initiating a fight. The kid always wants to fight. If you offer to read him a story, he'll say "let's fight!" Which pretty much consists of him trying to punch and tackle you, while you remain defenseless. He is such a boy. I mean, the child hums himself to sleep with the Imperial March. Such a funny boy. He holds such a spot in my heart, I'm pretty sure he can't ever move out.

Greg's 6th birthday

2012-01-23T22:51:00.000-08:00

Greggers had his 6th birthday back in November. It's hard to believe he is already 6, it seems like it was just last year that I had him. Obviously, he had a Star Wars party since it is his new obsession. Tonight he was like "I don't know why but I've just been really into Star Wars lately." He was so serious about it, like it was a life changing decision. He is such a serious, mild mannered little boy. I am always hearing from his church and school teacher what a great kid he is. I've come to the conclusion, Greg is just a unique boy. He was the perfect spirit to come to me during a very difficult time.

My sad attempt at a yoda cake. I am forever trying to copy cakes I find online, with dismal results.

My little "dream boat." He has become the crush of Ness Elementary kindergarten. Funny story from a mom at school. She was on a field trip with the class, her daughter kept hitting her on the leg trying to get her attention. When her mom finally looked at her, she said "mom look there's Gregory, isn't he dreamy?" I feel like this is going to be the story of Greg's school career with girls.

A Very Star Wars Christmas

2012-01-02T21:28:00.000-08:00

My little brother and his beautiful family came up from L.A. to spend Christmas with us. Jonathan is my first nephew on my side of the family and he is so stinkin cute. It was so great to see them, I never get to see them because they live so far away.

We go for the put on every decoration you have own, in the most haphazard manner possible approach to tree decorating. Because of our schedules, we cut a tree down from a farm instead of traipsing through the forest. It felt a little like cheating, getting a ride on a hay ride to where the trees are. But we got a very full tree, which means we can stuff even more decorations on it. Connor did an especially great job with the decorating. He managed to cover every single inch of the tree, exactly in the center, right at his height. There was this huge clump of ornaments right where he stood, and he was so proud.

Hailey helping me make cookies.

I let Greggers dip some oreos himself (don't worry he washed his hands first) and Con got his favorite job, putting on ridiculous quantities of sprinkles.

This is what happens when you leave a 3 year old in the kitchen while you go give a nebulizer treatment. Connor my little stinker, dumped the entire bottle of sprinkles in my dipping chocolate. Then used the empty container to scoop water into the chocolate. Ruining a whole pan of good chocolate and making a huge mess.

You know how there's always those presents you just can't wait for the recipient to open because you know how much they'll love it? I was so excited to give my brother his Christmas gift this year. Carl is a pretty serious Pepsi lover. (I guess the love of Pepsi products is genetic) He also loves to whole himself up in his room, only emerging when absolutely necessary. So my sister and I got Carl his own mini fridge for his room. I knew there was nothing he'd love more than to be able to keep his Pepsi stash right where he can reach it from his chair.

Star Wars has officially taken over our house. Greg now tells everyone he sees that he got a Millenium Falcon for Christmas. Be prepared to be appropriately excited about this. Of course the Star Wars guys need a place to hold their next battle.

We stole the Campbell's tradition of sleeping under the Christmas tree. Only Dave and I got smart and sleep in our own bed. Why would grown adults voluntarily sleep on a hardwood floor? Kids are watching Return of the Jedi for the 10th time since they got it for christmas.

All Connor really cared about for Christmas was a bowling set. Anytime anyone asked him what he wanted he'd say bowling. So of course Santa brought him a bowling set. His birthday is in a few days and he still says he wants bowling even though he already got it.

I just love Christmas with little kids. I can't imagine what it will be like when they are slovenly teenagers and then move out. I just don't think I will get the level of excitement over anything when they are in high school.

Best Santa Letter Ever

2011-12-12T00:53:00.000-08:00

We have a tradition at our house concerning communicating with Santa. We have a round, mail tube, ornament on our tree that the kids put notes to Santa in. The elves take the notes and Santa writes back. This year all the notes seem to have a theme, "I didn't mean to be bad, and this is why I did it." Tonight I came home from work and found pictures and notes from both Hailey and Greg. I think Greg's note might be the funniest Santa note ever.
Dear Santa,
I tried to be good. Even though I got mad and hurt my sister because she bit my mini Star Wars Obi Wan Kanobi.
Your Friend Greg

Its like he's pretty sure Santa knows he attacked his sister but it was totally ok because she bit my Star Wars guy dang it!

Land of the Twilighters

2011-08-20T22:59:00.001-07:00

So to spare our family friends who could care less about Twilight, and think I'm slightly to completely nuts, I've broken our vacation posts into two parts. Twilight highlights, and all of the rest. Forks is pretty much a tiny, one stoplight, one drag town sandwiched between the ocean and the forest. So far as I could tell, you either work at a store in town, or are a logger. I imagine a lot of the town's income comes from us crazy Twilight people. You actually have to wait in a little line to take a picture in front of most of the book landmarks. And the people in town are very good sports about it. If you go to the visitors center on the south end of town, they will actually give you a packet for Twilight. There's a map to all of the spots, fun facts, and trivia. The women there explained, rather disappointedly, that Catherine Hardwick wanted to film the movies where they were set, but Washington wouldn't give them as good a tax break as other states. I'm pretty sure no one in Forks voted for Christine Gregoire. Filming the movie there would have really put them on the map. I talked to some of the shop keepers in town and they would all tell me about how these stores sat empty for ten years. The town was kind of dying off. The town is kind of a jumping off point for back packers and a home base for serious fishermen. But suddenlly all these tourists started showing up asking about places in these books. People in town started reading the books, one lady told me their library didn't even have a copy at first, and getting in on the act. Now there are stores dedicated just to Twilight. And a lot of stores that would have otherwise probably gone out of business, are doing well by carrying large selections of Twilight stuff. There's stuff I never would have even thought of. I mean who would have thought you could buy Twilight rainboots and scrapbook paper in the same store? I never heard a single bad word about the hordes of crazy women that descend on the town, but I did get some nasty looks from some locals. I get the sense that the actual Quiliets are slightly less amused.

This is the Italian restaurant that's in the book, and also used in the movie. I really wanted to eat there but it's more like a date restaurant. It wasn't super expensive, but the people looked so civilized, and it was nice. We didn't fell like unleashing our children's considerable destructive talents would be appreciated.

Some of the home owners in town are very generous with us Twilighters as they call us. This is a bed and breakfast that stands in as the Cullen's home. Personally, it was not what I'd imagined when I'd read the books, but apparantly it's the closest thing they have around. The top picture is the white board on the front of the house. They will let Twilight people come up on the porch to take pictures. The owner's wife writes little notes everyday from "Esme" about what the Cullen's are out doing. I heard that if the owner's are outside in their garden when people come to take a picture, they will go inside so people can have an "authentic" experience. There are quotes from the movie, describing the house, taped to the windows. And an Edward cutout in the top bedroom window. The funny part is you can pay to go inside for set amounts of time to see "Edward's piano" and "Carlisle's office". Being a bed and breakfast, you can also stay there and pretend you're having a sleepover with Edward, but I think they charge you extra if you shred the pillows and break the headboard.

They have duplicates of Bella's truck in front of the visitor's center. The top one is her truck from the movie, the bottom her truck from the book. The sign on the movie truck makes it sound like it's the actual one, but I'm not sure.
My sweet hubby who let me drag him on this nutty trip posing as my Edward. I'm sure he was silently laughing inside the whole trip.
The Forks police department let's you stroll right in to see the shadow box collage they made. And wander around taking pictures of their cars. I don't think crime is too much of an issue here.
These people's house looks just like I'd pictured Bella and Charlie's in my mind. I didn't even have to look at the address to know it was the right one. They must be very good natured about the whole thing. They've made a sign that says "Home of the Swans" and put it in their front yard. And they let you stand in their yard to take pictures. The visitor's center's map tells you what people will tolerate. I can't imagine having cars line up in front of my house all day long and people hopping out to take a picture in my front yard.
This is inside a really awesome store called "Dazzled by Twilight." They have a little branch in Port Angeles, but their main store is in Forks. The whole inside is totally decked out. They have grass like flooring, and twinkle lights on the ceiling. They have all sorts of cool scenes. This is a set of lockers that are decorated like the Cullen's.
The "Swans" house from a distance.
The hospital has a desigated spot for Dr. Cullen.
A side door on the outside of Dazzled by Twilight. Inside this door, they have a whole display of old medical tools. They also have these cool pictures of the actors photoshopped in old cars and clothes and stuff. They're in sepia so they look like all of these pictures of the Cullen's through the past century.
One corner of the shop has a mural of La Push painted down the wall and this motorcycle.
Bella and Edward's tree in the store. There's also a small gazebo decorated with twinkle lights, a cutout of Edward in his suit, and a cutout of Edward, Bella, and Jacob with Bella's face cutout. I took a dorky picture in it, at the top of this post.
The high school sign. This spot had the longest line to take a picture. We're not talking Disneyland or anything, but still.
Down at La Push beach, people write on the logs with burnt sticks. Lots of "we were here" stuff. There was this group of five college girls down on the beach on their own Twilight tour. They asked me to take a picture of them on the logs. It seemed like the kind of thing I would have done with my summer break. The funny thing about being in Forks was that in my mind it was nothing but Bella and Edward's town. I couldn't get my mind to stop looking for actors from the movies around every corner. In my imagination, I would work every random person in town into the story somehow. It was so much on my mind, the first thing I did when we got home was crack open Breaking Dawn, and read like I'd never read it before.

Victoria

2011-08-08T00:03:00.000-07:00

For vacation this year we went on what Dave calls "The Twilight Tour." Yes, we did go to the Olympic Peninsula, and yes we went to Forks, but it was only a day's worth of Twilighty stuff. I have always wanted to go to the peninsula to see the rain forest. Really. I'll post more about the rest of the trip later, if I ever get my camera unloaded. Until then, a funny thing happened when we first got to Forks. And I love it when people make me look normal.

We had been in Forks all of 10 minutes when I met the crazy 50+ Twilighter's group (as in over 50, apparently there's a group just for them.) I was unloading the van at our "hotel" when these ladies came up to me and said "you know your hair is red just like Victoria's in the Twilight movies." I laughed and said "yeah I guess it is", and assured them that I did not require further tutoring on the matter, as I am already well schooled in Twilight facts. Figuring they just needed to come over and point out to me that I had red hair, I went back to slogging my way through the piles of DVD's and Capri Sun pouches that littered the floor of our van. Then I hear "um so, we were wondering, since you look like Victoria and all, we would love it if you wold go in the woods over there so we can take your picture." Okaaay. Then they told me all about their gathering they'd planned. Apparantly 30 women, mostly strangers to each other, were all meeting in Forks that weekend. They were going on one of the Twilight Tours, having a baby shower for Renesme and donating the gifts to a charity, and finishing off with a prom. When I commented that it would be a bummer that it's all women, I was told "oh no Edward's coming." They had hired an Edward look alike from Portland to drive out and go to their prom. Now that's dedication.

Knowing all this, I should have known that a simple picture of me standing by a tree wouldn't be sufficient. They led me to the woods right by our hotel, and began to instruct me on how and where to stand. For you Twilight virgins out there, there is a scene in Eclipse when the character, Victoria, is running through the woods, and turns to look behind her for a second. The next thing I know I'm standing half way up this hill, holding a tree with one hand like I'm going to yank it's branch off for being in my way, and glancing over my shoulder like a scared fugitive. Meanwhile, total strangers are telling me to "put my chin down", "look this direction", "don't smile", as they tried to recreate that image. I was a good sport in the spirit of being a big fan myself.

When I finally show up in our room, Dave of course is wondering what the heck happened to me. I think when I told him, he really thought I'd booked us a vacation to crazyville. For the next couple of days, every time I walked through the parking lot, windows would open and those ladies would yell "hey Victoria" in a sing songy voice. Total strangers would stop me to tell me thanks for taking the pictures, their new friends had given them a copy and they posted it online already. They were actually pretty funny ladies. I kept joking I'd made 30 new friends. This has also opened my eyes to a new career possibility. Why would I keep slogging away selling lotion, when I could go team up with the Edward look alike and stage mock fights. If anyone knows any Twilight look alikes, let me know, we'll start a traveling Twilight impersonation company. All we need is the right hair color.

Little Diddy

2011-06-19T22:54:00.000-07:00

This is what happens to my brain when I have 10 minutes to myself. I drove to church by myself today, having no good Sunday cds in the car, and no kids yelling, my brain got bored. So I made up a little song to the chorus of "Put your shoulder to the wheel."

Put your pedal to the metal speed along
Drive your mini-van with a heart full of song
We're always late, so don't bother to wait
Put the pedal to the metal

Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

2011-06-13T23:49:00.000-07:00

If anyone would have told me I'd enjoy raising boys this much, I would never have believed them. When the girls were small, we used to trade babysitting with another family in Logan. They had two little boys. Every time we watched them, they were these crazy maniacs, jumping off our furniture, running around, and making these horrible vrooming noises. (Mind you this was before Hailey was mobile enough for us to realize she was quite similar to a wild ADD boy). After they left, Dave and I would always say how glad we were we had such nice, calm girls. Haha. Jokes on us there. We still hoped to have some boys, someday, but I was terrified of raising them. I did not envision it going well at all. Fast forward seven years and I just can't get enough. I love that everything is a possible vehicle of some sort. The world is broken down into fast cars, good guys, and bad guys. I love that they don't care if I can find the right shoes to match. Heck their shoes don't even have to match. Neither do their clothes. If they have a fight, they each get in a few good punches and it's over. No hour long crying jags, hair pulling and scratching. And it's so much easier to keep track of a fleet of Kachow cars then 200 pairs of tiny earrings. I love that I am the center of the universe in their eyes. For now at least. They are just so sweet and funny, and almost transparent in their feelings. I don't have to guess and wonder what storm is brewing beneath the surface. Now I realize some people may chalk that up to my girls perched on tweendom, but my girls have been complicated drama queens since 10 months.
Some of my favorite things the boys have done lately:

- Greg eating a hamburger, "mom are these seeds on my bun?" Yes. "So can you plant them?" His little eyes getting that mischievous twinkle when he thinks he's got a great idea. "Greg what do you think will grow if you plant that" Gives me his big blue eye trick "a hamburger tree?"

-Watching Wipe Out one night a Victoria's Secret commercial came on. Connor jumps off the couch, points at the TV and yells "I need dat!" Over and over. Second time he sees it, he runs up to the TV and starts hitting it while yelling "I need dat" I thought it was some weird TV fluke. Maybe he likes the sparkly bras. The next day at the mall, he was pushing his stroller and totally veered into the Victoria's Secret when we passed it. I had to fight the kid out of the store. I can only imagine what people thought when they see me dragging a 3 year old boy out of the Vickies, dragging his stroller behind him screaming "no need dat one! Need it!" Meanwhile my 3 other children are standing outside, staring at us, mortified, either of the thought of going in that store, or the scene we were making. Probably both.

-Connor is one of those dirt magnet kids. Stick him and Greg in the same pile of dirt, Greg will come back fairly clean, and Connor will be head to toe covered. And somehow always sticky. I was stripping him down to throw him in the tub one day and he was fighting all the way. I asked why he didn't want to take a bath, he loves the water. He yells "no wanna be clean" Such a boy.

-My kids have a habit of streaking around the house after they bathe. Kenzie is the only kid with an ounce of modesty. We have a very large window in the front of our house facing the street. One night, Greg was doing his naked dance for all the neighborhood to see. I said "Greg put some clothes on. The neighbors can see your butt". Greg - "good I want them to"

-Greg "Pew that stinks"- Me "what does"- Greg "my butt" (hysterical laughter follows)

-My boys have learned that mommy is the real pushover of the house. They are honing their skills of getting women to do anything for them. Connor has discovered that we are all super thrilled with any intelligible 3 or 4 word sentence. He's combined his powers of persuasion with impressing us with speech. When he wants something he says " Can hi peeees? Peas mommy?" Combined with puppy dog eyes and it's pretty hard to say no.

-If Connor has to pee and he's outside, or someone is in the bathroom, he runs to a tree and pees on it. It's no longer surprising to see him speed out the door, dragging his beloved blankie, to drop his drawers. Unfortunately he has chosen a tree closest to the street, on our property line. He drops his pants to his ankles and turns him butt to the street.

-We have been waging an ongoing war against the ant hills in our backyard. Greg was asking where the ants go when they die. I said I don't know heaven I guess (I mean they're ants). Just like we will to live with Heavenly Father. Greg "But what about how we're meteors?" Um meteors (I think I'm failing in the Family home evening department) "Yeah how else are we gonna see space". I tried to explain things to him, but he got so sad about not being a meteor zooming around space, I gave him an abbreviated version.

Now don't get me wrong. I love my girls. But they have never had that same raw power over my heart like these boys. I just hope I out grow it before they get married.

Spring Sports

2011-06-07T20:52:00.000-07:00

Hailey has done soccer every spring and fall since we moved to Spokane. She's gotten quite good at it. I'm pretty sure she's drawing from the Huisman gene pool, not the Paulitz's. For once she has a good way to channel her aggression. That really helps her out on the field, she's not afraid to go after the ball.

She's got a great kick too. Whenever the ball goes out of bounds, her coach gets to send any player on the field to kick it back in. If Ha's on the field, she's usually the kicker. That kids always been freakishly strong for a child. Doesn't usually work in my benefit, but I guess it works for hers.

Greg got into the spring sports game this year and joined t-ball. Now I've always been more of a baseball girl than pretty much every other sport, so I really enjoyed watching his games. Plus, is anything cuter than 5 year olds playing t-ball? We took the kids to quite a few Spokane Indians games last summer, so he imagines himself quite the ball player. I'm pretty sure he ranks himself right up there with Jeeter the cheater. (Dave's favorite nick name)

Tragically for Greggers, he had the misfortune to get those pesky, unathletic Paulitz genes. Puny hits, and he throws just like me. We're definitely going to push more for an academic scholarship than athletic. But he has fun, and he's basically the cutest ball player ever. Some of the kids on his team were crazy good. One kid hit it far into the outfield consistently every time. He also participates in 3 sports at a time, so I'm pretty sure he's got a whole lot of energy.

Sports season is always crazy busy at our house. And I imagine it will only get worse as the kids get older. Add in school and church activities, violin, school orchestra, and two working parents and things are even more chaotic and unorganized than usual. But I truly enjoy watching my little crazies run wild on those fields, having the time of their lives.

Spring Break

2011-06-07T16:30:00.000-07:00

For spring break this year we were supposed to visit Dave's family in Utah. However, about a week before break we found out there was a Star Wars exhibit in the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, and it would be over before the next school break. Being the Star Wars freaks that my family is, we of course abandoned ship on the relatives and bee lined for nerd capades.
We bought a city pass so that we could also take the kids to the aquarium, Science Fiction Museum, Experience Music Project and zoo. Tragically for the girl raised in a family of Star Trek disciples, the Science Fiction Museum was closed. I was pretty bummed, but I survived. We did get to go over to the music project which, unless you're an aspiring Kurt Cobain wannabe is pretty dull. On the plus side, they are working on a Nirvana exhibit. So next time I can see Star Trek and Nirvana! Hollah! Hailey had to have her picture taken with the guitar sculpture, since she has big dreams of being the next Miley Cyrus.
Kenzie was a natural butterfly magnet with her pink coat. The butterfly garden in the Science center is always one of my favorite things there.
Connor rocking out at the music project. I never got a good picture of the hysterical face he was making. He opens his mouth and eyes into huge O's of intense concentration like he's going to take off any second.

Hailey's Star Wars idol is sadly, Darth Vadar. She even bought herself a Darth costume at the over priced gift shop.
Connor was determined to never sleep in his bed. He would follow me around and crash in weird spots. He passed out under my chair when I was at the computer one night.

I forgot my camera the day we went to the aquarium so I missed getting picture of the gross, huge octopus. The boys couldn't decide if they loved it or were scared of it. The kids always love the zoo. Greg is trying to figure out how to be an animal scientist and an astronaut at the same time. The Woodland Zoo has the coolest indoor play area, I spent the whole time wishing we had something even close to it here. Seattle does not have a monopoly on crappy weather. I got a whole one bad picture of a toucan for Greg before my camera battery died. And I of course forgot a backup. We got to visit my sister and her husband. They are the only people I know who have a different, large construction project going every time I see them. We pulled up to find the top of their fence lined with mouse traps (to keep the dogs in) and their kitchen cabinets on the patio. We also got to meet a good friend of Dave's that he met at academy. It was great to finally meet this family he talks about all the time.

Locks of Love

2011-03-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

About 2 years ago there was a girl in our primary that had gorgeous, long hair. One Sunday she showed up to church with all of it chopped off. When she shared that she had donated it all to Locks of Love, McKenzie decided, right then and there, she wanted to do the same thing. Since then she has been diligently growing her hair, only getting the occasional trim. About once a month, we'd measure her hair to see if it was long enough. She was so excited when it finally had grown out past the required 10 inches.
I was trying to get a picture here of how thick her ponytail was. This picture doesn't do it justice, but the kid has crazy thick hair. The stylist just kept cutting and cutting to get through that ponytail. She said she felt like she was cutting with dull scissors. The longest piece ended up being 13 inches long.
McKenzie with her new hair cut. She looks so different with her hair short. I can't remember the last time she had it this short. Its a pretty adorable cut, and she's so proud of herself. She plans on growing it out again to donate. She has such a generous heart, and says if she has lots of pretty hair, and some kids don't she'll just give it to them.

Confessions of the Tragically Unorganzied

2011-03-22T00:14:00.000-07:00

I have been a hopelessly unorganized and scatter brained person for as long as I can remember. I can never finish cleaning a room because the second I leave the room or see something else that needs done (or I want to do), I'm gone. My brain has leaped ahead to the next thing. I have a to do list that will never be completed. I'm late to everything, no matter how hard I try. It doesn't matter how much time I give myself to get ready, kids ready, and get there, I will be late. Inevitably something will go wrong or I will get sidetracked. My house is always a mess. I will dig down in one room, get it nice and clean, but every other room in the house is trashed. Within 30 minutes the room I just cleaned will be trashed too. (Don't worry I haven't food poisoned anyone. Underneath all of the clutter its all bleached.) I'd like to say this is all the kids, but dang it, I cannot get myself to put everything away every time. To a super clean, organized person, I am a tragic case. I'm like the druggie that people think sending to rehab a waste of time.

Now don't get me wrong, I want to be more organized, on time, etc. I am constantly buying new things to organize myself, the house, or the kids. Every other week I have some new plan that will help me remember what needs done and keep myself organized. Everyday is a new day of "today I will not be late." AA would have kicked me out long ago. So, awhile ago I subscribed to this Real Simple email called "If you just do one thing." Everyday they send you an email with one thing you can do to get ahead of the game so to speak. Today's was, wait for it it's a good one, Make a Laundry Schedule. That's right a laundry schedule, as in on Monday I wash sheets, Tuesday towels, Wednesday whites, and so on. Supposedly this will magically give me time to spare and more energy too! I nearly peed my pants laughing. Are they kidding me? Is my laundry going to take any less time because I did all of the sheets on Monday? Are the kids going to magically start changing their clothes less frequently? Stop wetting their beds? Really?

Now I know somewhere out there some woman read that today and immediately whipped up a cute, embellished laundry schedule and posted it promptly for all to see. She probably even made a family home evening about organization to showcase her new chart. Tomorrow she will drive to the Hobby Lobby and buy the wood to make some sort of handy dandy Family Laundry Schedule. And it will look cute enough to be a decoration in her home, her family will follow it to a T and everyone's laundry will not be shoved under their beds. Next fall she will lead a super Saturday activity on how to make one. So lovely.

I am clearly not this person. At my house if you find your pants drawer empty, first you cry to your mother, as this is clearly a tragedy. Then I instruct you to dig in "the laundry mountain" as it is known in our house. If all else fails, you have to dump out the hamper and find the cleanest pair. This usually involves more crying, imagine a lot of sobbing here, "Mom, why didn't you do the laundry yesterday? You said you would. Why aren't my pleather leggings clean? My sparkly one's are dirty too! What am I going to wear?!" Umm regular pants?

For years I have felt rather guilty and bad about myself. I know it's dumb, but I do get really down on myself about the clutter, unfinished projects, lack of clean clothes, lateness, lost papers, lost checkbooks, lack of real groceries (sometimes), overdue everything, the list really goes on and on. Also, add a lot of self depreciating talk about why can't I be on time, EVER?! Every time I start one of my new "I'm going to be organized now" kicks, I dive in all or nothing. And then I obsess about it. If its not done perfect, I stress. The first day of being too busy to adhere to the laundry schedule will result in, well, making it worse.

Now for those of you who haven't chucked your computers across the room by now, or unfriended me on Facebook (because I'm clearly crazy), let me assure you first, that I have a point, and second, I'm medicated so no worries. So here's my grand revelation. I am giving up. We are going to aim for good enough. As long as the basics are covered it's all good. The house will never be immaculate, or very clean for that matter, and tomorrow I am going to give my laundry the same minimal attention I always do. But who cares? Your favorite outfit might not be clean right away, but I'll get to it, eventually. And in the meantime I will aim to make sure you always have clean pants, food to eat, a cleanish home and maybe a few more chores. The kids papers will continue to pile up on my desk, but rest assured, the permission slips are signed and the reusable stuff has been reused for printing coupons, (which we can pretend I will organize with the new organizer I bought last week), and I will dig out the bills at least. As long as I get to everything eventually its all good.

So if you happen to swing by before I have a chance to make it look like I cleaned, don't worry, I'll get to it.

Christmas part 2

2011-03-18T21:30:00.000-07:00

It was pretty cool to be able to celebrate Christmas in OUR OWN HOME for the first time in 12 years of marriage. Its nice to be able to staple a ridiculous amount of decorations to the ceiling and walls without having to worry about patching them up when we move out. Nope we're leaving them all for the next owners. Dave read the kids "Twas the night before Christmas" before we began the hours long task of getting 4 kids to bed on Christmas Eve.

Hailey and Greg eagerly waiting to come in the living room and see all of their presents. I really like to see the kids faces when they come out on Christmas morning, so they are under no circumstances to leave their rooms until we are up. This year we told the girls they could run across the hall to the boys' room and yell into the baby monitor until we woke up. Nothing like waking up to 4 children screaming "WAKE UP MOM AND DAD! WAKE UP NOW!"
McKenzie, the world's most subdued 9 year old waiting for her presents.
Hailey has great aspirations of being a famous rock star, she has some pretty interesting Beyonce moves she definately did not learn from us. Santa brought her a guitar this year. Yes we are that stupid.
The boys have become completely obsessed with Star Wars. Their $5 day after Thanksgiving light sabers were the big hit of the day. I could have saved myself a lot of money and just got them that. Connor stomps around all day singing the Imperial March to himself in da da da dums.
No Christmas would be complete without the gift with 1000 pieces. What better gift for a wild 3 year old could there possibly be? Thanks mom and dad.

Playing Apples to Apples with Maddy and Sadie.
Even though we all live across from the country from each other now, the kids still get back together like they were never apart each time. Hailey and Maddy have such a special relationship, I hope and think they will always be friends.
Connor and Jack became fast friends.

The Campbell and Huisman kiddos, minus Sadie who decided she didn't want to be photographed today. Hard to believe that Nik and I now have 8 kids between the two of us. Its a long way from the old days when we could just run around town in our clunker cars, doing whatever we want, guzzling Mt. Dew. Now its more like hanging out in a daycare, we've traded our clunkers for mini vans, and now have to do what the kids want. Except for the fact that its now diet, the Mt. Dew is the one hold over. Maybe when our kids all move out, we can be neighbors again and hang out all day doing absolutely nothing.

Christmas part 1

2011-03-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

I, of course managed to somehow post these out of order so bear with me.
We went up to 4th of July Pass to cut down our tree, just like good Paulitz's do. And in true Paulitz tradition, got a tree at least 2 sizes too big for our house, so in other words, perfect. It was a little like the old days of my Dad's ginormous trees when you sat on our couch and had tree limbs in your face. And you pretty much couldn't use the living room for anything besides tree watching. In an amazing display of helpfulness, Carl decided to help Dave haul our tree down the hill. He was probably angling for a Pepsi.

We stole a tradition from our friends, Nik and Da, and let the kids sleep out under the tree one night during Christmas. The first year we made the mistake of sleeping on the floor with the kids. Never again. This year we did it a couple of days after Christmas, and our kids had the added treat of having Maddie and Sadie sleep over.

Sometimes there just aren't words. My child went to school like this because it was cold.

My boys enjoying some hot cocoa and cookies after our trek into the woods for a tree.
As we were coming down the hill with our tree, we saw these people unloading a sled and dogs. Not something you see everyday, at least here. We all stood around watching these poor women wrangle their dogs into harnesses before taking off.

In order to haul the huge tree back to the car, we had to chop off some of the branches. We wanted to take them all home so we could make a wreath and a bough so we told all the kids they each had to carry some. True to form, Greg threw himself down like we were killing him, and announced it was too hard. Connor grabbed some branches and took off. He fell a few times, but he got right back up and kept on trucking.
We climbed up a very steep hill, searching for a tree. Hailey followed us the whole way. Finally something that tires the kid out.

The kids were pretending to be penguins, sliding down this hill on their bellies. Poor Connor just couldn't get back up. Kenzie had to drag him back up each time by his hood.

We made our yearly trip to the Christmas parade, fireworks, and tree lighting in Coeur d Alene. It had been bitterly cold, and we had a ton of snow, so all the kids are bundled up to the hilt. The parking lot snow piles by the car made for great climbing and butt sledding.

What Goes Around Comes Around

2011-02-28T20:55:00.000-08:00

It's a pretty well known fact that I was not the easiest child for my parents to raise. I also have a reputation of being a bit of a spazzy mistake maker. For example, car care. Not so much with the parking skills, making right turns without driving over the curb, every single time, not checking the oil (that's a whole other story) and so on.

So about 8 years ago when Hailey was a baby, the girls and I came up to go to my brother's college graduation in Moscow. My Dad and I drove down in his Honda. I, of course left the lights on in the parking lot and killed the battery. We got the car jumped and all that, but apparently Honda's have an anti-theft feature that requires you to enter a special code after the stereo has been detached from battery power. Seems as how he bought a used Honda, he didn't have the magic code and drove around with no stereo for 6 years until he finally broke down and paid the dealership guys 50 bucks to find it.

Here we are, years later, and I have more little monsters and my own used Honda. Needless to say my own charming children left a light on and killed my battery. It caused some mayhem getting to church yesterday, but no biggie. Imagine my surprise when I hopped in my car today, and my stereo kept flashing "code". At first I was thinking "that's strange" but then I made the connection. My kids had done to me the exact thing I'd done to my Dad's car! The horror! The irony! I of course called my Dad right off, knowing that hearing that the exact same thing has happened to me would just make his day. I'm sure I've painted a picture in his mind of the gloriousness of my kids doing to me all that I did to them. As Dave said paybacks a "B"

Random Fall

2011-02-10T23:54:00.000-08:00

Connor falls in with his sister as being one of those totally random kids that just do weird stuff. For reasons unknown he decided to open a new package of wipes and stick it to his head before getting back in his bed to take a nap. We just never know what we're going to find when that kid is left alone.

I really slacked off on picture taking at Halloween for some reason. Sometimes walking an extra 10 feet to grab the camera or plug into the printer is just more than I can do apparently. The girls dressed as 50's girls together. It's hard to tell, but Hailey has a really cute pink poodle skirt, I found at a thrift store with a matching sweater set. The girls did have high, 50's style pony tails with ribbons earlier, but their hair is so dang slippery things just fall out, and about 1 brushing a day is all they can take. Notice Connor's lack of a costume? No I am not too lazy to get the kid a costume. Just as Hailey needs sensory input from everything, Connor gets overwhelmed. His dinosaur costume had a hat and elastic at the wrists and ankles and he was having none of it. We consider the fact that he is wearing shoes (albeit without socks) an accomplishment.

I love taking pictures of my kids in the fall leaves. Nik and I started trekking to the University of Idaho campus a couple of years ago when we lived in Pullman, and I've kept it going around here. Usually I take the kiddos up to Manito Park, but now that we have this huge maple in our front yard, I can save myself a trip. While the maple is beautiful, I never knew a tree could drop so many leaves a day. I think we went out and raked everyday and still didn't get them all up before it snowed.

Connor is the world's best helper. He is better than any of the other kids about helping out. He just jumps right in. We bought a kid sized rake and snow shovel, its just too darn cute. Sometimes I want to freeze that kid in time so he never grows up.
Greg's preschool co-op took a field trip up to Green Bluff. I wish I could remember the name of the farm. We paid a flat fee per kid and got a train ride, corn maze, and a pumpkin. Having spent several years living in southern Idaho and Utah, we've been through a lot of corn mazes. Those things seem like they are the hot entertainment ticket around there in the fall. The one up in Green Bluff had a new twist on it we liked. As you wind your way through the corn, you get to a lawn in the center, with a series of hedges you have to navigate through to get to the rest of the corn maze. Rising high above the mazes in the middle is a huge castle (well in comparison to the general scheme of things.) It was 3 stories high and all painted up inside to look like a medieval castle. At the end of the maze is a playground with a pirate ship as the main structure. Oh and a "zoo", which is actually a cage full of giant stuffed animals, that the kids all found strangely intriguing.

My boys on the farm's train.

Celeste and her kids came over one afternoon to make fall sugar cookies. It was a lot of fun and a huge mess, as only 7 children can make in a small kitchen. We really miss living next door to their family and being able to run back and forth every day.
We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year, seems as how it was our first Thanksgiving in our own house. However, I also failed to take pictures of that, so I have no proof that I did not ruin turkey dinner. On the contrary we brined our turkey and it was one of the best we've ever had. No really, you can ask people.

Hailey's Baptism

2011-02-10T23:21:00.001-08:00

Our sweet miss Hailey was baptized on Saturday, February 5. She still seems like such a little girl to me, I can hardly believe she's 8. It seems like McKenzie was so much older when she was baptized, but then she's always been a little adult trapped in a kid's body. But Ha's Ha, she's all cheese and grins. She came out of the water grinning, just like how she swims (think of a baleen whale). I think I freaked her out a little beforehand. We'd been talking about accountability before and after you're baptized. I think the idea that there was now this responsibility for her actions was a little unnerving. Not to worry though, after a day she seemed to have forgotten all about that concern.

Dave's mom, Katherine, and two of his sisters, Amy and Cheryl flew out for the baptism. My parents and our friend Celeste came too. We had invited more people, but the week before the baptism, we got hit with the plague. It started with Connor getting a cold, then kindly passing it along. Friday night, it was clear that Greg had something different, and we were told he had influenza. The kid was just miserable. And Connor and I were just fountains of grossness. So I swung by the ER and stole some masks for the boys to wear to the baptism and muscled through. Greg hacked his way through the baptism and Connor was his usual wild self. The other kid getting baptism was unfortunately named Cooper. Nothing wrong with the name, but it gave Connor the opportunity to yell "pooper!" every time the kid's name was said. That's my boy. Needless to say no one wanted to sit near us, and I have a lot of leftover food.
Greg with his missionary Little People we found at the church bookstore. You can tell he's really enjoying the face mask. He was pretty good about it despite his annoyance with us.
As you can see from our family picture, it went delightfully smooth. There was 3 different cameras taking pictures, so we are all looking in different directions. Connor really wanted to continue destroying the church, rather than take a picture. Greg really just wanted to go home. It's not a pretty picture, and the only one we got. Of the entire baptism. I felt bad, because Kenzie's was such a big deal. But things just fell apart this time. I guess that's life when you're one of the middle kids, lost in the foray of madness. We love our Hailey and are very proud of her choice. And we are grateful for our families that came to share this day with us.

Catching Up

2011-01-24T23:09:00.000-08:00

I have gotten so inconsistent about blogging that I'd pretty much given up on it. One more thing I just don't have time for. But let's be honest here. What do I really have time for anymore? Not a lot of things I want to do. I'm also tragically un-organized. I know this comes as a real shocker to all of my friends. When you think of Liz, you think prompt and organized, I know, but I'm trying to be honest here. Needless to say, the task of unloading and organizing pictures and sitting down at the computer long enough to have a complete thought seemed like one more thing down the toilet. But a few weeks ago I had the first year of our blog printed in a book. It's so neat. I love having this journal of sorts of our families year. Scrapbooking, journaling, and organizing photos fell off the radar long ago. So I've decided that maybe blogging isn't so impossible after all. If I just keep taking pictures, posting them, and keeping track of the silly things the kiddos say I'm kind of on the ball. I'm going to try and catch up some of last year so I can add that to a certain to be small 2010 book. So feel free to skim through the next several posts as I'm doing them mostly for my benefit.

Soccer Star

2011-01-24T22:56:00.001-08:00

As previously mentioned, some of us are more gifted in the athletic department than others. Hailey falls into the athletic category. She also has the energy of 3 children. Soccer is one way we deal with it. She's been playing soccer since we moved to Spokane a few years ago.

Besides having a ridiculous amount of energy, she's also fearless. She doesn't hold back at all, pretty much ever. This year she moved up to a different age group with a bigger field and different rules. Also a lot more elbowing and shoving. The coaches are supposed to act as referees too, let's just say some are a little more fair than others. We can always count on Ha to get out there and give it right back.

Hailey is a freakishly strong. I haven't been able to wrestle her down for a few years now, (an unfortunate, but necessary skill with her). On the plus side, she can kick a ball farther than any girl on her team. It's also really helpful when I need something opened and Dave isn't home.

I'm so glad she has something that she excels at. Her Sensory Processing Disorder often makes things more difficult for her. She just doesn't handle things the way most kids do. I love to see her feel confident and good at something. I hope that one day she can channel all that strength and energy into doing something great.

Back to School

2011-01-24T22:16:00.000-08:00

Since our new house is in a new school district, the kids all started new schools this fall. The girls' new grade school is just a few blocks from our house, so once again we are walkers. Thankfully, unlike our last place, I don't have to try and heft the double stroller over a chain link fence to get to the street. So that's a huge bonus (I could only manage it sometimes, I had to bring my muscles =Celeste). I like the idea of having a neighborhood school. Once upon a time this neighborhood was packed with young families whose kids all went to that school. Now those young families are all in their 50's and 60's so we are the neighborhood kids.

One of the perks of our new school district is that they have an early childhood preschool with kids with delays. Two mornings a week, Connor goes to school where he receives speech and occupational therapy. He also gets to interact with other kids, which really helps with his language development.
Greg has this one last year before kindergarten. Normally, by now we've sent our kids to preschool. Back in the good old days when we were super broke (as opposed to just be broke now) the kids got free preschool. Our solution was to join a preschool co-op. There are 6 kids in the preschool, each mom takes a turn having preschool at their house. Hopefully its enough for Greg to move past some of his shyness and obsessive mommying.

The girls ready to leave for their first day of school. The funny part that isn't obvious in this picture is how differently the girls dress. McKenzie is very traditional. She likes simple clothes, uniforms, things my Grandma used to wear. Stuff like that. Hailey pretty much idolizes the 80's rocker look. Target had this clothing display featuring that style, the kid just about crapped her pants. She managed to find ALL her shoes (P.E. ones too) glittered and rhimestoned. She has leggings in pleather, sequins, lace print you name it. They are a study in opposites.

We took the kids for one last hurrah before school started. We took them to Triple Play for mini golf and bowling. Being as they do have Paulitz genes in them it was a pretty funny site to see. We are an extremely uncoordinated group of people. It took most of us so many strokes to get the ball in, we just stopped counting.
Dave trying to help poor Greggers. McKenzie and Greg are the most Paulitz-y of the family, therefore the most uncoordinated. Let's just say we won't be holding our breath for any athletic scholarships.
Connor and Hailey, on the other hand, are more like their father. They are both freakishly strong. Connor was so funny swinging that club like it was a bat. He just went for it.

The kids so strong he insisted on carrying his own ball. Which I'd like to add is only 2 pounds lighter than the one I use. Ahh genetics.

Summer

2010-10-14T22:32:00.000-07:00

Greg picking shapes out of clouds. this is a favorite new activity of his. He's obsessed with space and wants to be an astronaut. True to the Greg way he's already worrying about the details of it.

Greg and David at Millwood park. They have this awesome round wading pool, its like 3 feet deep, fenced, and has a LIFEGUARD! Sucks to be that lifeguard, but great for me.

Waiting for Eclipse to start! It was awwwwsooome.
Connor fell asleep playing like this one afternoon. Holding his dinosaur on the edge of the basket. He's such a little stinker about his nap. He never wants to lay down, but always ends up passed out.
Greggers playing in the sprinkler. Of course he needs his goggles at all times because what if water got in his eyes? The horror! This would be the same child who informed me velcro hurts his ears. Like hold your hands over them and yell.

Con pushing his trike. Always moving that kid. He's just the boy version of Hailey.

McKenzie performing at her school talent show. Shes turning into quite the musician.

We took the kids to their first ever baseball game this year. They had so much fun watching the Indians games, we took them a couple of times. Con is jr. daddy the sports junky and loves it.

Hailey did her hair herself for the ballgame. She's apparantly channeling some 80's diva. You should see the kids school clothes.

The kids at the end of year school carnival. Greg looked so funny with his hair all flying back and his tiger face.
Hailey's end of school concert. They sang cute little dinosaur songs and danced.

Our House

2010-10-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

So now that I've finally gotten around to unloading the 350 or so images from my camera I can show off our new house, sorta. Pictures never do justice, and I've repainted. Lets just say the previous owners really enjoyed their 80's decor, me not so much.
The basement was a total and complete pit, so much so I didn't bother taking any pictures of it. There were layers and layers of dirt, it was beyond gross. Luckily my good friend Celeste gave up a few days of her life to dig me out of the grime. And help cover the hideousness of the paint.This is Celeste's son David in our living room. The living room is my favorite part of the house. It has the original wood floors and a huge front window. It was painted this tan color that just didn't work. It was too dark. Despite the huge window, there is also a huge maple in front, keeps out the heat and the sun. Bummer.

Now this, this is our bedroom before we painted. What you don't get to see is that there is even gold flecking in the greenish color! I know amazing! They painted the outlet covers, trim and doors with the same spectacular greenish gray with gold flecking. With that salmon color on top its hard to believe that I could bear to paint over it. It's the only finished room in the basement, but it could stand a little update.
This is the front of the house with our big maple. The side has a paved patio and cover, parking and garage. The garage is not the most beautiful thing ever. Its a jumbotron, metal deal that doesn't match the neighborhood. But its a garage and its big. We have a big backyard, all fenced and full of 4 feet weeds. They kept the frontyard nice and showable, but let the backyard go to pieces. The kids think that nickelback song that mentions weeds in the backyard 4 feet tall was written about our house. We have big plans that will no doubt result in one of us injuring ourselves because we are doing it ALL ourselves. But I'll have a beautiful yard to post next summer.

I guess we're grown ups now.

2010-06-05T23:29:00.000-07:00

We got our house and moved in a few weeks ago! Unfortunately we are living in a mess of exploded boxes. Plus stacks and stacks in the garage. We have a 2 car garage full of boxes. Scary. This is our 9th home in 12 years of marriage, so I should be an old pro at moving. But for some reason I feel like I have to get everything perfect and it is taking us FOREVER to get settled. Once I got my shoes and hair stuff situated I kind of petered out. What does it say about me that I have perfectly organized all of my beauty products but can't even find a can of soup, or fruit, or pasta.... ?

At this point in our lives, with all we've been through, I should feel like an adult. Maybe its the fact that I work at a mall job I would've had in high school and still listen to Nirvana and drink big gulps, but I often find myself thinking I'm just like some 20 year old. Even when the reality that I'm driving a mini van full of kids that smells remotely like kid sweat, chicken nuggets, and the mystery smell hits me, it doesn't sink in. Even my newly arthritic hip didn't convince me. But buying a house, phew, now I feel like an adult. One day I looked at Dave and said I've got a lawyer, a realtor, a banker and an insurance agent that is a person (not a website) I need to go be irresponsible. Its exciting but scary.
So I have lots of pictures of the house but I have no clue where the printer cord is. When and if I ever find it, I'll post some pictures of our new house.

Cross Your Fingers

2010-04-11T21:53:00.000-07:00

I've gotten so sucked into the house hunting and all of the stress and frustration that I haven't posted in a while. I've called it my house hunting hell. It seems like you look and look for one sapphire in a pile of crappers. Let me tell you we've seen some "special" homes. After 6 weeks and dragging two very crabby, tortured little boys all over Spokane, we finally found our home. I think I'm supposed to feel relieved now, but escrow is a giant waiting game, and I am not good at waiting. I flip from anxiety over some potential bank disaster, and panic when I realize I will no longer be able to call my landlord so he can come fix things when he feels like it. I can't wait to finally be able to do what I want with a place. And Dave and I are secretly relishing the opportunity to finally put our little force of indentured servants to work. Hopefully by the end of April we will be homeowners.

Scary Hair

2010-02-23T00:03:00.000-08:00

Back in high school I used to get teased about my giant hair all the time. Its practically the same hairstyle now as it was then. One of my friends upon being able to locate me by the back of my head said "Oh Liz we can recognize you by your hair." In a school of silken haired girls, mine crazy curls were like a beacon of dorkdom. Apparantly it lives on in a more sinister way. I teach the valiant 10's in Primary (basically Sunday School for kids.) On Sundayy a boy in class randomly blurts out, "I used to be scared of your hair." What?! He goes on "yeah I'd sit in church and see you and thought your hair and your kids were really scary. Once I asked my mom who's that lady with scary hair and kids, she looks mean. But I don't think you're mean now that your my teacher." Umm thanks? Glad to know my hair frightens children.

Mississippi Trip

2010-02-21T16:01:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the "kind" people at American Express who gave me a ton of miles for getting a card then piling more on it, I had a free ticket that needed used. And thanks to a great husband who has been willing to be ditched with all of the kids on more than one occasion for me to go on trips, I got to go on a girls only trip at the end of January. Nik and I have been friends since 7th grade. She introduced me to the church and her husband baptized me (back when they were "just friends".) We went from living across the parking lot from each other to living across the country from each other, needless to say, its been rough. Funny side note, Nik's husband, Da, once made a comment in Sunday School that if Nik and I could be sealed to each other we would. Da did clarify he meant like a friend sealing, but of course a few guys at church couldn't resist running with it in the other direction. We thought it was a great idea. In lieu of the instatement of a friend sealing, we're settling for arranged marriages for our children. We figure it'll work out in a round about way. ( clairification for the non-Mormons out there: when we get married in the temple, we are sealed for time and eternity. Children born after a couple are sealed, are born in the covenant of that relationship. This chain of eternal families goes on and on. We figure that if our kids got married, since they are already sealed to us, we'll be guaranteed to hang out for eternity also)

Jackson Square in New Orleans.

We went to Gulf Shores, Alabama first. We left Sunday after church, unfortunately I seem to be incapable of Mapquesting because I led us on a two hour detour. A decade ago this might have seemed a funny adventure, not so much now. It wasn't terrible, or wrecked our day or anything. You see we drove Nik's old Corolla that she drove in collge. Fun but zero cushion on the seats and squishier than I remember. Sad to say but after all of these years driving our cushy mini vans, with a lot of leg room, that old college car felt pretty uncomfortable.

Gulf Shores has a beautiful, white sand beach. It wasn't exactly swimming weather, but it was still nice to roll up our pants, ditch our shoes and walk on the beach. I hadn't ever seen that part of the Atlantic before, so that was pretty cool.

The other really cool thing about Gulf Shores is the giant outlet mall! Yeah! I love to shop. Bummer is I married a guy who hates it, and thankfully is a bigger tightwad than me. Otherwise I'd be bankrupt. I love any shopping, bargain or window. Just because I can't afford it doesn't mean I don't like to look. Lucky for my budget, we found some STEALS. Celeste, I did not take a picture of my bargains, sorry. Anyway, it was really fun to just shop and be able to score some cute new stuff without feeling guilty. I mean really who can complain about $1.50 tee-shirts?

After our shopping adventure, we took off for New Orleans. I've wanted to go there forever. Its got so much history, and a lot of books and movies have been based there. The French Quarter is obviously where all of the tourists go. Which means its safer too. The old parts of the city really are beautiful and interesting. We opted to skip Bourbon Street, and once it was dark we hit restaurants and movie theaters. The architecture definately lived up to my expectations. The only thing the dork in me wished for was a plaque or something explaining the history of each and every house. That would have been so great. Instead I had to rely on the guidebook, I'd gotten from the library. Some of the houses histories were in there, but I was afraid to walk around with it out all of the time. I didn't want to look like an easy target, which one should definately keep in mind there.

The buildings above is one of two identical townhomes built on the east and west sides of Jackson square. There's a cathedral to the north, and waterfront to the south. (you were dying to know that part I know). I wish I could remember the exact story behind the buildings, but I do know they were built by a Spanish woman who married a French guy. They both had a sordid (but seperate) love life, after which she divorced him, made off with a truckload of cash (he was some sort of French nobility) and moved from Paris to New Orleans, which she'd always considered home. She built a bunch of fancy buildings, and started the whole fancy scroll work balcony thing. Her life in New Orleans sounded even more sordid, and I believe involved some prominent people. Apparantly there is even an opera about her life that is very popular with the New Orleaners. What does it say about me that I kind of thought she soundedcool? I meant the whole making a name for herself way back when, not the sordid affairs part.

According to a local construction guy we met on the street, this is Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's house. We were trying to orient ourselves on a map and he came and asked if we were looking for Brad Pitt's house, so maybe it's legit.

This is part of Lafayette Cemetary 1, which I convinced Nik to hunt down with me. The cemetaries there are really cool looking. They had to do above ground burials because of the water levels. They use them over and over again as bodies decompose. Creepily interesting.

On the beach in Alabama. Boy my hair never looks so great as on a beach, when its blowing wildly out of control.

Nik on the beach. Already sporting the baby bump at 14 weeks. That's what happens when your so incredibly thin there's no where else for the kid to go.

The other great part about traveling the south is the food. Oh my gosh. The food there is so dang good. I literally gained 10 pounds, I came home to tight pants! There are so many good places to eat and so many things to try, we didn't even come close to touching on the possibilities. We had alligator, crab stuffed catfish, crab stuffed fried mushrooms, jambalaya, cheese fritters (awesome btw), po boys, amazing honey rosemary glazed fried chicken. beignets (extraordinary French donuts and I don't like donuts much), croissants. Mmmm. Oh wait and I had a side salad once. We'd eat when we weren't hungry just to try it all. Combine that with two days of airport junk, and its easy to see how I could pack on a few. Can you tell I like to eat?

Being two

2010-02-11T23:39:00.000-08:00

Connor will never be two again. This suddenly occured to me tonight while I was watching Con "swim" in the tub like a chubby Michael Phelps on speed. All of his cute little two-yearisms. That sly little look they give you out of the corner of their eye when you tell them no. Its still so cute and funny when they do it anyways just to see what happens, rather then because they know that they can out run you and will ignore you anyways so it doens't matter. Only a two year old would pour his sister's juice on the floor so they could lay on their belly and lick it up. Not to be funny or act like an animal, but just because that seems like a great idea. Only a two year old would let his sisters dress him up like the leader of a gay Mardi Gras parade. Two year olds have no self doubt, they are sure they can do anything you can do. No challenge is too big because they haven't learned that some things are just too hard yet. Everything that comes out of his mouth is cute. Minus the frustrated screaming that comes all too often when I don't know what he wants and he can't tell me. One of Connor's well mastered words is "please." He knows the sign and can say it fairly clearly. He just walks around pointing to what he's after, gives you his most charming smile, sign, and say "peeze." Its hard to say no, but don't worry after a time you learn to turn him down quite easily. The sheer joy on a two years old face when they get what they want cannot be matched. Nothing lights up Con's face like handing the kid an almost can of diet pepsi. Its like he won the lottery every time.

I'm sure some of my sadness in my realization that Connor will never be two again lies in the fact that I will never have a two year old again. For those of you naysayers who don't believe I am done having kids, no this is not my hinting at additions to the family. Despite how long each day can seem, when you really sit back for a minute it becomes painfully obvious that those little hellions that make you want to run screaming from you house, are going to be snotty, self important teenagers way too fast. And they won't seem nearly as cute. People always complain about the terrible twos. I've always felt that between one and three is the best age. Their little personalities are coming out, and everything is a new discovery. Plus they lack the vocabulary to let you know what they really think. With Connor, I feel like I'm just trying to slow time down. I keep hoping that if I really savor as much of it as possible maybe it won't see like time is flying before my eyes. I keep hoping but its not working.

Back your bags Ha!

2009-12-29T14:34:00.001-08:00

I'll post some Christmas pictures and more as soon as I dig myself out of the Christmas mess. Oh and tear myself away from Rockband!

Hailey is using her newly discovered ability to almost write to leave mean notes on my bed after she gets in trouble. They are always delivered on pink, letter sized paper and written in marker. Her hand writing is a little like deciphering hieroglyphics since she has yet to decide its worth sitting still to learn. So yesterday after another fun filled day of raising hell and me screaming, her activities finally resulted in a wild chasing game through Target with Greg and breaking stuff at the store. Not a happy mommy. They were both sent to bed early, only made worse by Kenzie's sleepover and rockband going till 10 (which they really wanted to play.) When I went to hop in bed there was my hate mail for the evening. All it said was "tomorrow I am moving to Mississippi" That's it. I laughed so hard I almost had an accident. I'm still kind of laughig about it now.

Santa's little helper

2009-12-13T15:40:00.000-08:00

Greg has been a religous Santa visitor this year. Everytime we are at a mall (which is more often than I'd like to admit) he makes a point of visiting Santa to "tell him one more thing I want." He doesn't actually talk to Santa, he sits on his lap and whispers to me so I can relay the message for him. The other day he very thoughtfully told me "Mom, I think when I grow up I want to be Santa's helper instead of a Nascar driver." Since then he has contantly been thinking of new issues and working them out in his head. We'll be in the car and he'll say "Mom are you going to visit me when I'm at the North Pole?" "How am I going to get there?" He's figured out what we're going to eat when we visit each other, what I'm going to wear so I'm not too cold, where we'll sleep and how much I'll miss him. It's really quite sweet how much he believes its all going to work for him.

Another quick story from the life of Greg. He discovered a while ago that if he sticks his butt forward just right when he pees, he can go without touching his penis, which in his mind means he doesn't have to wash his hands (if he doesn't get caught.) His technique is usually pretty successful, we haven't had too many bad misses. Yesterday while he's in the bathroom I hear "Auugh penis!" I ran in and he throws his hands in the air out of frustration like it was totally out of his control, "mom my penis missed!" I've been trying to explain to him the necessity of aiming, but what do mom's know. Funnily enough later in the day I hear him yelling at his penis again like an out of control child. I just don't know what to do with little boys.

Late to School

2009-11-05T15:56:00.000-08:00

My chronic lateness is either genetic or contagious. The girls have taken on a very relaxed attitude about getting ready for school. Nine o clock usually arrives to me on the stairs screaming at the girls to get some clothes on we are leaving. If even I can beat them ready, with the boys, that is pretty bad. I admit that sometimes it is my fault we don't leave on time but there is an awful lot of people in their underwear wondering what to wear at 8:55. The school has this very lax policy of "talking things out" (even fights on the playground) with no real consequences or phone calls home. So when I saw the principal at the Halloween party, I made sure he knew who I was and who my kids were and that I would like phone calls home to be made and I'm ok with consequences for tardiness. I get the feeling there is a lot of "now Jimmy don't punch Sam in the face, run along now" at the school. That being said, I now have to make extra sure I am not the reason for their tardiness just in case there ever is a consequence.

So now our mornings look like this. Celeste and I throw the strollers over the gate (ok its mostly Celeste) and as soon as the girls turn up we tell them to run! and we'll keep up. Bad weather or extreme lateness means I drive. Our school has this policy that we all wait in a tidy little line and wait for the lady to open the door and let your kid out. While I appreciate the reasons for this idea, when kids are making it by the very skin of their teeth, they need to get out now, not in 5 minutes when its our turn. So I fly into the parking lot, slam the brakes at the beginning so as not to disrupt the line or run over a kid. The girls are ready for "catapult" as we call it, then I yell GO! GO! GO! like a Navy Seals mission leader as they throw open the door. They chuck their backpacks on the grass then jump after them like their parachuting. Between my yells of GOGOGO, I hear the sound of slews of empty Diet Pepsi's hitting the ground, as the girls jump for it. I'd love to know what the door opening lady thinks of me as I fly around the line leaving the door openers in my path. One more day of promptness under our belts.

Halloweeen

2009-11-01T17:03:00.000-08:00

We had a really fun Halloween. The girls had their class parties on Friday and I got to go and make a craft with McKenzie's class. We went to our ward party Friday night for a chili cook off and trick or treating. (Go Celeste, ward chili champ!) Our ward uses the stake cener for trick or treating instead of trunk or treating outside. You can sign your family up for a room and decorate it all up or donate candy to a room. Its kind of fun to go around the building from room to room. Some people went all out with haunted rooms, one couple made Peter Pan's Never Never land in theirs. And its a whole lot warmer than trunk or treating. Here's some more of our fun holiday. Sorry the pictures are completely not in order.

This was the first year Connor got to enjoy trick or treating. Once he figured out that all he had to do was cruise up to each door, smile cute, and hold out his bag he was way into it. He climb up the stairs and shove the other kids out of the way to get in front. People would open the door and awe at him, then give him extra candy. At one house the guy put a mask on and crawled to the door. He just stuck his masked face out at the kids to scare them. Poor Con burst into tears and backed away as fast as he could. It took him a few houses to get over it. The guy felt so bad.

Just like Charlie Brown, after each house Greg would dig whatever he got out of his bag, hold it up and annouce what he got. The girls joined in because they thought it was funny, like the special. Kenzie said she kind of hoped she got a rock because that would be funny, then she was like, no not really.

We bought one of those pumkin carving kits with the stencils and tools this year. We made a raven, monster, scary pumkin and a haunted house.

Connor was scared of the inside of the pumpkin. He'd walk over, look in, then back away freaked out.

Dave and I dressed up in our awesome 80s rock star outfits. I teased my hair to the sky and put on tons of glittery eye makeup and false eyelashes. I hit the Value Village up for a short torn skirt, a tee shirt to cut up, and the ugliest belt I could find. Leggings, knee high boots and my giant hair and I was looking awesome. I bought Dave a mullet wig and some fake tatoo sleeves.

The kids all dressed up and ready for the ward party. Hailey dressed up as a witch complete with hideous striped tights. She had glow in the dark, sparkly face make up and nail polish. Kenzie went as a nurse. She was very original. Greg had his beloved Buzz Lightyear costume. There was another boy there with a Buzz costume with no wings, greg kept saying, I'm the real Buzz Lightyear because I have wings. Connor got to recycle the beaver costume for the 3rd kid.

Dave carving pumpkins. He got really into making cool designs. As is tradition in our family, we carve all of the kids pumpkins and always end up with one or two uncarved because we ran out of time.

Hiding from the meddlers in a foreign country

2009-10-13T23:28:00.000-07:00

So for those of you who wondered, here's my sister Chrissy's dating/elopement story. After Voldemort (aka the first husband) left Chris had a bit of a dry spell. She'd set herself up on an online dating site and had been emailing Evan but hadn't met him. Her best friend told her if she didn't get back on the wagon, she'd fix her up with some xray tech at work. With a fire lit under her but she decided to meet Evan. She had some sort of back up plan with her friend and her twin, Carrie. She was supposed to be home by a certain time and call them so they knew Evan wasn't a serial killer. When she didn't call they were both in a tizzy in the morning thinking something had definately gone wrong. She says she'd been out late and just fell asleep. They started dating "just for fun" but didn't fill anyone in. We thought she was still stewing over Voldemort. In our family we joke about the "inner circle" like those crazies on Meet the Parents. Me and the parents are generally not deemed cool enough to be in the inner circle so no one knew about Evan. One night Dave randomly crashed her place when he was in Seattle and Evan was there. Finally in the circle! Shock and awe baby, that's the key. Dave and I were quite pleased with ourselves to be the holder of information for once. Anyways after a while she moved into his house so we all figured they'd get married eventually. Well my parents were in Seattle over the Fourth of July for one of their crazy bike trips and Evan asked my dad for Chrissy's hand. My dad being the best secret keeper ever, told Evan "well you'd better do it soon because I won't be able to keep it to myself." So Evan moved up his plan and proposed that day, just to be safe. That night my mom started the attack, when, where, how, what color!! I guess his mom is even worse. Chris had already done the big wedding thing once, and lets face it what guy really cares about that. She didn't want to spend a year dealing with two moms, and stressing out about things like flowers and cake. At first they joked about eloping and everyone got mad so they planned a "wedding" for the end of September. She was always a little vague about the details but we all chalked it up to a low key affair. They'd had this trip to Costa Rica planned for several months. They convinced another couple to go with them as witnesses, and secretly planned their wedding in a rain forest. Early the morning they left, Evan called my dad's phone and left him a message that they were eloping in Costa Rica, and buy the way their phones won't work there. Then they promptly turned off their phones. My dad being a considerably smart man, told my mom right as he dropped her off for a 30 mile bike ride, to my house. After a seething ride, and I'm sure a good workout, she arrived still mad. We spent a good hour speculating if it was real or not. Being the sneaky girl she is, Chrissy sent her "invitations" to arrive exactly on August 31. Inside was a cute invitation and a picture postcard announcing "we've eloped!", with the 31st as there wedding date. Talk about planning. (I called my dad to give him a head's up to check the mail before mom.) When they got to Costa Rica, Chrissy's luggage with her dress, shoes, and everything else was mia, which set her right off. Women in our family are anxiety ridden. We do not take kindly to things not going smoothly. The locals sent her to some town with supposedly good shopping. She found a store with 3 dresses and chose the lesser of the evils. She got married in a brown short dress, and whatever else she could find. Oh and I guess swimsuits there come with a regular bottom and a G string option, just in case you ever need such an ensemble. Apparantly in Costa Rica anyone can marry you if a lawyer signs it. And everyone runs really late (maybe I should move there). So when the guy who was supposed to marry them didn't show up, their photographer said "Oh I'll do it don't worry.", I'll have my lawyer drop by your hotel later. He married them and his assistant, Fabi, took pictures. Then when the photographer took back over, the log they were perched on broke and they fell in this creek. Not some piddly almost dry creek either, this was a rain forest remember. They opted to finish their pictures in the creek, since they were already wet, but they got some pretty cool shots. So we all went to Seattle for a fun party and to meet his family instead of a wedding. In the end it all worked out. They say its all legal and I really like Evan so its all good.

Seattle

2009-10-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

We went to Seattle a couple of weekends ago for my sister's "wedding." It was supposed to be a wedding but they decided to elope in Costa Rica instead. Apparantly the families are too meddling, hard to imagine meddling parents I know. They had a really nice reception at a bath house on Lake Washington. We had Indian food and sandwiches for the wusses (aka my family). I'd never tried Indian food, it was so good. Pretty sure I'll have to save that for a girls' night out though.
connor busting a move at the reception. Connor and Hailey were breaking all the rules. They were dancing and moving their feet! Paulitz's do not move their feet when they dance. We have masterd the art of dancing like complete nerds while not moving our feet one inch. Its extremely cool.

Another successful internet hookup! Chris and her new hubby Evan telling their dating and elopement story. I'm pretty sure they were getting tired of retelling everyone about their elopement and felt a group storytelling would be less annoying. Evans a really nice guy, and dorky enough to fit in well in our family. His families really nice and have some equally dorky elements. I think the bigger nerd you are the better you get along with the Paulitz's.

The view of Lake Washington from the reception site.

Since we didn't take a vacation this year, we decided to come early to the wedding and have some fun with the kids.

We took the kids to Alki beach on the west side of Seattle. We hadn't been there before and had heard it was a nice beach. It would be a good beach for playing in the water, but this time of year the kids were more interested in seashells. I think next time we'll go back to Gig Harbor. The kids always hit the mother lode of shells there and they like making the Gooey Ducks spit.

We took the kids to the Point Defiance Zoo by Tacoma. We hadn't been to any of the zoos in Seattle, this one won out because there was an aquarium. Connor enjoying Kenzie's nacho cheese straight out of the container. We bought the kids a bunch of over priced junk for lunch and Con went straight for the cup of cheese. Such a strange child.

The girls were fascinated with the polar bears. They were pretty fun to watch. They kept swimming right up against the glass and the kids like to "touch" them. Greggers really enjoyed it when they rubbed their butts on the glass. Of course he would.

Greg's walrus face. He thought the walrus's were great. He kept turning to me saying "they look like this... with whiskers!" And they were super fat which was of course amusing.

Kenzie with her budgie buddy. They had this bird atrium full of little parakeets or budgies. You could buy a colored popsicle stick with bird seed glued on. The birds would come land on your stick and eat. It was really cute, the kids loved it. They thought it was so neat to hold a bird.

The first night in Seattle we went to Ikea. Kenzie had been sick earlier, so we didn't drop her at the play area. She hated it. It was kind of funny because I always look forward to going to Ikea when we're over there and here's my daughter, everytime we turned a corner and she realized it just kept going she'd groan "I hate Ikea!" And no she wasn't feeling sick she just thought it was "almost the boringest place I've ever been. All there is is house stuff." Welcome to childhood kid. I spent all my Satudays at the hardware store looking at cabinets my parents wouldn't buy until I moved out, you can survive 2 hours at Ikea.

Party, party, party

2009-10-04T01:21:00.000-07:00

My brother Carl has long wanted to have a wedding of his own. Now you have to understand that once Carl sets his mind to something, he does not let it go. He will obsess to the end of time about it. Can anyone say Star Trek? Those that know my family know that know that we are all Trekkies by default. I have seen every single Star Trek episode, original and next generation, every movie. I'm even know to make anologies that no one else gets about it from time to time. Needless to say about 5 years ago when my sisters first got married, Carl got it in his head that he wanted to get married too. Since then he has accumulated an endless array of wedding magazines and binders full of cutouts of plans for his wedding. Its not uncommon for him to come up to me, binder open to some flowers and a dress, announcing that I'm going to be his flower girl. Since Carl will never have the opportunity to get married himself, my parents decided to throw him a huge 30th birthday party, wedding style. They rented a hall, hired a caterer and photographer, and bought Carl a new suit. We even hired him a limo to pick up all of his friends and drive him there. Here's Carl and two of his buddies. The kid on the left, Mike, has been his best friend since they were small. Notice the Spock cutout in the back. Evan's (Chrissy's new husband) gift to Carl. It got the place of honor on the stage.

Greg and Connor helping themselves to the cake. There always seems to be mysterious finger tracks in the frosting. Last year when my brother Tim got married, Greg made a grab for the cake and left three telltale finger tracks in the cake, before it was cut. We rotated it before anyone noticed.

Hailey and "her Scotty". My kids love their uncle Scott. If my sister shows up without out him they just want to know where Scott is.

Hailey and my sisters.

A few pictures from the end of summer. This is Greg with his best buddy David. We are so lucky to have such good friends next door. I have a great walking partner and these two little guys are inseperable. I wish I could say the same for Con and David's little sister Lucy. They show their affection by biting.

Dave and Connor at the Finch Arboretum. You can't tell but they climbed a tree and are sitting on a brach.

Greggers Buzz Lightyear costume. He saw it at Costco and of course being the softie I am, I drove to two Costcos to find the right size and fork over 20 bucks for it. But he's just so darned cute.

A little late...schools back

2009-10-01T23:21:00.001-07:00

So glad the girls are back in school. This is my very excited face after dropping them off the first day. I waited all summer for this. Here's my lovely girls getting ready to leave on the first day. Hailey was so excited about starting first grade, and nervous. I think it makes her feel like a big girl.

Kenzie has already declared school boring because she's "already learned all this stuff" and she complains that she always gets the "bad classes". Hailey tells me nothing about what they're learning in class. I'm sure there must be some learning going on. Either she's letting it in one ear and out the other or its not important enough to share. She has already managed her first trip to the principals for a little shoving and hitting fight with a boy. He started it so Daddy's told her she's allowed to "pummel" so long as she doesn't start it. hmmm. I guess she'll never get bullied. She's one tough cookie. Are these two actually related?

Ahhh summer

2009-08-25T00:07:00.000-07:00

I've gotten so lazy about posting. I have so many pictures I want to post but its that whole I have to get off of the couch to get the camera and cord problem again. I'm not so sure the laptop was my best idea ever.
We're down to those last, fleeting days of summer, when you can almost feel the end coming. The girls start school in two weeks and I feel like I need to cram as much fun as possible in before they go back. We always start the summer with this lenghty list of all the fun things to do. In the end, we never get bored enough to do them all. We seem to fill our time with the park, lake, backyard and life that all that stuff we thought up to keep from getting bored never happens. Kenz of course has her mind set on things we HAVE to do before school so now she asks me everyday. I for one just want to soak up as much of the blazing heat as possible. I've always loved fall but now its just the calm before the storm. I saw a great cartoon where they called it "a bait and switch." So true. I do love fall, but I know whats coming. Funny how a few bad winters has turned me into a heat lover. I'm going to enjoy these last two weeks with the girls and try to pretend their constant fighting isn't making me seriously consider boarding school.

Hiawatha Trail

2009-07-31T23:04:00.000-07:00

Obviously not posting for so long put me a touch behind. But we have so much fun in the summer I feel like posting it all, a little at a time. About a month ago Dave and I left the kids with my parents and drove over to Montana to ride the Hiawatha Trail. I knew that it was downhill one way and up the other. I wasn't sure what to expect. You can ride all the way down and catch a shuttle back up. I deemed that for wusses (and I'm too cheap) so we rode about 2/3 of the way down then back up. It was so fun. Its so pretty up there. There's nothing around except for this trail made on an old railroad. Its like undisturbed wilderness with bathrooms! Just my speed. In the pictures of the trail I'd seen, there are these scary high looking tressle bridges. I was pretty sure I'd have a coronary crossing them. Turns out when your on them you have no idea how high up you are. Its just some bridge with a great view. But when you get down below and look up at the bridge you've crossed your like "holy crap!" Well at least I was.
On one to the lower bridges, you can see one of those scary tressle bridges behind me.

Looking good in our bike helmets.

Dave by the waterfall right outside the long tunnel. When you start the trail you first go through this freezing cold, wet 1.1 mile long tunnel. Needless to say you need a bike light.

The view down from one of the lower tressle bridges. We had a really fun time. And didn't die riding back up. (I totally kicked Dave's butt) Shocker of all shockers I underestimated our drive time so we were flying back so I could make it to work. We flew in and grabbed our kids with a hi, bye, thanks and were ready to speed off so I could shower. I was pretty sure it wouldn't be appreciated if I showed up covered in sweat and a fine layer of dust. We were about to back out when my dad informed me I had a flat tire. My back tire was totally flat! Needless to say more speeding ensued and I made it to work by the skin of my teeth. Ironically I was a few minutes early as opposed to a few minutes late as usual. We had a great time and can't wait to do it again. Next time we'll leave earlier and do the whole thing. I think we might have to train our butts to take the seats first.

My crazy boy

2009-07-29T00:40:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure I've got a Hailey squared on my hands here. Connor is just as crazy as Ha without the super cheesy grin. He's busy, busy, busy. Running everywhere, dumping everything out, and oblivious to all pain. Smack your head? No biggie just keep on trucking. He loves to wrestle with Greg or anyone who makes the mistake of getting down on the floor. Con loves to bang, bang everything that fits in his little fist. He's so silly and cute. But frighteningly like his crazy, hyper active sister.

Here's Connor enjoying a popsicle. He's actually pretty good at it. If he drips any on the table he bends down and licks it up. Just like any good Hailey clone he can't let any sweets go to waste.

Also anything is food. Sand, chalk, sticks, toys. You name it he eats it.

The kid loves water. He grabbed the hose one day and just played with it forever. He had a great time pouring water all over. He's a total maniac in the water. He likes to float in his life vest, kicking his chubby little legs. I don't think he quite gets the necessity for the life jacket to float. today at the lake he kept leaning back like he was going to float on his back and then going under. he kept getting mad that he wasn't floating like he expected. Once he got his jacket on, if you try to stand him up he gets mad and flops back down. Later he got an inner tube and tried to put it on. It was so cute to watch him struggle, frustrated. Dragging him out of the lake is just one big fight. Just like his big sister, he could spend all day in the water, near drownings are hysterical not scary. Hailey still swims around with her mouth gaping open with her cheese ball grin, sucking water in like a whale. I think I'm in for it with this one.

Schools Out For Summer!

2009-06-16T23:18:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is officially my last day of driving across town three times a day to drive the girls to school. My last day of dragging my butt out of bed and driving Kenzie to school in my pajamas. Which by the way usually look like pajamas and couldn't be mistaken for anything else thus further embarrassing McKenzie. Every morning she asks "is that what you're driving me to school in?" Yes of course it is. Its before 9 am isn't it? Who cares how I look? Its not like I'm going to see anyone I know. Well except when I fly by Traci most mornings on her way to drop off, I get the occasional odd look from her. I probably look a touched crazed with my hair flying wildly, and maybe cutting off a few drivers I deem unworthy. I love the idea of getting up super early, working out, and being dressed for the day by 8:30 am. I've set my alarm for that many, many times. But let's face it. I'm not that person. If I'm exercised and dressed in time for the kindergarten drop off, its a good day.
Usually I'm a touch bummed when school's out because it means 3 months of breaking up fights and messes. But thanks to the Central Valley School District' poor planning and a ridiculous amount of snow, it means just over 2 months of fighting and NO MORE DRIVING TO SCHOOL! So I'm going to go find my old Dazed and Confused cd, pop that sucker in, and fly to school in my usual early morning frenzy. I'll be sure to pick out a special pair of pajamas, just for McKenzie.

"The best day ever!" -Hailey

2009-06-01T23:25:00.000-07:00

It seems like the days when both Dave and I have a full day off and nothing pressing to do have become few and far between. Memorial Day was one of those few days. We packed up the kids and a picnic and went to Manito Park, my favorite park here. While we were eating on the grass the ice cream truck kept conveniently driving by, reeaallly sloooowly. My girls have held the elusive ice cream truck guy up on a pretty high pedastool since last summer. Before moving to Spokane, the kids didn't really have a great concept of what an ice cream truck was. Last year one drove through our complex on a fairly regular basis. I promised the girls all summer that they would get a chance. Unfortunately he only came through on Sundays or days I had zero cash. The one day the girls had the opportunity they chased him through the whole parking lot. Right before the exit they wanted to make a run for it but got scared they'd get run over (thanks to my brainwashing) so they hesitated and never got his attention. By the time I got there with the boys there were two broken hearted little girls standing on the side of the parking lot clutching their money with tears in their eyes. It was one of those parenting moments that just breaks your heart over something so seemingly simple. Back to Manito. We told the kids later they could, knowing we would be at the park for a while. They were sooo worried they wouldn't find him again. Especially Ha, she was just obsessed with getting him this time. After they'd woldfed down a suitable amount of lunch Dave gave the girls a 20 and told them to run, as the truck was starting to pull out (very slowly). The kids were beyond thrilled. Here they are with their hard won prize. By hard won, I mean obsessive pestering until we finally gave in. I am the weakest link. This is when Hailey cheered "this is the best day ever!" When I asked "even better than Disneyland?" She had to really think about it before saying "about as good.." Geez I should have saved my money and just gone for icecream everyday. Nah the trip was still worth it. But I find it humorous that a child whose had quite a few travel opportunities and has done a lot of fun stuff ranks this so very high. I guess it goes to show the simple things count. Funny after all of that traveling last year, this year we are staying home and the kids will probably like it more. Well not Kenzie. That girls go champagne taste on a koolaid budget. And for the record we did see the truck again before we left. By this time the kids were all hot and sweaty and begging to go again.

Here's some pictures I took of the kids by the lilac gardens. I love the lilac gardens in the spring. They are my favorite smelling flower and so pretty. When we get our own house we are buying some bushes! I want to play with these on Photoshop (maybe poor forgotten Connor will finally get his 8x10 too)

Connor's first haircut and new glasses

2009-05-29T00:12:00.001-07:00

Connor got his first pair of glasses last week. He looks like such a little man now. He actually does a pretty good job of keeping them on. When he first got them he walked around for like 45 minutes just looking at his feet and the floor. It was like he'd never seen them before. He'll wear them around for an hour or so at a time before he flings them. He'll just run around looking at everything like its a whole new world. Only this means he's really never still now. so taking a picture involves setting the camera on the fast mode and running backwards in front of him snapping pictures. this is as good as it gets.

Sorry these are in the wrong order. I downloaded them wrong and can't figure out how to move them. Here's Connor after his first haircut. He looks so grown up now. More like a little boy less like my baby boy.
He really enjoyed his haircut. This is Dave finishing it up. He had to do it in phases. He started while I was at soccer with the girls. I came home to a sleeping baby and a baggie of hair on the table. At first neither of the boys were around and I panicked and thought he'd cut Gregs. I think he did that just to torture me. He saved blending it until after the nap thinking he'd get more cooperation. Not so much. But it still turned out cute.

Little blessings

2009-05-14T00:38:00.000-07:00

Some of my dear friends have lovingly accused me of seeing the glass half empty. I agree I tend towards the gloomy side (perhaps that explains why I still really enjoy my 90s teenage agnst and gray sky music) So here's to the good things.

About a month ago my sister Carrie, who's a children's physical therapist convinced me to take Connor to a child find at the school she works at. I took him mainly to check his hearing but they do a thorough screening. I wasn't sure what to expect but I didnt' expect the stack of referrals I received. While some panned out to nothing, some I'm glad we followed through on. I thought for sure the opthamologist would send me happily on my way. Instead little dude is getting glasses for a severe stigmatism and far sightedness.

Originally when we were referred to a speech therapist, we were told it would be a 6 month wait. After calling around I found a place downtown that could get him in sooner. The day of his scheduled evaluation they called and said they had to reschedule for the next week. That day Hailey had occupational therapy. While I was there the receptionist stuck her head in and asked if we still needed speech therapy because there had been several cancellations and we could do our eval that day. (they take an hour which is really the hold up to getting started) I jumped at it and found out Connor is pretty delayed. There are some concerns about how much he hears which we will hopefully know more about soon. I was so grateful that morning cancellation had allowed me to get him therapy at the office right in town, without a huge wait. And I'm so grateful my sister talked me into taking him in. I probably would have shrugged it off until he was 2. For a kid that's already behind that can be huge. Its funny how little things like that remind you that your family is being watched out for even if its something small.

I wrote this a few days ago and didn't post it yet. While I'm still happy he got into the speech therapist I'm less concerned than I initially was. We got Connor into the ENT today. While he'll probably end up with tubes and an adnoidectomy by fall, I'm happy to say that despite scarring on his left ear drum his hearing tested fine. YEah! Hopefully all he needs is some time and glasses (and some tubes.)

A yard of their own

2009-05-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

My children have sadly only known life in an apartment. They've never had their own backyard to play in. And while we've had some good times at some of those places, there is nothing like your own yard to play in. Our new place has a decent sized back yard that was 3/4 of the way fenced. We took part of our tax return and bought fencing to finish it off and then added to the kids' birthday money to buy a swing set. I found a baby swing at a used kids store and we're all set.
Dave assembling the new swing set. Notice Greg already hopped the swings, he was just too excited to wait. My sweet husband has spent many a day off working in the yard getting it ready for the kids to play.

This is Greg's "helmet". Whenever he goes out to play in the backyard he puts this kachow hat and matching mittens on and calls it his helmet. (he has a real one for the bike) He's such a goof. Of course it is still unseasonably cold here so he probably legitamately needs it. we'll see if he still wears it in July.

The kids giving the new swing set a try. McKenzie was just so excited to have swings in her backyard. The kids love it. And I love having a place for them to play.

Their other favorite new toy. The box the swing set came in. There were two of them. One was a "car" and the other their "house." They played in them for a good week before the rain wrecked them. I was not dragging seven foot long boxes in each time it rained. Sorry kids.

Everytime McKenzie runs out to the swings to play, my heart swells a little. Its a little sad that the kid was 8 before she knew what it was like to have a yard of her own. Hopefully in a few years we will move to a house that really is our own. But in the meantime I am just extremely grateful to Heavenly Father that we have been blessed with this place. I know it sounds a little lame, but to us having a garage, basement, and a yard after all the years in tiny apartments is huge. I finally feel like we can breathe. And for Hailey to be able to go out and jump and run whenever she wants has made the biggest difference. I no longer feel like I'm yelling at her all day because she is driving me nuts. You know I don't cry, but sometimes watching the kids play in the big mud hole in the back makes me tear up a little. That's pretty big.

As I promised the girls here's our matching bags from our girls night. After some awesome Thai we went bra shopping at Kohl's (good times) and found these matching bags for a steal. well they were cute, and there just happened to be 3 so we just had to have them. And they hold a lot! I was so lucky Da sent Nik out for Kenzie's baptism. It was fun to have the girls back together (minus a few).

McKenzie's Baptism

2009-05-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that I have a daughter old enough to be baptized. That seems like such a grown up thing, like driving a mini van.

McKenzie's baptism was wonderful. Dave's dad, stepmom, mom and two of his sisters came. My parent's and brother and Nikki and her parents, as well as some of our friends from Spokane. McKenzie was so excited and looked so beautiful in her white dress. I think she felt so grown up and important. Having only attended convert baptisms in the past, I felt a little unprepared for a stake youth baptism. It felt like we were really just winging it. Unable to scrape up any musical families among those being baptized the stake primary presidency opts for all the kids to sing. Only this ends up being a little last minute. Like hey kids go up and sing "when I am baptized". It was cute but a litte funny to watch all of their bewildered little faces. Not that my spotlight was much better. I'd written out this cute two page spotlight on McKenzie, then when I got up there in front of the small congregation I totally freaked and skimmed through hitting key parts. Prettty sad.

My parents and my litte family

Me, Dave, and the kids in the hall afterwards. I'd wanted to take some pictures by the temple but of course it was pouring rain.

Dave's parents and our family.

I'm so proud of McKenzie's decision to be baptized. I know that she has made the right decision and it will bring her such joy. We love you Kenzie!

Farts are funny

2009-04-28T23:49:00.001-07:00

I knew this day would come. I naively thought my sweet little boy would forever be innocent. He'd never be like those other little boys that think every bodily funtion is absolutely hysterical. We wouldn't have conversations about poop, farts, and bums. Wrong. Greg has always liked to keep me posted on his every move, which now includes farting. I'll be cleaning in one room and Greg will come flying "Mom I farted!" grinning away. Then he'll wait expectantly for an answer. I usually muster up a sarcastic "great" all the while wondering exactly what it is he's waiting for.

Now everything can be made even funnier. Peanut butter and fart sandwiches! Poop snacks! Its never ending. Today he was eating a fruit by the foot and I noticed there was trivia on the paper as he ate it. I asked "hey Greggers, can I read your paper while you eat?" He said "Yeah you can read my pooper mom." Then busted out laughing. "I said pooper!" hahahaha. "Mom read my pooper!" hahaha For the next twenty minutes I could hear him randomly say to himself "read my pooper" then chuckle and shake his head. Seriously where did this child come from? When he plays with his friend David their conversations somehow have poop and farts attached to every comment.

I had also hoped to somehow avoid that other magical boy right of passage, peeing everywhere. I have taken great care to teach Greg how to pee, sitting on the toilet backwards, so he doesn't get it everywhere. I figured in a year or two he could learn about peeing standing. I told him peeing stading was only for outside. A week or two ago Dave taught him to pee standing. After he peed all over the wall at the occupational therapists I told him he should only pee standing when we were at the store. Obviously that didn't work since peeing standing is far cooler. Now when he's preparing to go he begins by pointing it up at the ceiling! When I yell frantically "point it down! point it down!", he sighs then dejectedly says "yeah" before properly taking aim. I'm a little concerned that he's set himself some secret goal of hitting the ceiling. One day when he doesn't want me in there anymore I'm a little scared of what I'll find.

McKenzie's super belated birthday

2009-04-13T22:32:00.000-07:00

Being the super procrastinator that I am I am just now getting around to posting Kenzie's birthday. Maybe I should adopt anti-procrastination day from Celeste. :) I pulled some old cds of pictures a good week ago but its so much work to put them in and all I just couldn't get around to posting some old pictures of Kenzie.

Its hard to believe McKenzie is 8! She is growing to be such a beautiful little girl. Sometimes I don't think I know where the time has gone. She's super smart and picked up the reading bug from her mom. She is so excited to be baptized in a few weeks. She loves to give family home evening lessons and picks up everything she learns in church. Everytime I talk to her teacher she goes on and on about what a good example McKenzie is to everyone in her class and what a great leader she is. Her classmates always say she is the nicest kid in class. Its hard to believe my little baby is turning into such a young lady. I know one of these days I'll turn around and she'll be all grown up.
A recent picture of McKenzie I took in the backyard before her choir concert.

McKenzie age 3. Fall pics at UI

Kenzie blowing bubbles outside our apartment in Logan. I just love this picture of her.

Kenzie's end of preschool celebration, her first year of preschool.

Happy 8th birthday McKenzie! Sorry mom's late as always.

Winco: land of the insomniacs

2009-04-05T00:32:00.000-07:00

After many attempts to go to Winco only to be intimidated by giant crowds, long lines, and zero shopping cars I decided to go late at night. I mean really I'm not willing to endure day after Thanskgiving like crowds for groceries. My thinking was that at 11:30 at night who's really going to be there? Try a ton of people. It looked like the middle of the day. Tons of employees and shoppers with full carts. In Moscow if you went late at night it was your and the drunk frat guys, apparantly I am not the lone insommniac in the valley. There are many of us, there should be a club. It may be crowded but I have to say $150 for a whole cart of groceries, can't beat that.

So I was reading this LDS Living link about conference tips to keep your kids happy so you can enjoy conference. They were obviously written for naturally calm children or maybe those heavily medicated on Ridalin. Since I have neither I made my own (for normal families)
1. Add Benadryl to kids morning juice
2. Tie them to bed so they don't get out when Benadryl wears off
3. Glue babies feet to floor, see how long it takes him to notice ( or in our case his butt)
4. Send oldest to corner convenience store with 10 bucks and a bike trailer to buy them all slurpees
5. Announce you're cleaning the living room and they are welcome to stay and help
6. Ask who wants to go check the mail then lock the door
7. Tell them to all get in the car to go get icecream, don't mention in 2 hours. If its cold run the car for a bit.
8. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (its over 2 hours long!)
9. Stand at the top of the stairs and yell "hey does someone want to come help me?" no one will emerge for at least an hour
10. Kava kava is supposed to be very calming........
Obviously I wouldn't try some of these (well I do give my kids Benedryl to travel) but does anyone else feel like you have to go to great lengths to listen to conference? what about those nice kids that play General Authority bingo while they listen (listen what's that?) where do I find those? Is there some secret vitamin pregnant women take to get them? Tonight in the health food section, I actually read the back of the melatonin and valerian root to see if I could give a half dose to my 6 year old. I swear going to find some natural calming supplement and start adding it to their drinks or something. I don't think calm is in their vocabulary. I may be an insomniac don't think I was ever a human tornado. Where did these kids come from?

Just when I thought things were dull

2009-03-19T23:07:00.001-07:00

Just when I thought nothing exciting ever happens around here everything happens at once. Figures. I never head down to the basement except for straight to the laundry room or to the garage for a diet Pepsi. Unfortunately this means there's a whole area I never go into so a lot can happen before I notice. Wednesday I'd been running laundry. Later in the afternoon I went to put something in the girls room when I noticed the uncomfortable feeling of soggy carpet beneath my feet. yes we've had a basement for all of a month and already managed to flood it. My first reaction was total panic and of course my landlord is out of town and I couldn't get ahold of Dave. I was downstairs trying to mop up the mess as best I could. When I went upstairs to get more towels this is what I found my boys doing.

I found my two sweet boys sitting on the floor with their hands in the flour tub flinging it around the kitchen. Gregger's response was "I not do it. Connor did it" Mind you his hands were full of flour he was ready to fling and they were both white with flour. Not to mention Connor can't open this cupboard. Turns out Greg opened the cupboard and they both emptied it. Connor can open the containers. Good times for me. I didn't know which mess to try and clean up first. So I stripped my boys down and locked all of the kids downstairs with me. Dave had a nice surprise when he came home. A soggy basement, messy kids, a flour coated kitchen and a panicked wife. Turns out the pipe for the washer discharge came out and made a nice pond between the walls which was seaping out all over the girl's closet and out into the hall. We seemed to have cleaned it all up. But oh the stench. The girl's had to sleep in the playroom it was so bad. A large box of arm and hammer later it seems better. I don't think a smell that bad came from one flood. I'm pretty sure some previous tenants contributed. But I'm afraid to tell the landlord because I don't want to pay any damages. I'm guessing a couple tenants in a row doing this probably led to the smell.

Connor and his new girlfriend Lucy. She loves to pound on him :) Connor's plenty used to it so he doesn't mind. She crawled right over and sat on his lap. So sweet.

My little kitchen helper. Greg loves to help me cook dinner. He's covering his ears because apparantly the toaster is scary. (yes we had toast for dinner they'll live)

McKenzie's 2nd grade choir concert. She had a speaking part she was very proud of. She is growing to be such a little lady. Her teachers just love her. Everytime I see her teacher sees me she tells me she wants to keep her in her class forever.

Screaming for blood

2009-03-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

I wish I had some good pictures of the fun stuff we've done with the kids lately but apparantly if you don't bring your camera you can't take pictures. Who knew? We took the kids to a hockey game 2 weeks ago on school night and the kids had a great time. The girls take after me and say their favorite part is the fights. I've always been of the persuasion that hockey is a lot of fun to watch so long as there a few good fights. Clean hockey is just dull. When we were at USU and could go to a club game every weekend for 2 bucks I discovered that I secretly love hockey violence. Strangely after we had kids we stopped going as often. I think Dave just got embarrassed of his very pregnant wife screaming "FIGHT! FIGHT! YEAH!" The first time he took me to a game he was all excited to teach me the rules. But I just cared about sitting close enough to the plexi glass that I can see their faces slam up against it. The Chiefs creamed the Portland team. Whenever one team is down by a lot they get really mad and fight a lot (learned that from Dave I think that's what they teach in school in Minnesota) There was one really good fight with helmets ripped off and team members jumping in. It took all of the refs to break it up and the penalty box was jam packed. It was great. Hailey was jumping around yelling in excitement. Good to know I'm a good influence on my girls. I think the only part of the hockey game Greg cared about was the part when he got food. I think as long as he gets a pop and something fried we could take him anywhere.

We took the kids for their first trip to Chucke Cheese with our friends Ben and Celeste. (also forgot the camera) I thought it was going to be lame and expensive. It was actually really fun and the tokens went a lot farther than expected. The girls were really into this jump roping game and I thought "piece of cake. If that jr high girl can do it I totally can" Well you can all guess how that turned out. I did worse than the 5 year olds. At first I chalked it up to beginner's luck, but after many tries I came to the conslusion that I suck and am just as uncoordinated now as I was at 8 and left to play pinball. I least I don't entirely suck at that. There was a lot of things for all the kids to do. Even Greg and Connor had fun playing in the play land with our friend's kids. The kids are saving their tickets to get some awesome prize next time. Or maybe after the next 10 times since anything not lame is about 10,000 tickets. Hailey of course had to have something so I convinced the kid to sell me this little necklace for s50 cents. Pretty easy to convince a high school kid when you've got a sobbing kindergartener.
Hopefully I'll start bringing my camera places. Other wise I'll have to post pictures of my kids destroying the play room, playing wii, or watching chitty chitty bang bang for the 100th time.

We're Free!!

2009-03-04T00:10:00.000-08:00

I was so excited to be getting away from my downstairs neighbors that I was going to make up a little diddy along the lines of Andy's "Oompa Loompa Dwight's gone" song. Until strep throat robbed me of the will to live and it was all I could do to get through the day. That lovely illness was followed by some wretchedly painful episode involving my tonsils. My doctor's office is always being too busy to see someone who is actually sick send me to the Urgent Care where some 18 year old PA glanced at my throat (with no light or tongue depressor I might add!) declared me fine and said I probably had mono. Ummm thanks so much for wasting my time and money dingle beary. Can I get a refund please? Anyways I'm much better and back to making fun of the world around me (obviously) It is so nice to not have to yell at the kids all day everytime they so much as begin to hop. Our new place is not without its faults but it is a million times better. We have a yard, storage, and no downstairs neighbors. This is the best thing we've had happen in years. (man that is sad)

One downfall of this move is that I'm now driving the girls to school, which means 3 trips a day at 30 minutes each. Good times. Since I am the current record holder for the latest mom in the world, this obviously is causing a problem. We are always late. (although I have made the recent discovery that when going places without the kids I can usually manage to make it on time, so my blaming it on the kids must be sortof legit) All of the driving is really cutting into Connor's nap so rather than pick the girls up at the school, they ride the bus back to the old place and I pick them up. If I'm late they're supposed to go to McKenzie's friend Eriana's house. The first time I was late, I didn't know it and sat there waiting. I was surprised when the girls walked up from behind the car. They said they were walking to Eriana's when Kenzie felt that she should turn around. I was late again today (only the 2nd time yeah me) but I knew I was so I drove straight to Eriana's. The girls were there but told me this story. When they got off the bus and I wasn't there they didn't know what to do, even though they've been told. They couldn't decide if they should wait for me or walk to Eriana's. So they walked all around until they found a dry spot, then knelt down and said a prayer. When they got up they felt like they should walk to Eriana's. I was so impressed that my girls thought to do that. I would have loved to have seen my two little girls kneeling in prayer on the sidewalk over a problem. Needless to say McKenzie is getting my old tracfone for these occasions so she can call me while they walk straight to Eriana's with Eriana.

Out of the mouth of babes

2009-02-16T23:35:00.000-08:00

My kids seem to continually say and do the goofiest things. I sometimes wonder what people think goes on in our home. Sunday I left Sacrament meeting because I really had to pee. When I came back Hailey wanted to know where I was. Now when Hailey talks in church she doesn't whisper. She talks just like your half way across the room from her at home and she wants to make sure she's heard.
"Mom where'd you go?" Whispering I say, "To the bathroom Ha." Getting louder now "Oh did you have to poop?" "No, I had a bunch of water to drink before church and I had to pee really bad." Very understandingl she replies "Oh did you pee in your pants?" "No Ha I did not" "well then what took you so long?" (I had to fix my tights.)
I can only assume she thought this because I usually try to restrict Sacrament meeting bathroom trips to emergencies only. But I really had to pee.

Greg of course came to Relief Society with me because you know how mean those primary teachers are. Usually when I lead the music he stretches out across every available seat and takes a rest from his strenuous tantrum throwing. However, during the closing song on Sunday, he perked right up and sang along. I could tell it was nowhere close to what we were singing (How Beautiful Thy Temples Lord) or even the same rhythm. When our song ended Greg kept right on singing loudly as can be "Truly Scrumptious you too are truly scrumptios..."

When we were walking in from the parking lot home Greg slipped on a hill he was climbing and slid down on his bum. He proceeded to continue walk in crying and fussing. When I said "Oh Greggers you're ok", he immediately stopped fussing and said "Yeah I know" and ran off. What a drama boy

Tonight we went to my parents' house for my Dad's birthday. During dinner the kids kept asking Dave to get them things over and over. Finally my dad said to one of them "why don't you go get it yourself, you know where it is, your dads not your slave." Greggers piped up "No mommy's my slave." To which Hailey replied " No mommy says she's NOT our slave." Umm, I think Greggers definately has some mommy issues. Sa's going to have to retrain him because I'm obviously doing a poor job.

Hailey's 1st lost tooth

2009-02-10T23:36:00.000-08:00

Hailey's had this loose tooth for long enough that I'd forgotten about it even being loose. Sunday afternoon Dave was swinging her upside down and it just popped out. She was so excited to loose her first tooth! It makes her feel like such a big girl. The tooth fairy even left her a gold dollar and a note. (in case you're wondering how the tooth fairy knows when to come to your house, she has a giant map that lights up on your house when someone there loses a tooth.)

Lessons from primary

2009-02-09T23:57:00.000-08:00

Greggers has quit going to primary because his beloved Cameron and Markus aren't there anymore after our ward split. How do you explain to a three year old that his ward has been split into pieces and now there's no one there he knows anymore? As you can imagine church now consists of Greg clinging to me, sucking his lip for comfort. When we try to walk into the primary room, he wraps his arms and legs around me and screams "Noooo, no primary! I no like primary!" When I asked him why he said "because Cramwron and Markus not there." I tried to convince that the new kids and teachers were nice too to which he said " NO they bite my fingers like this (demonstrates) and hit me and are mean." I highly doubt it. I think he's reliving some afternoons with Hailey, not primary. Apparantly he must have accidentally absorbed something while we sit in there with him crying, because tonight during family home evening he started rambling on about primary and a bunch of stuff we didn't get but at the end he said "and then the Holy Ghost went home." To which Dave replied "it must have been to our family home evening."

Little Twilighters

2009-02-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

My kids are totally obsessed with the Twilight soundtrack. They are constantly requesting it. This is them singing their favorite song, track 5 by Mutemath. They call it the Aaaawwww song.

Being Late

2009-01-27T17:18:00.000-08:00

So most of you know that I have a chronic lateness problem. It seems no matter how hard I try or how much time I give myself, I am still late. There is always a reason, but I'm sure it just sounds like I'm making excuses most of the time.

To reinterate my point let me share with you today's experience. We had an appointment to meet with our new landlord at noon. I ran down to warm up the car while I got shoes and coats on. I got Connor ready, then went to snag Greg, only to find that he'd used this short window of time to poop in his underwear. Never a quick cleanup. I raced through as quickly as I could and redressed him. As I'm putting Greg's shoes back on, Connor crawls by with a very telling odor. Are you kidding me?! By the time I get my second stinky boy changed and redressed its now the time we should be there. Had they held out for half an hour we could have been on time. It seems like no matter what I do, I destined to be late.

Hailey's birthday party

2009-01-27T17:05:00.001-08:00

Despite the neighbors intentions, Hailey's birthday party was a lot of fun. The girls made necklaces and put on makeup. Hailey's friend Hannah got her a Barbie swimming pool. You haven't lived until you've played with a Barbie pool that actually holds water! Luckily I made them fill it up in the bathroom because when they were done they decided to just dump it out on the floor rather than the sink or tub.

Maryann, Hannah, McKenzie, and Hailey

Hailey's very excited about her birthday cake.

Hailey really wanted a ballerina cake like I made McKenzie a few years back. Of course she decided this after I'd already been shopping for her party. Lucky for her I had to make a milk run so I could get the extra stuff for this mondo cake.

Dave thinks hes so funny

2009-01-18T18:58:00.000-08:00

After I posted my last post I left the computer out and the blog logged on. Dave has never logged on because he thinks hes too cool. Anyways he thought it would be funny to put a post that I was drinking all day as a joke that I shouldn't leave my stuff out. Ha, ha I've since removed it so as not to freak people out.

We were watching this Smuckers stars on ice thing this afternoon and they had the Olympic gymnasts on too. At one point the men's team came out to perform and I commented on their arm muscles. McKenzie's response was "wow they must do a lot of workout videos." Yeah I don't think you get that from 30 minutes of Denise Austin.

You're a mean one grinchy neighbors

2009-01-17T12:00:00.000-08:00

Right now I've got 4 little Hannah Montana impersonators dancing up a storm in my living room. Hailey's having her birthday party and while I've planned some quiet acitivites, this is a 6 year olds birthday party. Naturally the second the girls started showing up and the noise level increased slightly, the phone was ringing. I explained we were having a birthday party for our 6 year old and it would be over by 1 and I'd do my best, sorry. Now you'd think that since the sun has made a rare appearance today they might LEAVE THEIR HOVEL FOR ONCE but no they will remain in their little tv viewing cave calling if the kids accidentally have fun. I tried having them roll a ball back and forth instead of dancing for a few minutes but that didn't last long and I thought screw them, they'll get over it and its her birthday party. I've stopped answering my phone and the door until the parties over. Avoidance is the best policy. I hope they have an oops and its triplets. That'll put a kink in their perfectly childless lives.

Birthdays

2009-01-12T15:10:00.000-08:00

Its hard to believe Connor's already 1. The year has flown by. He's such a sweet baby. He's so happy and busy. Sadly for me his favorite game is to dump out all the cupboards. Apparantly it is really funny. I'm so scared I have another Hailey on my hands. That's all I need. He still loves to nurse and is a fat litte chunk. He has some amazing thunder thighs. I want him to stay small since he's my last baby but that little stinker just keeps on growing.

Hailey turned 6 two days after Connor's birthday. I remember when she was my fat, crazy baby. Now she's 6 and a kindergartener. She can't wait to go to first grade and be "really" big. She's a real goof ball. Ha's been funny from the get go. Her laugh as a baby was just hysterical. Now she's all about silly one liners. Yesterday at church she started jiggling my arms. Then she announced "Mommy your arms are chubby. You need to do jiggle free arms, like your jiggle free buns." (I have this workout video called jiggle free buns which is a hysterical title. It never ceases to be funny. The kids will walk behind me in the store and announce their opinion on the jiggle free ness of my butt)
Connor enjoying his cake. This boy doesn't turn down anything. At least he eats like Hailey. And he already loves chocolate.

Hailey and Connor with their birthday cake. I love Connor's horrified look when Hailey picks him up. He loves her but he seems a bit frightened when she gets him.

Hailey's fancy skirt from Chrissy. Note the glittery top again.

Connor really loved the confetti Carrie got him. I'm sure there was a present involved but its not nearly as great as confetti!

A chip off the old block.

I took this picture of Connor sleeping one night. I was trying to capture that sweet baby sleeping. I took a bunch. I got Photoshop for Christmas and I'm hoping I can edit one of them up to something great.

So....where's the Wii?

2009-01-12T14:26:00.000-08:00

So I know you've all been waiting on the edge of your seats for me to update my blog since we lead such an incredibly thrilling life. Somehow all of my spare time lately has been sucked up into some sort of black hole where clean socks have become a luxury.
Christmas is so fun with little kids. They are just so excited and full of hope and expectations with none of the worry. Greggers has gotten really excited about Thomas the Train since hanging out with his little buddy Cameron. He was so sure that Santa was going to bring him one. But since he doesn't really have any concept of time (he thinks everyday is Sunday) every time there was new box in the livingroom or a new gift wrapped under the tree, he would come sprinting into our room announcing "Santa brought me my Thomas Train!" Then we'd have to explain that no it wasn't Christmas yet we just wrapped a present or two. So Christmas morning when he came out and saw that Thomas set he literally did a dance for joy. He was spinning and jumping and whooping in a circle. It was the best day of his life. Now Hailey came out and saw Greg got his beloved train and she'd gotten her coveted over priced Princess Barbie and suv for the dollhouse and Kenzie gotten what she'd asked for and assumed her every wish was fulfilled. It went something like this "Hey Santa brought by Barbie. And my dollhouse van." Looking around the living room "so where's the Wii?" I had no response except laughter. See a few weeks before Christmas the girls had decided they wanted a Wii since their friends had them. Unfortunately Santa was done shopping and lacked the budget for a Wii. Hailey in her childlike innocence had assumed since she got everything else surely the Wii was somewhere.

Hailey in her "Fancy Nancy" outfit. The skirt and top are sparkly (of course) and there's a super sparkly purse to match. If its glittery she wants it.

Connor first Santa present. He only likes the walking toy if we lock it so it won't move. I see those Paulitz wussy genes are strong.

Kenzie and her eyeclops she wanted so much. Its some magnifier you hook to your tv and things are 200 times bigger. Its actually pretty disgusting.

Greggers and the before mentioned dance of joy. Its hard to really capture it on a photo but it was great. Unfortunately Santa misjudged the size of the toy as it looks much smaller on the box. When it was assembled Christmas Eve it turned out to be the size of his toddler bed. Maybe a few inches bigger. I guess I can't blame my brother for his oversized toys he sends anymore.

Greg and McKenzie playing in the snow. As you can see Greg enjoys it as much as he did last year. Well worth all the snow clothes we bought him for the two times he went out. I guess it didn't help that it was up to his chest.

Hailey buried in the snow. The girls thought all the snow was great. Only Kenzie about had a panic attack when the carports started collapsing. (ours is fine, luckily)

Connors first Santa picture. He looks so very excited!

Greg and Eli on New Year's Eve. These two are both so obsessed with Cars. We put the movie in for them and they were quoting along with it. We had more fun watching them watch the movie than anything else.

My dad snowboarding in his front yard. I think this is about as far as he made it but for Dad pretty impressive. I made it all the way to the bottom of the hill a time or two without falling.

Tim's wife Jackie snowboarding in the yard. Tim the kid my mother used to have to drag in from the snow hardly came out. His California bred wife who had never seen the snow would stay out for an hour at a time. Go figure.

I came home from work one day to find these two sitting in the kitchen with an empty pie plate between them and two forks.

Hailey's Wii story has a happy ending. At my parent's house that afternoon one gift was a treasure hunt. At the end was a Wii for our family from my sisters and brother in law. Not knowing what was at the end, I didn't have a camera. It would have been as good as Greg's dance for joy. When the end of the package was opened and McKenzie saw what it was her mouth hung open and she held her breath until she was bright red and we all screamed at her to breathe. The kid had tears in her eyes she was so happy. I guess if Santa fails you always have aunts.

A Griswold Family Christmas

2008-12-18T23:01:00.000-08:00

Nik's always said the Paulitz's could stand in for National Lampoons Christmas. Evidenced by my dad's love of gigantic trees. The bigger the better. Its become so expected that a normal size tree is a disappointment. We went up with my dad, Carrie, and Scott to Fourth of July Pass the first weekend of the month to cut down a tree. It was so warm it almost felt like cheating. Usually when we would go get a tree it was freezing and there was too much snow to walk (I'm sure there is now). Instead it was almost warm and muddy. The kids had a great time tromping through the mud and climbing the hills searching for the perfect tree. I was trying to get a shot of how truly ridiculous my dad's car looked with the trees on top. But I couldn't capture the essence of it. The trees stuck off of every edge of the car. Every time I looked in my rearview mirror on the way home I started to laugh. Somehow the sight of the Vue with trees billowing in the wind off the sides never ceased being funny. In his defense only two of them are for him (my parents have taken to having 2 trees in the living room for a "forest" look). The third is Carrie and Scotts. I haven't seen the trees in the house yet but I'm told I won't be disappointed. I've always set the standard by the year the furniture had to be in the kitchen because the tree was too full. Apparantly it took dad a while to figure out how to get furniture and the tree in the living room so we can sit on Christmas. He says "6 people fit if they really like each other, 4 if they don't."

The girls were pretty good little helpers. They tried to help carry everything. Carrie and I cut a bunch of cedar branches and the girls gathered them up for us. Greggers mostly played in the mud and we left Connor with Grandma. We thought climbing hills with the kids would be too hard to take the baby, but they were actually little troopers.

Upon closer inspection this was deemed too small for dad, but just right for Carrie.

Dave and the girls ready to cut down the winner. True to form I choose a tree that had to have 4 feet cut off to fit in our apartment. I guess its genetic.

Scott, Carrie, and Dad. The mighty tree hunters. We bring saws not station wagons.

Oh Santa!

2008-12-06T21:57:00.000-08:00

Tonight at the ward party we were singing "With Wondering Awe." During the chorus it says "Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna to his name." I noticed Greggers was singing something different. His version goes "Oh Santa, Oh Santa, Oh Santa is his name." Good to know we're teaching him the true meaning of Christmas.

When McKenzie saw the Santa at our ward party she gasped "I think he's the real one." (Kudos to whoever the ward Santa is. He's really good)

And of course Hailey always has a gem or two up her sleeve. In the car on the way home I asked her what she told Santa. "I told him I was good." Trying to tease her I asked "Oh, were you telling him the truth? Did you tell him how you scratched Greg?" Very matter of factly she replied, "No I lied so I'd get more presents." Good old Hay she tells it like it is.

Happy Birthday Greggers

2008-11-30T16:10:00.000-08:00

I know that Greg's birthday was Friday, but I just haven't had two seconds to sit down and do this until now. Its hard to believe that my little boy is three. I guess he's not a baby anymore. He's so sweet and loving. I love his little hugs and the feeling of little hands on the back of my neck. I know one day that will stop and I'll miss it. Greg still has a few left over baby habits. He still sucks his lips when he's sleeping, upset, or tired, and drags Tag around all day. But he's trying so hard to be a big boy. He likes to help cook and he's finally starting to dress himself. No interest in going near the potty though. Who needs that anyways when you have the convenience of a diaper. You never have to take a break to go to the bathroom. Sometimes he likes to announce to everyone "I'm peeing now." Thanks for the update buddy.

We had a little birthday party for him on Saturday. Two of his nursery buddies came over and Eli came down. I've discovered that boy parties are much simpler than girl parties. All they care about is playing and frosting. The boys were more than happy to run around playing for an hour and as long as I followed up with something with frosting on it we were good. No elaborate games, crafts, cakes or decorations. He really didn't care. The mesh of noises from four little boys playing was pretty funny. Simultaneous shooting, driving, and roaring noises that only little boys make.

Greggers in his pirate costume we got him. He got a dinosaur build a bear earlier. His little friends brought him Kachow color wonders and Kachow bath toys. And a special thanks to Traci for letting Markus bring a guns and army guys. She claims she didn't know if I liked guns or not, but come on you know who I voted for its not a shocker that I'm not a gun fan. She thinks she subconsciously did it just to spite me. (j/k Traci, you know I love ya but I can't let you live this down) The kids love playing with the guns now and I've only stepped on one army guy so far.

Greggers and Cameron

Eli, Markus, and Hailey, and a little bit of Noah's head

See cupcakes and a little funfetti frosting and he's pleased as punch. I don't think McKenzie would be equally impressed if this were her cake. Ahhh the perks of boys.

Happy Birthday little buddy, we love you.

I'll get you neighbors and your little dog too!!

2008-11-10T23:57:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this hoping you will all feel free to leave me a comment with some advice. Our downstairs neighbors are of the small, purse-dog instead of kids variety. They admittedly don't want kids, drive fancy cars, and wear fancy clothes to work. We obviously have nothing in common with them. They've taken to complaining about the noise we make. Apparantly we are giving their dog anxiety attacks and they're getting worse everyday. Now at first we were all nicey nice about it to each other, but its just escalating. Apparantly we sound like we are coming through the ceiling all day long. The second one of my kids does something they aren't supposed to like jump off the furniture, or body slam another person to the ground they are up here lickety split. I'm telling you these people must sprint up the stairs because I'll barely finish telling them to quit it and there she is. She gets madder every day. I keep telling her that we're trying to move as soon as our lease is up but that just makes her madder since thats not until March. I have tried to explain how hard it is to keep 4 kids quiet and that kids are just noisy but she does not get it. Tonight she came up and tried to get me to come down and listen to my family's noise. I admit its not a terrible idea but the kids were all over, I'd just gotten off work and was trying to throw dinner together, and Dave was trying to get ready to go to work. Any fool could see I didn't exactly have the time to come lounge around their fancy apartment watching their big screen and playing their grand piano while I listen to how loud my kids are. Instead she stood in my doorway for 20 minutes while dinner got cold and we argued as nicely as possible. Then she suggested that we move to a 1st floor in the complex, we wouldn't even have to sign a new contract! Well yeah for you lady but look around. Do you see all this crap? Do I look like I have the time? NO! I don't. Nor do I have the desire to greatly inconvenience myself for your dog! I'm sorry we are loud. Go do something for once in your lives besides watch your stupid tv. I told her to give her dog an anxiety pill (nicely I swear) and she basically told me to have my kids walk solemnly around the house all day. Aarrgh!!!!
So here's my dilemna. I refuse to make my children act like monks in their own home. Kids skip and run and 2 year olds jump up and down when they are mad. I understand her dog is her kid and all but what do I do? She complained to the manager who said too bad since we aren't noisy during "quiet hours". I have tried to explain over and over that we are doing our best but there are 4 of them and 2 of us. And quite frankly they are children and I will not make them behave like adults (as if they would listen anyways). And if you want peace and quiet don't live in an apartment. End of story. We have lived under a rock band, a large family, and spouse abusers. Deal with it. I try to keep the jumping to a minimum, but its cold now and we have Hailey. End of story. And if my kids want to play hide and seek at 4 pm they should be able too. And if I want to do an exercise video at 10 am I should be able to. This is my home. Even if I rent it. However, since I know I can be hot headed and stubborn I pose the question. Should I just ignore them and let kids be kids, or do I become nazi mommy and make them tip toe around all day? How do I make the next 4 months livable for all of us without the neighbors slashing my tires?

Mortifying Mommy Moments

2008-11-08T22:43:00.000-08:00

For every old lady who has commented to me on how wonderful and sweet my children are, I dedicate this story to you. This evening I needed to go to Target and JoAnns. We aren't talking major overload the cart grocery shopping here, so you'd think my kids could handle an hour in public. But noooo. Ten minutes into Target, I'm browsing the clearance racks for a new top and hear my girls fighting. I kid you not, when I looked over there they were, rolling around on the floor wrestling over a shoe. Literally wrestling! On the floor, in a crowded Target. After they get the whispering shouting from me, they proceed to hide behind the racks of clothes against the back wall and pull ALL of the clothes off. Seriously. McKenzie is almost 8. We picked up the things we needed and cruised through toys (my new Gregory bribery). The entire time I'm telling Hailey stay off the cart. Don't hang on the cart you'll tip it over. Get off of the cart. Over and over and over. Hailey is either hanging off the cart tipping it onto 2 wheels, or running off leaving me yelling at her like some bad mom who can't keep track of her wayward child. Who I'd like to add is almost 6 and knows better.

Needless to say by the time we get to JoAnns I'm not impressed. I only needed 2 things for a project. Get in, get out. Immediately Hailey starts hanging off the cart again. The JoAnns carts are teeny tiny and tip easily. And Connor is sitting in the front. We're standing in the notions aisle and I tell her for millionth time to get off the cart now! As soon as she hops off, I turn to get what I need. I've got my hands full while I compare items, when out of the corner of my eye I see the cart moving in a weird way. I turn just in time to see the cart tipping over, towards the handle with Hailey scrambling to get out of its way before it lands on her. All I can see is poor Connor's head headed towards the concrete floor. I drop everything, grab him like an inch from the ground, and just went balistic psycho mommy on Hailey. I was so ticked off at the kid I couldn't see straight. I didn't realize how loudly I was yelling at her until I looked up to see a woman standing at the end of the aisle with wide eyes and her mouth hanging open. She's just staring at me like I'm a crazed drug addict who's beating her child. Lest you think I have completely lost it I wasn't saying anything mean just the usual "HAILEY HUISMAN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING! I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH THE CART! variety of yelling. There may have been some strong, shaking finger pointing going on also. I was angry and it scared the crap out of me. So I take it down to scary mommy whisper-yelling and find her a time out corner until I stop seeing red.

So now you're thinking "man that's embarrassing" glad it wasn't me. But wait, it gets worse. Instead of high tailing it out of there like I maybe should have, I get what I came for. If I drag all those kids into a store I'm getting what I came for. When I walk up to the cutting table every one is literally staring at me. They aren't even trying to hide it. I asked if they heard me yelling and of course they all did. I explained what had happened, but the staring continued. I was trying to be all cool and funny about it, but I think I just came off as lame. And of course the woman at the end of the aisle who witnessed it all was there too. I'm sure as soon as I left she told everyone else about the crazy drug mommy who screamed like a banshy at her kid. One of the employees was on the phone, and I was sure she was calling the police for the first couple of minutes, until I heard her talking about fabric. Then the checkout lady looked at me all weird, and when I asked, she of course had heard it too. I'm pretty sure the whole store heard me screaming at Hailey. I give her an abbreviated version of the story and call the kids who have of course all disappeared. They come flying to the front, Hailey totally body checked Greg on the way, sending him flying. And of course everyone nearby happened to be watching this too. I felt slightly vindicated like "Hey see she is wild its not just me."

I realize some of you probably skimmed my rambling because I'm obviously venting here. The jist of my blog is this: my kids are not suited for public appearances. They act like animals and I totally lost my temper (and don't feel too bad about it). I was horribly embarrassed.
The rest of you are probably thinking "um Liz isn't this what happens everytime you take your kids out?" Sadly yes. Sometimes the truth hurts.

Fall

2008-11-04T00:11:00.001-08:00

We always take the kids up to Manito Park in the spring and summer but it is just beautiful in the fall. They hadn't raked the leaves up yet and it so pretty. We went to an area we don't usually go to since we usually stick to the pond and flower gardens and there was this whole quiet, grassy section with all of these leaves. It was just a perfect fall day.

Sadly this is the best picture I got of all 4 kids. My camera batteries died and I didn't have any backups. I even asked a couple of other people I'd seen around with cameras for some but no luck.

Mmm leaves. Nothing like a little extra fiber in your diet there buddy. Hailey loves her baby.

I just love this picture of Connor. Dave has decided his new nickname will be Chubs in honor of the original Chubs since our boy is living up to that nickname quite nicely.

We took the kids up to Hidden Acres apple orchard to get apples and pumpkins a few weekends ago. I'd wanted to go back to Walter's where we'd always gond as kids but it has turned into some sort of shopping mall for people who want to pretend they did something outdoorsy. They have a parking director, huge crowds, and when I tried to go into the store to I got shoved around by women in leather jackets and high heeled boots. Hello this is an apple farm not Nordstroms! Needless to say I was disappointed that my childhood memories were not going to be lived up to, so we left for less fancy pastures.

The kids enjoying their cart ride courtesy of Dave.

We had been pumping up this hayride with the farmer all afternoon, the kids were so excited especially Greg. Like any smart parent we saved it for last so we'd have something to hold over their heads for good behavior. Only when we got to the hayride, the driver was leaving. I chased him down and asked if he was doing anymore. He was on his way home. So I gave him this sad story about how excited my kids were and my little boy who was so looking forward to it. Then to clinch the deal I pointed over at my kids who were all standing so forlornly by the tractor (they had some pretty genuinely sad faces on). The poor guy didn't stand a chance. He was like geesh I can't say no to that and hopped back on his tractor. Thanks hay ride driver! You made their day. He even sang farm songs the whole time.

Hailey was our pumpkin hauler. She ran back and forth between the cart and the other kids carrying pumpkins. Surprisingly (or maybe not so much) after all this and a soccer game she still came home bursting with energy. Go figure.

Halloween...You Betcha!

2008-11-03T23:54:00.000-08:00

McKenzie and Hailey have discovered the true meaning of Halloween...eat until you're sick. As soon as you're feeling slightly better, eat a bunch more. They were so hyper this weekend I thought I was going to go crazy. Honestly, Greg didn't eat a regular meal for 3 days. Poor Greg was so freaked out about Halloween. He thought it would be a bunch of scary people jumping out at him the whole time. When we went to the ward Halloween party on Tuesday, we assured him all the way there it would not be scary. Our youth put on a carnival for Halloween, and we happened to park right by the window where they were doing a haunted house. So much for trusting us. We hop out of the car to the sound of kids screaming and poor Greg froze in his tracks. We made sure to steer him clear of that and stick to freaked out child appropriate activies. My parents went trick or treating with us on Halloween since Dave had to work. We found a fun neighborhood to trick or treat in and yay! it wasn't freezing. It was the best Halloween in years since I didn't want to just hide in my car with the heat blazing. Greg was still scared and walked around solemly all night sucking on his lips (its his scared thing.) My parents took us to Krispy Kreme afterwards because the kids just hadn't had enough sugar coarsing through their veins yet.

Here's Kenz with her beloved donut on a string. Sadly she isn't posing for this shot. That kissing face is her actual normal face before she eats a donut. She loves them a little too much.

The girls and their loot. Greggers is my timid little dinosaur in the background.

At the ward Halloween party. Greggers is a dinosaur, Connor has Greg's old cowboy costume, Kenzie is a princess and Hailey is Hannah Montana complete with fiber optic glowing wig. A necessity for every little girl.

I don't remember dressing up for Halloween since the 6th grade when I went as the Phantom of the Opera and no one knew who I was supposed to be (hard to believe I didn't have any friends, I know.) So with that great track record, I decided to see how many more people I could make not want to be my friend and dressed up as Sarah Palin. My nametag said "McCain - Palin, Gettin Mavericky" I'll let you be the judge if this was meant to be supportive or ironic. Let's just say when I went trick or treating it didn't go over as planned, but the kids bagged extra candy from my "fans." Bonus : I got to say "you bethcha" a lot.

Chronic Lateness

2008-10-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

So you all know how I'm always late to everything and therefore my entire family is always late to everything including church. So this past Sunday we were on time for once. As in we heard the announcements on time. Something we haven't done in months. Usually we stroll in seconds before the Sacrament Prayer and hang out in the foyer until after Sacrament is passed. This means Greg only has to wait a few minutes to break into his snack bar he's brought along and we miss all the opening stuff. So as we're raising our arm for releasings and sustainings Greggers keeps asking me what I'm doing. And he keeps asking louder and louder "mom why you waving like that" "who you waving at?" I'm trying to tell him what's going on but he just keeps asking louder and louder. I'm thinking its quite apparant to those immediately around us that we aren't here for sustainings too often. Then he's freaking out that he can't have his snacks. See we have this rule that he can't have his snack until after Sacrament is passed. Being on time probably made the time until snacks seem like an eternity to a 2 year old. Now he's yelling "is it done yet?" Because usually he doesn't witness anything other than Sacrament being brought into the foyer. I was hoping that even though it seemed really loud no one else actually heard my son's announcement that the Huisman family is chronically late. No such luck. When I went into the foyer with Connor later a woman that had been sitting near us joked about Greg's commentary earlier. So there you have it. My lateness has gotten so bad that my son thinks church is some snacks followed by nursery.

Mississippi

2008-10-11T00:06:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to unloading my camera so I finally have pictures of our trip to Mississippi. I realize I'm a little behind since this was a few weeks ago but whatever when am I ever on time for anything? We had a great time. Hailey was so excited to see Maddie, it was probably the happiest day of her life. A few days ago she was feeling sad about friends at school. She said yeah these girls, Joanna and MacKenzie were her friends but Maddie was special. It was so sweet. Greggers and Sa got to work on their wedding plans. While Hailey worked to re-corrupt the Campbell kids. It was so great to see where they lived. Gregger's is really enjoying his custard. They have this great icecream place called Bop's there. We went twice in three days. When I asked Maddie what her favorite thing about Mississippi was she yelled "Bops!"

These are some pictures of the kids at the Jackson zoo. Hailey and Sa look just like sisters.

Theres this cool little plexiglass dome the kids can stick there head up through and watch the beavers. Unfortunately the pump was broken so the water was bright green and there were no beavers. But hey apparantly its still fun to stick your head up there.
This is Hailey's monkey. He followed her wherever she went around cage and would climb up to where we were. He probably sensed her innate ability to find a treat anywhere and thought he could get a hookup.
Hailey and Maddie on the carosel.

We went to the Mississippi natural history museum. It was a lot better than I thought it would be. It was actually pretty cool. The kids are all piled on a giant frog statue.

Greggers running around Nik and Da's new backyard. Its hard to tell but the grass is as tall as him. Everything there seems like it grows really fast. Da's dream life. A lawn of fast growing grass. How long tell he's got Nik out there 9 months pregnant mowing the grass? I see the concrete lawn coming.

Connor and Jack playing while we check out the house. My favorite part of their house is the master bath. Its so awesome. I took several pictures of it. I think the fact that I was so excited about a bathroom may indicate I've lived in an apartment too long.

Here's the tragic death of the Previa. I think it looked worse in person. It sure felt worse. I really enjoyed the way the back hatch would rattle every tiny bump afterwards like it was about to fall off.

It was a great trip. It was so good to see them again. Mississippi was actually way more normal than I'd expected. I expected a bunch of weird backwards hicks and women that looked like Designing Women. Its so pretty there, everything is so green. I know why Miss is the fattest state in the nation, AWESOME FOOD! Nik took me to this great restaurant called Juleps. I'm still craving those cheese fritters. Yay to Da for watching all 6 kids so Nik and I could have a girls night out. I think it was good for me and Hailey to see where they lived. I thought the fact that it took an entire day to fly there would be a good indicator of how far they lived. But Greg still thinks we can just hop in the car and cruise on over. It was so great of Dave to set this trip up for us. It was so thoughtful of him. He loves to torment me about Nik, but he really came through on this. Who'd of thought he'd think this up and research it out for me. He secretly wants of to be neighbors again, I know it.

Boys are so special

2008-09-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

Sadly this is a true story. I was changing Gregger's stinky diaper when he starts wiggling his bum all around and straining. Thinking there was something going on I didn't want to experience I tried to quickly put a new diaper on him. He starts yelling "no, no I trying to fart." Well that's just great but I'd really like to have that region covered just in case if you know what I mean. "NO mom I want to fart on you. Take my diaper off!" I'm hurrying faster now, not taking any chances here. "Mom I want to fart you head! Its coming, take it off", pulling his diaper off. I quickly re-diapered, wrenched his pants on and hurried him on his merry way. He chased me out of the room yelling "Mom wait, I want to fart your head!" Ah motherhood. Seriously what is turning my sweet little toddler into this disgusting little boy? Is this what I have to look forward to?

How to Potty Train Your Son in a Day

2008-09-25T10:13:00.001-07:00

Greg has been showing a lot of interest in using the potty lately which made me think he's ready to give it a go. We decided to hold off until we got back from Mississippi and then see if he was still interested. Well he came back as excited as ever so I thought Great! lets go for it! Here's my simple plan to potty train your child in a day

Day 1

1. Take him to the store and pick out really cool underwear. Very exciting!

2. Take them home and try them all on. Make sure you pick him up in front of a mirror in each pair so he can see how great his bum looks with Thomas the Train or Lightening McQueen on it. Assume that his shrieking like an excited girl at a Jonas Brothers concert means he just can't wait to use the potty.

3. Take him potty, cheer wildly for tiny trickle. Repeat over and over for an hour.

4. Fold up a towel on his seat in the stroller and tell him its just in case his pee comes out while we're on a walk. Remind him, your pee goes in the potty. When I got home Greg jumped out excitedly and yelled "mama I peed on the washclof!", beaming. Umm I think he doesn't get it.

5. Change his clothes, take him potty, cheer, rewards.

6. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

7. Suggest after outfit after outfit that maybe he should take a nap with his diaper. Greg refuses and I cave. To my surprise he wakes up dry. Ten minutes later he comes out with noticabely wet underwear which he swears are dry. When I question him he finally says "Yeah I peed the floor in my woom" then runs off leaving his underwear behind.

8. By this point I figured what the heck I'll let him run naked for a while, he's just peeing all over anyways.

9. Now we really had to go somewhere so I tackled him down to dress him. Imagine my joy to find some tell tale smears on his naked bum. Our conversation went something like this

"Um Greggers did you poop?"

"Yeah" very non-chalantly

"Where"

"Over dere"

"Where over there"

"On the floor"

"Where on the floor"

"Umm under the table I tink"

Twenty minutes of hands and knees searching revealed nothing. Hopefully that means he was just saying stuff and those smears meant he stopped in his tracks, but I'm a little afraid of a surprise later.

10. At this point in the day, when he ran from me holding his underwear yelling he wanted a diaper, I gladly gave him one. Which he wore the rest of the day.

Day 2

1. Get child up put on clean diaper.

In the end Dave and I came to the conclusion that maybe the underwear are just some new item of character clothing to wear and peeing in the potty is something fun to do sometimes. I'm pretty sure in his head those underwear were just like a diaper waiting to be used then replaced.

Little Cherubs

2008-09-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

The other day Greg and Hailey asked if I would get down this huge box of train tracks for them to play with. I said sure, as soon as the boys room is picked up so you can set the train up in there. They were back in record time with the room reportedly clean as can be. As I walked down the hall, they ran ahead of me and lined up next to each other in front of Greg's bed beaming like the Von Trapp children with their shiny, little, blond heads. Thinking to myself "how sweet. They're so proud of their cleaning job," I start to get down the train set all the while telling them what a great job they did. Then out of the corner of my eye I see the real reason for their cherubic smiles and strategic line up. They've piled every single toy from the floor (and there was a lot) on Greg's bed and tried to block the giant pile with their bodies. No wonder it got done so quickly. Gotta give them points for trying I guess. I helped them clean it up right, and got them the trains. Meanwhile I learned that if your children come to you smiling like the Chesire cat, there's probably a reason and it's not always good.

The Dorky Kid on the Playground

2008-09-12T00:17:00.001-07:00

Tonight while she was getting ready for bed, McKenzie started telling me her sad tale about life on the playground. She's never been one to have a ton of friends. She usually has one or two that she just really loves. But she had a few little friends last year and one on again, off againer that seemed to really matter to her. Apparantly there's all sorts of sadness and difficulty happening as a result of some sort of jumproping club and mean girls. Most of you have witnessed my embarrassing lack of coordination, which sadly Kenzie has inherited. This does not make one popular in the jumproping club apparantly. Basically its a long, tragic tale and at the heart of it is this poor little girl who doesn't really have a lot of friends and is terribly shy and self aware and I think maybe getting picked on a little. In short she's me. McKenzie's story is the story of my entire childhood. I was the sad, dork at school with one friend only. And if that friend was gone one day or played with someone else, well my day was wrecked. I didn't really move much past this one friend scenario until 10th grade. I tried to reassure her that mommy only had one friend total until 5th grade. Surprisingly this did not help. I thought maybe she'd snort and make a face like "Geez mom even I have more friends than that," but all she said was "who Nikki?" I tried to give her advice, but I feel wildly underqualified. Making new friends has never been my best skill. I went the "well you have to deal with mean people your whole life and this is a great learning experience" route"but that fell short too. Hailey, who I was so worried about sitting all alone on the bus, apparantly jumps on and has a slew of friends to sit with. She doesn't want to sit by her sister, I thought it would be the other way around. My heart aches for McKenzie. I know her pain but I don't know what to do. I want to go down to that school and say: "Hey you bratty little girls. She'll get better at jumprope if you just let her try. McKenzie is sweet and smart and loyal and way cuter than all of you so you just better be her friend or you're missing out." (Pretty sure that wouldn't go over too well.) I know she has to fight her own battles but man it sucks being the dorky kid at school.

Ode to Baconsalt

2008-09-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

Just having finished another great meal seasoned with our new favorite condiment, I want to share our great discovery with you all. Bacon flavored salt! I know you are thinking wow what a genius invention why didn't anyone think of this before, because that is exactly what we thought! It seems like such a no brainer. Duh of course. Apparantly its in huge demand with the troops and the company ships a case a month to different units. We found out about it in a newspaper article and are now making it our personal mission to test exactly how many foods we can improve by making them taste like bacon. So far we like it on eggs, potatoes, sandwiches, rice, pasta, and of course all meat. Dave has a friend that's a chef and likes to apply a thick coating to steak before grilling. The guy swears by it. That's our next experiment. Since I know some of you out there share my feeling that anything with bacon is probably a hit, I'm spreading the joy. We find it at Trading Company around here, try http://www.baconsalt.com

10 years and a herd of kids later....

2008-09-07T00:45:00.000-07:00

Friday we celebrated our 10th anniversary! I have to say if you want to feel your age get all dressed up, act surprised your nice dress is too tight (I swear its not the icecream), ditch your 4 kids with a sitter (thanks Carrie and Scott), then jump into your sporty minivan for an exciting night out. You can only be gone as long as the baby can stretch. Extra points if your van's mysterious transmission and electrical problems act up. Be sure to get home early so you can go to bed for work the next day. Ahh adulthood.
Its been a great 10 years. I'm blessed to have such a wonderful husband. He may be the shyest guy on the planet but that works since I talk too much. I knew I'd marry him right after I met him. An experience on our second date that showed me what a great dad he'd be clinched it. I'm so glad I have him in my life. I can't wait for 10 more years (and no more kids, cross your fingers everyone)

The Dance of Joy

2008-09-06T21:46:00.000-07:00

Hooray for me and mom's everywhere! The kids are back in school. I would like to say that I love public school. They come and cart the kids away first thing in the morning and bring them back in the afternoon, educated and fed. What more could I ask for? Granted their school isn't the best and not very challenging so I do try and do a little extra at home, but its not the ghetto and their safe and sound so away they go! Hailey didn't get into afternoon kindergarten (sigh) but she's gone all afternoon while the boys nap. Which means I actually have time to complete a thought and a page of a book. Something I haven't done in months. When my kids are home their is no such thing as alone with your thoughts. Here's some pictures of the kids fun summer. Sorry they are in totally random order. Ah, Hailey the fashion model.

Connor is sitting up and getting ready to crawl. I don't think I'm too excited about that since getting the kids to pick up all of their tiny crap is virtually impossible. There are Barbie shoes and beads hiding all over just waiting for him to put in his mouth. No amount of threatening and yelling seems to matter. I took all the Barbie accessories away months ago yet I still keep finding holdouts everywhere. I tell you those things multiply on their own.

McKenzie's first day of 2nd grade

Hailey's second day of kindergarten. Dave took her to school the first day and in his rush forgot the all important first day picture. Hailey says kindergarten is super hard because you have to sit still.

At the park withEli. Picking up on the ladies I see. We went to Shadle park with Sharon and her kids a week or two ago. The kids had a great time. The girls and Eric playing went something like this "Eric you're the handsome prince and I'm the princess." "No, I'm a warrior and this is our battleship." "NO Eric you're not. YOU'RE THE PRINCE"

He pretended to hate it but I think deep down he didn't mind too much. Greggers was so thrilled to see Eli. He misses his friends so much.

This is a huge playground in Washington Park in Portland. We flew down for the day last week to explore and go to this ballet thing, interesting only to me and McKenzie. Washington Park is huge and has a ton to see. I wish we had more time to explore. Portland has a lot of much cooler stuff than I realized.

The girls at the top of the International Rose Garden in Washington Park overlooking the city.

I took the kids to Kids's Day at Riverfront Park a few weekends ago. They have all of this free stuff you can do set up all over the park. Area businesses have booths set up with free activities and fun stuff for the kids to do like crafts and face painting. Hailey won an Elmo backpack full of Sesame Street toys and felt really special. Afterwards I took the kids to play in the huge fountain in the front of the park. (Yes kids are supposed to play in it) The above picture is the girls snuggled up together in the one towel I brought (saves on laundry if they all share). Funny story about that fountain. Tons of kids run through this huge like 30 feet tall structure. some of them bring swimsuits, some just wear their clothes and deal with the dampness. Well I look over and see some stark naked kid a little older than Greg running around like "Hey look at me" At first I thought he was an escapy but then I saw his sisters also apparantly naked. Upon closer inspection I realized that they were just running around in sopping wet underwear that made it look like they were naked. These girls were older than mine, the oldest was like 9 or 10. I was like alrighty then. Now I had to scope out the parents, surely they were hippies or Europeans (its kind of like how you can always pick the Europeans out at Sandpoint beach because no other self respecting man would wear a speedo to the lake). Nope normal parents, like someone I would be friends with. I had to call someone, alas I only got voicemails so I just left NIk a laughing voicemail about naked families. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or be appalled. For anyone out there thinking "what's the big deal? I let my 9 year old run mostly naked in public all the time." Let me give you a pointer. Put clothes on the kid. It just looks bad. Judgemental people like me think you are a weirdo. And Spokane has a lot of ummm questionable people if you know what I mean.

The kids with their faces painted (you can't really see it but they were pretty proud)

Another randomly placed picture of the Batson kids and mine (minus Eli) at Shadle Park.

We had a great summer. We lived like teenagers. Went to bed super late and slept in (kids too) and were always running around. Hence the lack of blog posts. Fun though it was I was definately ready for school to start. The girls were making me crazy. Dave took the girls to Salt Lake to visit Grandma Huisman a couple of days before school started and they had a great time. Kenzie cried when she had to leave. She doesn't get to see her other Grandma too much. One night while they were gone Greggers and I were in this tiny Greek place grabbing dinner. I was holding him when he said "Mama, let me check your nose." So he shoves his little fingers up there. I thought he meant check with his eyes. I said Gross Greggers and set him down. Tilting his head back he told me to check his now. I stooped down, took a quick peak and assured him it was all clear. He yelled "No with you fingers!" The old Greek guy watching had a good laugh. I'm pretty sure he used extra bleach on our table when we left.

Olympic Fever

2008-08-24T23:06:00.000-07:00

As I write this my kids have just barely gone to bed, having stayed up to catch every second of the closing ceremony. My kids have become completely obsessed with the Olympics. Possibly fueled by my obsession with Michael Phelps, but no one can prove it.
Here are ten signs your children may have an unhealthy obsession with the Olympics
1. they cheer wildly whenever Michael Phelps, or anyone else they think may be him is on tv
2. when they accidentally fall off of something, they jump up, yell hooray and throw their arms in the air like a gymnast
3. their favorite commercial of the Olympics is the one where the sumo wrestlers run down the street forming an airplane that takes off. Whenever this comes on they cheer wildly and start laughing their heads off about "the underwear commercial."
4. they dance around the living room, half dressed, singing along with Chinese pop stars like crazed apes
5. after marathon late-night viewing sessions, they recreate the previous days events using furniture and household items as props. (I only lost one laundry basket to the "gymnastics course")
6. walk around singing the Olympics theme song, it has currently replaced singing of Dragontales and Sesame Street songs
7. tell you all of their dreams are about them being in the Olympics
8. the second the tv flips on they ask for the Olympics channel, not the Hannah Montana channel
9. won't do anything unless you yell on your mark, get set, go! first
10. ask you worredly what they're going to do now that the Olympics are over

For those of you who caught the closing ceremonies, did anyone else think the "memory tower" reminded them of the movie Ants? With all of those guys climbing up and moving together? My kids picked this up right away. This tower was hysterical from start to finish. When they white painted guys started dancing Greggers started yelling "naked dancing" and fell over laughing. Those crazy silver/red suited tower guys had the girls in tears. Then started the Chinese pop stars, that my children tried their hardest to sing right along with in uh, Chinese I think. I'm pretty sure my new downstairs neighbors are really regretting their decision to move in yesterday. Lucky for them its over.

Seattle

2008-07-30T01:16:00.000-07:00

Dave and I thought that since we can fly for free wouldn't it be fun to fly to Seattle for the day, take the kids to the science center and fly home that night. My parents could come, we'd all ride the bus and wouldn't it be fun. Weeelll this is how it really went. Our first mistake was not leaving until the 9:30 flight because you know how good we are at getting places early. Although we'd been warned that the Seattle bus system could be time consuming we still assumed we'd just hop off the plane and onto a bus. Um no. Let's just say if you are ever planning to take the city bus from the airport, plan on waiting a while. You wait for the right bus number. But some busses just flash that number to taunt you and aren't really going where you want. Then when that magical bus does appear, its full. On the bright side its really cheap and the people were super friendly and not at all scary. I had some prejudice that Seattle bus riders would all be scary. But hey this is Seattle and there are a plethora of tree huggers riding the bus around. Also gas is like $4.40. So we made it downtown and got lunch at the variety pack that is Pike Place Market, waited some more for a bus and went to the Science Center. Now some people on the bus had made mention that there was a big parade downtown that evening so we should have been prepared. Imagine our surprise when we show up at the bus stop (I had carefully mapped out our every bus route the night before) to find a notice announcing its closed for the parade. And every other bus stop for many, many blocks. Replenished with diet Coke, we finally found a bus stop with actual buses to take us to the University District to meet my sister for dinner before she goes to work. We of course took a bus that left us with a hike to the shopping center leaving us a whole 40 minutes to visit Chrissy. Then the fun began. Realizing that my printouts won't due us any good thanks to the parade, I call the busses little hotline to route us to the airport. Now its 7 and we leave at 9. The guy on the phone laughed at me! He said I'd be lucky to make it in time for the last flight at 11 to Spokane. He says (laughing the whole time after he heard my kids shrieking in the background) my best bet is to book it a mile to UW medical center in like 10 minutes and bus to Bellevue, then the airport, skipping locked up downtown. Now his mile was more like 2 and we had a large group. After booking it there we of course miss the bus by a mile. By this time we were all in a spectacular mood and looking forward to the possibility of spending the night at a hotel with nothing. I was, of course the only one with a toothbrush, we were running out of diapers, and we didn't have Tag (Greg's precious blanky we never should travel without.) We were exhausted, stranded at a bus stop, and Carl's ostomy bag exploded. Good times for all. Luckily we caught a bus to Bellevue and found that there was still another bus to the airport, in 45 minutes. For entertainment we had a local couple drinking on the bench alternating between needing a room and needing someone to call the cops to break up the fight. In the end the police showed up just as our bus did. Having been up to date on their COPS viewing, they hopped on our bus like they were heading to the airport anyways. I'm smart enough to know they were just avoiding arrest and they probably weren't going to tone down the R rated language or the fight club for us (they had been beating each other up minutes before). But not smart enough to know when to shut my mouth. There was no way I was going to ride for an hour with those fools. So I hike up front, stick my head in the drivers little cubby, and inform him that his latest passengers are the drunken, violent idiots that the police are running around outside looking for. I said it much nicer I swear. Crazy black lady gets all drunk up in my face yelling at me about kicking my butt. I think the only reason she didn't was I had Connor in the pack and she was sober enough not to hurt a baby, (like I said not too smart.) She starts telling the driver I'm drunk and I don't know what I'm talking about. Now my mom's getting all mad, I can tell she's getting ready to jump up, and yells "she's not drunk, she's a Mormon." Crazy black lady wasn't impressed. Finally some other lady backs me up to the driver so he shuts the door and starts honking for the police. Just like COPS only no exciting background music. Relieved, we rode to the airport just praying we'd make the last flight out. We ran through the airport like fools, throwing our shoes back on as we ran and barely made the last flight. Luckily Dave was able to smooth talk (yes Dave) the customer service guy into sticking us onto the flight at the last second even though we'd booked a different flight. Needless to say it was a fun day but I think we've learned a lot of what not to dos. And I'm pretty sure my Dad doesn't want to come next time.

Disneyland

2008-07-15T14:09:00.001-07:00

I know you've all been on the edge of your seats waiting for me to update my blog with vacation photos. I can't seem to ever find the time. Even when I think I do, I'm constantly interrupted by emergencies like she's touching me and I can't get Barbie's clothes back on. Now that I've successfully redressed Ken for the 50th time today I may have a spare 5 minutes.
We had a really great time in California. We scheduled our flights so we'd get in early the first day and leave late the last day so we'd have the most time possible. We got to go to Disneyland for 2 days with my parents and Aunt Tish, Uncle Joe, and my cousin Christopher. We had a great time there. Hailey was beaming practically every second of the day. She seemed to love everything. Greggers was horrified by most of the rides except curiously for Pirates of the Carribean. Seeing Lightening McQueen and Mater at the Pixar parade was probably the highlight of his little life. Kenzie seemed to have fun, but she seems to have entered the teenage years early and spent and fair amount of time complaining and sulking about tragedies like its too hot, too cold, hungry, full, thirsty, tired you name it. I felt like that cruise commercial where the mom is trying to get a picture of the girl's elusive smile. All in all it was very fun and worth every penny.
Our family at a waterfall in California Adventure Park. Note Dave's ultracool wheelchair thanks to a recent work injury.
Greggers in his Mickey Mouse hat waiting for the electrical parade.

Tim and Jackie (and my cousins head), cutting the cake. They had a really beautiful ceremony at a vineyard outside of San Luis Obispo. Tim seemed so happy, it was so sweet.

Look Paulitz's do dance! (alcohol helps)

The kids at Redondo Beach

The girls in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle during our afternoon girls time. Every afternoon the boys would go nap in our hotel across the street and the girls would go play for a few hours. A lot of this time was spent stalking princesses, and getting every penny sucked out of me in special "princess" stores. They have this neat Princess Fantasy Faire in Fantasyland that is really cool but the store is designed for suckers with a high credit limit. I watched many parents spend 3 tanks of gas on princess outfits and hairdressers that will fix your daughters hair like a princess for $30 and up. I'm either really cheap or really smart, notice my girls are still wearing their walmart specials not $200 worth of Cinderella costumes. We succumbed to the temptation only slightly.

Connor loves his Mickey Mouse ears!

I think this was the single best moment of Greg's life. The Pixar Play Parade started with Lightening McQueen and ended with Mater. I wasn't fast enough to get a picture of his face when Mater first came out, it was like shock and awe and the second coming all in one. I thought he was going to spring tears of joy.

Hailey loved the parade. The had a lot of great floats from the Pixar movies that the kids really loved.

My family, uncle Joe, and Christopher with "Mickey Mouse Club House" as Greg calls him

Outside the Winnie the Pooh ride, also apparantly scary

I guess Gregs not the chosen one today

The girls on the Go Go Coaster in Toontown. Its not that big but they were so proud to go on a rollercoaster. Hailey especially was so excited and wanted Maddie to see her on the big roller coaster.

Greg at Manhattan Beach. He has an interesting strategy for attacking the ocean. He takes big handfuls of sand and clenches them in his little fists. Then he stands in warrior pose (like yoga) and waits for the wave to get to him. Then he furiously throws the sand at the ocean and turns and runs screaming so it can't touch him. Eventually he gave up his assault on the sea and tried to get as dirty as possible.

The girls with Ariel.

This is the bathtub water after the kids played in the mud one afternoon. Obviously it took a couple of cycles to get them clean.

Kenzie finally learned to ride her bike without training wheels. Way to go Kenzie!

Greggers showing off his stitches. You can't really see them but he got 3 stitches after he took a bad fall at the park last week. He thought it was a spider on his head and kept trying to get it off.

I'm guessing somewhere along the way here you've gotten to thinking geez there's a lot of pictures here, who does Liz think she has pictures of, Brad Pitt? Obviously I think my kids are adorable and took hundreds, these are just the select highlights. Hope you enjoyed.

Do you know who this guy is?

2008-07-07T21:49:00.001-07:00

We didn't. Here's our random actor sighting from California. Jon Lovitz. I was leaving after checking out the local tourist attraction the men's bathroom (not a guy)at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo and in walks this guy. After having the "hey isn't that guy on something" conversation he came back out and asked us if Connor was a doll. He was sitting in his car seat motionless with those gigantic wide eyes of his. In a moment of stunning genius I asked "hey aren't you on something or something." He took a moment to reply (probably to make sure I hadn't with a field trip from a special school) and said he's on SNL, A League of Their Own, and the Benchwarmers. To ensure him of our amazing intelligence I replied "Ohhh...yeah" That's all I could come up with. But then hey we continued on having a conversation about is my son a doll or a baby, so maybe he needs a special group too. I'm sure our hey are you on something was a huge ego boost to an actor and all. But hey he probably makes a bazillion dollars a year, so he can go home and hug his many, many dollars for reassurance. While the rest of us check out free tourist attractions we once saw on the Travel Channel (the men's urinal is a waterfall!!). Thanks to Mandy for telling us who the heck this guy is. I'll post vacation pics soon.

White trash or hillbillys?

2008-06-24T00:24:00.000-07:00

Before we take off to California for Tim's wedding, let me leave you all with this little tidbit. Tonight we decided to go to Pizza Hut rather than cook since we are leaving early tomorrow. It was fairly crowded and as usual we were attracting a fair amount of attention because our kids were the noisiest there. So I look over and there's Hailey, with her shoes off, feet up, chewing on her toenails! In a restaurant! While she's eating! I tell Dave to look at his daughter and he yells Hailey what are you doing? Like its no biggie she says "I broke a toenail." And goes right back to chewing! Augh that is just so gross!
This makes me wonder, are we white trash or hillbilly's? I never notice other peoples kids chewing away on their broken toenails during a meal...or ever.

Busted

2008-06-10T00:17:00.001-07:00

So I just checked Nik's blog and apparantly I've been caught giving away valuable memorabilia. Sorry to say but I live in a 1200 square foot apartment with 6 people. Some things have to go. I got merciless on the last move what can I say? Honestly (sorry Nik) but I haven't worn it since your wedding. Its a bit nicer than my usual skirt and whatever shirt sort of matches ensemble. And if you recall I had just had a baby and was fat. Thankfully it has been too big ever since. Too bad for me that they stuck it in the front window. I thought it would just randomly go away and Nik would never be the wiser. I guess I should have waited until we moved then gave it away to a thrift store on in Hillyard where Nik will never go. I still love you Nik.

Hannah Montana

2008-06-09T23:44:00.000-07:00

Hailey and McKenzie are suddenly very into Hannah Montana and High School Musical. The other day Hailey put on short skirts, high heeled sandals, and a belt around her shirt and ask if she looks like the mean girl on High School Musical. Suddenly its all teeny boppers and not princesses. This video came about when we checked out this fantastic cd from the library the other day. Its some day of Barbie music cd. Which means its basically someone else singing top 40 songs from 4 years ago with a lot of pictures of Barbie in "rocker" clothes. Lucky for me Hailey has decided that this is the greatest cd EVER! She put on this show the other day for the entire cd. Hard to believe someone this uninhibited is my kid.

Eat your heart out Jane Fonda

2008-06-02T23:23:00.001-07:00

Hailey likes to do my workout videos with me in the afternoon. The other day we topped off our workout outfits with a coat of hot pink lipstick and took some pictures (sound familar Nik?). Hailey's so funny. She gets out a little stool and a toy that looks a little like a weight and flails her arms and legs along with me. I'd love to say that she really looked so ridiculous next to a super coordinated sports star like myself, but I imagine we look about the same. Our limbs flailing wildly, quite obvious we can't keep up with the chirpy blond marching through the steps without difficulty. This embarrasses McKenzie to no end. See we have this big picture window in our living room that faces the parking lot and street. Which means that every person coming and going, and stopping to get their mail, can see the two of us jumping around like idiots. The other day she says to me "mom you know all the neighbors can see you, right." I replied that I don't really care. She was quite appalled by this and went and hid somewhere else. Once some kids from school came by and looked up into the window, I was expected her to post a sign proclaiming she was adopted.
Hailey showing off her moves.

Me and my girl

Speaking of cheesy smiles, these two are Hailey's runners up

I'm not sure what this face is about

Hailey and her friend Lily on a school fieldtrip to the Jump and Bounce

The kids and their cool new shades

My boys having a tickle fest at the park

Here are some pictures from Hailey's preschool graduation in Spokane. They had caps and gowns and played the graduation song. I thought it was pretty cute, but judging from Dave's snickering I think he thought it was a bit over the top. Hailey seemed so pleased that her new school teacher had something special to say about her. They just loved Hailey. They say she is, and I quote "such a good listener and so well behaved, she's so good with the other kids she shares really well" Um are we talking about the same kid? I'd swear she needs a hearing aid.

They might be brats

2008-05-28T21:38:00.000-07:00

I've long suspected that there is a distinct possiblity that might children might be turning out to be spoiled brats, despite the fact that we are far from rich. They have often given good reason to suspect but tonight they clinched the deal. Dave and I decided that we would take the kids out to Baskin Robbins for a treat tonight. We had buy one get one free coupons for sundaes and a slew of gift certificates so we thought it would be a fun surprise. Well it was a surprise all right, how badly our kids acted. It started when we informed the girls that we weren't going to be letting them pick out a flavor each but that we were going to get two "cups of shame" to share and a kid cone for Greg since no one likes to share with him. For those of you who don't know, in my family the "cup of shame" is that giant Reeses peanut butter cup sundae at Baskin Robbins, its plenty big enough to share. McKenzie and Hailey carried on, sometimes together, sometimes on individually, the entire time we were there about how unfair, mean, and horrible it all was that we were sharing. And also we are liars because we said they could each get their own sundae. Which we did not, I think our pulling in there implied that to them. As if my children carrying that their treat wasn't big enough was enough, we sat next to a table of little old ladies who I swear were snickering in their ice cream at my poor parenting skills and what brats my kids were being. I'm quite sure they were secretly chanting underneath their permed little heads for me to drag those girls out and spank them.
Lately my girls have been acting like entitled little princesses. They whine about every little chore, Kenzie's new favorite thing is to yell at me for making her do all the housework and telling me I'm lazy. I've had the you don't talk to your parents that way talk several times by the way. A month or two ago Hailey informed me that she was going to call the police because I was a mean mom and mean people go to jail. And the kids were all going to live with Grandma. She pulls that one back out regularly whenever things aren't working out for her, and I think she means it. I think in her mind I sometimes rank up there with the criminals.
I realize that things are a lot different than when we were all kids and I'd bet my life savings (ha, ha, ha) that we would have been very sorry if we acted this way. I'm doing the best I can, but I'm running out of answers. So if anybody has some advice, tips, or amazing new punishment or motivator please let me know. Because I think I've got the future Paris Hilton of the low rent apartments on my hands here.

Welcome to WWF wrestling

2008-05-23T00:38:00.000-07:00

This afternoon while Greg and I were wrestling on the floor he pulled a move straight out of the WWF. I hear him say "You goin down!", raise his arms in the air and jump on me. Where does this kid come up with this stuff? I know he sees a lot of sports on tv but I'm pretty sure its not wrestling. Sometimes I wonder if boys have some sort of innate soundtrack running in their heads so they always know what kind of noise should with an action. I keep saying boys come with sound effects. Dinosaur noises when he eats or chases someone, boing noises when he's jumping, vrooming and sirens for the cars and of course lots of indecipherable growling. Quite different from little girls who make every toy into a mommy and kids.
Shortly after Greg's wrestling debut Hailey comes out of the bedroom in this funny crouch giving motivational species to an imaginary crowd. When I asked what was going on she turned her back to me and continued her little pep talk complete with yelling "you can do it!" Then she proceeded to make a series of strange maneuvers still in a her crouched position. Now Hailey is unusually strange but there's usually a reason somewhere. Turns out she'd been watching a football movie in the bedroom with Dave and had been so inspired that she felt the need to reenact it for me. Now I thought they broke the mold when they made Hailey, but apparently not as I met her predecessor a few days ago. I babysat my friends 6 year old daughter and watched as the two of them bounced through an amazing amount of activities in 2 hours without completing one (imagine how my apartment looked at the end of this). They had the same build, way of speaking, and liked the same toys and games. In very Hailey like fashion, they spent a fair amount of time following me around bugging me for sweets. When this kid found out there was chocolate in the house her eyes got big and she was practically salivating at the very thought. When I mentioned Hailey's knack for stealing candy in the morning, she started pressing me for details on how she accomplished this. I stopped giving them to her when I noticed she looked a little too eager and had a scary glint in her eyes. I really thought there couldn't possibly be another child like Ha, but I guess I was wrong. Oh the horror.

Getting Bald

2008-05-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

Sitting in church Hailey noticed one of my hairs on her dress. She asked why my hair was on her and I told her that sometimes pieces of my hair fall out. She said "why are you getting bald like Baba?" After a good laugh I tried to explain how we just lose hair and it doesn't mean we're going bald. This led to a discussion of people we know who are obviously bald like uncle Scott and Baba. Then I mentioned that Da was losing his hair because he is going bald, she thought this was pretty funny then said very matter of factly "Oh because he's getting old like Baba."

Thanks "mama Nikki" ! Here's Gregger's new and improved big boy bed. Nikki made him a Cars blanket and pillow case after noticing that the poor child had a princess pillow case. Well he does have two big sisters and truthfully I don't always think about things like that. I just give him whatever with no thought of its a boy or girl thing. He loves race cars. When I'm writing something quickly he thinks I'm driving a race car and will try to take the pencil yelling "my wanna drive!"

All the kids in the fire truck at preschool graduation. I thought Greg had died and gone to heaven. He's still talking about the fire truck nonstop. Apparantly this is an important milestone in his life.

Kenzie in the fireman suit.

A probable glimpse into Hailey's teenage years right here. Its just a matter of time.

Miss Ana, Hailey, Miss Miriam and Miss Sara
We went down to Pullman so Hailey could attend graduation at her old preschool. She misses it so much down there. She still cries that she wants to go home to her old house. Poor Ha misses her friends so much.

Georgey, Malcolm, Hailey and Maddie after graduation.

One afternoon while I was busy Hailey thought it would be a good idea to glue these pom poms to her face. You never know with this kid.

So Greggers was quite convinced that Dave's birthday was his birthday. Very insistent on that actually. He just kept going on about it for days, every time he heard us talk about Dave's party he thought for sure we were talking about him. Naturally he insisted on a "ka-chow" party. So we took him to the party store and bought Cars party stuff and he hopped right up there to blow out those candles. Dave was a good sport and let Greg think the parties were all about him.

Hailey finally learned to pump on the swings. She's so proud of herself.

Greg likes to "swim" in the gravel at the playground structure by our apartment. I guess there's not much else for him to do since most of its broken and the manager doesn't seem to overly concerned about that. A few weeks ago the chain on a swing actually rusted through and broke while a kid was swinging the thing sat there for two weeks. Finally Hailey cut her finger on it and I took it down and trashed it. (Good thing for tetanus shots I guess) Krista may have been rude sometimes but at least she took care of things.

My little soccer stars

2008-05-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

The girls are so true to their personalities in their sports. Hailey's a real go-getter, she gets right in there and isn't afraid to go for the ball. McKenzie hangs back by the goal doing this funny skipping back and forth thing. When the ball comes near her she moves away or freezes. Once I actually saw her hop on one foot, lifting the other leg away so her foot wouldn't accidentally kick the ball, cringing and closing her eyes. I with I had a picture, it was so funny I couldn't stop laughing. All the kids are thundering down the field to get the ball and there's Kenzie jumping and cringing away in fear of actually kicking the ball. My sister has a picture of her sitting in the field picking grass, while the ball is in play. Carrie and Scott had taken her to the game for me. They hear everyone yelling "tell that little girl to get up, the ball's still in play she's going to get run over." So they look around to see who people are talking about, only to realize that little girl is McKenzie and she's having a lovely time picking grass. She said she got bored. Ah my little athlet. Re-tying her shoe for maximum tightness, yes the game is of course going.

The skipping, hopping technique she uses to look like she's playing. Not to worry she'll make a run for it if the ball gets near.

Look out here comes the Ha!

She runs the whole time she's out on field

My handsome little boy

Hailey's took this herself

Greggers in his big boy bed. He's so good he never gets out unless he's following his idol Hailey. I was braced for months of fighting to get him to sleep. It might be worse when I move him out of the girls room, but for now he's being so good. I'm so lucky he's such a sweet little boy.

2008-05-05T23:33:00.000-07:00

Mandy purse tagged me a while back and I just now got around to unloading the camera. So here it is the mega purse. I believe I got this free at Bath and Body Works, I carry it right now because its pretty much the largest bag I own. Usually its more bulging than this, sadly this is a slimmed down day for this sucker.
This is the bag I carry when I don't have to bring a small army with me. Obviously it doens't get much use.

So here's my ridiculous pile of stuff I feel the need to carry all over town. I think the added bulk is that I usually carry more than one diaper (that's not going to get me too far) and a burp cloth, since Connor saturates two a day at least.

Here's all the crazy crap I carry:

changing pad wipes diapers for both boys

gum mints Purell - 2!

bandaids lip gloss medical tape

wallet Tide stain pen book

kid leash spare binky bag mai tai

nursing cover baby hat receipts

old grocery list Kleenex pen

crayons decongestent Connors immunization record

notebook (with a mega long list of books I'll never have time to read)

Well I hope that was super exciting for all of you. Amazing that one person can lug so much stuff around everywhere they go. Those of you with children probably sympathize, while my siblings are probably all renewing their vows to not reproduce.