Ode to Baconsalt

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....

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

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

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

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

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?

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.