Funny things

We were talking about different things people are good at or can do. Amelia's comment, "I am really good at throwing up all sorts of ways!!" Yep. Glad she has turned a negative into a positive.

Seriously....

Why is it that kids get the worst bruises, scrapes or cuts, rashes or take scissors to their hair right before you are supposed to get pictures done??? I wanted to attempt to take a very overdue family picture this weekend. Ben had a little incident with a solid wood chair right above his eyebrow. You know the kind that indents so hard it cuts them. Yeah. That's not going to be gone by Sat!!! Sorry for the terrible webcam pic that makes it so hard to see, but you get the idea. **Sigh*** And this is why we haven't had a family pic done in 3.5 years!!!!

Is it just me.....

.....or does anyone else feel like why do I even bother???? Why bother:

• doing laundry when clean clothes get thrown on the floor in a ball because they don't want to put them away or changed their outfit 10 times because something was "bugging" and now they no longer look clean
• cooking healthy meals, or any meal for that matter, when someone always has something to complain about whether by saying it looks or smells disgusting, or by dry heaving or vomiting it back up (for real people) or smothering it in some sort of sauce to cover up the taste
• cleaning up anything when 2 minutes later someone has decided to unload an entire basket of toys, a game with a million little pieces, 50 markers to "see all the colors", every stuffed animal to find the right one and the entire bookshelf of books to make paths, fences or other barriers to try and keep each other away from something. Sometimes all this happens at once. Did you not remember the crying and drama for the last 2 hours while I made you clean all this up???
• decorating when my decorations seem to get rearranged in different places all day and manage to always break, rip, or get hidden in an excellent spot that no one seems to find them ever again!!!!
• getting "ready" for the day when someone spills an entire glass of milk on me, or insists on pushing their peanut butter, jam, or chocolate face all over my one nice shirt or pants
• teaching my children not to fight or scream, which for some reason they can't seem to remember after 2 seconds, but manage to remember a treat they ate 2 years ago or the line from a movie they saw once
• eating healthy when I feel crappier after eating a salad then I do a bowl of mashed potatoes made with heavy cream, pizza, diet dr pepper or a tray of stouffers mac and cheese
• being nice to people. For some reason I think if I just keep doing it, I will actually start feeling nicer but I am still waiting

This is laundry for my family of 4 when I decide to inspect their closets and on

their floors and any other hiding place other than the laundry basket!!!! It's quite ridiculous.

Happy Halloween

I guess the older they get the less pictures we take?!?! Not one of them really turned out, but here's our collage of Halloween events. The kids were Rapunzel and Flynn Rider from the movie Tangled. Hope you all enjoyed your Halloween. We had lots of fun!!!

We already have requests for next year, a black cat and a robot. That sounds like my easiest one yet!!!

Field Trip

My kindergartner is on her first field trip today!!! She is beyond excited to ride a school bus for the first time. They are going to a pumpkin patch. Hay ride, corn maze and pick your own pumpkin. I wish I was there to see her excited giggles, wiggly little legs and uncontrollable smile. These are her school pictures!!! I wish I had mine to show you the similarities. Just imagine adding huge bangs and darker hair and that is what mine looked like. That is NOT her real smile!!! The class picture is more accurate. I should have known she was going to be in the front and put her in pants that are a better length. She insists on wearing socks with her shoes. But I think it just makes for cuter memories!!

Spotify

It's like I'm back in the TSC computer lab downloading songs from Napster when I should have been studying!!!!

Some things I like about my kids that I want to remember

A few months ago Philip wanted to do a taste test night. He went to the store and bought an assortment of snacks with different flavors. We lacked blindfolds so we tried wool winter hats, but this picture is about how long they lasted on their heads. It was July!! They both thought it was hilarious to close their mouth and have us put food in it. Now both of them are addicted to doing this and make each other "test" food all the time and occasionally I hear a sentence I dread, "mom, close your eyes and I am going to put something in your mouth" all sing-songy and then pop goes in a curiously warm fruit snack, or a soggy cracker. Gross, but still cute.

This is Ben's toy. The way it came about our family was very lame and dramatic, but it has slowly become one of his favorites right now. (I will spare you the long story of me alone on a trip to UT, stopping at a McDonald's in Primm for lunch, multiple fits about not getting the right toy, food, drink, you name it and a middle aged very annoyed man loudly criticizing me to his partner so everyone could hear his disgust in children and people who shouldn't have them, namely me!!!! Not kidding). But aside all that, what I love is what he has named him, Powerful Dog. I think it might have derived from the movie Up because it looks like the scary dog on there, which was one of the reasons he didn't want it at first. We have some great names for the toys in our house and all are completely their own. Enna, Buster, Princess, Powerful Dog, Ramasaucy and Petty (Philip's personal favorites), back it up guy, gray guy, van-truck, hospital bear..... It goes on. Amelia takes the more creative approach and Ben is a more call-it-as-I-see-it namer. But I live to hear the names of their toys and imaginary creatures.

These are my kids legs, side by side. They fell asleep next to each other today and for some reason I love the contrast of their skin so I had to snap a pic and share how tan she is and how stark white he is. In my family Amelia is considered pale!! So does that make Ben albino??

Here's all their cousins on my side (minus one) to show you what I mean. I also love this pic because he is freaking out, my nephew is just so happy to hug him, my other nephew is trying to calm him down by rubbing his leg, and Amelia is perfectly posing for my sister's pic totally unphased by his drama.