Friday, November 9, 2012

August (and maybe a little earlier) phone photos

At the splash pad (in D-port)


We went to a baseball game with our ward (We had the coolest ward ever :) Also D-port) 

 I went to the American Pickers shop!!  (Near D-port in LeClaire, IA)
 Where we slept the night before we moved
 We went to the state fair (Des Moine) and I hugged the purple "hug me" guy


Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Booze and Blessings

Last night we were having another late night. I guess it's true what you hear about college students, they barely get to sleep. Which is all good and fun when your a 19ish year old, but when your old like us ;) and have 3 kids its not so fun. I finally managed to get to bed a little after 12 and Tony told me he got in about 2:30 (the crazy!). Anyways, I usually am really good about waking up and helping the kids if they wake up in the middle of the night. Last night? Not so much.

Emma woke up not long after Tony got in bed and came into our room and asked for a drink. Me, being exhausted and in the middle of a dream, had the following conversation with Tony.

Me:Tony? Will you get Emma a bootleg?
Tony (drowsily): What?
Me: A bootleg.
Tony: What?
Me: Some booze, will you get Emma some booze.
Tony (bewildered): What?
Me: Will you get Emma some booze. (Then coming out of it/waking up as I am finishing the sentence) Oh. Sorry. I was still sleeping.

And then I got up and got her a drink of water.

You've got to admit though, that had to have been one awesome dream. I crack up about it now thinking about what must have been going through Tony's sleepy head while I'm trying to get him to get his daughter some type of alcohol. Oh, man. Good times!

Fox has turned into one of the most polite children I have ever met. He is always saying thank you for anything anyone does for him. I've always tried to teach my kids to be polite so they will have good manners around others, but hearing "Thank you, Mom!" every time I do even the tiniest thing for him really makes me happy and feel good. I can see why being polite and saying thank you is important, and probably something that I need to do more of.

Anyways, today after getting Fox in the car he said thank you and then a few moments later added a "Bless you, Mom!" It made me giggle a little bit. I have no idea where he got it from. I love it, but still am confused as to where he might have picked it up from. I don't say it. I thought maybe he got it from his church teacher until I remembered that I am his nursery leader. I don't know where it came from, but I hope it doesn't stop. I want him blessing everyone we come in contact with. It's adorable.


Wednesday, September 26, 2012

I hope you have a child just like you!

I was the best kid growing up. I was always so quick to do anything. People called me Speedy....

That (a.k.a. all that is written above) is a lie. My Mom tells me I was a mellow child but almost to a fault.  She would tell me to go and do something (ei. running around neighbor Christmas gifts) with the extra encouragement of, "run like the wind," and then I would doe-tee-doe (those are my Mom's exact words) to the door and back. My speed as a child has become a family joke. 

I remember some of those times as a kid and I remember just not caring. Not that I wasn't happy about doing it, or that I wanted to make my Mom upset, I just didn't care about going fast. I would daydream and look at things around me as I went. It made me happy. I need to do that more now...

Anywho....

I was suddenly reminded of the threat that every parent (including mine) uses on their children, "One day, you are going to have a child just like you!" And I'm proudly horrified to say that I now have a child just like me--Emma. 

I went to pick up Emma from school today and waited outside her classroom door. A minute or two before the bell rang the teacher let the kids out to go to their lockers and pick up their backpacks and other belongings. I watched as Emma (one of the middle kids to come out of the classroom) doe-te-doed to her locker all while watching the other kids and activities around her and then slowly opened the locker door and pull out her jacket and backpack. 

The bell rang and all of the other children were in their classroom, but here was Emma still sitting on the hallway floor slowing fitting her jacket in her backpack and watching in awe as all the 3rd, 4th,  and 5th graders passed her. Her teacher came out twice looking for her and, seeing her still getting stuff put away, slightly rolled her eyes and went back in. Clearly this is not a first time thing. And unlike me, her teacher is too kind to yell things like "Pick up the pace, picante!" 

When Emma finally finished she started to meander back to her classroom. Her teacher came out and actually rolled her arms signifying "hurry up." Emma smiled at her teacher and continued at her own little pace. I literally did a double face palm. 

A few minutes later Emma strolled out of her classroom and we headed to Liam's classroom where he sat peering longing out his door. 

Karma. 

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Picture Day

Today is picture day at the kids school. So I decided to set up my own picture day at home and see who got the better pictures. ;)  (Sorry about the graininess of the pictures. One day I will buy a new camera...one day)







I haven't seen the pictures from school, but I'm pretty sure I won. hehehe

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Just thought I'd share

I made homemade taquitos last night. They were delicious.
I want some right now. In my stomach.


That is all.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

A little bit of everything

So I had all of these great or funny stories that I was going to tell about each one of my kids. I had plans  to write them out when I had the time, but of course now I can't, for the life of me, remember them. That's the way it goes when you are a mom, I think. But I do remember some, so I'll share those.

Liam, talking about the linoleum flooring (out of the blue, we had not had any previous conversation about it) that is in our house, "So it's like a big roll of plastic-y paper that they just put on the floor?" Yes. Yes, that is exactly what it is. I don't think I could have put it better myself.

Fox is potty training this week. He has done awesome even though I wish potty training was just me saying, "okay, you poop and pee in this toilet now," and then that was it. They got it. And I never had to change wet pants or clean up..."stuff" off the floor. But really he is doing very well.  Just like I did with my other kids, I let him go to the store and pick out a treat  that he can have as a reward after using the potty. He picked out M&M's and Halloween pumpkin and candy corns. We call them "potty treats." Unfortunately, Fox decided to take it one step further. While walking through the store Fox asked (quite loudly, mind you. I don't think that boy has any volume except for loud), "Mom, I have a potty M&M?" "Mom, I yike my potty pumpkins!" We got some really weird looks.

Last week, (before potty training), Fox had a stinky diaper. I asked him if he did and he emphatically denied it. Even as I laid him down and started wiping his bottom he cried and squirmed and said he didn't poop.

 Me, being the awesome parent I am, swiped a wipe across his bottom and held up it up and said, "Then what is that? Is that poop?"
He nodded his agreement.
"Did you poop in your diaper?"
"No."
"Well then who did?"
"A bug."
"A bug crawled into your diaper and pooped?"
"Yes."
"What color was the bug?"
"Red, with red yeyes."

 I questioned him a little bit more about the bug, and he had all the answers and really who can argue with that? Fox-1 Kira-0 (Okay let's be realistic, it's more like Fox-439 Kira-2, but who's counting?)

Tony has been bugging me to write this story.
Remember how my post about the house we are living in I said that I had a few things that I didn't like about it? Well one of those things is that we have been getting eaten alive by fleas!! EW! I know! This property is suppose to be a no pet property, but I don't know if the people before us just ignored that or if all of Ames is just infested with fleas (really I'm starting to wonder, there are quite a few people that I've found out are getting bit by them also!). We have no animals. We are clean people. Between Tony and the professionals that the property owners paid for to come out, our house has been sprayed 4 times for fleas and yet still they are getting us. I really, really don't know how. (So if anyone has some awesome tips I would love them!)

Anyways that's not the story....

While racking our brains, trying to figure out how these stinking bugs are still living we came to the conclusion that they had to be on other animals (aka mice or rats). So that night Tony went out and bought poison traps and sticky traps and set them up down stairs. The next several days I didn't go downstairs. Laundry got neglected. If we needed food from our food storage for dinner, I changed what we were eating. I avoided downstairs like the plague. I knew that some rodent would be stuck on one of those stupid sticky traps and I would be the one to find it.

Finally we ran out of clothes and I had to do laundry. I almost cried (just kidding...no, no I'm not). In all sorts of anxiety I told Tony that if I even heard anything I was coming back up and making him go down instead. He agreed. I grabbed my laundry basket and cautiously headed down the stair. When I got to the bottom step I heard it. A high pitched squeaking/squealing! My heart stopped. My body stopped. I dropped my laundry basket and hightailed it out of there.

"TONY!!" I screamed, ready for him to come to the rescue.

I was answered by laughter.

Remember that awesome laundry shoot that I told you about? Well, evidently it also works as a good way to make noise from up stairs to downstairs. Tony, seeing my uneasiness about going downstairs, decided to help me get over that fear by making squeaking noises down the laundry shoot. And he's good at them.

He laughed hard for a good half an hour afterwords. I cried a little bit, hit him a lot, and made him do the laundry.

It's been a couple of weeks and we have yet to catch anything but a few spiders. I think our idea of critters living down there is incorrect, but it made for one horrible prank for Tony to play. (He did it 2-3 more times after that and got me every time. Darn boys)

EDIT

I remembered the story about Emma!!

A friend of mine bought Emma a cute new outfit. It was adorable, with plaid shorts and blue shirt that said "smile & laugh" with a big smile face. The day she wore it we were out and about going to 2-3 different stores. When we got home I smiled at her and said, "It love your new outfit!" She grinned then  quizzically looked down at her shirt and said, "It says 'stinky' right? Liam told me it says stinky." I laughed out loud and told her "No, it says 'smile.'" She shrugged, said okay, then walked off to go play.

It took me a little while to realize that Liam must have read the shirt as saying "smelly" instead of smile (darn 1st grade phonics reading). My favorite part is that Emma was totally cool with going out wearing a shirt that labeled her as "stinky."

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Back to School

3 of my kids/husband started school this week (well Emma starts Monday, but she got to meet her teacher). 

This hansom man started school on Monday with 3 ridiculously hard classes and 1 "show up and you pass" class. Pray for him...Pray for me that I can deal without a husband for the next three months. ;)
 I told him I was going to follow him around and take pictures just like I do to the kids on the first day of school. That's where the peace sign came from :). And while I took this outside pictures classmate where walking down the street and giving us weird looks/smirks. I thought maybe he'd get made fun of/beat up at school, but so far nothing yet...at least that he's told me...(maybe thats why he been quietly sobbing in bed at night...)

Here's my ridiculously adorable kids in there new school finest.


Liam started second grade today! He's so stinking old! And cute :). He's shirt is a scratch-and-sniff and he was very proud of it. His teacher is Mrs. Boeding, and I think she is going to be fantastic for him. He wore a shirt that said "big kahuna" on it on the "meet your teacher night" and she called him big kahuna the whole time. :)

 He has his own hook in the hallway (Emma has her own locker, which Liam may be a little jealous of, but we won't discuss that here.). Hansom kid!

Emma got to go to her classroom today and meet her teacher. Her teacher is Mrs. Maahs (pictured below). Emma has 2 guinea pigs in her class (named Pig and Goo. Seriously made me laugh out loud when she told all of the kids at "rug time." The other parents gave me dirty looks....but best guinea pig names ever!), and she is very excited about them.


Emma starts school on Monday and then I will be a one child during the day Mom! Holy Smokes! This is what Moms all over the world dream of! (At least I do) It's going to be super sweet! 
Happy Back to School Everyone!
( I know it makes me happy :))