Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Part Girl, Part Monkey

Seriously....she might have really come from a monkey......I'm just kidding, but man, does she love to climb, hang, and be a little daredevil. It seemed that she would enjoy going to the edge of the playground equipment while she was high up, and just act like she was going to take a step off. I really do think she enjoyed scaring me because right after she would lean out, she would smile and run to the slide. Crazy girl!

This is her favorite. Before she goes down any slide, she has to hang at that bar first and swing. See...why I think monkey??






Monday, May 30, 2011

I passed the test.

Blake came up to me tonight with tears, and said, "Mom, you passed the test!" Of course I'm wondering what test this was. He looks at me and says, "Well, number one, you took us to Golden Corral. And number 2, you tried to save me." He then went on to pull out one of his most prized possessions from behind his back and gave it to me. It was his Morgan Dollar and certificate.




You might ask what it was that I saved him from, and well, I could try to go into it and explain, but I just don't think it's worth the time time or the effort. Let's just say that I tried to keep him out of trouble with his dad. But apparently to a ten year old boy, it meant the world! I think it might have been the sweetest thing he's ever done!

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Veggies

We went to Golden Corral tonight. The kids LOVE Golden Corral...me, not so much, but because I know how much they love it, I chose it as the place we were gonna go. (Note: Eric told me that I had to decide because he didn't care.) Anyways, after the kids filled their plates with fried chicken, pizza, and a lot of other fried foods, they went after the desserts. After at least 2 desserts each, I thought back and realized that they hadn't had any vegetables on their plates. what kind of mom lets their kids eat only junk food? I told them that they each had to have ONE vegetable. Two of my boys looked at me and said, "Mom, we did. We had macaroni and cheese!"









Since when did that become a vegetable? And what kind of mom does that make me since TWO of my kids thought that! I chuckled pretty hard on that one!

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Wacky Day

I can't believe Makenna let me dress her up wacky. You have to understand this is the girl who gets made when I don't let her pick out her own clothes. If I make a suggestion of shoes or anything, she gets very grumpy and tries to refuse whatever I want her to wear which then always ends badly for her, but one day she'll learn. ANyways, she actually got into the mood to dress wacky and wow, did she look great! She did so good with it, she won!! Who-hoo! that's my girl! Kaleb looked adorable too, by the way, but you have to admit, you can do so much more with girls on wacky day! I mean, the hair alone....wins the prize!









Winners




This is the older Master Club from earlier in the year! Yes, that's me. Go ahead, get a good laugh.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Legos





This is the story of a little boy who didn't listen to his mommy.



A little boy named Jakeb had a very bad habit. He liked to put little things in his mouth, things like small legos, K-nex, and sometimes coins. Everytime his mom would notice things in his mouth she would tell him to get them out. She would say, "Jakeb, you shouldn't do that because you could swallow and choke on those little pieces."




Well, one day Jakeb ran into the kitchen crying, "Mom, I swallowed a Lego. I swallowed a Lego."




The mom replied, "Well, Jakeb, I told you not to put things in your mouth."



"What should I do, Mom?" asked the concerned little boy.


"Well, you might die," teased the mom knowing perfectly well what happens to small pieces that a little boy swallows.



"Oh NO!" wailed Jakeb. Jakeb then pulled off an amazing feat. A feat that I ever never seen before by a human. He managed to pretend he was a cat (while screaming) and he coughed up that tiny Lego just like it was hairball. The whole process took about 10 seconds and poor Jakeb was as red as a beet, but needless to say, that Lego will never be finding its way into the toilet!




A note from the author: Yes I know that telling my child that he could die was mean. I was hoping that it would encourage him to never put anything in his mouth again. Did it work? Nope, I caught him today with something in his mouth again.







PS. I did tell him afterwards that he wasn't going to die.







PPS. This story reminds me of my childhood when I accidentally dropped a marble in my mouth. Yes, accidentally. I was lying on the floor looking at a marble holding it over my face, and whoops, in and down it went. I was horrified. I was sure I was going to die that day. I remember getting to go to the park that day, and I just sat on the swing thinking, "I'm going to die today. This is my last day to live." Pretty pathetic, huh? Obviously, I made it through that tragedy!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The Floating shoe

We went to Sharonwoods this past week, and, of course, we had to check out the falls. Because of all the recent rain, the falls were pretty heavy. Normally my kids walk across the creek on the rocks, but not this time. I was relishing the idea of having to jump in and swim after one as they went down the river. (I've already had to jump in once, not doing it again. You can read about that HERE if you missed out on it before!)
Anyways, the kids were allowed to put their hands in the water, and just kinda look at the falls. Unfortunately, it wasn't too exciting for them. Some of them found a spot where they ended up getting covered in mud, so I had to let the rinse off their feet, hands, and shoes in the water. Next thing I know, Jakeb's saying, "Mom, get my shoe, my shoe, my shoe." Well this mom did not "get the shoe," and off it floated down the creek. Poor Jakeb started chasing it but then ran out of rocks to run on. He got to the edge and thought he saw a snake, screamed, and dropped his other shoe.
Poor guy. I felt a little bad for him because the walk back to the SUV was a little muddy, but oh well.. I wasn't jumping in to get no shoe. We were getting ready to leave, and Jakeb asked me to get his other shoe which he had left on a rock after seeing a "snake." Being the nice mother that I am, I went down there to get it. I picked it up, and glanced out to the creek to see it's matching mate floating down the creek. But lo, and behold, the current was making it circle back toward us. There was a chance I could save the shoe! Yay! We got a big stick and tried reaching it, but the place we were standing on was too steep and too muddy to reach it. Then all of sudden it was like God gave it a tiny push, and pushed it right back to where Jakeb had originally dropped his other shoe, and we were able to get it. Yay!!! Jakeb was so excited! Shoot, I was excited. I hated the idea of his Croc going down the creek!
Here's his green Croc floating down the creek. It's smack dagb in the middle of the picture. You can barely make it out!















Sunday, May 22, 2011

I scrapbooked!

Shoot, I scrapbooked a real album for the first time in over a year. At least I think it's been a year. I had the idea of making an album for a friend of mine who is moving to California. I wanted her to have an album of our church family. I thought of this idea very late Wednesday night/Thursday morning, so I started working. I ordered the pictures at Costco, picked them up Friday, and finished the album on Sunday. AHHHH!!!! Her going away get-together was on Sunday night. I made a few blank pages for our church members to sign, and then placed them in the back. I forgot to take a picture of my very favorite page in the back of the book. Oh well. Here's a few of the pages. Maybe I'm getting my mojo back, and I'll finally get caught up on all my scrapbooking. Yeah, right, I'm only about 5 years behind!














Thursday, May 19, 2011

More New Additions

I can't believe I never posted these two bundle of joys when they were first added to the world.


my new nephew: Josiah Peyton Barr born February 10, 2011


My best friend, Niki's baby: Joseph Jeffrey Burchett born February 23, 2011

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Just in case..

you people who read my blog think I'm biased to the girls, let me explain why it seems I have more pictures of the girls than the boys. The girls STILL LET me take pictures of them. The boys run from me now! No lie, I have to pretty much bribe the boys to let me take their pictures. In case you don't believe me, here's some pictures to prove that I usually have to pay them to let me take their pictures. Lovely, huh?

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Indian Names

Tonight, everyone in our family received Indian names. Technically the kids are 1/16 Indians. It all started when Blake was helping Eric work in the garage and a tube flew up and whacked Blake right in the nose. Eric was scared it was broken, but thank the Lord, it was only scraped up and slightly swollen. After the shock of being in pain and bleeding was over, I took to calling him Crooked Nose for the rest of the day. Then after that, we thought it would be fun to give everyone Indian names.


Blake - Crooked Nose

Luke - Blazing Buffalo

Jakeb - Crazy Thunder


Kaleb - Blue Fox - (Note: I wanted to call him Blue Star because of his blue sparkling eyes, but he said it was a no-go.)


Makenna - Screeching Owl - (We eventually had to change her name. She wanted Pink Princess, and everytime we would call her, Screeching Owl she would actually live up to her name, so we took to calling her Pink Screeching Owl. That seemed to satisfy her.)

after changing her name




Klaire - Red Arrow





Marshan - White Feather


Eric - Chief Soaring Eagle ( I wanted to call him Chief Gray Bear, but he didn't like that name. I wonder why??)

The obedient little girl

(Names have been left out to keep the privacy of the individuals.)


This is the story of a little girl who told her mom that she wanted a hamburger at Burger King. After sitting down and seeing her sister's chicken nuggets, this little girl proceeded to get upset that she didn't get chicken nuggets. "
But, Little Girl, you said you wanted a hamburger, so that's why you got that. You must eat it all or you will be in trouble," said the little girl's mom.
The little girl went on to pout ever so slightly, but then noticed the apples in her bag, and went on to eat those. Then she discovered the caramel dip that went with the apples. "Yum, these are good," she thought, "Mmm...maybe they will even make my hamburger tasted better. My mom said I HAVE to eat it, and well, it's worth a try."


The little girl daringly dipped her hamburger in the caramel sauce. "Well, here goes nothing," she thought.



The little girl's younger sister looked on in disbelief and complete horror. "Something just doesn't seem right about the hamburger in that brown sauce. Ewwwww!" the younger sister thought. The younger sister glanced over at her mom, "Oooooo, she must think so too. Her face has the face that looks like she smelling a dirty diaper."




"Wow, this is pretty good," beamed the little girl who had just finished her first bite of her caramel dipped hamburger.


"Hey, Mom! you gotta try this. It's great! It's a thumbs up meal! Really! What? You don't believe me? I'll let you try some if you want!" the little girl tried to convince her mom.
Umm...no thank you little girl. I'll just, ahem...sit here and watch you eat....(and try not to gag). I"m just glad you're..ahem...obeying and eating your food like a good little girl." said the little girl's mom with a strange look on her face.


"Hmm, I wonder if mom's not feeling well." thought the little girl. "She's looking a little green."

Monday, May 16, 2011

New addition to the family

The boys bought four hermit crabs when we were in Gatlinburg. However, only one of them is still with us today. The other three are in graves in the back yard. Two of them have been replaced. I'm not too big on this whole hermit crab thing.





We were planning on buying King's Island passes this summer, but then we re-did the kitchen, went on vacation, and then the SUV broke down in Louisville and so there was really no money left for King's Island. I remember Eric came home one day from work, and told the boys that he would make it up to them by buying them something that they had been wanting for months. If only I knew what he was going to say before he said it, I could have kept my house stress-free. The kids looked at their dad with wide-excited eyes. No one knew what he was going to say....."FISH!" I'm thinking, "Fish, seriously?" But the boys whooped and hollered and cheered. Eric was right; it's what they wanted.



So the next evening, Eric took the boys to get some fish. They came home with 2 big goldfish and 5 little ones, food, and the aquarium. Too bad that by the next morning two of the small goldfish had been sucked up in to the filter because the filter cap had never been placed on it. (WHoops!)



Then I left to go to the store. No lie I was gone less than 30 minutes, and when I came home, I found the murkiest aquarium I had ever seen. Apparently one of the boys......no names mentioned.....had thought that the fish would enjoy playing with a painted CLAY BALL! Needless to say, you can imagine what clay does in water. Those poor fish. After redoing the tank for round two, the fish were good.


Unfortunately though, unbeknownst to us the filter was broken now. We didn't realize this for quite some time. Eric cleaned out the tank again (third time), and fixed the filter, or so he thought. A couple of days later the water was so murky that you could barely see the fish swimming around in there. Oh,and did I mention that only the two big ones were left now.



Eric decided that it might be time to go buy a new filter, and they re-did the tank AGAIN for now the fourth time in less than a month. We also bought 5 new medium sized goldfish too.


Even though he had just bought the filter, within a week the filter wasn't working AGAIN. Seriously, he was regretting ever buying the aquarium. I decided to go to Petsmart and get a slightly more expensive filter, at least it was going to be better than the Walmart brand.


Blake switched it all out, and the fish are living happily in their tank now. Well, 6 of them are. I still can't believe the large goldfish have survived all the trauma that they have through.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Girl boots

For those of you who know my family, you know that my boys love boots. It all started back when Blake was little, and he had a pair or yellow rain boots that he called his "santa boots." He eventually called them his "pirate boots." Since then he moved on to many other different boots, and if I would buy him a new pair of rubber boots that fit him, he would wear those too. Jakeb also wears boots, but I think that's simply because they are easy to put on, and no other reason than that. Kaleb, however, loves boots too. He's been known to wear them to bed, outside with shorts, and just about anywhere. I thought that the boot infatuation would stop with the boys. I never thought my girls would like boots this much, but well...it's happened. They've bought into the boot craze too.

and then we have Klaire who insists on wearing boots too. AHHH!!! Hey but at least they're stylin' boots!