Jan 21-24

Jan 21



I have to admit.

I cheated on this one.

We spent the WHOLE day playing with fun friends and I had misplaced my camera
(inside my purse).

Granted, this one is from my camera phone,
which I did have with me,
but whatever.

The boys made this castle out of cups for their Bionicles and army guys.

I am always amazed at the fortresses that are built when we are playing with these particular friends.

They do great things with their imaginations.


Jan 22



I am very proud of this one.

BounceU is an indoor playplace full of blow-up bouncy things. The kids love it and since it is winter, indoor playplaces are preferred.

I received an email earlier in the week offering
FREE
(*instead of the usual $7 per kid*)
admission to the first 25 kids on Friday morning.

CHA-CHING!!

So I got the girls all ready and after taking Rex to the bus, we went straight to Bounce U.

We were a little over an hour early.

And the only people in the parking lot.

We saw many employees enter the building in the half hour that we sat in our car before the next customer car arrived.

We read books and played BINGO and danced in the van to pass the time.

About 15 minutes before the doors opened, with five cars in the parking lot,
crazy bargain-seeking mommy's and daddy's
pulled their kids out of the car and raced to be among the first 25 people in line.

At the end of the mad dash, there were 11 kids in line and 15 minutes to
wait in 30F weather.

Seriously?

Granted, I had kids #s 9 and 10 in that line, but still.

I held Belle's hands inside my coat because she didn't have gloves and Leia had hers inside ther leopard fur pockets.

I caught a glimpse of the lady with kids 26 and 27. Either she was one of those people with a permanently sour look on her face or she was angry.

We went on the big slide about a hundred ba-million times
(the one where you slide on a mat) ,
through the obstacle course
(where I always fell on my face when I entered, and rolled out the end),
fought and made a birthday cake in the boxing ring,
sat on bouncy balls to play soccer
and hit the baseball off a tee of air.

WE HAD A BLAST!!!

I scraped up my elbow pretty good on the obstacle course, policed a lot of kids that were not mine on the big slide and had a great time following my girls around while they had a happy fun time.

We had to leave before it was over so Leia could eat lunch before school,
so we missed the free pizza
(they kept saying 10 more minutes, I just couldn't risk it)
but we had a great morning of free fun.

The picture is of Belle relaxing at the entrance to a slide, waiting patiently for her turn.



Jan 23



About twice a month, we go to Lowe's to do
FREE
projects for kids.

This week we got complimentary safety goggles for the kids.

Apparently Rex did not get the memo that they protect
EYES,
not foreheads.


Jan 24



I guess you could consider dinner time more hazardous to the eyes...

Jan 16-20

Jan 16

We saw a FOX roaming around a neighborhood
(not ours, thankfully)
while driving home from errands.

It was a cute little fox and didn't seem to be causing any harm.

Thankfully it is cold enough that the chance of this little guy
raiding a local chicken coop
and actually finding lunch is small to none.

And backyard chickens aren't really a "thing" around here.

Jan 17

On Christmas morning I was sitting on my couch
contemplating tipping over my end table
in order to have something to put my feet on.

You see, we have deep and tall couches.

And I have short legs.

If I sit up, I can't reach the floor,
and my knees don't really bend at the edge of the cushion,
so my feet are sticking out
like a kid on a church pew.

My knees hurt when I sit cheerleader style on the couch and my shoulders hurt because I end up leaning on the arm.

I know, waah, waah, I have a couch and house to put it in.

Whatever.

The point is that Santa Clause brought me this cool
*hide-the-crap* ottoman
(which has my current scrapbooking project in it).

Santa is usually a list kind of shopper, where he only gets what is on the list and doesn't do a whole lot of free thinking.

This Christmas (for me anyway) was full of thoughtful surprises.

I like that.

And having somewhere to put my feet.

Jan 18

We finally put our Christmas decorations away.

The kids wanted to "help."

Unfortunately, the kids can undecorate a Christmas tree faster than I can find the right box for each ornament.

So we played I-Spy on the tree looking for specific ornaments.

This picture happens to have been taken
before all of us completely understood
the concept of waiting for Mommy to tell us what to do next.

I happen to have been using my
"MOM VOICE."

At least we have a whole year before we have to, er, get to do this again.

Jan 19

We had DEER in our field again.

There were four of them,

I'm assuming the same four we have seen before.

We tried to get the puppy to notice and go get the deer,
but she just stood on the deck and looked

The day was nice enough (*read 48F*) that
the kids decided they wanted to go chase them away

Here they are running into the muddy cornfield.
The arrow is pointing to the deer.

Rex gave up quickly when he made an interesting discovery,
(a red Christmas bow that blew off our fence)

but Leia spent the next half hour exploring the field.

And visiting with our neighbor's dog.

Jan 20

Every Wednesday, Belle has a tumbling class at our local community center.

Leia expressed interest in tumbling also.

Coincidentally, there is an open tumbling session right before Belle's class.

I took both girls and we had a blast together.

They were the oldest and biggest kids there by far, most were toddlers in diapers.

Belle was having fun trying to spin three hoola hoops at the same time.

And Leia loved running and tumbling on the pizza wedge.

This picture was taken as the girls were "riding down" the blow-up bouncer.

They are such good sisters.
Sometimes.

Jan 11-15

Jan 11

I finally put up the stack of pictures in Rex's room
(and there's still a few missing).

I LOVE his blue walls
(windjammer)

and the fun school projects decorating them.

Jan 12

I made yummy sourdough pizza for dinner.

In the oven.

Unfortunately, I forgot to check
inside the oven
before I turned it on.

In a house where little fingers molest goodies, they have to be
out of sight and out of mind.

Our poor snowman cupcake cake suffered horribly.

And the frosting that didn't soak into the cake tasted like wax.

Hmm.

Maybe homemade is better.

Jan 13

Lately when I go to bed, Amber freaks out.
She crouches, looking under the bed squealing and growling.

There is literally NOTHING under our bed.
(OK, there's a curtain rod, but that's not exciting.)

She has been getting more adamant and LOUD. This time she had actually
crawled UNDER the bed
so I decided to get to the bottom of it.


I moved the bed and showed her that nothing was there.

I stopped short of turning the box springs over to see if a
rat or something had climbed up in there and died.

Then I noticed that I had a purse sitting on the low shelf of the nightstand.

This purse hadn't been used since our

homeless summertime cross-country journey.

I had NO IDEA what was in it.

It was a fun trip down memory lane as I remembered adding each item to the purse as I had nowhere permanent to put it.

Then I came across the culprit:
A flavor packet that we were going to use to make dinner in our hotel before we found out that there wasn't an oven in that particular hotel.

Apparently roasted garlic and rosemary are intriguing smells for the puppy.

Jan 14

GOAL!!!
Wii Fit says that I have achieved a
normal weight
and I have reached my weight loss goal.

Wii Fit Plus has really gotten me motivated with its new activities, like
bumping mushrooms that add up to 10,
snowball fights and
a cool obstacle course.

I highly recommend picking one up if you have the means.

I like torturing myself with Wii Fit and seeing my obese Mii smiling back at me saying that according to my fitness test, I am 28 years old.

Well, today I got a surprise.
The balance board is broken.

One of the sensors is not working so some of my weight does not register.

Oh well, it is an amazingly good motivator to see what I (theoretically) could look like.

Jan 15

Belle has the most beautiful curls.

Unless we have to use the heater and douse all humidity.

This is a shot of her lovely curls while her hair was drying.

Later in the day all she had was a slight wave at the ends.

Grownups

Leia: Belle, when you grow up do you want to be a princess?

Belle: Yah.

Leia: Not me, I want to be a restaurant girl.

Belle: And then when I am a grown up and a princess then I want to be a mom.

Leia: When you are a grownup you are a mom already, me too.

Belle: Yah.

Win FREE milk for a year!!!

Go to the Great Gallon Give website and get a coupon for a free half gallon of chocolate milk when you buy two gallons of white milk. And with all the cereal we eat around here, the milk goes pretty fast.

AND you can enter EVERY DAY for as long as the contest lasts (not sure how long that is) to win a free gallon of milk each week for a year!

Sound to me like it's worth a shot.

Jan 7-10

Jan 7

Leia watched Dr. Seuss on the Loose this morning, which includes Green Eggs and Ham. Because of this she requested green eggs and ham for lunch.

Unfortunately, the actual lunch looked much less appetizing than the one in the movie, due to excessive browning. The color of the eggs, however, were a gorgeous green, as is seen in the scrambling bowl.

It tasted yummy, but Leia amended her request and said she'd
"eat it tomorrow for lunch."

As we all know, tomorrow never actually arrives.

Jan 8

Mommy has been sick and Daddy is in
Mexico.

Rex has been so sweet helping to make his own lunch and corralling the girls to get their tasks done. He reminded the girls that
"when mommy is sick, she gets angry faster."

It worked well.

As a reward to all of them for being great helpers, we had root beer floats
(which we call magic ice cream)
for dessert.

As you can see, the kids were VERY EXCITED.

Jan 9

It is SOOOO dry.

And jackets are SOOOO staticy
(especially the ones with leopard print fur in the hood).

And we have SOOOO much hair.

Leia hair is a perfect example of what we are fighting on a daily basis.

Jan 10

One of our favorite Christmas presents is Band Hero. We play together on the guitar, drums and microphone.

The kids each have their favorite instruments.

Rex on the mike,
Belle on the drums
and Leia on guitar.

They decided to rock out in the car to one of their favorite songs, each playing their preferred instruments.

Happy New Year!!!

Jan 4-6

Jan 4

Amber ran to the window barking today when she saw a flock of geese
(who apparently can't find their way South to warmer weather)
landing in our corn field.

Apparently she was looking forward to a snack, judging by the way she is licking her lips.


Jan 5

I had an AWESOME sandwich for lunch.

Jack cheese
honey ham
mayo
spicy mustard
RELISH!!!
freshly milled salt and pepper
on a halfway toasted sandwich with
hot wing flavored Pringles.

YUMMY!!!!

Jan 6

Dancing Princess Leia is now

ROCKIN' PRINCESS LEIA!!!

She's so into her craft that there is no need for clothing. Thankfully I got her before she shed the rest.

The tatoos and shaved head will come later.

Silly little girl

I kid you not, these three pictures were found on my camera, taken in sequence in December.

There's Rex, all bundled up outside with Amber in the first snowfall of the season.

There's Belle, running through the house with as few items of clothing as possible.

And the vast winter wonderland in the field behind our house.

I just don't know where she gets it!

Oh, and yes, I did have flip flops on when I went to the bus stop that day.

Jan 1-3

Jan 1

This is Belle showing off her Lowe's(T) builder apron. She wouldn't stand still or back up to get all of her in the picture.

SOOO Belle!

Jan 2

Rex got this AWESOME Air Force jacket from his Granddaddy-daddy for Christmas. He was excited to have a patch with his name on it, but even more excited to have an American flag.

And it isn't just an ordinary American flag, but one that Granddaddy-daddy had while he was serving in the Air Force.

The third patch in view says Thunderbirds, for the Air Force demonstration squadron. We plan to attend an air show this year, although we won't see Granddaddy-daddy's tanker fly.

By the way, Rex practically refuses to take it off.

Jan 3

My three clean little girls.

We bathed the girls before church and then threw the puppy in as an afterthought. They all dried off, snuggled and warmed up in bed.

The only one not smiling is Amber.

She really wanted to shake while standing on my bed and dry off on the bedskirt of my bed, or my pillow. Poor, poor puppy.

Pictures

I take a lot of pictures.

What?!? I do!

I calculated the average number of pictures taken per month with our cameras (only occasionally used by anyone other than me) and it hit an astonishing 1500 this year.

That is about 50 per day.

Yikes!!!

Unfortunately, many of those come in spurts and we have holes up to a week long during some months.

My sister has inspired me to do better cataloging our lives. Since the scrapbooks will just never get up to date, I will have to go for the ghetto digital kind: folders full of photos on my computer (and three backup external hard drives).

I plan to take at least one picture each day to post (but not promising a post everyday, nor interesting content) and show more little clips of our lives on our blog, which also has large -sometimes month-long- holes in it.

Now that it is in print, I am accountable.

I may have heard that somewhere before.

But I mean it this time.