oh yeah.

as promised... my clean living room. sorry i forgot to post the 'after' pic.

another sign

i'm going to have to take more pictures soon, i'm running out.

christmas movies!

yes, one of them is a bob the builder movie, but the kids deserve to get in on the festivities too, right?  we also have the polar express, but i'm not sure where that was when i was taking the pictures. and a charlie brown christmas, but that's on vhs and our vcr broke, so it will have to be replaced.  i want to just keep building our collection each year.  there are so many fabulous movies!

and speaking of, i promised living-under-a-rock-kate a list of the absolute MUST SEE christmas movies... obviously, the ones in the picture (well, you can watch the bob the builder one if you REALLY want to, but i don't really consider that a MUST SEE!).

in addition:

it's a wonderful life, miracle on 34th street (the real old one, not the new one with the annoying girl), a christmas story, frosty the snowman, santa claus is coming to town, the year without a santa claus, christmas with the chipmunks, elf, dr. seuss' how the grinch stole christmas (the real animated one, not the creepy, over-the-top jim carrey one), a christmas carol (i like the one with george c. scott), the best christmas pageant ever... that's all i can think of right now.  anyone else can feel free to comment and add to the list.

pass it on

mary saw this on heather's blog and thought it looked fun so she did it too and now i am as well.  the ones i have done are in bold, and of course, i had to add some sarcastic commentary... what have you done?

1. Started your own blog - well, duh.
2. Slept under the stars - in a tent, does that count?
3. Played in a band -  but my roommate in college was in one.

4. Visited Hawaii - september 2010. i can't wait!
5. Watched a meteor shower - while sitting in hot springs up by stevens pass
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain 
9. Held a praying mantis - no, but i watched one laying eggs on the side of my house once when i lived in cheney.
10. Sang a solo - not unless you count in the car by myself.
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child - no, but being adopted myself, i've always had that as something i would VERY much consider doing.
16. Had food poisoning - knocking on wood right now!
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables - i make pathetic attempts.
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked - not intentionally, i just wanted someone to help me change a tire and they ended up giving me a ride.
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill - sick of work is sick, right?
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping - no comment
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run - i honestly don't know.  but i made a great catch when i was like 8 that foiled a home run.
32. Been on a cruise - no interest whatsoever 
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors - well, my parents are my ancestors and they were born in seattle and port gamble.  i've been there.
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language - does baby sign language count? 
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied - and working on it yet, again.
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelos David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa - almost went to tanzania in high school, but never did.
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance - got rear ended once in my mom's car when i was in jr. high and they thought i had whiplash. it wasn't very dramatic.                                      

47. Had your portrait painted - well, unless it counts that layla did it...
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie - does a concert video count?
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason - dave's great at that... and he works right by the market.
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving - NO!
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy - i will never part with huggy!
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar - eeewww!
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone - just stress fractures
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper - thanks to the northwest signal! i've also been on the evening news twice!
85. Read the entire Bible - i keep trying!  actually, i 'read' the entire bible in one afternoon while pregnant with shane looking for a good name.  the best one i came up with was jethro, but everyone made fun of me because of the beverly hillbillies, so we wound up with a non-biblical name anyway.
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating - i'd be a vegetarian if i had to do that.  i know, i'm a pansy.
88. Had chickenpox - but not until i was 16.
89. Saved someone’s life - not that i'm aware of.
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous - like a million figure skaters of the past.
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby - once or twice... i try not to make it a habit.
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit - again, knocking on wood.
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

just a little something extra...

so mary had mentioned the other day that her kids were having fun 'decorating' the christmas tree which was up, but bare, and she kept finding random little things stuck in the branches.  well, the decorating elves have apparently struck my house too.

as i was sitting in the chair tonight, settling micah down, i was gazing at the tree and trying to place one of the ornaments i was seeing on a lower branch.  it looked vaguely like a sheep, but was too far away to really see, and i was going through a mental inventory of our millions of ornaments trying to remember if we had a sheep ornament.  but then i put micah to bed and started cleaning up and totally forgot about it.  i cleaned up the dining room and kitchen and, although i forgot to take a 'before' picture, i did remember the 'after', and it now looks like this:

trust me, it was HORRID before.  dishes, pots and pans, etc.  so then i moved onto the living room, which looks like this:

as soon as i finish this post, i'm right back in there, and hopefully i'll have an 'after' pic to post later.  as i was picking up the kids' nativity set, i noticed it was missing a lot of the figures.  so i started looking around and noticed this in the tree: hey, isn't that a shepherd?  but wait, there's more: it couldn't be... a sheep?

and the dog...

another sheep???

hey, isn't that joseph?

MOOOOOOO......

and face down in the branches is a wise man...

and another shepherd. apparently they've had a rough night.

mary, baby Jesus, and an angel were under the tree, so who knows where they started out.

okay, i'm off to finish cleaning.  that tickled my funny bone, so i had to take pictures. 

have the decorating elves struck your house yet???

and for today...

yes, that's EGG NOG in my fridge.  it's best with a bit of brandy... but i don't have any of that.  actually i use it in my coffee instead of cream.  i get it from the milk man and i start ordering it from the time they start having it in stock until they run out, some time in january.  yum, yum, yum!

today's sign of christmas

sleigh bells on the front door.  i have another one on the door into the garage.  we always had some when i was a kid and i LOVE the sound.  it's so "christmassy" if that's a word.  it also makes it hard to enter the house without announcing yourself... i might need to remember this when the kids are teenagers and have a curfew to meet. ;-)  it might be christmas all year long!

yet another sign. it's a good one!

i know that at least mary and christie will appreciate this one...

it's the famous toilet-paper-tube-soldier ornament!  yup, that's a toilet paper tube, a styrofoam ball, some felt and some sequins and trust me, it would not be christmas without this ornament.  i made sure to hang it out of micah's reach since it could easily be destroyed by monkey-boy and dave would be devastated should anything ever happen to it.  these are they type of things that let you know that christmas is a family celebration, not something to be copied from a magazine.  gotta love it!  what ornaments do YOU have that fall into this category???

today's sign of christmas

today's selection is: christmas books!  i LOVE, LOVE, LOVE children's books and i especially love our christmas books.  there are more than this, these just happen to be the ones that were on the shelf last night when i was furiously taking pictures.  i'm thinking of starting a tradition of letting each of the kids pick a new one out each year... most likely right after christmas, when they go on sale.  i love reading the same stories year after year...

oh, and related to yesterday's, shane and layla both have their own "big" advent calendars that they are each in charge of.  i'll probably take pictures of them and post them later.  i suppose next year, micah will need one.  supposedly, dave is in charge of the nana calendar, but i think he's only opened up one so far.

signs of christmas at our house

so i had this idea that i would post a picture every day of the things that are christmas here at my house.  i got all excited and went around taking pictures of stuff all over the place, but i will limit myself to one.  these are the things that i get excited about every year when i get them out of the boxes.  it's like, well, christmas!

so, to kick things off, here is today's selection:

yup, it's nana's advent calendar.  every year, dave's nana sends him (and each of his brothers) a little advent calendar.  you should see how excited he gets!

hilariousness

so dave and i had a whole lot of fun tonight at micah's expense. well, that sounds bad. it's not like he was miserable because of it or anything, he just happened to be the one providing the entertainment. we had finished watching an episode of Gilmore Girls and were still sitting in the living room. he was on the floor and had gotten ahold of my cell phone. we noticed that he was holding the phone and kind of pointing it in the direction of the tv. then he would put it down and then pick it up and point it at the tv. holy cow, he was trying to use it as a remote. i mean, it's not too much of a stretch... it's flat, rectangular and has buttons on it. so i discreetly motioned to dave that he should turn on the tv next time he did it, just to mess with him. so he did. he was thrilled! and started walking around, pointing the phone at the tv, and dave kept turning the tv on and off. then he started changing channels. it was hilarious!

it's so funny when you see a kid micah's age immitating motions we go through every day without thinking about it. it makes you think how ridiculous we must look a lot of the time. here we are, pointing little devices at our tv's. or the time when he he took the phone, held it up to his ear and started opening and shutting his mouth, that was pretty funny too. little sponges they are.

i started thinking about phones and remotes and all the things you can do with phones these days. wouldn't it be great if you could get a phone that could control your tv? and open your garage door? etc, etc? then again, it would suck when you couldn't find it... or your kid took it and hid it... or you dropped it in the toilet...

fading fast

this is the first time micah's fallen asleep at the table. it was so funny because he was determined to finish his sandwich. his eyes were closed the whole time, but he just kept taking bites and chewing. but his head kept flopping around, doing the stevie wonder thing. i felt a little bit sorry for him, but of course my first instinct was to grab the camera. i'm horrible! but it was so cute, i couldn't help laughing (and snapping a million pictures). when he finally gave in and laid his head on the table, i rescued him and put him to bed, where he is currently... i guess i should go clean up the table.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

manly men

i figure there were a few of you out there who might appreciate this scene i happened upon this evening in my living room...

what word means the opposite of logic?

... oh yeah.  LAYLA!

3 year olds astound me on a regular basis, especially this one.  when leaving the NKCC this noonish, it had started raining which spawned layla's very favorite thing in the whole world: puddles!  so, while i was putting micah in the car, she stomped in them and got the bottom of her pants all wet.  as we were driving home (by way of the post office, but that's a whole different adventure) i heard this slurpy, sucky sound and i looked behind me to see layla SUCKING on her wet pant legs.  EEEWWW!!! what on earth would possess a person to do this?  can we say motor oil?  antifreeze?  bird poo?  dirt?  i hope she survives.  ::shudder::

are you sure that's MY kid?

this is how micah went to sleep last night...

i've always heard that there were kids like this.  the kind who would just lay down and go to sleep when they were tired, but they were sort of mythical to me.  certainly, my children were never THOSE kids.  oh no, mine fight it until the last second, forcing themselves to stay awake, being cranky and fussy and grumpy until sleep is IMPOSED upon them by someone else.  but this is what micah did last night.  dave and i were watching tv and i noticed him stop playing and lay down.  i didn't figure it was a big deal because he's done that before when he was tired, but never actually fallen asleep.  but he stayed there.  he would pick his head up and look around every once in a while, and then he started doing the little-kid-sleeping-position with his butt up in the air and his head on the ground.  pretty soon he quit moving.  it was kind of tempting to just cover him up and leave him there, but really, who wants to sleep face down on ugly green carpet.  so we put him in bed (and removed the spoon from his hand) and he stayed.  man, i wish he would do that every night!  so low maintenance!  maybe he can teach layla how to do it too!

starbucks rocks

i think i made money going to starbucks today.  i went in to get dave and i some coffee.  i ordered a tall peppermint mocha for him and an grande eggnog latte for myself.  there were technically two people taking my order - the guy at the cash register, and the girl who was writing on cups.  she heard eggnog, he did not and made some mention of a 'latte', with no mention of eggnog.  it was brought to his attention and he was like, 'oh, let me change that'. i made a joking comment about it being just fine if he only wanted to charge me for a regular latte, and then he went off on some schpiel about how eggnog lattes are overpriced anyway and he didn't know why they charged so much more for them and that he didn't feel like bothering with changing it.  okay... so i paid and went to wait for my drinks.  the barista (not cash register guy OR cup girl) put a drink up and called out, "tall eggnog latte" and i looked around but there was no one else waiting.  i waited a minute to be sure, but no one claimed it.  so i went up and told him that i was assuming it was my eggnog latte, except i ordered a grande.  i wasn't really trying to be picky, but he was like, 'oh, no biggie, let me remake that'. so he did. and then he gave me one of their freebie cards to make up for it.  i was kind of confused at how the whole thing happened.  honestly, i don't really know what i paid for.  it's 'holiday menu' time, so it's not the same total it usually is when i order drinks for the two of us (yes, we're pretty predictable), AND, i bought a sunday paper too.  but i'm pretty sure i paid for a regular latte, and i suppose, since he didn't hear the eggnog part of it, maybe he didn't hear the grande part of it either.  but i wound up with a grande eggnog latte, and a free drink next time.  rock on starbucks!  the big bad coffee giant gets plenty of my money as it is, so i don't really feel bad.  coffee anyone?

***public service announcement***

for the public record...

the other night i tweeted that dave was taking pictures of his nostril.  i have been informed, by an authoritative source, that this is incorrect.  although i heard him say the words, "hello, nostril!", this is actually the picture he was taking at the time - clearly, not of his nostril.

in actuality, he was fiddling with the zoom after having taken this lovely picture of himself, and, as he demonstrated to me, it zooms in directly on his left nostril, provoking him to utter the words, "hello, nostril!"  he assured me that he is not, in any way, immature enough to be taking photos of his own nostrils and didn't much appreciate it that i had stated to the whole world that he was.

so the truth is revealed.  my husband was NOT taking pictures of his nostril, contrary to what i had previously posted.

thank you for your understanding.

(i had considered posting the zoomed-in picture so everyone else can say, "hello, nostril!", but decided that he would probably be mad enough about this already and it really wouldn't be very nice.  haha!)

scams suck!

i'm venting because i'm really mad. i fell for a stupid scam this morning and i feel like an idiot. i'm sorry if anyone else gets scammed because of me. grrr. the internet. it's a blessing and a curse!

here's a link i found that has complete info on it. man i feel like such a huge idiot. don't worry, i didn't get past the first couple screens. i'm not THAT big of an idiot. it only takes a couple for me to acknowledge the 4 million little red flags that are popping up all over. grrr.!!!
http://blog.trendmicro.com/facebook-picture-joke-connives-with-email-harvester/

mischief

i thought i would share with you, this lovely little drawing my daughter made:

cute, huh? 

there are a lot of this type of drawing these days.the only problem is where she chose to draw it...  how about a little perspective:

yup, that's the bathroom counter. 

cute, huh?

and this is after she got 'grounded' from all her other markers after i discovered a whole collection of N's, M's, and W's on her bed.  that's right, ON her bed.  the bottom sheet to be exact.  not sure where she found this one... it was a felt tip pen, as opposed to a marker, and therefore, not washable.  i was able to get most of it off, but there's still a faint pink head with legs and shoes (notice the shoes - even when she's being naughty, she still knows what's important) on the bathroom counter.  LOVELY.

where did this come from??? yes, she's always been a little bit evil... but, holy cow!  she's just awful lately.  anyone know of a good 3 year old boot camp? 

big fat nothing

see all the big welts?  yeah, me neither.  our spectacular appointment with the allergist revealed that layla is allergic to nothing.  so we're back to square one and we know nothing other than that something is causing her bladder issues and we don't know what.  maybe her doctor can put a little pressure on the urologist to see us.  who knows.  and food doesn't seem to be causing her skin issues, nor the rash she gets on her face after eating sometimes.  okay, that's not exactly accurate.  food is causing it, but not an allergy.  she has sensitive skin and when food gets smeared on her face, it irritates her skin.

so, as disappointed as i am that we've gotten nowhere here, i am looking on the bright side that she isn't allergic to something major like wheat or dairy that would create a significant lifestyle change in regards to our diet.  so in that respect, it's good news.  i just really want some answers.

this is for brenda...

i was browsing through the pictures on the computer tonight and happened upon this one that was apparently taken during the 'picture-taking' portion of my wedding.  it was too good to pass up.

 

sorry brenda, i couldn't resist.  check out mackenzie!

doctors and words

micah had his 1 year checkup today.  he's apparently skinny.  what?  our child... skinny?  how could that be?

it only got brought up because he's no longer consistent with his previous percentiles.  i guess that means his weight gain isn't keeping up with the rest of his growth (and that of the other 99 lucky kids that get to make up the percentile chart).  so i guess i'm supposed to feed him more and higher calorie foods.  "no more fruits and veggies for you!  it's all bacon cheeseburgers from here on out."

at any rate, i think he'll live.

layla is seeing the allergist tomorrow.  finally!  i'm so excited.  not for the 2 and a half hour appointment that i have to keep micah entertained through and possibly watch layla get poked several times, but to finally find out what the issues are.  i'll definitely update tomorrow.

finally, and totally unrelated... i know i'm weird, but am i the only one who reads the random nonsense words they make you type when you leave a comment on someone's blog?  i just had one that said "misogyro".  it struck me funny.  then again, i read license plates too and i'm not talking about vanity plates.  i either read the letters on them, or i make them into an acronym.  for example, the letters on our van are VBT.  "very big transportation".  the toyota is VNK.  "very nice kids" or "very naughty kids", depending on the situation.  what can i say... i like words.  i like to play with language. 

what does your license plate say?

mom of the year, here.

so last night, while hanging w/ my sick pup at the folks', i was just sitting down to write a post.  inspired by my young son, the title WAS to be something along the lines of, "holy cow this kid's a freakin' monkey!"  he chose this very moment to climb up on a dining room chair (yes, unassisted - timely, huh?) and then fall over the back of it and land on his head.  so i picked him up and checked his vitals comforted him.  i was figuring he was alright - because he usually is.  mid-wail, i noticed a small sliver of something white and hard in his mouth.  i fished it out and, convinced it was a piece of one of his teeth, i proceeded to upset him even more by hauling him into the bathroom, laying him down on the counter, turning on the bright lights over his face and digging around in his mouth, trying to get a look and feel at all of his teeth.  well, i have no idea what that was in his mouth, but all 8 teeth were accounted for and uncompromised.  and given that there was no apparent trauma to his mouth and a HUGE red bump forming on his forehead, it was pretty obvious where he landed.  so after we recovered from that, i decided to give him a bath and somehow wound up plunking him down in water that was way too hot.  way to go mom.  but he survived, fell asleep on the way home and... nevermind, i have nothing to report about that at the risk of jinxing something again by talking about it. 

at any rate, here's a couple pictures of places i've recently found micah.  yes, that's him IN the fridge.  and on layla's desk, on top of a bin full of markers.  he is a freakin' monkey.

 

it just keeps getting better...

so obviously, from my earlier post, the dinner-making portion of my day was a little less than spectacular. 

oh, that was just the beginning.

dave worked late today.

after dinner, i ran a bath for the younger 2 and in the process of getting them from the dining room to the bathroom, micah knocked the container of cheerios off the table and they dumped ALL OVER the floor.  i scooped up what i could and threw it back in the container, then, mindful that the water was still running in the tub and i didn't want to flood the bathroom, i herded the kids into the bathroom and dumped them into the tub.

i went back into the dining room and proceeded to sweep up the mound of cheerios that was left on the floor, all the while keeping an ear open for both voices and giggles in the bathroom (as long as you can hear them, their heads are above water, right?).  that took all of about 2 minutes.

i looked in on them (both happy as could be) and discovered that both of my younger, happy children were sitting in a tub full of murky poo water.  complete with floaters.  apparently micah had unloaded and layla hadn't noticed yet since she was using a toy boat to dump *water* over both their heads.

i stood there, staring at the tub, in a full-on panic, and like any intelligent, college-educated person, said, "oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh!"

i grabbed layla out and stood her on the bath mat, dripping wet.  my eloquent description of what was going on (see above) had piqued shane's interest enough to take a break from his computer game to see what was going on. 

THANK GOD FOR SHANE!

i told him to go turn on the shower in the other bathroom, threw a bottle of shampoo at him and sent layla in to get clean and unpooey in there.

i turned my attention to micah, still sitting in all his pooey glory, happily playing with pooey bath toys.  i had no idea what to do.  i flipped the switch to drain the tub, and pondered my options.  i could take him out, but he's covered in poo and whatever i put him near will also become covered in poo.  so i just left him there, because, really, the bathtub was already covered in poo, and at least it's contained, right?  so while i'm waiting for the tub to drain, micah played with his poo and i called dave and swore never to speak to him again.  because it's his fault, right?

so i got to use the 'pressure wash' setting on my hand-held shower head again to clean out the tub.  micah wasn't very fond of it (since he was still in the tub when i was using it - no, i didn't spray him with it).  you could say it scared the *you know what* out of him, except it was already out.  so after traumatizing him with that, i switched back to regular spray and cleaned him up.  cleaned him up good.

just another day, right?

cooking for moms 101

does anyone else have this experience?  sometime between 4:00 and 4:15pm, some magic switch, somewhere, is thrown.  it's the "mom's-trying-to-cook-dinner-now-so-i-need-something-anything-not-for-any-specific-reason-other-than-she-needs-to-do-something-else-so-i-must-have-her-attention-right-now-and-i'm-getting-very-upset-and-am-going-to-make-it-as-difficult-as-i-possibly-can-for-her-and-enlist-the-help-of-my-siblings-while-i'm-at-it" switch.  i would say that 6 out of 7 nights a week, whatever dinner preparations i make, are done with micah attached to one or both of my legs.  it makes navigating between the fridge, stove, sink, and counter so much easier! 

open fridge to pull out food = pull micah out of the fridge so i can close it.

open cupboard to get out a pot = micah emptying the rest of the pots onto the floor.

get ingredients out of upper cupboards = removing layla from the countertop.

getting a knife out of the dishwasher = pulling micah out of the dishwasher so i can close it.

combine ingredients in a bowl or pot = layla stirring them until they slop out.

walk across kitchen to get a utensil out of the drawer = drag a not-quite-walking, but crying micah across with me.

standing in front of the stove to cook anything = pick up the dishtowels off the floor for the 400th time.

putting something in the oven = keeping micah a safe distance away while checking shane's homework because he's in a hurry to get out the door.

getting something from off the top of the fridge = no, you can't have any more candy!

seriously!  micah, the kid that never cries, falls apart every time i try to cook.  layla, the kid who never eats dinner, wants every snack she can find while i'm trying to make dinner and falls apart when i say no.  and shane, if no friends are available to play with, finds nothing better to do with his time then torment layla and ask for snacks.  geez!

well, now that dinner is actually in the oven, i have to figure out why micah is wailing, put my kitchen back together, and somehow get stuff into the dishwasher while keeping micah out of it.  then we get to eat.  that's even more fun.

tired girl = MONSTER!

i'm so at a loss for what to do with layla lately.  she's given up naps but still technically needs them.  but if she does nap, she stays up until like 10pm.  either way, it's a bad situation.  now, with the whole time change thing, she's getting up before the crack of dawn, making things even better.  every evening is a huge struggle now, leaving me trying to get dinner ready and deal with micah's antics, shane's activities and whatnot, with her whining or falling apart or fighting with shane or getting into trouble because she gets all hung up on doing something that i'm telling her not to do.  it is MOST unpleasant.  then, by the time dinner is actually on the table, she's too wigged out and almost never eats it, something i'm sure is doing wonders for her general mood as well.  then comes the getting jammies on/brushing teeth/getting into bed battle.  it's like it never ends.  she's so tired she can't function in a civilized fashion, but she won't just go to bed.  that's when she gets all high-maintenance and insists on taking up gobs of my time that i can't give her because i have 2 other kids that are usually attempting in one way or another to get my attention too. 

what do i do here? do i try to make her take a nap (which is a battle in itself, and usually unsuccessful) and then deal with her up all night? or do i keep having her power through and deal with nightly HELL?  either way, she's driving me crazy and right now my evenings really suck! 

when did all hell break loose?

and why did nobody tell me?

i swear i'm going to lose it today - or sometime in the near future.  i don't know if it's halloween, too much excitement, too much candy, the weather, the fact that we were out of town for 5 days or what, but my kids are driving me up the friggin' wall!

they're fighting, stir-crazy, seem to have misplaced their ears and their ability to do anything they are asked to do and they're trashing the house repeatedly, which just puts me more on edge.  they're just awful!  it's like they're trying to get on each other's nerves... and subsequently mine. 

my parents said they were just wonderful for the 5 days they spent with them.  the listened, they got along, they ate their dinners... what the heck?  maybe they used it all up.

i need a vacation from my kids... and i just had one.

keep your big mouth shut!

i jinxed it.  i never should have said anything and i knew better.  last night was awful.  micah woke up at about 3:30 and stayed up for at least an hour, miserable and crying.  way to go, rachel!  when will i learn! 

a breakthrough?

i almost don't want to post this in case i jinx it. if we backfire, i'll admit it - you don't talk about the no-hitter.

but we're in the midst of a 'project' with micah. mr. high maintenance has pushed us to the limit with his nighttime needs. basically, we've gotten ourselves in a situation where micah wakes up multiple times a night and wants to nurse. it's ridiculous, because he totally doesn't need to, it's just what he wants to do to go back to sleep. and, in an effort to have him shut up as quick as possible (in order to avoid having 3 children awake in the middle of the night instead of just 1) i just give him what he wants so he'll go back to sleep. but i recently reached the end of my rope. i need sleep!

so i moved out.

not really, but i moved out of the room. i've been on 'vacation', sleeping elsewhere at night and letting dave handle the nighttime stuff. basically, dave's been putting him to bed and 'helping him out' when he wakes up at night because if i'm there, he's going to be insistent. the last few nights, he woke up a few times and dave was able to get him to go back to sleep after a while, gave him a bottle once or twice, the first night. anything, but me. last night was the 3rd night of my 'vacation' and, by far, the best in a very long time. he fell asleep in the car and transferred easily. YES! then i went and slept in shane's bed. at 5:30, dave got up to go into work for awhile and reported to me that micah was STILL ASLEEP!!! holy #@*%! really? he woke up about 10 minutes later and just got out of bed, crawled into the dining room, and found something to play with. i took him back to bed and crawled in with him. i nursed him at that point, but he was done with nighttime, so he didn't go back to sleep, and instead entertained himself by emptying dave's sock drawer until he decided it was time to go exploring. i'll take waking up early if it means i get to sleep all night! we'll give it a little longer of this before i come back from vacation. i miss my cushy bed! maybe, if he keeps sleeping well, we'll move him into layla's room and then i can come home and accomplish the same effect. we'll see. it's all just an experiment, right?

trick or treat!

halloween was a big success!  we managed to find costumes for everyone, some were related.  maybe next year we'll go for a theme. we went trick or treating over at the same development by my parents' house where we've gone the last 2 years and they lived up to the hype again by handing out full size candy bars and decorating festively. one house handed out playdough, which layla was SO excited about. i hadn't really anticipated one minor issue, though. layla is so well adjusted to her recent dietary restrictions that she was 'rejecting' anything people tried to put in her pumpkin that was in a brown wrapper. she'd hand it back to them saying, 'i can't have chocolate.' the first house she did that at, the guy actually went into his kitchen and got her a pack of fruit snacks! how totally nice (and unnecessary). i told her that it was okay if people gave her chocolate, we would sort it out later. gotta love a picky 3 year old trick or treater.

some friends (spiderman and family) joined us there so it was even more fun.  shane was running all over the place trying to hit as many houses as possible, but layla was taking it slower.  i think her fancy dress was impeding her mobility.  royalty she is not. micah, surprisingly enough, had a blast and didn't even have a fit about his hood.  he was ridiculously cute.  so we are...

 

shane, the stormtrooper...                 micah, chewbacca....

layla, cinderella..... i tried to get a decent picture of her by herself, but she wasn't interested in posing.

 

and all of us.  dave and i were jailbirds, complete with balls and chains.  yes, we need a new camera.  isn't that a fun trick it does?  turns everything purple.  you have to whack it to make it go back to normal.  so fun.

we stopped by my parents' house after trick or treating to show off. shane decided to sleep there, so we brought layla and micah home with us. they both fell asleep in the car so we just stuck them into bed. woo hoo!

preschool dropouts

layla and i have officially dropped out of preschool.  i say that we have, one, because it was a co-op, and two, because it wasn't working for me as much as(if not more than) it wasn't working for her.  there's a whole slew of reasons, but mainly, it was too far away, i had too many other places to be, and layla was getting totally wiped out and was VERY unpleasant to live with.  so we're quitting and we'll try to find someplace closer to home next year. (i'll try my best to be less neurotic picky then.)  she's only 3 and we've been missing our MOMS club friends a lot, so hopefully we'll open up some more time for that stuff and a little extra money every month to blow at gymboree pay bills with.

fun in chicago

on monday, which was our last night in town, we decided to stay at a hotel in chicago instead of getting up in the middle of the night (and make someone else get up too) to drive there for our 8am flight out of o'hare.  joe and mary (and hannah) drove us up and we all had some chicago style 'stuffed' pizza at giordano's.  this pizza was like 2 inches thick and there was so much cheese i don't even know where to begin.  at one point, joe drew our attention to the fact that he'd been spinning cheese around his fork for like 5 minutes and it was still coming.  i think he could have sat there all night and he never would have run out of cheese.  micah did a good job with his.  yum.

  

after we ate, they took us to our hotel, the aloft.  dave found a deal on priceline, so we knew nothing about this place.  when we pulled up, there was loud techno music playing and i was a little concerned that it was going to be just a big party inside, but it was actually a very nice place to stay.  i took pictures in our room and you can see pictures of the rest of it here.  the whole thing kind of reminded me of an ikea showroom.

micah got a big kick out of the safe in the room.  he kept going back and we'd hear beeping as he was pushing the buttons.  then he went and unrolled all the toilet paper.  he had a good time exploring everything.

but we slept well, even with planes flying overhead, and we were able to sleep in all the way to 5:30 and take the shuttle to the airport.  we had an uneventful flight home - the best kind.  and micah was pretty good, considering.

our trip east for hannah's baptism

last friday, we headed out (at 0darkthirty) to illinois for hannah's baptism and a big fat gathering of family.  micah came with (cause he's free), but shane and layla stayed here w/ my folks because they're not.  they were most definitely missed, but they took good care of their grandparents and layla got to paint every day so she was happy.

Micah was excited to help pack.  notice the super-cute train sweater-vest in the bag.  dave came home from work that day with a gymboree bag and said, 'i got you a present'. i had been eyeing that since i first saw it and i can't find any pictures of micah actually wearing it (he wore it sunday to church), so i'm pointing it out in the suitcase.  i know, i'm a dork.

tons of fun bonding with uncle matt.

the 'non-lame baptism gift' we got for hannah.  this little bracelet is so tiny. it's got blue crystals on it for her september birthday, pearls and a little silver cross pendant.  i was SO happy to find it.  totally not lame!  and totally beautiful.  it came from tinyblessings.com.

hannah with her godparents, us and auntie esther - mary's sister.

 

parents and godparents.  apparently this was joe's first baptism.  how cool is that that it was his own kid?!

testing... windows live writer

this is a test using windows live writer.  i'm just checking it out quick to see how it works.  this is only a test.  in the event of a real post, you will experience the usual sarcasm and wit that is native to my blog.

but i wanted beans!

i have discovered something amazing.

until recently, layla would never eat green beans. well, she used to, and then a little more than a year or so ago, she started pulling them apart and eating the seeds out of them, leaving the rest. yeah, i know she's weird. then she quit eating them all together. she would just leave them on her plate.

well, a couple fridays ago, we were having our pizza and beans and something prompted shane to pull these 'trainer' chopsticks out of the drawer. i've had them for a couple of years - i think i found them at a thrift store and thought they were cute and the kids could use them when we had chinese food. but we'd all kind of forgotten about them since we rarely eat chinese food (which makes me sad). so everyone got really excited about these and layla used them to eat every last one of her beans that night. dave and i exchanged some raised eyebrows as lightbulbs were illuminating above our heads.

last night i made chicken sandwiches and green beans for dinner. as soon as layla saw the green beans, she got very excited about choosing her chopsticks and even asked for seconds and then thirds of the beans.

so tonight, we didn't have green beans.

oops.

she was very disappointed and even though i offered to let her try to eat her dinner with chopsticks, she pretty much ate nothing.

note to self: if not serving green beans, make sure to serve something (other than goopy rice casserole) that can be eaten with chopsticks!

here they are:

i got mine second hand, but i've seen them at one of those independent toy stores, and i found this pic on amazon, so you can obviously get them there and they're pretty cheap. they're plastic, dishwasherable (you know what i mean), and super easy to use. we have a giraffe, elephant, and camel, but there are lots of different animals you can get.

and i thought layla was my climber...

this is how i found micah just now.
note to self: close all drawers. although they have handles on them so it probably won't deter him any.
this is what was so interesting:










and now for something completely different... this is what our nightstand looked like this morning after having layla spend most of the night in our bed. can we say SNOTTY???