Bice Family Fun

April 30, 2010

2010-04-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

I doubt if I have a single follower left. I haven't posted in about 9 or 10 months. Needless to say, things have been busy around the Bice household. After our vacation to Ft. Morgan last August, Harper started "Monkey Class" on Tuesdays and Thursdays at FUM and Noah went back to his morning class at Tillis. Josh was busy running his distributorship and my photography business picked up during the fall. I struggled to stay caught up with that and everything that goes along with being a mom, wife, and homemaker. Laundry mountain took over, of course... and is still currrently on the loveseat-I NEVER seem to get caught up. Aanyways, that's my excuse for not blogging, and I am stickin' to it.

To catch you up, we've added 3 new members to our household. Around Noah's birthday each kid got a kitten. Noah got a little orange one who he names "Jett". Juddson got a black and white one, "Tomcat" (after Tom from Tom and Jerry) and Harper got a tan and black and white fuzzy one, who she names "Coffee Cat Race Car Bice"-- we just call him Coffee though.

Noah turned 5 on November 2, and had a splendid Mario birthday party. Hollie helped us A TON, making koopa troopa cupcakes and a huge Mario for a bean bag toss. She even made a mushroom pinata and homemade wooden stands for her cupcakes. She was amazing!

Christmas was an exciting time, Nanna's house was full of babies. Livi and Lake and Allie were new to Christmas at Nanna's and it was great to have all of the little cousins there. Santa brought Harper a doll house and some games and some barbies,and a Moxie girls guitar. Judd got some little people stuff, a keyboard, a bowlingn set, a game, and a light up noisey motorcycle, and a leap frog computer thingy. Noah got a boxing set, complete with a punching bag and gloves, an electronic violin, some board games, and alot of bakugan and hotwheels stuff. The boys VERY FAVORITE gift was the new Super Mario Brother Wii game, from Granny and Pa. Noah beat the entire game in only 5 days. I want a Nintendo sponsordship!!!
I have a gamer on my hands.

After the holidays ended and the new year began, business slowed down for me and we got back into a halfway normal routine. Harper turned 4 at the end of January. She had a beautiful Dora cake and Dora bounce around at her party. Nanna and Pappa got her a Dora tricycle which she rides around the house constantly.

Judd just had a birthday on April 19. He had a Sonic the Hedgehog and Tails party. Since they didn't have a Sonic bouncearound, he had the big green dragon one (like Noah had) and was very pleased with it. Since they all loved HJ's trike so much, Nanna got one for each of the boys... it's a traffic jam in our house with 3 trikes zooming all over.

In the past few months, Noah has backed off the wii games somewhat and has started playing more with his toys. He has several favorites and spends alot of time packing them in bags, boxes, or baskets, dumping them out and moving them to another container. Pa has been teaching Harper about dinosaurs and she wants to be called "dino girl". We have also been working with her on not sucking her thumb and have gotten her a little thumb wrap thing to help her remember. She has been thumb suckage free for about 4 days now. Pa got her a big box of dinosaurs to celebrate. He loves it as much as she does. She can name them all and knows if they are nice or mean (if they eat leaves or people). Judd is the new gamer in the house. As soon as his feet hit the floor in the morning, before his eyes are open he asks "where is one pwayer?" (one player remote for the wii.)

They like to watch Sonic on youtube, Dragon Tails, CatMouse, The Littles, and a bunch of other oldies from Netflix.

A few weeks ago, Noah's occupational therapist recommend we try a brushing technique with him. We have seen major growth and improvement in the areas of his vocabulary, listening, and overall mood. We are so proud of him and excited about this new therapy.

End of July, beginning of Aug.

2009-08-11T05:39:00.000-07:00

Oh my, I have been so terrible about posting. We have been having birthday parties all over. This weekend, we went to Nanna and Pappa's to celebrate Josh and my birthday. Last night I cooked a huge fried chicken dinner for Josh and Dad for their birthdays.
The kids have been growing, faster than ever. Judd is now swimming under water! He loves it. Sometimes he swims and sometimes he puts his face under while he water walks. He lets Josh throw him now too. They all play the game where they will "get on" to Josh for throwing them and shake their little fingers at him and say "no golf ball," "no baseball," "no soccer ball" etc and he'll go "WHHHHAAATTTT?" and chunk them across the pool.
Judd "borrowed" a little Mario man from church and won't let go of him. First thing when he wakes up "where's Mario?" and we have to hunt through the sheets for him.

A while ago (AGAIN, please read past this if I have already posted this... I have all of these little notes around my desk and am going to type them in, so I can trash them) the kids were at Granny's. Noah peed in the dog water and Granny gave him a little swat. The next day Judd was on my lap pretending to call Granny and said "Hello Granny. Pank Noah's bottom, granny?" he he he... Maybe he's scared of her now... yeah right.

When Noah is upset at someone, he'll tell me they need a "red blood stankin." Meaning, they need one so hard it makes it red... I seriously, have no clue where that one came from.

We pulled up to see Josh's truck here and HJ said "stinker's home."

She was trying to get out of the car another time and Noah got out before her and shut the door and when I came around to open it and let her out she said "That stinkin' Noah, shut the door on me."

Right after Kara cut off all of Judd's hair, Harper was looking at a picture of all three of them (when Judd's hair was long) and said "There's Noah and Mario (and pointed to N's shirt) and there's Harper with pink elephant cat, and there's Judd with the wrong hair!"

She had been asking when Miss Becky was going to come over and see us and I said "I don't know, she was supposed to come visit, wasn't she?" and Harper replied, "well, maybe she gots a pwobwem."

Harper woke up with a stuffy nose and came into the office and told me her "nose won't work".

Harper was sitting on my lap on the couch. Mom and Judd were next to me. Harper was singing ABC's and Judd chimed in, wanting to sing too. Harper said, "no Judd- you just sing 'bum bum bum'." and I laughed and said "Judd she just wants you to sing back up." Judd started singing "back up back up back up, back up!" in the prettiest tune... loloolol... we were rolling.

Yesterday Judd was in the bath and I was in the office and he said "I meed out, piders on me." and I said "spiders? is there a mosquito in there?" and he started whimpering, so I walked in there and he'd pooped in the tub. I scooped some and said "is this spiders?" and he said "yeah." hmmmm...

Harper's preschool and swimming

2009-07-29T06:14:00.000-07:00

Harper Jane and the rest of us went to visit First United Methodist preschool this week. She (and the boys) loved the classroom and I enjoyed meeting the director. My main concerns of safety were put to ease and I feel like Harper would really enjoy the program there. She will be starting Tues/Thurs school in Aug. Judd said "wha 'bou me?" and wants to go too...

Harper swam under Daddy's bridge, under water-- like Noah, he belly was almost to the bottom of the pool and she held her breath for a long time-- we have some good swimmers... unlike their mother.

The other Day, I was quizzing Harper.. "where do we live?" Harper says "Smort Smith"
"Right, now what street do you live on?" Harper says that right. I asked her her mommy's name, she got it right... then her daddy's. "Ummm, Daddy?" I said "No, his other name" She thought a minute and I could tell she didn't have it, so I gave her a hint and said "what does mommy call him?" she smiled and said "stinker". A few days after this we pulled up after exercise school and his truck was here and she said "stinker's home."

The boys are doing well also. Noah is really into "kiss you" right now and kisses me a million times a day (especially when he thinks I am upset with him for something) I guess he needs a kiss to reassure him we are best friends.

Judd's big thing is "hold me pweeze....on da couch" and points where I need to go. He loves puppy dogs and usually carries around a few of the stuffed animals. You know how he's into boxing... well, I found a $3 shirt at Walmart with a boxer puppy on it, holding a pair of boxing gloves in his mouth and it says "boxer in training"... well, being Judd's 2 loves, and only $3, I had to get it for him. I put it on him last night and he did his voice "Ohhh so cute!" he said. I gotta record that, it's hilarious, he wrinkles up his nose and says it in a deep voice.

Anyways, we went to church lastnight-- trying to get started in Wed. night church again. Noah got an award for being a good listener! Yeah Noah!

Weekly update

2009-07-21T18:35:00.000-07:00

I need to post more regularly... I go thru spurts of posting a lot and then not posting. Josh is in bed and the kids are all playing nicely together. The kitchen is cleaned and the table is wiped down....The kids are clean too, I just got out of the bath with HJ and Judd. Harper is low on Iron again, which worries me. She is "so so so so tired." even after a 3 hour nap. She slept from about 6pm-6:30 this morning.
The boys especially are really into "water game" otherwise known as "wipeout" and watch it over and over. Judd loves the "big balls" and acts it out with his rubber ducks, or whatever toy he has at the moment.
While I am thinking about it, Judd holds his thumbs in between his next 2 fingers. He was doing it in the car today on the way home from Sam's and it's precious.
At Jessie's this weekend he "stole" a bowling set. He woke up this morning and put his hands out and said "where'd my bowling stuff go?" and went to find it.
Noah is really into hotwheels. The other day, he and I were together alone and I gave him a dollar bill and we went to Walmart and he picked out his own hotwheel and paid for it himself. Now, he thinks he needs one everyday.
Did I write about HJ helping me with laundry last week. For about 2 hours, she helped me sort laundry mountain into piles and she did a great job! "Girls panties, boys panties, Harper's clothes, Daddy's boxers, jammies, and wash towels."
I filed papers this morning. I found these notes that I don't know if I have posted or not, but they are from the past couple of months.
I said "Judd do you need to go pee in the potty?" Judd said "No, see, I got panties on."
We were in the car on the way home from exercise school and they were amazed that Addy had a Pa too. I was explaining to them that Pa was my dad and Pappa was Josh's dad and Noah said "And Wanna's yo mom?" and I told him "No, Nanna is Daddy's mom... Granny is my mom." He thought for a few seconds and said "wanna, gwanny, and mommy--- dose aw my girls." Awww. made me tear up and of course I had to call the other "girls" and tell them.
Harper asked me if she could watch the deer painting with bbq sauce on you tube and I turned it on for her and left the room. He ran back in the den and said "that deer scares me, it's fweakin' me out in dere."
A long time ago, several months, I told Harper she was being ugly (by how she was acting) and she said "I ugwee and pwoud."
I asked the kids if they wanted butter or cheese popcorn and Noah answered "chicken popcorn!"
Anyways, if those last stories are repeats, I am just sorry... I wasn't going to go back thru every post trying to find them.
And all 3 of them are here bombarding me.

July

2009-07-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

The kids have been cracking us up lately. We have been trying to get them to sleep in Harper's bed every night, and our new routine is about 5 books, then Josh tells them a bedtime story, then I lay in there for a while and sing until they go to sleep. Well, they still don't really like it, and Noah always says he wants to go to mommy/daddy bed. The other night HJ and Judd were watching a show on the couch, and Josh and I were going to lay in bed and watch a movie... It was this weekend, and we were going to let them fall asleep on the couch watching shows. Noah came into our bedroom all wound up and excited and said "Hoppa and Judd sweep in Hoppa bed, Noah sweep in mommy daddy woom and watch a mommy/daddy show-- that's da pwan?" with his little hand held out to the side, it was precious... being that cute, he got his way and Harper and Judd watched a show on the couch and he laid in bed with us and watched a mommy/daddy movie and went to sleep.
We were waiting on Josh to take movies back the next night, sitting in the Walmart parking lot and Noah could see a Chicken Donalds far away. Harper was getting frustrated because she couldn't see it and said "you got some gwasses so I can see chicken Donald's too?"
Judd is still saying "Oh my dosh" the other day we were eating pancakes and he couldn't poke his with a fork and was getting frustrated, and Josh helped him get a bite, and with a big full mouth, he said "oh my dosh, daddy poke it!"
Judd saw a picture of Josh doing fireworks I was putting on the computer and said "dats so cool!"
If I ask him where his food went he puts his hands out and says "eat it aw dawn."
He calls Harper "harper janey" and always has to know where she is and what she's doing.
Harper has been wanting Miss Becky to come over and she said "where is Miss Becky?" and I said "I don't know where she's been..." and she said "Maybe she gots a pwobwem."
We were getting ready to leave for Stephanie's wedding yesterday and Harper said "Is daddy gonna come?" I said "No, not with us, Daddy's playing golf" and she said "Oh, dat daddy, he's always playin' golf." (He did go, we picked him up in Sallisaw)
That was a big trip... The kids were good on the way down. The church was huge and it was hard to keep up with them on the bounce around, trampoline, basketball courts, pool table, fountains and all that stuff... On the way home Judd cried for over an hour straight and Noah was telling Josh to drive faster and go home!

Today

2009-07-01T12:54:00.000-07:00

Took all 3 of them to the dentist today-- they were incredible! It was Judd's first time, and he did SUPER! They all 3 just laid back on the tables, just like they were supposed to and held their mouths open. I just went from table to table checking on them and they were absolutely PERFECT. I was so proud. HJ even got x-rays by herself! Dr. Murphy bragged and bragged on them and their teeth! Yeah!
After that we went to chicken donald's and played and ate lunch for a treat. After that to Jennifer/Michelle's to drop off Noah, then to Nanna's bank so Harper and Judd could play. Glad to be home now.

The other day Harper said "I'm hiccing upping."
Judd has been saying "oh my dosh."

Sweeties

2009-06-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

Oh the sweeties are doing good. We've had a super busy week. My friend Robin, and her 3 kids: Marlee 6, Reilly 4, and Ollie 10 months, came and stayed with us for a couple of days. We went to Chuck E. Cheese for a long time Tuesday night and had a little birthday party for Marlee, we came home and the kids played toys, video games and watched movies until they crashed on the couch. Robin and I stayed up until 4am talking!!! I woke up at 7 and worked on some pics... Dad brought us over Hardees biscuits at 8-- how thoughtful is that?? Thanks dad! At 9:30 I went with Alyssia and Vivian to shoot Vivian's 3 year pics, it was SOO HOT! Poor Robin watched all 6 kids while I did that. After I got back we went to Grandmom's and swam. It was hot for Ollie and Robin, who weren't in the pool, so we came back home and the kids were hungry, so we went to the mall and ate Geno's and the kids played in the playland. After that we tried to shop, but with 6 kids, go figure how much shopping we got done. After the mall, my sweet husband watched the kids who were awake and me and Robin and a few kids passed out. I couldn't hold my eyes open as hard as I tried. After my wonderful nap, we got them loaded and we went and did their pics. After that was done, they got on the road, and I picked up the boys from Granny's house. Poor Granny was exhausted... the boys were bad, mixing up the cat and dog food and Noah apparently peed in the dog water (which I didn't find out until yesterday)... or he'd have gotten into big trouble. Updates: When Noah gets in bed he said he needs the cold, and we have to flip all the pillows over to get the cold side of the pillow.... he learned that all on his own. His favorite show right now is "My new water game" which translates to "WipeOut" he loves it and watches the episodes over and over and cracks up. When they are panning over the course he brings me in and points to it and said "I can win this" and wants to try it so bad. Juddson is really into the wii and loves to play boxing and baseball and tennis. He has to use the Juddson Mii though, or he gets mad. He acts out the boxing scenes and when his wii gets knocked out, he falls to the floor and lays flat and still. Harper is still trying to not suck her thumb, and she's doing super during the day, but having a hard time at night. She loved playing with Marlee. They played dolls and painted nails and played with Marlee's schnoodle, Shelby. I so wish I could get her a little dog or kitten. Last night I had a photo shoot and Josh watched them, he said they had a blast playing blocks and hide and go seek. He said that he was hiding and they couldn't find him for a while and he heard Harper say "Daddy went to work... Mommy and Daddy both are gone." Isn't that terrible, after that he made noises so they'd find him.

Weekend

2009-06-22T05:05:00.001-07:00

Noah is going thru a talking phase, which is wonderful. The other night I was on the computer and he walked in here and said "mommy, we told you many times" in a stern voice... I guess that meant to get off the computer.
HJ had something under her shirt and said "see my new boobs?" I said "yeah, i like those, where'd you get em?" and she said "WalmarK."
Harper is big into singing and dancing and making clapping shows-- I need to video it so you can see what I am talking about.
The boys are big into playing Wii together, except Noah takes the clicker from Judd and switches them right when it would be Judd's turn to play, so Noah gets every turn and Judd just gets to hold a clicker.
Harper is on star 5 towards her, now baby doll, not growing puppy (thank goodness because apparently that are expensive and hard to find) quitting the thumb sucking. She remembers more than I do. Sometimes I look at her and her thumb will be in her mouth, but it won't register to me (because I have seen her with that look for 3 years) and she'll remember and will pull it out real quick and smile. She's such a good girl.

This week

2009-06-19T04:55:00.000-07:00

The days have been spent at exercise school in the mornings, home for lunch, and then a trip to Grandmom's house for a swim. The pool has warmed up, and it' been very nice to go play with them for a couple of hours. Judd has started putting his whole head under and is soooo proud of himself. Harper will do it a couple of times, and get excited that she's not crying. Noah is crazy and loves to be thrown in and will get a running start and do crazy flips over the side to get in.
Yesterday we skipped the pool and took an afternoon trip to the Nature Center. We stopped and got a pizza to eat there, but it didn't make it there, we ate the whole thing in the car on the way there. It was so hot, and all the kids wanted to do was throw rocks in the water. It was making me nervous watching all 3 of them by the water by myself, so I finally coaxed them inside. Hollie, Paul, Levi and Hollie's mom and sister and some kids she babysits were there also, but they were up by the building having a picnic, and after they were done they came inside with us. The kids enjoyed playing in the "big room" (i don't know what it's called) with all of the stuffed animals and live animals. There were a few snakes, and turtles and fish-- stuff like that. We stayed until 2pm "Critter Crunch" time and were excited about watching the alligators eat lunch... however, we went to the feeding room and realized it was only 1, 1 ft. long baby gator. The kids did love it, and watched it eat 4 crickets, and dead frozen pinky mouse and a couple of minnows. Noah was laughing so loud, he loved when it would chase the bugs. Judd would come up and get my hand with a very concerned look and say "Awigator eat'n PIDERS!!!" (that would be alligator eating spiders!) He liked to watch it too, and they had a front row seat and got to see it up close. Overall we had a good time, but it was hot and the kids were tired and thirsty and I was ready to go. HJ and Judd fell asleep as soon as they got into their carseats and Noah came home and played games. I got a lot done while they were occupied and then I had a photo shoot. Daddy stayed with them and took them all to Chick Fil A to play and eat dinner. I got home shortly after they did and we all crashed.

Lately

2009-06-15T04:17:00.000-07:00

Harper has been trying to stop sucking her thumb. I told her if she could do it for 7 days she could get that growing puppy toy she's been wanting. She is doing phenominally!!! She'll put her thumb to her mouth and then remember and pull it out real quick and look up at me and smile. I know it's hard on her, bless her heart... but she's doing so good! She'll say, "well, I just poop in the potty." and I think that means, she realizes that she's a big girl since she poops in the potty now!
Some of my Juddson favorites right now... He puts his little hands out and says "eat it all dawn." He wants to play "baseball tv" for Wii baseball. He boxes-- I just have to get a video of this. He put Marshall (the green hippo) on the table and started boxing it... Marshall fell backwards and Judd goes "3,2,1" When he and Noah play boxing on Wii and Noah KO's Judd's man, Judd falls on the floor and acts it out.
When the phone rings Noah says "Who's calling" When I clean Noah says "Who's coming today?" He still says "That's my mommy" when he's happy.
We went to mom's last night to see Jeff and the boys. Harper was so excited to see her cousins. She loved Jeff and wanted to tell him everything about everything... She started everything with "guess what" For example: "Guess what?" "We got a house a big house and 2 cats Savannah and and and and (and look at me, I'd say and Cooper) Yeah, and Cooper and when I a baby, cooper scratched my eye and a dog and I a princess" etc etc etc...

Date Night

2009-06-12T04:06:00.000-07:00

Well, last Thursday Harp got to go on date night to "the restaurant and the mall" so last night was Noah's turn. We let him pick and he picked to eat Geno's pizza first, and then go "shishing". We ate pizza and then we played tag and hide and go seek at the mall playland. After that, we went to Carol Ann Cross Park and he fished with his Spiderman pole. That got old pretty fast, so we bought 30 min on a paddle boat. We saw a big funny shaped log and Noah thought it was a hippo and got scared of hippos being in the water. Of course, he had to pee and stood on the side of the paddle boat and peed in to the water, with a big audience-- thats my Noah. After the paddleboat ride, we let him play on the playground, then we had to go home. When we got home..... Kara had cut Judd's hair into an almost mohawk-- without my permission, and I got mad. Oooh, that made me mad... so-- she had to pretty much shave the rest of it off... I admit, he looks really cute with short hair, I just wasn't ready for his long hair to be gone just yet. Harper announced "Kara helped cut his hair".... Thank you Harper-- news anchor for filling me in!

Swimming and Weekend

2009-06-08T07:22:00.000-07:00

We've been spending a lot of time in our pool. Noah can go under for a long time and likes to get coins off the bottom-- you'd think he found treasure down there, he's so excited when he gets back up! Harper went under 1 time and didn't even cry-- she says, and Judd went under once, and we've had a hard time getting him back in the pool... He's ok as long as he's not thinking about it... They all must take after Josh because they seem to be very good swimmers, they race back and forth across the 12ft. pool!
Josh was out of town Saturday night Pa came over and hung out with us. We went and got each kid a movie and then got icecream and fries and came home. Judd was sitting on the arm of Pa's chair and leaned over and kissed the side of Pa's head (above his ear) and said "Kiss Pa Ear, Ommy!" It was so sweet!
Yesterday was Kara's church shower and I took HJ while Josh played outside with the boys. She was a big helper and delivered the gifts to Kara and helped her open them. She decided all the ladies needed a mint, so she delivered one to everyone there, one by one-- she made trip after trip and worked so hard. At one point, several women were getting ready to leave and were up walking around and HJ was yelling for everyone to play ring around the rosy, but no one listened. Kara gave each hostess a little Bath and Body works bag with a soap and lotion in it and Harper helped hand those out... When she was done, she said "was that all the presents?" and looked around... (Because Kara got a bunch, and all the hostesses got one, but she didn't and I could tell) so I snuck my bag to Kara and Kara said "there's one more, it's for you Harper!" and she was so excited "Oh, thank you Kara, and opened her soap and lotion and we put lotion all on her and made her smell good, and made a big deal out of it. She was proud, and content and carried her little bag on her arm the whole rest of the time... We were loading Kara's gifts and Harper said "I ti -erd, let's go home" and we did, and she took a big nap!

Summer is here

2009-06-02T05:25:00.001-07:00

We officially started summer this Sunday... We set up a 12' by like 3' kiddie pool in Grandmom's backyard (where Hoover couldn't destroy it) and also a slip n' slide. We stayed over there all day Sunday, until the kids were passing out. Juddson fell asleep in a towel and it was the cutest thing ever, of course I didn't have my camera though :(
We went back to "the pool" yesterday after Jennifer/Michelle school. First we stopped and got snowcones. The kids sat in their little lawn chairs and ate those, then slipped and slid, then swam. Pa came over and played for a little while. He was picking Noah up and throwing him into the pool, Noah of course loved it. I think he was going too high and getting a little scared, so he was explaining how he wanted to be thrown and pointed to the sky and said "Not to da bwu ski, and not to outer space, just wike dis" and held his hand a little ways over the water... So, we threw him softer and lower for the rest of the time. Harper and Judd both pooped in the grass and got their rears cleaned off with the hose, they thought that was cool... I was just thankful it was in the grass and not in the pool!
After swimming, we made a Walmart trip for groceries and we got pool noodles and rings, so I know we'll be back at "the pool" today... It sounds so high class doesn't it!

Last day of school and last soccer game

2009-05-28T20:20:00.001-07:00

Noah had a big day today. Tyler (one of his good friends) at Miss Reynda's school gave him a big hug before he got on the bus today. He will be going to kindergarden next year and won't be in the same class as Noah... it was so sweet, but a little sad too. We had a busy day, Audrey came over and played and then Granny and Grandmom came over and stayed with the kids while I picked up the trophies and the cookie cake for the soccer game tonight. Noah played in his last game of the season. It was really nice of Dad and Kara to come out and join us. After the game the team gathered in a pavilion and we handed out trophies and the kids got juice and cookies. The kids were excited about their trophies and loved the fact that the girls had girls on top and the boys had boys on top. The parents surprised us with a card, that they had all the kids sign (too precious) and had all chipped in on a Red Lobster gift card for us! How cool is that... totally unexpected, but someone must have done their research, or gotten really lucky... RED LOBSTER IS our FAV!! We didn't expect it at all and it was so thoughtful of them to do that for us.
Noah said these funnies today: "mommy you have batman eyes" --- I still don't know what that means, and if that is a good thing or a bad thing... and sometimes when he says pacman it sounds like batman, so I don't really know which he meant. Would
one be better than the other?
Also, I told him to pick up toys and he whined and held his hands up and looked at them and said, "I can't, my hands are too wittle" That's funny, because they weren't too wittle to dump ALL of the toys out??? Strange....
Harper stayed at Granny and Pa's Tuesday night and Pa let her paint and do markers. She told Judd it was called "art".
Judd's on a baseball kick again, but today he used a grape and a baseball bat and hit the ball (grape) like that for awhile, then ate it and got a new grape to play with.... I think I can see a grape under the tb from here... oh wel..

Harper Jane pooped in the potty!!!

2009-05-25T14:35:00.001-07:00

Last night I was sitting at the table, and HJ was sitting by me. Out of the blue, she started crying. I smelled something stinky. I knew she was or was about to poop in her pants. I ripped her skirt down, pulled her panties off and sat her on the frog potty just in time! She sat there and cried, refusing that she needed to go... I calmly got out my make up bag, and said "Now that you are pooping in the potty, you are a big girl and can wear make-up." Boy, did that take her mind off of pooping... Her eyes lit up and she sat up straight and tall and let me put make-up on her. With in a few minutes, she yelled "I poopin', I a big girl now, I not scared of bwana's any more!" and she did. She pooped for real in the potty!!!! Wowsers, I am so happy for her, hopefully she'll continue. This morning I took the kids to Chuck E's for a celebration. We played for about an hour, then J met us there for lunch. We all cheersed our cokes to Harper and her grown-upness!!! We played for another hour, got our glorious prizes, and came home.... What a great memorial day! (check out the makeup)

Much Needed Mini-Vaca

2009-05-24T16:06:00.000-07:00

Thank you Nanna and Pappa for the 24 hours you spent at out house watching the kids! Josh and I took off to NW AR for a late anniversary celebration and had an incredible time. We ate Red Lobster for dinner, ate HOT FRESH KRISPIE KREME doughnuts for breakfast, and Famous Dave's ribs for lunch, oh my, I must hit the gym hard this week!!! Those were the highlights of the trip. Just Kidding, but they were all unbelievably good. We also shopped, and watched Star Trek (boo) and climbed the rock wall at Lewis and Clark... Fun Times. We had some romantical time in the room exchanging gifts. This was year 6--iron was the gift. I got Josh an iron stand that holds a picture frame and had his favorite verse framed for him. He wrote me a sweet card and got me a hand stamped necklace (stamped with iron--he says :) ) We tried to swim, but the indoor pool was cold and about 4 ft. long (and 3 ft. deep) so we didn't... By hour 23 we were terribly missing the kids and were hurrying home. About the same time, Pappa called saying Harper was missing us and was ready to see us. We brought the kids doughnut holes, but not enough, they were gone in minutes. Harper just said "Noah, give me a hug when you are done with that game, ok" Ahh, how sweet. Pappa and Nanna said they were great and I came home to a super clean house--- thank you Nanna for the extra help (even though Pappa tried to take credit for all the work) :)

Little Cuties

2009-05-22T04:52:00.000-07:00

Please note her unique ending to the song....

Harper was just watching this video and she got off the couch and said, "I gotta jannie" and started pulling her panties out of her crack and I said, "You have a what?" and she said "a jannie." I said "a wedgie?" and she said "yeah, a wedgie" like she'd said it 3 times.... in the meantime, Noah was yelling "mommy, mommy" trying to get my attention, and I was laughing so hard at "jannie" I didn't look, so Noah put 2 fingers in his mouth and went "Whoot woo" in a yell... like he was trying to whistle to get my attention, hilarious..... Also, I need to write down before I forget, that HJ calls trampolines "jumperines."
When Judd hears something, he puts his hand over one ear and says "Hear dat mommy, hear dat airpwane mommy, up ere." and points... or "hear dat baby cwie mommy" or "doggie barking"...

Lately...

2009-05-20T21:58:00.000-07:00

It seems as if we've been super busy. Last Friday Emily came over and we started work on our bedroom. How sweet of her was that? She and her husband Chad, spent their weekend helping me re-do our bedroom. First she and I borrowed a compressor from my neighbor, we textured the walls and ceiling, painted the trim and painted the walls. Halfway through with the ceiling and it was too wet and fell... Nightmare, but Chad and his mad handyman skills saved the day! I still need to put the finishing wall coat and ceiling coats of paint on, but haven't had a chance yet. I have also been upgrading my photography equipment and have been trying to get more serious about turning my hobby into a business. Soccer has started up again and Noah remembered how to play. I have a little video clip of him after he scored, giving hi-5 to all the parents on the sidelines... He didn't forget about that either. Harper Jane was outside eating dirt like it was chocolate today. I guess she still has pica. She said it was good and got sad when I made her quit eating it. Maybe she got some iron out of it, she acted really good all day. Juddson is starting to not whine as much as usual, maybe his teeth or whatever was wrong has gotten a little better. He has learned how to run and can really scoot... I am impressed by how fast he's gotten. He has also started playing the Wii with Noah, which is hilarious and his favorite games are baseball, bowling and boxing.... which he shouts out over and over until you turn one of them on for him.

Crazy Kids

2009-05-14T05:10:00.001-07:00

The kids, well, Judd and Harper like to watch First Baptist Church on tv, so we dvr it. We look for Miss Becky, who sings in their choir. Judd would point and yell "That Miss Becky" and it wouldn't be and Harper would get mad and say, "No Judd, she has curly hair" "No Judd she has glasses" Etc.... So, we didn't see her and Harper started saying how she loved her and how nice she was and how she wanted her to come over and I said, I know, she'll be over next week, and Harper said, "I am sad" and pointed to her eye and said "See this, I have a tear." This week, they showed several people being baptized. Harper LOVES to watch them get "bath-tized." How appropriate!

Yesterday Granny and Grandmom stopped by to visit. The kids had just gotten out of the tub and were still running around naked. Judd ran (with bootie shakin') to open the glass door and stood on his tip toes to turn the handle and let them in. He said "come on it" as clear as a bell... too cute!

Lastnight, we had the Summerhill's over for dinner. I was trying to get the house picked up all day and while HJ and Judd were asleep, I let Noah got outside and play in the rain. When I went to check on him, I found this:

Josh was thrilled.... and spent an hour scrubbing the shed before they got here...

Mothers Day

2009-05-11T04:30:00.000-07:00

was wonderful! Thank you Josh and sweet babies for making it so special for me. The other day while I was tanning, Josh sat the kids down and interviewed them to the best of his ability and the card he got is as follows:

Dear mommy,

Thank you for…

Reading books to me,
Singing twinkle little star,
Letting me sleep in your bed,
Getting me pretty clothes,
Playing blocks with me,
And Chicken Donald’s.
-Harper-

Calling me baby boy,
Letting me watch shows,
Letting me play rocket ship, Mario wii, and friend game,
Taking me to Jennifer and Michelle, and Miss Reynda School to help me,
Giving me honey buns and juice,
And taking my pictures.
-Noah-

Holding me every second of the day,
Giving me a roller coaster,
Appreciating my personality,
Saying no no to daddy,
Coming to my rescue every night,
And treating me like a baby.
-Judd-

Raising our children in the name of the lord,
Allowing God’s love to constantly flow from you into us,
Putting our children above everything else,
Taking care of me like I am your eldest child,
Supporting me in every high as well as every low,
And guiding me to be a better father.
-Josh-

We love you and appreciate everything you do for us…

-Your Family-

How sweet is that? Throughout the day, the kids told me Happy Mother's Day. When Noah is happy with me he says "that's my mommy" and I got a lot of those sweet words and hugs and kisses today. Plus, Josh hung pictures and shelves-- all of my pretties from Hobby Lobby! Thanks everyone!!!

We ate lunch with my parents after church, we got Granny and Grandmom a BIG Italian Cream Cake from Paul's for their gift... it's what they wanted. Nanna came by to visit after she got back from Hector, and the kids were very excited to see her! She brought each of them a Mickey/Minnie Mouse shirt from Orlando!!

Dad's Golden Apple!!!

2009-05-08T04:40:00.000-07:00

First of all, thank you Jen, Hayley and Charles for taking care of the kids and Grandmom so we could go surprise dad. He was truly surprised and couldn't figure out why we were all at the banquet to watch Margaret get her "Golden Apple Award." When the department head was giving her "speech" introducing dad, one of the things she said was "he's the kind of teacher you make a movie about." and I think it's true; plus-- he probably thinks that's the most incredible complement ever, being such a movie buff!!! Congrats DAD-- and also to mom for putting up with his long hours and grading papers at home for the past 30 something years!!!

"The Golden Apple Award began in 1966 as a way to honor persons or organizations that have made outstanding contributions to education. The Golden Apple is the most prestigious award an educator can receive. It is given to those who have made an extraordinarily positive difference in education in the Fort Smith Public Schools. It is awarded for outstanding service to children and/or our professional organization."

Sweet and sour

2009-05-06T20:21:00.001-07:00

Josh has been installing our new dishwasher for about 8 hours now. I have been wrangling the kids, keeping them out of his way. Judd is about to make me permanently plug my ears up.... He is ultra-sensitive right now (I have no clue why) and it's driving me nuts.
Harper is scared to poop in the potty. Pa came over tonight and tried to tell her that the potty is hungry and likes to eat poop and she needs to feed it... Ha! That didn't work at all. I am about to give up, and I guess home school her if she doesn't go by the time she hits kindergarten age.
Noah is being super sweet lately (thank goodness) the other night I was doing sit ups and he comes running in carrying my yoga mat, telling me I "meed this".. ahh! It was SO thoughtful of him. Plus, he had to go to alot of work to find it, and get it out of this trunk thing for me.... Today, when we were talking about HJ's poopin' problem, I said, "Noah poops in the potty...Noah-tell her it's not scary." So, he sweetly explained to "Hoppa" that it's not scary and then he broke out in the Gabba Gabba song "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, don't be afraid, it's okay..." Oh my, brought tears to my eyes. It didn't phase her though.
I am beat, that's all I got...

This week

2009-05-01T02:54:00.000-07:00

The house is still in shambles... so bad that Harper was walking through the dining room and yelled "this house is a mess!" and Josh just looked at me. I can't get caught up right now, it's overwhelming me. The kids have been great lately, Judd is talking up a storm. He'll say "what's dat mommy?" and I will say "a wall Juddson" and he will squeal "a wall, MA MAY?" and I will say yes. He is very dramatic, and it's soooo cute. We were playing on the bed yesterday and he rolled over and goes "Hi Shadow." When we leave the house he'll say "dat way" and point and get mad and throw a fit if I drive off in the opposite direction. Sometimes he waves and says "Bye home."
Noah is getting very social! I took him to the mall yesterday and he'd go right up to people and say "Excuse me, whats yo name?" and they look at me like "Huh?" and I say "what's your name?" and they say their name and ask his name and he tells them. Then he shows them his new rain boots or sock hands or something and walks off. He sometimes says "nice to meet you" or "bye." Miss Becky came over yesterday and we were all on the couch. Becky and I were talking, but Noah wanted her to concentrate on the book he was reading and he'd touch her cheek and say "excuse me Miss Becky?" and she loved it!
Harper Janey is still a little grumpy (I think her iron is low again) but she's still Harper Helper. She definitely is a Bice, she's the most stubborn person I have ever met. If I am telling her to pick something up or say sorry, and she doesn't want to do it, she won't, I can spank her, take stuff away, she doesn't care... She'll just peep out from behind the thumb and glare at me with those eyes, but she won't do whatever it is I want her to do. Last night Josh and I got home from a date and I was wearing some new earrings and she said "I wub deese" and touched the earrings and I said "thank you" and she said "are deese new, where you get deese?" I said "the mall." She said "Oh, they hurt you?" I said "No." She said "You better take them off before you go to bed." Ok little mamma... thank you!!!
Pics have been added to the Easter post... FYI

New Pics

2009-04-30T05:24:00.001-07:00

Check out new pics of the kids at www.kimbicephotography.blogspot.com
Or just click on my profile pick and scroll down to my blog list and click on the photography one.

The Weekend is OVER...

2009-04-27T03:19:00.001-07:00

which I am so thankful for. Friday we got our new table and chairs in, which Josh spent hours putting together. I was busy moving stuff from Ruth's for our yard sale the next morning. Judd and HJ spent the night with Nanna and Pappa for the first time... so it was nice having them out of my hair for a little while.... Although, I did miss them terribly, and it felt weird not having them there. After we dropped them off (around 8pm) Noah cried the whole way home because he wanted "His friends, Judd and Hoppa" and they were his best friends and I needed to go back and get them. Poor thing. He didn't want to stay there for the night, and he didn't want them to either. We stopped at Sonic and got him a creamslush and he got better, plus Scott and Kara came over and he said we were all his best friends. They hung out for a while and Kara helped me put up signs and get a load from Ruth's and bring it back home. I was up til 1:30ish doing yard sale stuff, and woke up with a wet Noah at 4:00, I was changing him into dry pullups and pj's and he said "now I blue, ready for soccer game?" Meaning, did I put his blue jersey on so we can go to the soccer game? I told him no soccer game and to go back to sleep, and thankfully he did. I cuddled up with him for a few minutes and then got back up and got ready and went outside and started setting up. Dad showed up around 6:30 with Hardees bag in hand, which was so awesome!!! What a DAD!!! Thank you dad. He stayed around most of the day and helped and even went home and gathered some junk for me to sell for him! Josh got up around 8ish and helped for a while, then headed off to his golf tournament. Noah woke up later and came outside with me, he was the meeter/greeter, I think I know everyone's name who shopped at the sale! He'd go up and tap their leg (crotch) and say "excuse me, watch yo name?" and they'd say "Huh?" So, I'd say "What's your name?" and they'd say, "Oh...my name is whoever" and Noah would say "Oh, I Noah." and sometimes, he'd stick out his hand and shake hands and say "Nice to meet you." Dad watched the sale while I went and picked up Judd and HJ. Judd came running to me, yelling "MA-MAY!!!" with open arms, and Harper just showed me her ballet dress that was Lexi's that she was wearing. HJ was really quiet on the way home and I asked her if she was mad at me and she said yes. They were hungry and wanted "Chicken Donalds" so, we stopped by there and they came home and had a picnic on the end tables that didn't sell. They looked so cute out there, little legs swinging, eatin' their nuggets. Judd would wave at every car that drove by or slowed down to look, and every time someone stopped, Harper would say "look mommy, here comes anoder one!" Finally, around 3-3:30 we went inside and I bathed all the kids and put them on the bed and they were all out within 5 minutes. Noah played games and I just sat for a minute and played with him. Josh came home earlier than expected and grilled burgers and dogs and Judd LOVED the "Crabby patties" by the way... and we all ate and then went to bed. I was exhausted. Sunday, Josh had to work in the morning. We decided to only go to church church, not class, so I got HJ ready and we went and took some pics in her Matilda Jane outfit. She was SO STUBBORN... she wouldn't look at me or smile or do anything except for be scared of bugs. It turned out to be a waste of time... I maybe got 3 good shots out of the whole 30 minute shoot. I was in picture mode and after church we noticed the field was full of flowers, so we went home and got the camera and went back and tried to get a good family shot... they turned out not like I planned, but at least we got one with all of us smiling. After church, pizza with Granny and Pa and Grandmom, then Josh and HJ and Judd went to sleep, so I packed some clothes, and Noah and I headed out to do his shoot. He was a little better than Harper, he'd actually look at me sometimes. We went downtown and were sitting on a bench resting and the trolley came by. Noah waved and they stopped and asked us if we wanted to ride. Before I could say "SURE" Noah was already climbing the stairs to get in. We were the only ones on it, and he went and sat by himself like a big boy. The windows were up and his hair was blowing and he had the BIGGEST SMILE ever on his face. At our first stop, he looked over at me and said "This is great!" and it gave me the warm fuzzy feeling... It was really really fun. We took a long ride, with him smiling the whole way. The driver even let him step on the "bell dinger" and ring the bell several times, and you know he loved that! After our ride was over we went home and HJ and daddy were awake, ready to go to the park. We all went to Ben Geren and they played on the huge jungle gym and we went exploring in the woods. Judd was so brave, he'd climb right up to the top of the big one and slide down by himself. He even climbed the shaky ladder to get back up. Josh was bragging about it later on and was telling me Judd could do that... We were all in bed, about 30 minutes later and HJ said "I cwimed dat big wadder too!" so we bragged on her really big, then told them to be quiet and go to sleep. We had an awesome Sunday, the weather was perfect and we made some great memories. The house fairy forgot to clean my house while I was gone, so I better get back on the ball tomorrow and get back into routine... Oh yeah, our windows are DONE... all 13 of them, and they look GREAT! Use window world if you need windows, and mention me... because I need that $50 referral check!!!

Happy Birthday Juddson (the 19th)

2009-04-21T04:57:00.000-07:00

Juddson is now officially a terrible two! The little toot!!! I can't believe he's two already! We owe a big thank you to Nanna and Papa for letting us have his birthday party at their house! Judd had a Gabba Gabba birthday and a Brobee cake. He couldn't keep his fingers out of the icing, I caught him SEVERAL times stealing swipes out of it. Oh well, it was his cake, so I didn't mind too much. He opened his presents with the help of Luke and Lex and Harper and got some cool stuff. Cory and Jessi got him a cute monkey bean bag. Granny and Pa pitched in on his Roller Coaster, Nanna and Pappa got him a lawn mower, little people builders, and some cute clothes ( I LOVE the plaid patchwork shorts, they are adorable)... and we got him a Wubbzy movie for his room, a Gabba Gabba beach towel, and some other little stuff like that. Kara and Scott got him a Little Tikes T-ball stand with bat and ball and the highlight of the night is when he was trying it out and hit one as hard as he could and it whizzed right in between mom and Grandmom's heads (THANKFULLY) -- IT WAS FLYING!!!! Harper and Noah each got a little gift for being a good brother and sister. HJ got jelly shoes and a shirt and Kara got her a "Garbie" with dogs, like dog walkin' Barbie or something. I found Noah's coveted "star wars voice changing helmet" on clearance for an amazing $12 on walmart.com and he was exstatic to get that. Thank you everyone for coming, Juddson had an awesome birthday!

The Week

2009-04-16T04:23:00.000-07:00

We are still all messed up around here. Josh and I realized we weren't ever going to get the kitchen done, so we've hired his friend Dave (a painter) to come help with the house. I have finally been able to start cleaning and doing laundry again, which is actually nice and MUCH needed. The kids have been good with all chaos going on. Harper has really enjoyed having Hannah, (Dave's 5 year old girl) around to play with. I have been telling Josh we need another girl around here! They have played dress up and babies and castle and chase and hide from Noah and have had a great time together with tag-a-long Judd "I wan a pway TOO!" has been his line of the week.
We are excited about Judd's birthday party Saturday night, and are trying to get the house in decent shape by then. If anyone is wondering, he's really into Wow Wow Wubbzy right now and he needs a few t-shirts for everyday wear.

Easter

2009-04-13T02:59:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning, Noah had another game, scored another 3 goals. We got our (corrected) new BLUE uniforms, that we were supposed to have from the beginning....so he really liked those. He did his little hi-5 thing again, with a little less enthusiasm than the first time.... but still did it.

After the game we hung out at home for a while, then went to Nanna's to spend the day with the fam. Nanna made a ham and a big Easter lunch and Josh and Jessie hid eggs for all the kids. Judd's first egg had a quarter (or coin) and he couldn't get over that, and just walked around and showed his coin to everyone. Harper racked up and found a ton of eggs; her basket was overflowing, and Noah looked for "poly rolies" for the first 10 minutes of the hunt and was a little late getting started. They had fun with Lex and Luke and were pooped by 4. We left and Josh stayed home with the kids while I went to get my hair cut at Kara's, then stopped by the mall to return a dress.

Sunday we left for Hector in the POURING rain, it came down hard the entire trip! We were all drenched going into church and the kids were not ready to sit for a church service, so I took them into a back room and watched them, then we ate lunch and played with the cousins, saw Mema... took some pics... and left. We are tired from a big Easter.

My little soccer player!

2009-04-10T05:43:00.000-07:00

We are so proud of NOAH!! He is doing awesome at soccer. His game last Tues. he scored 3 goals and lastnight he scored 3 or 4. He really gets in there and hustles. After his first goal lastnight he hugged the purple team's coach and then ran down the side line and gave EVERY parent a "5"... if the parent was not looking, he'd get their attention, give them 5 and keep going.... I was next to last and instead of 5, I got a hug... then he ran on the field and hugged Josh... And, since he got a huge RISE out of it, he did it every time he scored! We were rolling... it was the CUTEST thing EVER!!! WHAT I WOULD GIVE TO HAVE HAD A VIDEO CAMERA! Harper and Judd didn't have as much fun during the game... they picked flowers and thankfully, Kara was there to help me with them... but it was cold and super windy, a big storm was moving in. Our game finished and the storm hit... The kids and I got Papa Johns, my newest bad habit of BBQ chicken bacon pizza-- HELLO, it's so good... and then home and ate with Daddy and Kara.
Thank you to MOM AND GRANDMOM for watching the kids for a couple of hours while I went to the mall. It was so nice to get away from painting and the torn up house and teething Judd and just wander around... I did have a mission to get an Easter dress and shoes, and I succeeded. Josh was happy with my finds... It feels so weird being out alone... just doesn't feel right, but it was nice for a little while.

Week through the weekend

2009-04-05T22:04:00.001-07:00

I am behind on blogging again. The house is still torn up. One more coat of paint on the cabinets, and that side of the kitchen will be done. We still have a long way to go, but at least I can get all the stuff out of the living and dining room and put it back where it goes.
Right now my computer sounds like it is going to blow up... I am going to make this short and let it rest... I have been editing pics and craigslisting on it for a while now, I think it's over heating... Noah had his first soccer game Saturday morning. They play 3 on 3, 8- 5 minute quarters. He was in the second string to go in and did great during his 5 minutes... he even scored a goal! Yeah NOAH!!! He didn't like sitting out the next quarter and got really mad and refused to go in the rest of the game. Oh well, maybe next time. Harper and Juddson were strapped into the triple jogger the whole time and after the goldfish and juice were gone, they got really fussy. Harper asked to go back to the car and get in her carseat.
Here's some pics from the game:

You know how when Noah doesn't want to do something, he'll say "I can't... my foot hurts, better go to Dr. Fred's house" or something hurts and he needs to go see Dr. Fred. Well, the other day I just cleaned their room and he dumped out 3 boxes of toys and I was SO MAD and was telling him to pick them up NOW... he looked at me and opened his mouth and pointed in his mouth and said "I can't, I wost my boyz" and I didn't get it and was like "your boys???" and he was screaming, "NO, my BOYZ!!!" and that went on for a few times and then I was like "Oh, you lost your voice?" and he said "yeah, better go to Dr. Fred's house." I said "You didn't lose your voice, I hear you talking, now pick up the toys." Oh Brother...So, off he pouted and picked up the toys... lost boyz and all.

Harper says....

2009-03-31T05:14:00.000-07:00

Instead of pancakes or flap jacks she says "flip cakes."
She also calls banana splits, "banana flips."
Her most frequent sayings right now are "but why?" and "I told you..."
Instead of yesterday it's "last day."
Instead of favorite it's "best"....Like, "Look mommy, I am wearing my best fweat pants." And she LOVES her "fweat pants" She likes to be comfy, and not wear jeans. She hates "tags in it." Every tag must go.
Every Sunday in the middle of church she takes a trip down the aisle to see Pa and she tells him she wants "cheese pizza" and wear she wants it from "Dominos or Geno's."
And... when she says or does something new I say "where did you learn that?" She always replies, "my dance cwass." Even though she doesn't go to a dance class.

Chaos

2009-03-30T04:59:00.000-07:00

Oh my... we've started home improvements, like we have nothing better to do around here... Josh has removed the drop ceiling in the bedroom. We are waiting for the electrician to show up, move the off-center light fixture hole, put in a ceiling fan, then I will spackle the million holes in the ceiling from the drop ceiling, sand it, prime it, and paint it, then start the bedroom walls... The kitchen is empty, everything from the cabinet is piled up around the house, which makes it hard to cook and get snacks, etc... Josh got it all sanded and I cleaned up all the "dust" and have started priming it all. The laundry is as usual but with a new background color... UGH... didn't look like that on the swatch, will be repainting that room ASAP...And I am still behind on filing... Oh yeah, and our first soccer game is this week and window installers should be coming soon... what else can we add?
The weekend was good, besides the extra work. Saturday morning Harper and I went shopping at Dillards and then to Callie's wedding shower. It wasn't the "party" Harper had hoped for, no toys or fruit chews, so she didn't want to stay too long...
While Josh and I were busy in the kitchen, Pa came over and played with the kids. They mainly all sat on his lap and watched CatMouse togeter. Since the kitchen was in shambles, we had pizza delivered to our house on Saturday night, which Noah thought was the raddest thing ever... He kept talking to the delivery boy about "you bring pizza to our house?" in amazement, telling him to "come on in". We spread a blanket on the living room floor and had a pizza picnic (without the pizza delivery boy), we were all starving and those 2 large Papa John's pizzas didn't last long. We even splurged and all drank "black coko". Yum!
The kids coughed all night and we still had a lot of work to try to finish, so we missed church. At noon thirty we went to Nanna and Pappa's for Jessi's birthday party lunch. We ate and then went outside and played home run derby. Noah would hit it and then chunk the bat and run and tell you to try to tag him, but "only walk", so you wouldn't catch him and he would get a home run every time. Harper helped Nanna pick weeds and loved that, "Harper Helper."
After the party, I went with Kara and tried on a few bridesmaid dresses, that didn't work out at all, and then Josh called saying that Judd woke up crying for me, so I went back home and we relaxed the rest of the night. This morning I got up at 4:30 and have half the kitchen primed... not counting the cabinet doors.

For the love of baseball, soccer and high heels!

2009-03-26T05:37:00.001-07:00

Judd has really found a new love... baseball... it's like he is naturally good at it, like Tiger Woods was born ready to play golf... Ok, maybe that's taking it a little too far, but you never now, right? He's favorite phrase is "Hit it, the ball" and he follows you around saying it over and over and over until you throw him a pitch. He's not even 2 and has pretty darn good swinging form! I am really impressed, or just a really proud mom, but you should see him hit it the ball!

Noah started soccer, have I mentioned that Josh and I are the coaches, well, mainly Josh, but I help out. It's crazy!!! We are so excited to have an AWESOME group of parents and kids... I can't stand to see those psycho parents at little league games taking it so seriously and screaming at their kids if they screw up, all of our parents seem so kind and nice and laid back and we are very thankful for that. I don't know if Noah likes soccer or not. He does good at practices, when he focuses and pays attention. Most of the time he wants to play tag and sits in the corner and cries because we got on to him for "using his hands." He seems to like it enough and gets very excited when we tell him we are having soccer practice. He doesn't like to wear his shin guards, and I don't blame him, they don't look that comfy to me either.

Lately, the kids have all been fighting over Harper's pink Barbie high heels! If one kid finds them unoccupied they put them on and clomp around the house in them, which makes all the other kids want them, then they cry and fight over them... guess I need to buy more heels.

Yesterday Judd was sitting in my lap and I was drinking a protein shake with soymilk, peanut butter, bananas, and a little chocolate syrup and he loved it!!! He'd take a big drink and say "ahhhh" and then he said "DELICIOUS!" I couldn't believe he said that and I said "Did you say that was 'delicious'?" and he yelled "YEAH!" Also, I was looking at Gabba Gabba birthday stuff online, and he saw it and said "AWESOME!" Amazing vocabulary this kid.

Harper Janey is doing well too, she's still pooping in her diaper though... not in the frog potty as she promised she would. Last night I asked her what it was going to take for her to poop in the potty and she said, "spank my bottom" and I said, "ok, so... every time you poop in your diaper, I am going to spank you?" She nodded yes. Hmmmm... that girl must really love poopin' in her diaper. Speaking of potty time... Little Juddson is using the potty, not for poop, but he pees in the potty consistently and even dumps and flushes it afterwards!!! YEAH JUDD!!!!

Little Twerpy

2009-03-20T04:01:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned that Harper lovingly calls Juddson "little twerpy"? It's accurate... and funny, I think she gets it from Pa. I was eating dinner (grilled salmon and a baked sweet potato) the other night and Judd crawled up in my lap and wanted bites. I asked him if he wanted fish and he said "No" and I asked him if he wanted potato and he said "No"... I got potato on the fork and touched it to his lips, and I guess he kind of thought it tasted good, so he opened his mouth really big for a bite... which I gave him-- a big ole bite of sweet potato. Wish I had a camera handy for his expression! He promptly spit it out and started scraping his tongue with his fingers, saying "dirty, dirty mommy, dirty." Maybe he didn't like the texture???
Yesterday, our little bitty training potty that DOESN'T GET POOPED IN.... was in the kitchen, don't ask why and Judd was diaperless and sat down on in and peed in it... (This was the 3rd time he's done it in the past few days, so he knows what he is doing) and he got up and put his arms in the air and said "I DID IT!" I went back to the office and was on the computer and I hear this "ploooop" sound and Judd had taken the little potty and dumped his pee in the big potty!!! and ended with another proud "I DID IT!!!" How smart, I was SO IMPRESSED! If I could only get 'em to poop, we'd be rich (not buying Huggies anymore.)
Speaking of Judd saying "I DID IT!!!" Wednesday morning he was throwing up a little bit, I don't know if it was because of the hard falls on his head or because of too much chicken and fry grease, but anyways the poor little thing would tell me "Thow up, mommy" and I would run him to the potty and he'd bend over it and throw up and dry heave and whine and cry-- like I do when I am in that position-- poor thing-- and then as soon as he'd finish he'd stand up, arms over head and yell "I did it!!" Sweet baby... he was so good for being so sick... He's growing TOO FAST and I CAN NOT STAND IT!!!!
Noah found his old X Box yesterday and wanted to play games.... Unfortunately, none of them worked, I don't know if the box was too dusty or the games were too scratched or what, but he was so sad, and let me know how sad it was. He worked so hard to try to fix it and would blow in it and lick and "clean" the games... None of it worked though... I was like, what's wrong with your Wii... and he wouldn't have it... ugh...
Harper hasn't felt good the past couple of days, she's either got a cold coming on or allergies. She's been coughing all night, driving us all crazy, poor thing. Last night Noah fell asleep first and she asked me if she could kiss him, and she did. She is the best sister ever!

Tuesday

2009-03-18T04:54:00.000-07:00

The weather was gorgeous and we spent most of the day outside. Late in afternoon the Parker kids came to play for a little while. When Brooks got here, we all had Chick Fil A, then they played a little longer before they had to go home.
Judd took a couple of really hard falls... Hoover knocked him down once (on accident) and once he fell off the swingset- from the top level, to the next level and scared me really bad. Thankfully, he was ok. This morning he rolled off the bed and kept saying "fall off mommy fall off" through his tears...

THANK YOU BILLIE!!!!!

2009-03-17T04:37:00.000-07:00

My sister's friend, Billie sent us some ADORABLE clothes for Harper! I am sending a "shout-out" to you Billie... "Thank you so much!" It was so thoughtful for you to think of us and we LOVE LOVE LOVE the clothes! Harper's favorite is the pink "princess" bath robe which she wore all evening and especially loved the fact that it has pockets. Josh loved, of course, the AR cheer leading outfit, and my favorites were probably the cherry & stripes outfit and the brown jumper with the flower tights... but I also love the denim skirt and "poke-it dot" tights too... Kara showed me pics of you and your sweet little Annie on FB and she is so BEAUTIFUL, Kara said she is the sweetest and best behaved little girl she's ever met! Thanks again, I can't wait for HJ to wear them... oh yeah, and the little sailor suit, too CUTE!!! While we were going through the stuff, Harp found the shoes first and I said, those are a little big, but maybe next spring.... She proceeded to put them on anyways, and said "See, I told you they fit." in her sassy little voice. And yes, they are too big, but I am sure they will be perfect for next year.

Noah's vocabulary is expanding every day. I am so thankful how much his speech is improving. He was laying in bed with Josh the other night and said "Daddy, listen, do you hear that owl?" Josh said, "You mean Hoover barking?" Noah said "Oh, yes." He was playing MarioKart and I noticed he was losing, which is rare, and I said, "Noah, are you winning?" and he said...er...uh... screamed "DON'T TALK ABOUT IT, DON'T TALK ABOUT IT, IT'S NOT NICE, DON'T TALK ABOUT IT!" So, I dropped it and continued with my laundry and in a few minutes he walked up to me and grabbed my hand and shook it and said "RADulations!" and I looked up and he'd come back from
8th place to win the race! It was a proud moment. Another time, we were playing Mario Brothers, and Josh has taught him how to trash talk and he was saying "I going up, you going down." and I talked it back and said "No, you are going down, I am going up." He looked right at me and said "That's impossible." He's such a sweetie. At night, he still loves for me to tell him he's beautiful and perfect and he's my baby boy... I have added a new one, I say "you're a great talker" and he says "yes" after I say that one to him! He'll kiss me and say "I am so happy to you." and I say it right back... he's precious. Oh yeah, the other night, Josh had only been home a short time and had to go get something out of his car, and Noah ran after him and J said, "what are you doing?" and N said "missing you" and ran and pushed the door open and said "come on in." The window man came back and measured our windows AGAIN yesterday and Noah had to have his tape and was following him around helping him measure. He's count, just as the man did and push the tape back in, just when he did...little helper.
Juddson, Juddson, Juddson-- what can I say about my little terrible two turner... It's hit a little early. That kid can throw a fit... Josh puts him in chair and calls it the crying chair and tells him he can sit there and cry, but he can't cry anywhere else... and Juddson does, he sits in the chair and cries, and then stops and then comes out fine... until something else happens and he doesn't get his way.
He is going to be athletic... We've been tossing the ball to Noah outside and Noah hits it and runs (the bases)-- kind of... and of course Judd had to get in on the action "My turn, my turn... hit it, hit it." So, I pitched it to him, and he hit it! He's not even two yet, and he's hitting the ball... consistently... One time he hit it and said "Single!" That's pretty smart, I'd say.
Harper Janey.... my little non pooper... We were at Walmart yesterday and we stopped to look at little potties. She picked out the most expensive one OF COURSE and said she'd poop in that one. I refused to get it, with all the pinkness and bells and whistles-- literally... so, she also liked the $12 one, which I could handle... It looks like you are sitting on a little frog... simple and cute... so before buying the frog pot, I told her, "If I buy this frog, you will not wear any more diapers, do you understand?" "I un-stand" "OK...if I buy this frog, you will poop in this frog." "Ok, I poop, I poop." So, the frog is here, un-pooped in as of now, but hopefully it will get "broken-in" soon... I am not backing down on this battle.
While we are playing baseball, Harper digs in the dirt or swings... but she can't "Swing berrrrrry high," so she MEEDS me to push her, constantly; and the girls likes to swing HIGH, as high as the swing will swing.... So, I get her going high, and then go back to pitch some more.
Gotta get 'em up and around...

Pics for now

2009-03-16T11:19:00.001-07:00

Weekend and phone pics

2009-03-09T04:14:00.000-07:00

This GORGEOUS weekend was spend outside. We played in the backyard and took walks, and Sunday afternoon walked up to the park. We are definitely ready for spring to stay here. (In the ones of Judd: the first one he's really sleeping, the next one, he's fakin'.)
These are pics I uploaded from my phone, taken over the past few months.

Matilda Jane

2009-03-07T05:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we played outside all day, it was like 75 degrees and beautiful. We took an hour and forty-five minute walk/jog and it may have been a little too much because the kids all came back pink cheeked and pink knee-ed--- I really doubt if that is a word...anyways, when we got home Granny and Grandmom were here waiting to see us with curly fries for the kids. After baths and lunch, we loaded up and went to Alyssia's in Alma. The kids played outside while I shopped at the trunk show.
Check out these outfits, I can't wait for HJ to get into them.

Holy Moly! She is going to have to wear them until she is 6 to get our money's worth out of them... Yikes.
Anyways, the kids cried when we had to leave, Noah said "why why why why?" So we promised them we'd come back and play sometime. From there, we went home and I met a girl and sold the elliptical I had on craigslist. I knew the kids were starving so we went to McDonalds. They were perfect and we had an awesome time sitting at the circle booth, I was so proud of them. After we ate, we stopped by home long enough to pick up Nanna's cake and pick up Daddy and we were off to Cory and Jessi's for Nanna's birthday party. Judd and HJ played with Lexi and Mary and Noah and Luke played Wii. At the end of the night, the kids had only had 10 minute naps and were exhausted and Judd lost it... He had a huge melt down over I don't even know what. Josh loaded Harper first and when he was putting her in her carseat she said "I'm weddy to go home, get in bed, and go to fweep" and Josh started laughing and she said "was the hiwarious?" and he laughed some more. Harp and Judd fell asleep in the car and Noah stayed up and talked video games in bed and then watched Friday Night Lights until he passed out.

Can it get any more hectic

2009-03-05T05:01:00.000-08:00

We have been running around like crazy this week, and I feel like I have hardly gotten to see the kids. We've had growing kids sale to get ready for and thank you NANNY SO MUCH for watching the kids while we shopped! We got a lot done and saved a lot of money, but it took FOREVER~ it was packed... Anyways, the only thing really to mention is that I got HJ some pull-ups at Sam's. She was very excited and wanted to put one on right away. I explained to her that they felt like diapers, but weren't diapers, they were more like panties, and she could not pee in them, they were only for accidents... So, that night, she patted her pull-up and said "I wike dees better" and I said, "you like those better than diapers? Great!!" It was only a little later, when I went to her room and found all the used pull-ups in the floor that I realized why she "wiked dem better" it's because it was like a diaper she could change by herself.... she was going through them like crazy, peeing in them, kicking them off and putting on a new one... Ugh... will she ever learn? I bought her a potty at the growing kids sale, one like you saw Jon and Kate's kids learn to go on... She watched that, she knows... maybe this will work!!!!
Judd has definitely learned the art of fit throwing this week, I mean, has perfected it. If one little thing doesn't go his way, it's a big screaming cry with a fall down to the floor with a glance back to make sure he's not going to hit his head too hard, then the head goes back, then the roll over with extra screaming, hands over the face buried in the ground.... Nice.... he's got it down!
Noah has been precious this week, he says "I so happy for you" and I hope that means he's so happy that I am his mom... that's how I translate it at least...and I tell him, I so happy for him too!

Back to the grind

2009-03-02T04:30:00.000-08:00

The weekend was spent at home doing nothing for the most part... which was wonderful. We did sign Noah up for soccer and before we left he said he needed his tennis shoes on and soccer ball to go play... poor little thing couldn't understand that we were just going to sign him up, and not to actually play; so this should be interesting. Since Josh used to play soccer, he signed up to coach as well, like he has time to do that, but I DO NOT want Noah to end up on a team with some psycho coach who yells at and threatens kids to win or whatever... you know the type. Anyways, the season will start in the next few weeks. Of course, Harp wants to play soccer too, so now we'll have to find her something to get into, like dance class.

Noah, apparently learns alot in school that he doesn't share with us. Like, this weekend, I was teaching Harper and Judd to count to 10 in Spanish, and Noah just chimed in and started counting in Spanish. He also counted to 30 in English (well, almost, he ended with "twenty ten" but I corrected it, and he said 30, and he knows all the days of the week... Wow, I hadn't even taught him that, he said "Miss Wenda did."

I was holding Juddson, pretending he was a baby and pretending to feed him a bottle and Harper was watching. She pulled her shirt up and tried to feed him her boob....nice, we'd better stick with pretend bottles...

Judd doesn't like his feet to be covered up when he's in bed or when I am rocking him, as he's kicking his feet out he says "toes open, toes open" over and over.

My knee has been sore, and Harper has been holding my hand helping me walk, she says "one more step, just one more step." She is so kind and empathetic and thoughtful, she is going to make an awesome mommy or nurse, I can already tell.

Yesterday we were looking at some old pics and there was a pic of Noah and Harper from a little over a year ago and they were hugging each other and wearing church clothes and Harper said "I wub this one.... is this when my married?"

Ready to get better

2009-02-27T03:54:00.000-08:00

Usually all the kids are sick at the same time, which is miserable... this week Josh and I have been sick, which isn't fun either. He has had a cold/sinus infection thing and I have a staph infection in my knee. Poor Josh can't call into work and has had to work through fever and feeling miserable...
Anyways, there haven't been many exciting activities this week. Noah has learned to beg. As soon as Josh walks in the door "Daddy will you play games with me?" "Super Mario Brovers?" "Please, please, oh please daddy" How can you ever resist that? Yesterday while I went to the doctor Kara watched them and was playing Mario Kart with him and he can't stand for someone to be near him or beating him in the race and he'd tell Kara to "fall off in the hot fire, please, please, please" and she would...
If he wants to play games and isn't supposed to, he'll ask anyway and I shake my head no and he comes and puts his hands on my head and shakes it yes for me.
Josh said they were in the bedroom yesterday and the floor fan was on and Noah walked in front of it and pretended it blew him down, and he fell on the ground and rolled to the wall. Wish I could have seen that.
Also, when he wants to talk to you about something serious, and really wants you to listen, usually about how to play a game, or something to do with a game, he will get right in your face, almost nose to nose and tap your nose with his finger to make sure you are paying attention to him.
Harper Janey was dreaming, way out in space at the dinner table last night, and I said "whatcha thinkin' about?" and Josh said "Yea, what are you dreaming about?" and she sassily replied, "I NEVER DREAM and I NEVER FINK BOUT."
They are building a Little Caesar's here, right on our way to Noah's school, and if you don't know I LOVE that place, so every time we drive by it (2's a day) I make a big deal and tell them to look and see if it's open yet and cry because it's not and tell them as soon as it's open we're gonna have a pizza party... Well, yesterday I didn't say anything and as we drove past it, Judd said "pizza, open???" Ahh, how smart...
Time for some coffee and craigslist.

Growing Before Our Eyes

2009-02-23T04:43:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how fast these three are growing. It's so sad that I can't pause time and enjoy this sweet stage for as long as possible. I know I will love each phase of life, but right now it's so incredible to watch them learn and figure stuff out, and imitate, and become an individual.

Judd has unfortunately, stopped saying "uh huh" for "yes" and has started saying "yeah" and he draws it out really long, so it's cute too... I will miss "uh huh" though. His new favorite toy is the Aflac duck and he "aflac, aflac, AFLAAAAAC"'s right along with it. He cracks up at himself big time...

We went to Chuck E. Cheese's last Thursday night. You know they've been learning their and since we were going to be out of town on Sunday, they weren't going to get to say it at church. Since they all new it and said it for me, we went to celebrate. On the way there, HJ said "I wub Judd, he's so cute." and I said "yes, and you love Noah too." and she said "Yeah, I wub dose guys, they aw sooo cute!" and I said "yes, and they love you, you are the cute sister." and she said "and you are the cute mommy." Ahhh, isn't she so sweet, always thoughtful, and never leaving anyone out.

Last night they were playing chase around the table and Noah yelled to me "mommy, I love my sista!"

I was sitting in the chair and Noah came up right to my face and said "squeeze you face" and did so, and "kiss you" and kissed me.

Miss Cindy said that Noah told the teachers a little girl had spit on him at school last week. When the teachers went to question her, Noah followed. He put his hand on the back of her head and nudged her, saying "here, you go time out, we need to call your mom"! Ha! Noah the disciplinarian!

When I say to Harper "Do you believe that?" or "Wow, can you believe it?" She replies, "Yeah, I BW-EVE it!"

Noah loves playing on Grandmom's walker. He holds himself up and the top of the handles and raises his legs up... then jumps off and does the Olympic pose at the end! He remembers everything.

Saturday night Josh and I spent the night in Rogers at Aloft. We went on a night out with Kara and Scott. THANK YOU NANNA AND PAPPA for taking care of the kids. The kids had a great time, and didn't even miss us very much. I think they get sick of me too, and we both needed a break from each other. Not saying I get sick of them, it's just nice to have a little break sometimes. Anyways, we got home yesterday around lunch time, and Judd came and hugged me, but didn't act very excited to see me, then went back and crawled up into Nanna's lap. I sat on the couch beside them and asked him if he was mad at me for leaving. He said "Yeeaaahhh" with out even looking at me. Harper must have missed me a little because about 35 times yesterday, she would just out of the blue say "I wub you, mommy" just over and over. We had fun, but were glad to be back home. We all just hung out yesterday and relaxed... Back to the grind this morning.

Funnies and Updates

2009-02-18T04:21:00.000-08:00

All of the kids are singing the ABC song. Harper and Judd don't do it quite perfectly just yet. In the car the other day, they were singing it and when they stopped, Noah sang it (the right way) and then said "See, Hoppa, Juddson?"

Harper had a cough and cold the other day and she said (referring to KFC mashed potatoes and gravy)"I meed to taste dos tatoes in bed to make me feel better." She wanted to lay in bed and eat tators and gravy.... I don't think so...

While getting out of his car seat, Judd tooted really big and he laughed and said "TOOT!" and then Harper yells "Gross, that SNEAKS!"

Any time Noah doesn't want to do something he'll say, his foot hurts, or his ear hurts and that he needs to go to "Dr. Fred's house, make me better." Yesterday he had the hiccups and needed to go to Dr. Fred's house for those.

We were laying in bed last night and HJ said "I am going to wick my hand" and did. I said, don't do that, it's gross... She said "Well, cats do it." and I said "You are not a cat, you are a kid." She yelled back at me "I jus' purtendin'!"

Noah is in the process of memorizing his first Memory Verse for church on Sunday: Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. HJ and Judd are learning it with him, they are impressively doing a great job... While typing this, I just realized they won't even get to go to church Sunday because we won't be here.... I guess I will just have them do it for me at home and I will give them a prize.

Catching up

2009-02-15T14:58:00.000-08:00

Last week we were super busy. It seems like if my house is clean, the blog is behind, and visa versa. Sorry, the house won this week. Anyways, I will start with Wednesday morning. We heard a funny sound in the truck on the way to take Noah to school and realized Cooper (our cat) was in there! He'd been in since the previous afternoon! He started meowing really loud and the kids got a huge kick out of it, so after we dropped Noah off, we had to go back by the house and take Cooper home before we could go to the gym. That day, while Noah was at Jennifer/Michelle school, the kids and I went to a play date at Jess and Brooks house. They are a new family we've met through church and their 3 kids are close in age to our 3, so Judd and "Harper Janey" (as Judd now calls her) played while Brooks and I talked. We were in such deep conversation, that I forgot about Noah and at 1:45, she said "aren't you supposed to get Noah" and I panicked. I called Nanna, who thankfully works right across the street, and she went and got him for me. I met them at the bank a few minutes later, and then we went back to their house to play more. The kids had a blast and didn't want to leave.
I don't remember anything extraordinary happening Thursday.
Friday Grandmom and Granny came over and Juddson put on a big show. HJ was sleepin' and Noah was playing games, and Judd did all kinds of funnies for them. We were doing his animal sounds at one point and I said "cat" and he said "MEOW!" and then he said "Na nanna"-- Savannah, "thhhhe" and I said "Savannah" and he said "THHHHE" and I was confused, and I said "Cooper" and he said "MEOW" and I said "Savannah" and he said "thhhhe" and I finally realized Savannah hisses at the kids and he was hissing......... hilarious!
Friday night Kara and Scott came over and played some old school Nintendo games and ate dinner. Juddson was attached to Scott and wouldn't leave his side. Saturday, Noah woke up and said "No Reynda school, no ex-size school, no Jennifer/Michelle school, No church, Yes Home!" and we were all happy to just be home for the day. We set up little people town and just hung out at home all day. Later that night, Granny and Pa came over to eat ribs and burgers, and Nanna stopped by and brought them all Valentine shirts. Thank you Nanna! After that, we went to Cory and Jessie's to see Livia. She's so tiny and beautiful! The kids were really wound up and wild and were making me nervous, so I didn't get to hold her as much as I would have liked to. Judd and Harper took turns holding her bottle while she was eating and they thought they were big stuff.
Today was church, and then home for pizza with Granny and Pa. After lunch Harper Janey and Judd were looking out the back window and I was listening to their little conversation and Harper was pointing going "that's mud"....and Judd would repeat and say "mud?" and then she said "and that's poop".... "it's called Hoovy poop" and Judd said "hoovy poop?" HJ says "Yeah, Hoovy poop."
I had a photo shoot this afternoon and when I got home Harp and Judd wanted to play playdoh, so we did that for about 15 minutes, then they went down for their nap.

Judd

2009-02-10T05:13:00.001-08:00

Judd enjoyed the macaroni, I let him just get after it.

Yesterday I was changing Judd's poopy diaper, and was talking to him to distract him and I said "Your birthday is coming up, it's in April" and he said "April" and I said "Yes, April 19" and he said "teenth" and I said "yes, April 19." I said "What kind of birthday do you want?", thinking he'd say Gabba gabba or chuck cheese. He yelled "TAKE!" (cake) and I said, "oh, you want a birthday cake?" and he gave me a huge "UH HUH" with a big smile... The boy likes his food.

Fri/Sat/Sun

2009-02-09T03:57:00.001-08:00

Friday morning we went to "exercise school", Kara met us there. After we were finished she needed a ride to Scott's store to pick up a big picture, so we took her. She bought the kids "Chicken Donald's" for lunch, so they were happy and quiet for the ride out there. Judd fell asleep on the way home and Noah and HJ played their new games from their Happy Meals. We'd been home for a little while and Mom and Grandmom came for their Friday visit. Noah, as usual, gave them sweet hugs and kisses. Harper was in bed watching Word Girl, their new favorite show, but came out to visit. She and Granny played with the money that Miss Becky gave them. It was beautiful outside, so after Judd woke up, I got out the triple jogger for the first time this year, and took them for a walk. We walked to Noah's school and when he saw it, he turned around and said "Good one, Mommy!" with a huge smile on his face. We walked for an hour and a half and they were ready to get home. We had supper and baths and then bed time.
Saturday we went to exercise school again, and then to Chick Fil A. We got there before the huge crowds hit, so they got to play in peace for a while. Our family ate an entire nugget tray and 2 large fries and then left. Why did we even go to the gym??? Judd fell asleep on the way home and Noah and Harper watched some shows and Noah played Wii. Nothing too eventful.
Sunday morning, the day my hairs turned gray. We taught Children's Church again, and afterwards, we were talking to a new couple with 3 little kids around the ages of our kids. We'd been talking for a while, when Noah dashed off and ran around the corner. I finished what I was saying and then went after him. He was no where in sight, like he disappeared. I had Judd, and new I couldn't run with heels while carrying him, so I dumped him on Josh and told Josh Noah was gone and took off. The corner he ran too, had 4 places he could've chosen to go... up the stairs, into the gym, outside into the parking lot, or into the annex. Ugh... I was a little worried, but not too much. Most of the people had already left church, and I figured I would hear him. I ran outside first, because I felt that would be the most dangerous place for him to be... No sign. Ran back in and took off upstairs. Ran around the "square" calling for him.... nothing... running faster now, down the stairs... a little more panicky... told our new friends and Josh that I didn't find him. Josh was going to put the other 2 kids in the car and then come get us... like, he thought I would find him in the amount of time it took him to do that and he'd pick us up at the door. By the time Josh got back, still no sign of Noah. Other lingering people noticed my frantic self and asked what was going on, I broke down and started crying and they all started helping. The new couple and their 3 little kids were helping too. People checked the annex, the gym, the bathrooms, the elevator, and I was running outside and back in and up stairs, and back down... what a workout... After what seemed like an hour, but it was probably only 10-15 minutes, a young girl found him upstairs in a classroom hiding under a chair. She brought him downstairs, and he was just smiling so big. I saw him and started weeping, and Mrs. Brown gave me a big hug, which was nice. I just thought someone had him in a bathroom, or he was running outside, or he'd find the balcony, or the baptistry, and the worst scenarios kept playing out in my head. Anyways, I was crying, holding him and hugging Mrs. Brown and I looked at him and told him he scared mommy, he can NOT run away, etc. and he said "I sorry" and hugged me. He got his Wii taken away for the afternoon for punishment. Ugh, I get nervous just thinking about it.
After things calmed down, and we ate pizza with mom and dad for lunch, Daddy, Judd and Harper went down for their naps. I took Noah to TJ Maxx with me and we stayed for an hour and a half. He was perfectly behaved, so when we got home, I let him play his games for a reward... The kids were wound up from last night and wouldn't go down. Finally, Noah and Harper fell asleep with Josh and I rocked Judd to sleep.

Wed/Thurs

2009-02-06T02:57:00.000-08:00

Wednesday Harper woke up telling everyone to "'member the rules!......'Member the rules, Judd?" etc.. Thanks little mamma,; at least she listened to the family meeting! We were driving Noah to therapy and someone cut me off and I said "ugh, crazy drivers... people are NUTS!" Harper calmly said, "Mommy, just honk your horn."
Yesterday was Miss Becky's visit. She is with "parents as teachers" and it's a free service through the school system. She comes every other week and does projects and brings the kids books and something neat... Like, one week they got toothbrush packets with paste, and floss and a timer and toothbrush and a cover and a little pouch to keep it all in. One week we got playdoh and yesterday they made doctor kits and it was all about pretend play. They played doctor and then we cleaned that up and got out all her stuff to make a store, and they played store. We got to keep all the money and coins-- they love that! Here are some pics from the "hospital" or "doctor Fred's house" as Noah calls it.

Mon/Tues

2009-02-04T04:03:00.000-08:00

We've been so busy already this week. Monday we were finally back on our usual routine, well, kind-of. After Noah's school we came home, but just long enough for me to shower, and then we went to Chili's in Van Buren and met Josh for a crazy, hectic lunch before Noah went to therapy. Judd and Harper and I went to visit Nanna and the ladies at the bank while Noah was in school. They had a blast as usual, and watched their favorite video of the little baby that swims and floats and looked at some you tube videos and ate candy from Nanna's desk and played with Miss Debbie's rubber band tin. We got Noah and rushed home and I dropped the kids of with Josh while I went to a counseling session. Josh was supposed to go with, but we didn't have a sitter, so I went alone. After I got home, we finally got to slow down for a second. Josh grilled some salmon, and we ate dinner, then put the kids to bed.
Tuesday was just as busy, but the day started off special. At 5 in the morning, Noah rolled over and covered his head with a pillow and said something. I didn't understand him, so I peeked under his pillow and said "what did you say?" He said "I wuv you, mommy." It was so precious. After school, and devo with Josh, we went to Target because Josh said they were having a half off sale of a bunch of home stuff. Unfortunately, even at half off, it was still too pricey... they are proud of their stuff. We stopped at Braum's and picked them up chicken and fries and "white, hot dip" aka. gravy... and went to mom's. Mom and Kara went to look at some wedding chapels and we stayed there with Grandmom. At one point, Judd fell down and picked himself up and opened his hand and kissed his boo boo and kept on going. While we were there, he also counted to 10!!! Perfectly!!! Yeah Judd. He'd do 1-6 very slowly and then say 7,8,9,10 real fast. Harper sung the ABC song perfectly too, they are so talented.
This morning, I got up at 4:30 with Josh and right when he left, the kids started waking up... maybe because we put them to sleep at 6:30 last night... Anyways, Judd was asleep in Harper's bed. She came pitter pattering in and I wanted her to go back to sleep, so I layed her down by Judd and I cuddled with her. Judd woke up and popped his head up and looked over her and then raised up and kissed her on the head and on the cheek, then he rolled over on top of her and wanted her to hold him on her chest and he closed his eyes to go back to sleep. She said he was "too hebby" so I rolled him off. About that time, Noah came in and saw us, and left and pottied, and then came back in and cuddled with us. I thought they were all asleep a few minutes later, but I was wrong, when I got up to start cleaning they all followed.... I wonder what kind of day this will be.

Weekend

2009-02-02T10:31:00.000-08:00

Josh got home Saturday afternoon, and Harper and Juddson were both asleep. It was so beautiful outside, I decided to take Noah to Tillis for a walk. We walked around a couple of times and then we sat by the creek and threw rocks into the water. We hadn't gotten to do that in forever, and that is one of his favorite things to do, so we really had a good time. I WISH I would have had my camera with me... After we had our fill of throwing rocks, we walked around to the playground and he found some kids, well, teenagers to play with. He went to the top of the playland thing and they would throw the football up and over to him and he'd catch it and throw it back down and laugh really big. We'd been there a while and I knew it was about time for the tooters to get up, so we walked back him. Sure enough, I was greeted at the door and they insisted I hold them before I did anything else. The night was uneventful and we watched some shows and went to bed. I had a headache and couldn't sleep all night, and Noah and Harper were in bed with us, and I kept getting kicked in the back, so I moved to Harper's bed to try to get some sleep. After a few hours, Josh came in there and lay down by me, and then he told me to look up... Harper was sitting outside the bedroom on the vent on the floor with her cat. We called her to come in there with us, and we laughed about playing "musical beds" and then we were up for the day.
Noah's teacher at church said he participated and did great and he even got an award for being so good! Yeah Noah! After church Pa and Kara came over and ate pizza, and then Nanna stopped by and brought Harper a few more birthday gifts, and ended up getting everybody a gift. She bought little step stools for each of them. They are so cute, and the kids love them... I wonder what trouble they are going to find now... Harper already said... "I meed something in my room...wait, I can't reach it, I meed my bench" and pushed her pink stool into her room to reach her jewelry box. After afternoon naps, we pushed the table over to the side and got out the soccer goal and they played soccer. I told Noah he could do one kick, then it was Harper's turn to do one kick. He said, "Not 1, 20." and I said "You want to do 20 kicks and Harper do 20 kicks?" He said, "No...Noah 20 kicks, and Harper 1." We explained that that wasn't fair...so he agreed to 20 kicks for him, and 20 for Harper. After soccer we had supper... some ate cheerios and milk, others pizza, all of them ate yogurt. They love those yogurt pouch things, it's the same thing that comes in the container, but I guess it's more fun eating it out of a tube thing.... and more expensive, oh well, it's calcium.
We had our first Bice Family meeting. I have been working on a flip chart of rules and I got them star charts for things like taking vitamins, picking up toys, etc... and I introduced the charts during the meeting. They were so cute, sitting on their stools all in a row, listening and watching my "presentation." I don't know how well it sunk in, but they were sure cute sitting in a row on their stools listening to me. One picture was of a boy (NOAH) screaming and he would just study that page and try to get his face like the picture, he'd squint his eyes and stick his tongue way out, Josh and I were rolling, laughing... In one picture, with the mad kids-- Judd really got into that one, saying "Hoppa, MAD..." and he'd punch the picture.
Noah was in the tub the other night and I walked back there to check on him and there was water coming out from the bathroom into the living room... I yelled a little and asked him how that happened after I'd already told him not to splash and not to throw toys in the floor and demanded to know how it happened. He thought for a minute and looked up at me and said "It was just a accident." in the sweetest voice possible, so I laughed and started putting towels all over the floor... I am such a softy. Due to my reaction, he's now learned to use that line all the time. Like, we hear a thud and Judd is crying and saying "woawa, hit" and we say "Noah, did you hit Judd?" He says (again in the angelic voice) "It was just a accident."

I NOT PINK!!!

2009-01-31T12:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I was bad and skipped the gym. The morning was spent cleaning, but it all went wrong and turned into finding old toys the kids hadn't seen in a while, which they proceeded to scatter throughout the house. Noah wanted a track made, then created a big traffic jam on it. Harper played a little bit of everything and we found all 5 gabba men and Judd played with the Plex mobile.

Daddy came home for lunch and we all ate Geno's pizza and white dip! Harper drank her white dip out of the little plastic container it came in, then asked for the "wids" so she could "wik them". Kara, condiment queen, is proud of this trait...I find it disgusting.
We enjoyed an early afternoon visit from Grandmom and Granny, who brought more treats! Arby's curly fries and milky ways. We eat really healthy here... Anyways, Harper performed the ABC song and leg kick and booty shaker and the new exercise dance for them and they were impressed. Judd did some push-ups. Noah gave Grandmom a big hug and sweet kisses. The kids were getting tired and cranky from not having naps yet, and I still had to go to Sam's and to the grocery store, so mom and grandmom went home and I got the kids ready and loaded. Judd was the first one loaded into the car and fell asleep before I got everyone else in. I took him to mom's and she held him for the entire time we were gone... he had a good nap.
Thankfully, Daddy met us at Sam's. I was out of everything and he messed with the kids while I loaded the cart. Noah and Harper had coke icees while shopping, and Noah ended up drinking both, and had to go to the potty twice, so I was extra thankful Josh was there to take him. After Sam's we took a load of "cold stuff" home and put it in the fridge and Josh got in the car with us and we went back out for a trip to the grocery store. The kids did great and Noah walked by the cart and ate popcorn chicken. He would say "we need something..." and scratch the side of his head with his pointer finger, as if he was in deep thought.... and I would scratch my head and think and say... "oh yes, we need this or that" and point to it and he would get it and put it in the cart. About the half way point, he said "we need to open something" and I said "open something??" and he said "yes, the eggs." Very smart, we were almost to the eggs, and I needed to open them first, he was right.
After the store we were broke and tired and cold and had to go get Judd. He had just woken up (4 hours later) and said "Mo mmmmmeeeee! Car...... Home" I said "Do you want me to put you in the car and go home?" "UH HUH!" with a big head nod was his reply. We got home and I dealt with the kids and Josh unloaded the truck... then I had to put everything up and he fixed the plug on the extra freezer so I could have more room to put stuff. We finally got to eat dinner, and then headed to bed. I lay down in Harper's bed with all 3 kids and they would not wind down. Finally, after several threats... Judd wouldn't stop rolling around, so I put him in his crib. He only cried for a second, and then fell asleep. Noah and Harper FINALLY fell asleep and I got to bed around midnight.
This morning, I let them sleep for a little while, while I shopped on craigslist. I am an addict. It's free online classifieds for those of you who haven't heard of it. Anyways, Judd got up first. I was cuddled on the couch with him and he was tugging at his diaper, so I thought I would let him "air out" for a while and I took it off. Big mistake. He tooted and then exploded... if you know what I mean, all over my lap... Ugh... I didn't have anything nearby, so I grabbed his wet diaper and tried to scoop it up and then I layed him down on a towel and told him to stay while I went and changed clothes. He, of course, didn't stay, and when I came back into the room he was saying "uh oh mommy, uh oh mommy" over and over and he looked down at a big wet spot on the floor... So, I got him cleaned up and changed into a dry diaper and I cleaned up the floor and I cleaned off my clothes and put them in the laundry and came back into the room and looked at Judd and he said "thank you mommy." Ahh, that just made it all worth it. He's so sweet... such a precious baby.
So, after starting the morning off like that, the day had to get better, right? We got ready, which takes forever because they piddle around and we made it to the gym by 10. The childcare was packed, so I only stayed an hour and a half. On the way home Noah saw a bright yellow mustang and said "look at dat car mommy, i wike dat yeddow car!" I said "oooh, I know, I like that yellow car too..." to humor him and Harper yells "I WIKE WED CARS... NO PINK CARS! I wike pink cars" and I said "I don't know if I have ever seen a pink car, Harper" and she says "Well, I wike pink cars." Then Noah says, "NO, NOT PINK, YEDDOW!!" and Harper screams back "NO, I WIKE PINK" and Noah says "NOT PINK, NO!!!" so this goes on a few minutes and I say "HEY, chill out.... Harper likes pink and Noah likes yellow... you don't have to like the same color." And there was silence for 2 seconds, then Noah says "Judd wikes bwue" and I said "Judd, do you like blue cars?" And he says a big "UH HUH!" and then he said "Hoppa, pink" and Sassy pants, I mean, Harper yells "I NOT PINK!" and Judd says "Hoppa, pink" and she yells again, louder, "I NOT PINK" and starts to cry.... So, I am trying to be heard, saying "No, Harper, he's trying to say that you like pink cars," She said "Say I not pink." I said "YOU ARE NOT PINK!!!! YOU LIKE PINK CARS." ....................silence....................... for the rest of the trip home... Whew, I got a headache just writing about that conversation....
Anyways, the house is a wreck... Josh will be home in an hour, and I am typing this. The kids made a train with some of the Sam's items and played on it...

I have to go clean the toys up, finish the laundry, do the dishes, organize the 500 bucks of groceries, clean the bathrooms, and collect trash from around the house... and that's just to get it decent and picked up... and I need to play with poor Hoovy Boy.

2009!?! and SpongeBob

2009-01-30T05:42:00.000-08:00

For some reason, it just hit me that I should be writing 2009 on checks, etc....Wow, would you call that a month behind or a year behind? Oh well, at least I have it all figured out now...
Yesterday we were a little late to school. The kids all have some kind of eye funk and we are supposed to put 2 drops into each eye 4x's a day. Times 3 kids, that is a lot of eye dropping. I tried it in my own eye, it doesn't hurt, but you'd think I was prying their eyes open sticking needles into them. It's REALLY hard to do by myself, because I have to use one hand to hold the dropper, one hand to hold their eye open, and my legs and body to hold their hands down, which doesn't work really well... That is a two man job... Anyways, that's why we were a little late to school, because I had to do it by myself. Harper and Judd were glad to be back at exercise school. Harper helped Miss Stephanie make her grocery list and told her to write down "apples and potatoes and buns." Miss Stephanie asked her what she needed buns for and Harper said "For Krabby Patties!" Like, duh....didn't she know that? Ok, I think that means we are watching too much "SomeBob" as HJ says... I always SWORE I would never allow my children to watch that show... and now, sadly, they are. Am I a failure? I don't know why they love it so much... Josh will watch that one with them, and he hates sitting in front of all other cartoons, I admit, I have even laughed at a couple of episodes.... oh well..
I worked on Kara's flier yesterday and it turned out pretty well, I was proud. I would like to do that from home-- make fliers for people. I wonder how many peeps need fliers made? Hmm, probably not much money in that. Oh well. I am busy enough.

Soon to be uncle, Scott texted me today. He found us a great deal on an awesome dining table and 6 chairs. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it, it's exactly what I wanted except I WISH it were a little bit darker... but it's such a good price, we may just get it and live with the light finish... What do you think?

Noah is really into "20" right now. I guess because we let him play video games in 20 minute increments. He will say "watch 20 spongebobs?" and at night he'll say "20 little bears, and 20 footballs?" He loves going to sleep to football... a man after daddy's heart!

Snowed In

2009-01-29T03:43:00.000-08:00

Being snowed in was really nice. Josh couldn't work and it was great having him home for the day. We let the cats in and the kids enjoyed that. Judd followed them around calling "nananna, cooooooper" (Savannah and Cooper) and says "kitty kitty". The cats, of course, run from him. Cooper ran under the bed and Judd said "cat, hiding" and then he covered his eyes and said "2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 8!!, 10!!" (He was counting-- like he was playing hide and seek with Cooper.)
We stayed busy playing sick baby doll, little people town, soccer, video games, and a lot of projects-- markers and playdoh-- and Noah even did a combo project-- drawing with markers on the playdoh, which was interesting.
For dinner, Josh went and picked up some "pecker-oni" pizza as Harper says, with "karmet jon" cheese-- that would be the white cheese you sprinkle on top, otherwise known as Parmesan.
Harper wore panties all day! Woo Hoo!! But we had to force her to pee, and she never pooped. Right before bed time we put a diaper on her and Josh said "she just filled that thing in 5 different ways as soon as I put it on her." I was just getting out of the bath when he told me all this, and I said I would change her... I yelled in there if she was finished, and she said "1 more" and then kind of grunted and pushed...lolololol... ok-- a little too much info probably, but it's hilarious... She knows what she's doing, I don't know why she won't do that in the potty... So, I got her changed and got them all jammied up and all 5 of us went to bed. After an hour, they were all 3 asleep, so I moved them to their beds... but 2/3 were back within an hour or so.
This will be a weird day today-- we haven't been out all week, so it's going to feel like a Monday, but it's really a Thursday, which is kind-of like our Friday, since Noah doesn't have school on Fridays... hmmmm

The day after...

2009-01-27T06:53:00.000-08:00

The first thing out of Harper's mouth yesterday morning: "It's not my birthday any more?" I said, "No, honey, it's not... but you are still my special 3 year old girl." She looked up and said "It's Judd's birthday?" I said, "No, nobody's today." She said "Well, when's my 'nother birthday?" and I had to tell her it's a long, long time away. She was ok after that and wanted her Chuck E. Cheese bendy straw to drink her juice with and wanted Maggie on, and she was fine. After Maggie, we were putting her clothes on, and I usually let her pick her outfits, and today she picked out her outfit Nanna got her for her birthday. She discovered the greatness of pockets and walked around all day with her little hands tucked inside her sweatshirt pockets. She picked her new "poke-it dot gwoshes" to complete the outfit. She begged me all day to go jump in the puddles, and didn't understand it was 33 degrees all day and on the verge of sleeting.
Judd still doesn't feel very well, and I think it may just be a cold, plus maybe he's teething or on a growth spurt. He's really clingy to me and isn't happy just playing. He mainly just wants to be held, but that's ok... one day he won't want to be held, so I take advantage of it now, while I can, and let the chores pile up. He did fall asleep on my bed while holding his muno baby and watching Gabba. That was precious. He and Harper both took a long nap in my bed, which allowed me time to finish laundry mountain-- Can I get a HOORAY??? And change the sheets on the kids bed, and clean the kitchen and clean Harper's room... So, I felt I had a productive day overall.
Since Noah has been such a good boy, and his eyes seemed a little better, we got the Wii back out and let him play his new SSX Blur (snowboarding) game for a while, which he got the hang of so quickly it's unreal... You have to use the controller and the nun chuck and I can't even do it both-handed, but he has no problem at all. He seems to be talking a little more each day. After Josh got home from work they were playing soccer. Noah was standing by the table, trying to kick it to the couch, and Josh was standing at the couch trying to kick it past the table. When Josh scored, he'd cheer real big and Noah HATES to lose, and he said "Daddy, don't kick it so fast." So I gave Josh a look, and Josh eased up on him a little :) You gotta reward him for such a big, long sentence like that! Noah has pretty good soccer skills, he hardly used his hands and could maneuver that ball pretty well! Maybe he'll be able to play on a little team next season... We'll see...
We had a big family wrestle, tickle session on our bed and in the middle of it, one of Harp's boots got knocked off and she said "Wait, I meed to fix my guwash." and she pulled it back on by the handles, like she loves to do... and it was game on again.
After dinner, and baths, Josh was on our bed with all his paper work spread out. I was in the kitchen and yelled "JOSH!" and said "Where is Josh?" Harper yelled back "He's in dere paper workin'." Very nice.

Harper's 3rd Birthday!!!

2009-01-27T05:01:00.000-08:00

We spent the day at home, praying the ice would hold off until after Harper's party. I knew she'd be crushed if we had to cancel, and I was determined to get her to Chuck E. Cheese's. Thankfully, it just rained a little bit and it stayed right above freezing for a little while, in time for us to have her party. And, everyone got to come: Mom and Dad, Kara and Scott, Nanna and Pappa, Lex and Luke and even Jen and Hayley stopped by for a few minutes. Harper got to play (thank you Kara for taking her from game to game-- and thank you Scott for playing with Juddson) and eat pizza and drink Coko and see Chuck E and blow out her candle and eat cake and open presents and be a "star"! She really had a great time and felt like the special princess she is. We got home and she said "Mommy will you hold me for firteen minutes?" So I changed her into comfy clothes and cuddled up with her and cat until it was time to go to bed. She was worn out!

PS: In the slide, you'll see some pics of Noah helping Harper get ready for her party, and they are precious. She didn't want to wear the earrings because they pinched her ears and Noah was very concerned about that because those were for "Hoppa." He gave her a big birthday hug and told her "Happy Birthday Hoppa!" SO SWEET!!! He does love her.

Pupcakes, Northside and More!

2009-01-26T03:36:00.000-08:00

I forgot to write about our trip to the bank to see "Banna" last Wednesday. As soon as we got there they were climbing on Nanna's lap wanting to watch the baby in the water video on her computer. They are so stuck on that thing! After that it was on to Debbie's rubber band tin, their favorite bank toy, along with her antique horse race thing, that I am terrified they are going to break. After getting water, and candy and suckers, and drawing, and watching more videos, it was time to go. Harper was wearing her cupcake dress and tights and the ladies were commenting on how cute it was. So, before we left Harper pretended to pick "pupcakes" off her dress and gave one to each of the ladies to "eat".

Friday-- our trip to Northside! We went to Northside to participate in a science fair project for one of Mrs. Hall's students. She had a pile of toys and she wanted to see what toys the kid's picked. They had to go to a room with her one at a time and choose toys. I am pleased to say they "passed" and picked sex and age appropriate toys. Poor Noah did pick up a Barbie, but he just used it to wipe his nose with and put it back down... he did not play with the Barbie... :) I offered to take Barbie home and wash her, but the girl said it would be ok. Dad was really excited to have the grandkids at school. He ordered us a pizza and we had lunch there with him in his classroom. The kids were a little too distracted to do much eating though. Harper mainly drew on the chalkboard, Juddson ran around trying to escape and Noah found a spot with the big boys, playing computer games of course. The students seemed to enjoy them and they helped keep them from destroying anything or drinking a bottle of poisonous chemicals! Thanks dad, for letting us come for a visit.
The weekend was busy... I didn't get a lot done at home, but we had several outings and did a lot of playing with toys. I have been letting them play too many computer and video games and watch too much tv, so we tried to stay away from all that this weekend. Saturday morning, Josh and I went to the gym together, which was awesome to have him there with me. After we finished there, we went to "chicken donald's" as Harper says (McDonald's) for lunch and let the kids play in the playland for a while. After that we went through an automatic car wash and Juddson screamed and tried to get out of his carseat the whole time because he was scared to death! After that, I ran inside Hobby Lobby and they all waited in the car for me. After that we went home! We were all worn out. Harp and Judd took a little nap and we let Noah play his snow game for a few minutes. After they woke up, we set up Little People town again and we all played with that for a while. They LOVE the laugh and learn town, it's an awesome toy and if you have a little kid, you should get it, another toy that's fun and educational... I like it too, I like to put the 10 apples through the slot and watch it fall down the tree... the hard part is finding the apples.
Judd had some fever during the night, I don't know if he has a cold or is teething or what, and Noah was up most of the night with awful night terrors. I got kicked by his heel into my eye and felt it was too dangerous, so I made Josh take Harper into her bed, and they stayed in there while I dealt with Noah for a few hours until he finally snapped out of it and went back to sleep. So, since the kids didn't feel well and we didn't get any sleep, we missed church. Mom and Dad and Kara still came over after church for lunch and after that it was off for more errands. We had gotten Harper a little cubical shelving unit for her bedroom for one of her gifts and Josh opened it to put it together and it was damaged, so we went to target to exchange it. Judd stayed with mom and dad. We went to get him and Harper went in to kiss Gussieboy. We got home and Judd didn't feel well again, so I held him, and the house stayed a mess.
Some funnies by Harper:
She always wants to know "who gave me this" or "who fixed this for us".... Like she points at our new light fixtures and asks, "who fixed those?" and I will say "Matt" and she nods and says "yeah, Matt" and say something like, "he's my friend." Yesterday she looked out the back window and said "Who made that slide for us?" and I said "Cory and Brock and Daddy" (Brock was the guy who we bought it from who 'helped' Cory and Josh put it together) Last time Harper asked this same question, I answered "Cory and Daddy" and that didn't work, she said "and the other guy" So, now I just answer all 3 of them, even though Brock didn't do much and we don't know him! Anyways, I answered "Cory and Brock and Daddy" and she said "Yeah, I wub dose guys, they are my family" Ahh...
I may have written this next one already, but oh well... we were in a store and 2 men walked by and she waved at them and said "Hi!" and they were nice enough to wave back and keep walking and I said "Who was that, did you know them?" Harper said "yeah, those were my friends James and John." I guess she's been learning about them in Sunday school...
When we were driving to NHS, Pa was in front of us, we were following him and Noah was telling me to go faster and catch him because EVERYTHING is a race or competition to him (I will never allow him to have a driver's license because he cries when we get passed on the interstate...) And I told him I couldn't go any faster. Harper said "yeah, Noah, she can't, the police will get her and take her to jail with the dangerous guys." I guess she got that from me telling them about the numbers on speed signs and that the police will get me if I go over those numbers.... I don't know where she got the 'dangerous guys' part from though.
Dad said Harper told a student that she was "14 months" old. We figured she got that because every day people ask me how old they are, how far apart they are, if they are twins etc. and I tell them their ages and that they are all 14 months apart. She listens and remembers everything..... And speaking of that little sweetie, today is her 3rd BIRTHDAY!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARPER JANE!!! She is my sweet baby girl, my Harper helper! I am so proud of how beautiful she is on the inside and out! Hopefully everyone will come to her Chuck E. Cheese party tonight, she is SO EXCITED and has a super duper, razzle dazzle new birthday outfit with a birthday girl tiara to wear to the party tonight!

2009-01-22T11:36:00.001-08:00

Not for the weak of stomach...

2009-01-22T04:43:00.000-08:00

I am finally getting caught back up. Josh thought it would be a good idea for me to start waking up when he does instead of staying up late at night to get caught up, so we would be on the same schedule. It's hard. I applaud him for working so hard for our family, so I can stay at home with the kids... It is not easy to wake up at 4:30 and 5:30 every other day... I like to wake up with the sun, not in the dark!!! I am really proud of him.
Anyways, that change has helped me get more done. While the kids are still asleep, I am able to get the laundry done and the checkbook balanced and the bills paid, and most importantly the blog caught up :), all uninterrupted, which is nice. Now I just have to find time to train Hoover. Anybody have any good dog training tips?
Ok-- so, Tuesday... We came home after school and I was busy in Harper's room and I saw her kind of sneaking into the bathroom and she was rubbing her hands together. I asked "What is that on your hands?" and she looked away... I started walking towards her and asked again... "Poop" she said. She had stuck her hands down the back of her poopy diaper and had fist fulls of poop... stinky, nasty poop... oh my. After I gagged a few times-- and I have developed a very strong stomach and gag reflex over the past few years, but this one was awful-- the way she was squishing it around her fingers, UGH!! So, I held her up to the sink and squirted soap in her hands and made her rub most of it off. It was still under her finger nails, and in the crevices of her cuticles and in between her fingers, so I had to just do it myself and clean it. After washing with antibacterial soap, which I felt wasn't strong enough, I broke out the germ-x and we both used up a gallon of that. I feel as though we are now disinfected. So, I changed her diaper and she got a lecture about why we don't do that and she said "well, I just wike it..." Whatever that means... Later in the day I smelled the same poop smell again and saw a diaper laying in the floor and saw Harper, whose butt was dirty and she'd pooped and taken it off and was walking around with a dirty rear! At least she didn't sit down.... So, once again, I put a towel down, and cleaned her, then put her in the bath, then cleaned up the diaper. It is SO time for her to potty train, she refuses to poop in the potty though.... I am going to lose my mind.
Tuesday was also mom and Kara's birthdays. ~~~HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND KARA~~~ even though neither of you read this... Mom has had a really bad toothache and had foot surgery; so our plans of going out to dinner were foiled. I cooked dinner and had dad and mom and grandmom and kara come over and eat. After we were finished, Harper and Juddson put on an exercise show for them. Harper does leg kicks and booty shaker, but she's made up some new "ex size dances". She'll jump and punch and all kinds of cool stuff :) Judd got into it too. He mimicked her for a while, then the layed on the floor on his belly with his hands out in front of him and started lifting his butt up and down. We finally realized he was copying Josh's push ups (that Josh has been doing every night) and it was HILARIOUS!!! I wish I had a video camera~
That was all the adventure I can remember from Tuesday.
On the way to school Wednesday morning, Noah looked at me and said "Mommy, you have sparkle eyes." Ahh, how precious is that? What a nice compliment!!! He's big into making "new friends" on his Wii, I guess they are really called Mi's, but he's got about 75 friends that he creates, plus everyone we know has one. And, on the Mi he made for me, he made my eyes with sparkles in them-- I wonder how he sees me... I think it's really neat though. Yesterday, we ran out of time and didn't get to do it, but he is wanting to make a "friend" of Grandmom-- this should be interesting....
Judd is talking so much... I can't get over it, he can communicate anything he needs too. His thing right now is, when I say "Judd, are you poopy?" He'll say "Hoppa" and I will say, "Harper's poopy?" he's says "uh huh." and then I ask again..."Judd.... are you poopy?" and he'll say "woewa"... and I say "Noah's poopy?" and again, he says "uh huh!" it's so funny... He's a big tattle tail too, have I mentioned that? He'll run to me crying and point "Woewa!" and I will say "what did Noah do" and he'll say "hit" or "boo boo" or something like that... Gotta get 'em ready for school... Pics coming soon... I did add the Christmas pics, but you'll have to scroll down, I kept them in chronological order.

And still behind...

2009-01-19T21:07:00.000-08:00

I am supposed to be sleeping right now, but it's driving me nuts that I got behind on the blog again... They've been so cute lately-- I will try to fill you in...

Harper and Juddy Boy are still big into "school day" and "overboard." We have started trying to break Noah a little bit from the technology habit he is so absorbed in. He is doing much better in his communication though... Friday afternoon he wanted to call Nanna, so I let him, and he invited her over. So, Friday night she and Pappa came over and ate dinner and then Noah actually wanted Pappa to play MarioKart with him. He loved it, of course he beat Pappa every time, but he got a big kick out of Pappa's animation!

Yesterday, Josh needed a nap, so I took all the kids out for the afternoon. We started at PetCo and picked up a couple of things for Hoover, then we looked at all the animals. Noah would "find" the snakes and lizards in their cages and thought they were cool, they all loved the fish and Harper and I love the neon glow fish, we may have to get some of those one day... Judd loved the birds and said they were "CUTE" and Harper loved the white parakeet. We went past the guinea pigs and Harper spotted it, and said "ahhh, Hi little fella." How cute is that? They got the biggest kick out of the $2 mice. We watched one tank of them for a really long time. There were 3 little mice that were very playful and were all playing on the wheel, some would run on the inside while the others were trying to climb up the outside of the wheel, then they'd fall down and Noah was just belly laughing at them... it was fun. After PetCo, we went next door to shoe carnival and it really was a carnival-- Nanna can testify from the previous trip to shoe carnival. I finally got them measured, picked out shoes, then tried on. Noah first found a pair of high top but unfortunately, very unfortunately... they didn't have his size... next he picked out a $4 pair of "cherry red" crocs, and they were really out of his size in those... I would have gotten him those for backyard play though, he loved those red shoes.... But, eventually he found a smooth pair of silver, navy and lime green nikes that we both could live with and boy is that kid proud of those shoes. He didn't have school today, since it was Martin Luther King day, and he went to exercise school and the first thing he did was stick his feet out to show everyone his new shoes. He did the same thing to Jennifer and Michelle at therapy too. After Noah was satisfied and checking out his find, I grabbed some for Judd and tried them on, check-- he was done... Harper was mad and tired and wanting out of the stroller by this point, and was not happy with any shoes I showed her. I wanted to get her some white and pink new balance, but they were a little pricey, so we got her the girl version of the kind Noah got... silver, black and hot pink... a little flashier than I would have liked, but she finally admitted she liked them and they weren't too expensive and I wanted to get outta that store, so we just got those and left. Judd fell asleep in the stroller and stayed asleep to the carseat transfer and Harp fell asleep as soon as she was strapped in. I still braved it, and we went to Target. They did awesome, especially for only having 10 minute naps. We started off by getting coke icees and that made them happy. We shopped for a long time and got H all her b-day gifts and I got a little something for each of the boys. On the clearance aisle, we happened to find a singing dancing Brobee. The box was torn and it was marked like 8 bucks... Judd had to have it... I walked away with out it and he threw the biggest fit, crying and crying for Brobee. We walked back and I handed it to him and he hugged Brobee like it was his long lost best friend. He'd push his toe and make him sing and sing along so loud, and as soon as Brobee was done, Judd would say "toe" and hit his toe again and start it all over. Brobee is now hidden in the closet and will be 'til H's birthday party next week. I can NOT believe she is going to be 3... time is flying by too fast.

After Target we came home and the kids were starving. Noah ate some leftover pizza and Harp and Judd scarfed down "meat" --as Judd says...sausage and waffles. Then had baths, then to bed.

Today was busy with the gym and therapy. We got home and is was pretty nice outside, so we went out back and played on the swingset and played with Hoover. Harper got really muddy and after a while they all came in and had a hot shower.
Pa stopped by for a quick visit and played school and played jump with Judd. Once, Judd jumped while Pa wasn't looking, but Pa caught him anyways, and both suffered only minor head injuries. Pa taught Judd to say "PA!" then to jump... It's so cute, he'll get on the little stool and say "PA!" and put his hand in the air with his little pointer finger up. They were all tired from having a long 2 days, so we drove them around 7:30 and they were all out by mile 3.

Catching Up

2009-01-10T07:34:00.001-08:00

I am still behind from our stomach bug last week. I was looking at the laundry today-- in every room-- covering the loveseat, clean and waiting to be folded, all the piles in the den-- folded, waiting to go to their destinations, and all the dirty clothes, scattered on the floors in every room, and then the monster-- the pile of dirty laundry waiting to be laundered... Ugh, it never ever ends, and as soon as I catch up, something happens to back it up again. Anyways, as I was looking at this, I was thinking back to when Noah was first born, and I would do laundry with expensive specialized baby detergent so it wouldn't hurt his perfect skin, and I would admire and smell every tiny little article of clothing that came out of the dryer and perfectly crease and fold it and lay it so gently in the drawer, and think ahhh-- look at these precious little clothes, and now I go to Sam's and get the biggest, cheapest bottles of detergent they have, doesn't matter what it does to the skin, just as long as it gets the clothes clean-- and as these rash making clothes come out of the dryer, I no longer oooh and ahh over them, instead I sigh and think 'the end is not even in site.' knowing it's not now, and won't ever be until they move out, and then they'll probably just bring it home for me to do on the weekends... oh well, at least it's an excuse to come see me... Yeah right... Oh well...
Anyways, this blog is about the kids, not laundry, but I really feel like I am seeing more laundry than the kids lately....
Harper was hilarious yesterday. I told her yesterday morning that Cory and Jessie were having their baby and we would go to the hospital later to see her new baby cousin "Livie." So-- all day, Harper was so excited about her baby sister "wibbie" and told everyone we saw about her. Finally, after errands last night, we got to go see her. She was precious and beautiful and Harper really admired her. She was so gentle with her, rubbing her head and peeking under her hat. While we were there the nurse came in and gave her shots and bathed her, and that really distraught Harper, because she got hurt and their was red blood on her legs and she is in the hospital. Ohh... sweet girl, she is so thoughtful... She is also HIGH MAINTENANCE right now, along with her "Juddy boy" as she has so lovingly named him. Those kids are precious and I love them to death, but they are wearing me out right now. "Hold me, hold me" says Judd all day long and follows me around from room to room and cries and plops on the floor and flings his head back if I don't hold him right that second. And right next to Juddy boy following me around is Harp, "hold me berry much" is her line and she just whines and cries and grabs my legs if I don't pick her up. Noah is still spending his free time playing computer games and playing Wii. He played his truck game right after Christmas, but it's a little hard for him and he can't win, so he's not into that game anymore. He moved onto "Mario Daseball" and got all the "friends" he could on his team and now has gone back to "MarioKart Wii" were he wins every level.

Not such a great start

2009-01-09T11:10:00.000-08:00

The new year isn't starting off as smoothly as anticipated. I was hoping to have every room totally organized by now and everyone back onto a "regular" schedule but that has yet to happen. We've been busy dealing with electrical repairs and buying fixtures and more fixtures and then I got the stomach flu which not only set me way behind, but Josh had to take off work to stay home with the kids and that put him way behind at work. He did a great job taking care of us all yesterday, and today I am finally starting to feel better and am dealing with the aftermath. Pretty much all the dishes are dirty and all the clothes are dirty-- that said, not being Josh's fault, I should've have been caught up with all that before I got sick, but wasn't, so missing another day of it, doubled the load... Anyways, hopefully after this weekend everything will be back to normal. Is there a normal anymore?
The kids are all ok, thankfully, Judd's stomach bug only lasted 12 hours and Harper only threw up one time... I am praying Noah and Josh will not get it at all. They have been good, playing and watching shows, and Noah has been especially glad to miss another day of school... oh well..

Happy New Years!

2009-01-05T04:23:00.000-08:00

Well, one of my resolutions is to stay organized and on top of things, and that includes the blog... more pics, more posts.... So, since I am pretending today is the start of my new year, here we go.
Also, I have been blogging for one year~~~for you new readers, you probably don't see posts going back that far, that's because my blog accidentally got deleted and they are non-recoverable by blogger. Thankfully, Brandon, one of my college friends, somehow found an archive that contained the ENTIRE blog and so I have a PDF and a Word copy on my computer! Thanks again Brandon... so now, I have started this one and will be more careful with it in the future. I have a ton of Christmas pics to put up, but they are on the other computer, so I will have to do that later tonight. So, for now, I will skip the Christmas post and go directly into New Years.
Our New Years Eve was awesome. Josh and I met Kara and Scott at Red Lobster and had a great time together. We all shared our resolutions and had a fun 3 hours at RL.
We've enjoyed our Christmas break and have tried to stay at home as much as possible. Every morning of break, Noah woke up and would say "no school today!" with a huge smile on his face. Sweet boy! I think he's going to have a hard time waking up this morning, and I dread it, but it'll be good getting back into our routine, I am so ready to get back to the gym!
I have been in the process of taking down the tree and the Christmas decorations and Noah has had the hardest time with that. If you don't know Noah personally, you need to know how sentimental and sensitive he is. He saw me taking down the tree and immediately started crying. He was saying "no, not my tree, Christmas not over." So, I felt so sorry for him crying about that tree, I thought it wouldn't hurt to leave it up and just do a Valentine's tree, an Easter tree, and 4th of July tree, etc... and the kids would enjoy helping with all the different "holidays tree" decorations. So, I told Noah to go ask daddy, who immediately said "No, the tree is coming down." His argument was that it wouldn't be as special at Christmas time if we had it up all year, and I get that too, I just felt so sorry for Noah. So, I didn't touch it the rest of the night... the next day I was taking all the "ball" ornaments off first and had a big bag of red and gold balls. Again, Noah noticed what I was doing and ran in to stop me. I told him nicely, that we had to take it down, but I didn't have to right then. So, I started doing something else and a few minutes later I came back to the room and Noah is down by the tree hanging the ornaments BACK on--- HOW STINKIN' CUTE IS THAT? He was SO PROUD and ran up to me and said "Mommy, Look I fixed the tree!" So, I left his up for a couple more days. Even in passing, if he looked over and saw the half taken down, half decorated tree he'd cry. Finally, last night, we finished, through a few tears, the beloved tree is now in it's box awaiting the arrival of next Christmas.
Pa has spent a lot of time at our house during the break also, he can't wait to retire to be able to see the kids more. They loved it, Harper and Juddson started to play "school day" with Pa. They will answer questions, or have Pa answer questions and will run to the wall and draw an imaginary mark and say "check mark" and then go on to the next question. It's so cute to hear Judd say "check mok." Harper and Juddson have also started playing "overboard." They pile up pillows and their HUGE stuffed animals they got for Christmas up and jump off her bed into the pile while yelling "overboard!" Judd says that too "ove bord" and he'll count too, "1, 2,5,6, 8" and then jump-- at least he's got most of them down!
Cory made Josh an awesome marshmallow gun for Christmas (thanks for that Cory...) And Josh likes to shoot our children with it... well, he had it out and was going to shoot Noah, and Harper ran in front of him, and said "No, he's my friend!" and when she stepped in front of him, Josh had already shot and it hit her arm at pretty close range. I don't think it hurt her, just shocked her that he actually shot her, and she cried and cried... it was so sad because she was protecting Noah and she took the shot. Now, Josh will get it out to play with Noah, because Noah loves to get shot with it, and she'll grab Judd's hand and run him into the bedroom to hide him so he won't get shot and she'll scream at daddy to not shoot them.
Another thoughtful thing she did was when we were all playing Hungry Hippo. We tried to play in on the bed, which was a terrible idea because it slanted to one side, the side with the most weight-- where Josh was laying. Anyways, we played and since I was opposite of Josh, I ended up with like 1 ball, Harper, who had several, grabbed a handful and gave me some... I think that's so sweet of her, she didn't want me to feel like a Hungry Hippo failure.
They got a little fun to learn table and it has a flip top, one side is music and the other side teaches you to write numbers and letters and draw, when that side is down, Harper says she is "doing my job" and no one can bother her.
The other day we were in the office and Noah flipped the light switch on. After a second, Harper said "Nice reach Noah" and I said "Nice reach? What do you mean?" and she walked over to the switch and said "I can't weach, I too wittle, Noah had a nice weach!"
Two nights ago, they were all 3 in the bath... it was cold in our house and the water was pretty hot. Noah was standing up and the steam from the bath was around him and concerned Harper pointed to Noah and said "He's burnin'."
Judd is currently loving the song "head shoulders knees and toes" and I have to sing it a hundred times a day, especially when I am rocking him to sleep.... our new favorite routine. Last night he sang along to the Richard Scarry ABC learning song with me and it was precious.
Yesterday we made Noah turn off his computer, because his time was up and he was crying and whining about it while sitting in my lap. He said "My heart..." and I said "what's wrong with your heart?" and he said, "It's broken." and continued crying over his computer games.
Well, I didn't get to post this Monday, it's now Tuesday morning. Our routine started off well and Noah was all smiles about school-- which was surprising and wonderful. Yesterday was super hectic with school, gym, therapy, a trip to Lowes, home to meet the electrician, back to lowe's for different stuff, came home with the wrong stuff after an hour, Josh had to pick us up pizza for dinner, showers, and to bed... that's why I didn't get to post this yesterday! Today should be much calmer, although Judd messed up my new workout routine because he got sick and threw up in the gym childcare today and we had to leave. I tried to work out at home, but you know how that goes, with 2 toddlers climbing all over-- not so good... Anyways, here are some pics from the past couple of weeks... You'll notice Noah got a haircut and he'll remember it or think about it and cry "my beautiful hair gone" and we have to reassure him that it's still beautiful and will grow back.

Christmas Day

2008-12-30T04:09:00.000-08:00

I guess all the kids were really good because Santa came big time at our house! Judd woke up first, so he and I hung out and steared clear of the gifts until the other 2 got up. They finally woke up and were excited to see their piles of goodies! Harper and Juddson dumped their stockings first and Noah picked the smallest gift from his pile, probably because it looked like a Wii game, and he was right, he marveled at that Mario Baseball forever-- just what he'd hoped for! Harper's main hope was Ponyville and she couldn't wait for us to get it all un-packaged. She also got a big crib and the Baby Alive doll with the 4 in 1 backpack thing. Judd loved his Gabba stuff and also he got some really cool Little people sets and a stand and learn activity table, that was one of my favorite toys that Santa brought-- Fun and Educational!! I sound like a commercial now... We finally coaxed Noah into opening more gifts and he got Shake and Go Dragsters and the Matchbox Alien set to name a few.
After all the gifts were opened and out of the boxes (which took forever because you know how toys are packaged) our house looked like a bomb went off in a toys r us. Boxes and wrapping paper and cardboard and toys covered our entire living and dining room floor. Poor Josh had to clean it all, and I started cooking for my side to eat Christmas dinner over here.

Christmas Eve

2008-12-29T05:43:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve at Nanna and Pappa's house with Cory and Jessica and Lexi and Luke. Usually Lisa and Jack are there as well, but of course this year they were in the hospital with their new babies! We missed them, and can't wait to see them. We had a wonderful dinner with ham, turkey, dressing, Nanna's famous tators and gravy and deviled eggs and a whole bunch of desserts. We hardly made it through dinner-- the kids were so hyper and excited to dive into the gifts. I think Juddson was the only one who actually ate anything. As soon as we finished eating, they started tearing into presents. The first one Juddson opened was a Gabba gabba tent, which he put up on the couch and sat in front of it so no one would steal it from him. His next one was the Gabba gabba guitar, which got him off the couch. He played with that for the next 2 hours, singing and dancing and clapping to all the songs... and if no one was watching him, he'd yell at them "NANNA" and once he had her attention, he'd go back to his singing. Harper was opening one of hers from Jessi and Cory and it was a baby doll, but it was wrapped in a a big crockpot box and she saw the crock pot picture and said, "No" and I don't remember if she said, I don't want it or that's not mine, but it was something like that, and she dropped it and walked away... we had to explain to her that it was something different inside, so Josh opened it part of the way so she could see pinkness inside and then she got excited again, and loves the baby doll and all the clothes and things that were with it. Noah opened his game and wanted to play his "truck game" so bad it distracted him from opening all of the other things. He couldn't wait to get home and play it. He did love his Thomas the train tent and played in it with Piglet. We all had a great Christmas together and thank everyone for the gifts.

Judd

2008-12-23T07:11:00.000-08:00

Judd had a bath, I got him out, dried and dressed him. Something stopped up the tub and the water didn't drain. Fifteen minutes later, Harper comes in telling me, Judd is in the bath.... and he was.

December pics

2008-12-23T06:23:00.000-08:00

More old pics

2008-12-23T06:21:00.000-08:00

Noah's 4th birthday party!

October pics

2008-12-23T04:18:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas???? I don't know...

2008-12-22T08:46:00.001-08:00

Yikes, 2 weeks since my last post

2008-12-18T04:54:00.000-08:00

Crazy weeks, sick kids, and the approaching holiday are my excuse for not having posted in so long. The kids are at a wonderful age, I wish they would all stay toddlers forever. They are talking and growing each day and I am busy enough jotting little notes in my notepad and taking pictures... Who has time to blog? But, I hope to one day look back at all the fun little stories and relive my young mommy days... and since I have such a TERRIBLE memory, going back and reading this will be like reading a wonderful story...

Grandmom fell a few weeks ago and broke her hip. One day I ventured to the hospital with all three kids to visit her and mom. They did awesome, obeyed me, walked by me, and were quiet. I was so proud. Once in the room, they were a little surprised to see Grandmom laying in bed. Noah went up and kissed her and said "boo boo?" Harper told her she had broken bones, and Juddson was looking at Charles trying to place him. Grandmom and mom were so happy to see us. Noah saw the potty and had to try it. He walked in and looked up over the potty and said "hot shower?" Wow! He could potty and shower all at the same time, pretty cool. Harper decided to entertain Grandmom with a leg kick/ booty shaker combo, and after she was finished, she said "that's my talent!" See... they are learning things from their t.v. shows. Thank you Yo Gabba Gabba! When Charles left, Juddson said "Bye 'Chars,' see you later!" and everyone though that was cute that he could say that.

Other interesting outings included the trip to the dentist, Dr. Murphy. I was SO proud of the kids, especially Harper. They called them back at the same time and the girls started cleaning their teeth. Since Noah was a little more difficult, I sat on his chair and helped hold his hands down and tried to control his screaming. In the chair next too us, was precious little Harper laying perfectly still and quiet, with her sunglasses on so the bright light wouldn't hurt her eyes. Her hands were folded on her tummy and her mouth was wide open. Wow!! I was so impressed. She is terrified of cavities (again, props to Yo Gabba Gabba) and I told her the girls were going to make sure she didn't have any tiny, yucky cavities. With good reports, we left-- outta there in 30 minutes!! Yeah!! With toys from the treasure chest and stickers, and a baggy of new toothbrushes and paste, they were excited!

Now for the random stories of funnies I have jotted down:
Juddson wasn't wearing a shirt and wanted a drink. I gave him Noah's that was on the table, a non-sippy cup. Harper, being concerned said "No, not that cup, he spill it on his boobs."

The kids and I eating lunch at the table, Noah was watching Harper and looked up and said "Hoppa so cute." Ahhh, how sweet of a brother is that?

Josh was teasing Harper, she came back with "Josh, don't be mean."

Josh gave Harper a drink of his drink, fresh, sweet tea.... after a long drink Harper looked up and said "that's some delicious juice!"

We are having some electrical difficulties and have had a few companies come out and give us quotes. The first ones were a little scary, wreaked of old smoke, not many teeth, you know the type.... Anyways, Harper, being the man lover she is had to talk to them... they told her 'bye' when they left and as soon as the door closed, she whipped around and said "those guys just lub me."

Harper-- about cheese omelet: "I don't wike that cheese, it make me throw-up."

One of my peeves is when we are going somewhere and they take their shoes off in the car between home and where we are headed... First of all, because I am usually running late and putting shoes back on takes more time... and second of all, it's just a hassle to do... Harper knows how I feel about keeping shoes on. We arrived at Walmart, I grabbed a cart, put Judd in, turned to get Harper, and she is waving her hand in my face saying "Don't get mad, don't yell....don't be mad, it's alright... just be happy" because one of her shoes was untied... poor thing... guess I need to chill out with the shoes a little bit.

This story made me cry, one of the sweetest things I have ever experienced. I was editing pics and Noah came up and sat in my lap and gave me sweet kisses and a big hug. He said "I wub you" and I told him I loved him too and kissed him back and gave him a big squeeze. He sat back and looked up at me and said "Here, you have my heart, here you go" and made the motion of pulling his shirt (his heart) and held it out to me.... How sweet is that???? I am amazed he could relate that to love.... after he saw my misty-eyed reaction, he said "here you have my 3 hearts" and pulled more out....sweet baby boy.

We were all at the table eating dinner... the kids had KFC chicken strip meals and Josh and I had Chinese. Well, they didn't give josh very much meat, it was mainly celery strips he picked around... The kids had gotten up and were running around playing while we were finishing our meals. Harper had left some chicken and Josh, still being hungry, ate it... thinking she was done. A few minutes passed and she hopped up in her chair, looked into her "laptop" box and said, "Hey! Where's my chicken?" Josh felt really bad and told her he thought she was finished and he ate it and he was really sorry." She had a distraught look and then smiled and leaned over and kissed him on the shoulder and said "it's ok, daddy." Ah,sweet girl. What a great quality to have, forgiveness.

We were driving and were close to home, and I was kidding with kids and said "oh no, I am lost, where are we?" Harper, rolling her eyes, said "you are not lost, Kim." I laughed real big because she sounded like such a teenager... she said "no, no, don't tell that..."

Judd loves little people, he has one that is Mexican, with a lot of black hair and a mustache. He calls that one daddy-- which is funny. The one with brown hair, that carries a bottle is mommy. He plays with them in the bathtub and covers them up with cups and says "where's Josh?" "where's Kim?"

I am sick, I coughed real big and Noah said "bless you."
Cute kids....

Juddson is really into throw and catch right now... and he has an arm, I wish we had a video camera to capture his first "fire balls." He loves to look at pictures, especially of "Hoooooover" and says "Hooooover, cute!" He's talking so well!! He's always got a boo boo or something hurts... He'll call the other kids to the table or bath "Eat, Hoppa, eat..." or "bath...Wowa, Bath." One of his favorites is "what happened" and he turns his hands out? I tell him and he'll say "oh." and run off...

Harper is into playing doctor. She is the mommy and she'll bring the baby dolls to me or Josh (Dr. Fred) and we have to poke their finger... I guess I should mention, last Friday, she had to have her finger poked for an Iron test-- which came back normal this time!! Praise!!

Noah loves "Jennifer/Michelle school" Which is his speech/occupational therapy, but not Tilles school. I don't know why he doesn't like that one right now. After I pick him up from any school, his first words are "play mariokart for 10 minutes?" Last night he started saying "not 10 more minutes, how bout 11?" I said "how bout 5?" he cried, "not 5, 11."

That's all I got... I gotta get some stuff done before they wake up.

December Already

2008-12-03T22:14:00.000-08:00

My precious angels are growing too fast. I love this age; it's all chaos and hectic, and nothing stays clean for more than 2 minutes, but they are all so funny right now. Last night while they were in the bath, Juddson was holding up letters, and I said "B" and he said "CDE" Wow! I was amazed he knew that. He thinks he is a big kid. Harper apparently knows her letters too. She thinks she spells her name "KKR, KKR" instead of "H A R P E R" and yesterday she said "Write my name" So, I did, without saying anything.... I had written "Harper" and she said "No, write my Kkrkkr." and so, again, without saying anything, I wrote "Kkrkkr" and she said "Thank you..." and took it and put it on the front of the fridge with 6 magnets around it and showed it to Judd, telling him to look at her "kkrkkr." Which he did, and promptly ripped off and she screamed, and I got it back from him and gave it to her and she put it on the side of the stove, with the same 6 magnets, to hide it from Judd.... it worked.

When the kids get in trouble, we give them their lecture and say, "Do you understand?" Until they look us in the eye and respond that yes they do understand... And Judd kicked me while I was changing his diaper today and I said "Juddson, no no... You don't kick mommy, that hurts mommy. If you kick again, you will get a spanking, do you understand?" I thought he would give his usual response of "UH HUH!" but to my surprise his sweet little voice said "I un stand." AHHH Makes me cry-- he is the sweetest kid. Well, I can't say that, Harper and Noah are precious too.

Noah is really into making Mii's on the Wii.... and he's pretty good at it too. He made Scott and Granny tonight, and they are cute-- pretty funny. I think he likes creating Miis almost as much as he likes playing games. He's off of MarioKart for now and likes "Tewis" which is Tennis...and he has to have both controls and play two person, so he's playing against himself.

Yesterday morning, when I went to get Juddson out of bed, I realized he'd gotten sick through the night sometime and had slept in throw up... Yuck I know... but he must have slept through it because I didn't hear anything on the monitor... anyways, I had just gotten the other two ready to take Noah to school and came back in and told them Judd was sick and we were going to stay home today. I was holding Judd and said "Oh, you poor boy" and Noah ran up and put his nose on mine, like he likes to do when he has something very important to ask or say and said "I a poor boy too." He thinks that if he's a poor boy or sick, he'll get to skip school. Every morning when we are getting ready he says something hurts or he's hot or sick or something. He does love to go to Jennifer Michelle school, as it's now called. They are doing a great job with him and I am so thankful he likes to go. Today I watched the end of his OT session with Jennifer and they were swinging on this big thing together, well, not really swinging, just swaying back and forth really slowly and he was holding scissors the right way and cutting paper all by himself... that's a big deal because he's never been able to hold scissors the right way. I have also caught him holding a pencil the right way too-- which is awesome. And a couple of days ago, I was on the computer and he got in my lap and grabbed a pen and made a circle, and a cross, just in 2 seconds and was so proud!!! YEAH Noah--we are so proud of him for improving so much with his fine motor skills!

Harper Jane is still not pooping in the potty, it drives me nuts, because she knows when she needs to go and she goes and hides and then comes out of hiding with this little smile behind thumb and "pink elephant cat" and I know before I smell it what she's done. She will wear panties and pee in the potty, but cries for a diaper when she needs to poop, I don't get it.... Today I tried to bribe her... I told her if she pooped in the potty 5 times, she could get a toy... I said "How about Hungry hungry hippo" because she sees the commercial and talks about it all the time. And she lit up and said "Yeah!!! Hungry hungry hippo" So, I told her I would make her a chart and when she got 5 stars, she'd get the game.... She was so pumped... and not even 2 hours later, she pooped again-- IN HER DIAPER... ugh.. I don't know what it's going to take for that girl. She is so funny though, if she sees something like that game that she wants she'll say "I want that for my Christmas list, or I want that for my birthday present." Want want want... these kids know that word... sometimes it's need... I need that toy mommy...

Anyways, I am going to go make a star chart... It's not letting me spellcheck for some reason... so sorry for all the misspellings in your previous reading... :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T21:09:00.000-08:00

We had a great day today at Nanna and Pappa's house and ate a ton of good food. It was great to see everyone, but we missed Memaw not being there. The kids had fun with their cousins and Juddson helped himself to food all day. He'd climb up into a chair and eat whatever was on the table in front of him, he ate turkey, ham, strawberries, choc pie and spicy dip... all at the same time. The kids hadn't napped and were exhausted when we left at 7. We are excited to do it all over again tomorrow at our house with Granny and Pa and Grandmom and Kara and Scott.

This week, Juddson has been the funny one. Noah has been sick all week and hasn't done much at all. He's been taking his antibiotics, but has still had fever almost every day and just hasn't been himself. Harper has been pretty quiet except for her outbreaks of leg kicks and booty shakin'. Judd asked for blocks and I got them all down and he stacked a few and smiled and said "I love it!" (as plain as day) and I said "Did you say 'you love it'?" and he did the massive "uh" "HUH" with the big head nod. We were all laying in bed the other night, trying to bore the kids to sleep and Juddson pointed out that we were watching "Football" and he'd cheer for them, or say "uh oh" when a guy got tackled. He will also stand at the baby gate and holler for "HOOoooVer!" And when Hoovy boy was chewing on the bath stopper, Juddson was crying "Hoover, bath! Hoover, bath!" over and over until I looked and saw what he had and took it away.

Oh yeah, also this week, I thought it was so sweet. I told the kids Granny was coming over because mommy had to go to the doctor (for a face treatment) Harper's eyebrows came down and she looked really serious and said, "Mommy, are you sick?" it was so thoughtful. I told her no, I just had to go get some lotion for my face and she said "oh ok..." and told me that she wanted to go too, to play with the trains.

On the way to Noah's therapy yesterday, I don't know how, but somehow the baby in the pool video got brought up and Noah, just thinking about it, started crying. He can't stand for us to watch it or talk about it... Poor little sensitive thing....

Well, I am off to hopefully find some online deals, so I won't have to get out and shop in the morning.

Yikes!

2008-11-23T12:43:00.000-08:00

Once again, I have been terrible about keeping the blog up to date this week. I have so many pics I am going to put up, just not this second. Josh gets irritated that I write more than I upload pics, but I am doing this so I will have a record of all the cute, little funny things they do and say... I will always have the pics, and I don't need two copies, but I would never be able to remember things if I didn't make notes, and that is the purpose of this blog...
Anyways, Noah is now a Mario Kart trash talkin' expert. He's beaten the first level and has one more trophy to go to beat the second level. He's amazing and knows how to do all kinds of tricks. Josh played against him yesterday and was saying "You ready to go down? Daddy's gonna win!" And Noah said, "I not going down, I going up... Daddy going down." Josh did end up beating him a few times and he cried and cried like you wouldn't believe. He could NOT stand to lose. He cried so loud that it woke H up and she came in and saw what was happening and told Josh, "Daddy, you don't need to win" and started cheering for Noah. She is so smart, she says she can't play because she falls off, but she knows exactly what Noah is doing and says things like "Good turn, do a double flip" and she'll come and tell me, "Noah won the star cup..." etc...

At the dinner table at night, before we eat, we give thanks for our food. The kids are finally catching on and are putting their forks down, folding their hands, and closing their eyes.... and they sometimes repeat what Josh says or say their own prayer. Last night after Josh finished and everyone started eating, Juddson clasp his hands, closed his eyes and said "God....pood...MAYMEN" Translated, that is 'Dear God, thank you for our food, Amen.' Awwwe, it was so sweet. Today Harper said 2 prayers, the first was "Dear God, thank you for my Tootee shirt and Plex shirt and Brobee shirt, Amen." The next was "Thank you for Lexi and Luke and Nanna and Pappa and Grandmom and Granny and Pa and Kott and Kara, Amen."

Scott and Kara came over last night to hang out for a while and the kids were so excited for them to get here. All day Harper talked about showing Scott her leg kick and booty shaker, which she practiced on and off throughout the day. And, sure enough, as soon as he walked through the door, "Hey Scott, wanna see my weg kick?" And before he could answer, she was on her hands and knee with that leg up in the air... then, yep, the booty shaker! It was awesome. Noah and Juddson followed suit and drove Scott nuts for his first 30 minutes here.

The other night I was laying down with Harper and I tell her things like, "You are so sweet, and you are such a good helper, and you make pretty pictures, and you are a good sister.... " and she nods after each one... Well, I said "You are so smart." and she yelled out "I not fmart, I pretty." and I said, "You are both, you are smart and pretty", and she said "I not both, I pretty." Oh well.

She's been using pronouns lately, but everyone she uses is "he." Like, if she's looking for Kara, she'll say, "I can't find he." It's so funny, I guess, she'll get it right eventually.

Harper is now calling Josh, "Joshua".

Today, Noah was sick with fever and a tummy ache, so we didn't go to church. We all layed on the bed and watched First Baptist on tv, while Noah played MarioKart in the den. He came in the room once to see what we were doing. We tried to talk him into staying in there, with no luck. He shut the door and left. Judd hollered..."Wo---ah...CHURRRSH" and every few seconds after that, he'd look at the door and yell "CHURRRRRRRSH."

Oh yeah, last night, Kara and I took the kids for a drive in hopes they'd go to sleep and for the first 2 miles of the drive Judd said "Byeeeee, Kott... bye bye Kott" Ahh... they love their uncle Scott.

Everybody's sick, even the dog

2008-11-18T05:31:00.001-08:00

After the gym and Noah's school we ate, got everybody changed and headed to take Noah to therapy. Juddson had fallen off the train table and almost split the back of his head open-- he's got a huge knot... right before we left, so he was crying and was not happy. Luckily, the Tylenol kicked in and he went to sleep on the drive over... as did Harper. We dropped Noah off and sat in the car for a few minutes and let them sleep, then went to Walmart for a couple of things. We came home and let Hoover out and Noah played a little Mario and then mom got there to watch Harper and Juddson and I took Noah to see Dr. Fred because he'd been complaining that his ear hole was hurting. We signed in and they told us the wait would be over an hour, so we went across the street to the mall and Kara gave him a 5 minute haircut.... oh dear.... and then we went to the "bridge" and he played and ate pizza and drank coke. After he finished eating, the doctor's office called, so we loaded up and headed back over. I think they jumped the gun on calling us because we still had to wait forever once we got there. Noah did have an ear infection, so next we had to go get his prescription. By then is was 5:30, and I knew Josh and the kids would be starving, so I stopped and got Chick Fil A and hurried home. It was a wonderful surprise when I walked in the door to see that Josh had picked up the house... I was dreading that and he had it done for me! Noah played MarioKart and the rest of us sat at the table and ate dinner. We did story time and went to bed early. It was a rough night though because before bed I put some stuff on Harp's fingernails that were supposed to make her stop biting them, but it grossed her out so bad that she was throwing up... then I tried to remove it with nail polish remover and it still wouldn't come off, so I called dad and we tried several things, but finally after the pure vanilla extract, it was rubbed off enough where she didn't get sick when her thumb was in her mouth. Hoover threw up too, but was acting fine, so I didn't think much of it and went to bed. Noah woke up crying saying his face hurt (around midnight) and I gave him Ibuprofen and finally got him situated and back to sleep. He was also saying his legs hurt and had me rub them, that was a first for that. Juddson woke up too, screaming-- like he'd had a bad dream or something and I had to nurse him-- for the first time in a week... boo... to get him back to sleep. Hopefully, he won't remember and won't ask for it again. This morning Josh and I woke up to a very sick Hoovy-dog. He's throwing up every few minutes and is trying to poop but can't go. He can hardly move, poor thing; Josh is coming home from work so I can take him to the vet. I don't have a very good feeling about what he's going go say though.

A week!!!

2008-11-15T21:55:00.000-08:00

Worn out

How we see Noah, since he got Mario Kart for his birthday.
Noah's recent project:

He's claimed Daddy's hat.

I can't believe another week has gone by with no time to post. I apologize to my readers (if I have any left) from all the crazy blog drama that has happened in the past couple of months. Last week I spent my ususal blogging time doing online Christmas shopping, which is much easier than getting away for 3 hours by myself, or loading the kids and taking all of them with me... So, I have taken notes all week and will try to back track all the good things that happened.

This week has been full of funnies, mainly by Harper. She is talking, talking, talking. And, talking like a grown up, and it's so cute. She has been taking her Iron supplements and it's made a huge difference in her attitude. I can tell she has more energy and is feeling so much better and for that I am very thankful. Last Sunday, I wore makeup to church, which the kids rarely see me in.... And, in the car on the way to church, Harper looked at me for a long time and said, "I love your purple eyes, it's pretty." Granted, I was wearing blackish grayish eye shadow, but it was so sweet. After church she worked on her leg kick, and Juddson and Noah followed suite....but she is the creator of the back leg kick. After the kicks, she looked at Josh and said "Now the booty shaker" and did the booty shaker dance. She likes to eat smarties and calls them "farties." She came up to me and said "Noah's ticked." I guess she got that from Josh, because I don't think I say that... I couldn't believe she picked it up and used in correctly though... I was like what, did you say "Noah's ticked?" she said "Yeah, he mad." Next, she was watching Noah play Mario Kart and he opened a new volcano land and she said "Volcano, volcano, volcano....I WIKE that wud.... Volcano, volcano, volcano." She was sitting on Josh's lap and tooted and looked up and smiled and said "I tooted" and he said "Yeah, you did." and she said "I wuv tootin'.... BIG TOOT!" The girl likes to toot.... But, her main phrase is "Mommy, hold me very much." Have I written that?

One night last week we were driving them to try to get them to go to sleep and Harper was wired and talking and talking and Noah was almost asleep and Josh said "Harper, I think Noah wants you to be quiet." Harper said, "NO, NO, NO, no be quiet" and at the same time Noah was saying "YES, YES, YES!"

Another day last week, we were in a rush to get Noah out the door to get to school and they were looking out the front window and Noah accidentally pulled the curtain rod and curtains down and I got mad and was yelling for them to listen, and obey and to get by the door and sit down and wait for mommy.... all the usual stuff I tell them in the mornings, and Noah is standing behind me as I am trying to put the curtains back up and breaks out into the gabba gabba song... "I so, I so sorry, I so, I so sorry." Ahhh, who could be mad at that? It was precious.

Judd is still talking up a storm too, he'll get a pen and say "picture" and want to make a picture. He still is overly dramatic, especially when I pick him up from the gym childcare or nursery. When he first sees me he'll say "MOMMY!" and he'll run to me, then drop to the floor and put his hands over his face and cry, and glance out the side and make sure I am watching his agony... He answers everything with a quick "No" or an "uh huh" for yes. He reminds me of the Little Rascals character he says it so much.

No More Babies

2008-11-08T20:34:00.001-08:00

Well, this morning around 5, Judd started crying, so I let him cry for a few minutes, hoping he would go back to sleep, but no luck. I went in to get him, and his diaper had leaked and he was wet and freezing. I got him all changed and into warm jammies and of course he had to "nurse" to go back to sleep. Harper's empty bed looked really inviting, so I went in there and got 2 more hours of peaceful sleep. Around 7:30, Harper found me and crawled into bed with me and asked me what I was doing because it was not night time, so I needed to wake up and she pulled the curtains back, so I could see the daylight outside. She snuggled in with me and within a few minutes, Juddson's door swings open and he walks out of his room saying "mommy?" and looking for me! Harper and I looked at each other in amazement and sure enough, I put him in bed and he climbed right out! Oh dear... once they reach that stage, they are officially toddlers.... I am sad... no more babies.... but-- that means, I am officially going to wean him (it's not like he's getting milk anyways)... So, a big challenge is right in front of me. I think while I am weaning Judd, I am going to put the nasty polish on HJ's thumb and try to wean her off her thumb. May as well go through a couple weeks of hell and just put it behind us rather than draw it out, right? When Judd is nursing and he can look up at me and talk to me, it's just weird... time to wean, no doubt about it.
Harper is officially the musically inclined child of the family. The other day we were coming home from the gym and I was scanning the radio stations and it scanned right through a classical piano piece and Harper asked me to turn it back to that "pwanno song" so I did, in amazement she new what instrument was playing. She must have learned that from Baby Einstein "Meet the Orchestra" or from church in Hector, because I think those are the only places she's seen a "pwanno." After the song was over, she asked to hear it again, but I told her our truck didn't have a clicker (like the tv at home) and the next song came on and she was not happy that it wasn't another piano song. The next day, as soon as we got into the car, she asked for "pwanno song" again. I turned on the classical station and she said "that not pwanno, that's barraca's" and she was right, it was maracas! I was impressed!!! Her favorite instrument was first the tuba, then the flute, and now she wants to play the harp because her name is Harper, how fitting would that be? She and Josh were watching a movie and he told me to come in the room and look at her and she was waving her arm around pretending to conduct the score to the movie!!! Duane will be proud!
Noah is still all about some "Ario Kart." Little gamer. I am regulating it though, and not letting him live on it, which he would.... and he is obeying and stopping when I tell him too, no major melt downs yet. He loves to play outside with Hoover, but Hoover is still a little too wild and bites Noah instead of the dog toy, so the play sessions don't last for too long. Tonight, we were driving the kids to put them to sleep and we drove past the UAFS gym and Noah said "Noah, Daddy, run" and he was remembering back to last Halloween when Josh let him run from the church fall fest, all the way up Waldron, to the gym, and into the gym where the guys were practicing. He has a spectacular memory!
Harper went to sleep before we left the driveway, literally tonight, and it took Juddson 17 miles before he went out. Noah stayed awake and wanted to sit on the couch and watch football. He wanted "black" to win (Texas Tech) and was really into the game for a good 30 minutes before he went to sleep.

Note: One of Harper's favorite sayings right now is "Hold me very much" and she asks me that all day long. Today she started saying "OK, mom." in a tone like she was 15 or something. It was hilarious, and she did it several times. Like, I said, "Harper, you need to eat your sandwich." and she said "OK, mom..." and glanced back over her shoulder making sure I noticed her new terminology!

Already Thursday

2008-11-06T04:54:00.000-08:00

We've had a busy week getting back into our school routine. Noah has cried every day when I drop him off for school, poor guy. He'll say "I sick, I tired" in hopes of me saying, "OK, we'll say home," but it hasn't worked. Harper's blood test results came back and they said it was low Iron, so we started her on Ferinsol yesterday, and I guess it kicked in pretty fast, usually she is ready for bed by 6, and last night she was up until 8:30ish! Juddson has some teeth coming in and still has a runny nose and now has a bad cough, as of right now, he's been asleep a little over 12 hours. Maybe he'll feel better when he wakes up.
Harper thinks it should be time for her birthday now and does not want a birthday in January! And, she wants a Maggie jump-a-round--hmmm, that's going to be really hard to find. Hopefully, we can talk her into a Chuck E Cheese party or something.
We have started a new night routine. After dinner and baths, we play for a little bit, then turn off all electronics and spread a couple of blankets out on the floor and tell them to sit and we tell stories, with their help... About Mario and Luigi driving through the woods and their tire breaking, so they have to call Wubbzy and the "super fixers" to come help.... which, of course, they do, then Mario and Luigi go see Little Bear and go to Hop Frog Pond and swim..... It was supposed to wind the kids down, but they have started acting out the scenes, flopping on the floor like they are swimming, etc. But, it's been really neat and they enjoy story time. After our make believe story, they each go to the book shelf and pick out 1 book, then Josh and I read to them, then we go to bed. Now, if they would only fall asleep once we got into bed!!
Noah loves his MarioKart and wants to play it all the time. I am regulating the time, and he handles it pretty well when it's time to turn it off. He's caught on really quick and can already get 1st or 2nd place when he tries, sometimes he gets distracted and falls into the water over and over. He has a little dance he does after his race, I gotta get a video camera!
Juddson loves his Gabba Gabba men, when we can find them. Harper tends to sneak off with them and stash them. She loves to hide things. A couple of days ago, we couldn't find the men anywhere and they were at the foot of Harp's bed, tucked in under the sheets "sleeping" she said. Last night, when we were all in bed, Noah asked for "Jungle Blanket," which he hadn't wanted in months and months, so I went to find it, and just happened to open her cubby in her chest of drawers, and there on the pile of folded blankets, were Josh's keys. AMAZING... that was a little miracle of God that Noah asked for that blanket. I NEVER EVER, maybe once every 2 weeks open that cubby. We would've NEVER found Josh's keys, and he wouldn't have been able to work with out them! Thank you God for Noah asking for "Jungle Blanket!"

Happy Birthday Noah!

2008-11-02T21:25:00.000-08:00

~~~ Noah's 4th Birthday~~~

His favorite part was the "Happy Birthday" song."Make a wish"

Opening his favorite, and long awaited gift "MarioKart" (not because they were late, he's been wanting this game for months..... just to clarify.)

Kissing Scott and telling him "Thank you!"

Harper and Juddson got a few gifts too, for being good siblings.
Juddson was protecting his Gabba Gabba men with his life, so Hoover wouldn't eat them.By the end of the night, this is how Josh and I felt towards each other.

Happy Birthday my sweet "Baby Boy"!

You don't have to grow up so fast.

Happy Halloween from the House of Chaos

2008-10-31T20:14:00.001-07:00

Noah was "robot-man". He's dressed in Josh's 180 ear warmers, Josh's shades and has an old vacuum nozzle on his hand. He's had this costume for a long time. I tried to get him to dress up like an old man, but he insisted on "robot-man."

Juddson as a granny.

Harper as a granny.

Big Fat Black Permanent Marker

2008-10-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

Today we got back into the school/gym routine. A little late, but still. Noah did not want to go, so it was a challenge getting every one ready and out the door. Hoover didn't care for us being gone either. Miss Holly said Noah was "wild" and ran around the room all morning. Josh got home for breakfast late, but was done for the day, so he went with us to take Noah to therapy and then we went shopping for his birthday. We ended up getting him a Wii, since he gets the clickers and pretends he's playing against Luke all the time. He thinks about it alot and he's only played a few times... So, we know he'll love it. We just have to be sure the puppy doesn't get ahold of one of those clickers... those things are pricey!! Anyways, we are really, seriously worried about Harper. She is in a depression or doesn't feel good. She is not herself, won't eat, sleeps all the time, cries all the time, everything hurts her and she constantly wants to be held, which I wish I had more time to do. I wonder if she is hurting? or bored? or just sick? It's stressing me out and finally Josh told me to have her checked out-- and if he says it, you know it's noticeable! I guess our first step is blood work, according to Dr. Fred, so that should be fun. Say an extra prayer that she is fine.
After therapy, Juddson was asleep and Noah went out back to play with Hoover and I tried to do a project with Harper in hopes to cheer her up. We started to carve her pumpkin, but she went back and sat on the couch with Cat after 2 minutes and was no longer interested. So, that made me sad. She was so excited to go shopping today, and then when we got there she whined and cried and wanted me to hold her the whole time.
So, after Noah was inside and Juddson was up, the boys were watching "Yo Gabba Gabba" and Harper was sitting on the counter watching me cook dinner, and after a little while, I noticed it was too quiet in the other room. I went in there and saw the front door wide open and couldn't find Noah... so, of course, I ran outside in a panic yelling his name and I see him climbing up in between the box and the cab or Josh's big work truck. Scared me to death! So, back inside I was talking to him and noticed he had black marker all over his hands and arms and asked him where the marker was. He got down on the floor in between the chair and the couch and there it was alright, there with a ton of black marks (roads as Noah says) on the hardwood floors!!! Oh man...... I tried to get it up with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, which got most of it, but you can still see it. I will let Josh notice on his own or read this. I did all I could to save it. These floors need redone anyways.... I still don't know where he found that marker.
The rest of the night was chaotic. The dog was wild, Noah was busy, Juddson threw a tantrum and was laying on the floor crying and lifted his head up and smacked his face into the floor as hard as he could (and it sounded awful, like he broke his nose and knocked his teeth out) but he is fine... (Little Bice temper shinin' through :) ) and Harper was tired and crying, ugh.....whose idea was a puppy again??? Anyways, everyone is sleeping, and that's where I am heading too.

Body Fluids...

2008-10-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

are what I have been knee deep in for the past 4 days! Trying to potty train a stubborn dog, and have 2 sick kids who have been throwing up and down is no fun at all. Hoover just peed on Josh's dry cleaning pile, just this second.....But, hopefully we are through the worst now. Until Noah and I get it.
This weekend we tried to keep the kids away from other kids, so not to spread our germs. We did have a get together at Nanna's Saturday night. Since Lex and Luke weren't there, we decided to take the kids, and they did really well and we had a great time watching the game, eating pizza, and hanging out with the fam. (Although it worsened my baby fever being around the 2 pregos...) but, I can't change Josh's mind, so I will just have to deal with it. Harper and Juddson begged me to let them take a bath after they ate supper, so they played in there with their paint soaps Nanna got for them for a long time. Noah stayed pretty much to himself in the bedroom and watched SpongeBob and played trains.
Sunday we didn't go to church, once again, so not to infect the whole nursery with hand, foot, and mouth disease. Mom, Dad, and Kara did risk their health to come and eat lunch with us. Later on in the day we took a walk to Westark and let the kids play in the grass under the trees by the bell tower, but the bells were playing music and it must have disturbed some huge yellow jackets nest that was way up in the tower because thousands of them were flying around, and it was making me nervous, so after a few minutes of play we left and walked back home. We decided to try to take Noah (since he hadn't had any symptoms) to the dollar movie to see Wall-E and Nanna came over to keep the other two.... by the time she got there, Noah didn't want to go and Harper did, so we took Harper and Nanna watched the boys for us. Harper ate her bag of popcorn, and when it was empty, she was ready to go. "Mommy, I wanna go home now, mommy, take me home... mommy I wanna see Banna" over and over and louder and louder... So, I just left with her. We got the stroller out of the truck and started walking home. Josh picked us up on about 47th street, and not a minute too soon, I was literally about to pee in my pants... I was looking for a bush or drainage ditch or something, I was miserable. After we got home and saw the boys and talked for awhile; Nanna generously let us trade cars with her for the next couple of weeks while mine is in the shop. Nanna has a Sequoia too, so it is perfect and will hold all 3 car seats. THANK YOU NANNA!!! So, Josh cleaned out the cars and got the car seats switched out and Nanna left. We ate dinner and the kids went to sleep. Around 2:30am, Harper started throwing up, which woke up Josh and Noah and myself, since I got thrown up on, of course. After she settled down and the mess was cleaned up, she wanted to watch Wubbzy and after Wubbzy, Noah wanted to watch Little Bear. We watched those shows, and they finally went back to sleep.
So, this morning, there was no school for anyone. I did take Noah to therapy and Judd and Harper and I went to WalMart. That place is as germy as it gets, so I didn't worry too much about spreading their germs there-- sorry people, I had to get some stuff. After Walmart, picked up Noah, stopped by the bank to see the girls, unloaded groceries, made dinner, went for a run (thanks, Josh!) ate dinner, bathed the kids, jammied them, put them to sleep, went to El Mercado, paid for the bounce- a -round for Noah's party this weekend, came home, chilled for a minute and watched a couple of Curb's.....
No new funnies really, Judd is starting to say "uh hu" for yes, because he only answers with his long drawn out "noooo" so that's kind of funny. Noah got out Josh's tools today and showed us how to use each one, and carried them around and fixed things. Harper was sick and clingy and wanted to go to bed and watch baseball with her daddy.

A little "venting" tonight.

2008-10-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

Noah took ALL his trucks outside to the top of the slide to slide them down.

The pile at the bottom, he was just getting started.

Thursday, oh the hell of Thursday! We woke up Thursday morning as usual, but Josh slept in and wanted to do breakfast early, rather than coming home at 10:30 for breakfast....which was fine, but when it was time for him to leave, he couldn't find his keys, and I had to help him, instead of get the kids ready, and by the time we (eh em, I) found his keys (that were somehow at the bottom of laundry "monster" as Josh says)---we still haven't figured out how they got there-- he was way late and it was too late to get Noah to school. So, he skipped school. I got them ready and we went to "exercise school." I was supposed to take Juddson in for his 18 month check up at 10:30 and called Dr. Fred's as we were leaving the gym to make sure he was running on time. Of course he wasn't, so they said to wait 30 minutes, then come. So we killed time by running to Walmart to pick up a few groceries I needed, and the kids got their usual popcorn chicken, then we went to Dr. Fred's. (me and all 3 kids by myself remember) and we sat in the waiting room for about 10 minutes, then got called back into the little tiny, tiny, tiny room and waited for Dr. Fred. Let me just say, we didn't get home til after 1pm. I was furious. The kids were tired and it was right during their nap time, they were thirsty and bored, and I felt so bad for them. Plus, I was mad because I assumed I would get home way earlier and I left Hoov in his crate, with no one to let him out until I got home, and I felt bad for him-- and I just think if you are running that far behind that you should call people and reschedule rather than screw up their WHOLE day! Anyways, I will get off the soap box now. But, anyways, to top it off, Judd has had diarrhea, and I attributed it to teething, but come to find out, they have hand, foot, and mouth disease, and that's why they've been sickly and tired and have had fever on and off this week. Lovely. So, he told us not to go anywhere or be around kids for a week. Then, we get home, and Josh calls and tells me that my truck has to go in the shop from the stinkin' hail damage and I am going to be without transportation for 2 weeks at least! What in the world am I going to do? I can walk Noah to Tillis everyday instead of going to the gym, but how are we going to hike to Van Buren twice a week for his therapy? I don't want to just skip it.. ugh.. and hopefully I won't need to go to the store or bank for 2 weeks... gimme a break, what are they thinking??? So, that ticked me off... After I got off the phone with Josh, I went to look for Noah, who I found in the back yard. He had the lid off the charcoal grill and was pouring the ashes out on Hoover, so he could have a "white dog." I felt so sorry for that dog. He would shake and it would just be a huge cloud of white dust and it was getting into his eyes, and he tried to use his paws to get it out and so Noah got in trouble and Hoover went straight to the bath. (Luckily, earlier that day, I bought a new bottle of dog shampoo at Walmart)... Unless you have actually tried to wash ashes out of hair, you wouldn't know, but for some reason, it's really hard to get out, it's not like powder that rinses off, this stuff turns sticky, and once you get the sticky out, you have this gritty--little tiny black beady things leftover, that you have to start over and wash out... I am sure dad has the explanation for this, but I used almost that entire bottle of shampoo on poor Hoovy. He is one clean dog now though.
Meanwhile, we got a Toys R Us book in the mail. Noah must have read that book a hundred time and brought it to me and showed me what he better have. "better have one" is what he says. It's cute, but a hundred times is a little much. I don't even remember what else happened that day, I know I just couldn't cook due to the fact that my head was about to pop off, so Josh brought home Dominoes hot sub sandwiches for dinner (Yuck, by the way) and then we finally got the kids to bed. I drove off 5 miles, and they were out.

Today wasn't much better, Hoover had some peeing in the floor issues this morning, which started my day off on the wrong foot. I am totally overwhelmed with clothes and laundry and sorting through summer and winter and too small for next year and too big for this year... maybe, depending on who grows how fast???... and toys that I pick up and the kids immediately have to dump back out. It's one of Noah's traits that he likes to be surrounded by his toys, and he constantly is. And dishes and dishes and dishes... I am thankful for my dishwasher, but it's so little..... I need to do like 4 loads a day, which for some reason, I only get to 2, so I have dishes piled in my tiny sink and on my tiny kitchen counter. My only counter, so then I have no room to cook, and try to scoot them over, but then I need the mixer or something electric, and oops, I forgot, none of the outlets on this one side work, so I have to scoot everything back over to the other side and use the outlet, and then my lights in the kitchen go out because our house needs to be rewired or because we have a ghost, you can choose, so then I have to cook in the dark, all the while, 2 kids are standing at the gate and Judd is screaming because his poor bottom is raw and Harper is crying that she "wants me so much all day" and Noah is finding ways to jump over the gate and Hoover is running around my feet peeing in the kitchen floor and Josh is in the shower hollering for me to get him a towel because there's none in the bathroom because they are all in laundry mountain.... Whew.... and that's just the beginning, but I won't bore you with the rest-- you get the idea of my mental state....... Anyways, where was I??? I know, I know, I got myself into this, wanting all these babies, and wanting to live in an old house with "character" instead of a new cookie cutter house... and wanting to get a puppy for the kids....(actually, I wanted to adopt an older dog that was pre-trained, but Josh wanted a puppy... don't get me wrong, I love this cute little dog, but he's a handful, and my hands are already full!!!) I know I know, doesn't mean I can't vent though, right????? OK, so that was pretty much the day. I got laundry mountain down to a hill, so that's a good thing. Noah thinks it's funny when Hoover cries, and tonight I was in the other room looking something up online and here Hoover whimpering, crying, and it took a second and I realized Noah was back here, and he'd opened the crate and then shut it, and was trying to lock it, but Hoovy's leg wasn't in all the way and Noah was just pinching it, trying to lock the door back and Hoover was just crying and couldn't move, and Noah was laughing!!! It scared me to death, I thought Noah broke his paw or something. Noah got in BIG TROUBLE and a lecture about how that hurt the dog and it's not funny when he cries... but I still don't know if Noah knew his paw was caught and he was mashing it... I think he just thought Hoover was making a funny noise. Hoover is ok, as far as I can tell; he's been running around and seems fine. Then, I had to make a cake. I had big fancy plans in my mind. I let each kid help me, (Judd just got to help lick) and they had a blast. The cakes didn't turn out at all.... so now I have to order one. blah... oh well.. the kids had fun-- we'll just have to eat ugly but yummy cake for a few days. Finally, once again-- they are all asleep. Breathe in, breathe out.... slowly... repeat...

Judd and Harper had sword wars with the beaters, sending batter flying! Yeah, more stuff to clean up!

Hay Rides and Marching Bands

2008-10-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

On the hay ride:

It's been a busy week loaded with fun stuff. Monday we went with Noah's class on a field trip to Wild Things Farm in Pocola. First, we took a hay ride to the horse pasture and the driver stopped in the middle of the field and got a pretty Paint and brought her over to the trailer we were in and walked her around for all the kids to see and pet. Noah got the first pet because we were at the back of the trailer and he walked across the aisle and got the last pet on the other side. We drove off to the next activity and Juddson was waving and hollering "Hose, MumOn!!" (Horse, come on)-- if you need that translated. Next we arrived at the pumpkin patch and all the kiddos jumped out and ran for their pumpkins. We were in a hurry to get all the activities in, and so as soon as they picked one, they were supposed to bring it back and put it in the wagon. All the kids did so, but after Noah chose his, he ran off through the field, and Miss Holly had to go get him (because I was occupied with Harper and Juddson.)

(you can see them off in the distance)He got into a little trouble and said sorry and then was grumpy the rest of the trip. After we got our pumpkins, we watched a lady demonstrate an old timey pumpkin launcher thing, and she hit the statue on the first try. Impressive. After that, we had a little snack, then went to visit the animals. They all got a handful of feed and fed the goats and pigs. (Judd was a little scared) After that, they got to milk a pretend cow, then it was time to load up. Noah wouldn't ride the bus, he wanted to ride in the white truck with mommy...but Harper wanted to ride the bus and the bus driver said she could. I was nervous, but let her. They all wear car seats, and I followed right behind the bus... I was still nervous though. When we arrived at school, Harper got out of the bus and went and lined up on the fence, where we drop Noah off in the morning, waiting for the other kids to line up beside her, so she could go to school. She was so sad and disappointed (and threw a huge fit) that school was over, and she couldn't go to class. She was such a big girl riding the bus!

After the trip, the rush was on for breakfast, letting the puppy play and potty and then we got ready to take Noah to therapy. I felt bad for leaving Hoover again, so we loaded him up too. After we dropped Noah off, we went to Nanna's bank and tore up the turf there for 2 hours! The kids were wild, Hoover was a little wild, and had a tiny accident on the carpet, that Miss LaDonna helped clean up... They all had a blast, and we were all worn out by the time we got home. I still had dishes piled to the ceiling from the weekend get together and didn't feel like cooking, so Josh picked up a nugget tray from Chick Fil A and we had that for dinner. Yum... I drove the kids and they went down really quick, and came home and went to bed.

Tuesday after school and the gym and breakfast, I cleaned! I had to get the house in decent enough condition for Miss Becky to come over. She came in the afternoon, during Judd's nap time and taught Noah and Harper a couple of new games and gave us some new books. She is so sweet and we have a great time during her visits. She told us that the battle of the (marching) bands concert thing -- sorry, I don't know band terminology-- was that night... and Harper loves bands. Have I mentioned that after we drop Noah off at school, that we have to stop by the practice field at Darby to watch and hear the band practice... hope the teacher's don't get mad, but anyways, Harper and Juddson love it. Judd claps so big for them. Later in the afternoon, Noah felt hot, and I could tell he didn't feel good because he just layed around. I took him to play at mom and dad's and I took Harper and Judd to NHS. We parked far away and I carried Judd in the Kozy on my back and carried Harp in the front. What a good workout. We had watched a couple of bands by the time Josh showed up. It took a long time for each band to get on the field and get set up and actually play and the kids got really restless during that time. Judd would say "gin" for again, and want them to play more music. Josh and I were starving, so we waited in line and got the kids pizza and we ate burgers and nachos. We found a nice spot in the grass and had a "picnic" with the kids. We missed Noah, but I don't think he would have enjoyed it, especially since he didn't feel very well. He had a great time with Pa and Granny and Gussieboy. He played with Gus of course, did markers with Pa, and played hide and seek with the "CSI flashlight. He was glad to see us, and I let the other 2 go in and say hi and then I changed them into jammies and loaded them back up and drove them til they slept.

Today was our usual busy Wednesday. I am ready for things to settle down, we've been running all week.

Another Week

2008-10-19T13:59:00.000-07:00

Halloween jammies:

Time is flying by faster than I can keep track of. I can't believe we're already approaching the end of October, and that in a few weeks, my baby boy will be 4. It makes me sad to sit here and realize how fast time goes by and how little time I have spent with him. It seems my days are filled with laundry and dishes and trivial stuff like that rather than more hugs, more games of chase and more cuddling with the kids. But still, I am so thankful that I get to stay home with them rather than send them off to daycare every day.
The big event of this week was adding a brother to our family. Hoover, the chocolate lab puppy has joined us, and I don't know what it was like before he came. Even with the doggie accidents and doggie messes, he's been a joy and the kids adore him. The first night we got him, Noah played "your yit" with him for hours. Hoover would grab Noah by his bottom and yank his sweats off until Noah fell down, pant-less. Noah, laughing all the way of course. Noah's been wearing the same outfit since we got him because Hoover plays with Noah the most and has torn several holes in his clothes just from playing with him....so not to ruin too many outfits, Noah has just worn the same one. Noah, usually a sleepy head in the mornings, woke up at 6 am, Hoover's 2nd day here asking if "his dog was ready to play." Which, of course, Hoover was... That poor puppy is going to think his name is "your yit". Harper and Juddson love him too, but he's a little rough with those fragile kiddos. For some reason, he loves to nibble on Judd's ears, and Judd hates it. He also goes for Harper's hair bows--while they are in her hair, and she doesn't care much for that either. The other day, while playing with him, Noah was saying "he wuvs me, he wiwee wiwee wuvs me!" Ahhh, how sweet is that? Harper forgets his name a lot and mainly calls him "Hubert", which cracks me up. That's about all the excitement that's going on here.
Three cute stories I have jotted down from last week are:
Juddson was crying while I was cooking dinner, so I dumped a few m&m's out on the little table in the kitchen to appease him until dinner was ready. I went to the den to sit down for a second, and Josh was watching through the door as Juddson was loading all the m&m's up in an empty crayola box. Judd got every last one, and came in and sat on the rug in the den and said "there."

Noah got a shirt with a robot on it. It's a little hard to explain, but the robot is up high on the shirt, and doesn't have a head... So, Noah's head is supposed to be the head of the robot.... and I was picking him up from school and he was playing on the jungle gym, giving me a hard time and not wanting to come with me, and I said, "Come on, right now." and he said "No, robot wants to play."

And finally, I have started to let the kids watch a couple of episodes of sponge bob. I don't know what draws them to that show, I hate it and don't think it's good for them to watch, but anyways, they've seen a few.... and the other day, Noah wanted a "krabby patty" for lunch. I made him a salmon patty and he took a bite and with a wrinkled up nose he was like "mmm, that's good, co co please..." So I got him a drink to wash it down, and he didn't eat any more....

I love you

2008-10-13T19:44:00.000-07:00

The most exciting part of the day for me happened tonight. I tried to drive the kids to put them to sleep, but only Juddson went down. I carried Harp in next and put her in bed with Josh, then went to get Noah. As I was carrying him in, I kissed his cheek. He looked up and kissed me and said "I love you." Ahh, it was so precious and special. It's really the first time he's said it unprompted to me. Sweet baby boy!

Other than that, the day was stressful as usual. We went to pick Noah up from school and I guess they had a tornado drill or something, and were all walking back into the building and I knew as soon as I saw him spot the truck, he was going to take off... which he did. Poor Miss Reynda had to take off right after him and caught him just as he neared the end of the sidewalk! He got into a little trouble, cried a little, and had to WALK back down the sidewalk with the rest of the class. Miss Holly said he answered an abstract "why" question today, and she was proud of that improvement! We went home and rushed through the Monday morning routine of getting the trash out, getting breakfast made, and everyone fed, and washed, and changed, and we did our morning devo, and loaded the kids back up and were off to therapy. After we dropped off Noah, Juddson and Harper and I headed to Alma to see baby Levi, who is a little (big) cutie pie. Juddson just liked Cassie, the great dane, and kept bringing her handfuls of dog food from her bowl and throwing it at her and saying "EAT IT!" while Harper nicely rocked the stuffed giraffes to sleep in the bassinet. Noah's therapy called while we were there and they are going to start cutting off his sessions 15 minutes early because an hour and 45 minutes may be too long for him.... I didn't say I told you so, but I wanted to. Before we left, I told the kids to give kisses, so Juddson went up to Cassie and grabbed her big head and gave her a big open mouth kiss right on the nose. I am sure she appreciated that. We loaded up and headed back to Van Buren. We didn't get to go to the store, just the bank-- which took FOREVER, and seemed especially longer with 2 screaming kids... then went to get Noah, who cried and was sad sad sad because he wanted to stay there. Go figure. On our way home, I searched up and down Towson for the auto parts store to pick up the lady's taillight that I got into the fender bender with the other day. Then, I was going to mom's to borrow a pack of corn bread mix and remembered I had to reserve the bounce around for Noah's birthday party, and all 3 kids were asleep, so mom road with me and stayed in the car while I went in to reserve it. When I got back into the car, they were all awake and Noah told us he wants 20 dogs for Christmas. Harper said she just wanted 1. We visited mom's house for a while and Juddson got a kick out of Gussieboy and ate 2 Reeses and a bunch of jellybeans and wanted "mo mo mo." We didn't stay too long because I needed to get home and get stuff done. Noah talked about the 20 dogs all day.... He wouldn't settle for 2 or 10 or 30, it has to be 20 dogs. He said "20 dogs on the couch" and I said "I think we'll need a bigger couch" and Harper said "Yeah, the blue couch, not Nanna's couch" ha ha ha.... she misses her blue couch!!! We all finally had dinner and the kids played train and then I drove them... which is the story I started with.... insert here...
Since they didn't go to sleep, I just put them in bed with Josh and we all layed there and watched baseball together. Noah was wearing his Mario shirt-- shocker! and started pointing to and naming all the characters. He is "red Mario", Harper is "weegee" daddy is the monster and Juddson is the turtle. Juddson woke up crying, so I had to get up and feed him back to sleep and by the time I got done, all 3 of them were asleep... so I am up doing laundry and blogging.

Oh yeah, yesterday. We skipped church because Josh's back is still hurt and I can't carry all 3 kids by myself, plus I just wanted them to sleep some more. Harper ended up waking up with fever, but I gave her Ibuprofen and it never came back. Josh thinks she got a little food poisoning for McDonald's the night before because after we got home from there, she said she had a tummy ache. I don't know, she's been fine since then, so we'll just see. Harper wanted Geno's pizza and white dip for lunch, so after church mom and dad and Kara came over and ate Geno's with us. We didn't do anything except for lay around all day, which was nice.

"I wub you guys!"

2008-10-11T23:39:00.001-07:00

This morning Judd started crying and woke me up a little earlier than I would have liked to have gotten up, so I was a little cranky. Also, I found a chocolate lab puppy from a rescue in Oklahoma that's potty trained, crate trained, doggy door trained, that loves kids and cats... but Josh thought he was too old (at 6 months) and passed on him. So, that made me a little sad too. After coffee and breakfast, Josh volunteered to take the kids on a walk, so I could get laundry mountain knocked out. (which I greatly appreciated) Noah stayed home with me, but he didn't feel good, and he mainly layed down on the couch and played robots and watched shows. Josh was gone for a long time. He said they walked up to WestArk and he let them run around the grass. He said he'd tell Harper which trees to run, and she'd remember which ones and what order and run to them like bases and run back to him. He said she was very motherly towards Juddson and wouldn't let him wander off too far and would tell him where to sit. After they got home, we all had lunch, then they all took baths, and went right to sleep. I caught up on some computer work and blogging while Josh napped, and Noah sprayed sticky, smelly rice vinegar all over everything and I mean everything in the den. I had just found it when I was finishing up the previous post. So, I went in there and instead of spanking him, I gave him rags and made him help clean it up. After he got done he said "go time out now??" and I told him no, that his punishment was helping me clean, but gave him a little lecture about why he shouldn't do that and he went happily on his way. Harper woke up in a great mood and cuddled up in bed with Josh and me and just talked to us. She talked about their walk and about not wanting to poop in the potty. At one point, she was in between us looking at us, and she put one hand on Josh and one hand on me and she said "I wub you guys" and then she fell into us and gave us big hugs. It was the sweetest thing. We got them all ready and took them to McDonald's playland which turned out to be a bad idea, because it made Noah's cough worse, and made Harper have a tummy ache and made Josh's back hurt worse, because he had to help with them while I ordered.... There were a bunch of mean, big kids in there, who were pushing Harper and teasing (tormenting) Noah... so we left. Harper fell asleep as soon as we got home-- cuddling up to Josh watching football. Judd and I took a bath together and then he played with Noah for a little while. I put him in his crib to watch a movie, and Noah told me "I tired", so I held him in my lap and told him stories until he fell asleep. I put him in bed with Harper and Josh and I started a movie, but Josh didn't like it and wanted to watch baseball, so I sat on the couch with pen and paper and tried to figure out a schedule and way to organize our lives better. Judd just woke up and I had to give him Tylenol for his teach and "feed" him back to sleep.... My eyes are so heavy as I type... I am heading to bed!

Here we go again

2008-10-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

This is now where I put the kids, when I have had enough.....

JUST KIDDING!!! I found a great deal on this crate, so I bought it early for the Christmas puppy we are getting. The kids love it, and Noah asks to go in the "gate."

Well, as some of you may know. Last Wednesday, I had a little temper tantrum and tried to delete one of my blogs, and accidentally deleted my family blog, and was uncontrollably upset. The blog was the only place where all the kid's "firsts, funnies" and other memories were stored... so losing this was a huge heart break for me. Thankfully, my friend Brandon, from college, retrieved a copy of the whole thing and emailed it to me! I was in shock and I thank God for his knowledge and his thoughtfulness... some may not think it was a big deal, but to me, it was huge! With the blog, we plan on somehow printing it, one bound book for every year and keeping Bice Family Fun volumes... for me to read when I am 85, rocking in my rocking chair on my front porch, with my 5 dogs at my feet and my 12 or so cats sitting in my lap and on the porch rails while Josh is off playing golf at the senior resort....also, I have a gazillion pics of the kids and plan on scrapbooking them all... when I have time... the blog was my resource for dates and other stuff to record in their scrapbooks, and without it, I wouldn't have known the day Judd took his first step... or the day of Harp's first haircut...etc... so, now you understand the importance of my blog.... Someone better teach me how to back this thing up, because I am not losing it again!!! Maybe it's been a good lesson for me in the "patience" department.

The week has been busy- as usual... I had a draft saved in the old blog about some things from early last week, but those are lost. I can live with 2 days being lost...just not 10 months. Anyways, Wednesday was the day this all happened, and I was so upset and trying to search for a phone # for Google or Blogger, or at least an email to technical support that I didn't get Noah to therapy on time. I did remember to call him though.... so, we finally got him there, and then I had to get gas and then Juddson, Harper and I went to Nanna's bank. She got to see the kids for a while, and let me borrow her computer to communicate with Brandon about restoring the blog, which I greatly appreciated. We picked up Noah from school and rushed home to give Daddy the Sequoia to take to get an estimate on the hair damage from last April.... they will have it in the shop 5 days, and I have no clue what we'll do then... Wednesday night at 7, I was exhausted, mentally and physically, so I loaded the kids up and drove them. They were all out by 7:15, and I drove home and put them all to bed, and Josh and I got in bed by 7:30, watched a show and were out by 8:30-- how awesome is that?

Thursday morning, Noah didn't want to go to school; since he stayed home Monday because he was sick, he tries it every morning. "No school, I sick." Even though he is still a little sick, I didn't think it was bad enough to keep him home, so he went. I took the other 2 to "exercise school" and they ran in, happy as usual, saying "Hi!" to all of their gym buddies. We picked up Noah and came home and ate breakfast with daddy and were happy to be home the rest of the day. I was going to drive them again at 7:30, but they were still pretty wound up, and I still needed to do dishes, and Nanna called and she stopped by to visit. Juddson showed off his new dog tricks for her. He pretends he's a dog and pants with his tongue out and I will throw a ball and say "fetch" and he runs, and when he gets to the ball, he gets on his hands and feet and bends over and gets the ball in his mouth, and then runs it back to me. I will pat his head and tell him what a good dog he is, and then give him a biggest, which we pretends to scarf down in one big bite. He learned all this from Harper, who likes to pretend she is "Gussieboy" but Noah calls her "Harpdog."

After Nanna went home, they settled down and I drove them again, they still got to bed by 8:30 or 9, which was nice. I went home to watch Survivor, that mysteriously didn't record and baseball did record, so I was agitated and we just went to bed. (but it was just an accident.....) You may notice, I didn't say anything about date night.... We've put a hold on all functions for a while. We are just going to stay home and rest and get the kids well for a while. I feel like we've been going and going and are hardly ever home, and don't ever get to just sit and hang out... We are always rushing around, so it's been a nice break to just be home.

Friday, Noah said "No ex size school, stay home" so we did... didn't have to do much convincing there... and Kara was coming over to walk/jog with us. She was a little late as usual, and I had them loaded and ready to roll when she got here. We took a good walk, and stopped to let them throw rocks. It was the first time, Juddson was able to throw just as well as Harper, and he was proud of it. We came home and waited on our Friday visit from Granny and Grandmom, but it turned out, mom was sick, so Kara left and went to take Grandmom to her usual Friday food stops. Mom was supposed to watch the kids for me while I went to Sam's, but since she was sick, Kara volunteered. She missed them, since she didn't get to babysit the night before-- which was great with me. In a rush to leave, I was only watching my mailbox side when backing out, because a neighbor lady was parked in the street talking with another neighbor, and I knew I had to cut it tight to not hit her... but I hit her anyways, because I was too worried about not hitting my mailbox. Luckily, it only barely scratched it and it busted out her tail lite. I ordered a new one, it's only 50 bucks, and Josh can put it in. I am thankful she was cool about it and didn't make me call the police and file a report with insurance and all that stuff... Ugh.. just what I needed... So, after all that, (I did most of my calling car repair places, etc from the Sam's customer service booth because my cell phone battery was dead by this point)...so I finally started to shop.... and finally got done and got everything loaded into my truck-- that was already packed to the brim with garage sale stuff, which I forgot was in there, so I have to cram 300 bucks worth of big diaper and wipe boxes in there on top of all that stuff, it's a wonder I made it home. Paige called and asked if I could get some red tape and come repair it with that until her light came in, which I did... then went home. When I walked through the door Harper Jane ran and sat at the table and asked for her chicken, that I promised I would bring home for her, and of course, I had forgotten it, with all the fender bender fiasco stuff that happened....SO- I left again and sat at the McDonald's drive through for 15 minutes, got overcharged for chicken strips and came home... to speed clean before Matt and Maddie arrived at 6:30... but, Josh got home and told me they'd be there in like 30 minutes, so it really didn't matter anyways. Whew... I am tired just thinking about it. So, Josh grilled out and I made baked potatoes, salad, corn on the cob and sweet tea... No dessert.. sorry... And they watched the most boring baseball games on earth while I played with the kids.... and then it was bed time.

Noah's weekend projects: window of robots

and the cars lined up at the door. "ready, set....."What I "lovingly" refer to as "laundry mountain" which I got COMPLETED today... and don't let me let it get this bad again!!!

This is how tired we've been lately:

Juddson, growing too fast.

Lately, they've all been suckered in by the toy commercials. I guess companies are getting ready for Christmas, so there are a lot of new ones out lately. Harper started it, by saying "I want that".... Her favorites are the mermaid Barbies, the swimming baby doll (the girl one), the swimming puppy, and the Wowee Baby Alive lion cub. If it's a commercial for a space ship or dinosaur, something like that, she'll point and say "Noah like that, Noah want that." Now, Noah has started saying "better have it?" He notices Handy Manny's truck/tool box, Little Einstein's rocket ship and any video game that's advertised. He LOVES mario. Yesterday, Juddson put his little hand out and made a grabbing motion and said "want dat" and I don't even remember what the commercial was for.... I was in shock he is wanting stuff already... Congrats to the commercial makers... it works!!

PS: As I am sitting her typing this, I am smelling vinegar and wondering where it's coming from... I am back in the office... I go into the den and Noah is squirting sad man (our spray bottle full of potent vinegar) all over the house. Mainly on the tv, my pictures, and his computer. I looked a little closer and turned his keyboard upside down and it poured out. The whole house reeks and I mean it's stout and I have a lot of cleaning to do.