Emma Strikes Again

We have a song around here that gets sung on an almost daily basis.
It goes something like this....
"Emma Emma Emma the Destroyer..." (to the tune of the Dora the Explorer theme song)

This was her destruction today.
Minor? Yes.
Did we have to throw away half of those napkins? Yes.
Did she do this while strapped into her booster seat at the table? Yes.

If she can reach it and is left unattended, she will reach it.

Even still... She's so cute and we love her! :)

We got to have Celeste come back to our house today to play while Dalton was at school and both of her parents were at the hospital with her new brother!

The girls had so much fun playing outside. They soon discovered the "garden" area in our front yard and decided to dig. I figured it wasn't going to hurt anything so I encouraged it by giving them shovels and pails. :)

They did this for a couple of hours. No joke.

When Jayden got home, we decided to get swimming suits on and play with the water hose. It's a good thing John was able to get ahold of Thomas to pass on the memo to bring a change of clothes for Celeste before he came to get her - I'm not sure baby Parker (or Heidi) would have enjoyed the dirt/water clad Celeste. :)

Bundle of Joy

Today was the day our good friends welcomed a new addition to their family. I'm only using this picture because with all of the events of the day, this was the only one I had!
I have edited it a bit so he looks a little less clear - for privacy reasons. :)
Also - I won't say his name.
This is a public blog and he isn't my child.
We'll just call him Adorable Baby Boy. :)

We got the call around 2am that they were headed to the hospital and the kids were coming. We set up a slumber area in the living room for Celeste and Dalton and even though they were super excited, they somehow managed to fall asleep rather quickly!
Morning came and as the boys were getting ready for school, we got the call from Thomas that the new little guy had arrived! This is the (edited) version of the pic he sent to John's phone to show the kids.

They were so excited!
Dalton said, "I hope he likes Phineas and Ferb!"

He is adorable and we are so happy for them!!

Phineas and Ferb - movie time

Apparently, Blogger either wants this picture upside-down or like this. I'll take it like this.

In case you don't know, we are big Phineas and Ferb fans around here. Luckily, we have friends who share our love for them - particularly a certain 7 year old boy who is buddies with my 7 year old boy. :) They were so excited for the new Phineas and Ferb movie to come out so, naturally, it had to be a special occasion! They made corn dogs to go along with the theme and we brought fries. Unfortunately, they were a little soggy by the time they made it to their house.

Oh well.

Here are four of the kids (who knows where Emma was at this moment) staring in amazement at the awesomeness that is P&F. :)

Do you see it?

What is this?? Hmmm...
I'll give you a hint.

It has a heartbeat.

It will be here on or around April 2.
Any guesses?

Must Get Motiviation...

Remember how my laundry day is Monday?
I started my laundry on Monday. Did more on Tuesday and then tonight, this is the pile I still haven't done. I just can't get motivated. I'm really tired of looking at it on my kitchen floor but I can't seem to bring myself to put them in the washer!
Ugh. Maybe tomorrow...

Bomb

Okay - I am technically cheating with this picture as I just got it online but it is the best picture for today. John had a major "bomb" dropped on him today. His words.
Unfortunately, I can't go into ANY details yet. Just know it's kind of a big deal and we have some pretty major decisions to make in the next few weeks. Like - decisions that could affect the rest of our lives. No pressure at all. :|
Just to keep anyone from worrying, it has to do with his schooling. Everyone is healthy. No life threatening news or anything. :)
Stay tuned.

RIP Glasses

Emma has a thing for destroying glasses. She has broken 3 or 4 pairs of my sunglasses this summer alone. She is the Glasses Destroyer.
Jayden left his real glasses on the coffee table this evening and about 5 minutes later, Riya says, "Oh no! Jayden's glasses!"
This is what I saw. GRR!
I guess he's getting a new pair!

More Family Time!

So... we got to go to the Ewell's house tonight! This is John's sister Sarah, her husband and one of her adorable little kiddos. Actually, this picture has 2 of her kids in it... notice her adorable belly? :)
We had a lot of fun playing Killer Bunnies and eating yummy soup and pie!
It is nice having family in the same town! (pretty much)

Visitors and Goofy Emma

I am sooo bummed that I didn't get any pictures of our visitors today! John's sister Ruth Ann and her family stopped by for the night on their way home to New Jersey from Utah and we had so much fun with them! John's sister Sarah and her family came over as well and we had a house (and yard) full of cousins, smores and our fire pit.
It was so fun to see them again and we are so happy they stopped in. My kids got to have a sleep over in our room so that they could have some privacy in the other two bedrooms.

Also - we were outside waiting for Jayden's bus and I told Emma to say "cheese" and she posed like this for the picture. She's so goofy!

One more thing - Jayden took the test for the GT class today - fingers crossed!!

Finally!

I have been on a decorating slump because of this clock. I needed it to be hung up before I could decorate the mantel and then I could decorate the rest of the house. Hanging it was no easy task though - it required a ladder to reach the wall up there. I finally got John to do it tonight at midnight and I LOVE how it looks!
What a relief it is to have it hanging again! Seriously.
Now, to decorate the mantel for summer. Hey, I have a few more weeks to enjoy a summer mantel, right?!

First Day of Second Grade!

I have to be sure to put Second Grade and not just the first day of school. He corrects me that this is NOT his first day of school. It's his first day of second grade! :)
Jayden started school today (again!) at a new school. We decided that the charter school he was going to last year wasn't a great fit for our family and then we moved to a new house that was a lot farther away from the old school. So - he is going to a public school this year.
We are hoping to get him into a GT class this year to really challenge him but he has to be tested for it. Hopefully soon!
Can you believe my little guy is so big?! Wasn't he just a baby?!

Ruined?

This is one of Riya's shirts. It is one of my favorite of her shirts. I think it's ruined. When we went to the hot springs in Idaho, I packed the wet towels in with the rest of the dirty clothes just to get back to the Birds' house. Apparently, the water from the springs has something red in it. It showed up on a few of our white clothes. I  have washed them several times and it is stained. Today, I tried again with Riya's shirt - stain remover and bleach in the wash. Nothing. Boo.
Any suggestions?  John suggested soaking it in bleach... which I haven't tried yet.

Walking Tacos

We had Walking Tacos for dinner tonight and they were pretty delish! Why are they called "Walking Tacos"? Because if you didn't have a "no food in the house except the kitchen" rule, you could walk around eating your tacos from the bag. Basically, you open a Frito bag, put chili in it and top with sour cream, green onions, olives, and cheese (really, anything you like) and then you eat it right out of the bag. We put our bags in bowls because the chili made the bags really hot to hold.
Here is the recipe for them if you'd like to try them yourself:
http://picky-palate.com/2010/01/31/how-to-make-and-eat-walking-tacos/

FYI - You can even dump them into the bowl if you want to eat it like that. It makes it easier to mix up the contents.

Enjoy!

Curls!

Last night, I decided to try a hair curling technique I saw online. It involves sleeping in an elastic headband and waking up to curls. I was wondering if it would work on my hair and I think it did great! This picture was taken several hours after I removed the headband and I didn't put any hairspray in it to hold the curls. If I had, they would have been even more curly!
I really think the curls turned out cute!
What do you think?

60,000 miles!

On our final day of our trip, we hit 60,000 on the van. This van has had a lot of miles put on it since we've had it! We got it in July of 2009 while I was pregnant with Emma and we couldn't imagine trying to squeeze three carseats into John's little Mazda. It had around 21,000 miles on it when we got it.
What's that math there? 60,000 - 21,000 = 39,000 miles in a little over 2 years. That is just under 20,000 miles a year! Yikes!
I guess that is this van's average. It was a year old when we got it with 21K on it.
Poor van. We'll try to go easy on you.... just keep working well. :)

We made it home around 11:30pm tonight and by the time the van was unpacked and kids were in bed, it was well after midnight.

It was a great vacation but it is also so nice to be home!

Goodbye Birds - Hello Castle!

Today was the day we'd been dreading since we left Indiana. Our vacation with family is over. We left Wyoming today around 1pm after we finally made ourselves leave. We never like these days each year.
We drove to Omaha and after trying to figure out the crazy streets around there, we arrived at our castle hotel. Seriously - it was a castle! This was the corner of it - the front looked like it as well!
We didn't pay very much for this room but we couldn't tell - it was such a fun hotel! It had a castle theme throughout and our room was super nice! It felt clean and that's what I think matters the most! The breakfast was great and I was a little bummed we couldn't stay another night...
We are home bound!

Native American Baby?

This picture just makes me laugh. Stacee and Riya would put Emma in this snow sled with a pillow and blanket and pull her around the house. Aimee said it looked like an Indian baby being pulled across the river.
Emma would just lay down and enjoy it like it was her favorite thing to do!
When do I get a turn?

Exhausted!

After partying all morning with her Wyoming cousins, Emma just needed a nap so I put her on Aimee's couch and put one of Aimee's adorable rag quilts on top of her and she was out. She is such a good sleeper and she slept through any and all noise in the house. I just can't help but take pictures of my kids when they are asleep - they are complete angels.
Always.
Of course. :)