Thursday, February 28, 2008

Conversation between 5 year olds

Okay, so Sam has his little friend over today. The same friend from this previous post. They are turning into quite the buddies these two. I took them to Wendy's to get some lunch because I just didn't feel like fixing anything today. We're on our way home when I overhear this conversation:

Sam: Hey Brodey, guess what? (ALL of Sam's conversations lately start with "Guess What?")

Brodey: What?

Sam: Um, me and my dad watched this funny movie, and guess what the guy does with a ball?

Brodey: What?

Sam: He gets blood on it, so he paints a face on it and starts to talk to it, it was SO funny.

Brodey: Oh.

Sam: And guess what else?

Brodey: No, wait a minute, STOP! What was the name of the movie? (I thought that was so cute)

Sam: Oh, it was called "Castaway"

Brodey: Oh, hee,hee. Kind of like "Flushed Away"! And guess what happened in Flushed Away?

Sam: What?

Brodey: The guy gets flushed down THE TOILET!

Sam and Brodey simultaneously: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

....BOYS!

I'm GREEN?!

I took AD's color personality test and my results came back GREEN. I didn't even know there was a green. I thought it was just Blue, Red, White and Yellow. I just saw that my cousin Carla's was Black so this is obviously not the same quiz that I'm used to. On the other one (I wish I knew the exact name) I was mostly yellow with a bit of blue. I always wished I was White though because that is the color of the Peacemaker and I'd like to think of myself as a peacemaker. Oh well, we are what we are....right?! :) SO, what color are YOU?

Take this test!
You're green, the color of growth and vigor. Good-hearted and giving, you have a knack for finding and bringing out the best in people. Green is the most down-to-earth color in the spectrum — reliable and trustworthy. People know they can count on you to be around in times of need, since your concern for people is genuine and sincere. You take pride in being a good friend. For you, success is measured in terms of personal achievement and growth, not by status or position. Rare as emeralds, greens are wonderful, natural people. It truly is your color!

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Got it on Ebay!

I just got this in an e-mail from my awesome AUNT CARMA with a note that said "I thought you might enjoy hearing mine and your mom's new theme song!" The funny thing is...I think she might be right! I think my mom got 3 or 4 packages in "bubble wrap" while we were visiting her a few weeks ago. I can't talk though, I definitely go through my "ebay" spurts where sometimes it seems as though I'm living on the site. I've been lots better lately though! It's a really funny song, except I'm still wondering why they spelled the word "Gonna" like "Gona' " - not that either of them are actually a word but weird anyway. I'm sure most of you have already seen it, but thought I'd post it anyway just for fun. This is dedicated to my mom and Aunt Carm. Oh, and to Cindy who is ABSOLUTELY my ebay guru. She's taking a break now but she's one mean sellin' machine when she's not....actually, she's really not mean at all, in fact, she bends over BACKWARD to make everyone happy. She's just amazing, I wanted to be just like her until I realized how much time and energy really goes into selling stuff. I did it one Christmas and did quite well but it TOTALLY ZAPPED me!!! So here's my question for YOU....what is your most favorite, or least favorite or most unusual or expensive or least expensive...etc... thing you've bought on ebay??? Mine (favorite and unusual) would have to be a set of Lily Padz - a set of reusable nursing pad thingy's. I bought them when I was pregnant with Gabe. I loved them! Okay...YOUR turn! Now GO!


Thursday, February 21, 2008

2007 Slideshow

I finally posted our 2007 Slideshow at the bottom of our blog. It's so weird to watch the show for 2006 and see Gabriel as still a little baby and then to have a new baby arrive in 2007. What a year! It is so much fun to be able to look back on a year in your life with pictures, video and music. I love technology! I really loved the songs on the show this year, they just seemed to fit with our life in 2007. I'll post it here too for easy viewing if you have the time to watch it. ....see, I promised a more upbeat post than the last! :) Thanks for watching!

Sick!


Last Friday, Joshua woke up with a super high fever and all-over aches and pains which forced him to miss school. To put things into perspective this was only the THIRD time he'd ever missed school in his entire preschool-third grade life and the ONLY time he'd ever missed by being ill. He missed one day in Kindergarten when his baby brother Gabriel was born a month early and another day in 1st grade when we went to Disneyland. He had perfect attendance in 2nd Grade. This kid just DOESN'T get sick. I should have been warned. I should have been scared. I should have taken this as a sign of things to come. I didn't.

On Friday night, I coughed....twice. I woke up on Saturday morning feeling like I'd been hit by a freight train. I went to the Dr. because I've been having some recent issues with my heart (really not a big deal...more about this later, I promise) and felt achy and sore all over WITH tons of pressure in my chest and difficulty breathing. I hate going to the Dr. and try to avoid it at all costs but I forced myself to go because even I know there are things you just don't mess with and I thought that chest pressure and difficulty breathing were on that list of things. Well, I must have been wrong. I was told the wait would be at least an hour regardless of my symptoms and then when I did see the Dr. all she did was ask me a few questions and write out a prescription for a heavy cough medicine with a narcotic in it. She didn't even ASK me if I was pregnant or nursing...isn't that a pretty standard question for a woman my age? I left feeling like an idiot for even going in and feeling lucky at least for insurance that made it only cost me $20 to hear that I needed "plenty of fluids, and lots of rest" instead of WHO KNOWS how much I would have had to pay that they'll bill the insurance company for, I'm kind of anxious to get the bill just to see. Grr. ANYWAY, Saturday was a crappy day but looking back, I would take a THOUSAND of those Saturdays just to NEVER EVER EVER EVER have to live through another day like Sunday. Sunday was one big mess of being hot, then cold, then sweaty and clammy, then hot, then cold, then sweaty and clammy and pretty much feeling like I was walking through the valley of death the entire day long. I really don't ever remember feeling so sick. I should have known that anything that can take my no-time-to-get-sick-while-there's-fun-to-be-had 8 year old down would have to be pretty serious. Pretty serious it was. Ugh. I think I might FINALLY be able to classify myself among the living today. FINALLY. Have I said Ugh? Ugh. I need some sunshine, I don't think I've ever longed for spring/summer more in my entire life than right now. Last year when we went to AZ in Feb. we played in 80 degrees for a week, then came home to weather in about the 50's that continued to get warmer from there. This year we went to AZ and played in the 60-70 degrees (still nice and warm for us)and came home to weather in the 30's or below with 3 feet of snow and the weather is continuing to get COLDER. It was snowing AGAIN this morning. Ugh. Have I said Ugh? ugh, ugh, UGH.

That's all I've got for now. I promise to post soon with more upbeat and positive stuff - just had to shake this off today.

ps. Joshua is feeling lots better too. :)

Friday, February 15, 2008

How CUTE is this!!

My friend Paul sent this to me in an e-mail and Mark and I just cracked up. First of all, the older boy is SO sweet to his baby brother, and when the baby chuckles in the end it is just hilarious. Thought you guys might enjoy it too.

Why I love Valentine's Day - by Melanie Cain

This one's for you Aunt Ellen! (Diane)

Okay, I'll be honest, I haven't ALWAYS loved Valentine's day. It was never a really big deal in our house growing up and I remember being really jealous of my friend Amber every year because she was always decked out in new red or pink clothes and had new Valentine pencils and trinkets for school from her family on V-day which seemed like lots of fun - and I remember loving the class parties and passing out Valentines but it never went on my list of "Fav's" as far as holidays go. Even when I got married to my WONDERFUL Valentine it was never a BIG deal for us. We were comfortable with our love for each other and the fact that we tried to prove and show that daily instead of just on one day out of the year and when we DID try to go out the restaurant's were always packed and NOT worth the wait in our opinion. Also, I HATE February. I hate it. I actually hate January AND February for the same reason. It's PAINFULLY cold and Christmas is over so there doesn't seem to be a reason for the coldness anymore and (in most previous years) it doesn't even really snow, but it's so cold that the existing snow doesn't melt and just gets muddy and dirty and gross, then there's the foggy and disgusting air...I could go on and on but you get the idea. ANYWAY, it was just never a big deal for me. Fast forward to three and four kids later....I say to three and four kids because for some reason I didn't start making Valentine's day a big deal until we celebrated it with three kids. I really don't know why, maybe things just clicked and I thought "hey, this day could be fun afterall!" who knows... anyway, I remember a few years ago buying heart shape pankcake molds (they look like cookie cutters but are made of metal and have a wooden handle so you don't get burned) and thinking about how fun it would be to make those for the boys, so I woke up early and did and they LOOOOVVVVEEED it. Then, the next year we added some chocolate covered pretzels and strawberry milk to the breakfast scene, heart shaped pb&j's with a surprise note in the lunch box and so on, and so on.... Now, I look forward to this day ALL February long and it gets me through the yucky-ness that I loathe in this awful 2nd month of the year (going to AZ for two Feb's in a row has helped too) and my kids just LOVE this day. Plus, I've come to the conclusion that any day a mom with 4 BOYS can shower her family with girly pink and red and kissy stuff is a good day in my book! SO, in a nutshell (HA - I mean a novel!) THAT is why I love Valentine's day.

Yesterday seemed to get here REALLY fast though so I felt a little unprepared house-wise for this day-o-love, especially when I wanted everything to be perfect. Add to that, my hectic morning with the snow/school incident and things weren't off to the greatest start. BUT, things did get better. :) We made pink pancakes for breakfast with Strawberry Milk and I gave the boys some DARLING little mailboxes (that were in the dollar-spot at Target a few months ago) with their names on them and a little heart valentine note inside from me. They have LOVED these and spent a lot of their day writing each other notes and putting up the flags. (one of our most FAVORITE families has these little mailboxes for their kids and I've always thought that was the cutest thing so when I saw them at Target I nabbed them!) and I gave the big boys each a t-shirt from their school because the school colors are red and black so it was perfect. Gabriel got a cute little puppy in a bowl (don't ask me why it was in a bowl because I just don't get the connection - but hey, it was only $5 so I'll take the free bowl!) that he LOVES. We had a quick and normal lunch and managed to get the house cleaned AMAZINGLY in time for our traditional candle-lit dinner. I made heart shaped meatloaf and put some garlic/herb mashed potatoes in a bag and squooshed it out into a heart shape on our plates. We topped it off with steamed asparagus (thanks Charlotte!) that only Mark and I enjoyed, but the kids took a thank-you bite at least, and for dessert we had Strawberry Jello with Cool Whip. (I had planned on heart shaped cupcakes but just couldn't pull it off in time). My cute visiting teacher Kelly brought me a bouquet of beautiful flowers and my husband came home with treats for the boys and a gift certificate to a spa to get my nails/toes done or any other of their many services, and some money to spend on just myself - which the boys tried to talk me out of... they failed. :) We got Daddy a digital photo frame for work and his own red t-shirt from the boys' school because he really wanted one too. All in all, it was a REALLY good day. Last night Sam was sad that it was almost over and told us that Valentine's day was his favorite holiday. Mark said "even more than Halloween?" Sam said "YEP!" and we said "even more than Thanksgiving?" ...."YEP!" and finally the kicker... "even more than CHRISTMAS?" to which he said "YEP!" and then quickly decided that actually all of the holidays were his favorite. Still, I figure if he liked it more than all those holidays even for a second then today must have been a pretty good day. I hope that I succeed in showing my love for my beautiful family every day, and I love that I can shower them with pink and red and hearts at least one day a year!

above is a picture at Breakfast. (they are making hearts with their bodies in case you were wondering)

The potatoes and meatloaf in the picture look a litte gross. But it really looked neat in person!How cute are these boys in my life?!! Seriously!

This was Joshua's Valentine box for school. I remember as a child that our Valentine boxes were always a BIG event. (and it just occured to me that I didn't mention this in my novel about my childhood V-days above!) My dad helped us make the coolest boxes. One of our favorites was the Grandfather's clock - I'll have to search for some pictures... Anyway, Joshua wanted to do a basketball hoop so we used his basketball hoop/laundry basket thing from Ikea and that is where the kids put his Valentine's. It turned out really cute, he did a great job.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

My Morning...

This morning I planned on getting up early to make breakfast for the boys (more on the valentine stuff of the day in my next post) and lucky for me (?) my babies woke up pretty early so it worked out since I can usually talk myself into ANYTHING for a few more minutes of sleep....aw...the boys can have a banana for breakfast..no bananas? Hmm, rice cake anyone...oh, none of those? Here have a skittle!! .... so it really WAS good that the littles didn't feel like going back to bed. Anyway, I get up, make breakfast, get the boys ready...things are going pretty good - UNTIL it is time to go to the bus stop. Oops. I just realized I have to back up. This morning when Mark woke up and looked outside he came back in the room and asked if I planned to go anywhere today. I thought about it and told him no, I was staying home all day so he said he was going to take the Durango since it will be better in the snow and he was pretty sure the corolla wouldn't make it out of the driveway. Okay, back to the school bus. I was quite certain I sent them off with plenty of time but they got to the middle of the driveway and announced "nope, no kids" - meaning no kids at the bus stop - meaning they've missed the bus.... GGGGRRRRR. "Alright, I say - we'll have to go in the car, hurry and get in while I get the babies" (okay, that sounds really nice like I was all "no problem kiddos, let's all put our happy faces on and get in the car"....um, yeah - that's what it was like....almost exactly...gulp.) ANYWAY, I wasn't happy and I KNEW we would get stuck and WE DID right at the end of the driveway and into the road. ERGH! Lucky for me my wonderful next door neighbor happened to be trying out his new snow blower so I got out (in my slippers) and asked him to help me. He rescued me, and then said "I don't think school is starting for another few hours though, ours are still home - you might want to go call and see. So I go inside and there is a message from a friend of mine letting me know that school IS starting 2 hours late today (thank you Tricia!). So I park in my NEIGHBORS driveway and pile everyone back in the house, accidentally stepping in the deepest part of the snow on my way - and prepare to hunker down for a few more hours before needing to deal with this all over again. Lucky for me, my awesome neighbor thought it would be fun to test his snow blower out on MY driveway too, SO NICE! Anyway, about this time Mark decides to call and see how my Valentine's day is going. "CRAZY", I say and begin to tell my story. Guess what he tells me next?! "Oh yeah! I heard on the radio on my way into work that the schools were starting late!" This is followed of course by dead silence on my end.....and then... "um, honey - I really appreciate it when you call to tell me important things like when Britney Spears was staying at the same hotel we'd just been staying at in Vegas at the SAME time or when Heath Ledger died, or when we're supposed to be getting a "big storm" this afternoon etc, etc... but do you think that the next time you hear that the school that OUR children are attending will be closed for a few hours in the morning you could...oh I don't know...LET ME KNOW????!!!!!!!! GRRRrrr.

Actually since I had started to relax a little by this point and was kind of enjoying the boys home for the morning I wasn't too upset and found it pretty funny... lucky guy. :)

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Oh mister sun...sun...mister golden sun...


is (finally) SHINING DOWN ON ME!!! Oh blessed little sunshine with it's golden rays and warm happy air, I wondered when I'd see it again and granted we DID have to travel to Arizona to find it, but find it we did and I couldn't be happier. I feel like I'm defrosting and thawing out and it feels glorious! The boys and I traveled on Wednesday to Arizona for a week to see grandma (my mom) and we are having so much fun. I was a little worried about the plane ride by myself with 4 little boys but they did so awesome, I felt like a very lucky mom to be able to call them mine. We did get some pretty funny looks though as we were among the last to board and traveled ALL THE WAY to the back of the plane where I hoped we could do the least damage should things start to get out of hand. I was absolutely determined NOT to let myself stress about the trip and therefore did not allow us to have any carry-ons except Will's diaper bag. The boys all had their little "ipods" in their pockets with their favorite movies and music on them and that was that. They were thrilled to be on the plane. Sam at one point leaned back in his seat and said "this is my best day EVER!" They thought they were so big when they got to order their own drinks and were even more excited when they got the peanuts. They got two bags each and Sam chose to eat one bag and save the other to give to Daddy when we got back home. Gabe kept pointing to the inside of the bag and asking me where the m&m's were, I was confused by it for a minute until I realized the peanuts must have reminded him of the trail mix we have at home - the trail mix that he doesn't eat EXCEPT for the m&m's and the occasional raisin - so I think he was wondering what was up with that and why would anyone CHOOSE to just have the peanuts when they could have had m&m's instead, DUH! :) The plane ride was lots of fun and it was even better when we landed and were greeted by none other than our AWESOME AUNT CARMA! Because she works there she was able to come right up to the door of the plane and help me with the stroller and everything, it was so neat! Then we were surprised yet again by my brother Mike who changed his flight into phoenix to an earlier time just so he could be there to help out with bags and to see the boys, and of course we were all SOOOO excited to see GRANDMA FINALLY and as soon as Grandma picked Gabe up he waved to me and said "bye mom!" I guess he supposed I was just flying him there and flying back home. He really was determined that I was going to leave at some point and said "bye mom!" again when we got him buckled up in the car. The weather was pretty windy and kind of chilly but still gloriously warm compared to the 7 degrees I came from so I wasn't complaining! I can't believe it's already Sunday, the week is going WAY too fast and it's going to be SO hard to go home to the cold again. At least we'll get to see Daddy or else we might have been tempted to move right in!

Here are the boys reading up on the safety materials. I'll add more pictures tomorrow if I can, blogger isn't letting me add any more tonight for some reason!Oh, and tonight Gabe decided out of the blue to start calling Will "William". I was taking him potty and Will started to cry and Gabe said "uh-oh! I dot to doh save baby Wee-yam, baby Wee-yam needs me help!" and off he went to save the day. We NEVER call him William so I have absolutely NO IDEA where that came from but it was hilarious!