He's Turning Into Justin

The other day Jared kept grabbing Sami's papers and laughing at her. She was annoyed and said you are starting to turn into Justin.

Later he was trying to get grandma backpack to laugh. He tickled her and she laughed. He scared her and she fake screamed. Finally he took some kleenexes and got them wet and put them on her back. She shrieked and he thought it was hilarious so he did it again, and again. Finally we started to wonder where he was getting the water from. All I have to say is that grandma is lucky it came from Sam's toilet rather than the little boy's toilet. Sam said, he really is turning into Justin.

As I am typing this, he is farting on my lap and laughing about it. I think I have to agree. Jared really is turning into Justin.

Cell phone trauma

Most people have problems with their cell phone because they drop it in water or simply break it. My problems aren't quite the same. I put my last phone in salsa. It toasted my battery and didn't survive. On my way home from Wyoming this weekend, I dropped my phone in my melted vanilla shake. I took it apart and put it in rice and hoped that it would survive. I could make calls and text, however, ice cream was stuck in the speaker so nobody could hear me. Chris took it in and the phone guy was able to fix it - my phone just smells like vanilla now. I can handle vanilla, I am just crossing my fingers that it continues to work.

Father's Day

For Father's Day, (Yeah I know I am posting a couple months late) Chris really wanted to go fishing in the Columbia River. So he brought his two work sidekicks with him.

Travis caught a fish.

Greg and his daughter Jessica caught a fish.

So what did Chris catch?

Wait for it.

Yeah, there's no picture, because it is hard to take a picture of NOTHING.

But never fear, we took care of him and made him a really yummy dessert pizza.

You probably can't tell but it tasted really good.

Well at least Sam thought it tasted good anyway.

Trust me, fruit pizza tastes way better than fish on any day.

I know I like to tease my husband and he takes it really well - just ask him about what I did to him at Red Robin. He really thought it was hilarious, well I thought it was hilarious anyway. All joking aside, we really are grateful that he is such a good dad. Here are some of the things that I appreciate about him.

I love it when he takes the kids fishing while I am at work and I come home to an empty house with a free evening to myself.

I love it when he teases Sam and gets her to smile when she really doesn't want to.

I love it when he gets really worked up about our kids playing sports and he is trying really hard not to jump off the bench, and he cheers really loud (even though it is almost to the point of getting kicked out). He always makes sure the team has gatorade or powerade. It is really sweet to see how well he takes care of his daughter's basketball team, his son's football team, his nephews basketball game (where he really did get kicked out), or his cousin's sons' baseball game. He is very supportive and he actually likes going to practice.

I love how he can make anyone feel good about themselves.

I love it when he stays up all night with my sick babies so that I can sleep.

I love it when he holds me and rubs my head while I am sick too until I fall asleep.

I love that he laughs at my jokes even though they are really dumb and he listens to me talk and talk and talk even though he is really tired.

I really love it when he hides me notes or sends me e-mails or flowers or cards in the mail when he is gone.

I could probably go on for a while about what a great dad Chris is, but I will let the experts tell you how they feel.

Jared says: Daddy is awesome.

Devyn says: Dad buys me stuff when I have a football game. He brings me to the football game. He buys me powerade and krispy kreme donuts and other stuff. He gave me my first gun out of the whole family and it is really cool. He takes me to boondocks and fishing and let me skip school to go hunting. I love him but I too embarrased to say it.

Justin says: Dad is the best dad ever because he gives us awesome presents and he cares about us alot, and I love him very much.

Tanner says: I love Dad because he's nice. I really miss him when he's gone, but at least I get to sleep in his bed because it is really big and I really like it. I like it when he lets me ride in the front seat and takes me to the store and buys me candy. I like it when he takes me to ride on a jetski.

Sam says: He takes me on daddy daughter campouts with his friends and their daughters. They are really fun. He let me drive his truck twice after we went fishing. He takes me out of school one day a year so we can do something fun like skiing or going to gameworld and go out to eat. Sometimes he brings lunch to me at school so that I can have something better than school lunch and we can spend time together. He is really silly and likes to play jokes on my mom. He tried to take me to put toothpaste under her door handles while she was at Wal-mart. Too bad mom came home before we had the chance to go. It would have been really funny. I think he is the best dad in the whole universe and I love him very much.

Rub-a-dub-dub

Rub-a-dub-dub, there's a naked baby in the tub

Bikes Schmikes

Who needs a bike when you can be pushed around on a dolly instead

Our Good, Bad and Ugly Week

There are things that I love about being a mother and other things, not so much. We have had a crazy week and I will let you decide which is good, which is bad and which is really ugly.

*I got sick on Wednesday and thought I had the swine flu. Luckily I don't, but I had kept the kids away from me until I was sure. Once I figured out I didn't, Justin came in my room and told me how grateful he was that I didn't have it. I thought he was worried about me and he acted concerned, but the more he spoke about it, I figured out that he was really grateful that I didn't have the swine flu because he didn't want to be quarantined for the next week and miss out on all of the fun places that they were planning on going.

*I had Justin rubbing my head, because my head hurt really bad and he is amazing at foot rubs, back scratches or head rubs. He tells me, "Mom I really like your forehead it is really nice." I say, "thanks bud that is really sweet." He follows it up with, "yeah I really like all of the wrinkles in it."

*My sweet sister-in-law Becky stayed at my house while I was sick and had made me soup for dinner. I finished the noodles and left the bowl on my bathroom counter. On Day 2 of her being at my house full time watching a truck load of kids, she had just bathed Jared and was about to leave. She bent down to grab toilet paper from under my bathroom sink and Jared walks in the bathroom and says "soup" as he pulls my leftover bowl of soup on top of both of them.

*Jared is learning lots of new words and how to do lots of new things. It is typically quite sweet. The other night I was talking to Chris on the phone and he tells me "mess." I follow him in the kitchen. He has just learned how to open my fridge and pull out the eggs and crack them on the floor. The good point as Sam points out is that at least me admits when he makes a mess.

*When Chris is gone my kids really like to sleep in my bed and as long as they don't get under my feet or kick my back while I am sleeping, I don't mind. However, it isn't so much fun when you are woken up at 3:30 in the morning with Tanner puking in the bed. I realized that I had chunks on my clothes. I send him in the shower and change my clothes and send Justin upstairs to his bed. He obviously wasn't too disturbed by the commotion because he crawled back in my puked bed and pulled the puked blanket on top of him. For some reason, he came out of it clean though so I sent him to bed a second time. My amazing daughter helped me with the cleanup process so that we could have a puke free place to sleep and put Tanner on the floor with his own blanket, towel and puke bucket. He felt much better last night and was trying to find a way to be sick so that he could have more sprite, gatorade and special treatment, but not too sick to be able to play and do the fun things he wanted to. It is a pretty fine line to figure out.

So it has been a fun week. Luckily Chris is back in town and we are feeling better and on board to baptize Devyn on Saturday.

We are back on-line

As you probably noticed, I haven't blogged in a while and now there are tons of them. We moved at the end of May and it has taken Qwest forever to get our internet working correctly. So we are finally back on-line!

Happy 31st!

I turned 31 this year and it was much more traumatic for me than last year. I am getting old and running out of time to do the things in life I want to do. I have never traveled on a plane with my husband. After twelve years of marriage and five kids, I decided we were going on a trip for my birthday. We ended up going to Vegas.

And I actually won

So did Chris

I guess if I can't take Chris to Paris yet, Le Paris will have to do

We were waiting to watch the Criss Angel show.

It was very late and we were already exhausted.

We stayed at the Bellagio. The gardens there are very beautiful.

They made some pretty cool creatures out of flowers.

This is at the Flamingo after watching the Nate Burton show.

New York New York/Excalibur

We ate at The Top of the World. It is the rotating restaurant at the top of the Stratosphere. This is the view from the table.

I don't do too well with heights and I was too chicken to get too close to the window, so Chris took a picture for me so I could see it.

We had a really great trip. What I learned:

1. There is too much to see in Vegas to fit it all in one trip.

2. I need to travel more often, I totally love it.

3. I love lounging around by the pool, I need to do it more often too.

4. Criss Angel's show is called Mind Freak - yeah it is pretty trippy, the name fits it well.

5. Loved La Reve and Excalibur.

6. The Bellagio is way over rated.

7. The Mirage has the best virgin pina coladas I have ever had.

8. It has been twelve years since I have spent 4 solid days with Chris alone. We had a lot of fun together.

9. Really high restaurants that rotate really aren't my thing, they kind of make me want to throw up.

10. Turning 31 isn't so bad if you can live it up.

Random things we have been up to

Tanner lost another tooth

Chris found his dream car - it is some type of Ferrari

Justin earned his wolf badge

I got a new hair cut

Justin got a new goofy grin. Yes, we are so proud.

Then he got glasses.

Jared made a new friend from Build-a-Bear

Sam learned how to blow bubbles from soap.

Devyn was a plant in a Life Cycles Play

Jared's Growing Up Way Too Fast

Jared was being too quiet, so I sent Sami to check on him. She found him on the love seat in the play room watching iCarly. She asked him if he liked iCarly and he responded, "hot." He is way too young to get girl crazy.

Devyn's Birthday Continued

I am not so good about having a cake with candles to blow out. Our family tradition is more along the lines of breakfast in bed with candles in your breakfast, while you family sings a horrible rendition of happy birthday. Devyn was lucky enough to get donuts in bed.

Happy Birthday to Sam & Devyn

This was the first year that we looked at Sam's birthday list and said "Holy Cow!" We are certainly getting closer to the teenage years. Here is her list:

1. Cell phone ($10 per month, plus cost of phone = $170 for the first year)
2. Nintendo DSI, so she can text message, have internet access take pictures and play video games (cost $180)
3. Clothes from Abercrombie or Hollister
4. I can't remember the official name, but basically it is a minature movie player ($100 plus each video $20)

Her dream was that she would sit in her newly decorated room and talk on her cell phone while she was wearing her new clothes from Abercrombie and play her DSI while she was watching a movie. Yeah, it so did not happen. We were able to down grade a little, but she was still happy.

Devyn was much easier. He just wanted Mario Cart Wii. Lucky for him, Chris was going to be gone for his actual birthday so he was able to open some of his presents early. I don't think that Chris could have waited another week for Devyn to open his BB Gun. I am not sure who was more excited about it Chris or Devyn.

As you can see Devyn was really happy.

Justin wasn't quite so happy. He thinks that he needs to be the coolest person ever with the coolest stuff ever. It isn't very fair that Devyn has a cool game and a cool gun. Even though Devyn shares, Justin thinks all things cool should be his.

Tanner

Tanner is such a ham and he loves to jump on the trampoline. He is pretty proud of his moves.

Lauren

I am in love with my niece Lauren. She has made several trips up here lately while her parents have been looking at houses. I am surrounded by boys, so it has been really fun having more girls around. Lauren loves getting her toe nails painted. She also loves getting make up on, fake earring stickers, bubbles and the slip and slide. We have had a lot of fun playing with her and teaching her new things. She is really sweet and I can't wait until she is back from vacation so I can spend more time with her.

Tanner's Jokes #5

Tanner thought it would be really great to add water to my hair spray because then there is more of it. My hair has a tendency to become very curly or frizzy when it gets wet. My freshly straightened hair didn't look so great after I sprayed water all over it instead of hair spray.

A Few Things My Kids Still Need to Learn

Apparently Devyn is still struggling with genetics. Back when I was pregnant with Jared, we saw a tv show where this white lady delivered twin African American babies. We also had cute little African American twins that lived across the street. Devyn was obsessed that I also was going to deliver two black babies also. I kept trying to convince him that wasn't a possibility. But he was obsessed, he kept saying, "well what if it happens." I finally had to tell him that it isn't going to happen, but if it does, then mommy would be in a lot of trouble. He finally dropped it when Jared was born and looked just like him. I thought he learned but I guess not.

Devyn's birthday was yesterday and he thought that he was part Mexican because his birthday is on Cinco de Mayo. I tried my best to convince him that he isn't and kids take after their parents, but he doesn't believe me. For him it is all about the birthday. I wonder what June 6th makes me, part summer?

Tanner told me yesterday that "there are two no fairs" that happened to him that day. Apparently he is keeping track of the "no fair" things that are happening to him. I guess I haven't done a very good job teaching him that life isn't fair and if only two "no fair" things happen, he should feel lucky.

Sam loves . . .

Sam loves playing basketball.

Sam loves getting ready and the number 3. She was very excited to pick the number out for her uniform.

Sam was way excited to finally get her ears pierced and she loves earings.

Sam loves her daddy.

She also loves her baby brother.

Sam loves getting awards, this one is for compassion.

These are for track.

She doesn't love touching dead fish.

And she doesn't love me taking pictures of her all of the time.

But we all love Sam, she ROCKS!