More Proof...

(see: Why I Stink)



That's my brand new brown-ish lipstick by the way.

A Short (horror) Story

ONE DAY... while we were still in the tearing-out stage of remodel, I walked into the kitchen to see these 2 huge bloodstains with another giant pool of blood next to them on the floor. (These are now old and dry, and not heaped together with -really- a gigantic pool of blood next to them, so not nearly as effective, but you get the idea.)
NATURALLY... I started hyperventilating and went into panic mode, wondering whom was cut and bleeding to death and wondering why I wasn't hearing the screams and if it was because they were already passed out from loss of blood or what was going on.
UPON FURTHER INVESTIGATION... the kids were fine, Mark was fine, no animals had died a sad death in our kitchen, all was well. Except me - still hyperventilating.
TURNS OUT... way back at Halloween I had filled a spray bottle full of fake blood to squirt on our front windows. It gave it a really authentically creepy look that, unfortunately, was wasted since our party was at night and no one saw the blood squirts anyway. Instead of being put away, however, the spray bottle was stashed in the kitchen and then transferred to the floor upon remodel construction, to then be stepped upon and crushed so that it could then leak very realistic fake blood and totally freak me out.
IN THE END... I was happy that someone was "had" by the fake blood. Even if it was myself.



P.S.
For Easter I taught a lesson to the Primary where I had the kids open up 12 eggs, each with a representation of an event that led to the real Easter. The instructions I was getting this lesson from called for the 2nd egg to have a piece of white cloth with a drop of red food coloring on it to represent Christ's suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane. Not thinking anything of it, I thought I was brilliant by cutting a square from the sheet already doused in "blood." So when the poor little boy (Gabe McQuivey) opened up the egg and saw the blood-soaked cloth he was hesitant to touch it. Not understanding, I kept telling him, "Pick it up! Show everyone what it is!" He stood there a good 4-5 mins really not wanting to touch the nasty cloth before I finally clued in on what the problem was and hurriedly told him it wasn't real blood! (And then I died laughing)

Why I stink.

If you ever are standing near me and wonder why your nose is suddenly being assaulted by some foul odor, it's me. I stink. I do. I don't take showers enough. It's too hard. Every time I get clean I end up having to clean up an even bigger mess, and mostly out of fear for what I'll have to clean up "this time" I just don't brave it. And if you don't believe me, just check out the mess I was presented with the last time I tried to clean up:



Oh yes, that would be pink nail polish. And yes, it's all over her face, body, hair as well as bed and blankets.
Not pictured is the diaper that was filled past maximum capacity before sliding down an up-turned mattress leaving a trail behind, naturally.

Yeah, I stink.

"...and thank you for the boys that said 'Hi' to me..."

Michael, (Uncle) Joe, Mark


Tonight in Andrea's prayer she was keen to remember all the boys at our house. Not a big surprise since she went nuts over them all! Man, that girl is boy-crazy already! So why did we have a bunch of boys over? YM of course! Since we have a bit of an "in" with them (thanks, Joe!), we decided to cash in on some free labor, er, uh, provide a service project for youth night. And 2 1/2 hrs, a dozen Root Beers, a box of doughnuts and cookies later we were finally rid of all the brick, cement and old wood that's been plaguing our backyard for so long. Hooray!!!
Thank you YM!!


Showing off...but it really was hard work!


Michael hard at work - eating a cookie.


The girls had a heyday. They loved being outside in all the action, playing where I don't normally let them since everything is still under construction.
And of course, playing with Uncle Joe was a special treat!



Again, Michael is working hard looking at stuff.



Jake Jones dug out a piece of concrete that had to weigh as much as he does. It was awesome!

THANK YOU GUYS!!

Andrea's blessing

An actual prayer given by Andrea this morning

"Heavenly Father,
thank you for this day. Please bless the food. In the name of Jes...
and thank you for the gospel. And thank you for Daddy to go to work to buy food for Andrea and Lacie. And please bless us to be lovely. And thank you for Kyra and Aaron and Gabe and... and... Addison. And Kassi and Trevor and Ashlee. And please bless us to see Kassi. And thank you for Mama and Daddy and Andrea and Lacie.
In the name of Jesus Christ,
AAAAA-men."

Andrea-ism

(Net) "Shoo fly, don't bother me."
(Andrea) "Shoo fly, don't bother Andrea's mama."

Potty Emergency!

So we've been potty-training Andrea all week. Poor kid, this is probably the 10th time we've tried. Each time we try and she has an accident or two I wimp out and put her back in pull-ups, which is another word for "more expensive diaper."
This week I decided to tough it out. To her credit, she has done amazingly well. Only a couple accidents all week, so I decided to venture out. Again, she did great. Made it through a class party. Made it through the store. Made it through a dinner/party (and even pooped on the potty for the first time!! - though she did scream and cry that she was going to fall into the toilet). Impressive!
So I figured church should be easy, right?
Right?
...

The best part is that it happened in Primary during Singing Time (I'm the song leader) when all the kids were grouped around her on the floor for a game.
Awesome.

T'was a Night!

T'was another night of remodeling and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring except me with my electric sander (named mouse?).

Plastic sheeting was hung from the kitchen with care,
In hopes that the dust wouldn't spread far from there.

The children were nestled all snug in one bed,
While clouds of ceiling dust fell on my head.

When I put down my sander and goggles and mask,
And turned towards Mark so I could ask,

"Is this why they say to check paint based with lead?"
And I knew something was wrong from his look of dread.

Away to the office we flew like a flash,
To pull up Safari on our computer (Mac) dash.

When what to our wondering eyes should appear,
But that our old house was built in a bad year.

As we drew in a breath and the pages scrolled down,
Dangers of poisoning started to mound.

I was covered in dust from my head to my toe,
And the mask that I wore was only so-so.

Mark's eyes -- how they twinkled as he soon got teary,
And I felt scared, then sick, then weary.

Tumors and comas or development delay,
Since we had been breathing the dust in all day.

For adults the symptoms were a lot more mild,
But it took less than a gram to poison a child.

Central Nervous Systems could have been damaged,
If more than a speck had landed on their sandwich.

But hope was not gone, all was not lost,
Test kits were sold for a reasonable cost.

It was too late to go to the store then,
We'd have to sweat it out 'til they opened again.

So all work had ceased; no progress was made,
We just went to bed and prayed and prayed.

Mightily we prayed that all would be right,
Still we didn't sleep well that night.

Dawn soon came and I went to the store,
To buy a test kit - ok, I bought four.

Mark spoke not a word, but went straight to work,
And tested the ceiling; then turned with a jerk.

And laying his finger aside of his head,
He cried to me, "This paint has no lead!"

The walls we had sanded were all free and clear -
The nightmare was over! Nothing to fear!

But Mark kept on testing, just to be sure,
And found that our fireplace and garage door

Did indeed have the lead-based paint,
But they hadn't been sanded so I had no complaint.

Just cover with paint and keep it from chipping,
But the was our plan for those from the beginning.

And so I exclaim as I finish this saga...

HOORAY FOR NO LEAD-POISONING!!

Just in case...

...you ever come across a bed that is needing immediate occupancy, but is completely covered in baby powder, a good solution might be to use the vacuum right up on top of the bed to suck it all up. Yup, might just do the trick.

Then again, it might be a good idea to close the baby powder lid and prevent the whole bed-covering incident to begin with.

Hmmm

Should it worry me that whenever the girls play "pretend" Andrea is always a boy and Lacie is always a Polar bear?

Rewind

So I realized that I didn't post some fun pics from our Christmas trip up North, so I thought I'd go ahead and share now that we're half-way through March...

KID-IN-A-BOX

Proof that kids really do have more fun with the boxes than the toys!

Natalie-in-a-box


Lacie-in-a-box


Amy-in-a-box



FASHIONISTA...OR NOT


Lacie does love her hats, but well, style is something else.



FUN SARAH


Andrea had so much fun with her cousin, Sarah, I had to put in this cute pic I found of them together. If only we could get her down here!

Hooray!

So I just got my most recent statement from the hospital only to see that Andrea, my firstborn, is almost paid off! And by that I mean under $300 to go. And by that I mean $299.18 to go. But still! Pretty good considering she's 3 1/2 yrs old....

okay, so it's a good thing they don't repo kids.

Andrea-ism

(when forced to give Lacie back her cowgirl she says...)
"Bye, sweetheart! Hope to see you again soon!"

Clever girl!

"Clever?" you ask, "How is falling asleep on a chair clever?"
Well, I'll tell you.
See, Andrea here is in time-out. A very long time out for very naughty behavior in church for the 3rd week running. So instead of waiting out her time, bored out of her mind, she decided to fall asleep. On a chair. In a very awkward-looking position.

(And yes, I was mean and woke her up.)

Kids at Play

As you can clearly see, Andrea and Lacie are in a train.
Gotta love those imaginations!

Figures

Yeah, it snowed last night and now today it's sunny outside, we have our furnace off and it's still 73 degrees.
Only in Texas!

Amazing!

I couldn't believe it. Today I watched Caleb Newman for a few hours at my house and it was just fine because....we have our kitchen/dining room flooring down! Hooray! And it is beeeeeautiful! I gave the kids the building bricks and let them go to town. It was the first time the kids played on the kitchen floor and I was totally okay with it!



Caleb & Lacie were so funny. These two just love each other! (Last week when we were staying with the Newmans and Angela & I were running errands in the car we looked back to see them holding hands! Wish I had a shot of that!)


Castle-destroying fun. So great, unless you are the older sister (Andrea) who happened to have built the castle...

"Stepping" Up

Lacie was so funny trying to get up on the beam (where our breakfast bar will be). She had a hard time keeping her balance while stepping up, so she tried out a few methods...

the keep-ahold-of-the-beam-until-you're-on-but-then-can't-stand-up method:


the back-up-and-on method:


the aha-maybe-I-should-just-STEP-up method

Holy Crow! It's Snow!

Tonight we had a fun surprise visit from the Huffs. As they were leaving they shouted out to us that we needed to come outside and see something. I thought it was going to be something funny their son, Lathen, was doing. Nope. It was SNOW. And not just the wet, melt-before-it-hits-the-ground, Texas snow ---- real snow! Amazing! Mark and I were sad the girls weren't awake to see it - especially since Andrea has been talking about when she played in the snow with Grandma and Natalie and Amy the last couple days. :( But they were already in bed and I was not about to drag out snow pants so that I could fight them to get back in bed 2 hrs later. Oh well.


Our house...with snow!


the Huffs...taking a break from their snowball fight.


Kiera

I Spy

Can YOU find the Lacie in this picture?

Lacie

Adorable.


'like Daddy'


Playing peek-a-boo in the cabinets.

Funny girl! This kid cracks me up! And yes, that hat is the one Gommy made last Christmas. Lacie LOVES it. She wears it every day with every outfit. I finally had to put my foot down when it came to church!