Collage of Me

I saw this on a friend's blog, it's late and looked entertaining so I'm trying it out on mine. :) Here's how it works: Go to google images and type in your answers to these questions. Use one of the images from the first page. Then post the images as your answers.

Favorite Vegetable:

Favorite Fruit:

Favorite Actor:

Favorite thing to do:

Favorite Car :

(note: my favorite car would be a new car, so insert pretty much anything here)

First Job:

Favorite Restaurant (today anyway):

Where I was born:

Where I live:

My favorite place:

My Favorite Animal:

My favorite food:

My favorite color:

My favorite bad habit:

My first name:

My middle name:

My Last name:

My Age:

Place I would like to visit:

First Day of School!!

Monday was the first day of school! YAY!! Bryson started 2nd grade and Abby in kindergarten.






I know that many parents have a difficult time with their kids starting school in the fall, and find it to be a slightly bittersweet experience. I am not one of those moms. Wanna know the song running through my head after dropping them off at school (especially since they were so excited and no one cried, not even Abby who was incredibly nervous)--it was "Freedom" by WHAM! Yup..."Freedom....freedom..." just the chorus, not the whole song. Or the song by Tom Petty "And I'm FREE!" (again, just the one line, the entire song does not apply).


I prefer to believe that the reason I am so excited for them to go back to school is because I loved school clear up until college (after starting college, eh, then not so much). Honestly though? I can't hardly wait to only have two kids with me so I can get some stuff done! Do you know how hard it is to go shopping with four kids? Especially with the oldest one not happy to be there and constantly scaring the younger kids, hiding from me, and trying to get the others to play tag in the middle of the grocery store or Walmart? Augh. And don't get me started on running errands or just plain trying to keep my livingroom from looking like a tornado has hit 100 times in the last 30 minutes. I love my kids, and when school's out for holidays and summer, I am just as excited to have them home as I was for them to start school. But for right now? I'm totally going to just relax in the blissful semi-quiet.....until 3:25pm that is. :c)

Fall Fashion Show EXTRAVAGANZA!

Abby is five. Abby is a girl. Abby LOOOOOOOOVES girly-girl stuff and constantly tries to get her brothers to do girly stuff too. It doesn't usually work on Bryson, but Garrett is a very willing kid to play house, barbies, tea party, whatever. Sunday we were going through their closets and getting things ready for school and Abby decided that a fashion show was the way to go. And not just any fashion show, a FALL fashion show EXTRAVAGANZA! Somewhere she has seen or heard a fashion show, so she made me be the "'nouncer and explain about the fabulous outfits" and have them model.

She even managed to get Bryson to participate which is not even remotely usual. (Bryson is a BOY...a boy who does boy stuff...not a boy who does girl stuff...cuz that would not be cool for a boy--direct quote from Bryson)

Bryson had no desire to model other than walk in front of the tv which had a "fall" blanket covering the screen for the background, and Garrett wanted to pose as Ben 10 monster/alien things. Needless to say, it was highly entertaining.

Here are the boys trying to be "GQ" after being prompted by dad. Garrett's picture in particular totally cracks me up--he's such a goofy guy. And finally, Abby in her fabulous model pose.

Birthday Boys

July was a birthday month at our house with both Garrett turning three on July 26th and Travis' birthday on the 27th turning...35! (My hubby is getting old, time to up the life insurance. Just kidding!)

This is Garrett's super-cool Spiderman cake that I messed around with. :) He liked it so that's all that matters.

Garrett was very excited that he was the only one who got to open presents on his birthday. His favorite was the Spiderman scooter, although he enjoyed everything he got.

Travis opted for banana cream pie rather than cake for his birthday. We didn't want to light the house on fire with all thirty-five candles, so we did 3 candles on one side and 5 on the other. We're so creative. Ha!

The kids helped pick out his birthday presents, which they LOVE to do, and since we always take pictures of them holding their presents they made us take one of dad opening his.

Hmm...do you think my kids wanted to help open presents or what? All in all, it was a fun weekend with two birthdays, lots of goodies, tripping the fire alarm with all the candles that we had to keep relighting for Garrett to blow out, and tons of presents. Who could ask for more?

In the wee small hours of the morning...

***Disclaimer: It's after midnight, I haven't slept much in two days, I feel whiney, tired, and strangely poetic. Anything you may read in this blog post is well, obviously the ramblings of a very tired mom and will more than likely be completely random. I can't seem to stop myself...hopefully, you can.***

Garrett tried to balance on a big rubber ball today and almost fell off. He caught himself with one hand against the couch and said, "Sweet HOME Lalabamba!" Yup, he's three. Apparently we watch to many cartoons at our house.

When the phone rings at our house, Megan will put her hand (or sometimes the remote) up to her ear and say "e'ro??" She is also walking all over, and today my friend Heidi & I found her trying to climb up on a stepstool to get onto the kitchen bench at the table. Heidi missed this later that evening, but Megan actually got up there before she fell off and bonked her head. My other three children just sat and watched.

People say bad things happen in threes...what about fours? or fives? Life at our house this past week or so has been a tad bothersome. We've had the flu, colds, a death (our van...sigh), teething, and weird sleepless nights that don't seem to have rhyme or reason to them. Not all of those are terrible, just not fun when they all happen at once. Hopefully we've reached our quota for the year. Knock on wood. On plastic. On anything that won't jinx me.

Why do people think vehicles are female? Why must vehicles have gender at all?

For my final paragraph this evening, I will present you with a poem of my very own words, brought forth out of my very own mind, my poor, tired, slightly delusional mind: Rain is wet, the sun is yellow, I'm tired of typing, and I'm getting my pillow.

I almost promise to make more sense tomorrow. Oh by the way, I lied. This is the last paragraph. Quit reading and go make me some cookies or somethin'. Seriously, cuz I'm hungry.

A funny thing happened...

Oh, my children. They amuse me, they embarrass me, they drive me bananas. For some reason I've had some funny conversations with them lately and thought I'd jot a few of them down.

This summer Bryson has wanted us to get a tramp, a pool like Grandma & Grandpas, a cool air castle thingie that our friend Heidi has, or memberships to Lagoon, Classic waterslides, etc. Apparently this summer hasn't been top of the line in his eyes. So as he yet again asked me why we couldn't do anything fun, I yet again mentioned the things we have done so far. We've gone to see "Wall-E", we did fireworks at home, we went to the parade and carnival, we've swam in Grandpa's pool, we've had birthdays, park visits, etc. Bryson, with as much 7 year old attitude as he could muster, told me very disgusted-like, "We don't do anything. When I go back to school, and everyone tells what they did this summer, I get to say NOTHING. We did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!" Drama drama drama.

We've also been potty-training Garrett who has become very interested in his...private self area. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, and if not, take a wild stab in the dark (but not too wild or you might hurt yourself). Now, everytime we go to the potty, I get a constant questions on what his privates are doing, and how can they do that? and why does it just hang there? and how come when it's cold it doesn't just hang there? And why do we have poop? How come bathrooms in the stores are gross? what happens if I never go potty again? Bryson says when I get big I can stand up and go potty, when am I big enough? Am I big enough now? How come Abby is broken and has to sit on the potty and can't stand up like Bryson? Isn't she big enough? Are you big enough? Am I big enough now? If I eat crayons will my pee and poop change colors? How come it doesn't change colors when I eat an orange or grapes? Am I big enough NOW? On and on and on...and it doesn't matter if we are home, at friend's house, church or in public restrooms at the store--the questions never stop! So, being a mom, I totally make up answers to all his questions. That is totally going to bite me in the butt someday, but I figure, then his therapist can deal with it. :)

Then there's our Abby-girl. We went on a little road trip recently to visit my friend Mary Ann in her new house in Idaho. While we were there, Abby made the comment that "Mary Ann's new house looks like her old house...except upside down." I'm sure she meant the floorplan was reversed, but it was cute. Most of her funny conversations aren't actually with me, but ones that she has with either Garrett or baby Megan. My favorite is when she explains to Megan how to play games on the computer in great detail. The amazing part is that Meg just stands there and watches, all intent, like in five minutes she's going to skooch Abby off the chair and take over on the computer. My silly girls.

I'd have something amazing about Megan right here, to totally brag on her genius-ness, which is really, above and beyond any other baby's genius, but I don't want to make the rest of you parents feel bad. Frankly, the only things she can say right now are "mamamamamamama", "dadadadadad", "ni-ni" (which means bedtime in Meg language), and sign "finished", "bye/hi" and "bed". But she says them all with such conviction, I'm just postive in her mind she's having entire conversations...

Top 10

Now, before I begin, I'm just telling all of you reading this (and I know that's just scores and scores of people), HA! You've been "tagged!". Do you know what that means? I didn't and apparently you can get in trouble so you better do what I say. I'm going to write a little segment here called "Top 10 Reasons Why I Love ...." (spouse, significant other, dog, whatever). Because you have read this, you are now required to do this on your own blog. If you don't, I will contact the blogger police and you are in trouble. So do it. Now. Maybe wait a few minutes and read mine first since I am putting forth the effort here. Ok, here we go.

Top 10 Reasons Why I Love My Hubby--G-rated for those of you with children
10. He always matches and sometimes, even tries to match to me. (cute)
9. Even though he doesn't like to, he will cook dinner
8. He will kill all bugs, spiders, and or other creepy, crawly things without even blinking should I or the kids ask.
7. If I wake him up in the middle of the night because of some scary dream or I heard a noise, he will check it out for me even when he thinks I'm nuts.
6. He likes to clean and will even do laundry. (doesn't always do it, but he does like to...how many of you can say that about yourself let alone your hubby?)
5. He encourages me to have as much quality "me" time as I can get while he watches the kids and sometimes even kicks me out of the house for my own good.
4. He always thinks I look good, even when I look like crap, 9 months pregnant, ankles so swollen they are mistaken for my legs (commonly known as "cankles")
3. When we were dating, he offered to wait for me if I wanted to go on a mission first or finish college before we got married. I'm not the most patient of people, so of course that didn't happen; but the offer still was one of the sweetest ever.
2. He tells me he loves me every single day, at least once, and usually more.
1. He absolutely loves and adores our kids.

Now, just cuz that was so much fun, I'm going to do one more!

Top 10 Reasons Why I Love Email
10. I don't have to call people if I don't want to
9. I love to read.
8. I can stay home, hanging out in my pjs and have meaningful, written conversations, or maybe just conversations without the meaningful stuff
7. I can "talk" with my mouth full
6. Emoticons :) (c: :p
5. If you're aren't sure what you really want to say, you can save your draft and finish it up later. No one has any idea, and you aren't rude cuz you just walked out of the room.
4. I can chat with my sister in New York, friends in Baltimore & Vermont, or brother in PA all in the same hour, without it costing me a stamp or a long distance phone call.
3. I can chat with those same people and not have them hear my yell at my kids "Leave me alone, I'm on the phone!"
2. I can delete messages from people I don't want to talk to and they have no idea. (I Promise, I never do this to any of you....)
1. Cuz it's cool.