Playing in the Yard

In early November we finally cleaned out the back yard and pulled all the dead plants from the garden. Turns out it was also a good day to play in the yard!

Mark set up a 'T-ball' type thingy for the kids to practice swinging a bat (or lathe).
Both the kids had a blast, but I didn't get out with the camera soon enough.

Picking the last of the carrots

Jason's turn.

Yuck! It's dirty!

Wash off the carrot, but don't get me wet, Daddy!

Thanks.

Here Jason, want to try?

Tasty stuff.

Eh, What's up Doc?

What day is it?

How to tell if you're tired:

You're pretty sure you put the baby down on her belly, but she's now on her back and the only thought in your head is 'at least she's quite' and it takes about 15 minutes before you realize that you're only sorta sure you didn't put her down that way, or at least in that spot. I still don't know...

You're driving home from the store and realize that your 2 year old is napping in the back seat and suddenly you're much closer to tears than you should be because you're dreading the afternoon knowing that he won't nap when you get home, and you were so looking forward to being able to lie down for at least 10 minutes!

Your 4 year old comes out of her room with not one single thing on and it takes at least 3 double takes before you realize what it is about her thats trying to catch your attention

The wrinkle guard beeper on the dryer has been going off every 5 minutes for over an hour, and all it will take to make that stupid noise stop is to walk over there and open and close the dryer, but instead you lie on the couch and wonder how much longer it will take that dumb thing to stop on it's own (at least another hour - btw, in case you were wondering)

The baby has been crying in her car seat on the way home from the store and as you're picking her up you realize there's a mushy wetness on your arm that shouldn't be there, but it takes until you're halfway up the stairs before you realize it's not just a wet diaper. Then you wonder what the car seat looks like, but decide it can wait for another wash day even though there's at least 2 more loads of guest towels and sheets left to run.

The idea of going to a RS Presidency meeting actually seems like it take less brain power than staying home with the kids - after they're in bed...

After carefully typing out an e-mail that you then send to three wrong people instead of the one who really wants it, you then send out 5 more trying to fix it - only to find out that you made the same mistake with the same people on an e-mail you sent out yesterday and somehow you think that sending out more e-mails to the wrong people will fix it...

That somewhere in your head you think this e-mail is actually worth putting up, but then you realize that even though it's totally pointless, it's better than what was there before, and at least it's updated...

I'm going to bed now. Good Night.

Randomness from the last few months

So, I'm finally finished updating our summer. I figured many of you wouldn't care enough to want to see me do it live, and it wouldn't really make sense if it was seen out of order so I back-dated all of it. Sorry. If it helps any there's nothing older than July 1st that's new... Feel free to ignore most of it. I would. After I finished updating all of it, I found myself with a few random photos without a good home post, so I created a home for them - here.

Jason all decked out and ready for a walk. Who lets him dress like that?

I'm not sure why I like this photo of Jason so much, but I think it's rather cool, even if it was an accident.

Shelly got the camera. You can tell it's not Jason because there's not a finger in the picture

We all decided to make faces for Shelly

Here's Mark playing with Emily. I thought it was cute, even if it is a bit dark...

I never do get tired of fun sleeping shots

And since the kids are now mostly sleeping in their beds, good shots are getting fewer and farther between.
In this one they're camping out beside the night light.

Mark make some Chicken Saltimboca. Or at least as close as we could come with the stuff we had on hand.

We even made a sauce to go with it. He was proud of himself for making a 'nice' dinner. It was rather nummy.

With Jason's speech issues, there are only a few things he says that are always understandable. Many things he says are only sometimes understandable to us and there are some that he's consistent enough with that we get it and others wouldn't, but only a few that others would always understand. Our most recent favorite has been 'little bit'. I'm not sure he uses it right. When we pour him milk on his cereal he says 'little bit' meaning he wants a little bit more, but it never seems to actually come out that way. He says it so it sounds more like 'i-le bi' but he adds in the hand motions of putting his thumb and finger just a little bit apart so we know what he's trying to say. I tried for the life of me to get this on video. Here's the best I could do.

Of course he would finally say it with his mouth full of food... Dang!!

Jason's Play Group

One of the mom's who has a boy Jason's age started a play group for a few of the boys. We had our turn a while ago, but since I was putting up Joy School photos I figured some play group photos wouldn't hurt either.

Here's Jason and Charlie playing with cars. Will someone please explain to me why boys lie down to play with a toy with wheels? Doesn't it work better if you can move?

Charlie and Chris turned around to let me take a picture. Jason just kept eating...
Hudson wasn't able to make it this week. We missed him...

Fat Lips and Marshmallows Guns

I'm not sure what's been going on this week - but both kids have cut their lips. Shelly's was quite fat for a day or two and is only now starting to get better. Jason got a small cut this morning while playing outside and I'm sure I can't tell anymore, but I haven't looked. I just happened to be taking pictures of the kids playing with marshmallow guns, so I snapped a picture of that too.

Warning - for those of you who don't like blood - don't look at Jason's photo. Shelly's lip is just fat and red, but Jason actually has blood (and dirt) so skip to the one of Shelly with the 'gun'.

At least she's in a good mood!

See how cute that lip was. I had a hard time ignoring it. But I did ignore the hair...
I'm a horrible and lazy mother...

He's a tough guy. He was over it before I even had time to take the picture...

I'm pretty sure these are left over from either Nate and Doug or just Doug, but since we cleaned out the garage last night and I saw these, I figured someone might as well be getting some use out of them. The kids ate more marshmallows than they shot, but it was still fun.


Video of Shelly trying to blow marshmallows from the gun and Jason trying to eat it. Mark and Emily make a cameo appearance too. As do my jeans.

Joy School

With Shelly getting bigger and acting like she's ready to start learning, when I heard about a joy school group getting together I jumped at the chance to join. Then I got nervous about having a new baby and maybe I didn't actually have the discipline to do this and other such silly things. Turns out I wasn't the only one. One of the mothers if having a baby around Christmas time and has decided that the structure of Joy School is too much for her at the moment, so the weeks she's in charge, it's just a play group. The other three of us like the structure. It seems to work out fairly well. There are 4 of us, and Shelly is the only white girl. She's also the oldest - but only by 10 days - and the youngest is almost a year younger than her. We have 'class' twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30 to noon.

For the most part it all works out well. It's a bit more of an adventure at our house because Jason has play group on Tuesdays from 9:30 to 11, so I can't pick him up when I'm teaching and dropping them off at the same time in two different places is interesting. Plus when play group is at our house, it's harder to get her to Joy School. And Jason has speech therapy at our house on Thursdays from 11-12, so picking her up on Thursdays is tricky. So far it's been fine though. Mark has been home to help and he's good about making sure I'm not too overwhelmed. :)

Here's Joy School at our house for the first time back on October 6th. One of the boys was late so Jason sat in for him. We made popcorn so the kids could experience their 5 senses.

Then we went to the park so they could use their senses to experience the world around them. Mostly they just played though...
Here's Bennett and Ammon at the park

Shelly and Hayden playing in the sand

The 4 boys in the play house - Hayden, Jason, Ammon and Bennett
(Shelly was still playing in the sand somewhere)

Here's one from this week. Going around the table is Bennett, Hayden, Jason, Shelly, and Ammon. It's kinda fun having Jason join us. He often sits for the stories better than the other three boys do! I think he just likes that I'm actually paying attention to him... This week I tried to squeeze 2 weeks into 1 (to make up for the mom next week who's doing just a play group) and we learned about feelings and being honest. Shelly is the only one who I think actually gets what we're talking about. 2 of the other boys have a language and age barrier and the third just seems more interested in trucks and trains than listening. Oh well - it's still fun and Shelly still loves it!

Halloween - Thrice

We had three Halloweens here. It was kinda crazy, but the kids got to have 3 different costumes... It also helped the Shelly had gotten sick on Thursday night. We weren't sure we'd make it to anything that weekend - and it was supposed to be a busy weekend. Turns out we're just mean and selfish parents who took our sick kids to places they were too tired to be and subjected all those unsuspecting kids to germs unknowingly! [insert evil laugh]. Actually, it was wishful thinking and a bit of self-fulfilling prophesy that led to that. We didn't actually mean to do any of it.

The first was Friday afternoon at Googleween.

Emily was a wrinkly elephant

Anyone who's seen us in previous Halloweens will recognize this as the 'baby costume' We're nothing if not original...

I had to get a few shots of her first costume... Not sure why

Shelly wanted in on the action

Here's Mark with the kids in Google's lobby. Emily the Elephant. Shelly the Pumpkin. Jason the ... hurricane in a costume closet? ... We're as confused as you are...

Grandpa donned a wig to get in on some action and had fun showing the kids around.

Then we had to take a picture of Grandpa in the Lobby - he did have a wig on, you know!
The kids seemed fine here.

This was the pumpkin that Grandpa carved for the Google Pumpkin Carving Contest. Even though all of us (even Emily) voted for him, he didn't win...

Shelly was so tired that she fell asleep on the couch in the Google lunchroom. Poor thing. That pumpkin costume she was wearing was also so hot that she was quite burning up. We stripped her down to normal clothes and left right after she woke up. Poor girl!

After we got home she fell asleep on the couch at home around 1 or 2 and was still asleep when Grandpa got home from work around 5:30. We had debated all afternoon about whether or not to wake her up to go to Trunk-or-Treat with the church that night. She had been looking forward to it all month (really, we had to count down the days on the calendar for her often), there were going to be people she knew there, her Sunbeam teachers had been handing out fliers for the last two weeks and were likely to talk about it on Sunday. I'd rather go to Trunk-or-Treat than regular trick-or-treating. She was sick, and rather tired. It might take more energy than she had and make her worse. She could be contagious and then we'd be infecting all of her friends. It was such a hard decision. Grandpa finally helped me make the decision I wanted to make, but couldn't bring myself to actually do. He woke her up and got her excited to go. So, we went!

Here's Shelly in a Superman Costume and Jason in Sunglasses (it's all we could get him to wear)

The next night - after carving pumpkins and then resting all day - the kids felt up to going actual trick-or-treating. So, we got them in costumes and off we went. We didn't go too far. Around the cul-de-sac, over to the Ainsworths, down to the graveyard and back. Most of the houses we pass on our walks. Towards the end the kids buckets were full and heavy and the kids were still a bit sick, so that was a good amount. They now have about 4 times more candy than they'll eat in a year...

Shelly the Pumpkin - again. Jason is Superman. We actually got a costume on him this time!

Here are the kids eating dinner and watching a movie while they try to feel better after feeling sick and eating too much candy...