If Hannibal Lecter had children..

Whew! I am soo tired today! I just want to go curl up in my bed, that I haven't made yet. And that makes it seem all the more appealing for a nap. Mmmm... nap..... But instead I will try and catch you up on a few of the things that we have been doing here. So here goes!

Per my blog title, don't these look like Hannibal Lecter's children? They did this themselves and said that they were Hopper, the grasshopper off of Bug's Life. I think they look scary!

Alex scooted Emme up in her chair to watch him on the computer. Then he got up on the chair to dance like the animated Santa that he watches on YouTube. Danny hates it when he dances to it because he looks so silly. If Blogger will ever let me put videos on here, I will put one of him dancing to the Santa. I think it's hilarious. You can see that Emme is quite fasinated by it.

Tristan came running in yelling, "Lainey's naked in the sandbox!!" She likes to be naked a lot, and it took some convincing to get clothes on after this.

This is how we found Alaina sleeping one night. Doesn't this look comfortable?!

Emme is getting sooo big! She likes to lift her head and shoulders up when she is laying down and loves to watch her brothers and sisters. She smiles soo big whenever she sees Tristan. Probably because he talks to her all the time. She takes baths in the sink, because she is scared of the tub and screammms when we put her in there. But she just barely fits in the sink now. She is such a happy, contented baby and is so patient when I can't get to her right away. She does little giggle laughs and is a little flour sack.

She also loves to be flown around like an airplane. And she loves to lay on her back and have you sing to her. She coos back and tries her hardest to sing, too. She has really liked singing since she was a few days old. I'm sure as she gets older and becomes more discriminating she won't like my voice so much. But for now she sure does!!

I think this shows how cute and roundy her cheeks are. :)

She is always playing with her hands!

She thinks they are so cool!

This is a lot of pictures, but it was hard to decide! Sorry so many are blurry!

Alaina naked again, but at least this time she is wearing a shirt and cowboy boots, the only important items of clothing, anyway.

It was soo windy yesterday and Alex was flying his kite in the front yard and just about had it up in the power lines. So after dinner we took them all to the church field and flew his kite around.  It was so easy to get it to fly, the kids basically just stood there and up it went!

You can kind of see in this picture that Alex lost his front tooth, the one that stuck out funny. He fell off the chair, doing his Santa dance, and hit the tooth. I still had to pull pretty hard, but it finally came out. Good thing, too, because the new one is already coming in!

Do you see the kite way up there? That was all the string it had, but I wonder how high it would have gone if it had more string.

Walking home. Danny made the kids hot chocolate while I tried to mow the neighbor's lawn. Well, there aren't any neighbors there right now. Did I tell you it goes up for auction in July? Scary, 'cause whoever moves in will be our next door neighbor. Anyway, I couldn't get the mower to work right, then Justin pulled up from work, fixed it, and then mowed it for me. Wasn't that well planned on my part?

On a final note, did I tell you about the kids' cd that they listen to in the car? It has cute little songs, like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and so on. But there is one song on there and these are the words to it- "Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children will burn." And that's all the lyrics, sung about 4 or 5 times! Doesn't that seem strangely morbid for a children's cd? Especially when I hear Tristan walking around singing it. "Your house is on fire and your children will burn."

To My Mammer-Loo

Dear Mommy,
  We've always called you Mommy, haven't we? Well, you didn't answer if we called you anything else! I'm glad. :)
  You've always been such a good Mommy to us. All my memories of my childhood are filled with happy things. Laughing and pretending, imagining and dancing and singing. Do you remember how you would have us lay on our backs and close our eyes and tell us stories full of wonderful things? Did you know one of my favorite things to do with my kids now is to tell them stories? But I am running out of ideas.
  You've always made life seem like some wonderful, grand adventure. When we would get lost going somewhere, it was always part of the adventure! Even when we didn't always have the things we wanted, you always showed us how wonderful life is and that life and loving are intrinsically good things that will always be there, even if things are down for a while.
  You taught us the gospel through your life and actions, not through preaching or lecturing. We saw your faith and did not doubt our Mother knew it. You talked to us about our Heavenly Father in daily life, as naturally as we would talk about the weather, because it was a part of our lives.
  You gave us our best friends, in each other. Somehow, we all grew closer through trials and challenges, and came out of it with the best friends we could ask for, which include you!
  You always saw the best in us- and I really mean that! I always wanted you to be at any of my performances or competitions, because you always sincerely believed that I was the best out of all of them. And you always told me specifically what I did that was great. You saw who I could be when I didn't believe in myself. And you encouraged me to pursue things, that I know I never would have on my own. And because of that I have found some of my greatest loves in life. And even now, I feel a confidence inside myself that I know comes from knowing that you would think I was great, and that I could accomplish anything.
  You ran and exercised and taught us about health, not looks. You ate fruit and vegetables and big bowls of mashed potatoes with lots of pepper, and I think that is why I always think that sounds so good. You read all the time and there was nothing you didn't know. Only Ben was willing to challenge you in a game of Trivial Pursuit, but we all gained a deep love of reading from you.
  When I was little I thought you knew everything and had no flaws, and I loved you for it. As I grew, I maybe was overly critical and thought I knew everything, and you loved me despite it. Now I know that you are a person, just like me, with strengths and weaknesses, but that you try every day to become the person the you want to be, and I love you more than I ever did before. You are one of my greatest heroes, and I am sooo glad that you get to be Grandma to my kids. I see in their eyes the same love for you that I have. Thank you for loving me and raising me and for sticking around to make life wonderful. I love you.
                                              

Since You've Been Gone....

Whew! I have spent over the last hour just catching up on your blogs (and I'm not done yet) and making my grocery list for the week! Now I will try to very quickly add comments to the many pictures below. I need to post more often, because I am forgetting all the funny things the kids say, particularly with a nursing baby around. You can imagine. :) 

This was just a cute picture of Lainey "mowing" in underwear and a bee costume. She likes to not wear pants with her underwear. I think it is a matter of convenience.

The first bath we gave to all the kids at once! I think we are going to have to do this more often to get them all cleaned regularly! Or do assembly line baths. They all thought it was really great.

Ahhh..... happiness. When it is warm here, the kids just stay outside all day long and it is sooo nice. I love it. Today there were snow flurries outside.

Emme chilling on the deck swing. I can't wait for it to get warm for good!

The kids all beg to hold Emme. She seems to think they are all pretty nice, but I am her favorite, as I provide the warm, sugary stuff she eats. One of the advantages of being Mom. And one of the challenges!

Alaina with Princess Laia buns. I thought it was really cute and worth a picture or two.

Doesn't she have a cute profile?

We weren't actually going swimming, Alaina just found the new suit we bought her and put it on. Who does it remind you of?

We went to the zoo on Sat. with Justin, Ben, Linda and Josh. It was really fun and kind of crazy, as there were tons of people there. Which is why this was the only picture I got, of Danny and Alaina walking back to the car. Isn't that exciting?

Emme not so happy on the swing.

Wow, I think that's all! We've actually been super busy and have probably done lots worth blogging about, but I can't remember and never have any time. Funny how that happens when you have a new baby......

It Don't Matter if You're Black or White

Haley, this should make you in particular happy! Now you won't have to feel all guilty and worried about us when you come to pick up your car. Because we got a new one!! Yea! We have been watching cars for a while, because we just have to have two cars. It was hard to decide if we should get a $500 clunker or a nicer car that will last longer. I think we came to a good compromise! It is a 2000 Ford Crown Victoria and was a police chief's car, so it was maintained perfectly. At 100,000 miles they sell the cars at auction. This car only has 104,000 miles, so that was good! Also, since it was a police car, it has upgrades in the motor, cooler, suspension and shocks. Anyhoo, on Kelley Blue Book it was $3,100 without the upgrades, and he was only asking $1,800 because he got it at a police auction and he only had to pay $2000.00 and just wanted to get most of his money back. It wasn't the style I was hoping to get, but it is really pretty anyway. And I really wanted silver (thank you Twilight) and it is white. But it drives sooo nice and picks up great and has no leaks or anything and the engine looks really good. Even Justin thought we should get it, and he is really picky. I think what he likes is that it still has the spotlights by the side mirrors, so people think you are a cop. It is pretty funny to see people really move out of the way and slow down around you! So, we feel good about it and since we won't be putting many miles on it, hopefully it will last a long time with only regular maintenance and repairs. Here is a picture of it! I think it is really funny that my two least favorite car colors are black and white, and I have one of each. I guess it shows that I am willing to sacrifice style to get a reliable car for a good price!

 Yesterday we spent all day cleaning our garage! Doesn't that sound exciting? This was the first time in a very long time that we have done a real, full-blown cleaning. We took two trips to the dump and a load to D.I. What did we take to the dump, you ask? Mostly lots of old paneling and lots of pieces of wood and just all kinds of crazy stuff. It seems almost empty now! It's soo awesome! That probably sounds weird to you, but it makes me so much happier, like a part of my brain is cleaned out. So, here is a picture for you!

I think it looks a lot cleaner in real life.

  That's about all that's going on now. We're blessing Emme next week- Oh, Haley can you and Dalley come? Let me know! I have to clean my house a lot today, Emme took her first bottle yesterday just great, and it was actually kind of warm today! That's all for now. Here are some Lainey pictures just for fun!

Happy Emme and a Mommy sleepover

I have been trying to write for so long, so while Emme is happy watching her mobile I am going to try to post this. So this will be really short. Ummm... Now I can't even think of anything that has been going on here. But, we are all doing well, other than seeming like someone is always sick. Emme isn't stuffy anymore and that is soo much nicer. She sleeps quite well at night, just wakes up about 4 times a night to eat. Remember when you feed them in bed and fall asleep and can't move becaue you are holding them? And then you put them in their bassinet and it feels sooo great to be able to roll over? Oh, how I love that feeling!

 I keep having the oddest dreams, probably from getting broken up sleep. But I had a fun dream that I found two extra bedrooms in our house that I didn't know about, and that was really fun!

 Danny and I are looking at cars. Again. We are trying to decide if we should be really frugal and buy some $500 car that runs (we only need it to get Danny to work, basically) or if we should spend a little more and get something that might actually last us a few years and be worth repairing, should we need to. Ahh, money. No matter how much you have, you think of all you could do with a little more!

So, here are way too many pictures of Emme! She smiles a lot now and is a very contented baby. The kids love her and Danny expends a lot of energy trying to keep them from touching and breathing all over her and getting her sick. I feel like it is a lost cause if you live in the same house and just bathe them in sanitizer every time they come near me. Emme likes to coo and talk a lot and sounds like she is laughing sometimes.

Do you see her big dimples?

Hey, look! I do have other kids!

I think babies are so cute when they yawn!

Looking very smug.

Do you see Alex's front tooth that was really loose and sore? So we tried to help him by pulling it out, but it wouldn't come. So we left it alone and now it is not loose at all, but sticks out at this funny angle. Kind of sad, but funny, too.

And last but not least, the only picture I got when Mammers stayed over after the book club on Wednesday! It was so fun for her to be here, especially to have a chance to just sit with the kids and enjoy them and hear all the funny things they say. Alaina told Grandma that she was cute and that she loved her shirt. They hugged her a whole bunch and made her watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs with them and read them books, which Grandma liked to change to words to and make them silly.

We loved having you over Grandma and hope you come again soon to stay!! And we want everyone else to come over and stay, too! Well, baby is starting to get bored, so I gotta go! But I will try to put Alex's singing on Meggie's blog, since it won't work on mine. So be on the lookout!