It's Almost Christmas!!

Where has the time gone? I haven't even begun to do my shopping! We had a crazy two weeks with Micah being out of town and me trying to survive with three little kids. We had a pretty good time, although they felt the need to be especially naughty.

One day was particularly bad. Let's just say it involved two bottles of baby powder being "puffed" all over the upstairs...what a mess, an impending blizzard, markers, trying to cook for the church party and a baby with an ear infection. I can't even remember what else happened as I have completely blocked it from my mind. BUT, I did get pictures of the marker incident. By that time in the day so many things had gone crazy that I couldn't get mad or I might not have recovered. I was in the kitchen frantically making soup for the ward christmas party when my boys came in and showed me their handiwork. They had decided to make themselves into avatars. They were so proud! And Porter kept dancing around with his hands going in and out saying, "weapons, weapons." I don't let them watch this show, but obviously they have seen it somewhere. They all had lines drawn through their hair down to their necks.
And here are a few cute pictures of them in Holiday gear. I was trying to get a good picture but they didn't really want to cooperate.
Harmon is always photogenic and usually will cooperate. It must be a first child so I took gobs of photographs of him and then nobody else thing.


Notice the naughty look they are giving each other. They were so tickled with themselves for making such naughty silly faces. That was a fun moment to capture. The conspiracy begins!

WE MISS AUNT SERENA!!!

Micah's sister, Serena, came to visit for 2 1/2 weeks. She is a brave soul to leave her single, carefree (from my perspective ;) LOL!!) life and come and spend so much time in a crazy household dictated by three crazy kids. Okay, so mostly it revolves around Micah...he's so high maintenance! Yah right. Anyway, we had lots of fun with her and she is a wonderful houseguest to have. She was lots of help in tending the kids, making sure they were in line and listening to their mother. Porter was sassing me one day and she told Porter that he needed to say "Yes, Ma'am" (raised in the South) and Porter looked at me with his big eyes and said, "yes, mommy." Too funny.

She was happy sitting at home with us...which let's face it...being a stay at home mom is not glamorous. There is a lot of dishes, dinner, sweeping, wiping hineys, and laundry to be constantly doing. An exciting outing is going to the grocery store. She gladly did the dishes many nights, unfortunately, her fingernails paid the price of lots of soapy water. She is such a fun companion to have around. Always willing to help and always laughing. She has a great sense of humor. So here is a post dedicated to Serena! We love Aunt Serena and hope that she will come back to see us again soon! She even decorates trees!!! While I sat on my behind holding a fussy baby. Lucky me!!

Sitting in the snow with Harmon and his hat hair. I tried to comb his hair one day for school and he told me it wasn't necessary, that everyone at school had crazy hair.

Missouri River

Ft Mandan is located on the Missouri River. It is a replica of the fort that Lewis and Clark stayed in during their first winter while crossing the United States. It was a cool exhibit.

Sitting on some Buffalo skins in a bunk at Fort Mandan.

Serena likes hanging with the little kids...she's like a grown 5 year old! :)

Helping Porter up the big hill.



Serena and the boys on a frozen pond...there was no way I was gonna go out on that!!



Another frozen pond...scary!




Oh...the love!!


Brother and sister...and brother and sister!!



A FAMILY PHOTO!! AMAZING!! That never happens around here.
The secret to her way with kids???? BRIBERY!!!

Updates

Micah's sister, Serena, has been visiting and she is keeping a great record of our latest happenings. So, check out her blog here. She will be here until the end of the week and she has been updating daily.

Make it a DOUBLE!

A double what, you ask? Well, it's gonna be a double diet coke day. Yesterday we were enjoying Veteran's day together as family. We went to town, ran a few errands and then came home to a suspicious smell. The sewer drain had backed up into our basement and the neighbors. Needless to say, it was a bit poopy. Now I get to spend my day cleaning...my favorite thing to do! Actually the housing maintenance guy did a great job sanitizing the floor and cleaning up. Apparently some roots had grown into the pipes and there was a tremendous root ball that he had to clear out. He spent 6 hours here yesterday and said that he had never seen anything like it.

We live on the AF base and our house is scheduled to be demoed sometime in the next 2 years. It is pretty old (no dishwasher!!) but has lots of charm and great windows. I really do like living here...most days. Anyway, our house is quite small or maybe we just have too much crap (i'm on a roll with the puns) and we have all of our kids toys down in the basement. I feel like I need to sanitize all of their toys, mop everywhere and clean all of the door handles, etc. Gross huh!

The good thing is that Micah's sister is coming to visit today. She is coming from Orlando and we are very excited to see her. The bad news? I didn't clean up my house too much because kids undo everything within a matter of minutes. So I had procrastinated thinking that I would have lots of time today. Nope. Oh well.

Two things I discovered during this experience. One, you don't realize how much you'd like to make a visit to the bathroom (i.e. poop) until you can't actually go in and do the deed. Two, you don't realize how scared you are to actually poop in your own toilet when you've just seen the whole neighborhood's business down in your basement. Is anyone dry heaving yet? Ha! Ha! I totally just made myself laugh.

In lieu of sympathy cards just send me some good chocolate or a diet coke!

Baby Barf and Blogs

I love everyone's blogs. They are so fun to look at and read. I was sitting here checking up on everyone's latest happenings. Cute Halloween pictures everyone. Ella is fussy and tired, the poor thing needs a nap. She's also gotten quite grabby. She kept grabbing at the laptop so I put her up on my shoulders and was holding her with one hand while I navigated with the other hand. Then she puked in my hair. GROSS!! I mean, come on, I am gonna stink all day now. It's not like I can run upstairs and take a shower. And I certainly can't get away from myself.

Double barf. Porter just came downstairs naked from the waist down, holding his pants and a package of wipes. You know what that means. Now I get to wipe his bottom. Oh the glamorous life of a stay at home mom.