Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

From our family

to yours

And this is why I don't like other people's children

So I have this neighbor and if you've been following my blog you've read about her before. Well, she and I get along really well now. It's her daughter. She's 7 going on 22 and I don't like it. She's bossy and mean and I can't help but give her the what for every now and again when her mother's not around. So this is what happened this morning...

Lilly comes into the bathroom this morning while I'm getting ready for the day and she asks me, "Mom, what does a-s-s spell?" I told her what it spelled and asked her where she heard it from. ( I was hoping the answer wasn't "from you mom") Anyway, Kelly was there, too and I remembered Lilly had asked me this question before but I hadn't had a chance to explain because Abe was there and we all know he would have latched onto that word and called everyone he knew, well, as ass. So I told her to talk to me about it later. She explained that while she was at the neighbor's house, the little girl brought out a game called Smartass and told Lilly to say the word. Oh, I was so annoyed. "She was trying to trick you into saying a bad word, Lilly," I said. Well , she wanted to know what it meant and I told her that it's another word for your bum and Kelly chimes in that they say it in the Bible and then I tell her that when you call someone that word you're putting them down, like calling them a jerk in a really mean way. It really is quite a versatile word (and one of my favorites!). Lilly, of course, will never use that word until she's 30 and finally feeling a little rebelious, but she was worried she'd get in trouble for saying it at her friend's house. Of course not, I say, and commend her for talking to me about it. Besides, we all know who is really to blame and it's that little trouble maker down the street.

Toot! Toot!

Saturday we went to ride the Santa Train in Boulder City. The kids had been looking forward to this for a very long time. That morning when I got back from a run Abe told me his tummy was hurting and didn't feel like eating. The dreaded stomach flu, I feared. Not the day of the Santa Train! Well, we took our chances, grabbed a plastic bag for the train ride and a bowl for the car and off we went. Five minutes to the depot Abe puked in the bowl, which scored me a high five from Kelly for being so smart to bring it in the first place. I took it in stride and just kind of smiled cause, you know, being a mother is a reward in itself. Anyway, I cleaned Abe up, who was feeling better, mostly anyway, and we pulled into the station. The barf bowl was placed underneath the car and we threatened the children to tell no one what had just occurred (we were planning on seeing several families we knew there) and told Abe not to touch anyone. We hopped on the train and all was well. All 3 kids had a lot of fun.

And what do ya know but Santa and Mrs. Claus came to say hello to the children. I really liked Mrs. Claus, although Oliver not so much.

Old St. Nick told me to hurry cause he had so many kids to see. He lost points with me there.

But it was a nice little family outing with no more troubled tummies.

Olive(r)

I have a third child. He doesn't get much mention here which is such a pity cause he's really swell. This little dear is just so sweet and a good boy. He just chirps and squawks all day long. Sure, he does his fair share of ear-piercing, mind-numbing, hair-pulling shrieks, but we love him and we like to have him around. But let's get one thing clear, HE IS NOT A GIRL!!!!

Everywhere we go, people of all ages comment on Oliver. "Oh isn't she cute," they say. Or, "She's such a sweet baby." Hey moron, I say (but not really), this kid's all boy! Don't you see his boyish clothes and blue pacifier (I only use the pink one occasionally). Sure, he may have what some may call delicate features, and perhaps he's a tad little for his age, but he is not a girl!

And we only use the barrette to keep his hair out of his eyes when he's eating. Promise.

Just checking in

Unfortunately I snapped this picture just a second too late. Lilly's snoring finally roused her from her sleep long enough for her to realize that sleeping face down with your head and feet hanging off the side of your bed isn't actually comfortable. After the picture, she just flipped over and tried it on her back. Still not comfortable. Lilly finally sat up, disoriented, and put her head actually on the pillow. The funny thing is, is that Lilly has been the craziest sleeper her whole life. Everytime I check on her she's in some strange configuration and I have to reposition her body so she can at least get under the covers.

Speaking of her whole life, just 7 more months until she's going to get baptized. I hate to say it but it's unavoidable: they grow up so fast. We're trying to read as much of The Book of Mormon as possible before she takes the plunge. So far she seems to know more than I do!

Please stay tuned for my post where I discuss my dislike for both Barbie and Miley Cyrus and see who wins when it comes to Christmas presents.

This boy I know

I know this little, excuse me, BIG boy...

...who has a very unique sense of style.

And if he chooses NOT to wear his favorite shirt, which is TWO sizes too small...

...he likes to tuck his shirts in.

He always checks himself out in the mirror after he gets dressed...

...and finds that neon green socks, high-waisted and crooked pants with a tucked in spiderman shirt with toothpaste stains is the way to go...

And I couldn't agree more!

Running my second half

Yesterday I ran a half marathon in Mesquite. It was my second time running a half, and I was hoping to beat my time of 2:04, but instead I came in at 2:09 and slightly disappointed. However, I've never been so happy to finish a run in my life. The wind was horrible, my knee was killing me and my feet had had it. I blame my time on the wind. Even though I'm not a huge fan of running half marathons, I feel like I need to keep running them until I get a sub 2 time and then I'll stop because I think that's as good as I'm gonna get.

(me, Emily and Jessica)

We're missing our other running pal, Lindsay, in this picture, but the four of us got up bright and early yesterday morning and drove to Mesquite. It was actually kind of fun and the temperature outside was perfect. Then the wind started picking up, the race started a half an hour late and it just started going downhill (not literally speaking) from there. My knee started hurting really early on but I'm thankful the real pain didn't take over until the last couple of miles. I liked the course and would do it again for sure if I can be guaranteed no wind. Wouldn't that be nice? The first 7 miles had some decent hills but nothing worse than what we have here and they didn't last long. Then the last 6 miles were downhill or flat and that was nice except the wind kept getting worse in the last half. Have I mentioned the wind?

Anyway, glad it's over and now I have another lovely medal to add to my little collection. Now for the marathon...

The latest do

This post is really about Lilly with a little Abe on the side.

Darling Lilly grew her hair out really long. (Let's forget about the fact that I was just too lazy to ever take her to get her hair cut) It grew so long, in fact, that it became increasingly difficult to comb. There would be complaints, groans, screeches of pain as I struggled to get the knots out every morning. Poor Lilly didn't like it either. I had had enough but every mention/threat of cutting her hair off produced sobs. Until, one day, I had a plan. I told her about Locks of Love and while she wasn't immediately sold on the idea, it grew to be something she couldn't wait to do. Finally, I took her in yesterday after school to cut her hair and she was thrilled.One last glimpse of her with long hair.

Abe with his embarrassingly wild mane.

THE AFTER

Lilly pronounced after her hair was done that she loves helping people. And I think she really loves her new look, too, as evidenced by her inability to remove herself from looking in a mirror. She was excited to go to school today and show it off. Doesn't she look cute?!

Soccer! Is! Over!

This soccer season was a lot of fun, I thought. Kelly was the coach and he did a really good job. All the girls really improved this season and our final record was 5 wins, 1 tie and 3 losses. We're happy with that and I think the girls are too. It was nice to have Kelly around all those Saturdays and we'll look forward to a few months rest and then another season in the spring. Saturday was our end of the season party.

Back again at Disneyland

Here are 10,000 pictures from our last trip to Disneyland. We did a two day trip again and it was EXHAUSTING! The kids had a great time, of course, and it may have been only me who had a couple of tantrums and meltdowns. Anywho...

Really the only thing we wanted to do on the second day was get the kids in to do the Jedi training. Kelly had worked with the kids the night before on the choreography (no kidding) so they were set. Fortunately, they both were chosen. It may have had something to do with us getting there WAY early and sitting in the front and Kelly showing off his guns. No, I'm just kidding.
They both fought Darth Vader and won. We were all so relieved. Abe was terrified and could barely move but Lilly was filled with the force and fought the dark side like a super jedi. She was so into it that when Darth Vader asks if she'll join him on the dark side, she shook her head no and boy, you could tell she meant it.

These next three pictures were taken when we first got to the park. The princesses were standing there and Abe just started posing away like nobody's business. We didn't even have our camera ready when he started pulling faces. He's an animal.

We really did have fun, but Kelly and I would love to be able to go by ourselves sometime. I'm just saying. (Hint hint grandparents)

Pumkin Patch O Rama

Sometimes I wished we lived on a farm. Or, more truthfully, I wished we had best friends who were also our neighbors who lived on a farm and they did all the work but we reaped all the benefits. The point is really this, we went to a cute little pumpkin patch horse place this last October and the kids had fun and we've got pictures to prove it.

Although Lilly loves horses, this is the first time she (and Abe, too) had ever been on a full sized horse. They did great!

At McKee Ranch you could go on a hay ride, feed the horses and pet the goats that wander around the property. It was a cute little place and the kids loved it. It's free all year round to go there except for Halloween time, but the kids got to take home a pumpkin and they got to get dirty, so they were happy campers.

Sinning outside of Sin City

( I totally messed up the pictures on this post, but it's a miracle that I'm actually blogging about it, so I'm not going to redo it. Do forgive me.)

This years Halloween was never ending, or so it seemed. There were school parties, trunk-or-treats and, of course, the real deal. The kids had a great time and I thought their costumes (that they picked out) were very fitting of their personalities.

Let's start backwards since I uploaded the pictures in the wrong order. We spent Halloween night in California with family. I don't think Abe and Lilly could have possibly had more fun. They were over the moon as they played with cousins and O.D'd on candy. Oliver was beside himself with fatigue and so I stayed in my brother's house and stole their candy while Kelly took the big kids around with the family. Even though I missed that part, it really was a fun evening.

Here are Lilly and Abe at Lilly's costume parade at school. Abe insisted on wearing his costume and I pretty much let him do whatever he wants cause I'm afraid of him.

These last two pictures are from the ward trunk-or-treat. Oliver was dressed in Abe's old pumpkin costumes that I made when he was a year old. Isn't he cute? ( IF you look at the first picture of the post there's another view of him in his costume. it was actually supposed to be the last picture. Oops!)