Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Vindicated!!

Doug thinks that I'm bordering on OCD and I tell him that it's not unreasonable to want things to be clean and organized. He just laughs at me and then forgets to wipe down the counters with sanitizing spray after he makes a meal. (ARGH! Why do the dishes, sweep the floor, and sometimes even mop and leave a mess on the counters?? Am I asking too much? But again, this is a guy who leaves his underwear NEXT to the hamper, not IN it. I love him, I'm very lucky he puts up with me, but COME ON!)

So... Last night Doug and I were watching "John & Kate Plus 8" on TLC. (It makes me feel better about my life to watch someone who has a set of twins and a set of sextuplets and has lived to tell about it) In the episode we were watching, the family was organizing their playroom and bedrooms. Kate's reasoning for the organizing overhaul was that "a chaotic environment leads to a choatic mind...." I just told my hubby the other day that a cluttered environment leads to a cluttered mind. HA!! I am not the only one who thinks that way. Granted, this woman, Kate, is TOTALLY OCD. I'm not that bad. But, it's nice to know that someone other than my mother thinks the way I do!!

WHOO HOO!! VINDICATION!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Eve says Doug

When Garrett was learning how to talk, he would call his daddy "Doug." But he just didn't say it normally. His voice would get really low and he'd say it really fast. So....being the fun loving person I am, I thought it would be hilarious to teach Eve how to say it. Now, according to my sister, Eve says it all the time! I love it, I love it, I love it!! Have I mentioned that being an aunt is the best thing ever!! I adore my nieces and my nephew.

By the way, Eve's belly button sticks out and her Mommy taught her to push it in and say "ding dong." That's what she was doing until I picked up the camera.


Dinosaur Museum

Thanksgiving Point has an awesome dinosaur museum. We get a property pass every spring with our tax return. My kids love going up there. Last week, during Spring Break, we spent an afternoon up there with the Fronk family, Elma, Edil and Baby James, and Brayden. We had so much fun!!

One of the displays is a large scale. We had all the kids pile on to see if they weighed as much as a dinosaur.



I can't remember what kind of dinosaur skeleton this was. I told the kids to look scared and Brayden gave such a good performance that I just had to post this picture! Plus Mckenzie looks darling as always.

One of the favorite stops at the museum is the Erosion Table. It's a table filled with sand, water and plastic trees and dinosaurs to teach the kids about how many dinosaurs were preserved in mud and then later discovered due to erosion. It's really clever!
I can't remember what this next exhibit was about... but it's an awesome picture!! When my kids were tiny, they were so afraid of walking past this exhibit. Once, Doug pretended to feed Ethan to the shark and Garrett and Chase freaked out!! Oh the trauma we inflict on our kids.

The museum is beautifully put together, but it's really kid friendly. They have lots of exhibits that the kids can touch, so it's really interactive. The picture below is of a fossil guessing game where the kids look at a picture of three fossils, then reach under the black boxes to feel the texture of a fossil and then try to guess which one of the three fossils it is. It's one of my kids' favorites!



We had a really fun day. It ended kind of funny though. When we left, it was snowing and blowing like crazy! We could barely see the parking lot, so we all made a run for the car. The boys made it to the van, but me, Mckenzie and Carter sort of overshot our mark. We were running around like crazy people in our flip flops in the snow. By the time we figured out where the van was, we were soaked. It was hilarious and a little weird because the day before was gorgeous!! Good thing Aunt Elma had some cupcakes waiting for us at home. We needed the comfort of cake and frosting.

Perfect Day

Last week was Spring Break. We tried to plan a couple activities to keep the kids busy during the week. Monday was a GORGEOUS day! It got up to 80 degrees, so we thought it would be fun to go on a picnic at Discovery Park. The Hatchet's and the Cox kids joined us for the picnic and the Tanner family met us at the park to play. It was absolutely fabulous. We had Eve with us. She is my darling neice, we just love her too pieces. She's about 18 months old. We call her the Turbo Toddler. I do think that she's busier than the triplets were when they were her age! (we took a ton of pictures but for some reason I couldn't upload all of them to those post....)





After the park, we were all pretty hot, so the kids decided they wanted to turn on the sprinkler under the trampoline at home. So we headed home, put on swimsuits, grabbed some Popsicles, slathered everyone with sunscreen and headed outside. Check out the video:



Soon, the kids got a little bored of the small sprinkler so they dispatched Brayden Hatchet on a mission to get a Turbo Sprinkler from his house. I was worried it would catapult them over the fence into the Lavine's yard....
Check it out:








When the kids discovered they were being video taped, they decided to give you all a glimpse of what I must endure on a daily basis. All I can say is that it's dang lucky they're all so fetchin cute!
View at your own risk. (Don't worry, I think this may be one of the rare moments when there is no mention of body parts or bodily functions.)




So that was our day! Despite applying sunscreen several times, we all got sunburned! It was great!!!

Sunday, April 13, 2008

SPRING IS HERE

It's the most wonderful time of the year.....
(I know we say that at Christmas,
but it's true for Spring as well!!



We are so excited that Spring
seems to finally be here....
at the very least, it's not snowing and
we didn't have to wear coats today!

We spent the day at Windsor Park just monkeying
around with my sister-in-law, Elma
and my niece, Edil and my nephew, Baby James.
We had a ton of fun and we even got a little sunburned!







Thursday, April 3, 2008

Crazy Hair Day!





This week was spirit week at the kids' school. Monday was crazy hair day and these are the hairstyles my punk rocker kids requested! Luckily we had some left over hair color from Halloween. They thought they were pretty cool.