Kids Say the Darndest Things

While sitting at the dinner table this evening, Micah says, "Mom (pausing to get my full attention) ... you're forehead looks like a mirror it's so shiny." Thanks, Micah ... just the compliment I needed to hear. ;)

Quick Stories

So yesterday, the kids were all downstairs playing in the basement. I went down to do a load of laundry and to check on Micah, who was playing on the computer with her Webkinz. Rhett was trying to "show her how to do something" and she didn't really want his help at the time, and they were kind of arguing. Then, I look over at Blair, who is oblivious (or was she??) to what was going on. She was singing a tune from a cartoon that she watches at Mom's called Wonder Pets. It went something like this ..."What's gonna work? Teamwork! What can we do? Teamwork!" I had to giggle! Too cute!

Then today, we met up with Beth & Josh for our usual Sunday lunch at McAllister's. Blair had eaten all of her fruit cup and I guess must have still been hungry because when Micah was "taking her math quiz" that Rhett had made (that's another story), Blair switched her empty bowl of fruit for Micah's bowl of Macaroni. Beth and I just giggled because she did it so inconspicuous and it took Micah at least 10 minutes to notice. I'm sure these are the first of many, many sibling stories to share!!!

I just love seeing Blair cuddling with Tony! There's nothing sweeter than a little girl and her daddy. These are 2 different evenings (notice her pajamas), but I just had to share them with you! The first two pictures I took to show how Blair falls asleep ...look at her hands. The last I just had to add because it's so precious! This is Blair's favorite place to fall asleep. She calls it "my chair." Last night when we thought my parents were spending the night, she kept telling Papa to get up and get out of her chair when she was getting sleepy! ;) He had no idea he was messing up her nightly routine!!! ha! ha!

Winter Wonderland

It looks like our tree could fall at any minute ... at least it will fall away from the house.

Rhett getting the sled ready.

Tony getting Blair's gloves ready for sledding.

The neighbor girls, Rhett, and Blair warming up in the van.

Snowball Fight!!!!

So I've been praying for "just 1 good snow day to have fun with the kids." What I got was 4 days off of school, plenty of snow (estimating 6-9 here), and about an 1 1\2 inches of ice. Not quite my prayer, but maybe I wasn't specific enough!!! ;) Of course, we've been loving every minute of it. Well, every minute besides the time that about 10-12 neighbor kids were ALL trying to come in my house at once. And yesterday when Rhett changed his ENTIRE outfit (including boxers) at least 5 times because he was too wet.

It all started early Tuesday morning with a huge blanket of snow and school cancelled. Tony had been saying that he wanted to take the kids sledding if it snowed, so he took the day off and we headed to "THE hill" at the Charlestown Library for a typical sledding experience for the Charlestown resident. I'm 33 years old, have lived in Charlestown my whole life, and had never been sledding down this hill. Plenty of times, I've driven by when it was absolutely packed and thought, you know, I should do that sometime. Well, it was as fun as I had anticipated. We took all of our kids, plus the 3 little neighbor girls, and met Johnny & his kids, and Danny & his kids. (Cindy & Tabby took advantage of a couple of hours alone and got some housework done). We had a blast!! I left the van running with a Veggie Tales DVD for the little ones to take a break and warm up in between sledding. From my observation, Tony, Danny, and Johnny had more fun than the kids.

We woke up Wednesday morning to a huge coat of ice on everything. Tony managed to go into work and I stayed home with the kids. This was the day that all of the neighbor kids were in and out of each other's houses and it got a little chaotic at times. Thankfully, we had electricity the whole time. My parents came over to spend the night since they were out of power, and Cindy said that they were heading to her mom's house for the night. Tuesday evening, our neighbor cleared our driveway so that we didn't have to park at the end close to the road. The decision was already made to cancel school for the rest of the week! We had an evening of Wii with my parents and the kids. At 9:30 my parents' neighbor called to let them know that their power was restored, so they went on home.

We all woke up this morning and went out to play in the snow. Blair didn't understand why we all couldn't ride bikes (too cute). Seth is here for the day with Rhett and Micah has been in and out with the neighbor girls. Blair and I just woke up from a nap (another fabulous thing about snow days) and I decided to blog.

Organized Chaos????

That's the only word to describe my house last night. Cindy and Tabby had a last minute bright idea of getting together after church since there wasn't school today. ;) Tabby has been wanting to get a group together to play Scattegories. It used to be so easy (and calm) back in the day ... that would be the days before everyone had kids, or at least full blown families. I think I counted 10 adults and 11 kids ranging in age from 22 months to 14 years old. That's a hard range of age to keep entertained.

That's where the chaos began. The 3 older boys (Devin, Julian, & John) were bored so they decided to shoot darts at the little ones (which I'm sure Rhett & Brian Anthony loved!!) When Brian went down to check on them he said there were kids climbing on the window shelves, kids jumping on the couch, darts flying, etc. while Blair and Brooklyn were calmly playing among the chaos. After being told not to shoot darts and getting the guns taken away, the older boys decided maybe they would have more fun outside. It was snowing so they threw snowballs at the windows to try and scare the little ones. This only made the climbing worse because now they definitely were wanting to get up on the window shelf to be the lookout.

At one point Rhett came upstairs, with a very stressed look on his face, to inform me that no one was following the "get out 1 toy at a time" rule and the basement was a disaster and no one was listening to him when he said it needed to be cleaned up. Micah on the other hand was in her glory, I'm sure!! I told him to not worry, that everyone would help clean up and the basement would be back to normal by the time everyone left. Good times, good times!! ;)

12th Night Party

On Monday night Brooklyn invited some of her friends (Blair & Isabella) over for a 12th Night Party. We had a really great time! Tony and I hadn't seen Brian & Maria's new house ... it's so cute! After we ate, Brian sat all of the kids down and told them the story about Baby Jesus, the shephards, and the wise men (using Maria, Beth, Tony, and myself to hold the props from the nativity scene). Blair was all into Brian telling the story ... I wished I would have videod her facial expressions. After the story, the kids did a gift exchange. On Tuesday, Blair told my mom all about the fun she had at Brooklyn's house! We need to get them together more often!!

Family Fun at Incredible Dave's

Tabby and Blair going down the slide.
Rhett & Tyler taking a break from bowling.

Blair and Wayne posing for a picture.

Micah waiting her turn to bowl.

Yesterday, we went to Incredible Dave's with Tabby's family and Cindy's family. Wayne, Susie, Nick, and Tyler met up with us there. The kids had a blast as usual! They bowled, tested their skills in the obstacle course, went down the huge blow up slide, bounced in the blow up castles, and played some games in the arcade. Then, we ate at Wick's Pizza, which was an experience in itself.

Seeing the poor quality of all of my pictures lately makes me think I need to look into taking a photography class (or at least check out a book from the library with some tips). I just don't think I'm patient enough to capture that good shot. I just aim and snap. Maybe I'll add that to things I want to improve in 2009.