There's No Wrong Way...

to eat some chocolate.




The important thing is that you're eating chocolate.



Remember to savor every bite...



...but not TOO much or it will end up on your hands.



(I hate it when that happens)



HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Christmas 2009

I can't believe that Christmas has come and gone already. Where did the whole month of December go?? I haven't had the chance to post about all of the things I wanted to post about, so this is just going to be a thrown together, heavily pictured post to summarize some of our Christmas festivities.

At the Fountain City Christmas Parade with friends



Three Little Santas







At Dollywood to see all the pretty lights



and to see Santa! Emilia has NO IDEA who Santa is, but thanks to her brothers, she knows he's someone important!



THE FIRST GIFT OF CHRISTMAS!
The boys picked out a train for John for their present to him. They were sooooooo excited to give it to him--they had him open it before they even got into their stockings!



Checking out the new Leapster game



Reading a new book



Emilia getting her hair done with new beaded ties



GO, CUBS, GO!!!



Little Miss Diva



Now, I have to be honest here....we kinda sucked at celebrating Christmas this year. We DID have a tree....but it only had about 30 ornaments on it because we tried to squeeze it in in the mornings before John went to work and after a couple of mornings we gave up and left it as it was. We didn't do our Jesse tree devotionals this year. The stockings got hung up on...the 23rd (I think). We didn't go to Christmas Eve service because John had to work and doesn't get off until 7--church starts at 7, which also, incidently, is the kids bedtime. We didn't go to church the Sunday before, either because Micah was throwing up and Emilia had a fever. We didn't bake any yummy Christmas goodies because I was too tired to organize 3 kids in the kitchen and too tired to do it after they were in bed. We didn't send out Christmas cards because we still haven't taken family pictures because things have been too crazy for something like that to happen. The good news of it all is: the kids didn't notice thankfully we can still celebrate Jesus' birth, even if we miss out on some of the traditional activities. Besides, it was only one year. Next year will be better!!

Family Movie Night

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Wishing everyone the merriest of Christmases filled with the Love and Joy of Jesus!

The Progression of Her Hair

In the morning...




After nap...



After I re-did it after nap...



And, yes, all three of these pictures were taken on the same day! In the first one she's still in her jammies, which is why it looks like she has on a different shirt.

Make That THREE...

Three front teeth, that is! He lost another one! They're droppin' like flies around here. I told him he'd better slow down or he wont have any teeth left to eat with!

Neither Here Nor There

The other BIG (and I do mean BIG) news from yesterday is Micah's hair. Yup--we cut it! Ok, so it was supposed to just be a trim, which is how I convinced him to let me have a go at it, but I found out how hard it is to give an actual haircut to a kid who wont hold still--VERY difficult!! Everytime I'd get some hair to try and trim he'd flop his head over in that direction. Well, in effort to get everything even, it just kept getting shorter and shorter and shorter until...



The good news is, HE LIKES IT! He says it's "halfway done" and says it's just what he wanted because Obi Wan Kenobi Jedi Master has halfway done hair. (Love the reasoning)

Well, whatever the reason, I'm just thankful that he likes it!

And I wonder, wonder, wonder....
Will he want to grow it out again??

Just for fun, here is his last picture with long hair. I took this yesterday right before I "trimmed" it.

All I Want For Christmas is...

...my two front teeth!

Who You Callin' Fat??

John was making fried eggs for everyone this morning. Josiah wanted seconds and John asked Micah if he wanted another one, too. Micah said, no, he was full, "but you can eat that fat one...that one that's fat like mommy."

John said, "Mommy's not fat, she's pregnant. There's a difference."

Micah, "Yeah, but she's got that big ole belly."

John, "Because there's a baby in her belly. So, don't call her fat."

Micah, "Ok...But you're fat."

HA! I coulda died laughing!! He has no idea that what he said is anything bad...he just thinks fat=big, or bigger than him. But it's so funny to me when he says things like that!

Micah wanders off and comes back a few seconds later...

Micah, "Daddy! Look what I found! It's a key!"

John, "Is it the key that unlocks your etiquette box?"

Josiah pipes into the conversation, "What etiquette box?"

Exactly. :)

WOW! They Were Right!

I'm amazed. They were predicting snow for today and it actually snowed!! If you live around here, you know how rare it is for that to happen. Usually, we just get teased with the idea of snow--schools get cancelled and all the bread and eggs are cleared out of the grocery store, but the ground stays clear of all that beautiful white fluffiness. But today--today it really snowed!!











Sledding down the "hill"...with a new and improved version of the sled this year!

A Chip Off the Ole Block...or something like that.

I forgot to mention this in my post last night...so now it gets a post all it's own.

Saturday morning we were leaving the house to go to my mom's house for an extended Thanksgiving celebration. Micah was already out in the car, Josiah was standing on the front porch and Emilia was walking out the door with me. She was also, at her insistence, carrying my purse and keys and wearing rainboots. Quite a load for a little lady! So, I help her step over the threshold and Josiah's there and says, "Take my hand, Molly." She says, "NO." (Afterall, she is a big girl now and can supposedly walk down stairs on her own) I'm pulling the door shut behind me and say, "Then wait for mommy, Emilia." and hear a tumble, a rustle of leaves (where she landed) and a wail. I don't think she was counting on the imbalance brought on by all the things she was carrying because she CAN walk down stairs by herself now, but not in rainboots and not with mommy's purse....details.

Anyway, she's fine. Almost all in one piece. Just one little bitty chip is missing...from her front tooth. I don't think she misses it. But it does look a little different! The good news is that it's a baby tooth and in a few years it's going to fall out anyway and she'll grow another pretty, new, WHOLE tooth. Until then...

Sharing a Few Snapshots

I promised you a picture and it's taken me awhile to get it up here, but better late than never, right? He's had his stitches out for almost a week now. Everything is healing well and looking good!



Emilia's been into taking pretend baths lately. Well, what she really wants is a REAL bath, but since I'm not going to do that everyday, let alone 2 and 3 times a day, she has taken to just pretending to take a bath. I say, whatever! She's contained and safe and happy--what more could I ask for?? :)

Here she is painting in her pretend bath:


This is a different day, different pretend bath, but see how happy these make her?


Kids can sleep in some really weird positions sometimes. John took this picture of Micah one night after he got home. He'd gone in to give hugs and kisses and found Micah sleeping like this:


And one more pic from the weekend--the cousins on the hayride at Nana's house. You see that look Emilia's giving? It's so funny to see such a little kid give such a serious look!


Happy Thanksgiving (weekend) everyone!

Why's It Always Gotta Be His Head??

Have you guessed who this post is about?

That's right. Josiah's back on the bandwagon for head injuries. I was hopeful that he had gotten this out of his system. Apparently not. And this time--STITCHES. Technically, he could have gotten stitches for any of his other head injuries, but this time there was no doubt about it. Stitches were REQUIRED.

So, you may be wondering what happened. Oh, you know, the usual. He got smacked in the forehead with a golf club. (Accidently)

Mommy has a new rule--golf clubs ONLY come out on the GOLF COURSE.

Lots of firsts for today, though:

First trip to the ER.

First set of stitches. (He got three)

First time mommy panicked over an injury...maybe in part due to pregnancy hormones, maybe also in part due to the fact that it looked like he had a HOLE IN HIS HEAD.

And for the HUNDRED MILLIONTH UMPTEETH time I was thankful for family living in town because I can't imagine doing the ER thing with all the kids. Thank you so much, Sue, for meeting me at the ER in 10 minutes and taking the younger two for several hours for me so that I could be there for Josiah. Words can't say how thankful I am.

I'll try to post a pic tomorrow, for those who want to check it out. Josiah was still pretty freaked out about it tonight, so I didn't want to draw any unnecessary attention to it. He was pretty wiped out, though, so I'm hoping a good nights sleep will help (he went to bed crying about how it's never going to heal). Please pray for a quick and speedy recovery for Josiah and say a prayer of thanks, too, that all things considered, his injury was relatively minor. It could have been so much worse! Thank you, God, for watching over my little boy and keeping his head injuries to something that can easily be fixed!

Sweet Little Nothings

Emilia has started saying, "I love you." Melt my heart, I just love the way those three little words sound when my kids start saying it. With Micah and Josiah it was something like, "Yuh you." Emilia's gotta do things her own way, though, so she says,

"Fushoo."

*sigh*
I just love it.

Though I also have to warn you that "Fushoo" is easily confused with "Fush-ee" which, naturally, refers to Sonic Slushies.

What.
Doesn't every one year-old know that word??


Emilia thinks they should. :)

Sometimes I Envy You...

Those of you who aren't blessed with little boys, that is. Because this would never happen in your house:

One day last week I took the boys into the bathroom to brush teeth before bed and noticed a HUGE puddle on the floor (which both the boys walked past without noticing, by the way). I said, "Ummm, does anyone know what the puddle is on the floor?"

Micah, very nonchalantly said, "Oh yeah. I came back here to go potty only I didn't notice the top was down until after I was done peeing."

Me: "And you didn't tell me about it because.....???"

Micah: "I forgot."

Which, incidently, is totally believable coming from Micah because that boy has the memory of a flea sometimes. Seriously. Another real conversation: "Mommy, what are we having for dinner?" "Grilled cheese and apples and soup." "Oh...so, what are we having again?" "Grilled cheese and apples and soup." "Right." And I love how he "didn't notice" the lid was down. How is that even possible??

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What is it with kids and things that have just been cleaned? I mean, really, can't I enjoy even one day without my things not having fingerprints and food smears and dirt and whatever-else-you-come-up-with-to-rub-all-over-my-stuff?

I love having clean windows, really I do. I know you'd never know it by looking at my windows, but I do love it when they are clean and sparkly and you can actually see through them. It's just so not worth the effort. I think they hide some sort of kid magneticism in the glass cleaner because my kids are INSTANTLY drawn to clean windows. I don't even get an hour of them being clean without fingerprints and hand smudges. That and last time I tried to clean them I knocked one completely out of the frame...but that's a whole different story....

So, about kids not leaving things clean...John and I have spent the weekend painting the built in cabinets in our dining room. Scraping, sanding, priming, painting---and now decorated with blue crayon by our very own Miss Emilia. Why? That's all I want to know--why of all the surfaces, not to mention PAPER and COLORING BOOKS that we have in this house, why must you color on the newly painted cabinets?!? I'm just sayin'....

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Happy Halloween from Never, Never Land!

We had a very scary dinner that night (thanks to gramma and grampa for all of their help!)









And we ended the night with trick-or-treating in the rain with some friends. (This is as close as Tinkerbell ever came to wearing her wings)