Swim Team Highlights!

We had a great swim season swimming with the piranhas! Brodey's swimming improved SO MUCH in just 2 months and he had a BLAST. He was so sad when the swim season was over.

Something we learned about swim meets is there is a LOT of waiting between races.. the boys passed the time playing UNO with some teammates.

Ready to race!

Backstroke was his favorite and BEST event.. he took first a few times and even moved up a heat! (This was also our favorite to watch.. his little face was so adorable!)

Go Brodey!

Can't wait to do it again next summer!!

Caught up!

YES! Finally, after two straight days of blogging, I am caught up. I hope I never get that far behind again! Whew.

Few things:

I went to Brock's parent teacher conference last week and she was again singing his praises: "...so well behaved.... plays so nice with his friends... so polite.. works so hard... always obedient...." I was of course shocked (super proud, but shocked). Then she goes to say that she asked him if he's so well behaved at home and he whispers (with a smirk), "no.. I am crrrrraaaa-zy at home." I laughed so hard! At least he's honest.

Took Brock to the dentist and overheard this:
Dentist: "What is your name??"
Brock: "Brock-y"
Dentist: "humm.. Brock-y, do you have any brothers and sisters?"
Brock: "Yep, Brodey, Beans and Sushi"

Brock is still REALLY traumatized over frosting. He runs screaming when I put Lyla in cupcake pajamas, has asked me several times if I'm going to put frosting on Lucy's birthday cake next week.. and today when I told him it was Uncle Myles' birthday he got a horrified look on his face and asked if Myles was going to eat frosting. I bought him a "frosty" from Wendy's and he wouldn't eat it because he thought I said "frosting" and he couldn't stop thinking about it. Poor buddy. I wonder if he'll ever get over his queasy-ness to frosting!

Lucy's new favorite things: emptying the dishwasher onto the floor, and playing in the toilet. When we bust her and she hears us coming she really starts splashing.. it's almost like she's trying to jump in there. So gross. Even grosser... Jeff doesn't think it's gross! Last time she did it he wasn't even going to change her wet shirt! Gross.

Beans sometimes says words with all her letters mixed up. And it's so cute that I never correct her! (I know, terrible.. I can't help it) My favorite right now is: Pa-chack, would you ever know what she was saying??? Chapstick! I love it.
She also loves to have her fingernails and toenails painted. Also loves playing in mud and jumping on the bed.

Last night Brodey sat down and read a whole book to me. HE read to ME. Amazing. The book was: How do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon. (Thank you Clint and Kristin.. it's still a favorite!) I'm so proud of him and can't believe he is reading! And loosing teeth left and right, and according to our giant ruler.. he seems to have grown 3 inches since school started. 3 inches!

Anyhow.. can't end without a picture! Jeff found Lyla like this last night... asleep with her feet on the floor and her head on her bed!??? Sweet girl.

Behind

I'm a little behind on blogging. I have a good reason... I can't find my USB cord.. and blogging without pictures just seems weird. I'll push through anyway. :)

Brodey, being the oldest AND a kindergartner, I probably expect too much from him. For example, he has to get himself completely ready for school in the mornings without any direction from me at all. It's hard for me to get everyone up, fed, dressed and in the car to get everyone to school on time. One particularly "special" morning we were running very late and when we were almost to school he announced, "I wore this yesterday!" (and he was excited about that)... even if we had been lucky enough for no one at school to notice.. I'm sure he announced it to them too. I have a nurse friend who said one of the ways they are trained to notice child abuse/neglect is if a child wears the same dirty clothes to school everyday. Well... teachers and nurses, please consider us mothers of several little ones before you call DFCS... I haven't even washed my own hair in 2 (alright, 4) days.. if anyone is neglected over here.. it's DEFINITELY me. ;)

Lyla, our sweet sweet 2 year old girl has been poisoned by living with 2 older brothers. I know this because she says all kinds of things no 2 year old should say... especially not a sweet little girl! Last week she glared at me with both hands on her hips and demanded, "WHY I no say butt crack, mommy???"

And speaking of butt crack, I sit her on the counter in the bathroom to blow dry her hair after baths... recently she grabbed Jeff's deodorant and I let her play with it thinking the worst she would do is rub it under her arms. No. She very carefully rubbed it in the very place I don't want her talking about! I don't know what gave her that idea... and I would ask Jeff, but I think it's better if he doesn't know everything that goes on here. ;)

Trampoline Fun

Oh brothers

Jeff went a little stir crazy during all the snow days so he painted Lyla's room. Again. And started it at like 5pm.. so of course she couldn't sleep in there that night. I told the boys Lyla was going to sleep in their room with them and they were SOOOO EXCITED. They even made her a little bed. They laid her pink blanket over their toy box, grabbed a pillow off the couch, put a coat on her (???), covered her with Brock's "camo" (that's what he calls it) and even boxed her in with the US map off the wall and Lucy Rae's push toy. They take such good care of her!! Truly unbelievable how long she stayed there like that. Of course I had to move her to her sleeping bag on the floor... but I'm proud of our boys for being so creative and loving her so much.

2011.. off to an interesting start.

* Lyla is 2 years old and really wants to potty like a big girl... several times a day she'll say to me "I haf-ta go potty, I haf-ta go potty!" To which I always reply "Great! Go in your diaper!".. Jeff says I've already lost the Mother of the Year award (one week in) for that one. Honestly though.. picture me in the back of the grocery store with 4 kids and a 2 year old bladder. No chance I'll make it to the front of the store in time to cram everyone into a nasty public bathroom, help her with her pants while balancing the baby on my hip and preventing the boys from touching any nasty thing they can find. Is potty training really that big of a deal??

*We have been very fortunate with kids who sleep REALLY WELL. In bed by 8 and normally we don't hear a peep out of them until at least 7am. So I know I shouldn't complain when we hit a bad night.. but man.. it's like they plan it or something! Last night Brock had a bad dream and I had to go hide the Curious George stuffed monkey that was "making him" have bad dreams at 4:30am. Then at 5am he called me in there because he was "all sweaty".. Lucy woke up after that squealing and wanting to play. After finally getting her back asleep, I accidentally overslept and woke up to Brodey covered in puke.
Me: "Brodey, when did you throw up??"
Brodey: "Last night"
Me: "You woke up, threw up and then went back to sleep??!"
Brodey: "Nope, I threw up before I went to sleep."
Me: "Was I sleeping???"
Brodey: "Nope, I could hear you guys talking"
Me: "????? Why didn't you yell for me??"
Brodey: "I did once but you didn't hear me so I went to sleep"
Me: "In your puke??!?!?!"
Brodey: "Nah.. I put my pillow pet over it."

Wow. And this was no small amount of vomit. I was all over him and on every pillow/stuffed animal/blanket and piece of bedding on that bed. Jeff checked on him before bed but I guess he couldn't smell it because Brodey was laying on top of it. Boys.

* Lyla was sitting across from Jeff the other night asking for some "ass cream". Over and over and over. Poor Jeff looked so upset and kept asking me why she was saying that. "Ass cream" to Lyla is "ICE cream" to the rest of us.

2011 should be a pretty exciting year for us! I can't wait!

Random things that still need to be documented :)

Every year we take the kids on a "tour of trees" to see every family members Christmas tree. I only had my camera for our stop.. but I'll get more pics from my sister from the other stops.

While making cookies one night Lyla was upset that I was too busy to paint her fingernails. I turned away from the oven for a second and found Jeff painting them! Daddy of the year.

This is our Elf. Brock affectionately named him "Mr. Hunkel" ?????? Brodey is a little freaked out by him and hides from him. Brock will sit in front of Mr. Hunkel all afternoon carrying on the funniest conversations. In particular I overheard him say, "Mr. Hunkel, will you please tell santa to put some candy in my "sock-ing", my mom ate all mine." :/

Again.. daddy of the year. All four in his lap is not an uncommon occurrence.

Lyla and I were baking cookies AND popping popcorn one morning.. she was so excited she found this little spot to sit and watch both! (I know.. very odd outfit)

Fun Friday

I'd been promising the boys we would play on their school playground one day after school. The weather was perfect on Friday, so the girls and I got out to pick them up and we had fun playing and I got a few cute pictures.

Brocky get's those little stickers for sharing or being nice to his friends.

Then we went home and had a few races while waiting on daddy to get home!

Brodey turns SIX!!

6 whole years old. We didn't have a party this year since it took ALL of our energy to plan the camping trip :), but he had a really fun day anyway... never even mentioned that he didn't have a party.
Aunt Lyndsay and I have a "porch mail" system.. if I have something I need to get to her I leave it on my porch and she swings by on her way to work and picks up.. and she leaves me all kinds of goodies out there. Sometimes almost EVERY day! On Brodey's birthday we opened the door and found this HUGE balloon tied to a box of blueberry muffins! His favorite! He even got to see Coop for a few minutes.

I love Lyla in this one. She has the best morning hair.

Brodey's birthday fell on a Wednesday this year so Brock, Lyla, Lucy and I brought cupcakes to school for his class. Brodey's teacher is FANTASTIC and made it a special day for him.

We had a baseball game that night so we brought a special treat for his teammates too. After the game we had dinner at Johnnie's Pizza then went home for MORE cupcakes!

We finally got everyone in bed around 9:30pm (super late bed time for kids in this house) when I realized I didn't take a birthday picture of him in front of the ruler! So we got him up and dressed for the picture. Some things can't wait for the next day. ;)

Happy Birthday Brodey! We are always so proud of you. You are so smart and so handsome and so much fun to be around! We all love you.

Camping 2010

For Brodey's 6th birthday ALL he wanted to do was go camping. Overnight. In a tent. And he wanted ALL of us to be there.

Uncle Myles knew the PERFECT spot to take us for the kids first camping experience. A place you can ONLY get to by boat. A few nights before our camping trip he went out there to scope out the spot.... and ended up almost sinking the boat when he hit a peninsula.. putting a HUGE whole in the bottom of the boat. Luckily he knows people and was able to get it fixed in time for Saturday.

We all met up at the lake early Saturday morning to set off on our adventure. First we loaded the boat with a few essentials... and Myles showed us his chipped tooth from his boating "indecent".

Luckily she was still able to float, even with all our gear and newly welded hull.

Myles and Jeff took all the "gear" out to the campsite while the rest of us waited at the marina.

Pile of "gear" at the campsite. My favorites are the 2 pizza boxes on top of the pile and the squished half roll of toilet paper in the middle.

We stayed ONE night.

The weather was beautiful and this campsite was AWESOME! The kids and dogs had a great time playing in the mud and swimming. (Swimming in October... GA weather is so weird.)

Lyla is suddenly afraid of dogs, so she had a few rough moments anytime one of them came near her... but for the most part I think she enjoyed her first camping trip.

Lyla definitely enjoyed fishing with Uncle Travis

Lucy.. 6 months old and camping in a tent! She was a trouper and a great camper.

Beautiful beautiful campsite

Happy 6th birthday big Brodey!

Dazed by the fire

Myles built this HUGE fire pit on a previous camping trip and was happy to see it was still there. Brodey's FAVORITE part of the trip was the huge fire they built in it.

Cooper, Brodey and Brock all shared this little blue tent. They had so much fun and did so great at night. None of them were scared. My favorite part of the trip was listening to the three of them laughing as they fell asleep AND when they woke up.

Little fire with the big fire in the background

We had SO MUCH fun... thanks Lyndsay, Travis, Cooper and Myles for making it so fun!