ZZZZZzzzzzzz....

When we got home from our trip to Idaho this summer, we put Ivy on the bottom of a bunk bed. For some reason, she doesn't like it there. Without fail, she will get out of bed, quietly close the door part way and then zonks out behind the door. I've tried everything to keep her in the bed, but she is not interested. Finally I thought I would cave and make up a little bed for her behind the door. That way it would be softer than carpet. But she pushed all that out of the way to pass out on the ground. The only thing allowed in her secret spot is the garbage can...luckily it isn't stinky!

Back to School

It is that time of year again and it is so nice that Porter and Eva are in school. Porter is starting 2nd grade and Eva is starting kindergarten. Ivy THINKS she's heading to college.



I thought I would love having them gone all day, but I am realizing that suddenly I have to do all of the entertaining for Ivy. It's been a bit of an adjustment getting use to spending all of my time just with her! She is quite determined to dress herself in Porter and Eva's clothes and feels like a Diva the entire day. When someone is this proud of an outfit, it's tough to take it off her...that and she is amazing at fit throwing!

Speaking of Divas....Here is our beautiful Eva all dolled-up for church. Who would have ever suspected this little angel of causing waves at school?! The second day of school I got a call from her teacher, Ms. Williams. The class was given the assignment of "drawing safety". Eva got confused and didn't know what to draw. After a good ten minutes of her teacher working with her, Eva got so mad she stood up, put her hands in fists and yelled, "I'M NOT HAVING FUN!!" She was sent to the hall where she broke down into tears. The teacher came in the hall to see if "she was ready to draw the assignment." Eva glared at her, drew a face on the page, crumpled it up, threw it at her teacher, and yelled "THERE! YA HAPPY?!?" We worked with both Eva and her teacher to help them both understand each other and now they are doing great!

Playing "Catch Up"

Ivy loves her bath time! Anytime she hears the shower or bath she strips off her diaper and hopes in before you have ten seconds to stop her.



Ivy's favorite pair of shoes are Porter's flip flops. She wears them all over the house. We finally found a pair of flip flops in her size without the strap on back and she is giddy. Even with little blisters between her toes, she refuses to have them off even for a diaper change!



Snickers has certainly fit into our household like a dream. He is so sweet and perfect for the kids. He has started barking a lot in the morning, so I am thinking of investing in a shock collar. It sounds mean I know, but at 5:00 am, a shock collar will be a lot more humane than a swift kick in the @$%!!


At Mom and Dad's this summer, Brent mentioned he was going to put up some pics of kids brushing their teeth. So I thought I'd send some of our kiddos.

Happy Halloween

We had a lot of fun for Halloween this year. We have Porter as Batman, Eva as a Fairy Princess (the wings bothered her so she didn't wear them after all), and Ivy was a Kitty without any ears. We went Trick or Treating around the neighborhood for about an hour and then hit the ward Truck or Treat. This is the first one that I've ever been to. It was suprisingly a lot of fun. The parents all dressed up as well as their kids. It made it so fun to go around and see all of our friends. I think you can tell a lot of about someone's "hidden" personality by what they dress up as for Halloween.

I don't know what that says for me and Dave. Well, we all know that I have a Dark Fairy side. Dave on the other hand is going through an identity crisis. He originally started as the Grim Reaper; then he stole Porter's batwings b/c they pop open super cool, so he threw that on too and called himself a bat. At the party we went to after the kids were in bed, he got voted as having the best costume...from the old movie of "Powder". I was such a proud Dark Fairy...

Porter's Pet Egg

For some reason Porter loves eggs. He mostly just loves to eat them and get them out of the fridge to help make breakfast. Then suddenly we'd catch him carrying around eggs. The boiled ones weren't so bad, but the raw ones always make me nervous. Come to find out, he thinks that they have baby dinosaurs in them, and if he takes care of it the egg will crack and he will have his own dinosaur....I'm not quite sure how to reply to that...I definitely don't want to ruin his dreams! Who knows, we may have a paleontologist on our hands!!

Eva's Outfits

Eva is very particular about the clothes she wears. I finally gave up trying to get her dressed in the morning. The fits and the tears just weren't worth it. I decided I was just going to take pictures of her favorite outfits for when she's 14ish and then I'll make a huge collage and put it on the living room wall. bwahahaha. I guess that's why you never fight with a Mom...they have the "eternal view" on things and can wait for their revenge.

Eva's Kitty Face

I think it's too bad that kids only get to have fun faces at Halloween. So every-so-often I will put a kitty face on Eva with my eyeliner, and she will have so much fun the whole day.

Porter's Spiderman Party

So we had Porter's birthday party today....so much learned in such a short period of time...where to begin....

So I had spent the week with a burst eardrum and hadn't done any cleaning or grooming of the yard, which turns out to be a good thing...Eva started throwing up last night...Dave assured me that it was just too many chips and not the flu so we didn't need to cancel the b-day party or notify the parents. I spent the rest of the night comforting Eva b/c her ears hurt. So didn't start this morning with a lot of sleep. The positive side is that I did start it with a lot of Vicaden in my system which made the day that much easier to bear.

Porter's b-day party was themed as "Spiderman". Lesson number 1 for the day is that themed b-day parties are expensive to host. This is b/c it is a slippery slope to get everything Spiderman when a generic item will do. Initially it was just going to be napkins and cups, but then the cake was so cool, and you HAVE to have the Spiderman balloons to put outside so everyone knows where to come, and spiderman wrapping paper is a must have if you're hosting, then you have to have gift bags for everyone who comes and those have to be spiderman as well....needless to say he had the COOLEST party EVER...I'm just not hunting up any receipts to figure out how much this ding dang party cost!

At 11:00 all the kids showed up on time. Now I still attend parties w/my kids when I've never met the family, but it seems that I am the only parent that does so. Everyone dropped off their kids and ran. Which left me and Dave with 15 kids ranging from the ages of 4 to 7 an infant (Ivy) and a little girl with earaches and possibly the flu (Eva). Good thing I had that Vicaden....perhaps one more would help maybe this time followed by a vodka chaser...?....

I figured the kids could jump on the tramp and then I filled up the wade pool on a whim. I don't know what I thought they were going to do in the wade pool....but for some stupid reason I didn't think they would all jump in it fully clothed. The little girls with their curled hair, cute outfits, and ribbons were soaked before their parents left the driveway. Hmmm....perhaps that Vicaden was inhibiting my thought process after all....nawhhhh....it was a brilliant idea. Serves those parents right for ditching their kids at the door and running off.

The rest of the party was spent playing on the tramp, yelling that it was too slippery, and swimming underwater in the wade pool. I did try to put together a party game, but the kids were less than impressed so I just grabbed a Diet Coke, sat back and made sure that no one fell of the tramp (which they didn't thank goodness) and that no one got held underwater in the wade pool for too long.

Instead of icecream I did Popsicles and the amazing spiderman cake that I got the kids ate two bites of and then threw away. Why do we even bother with cake anyway? I don't know that anyone really likes it. They LOVED the Popsicles though. The little spiderman goodies bags were a bigger hit than pretty much anything, so that made me happy. Who knew that a bouncy ball and a pencil sharpener could be such a hit?

In the end the kids had a BLAST....it really was the best birthday party ever and funny enough the kids weren't blown away by all the spiderman paraphernalia....I don't think they even noticed. I guess when you have a tramp and a wade pool spiderman looses some of his glamor.

Once we got home, we spent a good chunk of time running around the house trying Porter's new walkie-talkies and web slinger (glorified rubber-band flipper). He hasn't gotten around to getting pumped about any of the rest of his presents yet. We're letting him take his time.

Needless to say, regardless of how much Vicaden I pop, it's gonna take me a couple of days to recover from this two hour b-day party.

We wish you all could have made it to the party for no other reason than to mock me and laugh at me running around like crazy.

April 2008 JCPenny Pics

Meeting Ivy

Meeting Ivy for the first time was very exciting for some and scary for others. Porter knew just what to do and was more than ready to hold the baby sister he had been talking to for the last 9 months. Eva was more than a little nervous. She was VERY scared to touch her or anything!!!