Day 31-Last Everyday pic! I made it!

For our last everyday pic, I thought I'd take shots of our goodnight prayer session. Unfortunately, Luke couldn't take part because of two temper tantrums nearly in a row and a fight with his sister. It was a long day with him, so while the other two were still taking baths, he was sent to bed all by himself and had to miss out on prayers and good night hugs. Usually, all three take turns and then there's a long round of hugs and kisses because each one has to hug each sibling and then me or Matt. And then they want another hug and kiss from me or Matt when we tuck them into their individual beds. I have to admit, this is one of my least favorite chores. That sounds awful doesn't it? But by the end of the day, I am tired, and any small request or dragging of the feet gets shot down pretty quick at bedtime. Bedtime takes us less than ten minutes. If Matt's home, he usually does it, thank heavens. He's way nicer than I am at the end of the day. I love the hugs and kisses part. It's the repeated "get your jammies on" and "brush your teeth" I don't like doing. And Elyse always tries to bargain for more reading time EVERY night and Paul has to stop me on my way out the door to ask some random question just to get me to stay longer. Sometimes, I think my kids are masters of torture. And then when I check on them sometimes in their sleep they look so sweet and innocent. Ha!

Day 30-Another Friday tradition

Besides being pizza night, Fridays we like to watch cartoons before bed. Today we were watching them a little earlier than usual. We push the ottomon up to the love seat and the four of us all fit smashed up together. With Matt, it gets a little too crowded, but he usually misses pizza night anyway because of work. I also like to cuddle up with the kids like this on Sundays and we watch slide shows of family pictures. This is also a view of my family room from the upstairs hallway/banister. It's raining today, so I brought in the outdoor slide, dried it off, and let the boys have some fun while Elyse was at school. Unfortunately, Luke fell off the top shortly after and cut his lip and underneath one of his eyes. Kids. It's like they think they're invincible or something.

Day #29--Whew we're almost to the end of the month!

Now that I'm winding down on this month of every day pics, I've been brainstorming trying to come up with things that really do happen everyday around here that I may have missed. Here's something that happens at our house every day there isn't snow on the ground:

my boys in the sand box. Paul especially cannot resist its pull. From now until the first real snow there will be sand in his bed, in the car, and tracked across my kitchen floor until I get around to sweeping.

Everyday pic #28: One of Paul's favorite pastimes

If Elyse is at school, and Luke's down for a nap, and I need an hour of alone time to get something done, all I have to do is hand Paul a toy catalogue and he'll leave me alone for the rest of the day. Almost alone. I get the occasional, "Mom, look at this. Mom, did you see this? I gotta have one of these." But other than that, the boy gets sucked right into the pages. He makes the toys talk to each other, and sometimes he fights with it, but mostly he turns the pages over and over again, making a mental list of everything he wants for his birthday or Christmas. He knows there's no point in asking for anything before those two days, but it doesn't stop this boy from dreaming. And when he's looked at it all, he starts over at the beginning--this can go on for a couple weeks with just one catalogue. So those annoying toy catalogues that come in the mail over and over again because I ordered something over the internet have come in handy.

When Matt's gone on a trip, I let the kids take turns sleeping in my bed. I took the Fisher Price catalogue from Paul's grip and told him it could wait until morning. Silly me for putting it so temptingly on the nightstand. I walked in thirty minutes later and found him like this. Ah, I love to see him hold still for a moment, but that little sneaky stinker!

Day 27-Luke turns 2!

Yesterday Luke turned 2! I took a ton of pictures with my camera and then after the party, Matt packed up to leave for D.C. for a medical conference and took my camera and memory card with him. Luckily, Elyse took a couple of pictures with her camera. Thanks, Lysee.

It's become a tradition to hang balloons and streamers from a doorway or off the banister and then the kids spend the rest of the day tangling them into one huge snarl. Second tradition: Cookie cake from Meijer. None of us really like cake, but we love chocolate cookies! We had cousins and aunts and uncles over for lunch and cake before Dad had to leave for the rest of the week. We planned on swimming in the kiddie pool, but after Memorial Day's lovely 79 degree weather, it dropped to 52 yesterday. The kids ended up beating up a parrot pinata for twenty minutes with pool noodles and a fake bat, and then we let Aunt Katie step in with a hiking sticking and she finished it off.

Two funnies from Paul

I forgot to add this to Sunday's post. Two funny things Paul said on Sunday: In primary in answer to the president's question "what are some of the things you pray for," Paul says as loud as he can "Sometimes I pray that my parents will be nice to me." Immediately all the adults look at me and laugh and I mumble something about praying for obedient children. After accidentally dropping a brick on his little cousin's toe at dinner: "Who knew a brick could hurt a baby?"

Day 26-Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day. Here we are with some of my in-laws outside grandpa's and great-grand parent's plots in the Mosaleum. I find these places really creepy. You walk in and instantly you feel chilled and clammy and as you walk down the halls you know you're surrounded by dead people. Ick. Our relations are tucked away down in the basement in the far wing, too. Who wants to be buried in a wall? Put me in the ground and let the green grass grow over me and the sun shine down upon me.

After putting flowers on a few graves (me and the kids made oragami and pipe cleaner flowers for just their great grandpas), we attended a ward picnic for almost three hours. The wind blew all five of our paper plates right over, even with the food on, but the kids didn't really care. Then they played on the play ground and watched Matt play tennis. I didn't get to talk to very many people as I was chasing down Luke the entire time. Well, no, a ten year old was playing with him, so I was watching the ten year old watch the two year old. She's good with him, but still learning.

Me and the kids came home and played in our kiddie pool for a couple hours. I thought it was late enough in the day that I wouldn't have to put more sunscreen on them. Big mistake. Paul's back is as hot and red as my stove top set on high. Poor kid. Elyse didn't get it as bad and Luke nothing at all, thanks to him napping through most of it. After we dried off a couple of my sisters-in-law and one brother-in-law came over for dinner and games on the Wii before the kids had to be tucked into bed. All in all, a nice day. A taste of summer. Only two more weeks of school! I can make it!

Day 25-Sunday's challenge

Sunday has a lot of challenges and this is only one of them: staying awake on the car ride home. Church begins at 10AM here, so it disrupts both the morning and the afternoon nap schedule. Now that Luke's down to one nap, it isn't so bad, but as a little baby it was terrible. He'd be grouchy all three hours at church and fall asleep the last five minutes of Relief Society. Now he makes it through church with a little more cheer, but the car ride home gets him about half the time. The trouble is, he goes down for a nap late and it doesn't matter how short the nap is, he has a hard time going to sleep that night. It's a toss up on whether I want a grouchy boy from 1pm to bedtime, or a rambuncious boy locked in his crib from 7:30 to 10:30pm. Looks like we get rambuncsious(sp?) boy tonight. Hurray for no school tomorrow and we all get to sleep in.

On another note...I know it's another picture of Luke. Matt says I'm making up for his being a third child and not having as many pictures taken of him as a baby as the other two had.

Day 24-Luke's two year pics

Every time one of my kids' birthday rolls around, we have a picture day. We go to a park or walk around the neighborhood and I take around fifty pics of them to get just a couple of decent ones and then choose a finalist to hang on the wall for the year. Now that Elyse is getting older we really make a day of it: pick an outfit, do her hair, and go out to eat afterward. Luke's still so little he doesn't know what's going on, so I followed him around the backyard while he played(He turns two on Tuesday. I can hardly believe it). He got tired of hearing his name called over and over. Peek a boo worked great for some of the pictures, as did getting him to run toward me to tickle me. Although not an everyday pic, this will have to do for today. These are my favorites and I'm having a hard time choosing a finalist. Which one would you choose?

Day 23

Paul graduated from preschool on Friday.

Day 22-Monkey Girl

Elyse loves to climb. She comes home from school, eats her snack, does her homework, and climbs a tree. It's become part of the routine. If a tree isn't handy, say at a park, she likes to climb the OUTSIDE of the play equipment and then swing across the monkey bars.

In this sequence of pictures, she makes it to the top and blows on our clutz trophy. One day the kids seemed to be hurting themselves a lot and crying buckets over the littlest things. So anytime anyone stubbed a toe and started gushing, I awarded them the clutz trophy and told them that winners get to blow their guts out. I don't know which I preferred the crying or the shrieking whistle. But when they were finally winded everyone was laughing. The clutz trophy now resides in the tree and whenever I hear a whistle I know where Elyse is.

Day 21 Cougar's Dad

Our photo history would not be complete if I didn't add a pic of cougar and his dad. Paul is actually father to twin cougars. We bought him one when he was two and he's been sleeping with him ever since. The twin came along about nine months later when we realized that if we ever lost cougar 1 we'd be up a creek in salty tears from a little boy. Paul sleeps with both, tucks them in for naps when he goes to school, and throws them around the house during the day. Today I caught him biting one and shaking it back and forth. "I'm giving him shots," Paul said.

While my children are pretty imaginative, they have shown a complete lack of creativity when naming their animals. Cougar is "cougar." And Elyse's panda is "Panda." And there's no talking either of them out of it. I should get a picture of Elyse and panda. Talk about tears if we can't find panda at bed time. We're on panda number two. Panda one went for a bath in the washing machine and came out with shrunken and warped fur. I should get a second back up. I'm afraid panda's ears are going to fall off soon. Elyse sucks on them. It's disgusting.

Day 20-Grocery shopping day

Tuesdays at our house is grocery shopping day. I load the boys into the minivan and head on over to my favorite grocery store in the whole wide world: Meijer. Don't get the impression, though, that I like this weekly chore. We go with a list and a plan so that we can get in and out as quickly as possible. I like Meijer because they have great sales, a cheap Meijer brand, WONDERAFULLY fresh produce, and kids clothes for very cheap if you wait for the end of season sales. I lived off those sales when we were students. 75% off would usually get me a shirt for a dollar and pants for two. I strap the boys into the double seater carts they have and away we go. You can just forget about trying to turn around in an aisle with one of these babies, they're enormously long and we usually crash into somebody once a week. At the end of the hour, if the boys have been good (and they usuualy are), they get to ride Sandy, the 1 cent pony ride. She's been running since the fifties I think. It's amazing that for one penny I can bribe my boys to behave. Paul usually brings along one toy with him (the army guy in the basket), and he gets to pick out the weekly snack, which he then cluthes protectively until we reach the check out.

Day 19: Kids at the wheel

If I don't pick up Luke the moment I unbuckle him from his car seat, he makes a bee line to the driver's seat and pretends to drive the car. Today I showed him and Elyse how to honk the horn. Now why did I do that? Do I enjoy adding more noise to my life? After this shot Elyse started honking the horn by smashing her head against the steering wheel. Luke thought that was pretty funny.

Day 17 and 18

Day 18: Here's Luke's annoyed face. He was trying to tell me something and I wasn't listening. After this look comes the incessant "Mom" wail. He didn't want me to take this picture.

Day 17: Every so often we like to turn on music and dance like boogie fools around the living room. Here's Paul gettin' his groove on to Veggie Tales. Laurie Berkner is our other favorite.

Day #16: Clean for a day

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we are spring cleaning this week. I know we're supposed to post everyday pics this month, but I had to record this once a year moment when the kids' room are devoid of paper and junk and the walls are free of snot and scuff marks. Usually Elyse's one long wall is covered with her home art projects and notes from friends. We take them off about once a month and it usually takes another month to fill the whole wall up again(this last time she even had paper towel stars on her ceiling). It's a very tearful day each year when we go through old clothes and toys and decide what to throw away and what to give to good will. Elyse wants to cling to everything; she's a pack rat! Paul is quite easy to convince, on the other hand, and will even throw the good stuff away unless I stop him. Maybe that's why his room is so much easier to do. Luke's moving into a big boy bed next month and the boys' room is going to be very crowded with another bed in there!

Day #15-Half way there!

I walked into the kitchen today to find a bubble volcano going off on the counter. Needless to say it ran onto the floor, but at least the kids were considerate enough to put a towel under it.

Day #14-Captain Paul with his telescope

Okay, this made me laugh so hard today. It's spring cleaning time this week and while I was busy cleaning out some bathroom stuff, Luke found a tampon and pulled the stuffing out of it and left it on the floor. Paul comes along and exclaims, "Wow, a telescope!" Hey, why not? It's compact, collapsable, and if you happen to get mortally wounded in battle, the stuffing will stop the bleeding until you can get to the hospital. Paul's been playing with it ALL day.

Day #13-Scary Scary Self Pic

Okay, this picture has made me realize a couple of things: 1. I don't look like I'm twenty-something anymore. My freckles are spreading as they fade, making me look undeniably older. 2. It's time to get back on the diet. 3. I need more sleep to get rid of those bags under my eyes. 4. The pig tails I've been wearing since winter started dragging and I stopped doing my hair make me look bald (adding yet more to my age).

BUT on the bright side: look at those perfect teeth. I hate to brag (okay, I don't mind bragging once in a while), those babies never had braces. And my complexion isn't too bad considering I'm thirty now. I must say that God has compensated me for my food weakness (aka addiction).

Me and the kids were being silly and I was snapping some pictures of us at arm's length. This was, believe it or not, the best of the bunch. I love the looks on their faces. This sums up my life: squashed on all sides by kids and goofiness. It only needed one child in the background crying to complete it. Which reminds me, I should get a crying shot since that happens like everyday with these kiddies.

Day #12-Jumping from the stairs

My stairs have a thin lip on the outside of the bannister that my kids like to climb up and jump from. One day I walked into the room and Paul and Elyse had dragged a baby mattress beneath the stairs, placed a toy on one end and jumped onto the other to watch the toy fly. Next time I walked by, I saw Luke perched on the edge of the mattress and Elyse on the highest stair ready to jump. Before freaking out, I asked what they were doing and they reassured me Luke liked it. Elyse jumped and Luke was bumped backwards onto the floor and everyone had a fit of giggles, including Luke. It's become a favorite game at our house. I hid the baby mattress, though, and now they like to stack all the TV quilts in one big pile to jump on. Here Elyse is doing her walking on air pose. I kept trying to get a landing shot with her hair still high above her, but couldn't get it.

Day #10 and #11

May 11th: Here is something that happens every day at our house: Luke standing up in his high chair. Alas, amish made furniture does not come with safety restraints and he's gotten into a bad habit of standing up during meals, especially when he thinks he should be done. "Sit down, Luke" is frequently heard among the other usual phrases of "pass the water, please" and "I don't like this stuff." I finally yanked a belt of an old highchair we have in the basement and tied it around this one, but I frequently forget to belt him in.

May 10th: The Saturday Soak. Every Saturday the boys splash around in the tub together, so I thought this would make a good every day pic. I couldn't get one with Paul's eyes open and I loved Luke sucking on the water sprayer.

Day #9-Pizza Night

Friday night is pizza night at our house. We throw down the old TV blanket and eat cardboard pizza and watch cartoons for about an hour and a half. Paul usually gets too absorbed in the shows and forgets to eat (as you can tell in the picture).

Day #8

This is my favorite tree in our yard during the spring. And that's Luke in front of it. He saw the camera and wanted to be part of the shot.

Day #7--A New Mailbox

Our old mailbox bit the dust. After the excessive snow this winter and the snow plows pushing too much snow too far, it was going to fall over with the next stiff breeze. So the kids helped Matt pour a new cement slab today for a brand new mailbox. The lines at the bottom are our fingers. The mailbox is going to cover up the rest, but it will be a nice time capsule for whoever replaces this one.

Tonight my daughter dropped a half cup of carrot soup exactly right (or absolutely wrong) to make it splatter from wall to wall on the floor and also on the ceiling. A half a cup! It looks like we might have to repaint the ceiling over the table. Hopefully touch ups will blend in and we won't have to do the whole thing!

May 6th-Car Pool

There's a lady in my ward I car pool with in the afternoons. She's not exactly close to my house, but she's the only parent I know really well and I like my kids hanging around other Mormons when we get the chance. It's my week to drive and here's a look at my group. Sometimes it's a challenge getting us all to the car because I have a couple of stragglers. Me and Luke spend a lot of time in the car between taking Elyse to school every day, and Paul to his preschool and home 3 times a week, and then every other week, taking this lot home. He's a pretty good sport about it and so is Paul. I can't wait for middle school when all my kids can take the bus. If Elyse took the bus now she'd ride with High Schoolers to the High School and then have to change busses on her own to get to her school. I don't think I feel good about that and neither do most of the parents. I think a total of 10 kids take the bus at Elyse's school. Interpretation: the parking lots are packed with minivans and it's crazy busy at drop off and pick up times. The girl on the front Right, Samantha, loves to dawdle in the halls and takes FOREVER to come out, but on the flip side the parking lot is nearly empty by then and I don't have to worry about making a 15 point turn out of the too tiny parking spaces to avoid the behemoth vehicles around me. The boy next to her is Ben and he loves to talk and play with Luke on the way home. It's funny listening to the girls chat about school--they say the silliest things. And they are forever comparing! My lands, was I like that as a kid? The boys hardly say anything, unless they want to show the other one a sword or gun or action figure or something.

May 5th

I chose two pics today--I know it's supposed to be just one, but I couldn't make up my mind. The first one is Luke after helping me make cookies for a funeral this morning. I know I already posted one of him on the counter, but this kid really helps me cook every day. The second one is Elyse and Paul goofing around on our slide (and one their friends, Megan). They were making tunnels for the person at the top of the slide to go under, and then that kid would make a tunnel and the one at the top would slide down.

May 4th

Papa bought the kids a bucket full of craft supplies last month. I've just left it on the kitchen desk and the kids help themselves to it whenever they want. I used to think we had to plan crafts out and make something worthwhile since we were spending money on it. But since someone else paid for it, I let them destroy or create as much as they want and it's been a lot more fun for all of us. Here the kids are trying to make fans out of popcycle sticks.

May 3rd

Last night we helped Gramma Sue and Papa pick out a puppy. The kids had a ball holding different puppies at the store and poking their fingers in the kitten cage. Elyse wanted to go to Papa's house and make it a bed and read it a bed time story before we went home. The puppy made an unexpected visit to our house this morning before we were all ready for the day. So here's Elyse in her jammies and Luke half dressed trying to call the puppy to them.

May 2nd

It rained today. FINALLY! The kids tore outside at the first sign of a storm and gathered the first drops with their tongues. Then they ran around like crazy on the driveway and dead-end street. Soon we had neighborhood kids over in the street riding scooters and trying to fly kites in the rain. I love living on a dead-end. It's a great gathering place for friends and I don't have to worry about the kids getting flattened.

Pic of May 1st

My friend Ari challenged the readers of her family blog to take a picture every day in May and post them. Just to show the every day stuff that goes on in your house. So here's our pic for today (I got it early in the morning so I wouldn't forget to do it--especially on the first day).

We have pancakes or waffles for breakfast three to four times a week. Whenever I'm cooking, Luke thinks he has to be sitting on the counter helping me make it. We spill a lot of flour and sugar when he's helping out. We turned today's pancakes into pumpkin cakes. Take your regular pancake recipe, cut the oil by half and add 1/2 C canned pumpkin and either cinnamon and nutmeg or some pumpkin pie spice. They turn out a funny shade of yellowy orange, but they taste pretty good. Not too pumpkiny.

Luke also has a new word this week, so I posted a short video of it.

Baby Acres

Yesterday, Paul had a field trip to Le Cronier's Baby Acres, where he got to feed goats and sheep and hold little baby animals. Out of the chick, bunny, kid, lamb, and kitten, can you guess his favorite? Yup, the baby kitten--the one you can find anywhere in the suburbs. Come on, what about that baby bunny? That thing was the softest animal in the world. The baby goats cracked me up. Eight days old and they were jumping all over their mother, standing on her back, frolicking around the pen, and jumping off anything above the ground they could reach. After about twenty minutes of play, one kid just totally crashed and fell asleep on a ledge with its head hanging over the side. The farmers gave everyone a cup of food, herded us into an enclosure, and then opened the animal pen. Twenty or so goats and sheep charged us. Surprisingly, all the preschoolers held their ground and nobody cried.