Clean up, Clean up, Everybody Everywhere....

Now that you have that annoying song stuck in your head.......I often assign tasks to the kids., pick up all the shoes, take the toys back upstairs, get all your dirty clothes to the laundry room, and so on. So today, I asked the boys to get the downstairs picked up. No one moved. I asked again, no one moved. So I started to assign "jobs" as they call it. Then, I had a brilliant idea (they hate it when this happens:) I assigned them each an area of the house to get picked up. Chase got the office (mine, not Tony's...just to clarify) and the steps, Ethan got the downstairs and Blake the upstairs. Chase wasn't in there 2 minutes and he comes to tell me, "mom, it really isn't my responsibility to clean up your office you know." Really? Well, it is my responsibility to make sure you know how to clean up so your wife...he interupts me, "you mean Lola?"....yes Chase, whoever you marry...."well, Lola dosen't even care about cleaning up" .....well son, I do and she will so you are going to be responsible for cleaning the office (picking up crayons, coloring books, books, shoes, trash, toys, etc) and making sure there isn't anything on the stairs. He leaves and I notice Ethan isn't down here picking up. So I call him down. He said he is through picking up. Really? I still see toys, shoes, plates on the table..."oh, that's not mine those are Dad's shoes and Chasey was playing with those blocks, and.." Wait one minute, you are responsible for the downstairs, so anything down here is your responsibilty. He gets to picking up the others' messes. I go upstairs to check on Blake and find that the stiars are littered with dirty clothes, towels, etc and I call for Chase to get the stairs cleaned up. "But mom, I already did clean off the stairs." Well, there is more stuff on them. "Hey guys, who threw all this stuff on the stairs??" Of course he gets no answer so he gets to picking up all the dirty laundry and when he comes back there are more toys on the steps. He was livid. Blake is cleaning the upstiars and tossing down dirty laundry and Ethan is cleaning up the downstairs and putting toys and shoes on the stairs to go up. Finally Chase yells "HEY EVERYONE.....THE STAIRS ARE OFF LIMITS!!! NO ONE PUT ANYTHING ON THE STEPS ANYMORE!" I think we may be onto something here folks.........

Just Another Day at the Park

I know this blog is very neglected, but I am very busy. I have considered deleting it, but it's days like today that I am thankful it is still up and running. Rena' and I decided to take the 8 kids to Hawaiin Falls. I corralled my 4 in a confined area until Rena' and the girls arrived. As soon as they got there, Brooke wanted to go to the Pineapple Express. So off they went, Brooke,Tara, Ethan, Blake and Lizzie. Fifteen minutes later Blake comes running back with Tara, Brooke, and Lizzie close behind, "Mom, Can you come get Ethan?"
"Where is he?"
"He fell down getting off the Pineapple Express."
"He fell down? And you left him there? Is he OK?"
"No, I mean yeah......you just need to go...."
As Rena and I are trying to figure out what is going on, we notice a lifeguard headed our way. "Ethan fell and hurt his chin, he was trying to run to get you but my manager scooped him up and took him to the First Aid center." As we are making our way over there she explains further, "The guard at the slide said he fell off his mat and hit his chin. When he got up, he said he was fine and just grabbed his chin. The guard saw that he was bleeding and got on the radio. Our manager was right there and said that when Ethan saw that he was bleeding and that everyone was looking at him he got sort of angry and started running." That's my Finn, for years all we heard was "I don't want anyone looking at me." I get to the First Aid station to find Ethan and a crowd of management. "I think he's going to need some stitches, Mom," the friendly EMT said. He pulls back the gauze and it was only the second time I have ever seen blood that dark, click here to read about the first. His chin was split wide open. They held gauze on it and surprisingly the bleeding stopped. I called Tony, did my best to explain what was going on, and we decided that if the bleeding was stopping that he didn't have to go get stitched up. The EMT said that he could try steri-strips if we weren't going to get stitches. It was obviously going to need something to keep it closed. They laid Ethan down, tilted his head back and started applying the "glue" that holds the steri strips in place. Then, they closed his gash up and put some neosporin on but said he was going to need to keep it dry. Seriously? Ethan took it like a champ but was so bummed. Then I remembered that I had some waterproof band-aids in my bag. Darien got him all sealed up and we were off. E had to stay completely dry for an hour (a big thanks to Aunt Rena for letting him play Angry Birds) and then he was free to play as long as he didn't put his chin in the water. The first place he went was over to the wave pool to see Amy, his little DJ friend that gives him a free shaved ice coupon every time he dances the Macarena. She had seen him getting carried to the First Aid shack and told him she would do the Macarena in 5 minutes for him. So he gets his coupon (and so did Cami.....she stole the show) gets himself his free snow cone. While he is waiting, he tells me he'll be right back. He runs over to the First Aid station and gives the EMT a big hug and tells him "thank you for getting my chin all bandaged up without stitches." Sweet boy.
After the cold treats, E and the girls wanted to go on th big blue and green slides. So, we start putting shoes on and.....Chase steps on a bee. I don't think I have ever heard him screm like that. People were staring at him...and at me as I am running him to the First Aid station. I don't know what in the world they put on his foot but he stopped crying and was even laughing within seconds. (Maybe I will have my head on straight next week and I can ask what it was, it definitely worked fast.) Hopefully next week will be a little less exciting. On a positive note, Ethan's chin is not oozing or bleeding and I did not pass out this time.

Sorry there are not pics to accompany this "fun" post. I will try and get the pic I took with Renas phone as E was getting bandaged up.

Would you like fries with that??

So, usually when someone says "would you like fries with that?" it's just a way of saying "hey, I am not here to give you whatever you want. But, when it comes to Cami and Papa this is not the case. Papa loves his "Camarooski" and she loves her Papa. Don't get me wrong, he loves the boys too but he and Cami have a very special bond. It is a bit nausiating at times the way they carry on, especially when I remember this same man being, well....not so giddy. My dad is a tough guy, he's always been that way. He dosen't (well, didn't) talk baby talk. He dosen't coddle or pamper. What you see is what you get. All of that goes by the wayside when he is with my daughter. He is a completely different person...baby talk, coddling, all of it. He can not tell her "no." He has tried, and failed. She has him wrapped around her little finger. So when I mentioned in casual conversation that Cami really likes cows, I should have seen it coming.

Papa (to Cami)- You want Papa to buy you a cow, baby?
Cami- Ye-ah
Papa- Well what kind of cow do you want? Do you want a boy cow or a girl cow?
Cami- Boy cow.
Papa- Do you want a brown cow or a black cow?
Cami-Hmmmmm......black cow.
Papa- Ok, you want Papa to buy you a black boy cow. Papa will get you a black boy cow. Do you want a goat or a donkey to go with your little black boy cow?
Cami- Ummm, ye-ah. Me want a "gonkey."

This conversation has been repeated with the same results every time. She wants a black boy cow and a gonkey. She asks him almost daily about the status of her black boy cow (and sometimes the donkey.) In a later conversation, Papa asked her where she was going to keep it and when and how she was going to feed it. Her reply? Papa feed my black boy cow me. Of course Papa said "Ok baby, Papa will feed your baby cow for you." I don't know what we are going to do with these two. I do know this, they can never go to the livestock auction unattended!! Papa came by last week and brought a magazine he picked up at the feed store. He sat down with Cami and let her pick out exactly which blak cow she wanted.

Musical Beds

Most days I can not figure out why we moved to a bigger house. Don't get me wrong, I think it is sweet that my babies all want to sleep together. I know that if they had no choice but to sleep together they wouldn't want to. Cami has her own room and so does Blake and then Chase and Ethan have bunk beds. When school started back in August, we unbunked the bunk beds so I could get Ethan up for school without disturbing Chase. That started the bed sharing frenzy. Chase and Ethan started sleeping on the same twin size bed (they put their heads at opposite ends of the bed.) Then Blake decided he didn't want to be all alone so he slept on the other bunk bed. Now that Cami is out of her crib, she wants Chase to sleep with her in her room. Ethan and Blake moved into Blake's room to have a bigger bed. Some mornings we go to get boys up for school and have to search to find where they are (they have been known to bed hop after we get them all tucked it at night.) One nice thing is that it keeps them upstairs. Occasionally we'll get Cami or Chase in bed with us but that's prefectly fine with me. I love my little cuddle buddies.

Let's try this again.....

Several people have asked me why I don't blog anymore. There is one reason and one reason only......well, maybe two....Cami and Facebook. Cami is not like the boys in the sense that she is always right where I am (unless of course she ventures off to make a little mess for mommy to find later.) She does not go upstairs and play like the boys did at her age. If I sit down at the computer, she climbs up in the chair behind me or sits in my lap. Do you have any idea how hard it is to type with a two year old in your lap or on your back? That is where Facebook comes in. If I can sneak to the computer undetected for a minute I can drop a quick sentence and get out before she finds me! The only bad thing is that I am not keeping any written record of all the funny things the kids say and do on a daily basis and let's face it, my memory isn't getting any better. Tony and I are constantly asking each other "which one of the kids was it that said that or used to do that, etc." I don't journal or scrapbook, heck I don't even update the baby books! So I have decided to try to get this blog up and going again. And just for the record, I am not going to try and back track over the past 13 months because I know me and I know that I can't remember what happened last month much less last year.

Record Snow in Texas!!

So everyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE snow. It is so beautiful. My biggest complaint about Texas (well, other than the fact that it is hotter than heck from May-October) is that we rarely see any snow, well I guess you can say this was the best Texas weather I have ever experienced. I am really proud of the local schools for staying open, very un-Texas like!! Usually if anyone in a 10 minle radius has seen a flake, all of the schools shut down. The snow was unbelievable!! The kids were super excited, it was also Valentine Party Day. It was a bit disappointing that it didn't really stick around. It all melted so fast. But, we enjoyed it while it lasted.

Top: Thursday morning, about 9:00, before the boys went to school.

Bottom: Ethan and Allie at their party.

Top: Cami was SO excited to be a part of E's party.
Bottom: E took a picture of Momy and "The Wamster"

Ethan and Chase ready to play in the snow. This was around 5:00 Thursday afternoon. The snow was starting to cover the driveways and really accumulate on the grassy areas.

Top: View from Blake's bedroom window Friday morning....over a foot of snow!!
Bottom: Front of the house Friday morning, it had already started melting:(

It's hard to tell in this pic, but we had 12.5 inches.

Chase was so excited to go play. He ran out the front door and got stuck, turned around and fell down. Poor little guy couldn't stay vertical!!

Tony hooked up the 4wheeler and make a redneck sled out of an old table, some scrap wood, a chain and a Rubbermaid lid. It was awesome, Blake had a blast riding on it. I will try to post some of those pics soon!!

Summer has begun!!

So, obviously this is a catch up post. These are pictures from last June. We probably only went out on the boat 3 or 4 times, if that. It just gets too hot and the lake water is just nasty when it is 100+ degrees out. The boys had a blast and Cami didn't seem to mind at all!!

Top: Cami ready for her first boat ride

Bottom: Chasey LOVING being on the lake

Top: Cami all ready to go!! We did this with Chase too. Tony and I have to keep our feet on the bouncy seat frame to keep it from going bonkers. Because the boat is small, the waves can sometimes be a little rough so the bouncy keeps them from being jarred around too much.

Bottom: Cruising the lake

And here is Chase, not loving the fact that it is time to go home. Classic.

Aloha!

Well, 6 months ago we took a little trip....and I am just now posting the pictures. This, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg. We had the Papa-razzi with us so there are 100s of pictures!! Blogger is slow, so here are 10. I can't believe it has alreay been 6 months. We had a great time, even if everything didn't go as planned.....thank goodness everything didn't go as planned!!

Chase, Ethan and Blake with their ukeleles

Camster jumping in her doorway jumper (she LOVED this thing, and it was a life saver)

Wait..what's that on the floor...and on her feet...and down her leg??? She pulled that stunt twice while we were there. Nice.

Napping on the lanai with Daddy.

Cami's first taste of ice cream, Lapperts Whitle Chocolate Macadamia Nut....yummo!

Chasey is ready to go to Mahalapeu!!

Chase and Papa at the beach.

and when it's nap time, it's nap time, no matter where you are!!

Cami napping under the trees at Mahalapeu

Blake at Poipu Beach

Who forgot the Dr Pepper?? Guess I am just going to settle for this Coca-Cola (aka Tota Towa) that Aunt Amy has here for me, she won't mind if I take a little sip

gulp, gulp

All of the boys are ready to go back, especially Ethan. They had the best time. We were there for 2 weeks and it was so relaxing. Yes, it was relaxing, even with 4 kids. More Hawaii pics to come......

The face!!

Now you see where Cami gets it??

Happy Birthday Cami!!

I have totally and completely neglected this poor blog for almost 5 months and am catching some grief, so here you go!! I am going to attempt to get caught up, so we'll start with the most recent. And yes, I do realize that I have missed Blake and Chase's birthdays as well....I'm getting to that!!

First of all let me just say that I can NOT believe that a year has passed since we got the biggest shock of our lives. I will always remember Tony saying, "It looks like another b...IT"S A GIRL!!!" There are days that I still can't believe it. I was absolutely convinced that I was having another boy. After the initial shock wore off, we did start dressing her in pink and putting big bows on her bald head. Her brothers, especially the younger two, insist on her wearing a bow all the time, it's really kind of funny. For the longest time she kept them on, but now she will fling them off...anything to make the brothers laugh. She absolutely adores her big brothers. Blake is very good about watching out for her. She loves to be with them, up in the gameroom, on the trampoline, wherever they are she wants to be a part of it and they wouldn't have it any other way. Ethan and Chase were so excited when she started standing. I remember them playing in the gameroom and Chase said, "OH NO!! OH NO!!" Ethan tells him, "I'll go get mom." Here he comes down the stairs, "Mom, Mom, we are going to need some help up here, Cami is standing up all by herself!! She mastered climbing up the stairs when she was 9 months old and is now a pro at coming back down. She loves her Daddy and calls for him all day long, all the while Chase and Ethan are telling me that she wants ther Daddy as if I don't hear her. She is a very busy little girl for sure. Blake and Ethan were walking at a year, Chase at 14 months, but not baby sister. She took her first steps at 10 months and was walking by 11 months. Although we did not have a huge first birthday bash, we did celebrate with family. It was perfect. We went to eat dinner at Olive Garden, had some desert and opened some presents. Here a few pics from her special day.....

Top: Love this face!! And yes, you have seen this face before....Chase was always making squishy faces.

Bottom: I know the quality is bad and my finger is in the way, but just as they were bringing her cake out, she reached up and flung her bow off her head.

Peek a Boo with Daddy

Cams and Aunt Amy waiting on a table...not sure why Aim looks like a lobster??

Alright, that's all I have time for. I will get another post up soon.

Gabriel's birthday

OK, I have a TON of blogging to catch up on. So we will start with the most recent and work backward. Blake's best friend, Gabriel, turned 7 on Tuesday. That means my baby will be 7 in 6 short weeks. I can't believe these two boys are that old. It seems like just last week they were crawling around in diapers!! When we lived next door to each other, we would always have birthday breakfast for the kids on their birthdays. Now that the boys are older, we have to do birthday dinner. It is such a fun tradition we started when the boys were turning one. Lucky for us Double Daves lets kids eat free on Tuesday nights. So....off Michelle and I went with our 8 kids in tow!! And yes, we got some strange looks. One guy asked Michelle if we were babysitting. When she told him that they were all ours, he told her "Well good luck with all that."

Blake and the Birthday Boy, so happy to see each other!!

Lexi and Ethan having desert at their OWN table.
Kyle and Chase

Michelle and Gracie (she did NOT want to stop eating cake and take a picture)

The Gang

Kyle (13) holding Cami (7 mo)

Ethan (4) Lexi (5) Gabe (7) Blake (6) Gracie (2) Chase (2)

Boys will be boys!!

I must be doing something wrong because EVERY time I upload pics, they get all out of order...UGH!!! So, we will start with little sister. Cami is now 5 months old. Hard to believe isn't it? She can roll over back to belly in the blink of an eye (belly to back takes more effort, but she can do it.) She is still a mommy's girl and does not like it if mommy leaves for any length of time. She loves her brothers and thingks they are funny, especially when they are talking to her. Her latest trick is blowing bubbles, she really cracks herself up. It is so funny to watch.

Looking more like Daddy each and every day!!

Today we (the kids and I) went to Hawaiian Falls. This has become a weekly adventure of ours and is usually an uneventful one...this was NOT the case today however. For those who have been to Hawaiian Falls...Ethan was sliding down the little red slides in Keike Cove. He slipped and fell, hitting his chin. I thought he slipped while trying to get off though he later confessed that he was trying to climb up the slide. Mr. Greg saw him and asked if it hurt. Well, you know Ethan dosen't want anyone looking at him, so he froze and then ran over to me. I thought he had just bumped it but when I looked closer I saw blood, not a lot it just looked like he had scraped it. He showed Mr. Greg his injury and he thought I should take him to the First Aid center, so I looked at it again. OMG!! It was splitting open right before my eyes, I have never seen blood that dark before. So, off we went to the first aid station. Apparently this was the worst injury they have seen all week because little E drew quite a crowd. They got him all cleaned up and got the bleeding slowed down. The EMT that was there had me sign some paper work and as I was doing so I started to feel a little faint. (Anyone see where this is going??) I sat down for a minute and then decided to go splash some cold water on my face. As soon as I got in the bathroom everything went black and down I went. I never lost consciousness, just blacked out. I could hear people scrambling and I could hear Ethan just jabbering away about the big pineapple on the wall and how much he loved pineapple and strawberries and bananas and..... The same EMT that had just patched E up came and carried me back to the first aid station. They were asking Ethan what my name was and if anyone else was there with us. All they got was that my name was mommy and that we had some pineapple and strawberries and blueberries in our big big cooler and that Blakey was too little to ride the blue and green slides but he goes on them anyway because he is not scared because he is 6 and I am 4 and Chasey is 2 and Cami is not even one.... So glad my little man kept them entertained while I was "away." I finally got my land legs back and we finished the day with little excitement. We got home and our neighbor changed the bandage for us. E was such a trooper, he never cried....even with everyone looking at him. In fact, he almost seemed to enjoy all of the attention.

Daddy got him all taped up for bedtime.

Rewind 48 hours: Ethan loves to play in my curtains. He was playing peek-a-boo with Cami even though I had just asked him to leave the curtains alone. So, what happens? That's right, down come the curtains, rod and all, missing Cami by inches. I don't know how he did it, but he managed to break all three of the metal braces that were screwed into the wall. Luckily, we just happened to have a spare!! (I bought one for the dining room at the same time, but haven't gotton any curtains yet)

Little E has had quite a week....and it ain't over yet!!

Spring Is Here (and almost gone!!)

OK, soI am really behind with blogging. I have been a little busy. I can't believe that it has been 6 weeks since the last post, actually....yes I can. This post is full of pictures!! And, as always, blogger has put them in reverse order for your viewing pleasure.

Camryn's parent dedication was on Mother's Day weekend (just like each of her brothers.) I had hoped to do our baby girl's on Father's Day but they won't offer it on Father's Day until next year:( For those of you not familiar with Lake Pointe, parent dedication is a time when we, as parents, dedicate ourselves to the Christian upbringing of our children in the hopes that one day they will come to accept the Lord as their personal Savior. Lake Pointe has added a Parent Dedication Service that is much different from what we did with the boys. With the boys, we went before the congregation at one of the weekend services, had our names announced and a verse read for the baby and that was it. This time, we participated in the new Friday night service as well as the one on Sunday morning. The idea is to make it more intimate and really give the families time to pray together over their child. Instead of only the parents and baby walking across the stage (like usual) the whole family goes on stage....yes, the WHOLE family. Most families only had one kid, some had 2, and a few even had 3.....but only ONE family had 4!! Luckily we made it on and off without incident. Whew!! Family shot after Friday night's service: Nana (my mom), Barbara (Tony's aunt), Grandpa (Tony's dad), me holding Cami, Grandma (Tony's mom) holding Chase, Blake, Tony, and Ethan.

The picture is a little dark, but it is the only one we have! You can see that Chase is trying to get down so he can run and play. Good thing Daddy's has a good hold on him.

Nana and Cami all ready to go.

They recently opened a new park right across the street from our house. The boys LOVE it. There is a "Trail to Nowhere" that they boys like to tak. We are assuming that it will eventually be finished, but right now you go about half a mile and then get dumped out onto a street. Nice. And yes, we learned this the hard way....at dusk with 4 tired kids.

Chase playing in the creek trying to keep up with his brothers. You can'treally tell from this picture, but he is soaking wet because he followed Blake and Ethan. Problem is..his balance is not that great. Little man stepped into ankle deep water, lost his balance and fell on his tush.

Blake exploring. You can see Tony on the bridge with sis.

All the boys playing in the creek. Chasey is trying to decide if he should go after them or not.

Our climber.

Blake was so excited to have somewhere to climb. This kid is a monkey.

Sweet baby girl loves to sleep on her Daddy.

Chasey loves olives! I know he could (and would) eat an entire can if I would let him.

As soon as I pull out the can, he sticks those "pingers" up in the air!

If I haven't noted this already, Chase can't say "f" instead, he says "p." So he doesent have a face and fingers and feet, he has a pace and pingers and peet. His favorite phrases are "Not punny!!" and "No pair!!" We die laughing at him which only makes him angry, to which he screams "NOT PUNNY!!!"'

Anyway.....this is Peyton. Blake has a pen pal, Ethan, who lives in London. Ethan and his family relocated temporarily while his dad is working over there. So, Ethan's mom had this great idea for the boys to exhange animals and then they could write bout the adventures they have had. Blake sent Compass (yes, he has had that name for years) to London and Ethan sent Peyton to Blake.

Peyton swinging at the park.