Faithism of the day

Emmy: What is "Vegas"
Me: **Thinking in my mind how in the WORLD do you explain "Vegas" to her?** "Um....it's a place in Nevada. They have lots of parties there."
Faith: Basically, it's the birthplace of poker.

Why didn't I just let her explain it in the first place?

Vote For Emmy!

Ok all you St. Joseph (and surrounding area peeps), look for this picture and dump your change (or bills, bills work too=) in Emmy's cup at the IGA or the bank. She is up for fair princess, and lets face it, she's totally the cutest kid up there. I know, I know, I'm biased, but whatever. I have no shame is promoting my kid:) Plus.....she totally wants to ride on top of a "convertival" and wear a crown. Are you really going to deny a 6-year-old her dream?

Eminisms......

It is daily that one of my kids says something that literally makes me laugh so hard that I almost pee my pants. Usually, that kid is Emmy, but sometimes 1 and 3 will switch it up.....I refer to these little nuggets of truth as "isms"....."Faithisms, Emminisms, and Maebrinisms".

Usually these little quotes leave my brain within 24 hours of hearing them, becuase usually I try to sleep at night and I think they fall out of my ears and are gone forever. So I've decided to start throwing them up on a blog since this will be their little psuedo memory book someday.

Em's "Eminism" of the day:
Em: I'm hungry, can I have a snack cake when I go to grandmas?
Me: What is a snack cake anyway, are you like 80?
Em: You know, a swiss cake roll. That's what papa calls them, snack cakes. Besides, snack cake sounds way cooler than just swiss cake roll. And I like the way cake sounds after snack.


She is truly a "mini-me"....

Indy Trip 2009 Take Two

Allright, finally! I have five minutes to write up a post, so I am going to take advantage.

To reserve time, I'm just going to throw all the pics up, I mean, it's a zoo and they are pretty self explanitory:) We had an excellent time there touchin' sharks, riding ponies and roller coasters, and seeing all of Gods gorgeous creatures.

It was Maebree's first zoo visit (well, first since she is able to understand what the heck a "zoo" is), and she was amazed at EVERYTHING! My favorite video to prove that:

I LOVE how she yells "Whoa!" after everything:0

She was also amazed at the dolphins, as were we, but my video won't upload:(

We headed back to the hotel and took a much needed rest (well, Russ did, I layed there bugged that the kids would'nt stop fighting long enough for me to take a rest:) We ate another delicious meal at the hotel and headed out for a walk along the canal and some paddleboating. The kids begged us to go, then complained the whole time. Faith informed us when we were completly on the other side of the canal (and the farthest point from where we started) that she had to pee.
Just a little taste of our ride:

**sigh** story of our whole vacation:)

We ended the trip with some shopping, BD's Mongolian BBQ, and of course, The Cheesecake Factory!

Now, if I could just get a vacation away from fighting, that would be perfect!

Awesomest. Wedding. Party. EVER!

I am sick today and was in serious need of a break from editing. Instead of getting up Indy Part Deux up, I decided to share this. All I can say is one of my hooker sisters better get married soon so I can do something awesome like this at their wedding. And if anyone else out there wants to get married and do something like this, call me and I will be another bridesmaid, or cake girl, whatever gets me in the door:)

Bitter-sweet

I said good-bye to my childhood home yesterday. I am happy and sad at the same time. My parents are moving on to smaller but much better places, and for that, I'm happy. Saying good-bye to a place that holds SO many memories (both good and bad) has me pretty sad.

I will have a huge post about it in the near future...but still have to get Indy trip part 2 up.....some day I will have time for it all:)

Indy Trip 2009 Part one

In an effort to do our part in spurring on the economy, Russ and I decided to take a little "mini-cation" to Indianapolis Zoo. I found a GREAT hotel right downtown in Indianapolis for a great price, so we packed up the kids Monday afternoon and headed out. After an incredibly exhausting 2-hour ride over (I'm so glad we did not go any place any further ), we arrived at our destination. I grabbed the camera to do a quick tour of our awesome room:

Bedroom

Bathroom, obviously:)


Living room and kitchen

I have no idea what the deal is with my husband, kids, and wanting to show off their muscles in pictures.....but there are like 8 more pics where these came from.

Next, we checked out the pool......Maebree stripped off her shirt immediately thinking it was "fimming" time.

After dinner at the hotel (yes, the hotel provided us with a hot breakfast AND a hot dinner meal Monday through Thursday!) we decided to take a little walk downtown, then head to Circle Center mall for our first "activity" of the weekend.

Walking to the Monument.

Emmy informed me that these guys were hurt really bad:)

Posers......

Now off to Circle Center for some games and to watch Ice Age 2 (advice: Don't waste your money, wait for it to come out on video:)

Emmy's MarioKart game face. Cracked us up!

Self portraits......


"Essie" :o)

In our walk through the mall, Beyonce's "Single Ladies" came on, and Mae decided to show off her moves:) This is totally not prompted by me either!

Watch part of the video on YouTube if you want to see why she is doing what she is doing.....

We decided to walk back around the monument area to get some yummy icecream and the girls ran into a bear....

The next morning we arose early to head off to the zoo.....but I will save that for another post as this one has taken me all morning and I have a lot to do today! So tune back for some riveting videos and more great pics!

Milestone Mader

That is what I am calling this kid of mine. I know I have been "heavy" with Maebree info lately, but seriously, it's like she is doing somehting new every single day!

For the past two days, she has, without ANY prodding from me, went potty, on the big girl potty all day! I put her in a Spiderman Little Swimmer (yep, I'm an awesome mom and ran out of diapers) hoping we could just make it to the store for diapers. She started asking to go potty, I took her, she went. All day. At the end of the day, she told me that she didn't want to pee on Spiderman. Really? She peed all over the Dora Pull-Ups I got her, but Spiderman was off limits. I have, however, found that it is perfectly acceptable to poop on Spiderman. Gotta work on that one, but isn't that the deal with all kids? What's with the aversion to just "lettin it all go!"? I don't get it! It's fine, we are not pushing the issue. I'm just thrilled she is willing to try when the other two were well onto three by the time they wanted to do anything with a potty.

So, tonight, as a celebration of another good day, I gave her her first s'more. She licked every inch of her cracker, but left the cracker:)

Oh, and the previous video and picture are thanks to my new little "point-and-shoot" I bought today. Another Nikon (after much deliberation!). I can't decide if I love it or not, but so far, it's not been too bad. We are going to the zoo next week, so I'll let you know if I'm going to keep it or not after seeing those pictures.

Paci-less baby

Well......that's it. I put my baby to bed with no paci tonight. I couldn't find it for her nap, and she surprised me by not fussing that much for it. I decided I wouldn't even look for it for bedtime and didn't offer it to her. She didn't even ask for it. She just wanted to make sure she would get "o-meal" for breakfast in the morning.

*sigh* She is growing up way to fast for me. Next milestone to conquer.....potty-training. I'll let you know how that goes.

Oh, and she learned a new word today thanks to her sisters. Apparently, it's hilarious to have your 2-year-old sister repeat inappropriate words whilst laughing hysterically...Of course....It is really funny to hear "die-ree-ra" come out of her mouth:)

4th of July weekend

We had a wonderful "Fourth" weekend. I wasn't sure it was going to be so great as my husband was going to have to work on the actual Holiday, but then it rained all day, the canceled the fireworks, and we he got to come home (he was on a holdover for other guys who had to cover the fireworks. I don't have one picture of anything that we did because I am a lame excuse of a photographer mother. Actually, it's a really big hassle getting my big 'ol camera with all the crap that comes with it (since I've turned into a photo snob and have to have the flash and pizazz and all that good stuff) out, and I don't have a simple little point-and-shoot deal (which seriously I need to get!!), so there is no photo documentation of this day.....sorry:( But I still must document this momentous weekend, if nothing but for myself to look on later and remember that it was fun to be so tired and busy from all the mom stuff.

Friday we went to the Rantoul pool with some friends and had a blast. We almost closed the place out, and I am pretty sure my kids would have stayed for at least 28 more hours if I would've let them. I was exhausted chasing around my slippery, greasy buffalo/Maebree around whilst she dove head first into the water in great attempts at drowning herself. She has no fear when it comes to water! She said on the way home the whole way home "I yike fimming....I rewey yove it". That melted my heart. I promised the girls we would make home-made ice cream (something I've wanted to try with them for months) when we got home, so I headed for the store for the supplies. After spending $17 on ingredients, cleaning up spilled ice and salt 483 times, and almost cussing at least twice, I decided it would either a.) make it myself next time, or b.) splurge on the $5 gallon of ice cream from the grocery store. I thought for sure 5 hours of swimming and then another hour of stressing me out would knock them out for good, but they u ended up staying up past 11 watching a movie.....kids and summer...... After Maebree spilled an entire glass of water on the floor, I yelled for her to go to her room and wait for me. I prayed with the other two and then went into her room and found that she had turned on her fan, shut off her light, turned her closet light on (I have NO idea how she managed that one!) and had already tucked herself into bed.........my heart melted yet again.

Saturday we spent the day with mom and dad eating some YUMM-O grilled food my dad made as well as some equally yummy home-made ice cream (that I made MYSELF this time) and homemade brownies from my sister-in-law. Russ came home early, and we headed over to mom and dad's new place to measure and prepare where they wanted stuff. Pretty much that was it.

Sunday we had church in the a.m. I was determined to go for a jog as I had not for a couple days and then became frustrated that I was too exhausted to go any further than I did (after reading the previous posts...I now understand why I was so frustrated:) We gathered some stuff and headed to Wal-Mart for snacks and light sticks for the fire works in Champaign. We found an amazing spot to watch them at (except the tick that landed somehow on my husbands toe). After the tick debacle, we decided to keep the kids on the blacktop. We later discovered they weren't much safer there as some moron decided he would speed through the parking lot (and right down the middle of where all our kids were standing, literally, split their group in half!). My mom gave him some choice words, and my husband found the 'ol Louisville Slugger in the back of the car just in case. The fireworks were AMAZING (Maebree of course cried and hid her eyes the whole time). My husband gets the quote of the night:

"Why would anyone other country want to mess with us? We blow (crap) up for fun!"

He didn't say crap, but he didn't totally say "the other word" either...just implied it. I won't type it in an effort to not highly offend anyone. Personally I think "the other way" sounds more effective in it's delivery:) We loaded everyone up in the car and headed home afterwords. Maebree said on the whole way home "I yike doze fighter-works....I rewey yiked dem mom!" Yeah....right.....wish I had the photo documentation to otherwise prove it.

Today I had dentist appointments (no cavities for all!) and then cleaned my house like a mad woman. I mean, this place is nasty since I have been in an editing hole for what seems like decades. I managed to really get the downstairs in my house looking good, even scrubbing floors on my hands and knees! I think I get the quote of the day for my facebook status which reads:

"I did my part to make my house as un-green as possible today. I used an entire role of paper towels and harsh chemicals to completely scour the downstairs. Congress can suck it!"

Sorry if that offended anyone:) Except I'm really not. I don't like congress right now, and they are not going to tell me how to clean my house. I have edited some more pics, went and helped my mom pack up a room in her house, and now I'm back home and ready for bed....except I have about 100 more pictures to edit. There really is no rest for the weary......

Busy days, busy nights

Good NIGHT I've been a horrible blogger lately. It has just been a month that hasn't stopped for us. I've been SUPER busy with picture stuff, babysitting two teething babies, dealing with a teething toddler, church stuff, home stuff...etc. etc. You get the picture. But there hasn't been a ton of exciting stuff to blog about, so that is my excuse.

What's happened in the last couple weeks:

**Maebree decided to use her crib as a trampoline and jump out of it repeatedly.....head first. So my baby girl is now in a toddler bed. It doesn't seem right.....in fact...it's not right! We had a rough couple of nights, but now she is properly trained to not come out of her room until we let her out:)

**My nephew turned 2 and his parents bought him drums. He loves to drum (like his daddy) and drums on EVERYTHING! I realized at his party I am glad I don't have drums in my house.

**My mom and dad's house sold. I'm happy and sad about this one. I have a lot of really good memories there, that being the house I will always consider my "childhood home". But I'm happy for my mom and dad to move on from the headache of it all. It's a massive house, massive yard....massive responsibilities involved with it including a lot of work that needs to be done on it. They found a super nice house to rent here in St. Joe (complete with a garden tub and walk-in closet, my moms only 2 stipulations!), so it's exciting. I can already see our family Christmas's there, so to me, it seems right:)

**I finally finished "E"s pics, the ones I took the same time as Faith's (thanks for your patience Nichole!).....I think they turned out REALLY good! Here's a couple:

You can view the WHOLE lot of them HERE.

So I'm sure it will be awhile before I'm back again. Or maybe not. I have a 3000 square foot house I have to help my parents pack up (**sigh**) and move in 3 weeks. One sister is moving to Oregon in three weeks, and one is looking to move to the STL in 3 months, so LOTS of stuff going on!!