She's so polite

While I was eating lunch, Amelia came up and asked,
"Can I have some of your Cheetos?"
I replied like every good mom, "What do you say?" Hoping for a 'please.'
After a moment of thought, she says, "Give me some?"
"Ah, no. What do you say?"
"Give me some!"
She didn't ever get it. I had to coach her to ask, "May I please have some."

Hairdo

Amelia woke up with this hairdo the other morning. I'm not really sure how this happened, usually her hair looks pretty normal in the morning. It's completely inappropriate, but I can't get the scene from Something About Mary out of my head.

Amelia gets burned

At the beginning of the month, I started running on my treadmill regularly, so I've been leaving it out. I always flip the switch to turn it off, and sometimes even unplug it. The kids have not known where the switch was -- and so I've felt pretty safe leaving it out. They have been told over, and over that it's not a jungle-gym, it's not a toy -- even though they insist on making it a rocket ship, race car, or something else everyday.

Between Lilah and Ellie and Jack, they managed to plug it in, flip the switch, and put the key in. Of course, it's the little kid standing by that gets hurt. Amelia ended up with a small 2nd degree burn on the top of her hand. She favored it a bit today, but didn't ever really complain. So I guess it just looks worse than it feels.

Hopefully the big kids learned a valuable lesson last night ... mom makes rules for a reason!

Videos of Evelyn Crawling

If you didn't know, you can trip while crawling. This is what it looks like. But like a champ, she gets right back up again!



If they had a crawl sprint contest around here, I think she'd win!

Jack's "emergency"

On the Monday after Christmas, we were in Arkansas visiting Billy's dad and family, and Jack decided to give us a little bit of a scare. He and the girls were be-bopping around Grandma Marie's house and Jack fell. I didn't know it because there was no crying or anything. They come into the kitchen and tell me that Jack is bleeding. Thinking it was nothing much, I take him into the bathroom to get a band aid and instead I see quite a bit of blood. And blood in Amelia's hair ... that's when I had to ask Billy to step in. I was starting to get a little light headed. (yeah, yeah ... I'm a wimp)

After a quick look, he decides that stitches might be needed. We pack up quick and head to town. Luckily, there was a walk-in clinic still open so we didn't have to go to the ER. The nurse decided stitches probably weren't necessary ... so she glued and bandaged him up and we were on our way in less than 10 minutes. Free of charge and he even got a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut for being so brave. Which he did earn, because he didn't shed a single tear or whine a bit. Tough kid. We went and got him some ibuprofen and the pizza and headed back.

This is a picture taken 4 days after -- the bandage fell off. Looks pretty good, but I'm sure there will still be a scar. Amazing that you can split your skin that bad by just falling on the floor.

Photos from Christmas '09

Merry Christmas from all of us!

Ellie didn't get her High School Musical Alarm clock for her birthday, but Santa came thru!
She was very patient ... and then very excited! Yeah, we'll see about that on Tuesday morning.

Jack asked Santa for some Star Wars gear.

Santa brought the little girls a fun musical toy. Kind of like karaoke for toddlers. Hmmm... I wonder who picked that out?

My crew on Christmas Eve. This was our second year enjoying our Christmas Eve with Tony & Jana. We went to church together at 5pm -- I asked Santa to be his first stop and he arrived while we were gone. After church all ate dinner together at our house -- seafood and pasta! Then opened gifts together. It's such a blessing to be able to spend Christmas Eve together as a family! The kids will cherish it always.

Princess Amelia got LOTS of dress up clothes this year. Which she will enjoy for many years to come. They are all a little big right now, but I know she'll still have fun putting them on and taking them off.

Sir Jack! Jack is so easy to buy for. I think because he's the only boy, and also he just loves to do everything. Legos, dress up, army men, guns, swords, action figures. You name it -- this kid is into it. And he plays with them all! They don't just sit and collect dust. He's so fun to buy stuff for.

Billy and Evelyn. This is like one of the best pictures of Evelyn. She's so hard to capture on camera!

Grandma Barb with Amelia - she is the one that made us all wear silly hats to open gifts.

Papa Denny with his new Bobber Cooler for the pond.