booty

I really oughta download the pictures from my camera.  but .............that takes a little more work than i have energy for and sometimes things happen with my kids that I don't want to forget because i fill lately like their childhoods are zipping past me and I can't slow it down.

yesterday we walked over to the school to see what track we have next year. and it was about the most perfect beautiful spring night I've ever seen. as we were leaving grady ran up to us like he had something really important to say, but all he said was this "guys, instead of saying 'b' 'u' 'm' it would be way better if we just said booty for now on." and then ran off.   true dat grady boy.  then this morning graham was in the bathroom with me as i was about to get in the shower (this is really probably a little too personal, but I thought it was so funny I'm gonna write it down anyway).  I had already gotten undressed and leaned over to grab the soap out of the tub to put in the shower when I felt a little hand right on the side of my "booty".  I turned around to see graham with this look of astonishment on his face as he says, "Mom!!! you have a bum tooooo!!!"  he was awestruck.  who knew we have so much in common:)

today I was talking to my neighbor for a minute and she told me she had asked clara how our new house was going and if we were ready to move in.  She said she looked at her really serious faced and said, "well, there was a lot damage done to the home, so were not quite ready to move in".  Hah! when did she turn 25?  Another funny/sad thing was when I told my mom that I didn't think  the previous owners had ever used the central vac cause it looked so shiny and new.  Clara piped up with "they used it mom.  I told Tyce you said it looked like they never vacuumed their house but he said they did all the time!"  Tyce is the little boy who used to live in the house we bought and who now lives in a rental house two doors down from us.....hmmm better keep my thoughts to myself!

I don't think grady has ever been dirtier than he was tonight.  a full day of riding bikes in the empty lot next door, cleaning out the garage at our new house, catching leaches and fish in the ditch, collecting rolly polly's and grasshoppers and jumping on the tramp left my 5 year old completely covered in mud and dust and ditch scum.  and those filthy black feet just made me smile and breath a sigh of relief that spring is really here.

hitch kicks make everything better

I've been out of sorts lately.  And I know why -we've been super busy and stressed, I don't get enough sleep, I haven't been exercising and Brandon went to holland and brought home a bunch of chocolate.  We got these passes to this new gym by my house and I don't like it.  And I cancelled my pass to golds which means I don't have my saturday morning kickboxing time anymore.  my pass was only 10 bucks a month, so really I should have just kept it even though I was only going once a week.  ANYWAY,  i got all grumpy for no reason last night and spatted out at Brandon that I felt crazy and it was his fault I couldn't go to kickboxing any more.  (totally not his fault - he just asked me one day if I had cancelled my membership yet, and I felt guilty that I hadn't so I called and cancelled it that very day).  So to make this kinda pointless story shorter, I got up this morning drove to the gym while I listened to NPR and got my membership back.  And as soon as I stared doing hitch kicks to a dance version of zombie by the cranberries, my whole world tilted and everything seemed right again.  that sounds a little dramatic - but I'm completely for real.

I looked through my blog a little tonight and there aren't very many pictures of clara.  And then I realized I don't take a lot of pictures of clara cause I don't see her very much because she's always at that dang school.  and that makes me really sad.  tonight brandon said good night to his little "book reader" (clara hops into bed and starts reading every night, and I feel sooooo excited for her to be able to jump into that world of book reading because I know how much she will love it.)  Anyway, her response to that was "I do not!!!" because she thought he had called her his little booger eater.  it was pretty funny.

I went to the saturday night session of stake conference tonight and it did just about as much for me as those hitch kicks did.  I am so incredibly grateful for church meetings.  I seriously mean that.  All I have to do is walk into a building and sit down and listen and I can feel the spirit wash over me and lift me and lighten me and strengthen me.  That feels so amazingly lucky to me.

booger fish

I show our house a lot..... and everyone loves it and says how awesome it is and then they look at the garage and go "huh".........and then they move on darnit.

today I needed to clean to show the house again - and I needed to move all the boxes off the porch and clean up the paint the leah spilled all over the cement (side story: B was working at home, I went to the new house to sand some stuff and leah woke up from her nap.  b was trying to finish up a project and leah crawled right out the opened back door onto the porch and found the cup of paint that I had been using to re-paint the door frame.  by the time brandon saw her there were a small paint explosion.  and a whole bunch of poop mixed in with it, because it's not a disaster at my house unless there is a good chunk of bodily goop in the scenario.  it was in her hair and her mouth and the rug and her jammies and then she crawled back in the house and scooted all around the kitchen before he saw her....oops) anyway, I needed to be doing all those things.  But it was such a beautiful day today.  like really really beautiful, 70 for the first time.  to heck with selling the house.  we all went to the park and got awful sunburns instead.   except little leah who had on a long sleeve onsie and her strawberry hat.  And then we sat down by the ditch and caught little tiny fish.  But graham couldn't catch the fish cause he's too slow, so he just stuck his stick in the gloppy stuff and when a good chunk of it would get on the end he'd whip it up in the air (and whip mud onto whoever was close) and say "OH! I caught a booger fish!!!" and it really did look like a big chunk of boogers, but kinda fishy.  i know that's really gross, but it was really funny too.  Then he fell in the glop so I took him home to take a bath.  and cover my bathroom in mud.  Then gray fell in the glop too, but instead of telling me he snuck upstairs in his mud covered clothes to change and get little bits of green ditch muck and mud all over the stairs and his bedroom carpet.  he looks even cuter than normal with sunburned cheeks which was lucky for him today cause I was not pleased with that move.  but it got all cleaned up.  and the willoughby's watched the kids for a minute so me and leah could take a load of stuff to the DI cause my car was so full I couldn't fit kids in it anymore.  4 carseats take up a lot of room.  final side story:  when graham was catching his booger fish he sat down in the grass and started singing, "old mcdonald had a farm, ee i ee i oh.  and on his farm he had a booger fish, ee i ee i oh.  with a .............." and then he was silent with this saddest little look on his face and i could just tell he was completely perplexed and also super sad that he had no clue what a booger fish says.  poor little monkey. good night.

maybe I just need some pantates

Graham just asked me for some berries.  I said sure but before before I handed them to him I popped his pink binky out of his mouth and got real close to his head and said, "but.... I need something first"  with my lips all puckered out.  His eyeballs twitched around like he was thinking hard and then he said, "umm..... you need some pantates!!"  nope..... i don't need pancakes....."umm......you need some berries!!"  and then I mugged him all over his chubby face and said "oh I could just eat you"  and then he got all serious faced and said, "Mommy, I'M NOT FOR DINNER!!!"

Graham did that a few days ago but I never published this and today, we are trying to get the house clean so we can show it again before we go up to logan for myahs birthday party.  So....I asked the kids to get their bags ready.  Gray just came down with a bag he's had packed for about a month just in case we decided to go anywhere.  This is whats inside; his cowboy boots (they were brandon's when he was about 12), his leather and sheep skin vest,  a box of art supplies, a lantern, a bag of batteries, and a jump rope.  cool.  looks like were ready to go.  now maybe I'll just ask graham to get the house cleaned up before we have to show it this afternoon and we'll be golden!

Christmas

 The first BIG snowstorm.  Nightime sledding with daddy while me and leah get the hot chocolate and popcorn ready for a movie night.  This was the first year that we watched some really fun Christmas movies with our kids - Miracle on 34th street, The Muppets Christmas Carol, and The Santa Clause one night when we had a sleepover with Jo's kids.  And my very, very favorite we watched when Byron and Karen were with us for a few days before Christmas,  It's a wonderful life.

 Myah and Clara's anual pj shot

 We did white elephants with the adults this year and oh it was fun.  I kinda don't think this is meant to cover your nose, but I can't remember.  I was burned out by Christmas Eve.  is that horrible?  It's true though.  Byron had his knee replaced about a week and a half before Christmas and stayed with us while he was recuperating, and getting Christmas ready for four little kids is no small feet by itself.  By that night - I was toast.  I think my siblings were too.  Instead of the nativity and bells, and all the other meaningful fun stuff for the kids, we sent them all downstairs to watch a show while we sat upstairs and laughed at silly presents and relaxed for a while and then went home.  And for this year, that was perfect.

 Papa and Leah

 Santa came - lucky ducks

 give it up for the rainbow loom - WOOT WOOT!

 Graham is in love with his train set.  He played with it for 3 hours straight Christmas day.  3 hrs!!!

 The 2nd best present of the year.  Thank you dear trampoline for burning so much winter energy.

 and the best present of the year - the teepee.  And I couldn't believe how easy it was, despite how much time I spent pouring the internet for teepee tutorials.  no tutorial needed.  We cut a bunch of willows up at b's parents over thanksgiving, drilled some holes through them and lashed them together.  Then I bought a huge drop cloth that I just draped around the top and tied with some leather that I cut holes for in the top.  I cut around the bottom with pinking shears and whishy woosh, a teepee.  It was at least february before Clara and Gray slept in their beds again.

and two of this one, because I can't get enough of those chubby little fingers and those brown cow eyes. Merry Christmas - ----fewf, we made it through:)

random fall stuff

 He plays a mean harmonica

 she is busy, and naughty and always hungry and the most adorable thing I could imagine.

 Brandons cousin moved and when he went to help they were loading their tramp up to take to the DI....what??? so we got a free tramp to replace the last one that flew down the street in the horrible wind storm a few years ago.  AWESOME!

 This is a pretty standard look for Graham when he eats oatmeal in the morning.  When i asked Gray why in the world Graham had a big x on his back he got all red in the face and then admitted that they were playing treasure hunt and grahams back was the map.....cool.

 Grady has turned into such an awesome little homework doer

 The note clara left under her pillow.  kinda steep sister...

 And she brings home stuff like this.  I don't even know what it says, and she's only in 1st grade.  something about pizza I think....

 hold on tight babe!

 We got some surprise tickets to go see the Nutcracker one morning, and I was so excited I could hardly stand it.  I had no clue how happy I would be to share Clara's first ballet with her.  I fell in love with the name Clara after watching it my mom and sisters when I was a little girl, so it felt so special to see it with her.

 kinda odd - but I took this picture to remind me that instead of being grumpy when I see this, I need to remember that one day I will have beautiful bowls of fruit on the counter that no one will take bites out of and put back - and it will probably make me cry to realize I have no little chubby, fruit snitching hands to hold.

I love this fireplace and mantle and bookshelves.  We got the shelves from Ikea and one week when b was in Japan for work I surprised him by having someone come put up the brick and the mantle.  And now we are moving and I won't get to decorate this anymore for the seasons and i'm gonna miss it. So.... one last picture for me to remember my pretty mantle I've loved so much. 

Thanksgiving and Trees and B

Brandons parents have a little cabin just outside of west yellowstone in montana.  Brandon and his Dad and brother built the whole thing themselves when B was in high school.  This past summer they decided it needed a little more room if we all ever wanted to be up there together, so they got to work.  On Thanksgiving morning we drove up to see the progress and to cut down our Christmas tree - it was beautiful and sunny and snowy and cold.  Just the way thanksgiving in montana should be.  I know I just went off about how much I love Halloween, But I also really really really love Thanksgiving.  A whole month to really think about how blessed we are.  To focus on gratitude and thankfulness for all the abundance we've been given.  So wonderful.  

 and after all the food - we had about ten pies and a cake to celebrate Brandons birthday with.  I am pretty darn thankful for Him so it felt pretty perfect to celebrate his birthday on Thanksgiving this year.

Our cute John pumpkin.  Happy Thanksgiving.

side note: I look at all these pictures of my family and I feel so overwhelmed with happiness for my sweet family.  These guys really are the greatest most luckiest thing I could ever imagine.  Such a perfect day to celebrate how thankful I am for my Heavenly Father and my family and my life.