should've waited a day . . .

. . . to blog. Instead of just random pictures, there would have been a little more meat to my post. Here are a few pics from today.
Today was pajama day at Jack and Josh's preschool. I bought these pj's thinking they were very Josh. They say "silly banana head." A little springy for the cold, rainy weather we had today, but he was cool with it.
Here's how Jack spent pajama day. :( He came down with the stomach virus that is making the rounds in our area. Poor guy. He was sad to miss school, but it's telling how bad he must feel because he voluntarily stayed home to "get some rest on the couch."

Aunt Valerie came over today to give Ben a much needed haircut. While she was here, she went ahead and trimmed Cooper's hair as well. Isn't he cute?

The short hair makes Ben look so much older! He was bitter about something, so I couldn't get a happy face picture, but the hair looks cool. :)

pictures

Nothing really exciting to post, but I feel like it's been so long since I posted last. I'll just share some pics. :)
Mimi and Aunt Valerie have figured the trick to keeping the boys happy - taking them to a local track and letting them run laps. Seriously. The love it. We may have a few runners in our midst!

Jack was hauling some butt to finish first to get the all important *checkered flag* Anytime one wants to motivate Jack and/or Josh the secret is mentioning winning the checkered flag. That usually gets them in gear.

As a matter of fact, I decided to use that to my advantage in the mornings with our routine. Instead of asking them to do the same thing a million times I made them each a chart of jobs with the highly esteemed checkered flag at the end. It actually works. All they get is the ability to put their little magnet on the picture of the checkered flags. I'm thinking this novelty will soon wear off. But, I will milk it for all it's worth while I can! lol

Jack's also been into puzzles lately. This is a 100 piece puzzle he put together with very little help.

I've been trying some different foods out on the boys lately, hoping to add a little something new to the short list that is food they will actually eat. We tried out corn-dogs last week. Not too big of a hit. Jack was okay if he had mustard, but Josh was not a fan of the hot dog. Ben just had fun flinging peas at everyone. (That shadow you see on the right of the picture is Josh leaning over trying to get his face in the picture. Goof.)

And Cooper, well, as you can tell by the look on his face, he did not know what to think of the meat (well, mostly meat) covered with bread on a stick.

He eventually started using it as a hammer and dinner was over. Such is life with boys.

enjoying the weather and Grandpop's book signing

The weather has been so beautiful here the last few days! Trey was off work today so we went outside for a little fresh air this afternoon. The boys are so full throttle outside, it kind of scares me. Ben would run out of sight before he even thought about turning around - and Josh would be right in front of him leading the way (talk about the blind leading the blind, lol). It's been a while since we had a picture worthy event and I figured this qualified so I have a few to share. :)

Hey, what are those colorful balls strewn about the lawn? Why, those are Christmas lights, of course! Trey is "staging" them to put them away.
Cooper was not quite sure what to do with himself in the great outdoors.

Well, I thought I had more share-able pics than that, but I was a little too preoccupied with keeping kids out of the street and within shouting distance (kidding, kidding).

Ben really enjoyed outside, but he had a dirty diaper that needed immediate attention. After the diaper change the pants weren't wearable, but he *really* wanted to put his shoes back on, so Daddy obliged . . . it's so funny, but so wrong.
I've been thinking about what I could share as Jack and Josh's fail, so as not to make the babies feel bad. Here's what I've come up with. Their new favorite movie genre - talking dogs. They *LOVE* the talking dogs. It started with Santa Buddies and they just keep on coming. (I admit though, I do enjoy the Buddies movies and was kind of disappointed to find out that the original Bud doesn't actually speak.)
Here's Josh after a rough Sunday. The Cowboy loss really took it out of him.
Legos are still a favorite pasttime. Now that's some good clean fun. Until Mama steps on a lego then things may get a little ugly. Those things hurt!
Ben has really started to get into them, too. I love the look of concentration on his face. :)

Remember my bread fail? Well, the 5 ingredient bread turned out! So well in fact, that I remembered why I don't bake at home. Those loaves were gone so fast it was embarrassing. Just call me addicted to carbohydrates. Especially warm, right out of the oven carbohydrates.
On another note, my Grandpop is officially a published author! He had a book signing at a local Barnes and Noble over the weekend and I'm so sad that I wasn't able to go. But, my mom took some pictures, and I thought I'd share. :)
He and Zig Zigler (they are good friends and Mr. Zigler wrote the forward) signing books.
Grandpop with his wife Jan and Mr. Zigler with his wife.

Here is a link to the book: Does God Give Us More Than We Can Bear?

first post of 2010 - let me share a few fails

I just made my first attempt at homemade bread. Wow. Totally didn't go how I thought it would. Now, I'm no master in the kitchen, but I can make a meal or two and boil water. But, I've always had issues with baking. I blame the oven most of the time. But, today I'm thinking it was my bad. :)

Here's the progression:

After the first rising, when it should be 'big and bubbly' it was pretty much anything but.
Before putting them in the oven. Sure, I could see the fail coming, but figured why not? Maybe it would make the house smell good. And, it does now smell yummy.

The finished product. Pretty impressive, huh? Totally not right, I know, but the edges were pretty tasty. :) I've got another recipe in the que that only has 5 ingredients. Surely it will turn out better than this one. I've got my fingers crossed.

Let's see. I've got a Ben fail, too. He's Mr. Personality around the house so it always amuses me when he shows a little quirk here and there. Here he is watching a Little Einstein's movie. But, he's not happy. Why isn't he happy? Well, he's scared of the big mean singing catepillar on tv. I'm sorry, but that's just funny.

Okay, last one. Cooper. Cooper enjoys his meals. So much so that he has a hard time letting go of them. It's not too unusual to find Cooper enjoying a meal encore. Be it from the floor or somewhere else. Here is a second pancake breakfast he thoroughly enjoyed . . . from the trash. Dude, that's not funny, that's just disgusting.

That's all for today. But, I'll keep an eye out for Jack and Josh. They're full of 'em, too. :)

Christmas Day, 2009

Christmas was great this year. We are so blessed in that we live very close to our parents, so we get to see both sets of grandparents on Christmas. It's awesome!
We started with decorating Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve. We tried an early afternoon session with all 4 boys - but that didn't fly. Too many little hands needing help. So, Trey and I ended up decorating most of them. But, after the candlelight Christmas Eve service at church (my very favorite Christmas tradition!) we put the babies to bed and decorated cookies with Jack and Josh. They did great - the cookies looked cute and they were fun to do! I really like this tradition. I have dreams of doing a gingerbread house, but so far these cookies are about as far as I get. And that's okay with me right now. :)
Ben really wanted to help me mix up the dough. He's always willing to help out in the kitchen.
Now the fun part . . . icing!

Aren't they cute!? And, pretty tasty if I do say so myself. :) You can tell which ones Jack did, because they are all his favorite color . . . blue. Same for Josh . . . except his items of choice were red hots. lol
Christmas morning at home was nice and quiet.

After Christmas at home, we headed to Nana and Big Tom's (Trey's parents). They went in their pj's. :)
Ben sporting his new black eye. Every holiday someone has to have a facial bruise . . . such is life as a boys' mom I guess.
Cooper - a bit fascinated by his cousin's kitty alive. lol
Josh and Ben opening stockings with Big Tom and Nana.

Lots of activity with that many little ones!

Then we went home for naps and went to my parents'.

Where my camera proceeded to die. :( Should've recharged the battery!

Their Christmas shirts -

I loved Ben and Cooper's shirts this year. Please note, they are not identical. ;) The trucks are driving in different directions. These are actually shirts from Chritmases past, but they are the same size and coordinate so well I thought they were perfect for B and C!

Aunt Valerie made a wonderful Christmas dinner that we all enjoyed! Then we did presents.

The big play set for all the boys to play with at Mimi and Grandpa's. They've really enjoyed it so far!

Cooper loves his big dump truck!
Ben, like his brother Josh, is a big fan of the hardhat.
All in all, it was a great day! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Here comes 2010!

Happy December!

That came fast! We've been busy, but I can't quite pin down what we've been busy doing. :)

We did get our Christmas pictures taken - the boys (Jack especially) were in rare form. We were lucky to get one good picture.

Not too many pictures from Thanksgiving. I did get one of Cooper though. Poor guy fell right into the corner of something right before we left for our Thanksgiving lunch.
We put our Christmas decorations up Thanksgiving day. I'm so ready! Of course, by now, the ornaments are totally gone from the bottom 2 feet of the tree (thanks, children) and the stockings are down, but you get the idea. :) I'm afraid I'm many years away from being able to put our glass ornaments on the tree.
Totally random, but Cooper has a new chilled way to watch movies on tv and it makes me giggle because he does it whenever I put in a baby einstein.

Isn't he cute!? (also feel free to note all of the ornaments littered on the floor under the tree, apparently they're more fun to play with than toys)
And, lastly, a little trip down memory lane. I can't believe this was our family just one year ago. Sigh, time flies.

Hope you all have a very merry Christmas! I'm looking forward to fun family times - hope to have some great pictures to share! :

random update w/pics and grossology

Long time no update. But, nothing truly exciting has happened. Which I'm thinking is a good thing. :) I have been taking pictures - so I'll share some of those.

We've stayed home more often than usual recently because we've had some random fevers the last few weeks. What to do on boring days?

Find something to keep yourself occupied. . . We went to the Mattel store one day with a friend and the boys made out pretty well. You can never have enough cars, right? Well, you can, but these were such a bargain I couldn't pass them up. I think I like cars just as much as the boys.
Jack in his first tie. :) He looks pretty thrilled with it, right?
Ben and Cooper are kinda cute, too.
We also went to Ikea to get Jack a new bed. He and Josh sharing a room is not working out so fantastically. Josh needs a lot more sleep than he's getting and the best way to get him to go to bed earlier is to put he and Jack in separate rooms. Jack loves his new bed! We're going to repaint the room, too. I think we're going to go with orange on top, navy blue on the bottom. And, some vintage tin wall stuff, too. I think it's gonna be pretty cool. :)Mom and Aunt Valerie took Jack and Josh to Grossology over the weekend. It looks like they had a great time.
In a stomach. . .
Riveted by a dissection. . .
I think Jack thinks he's seeing his actual stomach. lol He would pull the lever to build up pressure to create a burp. . .Josh could not believe they'd make a display so rude and crude. . .

We're looking forward to a fun Thanksgiving at Nana and Big Tom's. Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!