Apparently he can say "bubbles..."

and it's his favorite new word.



All day, every day, he walks around the house saying, "bubbles," but it is more like, "bubbles?" As in, find them and blow them, or just give them to me and I will pour them on myself!



And honestly, who could say no to that face? I know I cannot!



These were actually taken a few weeks ago, I know...bad blogger lately.



They have a water table out in the back yard and someone, not mentioning any names *cough Boog cough* dumped some bubble solution in with the water. It was like a huge sink full of bubbles and dishes, you know...minus the dishes and the sink. Someone decided to stick his head into the water table and get himself a funky new do! :)



And someone else had a great time wrecking himself and getting wet. Boy did he have fun though.



All the way up to his elbows kind of fun!



Hey, maybe he really was washing something.



Digging for more bubble buried treasure.



Ooooh, soap!



I have bubbles on my hand!



Using mommy's dish towel to dry himself! I think that was daddy's idea! Silly daddy!











Someone was not fond of being all wet...

Thanks and an update.

Thanks everyone for stopping by to check on us and for your well wishes. We really appreciate them!

As for updates, there are not really many. The kids are starting to feel better today. Boog was feeling better yesterday but still coughing his head off and such. Tutti-Frutti is a little less crabby today, thankfully! We did skip music today so we were stuck inside another day. Sort of. We did escape to the DQ drive-thru for a dipped cone. You know, because those always make everything better. The kiddos had no fever so we figured we would treat them to a treat. They seemed to enjoy it. Until Tutti-Frutti decided that he wanted to hold his own cone in the car, in the carseat. Uh...no honey. I do not think so, Mommy will do it. Thanks anyway.

So, there we are. Dad and I are feeling better too, just wish the cough would go away...

Hopefully we will be up and running again soon.

Under the weather...

And boy is that an understatement. I will not be participating in Not me! Monday today. Not that I do not have plenty of those to go around from this past week but I honestly have not so much as turned the computer on in days. This is coming from my phone actually. This might get interesting to say the least.

Anyway, just about everyone in our house has been sick for the last week. Let me just say that Monday was our best day. Boog did not have school and Sour Apple got out at noon on Wednesday. We spent the rest of last week either in the dentist (remember last weeks Not me?) or at the doctor and/or the pharmacy. Daddy ended up taking 4 days off because he was sick. While I was at the dentist with all 4 kiddos on Thursday, he was seeing the doctor. He had bronchitis, got 2 shots and 2 prescriptions. Friday, we were in he doctor with the 2 little guys. Boog had pneumonia. Tutti-Frutti had an ear infection. After that visit we stopped at the pharmacy for another bag of drugs then off to the urgent care so I could be seen. I had bronchitis. I got one shot and 2 prescriptions. The weekend was rough. No one felt good. We shipped the 2 big kids off for the weekend hoping to spare them even though Sour Apple had just been sick the week before. The little guys ran fever all weekend. They had the chills. Tutti-Frutti slept nearly all day. We all felt horrible. We survived. Barely. Only to get up this morning with a tiny tot burning up again. Back to he doctor this morning with Tutti-Frutti. He has the flu. 2 more new prescriptions.

Boy we have sure spent a lot at the dentist, doctor and pharmacy since last Thursday. A mini vacation might have been cheaper. I am sure it would have been more fun.

Hopefully we are on the mend. Have a great week. I'll be back when I can.

what a day

Let me start off by saying shouting...THANK GOD I AM THE ONLY ONE IN THE HOUSE WHO IS AWAKE!!! Do not get me wrong, I love my family...I love my kids and I love my husband but tonight I had had enough! Haha! Today was quite the day.

Well, I guess it actually started a few nights ago when we had our date night and went to bed way too late for our old selves then spent the rest of the night up and down with a cranky 17 month old. We spent all day Sunday waiting for bed time to roll around. We somehow got lucky enough to go to bed when the kids did at 8:30, I should have known better than to get excited. My thought was, well at least if I go to bed this early, it will not be quite so bad getting up with Tutti-Frutti at all hours of the night. What is up with this kid? Why will he not sleep?!? Anyway...I must have jinxed myself because we were in bed by 8:30 and he was up by 10:30 and then on and off for the rest of the night. Last night, we went to bed around 10:30, I guess I figured what's the point in laying down early, I will just get woken up soon anyway. We made it till about 1:45 when we woke to Boog coughing and hacking like he was a dying seal. Oh great, croup! Thanks! He was screaming like a wild animal, coughing, barking, crouping, crying, flipping out, freaking out and just plain going ballistic. My thought was...get him downstairs before he wakes the rest of them up! (I know, sensitive mother!) I remembered what the doctor had said each time we take him in for this, "take him out into the cool night air and he will begin breathing better." Uh huh, yea right! I am sure the neighbors were giving us the what for from their beds at around 2am. He was screaming and crying and flipping out wanting to go inside. I tried to calm him down, tried to explain that the cool air would help with his breathing...yadda yadda. He was not buying it. We finally convinced him to hush long enough to get him inside and do a breathing treatment, we had done inhalers while outside. We got him hooked up to the nebulizer and turned on the tv. Yay, we are watching tv at 2:30am! Just what I want to be doing. All the while I am crossing my fingers and praying that the commotion does not wake Mr Crabby in the Middle of the Night Pants! So...it is 2:30 and we are watching the new Disney Channel show Chuggington. Great. Not sleeping. Watching tv.

I try to convince Boog to sleep on the couch (it is way cooler downstairs) with someone, his choice, mommy or daddy. Nope, he is not having any part of that so upstairs we go, praying still. We get loaded up in the bed, Boog goes to sleep within 5 minutes, I get rolled over and snuggled up and comfortable and guess what happens!?! Yep, Tutti-Frutti is awake. Great. I go and pat him back to sleep, do not pick him up and SCORE he dozes back off so back to bed I go. I load up, roll over, snuggle up, close my eyes and guess what?!? Yep...it's him again. Great. I go back in, pat him to sleep, do not pick him up and SCORE he dozes back off so back to bed I go. This time, I load up, roll over, snug...CRAP. He is up again already. Does this kid ever sleep? What is wrong with my sweet precious baby boy? Why will he not sleep?!? So...back in, pat him to sleep, do not pick him up and SCORE...one last time. He is asleep good this time. Head back to bed, load up, roll over, snuggle up, close my eyes and bingo. I am sleeping. It is now 4am. 5am rolls around...guess what? Yep. Nevermind, send dad to get him, put him in the bed, I give up, nurse him, doze off and the FREAKIN ALARM GOES OFF!!! UGGG!

Today we had Boog's teacher conference at school to determine Kindergarten readiness...they say that he is ready. I am not.

We had music today. It was fun. An old friend from 4 years back who had a daughter in one of Boog's classes rejoined Tutti-Frutti's class with her new little girl. It was great to see them.

Come home, husband sick, big kids out to play nicely with each other (yay) have dinner, little kids cranky, husband with chills and cranky, put kids and husband to bed, come downstairs and (very quitely) do the "THANK GOD EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE IS ASLEEP" dance.

wheew. But I will leave you with a few shots from today. These were right before my crazy dog escaped from the house, (he NEVER runs off, until today) and headed across the road, to poop in the neighbor's yard (UGG) then disappear to the back of another neighbor's house, INTO their backyard (why was their gate open?) and up to BARK at THEIR backdoor, which was by the way being opened by one of their guests. Great, not only are my and I both in their backyard (uninvited) but we are caught! Sheesh...





i love my family!

Ice Skating...take 2

Ok...as promised here are pictures from our second round of ice skating. But...consider yourself warned, picture quality is awful. Rest assured we all had a great time (most of us anyway) on the ice. It was cold, dark and the little one was cranky, we swapped out on who was taking pictures, we have red eyes, shadows and babies pulling on arms...you name it and it probably contributed to the picture taking ability!

Good news is, we ran into friends and family while there!

At this rink, they had little walker type things for the little people to skate with, Boog was gettin' after it! The only complaint we had was they only had the double blade skates that buckled over shoes and they were hard to keep on. The place we went before, the double blades were actually boot skates with a double blade, much better, but...



Movin' right along.



Big brother taking little brother for a quick spin. He loved it when we took turns pushing him fast around the rink. Sorry to say (well maybe not sorry) that there are not any pictures of me pushing him around the rink! I do have some of Lemon Drop's friend pushing him but do not have permission (well, actually I just did not ask) to post them.



Big sister and little brother, and yes, I know she is blurry. Refer to top of post! Haha



The older kids skating along, or holding on in Lemon Drop's case...she did a lot of holding on. I do not think she got skates that actually fit right until right before we left.



Silly girl.



Here we go...she is actually skating here. Way to go! Woo hoo!



A shot of the cousins (well, part of them we were missing the 2 little brothers in this picture) they had such a great time skating together.



We really did have a great time and it worked out perfectly that it was actually cold (like really cold) when we went. It made it more of a real experience for the kids. Living in Texas, they do not get many "real winter" experiences.

A ton of Christmas pictures, finally.

Since I was not happy with the way our other Santa pictures came out, we took another trip to see a different big guy. And what better day to go see Santa than Christmas Eve. I think we might just have to make that a new tradition.



He couldn't totally decide if Santa was someone he wanted to get to know better or just pack up and run away from. I guess he figured it was not too bad. After seeing Santa, we walked over and had lunch at Berryhill, yummy!



We went to the 5pm Christmas Eve service at church and man was it windy! Gee Gee and Pap met us there.



The obligatory "kids in front of the tree on Christmas Eve" picture, crazy momma waited until most of the kids had stripped out of their nice shirts before taking the picture. Oh well.



Ummm, not really sure what is going on here but aren't they super cute?!



Getting cookies and milk ready for Santa!



Mighty Mite had to help too. Hehe



Then he decided he had to taste the cookies first, you know to make sure they were safe for Santa. Funny thing is, the is the first year Boog has not done that. Guess Tutti-Frutti is taking over that responsibility!



Santa's cookies and milk. Freshly prepared and waiting.



Before bed, Daddy read a few Christmas stories.



Listening to the story!



Santa came! Wheew, boy did he!



The look of pure joy when discovering that Santa had been there.



Santa brought me new cups!



Crazy mismatched socks! He loved them. Still wearing a pair everyday. Boy that is fun to keep up with in the laundry department.



Humm, how does this work?



What is this thing?



Huh?



Wow! I got the Spiderman gun I asked for!



Ohh, a bike!



Santa ate all of his cookies.



Having fun in the Handy Manny car.



Alright! The scary castle!



Something must have been funny.



This gift is the reason we had been fussing back and forth about spending money right before Christmas. A NEW paintball gun. A few months back, Sour Apple started playing paintball with friends from school. He had a gun from a while back but it was used. On the first day he went to play, he discovered that something was wrong with the gun he had, he was heartbroken. He borrowed a gun from a friend and had a great time. Well, a few days later, he began asking how much money he had left from his birthday. He had a friend that was selling an old gun for $50 so he could put the money toward a newer nicer gun. He kept on and on and on. I continued telling him that he was not going to spend that much on a used gun...yadda yadda yadda. I had decided the day he played and the gun did not work that I would get him a new one for Christmas. Boy, he did not make it easy. But the look on his face when he saw the new gun, by the way it was the same brand, possibly same gun that his friend was selling, made it worth it all. He was so super happy!



Oh boy! An iPod touch. Yes, I know...we bought an iPod touch for a 4 year old, so what's your point? That means that we all have access to our phones when we need them and it was the best investment EVER. He loves it. Glad we decided to go ahead and do it, otherwise there would have been a very unhappy little boy (who thinks that he is the same age as the big kids) who did not get the same thing as his older siblings.



This is cool!



Yay! Fuzzy boots!



Whatchu' lookin' at, Monkey?



presents...



presents...



The hats that grandma made.









I got a scarf, but found out just last night that I am now the proud owner of a hat too! Thanks grandma, you're the best!



Riding the skateboard from brother's new game.



New scooter...



and new bike!