Recent Pictures

Ok, after this I am done blogging for another two weeks! And to add to my last post---you know you have four kids when you blog by typing with one hand and drool is somehow all over your other hand & arm!
Just a few last pictures from recent events:
*It's official: Adam knows Luke is here to stay & he likes him!**Julia enjoyed the first snowfall so much more than anyone else!*



*This is so gross---update on the attack of the yellow jackets---after sufficiently destroying the nest by driving the car into the backyard to run over and over it and a lot of bug spray--this is what Aaron and the kids dug up--a creepy nest with hundreds of eggs--yikes!

*And I don't have a picture to show, but Jack is reading and we are so proud of him--he has brought home his first little books from school and it is so fun to hear him say things like, "sssam, sssam I am", "mmmat, mmmat has a hhhat".

Watch out David Letterman

Here's my attempt at a funny top 10 list of my life currently,

Top Ten Ways you know you have four kids...

#10--You put a size 2T shirt on your 4 month old baby, roll up the sleeves and say, "that will do"...
#9--Your two year old is walking around the house with an empty toilet paper roll repeatedly yelling, "Hi Mommy, Happy Mommy"
#8--You see this in the kitchen and realize it's time for that two year old to take a nap:
#7--You add corn to every meal
#6--You can always find something on the couch to use as a burp rag
#5--You go through every name in the family until you get to the right name of who you are talking to
#4--You have a giant sock basket in the laundry room and hope everyone finds something that at least slightly resembles a match
#3--You think it's normal to hold a baby high in the air in public to sniff, sniff for a poopy diaper
#2--You count heads before you pull out of the garage
#1--Right when you think you are about to cry from insanity, some little person makes you laugh, smile & feel very important!!!

Parent Teacher Organization

I am the PTO President this year at Grace Elementary, and yes I plan on putting that on my resume and thanks to Sarah Palin I can list it under "executive experience". Now that I posted that whole politics thing, the flood gates are open!
As the PTO President, this is how my house has looked this week:
All of those are Grace Elementary Broncos t-shirts and sweatshirts that nicely showed up in a Fed Ex bundle at my door, just waiting for me to organize them, so everyone would get what they ordered. Again, another activity to accomplish during Adam nap time!
Then there were Red Ribbon Week treats to be prepared. A little goodie with a little slogan on it like "Don't be a Dum Dum, Say no to drugs", "Smarties don't do drugs", you get the idea! Well, there are 170 students at Grace Elementary, which compared to normal school sizes that doesn't sound like a lot, but when you are taping little sayings onto little candies for each child for four different days, it quickly seems like a lot!
So, again I will praise my Julia! My friends and I used to have this little chant, "We are Women and what do we do, We get things done!"---I love that, I love them! Last night, I felt like proclaiming the same thing with the help of my Julia! We got all the bags set out for each class and then a separate smaller bag for each day and just whipped the whole project into an organized mode. Julia begged me to stay up until I was done, and I feel like a bad mom to admit, but that meant she stayed up until midnight! There was no getting her to bed until the task was completed, she was determined and I was very thankful for her help.

Good intentions...

So, I always think of these grand ideas and a lot of times they don't really work out like I envisioned. Maybe I just have a too creative mind and I need to set my expectations a little lower!
Jack had a fun day at Nana & Baba's house and Julia and I wanted to make him a little party for when he got home with Aaron. So...she sprang into action, like she always does--with cards, signs to hang up and colored balloons, etc. All of that was cute, but then I got out a cake pan that makes six little cakes and had this grand idea to make six little cakes with all different colors of frosting. Six is better than one, right?
Well, this is how it turned out:
And yes, thats Adam mixing all the colors for his cake! I think I've mentioned this before on this blog, but cake decorating is not one of my strengths.




I did hang this up on the wall and it looked as cute as I envisioned:

Prepare for a long political soapbox...

Get ready for a lot of posts all at once! Things have been crazy busy around here lately---we had a blitz of doctor's appointments and things with PTO come all at once (t-shirt orders, red ribbon week, halloween carnival prep, etc....), not to mention the normal craziness of Aaron's extremely busy schedule with work, school and church responsibilities which equates to my craziness from time to time!
But, before I move on to the happenings of my lovely family, I must comment on politics---I have resisted for sooo long to post about it because I get so fired up! But, I can no longer hold it in......! There are too many opinions to put them all out there, but just for record's sake and a little humor, I will comment on our current political season. Plus, I want my children to remember that mom cared about current events, probably too much, but I care!
First, I will just put it out there, I plan on voting for John McCain, after reading a lot on voting records, watching the debates and simply thinking it through a lot. I am proud to say that I did not reach this decision merely by watching a panel of analysts on CNN or listening to Sean Hannity on the radio or reading just one article here or there. There are several things that I tend to agree a little more with Barack Obama on, but there are just some fundamental things that I disagree too strongly with him on to vote for him. So, here are my three main reasons for voting for McCain: (remember this is just for my own record's sake, I don't care if most of you have stopped reading by now!)
1-I love the idea of an across the board spending freeze and I really hope he sticks to his word on that. I won't go into my thoughts on how ridiculous it is how much money the government wastes!
2-I tend to trust his choices on who to appoint as Supreme Court justices more than Obama---I feel like Obama has a much greater chance of appointing someone with a political agenda that wouldn't align with my values and frankly the values of the majority of America.
3-I can't stomach that Obama can't stand up and say no, just flat out no to partial birth abortion. Obviously, I want NO completely to abortion at any stage, but his fumbling around the issue of partial birth abortion just angers me. He tries to make this giant loophole of "the health of the mother" sound normal, well you can call being overweight from the pregnancy a danger to your health. Life and death situation is a different scenario, but "health" of the mother--that vagueness equates to meaning anything someone wants it to mean. Which by the way, those life and death scenarios I mentioned hardly EVER happen.

Ok....take a deep breath, no more talk on that subject or I could go on way too long...With all of that said, there are some things that drive me crazy about McCain (remember I'm voting for him, so I have the right to also point out what I don't like). There are some details of big issues like health care and education that I don't like what he is proposing, but here are some ticky tac things that are bugging, just today:
Did anyone else notice last night on the debate how he went off on a tangent about finding a cure for Autism and said that this is something Sarah Palin struggles with, etc. (not an exact quote, but that general thought)---hello, Sarah Palin's baby has Down Syndrome, not Autism---big difference!
--Also, in the last two debates he does this random jig at the end because he doesn't know where to go--he looks like he's going to fall over and have a heart attack (another subject altogether!)---He flares his arms side to side while making funny, confused faces--it's just random and looks like he's had way too much coffee that day! If you see me, I will show you what I mean!
Ok, enough--if I've had enough by just typing, I'm sure anyone actually taking precious time to read this has had enough too! And if you're wondering when I have the time to go on and on with this soapbox---Julia and Jack are at school and Adam and Luke are asleep and I want a break from PTO stuff!
Take home message: Just make up your own mind & VOTE!!!

Four Months Old

My sweet Luke, four months old today----I love your big, beaming, blue eyes. I love that you smile and laugh so much. I love that you sleep through the night! I love that you love to hear my voice. I love that you are so strong. I love that you are mellow among lots of silly ( & loud!) siblings. I love you!

Camera ready....

Thank goodness for Julia's camera perfect perma-grin because I sure can't count on that with the others--I never know what I'll get!

One & Only

My visiting teacher saw this picture and she commented, "theres always one in every family..." One.....one firecracker, one with an iron will, one that answers everything with "Yea", one that never meets anyone without that person commenting on his eyelashes, one that can pull an all out fit and still melt your heart all in the same minute, one that can wear blue clues ears, green froggy boots and still pull off a cute outfit, theres only one Adam!










We wouldn't have it any other way---we love our Addie-boo!