Pictures pictures everywhere!!!!

As you can tell by the new header, yesterday was a busy day!!! I took some new pictures of the kids for fall! They had a great time playing in the leaves!!! It was a first for the twins. They had no interest last year. And this year, well, it took some warming up to the idea!!! They just looked at me like "really? We're supposed to jump in there?" It was pretty cute! But once they figured out how much fun it was, they LOVED it!!!!

I have a TON of pictures on here today. Seriously, a heap. Hopefully I won't bore you before you hit the end!!!



Here the kids are trying the first jump. The twins were still a little unsure at this point!
An attempt at a fall picture of the kiddos. I have a great idea for a Christmas card, I just need a picture from each season with them!!!

Kendyl Grace

Kaleb Todd

Dallas Todd

Gabriel Todd

Aren't leaves fun?

Then the leaf fight started. . .
I love this picture of Gabe! It really catches his true personality!
She looks like she has no neck!


I love this one of Kaleb too!
Kendyl was a little camera ham all day!!!
Kaleb, not understanding that it was OK to throw the leaves!!!
Well, ok. . .. .if you insist!!!

My little monkey climbing! This girl LOVES to climb, flip, turn, spin, and get herself into the air anyway she can! She's so flexible!!!
Gabe-6, Kendyl and Kaleb-3, Dallas-7

Would you like some grape juice with that cheese?? (since I'm not going to offer him wine!)
Another cup here too. . . .
Wait! Make that three!!!!
Ok, well, grape juice all around, they all seem to have a case of cheese today!!!
More leaf fights!

And then. . .wrestle mania broke out!
My boys don't usually wrestle, but in the leaves they figured they could get away with it!!!


Kalebs turn for a tackle!





Happy fall ya'll!
And, a few house update pictures!!!!

This is the old doorway in the kitchen! Its shut off now!!!
From the other side!
All the bathroom windows are now in!!!


The hole in Kendyl's floor is now gone!!!
And they've got the outside sealed up for winter (we're just using this to get through to next spring when we can reside. It looks horrible, but it serves it purpose!!)





The old bathroom window is gone now too!!!
And the kids and I had some fun in the boy's room. We put up their posters that they've been wanting to do forever! This is Gabe's side, with his shark and shrek posters, and batman window clings!
batman clings! But see that fall color show out the window!!!
Dallas's spiderman side! He has more, because its easier to find! We're still looking for more for Gabe!
Spidey window clings!
He actually goes well with the yellow walls!!!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!!!

Gotta love MEA weekend.

MEA weekend is upon us. It is really the first break in the school year. Its a Thursday and Friday off from school for the students, and a bunch of conferences for the teachers. MEA has always been a welcome break in the school year for us. That is until this year!!! There's SO much going on right now, and SO much extra stress that a full four day weekend with my crazy rampaging kids just doesn't seem like much fun right now. Nope, no fun at all!

These next two days will be medication free for Dallas, which in itself is always a huge headache. He's ADD. Not ADHD, just ADD. And his meds help him from feeling like his head is going a million miles a minute. And when the meds are not present and the head goes a million miles a minute, so does the mouth! Not something you'd take as a bad thing necessarily right? Yeah. It gets REALLY REALLY old after about the 10th time you've heard the same thing. And its him telling it to you again and again because he honestly can't remember if it was just in his head or if he really said it out loud. That's a feeling we can all relate to I think. But one that gets old.

Next I come to Gabriel. Gabriel seems to have a slight case of the middle child's going on lately. He whines, cries and fusses over EVERYTHING. It seems that nothing is fair enough for him and he's always feeling left out. I'll give him the fact that he's stuck in the middle, and I get that. But really, its not too bad. We've kind of always viewed our kids as two and two. Since the first two came only 14 months apart, then there's three/four years between the the next two. Either way his coping technique will be nothing shy of needling each one of his siblings however he can by invading their space, trying to take their toys, not sharing his toys, and giving himself the worlds biggest personal bubble, which of course he'll cry, fuss and come running to me over when someone enters it. We add on to the top of that list his pooping issues and it makes for oh so much fun!

Of course we now come to Kendyl. Kendyl, being the only girl, hasn't really had too many "girlie" personality hiccups. In many ways she's just like the boys. Well, until recently! We play at the school every day after the boys get out of school. This not only give them the chance to burn their energy but gives Kendyl the chance to play with some girls. She loves it. But she's picked up one girlie thing from all this that I could REALLY live without. She's discovered the art of screaming like a girl. You know the scream I'm talking about. That really high pitched, ear drum shattering scream. And she's using in any way that she can, I think just to try out her new found talent. The boys come too close, she screams. They try to play with her, she screams. They change the channel off of the cartoons she wanted, she screams. You get the general idea. Its only 10:00 am here, and I've already thought about locating some ear plugs. It doesn't seem to matter how many times we talk about how screaming is NOT ok, she keeps on doing it. I guess you can say she's got some good perseverance!

And last, but certainly not least we have Kaleb. Poor Kaleb just wants to be like the big boys. It doesn't occur to him at all that he's 3 years younger and Gabe and 4 years younger than Dallas and that there are just things they can do that he can't. If they're all playing Lego's, he gets frustrated because he can't quite manipulate the little bitty Lego's like they can, which results in a less than master piece end result in his eyes. Which then results in him running to me in tears. And how do you fix that? He comes running to me to fix it, because everyone knows that in a little boys eyes mommy can fix anything. And I can't. He's just too little. He'll catch up, I know he will, but by then I'll be lucky if the bigger boys still want to do the same things he does!

So you add all these little personality quirks to the normal list of arguing, disagreeing, sibling rivalry that always seems to be an underlying fact lately, and you have one mommy who is about one fist full shy of pulling out all her hair!!!! I do have one saving grace though. Its supposed to be nice enough weather for the next two days that I can ship them outside to play. That isn't always the fix either though, since Dallas "doesn't like to be outside".


Ugh. The tears have started out in the living room, and I need to go break up the latest of the brawls. I don't know how we do it on the weekends, without all this commotion. It seems that they do just fine when they know they only have to get through 2 days. When you add on more than that it just seems like they're not capable of coping.


So, if you don't hear from me till Monday, or beyond, it may be because I've been admitted to the local psych ward with all the other moms in my situation this weekend!!!

Way back When-sday!

Hooray for Wednesdays! I love having a reason to bring around my old pictures!!!! I went back and fourth as to what picture to put up today, and wound up settling on this one. This is Todd and I in July of 1997. This was right after we got back from a trip to New York. The very same trip where we started dating! We'd gone out to the East coast with marching band to play several parades out there. It was a BLAST! We made so many memories at the very start of our relationship! And since we were together every single day on the trip, it was really hard to come home and go our separate ways! We did manage for the rest of the summer to spend time together EVERY day. It was such a good feeling to finally be a couple. This is what I'd wanted for years. He didn't go there, because I was dating his best friend for the 2 years before that. But, once we did officially become a couple, everything just fit. Everything was right. And we've never looked back since!!!!
If you're trying to figure out how old we were in this picture, I was 15, just one month shy of 16, and He would have been. . .17, just 6 months shy of 18.



For more way back fun visit Cheryl at Twinfatuation!!!

Two for Two-sday

This is a first for me. I've looked a heaps of two for two-sday pictures, but never actually played along. I figured what the heck today, and thought I'd join in!!!!


This is my dad and Kaleb this spring. They were just going to go around the block for a motorcycle ride, and Kaleb was SOOOOO excited!!! I think he looks so tough in this one!!! I just love this picture of the two of them!!!


If you'd like to play, head over to Eight is Great!

Dirty little secrets!

I was tagged by Brenda over at the Myers Family for this one!!!!! Barbara's sister recently found a book called Dirty Little Secrets from Otherwise Perfect Moms by Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile. The general premise of the book is: "...Every good mom has a few Dirty Little Secrets that help her...get by....the indulgences we rely on in times of need, the shortcuts we take when no one's looking (showers are overrated!), and our real, honest thoughts about motherhood and family... know you're not alone." I haven't actually read the book, but thought it might be fun to play along!!!


So, here they are, my 5 dirty little secrets!!!!


1. I have a MOUNTAIN of clean laundry waiting to be folded. Seriously, a mountain. I HATE putting clothes away because there's no where to put them right now, so they sit on the pile, clean and waiting to be folded another day!!!

2. I HATE craft time with the kids. That sounds really awful doesn't it? It isn't that I don't like the creative outlet with my kids, or the end product that they come out with, I just HATE the set up and clean up of it! I hope this one will change once I start doing day care and have the space set up to do things right.

3. If I have a show coming on at night that I REALLY want to watch, I'll put my kids to bed early (think 7 pm!) just so I can watch it! There's very little time in the day that I get for ME, but I still feel a little guilty over this one!

4. I hate cooking in a dirty kitchen but I have no qualms about leaving the dishes sit till right before I'm ready to cook, and then addressing them! As long as I have a clean place to work from , I'm cool with it!!!

5. I don't let my kids pick out their own clothes. I know that Dallas and Gabe should be doing this by now, but I don't let them. I have this thing about my kids going out in public looking presentable. So, no picking out their own clothes. That's not to say that they aren't allowed a say. We'll often pick one or two choices together. I'm hoping this is teaching them how to match clothes, and look presentable. There are SO many kids at the school that dress themselves and they go to school looking like little homeless bums. I would be MORTIFIED if that were my kid. I don't know why, but it bugs me a lot!!!!


I'm not going to tag anyone officially, but please feel free to play along!! Lets see what dirty little secrets you have hiding in your closet!!!!

Mommy moment Monday!!!

My mommy moment this week isn't traveling too far from memory, since it just happened yesterday!!! I was so proud of my kiddos! They were amazing helpers!!!!

Yesterday was a busy day for us. We had church in the morning, and then after, we came home and had lunch. We then headed over to the new house to pick up the trailer we were borrowing. We needed to fill it with some blocks from the basement shower that no longer exists! (have i mentioned how happy I am that the concentration camp shower is gone!?!?!?) We just left the kids in the car, and Todd and I were going to do the hauling. But just as he was explaining to me to be careful because some blocks had cracks in them, one broke and almost smashed his feet. It shattered into little bitty pieces, and he was cursing that we'd have to pick all the "piddly stuff" up too. So I said "why don't we see if the kids want to help. They like doing this kind of stuff." Out he went, and in they came. They all marched down the stairs, and kept up with us trip after trip! They hauled out the little broken pieces, and the ones that they could lift! They were AMAZING little helpers!!!! We ALL got our work out though! Those bricks were HEAVY, and we were hauling them from the basement, up and out the door, to the trailer. HARD WORK! And they all did it with a smile on their face!!!

This is the pile of bricks we moved. Todd and I did the big stuff, but they got the little crumbled bits! They did such a great job!!!

And, they were rewarded for their efforts! After we went to Mendards for some plumbing supplies, they were each given a tootsie pop sucker! They thought it was a GREAT trade off!!!


Sometimes I don't know what I'd do without these little buggers! They can be hard work, but they're also so amazingly awesome!!!!!


If you'd like to play along on Mommy Moment Monday, let me know, and I'll link to you here!!!!

Memory Loss Meme

I was tagged by Barbara over at A tale of two twinkies for this one! And I have to admit! I've been watching it go around for a while now, and I think its kinda fun!!! So, I'm gonna play along too!!!



Here's what you have to do. You need to open your sixth photo folder, and open the sixth photo, and you need to post it. And you need to hope that you remember what it is!!!!


So, here goes!!!

This is Kaleb and Gabriel in May. I believe it was mothers day actually! I was trying to get some good pictures of the kids, and they were more interested in showing me their muscles!!! Gotta love little boys!!!!!

I was kinda hoping for something nice, and old, but we've only had this computer since February, so I didn't get that lucky! I instead have just pictures from this year mostly!!!!

Ok, I'm tagging:

Heather
Julie
Amy
Brandi
Misty
Kristi
Shasta