It's 7 o'clock in the evening and I just brushed my teeth for the first time today...

I really feel like that may explain my absence from the ol' blog. I mean, if you know me at all you know I'm not a hygiene freak ( I even had to look that word up to spell it correctly), but I do like to give my teeth a good once over in the morning for the sake of those I might encounter during the day. You know, the walmart check out lady with the bright red hair and latex gloves (or man who loves to make jokes the entire time I am checking out), the ups/fedex/usps delivery person, or one of the many "evangelists" who roam my neighborhood, and of course my family :).

All of that to say, that unfortunately, "blogging" has taken a back seat around here. You've probably noticed that I even deleted my face book account -GASP!!- It was a major news source for me and I was very sad to see it go. In fact, if I had been on facebook I can guarantee you that I would have been the one to inform my husband that his Beloved Michael Jackson had passed away instead of him finding out from a youth group member via text (which I might add he didn't even believe. I had to say, "Give me that phone. I will find the truth!") However, even if I hadn't initiated my own investigation, the 25 text messages saying "sorry for your loss" in the next two hours might have tipped him off.

So face book is gone and blogging is neglected because we have been BUSY! But we have been having fun. This will be an attempt to catch you up and show you some pictures of what we have been up to. I have no idea how this will take shape. Maybe one massive post that you will have to print off, bind, and read like a book. Or maybe I'll do a bunch of short ones...I'll just wing it...I'm crazy like that.

I think I'll start pre-traveling. And I'm just going to skip over the "aren't my kids so cute" pictures and go straight to the "they are so much like their dad" pictures. ;)




Here is Ainsley washing the bricks with her clothes.


Here is Alivia helping remove tile from the kitchen wall.




Here is Ainsley drinking her milk and holding her nose. She has been doing this for the last 6 weeks and that is not an exaggeration. I made the fatal mistake of buying the target brand milk instead of Borden milk from walmart one time when I was in a hurry. Ainsley swore it tasted like "Abbey's milk" which is soy milk which has never gotten within 5 feet of Ainsley's apparently extremely refined palate. So being the fabulous mom I am, I told her to hold her nose and she wouldn't taste anything. So she did. And when that girl finds a good thing she does not let it go. She has continued to hold her nose when drinking milk despite the fact that I have long since replace the target brand with borden and even showed her the jug. Does this remind anyone of the glove? Here is that story...Ainsley was at granna and granpas and fell. She swore she had a scratch on her hand and at that point in time she DID NOT want to see the boo boo. We could not see it, but she was so convinced it was there that she put her hand behind her back and left it there....for three days. She ate with it behind her back, she bathed with it behind her back, she tried to get dressed with it behind her back, you get the picture. So I had another one of my brilliant ideas. I really was concerned she was going to fall and smash her face in with out that hand to catch herself. So I told her to wear a mitten so she could still use her hand but not have to see the "boo boo". Apparently she loved that idea almost as much as holding her nose because we had a child who wore one fuzzy pink mitten for about a month in the middle of the summer. She even slept in it. Ok, I've got to get one of abbey girl in here.
Well, this is Alivia, not Abbey. But I do have some great ones of abbey for a later post. Alivia loves to put things on her head and try to walk. Here she is with the library book bag on her head about to walk into the island.

Well, I think I'm going to move on to another post. By the way, see that craziness going on in the kitchen? I'll do a before and after post when it's done. It looks TOTALLY different!

Love you all, Aud :)