What goes around, comes around

Tonight at dinner, Alivia said "I am picking a booger." Then she belched. Then she turned her napkin into a sleeping bag for her fork.

After dinner we skyped with my parents. Abbey's single contribution to the conversation was the word "BOOBIES!"

I think this may be what they call "payin' for your raising"

Snow Day

Changed the design again :) No more bathroom wallpaper

We've had a few snow days, so I thought I would share a few pictures of our snow day.

This first one is abbey :)


Ainsley making a snow angel...
I made abbey do push-ups in the snow...not really, I have no idea what is happening here.
All my sweet girls :)


We decided to make snow ice cream. Before I knew what was happening, Alivia was "helping" with no shoes on. She did have on two pairs of socks. That counts for something right?


Everyone got a turn to stir...

Abbey approved only after I added chocolate.

Then they read in front of the fire.

And we ended the day with puzzles. At one point while working on a puzzle abbey said, "Daddy, the most important thing when we grow up is to be a Christian, right?" To which Ainsley responded, "Well, all I want to be when I grow up is a mermaid." I'm gonna have to keep my eye on that one :)


Now before you go hating me because we had a day of perfect parenting and loving each other, it's possible that I had to pull them off of each other a time or two or wrench the wad of hair out of a little clenched fist. But lets just focus on the positive shall we? Hope every one is staying warm!

Wednesday Night

Note: Yes, I changed the way my blog looks. Yes, it reminds me of bathroom wallpaper. Yes, there is a sentence down there where I used the word "can't" three times. I found it easier to type this disclaimer about my grammar than to actually rework the sentence. Also, no offense to anyone who eats good food and drinks goats milk :) I really do admire that!


At some point in this parenting adventure, Aaron and I decided that there were some battles that are worth fighting, and some that are not. The main things we decided we would not freak about were food and clothes. Now, we don't just let our children roam around eating candy all day. Nor do we let them leave the house in a pair of white leggings that are at least 6 sizes to small, which has been attempted. Too small white leggings are never a good idea, regardless of your age.

Anyway, here are our thoughts on food...

1. I know that I am supposed to fix wholesome, healthy, meals complete with vegetables from my garden and milk from my goat, and organic, and no preservatives, and something about chickens and steroids and blah, blah, blah. Sounds expensive and time consuming to me and while I'm milking the goat my children are shoving huge wads of toilet paper down the toilet and cutting each others hair.

I know that I am supposed to offer them new foods over and over until they finally decide they like it. I tried that and I just got so tired of throwing untouched food in the trash. Not to mention the crying and the gagging. And then after gagging at the meal you poured your heart and soul into, they eat dry bisquick off the counter and cry when you won't give them more.























Aaron's mom swears she raised him on peanut butter and jelly and scrambled eggs. I remember eating a lot of baloney and drinking a lot of milk. And look how great we turned out :)

If it was good enough for our moms, it's good enough for me.

So we don't make a big deal out of trying new stuff. We don't make them clean there plate...I think that teaches people to over eat. We just use common sense.

And finally, clothes.

If you have ever seen our girls, then you probably know where we stand on this. As long as it fits and is "appropriate" then we are probably going to let them wear it. I really can't believe i can't find a picture that illustrates this but I can't and it's getting late. So you'll just have to take my word for it... this is sometimes not an easy one to let go!

One final thing before I end this. I vacumed this rug about an hour before this picture was taken. It's a good thing I love those girls so much :)

Vacation Redefined

Well, I'm sitting here in Durant waiting for the fog to lift so I can drive back to Tulsa. I know. You don't have to tell me. I'm like a 90 year old when it comes to driving and technology.

I've been in Durant for the last couple of days helping my parents paint a bedroom and I've had a lot of time to think. I don't normally get to think. I recently read an article that said introverts (like me) need time alone to hear themselves think and sort things out. Well, lemme tell ya...the last time i was alone was sometime back in 2005 before i birthed my first child. So when I found myself alone in a quiet house with nothing to do but move that roller back and forth, my mind was making up for lost time. And i thought, Man, this is like a vacation! Which brings me to the point of this post.

Being the mother of many small children will DRASTICALLY lower your standards of what a vacation should be.

Example # 1 Before kids, I would not have considered physical labor a vacation. In fact, I would have considered punishment. And yet, I found my self living it up this weekend. I mean, I went to the bathroom numerous times, BY MYSELF.

Example #2 Now this one is the most telling of how desperate we moms can get for a little "me time". I recently had a colonoscopy . For those of you unfamiliar with this procedure, the part everyone dreads is the prep which involves drinking about 5 gallons of some liquid that I finally decided tasted like salty milk and then sitting on the pot for the rest of the day. My mom and dad took the girls for the weekend so i could do the prep and the procedure without having to worry about them. When aaron called from work to see how things were going, i cross my heart and hope to die, I said, "This is like a vacation!!" And don't get me started on the actual procedure. Those drugs were heaven. Forget the sandy beaches....when can I get another colonoscopy?!

...Do you see what I mean?! If you had told me 10 years ago that i would consider a colonoscopy and painting a vacation I might have jerked your arm off and beat you with it.

In other news, I went to the dentist the other day and found out my gums are receding. Great. Because my teeth aren't big enough already. Then my hygenist told me I was probably clenching my teeth at night. Soon thereafter it came out that I had three small children and my hygenist said, "Well, girl, I could've diagnosed you over the phone!" So there I am processing that my gums are receding and of course my mind immediatly goes to worst case scenario which looked a little something like this...



Then she tells me that a bite guard will help. Nothing sexier than snuggling up to your wife and her bite guard. Except when she takes it out and super long spit strings dangle between her mouth and the bite guard. Come on. Throw me a bone here. So, I left with instructions to wear my retainer and use sensodyne, and possibly gum grafts in my future which are "much less painful nowadays."

Hey, sounds like a vacation to me!

Disney on Ice: Worlds of Fantasy...OMG.

On a whim, we decided to take the girls to Disney on Ice. They LOVED it. LOVED IT. Seriously. Even Alivia who in her 18+ months has NEVER made it through a church service managed to stay completely still for the entire show. Now I am not proposing that Disney on Ice and church are comparable but that child does not want for entertainment on a sunday morning either.

So we got there and found our seats which were fantastic and the girls were super excited. Abbey even wore her traffic cone.

Here we all are.

And here is aaron and his new bff.
We had a blast and I highly recommend it.

What we've been up to the last few months...

The other day Ainsley stopped in the middle of playing, looked at me and said, "Mom, when are we ever going to do something fun?" Let me just show you what we had been doing prior to this question...





As if I make them slave around the house all day. None the less, I made it my personal mission to find something else "fun" for us to do.

We have been sort of planning a camping trip and I thought it might be fun to camp in the back yard just to see how things went. And I'm not gonna lie, it was a test for Alivia which she failed miserably. She will not be camping with us.Here is aaron setting up the tent. We got in it at about 10 pm and we were back inside by 6 am. Thank you alivia. We really do love her, she just doesn't like to sleep as much as the rest of us.

I'll try to post later this week with some more pictures and maybe some video. Love, Aud :)

Hilarious