Thumbs

Thumbs are very nice.

Yes, I like my thumbs. I use them a lot. Especially the top part.


And when I was trying to roast some chicken and have a nice home cooked, candle-lit dinner for my family in our new dining area, this little friend....




...chopped the tip of my thumb off. Well, not completely, but it would have if it hadn't been a 7 year old, never been sharpened, bottom of the line knife.

(don't judge my nails...i was a piano player growing up and have never had nice nails!)


Oh the throbbing. My whole arm throbbed. So bad, I called Robert (who thankfully was on his way home) and cried! It hurt. And I'm not a baby when it comes to stuff like this! But I've NEVER cut my finger this bad.


So Robert gets home and helps me get it semi cleaned up. And since our kids are band aid-obsessed, there were not enough for me and my gushing thumb. Ok, not gushing, but let's just say it bled through lots of toilet paper. :-)

So me, (yes me, my throbbing thumb and all) and Rhodes rode (haha, that was funny to type) down the road to pick up some bandages. It throbbed the whole.way.there.

So I get my band aids and head home to finish dinner - with my gimpy thumb.

But I walk into kids gone wild.

Finger painting was the activity of choice for the girls while I was gone for all of 10.3 minutes.

Olivia was smart and cleaned herself up by the time I got upstairs.

Lillian, well, not so much. It was everywhere...on her coat, arms, face, etc. And here I am not supposed to get my thumb wet. It's amazing what you can do one handed when you have to!



Where was Robert?

Oh, glad you asked. In the garage supervising the kids while sanding some furniture.



Luckily, my dad brought some steri-strips and glue to help my thumb heal.


Moral of the story -

Don't cut the tip of your thumb off. Because you can't play your kids Mario nintendo games with a chopped up thumb!

On another note, say a little prayer for this sweet baby. He isn't feeling well and it's hard to see him so puny! He had a horrible night last night (I think I was up 7 times with him) and he's just plain pitiful!

We want him better QUICK!!!

A.F.V.

There is one pretty cool thing going on around here that I haven't told you guys about yet.


America's Funniest Home Videos and I have been in talks.

In talks to air one of our home videos.

Shocker!? Kinda......unless you know my family.


And actually, it's more like the family I married in to. :-) Considering my brother-in-law is the one flying through the air off of one of my kid's flying turtles........


Yes, I submitted a video to AVF a few months ago. Heck, we thought it was funny....at least funnier than the ones we sometimes see on the show every Sunday night.

But then I came across the 19+ pages of paperwork/release forms that came along with uploading videos. And the whole process kinda fizzled out. I tried printing them, but it was too confusing and overwhelming for me. So I let it go.


Until....

...I get a phone call. On my cell phone. One with a crazy area code that makes me think, "this has GOT to be a wrong number or some annoying telemarketer"....

But on this day (lucky for him), I decided to happily answer the phone and not send it directly to voice mail.

And whatdoyaknow....I'm glad I answered it.

Because it was America's Funniest Home Videos....calling to tell me they're interested in airing our video and needed all the confusing release forms to move forward with it's scheduled appearance.


And I'm happy to tell you that ALL and every signature (you wouldn't believe all they need) that was needed for the forms was faxed to them and our video is up for final review......with a tentative airing date of March 15th.

To my understanding, it will be airing unless something crazy falls through.


I would REALLY love to show you the video. And some of you may have been lucky enough to already have viewed it on utube.com. BUT, unfortunately, since I signed the rights over to AFV, I had to remove it from the utube community.

But I do plan on letting everyone I know when my son and crazy brother-in-law will be having their 15 minutes of fame....March 15th.


Did I mention it was March 15th???


Ok.


And then, once it airs, I plan on putting it back on UTUBE....so that I can brag about it share it with every one I possible know. :-)


Wish us luck!!!

Very Proud To Announce....

....that I am 100%, positively, NOT PREGNANT! :-)

First....I'm SHOCKED by how many of you thought I was pregnant again. I even received some texts and emails asking me if I was housing another little human being. So I hope I'm not disappointing anyone too much by clearing that rumor up.

SHOP IS CLOSED UP! For a while. Sheesh. Can't a girl catch a break! :-)


No, truthfully, life caught up with me. I realized I can't do it all - and keep it together. I'm not supermom. The whirlwind of the holidays, lack of schedule/school, the bitter cold temps that kept us inside for 10 days - not to mention FOUR KIDS. My emotions and hormones got the best of me. Flat wore me out. It was bad. And I learned a lot. But I don't want to bore you all with that right now.

Being in a fog the past 2 weeks, I didn't take many pics. But here are a few updating you on what's going on around here.


This little man...all 13 1/2 lbs of him...well, he's about to give us a run for our money. Boy, as soon as he learns to get around, life will be upside down. Not to mention when the other kids figure out he can get to their stuff and eat/break/tear it up! It's going to be hard to keep an eye on everything in the house!

He's doing the usual cute things 4 months old do. Squeal, laugh, coo, try and sit up, stare at his hand, grab on to whatever he can and put it in his mouth.


I've found him in a few awkward predicaments lately. Mainly ones that involve him playing "house" against his will. And what-do-ya-know....he plays the part of baby.

Olivia had him all set up in her room.

Bless his heart.

Just wait until they dress you up, my little man! I will surely have the camera ready.

This reminds me of when Olivia and Landon did THIS to Lillian.


He's also working on some hair. And it's always sticking up. I think it's going to be wavy. Kinda like Robert's hair. But I guess it's still too early to tell. At least it's looking like he won't be bald for 18 months like Lillian! This picture makes me want to nickname him "Fuzz".



This little lady is still hilarious as usual. Her vocabulary is getting bigger and bigger! She says some pretty funny things.

Oh, and she is staying drier than EVER!!! Talk about a breeze to potty train! Hardly any accidents since STARTING. And not ANY #2 accidents! :-) Though she does like to do it everywhere we go - Publix, pediatrician's office, Target, friend's houses.....I mean seriously, of all places to go! Ok, no more potty talk. BUT, she loves her Cinderella panties and WILL ask you if YOU are wearing panties too. And just may, or may not, ask to see them. Just sayin'.



She's also still wearing a lot of these. Mainly because the static is so bad around here, her hair goes wild!


Landon is just chuggin' along! Loving school and sports. Duh. I think we're gearing up for baseball this season. Lord, help me now.




Most of all, I'm SOO thankful for the sunny days we are getting lately. I'm not sure how people do it in dreary states. Seriously.....that vitamin D makes a HUGE difference in my attitude!

We've been soaking up a lot of that lately. We even revisited the MOTHERLAND. So much fun, and much better with kids a year older!



And on one of those sunny and warm days, me in my delirious state took my dog from this:



to this:

I'll spare you what the rest of her body looks like. Let's just say I am NOT a dog groomer and thank goodness my dog could care less what she looks like. But we refuse to pay $45 for poodle cuts every 3 months.


Sadly, I don't have a pic of Olivia recently! :-( I'm a bad mommy photog.....

But I do have a pic of her current obsession.



And I am completely, utterly, 100% over them. They are EVERYWHERE IN MY HOUSE - vacuum, washer, dryer, floors, etc. I told her that if I find one more on the ground, I will throw it away. And throw away I do. The only thing is, they keep finding their way back into my house When will it END!!



Well, friends, sorry for my absence. I just had to unplug for a while. But plan to be back. :-)

Here's to hoping my kids do some crazy things so that I have something to tell you about!


And again...sorry for getting y'all all worked up. Well, not really. It was secretly fun to watch my counter go crazy! The best guess was from Elizabeth - "Hope it's because you went on a surprise vacay with Robert or somehthing fun like that!"

Because, OH, that would have been GREAT!!! One day...one day....the kids are just passing through....we'll have plenty of time for that soon...well, a couple of dozen years give or take.

????

I'll give you 2 guesses why I haven't blogged in a while and the first one doesn't count. :-)

Life Now

Today ended out Christmas/Winter break. It was FUN. Busy. Crazy. Haphazard. Mayham. All in one. I love order and routine and there just wasn't much of that over the break. We still tried to get up and do "first things first" - make bed, get dressed, eat breakfast, etc. But some days, well, they were just pj days. Which was fine by me. We didn't get out much - except when Robert was around. I guess I'm just too chicken to go places with all 4 by myself. Except the park. Yes, the gated parks. We were there a lot too. Then the temperature dropped to 12 degress. Yeah, not going outside at that temperature. So we just hunkered down at home around the fire. Played lots of wii and snuggled in the bed with a heating pad watching lots of movies.


We are now almost 4 months into having this little guy around.




And lots changed over the break. The boys are now officially sharing a room. And the transition went much smoother than when we put the girls together. Thankfully, Rhodes is a GREAT sleeper. Going 10-12 hours a night. Every once in blue moon he'll get up once to eat. I think it's just because he missed me. :-) We shall see how it goes once he's mobile and blabbing more.


Lillian also has had some milestones. She's pretty much potty training herself. She stays dry around the house and during nap pretty good. I haven't ventured out yet with panties. It's more my problem than hers though. I'm not quite up to the task of visiting every bathroom in every store we go to. So we'll just stick to panties around the house until I feel she's ready to ALL day in panties!

I will say, taking a more laid back approach to potty training has been SO much easier. With Olivia, I really forced it and worked on it. It was pretty stressful for me. With Landon, I just waited - until he was 3. Then it was really quick. Lillian has shown her own interest and I just praise her for staying dry and going in the potty. More of a positive reinforcement approach. So she desires to be potty trained and it makes it a much smoother transition, in my opinion.


We also took the railing off of her twin bed!! And I haven't heard a "THUD" yet!! :-) With the railing gone, it makes the room look so much neater. Not to mention the bed is MUCH easier to make. Glad to have that gone.


I wonder what else will happen in this NEW YEAR!!! I feel adjusted to life as a mom of 4 - not that it's easy - I just feel adjusted. Now I'm just ready to tackle LIFE itself with my brood of 4!

Twenty Ten

Bring on 2010!!!!

2009 was a great year to us. Well, it had it's ups and downs but we are TRULY blessed! It's nice to reflect!

We rang in the new year on New Year's Day night. Robert and I went on a date New Year's Eve. Five courses of molecular gastronomy = YUMMY! We went to my brother in law's restaurant Standard Bistro here in town. It.Was.Amazing. And I actually saw midnight! Crazy....I can't remember the last time I saw the new year actually turning over!!!!


So we made it up to the kids the next night with lost of fireworks! It was SOOO cold, but oh so worth it.

I had to play around with manual focus since it was so dark. You either hit it, or you don't. But I will still practice getting it down pat.








Cheers to 2010!!!!

Nemo

So I know Christmas was over a week ago but I still wanted to share about Nemo. More for my extended family to see some footage of that night!

You see, Nemo first made his appearance for me and all my cousins 15-20 years ago when we were all little kids. And I'm not sure Christmas goes by without mentioning him. He only made 2 appearances during the years. But he was never forgotten. :-)

Now that the GREAT grand children are at good ages, we thought that he should make another appearance. Since my parents were the ones who brought Nemo to life, the torch was passed to Robert and I.


So here's a few little moments from our "skit". We did NOT practice this one time before we went live. We had ideas of what we were going to talk about but this was completely unrehearsed!

Enjoy!










And behind the scenes!