quick before I forget

I'm making my bed and hear the kids being wild in the living room. Here's what's next:
Ammon: I know. Shayla!! Let's land on our BACKS!
Shayla: Yeah!!
*THUD*
Ammon: profuse crying....
Me: stifled laughing

Who stole my camera??!

So I go to grab my camera, and Ammon hands it to me all innocent-like, "Here Mom. Here's your camera." So I grab it and start scanning through the photos, and the explanations start.
He and Shayla needed a picture of Liam because he was so cute.....

Shayla said she and Ammon were trying to take pictures of themselves, like they see Dad do...

I was told this is Shayla's eyeball, courtesy of Ammon's photog skills.
Here's Ammon shot at a self portrait.

Now of course, I think it's hilarious. Other people, not so much maybe. I'm just grateful that I have a digital camera where with the click of a button I can delete these and get all my photo storage space back. Now if this was 12 years ago and I had paid good money for a roll of 36 exposure Kodak 35mm film???? There'd be some heads rollin for sure when I perused those glossy 4x6's and found these!

Thank you technology!

Liam's Birthday

Uh..who gave that baby an Oreo??? DAD!!!!

Liam's birthday cake...Oreos really are the best aren't they?

Posing for a picture while we make the cake together

Liam is SUPER excited about his Cars paper plates. I just love little kids! It's amazing what $2 can do!!!!

So I know it was the end of January, but still. I'm getting it on here, and that's over half the battle for me!

He is very passionate about Cars right now, anything having to do with McQueen or Mater or Ramone, pretty much any character on Cars is super duper awesome to him. (One time he didn't want to wear a shirt I picked out for him and I said, "Liam, it's your Ramone shirt!" and he happily put it on..shhh.. I promise not to abuse it...too much).

So his cake was Cars, and he had a Cars family birthday party, with just about every gift having to do with....yep. Cars. Wow. Luckily that movie is good for grown ups as well as kids, so I don't mind too much. (Josh was making fun of me as I was sharing the life lessons I learned while watching Cars for the millionth time).

He had a great 2nd birthday, and we are just SOOO grateful for a sweet and spunky little man.

Moving Forward

So isn't New Year's great? You can turn over a new leaf and start again on so many things. I love the fresh feeling I get in January as I de-clutter and reorganize things that have been needing it forever. Plus, the sun has been shining for THREE DAYS IN A ROW! That is something to be grateful for!

Here are pictures from December of last year...Just a smattering of the many we took. We were very blessed, had a great Christmas, and gained some much needed weight (*said sarcastically*).

Our Christmas Eve play, kind of a dark exposure the best we could do with our very wiggly actors.

Watching a movie with Tristan and Gavin, awesome boy cousins.

Decorating cookies at Aunt Jessica's house, Jared throwing up some rabbit ears on Shayla

Ammon explaining to Santa between cookie decorating that he wants a Wii and footie pajamas for Christmas

Aria's baby blessing at Aunt Anna's house the day after Christmas. It was a very special day, since cousin Xander was blessed the same day. I finished that dress about an hour before this photo was taken.

A New Day Has Come...I Hope

So as you may have noticed, I fell off the blogging wagon about 4 1/2 months ago. Strange... About the same time I had Aria... coincidence? Ahem...no. But with the new year comes new goals (I refuse to call them resolutions!) and being more diligent at blogging is one of my goals. Not only to keep everyone updated, but I use this as a journal as well, so it all goes back to me, right?

I'll post where I left off, which was before Christmas. Humor me ok?

We decorated Christmas sugar cookies, right before bed, which explains Shayla's wet and messy hair. The kids had fun, and I highly recommend giving high doses of sugar filled frosting, cookies, and candies to your kids before bed. It makes for a most fun adventure.

A little snippet from the other day:

So all morning I felt like I was repeating myself ad nauseum with everything I was telling Ammon, so when we finally got in the car to go to swim lessons I said, "Ammon, you really need to work on your listening." (Should I mention the fact I had to repeat that sentence a couple times too?) He said, "But Mom, it's so hard to listen. My ears are just little ones. I can't hear good yet."

Touche.

Parenting Advice

I've received a lot of unsolicited parenting advice in my day, haven't we all? But I never expected it from my own daughter! The other day I was sitting at the computer, kinda getting lost in my virtual world of Craigslist, emails, and such, kind of noticing a lot of laughter coming from the kitchen. Nice, kids are having fun, I think. Then I hear maybe some sliding?! Slip and sliding? Hmm. Should I go see? Nah.

Then Ammon and Shayla come chasing each other into the office, sopping wet. They both start blaming Liam after they see the fire in my eyes as I start imagining the mess I'm about to find. I walk in the kitchen and Liam is STILL pouring water on the floor from the water dispenser in the fridge, laughing and having a good old time. I start my ranting and raving as I grab dish towels and start mopping the pond covering my kitchen floor. After I calm down I sit with the kids and have a chat...

Me: You guys KNOW that putting water on the kitchen floor was a bad choice.

Shayla: Yes Mom. Did you hear us in there playing?

Me: Yes I did.

Shayla: Did you think maybe, that you should have gone in and checked on us? Did you think, "I should check on them?"

Ammon: speechless, awaiting my response, wide eyed.

Me: I shouldn't have to....um.... yeah... I guess I should have.

Booyah. Me=0 Kids=1

P.S. There are no pictures of the actual incident. That's probably a given though...right?