Pre-School graduation

All of our kids have gone to Ferris ELC. It is a pre-school program at Ferris High School run by the students. It is a great program and I recommend it to all my friends and the little ones just love being taught by highschoolers. Daniel hopes to participate in the program his senior year.


Anna(in hat) and Maria taking the stage. Anna had to drag maria on stage.
Happy with their friends

Waiting to get their "diplomas"

This was their "walk-out buddy", Maggie. Everyday she would walk the girls from the classroom to my car. Each kid in the classroom has their very own walk-out buddies. Maggie was the best. She would give them piggy back rides.

this is them singing songs about the farm. they knew these songs, i know they knew these songs because I heard them day in and day out. But when the time came they clamed up. Little finks!

I feel pretty!

These are the skirts Costco is carrying for little girls this summer. I love them!! I broke down and bought them something new. It took three trips to Costco to finally talk myself into them. they are very ruffely and wonderful for twirls. and the bonus, they come with little shorts under them which is a good things because these girls cannot keep there skirts down.

Jake's first grade music program

Jakey spends most of his time in his own world, population ONE. you will see him slip in and out of it throughout the program. always entertaining to watch. you can here the mother next to me laughing at him.

New Costco milk jugs

I Hate Them!! i know hate is a strong word, but totally needed in this situation. my hate is three-fold.

1. the open for these new jugs is huge. you pour way too much milk because it just comes out in a rush.

2. don't tell anyone but i like to drink out of the jug when there is just a cup left. well, this opening is flush with the container therefore making this hobby of mine difficult. and of course the huge opening does not help the situation.

3. Spokane may recycle, but guess what? They don't recycle these!!! And i am a big fan of recycling. so now i have to cram 6-7 of these containers in my already bulging trash can every week.

so costco, yes, i know you are reading this, i want you to know how un-happy i am. and i expect you to change back to the old style jugs promptly.

sincerly,

a angry milkoholic

YIKES!!

I will first state that the child that who did this is still alive and un-harmed.

The kiddos were racing back from our hike at Bowl and Pitcher and who ever tagged Big Red first won. well sorta. Daniel "won" the race but sadly he broke my tail light when he tagged it. i came around the corner to see his standing there will two large pieces of red plastic in his hands but before he could say anything his brothers were more than happy to rat him out. lucky for him we found a used replacement one that only set us back about $40. I should have taken a picture of the look on his face when i came around the corner. I seriously think he thought i was going to kill him. that is was his last day on this earth. and i am sure the other two were dividing his earthy possessions between them along with the much coveted top bunk.

Ria's eye surgery

This is Ria's second surgery on her eyes and Dan and I have been through this six times with our kids. But I must say that Ria is the most pleasant out of all of them. She is happy and brave and come out of surgery so snuggly.

This is her pre-surgery. She is just so adorable.
Then she wanted to take a picture of her puppy she got from the nurses. She has another one just like this from the last time so Ria was so happy to have a sister for her. They are both named Shilo.

Then she let mommy take a picture of her and Shilo.

The surgery lasted 4 hours. they had to shorten the muscles on both sides of the eyes and also needed to lower her left eye because it was set higher than the left.

She gave me such good snuggles and was so relaxed that she pooped and peed all over my legs. We cleaned her up and got fresh panties on her and scrubs on me. while i was getting dressed and daddy was getting his fair share of snuggles she puked and pooed on him. so he got his own set of scrubs and she got a another clean pair of panties.

by the third time we just threw in the towel. (actually we took the towel with us) and headed home stinky pants, shirts and all. She did great when we got home.

She slept alot the first two days. but by the third day she was wondering around the house blind as can be. Anna tried to help out when she could but it is not good to let a five year old with a short attention span lead a blind five year old around. she ran into alot of walls. it is much better to let a 36 yr. old with a short attention span lead around a five year old. by the fourth day she started being able to open her eyes and today they opened up almost right after she woke up and she can see better and better each day. in fact, i don't think she has ran into anything today!

POST #200!!

how befitting that the 200th post is about Ike. He is really 200% awesome. and now he is 11 years old!! we had a family birthday party and a friend birthday party. these pictures are from his family party. Ike loves,loves, loves his birthday!! he plans it for months in advance and tends to keep me busy the whole week leading up to it. i love Maria in the background of this picture as she is trying very hard not to blow out her brother's candles.

he wanted a crossbow so we settled on a Nerf crossbow. you can see how pleased he is with this desicion

he also got a nerf long sword. i dunno where we would be in this house with out Nerf and Legos.

will post about his friend party next post. it was awesome!!

crazy kids

So Ike asked me the other day if he could go see The Prince of Prada when it comes to theaters. Um, do you mean The Prince of Persia? "Ya, sure. What ev." he stated. i am told him there is sorta a big difference between the two. First off The Prince of Prada would be a show on the Bravo network,which we do not have. and secondly even if we did get that channel there is no way we could let you watch it. as for The Prince of Persia....it is PG13. sorry charlie.

Now onto Daniel. Sitting around the dinner table we got on the topic of riding pigs, very difficult to do, then on to riding cows, very bony, then of course riding sheep. something i know about! i told him how we would put rollar skates on, climb on the sheep's backs and hold on letting our feet roll along. now i know you are wondering....why the roller skates?? well we had these cousins in Cali that had this thing around them called "pavement" and you can roller skate on it. crazy, i know! and kindly sent their skates up to us hicks when they outgrew them. we quickly learned that you just can't skate on dirt. I know!!! but we just could not let these beautiful skates sit there un-used. so we strapped them on and let the sheep to the work. Now this story has a bit of a sad ending. i still cannot skate. well unless there is a sheep handy and i am pretty sure that is illegal in this state. now Montana.........that's not an issue.

Why I Became a Mom, By Me.

1. The toys are awesome.

2. I wanted someone that would love me un-conditionally

3. I thought i could do WAY better than my mom and I could finally prove to her that she did it all wrong.

4. The cute outfits.

5. I could snack on their cheerios during church.

6. I could stay home and not "work"

7. Tiny shoes!!

8. I knew it was what Heavenly Father wanted me to do.

9. A chance to trick-o-treat again.

10. to be able to create a "Mini-Me"

What I now realize.....

1. I cannot afford the "toys" and the ones I do like, they just break.

2. They do love me. They love that my shirts are a convenient kleneex to their boogers, they love that they can find me in my bed any time of night, they love that I can pull a school poster board project on the Revolutionary War's impact on France together in one night because although they had a month to do this project they only remember the night before.

3. Ya....um.....about that. nothing makes you realise what a rotten kid you were to your mother until you have a few of your own,.

4. All the "cute outfits" they destroyed while the cheap ones I buy at Value Village for 80 cents last and last.

5. Cheerios don't taste good when they are soggy or crushed in to a powder at the bottom of the diaper bag, or have been scooped off a number of questionable hygiene surfaces and put bag in the baggie to be eaten by child.

6. I don't work, out of the home that is. I work seven days a week. weekends have lost all meaning of "fun" it is now just damage control. I am on call 24 hours a day. there are no sick days (at least not for me. everyone else gets them) and the vacation time is non-existent.

7. They just lose the shoes. first child have several pairs of shoes. he lost only ONE of each pair. needless to say (but you like how i am still gonna say it?) the following boy did not have shoes till he was three and the third boy still does not own a pair of shoes.

8. The dude has a sick and twisted sense of humor. that is all i am gonna say on the subject lest i should get struck down my lightening.

9. It always snows, rains, sleets and is fricking freezing on Halloween night. Do I still go out? Heck ya!! But the buggars don't share their candy. I have to sneak it out of the bag just like i did when i was a kid. Luckily I have lots and lots of practice.

10. Was I out of my gourd thinking the world needed more of me???

That is all.

Bowl and Pitcher at Riverside State Park

My BFF wanted to get the kids together this friday so we desided to go on a hike. it was a beautiful day after a week of rotten weather. I have never been to Riverside State Park. My gosh it is beautiful. we only hiked for a few miles but i could easily spend all day there. i could never camp there though. campground is way too claustrophobic.

this is the famous Bowl and Pitcher
Look out over Bowl and Pitcher. you cannot tell but we are really high up.

Swinging Bridge. looks like fun......

Anna trying to give her mommy a heart attack!!

On swinging bridge. My bff is smirking so because unknown to me she is in on a big gag to get me out of the house to the rest of my buddies can t.p. it for my birthday. i will post more about that later.

My three stooges

Off we go onto places un-seen and adventures un-known.

We made it back with all the kids we left with. Some would call that a success. I say we just didn't try hard enough.

Kite Flying 101

Should not be taught by me.

my idea of a good day is 40-60 mph winds. and Monday was that day. So i hustled my buns on down to the dollar store and picked out five kites. after dinner we went up to the park. i tied a weight around each kid's ankle to help keep them grounded. it also slows them down when they try to run away. ( just another parenting tip from me)

By looking at the pictures it looks like it was a wonderful success and once again i have proven myself to be a fabulous mother. HA!! don't be fooled. kites got tangled up in eachother. ALOT. at one time i had four kites i am trying to un-tangle with kids screaming because they were sure it would never come un-done and then kids flipping out when i broke the strings and re-tied them because i could not un-tangle them. then one had a total melt down and had to walk home. i knew he made it there for two reasons. we live four houses away and his screaming faded into the wind the farther away he got. by 40 minutes my nerves were frazzled. the girls were tired and D.O.N.E.

Daniel and Ike stayed behind to fly their kites a bit longer. Personally i think they did not want to be seen walking home with us. and i don't blame them.

Fairies and Fluff

I hate Tinkerbell!and these are why.

see if you have seen the first tinkerbell movie

you would first want to gouge out your eyes

and secondly

learn that fairies come from dandelion fluff.

so now my girls are finding all the fluffs they can

and blowing them

IN MY HOUSE!!

no fairies have been found as of yet.

but i am about to lose my mind trying to vaccum up this stuff.

it floats around

and at the tiniest bit of wind from say a vaccum or dust mop

it is floating off again

looking for a corner to gather in.

well i should count my blessings

at least they are not bringing slugs into the house

like there brothers.

"B" is for bubbles.

Last weekend we went out to the homestead to play. My parents have a dog named, Tigger. He is a very sweet dog but don't tell my dad i said that. but he has something against bubbles. They just cheese him off. so i thought it would be fun to bring out the bubble tornado! tigger did not dissapoint. after about 30 minutes tigger figured out the trick of just standing in front of it and eating them at they came out.

Before he figured out this trick he was so funny to watch with the kids. poor thing ran himself into the ground. he should be burping bubbles for days after this.