My life in Pictures

Here are a BUNCH of pictures I've been meaning to post of life in our neck of the woods. Hope you enjoy catching up on what we've been going on around our place....
I think this is so cute. Max is licking Elise's face. She loves him & he does the same. Her nickname for him is "Maxadoodle".
I'm so excited that Merry Grace can actually keep a bow in her hair now. I love it. And she pretty much always has a smile on her face. How lucky are we?
ian and merry grace playing. i think my kids play so well and happily together. its so nice to see them love each other so much.
We fingerpainted this afternoon. Elise got a book from her book order about fingerpainting and it included paints and paper. So we tried them out. Elise painted a peacock.
Here is Ian's fingerpainting. He's an artist in the making. I think he liked painting his body afterward almost as good. ;)
Elise is playing basketball this winter. Its so cute to watch them play. Elise is number 2.

Elise received the 'kindness' award at school last week. We were very proud, but not a bit surprised because Elise is so kind around our house and with her brother & sister. Her teacher said she had "definitely earned it!"
Last night we discovered that Elise has not one but two loose teeth. She was ecstatic and her excitement is just contagious. I can't imagine how wonderful it will be when the tooth fairy comes!
Here is a picture of Ian's new boots. This picture doesn't do justice to how truly horrendous they actually are. There are these gigantic spidermen on each side and are quite bulky. Its even better when he wears them with pants. Most pants won't fit over the boots so they're just bunched up around his knees. Lovely. But that smile makes it worth it! =)
With kids around, the bathtubs are always a surprise. Even still, every morning I get a little start when I see this plastic fly lying there. There are some things I could just do without....

Several weeks ago, we had a little bit of snow. It only lasted half a day, but it was fun for the kids to actually get to see some of the white stuff. And of course, Elise got to miss a day of school and have a two hour delay the next day. I didn't realize how much I'd missed seeing some, until we woke up to a white yard.

Here is Max's puppy cage. As you can see, he's not the only one who enjoys it. Fortunately for us, she learning how to share! ;)

my date with ian

ian & i had our special date tonight. we went to eat at cici's pizza, known by the barnett kids as "the pizza place". ian was so excited by the aspect of being in a restaurant that it took him a while to settle down and eat anything. basically his meal consisted of once slice of pizza, hi-c, and a packet of sweet-n-low. he also likes to lick the powdered sugar off the brownies. he took a swipe at the first one, and as the sugar came off he goes, "oh! its brown under here. i not like brown." then he turned to me and said, "you can have the brown." surprisingly, i wasn't interested in his generous offer. =) after he ate, we played a few games in their arcade and then walked next door to shoe show. ian's foot has grown in the last little bit and only has one pair of shoes that fits. so we were hoping to get a bargain on a new pair. what we ended up with was a bargain alright. but not on the nice pair of tennis shoes i was thinking of. after ian spotted what had to be the ugliest pair of black spiderman boots i have ever laid eyes on, it was all over. so $9 later, we walked out with them. and he is in love. he put them on in the car and wouldn't even walk in the house in them because he was afraid he might get them dirty. i'll post pictures soon. anyway, we had a great time together. he told me he was glad he'd come so i didn't have to go on a date "all alone". then he told me that he and lisy would never leave me all alone. what more could you ask for?

quick recovery

elise was out of school yesterday for a snow day. (aren't they the best?) anyway, this morning she had a two hour delay, but even as the morning progressed, it became apparent that she was not interested in going to school today. she kept trying to talk her way out of it, and ended up expressing her concerns over her health. she had a "runny nose, a cough, and my voice is going away." she was not even close to being too sick to go to school--and i told her as much. when she insisted, i told her that she must immediately go to her room, hop in the bed, and be done for the day. anyone that sick had no business being up and about. she followed my instructions, but after about 15 minutes came back out and began playing. when i told her she must go back to her room, she replied, "oh, i'm feeling better. resting in my bed must have really worked!"

will wonders never cease?

kidstuff

i love listening to the kids have conversations. on monday we went to the dollar tree and the kids each got to pick out a prize. elise decided on a new barbie outfit, which she immediately began putting on her barbie once she got out to the car. as we were driving off i heard the kids have this conversation:

ian: that barbie not lut (look) bery (very) dood (good).
elise: ian! why would you say that?!
ian: well, she's nay-ted. (naked)
elise: oh. yeah. no one looks good when they're naked.

there are just so many places i could go with that, i don't know where to start. suffice it to say that kids are funny folks!

merry grace amazes me

merry grace loves to pretend to get dressed. if i'm doing laundry, she takes the shirts and pants and puts them around her neck--which is her attempt at pulling it over her head. i didn't realize how observant she was until doing laundry just now. i had a pile of clothes, with a pair of ian's underwear amongst them. i watched her pick up the pair of ian's underwear and instead of putting them around her neck, tried to put them over her foot. during the whole time, she never once tried to put them over her head or around her neck. i was amazed that she knew the difference. who knew?

irony

this morning we were in various stages of eating breakfast and i was packing elise's lunch and snack for school. i got a chocolate pudding cup out of the fridge to put in her lunch box when ian spotted it and wanted one too--only for breakfast. my first reaction was, "no, you need to eat something healthy first." and even as the words were leaving my mouth, i looked over at elise and saw her eating a chocolate chip cookie dough poptart. somehow it had not even phased me to hand her that for breakfast, but the pudding caused me to pause. needless to say, ian ate chocolate pudding for breakfast this morning--after all, its high in calcium. ;)

my elise

elise just said a couple of things that cracked me up, so i wanted to post them before i forgot.

first, she and ian were playing with this big exercise ball i have. elise had done some kind of trick on it and then ian said, "let me show you lisy. let me show you something even cooler." elise responded, "no, ian. its not even cooler. they're just the same amount of cool!"

then a few minute later ian came running up to her and goes, "lisy, lisy, lisy.." she cut him off and said, "no. call me superwoman."

that's my girl!

of toothbrushes, cookies, baths, nicknames, naps and typos....

one of my favorite christmas presents this year was a stocking stuffer. its a crest spinbrush, a battery operated toothbrush. this is my first one ever, as far as i can remember, and i am in love. i don't know if it actually cleans my teeth any better than my ordinary toothbrush did, but this much i do know: its a lot more fun! its just a different toothbrushing experience, and i think because its so much fun, i'm a better, longer, more thorough toothbrusher than before. so while the product itself might not be any better, the operator sure is!

i love cookies. but they have to be done just right. hard cookies just don't do it for me. i like them soft, chewy and almost not even cooked. last night i started cooking some chocolate chunk cookies and then left to go see to merry grace. i left cory and elise in charge and they got the cookies too done. they weren't burnt, just solidly done. that's when i realized how much distaste i have for hard, crunchy cookies. i may have even said as much to my trusty assistants. (yes, it was juvenile, and yes, i apologized.) the discovery was this: even with my sweet tooth--and it is a very big sweet tooth--i won't eat "done" cookies. so while it may encourage me to eat healthier, it isn't very much fun. so for lunch today, i got around that little problem--i just ate the cookie dough right out of the container. perfect!

merry grace took her first real tub bath tonight. it was so cute. and the other kids thought it was really neat. they all had fun entertaining her and helping wash her. elise even washed merry grace's hair all by herself. and she did a great job. of course it helps that merry grace loves baths, showers, and just being washed in general. even with getting a couple of cupfuls of water dumped on her head, she didn't make a fuss. what a good baby!

cory has decided to give us all nicknames. so far the only one that i thought was perfect, was the one he picked out for elise: "boss". unfortunately, she hates it, so its not going to stick....which once again brings into focus why the name is perfect.

is there anything better than a nap when you're completely exhausted? snuggled up under a warm blanket and letting the world fade out while you drift into a nice peaceful slumber...i took a rare nap today, and it was wonderful. ian and merry grace snuggled up with me and it was heavenly. i realized as i rested with them that i don't do that nearly often enough. i used to rest with elise when she was little, and while i rarely napped, the quite peacefulness has been missed.

i love typos. not in something important, but when i'm just typing along and hit a wrong key, it just give me the giggles. in the last paragraph i was typing "snuggled", but hit the 'i' key instead, and ended up with "sniggled" instead. that's infinitely funnier than "snuggled." =)