Samantha

Sammy at Grandma and Pappa's house

Grumpy Face

Oooh Light

She was trying not to listen to me

Our Pond

(I posted pictures to two of our adventures, with the posts, so go back and take a look)

While the snow was melting Ethan found a "pond" in the backyard and wanted his picture with it. He was very excited about it.

One of those days

The day went like this (it's easier and a lot shorter to do it this way)

(The night was awful b/c we are all sick and the kids wanted to sleep in our room on the floor since they were sick. But between Ethans snoring and Paige's sleep talking and Sammy wanting to pretty much sleep on my face....well, it was a long night)

9:40 wake up (Jim let us sleep later than normal.Thanks Jim)

Spend all morning blowing noses, taking medicine, watching movies, taking more medicine, yelling at kids for not just letting me have a break, getting snacks and lysoling everything.

Decide that I have had enough and can't make lunch. Head to Mcdonalds. Realize that the heat in the car only works on full blast as of today.Yippee.

Go through the drive through.

Get home and have Ethan throw a 45 minute tantrum. Outside.. Since Jim was sleeping and we didn't want to wake him.

Get everyone calmed down and watching a movie downstairs.

Collapse on the couch for 1.5 minutes.

Start picking up the living room when Paige starts screaming, "FIRE, FIRE!"

Run downstairs to find the space heater in flames.

Grab Sammy and Ethan and yell for Paige to run upstairs.

Run upstairs.

Grab the fire exstinguisher and run back downstairs yelling to Paige to keep the younger kids upstairs.

Put out the fire.

Clean up the mess. which includes: taking out the burnt heater, vacuming the carpet, scrubbing the carpet with cleaner, vacumming up again, ocking up and bleaching all the toys that got sprayed, starting a load of laundry with clothes and blankets that got sprayed.

Start dinner.

Jim wakes up.

Collapse on couch and zonk out for a half hour.

The end.

And here i was thinking we wouldn't get an "Abenture" today.

Day Three

Day three started off a bit rocky. Paige was sick and stayed home and I had a ton of errands to run. What could we do that would be fun. She just had a sore throat, so I thought we might still be able to go out. It started with Busches and groceries, then onto CVS then the bank. Dropped off a movie to the library then to the post office. Now, none of that went as according to plan. We got to busches and i forgot my wallet. Home we go, get the wallet, back to busches.

Groceries-check

Then to CVS, to turn in the kids change to put in there savings account, only to walk in a find out that CVS got rid of the Coinstar machine they had. Back to the car.

Change/Bank-try again later

Onto the library- didn't want to get out and walk it in, only pla

nned on putting it the box....box was completly full.

Library-we'll get to it tomorrow...maybe.

Post office, here we come. Sending out some books that sold on ebay. Person paid 1.95 for shipping, turns out i should have charged them 4.95...because that's what it ended up being. Bum.

Post office-check :(

what should we do, what should we do....hmmm......MCDONALDS

Adrian built a new Mcdonalds with a nice big play place, so we went..and spent 2 and a 1/2 hours playing.

Abenture for today: success

Day Two

(Them with their ticket stubs)
Our abenture for today was Jim and I took Paige and Ethan to see "Princess and the Frog" out in Livonia. The kids really liked it. Sammy got to go hang out with Grandma Connie and Aunt Jennifer. She had a lot of fun too! I think today was a success.

Are you out there?

Hello?

Are you reading me?

Am I talking to myself?

Self, I'm not sure if anyone reads our blog. This might just be like what we do everyday, and talk my ourself. Maybe we should petition blogger and see if they can put a like and dislike button after each post so people wouldn't feel like they have to comment. They could just let us know they are out there by hitting "like" or "dislike"

We'll get on that.

Announcement

I think I'd like to make an announcement. I think I'm going to get into photography. I've thought about it in the past, it always looked good in my head, but it was a distant thing, because I'm not very good at it. But I look at pictures that people have taken and I think. Wow. Pictures really mean a lot. They bring out emotions. Pain and happiness, love and peace. My sister made a DVD of summertime memories and as we were watching it as a family Jim said, "Wow. there are some amazing pictures of the kids in there. They really capture the kids personality in them." I agree. I look at the pictures and I can remember just what we were doing and how the kids were laughing and Ethan licking Elizabeth at the beach and her saying gross. All these moments that bring me such happiness. I don't actually have a working camera right now..lol..but when I do, be prepared for a TON of pictures. You all can be my test audience. (and maybe give me some pointers)

Day One

With Jim working midnights I have had to keep the kids quiet during the day. It has been difficult, let me tell you. Ethan, the other day, said, "Mom, let's go on an abenture!" (adventure-not a typo, that's how he says it) Well, my mind instantly thought..crap. It's winter. It cold outside. But I have been trying to think outside the box and try and find adventure for the kids. So we're not just stuck inside. As I write this, I just remembered that Katherine's resolution was to have more adventure if I'm not mistaken! I think it's a good one. So often I think, "no way. It's to cold, or to hard, or bla bla..wha wha wha, complain complain."

Today we went to the post office and bank and then I thought to myself, Ethan wants abenture-So we went to the park! I know, crazy. The whole thing was covered in snow. But they had boots and hats and gloves on (no snow pants, but they're tough kids) I had a blanket in the back of the van, so I wiped off the slides and since the structure itself has holes all over it, that part was safe. It was like this magic play thing stuck in the middle of a ton of snow. They had a LOT of fun. It started to get cold after just a little while, so we only stayed 45 minutes or so, but it was an "adventure"

Day one of adventure: success

Je ne parle pa francais?

All 3 kids were loosing there minds trying to be quiet, so I turned on Little Einsteins. Ethan is going through a phase there he wants to decide what buttons to push, so he insisted that i go to the Setup menu on the main menu, because it had tools on it. I went to it and explained that that only lets you decide if you watch in in english or french. He chose french, and they have been sitting for 45 minutes watching Little Einsteins, very quietly, in french. At one point, they asked a question and Paige's response was "Si!" I guess watching it in french will be good for them. This might just be a way of teaching them new languages!

is there a doctor around?

Last night I was trying to keep the kids quiet while Jim slept before going to work and I heard Paige scream from the basement, so I started to run and rammed my foot into a jewelry box and broke my toe, but I kept hobble running because I needed to get her to be quiet, so as I ran around the corner and headed down the stairs I rammed that same foot into Ethan's boot. OOWW. Oh the pain. When I got downstairs I asked Paige why she was screaming and she said, "Because Ethan was looking at me!" Oy Vey. The drama of a 5 year old girl.

Then today, Samantha fell going upstairs (if you knew me growing up you'd know this is obviously something that I must have passed on to her ) and her fangs bit into her tongue. Bleeding everwhere. She's fine and they actually stopped bleeding quickly, otherwise I would have called Amy to see what I should do. (Thanks Amy, for always being willing to help and give advice)

I guess we all need a time out! :)