Cornbelly's and the Birthday Boy

Sarah has been asserting her independence lately.  Whatever her brothers do she has to do it, too.  The other morning I sent her brothers to brush their teeth.  She followed them into the bathroom and brushed her own teeth as well.  Can you tell?  I think the rabid foam around her mouth kind of gave it away.  She was quite proud of herself, though.

For Daniel's 6th birthday we had a family party and went to Cornbelly's Corn Maze at Thanksgiving Pointe in Lehi. The kids all had fun doing the various activities.  In one corner of the courtyard they had a huge dress up area complete with a pumpkin princess that you could take pictures with.  I just saw dress up area and grabbed Sarah and went over.  Sarah was not excited about dressing up in any way shape or form.  I thought she might change her mind once I put her in the prettiest, frilliest dress.  Boy was I WRONG!!!  I had to force it on her and she spent the whole rest of the time trying to pull the dress off while screaming.  She was NOT happy!

They had a wrought iron carriage you could sit in to take a picture.  The boys crawled up in the driver's seat and I put Sarah up inside the carriage to grab a quick picture, but she would not stay sitting there. I finally had to hold her down in my lap while Aaron snapped a quick picture.  By this time I figured I had tortured Sarah enough and took the dress off her.

Thinking she would be more cooperative since the dress had been taken off her, I put her next to the pumpkin princess to take a picture.  She was still not at all cooperative.  It wasn't until they bribed her with a sucker that she stood next to the pumpkin princess long enough to take a picture.  Hey I am not above bribery if it works!

 The boys had fun being her carriage driver and riding the horses.

They had water duck races.  The kids had fun playing with those except Sarah kept stealing everyones' ducks.

We did eventually make it into the corn maze--and got lost inside it.

Throughout the corn maze they had different posts asking you trivia questions.  Whatever answer you picked it gave you the direction to go in.  We either answered a few questions wrong or took a wrong turn somewhere because we eventually had to be led out of the maze by a worker.

 They had a barn with dried corn kernels spread all over the floor.  The kids had fun playing around inside for a while.  The corn and dust got everywhere, but they had fun.  They even unknowingly brought home some dried corn kernels inside their shoes.  I found them on the carpet in our house--nice.  In the picture you can see Josh doing the backstroke in the corn.

 We took a turn on the grain train.  It was a train pulled by a tractor through the haunted part of the maze.

Noah had lots of fun going down the slide with Grandma T.  You can hear him just giggle when he gets to the bottom of the slide.

 We rented a wagon to help pull the three youngest kids along.  Matthew helped Grandpa T pull it all over the courtyard.

 Here's all my cheese balls hamming it up for the camera:

 Everyone took their turn at trying to lasso the cow heads.

 They had a bunch of inflatable slides that everyone had fun going on.  Sarah even got me to go on it with her a few times.  Ah the joys of being a parent.

 They had a bounce pad that everyone took a turn on.  Noah didn't quite know what to think about it, but Daniel took Sarah out and they had a good time.  Matthew did, too.  Josh was all over the place so I couldn't get him to stop long enough to get a picture.

 Of course we had to pose in the huge rocking chair that we sit in every year.  With five growing kids it is starting to become a tight squeeze to fit all of us on it.

 Here's the Happy Birthday Boy before he left for school that morning.  I still see him as my cute little 2 year old!  These past 6 years have gone by really fast!

 We drove by our house Friday morning and saw all the stakes out for them to start digging the foundation.  We are getting so excited!!

 

Daniel's Family Birthday Party, the Staypuff Marshmallow Girl, and the "Brother Hitter"

Again I must add we will probably not be getting our rental deposit back.  I found Noah's handiwork just a few days ago.  He has decided teething rings are for sissies--blinds are the best things to teeth on.  We have bite marks on all over our blinds at about Noah height.  Don't they look lovely?

 Anyway, this week is Red Ribbon week at Josh and Daniel's elementary school.  To celebrate it they have different fun things for the kids to do every day.  Yesterday was crazy hair day.  Josh wanted me to shave him bald, but we ran out of time.  Instead they both got their hair spiked up everywhere.  When Sarah saw me taking their picture, she insisted on being in it as well.  She had a serious case of bed head so she fit right in with crazy hair day.

 As difficult and strong willed as Sarah can be, she sure does look like an angel when she is asleep.  I am just going to come back and look at this picture next time we are in the middle of a full blown tantrum to remind myself she can be a sweet girl.  That is when she is asleep and not screaming...

 They finally broke ground for our new house on Monday.  They were supposed to pour the footings on Tuesday, but it ended up being quite stormy.  Unfortunately, it will continue to be stormy the rest of the week so who knows when they can pour any cement.  Hopefully soon because all this close family togetherness in our small rental house is wearing on everyone's nerves!!!

Daniel's birthday was last Friday, but we didn't have our family party for him until Saturday because he went to a friend's birthday party at the zoo all day Friday.  To celebrate Daniel's birthday we went to Cornbelly's Corn Maze Saturday morning.  Afterward we headed over to Dairy Keen to have our usual heart attack on a bun and then on up to the cabin.  We didn't let Daniel open his presents or have his birthday cake until we got up to the cabin.  By the time we finally made it up to the cabin Daniel was very anxious to open his presents.  In his haste to get to his presents, he knocked over his cake and of course it landed frosting side down on the floor.  Luckily the cake pan did have a lid on it so it wasn't a huge mess, it just massacred my frosting masterpiece :(.  I try to decorate the kids' birthday cakes with a theme or hint of what they are getting for their birthday.  Daniel was getting a Wii Mario soccer game for his birthday so I decorated it with a Mario Mushroom that was supposed to look like this:

But it instead ended up looking like this after Daniel knocked it over:

  After mourning the loss of all my hard work on his cake he finally got to open his presents.  He got a football, transformer, a Wii game and a Nerf toy in the shape of Thor's Hammer.

I had to laugh when I saw the warnings on the Nerf version of Thor's Hammer:

 Do not hit or swing at people or animals, Use away from breakable objects, and TO AVOID INJURY: Discontinue use if core is exposed.  Really what fun would that be if you followed the rules?  Right out of the box we nicknamed it The Brother Hitter.  He had fun with it, however when he set it down Noah got a hold of it.  Noah thought it might be a good teething object like the blinds and bit a chunk off the handle.

 Daniel was not happy about that when he saw what Noah had done.  Well so much for following the rules.  Daniel has hit people with it (and animals too if you count his siblings), and has also broke stuff with it as well as played with it when the core of it has been exposed--thanks to Noah.  Who needs the rules anyway?  The Brother Hitter is still alive and well, but for now it has been put out of Noah's reach, though.  That's ok, Noah has gone back to teething on the blinds anyway.

While we were at the cabin the kids were swinging on the tree swing.  They like Aaron to pull them high so they can reach the leaves of the tree on the other side of the swing.  It was Josh's turn when Aaron swung him super high.  Josh reached for the leaves and grabbed a branch of the Aspen tree on the other side.  Josh held on so tight he ended up pulling the whole Aspen tree over roots and all.  Afterward Josh kept telling us about how strong he really is.  It didn't take any convincing for him to pose for this strong arm pose in front of the tree he pulled over:

While at the cabin we roasted some marshmallows.  Sarah LOVES them.  In fact Sarah loves anything.  I have yet to find a food she does not like.  Anyway, she ate quite a few marshmallows.  I don't know how much she really ended up eating versus how much got smeared all over her face, hands, hair, shirt and pants.  She started resembling the Stay puff Marshmallow man by the time we were done roasting "smarshmallows" as the kids call them.  When we were done roasting marshmallows she was so sticky she had to take a shower.

 While we were up at the cabin we did listen to Conference...that is if you can call this listening: 

 Matthew fell asleep next to Grandpa T. and they were both just a snoring away during the session.

Noah had lots of fun roaming around the cabin, playing and biting chunks out of Daniel's Brother Hitter.

  We also enjoyed the beautiful Fall foliage on the drive up to the cabin.  I love the Fall season!!

The New Ice Cream Man, Passing Time in the Car and Our Rental House Deposit Refund Will Be Questionable...

Our air conditioner has not been working these last few weeks.  I keep thinking the weather will cool off and our house won't be so hot.  Until the weather does cool off we are opening all the windows and using the fan to keep us cool.  The other day, however, I went to turn on the fan only to be greeted with a horrible grinding noise.  I turned the fan off quickly to see what the problem was.  I was annoyed to find someone had stuff some crayons through the holes in the fan and when the fan got turned on it ground up the crayons--thus the horrible grinding noise.  Nice.  This has happened a few times this week and I finally found out who the culprit was this afternoon--the little stinker:

Luckily, I caught him before he put the spoon inside the fan.  However, if you look in his other hand he has a crayon all ready to go.  Let's hope he isn't as mischievous as Sarah--I already have too many gray hairs from her I don't need even more from him--that's for sure!!

Today I went to pay our rent.  While we were there the secretary asked if the kids could have some candy.  It wouldn't have mattered what I would have said because as soon as Sarah heard the "C" word it was all over.  Sarah hadn't listened to a word I had said all morning, but as soon as the secretary whispered the word candy Sarah gave her her whole undivided attention.  The secretary gave Sarah a candy lipstick and you thought Sarah had died and gone to heaven.  Sarah didn't know what it was at first until I told her it was some pretty pretty lipstick.  The rest of the morning she kept applying it over and over again.  Then she would look at me and say, "Oh, so pretty!!"  Even though it was candy Sarah pretended like it was the real thing and loved it.  After a few hours she had applied the lipstick so much she had a candy mustache all around her lips.  What a funny girl.  I now know what to get Sarah for Christmas--a whole box full of candy lipsticks!!  She would be in heaven!!  Here's Sarah applying her pretty pretty:

 

Here's Sarah telling me, "Oh, so pretty!"

 The latest and greatest info from the experts is to keep a baby rear facing until they are at least two years old.  Noah's car seat can be rear facing and forward facing, but for now he is rear facing.  However, he has found a great way to pass the travel time in the car--pulling off his socks.  He has gone all summer without socks and now that I am trying to put them on him, he is not liking them.  As soon as I buckle him in he immediately reaches for his socks and yanks them right off.  As you can see we are collecting quite the pile of socks in the car.  Hopefully he will eventually leave them on since winter will be here soon.  If not he will have some cold, bare piggies--that's for sure!  

 Yesterday was play group at the park.  It happens to fall during lunch time so we bring a sack lunch and visit while the kiddos play.  Yesterday Daniel wanted nuggets to eat for lunch--shocker I know.  He eats nuggets 99% of the time for lunch.  This kid isn't one for variety.  Anyway, since I was fixing nuggets for him I fixed them for Noah and Sarah as well just to keep things easy.  When we got to the park, Daniel had two nuggets and went to play.  Sarah and Noah made short work of the rest of them.  When Daniel decided to come back to eat, he was pretty upset there were no nuggets left for him.  I had to tell him you snooze you lose buddy.  Anyway, while Noah was eating the nuggets he also liked to wander around.  He had a nugget for each hand and was toddling around.  I was keeping an eye on him and noticed a few bees flying around, but didn't pay too much attention.  A few minutes later Noah walked back to me and collapsed in my lap and started screaming like he was hurt in some way--you know that horrible baby scream.  I picked him up and saw a smashed bee on his shirt and then I looked at his lip and it was swelling fast.  The poor guy got stung.  From what I could guess I think the bee landed on his nugget and Noah then took a bite causing the bee to sting his lip or inside his mouth.  Ouch--poor guy.  I gave him loves for a while until he wanted to go play again.  However, during the rest of play group his lip was quite swollen.  By the time I laid him down for his nap the swelling had gone down a bit.  I did sneak in during his nap and took a picture of his bee stung fat lip--poor guy: 

Yesterday morning was pretty hectic.  In trying to get all three boys showered, dressed, breakfasted, pack their backpacks while cleaning up the breakfast mess things can get pretty crazy.  So by the time the three oldest had all left on the bus I was ready for a break.  It was just me and the two youngest at home.  I sat down to look at the computer for a few minutes.  I hadn't been sitting for too long when I heard splish splash.  Now I ran through my head where the two youngest could have access to water when it popped into my mind--THE TOILET.  I ran upstairs and sure enough they were in my bathroom having a toilet party.  By the time I caught them they were both soaken wet and flushing Q-tips down the toilet.  Who knows what else they had flushed down the toilet.  So much for a relaxing break.  They both got thrown into the shower to scrub the toilet nastiness off them.  YUCK!!  I also have to sigh because I can slowly hear our rent deposit getting taken away.  We have lived in this rent house for almost a month and the kids have been quite hard on it.  Not only have they flushed foreign objects down the toilet, they have put a few gouges in the linoleum floor, colored on the walls and floor with crayon, and put a few dozen dents and dings in the wall.  Originally moving the furniture in of course there were a few dings put in the wall--that's just to be expected when you are moving furniture in and out of a house.  However, after living here a few days Sarah was helping me clean by washing the walls with a baby wipe.  When she got to the ding she wiped it and wiped it I guess she was trying to wash it off.  In all her wiping she soaked the drywall quite a bit.  She then went to town digging out the wet drywall with her fingers.  She ended up making a small dent into a large one with the wet drywall and her finger carving. 

Again I can hear our rental deposit slowly cha-ching away with lots of "help" from the kids.  Why do kids have to be so hard on a house?!  Who needs that deposit back anyway?!  

However, Sarah is not the only one to blame.  I found the beautiful example of penmanship on the train table today.  I am going out on a limb here, but I think it came from DANIEL since it is in orange crayon spelling out  l-e-i-n-a-D which is Daniel spelled backwards.  **SIGH** I love my kids, I love my kids, I love my kids.... 

 Yesterday was Sarah's first dance class.  After her nice shower that morning to scrub off the toilet nastiness I tried to get her dressed in her dance clothes.  To say that was a struggle was an understatement.  Those were NOT the clothes Sarah wanted to wear and she fought me getting her dressed in them every step of the way.  Even after I finally got her dressed when I turned my back she took everything back off.  Grrrrrr.  I finally had to bribe her to get her dressed in them and to stay dressed in them.  I am sad to say I am not above bribery if it works to benefit me ;)!  Anyway, here she is in her dance clothes and ballerina shoes (don't let her innocent smile fool you--she had screamed all morning long until she was bribed to stay dressed in her dance clothes!) 

 She was a little nervous when I went to leave her at the dance studio, but when the teacher brought out the candy...her attitude immediately changed to: forget mom, this lady has CANDY!!  When I went to pick her up she did well and it seems she would want to go back next week.  I guess time will tell.  Hopefully I can get her dressed in her dance clothes a little easier next week.  I am keeping my fingers crossed!!

Sarah has really been asserting her independence lately.  She only wants to wear the clothes she picks out and heaven help you if you try to change them.  Take for example what happened on Sunday...I got Sarah dressed in a dress she absolutely did not want to wear.  She screamed about it all the rest of the morning.  She screamed about it all the way to church:

 All the way walking inside the church.  She also refused to keep her shoes on, too because they were not the ones she wanted to wear either.  She ended up walking into church without shoes on because she refused to keep them on.  Aaron went to drop her off in nursery and she was still spitfire mad.  When Aaron put her down in nursery she ran over to the nearest kid and tackled her to the ground.  Poor innocent bystander Molly!  She, unfortunately, got to experience the full wrath of Sarah.  Anyway, Aaron tried to stay and calm her down, but it wasn't working.  He just had to walk out and wish the nursery teachers luck.  Finally after a while she stopped crying, but all of nursery she sat unmoving and pouted in the corner.  When Aaron went to pick her up from nursery she ran away from him and wouldn't let him touch her.  Since Aaron had his hands full with Noah, he decided to let me pick her up from nursery.  When I went in to get her she wrapped her legs around her chair and tried her hardest not to let me pick her up.  I finally wrestled her out of her chair and carried her kicking and screaming out of nursery.  I walked into the chapel with her still kicking and screaming hoping that by the time I sat down she would stop.  When I found Aaron and sat down on the bench I put her down.  She then ran away from me to the back of the chapel still screaming.  And this was no quiet screaming, this was blood curdling screaming.  I jumped up to grab her only to have her run to the opposite side of the chapel screaming the whole way.  By this time we had everyone's attention in the chapel.  When I went to grab her she ran to the other side screaming the whole way.  The whole time I had my fake, everything is great smile on, but inside I was thinking, "Wait until I get a  hold of you!!!!!"  I finally grabbed her and took her out into the foyer.  She then started screaming she wanted color.  I deduced she wanted a crayon.  To try and appease her I took her to the nursery room to get a crayon.  I got her one, but she ended up grabbing the whole bucket of crayons.  I wouldn't let her have the whole bucket so she threw herself to the ground just screaming.  It was so loud Aaron could hear her screams all the way in the chapel.  At this point I had given up on any hope of staying for sacrament meeting since I couldn't get my daughter to stop screaming.  Aaron came to the same conclusion so by the time I had walked out of the nursery room he was out in the foyer with the rest of the kids ready to go home.  We drove home amid her continued screaming.  By the time we got her home we didn't even get her out of her dress and just put her in her room.  Within 15 minutes she was fast asleep and we were just glad to hear her NOT screaming.  What a day.  I have learned my lesson, though.  Next week I don't care however, crazy her outfit may seem I am going to let her wear what she wants.  I just don't have the energy to fight her!!

Sarah keeps things interesting around here!!  The other day as soon as she heard me get in the shower she got busy getting into trouble.  She scooted the barstool all the way over to the top cupboard where I keep the gum.  She proceeded to empty my almost full pack of gum into her mouth and chew away.  Luckily enough for me, she still doesn't know that you don't EAT gum, but just chew it.  Phew!!  She ended up just eating my whole pack of gum.  I didn't need that gum anyway.

The other day it was $0.50 hamburger and corndog night at the local fast food place by our house.  I hadn't made dinner by the time Aaron had gotten home so we decided we would have hamburgers and corndogs for dinner.  They did have a limit of 15 burgers so we got 15 burgers and 4 corndogs and brought them home.  They didn't last longer than 3 minutes within walking through the front door.  I was even afraid I was going to lose some fingers when the box was set down.  Geez you'd think my kids never got fed!!  The box and food wrappers were completely empty within a few minutes.  They better watch out for the Mancil family the next $0.50 hamburger and corndog night!!

In the craziness of this morning Noah got into the pantry unnoticed and grabbed the container of oatmeal and started playing with it.  He ended up working off the lid and poured oatmeal all over the floor.  Daniel saw it before I did and tried to clean it up.  When he got most of it cleaned up he came and told me.  I came and swept up the rest of it.  When I went to throw the dust pan contents into the trash I didn't see any oatmeal in the garbage.  I asked Daniel where he'd put the oatmeal he'd cleaned up.  He informed me he put it back inside the oatmeal container.  YUMMY!!  Hey what's a few extra crumbs, dirt and hair in your oatmeal?!  It's my secret ingredient ;).  Just kidding I threw out the oatmeal container even though it was still half full.  I love my kids, I love my kids, I love my kids....

One last funny thing in this long post...Aaron drove home from work the other day in the truck.  After he'd parked, turned off the engine and was getting out of the truck a little girl walked over to him.  She stopped and asked Aaron if he had any ice cream in the back of his truck.  Aaron was confused and said, "Uh.... no."  He then figured out what she was talking about.  I guess when you drive an old, bright  turquoise blue truck with a shell on the back kids are bound to think you are the ice cream man. 

Hey, maybe we could start a side business.  We already have the vehicle we just need to add some loud, cheesy music, a creepy driver and some ice cream in the back.  Sweet!  I don't think Aaron looks at all creepy enough to be an ice cream truck driver...soo does anyone want to volunteer to be the creepy driver?  :)  Anyway, now whenever I see the blue truck I laugh and ask Aaron if he has any ice cream in the back.

Zucchini Bread, Know What, Craziness, a Dreaded Call From the Bus Driver

The other day we were watching a friend's daughter who is the same age as Sarah.  When Beth came over she liked playing with the kids, however, she couldn't quite pronounce Noah's name correctly.  She kept calling him, "Know what".  She would say, "Know what [Noah], come here!" and "Know what, don't do that!"  It was pretty funny to hear her talk to 'Know what'. 

I got the world's biggest zucchini the other day from a friend.  When I brought that home the kids were so excited because that meant I could make zucchini bread.  Since I am the only one who would eat any form of zucchini outside of zucchini bread I decided to make the whole zucchini into zucchini bread.  We ended up making three different batches ending up with a total of 10 loaves of bread.  Unfortunately, that seemed to take a toll on my Kitchenaid mixer because on the last batch my mixer died :(.  I am trying to find a place to repair it because I really use it a lot.  Good thing we have 10 loaves of zucchini bread to last us until I can get it fixed.

The other day I was at playgroup at the park with my three youngest kids.  Playgroup happens to be during lunch so I brought lunch for everyone.  Since the only thing for lunch Daniel likes is nuggets and Sarah can't eat anything different than Daniel for lunch she had to have nuggets, too.  I packed the nuggets into baggies for each kid.  While we were there I got busy chasing Noah down when Sarah wandered away with her nugget baggy.  By the time I caught her, her nugget baggy was full of sand and leftover nuggets.  Yummy!  However, I had to keep the baggy away from Noah because he thinks rocks are a delicacy and eats them every chance he gets.  The sand didn't seem to bother Sarah either.  Yuck! I've given up on asking why you would want to eat that I just have to shrug my shoulders and think my kids are so weird!!

Daniel can say some pretty funny things.  The other day he was watching Spider Man when he casually commented to Aaron saying, "Being a Super Hero is going to be so easy for me!"  Josh overheard him and asked him in a teasing way what would come easy to him--hitting people or kicking people.  Daniel got embarrassed at this point and didn't say anything else.  Maybe his super power is kicking, hitting and screaming--if that's true, all my kids have super hero powers in my book!  What a funny kid!

Yesterday was Breakfast with Grandparent's Day at Josh and Daniel's elementary school.  Grandma T was nice enough to come up and have breakfast with Josh and Daniel.  Josh and Daniel rode with Grandma to school. Before they left I tried to explain to Grandma how to drive to their school, but she just figured Josh and Daniel could tell her the way.  I just shrugged my shoulders and said ok.  It wasn't fifteen minutes later when I got a call from Grandma telling me she was lost after following Josh and Daniel's stellar directions to their school.  I told her how to get there and they got to breakfast in enough time to for Josh to grab and eat 3 donuts and juice.  Daniel brought his trusty poptart along and grandma grabbed something to eat there too.  The kids had fun showing off their grandma to their friends after they finally made it to the school by NOT following Josh and Daniel's directions.

This morning I got a call from Matthew's bus driver.  I always cringe to see any number from the school on the caller ID.  However, it wasn't a bad thing.  His bus driver is a really nice lady with two special needs kids herself so she can understand what it's like.  She was calling me because Matthew insisted that she needed to call me to let me know that he needed to wear his jacket tomorrow.  She then told me that she thinks Matthew is such a fun boy.  That made me feel good that she enjoys having him on the bus.  I will also be sure to have Matthew's jacket ready for him to wear tomorrow, though because if I don't I am sure I will be getting another call from the bus driver at the insistance of Matthew.

As for our house plans they finally got signed off by the engineer and passed on to the city for approval.  This means they should start digging our house in the next week.  I am so excited!!  This week we also got to get the process of picking everything out for the house (outside colors, inside colors, flooring, appliances, etc.)  Unfortunately, we had to take the kids along for those things.  It didn't turn out so well.  We have a return appointment to finish up all the choices for the inside of the house.  Last night we had to take all five kids to pick out appliances.  It got pretty ugly because it took us about two hours and by the end the kids' had had enough and were picking on each other and screaming.  I am sure the store was more than ready to have us leave by the end!!  Noah got the worst of it, unfortunately.  He was strapped in the stroller for containment purposes and didn't like being contained at all and was letting us know by the loudness of his screaming.  I told Matthew to go walk around with him in the stroller to try and keep him quiet.  Matthew, ever the button pusher, collapsed the stroller down while Noah was sitting in it.  The worst part was in trying to straighten out the stroller Noah stuck his finger in the hinge and it pinched off part of his fingerprint and left a huge blood blister on the tip of his finger.  Poor kid!!  It took him a while to calm down after that one.  Good thing that happened on the way out of the store!  Next time I think we will try to finish everything up while most of the kids are in school because we are way too outnumbered to try to concentrate and do serious things while trying to keep track of what five energetic, screaming kids are doing at any one time!  I still had a headache this morning from all the screaming last night!!

Here are Daniel's soccer team pictures:  What a ham.  I can't get blogger to cooperate so the pictures are turned sideways and upside down.  Just tilt your head!

 Sarah still thinks naptime is dress up time.  After laying her down for nap today and hearing her scream I ran into her room to see what was wrong.  She had put on a shirt and couldn't get it off--that's why she was screaming.  She couldn't possibly be stuck wearing only the first choice of shirt of course!!  Anyway, after about an hour of multiple rescues, I gave up on her nap and let her come out.  This was the latest naptime outfit for today:  

My personal favorite is the backwards tank top with the tutu tucked in her diaper.  She thought she looked fabulous and I guess that's all that matters.

 In our rental house we share a backyard with some horses.  We went out and fed them some carrots today and the kids loved it.  Daniel mostly liked watching the horses eat the carrots from me and Sarah rather than feeding them himself.  That kid is afraid of anything four legged and furry--I swear!  I did coax him into feeding the horse once, though.  Baby steps-baby steps--maybe by the time he turns 20 he might be able to touch a four legged furry animal!

While I was getting dressed this morning Sarah helped herself to the bread.  No, one slice would not do if you can have a small hunk of every piece of bread in the loaf.  Nice. 

 Someone got a hold of my phone this morning because I have a ton of pictures of the garbage truck on it.  It's just what I want is a ton of pictures of the garbage truck.  Awesome.  Good thing there is a delete button!

Occasionally I look at the freebie aps and I found this one:

It's called Larry the Talking Bird.  This little bird will repeat back anything sound you make or say.  It was fun for about the first minute and ever since then it hasn't been as fun.  I get to hear any screaming or crying not only the first time, but a second time from the stupid bird.  However, I can't delete it because it is Sarah's favorite.  She can play with this little bird for hours if I could stand it.  I must say as annoying as it is, it sure has come in handy at the grocery store to keep her occupied while sitting in the cart!!

As for Noah as you can see from the video he is one of six main reasons why my house does not stay clean for very long--the other five being Aaron, Matthew, Josh, Daniel and Sarah.  Whenever we clean up all the toy food gets put in the toy kitchen sink.  As soon as Noah sees the toys sitting in the sink he goes to town picking them up and throwing them out on to the floor.  He has developed a pretty good arm.  He may have a future in baseball if he keeps this up.  And magically all the toys end up back inside the sink for him to do it all over again.  The kids get pretty frustrated when I tell them to clean up because they aren't the ones who made the biggest mess.  Noah just gets excited to see the kids clean up because that means he has a sink full of toys to throw again.  The stinker pants!!