Go ahead, Selah- give it your best shot!

Some of you may have heard, but if you didn't, we had a bit of an incident with Selah getting a bit, umm...stuck, in the fridge last week. Thankfully, her brothers were in the basement and heard her banging. We've tried the child locks meant for keeping kids out of fridges and freezers. They state "not a subsitute for proper adult supervision." As well they should. She figured those out long ago. So we've now installed real locks on the fridges and freezers. Here's hoping they are enough to keep her out. They say that childproof medicine bottles work on about 90% of the kids, I believe. Well, since she's in that 10% who, at the ripe old age of 20 months, could open them and eat the vitamins inside, it should come at no surprise that she can outmanuever fridge locks. But since she doesn't come with bolt cutters, I do believe we may be good on this one for a while. Let's hope. Now the question is, what will be her new adventure? Time will tell...

Fort!

Sorry, I forgot to post this Christmas Eve. This what the kids saw as they came down the stairs Christmas morning. We filled 83 sandbags and then made a fort for Jonah and his continual war scenarios. Of course the little two destroyed the fort a couple hours later when everyone was distracted but the boys have had fun building fighting positions in their room, the living room, the hallway, and outside...until the got banished to the basement. Didn't take long did it? Hey, 83 sandbags take up a lot of space when all over the place. Think 83 pillows...

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Love

I sure do hope our 10 year realizes how much we love him. I could be in bed, but I've still 100 sandbags and 5 giant bags of stuffing to deal with. Thankfully, I know he will be overjoyed.

Merry Christmas Eve!

We went for traditonal this year and attempted to make gluten and dairy free pierogi. And they came tasty-if not pretty!

Something new

Came across the fact that blogger has an app for the droid. Seems cheaper and easier, in theory, than texting pictures to the blog. So let's see how this works.
Seems like I can even attach multiple pictures.
I can't really see the pictures but I think they were of the kids at Hell on Earth, yesterday. (Most of you probably call this place Toys R Us.) Yes, I took 4 kids, alone, to hell on earth when it was 40, raining, and 4 days before Christmas. And we all have a cold making everyone grumpy. We did, however, survive. And the only real problem there was Selah opening and eating a pack of M&Ms while I was checking out. Unfortunately, milk makes her stomach hurt and M&Ms have milk. And so, her stomach's been hurting. But it could have been worse.
WHY do they put candy where kids grab and eat it as their parents try to check out?? I can honestly say I have had to buy candy at least 10 times in the last year because of this. And since we do errands once a week (at most) that's like 20 % of the time! Very frustrating.

Selah, at it again.

I was quuickly making dinner in the hopes of a shower before Bryan got home...and Selah came SCREAMING into the kitchen, sending me into a panic in the inital seconds as it was fairly dark in the kitchen and I feared it may be blood (or worse like a chemical) on her face. No worries, it's "just" mascara. At least she knows where it goes?
She informed that Noah hit her in the head, that's what happened to her (Got it on video). Funny, since Noah and Jonah were playing Wii...
Guess I'll have company in the shower.

But since the only other trouble she's caused today (that I am aware of) is wrapping most of a roll of scotch tape around Jonah's schoolbook, I guess it's a pretty uneventful day!

Innocent???

I think not. I just caught them plunging a toliet. Thankfully it didn't need plunging, but still. Bryan's been on me to remove the toliet locks lately. Nope. We still need them!

Growing up!

In this kind of goofy picture of the boys...they are checking out Jonah's "wound" and stealing pumpkin seeds right out of the hot oven.

On December 6th...

The Christmas presents had been bought and WRAPPED. I love the years we seem to get it together...well, some things. Haven't even gotten a family picture much less gotten those Christmas cards going this year. Hopefully you'll get them before Christmas. And if you don't, hopefully you're forgiving!

If you let Micah help make crepes...

He's bound to do something like stick his bacon in the batter. Good thing he's cute.

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Sleepy Selah

If you're a mom long enough, you learn to do things that some people may not agree with, but are best for your family. Like taking your 3 year old to church in her pjs. Bedtime is 7 around here these days, so when Mass starts at 7, someone is likely to crash on the way home. Even when it's a 5 minute drive. Last night Selah was the lucky winner. Luckily she was all ready for bed, so we didn't even have to wake her. (Although we did move her to her bed. While I was tempted to let her sleep in her carseat last night- no trouble to find when strapped in there!- it seemed that temps in the teens were a bit cold for that.)

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Another dusting

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Caught!

Cozy winter day

The first real snowfall is a great day for...
Eating pie for breakfast and Reading books in Mom & Dad's bed! Throw in some friends stopping by to play and Dad finishing the Christmas lights and it's a pretty good day overall! And that was before I mentioned we did no schoolwork!

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Silly Selah!

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Micah the peacekeeper!

One of the boys left their guns unsupervised and Micah took the opportunity to unload it. Safety first!

Sniping

Jonah's playing war with his dad and brother. Wearing my old BDUs and combat boots. This is very bittersweet for me- I don't feel old enough to have a child who can wear my clothes! But I've also looked forward to the day when my kids would dress up in my uniforms and play war!

Concealment

We watched a documentary about Marine Scout Snipers today- and now Jonah is in sniper-mode. To be fair, he's often in sniper-mode, he just now has an even better idea of what to do for concealment. Not sure he needs the brush in the dining room but... I almost missed him.

Back again!

She looks like a pretty normal 3 year old girl with a normal right ear, doesn't she? Too bad she's not. She does a good job of playing the innocent card, but she's anything but. Today, we have a ball in her right ear that the doctor will have to remove. Why? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Once she told me it wanted to go in there, once that her hand just did it, and once that today was HER turn to see the doctor instead of Micah (who had a doctor appt yesterday.) At least she's cute.

'They're gonna smash him!'

Bryan and Micah are watching the Browns game. And Bryan taught Micah to say "they're gonna smash him!" So he keeps repeating that as he watches, it's pretty cute.

Happy Halloween!

More helping

Goofing off is always part of the helping!

Micah helping Jonah with Math

Micah is happy to help Jonah with his Math today!

Poor Noah!

We've started a tradition that each of the kids get to stay up an extra 30 minutes one night a week to get some extra one-on-one time with us. Last night was Noah's turn, and he wanted to play Uno. As I was finishing somethings Bryan told Noah they were going to play a round just the two of them...and this was Bryan's hand. Poor Noah had no idea what was going on until Bryan won on the 7th round. It was pretty funny. Then they played a trick and stacked the deck against me when I went up to check on Selah. I think Noah thought the "tricks" were better than the game itself!

Time to catch up??

Soccer has finally ended for the Fall here, and boy am I relieved. We figured out that a minimum of 11 hours every week was soccer. Do you know what I could get done in 11 hours?!? Especially 11 hours with Bryan home to either help me or help with the kids! So I am hoping to catch up a little- or at least keep up better.

I've been trying to post a video of Selah for 2 hours. Ccouldn't do video last time I tried, either. I'll try to work on that, but I did get it on Facebook if you are on there.

Otherwise, the recap is she was caught climbing on the counter and after a long interrogation, she said she climbed up there to get a knife and a banana. And she asked herself and told herself yes...so I guess that makes it okay.

Notes: YES, the stove is on.

NO, the knives are no longer on the counter.

YES, she is always impossible to have a conversation with.

And, when praying that night, after thanking God for God (cracks me up everytime) she also thanked him for her family followed by being thankful for banas (bananas) and knifes (pronounced knife-es). Her seriousness is both hilarious and frightening.

We've had a few other incidents with knives and/or bananas lately...

Not sure if she was hungry or just wanted to chop stuff.

Someone forgot to feed the monkey, she had to feed herself.

Chair and banana peel...which means I willl likely find Selah...

 Hiding behind the table eating the stolen banana.

Chopping a banana on my kitchen rug.

A rare occasion of "real" (gluten-filled) bread...and a reminder why it just can't be.

She used the knife to open the graham crackers.

And, of course, then helped herself to some!

Soccer!

Jonah bought FIFA Soccer 12 with his birthday money last night. And by some miracle, the schoolwork that regularly takes until 5 pm was done at 10 til 9 this morning! Wow. Had I known all it took to eliminate virtually all of our school stress was a $50 game, we would have bought that the day it came out!!
The picture is of Micah, watching the boys play. Micah has a soccer desire like I've never seen before. Two nights ago he refused to go to bed because he was sitting with Daddy watching the US soccer game. Now he's just watching the boys play and if he sees you he points to the tv and babbles about something soccer related. All I can seem to catch is BALL. It's virtually impossible to keep him off the soccer field at the boys' and Bryan's games. He has his own ball and goal. And he just LOVES to play. What's more, he's good! I've never seen a 1 yo dribble the ball like he can. And he takes better penalty kicks than his brothers. It will be interesting to see if he continues with this and it really is a talent of his or just a passing fad.

Liquid sunshine!

Out enjoying the liquid sunshine on this glorious fall day!

hide and seek!

Selah's hiding. I love this phase. If they can't see you, they think you can't see them. It's so cute!

Poor Jonah

So tonight I jokingly tried to convince Jonah to let us just make a square cake that said Happy Birthday Jonah...and he looked at me like I had 2 heads. Then I tried to sweeten the deal with the bribe of adding sprinkles. He just stared at me. Well, Bryan can't leave well enough alone and thought we needed to prank Jonah.

So we made the star destroyer...and then hid it in the garage. And we made the little one to leave out for Jonah to see.

Hey, there's a star destroyer, tie fighter AND a jedi! Along with his name and sprinkles!!

Kind of hoping to catch it on video tomorrow...

Only Selah

I mean, really. How many kids have a need to permanently destroy SOMETHING every time they aren't actively being entertained?? She is so expensive!

Theif!

Me:Selah, you.can't.bring.all.those.upstairs!
Selah:Why.not?They're.mine!
Me:umm,No.They're.your.brothers'.
Selah:Nope.They're.mine!
(Finders.Keepers.Rule?)

Behind once again!

My phone is messed up after an update and I can't type on it, so that is why you haven't been seeing anything on here lately! I need to work on getting that fixed...but until then, here's a couple recent pictures from this weekend.

Selah and Micah enjoying some Diego this morning. Not sure if the snuggling started out as sch or was originally a fight over the Wii remote that turned into snuggling due to a distraction.

The kids checking out a puppy. Selah's scared, of course.

Micah. looking thin...don't worry, it's just the way he's standing!

Playing games on the iPod. Kids these days.

Micah looking like a little guy. Sometimes you catch a rare reminder that he's still only one!!

Best buddies. Selah's sad and Micah's trying to cheer her up. I hope they stay close as they get older, they are unbelieveably adorable together!

 Trouble times two. They stole Uncle Jonah's Gatorade and took off in search of a "safe" place to drink it.

 Hard to tell but she got her foot stuck here. She wasn't happy but it was pretty funny.

Micah. Walking the line. Not sure if this should be reassuring of adolescence or frightening.

What's this?

 Do you think it's poisonous?

 Well, I'm not dead yet. So probably not. Should I eat it?

No. Selah, I think that would be a bad idea.
But maybe an interesting experiement.

Well, I ate it. Let's see what happens.

Showing off that belly.

Sneaking a goal in the back way.

Waiting for his team to get into position for the indirect kick.

Hmmm.  Wonder what's in there...

I don't want to sit here anymore! I'm going over there!

Eat? Nope. I didn't eat anything.
 What do you mean am I lying? I'm FAR too cute to lie!

 Never any fear.

 See what I mean?!?

Hanging out with Aunt Allison, who came up to visit me!

Too busy sneaking hot dog buns to make it to the bathroom. Oops.

A Mario Brothers tournament with Uncle Jonah.

Noah scored a goal. Not sure if he's surprised or just modest.