Back to Work

I've decided to come out of my retirement from retirement.  I became busy with 4 kids, school, church, sports and relocations and stopped blogging.  Now as I have changed to a vegan lifestyle, live overseas and am able to travel more than I ever thought possible, I'm remotivated to document our activities.  I hope this will be a great place to keep track of the details of our vacations, experiences and food!

PS My APOLOGIES to anyone who I mocked for still blogging too.  

Running Out of Gas (10 photos), by Melissa Dunham

I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.

Running On Empty

Road Trippers beware. There is a little something called a gas gauge on your dash that needs to be checked, especially before you enter the desert with nowhere to fill your tank. Jessica was astounded when the car started sputtering and slowing down dramatically, luckily I told her to pull to the right side of the road or we may have been run over by "Mack." This is why you drive with your husband, so you nag him about things like the gas gauge. Two women driving means way too much fun chatting and not paying attention :)

What an ordeal, had our angel Paul, not been sent to us we would have been stuck in the desert after sunset with 3 kids from 7:22 pm until 11:08 pm. That is when the roadside assistance and police finally reached there after I called at 7:30 pm. Very grateful for the help that was sent to us and for everyone being safe and sound.

Power Breakfast

So when you have a house to sell and 3 kids to feed, whom are all extremely messy eaters what do you do....

Yesterday they ate breakfast out on the deck, today we had to go for a power "breakfast." This consisted of pancake sandwiches and sippy cups in the car. I buckled them all in and then ran around frantically windexing windows, picking up, changing sheets, turning on lights, etc, etc, etc....

I was washing chalk off the windows and doors outside when I heard all 3 yelling. "M O M." As I raced back upstairs, I heard Evan coordinating "1,2, 3, now", all together "M O M!" When they saw I heard them they quickly told me to hit play on the DVD player. What a breakfast. I made it up to them with an outing to the Gymnastics center and I even did some flips on the trampoline much to their entertainment (and my own!), Glad this day is done and ready to head to Dallas on Friday so we can eat breakfast in our jammies at a table.

<--- Owen spilled his breakfast all over

Monday AM (I cleaned it all up)

Aubrey threw her breakfast all over Monday AM (Evan cleaned it all up)---->

Moving up the Ranks

The boys became Sunbeams at church this January. They no longer get to play with toys for 2 hours, they are close to if not the youngest in the class and they have not gone to preschool yet so this is a major transition for them! Listening, sitting, all things I am not good at so how can I blame them. But they are trying. I was a substitute in there on their first day and I got to witness first hand, when they sang, "Book of Mormon Stories." Evan jump out of his seat to dance and Owen drop to the ground to do a little break dancing. These kids have been exposed to one to many weddings and Missi's bedroom dance parties!

Owen on the Left and Evan on the Right, by their friend Kaleb.

We learned not to sit them next to each other anymore!

Aubs is now a big girl and gets to go to the nursery. She is so excited to play with toys and have wonderful teachers instead of sitting in adult classes for 3 hours, Yeah!!!!

This was one of my favorite moments of the year... Aubrey all dressed up in silk with roses and shiny gold shoes and the first thing she did was steal the basketball ... and dunks it for 2 points! What happened to my girly-girl? I guess this is what happens when you are 21 months younger than two boys.

Test Run

My best friend Kathi and her 4 gorgeous girls came to town and she needed to leave super early in the AM to run an errand. Kath left before the kids woke-up and for only 3-4 hours or so Ben and I had 7 kids. Aubrey was so excited to have her 4 girlfriends over and they were rolling her highchair back and forth arguing as to whom got to sit by her. Ben was on his normal Saturday AM pancake making duty. He usually makes the whole box and we use them throughout the week, but this day we had enough mouths for almost all of them. As I was running around with my head cut off buttering, pouring syrup and cutting pancakes and passing out juice. Ben was just flipping flapjacks and decided to make the comment, "See we can handle 7 kids." Is he crazy???????? Granted this was an extreme example of one 6 year old, a 5 year old, twin 3 1/2 year olds, twin 3 year olds and a 1 year old. But I still think that if they cannot fit in one mini-van and then it is probably over my limit :) Test Run was successful, but not a permanent plan of action.

Under Pressure

So the guilt of my ignored blog has been consuming me for many months, with such big events like the holidays and vacations it overwhelmed me to even try to start back up...
I am feeling a tad under pressure these days and as my Mom has always said, "A busy girl is a better girl!" And when I am stressed I clean and organize and get things together. So I guess the pressure and guilt has lead me here. I know once I get going I will enjoy it and be thankful for the opportunity to share our moments with our family and friends.

Overtime

So when Ben works long hours (like this week) and I am doing dinners, baths, and bedtime, etc alone. I think my overtime pay should kick in. Luckily, I decided I am not salaried so I should get an incentive for my extra hard work :) So after 3 years of never truly scheduling a date night, I found a babysitter and have her all lined up so Ben and I can go see Twilight tomorrow night. It's not that we have never been out since the Twins came, it's just been more last minute. My Mom will be in town and suggest that we go catch a movie, we may be visiting in MI and my Dad will tell us to run to the Mall without the kids, or my dear friend Katie will push us to go out to dinner as she takes our kids off our hands for the night. So I bought my tickets, am meeting friends at the theatre, and most likely will end up dateless. Even though my darling hubby agreed to the time and actually picked which date, his schedule seems to be out of his control and he now will be in meetings right up until the start of the movie. So my date will meet me there, race in at the last second while I try to hold his seat from an angry teenage girl, or he will just not make it at all. I think I am going to go anyways, the tickets have already been paid for and the sitter is already coming. Good thing I will have Edward and Bella to focus on...

TY Halloween vs. LY Halloween

So I am competitive with myself and have this terrible need to outdo last years Halloween. I start racking my brain trying to think of the best theme for the family about a week or two after Halloween. It really starts eating at me around August until I finally come up with something concrete. Now the important thing to note here is I have ZERO sewing skills and am not terribly creative so I have to rely on what is available for purchase to pull together my theme. So if I have a good idea but no one makes the costumes I am out of luck. That actually turned out to be a good thing since the boys really wanted to be "The Little Einsteins" this year and the selection was extremely limited. (That theme was never going to be approved anyways) I figure I have very few years to dress them the way I want so I have to maximize this little window of opportunity. Anyways here is TY final product and the years past.

FINDING NEMO (2008)

(Aubrey's Bedroom theme is Underwater Sea Adventure and she loves Turtles)

POLAR BABIES (2007)

(Twins have and Artic theme room)

PIRATES LIFE FOR ME (2006)

(Twins 1st Birthday was Pirates theme)

Once Upon A Time (2005)

(Twins were 12 Days old here and had not reached their actual due date yet)

Happy Retirement!

On Sept 26, 2008 my Dad retired from Chrysler after 24 years of service! He started out in a manufacturing apprenticeship at Ford Motor Company in Detroit, MI. Upon his graduation from the University of Michigan he took a position in Ford Purchasing. He and my Mother later moved to WI (where I was born) and worked in Procurement for Schlitz Brewing Company Container Division. We shortly returned to MI and to Ford for some years and then later spent the majority of his years as a Buyer and Purchasing Manager for Chrysler.

We were visiting in MI that week and were really excited when he came home early that Friday. To celebrate the occasion we packed up the car and he drove us back home to Kentucky! Now that he has the time we expect him to come much more often to Louisville to see his Grandkids.

Here are some cute pictures of my Dad arriving home on his last day of work, I am so glad I was there to capture the monumental moment. Doesn't he look to young to retire!!!!????

Team Effort

Owen (far L) & Evan (far R)

Evan and Owen had their first soccer game this morning and ended up having a blast. As expected they started off pretty timid. The game began with the opposing orange team racing untouched down the field and scoring the first goal of the game. The twins, overwhelmed by all of the action and racous croud, raced off the field to Mommy and Daddy with their friend Zach in tow. They sat out and watched for five to ten minutes and then decided they were ready. It was a group decision. Owen was the test dummy and was sent in first. After he got some cheers and was able to kick the ball a few times, Evan went racing in to join him. At the half, all of the other kids ran to their respective sideline to take a break, but not Evan and Owen. They were having way too much fun and waited at midfield for the game to restart. Early in the second half, Owen saw the ball loose in front of the opponent's net and pounced on the opportunity to score his first goal. Evan, encouraged by Owen's success, decided it was his turn. He took the ball from midfield and cut between numerous defenders before powerfully launching the ball into the net. He then ran to the sidelines and exclaimed, "GOAL!" We didn't have the heart to tell him that he had scored for the wrong team. Even with Evan's goal, the Orange team didn't stand a chance as the Purple Knights dominated 8-4.

Team Effort Photos

Dunham Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Dream Job

Mrs. Missi McDreamy---------------

So when my parents offered to watch the kids Mother's day weekend so we could go to a movie, I needed to see McDreamy's new movie. It was almost Mother's Day after all, so who cares if Ben was the only guy in the theatre. They had this great photo opportunity in the hallway that Ben seemed pretty embarrassed that I stuck my head into but he still took the shot on his phone. We had a nice weekend with Reeni and my parents and we cooked up a storm. All of our favorite foods and desserts too. Reeni and I got manis and pedis and went out to an awesome dinner at Uptown Cafe. I got a card from each child. The twins card said "Mommy", Aubrey's said "Mamamama", and Ky's said "Woo-Woo" on the front. I was spoiled all weekend and for the second time in my life I have my dream job!

Slight reduction in workload

Aubrey is quickly becoming a self-feeder. Yeah! She only has her two bottom teeth so far, but can easily get through her whole grain pancakes and grilled cheese. I am loving the free time to do the dishes or to feed the boys while she stays pretty busy. Plus, she is loving it. Tonight's menu: bite sized pieces of sweet potato and banana. Yum! She is a great eater just like the boys and loves all food. Well, she didn't like the Gerber lamb, but who would?

In the Weeds

We just cannot seem to catch up these days. I have been absent from my blog for over a month now and it is hard to get going again. We went to Salt Lake for Easter and Skiing and I was pretty busy getting ready for the trip. Then when we got home after the week of getting back on the time change and up to date on laundry, we found water all over our carpet in the family room in the basement. We were so overwhelmed and had just gotten the kids dressed and diapered to go out for the day that we decided to leave it for that night. Ben spent over 4 hours using a steam cleaner to pull up the water. I think he filled the bucket 14 times. So then I lost my internet connection since the water was where we keep our router. I was just back up on-line this past Wednesday and then our sink in the kitchen stopped up and I had to bail dirty water in order to do dishes. Luckily someone came the next AM to fix. So here we are, not quite sure how to finish the basement. So I have no use of the playroom again this week. Anyways, hopefully this week I can get caught up and post our vacation this week.

Slideshow of Blizzard '08

Snow Day - Blizzard '08

Or at least that is what everyone here in Louisville was calling it all day on Friday. I did not even know schools and offices were closed and went on my merry way desperate to get the kids out of the house to go to open play at the gymnastics center. (Apparently adults are not insured to be on the equipment though, I got in trouble from the teacher for flipping on the trampoline, little did she know I was using the vault back when I was 17 weeks pregnant with Aubrey.)

Ben being from Miami was clueless to the weather, and me being from Michigan I thought I had lived in this type of weather all the time, no big deal. After Ben came home at 7pm, I quickly learned that even his offices closed at 2:30, but he thought everyone was overreacting and stayed at work. When he got home we headed to Outback for dinner and were one of the few cars on the road. We ended up getting around a foot and a half of snow. My sister told me this was more at one time than MI got all year, so I guess we should have been a little more concerned and prepared. Thank goodness for leftovers. I never made it to the grocery store on Friday and by Saturday we were basically snowed in without any groceries. We had steak and ribs for lunch and I made a BBQ chicken salad for dinner. The boys and I practiced using our imagination. We were at California Pizza Kitchen, eating my favorite BBQ salad and drinking Lemonade. I tried to copy their salad with what I had in my fridge.

On to the fun stuff and pictures...

<> The boys and I had a snowball fight in the garage and were laying on the ground laughing when Ben found us.

<> Kyan had the day of his life and was out for 5 hours at a time and his usually potty break would take an hour vs his usual 30 seconds.

<> Ben shoveled snow for the first time, what a funny sight!

<> Aubrey slept through the all the fun.
<> Evan kept laying face down in the snow and was eating it the whole time.

<> Owen only wanted to play in fresh powder and kept walking away to go find clean snow.

<> We made our stairs into a baby sled hill and since we did not have a sled we used the recycling bin top.

What a wonderful snow day together. It all melted 2 days later and now to pack all our ski clothes to head to Salt Lake City for a week of skiing, playing in the snow and visiting Aunt Jenny for Easter Weekend. Let it snow!

Water Cooler Talk

The Oscars:
Boring!!!!! Where were all the REAL celebrities? No Charlize, No TomKat, No Bragelina, No Reese, No Gyllenhal's, No Smiths's, No Leo, No Kiera, No Crowe, and the list goes on and on. I went to E! on-line thinking that the cameras at E!, TV Guide, and ABC must have missed them walking in or something, but there was only 22 photo's to even vote on. Lack of super stars equated to lack of fashion. Maybe they should re-think inviting Miley and Sean Combs instead of true heavyweights to present. There were some highlights, but overall not enough to even make it a show. I liked Kerri Russell and of course Jennifer Garner. I might be biased though because I was such a huge Alias fan.
In the pre-shows that said to look out for colored diamonds and tons of colored dresses, but outside of all the Red dresses there was not that much color excitement. Oh, and the ponytail was so Golden globes 2 years ago! Boo! I am actually boo'ing the Oscars...

American Idol:
So I know this is like 3 weeks ago, but I cannot even explain how upset I am that Josiah Leming was cut out from the top 24 of American Idol. I really liked his first audition and then at Hollywood week when he did "Grace Kelly" I was sold. (I even liked his "Stand by Me.") Ben is so sick of listening to me play his clip on You Tube over and over and over again. Everyone always makes fun of me for picking up accents from where I live, so I totally understand the English accent. So I guess David is my front runner now, and I like the Australian guy too. But if it's not Josiah, I really don't even care....

Lost:
Wow! What a season and how sad that we will only get half of it due to the writers strike. I am so excited that Kate has Aaron and will Jack ever know that he is his nephew, so crazy. I want to go on the obsessed fans sites, but Ben will be mad at me if I read the spoilers and wreck it for him. Since I told the whole kindergarten class about Santa I am guessing I will not be able to contain any information I learn about Lost. I hope the writer's strike does not change the direction they were going, I am willing to wait for the story to be told correctly. So good!

Assembly Line

The only thing more efficient than an assembly line for diaper changes would be for them each to roll over and diaper the kid next to them. I am keeping my fingers crossed that will happen soon!