Photography Class

Philip hosted a men's photography class at our house yesterday. Mindy from MJW Photography was the instructor. 6 guys listened to a woman for 4 hours. Can you believe it? Eli was here also. He was the "model." He got to play football outside, ride his Ripstik and Pogo. He was in heaven. And he didn't even mind the fact that 6 cameras were in his face.

One of the action shots Philip took:

Not an action shot, but I LOVE this one. Love it enough to blow it up into a BIG picture!

Then this morning before church, Philip played around with settings on his camera and got these shots:

Poor Zander. Got left out of this post. Philip actually got a really good shot of Zander smiling. But it was blurry. Hmmm, might need another photography class?

3 years ago today

Three years ago today, I was a pregnant girl of about 20 weeks.
We knew we were having twins, but we didn't know the gender.
I've never been so sick in my life as I was from week 6-week 20.
It finally subsided during this week.
Because I'd been pregnant before, I knew how my body reacted to carrying both genders.
I wasn't sick with Eli, just couldn't eat certain foods.
I got sick a few times with EK, but for the most part just felt nauseous all the time.
So, based on my very scientific conclusions, I KNEW that these 2 babies were either: 2 girls or 1 of each.
I KNEW that my body got sick with a girl so there HAD to be at least one of those in my belly.
And seeing as how I had been so very very sick, I thought there were probably 2 girls in there.
Why else would I be so sick?
2 sets of girl hormones, I concluded.

So, 3 years ago today, I went in for my 20 week checkup and ultrasound.
Around 2:45pm, I saw my 2 babies.
And they were both boys.
I didn't believe it.
Baby A's boy parts were very evident.
The positioning of Baby B made it more difficult to see, but the ultrasound tech assured me she was seeing boy parts on that baby, too.
I told her to look again.
That just couldn't be right.
Guess what?
She was right.

I found these scanned images at my parents house during Christmas. So the quality isn't the best.

But here they are.

Top 2 pictures are Baby A who is my Zaney.

In case you're not a pro at reading u/s pictures, that is his legs & bottom facing up in the 2nd picture (which shows his male-ness).Down here is Baby B. My Zander Griffy.

3rd picture is his side profile.

And look closely in the 4th picture to see what the u/s tech saw to determine he was also a boy.

And you know the ending to this story.

I love that they are the same gender.

I love that they are both boys.

I'm so thankful I wasn't the one who orchestrated it.

I would've messed up.

HE did not.

And that brings tears to my eyes.

Perfect Potty Spot

Zander has been showing some interest in the potty lately. He likes to go before he takes a bath. (and he's usually successful!) For the most part, Zane usually wants nothing to do with it. And being the non-potty-training-mom that I am, that's fine by me.
Tonight was a different story though. After Zander had finished on the potty, Zane wanted a turn. We sat and sat and sat. He kept telling me it was going to come out. The other family members were in the kitchen washing, drying, and putting away the dishes.... and I was getting tired of just sitting in the bathroom. So, I moved the potty seat into the kitchen/breakfast area where everyone else was.

Zane didn't seem to mind where he was located....

Philip was actually jealous of Zane's seat. He took one glance at the view Zane had. Which was this...
Philip immediately declared, "Zane, you're living my dream dude. Sitting on the pot in front of the big screen."

Ugghh. Boys and their toys.

Toothless Again

She lost another one tonight. That is 4 missing now.

All at once.

I sure am glad the bottom middle 2 are her grown-up teeth.

Otherwise she'd look like my Granddaddy when he can't find his dentures!

Wednesday to Forget

Wednesdays are one of the hardest days of the week for me.
The kids have a large amount of homeschool that has to get done THAT day, in order to be turned in at school on Thursday.
We also have AWANA on Wednesday night, which means Eli and EK need to have their weekly AWANA work completed.
So its just usually a looong day.
Yesterday, we had 2 friends from school at our house. Their mom was out of town so they came to our house to do their schoolwork.
The day was actually going pretty well. Around 11:00am, we were over 3/4 of the way done with everyone's schoolwork.
I was thinking about what I'd feed 6 kids for lunch, as well as getting the 2 friends back to their house and then bring my 4 back home in time for Z&Z's naptime.
Speaking of Z&Z, they had been upstairs in the playroom & their bedroom playing while I did school with the other 4.
Zander came running to the top of the stairs and excitedly proclaimed, "Mom, my shirt is wet."
Of course, I asked why.
Still excited, he said, "because."
I asked "where is Zane?"
To which Zander excitedly replied, "He getting wet in Emmy Kate's bathroom."

Uh-oh.
I ran upstairs and found this.... and this....

and this....

and one last view...

Apparently they got bored with the playroom and their bedroom, so they went to EK's room and bathroom. I wish I'd had a hidden video camera going so I would know who started it, how it started, exactly how much t.p. they put in, and how many times they repeatedly flushed.

But, alas, our house isn't set up with video monitoring. :-)

After I took pictures, I got all the school kids settled back down at the table to work. As I was going to get towels to start soaking up all the water, one of the kids had a question relating to their schoolwork. So I got sidetracked.

While I was helping with schoolwork, we heard a strange sound.

Sort of sounded like rushing water.

We went toward the sound and found water POURING out of this light in our living room...

I felt that up until this point, I had been pretty calm and collected about the whole situation. Let me backtrack and say that I never yelled at the boys when I found the initial mess in the bathroom. I sternly told them that what they had done was being bad boys. To which Zander replied, "Momma, you happy?" I said "No Zander. You and Zane playing in Emmy Kate's potty does not make me happy." His response was, "But I want you be happy Momma."

So back to the current situation....

When I saw that water from the second level of our house was pouring out through the light/ceiling of the 1st level, I pretty much lost it.

I immediately called Philip at work. I was pretty hysterical (and not the funny kind of hysterical either). I knew he couldn't come home but that is what I was pleading with him to do. In his very calm voice he simply told me to get towels and soak up all the water in her bathroom and that even if he was home, he wouldn't be able to do anymore than that. Humph. We hung up and I did as was told. The water did not immediately stop coming through the light, but it did stop GUSHING. It was more of a slow leak for the next 15 minutes. (could it really have only been 15 minutes? Seemed like at least an hour)

But, before the frantic phone call, I had already put buckets in the floor underneath the light....

so everything that leaked was going into the buckets rather than the carpet.

We once again, started working on school. Finished that up. Fed lunch to 6 kids and then packed them all into my car to take our friends back to their house.

Came back home and boys slept while I had some quiet time. (much deserved I would say). I'm actually glad I did take a little down time for myself because the day's fun wasn't over yet.

Around 4:30 I told Eli and EK to start working on their AWANA work. They did which was followed by them needing to eat, brush teeth, etc... Emma Kate had been to gym that morning and still had on her gym clothes (which for the record usually means a leo with yoga pants and a jacket over it.) Upon telling her to make sure she put on matching clothes, she threw herself a little hissy fit proclaiming that there was nothing wrong with the clothes she had on. I proceeded to tell her that the clothes she was wearing was appropriate for gym and home, but not for other places.

Fast forward to 5:45. She is still sprawled out on the floor throwing her fit (in her gym clothes). I told her that if she wasn't dressed in matching clothes by 6:00, that she wouldn't be going to AWANA. Well, I immediately saw the lightbulb go off in her head. (she's thinking "aha. I can get out of going by continuing to throw my fit and not change clothes.) Which is exactly what she did.

Little did she know that I had a trick up my sleeve.

We took Eli to AWANA and got home around 6:35. As soon as we walked in, I told her to go take a shower and get on her pj's. She questioned me, but she did it. Then as soon as her shower was over, I put her to bed. This was about an hour and 10 minutes before her normal bedtime. Wow-wee, this incurred another hissy fit. Which resulted in her being the recipient of the spanking spoon and then crying herself to sleep.

I put the little boys to bed at 8:00 and went downstairs to start fixing everyone's lunches for the next day. Philip had just gotten off work and was picking up Eli from AWANA on his way home.

Around 8:10, I opened the refrigerator door...

and this happened....

At the same time, Philip and Eli walked in and that was officially the end to the Wednesday I'd like to Forget.

Dog Snack

Zander is hardly ever quiet. And usually if he is quiet its not a good thing.
But today, in the middle of a tiring-will-this-day-ever-end-kind-of-day, he was quiet. And he was being good.
I found him with his puppy dog and his snack.

He said he was feeding his doggy some dog snack.

I know this picture looks like he's putting the cheese on the dog, but he's really not.

With a face like this, I can temporarily forget all the other chaos of the day!

New Years Eve 2010

Friends from our Bible Fellowship Class at church invited everyone to their home for New Years Eve (kids included). My parents timed a trip to our house so that they could bring us the rest of our Christmas loot as well as keep Zane & Zander while the rest of us went to the NYE party. (cause I'm guessing that the Z's wouldn't have been the life of the party at midnight!)

I made some snacky foods to take, but I also had Eli and EK make a kiddy snack.
They started with pretzel squares on a pan... then they put Hershey's Kisses on top of those...

and baked for a few minutes. Right after taking them out of the oven, they then smashed an M&M on top of each Kiss...

(looks like somebody may have taste tested one!)

The kids had a great place to hang out at the party. They watched movie after movie in the theater room.

The adults ate and talked and ate some more and played games upstairs.

Around 10:00, I could tell that Emma Kate was getting tired. She came upstairs and crawled in my lap. Although she stayed awake, she pretty much stayed in my lap for the next 2 hours.

She perked up around midnight when we turned the TV on to watch the ball drop.

Here she is with her friend Ryanne at midnight...

(and yes, they are in their pj's)

Ryanne's baby brother Mason, was quite the little trooper. He slept for a little bit, but around 11:00 he woke back up and rang in the New Year as well. His Daddy gave him the appropriate accessories....

(and yes, that is sparkling cider)


Not many adults were still there at midnight....

But being the late night party animals that Philip and I are (insert sarcasm here), we stayed til the end!