Thank you, Ned! (a story that I just don't want to forget)

While putting up Christmas decorations this year my three amigos helped out a lot. Ned was extra helpful. He put most of the decorations on the tree, cleared off the mantel (including carefully carrying everything into my bedroom), and put up our A Christmas Story village. I was so grateful because, as usual, I was not having a great day (is it just me, or does it not seem fair to still have morning [all day] sickness at 7 months pregnant?)

Of course the house was a total mess from the boxes that were brought down from the attic and I was not looking forward to that clean up, and I also had some rearranging I wanted to do in the living room. We have had toys stored in our living room for a couple of years now, but I just could not take it anymore so I had decided to move everything into the boys' already crowded bedroom and was not looking forward to the process. Ned decided to take on the project himself. I thought for sure that he would lose steam after a little while and leave an even bigger mess for me to deal with later. To my surprise he worked for 6 hours moving book selves out of his closet, vacuuming the closet, carrying all the toys into the bedroom, and organizing all of the toys. About 4 or 5 hours into the process Ned came to me and said, "It feels so good to help. I am SO tired and I just want to lay down, but it feels really good to help."

What a good boy! I feel so lucky to be his mom.

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I want to add something in response to Jess's comment. A few days after the above story happened it was my birthday. When I woke up in the morning I had not though about it being my birthday until Ned came in and said, "Happy birthday, Mommy! What do you think you want for breakfast?" I told him that I was not feeling well enough to eat but that I would love it if he fed his brothers so I did not have to. He actually does this most mornings for me, after getting himself dressed almost two hours before he has to be at school. I'm loving it!

Flashback Friday - Nauvoo Trip 2002

I got a fun idea from my friend's husband's brother's wife's blog the other day. (Oh, come on, you know you read everyone and their dogs blogs too!) She had an idea to do Flashback Fridays, I think it is a great idea.
So, I have decided that on Fridays (not necessarily every Friday, but some) I will post about something in the past. Some will be from when I was a child and some more recent.

When my dad was here a couple of weeks ago we were reminiscing about the time we went on a long road trip to Nauvoo Illinois. Ned and I went with my parents and my little brother, R. Jay. We met my sister and her family there.

We went to the Nauvoo Temple open house before its dedication. It is a beautiful temple. We spent some time in Nauvoo visiting other church history sites as well.

We went to the John Deere museum. Ned had fun with all the tractors.

Uncle R.Jay had fun with his nieces and nephew. He is a fun and loving uncle.

On our long drive half way across the country Ned was so well behaved. There is one memory that I think all of us there will never forget. I don't know what got him started but there was a time that Ned laughed, and had us laughing, for at least half an hour. He would laugh an adorable, and contagious laugh, then sigh. The sigh would get all of us laughing again, then Ned would laugh at us laughing, then sigh...and so on. My dad almost drove off the rode a few times he was laughing so hard!

We had a great trip filled with fun memories. I think we should do it again sometime! ;)

Look familiar?

Lucky - Yesterday

Dusty - August 2006

I am afraid...very afraid!

Photo Shoot

I decided to take some pictures of the boys yesterday since they were all dressed up in new shirts. (Lucky was sick and did not get dressed, and he does not have a cute new shirt anyway)
These two are my favorites and the slide shows have some of the other cute and silly pictures I took.

Sports Photography 101

6 year olds DO NOT move quickly enough for the sports setting on your camera! (the one of Ned with his medal and the one with his coach are not quite as blurry as the rest, thank goodness!) Ned is White #32.

Memories

I was looking through some old emails and found pictures of Ned's 4th birthday almost 3 years ago. He had a jungle safari birthday party. It was so much fun. He and Dusty are so cute and little! I figure it is something I would have put on my blog if I had been a blogger back then, so why not add it now!

I've been caught!

I was on my blog getting ready to edit a post and Ned sat next to me and said, "That's a cute picture of Lucky. Where is he?"
I had been caught! "Um, the zoo." I said, worried about the reaction.
"Was I there?" Ned asked.
"No, we went on Monday.” I said.
Ned then glared at me and said, "That's it! Someday Daddy and I are going to go someplace without any of you guys. We are going to go in the summer so it will be nice and warm!"

From the Mouths of Babes

While searching for something on my favorite scrapbooking site I came across some fun questions to ask your kids. I printed it off and have been meaning to do it since then. (the paper was printed 9/30/2006, I think I have waited long enough) So, with that list and another list I found at the website Family Education, I made my own list of questions I thought would be fun to ask Ned. Dusty is a little young for most of the questions so I will make a different list for him later.

I know it is long, but keep reading, it is worth it!

*How many teeth have you lost? 2
*What is your favorite thing at school lunch? Apple. Lots and lots of fruit, and sometimes this yummy kind of pineapple.
*What is your favorite sport? basketball
*What are you best at in sports? dribbling the ball
*When you come home from school what do you like to do? rest
*What do you do best? At school-Math
*How old is Mommy? 30
*How tall is Mommy? How do you want me to say it? Do you know how many feet? Like 3... of your feet, wait, like 6. Because it's like 1,2...6 (he lifted his foot and measured me with his feet)
*What time does Mommy wake up on the morning? 7:30
*What does Mommy do when you are at school? Teach Dusty's school. (It was my turn to teach Alphabet club this past week)
*What do you love about your mommy? When you give me back scratches
*How old is Daddy? 34
*What is your daddy's favorite sport to play? basketball
*How strong is your daddy? pretty strong. (said with a big smile!) Remember that time he lifted those big metal things (some weights Daddy got a few years ago and has used a few times) they are really heavy, I could barely even pick it up.
*What is Daddy's favorite TV show? basketball, and football, any kind of sport, really.
*How tall is your dad? Um, like 20 feet tall, wait, like 10 feet tall. Well, actually no, because that is how tall a weed can grow.
*What do you like best about your dad? When he plays with me.
*What is our favorite movie to watch as a family? I don't know, because I haven't asked anyone.
*What do you do when you are really silly? You mean when I am laughing? Yes. Pee my pants. No, I mean what do you do that makes you laugh. Act like a monkey.
*What is your room decorated with? Um, names and 2 beds. (It is true. Sadly there are really no decorations, just the boys names on the wall and their beds.)
*What is the best thing about you? that I can read
*What is your favorite cartoon? transformers
*What is your favorite color? brown, pretty much every color
*What is your favorite dessert? raspberry cake
*What is your favorite drink? What is that drink with root beer with ice cream in it? Root beer float. Root beer float!
*What is your favorite food? roman noodles, stir fry
*What is your favorite holiday? Christmas, when you get all the presents AND my birthday. Those are my most favoritest ones.
*What is your favorite ice cream? the green, mint kind
*What is your favorite movie? Simpsons
*What is your favorite place to go? Sears, to see Daddy.
*What is your favorite restaurant? McDonalds
*What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? McDonalds
*What is your favorite song? I'm not really interested in songs. OH! The first song in High School Musical 2. The one about school's out. They say Summer, Summer, and then everyone starts to say it. And then they start to act all crazy and they throw up all of their papers! Aaaahhh! (apparently I need to get this movie, this was his best response the entire time!)
*What is your favorite store? Sears
*What is your favorite time of day? School time
*Where would you like to go on vacation? maybe somewhere like the beach now that I know how to swim
*What is your favorite snack? ice cream in an ice cream cone
*What is your favorite toy? transformers
*What are your favorite bed time stories? Linky-Link stories
*What is your favorite book? Green Eggs and Ham. That's easy to read. It only has 63 pages and I do it in like 20 minutes.
*What is your favorite subject in school? Math
*Who is your favorite teacher? Mrs. Irvin, pretty much all of them.
*What do you want to be when you grow up? a firefighter or a painter
*Who are your friends? CJ, Mason, Ryan, Adam, Kason, Taylor
*What awards have you received? M&M's for doing that word search in 3rd place. (he has actually won awards, but this was obviously the best reward!)
*How tall are you? 1,2,3...7. 7 and a half! (measuring himself with his own feet)
*How old are you? 6 and a half
*How heavy are you? in between 40 and 80 on your thing (scale). Maybe in between 20 and 40.
*How much does Daddy weigh? 100
*How much does Mommy weigh? like 100, too. You guys are pretty close ages, so you have to weigh pretty much the same.
*What time do you wake up? I don't know, sometimes I sleep in, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. I wake up like every time in the night.
*What do you eat for breakfast? marshmallow cereal
*Which of these do you think would be best:
a. Dinner with everyone at the table and the TV on your favorite show.
b. Dinner that everyone chose what they wanted from the fridge and no one ate the same thing.
c. Dinner with the whole family together and no TV on.
the 3rd one
*If you could have your room any way you wanted how would it be? like this (he jumped up and started acting like a monkey) No, what would it look like, not how would you act? like have transformers all over the place. Would it be clean or dirty? clean. And who would clean it? Dusty, because he makes all of the messes in my bedroom.
*Are you a good friend? mm hm (nodding)
*If you are afraid or sad what do you say to yourself to help yourself feel better? I can't really even do that.
*If you could redecorate our house how would you decorate? like a party
*What is the most fun thing our family has done lately? made stuff with noodles. You know, like that project thing. Noodle art? yes
*What is beyond the stars? maybe more planets. One that is called uga bulla
*What is the nicest thing a friend has done for you? helped me
*What are two things we should do next time Daddy has a day off? go to Jump Zone and get ice cream
*Do you believe in heaven? yes What do you think it is like? I don't know, it's a pretty fun place.
*If you could have a weird, unusual pet, what would it be? a twenty-thousand-eyed rabbit. Why would you want that? Because I would poke all of it's eyes out, and only leave two of them. And smash them all up and give them to an ogre. (Gross, at this point I just said that that was enough and moved on. I am sure he could have kept going with that one!)
*What have you done in school, or sports, or anywhere, that you were especially proud of? Almost making a goal in the last play, in the last game of soccer.
*Do you think girls are better with, or without make-up on? without
*How much TV do you think kids should watch each day? Like only two shows. At least 2.
*What is the grossest thing you can think of? throwing up
*Tell me something you remember from Kindergarten. I don't really remember anything. You can't think of one thing? there is so much stuff stuffed in my mind that some of it is way back there. Like right there. (he points to the back of his head)
*What would you do if you were invisible for a day? pretend that I was a ghost and scare people at school, because of all the mean things that they've done to me. I'll just scare them away. What mean things? They called me names.
*Who do you think you are most like in our family? Daddy and Lucky. Why? Because they have the same colored hair and the same colored eyes.
*Why did God make moms? So that more people could be born. Then more moms would be there. But there's only one mom at our house.
*What are moms made of? skin, blood
*Who is the boss at your house? you and Daddy
*What is the difference between moms and dads? That the dad is pretty much the craziest one and moms not.
*What does your mom do in her spare time? SCRAPBOOKING! And I am mad at you! Why? Because I want you to stop, I don't want you to do the scrapbooking. Why? Because I want you to play with me, ALL OF THE TIME! (gee, kid, why don't you tell me how you really feel?!) :)
*If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be? (Like I even have to ask after that last answer) That you would stop scrapbooking. That there was no scrapbooking in the world. If I figured it out, you wouldn't know, I'd keep it a secret.

Like Father, Like Sons

Yesterday I was trying to take a picture of my poor little boy, Dusty was so sick and looked so sweet laying on his daddy's lap. As I was trying to take the picture Daddy started making silly faces. I said, "Daddy, stop, you always pull funny faces when I am trying to take a picture." Now, always was probably not the right word, but he does do it quite often.

This happens with all of the little boys in the house too. I know it must be annoying to have a scrapbooker as a wife/mom. I take so many pictures, let's say an average of 500 per month (and that is probably too low). You see, I have to get the best shot possible, even if it takes 50 pictures to get the perfect picture of the baby crawling for the first time. If I am going to spend the time to scrapbook it, it better be good!

So, I understand when my family gets tired of me taking their picture, but if they would just do what I want it would be over so much faster. Sometimes these crazy expressions are not on purpose, but are often intentional (very often as the boys get older). Usually the problem is that I want everyone to continue to do what they were doing and act naturally, but the camera comes out and they just can't help themselves!

I found some pictures of all of the boys (including Daddy) where they have a funny look on their face. With so many pictures taken each month there are bound to be some interesting shots. I probably get more completely crazy pictures than I do really great shots. So why not show these off too?

DADDY

NED

DUSTY

Lucky

Maybe Daddy gets it from Nana!

And the winner is...

Scott, my brother in law was asked by his wife (my sister) what I should rename my children on my blog and he said, "Well, that's easy. Ned Nederlander, Dusty Bottoms and Lucky Day from Three Amigos!"

I love it. I do not love the movie, but I hope it is popular enough that some people might get the connection.

Thanks so much to those of you that took the time to make a suggestion.

Scott, your prize will be in the mail soon. :)

Not quite what you were hoping for...

I have some photos for you, but I don't think they are what you are expecting. While I do have several cute pictures of my nephews and sons at play, I am posting photos of a very different nature.

Daddy came out of the shower this morning sporting a nasty mustache. I think he may have been inspired by a friend of ours that is having a mustache contest at work. I could not contain my laughter. The boys were so concerned with the new look that K decided he would take care of it on his own. He grabbed the nose hair trimmer and went to work. He and Big L tried their best but did not get rid of much facial hair so K moved on to the nose hairs... Daddy did not enjoy that part so much, I think he would rather do that for himself.

He did not leave the house looking like this but before he shaved we got some really great, and totally disgusting pictures.

Enjoy!

Suddenly

Big L's first grade class has a 'student of the week' each week. The student is spotlighted all week and is allowed to bring pictures on Monday and show-and-tell on Friday. I have been so looking forward to Big L's week. I was looking on shutterfly.com yesterday and was contemplating making a 20 page hard back book with pictures of Big L for his special week. I was only thinking about doing this because I got one free with Pampers Points.
I decided to look on line at his teachers weekly parent letter to see who was student of the week this week to see if I had time to order the book. (It is done alphabetically so I figured I could see who it was and look at his class list to see how many more students were before him.)
I got to the parent letter from last week, scrolled down and the letter said:
Student of the week this week Tre.
Next week Sept. 24-28 Big L.
I immediately had tears in my eyes. How could I have missed this??? I first felt so sorry for Big L that he had gone through almost the entire week knowing that his mommy forgot to send pictures. I thought that he must not have said anything because he did not want me to feel bad (yes, even at 6 he really thinks of things like that). Then I thought about what his teacher must be thinking, 'oh, poor mommy of three little children, she just can't get it together." or worse, "there goes Big L's mommy again, that flaky parent, no wonder it is so difficult for Big L to get his work done on time." Then came the selfish thoughts, that I would not get to make the cute book, or scrapbook something special and have his teacher tell me what a wonderful job I did on it.
I cannot understand how this happens. How do our emotions change so unexpectedly? How can there be absolutely no warning. One moment you are fine, going on with your day, and wham you are in tears. I was amazed at how quickly I could produce tears. I was sick about the whole thing, and on a mission.
I decided I would find several pictures of Big L and print them up for him to take to school on Friday. I spent the next hour going through picture CDs (so much for the fridge I had planned on cleaning). I also pulled all of the layouts that had Big L in them and put them all in one album.
When Big L got home from school I asked him if he was student of the week. He said that he didn't know. Well, at least he was not feeling like his mommy did not care about him. I figured his teacher must not have made a big deal about the fact that he did not have pictures to share. I was just glad we at least had Friday left to send pictures and Big L could take show and tell. Now, this all did not make me feel much better, but at least I could make Big L feel special for one day if not all week. Seriously, HOW COULD I HAVE MISSED THIS??






Turns out, it was a typo. He is student of the week next week. Whew! Well, at least it got me to look through old pictures and find these: