4 kids * 5 per day * 365 days/year * 2 years per kid

Ellie and Anderson had their combined birthday party on Saturday.  Anderson's in to cars and racing and trains and Legos right now so he mainly got Cars Legos and Cars Geotrax and trucks and stuff.  He also got a bike helmet, which he wears constantly, just walking around the house.  It's pretty funny to watch.  Ellie got clothes, which she was thrilled about.  She also got clothes for her American girl doll, which she was also thrilled about.  She's very excited to go see princesses ice skating which is her present from us this year.  Today she asked if there will be bathrooms there.

Ellie and Anderson were supposed to be cleaning the toy room the other day.
Ellie:  I'm the only one cleaning!
Anderson:  Me too!

I asked Carla to marry me 10 years ago today, so that's pretty cool.  Since then we've gotten married (obviously), graduated college, gotten good jobs, bought(en) a house, had 4 kids, changed approximately 14600 diapers, started our masters's, and been to countless soccer and tee-ball games.  Still, it seems like yesterday that I was kneeling and trembling at the park after Thanksgiving dinner.  She cried and said yes and we started the whirlwind of activity that I still don't think has stopped.  It's fun trying to keep up, and it's fun looking back.  And Thanksgiving will always be my favorite holiday.

Gibbling

Anderson was passing a little basketball from hand to hand.
Me: Anderson, are you dribbling?
Anderson. No! I'm . . . Gibbling.

Anderson, while listening to Super-cala-fraga . . . : I really like the 'docious' part.

Anderson, after finding out his train broke: Who did this? I'm serious!

The furnace man came by today b/c the heat pump wasn't working quite right.
Furnace man: Well, everything's working perfectly. But you should replace these 3 parts. Actually, you should just by a whole new heat pump. That'll be $5000.
Me: Get off of my property.
Well, it was something like that anyway.

Gracie's taking 5-6 steps without falling down now. She also has her 3rd bad ear infection in 5 weeks and is therefore on her 3rd different antibiotic in 5 weeks and is therefore destroying her diapers.

Also, why didn't He-man just always stay He-man? Did he get tired of running around in his underwear? Adam really didn't have much going for him and I'm sure Cringer would have been happy just staying Battlecat. He probably just didn't like the name. He-man. What were the other choices on the wall in the writers' room that they didn't pick? Mr. Strong? Magic Muscle Man? Who rides a cat, anyway?

Highlights from a daddy day

Caroline stands up from a crawl without support from anything other than her palms on the ground now. She was doing it all day today but she wouldn't take any steps afterward.

Ellie dressed up like an M&M for preschool. Whenever she has a dress-up day I get nervous. What if we got the date wrong and she's dressed as an M&M and everyone else is dressed like a normal preschooler? It worked out, though. Her only problem was that she couldn't raise her arms for fear of ripping her costume. She just bent at the elbows. Kind of looked like a sea lion. (Cutest sea lion dressed as an m&m ever).

Anderson and I played Wii bowling for a while. Basically, I knelt behind him and swung his arm and tried to keep him from hitting the buttons. We stopped when I got mad at him for ruining a turkey. Lousy kid.

I also got our dishwasher fixed, paid some bills, fixed our wireless adapter, bought, downloaded, and installed Office 2010 (for $10, perfectly legally, too), put up with a very whiny Ellie, and watched Jack and Molly and my 3 for a couple hours. All-in-all, a pretty productive day.

Uncle Kurt: Jack, do you have a stinky diaper?
Jack: OK.

By the power of Grayskull, I HAVE THE POWER!!!

Stuff my kids have never seen:
A Walkman
A VCR
An A drive (seriously, why are A and B still reserved for floppy disks?)
An episode of He-Man, unless they stay up late and watch Qubo. Saw it on the other night. Pretty awesome.
Super Nintendo
L.A. Gears
A Skipit
A typewriter

Stuff their kids will never see:
Cassettes/CDs/DVDs/blu ray disks
A diskman
An episode of Power Rangers (God willing)
A post-season pitcher as dominant as Cliff Lee
What else?

Ellie just built a lego boat that could carry 2 people, a "spyolator" and a "fastolator". They help you spy and go fast.

Walker and I had a 45 minute discussion on Heaven and Hell the other night, including such topics as the holy spirit and prevenient grace. It was right before bed time and the talk was mostly about Satan and Hell so I thought he'd be getting pretty scared but he just kept asking question after question.
"Does Hell have walls? Does it have doors? How do people go there after they die? Does Satan grab you and drag you down through the dirt?" Yeah, it started creeping me out a little so I finally shut him down. The next night, he wanted to talk about it again.

Also, I saw that there's a new show called Raising Hope. Just when I thought the verb/name titles were going away . . . Crossing Jordan, Judging Amy, saving grace, raising hellen, finding nemo, saving private ryan. Also, why is it that all the just-go-by-the-first-name shows star incredibly annoying women?

Fall Fun

Peek-a-boo! I see you! Walker, Ellie, and Anderson had a blast making it "rain" leaves and diving into the huge pile that Kurt made for them!

In other fall-related news, Anderson cried when he reached in the pumpkin to pull out some seeds. I laughed really hard, and he got mad and left.

Quick Update

Anderson asked me if we could listen to a CDD the other day while driving in the van. I love that kid :)

Gracie's blows kisses now and says "hi" with a huge smile when she sees you walk into the room!

Walker is a puzzling mix of a terrible listener and a very happy 6 year old.

Ellie just loves to color and shop, color and shop, color and shop. She is a very good helper when she's not in a "mood." Tonight at dinner, she said, "Mom, I don't think I can eat. My stomach hurts when I breathe out, right on my pancreases."

Sunday Mornin'

I just want to record the events of Sunday morning, so we don't forget how crazy things are at our house . . .
Anderson's sleeping naked on the couch because he peed the bed.

Kurt woke up first and made coffee and waffles (not typical) while I snuggled with Gracie on the couch.

Walker is eating breakfast and talking about sports with Kurt. They are both cracking up, and if you just listened to the conversation without realizing Walker was a six-year-old, you'd think it was 2 buddies giving each other a hard time about who's a better batter, pitcher, etc.

Ellie is sound asleep because she's our sleeper-inner. She will definitely wake up whiny and crabby b/c she stayed up too late.

Kurt just yelled at me for blogging, and said that if we're late for church he's blaming me. He always blames me anyway.

Gracie's also eating waffles, and will probably stay in her high chair until we're about 5 minutes away from leaving b/c she's the good one who never fusses.

As soon as Ellie wakes up, she'll eat breakfast, and get yelled at 500 times for eating too slow.

Anderson's pretty pleasant this morning. When he wakes up, it usually 50/50. This morning we were blessed with a happy demeanor.

It's now time to leave, and I was too busy getting everyone ready to put make-up on, so now I will make Kurt mad by telling him I need 5 more minutes :)

P.S. We left at 8:40, which is great for us!!!