Blue Man Group

My kids aren't often matching but on Sunday I thought it would be cute if all the boys wore their blue church pants and a blue shirt. I thought they looked pretty handsome. I wonder if anyone noticed? They weren't super matchy-matchy but they were my little blue man group!

Rex, being the good little dooby that he is, was getting dressed for church and slipped these pants on wherein he promptly exclaimed, "Mom! These are shorts!" I looked over and laughed, he had put on Colby's pants! That tells you what a little skinny butt Rex is...

And I couldn't part without posting a pic of Gracie's new 'do. She is sooo in love with it, I think mostly because she doesn't have to put up with me brushing her hair anymore. She used to call me the "Meanest Hair Brusher Ever!" It's about 5 inches shorter than I requested, but I guess that's what we get for going to the beauty college... Still turned out cute though, I think.

It's Getting Hot In Here!

Our cat is in heat, again. Can you hear the sighs of frustration? She is just weird when this happens. I don't ever really remember what our cats were like when this happened while I was growing up but it is seriously driving me crazy. We need to get her fixed but we just haven't done it yet. Hopefully it's not too late. After they get fixed do they stop going into heat? I sure hope so.

The first time it happened was a few weeks ago and the kids were really concerned. She was acting seriously wonky. Making those strange noises and sticking her butt in the air. It's gross I know, I've been having to listen to her all the time. The kids kept asking me what was wrong with her. Matthew was especially concerned. This cat is like his baby, even though it is technically Owen's cat, she really took a liking to Matthew and he to her. She sleeps by his head every night but when this started up she didn't anymore. He came to me and said "Mom, I think something is wrong with Cookie." Uh-huh, yep, sure is. It's not really something that I wanted to explain but it was kind of hard to avoid with her acting so out of sorts. Owen was also concerned, "Mom, I think Cookie is sick." I said, "Well... yeah, she's in heat." He said, "Oh, yep she does have a fever." (As he feels her forehead and I laugh to myself.) I finally told Matthew that she was in heat and that meant that she was maturing, growing up, turning into an adult. What else could I say? He responded, "I sure hope she gets over it soon. I want the old Cookie back." Me too, Buddy. Me too.

Maybe, in a year or two, when we need to have the "birds and the bees" talk with him this experience will come in handy. Remember when Cookie was in heat...ahhhhhh I don't even want to think about these things!!!

Heeerrrrreeee'ssss COLBY!!!

Yesterday Colby was 8 months old, I know, it feels like I just did one of these posts. But, I promised myself that I would update on him every month and I've been doing pretty good so far. I have started to feel bad for my other kids because while I have a baby book for each of them, their babyhood has been no where near as documented as the little Colbster. It's like what parents would normally do but in reverse, you know how the first one or two kids have all the pictures...

Anyway, this was kind of a long month for the poor little guy. We started out by spending the first part of it in Arizona visiting my mom. Colby and I went to the hospital every day we were there, just him and me, to visit her. Colby was like the little super star of the floor, he was fawned over every single time we went. We would get stopped by pretty much everyone that walked by. Anyone that came into mom's room would coo and smile at him and he is such a flirt that he just ate it up. By the end of the week I started to feel bad but mom said she didn't mind all the attention he was getting. She was proud to have the cutest grandson in the world hanging out with her. It was so great to be able to be there and to watch her in her therapies and witness all the progress that she made just in that week. Not only was Colby the cutest baby in the hospital but he was also the most well behaved, he literally hardly ever cried. And whilst in the midst of all of our hospital visits he had to get an abscess removed (and I'm only documenting this for history's sake) and I won't go into gory details but let me just say it was bad, very, very bad (after they got the lab results back they informed me it was e-coli, ick!!). And I had to hold him throughout the whole thing. But again, he is such a good baby to have endured that and not to have made a very big fuss over it, all things considered.

Colby had a lot of firsts this month: his first Easter Pageant, his first hike, his first Easter, his first hair cut (dad shaved his shaggy sides) and he started crawling. He is very methodical in everything that he does. For the longest time he would just get up on his hands and knees. Then he would scoot his knees up but not move his hands. Finally, he got to where he would move his hands but he would only take a few crawls. He does crawl but he's funny because he'll crawl and roll to get where ever he's going. He also likes to push his legs up while he's in the crawl position, it kinda looks like a push-up and he just holds it for awhile.

He was sick all last week. It was a pretty crappy week for the both of us, what with no sleep and all. He had an ear infection. It was the second one in about 3 months, I hope I am not detecting a pattern. Luckily, he is doing much better now (read: sleeping through the night again, hallelujah!) And all is beginning to be right in our world again. We love the little Colby Man! I love to watch the older kids play with him and help out with him. He brings such a wonderful, happy spirit into our home!

Flippin' Out!

Do you remember when we used to call flip flops thongs? I remember how I had to train myself to not call them that anymore since it is so UN-PC nowadays. And remember the thick, black, rubber ones and the cute little key chain ones. I really wanted one of those key chains. I've always been into miniatures...

I love little kids in flip flops. One thing that ALWAYS makes me laugh is watching my little ones trying to learn how to walk in flip flops or as Rex says it "flip plops" and yes it sounds so funny when he says it. He got a new pair today and was so excited to wear them but it's hard learning how to make your toes hold them on, you know? And it's hard making sure your toes get in the right spot and it's hard making sure you get them on the right feet. But oh how wonderfully delicious it is for your mom to see you do it!! I have been laughing to myself all day. You should have seen him trying to run in them, trying so hard to keep his toes tight so they wouldn't fly off. It was so cute and absolutely hilarious!

Rockin' the R Mountain

On Saturday we decided to be adventurous and outdoorsy and spontaneous- we decided to hike the "R" Mountain. It is an old dormant volcano mountain outside of town and we had driven by and around it a few times. Honestly, the kids (mostly Owen) were a little afraid of the prospects of hiking a "volcano" and all that conjures up in the imagination. In his little mind it could blow at any second sending us running for our lives from flowing lava. When we convinced him that was not going to happen we set off on our little adventure.

Just hiking from the parking lot to the foot of the mountain had us winded (ok, so maybe we're a little out of shape) and we were worried we had no hope of making it to the top.

Rex looks cute in pink, don't you think?

They even have chains at one part because it is fairly slippery and steep.

We saw this rock and dubbed it "Rock With a Hole In It"

We thought this one looked like a skull, do you see it?

We saw cool caves. Which I'm sure have hosted many a make-out session.
At about this spot of the hike we met a nice young jogger running down the mountain. Kris asked him if he had just run up the mountain and was now coming down and he said, "yes, but I forgot my camera." And then he continued jogging down. I didn't know if he was joking or if he was really going back down to get his camera but wouldn't you know that a few minutes after we got to the top he got to the top too, again. Wow. He was the one who took the picture of all of us at the top. Then he ran around the rim of the volcano and back down. Holy cow.


We saw amazing views.


This is the "bowl" of the volcano, which the kids were sorely disappointed in,
I believe they were expecting to see bubbling lava inside.

How's that sock taste? (Owen is too funny)

Ahhh, the taste of sweet success! We felt like we were on top of the world!

Ok, so we know it's not like hiking the Tetons or something,

but we were pretty proud of ourselves

and maybe next year it WILL be the Tetons!

Easter Fun!

We love to color eggs,

I wouldn't recommend tasting the dye, something about the taste of vinegar...

we keep it pretty simple


We enjoyed lovely, warm weather this Easter
(I suppose it could have something to do with the fact that Easter was halfway through April...)

Gracie's other sandal got broken just as the hunt began,

and for some reason I couldn't convince her to just do it barefoot.

It's so fun to watch the little kids find the eggs.

My cute little bunny!

This was the last shot taken before the camera died, oh well.

The Long and The Short of It

So, here's the deal- I am a short haired person. I have always been a short haired person. It's part of my identity. As a child my mother cut my hair short. I'm not sure why she chose me to be the short haired girl, to my recollection all four of my sisters usually had long hair. Maybe it was because I was a tomboy and I asked her to do it, I can't really remember. But that's just the way it always was. Even in junior high and high school, where at some point my dad suggested I grow my hair out because boys like long hair and I would date more if I grew mine out, I defiantly left it short. If boys didn't like me because I had short hair then they weren't worth my time. I wasn't going to change something that I felt was so ingrained in my identity just to catch the eye of a boy. And when I finally did meet my husband, he loved my short hair (he had a huge crush on Meg Ryan when her hair was super short) and he loved me for me.

Even when I have had long hair I still felt like a short haired person on the inside. For the past three or so years I have had long-ish hair, the longest my hair has ever been. I tried really, really hard to be a long haired person, but I never felt like it fit me. My husband admitted he liked my hair long and I let it grow for years. I only got it trimmed when I got my hair done, but eventually I came to realize that me and long hair are just not meant to be. I once dreamed of long, flowing locks cascading down my back- thick, shiny and smooth. But I was trying to be something, someone I am not. So here's to the new old me, suddenly I feel like myself again! (and my husband loves it!)