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.