Funny Friday

My kids are being total hams today. Here are just a few examples...

I gave them each a pack of stackers fruit snacks made by Betty Crocker. They proceeded to lick them and stick them on themselves.

Bryson AKA Crazy Guy
Brayden AKA Luigi

Brandt AKA Mario

We do not usually have any soda in the house except regular coke. Cherry 7Up was on sale at the grocery store last week so I brought some home. Brayden (who is 5) asked me what it was and then got this really sad look on his face. He said "so I can't have any, because I am not 7".

Please pray for Stellan!

Please pray for sweet baby Stellan! His 1st birthday is tomorrow, and this is a terrible way to spend it. I have been following his story for almost 9 months now, and it really breaks my heart. He is doing very poorly right now, in fact the worst he has ever been (which is saying a lot). He could really use your prayers right now.

http://www.mycharmingkids.net/2009/10/birthday-eve.html

"Not Me!" Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Whew, I don't even know where to start. This week we did not decide to drive Anderson, Indiana to visit family. It is a 17 hour long car ride, and we are not insane enough to attempt that with 4 boys ages 1-7. For the kids surely would get bored and unruly along the way. How do you entertain an 18 month old on that long of a trek? We have way more sense than that. We certainly wouldn't have been kissing the ground when we stepped out of the van onto Indiana soil 2 days later. Nor would we have anxiously gotten out our heavy winter jackets excited to finally be able to use them and leaving the 90 degree weather behind. We wouldn't have marveled at God's handiwork of creating such amazing fall leave colors, since in Texas they only have 2 colors: green and dead.

We walked around Dustin's sister and brother-in-law's land with the kids picking pears and then rotten apples. The boys wouldn't have started throwing the fruit: first to the side, and then at each other. I mean someone could get hurt and we would never allow that. So when Bryson threw a rotten apple and it hit Brayden square in his forehead and it turned into applesauce and then when Bry apologized Brayden yelled "say it like you mean it", we all wouldn't have erupted into laughter. I mean that doesn't reinforce that they shouldn't be doing that when they get a laugh out of us.

We didn't bribe our children to take the perfect Christmas card picture by taking them to a park and then telling them they couldn't play until we had the picture. That would be mean, and would be teasing them to dangle that in front of them. So we certainly wouldn't have fallen over when in less than 4 minutes we had a picture with 4 boys all looking AND smiling in the same shot! You see we normally spend hours to get one we settle on that has 4 boys looking at the camera in the general direction of the camera and no one crying. I think we may have found a new picture taking technique.

We didn't take the boys to the Indianapolis Zoo only to take an hour long bathroom break for one of the boys on the way. It was only a 40 minute drive from where we were staying so certainly they could have gone before we left, and in a clean bathroom nonetheless. We wouldn't have stopped at a Family Christian Bookstore, figuring they would have a cleaner bathroom than a service station, and then proceed to pretend to look around as if we were shopping and not just making a pit stop. I mean come on who does that? So when we finally told him if he didn't finish we were going to miss the zoo, he wouldn't have jumped right up. If he was truly done he would have gotten up on his own, it can't be fun sitting on a public potty for an hour. The threat turned out to be much more of a reality when we got to the zoo at 2:40 and learned they closed at 4, and wanted $60 for our family. We would never spend that much money on such a short time. However, when they offered to give us 20% off and promised animals were actually out until 4:30 we decided to go ahead since the boys were beaming with excitement. We would never rush the kids around to try to see as much as they could, and then get excited to learn that it is a pretty small zoo and we could actually see most of the animals in that amount of time. While at the zoo, a bee did not land smack dab in the middle of the baby's face, who was riding in a backpack carrier on Dustin's back. Nor did Brennan just reach up and grab it with his hand, isn't he scared of them? I certainly wouldn't have taken off running at the baby to grab it from him, you see I DO NOT like bees so I would never purposely grab one, even if it was to take it out of the hand of my son. Amazingly, neither of us got stung but we were doing dances the rest of the afternoon to get away from them.

My brother-in-law did not make a bonfire for my boys, complete with smores and everything. The boys did not gorge themselves on smores until the verge of exploding. Nor did my 7 year old eat 5 of them when crazy Uncle Dave bet him a quarter that he couldn't do it. We have not been finding melted marshmallows on everything since then. My very polite 5 year old did not look up at my cousin, who was once the sheriff of Anderson and currently the head of security of all the racetracks in Indiana, and ask him "are you getting old or something". You see we teach our kids tact, and they would never say something like that. Nor did I have to take my 18 month old back inside because he kept running straight for the fire. Surely, he could feel that it was hot and would know to stay back.

We would never have left for our 17 hour trek back home on a Saturday night at 6 PM. The kids had school bright and early on Monday morning, and that would make the weekend so full of driving the kids would never be ready for school. It wasn't like watching our nephews' play college football would have been worth that. I mean isn't it everyday we get to do something like that? Our boys never like riding in the car for long trips so they would not already be scheming on how to get back to Indiana soon to go fishing with their cousins. Hmmm, Zach graduates from college in May...

"Not Me!" Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I am certainly not writing this "Not Me!" Monday post on my husband's iPhone while driving from Anderson, IN to Muncie, IN to check out a pumpkin patch. I mean that would make us 17 hrs from home, and with 4 boys ages 1-7 we would be insane to make that drive. If we were that crazy it wasn't our sweet baby that screamed almost the entire 1st day in the car, only sleeping 3 hrs total the entire car ride. See he still takes a morning AND afternoon nap everyday plus is in bed for the night by 7:30. So when we skipped his morning nap, and started the car ride at noon, we fully expected him to crash shortly afterwards. So our angel would never stay awake almost the entire trip finally crashing at 9:30 PM with just 3 hours until the hotel. He would then never stay awake playing until after 2 am and then be awake for the day by 6:45. The next morning I did not strongly consider buying benadryl at Target to help the next day go better. I would never give my kids medicine they do not need just to make them sleepy. We are surely not enjoying our time with family, not even one bit!

"Not Me!" Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I have certainly not been so lazy that I have not done a "Not Me!" Monday post in well over a month. I am very diligent and do not ever let my blog slide. Bryson has not fallen in love with his football uniform and begged to wear every day for the last 2 weeks as witnessed in the below photo. I certainly wouldn't oblige and let him wear just to not be asked again for the millionth time. Nor has he cried and prayed for God to "fix" his broken shoulder pads every night for a week. I mean he knows that prayer is serious and he only asks for things of the up most importance...not for fixed shoulder pads.

I did not take both of the older boys to the dentist today by myself. I know they don't like the dentist, and neither do I. My stomach wasn't turning in knots the closer we got. I mean I am the mom, and I know this is what is best for them. I did not duck and pretend I didn't know which child it was when Brayden started screaming hysterically. He had done all his other appointments with an A+ and was stupendous so he certainly wouldn't have freaked out this time. Nor did I get my feelings hurt when I went back to comfort him, and he shoved me off. I mean I know him, and his personality. He is either sunshine or rain, and when he is upset there is no bringing him back to the normal side until he is good and ready so I didn't take it personally. I also did not get grossed out when Brandt showed me his new bloody hole where his tooth had just sat. I mean I have 4 boys, I see way grosser stuff than that. Nor did I scramble to make sure we had tooth fairy money for tonight. She is always well prepared. I also did not feed my children chocolate milkshakes for lunch after the dentist. That would not be nutritious at all.
I am also not biased and think I have absolutely the cutest cub scout that ever was. I mean all cub scouts are adorable, not just mine.
Last week I certainly didn't panic when I was making lunches one morning and Bryson yelled that Brennan had poop everywhere. I mean I never loose my cool. Never. When I got upstairs and found that he had pulled his pants off, unsnapped his onesie, and taken a completely clean and dry diaper off and proceeded to pee and poop all over his bed I certainly didn't visualize duck taping his diaper on him next time. Nor was I relieved that he had just walked all over it and not smeared it on the wall or himself like I feared. Then I certainly didn't just use a wipe and put his shoes on instead of giving him a bath. I am certainly way more a clean freak than that. Today my husband did not walk into the bathroom to find him sticking his hand in the potty that his brother had peed in and forgotten to flush or put the seat down, I mean that only happens to my friend Carrie.

Heavy Heart

My 30 year old cousin, Billy Derrick, passed away this morning after a 2 week long battle with leukemia. 2 weeks! 3 weeks ago he was a normal, apparently healthy 30 year old...today GONE! It seems so surreal. He went to the doctor for what he thought was the flu, and instead learned he had cancer and was admitted to the hospital. Billy lived in Maine, so until the invention of Facebook I didn't know him very well. Through Facebook, I have had the privilege of getting to know him. When he was diagnosed 2 weeks ago, I sent him a message telling him how sorry I was, and how I would be praying for him. He responded with a very confident "I will beat this". Yet, here we are 2 weeks later and he is now safe in the arms of Jesus. I pray for his sister and parents as they were struggling with watching him be so sick. They just posted in the wee hours of yesterday morning how difficult watching him like this is, and how they can't wait until he starts to improve. He had a severe brain bleed yesterday that knocked him into a coma, and took his life unexpectedly this morning.

My mom, grandmother, and aunt (his grandmother) all drove to Maine this summer to visit them. His grandmother couldn't drive by herself and is scared to death of flying, and as a result hadn't seen him for 4 years. Praise God, He worked out the perfect trip for her to get to see him one last time. Tomorrow morning she is going to face her fear and get on a plane, with her son, and fly back to Maine to tell her grandson goodbye. Please pray for his sister Judy, his parents Debbie and Luther, and his grandmother Vera...along with the rest of his family.

I would like to do something in his memory, but could use some ideas. Some ideas I had were a stuffed animal drive for young cancer children (they do the procedure to the animal first to show the kids what to expect) or maybe a cute hat drive to help keep them warm after they loose their hair to chemo. What are your thoughts or ideas?