Loving this Autumn! (9-2013)

Daddy is still gone, and Mommy needed to find something to keep the children busy.  I stumbled across a recipe for fingerpaint involving only flour, water, and food coloring.  I mentioned it to the kids, and they decided it was definitely something we should make.  Everyone helped mix up the paints in an old muffin tin and the kids picked colors.  I set up the easel so B and J could paint at the same time, put out the paints and some Q-tips and grabbed my camera.

 J was so focused!  I rarely see him do anything for more than a few minutes, and he kept at it for a good half hour!

Hard at work

 B loved the way the paint was bright and made nice lines.

Did you know?  Painting is always easier when standing on tippy-toes.

 B stuck with the Q-tips for quite a while.  J used them for a few minutes and then switched to fingers.

He kept bringing me his Q-tip to show me the colors.  Then he'd say, "Watch, mama!  Watch me paint!"

He was so intent on his painting, I loved it!

 B's masterpiece.  A mouse and a rainbow.  Then she went and saw J using his hands and swirling paint colors all over and she declared her picture 'done' and wanted a new paper.  She proceeded to use her hands and smoosh paint everywhere too.  :) 

 The kids had a blast, and I loved that when it was done I just hosed off the deck (and maybe the kids) and we were finished.

We were having such a gorgeous autumn!  Daddy had to travel again, so it was just the four of us at home. We spent so much time outside.  Eliana was napping quite a bit, so I was free to follow B and J around with the camera and have a little fun too.

 Pesky sun was getting in his eyes.  :)  He LOVED that 'ball shirt'.  He'd wear it every time it was clean.  Honestly, if I was folding his clothes in the morning, he'd pluck it out of the basket and put it right back on.  He was even known to grab it out of the dirty clothes on occasion.  

 B took some trucks and cars outside and had fun running them all over the yard.  Pretty sure those leggings ended up with holes in the knees.

 BIG J!  The neighbor gave us this tricycle because her kids had all outgrown it.  It is the perfect size for a 2 year old boy.

 Mommy and a silly B.  :)

We are loving this autumn weather!  Not too hot, breezy, fluffy white clouds.  Perfection.  Now if only we could get daddy home!

The Incident-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named

I desperately needed to do laundry... at the laundromat... and did I mention I have three small children... and my husband was gone...?  Yeah.  He was out of town for work... for several more days.  Eliana, the master spitter-upper had dirtied every single burp rag (and almost every shirt) I owned... and we had no washing machine...  Trying to figure out how to get 3 baskets of laundry and 3 kids (only one of which could be counted on to walk nicely beside me) into the laundromat was proving to be just like a difficult word problem.  

Question: You have 3 kids and 3 laundry baskets.  How do you get the laundry into the laundromat without leaving any children unattended in said laundromat and without someone calling the police on you for leaving children unattended in the van...

Answer:  You call your brother who just got home from his Hawaiian honeymoon and offer to buy him dinner if he will please come over!

Yup.  That's what I did.  They came over, we loaded up the kids and the laundry and headed to the laundromat.  He helped me carry the baskets in and Shevon remained in the car.  (No kids alone inside, no kids alone in the car!  See how clever I was?!)  Then we headed to IHOP for the promised dinner.

Sooo... we order our food and as we are waiting, we hear Eliana giving some tell-tale grunts and grimaces.  I I take her to the bathroom and change her diaper... and her clothes.  I get back to the table and Chris says Joshua smells poopy now.  So I head back to the bathroom, and change his diaper... and clothes.  Notice a pattern yet?  Just wait, it gets better.  We get our food and eat.  Chris picks Joshua up as we are getting ready to leave, and when he sets him down he realizes he now has poop all over the front of his shirt.  Looking at Joshua, we realize he now has poop all up his back.  For real, not making it up.  So I head back to the bathroom yet again, trying to hold his shirt in such a way that other customers don't see the poop all over my son as we walk ALL THE WAY ACROSS the restaurant to the bathroom... again.  Did I mention I have no more clothes for him, only one diaper left, and NO MORE WIPES?!  Yeah, so thankfully the paper towel dispenser was right by the sink and changing table.  Got him cleaned up and the diaper on.  Shirt and pants are definitely dirty.  I put my chin up, trying to look put together, and head out of the bathroom... ALL THE WAY ACROSS the restaurant to the front doors, with my son in nothing but a diaper, socks, and shoes.  My brother had managed to somewhat clean up his shirt, but is still freaking out a bit about needing to hurry home and wash it.  Not that I blame him for trying to make a quick exit and get away from my children... if I could have I might have considered it too.  So we stop and get the laundry and they say a hasty goodbye.  I hurry and get Joshua into the tub and start nursing Eliana to sleep for bed.  About five minutes later, Brielle yells from the bathroom.  I go running and find a bathtub full of... umm... dirty water.  So I manage to drain that, refill it, hurry and get Eliana down so I can focus on the boy.  I finally got everyone to bed, cleaned the tub again, and then called my husband... he said he wished he was home to help me... I'm not sure  I believed him... :P

Anyway, soon after the incident-that-shall-not-be-named, they came back again to say goodbye.  It was time for them to take off on their Alaskan adventure.  They'd both gotten good jobs up there, in the same town as my parents.

Gonna miss these crazy newlyweds!

 Had to get a silly face, right!?

Pretty sure they won't be having kids any time in the immediate future...

Blast from the Past with Chris and Shevon

Hello again!  Eliana and Joshua are both napping, and Brielle is sitting at my scrapbook desk drawing.  :)  The kids all have check-ups this afternoon, so we had naptime early today.  My brother and his wife were here last night (from Alaska) so the kids were up a bit later than usual.  They were so SO bummed to say goodbye, but they were glad they got to see them.

Chris and Shevon got married on September 7, 2013.  My brothers wedding also meant that my parents came down to visit!  We hadn't seen them since the very short visit in April when my grandma passed away.  We were glad to be meeting again under happier circumstances.

Eliana getting some snuggles from Grandpa Al.  She sure liked him.  :)  The video below is Eliana laughing.  It was really the first time she'd giggled quite like this.  While she is a very happy baby, she doesn't laugh easily.  Between Al's tickles and Brielle bouncing all over the place, I guess she couldn't help it!

 Eliana also got LOTS of snuggles from Grandma Milanna!  Pretty sure she got a bit spoiled...

 Hanging out in mommy and daddy's bed, waiting for Grandma and Grandpa to come over.

 We spent a lot of time hanging out, shopping, and chasing children.  Brielle even got to paint toenails!  She fixed up Grandma Milanna, and Shevon... as well as uncle Chaser, Grandpa Atwood, Grandpa Al, and uncle Chris!  The boys had the prettiest toes around!  :)  She thought it was GREAT!

See?  Shevon and Chris got their toes painted again!  (These toes belong to uncle Chris... pretty sure Shevon's aren't that hairy!)  I think they're pretty manly... :P

 Then she had to get serious... it was flower girl time!  She had been practicing her walk on the deck at home, even tossing leaves, grass, or flower petals as she walked.  She wanted to do it just right.

Eliana got to hang with Grandma while Brielle was working.  After the work was done, we headed to the rehearsal dinner.

The next day my little baby brother got MARRIED!  Wow did that make me feel old!  She is a wonderful girl though, and they are really good together.

 Aren't their wedding photos amazing?  I love them!

Photos by Daniel Sullivan Photography

Shevon sure got around the dance floor.  :)  Brielle boogied pretty much non-stop with her cousin Ayden.  Joshua ran all over the place chasing balloons.

 My dad and Shevon

 Brielle dancing with her daddy... and pausing to bite her fingernail I think.  haha.  It was super hard to get a photo with my phone in there, so this was the best I got.  I just love watching my husband with our children... he's just amazing.

Anyway, after the wedding my brother and his wife packed up and moved to Alaska.  My parents live up there too, and they managed to talk them into making big bucks up there in the isolated tundra of Bethel.  :)  They are back for a couple weeks, and managed to stop by Kalispell for a day to see us before heading to see Shevon's parents.

Loving the extra attention.  :)

Eliana is pretty leery of 'strangers' these days, so it took her quite a while to warm up to her aunt and uncle.  Eventually she decided they were okay and started running all over the place, showing everyone her bellybutton, and making loud noises.

She waved bye-bye when they left, and even started crying when they shut the front door!

The kids were so wild!  They were running and yelling and jumping and trying to tickle everyone.  (Sorry for the blurry pictures, my camera battery was dead and my phone takes cruddy pictures.)

Brielle and Uncle Chris

Me and my little brother.  Can you tell we are related?  I sure miss having him close enough to visit... and babysit.  Oh how Matthew and I the kids miss the babysitting!  ;)  

Photo Shoot! :)

For my mama

I wore this dress as a baby.  I looked through the baby pictures on my computer and couldn't actually find one of me wearing it, but I'm sure there is one around somewhere.  So mom, if you have one, send it to me!

I had a lot of fun taking these pictures.  Eliana had just woke up from a nap and was in a great mood.  She's going through a phase right now where when I want her to look at the camera, she'll do anything but.  Maybe she's been watching Joshua too much lately!  But on this day, she was in little model mode.

Oh how I love this little face!  Brielle and Joshua had a tub of water outside from earlier in the afternoon, and any time there is water, Eliana will find it.  So she happily splashed and filled up a watering can and watered the grass.

She had a blast.  It's one of the few things that will keep her entertained for a loooong time.  She'll run back and forth between the tub and the grass for a good half hour, if left alone.  It doesn't last quite as long when someone comes along and steals her watering can, or runs over her toe with a tricycle, or splashes her with the water.  Not that any of my other children would do such things... 

 Ok, maybe they would.  Joshua was actually sitting in time out for taking the watering can away from Eliana.  I believe this was after he'd let the whole neighborhood know about the injustices happening at our place.  Yeah... I guess we are those neighbors.  Ooops!

Brielle also happens to still (barely) fit in another dress that used to be mine as a kid.  

I wore this one in kindergarten, and I have a photo of me in a book my teacher had us make.  Everyone in the class drew a picture of me (or them and me) and wrote something nice about me in it.  I still enjoy going back and looking at it.  Especially the picture my best friend Katie drew.  We were pretty much inseparable from the first day of Kindergarten to the end of 2nd grade, when our families both left Bozeman.

Yep, that's us.  I'm the short one... just pretend you hadn't already guessed that.  Fast forward 25 years and we are still friends.  We don't talk as often as we'd like, but when we do we pick right back up where we left off.  We've seen the best and worst, the highs and lows.

 This was us in December of 2009.  She has two boys now, Trevor and Travis.  Love you, girlie!

Back to the photo shoot.  :)  This was Brielle in the dress, though I had it on her when she was a fair bit younger.  She was about 9 months old here... 

Love those little chubby cheeks.  lol

Both my girls.

Eliana being silly.  :)  She was playing peek-a-boo with part of the dress, and ended up flipping it completely over her head.  She ran around like this for a minute before getting upset with it.

Here are just a few more random pictures I took.

 Not sure what they were looking at, but it must've been good!

 I love, love, love these curls.  I make a point to take pictures specifically of them because I'm thinking they'll probably disappear when she gets a haircut someday.  I love running my fingers through them, and seeing them shake when she runs around.  So her little curls will always exist in my pictures.  :)