Best Dad ever!

Ok so you all know of my love/hate relationship with the play doh. It is reserved for only "special occasions". You know like in the event of spending the past 3 days screaming and nagging, I bring it out as a peace offering.

Well my rock star husband stayed home sick today (he's been fighting the death flu all week) and when Sunshine asked for play doh. He of course not knowing the sheer annoyance I have with the stuff gladly agreed to let her play with it.

When we discovered just how gross the old play doh was, he decided to make up some fresh. So he just jumped right in and made some. Plus including Sunshine in the process.

What a guy! What a Dad!

Update of the Cancer show

So the cancer schmancer show was last Saturday and I have been waiting for some decent pictures to put up with it.

It was all in all a big success. I worked the auction table and from my angle we raised a lot of money for the cause. Plus we had a lot of people show up and show support.

Also they had four bands play. Aside from the first band which just had a few "colorful expressions". Otherwise everybody really seemed to enjoy themselves. Dt Hammer (one of the bands) even got people up and dancing. I caught my Mother and Father in law swing dancing across the room. Thats exactly what we were hoping for!

The New Urban Decay (my husbands band) had heads a bobbin too.

So in the end, a great time was had by all.

The part of the tourist today is being played by Sunshine....

I'm not sure what exactly is going on here.

When I asked her what she was doing, she said she was playing vacation.

I guess we all have the itch to get out of Dodge these days.

As a side note ...the paper is her road map. Such a girl to properly follow a map......and accessorize at the same time.

Fabulous!!

Are you kidding me!!!

Ok so I know I am not crazy here, but at some point I do expect some spring weather here in spring.

Sunday we went from sunny weather. I mean the kids were playing out back in light jackets. Suddenly Sunshine came in and informed us that "it was raining ice cubes"

Sure enough we had about 10 minutes of really intense hail. Like we could barely hold a conversation comfortably without shouting over the crashing and banging noise. It was really big too. It actually crossed my mind that it may6 damage our windshields of our cars.

But in true Oregon form, it lasted about 10 minutes and then the sun came out.

Whatever.

These pictures are out my back porch.

It looks like someone had an unfortunate beanbag accident.

Just a reminder....

Just a reminder that tonight is the big benefit show for Merideth Curteman. All proceeds go directly to them and their medical bills a plenty.

So come and buy some cool stuff at the auction and raise some money for them!!

Also see my husband's band rock the house! That just goes without saying though :)

click ......here for more details.

See you tonight!

molers are awesome!!!

A picture is worth a thousand words.

If only these pictures had a volume setting. Because the noise in this house today is staggering.

He's had his maxium dose of baby tylenol. So theres not a whole lot I can do for him. We just need to put up with a couple days of mega grump.

This too shall pass.

Ahhhh spring......?

So I think we may have somehow crossed over into some sort of alternate reality. I was under the impression that we were in fact in spring.

Hence spring break.

Well this morning we woke up to giant fluffy snowflakes falling from the sky.

Ok let me remind you that 4 days ago we were at the zoo in t-shirts and flip flops. But today we have snow.

Only in Oregon.

Truce offering

So today seems to be much better all around. As a peace offering I even broke out the play doh.

And you KNOW I don't let them play with play doh very often. So thus far it is a good day.

I might even let them stay up until 7 tonight :)

And the mother of the year award goes to.......

Yeah...not me. Hard to imagine I know.

My kids are lucky they made it through the day with all of their teeth intact. For those of you that don't know me, let me fill you in a little here. I have a bit of a warped sense of humor. That was in fact a joke.

Sarcasm. Look into it.

Anyhow, we had a rough day to say the least.

It started off when my husband woke up only to discover that he had pulled a muscle in his back. He had helped some teenagers in the zoo parking lot push start their car. It seemed simple enough. You see someone having car trouble, you help them. It was three teenage girls desperately trying to push a car to drop the clutch. He jumped in and lent a hand. However when he asked if they needed help, they all stopped pushing and just let him do all the work by himself. During this process, he over did it. It seemed like a good idea. He's always getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop when it comes to helping people out. But it never stops him. And that is why we love him so :)

So because of this, what with the inability to move and all, he couldn't ride his bike to work today. So I drove him. Which normally isn't a problem, however it was just sort of early. He needs to be there at 7 am. So I brewed some coffee and made up some breakfast to eat in the car and away we went.

Then there are the kids. My precious little lambs.

Bug woke up in a grumpy mood. Then it spilled over to Sunshine which in turn she took it out on Peanut. I then had to listen to it ......ALL DAY.

Bug wanted to play the Wii which means that we all have to watch him play wii. Sunshine doesn't really mind it so much, but I have to sort of stick pretty close as he gets frustrated with a level on a game and starts getting mouthy with us all. So we have set time limits for him. I think he just gets a little over stimulated. Well, when time was up he pitched the mother of all fits and stormed off. Then he trashed his room some. When that got old, he came back down and picked a fight with his sister. Then he got annoyed with his brother and yelled at him. All the while I am riding him and sending him to sit on the stairs (our version of the naughty chair) and I am giving lectures about respect and positive behavior vs. negative behavior and better choices... blah,blah,blah. I feel like I spent the majority of my day disciplining and correcting. However by about the 12th trip to the steps, I was tired of my own voice.

Then there was Sunshine. Sweet as she is, she is under the impression that the only way to be heard in this house is to say the same sentence over and over and over and over and over. But in a whiny sing song voice. This seems innocent enough, however when you have to listened to the same sentence 154 times, it gets real old real quick. Not to mention the tone. The whine is enough to drive me to drink. Now I know I used to have a tone when I was little that would make my mom insane (maybe that is what happened :) So I am taking this moment to formally apologize to my mom in front of God and everyone that I am soooo sorry that I ever used that whiny voice. I only now see the damage it does. So basically what I am saying here is that I just had her constant chatter (about nothing in particular) in my ear all day. Also she felt the absolute need to be perched on my lap all day. Normally this is cute and encouraged. But when you are trying to pay bills and lecture her older brother, it just gets too clingy and needy. The cute fades when the annoyance factor comes in.

Then there was Peanut. Well I only have one word here that all mothers will agree is just some sort of cruel joke. Molars. He is cutting 5 molars all at the same time. What a blessing!! So basically there was not a lot I could do about this other than give him baby tylenol and a nice big cold carrot to gnaw on. (old remedy, works great on teething gums.) Enter the drool.

Bug-Mom!!! He's gonna get drool on me!!!
Me-Be nice to him he doesn't feel good
Bug-He's gross and bad for drooling!~!!
Me-Hey!! He is not!! You used to drool like that too!!
Bug-No I didn't !! Get him away from me!!!! smack
Peanut-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!
Me-ok now you need to go to the stairs and don't get up until you are ready to apologize to your brother.

* Ok now repeat that scenario about 30 times. Throw in Sunshine pinching one of the two and that would about look like my day.

Rinse....repeat.

So now here I am. Best mother ever!!

It was sort of a dreary day and as soon as the sun dipped down just a little, it looked darker and later than it really was. I saw my chance and jumped at it. My sin here.....I took advantage of my kids inability to tell time. They were teeth brushed, prayers said and tucked in bed at 6:30 tonight. Really....they were none the wiser.

Do I feel a little guilty? Yeah a little. Could I have handled the day any better? Possibly.

I read a quote once that I always try to keep in mind when I have days like these....

"The days are long, but the years are short"

One day I look back and reread this blog post when my kids are all out of the nest. I am sure I will miss all of this. I'm sure I will be one of those people that give the cliche "enjoy it because it goes soo fast" .

But tonight.....I am just going to pour myself a glass of wine, kick the toys out of the tub and have me a nice bubble bath.

Preferably with no one in my lap.

Viva spring break!!

So I have said it before and I will say it again. The best investment we have made for our family has been our zoo membership. Bug is on spring break this week and frankly I am climbing the walls. The very thought of summer vacation is already beginning to send me into a cold sweat. There is something about having all three home all day for a week straight is making me loose my mind. I am a pretty structured person and have my routine. But it's all off this week. Somehow during the summer there is enough time that I just create a new routine. But when it's only one week, there just isn't enough time.

So the cure I have found here is lets just get out of the house. Rain or shine. So we went to the zoo. We have a membership so it's an activity we can do for free. I just pack up a little picnic and away we go.

My husband was even able to cut out of work a little early and meet up with us.

So we survived another day without hurting each other. I say this casually, but really the biggest challenge of this blessed vacation is just to keep my kids from killing each other. I can't keep the boys from roughhousing and Sunshine has made it her personal mission to referee (tattle) . Which in turn warrants her to get ambushed (clobbered) by her oldest brother. So it more or less has turned into an ultimate fighting challenge.

So basically I have three choices.

-I can referee every minute that they are awake and get nothing done.
-I can let them fight it out and hope that the blood doesn't stain the carpet.
-I can get them out of the house and distract them.

I opted for the latter.

So here are the pictures. Please note that I chose not to include the ones of Bug's giant meltdown as we were exiting the zoo. It was quite a sight to behold.