Why haven't I been blogging? Where have I been?

Cleaning!

Everyday. All day. And the house looks almost good enough to buy. Too bad 'almost' doesn't doesn't bring home the bacon. Oh well...one of these days... until then I guess I'll just have to keep working the elbow grease.

Ok. Here are just a few silly moments that I've been trying to remember.

While we were at a restaurant (during a house showing.) we found ourselves watching football on TV above our table. Super annoying, by the way. Anyways, Ethan was enthralled. If we looked down for a second, he'd shout, "You're missing the football!" Finally, Ethan decided that he wanted to be a football player. We talked about how football players get hurt (as we watched a player get hurt and be carried off the field.) He didn't care. He still wanted to be a football player. Sweet Austin said, "If I was there I would call out, 'don't get hurt. Don't get hurt. Don't get hurt!'" And after watching the instant replay of the guy getting hurt, Austin stated, "I don't want to be a football player." Then pointing to his face he said, " I want to be a movie star." And I swear, the way he said it sound more like, "There's no way I'm going to mess this perfect face up." Sometimes I wish that boy's life WAS on film.

Laina wanted to call G-Ma Jones on the phone. When Mom answered, Laina acted like the teenager she'll become and started walking around the house having a 'private' conversation. Mom kindly filled in the details of their conversation. First she asked Alaina to sing her a song which was all the encouragement that girl needed to bust into a hearty version of 'Row, row, row your boat.' Only her special lyrics went as followed, "Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life goes down the drain." And immediately after that she added, "We WANT to move but we can't get anybody to buy our house!" Hmm, I wonder if my ultra positive attitude is rubbing off on her?

Ethan was trying to decide which of his two girl friends to marry. He finally settled on Molly because 'she's already kissed me 2 times!" Odd. I was sure he would have gone for the emotionally supportive one...

Every now and then we talk to the kids about strangers and what to do if someone tries to hurt them. But mostly we stress the importance of telling Mom and Dad if anything ever did happen. During one of the conversations with Ethan I said, "you know...someone might say that if you told us that your dad or I would be angry or upset but do you think that would be true? " Ethan answered, "No. You'd be mad at them!" Good boy, "That's right, I'd be very angry with them. " And before I could go on, Ethan added, "and they wouldn't be able to get dessert. Even if it is dessert day, they wouldn't get it." It gets to me sometimes how innocent their little minds are. It makes me happy to know that the biggest punishment someone could get would be missing out on dessert on dessert day. But it makes me worry about how to keep him safe in such a different type of world. I guess that is motherhood for you.

Last weekend we spent an afternoon at a little business park that I never knew was there. We had a picnic lunch, fed the ducks and raced around the pond. Actually, mostly Ethan raced around the pond. At one point Rob got down there to race against boys which turned out pretty comical.

Here they are, in racing position. Red, set, GO!

And off shoots Ethan, like a bullet. (Was that is second or third time around? I can't remember.)

Austin managed to hop/skip about 2o feet until he needed a good rest. Can you see Ethan, still going strong on the left top corner of the picture? Rob was a good sport with our baby boy.

After they finally made it around the (very small) lake, Austin was due for a rest. And a face massage. I think that is what true love looks like. :)

Feeding ducks.

My three lovelies.

And with me too...

Up the street there was this random little swing set next to three very large bulls. Weird.

Robert's shirt has a bull on it and under the bull it says, 'stud.' For some strange reason, this is his favorite shirt. Just in case you didn't know how awesome he was to start with...you get a visual.

I got about a million pics with the kiddies on these bulls, but I thought you might get overloaded, so I thought I would just put a few down. Laina kills me sometimes...she's so brave and such a tom-boy...she practically ran up the back of this statue without a care in the world. Even Ethan was a little cautious and Austin had to be pushed and pulled up by Robert.

And here we all are. What a crazy looking bunch we make.


More, you say?! Well, I just happened to have a couple little videos of the kids gettin' down after we got home. They were actually going super crazy before the camera got out. Ethan has been on a Robot dance kick and I can never get him when he is really into it. I did get a little though... Enjoy.

So many things happened last month that I haven't been able to catch up on yet. I went to Phoenix two weeks ago...without the kids! I was able to visit with Jim & Steph for the night and the next morning I drove to Vegas with Noelle and her friends for a bachelorette party. Woo woo! On Sunday we drove back and I spent another evening with Jim & Steph. When I got back we spent a week trying to get the kids over swine flu. The next week we had a visit from Nathan, who was in town for work.
Instead of going into too much detail, I thought I'd just let the pictures do the talking.

First my visit with Jim & Stephanie. Here is little Yve...can you believe how gorgeous she is? She is so much bigger than I remember. cute...


very cute....

and extremely cute...sad, but cute.
This was my first time seeing little Oliver. He is such a sweet, sensitive little guy. I fell in love with those puppy eyes the minute I saw him. *sigh*


And on to Vegas! Noelle won this awesome package deal off the radio for 10 girls to stay at the Rio. And I got to be one of those girls. :) Here we are in our room. (Becki, me, Noelle, Anna)


Here we on our way up to the top of the Rio to the Voodoo lounge where we danced the night away. (Karen, Sandy, Noelle, Me)

And 51 floors up (if I remember right) and here we are at the dance club. Like the view?

Dinner eating over-priced but totally-worth-it Japanese food. (me, Noelle, Katie)

And here at the Bellagio...I felt like I just walked into Ocean's 11. But where were all my leading men? George? Brad? We must of just missed them.

Once we got healthy we enjoyed a visit from Nathan. Here he is, hypnotizing my whole family with a new app on his iphone. Just how interesting is a flying sheep? Apparently...very.

Alright now....smile!

And now...I'm off to bed!