Hannie saying “Cheese!” in her easter dress

Easter Dresses

Easter Basket discovery

Handsome Gabe

Kids in their Easter clothes

Hannie will tell your fortune!

Hannie hunting eggs in her princess dress

Me and Hannie hunting eggs

Hila’s favorite thing from her basket–a rat.

The kids after hunting eggs at Mema’s

BJay is home sick with the worst stomach virus known to mankind.  He might be dying, actually.   So I’m taking life one moment at a time.  I’ve pre-packed the children’s lunches for tomorrow, assuming they are not sick by then.  It wasn’t so long ago a fun round of food poisoning had me doing laundry ’round the clock so I guess I’m used to it.  The funny thing to me is that this is exactly the one thing I didn’t think I could handle as a parent.  It has to be the worst part of having kids.  I honestly didn’t think I could take care of children when vomiting would be involved.  But suprisingly–it isn’t so bad when its your kids.  For some reason when its my husband I am so mean.  I grew up with a dad who would retreat to his room and we wouldn’t see or hear from him while he was sick.  I can only recall one time I actually knew my dad was sick.  So when I have a whiney man on the couch insisting the lights be dimmed and watching the most boring science crap ever–I am about out of my mind.  We have never established sickness ettiquette, apparantly.  The injustice of it all is that invariably, I will get sick when the kids are sick and BJay will go off to work because the reports have to go out.

Yeah, women aren’t allowed to be babies.

My dear ‘ol dad turns 50 something today and doesn’t look a day over 45!   We forced him to celebrate last night during the superbowl (no he’s not a hardcore fan) with chocolate cake and cream cheese frosting.  The groundhog has predicted 6 more weeks of winter!  Happy Birthday Dad!

I have been such a slacker lately, I completely missed blogging about Asher’s birthday and gun birthday party.  Since I know I spent adequate time spoiling and spending time with Asher during his whole birthday week, rest assured that he is not offended.  Asher got a snow-storm from mother nature that canceled school every day leading up to and including his birthday.  Asher’s birthday was on Thursday and the weather turned around and got nice and warm for his actual party on Saturday.  I didn’t take enough pictures.  It was a really fun party.  Some friends of ours brought over lazer-tag guns and we split the partiers (11 in all, I think) into teams at different stations.  Lazer-tag was one, and thank you Seth’s dad for heading up that team.  Thankfully nobody got hurt even though my teenage nephews were on the roof.  Another station was shooting at cans stacked up and hanging from a rope.  Inside we had Nerf N-strike and a very fancy target I made on the back of a vinyl tablecloth.  It was good, clean cheap fun and all the partiers left with a gun-set from the $1 store.  Total cost for party supplies, lunch for 20 and treat-bags: $75.  I’m good.

Here are some pics:

Target from table cloth

Unfortunately, these are the only pictures I got before my camera died.  We visited with friends in Roanoke on Friday and then drove to Lynchburg Saturday morning.  On the way, we called some good friends and had an insta-party at one of our favorite parks.  That is where the pictures were taken of the kids.  I could never catch Gabe, he wouldn’t sit still long enough.  It was so good to visit with our Lynchburg friends.  BJay and I miss that place so much.  We daydream about moving back.  I’m sure it will happen…someday.  For now I’m just thankful to have such awesome, generous friends who have offered to put up our whole crew whenever we want to come up.  We’re going to have to take them up on it.  We also took the kids to Amazement Square, which is the BEST children’s museum in the country.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  That was the one and only thing the children remembered about Lynchburg.  On the way out of town, we visited with our old neighbors.  We were so glad to hear the Mr. Wood, one of the sweetest people we know has recovered from 28 radiation sessions to his skull to reduce a brain tumor that had nearly crippled him.  It was a beautiful Christmas miracle to see him well and up and about.  We found out that the people who moved into our old house are wonderful neighbors and have come to Mr. Wood’s aid any time of the day or night when he was sick.  Our other neighbors the Mehaffey’s are just as sweet and kind as always.  We are glad to know so many wonderful people.  I felt a lot of love on that short trip back.  It was too short, but wonderful.

So that is what I’ve been up to.  Now we’re caught up.

This was amid the mayhem.

Gabe was so happy with his candy from his stocking, he didn’t need anything else.

Then he saw his bike.

Hannie was happy to just sit and take it all in.

After trying on her new clothes and Christmas bib (a gift from Asher) Hannah was down for the count.

Asher’s addition to the tree decorations.

We spent the night at my in-law’s house.  It was fun to see the kids so excited they couldn’t sleep.  Gabe snuck downstairs 3 times while we were wrapping presents.  Thankfully, Decker and Christine helped us wrap or we would have been up past midnight.

It was a fun day.  We had Christmas dinner at my mom’s house.  Here is BJay in his silly hat:

1.  Slept in

2.  Woke up, started baking a sheet cake.

3.  Striped down my bed to start the decontamination process.

4.  Folded laundry

5. Cleaned kitchen, wiped down every surface I had touched and moped the floor

6.  Cycled comforter, mattress pad, sheets, towels through the wash

7.  Mopped floor everywhere I could have walked

8.  Scoured bathroom, in process found rusty sticking out nail on underside of cabinet, punctured finger.

9.  Thought about tetanus shot, applied peroxide and rubbing alcohol liberally.

10.  Washed hands several times.

11.  Cleaned kids bathroom, finishing seconds before family arrived home.

12.  Had sweet, happy reunion with my baby girl.

13.  Interrogated the children about their week with Grandma and Mema

14.  Pulled out all the gifts and treasures I had packed for them to do while they were away that they hadn’t seen.

15.  Bathed and washed 4 filthy, unbathed for a week children.

16.  Brushed and detangled hair.

17 Dressed children for Noah’s baptism.

18.  Went to baptism.

19.  Took massive family photos.

20.  Ate the best hamburger of my entire life.

21.  Listened to my dad play classical guitar, watched my mom swell up with pride and love

22.  Brought kids home, brushed teeth and tucked them in their own beds.

23.  Reflected on the perfect day…

I read a few blogs, not a ton. Mostly ones from people I know. Usually I read to stay caught up on people’s lives that I know. There are a few, and very few that I read because I’m actually interested in someones opinion on things. When I venture out into the great unknown to see what bloggers are thinking I always find it suspicious when people fitting just the right stereotype post comments. Like when the polygamists in Texas were in the news. There were quite a few blog-posts on the subject and I was completely skeptical when all these “Muslims” and FLDS “Mormons” came out of the woodwork to defend the practice of plural marriage. Really? Where they really for real? Seemed awfully convenient to me. Then there was this highly conservative blog about how the price of premarital sex is that now 1/5 of the adult population have genital herpes. Wow. But then there was this comment by a woman married 20 some years who said she married her husband as a virgin but she’d never had an orgasm. That seems pretty far fetched to me. She was wondering if she would have had a more fulfilling sex life if she had had a few more partners before she tied the knot. I’m not saying that couldn’t happen, I’m just saying its a pretty convenient argument. And it sounds like that lame movie with Diane Keaton “Because I said so.” My favorite are the people who get offended about everything. You share an opinion on something and they get offended. Now I’ve met people like that so I know they exist. Usually they are soooo much more enlightened and intelligent than us normal folk. They are also whiny and annoying so not many people are willing to actually spend a lot of time with them. They are also extremely self-centered so there is no room in their universe for something as radical as a differing opinion. But they are willing to make idiots of themselves because they are so desperate for attention. Masters at manipulation, these people will do anything to engage you in an argument. Anything. It is best to ignore these people. You can’t fix them or counsel them or fill their need for attention. It makes me wonder what they did before the internet? Maybe they had therapists. Maybe having internet venues to whine on gives them a sense of purpose. Maybe it makes them feel better about themselves. Maybe they feel exacting and in control. Years ago these people were called trolls. I don’t know if that term is used anymore. I don’t think its a big deal for someone to anonymously troll for whatever psychological need they have to fill. One of the saddest things I’ve read though was a blog where someones dad was trolling her. That is all kinds of messed up. I am lucky enough to have been born to parents who are grown-ups. I don’t know if they were there when I was born or if they grew up along the way, but I know that they don’t need me to fill their psychological or emotional voids. I can actually have meaningful, enjoyable conversations with them. All the time. I never realized that was such a blessing. More proof that my parents are awesome.

I was fixing my neice Opal and Hila some chocolate milk this morning. The chocolate syrup is almost gone so it made *that* sound. Opal laughs and says, “Ha. It farted!” Hila said quickly, “It tooted.”

Opal, “It farted, farty fart fart!”

Hila talking over her cousin loudly, “It tooted! It tooted! Toot!”

Then Hila got frustrated that Opal wasn’t taking the hint. “No! Opal, it tooted!”

Opal, “Oh. It tooted.”

Chocolate milk in hands, they went off to play dolls.