Best Of The Best 2008

We were going to do a top ten list of the craziest sayings we had in our house this year, but with five boys counting me, some of the funniest things are also pretty gross. Just as an example so that you know what you are missing out on, one of the boys thought they had a little accident while trying to squeak off a silent but violent one during family prayer. Upon returning from his own inspection, Tami asked, "Did you you get everything cleaned up?" His reply was, "It turns out it was just a hot fart." (sorry Mom, I know fart is not a word that you approve of) There are plenty more just like this but now you know why we decided to change our theme. Anyway, this is our Christmas letter.

Jude is the best baby we have ever had. He is so good that we almost decided to have another one (this is going to be a huge surprise for Tami because it never crossed her mind even once). Out of all our boys, he is the slowest developing. It's funny how life changes parents. If he would have been our first, we would have already had him working with a speach pathologist, a walking instructor and any other profession that starts with psych. Since he is our last one, we just consider him to be "special".

Silas has the best imagination of all our boys. I had a friend that used to remember all the movie lines and it would drive me crazy to have to hear them. Guess what? Now I live with one. He has just about every line of the movie Cars memorized. At least I enjoy most of the funny lines in that movie. We were nervous that he only remembered the bad things (he knows more swear words then the rest of the family combined minus Tami) but he started preschool this year and he remembers everything he hears there too. He made a great discovery this year when he told Tami that she didn't wipe his bottom good enough because he stuck his finger in the "red spot" and found more. Yeah, don't ever take candy from our kid, you won't want it.

This letter could get ugly really quick so I better change the subject to Isaac. He was baptized this year. We were excited about Elias' baptism too but with a child like Isaac, it is a wonderful feeling once they reach the age of accountability. He is our little chihuaha of the family. The only difference between Isaac and a chihuaha is that when Isaac gets scared, he doesn't pee on the floor. He has a lot of bark and likes to try and pick on the bigger kids but when it really comes down to it, running is his best option. Isaac doesn't really know how to walk. He is constantly running, hopping or even skipping wherever he goes. We are trying to cure him of that last one. No matter what people say, it really isn't okay.

I already spoke about Elias earlier in the letter. Oops, I told him I wouldn't mention names on the "hot fart" comment. Elias loves any sport that requires players to be on the sidelines cheering. I was always extremely annoyed at the team mates that were the "raw-raw" guys. Elias is one but as long as he is wearing the same uniform as the players on the field and not one that matches the girls on the side lines, we are happy. I really should apologize for being such a braggart about our kids in this letter. By the way, they helped us write it.

For some reason, Tami wanted to be left out of this years letter. I can't see any reason why she wouldn't want her one paragraph of fame. I'm sure when Tami pictured her married life 12 years ago, she would have never thought it could be this good. Being the only princess in a house of boys isn't quite what she expected. She is a wonderful wife and mother and completely off limits in this letter.

Since I am writing this letter, I opt to not have a paragraph. I will however, include a few facts below that aren't gross:

1. We sold our house this year because we had been living it for almost three years and we were bored. We wanted to buy acreage and ended up moving to a house without acreage that was only 4 to 5 blocks away from our previous house. Definitely, not our original plan!!!

2. I can't believe I actually thought that we could come up with more than one thing that didn't have something to do with potty humor.

Have a Merry Christmas!!!

FAMILY PHOTOS

Thanks to Chris of Paxman Photography!! (My very talented BIL).

Ugly Plowing

We finally got enough snow for Caleb to use our four wheeler snow plow. Our new house has a driveway that would take FOREVER to hand shovel so I convinced Caleb to get a blade. He then convinced me that the job couldn't be done unless he had a winch too. Well the big snow finally came and Caleb happened to be taking a vacation day so he got up and started working. He plowed our driveway, the sidewalk by the street in front of our house and two others and then plowed a neighbors driveway all in no time. It's been a mild winter with very little snow but I think this purchase was well worth it!!
ALSO... Last night we went to an ugly sweater Christmas party and Caleb won the UGLIEST sweater. His sweater was your basic Cliff Huxtable (with a vomit twist) but I embellished it with faux green fur and black tassels across the chest which I think put it over the edge into the super ugly category! It was a good time!! Now maybe I can ebay it and make back the money I spent on all MY sweater options that I kept collecting!

You Can't Catch Me...

I'm the Gingerbread Man! I bought a gingerbread house kit for the kids to make with my Mom while we were gone (perfect planning). They did an awesome job on it. Then for the next 24 hours all I heard was "can we eat it now?" I thought once you made the house you just looked at it til Christmas than threw it away. I finally got so tired of them asking all the time that I told them to go ahead and RUIN it! So they dug in and quickly realized that it wasn't great tasting candy or gingerbread and I threw the whole thing away. Sorry Mom!! It was beautiful and we did get pictures!! Also, a big thank you to my Mom for watching the boys! I know just keeping an eye on all four is stressful!

Houston

The day after Thanksgiving my Mom flew down to watch our boys and Caleb and I flew to Houston for a quick weekend. Caleb's boss hosted an all day Christmas party. He chartered a bus that took us all to see The Music Man, Benihanas, and then to watch the Houston Rockets play the Spurs from a sweet suite. It was a blast but so tiring!

Thanksgiving

We spent our Thanksgiving with the Jeffers. It was sweet! The food,decorations and company were awesome. It was totally fun and low key. The adults had a Yahtzee tournament and the kids entertained themselves. I am thankful for great friends like the Jeffers!

Sponge Bob Sandy Pants

We've had unusually nice weather this winter. So nice that the boys have still been playing in the sand box. I know it for a fact from the amount of sand that ends up on my laundry room floor. I'll have to make them empty their pockets and shoes from now on before they come in.

My LIttle Butt Rocker

Caleb vowed in high school that if AC/DC ever toured again he'd go to a concert. Well they came to Denver in November so he finally got to live out his dream. He was a little nervous that it would be a "dirty" concert but was pleasantly surprised that is was just freakin' awesome. I tried to convince him to wear earplugs but he thought that just wouldn't be cool. I guarantee if he'd gone to a Celine Dion concert with me he wouldn't have minded the earplugs. His ears rung for days after but he said it was well worth it!

You Must See This!!

So I mentioned my little sis and her UGLY dog recently in one of my posts. You have GOT to check out her blog and most recent post!!!

Click HERE for a good ol' belly laugh!!

Super Cool

Me: "Oh crud Silas, I have to take you to school in a few minutes and I'm still in my pajamas."

Silas: "Mom, that's Super Cool, don't be embarrassed."

Then he proceeded to tell me that he would be embarrassed if he went to school in his pj's but for some reason it would have been OK for me to be seen in public with mine?!? It must be my sweet care bear pj's that are public worthy!

Double Double This This

My niece taught us a tricky hand game this weekend too. She was awesome at it! I was not so good and Caleb totally trash talked me so I made him step up to the challenge. He was not so great himself it turned out!!

Isaac's Baptism

Isaac was baptized a couple of weeks ago (Nov. 15th for those keeping records). It wasn't in our original plan to do it here in Colorado so it was a nice and quiet day. Actually the baptism was PACKED with all the families there for the other two kids who were baptized. We made sure the day was special for him and we had a lot of fun. Thanks to the Jeffers and a couple of his friends for supporting him! He's such a sweet natured, tender hearted and feisty kid! We love you Isaac and are so proud of you!

Welcome to Our Crazy World!

Last weekend my little sister Johnna and her husband Chris came to visit us from Mesa, AZ. It was a ton of fun to have them here and catch up. I'm afraid we scared the crap out of them as far as having kids goes though! They're used to a totally quiet house besides the scrappy barking of their UGLY dog. My house is pretty much constant noise with 4 boys! I'm sure they still have a noisy kid hangover headache from them. Johnna cut and colored my hair, Chris took our's and the Jeffers' family pix, we took a trip up to Estes Park which for November was unseasonably warm and Ashley came with Hannah and Cedric for an evening. I hope we didn't scare them too much!

Silas and the Single Lady

Silas was playing in the living room tonight while I was catching up on this weeks SNL when the Beyonce skit and later her performance of Single Ladies came on. I noticed his attention perked up and he was bopping to the music. He started saying some pretty funny things... "Mom, I like a girl with that color hair", "I want to dance with her.", "I can play the guitar and Single Lady can dance", "I want to marry the single lady", and "I want her now, not Maddie". (Sorry Maddie, apparently he's swayed by the glitz and glam of a famous girl). It was hilarious to see him form a little crush on Beyonce a.k.a. Single Lady! BTW, JT was freakin' funny too!

Christmas Card Sneak Preview

Can you guess what we're going to do for our Christmas card picture this year???

Kick Someone's Can

The boys wanted to get outside last night and play some games. It was a really nice night so we decided to play kick the can. I asked the boys if they had ever played? Both Elias and Isaac thought they knew but they didn't really remember much. Silas knew though. He said, "It's the game where you go and kick someones can." What he meant by that is kicking someone in their "can". Although that sounds like a really fun game too, I don't think the boys would have enjoyed it quite as much as kicking a regular can. We had a lot of fun running around the backyard and trying to hide from the boys. Jude even had fun. Tami bundled him up and he just wandered around in the dark while we played. It must have been a good night because no bones were broken, everyone was still on speaking terms and we all want to play again soon. Next week it is going to be capture the flag. I wonder what Silas can come up with for an explanation of that game?

Hallowiener

Tami bought little weenies and wrapped them with some type of dough to make mummies. They are small but they are really good. We were talking with Silas and for some reason, we started calling them Hallowieners. We started joking around about other types of weenies. I asked him, "What other types of wieners are there?" I should have known better than to ask a 4 year old about that when he has two older brothers. All he answered was, "dog". I assumed he meant hot dogs so I laughed and told him that he was right, hot dogs are wieners. I asked him if there were any other types of wieners that he knew about and that's when it came out. His response was great, "Yeah, people wieners." I had no idea that he knew slang terms like that. It's no wonder the little brother always learns the naughty things much quicker than the older brothers learned them. Elias "was a fan" of Santa Claus until about the third grade(don't want to ruin it for anyone, although the weenie comments probably stopped most people from reading this normally PG rated blog. Isaac stopped being a fan last year and he was in first grade. Silas will probably know in Kinder garden.

On another note, once kids start shaving isn't that a good sign that trick or treating is almost coming to an end? Each year people older and older are out there with the kids. It kind of reminds me of Brett Favre!!!

BOYS!!!

This last week has been a tough one for Silas and the toilet. He's had a few accidents which is really unusual for him. He had a perfect day today as far as the toilet goes so tonight I let him have a bubble bath (as opposed to the cold showers he got yesterday to "clean" him up and teach him a little lesson). While he was bubbling it up I decided to do a super deep clean on his bathroom. I scoured the toilet, walls, baseboards, garbage can, plunger, basically everything within pee shot. Tonight, after he'd been sleeping for two hours I heard him crying so I came to check on him. I saw his bathroom light on and was worried he might be in there with the stomach flu. I walked in to find that he had just finished peeing with the LID DOWN!!! That's right, pee on all surfaces of the toilet, walls, garbage can and floor! Are you kidding me??? So, he pulled up his pants and sleep walked back to bed while I began the whole scouring process over AGAIN! At least he tried to do the right thing.

First Sight

I can't even explain the joy that was overflowing yesterday!

Pacing Mommy

We teased Kris that she was wearing a hole in the ground with her pacing. I will admit it was a pretty intense 30 minutes waiting for her to come up the escalator.

She does this super cute head bobbing move! Love it!

Clapping and Maddie's Kiss

It was so fun to see her be so animated! Maddie has been dying to be able to kiss her new sister. She finally got her moment!!

Gotcha!!

Malia is Here!!!

I have 7 vidoes but they take forever to load so I'll do them one post at a time. She's absolutley perfect!!!

Tabasco vs Tobacco

We were having family home evening on Monday and sometimes we have the boys teach us about different principles of the gospel.(Usually that means that Tami and I didn't have a lesson prepared) We spoke about faith, repentance, baptism and the Holy Ghost. Then we got on to other topics like the Word of Wisdom. There have always been personal interpretations of the Word of Wisdom but we try to teach exactly what it says and let the boys decide. I guess that backfired. Elias said that we couldn't use tobacco and that we couldn't drink tea, coffee or alcohol. Isaac piped up and said, "Dad always uses Tabasco." Tami wanted to know if we needed to have a little talk about what I did when she wasn't around. Cigarettes=tobacco, spicy red stuff on eggs=Tabasco. I do have to admit that it is a habit that I picked up when we lived in Louisiana. Just so we aren't spreading false doctrine, Tabasco is not mentioned in the Word of Wisdom that I know of. I have heard that it really does help keep kids from being sassy, mouthy and from saying bad things. It would never work on our kid because they love it.

Are We Done Yet?

Elias' football season has been in full swing since mid August and although they are on a winning streak I think we're all pretty much ready for the season to be over. Every year after his first game, Caleb gives Elias a humbling, rude awakening father/son talk which results in tears and hopefully a better resolve to try harder and toughen up. E loves being a part of the team and seems to have taken on the role of undesignated cheer-leader. When I say cheerleader I don't mean skirts and pom poms but he's a definite raw raw boy out there. When the boys are lined up for defense waiting on the offense to get out of their huddle he'll start chants like, E:What time is it? Defense: Sack time! (Repeated over and over) or E:Who's House? Team: Our house! And there are more! I know it has to KILL Caleb to see Elias be such a raw raw out there and it's even embarrassing for me a little. We've talked about having him not play football because of his size and the time commitment but I'm afraid if he didn't have football he'd definitely want to be cheering in a much more unacceptable capacity. On a brighter side of the sport Elias has FINALLY stepped it up these last few games and played OUTSTANDING!! He's really turned a corner and been so tough and made his tackles and kept contain (I think that's what you call it). The team is on a three game winning streak which is why Caleb hasn't reprimanded Elias for his cheering ability. For some reason he really does have the ability to get the team fired up. As long as he's wearing cleats and shoulder pads I guess we can live with it.

Isaac and Silas have been good sports about football this year too. With practices 3 times a week for 2 hrs a night plus games on Saturdays that end up taking at least 4 to 5 hours of our day the boys get a lot of time to play around at the field. Isaac loves going to the swampy areas and finding all sorts of creatures; bugs, snakes, grasshoppers, etc. He usually catches something, brings it over to show me and gross me out and then continues to love (torture) whatever it is to death. At last Saturday's game Isaac took his torture to a new level. He showed me a couple grasshoppers during the game which I finally told him I really didn't need to see anymore of those creepy things. After the game when we were all walking to the car Isaac told Elias to look in his thermos. Elias unscrewed the lid and looked in to find TWO drowned grasshoppers!!! Elias swears he wasn't drinking his water during the game (the coaches bring a cooler of Gatorade and as we learned from The Water Boy movie, "Gatorade is better"). It was so disgusting and Isaac is in trouble and will be sterilizing Elias' thermos but Caleb and I were totally laughing in disguise. You gotta love little brothers!!

Who Broke It???

I was brushing my teeth tonight and noticed that Tami's little mirror/light thing was broken. She walked into the bathroom and I asked her what had happened to her mirror. Her response was classic. She told me, "It fell two times and it broke. I haven't replaced it yet." I told her that I knew none of the kids had done it because the response would have been, "Fill in the blank child did it." I started laughing and told her that I knew she did it by the answer she gave me. She still says that it just fell but for some reason, I'm not buying it. I guess sometimes mirrors that are sitting on a counter just happen to fall off. So if any of you have those, please be careful. You may wake up some morning with glass on the floor.

PS

Tami just told me the truth. She kept putting it on top of her cords and then she would pull the cords and it would "fall" off the counter.

Isaac's Performance

Isaac played the descant part of I Am a Child of God for the primary program yesterday. He did a great job. When we were trying to get this video of him he had some sort of mistake everytime so we kept deleting and trying again. We finally resolved to just have a video with a mistake in it!

Alvin Workin' on the Railroad

Silas bombarded me with some interesting questions today... "Why does Alvin work on the railroad?", "How does he stay safe?", "How does he move the tracks?". I was caught completely off guard. I really didn't have answers for him. I asked him what cartoon he saw that on - no cartoons. I asked if they read him a book about that at preschool - nope. Did he mean Alvin and the chipmonks - ummm NO. I didn't know what to tell him. About 10 min. later he asked me, "Mom, what's the next words in the song?". I asked him what song. He said, "You know, 'Alvin workin' on the railroad, all the live long day'". OHHHHHHHH It all fianlly made sense!

Moscow

I never got around to blogging about our trip to Idaho. I still don't feel like boring you with the details so here's a picture of the boys playing in my Mom's backyard. More exciting than the boys are her amazing FLOWERS!!

Most Boring Class Ever

I taught Isaac's primary class yesterday at church. I have been teaching adults for quite a while and I must have been a little bit off of my game with 7 and 8 year olds. After church, Tami asked him how his class was. He told her that it was really boring. In fact he said, "It was the most boring class ever. Next time we shouldn't read so much." I also forgot to bring candy for all the kids who brought their scriptures. Thanks for the warning on that one Isaac.

Tami thought that I would be upset by his comments. I couldn't be upset because I had to agree with him. It wasn't a very fun class. The kids were great too. I was just making sure they realized how good they had it with their normal teachers. They all realize that now!!!

Happy Birthday Tami

Happy Birthday Tami!!! I will save the mushy stuff for a card. I love you.

Caleb

Travel Confessions

I have to confess that I really don't mind traveling a lot for work. I don't like being away from my family at all but when I look at the alternative, it isn't good. The week long trips are the ones that bother me the most. I very rarely ever have to be gone more than 5 days and usually the trips are only 2-3 days. Anyway, this isn't why I am writing.

Because I travel so much for work, I absolutely hate traveling for fun. Every time we talk about going somewhere, I figure some way to just stay home and enjoy being there. Travel is not what I want to do on my time off. Somehow, I need to figure a way around this because I think Tami would like to go places. I think even Tami would admit that it is really nice to not have to go through an airport with 4 kids. She really enjoyed traveling by herself to her family reunion. So far, I have been able to stay home with the kids and let Tami travel. That may all change now that this blog is posted.

Boogie Nights

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My Baby's Almost Walking

Birds and Bees and Tiger Salamanders

We have had great luck with pets in the past so I thought we would share our story of the salamanders. Isaac caught two salamanders and thought they would be fun to keep as pets. When he caught them, he said they really liked each other because one of them was giving the other a piggy back ride. They were wrestling and playing and having a very good time according to him. He researched them on the Internet and found out that they make really good pets. I tried to get him to release them back into the wild so they could roam free, but Tami and Isaac decided that they would be good pets. They went to Petco and bought a bunch of stuff for them. Long story short, we had the poor little lizards for about three days and they are both dead now. Again, we spent a bunch of money on something that only lasted for a few days.

One of my coworkers that has been married several times, told me that if he ever gets the urge to get married again, he will go out, find a lady that he really doesn't like, buy her a house and tell her to kick him where it counts and then he won't have to pay a lawyer. I feel about the same way with our pets. Next time we decide to get a pet, instead we should put an add on Craigslist for a free pet, buy the pet for the person that responds, get them all of the equipment and then walk away because it would at least save us some time and possibly money.

Boys Weekend

Tami went to Utah for her family reunion over the weekend. All of the boys stayed home and had a good time. I think Tami enjoyed her time away too. She did say something about being able to go to the airport "by herself", rent a car "by herself" and travel to her grandparents house, "by herself". She also mentioned how much she enjoyed visiting with all of her family, "by herself" and that it was really nice to be in the hotel, "by herself". I know she enjoyed the reunion, but I am starting to think that she really enjoyed being, "by herself".

The boys and I had a great time. We kind of had to prove a point so we worked all weekend long. We tore out the tiles in our bathroom, planted raspberries, planted grapes, made bread and ate great meals. I didn't want to admit it, but I had to go back to work because I was completely exhausted. I acted all cool and collected when Tami got home but I was pretty worn out. Silas kept saying, "we can't go to church with out mom", "we can't go to bed without mom" and other things that we couldn't do without mom. Jude didn't really seem to notice that she was gone. He is a great baby so it really wasn't too bad. I'm thinking we should have left the house really messy, ruined a few of her best things in the kitchen and made sure that the kids were completely dirty and nasty by the time she got home. Since we didn't do that, Tami will probably be ready to go on another vacation "by herself".

While The Cat's Away the Mice Will Play

Today during Church Jude was getting noisy and rowdy so I stepped into the hallway. I was able to peek into the primary room where I saw Elias NOT singing and distracting his friend next to him. I seriously watched for 5 min. and he was not behaving the way he was taught. So, after church I had him call his friend and apologize to him and his mother for distracting him and being a bad example. Then we made him come up with his own punishment. He decided to be my slave boy for the week. Chore #1... disposing of a dead mouse we found in the basement. He screamed bloody murder during the whole process. We didn't get the video camera ready until he'd just finished. Then we had him sing a solo to show Claudia (the Primary Pres.) that he in fact DOES know the words. So in an effort to humiliate Elias into better behaviour.... HERE YOU GO!!

Two Wheely

Silas has kind of learned how to ride his "two wheely". He was TERRIFIED when Caleb took off his training wheels. If the boy knew swear words he would have been using them. He was ripping Caleb up and down about the situation. He would not even TRY it. Luckily about an hour later his good friend Madison came over and he had a complete change of heart. He put on the tough guy hat and just did it. SHOW OFF!!! I must add that the boy is only 3!!

Colorado National Speedway

Here are some pix from the races. As scary as some of the die hards looked we didn't dare sneak photos of them!! This was also part of Elias' Birthday celebration.

Z-lympics! Elias Turns 10

For Elias' Birthday we had game competitions with some friends of his. Have to say that his friend, Danno, pretty much kicked eveyone's trash!!

Denver Aquarium

My sister LaDawn and her family came for a short visit from Mesa, AZ. We went to the Denver Aquarium.