An Ugh Vent

So that pretty much sums up my life lately: Ugh. Actually, more like UGH! I don't know if it's just the fact that winter has cooped us all up together long enough or what. But man my kids are driving my crazy. CrAzY, cRaZy. And not really in a good way. UGH! Miles is negatively questioning everything lately - as well as talking back, as well as "accidentally" doing such-and-such to so-and-so 50 times an hour. Jonas has frankly become quite rude at times - along with his usually whiny-ness. Now when he's mad he grunts - for like 10 minutes. No joke. That's actually kind of funny. Kind of. But kind of annoying too. Emmy continues to scream, yell, and talk ugly. Today she told me, "I don't like you. You can't go to bed at nighttime (I guess that was some kind of threat?) She told me she didn't like me at a time when I actually had my patience. Oh well. I bit my tongue and did not say anything back to her. It was hard.

Want my kids?

Maybe Emmy should fire me.

And on top of all the pleasantness (not) from my children, Lucy has a cold/cough that wakes her up during the night. So now I get to wake up every few hours during the night - ugh. But I did finish a book with all the extra night-time feedings.

The house is a mess. Especially the boys' room. I am ready to do a huge spring clean-out. So ready.

But I do love my children. Really. We have grand moments that make me smile and happy (they just seem a little too few lately. . .)

Like this:

Lucy was super-excited about the painting supplies.

Super-excited!

I like this picture of the lego-car driving through our forest of dog hairs. Awesome.

P.S. Thankfully Miles' b-day is tomorrow - time to liven things up and hopefully lead to a more chipper day for all of us!

I can't think of one

Oh my this is one of my most favorite pictures of Lucy. Ever. I don't know why. It cracks me up. I had no idea of it until I turned on the camera to take a picture and saw this beauty. Ben took it. It's pure awesomeness in my {not-so} humble opinion. I'm not sure who put that "snake" on Lucy - Emmy perhaps? Ben? Lucy would be a doll in curlers. :)

Emmy's quote of the week:

"Jesus see us all the time. He sees us eating. He sees us sleeping. He sees us going potty."

p.s A very Happy Birthday to a most beautiful woman - my Grandmother Whicker. She's a lovely lady and one of the most positive and up-beat women I know. She is also known as "Jelly Bean Grandma" to my kids. For obvious reasons. We all love her lots and lots!

Backyardigans

We've had some warmer weather (and not-so-warmer weather, too) in the past couple of weeks. One day, with it nearing mid-50s, it felt like spring. So I decided to try Lucy in the baby-swing. . .

She's not quite sure what to think, do, etc.

But she is learning to smile at the camera.

Ahhhhh, she loved it. :)

Then yesterday the kids decided to go fishing. Miles is enraptured by a fish called the goonch. He talks about it a lot. So he had convinced himself and perhaps Jonas that there was a goonch in our backyard "pond." (Pond = melted snow water with mud, dirt, sand, etc. that sits upon our tarp covering the sandbox.) So they decided to fish for it. With sandwich meat as bait. Unfortunatley the only thing that got hooked was, ummmmm, Ben's derriere. Nice. I'm sure they'll try again soon.

{not} Extreme Ski Videos

he did stop in winter and he did cool by the sun

The title comes from a sentence that Miles created with word magnets at our Silverton get-away house.

(p.s. HUGE post. Lots of words. LOADS of pictures.)

Yes, our family actually had a little get-away. Fun for us! It was only 2 days and 1 night - but that's pretty big for us. (Mind you, we do get away - visiting or vacationing with our extended family. Which is heavenly, mind you. But our family, just the 6 of us, don't get-away too much. So it was a big deal to us.)

We went to Silverton - a mountain town about 1 1/2 hours away (2 hours on the way back. . . more of that story to come). There is the perfect ski-mountain there for our family. Kendall Mountain. We went last year and fell in love. And I was determined that this year we would try and go 2 days in a row - so that the kids can improve the first day and cruise the second day. And with some wonderful Christmas money we saved it for this trip - totally worth it.

So I found a cute little home in town and rented it for the nite. Check out the home here. (Check out "gallery" for pictures.) It was a great little home for our family. Miles fell immediately in love. I'm not sure totally why. But he didn't want to leave it. He was completely sad. Jonas even said, "I wanna go back to our cute home." Meaning the home in Silverton.

We got there on Friday morning and Jonas started skiing first with Ben. Then Miles' turn. Then Emmy's turn. While they were taking turns with Ben, I was at home with the other kids - napping Lucy and playing games, getting food ready, etc. Then I shuttled the kids back to the mountain, traded out the kids, and came back. It worked out pretty great. Friday nite we watched a movie on the hide-a-bed couch. Awesome.

Saturday morning Ben took the 3 older kids to the outdoor ice-rink and played around. It had snowed a few inches and so it wasn't perfect, but Ben came back gleaming and stated, "I love ice-skating!" So I think he had a great time. The kids loved playing around, too. Then we did the skiing thing again - trading off the kids, etc. I stayed a little more at the mountain as it wasn't so windy and it sure was fun seeing the kiddos come down the mountain. They definitely improved from day 1 to day 2. Well for the boys. Emmy just skis down the mountain in sort-of lalaland. Ben told me she bends over to look at her skis (pink!), etc. Too cute. But the boys started doing some great turns on day 2. Big improvement. Miles was completely harness-free that day, too. He did so great! As did Jonas! Ben thinks they are pretty much the same level of skier. Jonas just thinks he's so much greater. :) He might be a little more coordinated, and a little more faster, but that's it. They all LOVED it. They all wanted to do it more, and more, and more.

But we had to go. And we left at the height of the storm. Blizzardy. Now the pass from our home to Silverton (or vice-versa) is slightly treacherous. In summer. Extremely treacherous in a snowstorm. I wanted to cry. Ben told me not to, so I didn't. Check out a picture of the pass here: http://ouraylovers.com/red-mountain-pass4.jpg. That shows you a section where there is 1. no shoulder, 2. no guard-rail, and 3. steep, deep cliff. Scary, eh? Now put snow on that there road. Puke. Other sections include about a dozen hair-pin curves with, during normal driving conditions, a recommended speed of 10mph. Ben was awesome, though, and went so super slow that we really didn't have any problem (tho, yes, I still wanted to cry). And blessings of blessings, by the time we got to scary drop-out cliff place, snow had changed to misty rain and the roads even cleared up. We celebrated when we got to Ouray (no more mountain passes!) we girl-scout cookies. Awesome.

Anyways, the trip was perfectly heavenly for the kids. Just what I wanted.

Adorable.

Look ma, no hands.

He did so great and made me very proud of him. Very.

Um, adorable too.

So this is how he skis - with his tongue out. Too funny.

Cruisin' right along. . . with the tongue out again. :)

Oh sweet gal.

Too stinkin' cute. She suffers, apparently, from whatever her Aunt-E suffered from as a little girl. I'm not sure of the exact name, but something along the lines of: must-tilt-head-to-side-when-picture-being-taken. (Remind me to scan in some photos of Aunt-E and this.)

There she does it again. Is she a ski-babe or what?

Zooooom.

A snowy finish!

And Lucy had fun times, too. Hanging out in the car. (See how yummy she is?)

She also spent time out in the snow. There was a huge snow-mound that the other kiddos loved playing on. They probably spent a few hours on it. Lucy and I would just watch the world around us. She looked quite beautiful doing so.

Here's Lucy in front of "our" little place.

The kids all slept on the hide-a-bed. Well until 4am. Then Lucy's cries kind of stirred them awake. They had a little trouble going back to sleep, so Emmy came and slept with me and Ben slept with the boys.

Just for fun: Lucy and something lurking in the background. . .

Can't get enough of Lucy. . .

Oh yes, there was lots of Lucy-lovin' going on, too.

Whoweee. The end.

(p.s. I'll post videos tomorrow.)

1/2 way to a year

Lucy is 6-months today. Time continues to fly, no zoom, on by.

I always say that Lucy is yummy or delicious. It's because, out of all my babes, she definitely has the most fat - I'm sure that fat is 100% sweet cream, with her being so sweet and all. But, dang, she really is a chub - her cheeks, wrists, and legs are just adorably plump.

She's a pure (okay, 98%) delight. Lucy Deelight Maxwell. That's right.

She loves her family. Eating. Sitting upright. Drooling. Everything that crinkles (wrappers, etc.). Animal sounds, especially meow.

A few more pics of V-day just cuz. . .

Working hard on decorating some cookies. We made cookies just because we didn't have enough sugar already. . . . . yeah right.

Miles making a heart. Oh sweetie.

Oh me oh my. Yum. She is too delicious. And oh so loved by us all. (p.s. if you read my other post from today and click on the link it will take you to v-day 3 years ago. there you can see emmy wearing the same shirt and looking very similar to lucy. except for one thing: CHEEKS. whoa does lucy have some chub-cheeks. they are delightful to kiss.)

Valentines is already alive and well here. . .

First of all, Miles cleaned up his room this morning as a special "valentine's surprise." Awesome. (Mind you, Ben and I cleaned up their room on Friday nite while they were sleeping. It was our "heart-service" we had talked about in FHE that week (we all had hearts with our family member's name on it and we were do to something nice for that person and leave a heart.) Anyways, the point is that the room was totally cleaned up on Friday nite. But by last nite it was a mess again. So Miles really did do a great thing!)

Miles made Ben and I cards weeks ago. Mine said, "To mom, I love you and I hope that the snowflake is good." (He had cut-out a snowflake.)

Eating their valentine's gift from mom and dad. A chocolate dinosaur on wheels.

Emmy's was a cat.

Miles with his class valentines (you scratch off the pink part to reveal your secret valentine's message). He's a handsome valentine, for sure!

Miles wanted me to take a picture of their chocolate. Cute.

This is AMAZING. Miles eating it. Once we gave Miles a chocolate dump truck and he didn't eat it for months. In fact, I think we had to throw it away. . . So far he only ate the spikes on the dinosaur and the wheels. He wants to keep as much of the dinosaur in tact as possible.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Newsworthy (updated with scanned-in photo)

The Maxwells did it again. We are on the front page of the paper - this time, though, it's Emmy and Jonas. You can check out the link, but it's good only for today (then I'll scan in a picture once I get a copy of the paper).

http://montrosepress.com/content/current/page1.pdf

Enough already!

Okay, I'm tired of the cold. Tired of it. Wintry snow - that's beautiful and lovely. I'll take you. But the cold, ugh. Now I'm not talking about 30s or even 20s. I'm talking about bone-chilling single-digits and negative temps. Temps I've gotten to walk in every morning this week - and last week. . . I don't totally mind the walk, it's just getting 4 kids ready to walk in the cold. All bundled up. All lagging behind schedule. At least one of them resisting getting ready. Etc. Once we are out, fine (except for the extreme slow-pokiness of Jonas). But I'm tired of having to get on snow-pants, snow coats, gloves, hats, boots x 4.

Okay, enough of the venting. I've got kids to dress. . .