Abbey and Rosa at a Pool Party next door

The Albin Pool

Here we are at the pool in Albin. It is about 20 minutes from our house. For $12.50 a month you can join the community center and have access to a gymnasium, fitness center, and pool. Most days there is no lifeguard on duty and also no one there. So when we go we usually have the pool all to ourselves.  We get a key pass and can go anytime of the night or day. WOW!

Finishing the Lord of the Rings

After several years of night time reading we finished the series The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

 

 

To celebrate we got a projector, darkened the living room and spent the weekend watching the directors cut of all 3 movies. 11 hours of movies. We started with a cartoon for the little kids.

We ate pizza rolls, yogurt, pudding, mozzarella sticks, fruit roll ups, jello cups, granola bars, cheese its, applesauce cups, taquitos, and chicken nuggets. (All health food in Dad's opinion, All junkfood in Robin's opinion)

It was one of our favorite weekends of the year. : )

What do you think happened here??

Family Picture Time

parenting win

there were some leftover beans in a thick creamy brown bean sauce. dad hatches a plan.

he dumps the beans into the toilet and yells at the kids, "who didn't flush the toilet! everybody get in here now!" he proceeds to reprimand them for several minutes about how disgusting it is to leave this messy diarrhea unflushed...how lazy the kids must be to just walk away without flushing, etc. just look at this mess. get in really close and look how disgusting this is. all of the kids are making really gross faces as they see how revolting the contents of the toilet really are.

then when they were all leaning over to look at how gross it is, dad says, "oh, wait a minute. this piece looks kind of tasty." and he picks up a bean out of the toilet and eats it.

all of the kids screamed and ran away. i win at parenting.

Abbey's culture

All the kids help put away the food after a grocery trip. Tonight, Abbey saw a bag of frozen peas and called out "I've got the ice pack!"

Also, she calls her sheets her sheeps. She is always excited to get new sheeps on her bed. "Clean sheeps feel so nice", she says.

sayings

luke while playing risk: "I'm going to take over an entire consonant"

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abbie after being told to make her bed: "mom, i can't get the sheep off the bed"

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giddybug after titus tried to steal his shirt off his back: "no, you'll put a hoe in it"

dad: "gideon, do you mean a hole in it"

giddybug: "yeah, a hoe"

Gideon thinks ahead

 

Gideon (age 4) “Mom, I’m going to give you grandchildren. I’m going to give you one grandchild. And Joe is going to give you one grandchild... Mom, we are going to give you ten grandchildren. Mom? Can you handle ten grandchildren? Can you handle them? Do you want ten? Do you? Can you handle it?”

Oh Gideon you are so cute! Yes Gideon! I'll take ten grandchildren!

Sayings

Gideon: "Dad, how much Gorilla Glue would it take to glue a gorilla?"

Sam: "Dad, you're very hairy."

Luke: "Yeah, he's a mammal."

Small World

One of Matt’s many oddities that I am forced agree to put up with is, he picks up hitchhikers. Today on his way home from Cheyenne he saw a young guy hitch hiking in the middle of nowhere (Hwy 85). The man was holding a sign but Matt couldn’t see what it said. He stopped and asked what the sign said. It read, “I won’t kill you.” Matt gave him a ride.

Justin, the hitchhiker, is a student at Chico State University and was hitchhiking home to Deadwood, South Dakota. Matt gave him a ride to Lagrange, but with 0% chance of him getting a ride out of Lagrange, Matt brought him home to our house.

They hung out in the driveway a bit while Matt asked me if he could drive the guy to the next town so he could catch a ride. I agreed (it was either that or invite him to dinner.)

While we chatted it up in the driveway, my neighbor Jessica strolled by. She looked at him and stopped walking. He looked at her and then waved and said, “Jessica?” 

Turns out, they used to work at the same restaurant in South Dakota and they reconnected in my driveway in the middle of nowhere Lagrange.

Small World.

Can I keep him?

This is Buddy. He lived down the street from us and LOVED the boys.

AHHH! Buddy being loved!

Easy solutions

Gideon was sitting on my lap today at church. I pointed out to him that his cowboy boots were on the wrong feet. He crossed his feet and asked, "Is that better?"

Abbey, "Titus tried to..." half a second later, tears gone, "My picture!!"

We love each other!

Best Friends

Quotes: 

As I put Gideon down for his nap, he said, "I don't suck my thumb anymore because now I'm married."

When we got back from taking Gideon to the doctor, Titus started crying and climbed on to my lap. I asked him why he was sad and he said, "Gideon is my best friend and now I'll be able to play with him again because his hands are hurt." Even though I told him Gideon would be fine, he cried himself to sleep in my lap.   It was very sweet.

Today Titus got a splinter in his hand. It was pretty painful when I pulled it out. Gideon started crying and said, "Mom, you shouldn't have pulled out Titus's sliver, it hurt him and he is my best friend." I held them both and they cried together. Titus cried because his hand hurt and Gideon cried because Titus cried. I said they could hug each other and they said "No." Abbey watched them and ate the bacon out of her sandwich. She looked like she was, thinking, what a bunch of crybabies.

We do do other things besides getting hurt.

 

We also have friends over right before Matt comes home from Sam's club. Then we pull the whole Tom Sawyer whitewash story on them and tell them how fun it is to wash the refrigerator and put away the groceries. 

Here is Sam Z. having a blast cleaning out our fridge. He said truthfully, "It makes me feel good to help." Hurray!! Plus we gave him some really really efficient helpers in Monkey A (Gideon) and Monkey B (Titus).

Here they are with their friends building a snow fort. No one was injured in the process of taking photo one, but when mom looked up from the camera and saw the weaponry, all knives were confiscated. Henceforth, mom was booed, limbs were spared, knives still off limits. Igloo is still awesome!!

Warning: visiting us may result in babysitting and ER visits.

Today we had the great pleasure of a visit by Cammie Freed, a friend from Bible school. Some of you might remember her as Cammie Labrier. It was a holiday so Matt was home doing dresser drawer repair jobs and the kids had a little homework to do.

We had a nice chat in the living room for an hour or two and then Matt put on a pot of coffee. He came and sat down in the living room until we heard the screaming. It was one of those moments where you realize that is a real scream, not another “my brother is wearing my shirt” type of scream.

We ran to the kitchen and found Gideon covered in hot hot hot coffee grounds. He and one of his siblings had somehow pulled out the grounds basket while it was still brewing and it fell all over Gideon. I started a cool shower and Matt pulled off his clothes. We rinsed him off as quickly and as best as we could, not knowing where or how bad the scalding was.

The result was moderate burns on the backs of both his hands and minor stuff scattered about the rest of him. Cammie and I took him over to Christie Marshall’s, our head EMT and my across the street neighbor (convenient!). He was screaming bloody murder and in a lot of pain. Small blisters were beginning to form on one of his thumbs. We ran more cool water over the burns. Christie looked him over and bandaged him up and thought it was worthy of a trip to town.

So I uninvited Cammie to be our guest at dinner and asked her to babysit which did include the dinner already in the crockpot. Hallelujah she agreed!! Thank you Cammie.

Cammie and I right before Matt and I went to the hospital. I think I look frazzled.

We quickly prayed as a family asking God to relieve Gideon’s pain for our long car ride to town.  We moved carseats, packed a bag with clothes for Gideon who was still wrapped in a blanket from the shower and not wearing any pants or shirt, then searched frantically for my purse which is always lost, and hopped in the car.

Gideon stopped crying as soon as we drove away and focused on games on Matt’s computer thingy. He stayed happy the rest of the night!

The ER in Torrington is not like Kaiser or Sutter or Memorial in Santa Rosa.  In Torrington you have a bed and a nurse within 1 minute of arrival. Very likely you are their only patient. Gideon was instantly greeted by a nurse and the doctor followed in right behind.

They took a look and decided Gideon’s hands were first degree burns (the least bad) and home treatment would be sufficient.  They were very pleased with the way he was moving his hands around and letting them remove Christie’s bandages and look them over. They gave me some prescription cream and instructions while Gideon happily chatted it up with the nursing staff. He enjoyed every moment of attention and loved the stickers.

On our way back, we took him to McDonalds for his first Happy Meal (yes his first, when you buy for 10 people you usually get the dollar menu with no fries or soda.) Then we stopped at Nana and Papa's for some lovings and headed home. Gideon and I had an opportunity to thank God for taking away his pain on the road trip to town. He remembered how awful it was and how it didn’t hurt so bad anymore. The rest of the drive home he played “cut the rope” on the computer thingy and giggled everytime the balloons tooted. He was having a great time.

We made it back around 8:30 to a quiet! Clean! house AND the laundry was done and folded!!! Cammie had everybody fed, with their teeth brushed and flossed, and ready for bed. What a WOMAN!

We did get another hour of visiting in before Matt decided it was his bedtime and we had to say goodbye. It was really good to catch up and I am so thankful for her help today and so thankful that God kept Gideon from being badly injured.

On Sunday the message at church was to “Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials…” It is a good reminder for us to have our minds set on Him in easy circumstances and hard.

Before Cammie left, Sam brought her a homemade card, signed by all the boys, thanking her for babysitting - and the best ever, I hadn't told them to write it. 

one of those mornings

Matt and I were laying in bed this morning and heard a crash followed by crying. We yelled to the kids "how bad is it?" "Not bad. Were ok." pause...... "OH NO! We aren't ok!! There's a lot of blood!!!"

They grabbed some towels and I checked out the wound. A nice gash on Titus's forehead. He and Abbey had collided and he took a cup to the forehead. So at 8 this morning I was running over to the EMT's next door for butterfly bandaids which I usually keep on hand but the kids stuck them all over the refrigerator.

Following that fiasco we had 6 separate large messes and I just realized we missed Sunday school. We have guests coming over for lunch so maybe we can spend the time not getting hurt or messing anything up. Possibly?

The good news is our cat with an abcess tooth (disgusting) is looking better this morning.

going to bed

I climbed into bed tonight and found two sluggers under my covers. (Those are bats for those who don't do Little League.) The oddest thing is, Abbey was the last one to be carrying them around and she napped in my bed...

Death

Titus, "Mom, when you die can we hang you on the wall?"

how you know you are obsessed with ron paul

our two year old can pick ron paul out of a lineup.

samuel changed my ringtone to "i'm ron paul and i approve this message."

robin opened the laptop and abbie said, "nooooo, not ron paaaaaaauuuuulllll"