All Tied Up

You know how sometimes you just want to tie your kids up? Just kidding, what a horrible thing to say - who would ever want to do a thing like that? And what's more, who would actually do it?



And this is her, "I'm a scary monster" face with monster hands included, in case it wasn't immediately obvious:













On second thought, it might not have been the smartest idea to teach her how to tie me up. That's one of those things that could come back to bite me, or an unfortunate babysitter, sometime in the not-so-distant future. But she did have fun taking the picture by herself (with me trying to keep myself in the picture as she moved it all around).










Don't even ask what the stuffed animals did to deserve this kind of treatment. Especially the poor hanging monkey.












Then when that fun had run its course, we moved on to create these breathtaking masterpieces:


So there you go daddy. This is what we do all day while you're at work (or at least it's what we do while Meri is taking an awesomely long nap and I'm avoiding any and all housework with amazing skill)!

Meri's First Birthday Pics

In case you weren't convinced that we have the prettiest girls in the world:

https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTPP0102107510JCP

Click on the link, and enter "Alisha Whitman" in the customer name field. Jenelle wasn't supposed to have any pictures, but she jumped in front of the camera and started hamming it up. Life is good.

Best Weekend Ever

Talk about blogging delinquents! I suppose that's what happens when Alisha paints as much as she does--I would expect this to continue for some time. Another side-effect is that you get me blogging instead of her, which isn't good for anybody. Regardless, here we go.

Last weekend, Shaun, Janelle and Preston (note the A in the name to avoid confusion in the rest of the post) came to visit us. Shaun and I go almost as far back as Alisha and I go, so that's saying something. They live in California, unfortunately, but I'm convinced that's not permanent. Regardless, we had a fantastic time with their visit. We had a blow-up bed in our living room, 3 little ones cruising around, played games, chatted well into the night--you know, the sorts of things that friends do. Jenelle finally returned Shaun's love (when we all lived in Utah she was scared to death of him), Preston loved us (he doesn't like strangers) and Meri, of course, loved the new faces. Here's a little taste of the fun that was had:


And here's a little something for Shaun, because he was giving me a hard time about not posting anything of their visit yet. Here's your boy, in all his pink sparkly glory for all of the world to see:

Let this stand as a warning to any of you with boys who want us to babysit. I only know girls.

Our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream ...

Meredith turned 1! Honestly, it really can't be possible. For some reason I'm hanging on to her being a baby a lot more than I did with Jenelle. She's just my sweet little darling that loves to cuddle with mommy. Can that last please?? With all the trials and chaos of this last year, I feel like I missed out on so much because I was busy on just making it, and now I blinked and she's 1. It has been a crazy year - the hardest of our lives, but we feel like we have been blessed so tremendously and hopefully have learned all we needed to. Anyway, back to my adorable 1 year-old.

Let the fun begin! I don't really think wrapping paper was made for 1 year-olds. As the picture on the right shows, she got tired of me trying to make her part of it pretty quickly.










But we have a winner! I had picked out a baby doll with a binky and as soon as she saw it she just pointed like this, as if to say, "I'll take that one. Yes, could you please remove it from its bag please." And then she proceeded to carry it around the rest of the night and pat its back. Hopefully this will be the end to the contention in our home surrounding Jenelle's very similar looking baby with a binky!










And the cake! You can't really tell but we have here a desert island with gigantic fish swimming around with little gummy bears enjoying the sun and trying to escape on rafts or in life preservers. The kids didn't really think it was as funny as I'd hoped.









And despite her dainty, tiny little bites, she did end up with some cake on her face (she picked at it very slowly, licking her fingers as she went). She still has blue boogies. I'm just not sure where the kids that just plow into the cake come from. Jenelle wouldn't touch her first cake, even when we shoved it in her mouth, and Meri liked it but didn't get overly excited by any means. Oh well. Happy Birthday darling! Let's hope this next year goes a bit slower!

I got friends in small places ...

I'm really not sure what's so attractive about really small places that are going to be impossible to get out of, but I don't think my kids are the only ones that just can't resist the temptation! Cracks me up every time. I just think it's hilarious. Although, they tend to disagree. I wish I had more pictures because Meredith is constantly getting stuck in the weirdest places. The trunk of Jenelle's Elmo car (who knew there was a place so small that her behind couldn't fit), bath toys, etc. Jenelle once crawled under a chair with incredibly low rungs and hadn't yet discovered how to crawl backwards. Didn't know it was a separate skill. But here, Meri had the same problem (stuck underneath a small trampoline):










She can sometimes get out of this, but it usually involves a face plant and tears:












And when I grabbed the camera, Jenelle had to join in, but Meredith was very legitimately stuck. Oh, and I've found her in exactly the same position half a dozen times recently. Apparently that whole learning from our mistakes portion of her brain isn't fully developed. But then again, whose is?

New paintings, no sleep

So I promised I'd post pics of what I'd be painting. I haven't taken good pictures yet, so the colors are pretty washed out and not good quality, but you can get a general idea. This first three are thanks to Raina's recent Europe trip. This one I like:













This one I did three times and am still not super happy with:










This one I've since finished (during last night's Blazer game - which really didn't help stress levels any), but am not at all happy with:













This one comes from my mother-in-law's recent Europe trip. Hey, it's a great thing that people I know travel! Parts are okay, overall it just seems so-so to me, but on the plus side that means I don't hate it:













In this one, the background has more of a green color in real life. Sometimes I really like it, sometimes I don't. And most of the time, I just really love painting flowers, but am scared of ending up as "one of those female painters," who only paint flowers or flowery, feel-good subjects. I think it might just be a little bit of the arrogance the art department always shoved down our throats about Thomas Kinkade being the root of all evil in this world, and I'm not really planning on going down in history or anything, but at the same time ... I don't know. Anyway:













And this one has a lot more of a blue-purple background then you can see:












And if you're wondering, I only get to paint at night when the girls go to bed. So I don't sleep anymore. Hence I've been sick for eternity. And just maybe, this is how Cooper found us when he got home from work last night:










Yes, I was sleeping in Jenelle's bed. In my defense, everybody is clothed and pretty happy, nobody's crying, causing harm to body or house, and the rest of the house was at least picked up. Tee hee.

Wahoo! A video!

So I've been wanting to post a video for forever, but being a bit more complex than my normal posts, it hasn't happened till now. Thanks to Cooper being bored every night as I paint, here's a video!



I love the way Jenelle sings "joy" and her cute little coy, leave you wanting more kiss. Oh and the look on her face as she pretends to hug. Basically, that's why Coop can't wait to get home each night! And the second segment, the tackle was one of those wonderful accidents you get on tape, and the somersault is perhaps the most pathetic thing I've ever seen. She really is slightly more coordinated than that! And the final segment shows Meredith's unique little dance she always does now when she gets excited about some music. I love it! She just spins and spins until she falls over. Usually I can't get anything on tape - one of the really big tragedies of my existence. Anyway, hope you enjoy! Oh and by the way, does everybody else's kids think their family home videos are the funniest things in the world?