Always something

Sadly this was another week filled with sickness, so there was a lot of this: 

But that doesn't mean it was all bad, I mean, we even saw the sun a few times! And the kids are funny, whether they feel good or not.

G: mom, can I have some more pom-A-damn-it (pomegranate) seeds please?

Meet Mona Hulk-A Lisa, courtesy Jenelle:

Dude (reading Dr Seuss): Camel on the ceiling? What! That would NOT work cause gravity would make him fall right down ... A duck dog? I don't think that's real. There's no such thing... A fiffer-feffer-feff? WHAT is that? ... Zizzer-zazzer-zuz?!! No way! (That whole book is difficult for him to get behind - don't let him read it to you if you're in a hurry! He can't help the side commentary and questions!)

G: do you understand me dude? I: yes G: then you will be my man.

"I just wanted to see where the branches are!" That does not look comfortable.

Apple crisp on the front porch because. We segregate by age. Which speaking of... when I was talking to M earlier today she stopped making eye contact and started staring at my forehead or above. Irritated, I asked what she was doing. She answered, "you're getting a lot more of those grey-white hairs mom." Thaaaaanks.

Thanks to our new game about skeletons, I keep hearing weird comments like, "no thanks, I have enough ribs," and "would you like a pelvis?" Also, "I get to be Doctor Humerus!"

Dude asked today what the air was made of. One of those wish-I'd-done-more-than-short-term-memorization-in-science-class moments. I answered, "molecules!" After describing how they're so small you can't see them, he asked, "aren't molecules made up of atoms?" Why does my 5 year-old know that?

M: we are ready to do the scripture play! Dude: G is going to be a sheep, but the kind of sheep that they kill and then she's a sheep zombie!

I asked dude if he wanted to make bread with me. His response: yes! Then we wouldn't even have to buy it at the stores (which we hardly ever do), which is good because they are probably out.

J had her first strings concert, where s girl with a large head obscured her from view the entire time:

And M had her first basketball game, where she scored three times! And was so effective on defense, even when her player gave up and stood out of bounds.

 She never lets up. In fact, her coach had to tell her to stop stealing the ball!  Highlight was when they were explaining to the girls how to run an inbounds play, and m's girl sprinted from one sideline to the other, with M making sure she's never see the ball. For like 5 minutes. While the ball was still out-of-bounds. 😂😂😂 Gotta love the dedication!

Shenanigans

I was just having a coughing attack. G ran and got me a drink of water and announced, "I'm a hero! I'm a drink hero! (I thought she said Greek hero which would've been hilarious but drink hero is pretty good too!)"

I just caught Baby L and G playing in the laundry room and said, "no guys." L wagged her finger at me and said very seriously, "no! Bad, bad, bad."

Just told G no more bugging Dude. She smirked at me and asked, "how about bugging myself?"

And Dude has learned to read, which opens up a whole new world of funnies. For example, Bopa was drinking Naked Juice. Upon reading it, Dude walked around sniggering and repeating the word, "naked."

G runs on ice skates. Would you expect any less from her?

Nana was at home with the littles while we skied. They were getting ready to go when she ran back to change socks. G decided not to wait and let L out and they walked down the street. A neighbor stopped them and was hanging out with them, not knowing who they belonged to. Poor Nana. Even worse when she finally found them and called for them to come back, G did but L turned and ran the other direction. How I wish that wasn't such a common occurrence.

Oh and we had a pretty fun time in Bend before everyone got sick! I love skiing. The girls do now too!

Love it when the clouds make it look like the mountains are floating!

A perfectly clear view is pretty awesome too.

Second day of skiing for Dude who is so close to ready to ditch the harness (just has to learn to stop without face planting), and the girls have mastered the bunny hill (M no longer yells the whole way down) and are ready to move on since we have achieved our immensely important goal of riding chair lift #1 (Silly me, I thought we were there to ski. You don't want to know how many times they raced the chairlift back down, got in line, tried to wait until #1, but had to go on #38 or even the last one - #40 - because people were waiting behind us. The lift operators caught on and commented on our lack of success every time but I just wouldn't let the girls hold up the line so we could wait for three more lifts to go slowly around. One tragic time, we let the people behind us go and they took too long and ended up on the coveted #1 and we had to settle for #2. Oh the drama.). Oh and Bopa did manage to lose J on the last run of the day. Their definitions of "go to the bottom and wait" are ... different. But Bopa's goal was everyone surviving the day, so success!

Little Miss Tiny-Hiney

"I su beebee" = "I'm super baby!"

Points to self and says, "ooh ah" = "I'm a monkey!"

Tiny is saying tons of words and sentences these days. The problem is ... what are they? 

Baow = bum, ball, bath, or bar (as in granola bar)

Nana = banana or Nana (grandma) or possibly Ninnie (my sister)

Su-see = herself

Uh fauw = I fall

caow = car

teet teet = bird

Ceauw = cereal, Wa-wa = water

soo-AH = shoe (she puts AH on the end of lots of things these days)

bu-AH = book, Foo-AH = food, Scoo-AH = scooter, Moh-AH = more

binty a binty = binky and blankie

Bobo = teddy bear

A doe? = Where'd it go?

HI-EE! = Hide!

What's your favorite animal L? Neigh!

About time!

So Dude's hair is so awesome and curly that I have a hard time cutting it. And frankly, who has the time? I kinda forget you have to actually do boy's hair too! But then before I know it, his fast-growing hair looks like this:

It does make him look so much younger. My heart sighs. Also, why can't G's hair grow like his? Can they just switch? I think I've had to cut her hair like once and that was just the mullet tickling her neck. Totally not fair.

But it really did have to be cut. He looked so crazy most the time with his half-fro, half-Wolverine, half-homeless look. I think I did pretty well, considering how many hundreds of times he asked if I was done yet. 

He's not completely sure though. Tough crowd.

Our week

Good thing daddy has such a big lap bc these kids all want a piece.

Ever get that feeling like the couch has sucked you in and you can't get out?

Love that the big girls were including the tinies in their game during lunch at our homeschool school. The group just kept expanding as they played their quiet, structured game - as dude and a bunch of other boys ran mad playing tag.

Is this how you look after eating blueberries?

Our science experiment with walking water. We have so much fun on Fridays!

Look at how that water has "walked" down our rainbow!

And funny things that've been said:

G: Lucy, he's Rudolph and he has a red nose, soooooo he's mine!

M: Tomorrow, we're going to have a booby war! J: booby trap war. She means booby trap war. Dude: There'll be hundreds of booby traps!

We looked at a house awhile back that had the tiniest dining room ever with a tiny table that only fit two chairs. Dude stopped in his tracks when he saw it, said, "wha! We would not fit at that table. We would have to take turns eating!"

I texted Coop: "the girls are rolling with laughter, literally falling off their chairs, because there was really a guy named Sir Francis Bacon.

Flooding is fun!

So apparently it rains a lot in Oregon. Who knew. And by a lot, I mean A LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTT!!!

Our driveway became what G refers to as "The Fud." Capitol T, Capitol Fud. It is pretty intense.

And pretty fun! Is this really ok mom?

The whole gang decided to take advantage of my moment of hesitation when asked if they could play in it. Errand-running trip be darned. Not like I wanted to accomplish something today anyway! Go ahead kids. Good thing I'd dressed them all appropriately and even better thing that the little girls had just been given rain boots for Hanukkah the night before!

You would not believe how much water I poured OUT of their new rain boots. No holes so I guess too much splashing? Too much dripping down from skirts? Too much fun? Nah. Can we go play in "The Fud" more mom? 

What to do when they cancel church?

So we had a lot of freezing rain Saturday night through Sunday morning and they ended up canceling our first day of 1 PM church. What to do with all that time as we tried to still keep the Sabbath holy? J decided she wanted them to do a lesson for us, which turned into a top-notch theater production. The story of Nephi getting the brass plates people, as played by the Whitman kids (Dude=Nephi, J=Laman/Laban, Meri=Lemuel/Zoram, G=Sam/Santa)!

Scene 1: Brothers discussing how they can get the plates - 

Scene 2: Petitioning Laban for the plates:

Scene 3: An angel (baby doll) appearing

Scene 4: Drunk Laban gets decapitated

Scene 5: Nephi convinces Zoram to run away with them

And of course, the bows. 

Although J was hoping to act out the entire Book of Mormon, the rest of the cast lost interest after this. In fact, Sam only lasted for the first few minutes, about through the point where they offered their riches to Laban. When Laban wasn't looking, she then stole them, ran off and enjoyed her spoils by herself. Little plot twist. Never saw it coming.

Vacation is the best

And now for all the random pictures that didn't make it into the real vacation posts. Because they're just too cute to forget. Here's L letting down her hair. Hilarious. If only. If only.

Can you see the face she's making at her cousin as G pulls them up the hill at great peril to life and limb?

M has decided to be a scientist when she grows up. A chemist to be exact (because they get to mix potions to blow things up - she might be combining chemistry with Harry Potter a little there). She wanted nothing more than a microscope for Christmas. How cool is that?

Dude enjoyed making TMNT with grandma out of play-dough. 

Who wouldn't want to wake up to these faces in a closet? 

Zoo lights again! But this time, we took the train. And froze just a little.

Then Ninnie and Mommy ran off to cheer on the Blazers as the creamed the Cavaliers. Fun sister date!

Just a little morning Yoga to help the littles lose some little wiggles.

Apparently someone stole my phone and taught their younger cousin the art of "selfies."

Ah the squint smile. We have seen thee before on our older kids. This is what she does when we say "smile big!"

Party like it's 1999, or New Years Eve 2015

Since we'd had to rework our plans on account of people still being sick and injured (don't ask), the kids started the party at the water park instead of the ski slopes. With waves and diving boards and slides and lions and tigers and bears, everyone had a blast. M sure knows how to have a good time. 

We decided to start making noise a little early, like 7:30 early. Hey, some of the gang are light weights. But it was plenty dark and plenty of fun throwing pop-its, throwing confetti, and honking horns. Good times.

Despite the exhaustion of the swimming, L refused to sleep so she came back down to rejoin the party. We enjoyed massive banana splits, minus the bananas because all the kids thought that was weird, and Patti and Jim joined us just in time. We watched the ball drop in New York from the comfort of a nice, warm home in nice, warm pjs. Everybody cheered and threw streamers and banged on pots and pans in their own special way. And then we rewound the countdown, essentially making time travel our first act of the new year (brilliant start!), and did it all again. And since that was so much fun, we might have done it twice more.

Daddy wasn't as impressed with this brilliant plan. For some reason, he wasn't totally on board and lost his enthusiasm after the second time. Hey, practice makes perfect, right? And what's worth doing once, is worth doing again. And again. And again. Most disagreed with our New Year's Grinch and thought it was the most "celebratingist" way to bring in the new year they'd ever seen! "And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!" 

And I add, may this new year be worth celebrating again, and again, and again.