Happy 4th Birthday Becca!

Today our Becca is 4. She has been calling herself the "birthday girl" all day. She was announcing it at Walmart even. She's awfully proud of the fact that she is now 4.

I asked Becca tonight what her favorite part of her birthday was and she said, "getting my bunny, Rella". We went to Build a Bear and she picked out a bunny and put it in a Cinderella dress and named her Rella Rabbit.

When asked what the worst part of her birthday was, she said, "having to clean my room- and on my birthday!!".

She got to choose what we had for dinner tonight. She chose Hannah Montana macaroni and cheese. Now that's a birthday dinner I can definitely fix!!

Happy 4th birthday our little tax baby!!

(Maddie got a new outfit for her bear from Build a Bear, so she had to put on her matching outfit too. She even had me do her hair to look like her bear's ears. Becca's hair is in pony tails, like her bunny's ears)

Conversations with Becca

For those of you that know our Becca, you know how much personality she has. She is a crack-up. Here are two funny stories for you...

When we were trying to convince Maddie to pull her tooth out, we told her as soon as she pulled it, we would go to Braums and get her a malt. She kept crying and wouldn't do it. Becca just looked at Russ and very calmly said, "I want a malt, I'll pull my tooth out for a malt Daddy." And she proceeded to try to pull out a tooth.

Just now, she came to me with three pennies.
"Mommy, can I buy something with these three pennies?"
"No honey, that's not enough to buy anything. But if you help me clean your room and put away laundry I'll give you some more pennies so you can buy something."
Dramatic pause....

Becca's response: "How about I pay you $5 to clean my room instead?"

(Sounds good to me. Show me the money!)

What a little nut.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth...

Turn up the volume. Maddie was so excited that I found the song for this blog.

Maddie lost her right front tooth last Monday. Since then her left front tooth has been VERY loose. It has been driving Russ and I crazy. On Saturday, Russ convinced her to let him try the floss trick. (Just a helpful reminder- it does not work if you only have the Glide floss)

Maddie on Tuesday.

This is what "the tooth" looked like on Tuesday.

Russ trying to get the tooth out. Maddie didn't like this so much.

Tying floss around her tooth on Saturday didn't work.

We've been calling her "Snaggle tooth, Goofy tooth and Cyclops tooth". We tried to convince her that she couldn't be an angel in the Christmas program because angels don't have goofy teeth. Her friend, Eden also only has one front tooth left, and it's pretty loose. So we tried to make it a competition between them.

Last night it was just barely hanging on. Just breathing would make her tooth wiggle.

Finally, last night, she bit into a cracker and it pushed her tooth backwards. She came running to me with a mouth full of blood. Well, after about 30 minutes, it came out!! Finally!! And the first thing she says is, "Yes! I beat Eden!!"

Russ was starting to get frustrated, when....

Yes!! Success!!

I told Maddie that she could now sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth". She said, "no it's not Mommy, I want other things too."

Muscles I've forgotten about

So Russ has threatened to cancel our Y membership if I don't get my big 'ol behind back there. I've gone only 4 times since Rylan has been born. In my defense, I've had some back issues. But I don't have any excuses any more. My chiropractor has cleared me.

I walked 2 miles and ran 1/2 mile today. That 1/2 mile was run by running a lap, walking a lap, repeat. I am so out of shape. It makes me sad to think that a year ago, I was running 2-3 miles when I went. This is what pregnancy and laziness does to you.

Just in the little bit I did today, I could feel muscles that haven't been used in quite some time. You know the ones at the very bottom of your stomach? Girls-you know the REALLY low ones that help keep the baby from falling? Well, did you know you use those when you run? Ouch. Not a pleasant feeling.

I'm sure I'll be a little sore tomorrow. But I'm going to go back 2 more times this week. I have to, or we won't have a membership anymore. Sure, it would save us quite a bit of money every month, but I would be very sad (and fatter).

4 months

Rylan just turned 4 months old. She is getting so fun. She laughs at us and is able to play with toys. She is just such a good, sweet baby. God truly blessed us with this one.

So now that Rylan is 4 months old, she can start eating baby cereal. So we gave it a try last night. She loved it! She started getting upset if I didn't get the spoon in her mouth fast enough. I couldn't believe how much she liked it. If she thinks rice cereal is good, just wait for the fruits!

You want me to eat what?

Ok, let's give this a try.

It's not terrible...

Give me more!

You caught me! I LOVE this stuff! WOW!

House for sale!

This is the house that Russ and Michelle built.

This is the living room of the house that Russ and Michelle built.

This is the backyard of the house that Russ and Michelle built, and it's all for sale.

Ok, so I'm not clever enough to do the "This is the house that Jack built" poem. But if you want the website to see a virtual tour of our house, send me an email. I don't want to just put it out there for the whole world to see where I live.

Our house has been on the market now for 2 weeks. Yes, I know that's not very long, but I was working my self to death for the 2 weeks before that getting this house ready. It hasn't looked this good since we first built it.

We built this house in 1999. We moved in at the end of May of 1999. We had no children then and our house seemed huge! Russ had his own study. I had a sewing/scrapbooking room and we had a guest room for all of our out of state friends and family. It was great.

Fast forward to 2008. I have taken over the study for my Creative Memories stuff, I have a sewing cabinet in our bedroom, Becca gets kicked out of her bottom bunk (full size) when we have guests. There is no where to move here. We have outgrown our house. We love it to pieces, but it is time to move on.

We have found a house that we love that is twice the size of this one. But... we won't put an offer on it, until this one sells. So nervously I sit EVERY day, waiting for a phone call of someone to come see our house, fall in love with it and buy it so we can buy our "other house".

Do you know how hard it is to live in a spotless house? Ok, Jenny, I know you do.... But I am not used to it. I clean before I go to bed, I clean when I wake up. My house sparkles. You all can now drop in any time, and I won't mind at all. Jessi- I could do that old post now where I take a picture of all of the different places in my house. You'd be impressed!

So if anyone would like to buy my house, please call me!! I am not good at being patient.

Money

One of Becca's first words was money. No joke. I think the order went, Mama, Dada, Madda and then money. She has loved money almost her entire life. You have no idea what just a penny does for this girl. She gets so excited to have money in her piggy bank or her purse. And I can get her to clean about anything with the promise of money after she has completed her task.

So I wasn't completely shocked when I went to check on her last night before I went to bed. She had been asleep for a couple of hours, but what was in her hand? Money. Uncle John had given her a fifty cent piece that she couldn't bear to part with. So she slept with it, along with two pennies and a dime. Until mean mommy came in and took it out of her hand. But before I did, I got pictures!

Bible Bowl

For the last couple of months, "Grandma Karen" has been preparing our Life Group kids for a Bible Bowl. We have so many kids in our LG, that in August, we divided them up into a "big kid" group (1st-5th grade) and a "little kid" group (age 5 and under). We do basically the same routine with the little ones, but the big kids are learning so much! I have been very impressed with what Karen has been teaching them. We normally rotate in teaching the kids, but Karen really took over and has been working their little minds every Sunday. I think Karen has only not taught it maybe 4 times since August.

Now the things she taught them were not easy things. It wasn't "how many days did it take God to create the world" kind of thing. One question was "How did Zacharias tell people the name of his son". And "What apostle was blinded by light on the road to Damascus?"

She was teaching them these lessons and helping them prepare for the bible bowl at the same time. Since Mel, Carla and I had all taught the big kids and knew the questions, we couldn't compete. And since Paul is a walking Bible, he was over-qualified. Trey had to work, so it was up to Russ, Terry and James to beat the kids. You can only guess the outcome. The kids had a blast beating their dads. They were so excited. And Paul and Karen, being the awesome people they are, took the older kids to McDonald's for dinner to celebrate. Aren't they cool?

The boys sat around one bell, the girls around another. Russ had his own bell and Terry and James were sharing one. They couldn't ding in early or they were disqualified. If one of the kids' teams dinged (is that a word?) in, then the kids had to take turns answering the questions.


Karen pulled the questions out of a bag, while Paul kept score.

Russ in "training". He had to get his thumbs limber.

Terry trying to pass the bell off to James as James says, "I don't know the answer!"

Terry claimed he was dinging the bell and I said I hadn't heard him ding. He says, "I dung, I really did!". So I guess the past tense form of ding is not dinged, it's dung. (according to Terry anyway)

Karen, the dads, the older kids (plus Ruthie) and the final score. Dads-10, kids-17.

I'm a little behind

So between the election and getting our house up on the market, I forgot to post Halloween pictures of the girls. They were so cute!

We had bought part of Becca's costume on sale last year after Halloween, so we knew she was going to be a bumble bee. So Maddie thought it would be cute if she was a flower. So we got creative once again and made a flower. Rylan wore Maddie's first costume- a ballerina. This just shows how big Rylan is. She was 3 mo. old at Halloween, Maddie was 6 mo. And the costume was even a little tight around her tummy. But these were the easiest costumes I've made so far. Thanks goes to my sister-in-law Donna for the idea of putting poster board between two pieces of fabric to make the petals stand up.

Russ & the girls carving a pumpkin. Rylan @ the Fall Festival at church.


Becca got a flower painted on her cheek and Maddie got a bumble bee on hers.

At the Fall Festival and on Halloween night.



Aunt Janet with Rylan. And I just had to put this picture of Rylan in. She's just getting so big.

Maddie votes

I picked Maddie up from school today and she was so excited to tell me about her day. "We got to vote for President today!" She was thrilled because it's something only grown ups get to do. But I guess we haven't been talking about the election enough with her...

"Who'd you vote for?"

"Obama."

"Really? Why did you vote for him?"

"I don't know. I saw their pictures and I liked his."

Now this comes from a 6 year old. But I'm afraid there will be adults voting like this tomorrow. Sad, isn't it?

Dad- I apologize for your granddaughter.

Seriously?

We have to take a test to get a driver's license. We study and take driver's ed, then we are allowed to drive by ourselves. So why don't we have to take a test in order to vote? There are so many people who do not do their research and just vote for someone for the way they look, or because they are a better public speaker. Listen to this and you'll see how dumb people can be when it comes to politics.

http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=SCcHzUmVP5c

Cardboard Testimony

My cousin, Sarah, sent this to me and it is amazing. It really makes you realize that all Christians struggle and have problems. But thanks to Christ, we are forgiven and can be made new.

Watch this video: http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=RvDDc5RB6FQ

It's Halloween!

Russ does NOT like the idea of dressing up, but I love it. It's fun to become someone else for a night. So on Friday night, I chose to be Marilyn Monroe. I made this choice for 3 reasons: 1. I couldn't think of anything 2. my friend Jennifer told me I could borrow her costume and 3. It was free. That's the best reason, I think.

But since Russ didn't want to go, I convinced my friend Heather to go. (Not much convincing was needed. Here's our conversation: "Heather, what are you doing on Friday?" "Nothing." "Do you want to go to a Halloween party with me?" "Heck yeah!") Russ was thrilled that he didn't have to go and he wouldn't hear me gripe about not getting to go. So thanks Heather for going with me.

We had so much fun. The scavenger hunt was a blast. (except for wearing 3 inch heels- give me a warning next time Jenny!) There were 12 people crammed into a van driving (very fast) around town to take pictures of things we had on a list. We only had 1 hour to do it in, but we found all but a live spider. Our team even found the headstone of someone who died on October 31. Good times.

Heather- aka Sarah Palin and me. (Yes, mother, I know the dress is low- it was higher at the beginning of the night.) (Does anyone have a full length picture of me, I didn't take one.) Todd and Pam aka- Slash and guitar hero girl.


Rusty & Mitzi aka-Mickey and Minnie. Jenny-aka Princess Leia.

Disco Man Darin, Pam and Disco Amy.

Chim chimmery, chim chim cherrie. (I have no idea how to spell that) Jamie and Susan were Mary Poppins and the guy from Mary Poppins- what's his name? And Rusty pouring 7-up into our tiny trophies for James and Jeremy for winning the scavenger hunt. Way to go team!!