Bringing You Up to Date

9/21/07 I've been working on painting my bedroom since April. I finally arranged for a friend of mine to watch the three younger kids for a couple of hours in the morning while McKenzie was at school so I could finish painting. I was only able to prep the area and paint around the trim before my time was up. I took a second opportunity to work on my walls when the kids were napping. It turned out that Thomas wasn't asleep. He soon came to investigate what I was doing and wasn't content to just sit on the bed and watch. Unfortunately, I didn't think to change his clothes. Those were his best shorts. Anyway, here are some pictures of him helping me. He's very excited for the next time we paint. McKenzie was chagrined when she came home from school and found out that he got to help me, so I promised her that she can help, too, when we paint other rooms. My room still isn't done -- I have the ceiling left to paint and then we're going to install crown molding. I'll post pictures of the finished product... one of these days. (I hope!)



9/24/07 We went bowling for FHE with some good friend of ours. Mason was 21 months old. He threw a temper tantrum whenever he WASN'T bowling... which was quite often. We had fun, but we resolved not to go bowling with anyone under the age of three again. (Check out the last picture on the slideshow.)

9/29/07 I was trying to occupy Mason while Thomas and McKenzie cleaned (played in) their rooms and I cleaned the bathrooms. I gave Mason some wrapped rolls of toilet paper to stack and make towers with. It was one of the ideas in a book about how to keep kids busy (presumably so I can get something done). At first, everything went great... until McKenzie came to alert me that Thomas had joined Mason and they had unwrapped all 15 rolls of toilet paper and decorated Mason's room with it. Who was the person who came up with this activity as a great idea? We had to use toilet paper out of grocery sacks for the next week, at least.




10/11/07 We had one of our little friends over for the afternoon. I took the garbage out while the children were in the backyard. It didn't take long to put the garbage in the can and wheel them up to the side of the house, so when I returned to walk into the house, I was surprised with this sight and busted up laughing. Kids move so quickly!


10/12/07 McKenzie went in for surgery for an adenoidectomy and ear tube placement. She was very excited to have it done so she would be able to hear better. She had a lot of middle ear fluid. So here she is pre-surgery:

And here she is with her doctor once the Versed started to kick in:

She wasn't too happy when she woke up from the surgery. She was upset that her throat hurt. After the nurse gave her some pain medication, she asked McKenzie to point to the face on the pain scale that showed where she was before the medicine so she could compare it to the one that showed how she felt after the medicine. The nurse said "Point to the face that shows how you felt before." McKenzie pointed to the happy face. Sure, she was happy BEFORE the surgery! Fortunately, her paternal grandparents happened to be passing through town on the same day and stopped by the surgery center to visit with her. It was a real treat to have her Grandma there as she came out of anesthesia! (And Grandpa, too, but Grandma is in the picture.)

Grandma also brought some halloween pillowcases by for the three older kids with a heart on them that says "Grandma loves you." The kids loved them

10/15/07 McKenzie found a mushroom in our backyard. The mushrooms are kind of cool because they grow up almost overnight to impressive sizes. But they are also not kind of cool for the same reason. I'm starting to send the kids out on mushroom missions now to make sure we don't have any new ones.
10/17/07 I just thought these were funny pictures. Thomas exclaimed "Look at me, Mom! I'm upside down!" So, I grabbed a camera.

10/2007 And this post wouldn't be complete without some pictures of Megan. So, here she is in her highchair. She looks so little in it to me! I'm used to seeing her brothers in it. Thomas and Mason still use the other highchair intermittently. Thomas likes to use it more as a novelty. We use it to trap Mason during dinner, although he can climb out pretty easily.

Here is a collage of Megan eating pureed corn. Yum yum!

Now that you are finally updated, I will try not to get so far behind again.