Fun pictures

I remembered today one of the reasons I don't blog much...I have to sort through all the worthless pictures in my file.  It may sound harsh to call them "worthless"pictures.  Brent lets the children play with his iPhone.  They love to take pictures and make videos.  The pictures are all blurry and the videos would give anyone motion sickness to watch them, but the iPhone automatically uploads all of the pictures and videos to a file on my desktop.  When I highlight all the children's photos and videos, sometimes I accidentally copy them (I'm not sure how) and then I have 50-100 new photos in my file to delete.  I'm not sure why we let the children use the iPhone.  Sarah Kathryn alone has thrown it in the toilet twice!

 Emily has some great facial expressions.  She is very animated and lately she's turned into a real chatterbox.  I think she's making up for all the time she didn't want to talk.  I asked her to smile for this picture, but she had other ideas.

 I only wanted a picture of the children in their Sunday clothes to give my grandmother, but Sarah Kathryn wouldn't hold still and wouldn't smile, so Joseph grabbed her, made her smile, and said, "Quick Mom!  Take the picture!"

 Haley was willing to take a nice picture, but I didn't realize it was such a mess in the background!

 Sarah Kathryn has decided she's not sleeping in the crib anymore.  She was climbing over the side every night when we put her to bed, and in the morning, we'd find her asleep on the couch. Brent took this picture for his grandmother to show her how much Sarah Kathryn likes the "Dorothy" shoes she bought her for Christmas.  Sarah Kathryn wears these shoes in the yard to play, even when it's muddy; wears them to WalMart, to church, everywhere.  I am amazed that they still look so nice and, of course, everyone who sees her thinks it's so cute and says,"I bet she never takes those off!"  Well, they're right!

 (She's auditioning for the Wizard of Oz.)

This is a picture the children took.  It was definitely worth keeping.

Unusual Things

On New Year's Day the children and I were going to the grocery store and as we drove out of the neighborhood we saw this bull in someone's yard.  I guess our neighborhood is close to a cattle ranch.  The bull was so still at first I wasn't sure if it was real or some kind of New Year's prank.  As we drove away we saw three policeman pulling into our neighborhood.  The bull was gone by the time we got home.

Almost as unusual as the bull, is the snow we received on Tuesday that lasted until today.  It wasn't much compared to what we've seen before, but it was enough to close down the town for two and a half days.  Brent finally went to work when the courthouse opened today at noon.  The kids loved it, of course.  They couldn't stand being outside for very long, so every ten minutes I was bundling the little ones up in their snow gear again.  Most of it melted this afternoon.  The weatherman says we'll be up to 65 degrees next week (where we were on Monday before the snow blew in.)  I love Alabama weather!

 I had to make a heat pack to warm up Sarah Kathryn's hands.  When she came inside to warm up, it made her fingers hurt so bad she was crying hysterically.

 It was hard to keep the kids from eating the icesickles.

Happy Halloween!

Funny Stuff

A friend asked me recently what my favorite memories of the children are. My favorite times with the kids are the random, clear out of the blue, never-could-have-predicted-it moments that make me laugh or melt me.  Here are a few examples:

I handed Sarah Kathryn a bottle of milk yesterday and she said to me, "Thank you, baby."  I guess you have to know the South to appreciate that one.

Joseph tried to get out of cleaning the clothes off his bedroom floor by being funny.  It went like this:  "Joseph, please put your dirty clothes in your laundry basket."  Joseph threw his head back, laughed and said, "Momma, you're such a crazy girl!" and he walked out the back door to go swing.

Emily is walking around with a toy phone, hunched over, moving slowly and having a pretend conversation with a shaky voice.  When I looked at her like, "What are you doing?" she says, "I'm an old woman on the phone."  Not sure what that one's about, but it just proves that you never can tell what's going on in her head.  Now that she talks more, it makes for pretty hysterical moments.

I'm sure we're about to have more random moments because, as I sit here typing this, I can hear the garden hose running in the back yard.  Which means that everyone is wet, but no one is crying and I have time to blog, so...it's worth it!

I know I don't blog as much as I should, which bothers people, and I may regret it one day since this is pretty much our family scrapbook.  It seems like there's so much going on all the time, there's always a moment to share with them.  If I take too many time outs I might miss some.  I may not remember all that I want to later, but I'll remember that I was there.  I'll know I didn't miss anything and if I'm lucky, they'll come around  a lot to keep sharing those moments with me.  My children are amazing!

Sarah Kathryn

There are some things in our house that are understood...the front and side door remain locked at all times, dishes must be cleared from the table immediately after meals and most importantly- whenever we take the children anywhere one adult is in charge of Sarah Kathryn and one adult manages the other five.  Perhaps this sounds unfair, but keeping up with Sarah Kathryn is like taking care of five children at once.   I'm not sure what's on her face in the picture below, but this is not unusual.  Who knows what happened to her clothes?  This morning, right before church, she took off her diaper and put on a pair of Allie's panties.  I guess she's trying tell me something.  She's not bad, she incredibly intelligent and determined.  When you're only 1 year old, that often means trouble.

I'm pretty sure she was eating dirt before this picture.

She frequently jumps in the shower before I can take her clothes off. 

These are the pictures from PriMed when Sarah Kathryn had stitches a few weeks ago.

Sarah Kathryn climbed into my bathroom sink looking for her toothbrush before bedtime. 

Things I Missed...

 This is Haley, Allie and Joseph hiding in the "laundry eater."

 My 31st birthday, February 18.  My dad said he felt old when I turned 30.

 Joseph's birthday is February 28.  Since Rachel was due the day before we had extra family in town which made for a great birthday party for Joseph.  Grandma and Papa, Grammy, Mamaw, Uncle David and Aunt Kathy, Aunt Sharon and Uncle John and Great Gran were all in attendance.  Everyone was so impressed that Joseph insisted on opening the cards first.

Joseph

I don't know who took all these random photos of Joseph, but I think they're pretty indicative of his happy personality.  After church today, Brent asked Joseph if he cried in nursery.  Joseph said, "No!  I'm the funny boy!"

Emily started kindergarten this year, and because Emily never does anything without Joseph, Joseph started kindergarten this year.  His ability to recognize the letters and numbers is amazing.  He doesn't have the hand-eye coordination Emily has but he's only 3.  He makes me laugh every time we start school.  I'll say, "Come on Joseph.  It's time for school."  Joseph will complain and say, "I don't want to."  I don't make him, because he's so young, but as soon as he hears Emily and me going over the letters and their sounds, he jumps in the chair next to us and grabs a crayon.

This cowboy outfit was in a bag of hand-me-downs some friends gave us.  Can you guess what Joseph is going to be for Halloween?  He's so cute!