Friday Foto October 2, 2009

We are a wrestling family. I guess that is inevitable with a bunch of boys. We LOVE wrestling. There is nothing better than spending the whole day at a gym full of stinky boys and whiny kids watching your kid get his face smeared into the mat. Ok, maybe there are a few more interesting things, but this comes in at a pretty close 2nd!

When Caden was 4, he was all set to wrestle a boy up in Virginia. We told him to put on his game face, so he went out there and growled at the boy as he shook his hand. The boy ran away crying and forfeited to Caden! Caden is a tough competitor. He is a scrawny, scrappy little wrestler. Usually both Joe and I are yelling, I mean encouraging, from the sidelines. We get very into it. I am sure that we are embarrassing parents, but they can never say that we don't support them in all that they do!

No Candy for You!

I forgot all about this, but thank goodness I wrote it down on a scrap of paper and found it today in the bottom of my bag.
A couple of weeks ago we were grocery shopping and we finally got to the checkout. The kids had been so-so. Abigial kept asking to get out of the buggy to look at the candy and I kept telling her no. I was putting all the bagged groceries back into the buggy, and I heard her ask me, "Do you want me to be a happy girl?" I thought to myself, "Oh, she is so sweet, trying to be good." I told her that would be very nice. She then comes back with, "Well then, you better let me get a piece of candy." EXCUSE ME MISSY?!
I thought that kind of manipulativeness didn't come until they were teenagers. No candy for the next 10 years girl!

Friday Foto September 25,2009

About 2 years ago we had a visit from some awesome friends. They were moving from Florida to Idaho and stopped by our house on the way. We let the kids stay up late because who knew when we would get to see them again. It was about 10:00 at night and they were out jumping on the trampoline. In the dark. Smart, I know. All of the sudden Caden comes screaming into the house with blood pouring down his face. We all started running around in circles and hollering. "What happened?!" All he could get out was Parker and my first thought is, "I'm gonna kill that kid." We start heading out the door to the emergency room and Parker comes thru the door with blood pouring down his face! The whole place is in an uproar as we are trying to figure out what in the world is going on!!
We jump into the van, while I, in true Erma Bombeck style, have a dirty dish rag wrapped around each kids head. We finally get out of them what happened. They were all in a big ball rolling around on the trampoline and Caden thought that it would be a great idea to tackle them. So he leaps as high and as hard as he can into the pile. Unbeknownst to him, Parker had the same great idea and leaped at the exact time into Caden's head.
I think that was a first for the doctor's and nurses at the ER. They even snickered a time or two. Parker required 8 stitches and Caden 12.
We don't have a trampoline anymore.

If this is what toddlerhood is like, I don't think we can handle teenagers.

We always thought that Joseph or Parker would be the first of our kids to wreck one of our vehicles. Apparently we have bred a NASCAR driver without realizing it.
Yesterday Joseph had a dentist appointment so we were headed out to the school to pick up the kids early. I told Abigail and Jacob to pick up the blocks off the living room floor and I went upstairs to get Matthew out of his crib. I heard the front door open and Jacob head out to the van. (you knew his name was going to pop up, didn't you) I really didn't think too much of it because he does it all the time. I came downstairs with Matthew and looked out the front door and the van was not there. That struck me as odd for a half a second and then I came to my senses and screamed, "WHERE IS THE VAN?!" I looked closer and I saw it sitting among the trees down the hill. It was totally like a movie, running in slow motion. I ran screaming down the hill for Jacob and I could see him in the driver's seat crying. I had to climb over the fence and thru all the poison ivy and weeds. I could barely open the door because the fence was jammed up against the driver side door. I kept asking him, "What happened? What happened?" His only reply was, "The car. The car." There was not a scratch on the child. You would think that somebody standing in the drivers seat only holding on to the steering wheel, careening backwards, down the hill at probably 15 mph would have been flung around the car, but apparently he has superhuman strength and was able to hold on.

The best I can figure is a) He grabbed the keys out of the house and decided that he was going to start the car and be helpful, (yeah right!) or b) He grabbed the keys out of the house and decided that he was going to start the car and be mischievious. (yeah, that one sounds more like it!)
So I call Joe, because now I am in a huge predicament. I have 7 kids. There are not many vehicles that we can fit in. He doesn't answer. I am not really sure what I thought he would do at that precise moment anyhow. I am still thinking "got to get to the dentist on time" so I go slipping down the hill in the mud, crawl thru the van and pull out carseats and throw them in the truck. By this time I am dripping with sweat. We high tail it to the school where the boys are sitting in the front office waiting on me. Joseph looks at me like "why are you so late?" I just shoot him a look and say, "You have no idea." We get to the dentist only 10 minutes late where we explain very calmly why we are running late.


Later that evening when Joe got home, he got on the tractor and pulled it out of the woods, off the fence, and out of the mud.



Joe asked Jacob if he wrecked mama's car. Jacob looked very panic stricken and wouldn't answer. Joe asked him again and Jacob said, "No Sham." (that is how he says no, ma'm) Joe said, "Well, who did it?" Jacob replied, "Parker".

Joe said it is probably totaled. It will cost more to get it fixed than it is worth at this point. I was really hoping to get 300,000 miles out of it. I was almost there with 268,000.

This is where it came to rest up against 2 trees.

This is a view of the back side. It looks like an accordian. The metal is just rippled and the bumper is folded in half.

This is the back of the van. The back window busted and flew out into the woods. My beloved stroller survived!

This is a view of the house from where the van was sitting. That little person on the hill is Parker. This gives you an idea of how far it traveled.

We are driving my brother-in-law's suburban. Thank goodness for family with extra vehicles lying around!

IF this child survives to be a teenager, he will NEVER get his license. I can just hear the insurance company now....hmm, If he totaled a car at the age of 3, yep, let's push their rates thru the roof!

All in all, we are truly thankful that he is ok. As Joe put it, it is probably a lot like our Heavenly Father looks at us. We couldn't punish him, more than he had punished himself. We hugged him, kissed him, and told him we were so glad that he was ok. Along with NEVER GET IN THE VAN AGAIN! Heavenly Father loves us and forgives us for the really dumb stuff that we do.

Hopefully the insurance company will forgive us!

Run Chikin Run

I have no excuse as to why I have waited almost 2 weeks to post about our race. It is not like our photographer didn't send us the pictures 2 days after the race. It may be because Joe beat me this time and I didn't want to admit it! ; ) Last weekend, Joe and I ran our 10K in preparation for our half marathon. It was sponsored by Chick-Fil-A, hence the name. The course followed along the greenway and went all thru the Battlefield. That was my favorite part. (I love history, especially the Civil War.) Least favorite part, dude that decided that 2 feet off the pathway was a great place to relieve himself. Seriously dude, I have to go too, but I waited until there was an actual bathroom.


I CANNOT figure out how to put pictures in order when I upload them, so we will start at the end. : )


Here we are right after the race replinishing ourselves with water, smoothies, and cookies.
Here we are at the start of the race, feeling great, looking great, and posing with the cow.

And here we have an awesome action shot of me right before I crossed the finish line! I would like to say that there was a bug that flew in my mouth, I had a stitch in my side, or sweat was running into my eyes. Truth is, I probably just look this goofy running!

My mom came down to watch us and to take pictures. She beat us there and she lives an hour away! Many thanks to her for coming and cheering us on and watching us sandwiched in between 586 other runners that she doesn't know, cross the finish line. It meant SO much to have someone there at the finish line cheering us on! She didn't get a picture of Joe crossing, because he was wearing a white shirt like 400 other runners and she didn't see him. He started pulling ahead the last mile and a half. I just didn't have it in me. As we came around the last corner, I saw people running around the lake crossing under the finish line. We both (and also a lot of other people) thought that the finish line would be right where we started, but we had to go around the lake to finish. Joe said he poured it on and then he got around the corner and about cried. He said he was so bummed when he didn't see the finish line where he thought it would be. Our official results:

Joe: 29 out of 39 in age group

347 out of 588

chip time: 1:02:59

pace: 10:04

Lisa: 32 out of 52 in age group

365 out of 588

chip time: 1:03:50

pace: 10:17

Not too bad. Just hoping we can actually run the entire race in a few weeks!

Many thanks to our nieces who babysit the younguns'. Couldn't have done it without you all!

Squirrel Huntin'

A few weeks ago it was "free" squirrel hunting day. (for those uninitiated folks, yes, you really do have to have a hunting license to hunt squirrels and yes, people really do eat squirrels!) The 3 big boys were off in different directions and so Joe took Gabriel hunting. Ever since he got a bb gun for his birthday he has been dying to go hunting. They went up into the woods and sat for several hours. Joe kept asking him if he was ready to go back to the house and he kept telling him, no he wasn't leaving until he got a squirrel. Alas, no squirrels, but a very happy little boy who got to sit in the trees with his dad for several hours one very beautiful sunny morning.

(no, you can't really hurt a squirrel with a bb gun, but Gabe doesn't know that!)

Mr. Vice-President

Meet your new Vice President for the Middle School Student Body.

Caden is kind of like me in the sense that the less attention called to himself, the happier he is. That is why we were surprised when he told us he really wanted to run for vice-president. We set up shop one night making posters and coming up with clever slogans. He bought 2 big bags of candy to "encourage" votes and practiced the speech that his dad wrote for him. ; )

He got in the car on Friday with a sad look and I thought, "Oh man, he must have lost." All the sudden he busted up and started laughing. I won! I won! We don't know how many votes he got, but while we were at the football game last night, every kid that passed us said that they voted for him. He is a great friend to everybody. He always goes that extra step to make sure that everybody is included.

Congratulations Caden!