reading time

i just LOVE that my boys LOVE to read. it drives me crazy when they practically empty their bookcase and bring ALL the books out to the couch or to my bed, but the cleanup is totally worth it when i see them doing this...

sniff, sniff... the surfer locks are gone

so i finally submitted to cutting joel's hair... ben made me do it. :)

here's the before:

















here's the after:

i forgot to take a before shot of kadin's hair, but it looks pretty much the same. i keep his hair pretty short because it's so stick-straight and fine, but he's darling anyway...

the sweetest day ever...

okay, this is about a day that was NOT the sweetest day ever. on thursday i put my boys down for their nap at around 2:00. after going in the room several times, administering a few spankings and trying desperately to get them to just go to sleep, kadin came waddling out of their room at about 4:15. he was COVERED in poop and both boys were freaking out. why can't i just use my nose sometimes?!! i'm sure he'd pooped a while before that and that's why they weren't sleeping. and i felt terrible that i spanked them for goofing around when the problem could have been easily solved if i had just paid attention and used my head. anyway, the sheets and blankets were smeared, the crib was covered, there were chunks ground into the carpet and, of course, kadin and blue doggie were a mess. he had swung his leg over the side of his crib to climb out and... you get the picture. sick, sick, sick, disgusting, sick. so after a bath, some serious carpet scrubbing and a load of laundry (complete with some intense stain treatment), everything and everyone was clean and fresh.

about 20 minutes after i finished the clean up, i was blowing bubbles for the boys. they were having a grand old time, squealing with joy... swatting, popping and running after bubbles. smack! head on collision. kadin came out unscathed, but joel was clearly hurt as he was sobbing and carrying on, which he never does... kadin is usually the one that gets injured from their wrestling episodes. joel had this huge black and blue goose-egg swelling up under his eye. i had to pin him down to keep ice on the bruise and it was not easy. it was all very traumatic and tragic for joel. i couldn't decide whether to cry or laugh for him... he was very dramatic. needless to say, i got a great workout that afternoon... and joel is sportin' a sweet shiner.

joel pouting about having his picure taken.
"okay, i'll humor you and smile, but i won't look at the camera." anyone else have a hard time getting their kids to look at the camera? drives me nuts!
ben and joel wrestling... is it any wonder that joel has a shiner?!!

24 hours in sacramento

ben ran the run the river half marathon in sacramento on the 15th and i'm just gonna say that he pretty much rocks. his goal was to get under 90 minutes... he came in at 1:28:03. he placed 7th overall and 1st in the 25-29 age group. can you tell that i'm such a proud wife?

while we were at my parents that weekend, grandpa bill set up one of the train sets for joel and kadin and they were in their element all day long. between the dogs, the trampoline and the trains, there was constant entertainment for the boys which resulted in never-ending happiness for me.

tagged

jackie tagged me and i thought this one was pretty fun. and easy. which is important.

this is the fourth picture in the fourth photo of our iphoto collection:

this is on our trip to hawaii a couple years ago... looking kinda dorky on our hotel bed.

i tag morgan, janaya (she needs things to blog about, even though today she had 2 posts in one day) and jillian (i want to see if she even has a fourth folder of pictures).

costumes, candy and cuties

ben took the boys to the ward halloween party while i was out of town for the weekend. he had to give them suckers before they even got to the party so they would calm down and put their costumes on without freaking out. ben said they were seriously a mess by the end of the night as you can see from the pictures below. but that's what halloween is all about though, right? ...letting your kids gorge themselves on candy while making a sticky mess for you to clean up. they had a great time, so it was worth it.

joel was a bat (or a "batty-bat" as he likes to call it).

kadin was a monkey.

i was so sad i missed it, but at least i have this cute shot to make up for that.
on halloween night, we took the boys trick-or-treating with a couple of their favorite friends, sam and charlie. kadin insisted on eating the candy he had received after every house, so we had a hard time moving him along as fast as the older three boys, but they all had a good time and got plenty of candy. one great thing about having so much candy in the house is that i have some excellent leverage to get my boys to eat their broccoli (they call them "trees") and carrots. they have to eat three of each before they get a piece of candy. totally genius. except they are probably eliminating all the healthy benefits of their veggies by immediately eating sugar. oh well. i do what i can.

6 1/2 months

i haven't been very diligent at documenting my pregnancy like i hoped i would. oh well. here's my ever expanding belly at 28 weeks or 6 1/2 months or how ever you like to say it.