Cutest Little Chubby Fingers

Paris is very into painting her nails. The other day we bought a little kit that had sparkly polish, stickers and little press-on nails. We did all three. The press-on nails lasted about five minutes.  Also notice her armful of silly bandz.

Quail Hollow

Austin took the boys to the Quail Hollow golf tournament yesterday.  They had a great time and even got a couple of autographs. Sadly Tiger didn't show up. Too busy with his local girlfriends I guess.

Will's a Redneck Now

Not really shooting Paris, she just came in at the wrong time.  By the way this is just an AIRSOFT gun not a real rifle. Thought we would finally embrace NC and get a couple of guns and a gun rack to put in Austin's BMW. Will begged a friend of mine to give him this sweet camoflage one-piecer.

Did you know . . .

that you can eat ice cream with scissors?

Will tried it out today and let me know that it works just fine. Not real sanitary or safe, but in a pinch, it'll do.

Cooper's Philosophy on Hygiene

We were packing for a recent trip to the beach and I asked Cooper and Will to each pack some shirts, underwear, shorts, etc.  Then Austin double-checked what they packed (in the past we made the mistake of NOT checking and found that Will had only packed a superhero costume and some boots for the whole trip).  Anyway, Will had his nice little row of five pairs of underwear but Cooper had no underwear.

Austin: "Cooper, where is your underwear for the trip?"

Cooper, "Dad, it is only five days."

Awesome.

Apparently we have done a great job instilling the dos and don'ts of personal hygiene in Cooper.  Hopefully when he is a stinky boy of 12 and beyond, we will have remedied this problem and introduced showering and deodorant into his routine.

Note: With some intervention we did pack more than one pair of underwear for Cooper for the whole trip.

Happy Belated St. Patricks Day!

Will and Cooper both wore green wigs to school to celebrate St. Patrick's day and we even had green pancakes to celebrate and if I can ever get my stupid picture uploader to work I will include more pictures.

Umm, Max could be dead again.

Unfortunately after the joyful reunion with Max the hamster, Paris seems to have left his cage open and we haven't seen him again in a week. We have been leaving a little bowl of food out to lure him out of wherever he is, but it doesn't seem to be working. Guess we are white trash with critters running around after all.

DAY 5 -- Will Saves Max (for the second time)

Max is the name of our hamster. Max was almost snake food. That is how we found Max. Our friends were going to feed him to their snake, but we decided to keep him. Unfortunately, his 9 brothers and sisters were not as lucky.

Late last night Cooper told me, Max, our hamster was lost. He said it happened before Mom left.

"What?" "We lost him 6 days ago?" "How come nobody said anything to me?"

Cooper started to look as if he were being caught in a trap --

" I , ur, don't know - ask Mom -- just ask Mom - Just call Mom!" Apparently the the two had decided it would be better if Dad did not know that we lost the hamster. While I was annoyed, Will just found out at the same time I did. He was crushed. He sobbed himself to sleep as I told him Max was probably dead and could not live this long without food and water. Will said a sweet prayer "that Max could be ok, wherever he is "

6:00 AM -- I woke the kids up for school and Will is getting his bag and shoes when he sees something scamper across the floor from our closet into the bathroom (No we do not just have "critters" crawling all over our house, but apparently we are more red neck than I thought. A hampster can live off our crumbs for 6-8 days without being phased.).

"MAX!" WIll yells.

No one else even saw him, but Will was right. He was decidedly skinnier than we remembered him but we gave him some food and water and he gobbled it down. When we saw him do his spiderman trick where he climbs up the side of his cage, we knew he was ok :)

I had to go back to work today and tomorrow, so I we had a nanny service come today. Her name is Jessie and my kids love her. We have had her on multiple occasions thanks to this sweet new benefit we found at my work. Feels like cheating but I don't see them again until 6:00.

6:00 PM -- We had dinner together, did homework and got ready for bed. Mom comes home tomorrow. We called Mom -- The kids loved talking to her. You could just see how much they love their Mom.

Mom sounded great too. I guess 6 days in Newport Beach taking in the sunshine and beaches and good food will re-energize you. Can't wait for her to come back.

DAY 4 - A Day of Rest?

A few of you have made some great points like "I applaud the efforts but, I don't hear anything about cleaning the house." or "They better tell you thanks if you take them to Chik-fil-a, Five guys and Pizza (It was frozen) every day." These are all very valid points.

Let me be clear - I am in it for survival in the short term. If all kids are alive when my wife comes home, I will call it a success. I just want to make it to the end -- to see Mom again.

There is absolutely no question, Mom is way better at this than me. And these "opportunities" always turn into "Mom appreciation weeks" but honestly, I appreciated her a ton going into this. I appreciate the work all Moms do even more. It is full on, all out, never ending, I could always be doing something more, WORK. It does have some rewarding moments, and you have to savor them.

But if it makes any of you feel better, we did clean today and we did not eat at any restaurants today :).

=====

Today was Sunday, and it actually felt the most normal of any of the days so far. Knowing this was my biggest chance for Shanda's friends to leak information back to Shanda, I made sure the kids were bathed for church. They may have been dirty all week, but I am not dumb enough to leave them that dirty for church.

9 - 12:30 Went to Church. The kids were good during church overall. I was pleasantly surprised.

1 -5: Paris takes a nap the majority of the time. I made cookies with the boys. Cooper has some serious chef skills. At age 8 he may know more than me about cooking. He knew how to use our kitchen aid better than me. Will knew where aprons were for everyone (except me - come on, just cause I am watching the kids does not mean I am at home wearing an apron!). It was fun and tasty. We also all cleaned our own rooms, did the the dishes and cleaned the the front room. We will have to tackle the enormous mountain of clothes tomorrow. Made lunches for the next day.

5- 7 - Some friends took pity on me and invited us over for dinner. It was great, but Paris is regressing on the potty training. Unfortunately, she almost always tells me for #1 but not for #2. She is in a pull up so it is not the end of the world, but just frustrating. That's a problem I am just not going to be able to fix while Shanda is gone. I think she needs to be sent to her Nonny's for Potty Training Boot Camp. Wonder if she is reading this? What do say Ang? I know you are coming back in a week?

7:30 PM -- Kids in bed. Work tomorrow. Fairly uneventful, peaceful day.

DAY 3 -- The Return of my Daddy Swagger

I started to get my swagger back on day three.

7:30 -- The kids woke up before me but played nice and watched cartoons for a bit. Feeling hapy about that I declared we were going to Chik-Fil-A for breakfast (a great southern fast food treat that we frequent often on Saturday mornings).

9:00 - 10:00 We then went to my basketball game where there was a solid pack of kids that I just let my three join while I was playing. We won by 20 and we are not that good. So they were just awful. I mean they shot a lot of air balls. If I were to guess, I would say like 15.

10:00 - 12:00 -- Next we went to Cooper's practice. The weather was great and their were lots of kids for my kids to play with. This was more like I imagined this experience going.

SPORTS TANGENT COMING (PROUD DAD MOMENT / BORDERLINE BRAGGING) -- If you are tired of me talking about my kids sports triumphs, just skip down a few paragraphs. One of my favorite parts of the day was when Jason Garfinkle, the #1 kid in Cooper's baseball league was playing shortstop (5th grader, 5 time All-Star, one game away from the little league Nationals (AKA the little league World Series)), while his Dad (the Coach) hit pop flies to all the players in the field.

Jason was supposed to be the cut off man. The other kids were supposed to catch the pop fly and then throw it in to the cut off man. The coach hit the pop flies to all the kids and then Jason went out and called for the cut off. And he did that for the first 6 - 7 players. Then it was Coops turn. He caught the pop fly and then Jason did not go out for the cut, signaling to throw it straight to the second baseman. Cooper then threw the ball in from the outfield and hit the second baseman standing on second in the glove.

The coach then asked his son, "Jason, why didn't you go out and call for the cut off?"
"Because he's got an arm, Dad. That kid has an arm, I would have only slowed the play up, if I went and cut it off."

Respect from the biggest stud in the league. No one else at practice probably even noticed, but I thought it was cool.

12:00 - 2:00 After practice we went to Five Guys for lunch. We then got Will some new cleats. Ahhhh, the-little-boy-with-a- new-pair-of-shoes / cleats never gets old. I told him to run a few laps with his new cleats on to try them out. I then told him how fast he looked. Will then talked about how he might be the fastest kid on his team with his new cleats and how he would always be the fastest "if people just didn't get in my way!". I love it. I can still remember running sprints for my next door neighbor as a kid because he told me thought I could run fast in my new shoes.

2:00 - 3:45 Paris takes a quick nap. We have to wake her up to go to Will's practice.

4:00 - 6:00 Will's Practice. Will half cracks me up and half annoys me because the coach puts him at shortstop but he rarely concentrates. He has the attention span of like 5 seconds. But if he pays attention, he is usually pretty good. But I look around and most all the 6 year olds are not paying attention, so I pause for about three minutes, and then start yelling at him to pay attention, quit dancing with his shadow, etc.

6:30 - 8:30 Came home - made pizza and all four of us snuggled on the couch to watch the new episode of Phineas and Ferb -- one our our family favorites from disney.

And that's a wrap -- Not too much drama -- We also got a new toilet today and Paris was the first to christen it.

Also of note -- I did the dishes for the first time. I wrongfully accused Paris of pooping somewhere because a nasty stench had started to stink up the place and then I realized that that the little bit of milk left in your cereal bowl actually curdles after a couple of days. The bad smell did inspire me to bathe all the children tonight.

And there was another poop story, but no one can take back-to-back poop stories.

Last thing -- and the highlight of the day. As we were eating Pizza that night, Will turned to me and said, "Dad, Thanks for an awesome day. We had lots of fun. You are the greatest." The other kids chimed in too. Will is definitely an emotional roller coaster, but he definitely has the kindest heart of the bunch.

Feeling pretty good through 3 days - all things considered.

Life without Mom (Shanda) -- DAY 2

Today was considerably harder. Despite no alarms being set, the kids woke up like clock work right around 6:00 AM.

6:15 AM: Cooper asked me what was for breakfast and I gave him the "It's-gonna-be-a-long-six-days-for-you-kid-if-you- still- can't-pour-your-own-bowl-of-cereal-and-you-are-turning-9-this-month-speech." He then spilled the milk, while pouring.

9:00 Shanda calls. Wow - 6:00 AM her time. Apparently she has not adjusted yet. I find this mind boggling since she is always tired. But while I had her on the phone, I tapped her for a few of her ideas. She gave me like 50, and after like 10 I was like ok, now you are just rubbing it in. You have far superior kind watching time killing ideas than me. Point taken. You don't have to rub my face in it.

10 - Noon -- One amazing idea was to take them to the local YMCA. The kids enjoy going there and they have something for all ages and 2 hours of watching your kids daily is included in the membership. Yeah Haw -- Chester's Dead! (top gun reference for those who follow). We milked that until lunch. Coop went to kid zone for kids 7 and over. This is clearly the big ticket item at the Y and the dream of envy of every six year old in the surrounding area. Will is 6 but I felt no remorse in sending him to the kid zone. I told Coop not to blow his cover. No questions were asked -- clearly this is a tactic Mom has used as well in the past. Coop was playing Michigan Football on the EA Sports College football and destroyed Ohio State. That is as close to a big time victory as Michigan has had in recent years. Will and I played foosball. I worked out for an hour. We then picked up Paris. Genius, Shanda, Genius!

12 - 2 : We went to subway for lunch. Then off to the batting cages, Then off redeem our gift cards at Cold Stone - despite it still being unseasonable cold for Charlotte.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY -- No nap today but caught a break -- Cooper's friend asked him to spend the night. Let me think about that for a second, "um, yeah -- I think we can accommodate. Would you like Will and Paris as well. No sleepover is complete without them? "

4:00 - 6:00 Baseball Practice -- Now this is usually the highlight of my day. I love watching the kids play baseball. But with three kids and no help, It was decidedly different. Paris says she has to go potty and is holding her croutch with both hands. I was helping out playing first base at the time and said -- Looks like someone will have to take over for me. I pick her up and run to nearest bathroom. Since we haven't had the first game yet, it appears the facilities are locked. Checked my back up -- the port-a-potty in front of field 10. It is no where to be found. Newman!

I have no choice but to take her in the woods. Can I just say this process is SO MUCH EASIER FOR BOYS? Here i am in sub 40 temperature pulling Paris pants, shoes, socks and underwear off so she can pee. And then, and I thought this only happened to boys, but not being in her natural comfort zone, she gets stage fright. Nothing comes out. She turns to me -- All done Daddy.

You gotta be kidding me, For the love of all things, "Pee Paris" "Pee like the wind."

" I no have to pee Daddy." So I put it all back on.

20 minutes later she says she has to go Poo-Poo. Now I am really in trouble. I find out there is a facility about 300 yards away. I run to the car -- Don't bother buckling her and drive as fast I can. I keep encouraging her to hold it. She is doing it valiantly. We get to the bathroom and I choke under the pressure and am admittedly slow getting everything off. Right as I am pulling down her pull up, she let's it fly. So close and yet so far away. Needless to say, Paris went commando the rest of practice.

Practice finished. We rented Harry Potter and got treats. Then I realized Harry Potter is like 2 and half hours and called it at the half way point. I am exhausted. But they are in bed and I am soon to follow.

Hoping today will be better and it will get warmer soon.

Life without Mom (Shanda) -- DAY 1

So in a moment of weakness, I offered to send Shanda out to see her brother and his family and watch our three kids for six days. I am used to watching the kids for a few hours at a time, but needless to say, this will be quite an adventure. So for kicks, and for the 5-6 of you listening, I am deciding to chronicle the highlights of each day. By the way, it is only day one, but I already have mad respect for all the stay at home spouses out there.

6:00 AM -- Wake the kids up and get them ready for the bus. Had 30 minutes to get them dressed, fed and lunches ready. It is bad enough that our kids are supposed to be picked up at 6:35 AM for school, but the bus driver got to our house at 6:24 AM today. D&*% that bus driver! Oh well, got them off safe and back to bed I go.

6:37 AM -- Paris wakes up. So much for the back to bed plan.

9:15 AM -- I can not believe it is only 9:15 AM. I read stories, watched a cartoon, made breakfast, played basketball and went on a walk with Paris. I got nothing left in the tank or pool of ideas. About 2.5 hours into this I am hitting my typical time period that I watch the kids. No wonder Shanda takes these kids to the YMCA everyday. I am in trouble.

10:15 -- The kids asked if I could meet them for lunch at school since I am not home very often. So I said sure all flattered and then they left their orders of the food they wanted me to bring them. WIll wants hamburger and chicken nuggets and Cooper wants Sushi. But we needed something to kill the time so I accommodated.

10:55 -- I ran into the gas station for 1 minute with Paris in the car and the doors locked. I could see the car the entire time, but thought to myself, moms must be tempted to lock their kids up all the time when they run errands. I feel bad about it.

11:15 -- Met Will for lunch. Waiting in the cafeteria, one of the neighbor girls sees me and quickly takes me under her wing and explains that I am in the wrong table and how the lunch process works. It was appreciated and cute all at the same time.

You can learn a lot at a lunch table with 6 year olds. Let's start with I thought I was the starring attraction, but I wasn't. It was all Paris. They ate her up. Repeatedly asking her questions and laughing at whatever she said. Paris loved it too. Will held his sisters hand most of lunch and all the way back to his class. It was pretty cute.

By the way, I think Will is officially the class clown, but he did not really want me to know. The kids kept asking Will -- "Hey Will, tell us a joke. Come on Will, just one joke." He kind of gave them the look like, not now guys, my Dad is here.

12:15 -- Lunch with Cooper and his friends. Sushi definitely got Cooper the attention he was looking for. About 5 minutes into lunch Cooper announced "Who wants a Wasabe Sushi Bomb?" It had shades of the playground on Christmas Story and a double dog dare. His good friend Ecam rose to the occasion. " I am African," he declared. "Africans eat all sorts of spicy things. It does not bother me at all. I am an African American. "

Ecam had thrown down the gauntlet. Cooper took the entire side of wasabe meant for 12 pieces of sushi to share and pasted all on one "Wasabe Sushi Bomb." I was nervous. This could seriously do some damage I thought. I was the only adult at the table. Ecam ate it up without hesitation. Not even a blink. No water. "I am African American," he declared again in victory. Impressive stuff.

We also started beating our hands to rhythm of "We Will Rock you" on the table. The two tables next to us started joining in and then I realized, oh no, I started this ruckus. Good to know I can still hang with the 8 year olds at lunch. Good Times. I think I was cooler than Paris with the 8 year olds, but it was still debateable.

1:15 -- Paris down for a nap. Will and Coop still at school. I had a nap. This is the only perk that I found in staying at home today.

2:45 -- Kids home from School. We played baseball. Coop practiced pitching to me. We all played a little hoops. Paris dunked. Made a snack.

5:00 -- Went to the dollar movies. Snuck in drinks and suckers. I had a can of Fresca for each of the kids. Dad's don't do wussy juice boxes. I think this might have been the first time Paris ever got an entire can of pop. oops. Luckily there were only about 7 people in the theater and we were 4 of them. She was bouncing off the walls. It has no calories -- I thought it would be ok. oops.

7:00 -- late dinner. Made left overs -- Thanks Shanda. 8:30 -- Kids in bed. No school tomorrow. It is going to be even harder. And I think I used some of my best stuff today. We'll see.

Paris

I've been waiting for whole life for a little baby girl who would do this. Who would also love it when I make necklaces and rings for her and then wear them on her chubby fingers. Who would pronounce the word "wolf" as "woof" as in The Boy Who Cried Woof. Who would enthusiastically clap and sing and listen at reading time. Who tells me to chew my food before talking to her. Who asked Heavenly Father to help us in this cold "feather" in her prayers. Who will sit for hours with an open book reading loudly to herself. Who loves to go shopping and say, "Ohhh, Cute" when I show her something. Who always tells me I look pretty after I get dressed even if it is sweats to go running. Who wants to snuggle face to face with her little arms wrapped tight around my neck.

Love you Paris! Thank you for making me smile!

Pinewood Derby 2010

This is our first year that we had a son old enough for the Pinewood Derby. Cooper and Austin worked hard on Cooper's car (with the help of many friends -- Thanks Bro. Coombs) - a camouflage "Humvee". He managed to win a few races and come in fourth place out of 15 participants. But the most adorable event of the night was seeing Will watch the races intently and then cheer like crazy when Cooper won.

Thank Goodness for Good Samaritans

It's been a pretty rotten day. I took a boot camp class at the YMCA two days ago that has left me hammered - I have never been this tremble-when-you-see-a-set-of-stairs-sore in my life - and I have taken the opportunity to let anyone I talk to know about it. So just getting around the house, cleaning and dealing with whiny children that want to be held has not been great. Add to that PMS and school off today and I think you can imagine what a monster mom I have been.

So to top it off, tonight at 9:30 Cooper and I went to Target to get him a pair of water sandals to take with him to the beach this weekend with a friend. As we were casually inspecting the sandals and perusing the 75 percent off aisle, I hear over the loud speaker, "Will the owner of the black BMW with the license plate #1UMFan come to the customer service desk?" My heart sunk, but I thought it was just because I left the lights on again - this is Austin's car and I don't drive it very often and tend to leave lights on and run the battery down and then need a jump and such. Well, it was a bit worse than that. Apparently I left the car, a standard, in neutral and forgot to engage the emergency brake. So while we were nonchalantly shopping, our car started to roll across the parking lot, scraping the cart corral on its way to Panera Bread - not real close to Target by the way. Then a stranger saw the problem, jumped into the car while it was rolling, pulled the E-brake and then pushed it into a new parking spot. Then he left.

He didn't steal the car or anything in it, or laugh as it rolled into a building or another car. A complete stranger put himself in danger by running after the car, stopping it and then pushing it to a new spot. Probably not what he was planning when he set out for Target tonight. And the car was nowhere close to where I originally parked it, it moved nearly half the parking lot away. The car isn't wrecked, there is a scrape along the side from the cart corral but nothing like what could have happened.

I feel so much gratitude for this person who did this. I never got to meet him, he was gone before I found out what happened. So all I could do is thank my Heavenly Father for putting someone in place to help me avoid a major catastrophe. It just shows how much he loves me, this could have been significantly worse and instead it was minor.

Black Friday and my buddy Cooper

For some reason Cooper was really excited about Black Friday shopping this year. I am not sure whether it was the thought of quality time together or because he thought he could finagle me into buying him a lego set on sale (which he did, but won't get it until he pays me back). Anyway, this was my second year shopping, we never did this growing up. My parents were more of the philosophy that you didn't go anywhere near stores on Black Friday, with good reason.

Cooper set his alarm clock for 4 am after suggesting that I set out my clothes for the next day and sleeping in his. Then he woke me at 4:21 am and started helping me get dressed and ready. He got a stool out and stood by my closet and asked me what I wanted to wear, "Maybe a blouse, mom?" No thanks, more like a t-shirt and sweater. I didn't even know he knew the word "blouse". Then he got out other choices: a denim skirt, some brown dress pants before he finally found my jeans and we settled on a green sweater, pink shirt and jeans. He told me that my sweater and shirt would look good together because they are close together on the color wheel.

After Cooper hustled me out the door and we made our way to Walmart, he insisted that we RUN into the store at 4:55 am. Run? I was barely stumbling. But we ran in and got everything on our list. It was fun to have a little shopping buddy though I think he was expecting to find a couple of Wii games and Guitar Hero for $5. We didn't find that but I did treat him to a delectable breakfast at McDonald's when we were done.

Paris and Austin . . . Vampires?

It's my own little Edward and Reneesme!

Little Girls Are Cute

If I only knew how fun having a little girl was going to be, I wonder if I would have wished for boys so much initially. My favorite is her in the blanket.

Although she is all snuggled up next to the Anthropologie shopping bag -- that could make me wish for boys again.

Austin

Deliverance

This week at my bible study class our lecture was on Psalm 125 and specifically deliverance from the Lord. The lecturer spoke about a concept I have forgotten along the way. We have the mistaken belief that deliverance means that our trials will end or we will somehow have relief. I like how the lecturer described deliverance:

"it means living confidently as one who is protected, impenetrable like Mount Zion . . . rest in the powerful surrounding presence of God . . . living in the storm of trials and having peace."

Lately I've been very frustrated with my life, my kids, how my brain seems to have evaporated and the constant fatigue that comes with being a mom. This lecture brought me back to what we are doing here. I am here to be tested and tried and polished through the fire of difficulty. But the silver lining is that I will be able to do it, I will be able to get through it with Christ and come out better for it.

This morning something happened that perfectly illustrated this point to me. A friend and I drove 1 1/2 hours away to attend the Columbia, South Carolina temple. Don't even get me started on the fact that I had to leave at 6:30 am and had been up since 2 am with a bout of insomnia. Anyway, after the session I was definitely ready to go home quick and rest and felt weepy and nauseated from lack of sleep.

When I tried to start my car it wouldn't turn over, and the battery seemed to be dead. This was the trial and then came the deliverance. We found a man in the parking lot who was a mechanic who gave us a jump and even more importantly helped us find the battery. I'm not completely stupid, but have you ever looked for the battery under the hood of a BMW? It is in a weird spot and doesn't look anything like any other battery in a car. So anyway, this wonderful man was able to correctly hook our jumper cables up and jump us and even point out the fact that I had left my lights on, and that is why the battery was dead. By the way, I was driving Austin's car so I wasn't familiar with all these BMW quirks.

I was frustrated but just so grateful for how this played out, it could have been much different. It could have been pouring rain, we could have been boxed in by other cars in the parking lot with no way to reach the engine with the cables, there could have been no other cars there. We could have hooked the cables to the wrong spot and blown up the car! I felt like Mount Zion - we got through it with all the extra helpful things from Heavenly Father. AND I learned from my trial to always make sure to turn my lights off!

24 Hour Readathon

Many people were confused or simply thought I was ridiculous when I told them about participating in my first 24 hour readathon. It was lots of fun with my friend Tricia. We spent most of the day at her house reading on her comfy couches and being served by her smiley husband, then spent the night at a Southpark hotel with yummy food from Maggianos and Cheesecake factory. (Meanwhile Austin was at home feeding the kids Cici's pizza for under $10 for the whole family).

Despite the lack of snacks to shovel into our mouths the whole time -Tricia doesn't believe in snacking while reading, or ever - we still had a great time.

I read for about 14 hours of the 24, completed 3.3 books and 823 pages, had lots of laughs and even stayed up past 9 pm for my first time!

By the way, despite what this picture looks like, we had our own beds and didn't snuggle on the same pillow the whole night.