Some more Halloween Pics...

Halloween was so much fun this year! The kids really enjoyed their costumes. Andy even wore a lion puppet on his hand so he could be the cowardly lion. My kids told everyone that I was the wicked witch of the west (they can't really figure out the direction thing)...I don't know why I couldn't be Glinda the Good Witch...oh well, what can you do :)



Wrestling Calvin into his costume :) I don't know why he is smiling - this is not funny :)



Dorothy and the Scarecrow...



Ahhh...isn't she cute.

Calvin actually did great with this costume...he kept it on all night! And he kept falling all over himself - just like the actual scarecrow :)

A rather stoic looking Tinman - he was totally happy being the tinman as long as he had his axe!

Dorothy and "Toto" - she loves this costume!

Calvin got a mosquito bite on his eyelid on Halloween. He woke up on Sunday with it SWOLLEN! Then as he was walking down the driveway he fell and scraped up the swollen mass...he looks like a boxer after a bad night and Naomi keeps saying, "Calvin is broken"

I'm back!

Okay, I know it's been a while but my camera battery died...what fun is a blog with no pictures of the kiddos:). Here's a quick update on what's been happening for the last several months!

April:

• Spent a weekend in Boston with some great girlfriends - nope, I wasn't running the marathon (missed it by 87 seconds...yep still hurts) but my awesome training partner, Angela was. Andy stayed home with the kids - it was a blast!

• Found out we were pregnant with baby #4! Yay!?!

May:

• Zipped to Paris for a whirlwind 5-day vacation sans kiddos (thanks mom and dad). It was incredible...the city doesn't dissappoint! It didn't hurt that one of the couples we were with spoke fluent french and had an amazing grasp of the city. We did it all - Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Versailles (okay, I can't spell any more of the places we saw - but trust me we saw them all). We even managed to spend our last day visiting the beaches at Normandy and an amazing castle (Mont St. Michel)
  
  
  
• Got back just in time for Calvin to turn 1! He is getting so big!

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  June:
• Went to Seaworld...got food poisoning.
  
• Naomi turned 3! She had a princess party that was, frankly, pretty lame but what can I say it was the day after we recovered from the food poisoning.
  
  
  
  

July:

• 

(Random picture of us blueberry picking with the Smiths - does it look hot?)

August:

• Went to Utah to see my baby sister, Jessica get married! It was great - and the weather was beautiful





• Found out baby #4 is a girl! Awesome - now the girl team and boy team are evenly matched. Elisabeth will be the name...Naomi is stoked (can I still use that word?)

September

• Hmmm...

October

• Tal turned 5!!!!! What happened to my baby? He got a new bike and Andy has spent the month convincing him to ride down the steps of the deck...ahh to be a boy!
  
• Halloween: So much fun! The kids were characters from the Wizard of OZ. Tal was the tinman, Naomi was Dorothy (thanks to Grandma who made the cutest costume ever!) and Calvin was the scarecrow!
  
  
  
  

And here we are in November. Nothing exciting yet...but stay tuned you never know...

Let's go fly a kite...

So thanks to our friend Pete, our kids were introduced to their first "kite-flying" experience. Ever-awed by anything that flies, Tal decided that he was going to create his own kite. What follows is his interpretation of a kite - apparently it doesn't take much to get these kids excited...it's sad really :)

Thank you Disney...

Okay, so my kids watch their fair share of Disney Movies. I never claimed to be a perfect mother and sometimes Disney buys me a few minutes to do things that I might have a hard time fitting into my day otherwise...you know, things like cleaning a bathroom, making dinner, brushing my teeth, or going to the bathroom :) So it shouldn't surprise my that my super-observant kids come up with remarks like this...

T: Girls talk too much.
Mom: Is that right? Where did you hear that?
T: Peter Pan.

(As we are watching the new TinkerBell movie)
T: Hey! There are two things that fix things: Dads and Tinkers!

Let's hear it for the boy...

I have to give a shout out to my hubby...he is awesome!

Anyone who has spent time with us knows how much laundry we generate in a week. I still try and avoid doing laundry more than one day a week - which means I end up with about 7 loads in a day :) Imagine my horror when I opened my washing machine after the first load and found sopping wet clothes...my washer was totally broken leaving me with heaps of laundry and half-naked children running around my house. So I started doing some research - it turns out that this problem is typical with my washer and it can cost anywhere from $200 (if you replace the control board) to $500 (if you call Maytag to replace it) to fix it. Blah! So Andy and I started looking on the internet and found instructions for fixing it...$25 later Andy had succesfully soldered our control board back together!!!! $25!!! That is awesome...he is so handy...and handsome...and such a good dad...and handsome (just because I know this is going to embarass him :)) Love ya!

Boys: 4 Girls: 1

So in our house we operate on a team basis (Parents Team vs. Kids Team or Family Team vs. World Team, etc...) usually the teaming system we use is Girl Team vs. Boy Team - it makes it easier to navigate gender lines (girl team gets to wear lipgloss, boy team gets to pee standing up :)) While the Girl Team has been outnumbered for a few months I was dismayed to lose my only teammember on Sunday when I was taking Naomi up to take a nap. This is how it went...

Mom: Naomi, it's naptime.

Naomi: NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! ARGHHHHHH!!! ROAAARRRRRR!!!

Mom: (Scuffling - then dragging Naomi up to bed) Right now!

Naomi: (In tears) Mommy, I am not going to be on your team anymore!

Mom: Why not?

Naomi: Because you are taking me to bed.

Mom: Whose team are you going to be on?

Naomi: The BOY team!

Dad: (Smirking)

I think I could've handled the rejection until last night. I was filing in the office - an awful task to do with three kids ganging up on you. As I was getting more and more frustrated I had the sudden urge to scream. So you know what? I did. I screamed - I figured it was better then punching a wall and I wasn't screaming at anyone just letting off some steam. This is how it went...

Mom: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tal, Naomi and Calvin: (Silence, mouths hanging open, staring at me in horror)!!

Tal: Mom are you gonna kill us?

Mom: No.
Tal and Naomi: (Hysterical laughter at what a lunatic their mother is)

Okay, so what was I supposed to do at that point but laugh and give them a big kiss. (Please note: he does not actually think I am going to kill him...) Remember that scene in Monsters Inc. when Sully scares Boo and then sees himself on the TV monitor and is shocked by how scarry he looks. Well, I used to tell Andy that is how he looks when he gets mad :) but now it would seem to apply to me too :)

One more thing: Who needs a dog? Tal is playing fetch with Calvin right now. Throwing a stick to him and saying: fetch boy...nice huh??

Spring is here...

Spring is here and we are loving every minute of it. March and November are definitely my favorite months to be in Houston - the weather is usually beautiful and we get to spend lots of time outside. Tal saw a Curious George cartoon about gardens and he has been asking me if we could plant peas and carrots so last Saturday we finally built our garden. We've never gardened in Texas so we're using this as an experiment - but succeed or fail we are having a great time with it. The kids love playing outside so I've attached a couple of pictures and a video - you'll notice Naomi is donning her favorite gear...a t-shirt and rain boots!

Sorry about my commentary - I always sound so dumb on video:)