She's in the Doghouse and Loving Every Minute of It.

(Disclaimer: No children or animals were harmed in the taking of this photograph. Baby entered and exited the doghouse by her own free will.)

Our baby girl absolutely terrorizes our dog, stealing his food and evicting him from his doghouse. Max is a good sport and patiently tolerates it.

Holiday Humiliation!!!

I was helping my sister-in-law and the other women clean up after an enjoyable Thanksgiving dinner. We were visiting and talking about our kids and family. I told them about our 5 year old's most recent stunt at pre-school when I picked him up and his teacher, still feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed told me of the naughtiness. Apparently, our 5 year old went into the bathroom, closed the door, then emerged minutes later,and burst into the classroom buck naked! We all had a laugh in the kitchen as we washed dishes and put away leftovers.

Then from across the room we heard someone snicker, "look at the trampoline, he has his pants off." Our boy was wearing a shirt, his whitey tighties, and swinging his pants in the air as he jumped around. The adults laughed & some family members grabbed cameras to snap a quick photo, before the discipline began. Our clever little boy saw the cameras and heard the laughs from the adults, which pushed this kid, who will do anything for laughs, into a crazed frenzy of stripping and jumping. He was buck naked, jumping around on the trampoline. His sisters attempted to tackle him and shove his clothes back on, but he wiggled away from them and fought them off. My husband and I were horrified! He ran out, grabbed our little nudist, dressed him, carried him inside and placed him alone in a room for timeout and the "naked speech." That speech has been given far too often with this kid! It goes like this:"Where can you be naked? Only in the bathtub, or in your room when you're changing clothes." Then we make the little offender repeat to us where he can and cannot be naked.

I apologised to everyone for ruining Thanksgiving. I felt like we were in some raunchy redneck reality show. This will go down in history and be remembered years later as, "that one Thanksgiving when MY kid jumped on the trampoline naked." The only redemption is the photos that will be brought out 20 years from now to show his future fiance, we'll see who's laughing then!

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World!!!

Happy Birthday Mom! I am so blessed to have you in my life. Thank you, Mom, for the encouragement that you give and for the inspiration that you are. This blog entry is a tribute to you. To honor you for the beautiful, loving, generous, compassionate woman that you are. I have always been amazed by your optimism. Through life's trials, and you've had your fair share, you have always had the ability to handle your struggles with grace while lifting up those around you. You are a woman of unwavering faith and strength. I am blessed to have your influence in my life and in my children's life.

When I was a teenager, all my friends wished their moms were as cool and fun as you (and my guy friends thought you were hot!) Now you are the coolest, most fun, hottest grandma ever!

I love you very much. Thanks for teaching me how to have fun, lighten up, be happy, and love life! I am proud to say I have the WORLD'S GREATEST MOM!!!

We'd love to buy this place.

Even though we probably can't afford it, we enjoyed a beautiful afternoon trespassing.

When Your Helping, You're Happy.....

Applying water seal stuff to the swing set. Our 4 year old said,"I wanna help, I wanna help."

Mowing and mulching the leaves. Our 10 year old said' "You can't make me do it!!!" Max supervising

Last weekend, the first weekend in Nov., we worked on some outside fall chores and enjoyed the warmer than average, beautiful sunny day.

We See The Light!

Above, view from inside the basement, currently our family room.

Above, the side of our house before, and below see the new 32"x23" window installed, after.

My husband's weekend project was to add a window in the basement where the previous owners had boarded up the hole after they broke the original window. The basement was like a dungeon before, but now we see the light of day. Unfortunately, I took all the after pictures at night so you can't "see the light," in the photos. We have another window to install that is a 6ft x 2ft slider, it is a much bigger project for long weekend. We have plans to turn our 3 bedroom house into a 5 bedroom house and I am excited that our project is finally making progress. With 5 kids we are starting to feel pretty crowded with only 1152sq.ft. on the main level. Finishing out the basement will give us almost 2000 sq.ft. We are so fortunate to have a basement.

Our Halloween Costumes

The costumes!!!! From left to right: Baby Ladybug, Electioneer/Ballot Box, Spiderman, Bat, devil gymnast.

Our mischievous little bat!

Sorting out the loot.
Admiring her little plastic guys, she call them her "bouncy martians." She won them at the church carnival playing pumpkin bowling and the spider throw.

Our son tallied the results on his ballot box. Each piece of candy was a vote. The other children at church wanted to "vote" so they cast their "ballots" (candy) into the box. This kid got the mother load of candy in our house. McCain won 47-7.

It's always fun to put devil horns on the baby. Now that we have the baby, the dog is off the hook, and no longer has to bear the "dress-up" humiliation.

Carnival fun with Sister Scary.

All tuckered out! Snug as a bug,......

The Big Day!

Can you guess who we're voting for?

VOTE!

I am excited to get to the polls! I just looked over the sample ballot and realized that I have been so fired up about the presidential election that I failed to really study out our local issues. All of our local candidates are republicans with no opponent so that part is a breeze. Although I'm considering "writing-in" myself or my husband somewhere on the ballot, I wonder what the coroner's salary would be? Now I just need to form an opinion on storm water control and home health care. I really wish I could get into to action in California and vote down same-sex marriage again! Knowing my sis can vote on the issue is comforting. I campaigned against that same issue when I lived there in 2000. Now is the time to pray and wait. Family First, Country first. I'ts going to be a long night!

Baby Pumpkins, Baaaaby!

Decorating mini-pumpkins on family night was fun. The kids used sheets of foam that they cut for their pumpkins faces, glued on googly eyes, and put a straw hat on top. The baby enjoyed wearing and eating her hat.