Flattery will get you everywhere...

The last few days have been, well for lack of a better word, tiresome. I'm sure you've all had those days where it seems that your children will NOT STOP. Stop anything. Stop talking, fighting, just generally being awake...you name it. I have been near the brink of insanity for just about 72 hours. By dinner every day, I have made that lovely face that I'm sure every mother makes on a semi-regular basis. You know the one, where you pull the bottoms of your eyelids down with your hands, as you try to rid yourself of your frustration by pealing your face off your skull? That has been me the last 3 days. Tonight, we needed to go grocery shopping, so we made a list, and agreed that we would eat out tonight, because it was already dinner time, and since we have no food...seemed like a good option.
When you have 4 kids, you have to narrow down your choices based on who either has the cheapest kid food, or which places the kids eat free on any given night. Tonight, it was Steak n Shake. Turns out the kids don't exactly eat FREE all weekend as the big billboard outside claims, but that's a whole different post. Usually if we eat at Steak n Shake, we allow the kids to get jr. shakes at the end of the meal granted they finished their very nutritious meals of Mac and Cheese (why do kids ALWAYS choose something like this, even if they had just had it for lunch?) or cheeseburgers. Not tonight though. Since I was near the point of stabbing a straw into my own ear so I wouldn' t have to hear the word "mom" one more time, we opted to not treat the kids to milkshakes. Cameron and I, however, did order shakes. By the end of dinner, I was really full, with half of my shake left. So, the kids started asking for "sips" (which we all know is really just their way of asking if they can drink as much as possible before you say "okay, that's enough already") so I decided to reward the ones that had finished their food. Peyton got a drink first, then Dylan. When Dylan asked for more, I told him he could have more given that he would sing me "my" song (he loves to sing a certain song to me by James Blunt...I'm sure you've heard it.). So, as loud as he could, he belts out... "YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL! YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL! YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL, IT'S TRUE!" Our waiter happened to be standing behind him when he started singing, eliciting a smile and a chuckle. Once the other kids caught on that this technique worked on dear ol' mom, they broke into several renditions, from Andi's "You're pitiful", to Peyton's "You're beautiful boo boo" all drawing attention to our table. All in all it was a successful outing, except for the fact that we never made it to the grocery store...I knew we forgot something!

Dinnertime Serenade

The kids were watching TV the other day and the Wal-Mart commercial with the family singing "We Will Rock You" came on. Andi got excited because apparently she had heard it in gym class. She asked me how the song goes, and for some reason I taught her the words that I know (we will rock you, that's it). Little did I know that she would not stop singing the song for the rest of the night. At dinner she got her brothers in on the fun, and even started making the Boom Boom Clap noises with it. Cool, stadium rock at dinner time! Woo hoo!

I tried teaching them "Bohemian Rhapsody", which I know all of the words to thanks to Weird Al's "Bohemian Polka". They kids weren't really into that song though because it had more than four words to it, and Sam has something against letting them watch Wayne's World, so they'll never really know just how cool it is. What? It's not cool anyway, and I'm a big dork? Ah, man.

My Wife the Comedian

I like Nerds (the candy). They are quite tasty with all their tiny, tangy, crunchiness. They have Nerds jelly beans, and those are simply the best jelly beans ever made. Sam found a couple bags of Christmas jelly beans on sale at Wal-Mart, for which I will love her forever. (For that, and some other things).

This afternoon, Sam told Dylan to hand me the bag and say "You are what you eat." Har har har. She's lucky our marriage isn't based solely on her finding bags of Nerds jelly beans.

How's the "Losing weight" thing going? Nerds are a fat free treat. There you go. :P

New Year's Resolutions

I wasn't going to make a list of resolutions this year. Why wait until New Year's Day to resolve to do something you could do any time of the year? But then I decided that it's a tradition like fireworks on the fourth of July, pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, or receiving an atomic wedgie on the first day of school. (Glad that's over with, though it still happens at work and at home from time to time.) So, here goes my list of things I should do this year.

Lose Weight This is another tradition, the old lose weight resolution. This is the ninth year in a row for this one. You have to admire that consistency. I can pin down three main reasons why this never ends up happening.
1. I like food. I don't want to start eating rice cakes and oatmeal. Besides, I made oatmeal for my kids once and they said it was disgusting, so I'm going to take their word for it.
2. I like Mountain Dew and Coke when Mountain Dew is not available. I've tried the diet versions of the two, and they just aren't as good. The Diet ones just taste like they left the sugar out or something, and sugar makes stuff taste good. Unless it's my oatmeal, then apparently no amount of sugar can mask the nastiness and taste bud burning putridity.
3. To lose weight I would probably need to exercise, and exercise makes me tired. I don't really like being tired. I haven't slept in like six years, so I'm always tired already. If I exercised I would probably be falling asleep at work starting at 10:00 in the morning, where as right now I'm making it until 1:30 before I start snoozing. I did pretty good at exercising back in May when we first got the Wii Fit, but at the end of June the TV we had in our room went out, and after that I just figured, eh.
So, there you go. I really should lose weight (that sounds familiar) due to stuff like being tired all the time and something called "blood pressure" and it being "too high". This year it will happen! Yeah, that's it.

Write more stuff on the blog Well, that is like a kiss of death to the blog right there. Sorry blog, I'll miss you. I want to do this more so that I can remember what happened during the year. I was going to do one of those lame "year in review" posts, but I realized I wrote like 2 things a month so my review would have ended up saying "Gas prices sucked then were awesome, and I like Mountain Dew." If I keep it up enough, the kids could have some good documentation if they ever end up needing therapy.

Finish things I start I have a short attention span due to my lack of sleep for the past six years, so I'll think something is a good idea and get started on it and then lose interest half way through. Hmmm, that could explain my failure in the weight loss and blogging departments . . .

Well, that's all I have. Now that I've written down my goals, I am certain that I will achieve them. Oh hey, Imagination Movers is on, gotta go!

Andi Turned Six!

Andi turned six yesterday. A lot of things make me feel old. The growing bald spot on the top of my head. Bending over to tie my shoe and having my back spasm on me. Looking at the year on my favorite album and seeing that it was made in 1994. Seinfeld ended 10 years ago. But the real kicker is realizing that I have a six year old kid. Holy cow!

Andi tends to be a bit demanding on her birthday, and seeing that it is one of the worth days possible to have a birthday, we tend to let it slide a little. This year she wanted to go see a movie and go to dinner at Wendy's. (Little did she know we planned on going to a movie this week anyway. Ha!) We went to see Bedtime Stories, which was pretty good. It was like other Adam Sandler movies, except it wasn't crude because it's a Disney movie. The kids all sat through it and were telling us their favorite parts on the way to Wendy's.

We got her a Disney Sing It game for the Wii. I played it with her this morning. There's nothing more awkward than being an oldish man singing something something called "Like Whoa" by Aly and AJ.

There are some songs from High School Musical 1 and 2 on it, and I totally kicked Andi's heinie on those songs. I love High School Musical, and I'm not afraid to say it, even though I really should be. I can't help it, it's catchy.



So, there you go. Happy Birthday Andi! Only 10 more years before she starts driving. (Crap!)

Christmas

The kids woke us up at various times Christmas on Christmas morning. Peyton woke up at 4:30 because he pooped. Sam heard Dylan crying upstairs at 6:00. I went up to see what was going on. He was laying motionless on the floor and I asked him what the problem was. He said he was stuck. Huh? He was stuck because if he moved he would throw up. So, I carried him to the bathroom and he promptly threw up. He wasn't feeling well the night before, so it wasn't really a surprise. Andi and Soni woke up at 7:00, and the first thing Andi said was "It's Christmas! It's my birthday tomorrow!"

So, about that time we took the kids downstairs to see their stockings and open presents. I got a great video of Soni running to her toy that she recognized from the store, and Andi acting all excited about her new boom box. At least that's what I thought. I actually got a great video of me setting down the camera after I thought I had turned it off, and then about 15 minutes worth of my behind as I sat on the floor opening stocking stuff with Soni. Good times.

I also did not take one picture of the present unwrapping. I'm going to go ahead and blame this on being up until 1:00 and then being woken up at 4:30. That, and my old age.

Peyton had some problems yesterday where he ended up pooping every 15 minutes or so. I told him before Christmas that the best present he could give me was to start using the potty. What he did was the exact opposite.

Grandpa Sloan and Uncle Pat were here to spend Christmas with us. It was good to have them here. Grandpa helped Sam cook dinner while I was changing diapers and cleaning up puke, so that worked out well.

It was like 68 degrees here today. Our family in Idaho and Wyoming had like 40 feet of snow dumped on them yesterday. Sorry guys.

Christmas was pretty fun. The kids had a good time and the adults are still alive, so there you go. Merry Christmas!

Ho Ho Ho

Peyton is in a Christmas mood, probably because he knows he'll get stuff.

Giddyup!

We gave Soni a Fisher Price Smart Bounce n Spin Pony for her birthday. I am a lame father, and I didn't get around to putting it together until tonight. I've just gone and taken procrastinating to an art form, haven't I? Oops.

She was so excited to try it out that she tried climbing on it before I had it put together. She was having lots of fun until the darn pony bucked her off. Her feet don't quite touch the ground when she's on it, but with how fast she's growing that will change pretty quick.

"Gingerbread" "House"

Andi's school had a gingerbread house making activity tonight, where everyone go to put together their own gingerbread house as a family. Except, it was graham crackers instead of gingerbread, if we're splitting hairs. The kids were excited to do it, because we haven't really had a tradition of making gingerbread houses. The last one we did was 8 years ago. We ended up making a trailer house, complete with a large satellite dish in the backyard, mainly because we couldn't figure out how to make a stupid roof thingy.

We got there and there were a lot of people already under way, making nice little houses that were decorated with gum drops and M&Ms and what not. We picked a spot and got to work.

Here the kids are anxiously waiting for the house to be done so they could decorate it. It's good to teach your kids disappointment at an early age.

Dylan waiting for it to be done already.

No, Peyton didn't just sit there and eat the candy. Why would a two year old do that?

After several attempts and many failures, I was finally and miraculously able to get a make shift structure that stood up and didn't fall down when it was breathed on. It wasn't pretty by any means:

Hey Andi, smile next to your wicked cool gingerbread house! Dylan shows his disapproval of the lack of architectural integrity of our "house". Sorry buddy.

This is what the final thing ended up looking like. Ummm, I'm not proud of it, but hey, look at it standing up under the weight of the candy! Woo hoo! We named it the Hurricane Ike inspired outhouse. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if I would have just let Sam do it and didn't keep knocking the roof over with my large, shaky hands. "I have such fat hands!"

Maybe we'll practice a little more so next year we can upgrade from an outhouse back up to a trailer house with the satellite dish.

Soni's Birthday Part 2

I forgot to post pictures from Soni's birthday party thing. We had the Buckleys and the Crookstons over for cake and ice cream. Yum.

Here she is opening presents. Wow, that first year went by fast.

This is a cool purse that the Crookstons got her. I had to take it away from the boys the next morning because they were fighting over it. Oh my.
The Buckley got her a dolly, which I apparently did not get a picture of. I had to take that away from the boys the next morning as well because they were fighting over it. :(

"Sure, I can blow that thing out from this far away, dad. No problem."

Her first birthday cake. It turned out to be nicer than Peyton's:

(Thanks for that one, Wal-Mart.)

Mmmmmm, cake.

Ugh, I shouldn't have eaten that last handful.