What the...?

Sooooo, I'm looking for a little support here, a little understanding, and complete honesty. DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE GROSS KIDS! Don't judge me for asking. I know these blogs are for the adorable and cute. Despite my best efforts for a clean home with gleaming white base boards, sparkling tubs, and well behaved children who help accomplish all this, I have fallen short. As I was getting in the shower this morning and found what I found I was awfully grateful for making my boys bathe the night before so they didn't have to sleep in their filth.
This is what I found....

This dirty little hand print on the wall, and real honest to goodness ring left in the bath tub. How do they get THAT dirty?

I'm constantly finding other little gems around the house too. For example, just today I was gladly scrubbing their toilet when I saw a brown colored, shiny wad of something behind the toilet on the floor touching the floorboard. After careful inspection of said wad, I realized it was a piece of caramel Christmas candy. I thought the candy to be long gone, but lo they must have a stash somewhere. This piece was particularly hard to get off because it had already been in one of their delightful little mouths and then politely spit on the floor directly behind the garbage can. Other gems I find aren't as sweet. Actually they are boogars. I can't decide if I would rather he eat them, or pick them and keep wiping them on his clothes and bed, wall, ceiling, floor, and who knows where else!

SO the support I'm looking for, is for you to share on your blogs, gross stories of your kids, if you don't have kids yet, tell me about your husbands,(We know how gross they can be. I'll spare Andrew since I'm outing my kids.) nieces, nephews, or even your dogs. Okay, no dogs, it has to be comparable to my kids. And even though my kids sound like animals they technically aren't. So spill it, tell me your dirt, your gross kid stories. I have more but I'm just venting right now!

Happy Skinkin' New Year!!!

Well Happy Stinkin' New Year to us! (G-Rated version Andrew's family puts another desriptive type word there but I'll leave it at Stinkin') Andrew is blaming it on Obama's promises of change, and says this is sign of what kind of change will actually come. Hahaha, just a joke of course. I just say we're just another victim in a string of crime around our community. Our Tahoe was stolen on Monday, January 19th. At night from in front of our house, when we were home, in between 10:00p.m. and midnight. We've figured that out from neighbors and friends. We actually had a friend who went to the grocery store(our local Smith's where the guy just shot two cops and then they shot and killed him) really late Monday night. She thought Andrew was in the Tahoe so she was going to pull up next to it to say hi. When she pulled up along side she said the window was down and there was a large African American man, smoking in the car. She said she thought that was crazy that someone has the exact same car as Andrew. THEY DON'T, HE TOOK OURS!!! Anyway We didn't know it was gone till Tuesday. So after a 51/2 hour wait for the police to come to file a report, we called insurance and what not. On Wednesday morning at 7:00a.m., I was still in bed and so were all my kids, I got a call from Metro. They found our car, and "you have about 30 minutes to get there and then we'll have it towed at your expense." Gee thanks for your promptness. So thank goodness Andrew was out of bed and already gone, he was just around the corner from where they found it. Jones and Charleston. So he went to meet the police and I went to meet him and bring him the keys(not that they worked). This is what we found.

That would be my 3rd seat under the back wheels:)Radio/TV goneThis TV gone too

Everything just rifled through like it was his
Who needs an ash tray? Why would I expect someone who stole my car to have any manners?
At least he left the Bumbo! He took the boys car seats and Steele's car seat base.The extra two bricks he brought to put under the back wheels, but decided to use the 3rd row seats instead.

Broken steering column. Andrew couldn't start it with the keys, good thing he's so handy and could start it right up with a standard screwdriver that the jerk so kindly left for us.On a happier and way cuter note. Steele will hold his bottle if he's super hungry and you fix his thumbs so he can hold it right. He did this on Monday before all the drama. Andrew took the picture and sent it to me, I was scrapbooking. I'm gone for a couple of days and the kid has to feed himself? Just kidding, but I did feel a little bad that I wasn't there for a 1st of something. Oh well, Andrew did good taking pictures of it so I can scrap it!

Steele is 4 months and eats cereal!

When Steele turned 4 months on the 11th we fed him rice cereal (by spoon) for the first time. He's had it in his bottle since he was a couple weeks old. I couldn't keep him full, for the love, he was over 10 lbs. when he was born. He wasn't too sure about the spoon and still prefers his bottles extra thick, but we're getting used to it.

Isn't he sooo cute! He smiles at everything. Just so fun to have just one!

New Years and Ely

So New Years we spent at our own home as well. It was so fun. I hadn't really anticipated doing much, but when Andrew got home from work he said, "Lets go get stuff for our Japanese dinner." Andrew's Dad went to Japan on his mission and his family has always had a traditional Japanese, let me re-phrase that, HUGE Japanese dinner. So Andrew wanted to do it ourselves. It was fun, I didn't take a pic of anything, not even the yummy won tons. But it was all delish. The boys, well, Jesse and Jace, not baby Steele, stayed up all the way to midnight and we had some popper things and sparklers. It was freezing so we didn't light too many.


On New Years Day we got a few things done before packing up and heading up to below, yes, below zero temps. of Ely. We, well, here's the thing. Andrew has a sock fetish and sometimes I can't keep up with folding all the socks and it turns into a whole basket somehow. Weird I know, It was just easier to buy more socks than fold all the stupid ones in the giant basket. Anyway we ended having a family folding thing and Andrew thought it was funny that we could hide our huge 17 lb. baby in all of the socks. I thought it was sad that we are that lazy, but it was still pretty cute!Andrew and the boys wrestled. I didn't put in the ugly face pics. You know, when your trying really hard or something. They are pretty funny though.

Andrew was taking pics of a car to sell and the boys wanted to go outside with him. It was pretty cold so I told the boys to get dressed warm. Jesse-Thick sweatshirt, gloves, beanie Jace- Flip flops, really light sweatshirt, and a beach hat. He's such a funny kid!
We only got a couple of pics from sledding at Nana and Grampa's house before the incident. This hill goes right into their backyard. Sounds fun...right in between an iron swingset playground. Andrew took video of it. Jesse coming down the hill at full speed and then Andrew stepped aside to let Jesse by and he ran his face right into one of the poles. He cried a little but it was so cold his boogars froze in his nose, kinda like a natural icepack. It swelled and bruised later that weekend. But not too bad for how hard he hit.

I love this pic. My poor Mom, the boys are just pummeling her at point blank range. The boys got to open up a couple more cousin presents that we didn't get to open until we got to Ely. Guess what they were? (By the way those are not their normal clothes, I needed something to go under clothes for sleigh riding, that's why Jesse's pants are a little too tight, okay way too tight and total highwaters.)Thanks again to everyone for all 7, yes 7, of our new Nerf guns this Christmas. We just can't thank you enough!!!!

Christmas

Well we had a great Christmas and New Years. We stayed at home in Vegas for Christmas. We had big Christmas Eve dinner with just our little family. Then Christmas Morning we woke up and opened presents. We had a big breakfast and then we packed up and went to Cali that night.
Andrew reading the night before Christmas to the boys.
Smiley Steele loving his new Bumbo.
All my boys Christmas morning.
The boys cookies and milk.

We all went to La Jolla to go see the seals. It was colder than I had anticipated, so I wasn't prepared to have Steele out in the cold for so long so Andrew ended up taking him back to the car. But the boys had a blast with their cousins. Effie was all bundled up so she's not in the pics.
Jesse, Max, RJ, and Jace in front of the seals
Jace right in front of the seals

Jesse man and the seals
Me and the boys, self portrait

On Saturday after Christmas we went to the Sea Lab. It's a place in Long Beach where they rescue sea animals and nurse them back to health and release a lot of them back in to the ocean. It's very hands on. Jesse wasn't too sure about touching anything.
Brave Bugga
Jesse and a sea bass (you can barely see it)
A bunch of the fam at a shark tank that you can apparently pet. I never pet sharks! That's a rule!
More craziness!!!
Okay this was even more crazy! Our digital camera is water proof. Sooo cool! Unless you have a crazy husband who dips his hand into the not nice shark tank to take a "cool picture". All in all it was a pretty fun day and trip.