What do YOU keep in your Pockets?

"I spy a gas cap that is black... Two sets of keys and one gray sock."

After we drove Sir to work this morning afternoon, I stopped to get something for the kids to eat before we headed home. I didn't want them falling asleep without eating lunch, and long car rides tend to lull children to sleep. Especially, when it's close to sleep times.

So, we piled out of the car and I noticed that Ricka's hair elastic was on the floor with her socks and shoes. I put the elastic in my pocket, put her socks and shoes on her feet and took the three littles inside. Once we were settled at a table, I reached into my jacket pocket to get the elastic so I could fix Ricka's hair. Except, I couldn't find it. Finally after fishing around in my pockets with no success, I emptied all of the contents onto the table and found all sorts of stuff. Here's the complete list:

one gas cap (I've been looking for that for two weeks now)

two sets of van keys - from swapping van seats this morning.

two soothers/pacifiers/whatever you call them to calm your infant

my cell phone

a noteworthy wad of crumpled tissues - you'd think I had kids or something.

one dime

a mis-matched sock (I found that in the door of the van beside Ricka's seat when I cleaned it out yesterday)

a hair clip

a broken plastic knife Butler was using on play dough a few days ago.

half package of Hall's cough drops

one McDonald's salt packet

Emma's blue rubber flower ring

and the hair elastic I was looking for.

And now it's time to go swap the van seats again before we have to go pick the other kids up.

Family Photo - 2013

"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God."
Mark 10:14

So, this is our family picture for 2013. Hal was born almost exactly one month after it was taken. That was also about when the pictures were ready to pick up, but I didn't get around to that until we took Hal back for his one month picture a month after that.

Anyway, once we finally got everyone looking AND smiling, we tried for a 'kids' shot. It turned out ok, but Ricka was done, so we really only got one try before everyone started to unravel. And that's that.

Those Pictures I Mentioned...

A Tulip!

Yesterday and the day before and today were all absolutely gorgeous, sunny, warm almost-like-summer days. We've had the kiddie pools outside and the ceiling fans inside in just about constant use. This picture though, was taken during a brief sunny break in what seemed to be an unending stretch of wet. That day Butler, Ricka and I discovered our very own tulip flower in the front yard. I think it was a volunteer from one of the neighbors since I've seen two or three lovely tulip gardens on our street.

Ricka has decided she's too big for her crib. Nearly every night I find her somewhere in Dolly's bed, often sprawled across Dolly somehow. She has also decided she's too big for diapers. So she switches them out for a pair of her older sisters' underwear. Sometimes I notice. Often I do not because she's smart enough to cover the evidence (the underwear) with her own clothes again. So now I've taken to checking all of her layers multiple times throughout the day. I will be glad when we're both ready to potty train her.

That same night that I took pictures of Ricka in Dolly's bed? Well, I peeked on the top bunk and found this. Earlier in the day Emma had been telling me how she needed sunglasses because they 'protect your eyes'. I um hummed, and we both went on with our next thing to do. What the camera didn't catch very well was all the rest of the stuff this little pack rat saves IN HER BED. Like the puddle boots (rain boots), the school uniform, cowboy boots, spare pajamas, notepads, pens, stickers, lotion, germ killer, play outfits and coloring books.

Bus Anyone?

A couple of weeks ago, we found a bigger van. We've been looking for one since February, but they're not so popular anymore apparently. We were really looking for the old 12 passengers kind, but those are even more hard to find. This one is a 15 passenger, but for it's age it's mileage and engine quality were really good. We're planning on taking the last bench seat out to make a bit of cargo space, and that will still leave us three benches to fit 6 kids onto. As soon as we sell our current van, we'll switch over to the big van. The kids are all excited about that happening, because then we can have sleepovers again!

And finally, the pictures that prompted these last two posts... The smiles I was talking about. Butler was holding our little guy and I was able to get a handful of pictures in the various stages of a full smile/grin.

This picture was my favorite and it's what's basically gotten the worst of the cobwebs swept away when it comes to my blogging again. I think I'll call him 'Hal' around here. If something better comes up, I might switch, but so far, I like the sound of it.

But right now, I'm going to bed before I fall asleep on my desk. Good night.

Starting Over

"Huh?"

I took a picture of this guy smiling last week. He's been smiling for more than a month now, but I just hadn't caught it on film (I guess 'film' isn't the right term anymore, but you understand). And yes, I realize, he's not smiling in this picture - he just looks like what I thought when I discovered that in my most recent blogging slump, Blogger changed a whole bunch of stuff and I had to start figuring it out all over again. I hate strongly dislike change. Most of the time at least.

Anyway, after I finally got a picture of him smiling, I immediately went to blog it. After all, I've not blogged anything for so long, if I finally had a minute to post something, and something to post (that wouldn't take ten years to reiterate) I should get to it. So I uploaded the pictures on the camera and though, 'hey, if I'm posting, I might as well throw in a few other recent pictures of life around here' and I chose a few, edited them on my computer and started my post. But some of the pictures refused to cooperate. My edited changes were being ignored and I didn't have any more time to figure out what the problem was. After all that, I realized I don't even have a blog name for my youngest son. And by then I didn't want to blog anything at all. Too many obstacles and frustrations and not enough time to sort it all out.

I complained to Sir, but he was up to his ears in his own problems like college exams to study for, and fixing his computer that had given up the ghost (which included salvaging data off his dead hard drive) and getting over his latest bout of being under the weather. Busy husbands do not immediately understand that when you complain about your blog that you want them to tell you how to fix it. Or that you want them to fix it for you. They think you're just venting (which is usually the case when you just want them to listen and not fix anything). So, Sir just listened and went back to his own problems and I was still stuck and frustrated that I didn't have enough time to figure out my blog problems before my next interruption was due. A few days passed and I complained to Sir again after I tried to figure out what Blogger had changed. Eventually I figured out I'd need to ask for help. Sir spent five minutes experimenting and then told me what was causing the trouble I was encountering. He even told me what I'd need to do to fix it. And then he went back to his own pile of things to attend to that was still up to his ears. I'm not even sure I remembered to thank him for taking time out for me. I think I did, but it won't hurt to do it again.

So, now that I think I've got my blog working properly again, the rest of this is just a handful of pictures that I took during the last half of April with a few comments sprinkled in.

Puzzles!

Butler is a puzzle whiz. He loves doing them and he's actually pretty good at them. He's up to 100 piece jigsaw puzzles now, and he never looks at the box until he's done. And that's just to check that the picture he made matches the box it came in. I think that's pretty good for a 3½ year old. :)

Hmm! There's that yellow bucket the bean bags belong in. It's been missing since about when this picture was taken. I guess I could just go find another ice cream bucket and put the bean bags in it. The yellow bucket will probably reappear within 24 hours once I finally stop waiting for it to show up.

I'm not sure what to call this guy here on my blog. J3 'cause he's my third son? I kindof think that's a bit boring. Besides, I don't like to type numbers - they slow me down. Jaelsy or Jailsy because that's his initials spelled phonetically? I'm not too excited about this, but it's better than typing numbers. Halibut or Hal? I think that's the fish with both eyes on the same side of its head... this little man of mine seems to be permanently pulling to his right side. I'm sure he'll grow out of it eventually, but he often reminds me of those funny looking bottom fish. Mr.Manny? Little Mr.Man? That's what I catch myself calling him at home, but to tell you the truth, I think it sounds a little corny. I guess I'll have to think about my options for a bit or keep thinking up new ones.

In this picture, I just missed his smile. He'd been grinning at me until I pulled out the camera and then he didn't get any better than this expression. I think he does that on purpose. Eventually I did catch him in the act of smiling - even if it was on a different day. That picture however, will have to go in my next post because I'm going to bed now and I don't want this to stay a draft any longer. After all, I might not get back to posting it for another week. :)

I kindof like the sound of 'Hal'. What do you think?