Bailey Family

Here's a quick picture review of our Thanksgiving weekend at Mom and Dad's house...I hope mom and Kristen got better pictures than me, b/c I don't have very many! Our newest game...the Wii. Ok, I give in. It really is fun. Yes, even anti-video game Beth played. (and Grammy!) Rob did his Black Friday homework, and at midnight, some of us went out for our first round of shopping! The second round started before the sun came up. Community Bathtime! (don't worry - the bubbles cover everything) :) Grammy and Granddaddaddy got to hold and kiss 4 grandkids. Granddaddy loves "baby head" (you know - the way their head/hair smell right out of the bathtub with baby lotion on 'em)...Grammy had to reapply the baby lotion about 5 times a day! We played late night board games. (Granddaddy had taken some nighttime tylenol cold stuff and was long asleep by this game. I had some the night before...I was out by 8!) The babies got rocked, held, or lied down with to sleep ever...

Our dishwasher broke. So, here are the 'hidden blessings': 1. We're going to mom's for Thanksgiving (so we won't need it for several days and we won't have 12 people's worth of dishes to do here). 2. My kitchen has actually been cleaner without it! (yes, I'm sure this will wear off soon.) After doing 2 days worth of dishes by hand (I had tried to wash the first day's worth in the dishwasher before realizing it was broken the second day)...I decided it was better to hand wash after each meal rather than once a day...so cleaner kitchen all day long. 3. Natalie can't turn off the natural air circulating throughout the house like she can the 'heated dry', so no more dripping dishes when I expect to find dry dishes. 4. Ok, that's all I can think of...and we are going to get it fixed - but it takes less time to wash the dishes than to deal with getting it fixed this week! Jewelry Thieves! (They were so cute...and Drisella (Carolyn...

After the loss of my blender lid, the dumping and scattering of important files, and the unmonitored use of scotch tape, I decided to take matters into my own hands! Natalie's already started working on the masking tape. Does anyone know how to get into that space under the cabinet (behind the toe kick area)? I think my blender lid got lost through an opening in the cabinet where two meet in the corner, and then slid under the floor of the cabinet. Rob says we can't get to it, but that blender's only a year old and I WANT MY LID BACK!  (how hard would it have been for the builders to put a board up to cover the cabinet front to cover the opening before putting another cabinet in front of it??)

I feel like all day long I say, "GIRLS!" Sometimes they're cute: (playing hair salon I think?) Sometimes they're sweet: But mostly these days, they're a pain! Either I was not paying attention or not warned...twins are hard! (Yeah, Libbi's probably saying, "no kidding!") They like to take their clothes off: (That would be her long sleeved onesie around her waist - yes, the neck hole of the shirt is around her waist!) My other children were so much easier to transition from cribs to beds: And they NEVER escaped from a gated area!! (yeah, that was naptime...I was trying to paper maché at the time) Funny story. So, I wanted to take a shower after the gym one day last week and not have to wait until naptime. They've been destructive a lot, but thanks to that, most of the stuff they mess with is now up high.  I put Carolyn in charge (haha), and took a very fast shower. After I got dressed I came out to find Nat...

This is quite impressive for me...streamers aren't my thing - where's mom when you need her? oops, one fell. I was going to post lots of pictures of the party, ....but I was too busy handling all the kids and I had Rob cooking or entertaining Carolyn and her friend, so I have very few pictures! Here are the cakes. (Cakes are homemade, frosting is bought -except the white - Rob made buttercream homemade frosting for me to write with) Didn't notice the cat's whiskers weren't symmetrical - I was doodling that while the guests were arriving! Ugh, that's going to bug me in the scrapbook. Yes, I washed every piece on that cake before putting it on! We played zingo (bingo), musical chairs, dinosaur stomp (try to pop each other's balloon tied to the ankle and protect your own...that would have been a cute picture, oh well), and a treasure hunt (12 clues - mostly dinosaur and some kitty, although Carolyn and her friend had no interest in participatin...

He was 5... And now he's 6! The only thing he asked for was a skateboard...so we got it (with rules to wear all pads and helmet!) And some cool batman pajamas - with a cape! (and some gym pants, not pictured) We're doing his party in November to combine it with Carolyn's birthday.

 Tuesday afternoon (election day), I was trying to do a craft with the big kids (babies were napping). A "family project" Seth brought home from school. I was packing up the craft doodads we didn't need, and Seth said something to me. I looked over and this is what I see (not the blueness and swelling - the picture was taken about an hour after it got stuck): He can't get the thing off. (I tried cooking oil, soap, and icing his finger.) No luck. Called my mom. Mom suggested the above attempts. Called Rob. Rob says, "use my chisel and hammer". Tried. Couldn't get a good aim at the thing without aiming at his finger! So, "Momma called the doctor and the doctor said..." bring him in.  The nurse wanted me to bring him in right away (like his finger would fall off if I didn't?) I said, when the babies wake up I'll bring him in. I'm sure she thought I was a weirdo for not freaking out. He could wait.  Then I took the above...

We decided last minute to go to my mom and dad's for Halloween The kids had a lot of fun trick-or-treating with Grammy

I decided (with Rob's encouragement) to upload a photo to an online photo contest. I'm not even amateur, but I like to take photos, and so I did it. (It's worth a shot just for the fun of it!) So, click the link to the right and go vote for mine. (only a small portion is popular votes - the rest is by a judging panel, so ignore the photos with 72 votes!) :) (It's from a beach trip last September.) OK, apparently you have to sign in to vote, so if you don't feel like making yet another account with another password, don't worry about it! :) 

I finally got all the costumes finished in time (our ward party was Saturday night and we went to Rob's parents' Thursday night through Saturday for a "birthday project" for his mom's birthday - so they had to be done early...check Rob's blog later for the birthday project). So here, they are (not really in order): Natalie, my little penguin. (Anytime she heard someone talking about her costume, she started, "penga, pinga".) That's her favorite animal right now. Her costume was my favorite to make. Carolyn the cat. (Whiskers would have been cute, but I don't do face paint...) Hers was mostly bought, except for the ears...she had some, but the headband broke. I said, bring them to me so I can fix them. "But I threw them in the trash." But I pulled them out twice - what did you do with them? "I put them in the trash." GRRRR - (so, that was a last minute before-we-walked-out-the-door-Thursday kind of project.) and it's no...

I'm working on enrichment plans (which of course line up the same time as halloween plans and birthday plans), and I got side tracked (which I always do on the computer anyways) and saw a cute idea for turning photos into coloring pages. I've done something similar before playing with mom's photo software as a teenager, but hadn't done it with my current photo software b/c I wasn't sure if it would do it. It doesn't (I don't think?), but while I was playing around for a few minutes, I changed Carolyn's picture to look like this...kind of cool and artistic looking. (She's gently holding a caterpillar, which she wanted to keep as a pet. I said no.) (I just did a filter called "photocopy" in photoshop and then adjusted the options to make it more pink than red....not really too high tech, but I said fun "moment" not fun "hour"!)

Seth comes home singing songs - in fact, he's learned several normal 'kindergarten' things through song, so here are his most common: Counting by 5's to 100. (We also have him singing by 10s.) This is the months of the year - can you say "Hey...MACARENA!"? And my personal favorite... Days of the week: (I think the only word that remains from the 'original tune' is "Wednesday"...watch and see!) His teacher told me at the open house whose cd's they listen to where these songs come from, but I can't remember the name now? It's cute to here him singing all the time. And to hear him spouting off information all the time. (And it's funny to hear Carolyn argue with him and him be right...all the time!) :)

I wondered at the end of last week why my house was a mess, nothing got done on my projects, no blogs were read, and I did virtually nothing with my calling, and what on earth I did with my time?! Then I realized: I had spent the week guarding things/siblings from other siblings and refereeing fights! This happened in the 2 minutes I rotated the laundry: This happened while I was working on dinner (Rob came home to find her...I had no idea why she was so quiet - I was just grateful the fighting and hanging from my legs had stopped!) I don't remember what this fight was about?? But then, they make me smile.... Carolyn as prissy as she is loves nature and animals (and getting dirty with those doesn't bother her). She went out (with my permission) and cut the flowers (overgrowing). Then she brought them inside in a bucket and "arranged" them in some of her plastic drinking cups with water, and put them in high spots throughout the house! (A little relief society sister i...

This is the first time trying out cloth diapers. I actually think I like them. I just can't decide which of the two kinds I want to invest in...? She refused to turn around and look because she was mad at me for something.  (She was puttin' her 'raider' on, Jacob.) Aren't they cute? :) (Kaitlyn's is an "all in one" so once she pees, that's it til I wash it. Natalie's is just a cover, so I can wipe it out and use it a few times a day. Usually, she doesn't even pee enough for the cover to get wet at all. After she peed in it today, she undid the velcro herself. Shame she didn't just go ahead and change herself while she was at it!) I say, please don't go in the puddles. Then they do. And they're so cute, I have to go get the camera. (No wonder they ignore me and get into the puddles - what am I teaching them by taking pictures?!) At least Seth and Carolyn ask permission first. Gotta have the purse and the water! (right Grammy?) We...