Micah just got home from Vegas, and brought Scout a serious treat. One of those really clean — never gets sticky candy necklaces that is extra long. Regardless of the stickiness, Scout thought it was the coolest treat he has ever seen. Nice work Shmickity. So after a few taste testers, i told Scout he couldn’t have any more candies until he had showered and gotten dressed. He took the world’s fastest shower with dad, and then went up to get this outfit:
I guess a sticky monkey boy is better than a sticky “in a nice outfit that has to be changed in 45 minutes” boy.
Hailey was getting baptized, so my mom, the kids and I headed out to spend a week in Colorado. Silly me — I didn’t know that Icka was going to be as naughty as can be the entire flight out, by kicking the seat in front of her, yelling at the top of her lungs, “out” a thousand times, and throwing anything she could get her hands on. When we made the flights, we didn’t know that our flight was going to be an hour longer due to weather conditions. We also didn’t know that the airport was going to be closed fifteen minutes after we landed because we were in a white out. We didn’t realize that renting a car from Thrifty was the worst idea. (Considering that we spent thirty minutes declining every single sort of up sale our stinking lady made. Also considering the weather being so bad and I had to go get the car in those conditions. I ended up sopping wet after I spent thirty minutes as the sole person putting all of our car seats, stroller, luggage and kids in the vehicle — with a frozen trunk. It was the worst customer service experience there ever has been. Nothing says “thrifty” like Thrifty.) Once we got on the road, the conditions were as bad as I have ever seen. As we were driving, Scout would say, “I want to see another crash”, because they were EVERYWHERE. We counted at least 50 crashes. Most of them into the center divider, but there was a 12 car pile up and a few other big ones. We were averaging 20 miles an hour in our front wheel drive piece of junk, and were just about to Nathans when our car started to slide. We ended up spinning out and stopped as we faced traffic. Everyone was far enough behind us to stop safely, so we were fine but totally stuck. Our wheels just spun, and we had the entire freeway stopped. I told Scout to say a prayer for us to get unstuck, and he said the sweetest little prayer. Just after he finished, we finally got a little traction, and 85-point turned it out. After the sketchy few minutes of being stuck, Scout said, “That was cool. Let’s do it again!” Our arrival time which was supposed to be 5:30, turned into 10:00. It was a total nightmare!
Notice Icka’s seat turned as far to the left as possible, so she couldn’t kick the seat as hard. Also notice that Icka is the one using the “paid for” seat, as Scout hangs out. The little female devil is the one who needs to be contained for everyone’s sanity.
Scout was a saint. Here he is trying to feed Navy at the Thrifty car rental while I was being tied up. He did finally lose it as Icka was screaming in the car for hours. He yelled out, “AAAAHHHHH – get me out of here!” Poor guy.
We spent half of the time at Nathan’s house, and the other half at Shem’s house. The two houses could not have been more different, but my kids were in heaven at both. Nathan’s house was NON STOP! Those are the loudest, most energetic boys I have ever been around. They don’t have television or anything electronic because of little Jonathon who could get seizures from them, so they play hard all day. Every morning when Scout would wake up, the first thing that would come out of his mouth was, “I want to go play!” Lucky for him — he was in the right house.
He was really into having a snowball fight. That was…until he got hit by one and realized it was pretty cold.
The residuals of the white out. Scout was in the snow all day long, and I want to publicly say that the best invention EVER is the UGG boot. His feet stayed warm, but WAY more importantly….they stayed dry!
The boys had to shovel the driveway. Scout was totally into the idea, until he saw what the shovels looked like. After he tried to use one, he said, “I want a shovel like the one I have at home.” His little beach shovel would have taken years to get through this snow, so we were glad that the cousins took over with the big ones.
Icka and Liam stayed warm inside. Liam is so mellow compared to Icka.
When we headed to Shem’s house, I couldn’t believe the difference. I felt like I was in a rest home. Everything is quiet and mellow. Scout kept saying, “I just wanna play!” the funny things was that they were all playing, but just not the same way that Nathans kids played.
The kids loved painting rocks. Landon was Scouts total buddy, and they had the best time.
Static boy loved the tramp with Landon. He even learned how to do a pseudo flip.
Icka loved being thrown in the air by uncle Shemmy.
These two had a little rivalry going on. I thought it was so cute, and here they are fighting over a toy. Ireland is a force, but Icka held her own.
According to my mom, this hour was,” the best part of the trip.” Rude…huh?!
On our way back, my mom convinced me to give Navy a trial run of “going to sleep” meds for our upcoming France flight. Benadryl and Dramamine were the front runners, so I chose the latter. I waited and waited, and there was no sleep to be had. The only difference was that she was a bit more mellow. But I put in a different car seat, and took her shoes off to help with the kicking and there was definite improvement.
She looks a little loopy. Her side swoop from ripping out her bow looks especially nice today. Kind of like a comb over.
We were able to get both kids in a seat, but we had to sit separately. My mom had Scout, the obviously easier child. But for some reason, she tuned out her babysitting duties completely, as Scout came back to visit about 6 times during the flight. My sleeping aisle sitter was nice every time he came back to chat with me who was in the middle and Icka who was at the window. When I finally stood up to see what the problem was, I saw my mom leaning against the wall while totally engrossed in a book. Really responsible mom. So I called the flight attendant, and she went and spoke to my mom to get her in trouble. As I watched from the back, I just saw them laughing and my mom make an “I don’t really care” gesture. But at least you have the proof above.
We are finally home! The trip was great. The traveling wasn’t.
Micah was trying to teach Scout how to not just say the same things in each prayer, but to really think about what he is thankful for and what blessings he needs. I happened to be gone at Relief Society helping my mom teach bow making when this happened, and Micah reported that he said the sweetest prayer to date.
It went something like this:
Dear Heavenly Father,
Please bless Mommy to have fun teaching people how to make bows. Please bless Nonnie to be healthy. Please bless Bree to have a baby. Please bless Bella to get married. Please bless all of the boys and girls who don’t have books, that I could share mine with them.
In the name of Jesus Christ….Amen.
Micah said that he really thought about his prayer, and instead of just saying the same old things pretty fast, he was trying to say the things he really meant. Too cute. Especially since my first written down prayer was…
Dear Heavenly Father,
Please help me not to kick Linda. Please help Ryan not to be stupid.
In the name of Jesus Christ….Amen.
While we were driving around downtown Denver, we drove by a large and very ornate church. As we drove by, Scout said to me, “are there people in that building laughing at us?” The building must have looked like the great and spacious building in Scout’s mind. How stinking cute is he!
We had a Denison family BBQ that was really fun. I broke out the water slide (originally an Easter basket gift) early because the weather was ideal. We then headed over to the park for a little softball game, which I am proud to say I was on the winning team of. Sorry Micah…. better luck next time!
Scout didn’t really get the hang of it. But one session with his cousins, and he will be a pro.
Tim surprised everyone with his impromptu run and jump. Nice height….but he did say that he would be “feeling it” tomorrow.
Jason taught Scout how to get warm on the sidewalk after being wet and cold. How nostalgic is that!
Icka didn’t quite get the concept. Instead, she wanted to wrestle or play horsey.
Micah looked good on the diamond.
A little high.
How uncomfortable! This is how Micah took Scout home because he had to go “poopsie doops”. I was the overprotective mom on this one. I thought it was WAY too dangerous, and I yelled out, “If anything happens to him…Micah, you are DEAD!” But when we got home, they were all safe and sound. And no….Scout didn’t “go”. Maybe his position on the bike had something to do with that.
After putting up the Easter decor, both kids “kissed” the little chick that represented them.
My little sweet thing won’t keep a headband in her hair for a million bucks. But for whatever reason, she will keep her “pretty” (bow on a clip) in just fine. So every day, we pull her hair up in a pony and stick in a clip. But once she hits the bed during her nap or at night, she pulls her rubber band out. So each morning we are greeted with this hip new style. And don’t think I am a bad mom because I don’t take her rubber band out at night. I really don’t have an excuse, but now that I think about it….maybe it is a little subliminal thing going on for how exhausted she makes me by the end of the night. I guess I am just too tired to worry about the minute details.
For the first time, Scout had a naughty leprechaun pay him a visit. The night before, he and Micah set up a sweet leprechaun trap, but they weren’t successful. But Scout probably preferred their misfortune, because he scored a ton of chocolate gold that fell from the leprechaun’s pockets. Scout was totally into the fun, and it is a great new tradition.
The remnants of the trap.
Green potty, the start of the toilet paper trail that led to the outdoors, and a bit of gold.
Green milk that had my mom in utter disgust.
She said she had a hard time eating it. And Scout wouldn’t touch the stuff — not surprisingly.
The leprechaun even left some Lucky Charms.
Here Scout is telling his sissy about the gold in his pot.
He carried his pot of gold around all day long. I told him he could have one piece to eat. I think there was a misinterpretation though. I think he thought I meant that he could have one piece from everyone he conned into opening one for him. At the end of the day, that was more like 12 pieces.
See — here he is trying to talk Ryan into opening one for him.
I don’t know when Scout had his official first “time out”, but I DO know it wasn’t by fourteen months. Sissy was hitting Scout this morning, and she had it coming. But Scout totally refrained from any sort of retaliation, quite possibly because our family night lesson was on being “a good example”. Instead, he would just look at me with sad little eyes. I knew that I had to take some action, and in an effort to also be a good example, I put sissy on a shelf and told her she was in her very first time out. Scout then told her that when little babies do stinky things, they get time outs. She sat there pretty good. (I kind of expected her to try and jump off or something.) Afterward, I showed her for the millionth time how to be soft. She attempted, and then gave Scout a hug and a kiss and said “sorry”. Amazingly, she followed the protocol perfectly. They say that girls are naturally quicker than boys in the developmental stages. I just didn’t know that “hitting” was part of developing. What a rip!
And then the little narcissist went and gave herself a few kisses. I guess her tiny arms couldn’t reach, to give herself a few pats on the back.
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