Nothing like an ER visit on your vacation!

While we were in CO for TiTi's wedding Jude took a spill at Grandpa and Nana Cindy's house.  He tripped and fell just shy of the ONE (wooden) step in their house and hit the bridge of his nose just right.

So Nana, Daddy, Mommy and Jude took a stroll to the ER:

This is after Nana and Daddy had cleaned his face up some:

His cute purple man dress:

Our little tough boy wanted to play despite his injuries:

Prior to stitches and Valum we took turns rocking him to sleep to keep him calm:

This is before the stitches-they gave him baby Valum and it was hard for mommy and daddy to watch him with such a lost little look in his eyes and it didnt keep him very calm during the actual stitching BUT it made him a "drunken" sailor as the nurse put it:

Jude and Daddy sleeping the next morning:

A close up the next morning, still a little groggy:

You try keeping a bandaid on the bridge of the nose of a one and a half year old with a one and a half year old curious brother, nearly impossible-but we tried:


It was only three stitches but it took about 10 minutes or so and was quite traumatizing for mommy and daddy! 

So here we about five weeks later and it has healed pretty good.  It is kind of the shape of a cross and it is still a little pink.  We need to get some Mederma (expensive!) and see if that makes a difference.


NOTE TO SELF:  Boys are EXTREMELY accident prone; rough; and luckily tough.

The journey in between what you once were and who you are now becoming is where the dance of life really takes place.

Cade, Jude and Madden are growing up SO fast-we can hardly believe it!

Cade will be four in April and the twins will (already) we TWO in June.  Cade can't wait to go to school so we are going to look into some sort of preschool for him next year.  He becomes more and more independent every day.  His favorite things are cuddling with mom (duh), wrestling with Jesse, harassing his brothers and eating fruit snacks.  He loves cartoons and being outside, rain or shine. 

The twins..where to start.  They learned just last week how to get out of their beds.  Now this is new to us.  Cade did it once..got beat (literally but not badly-so no CPS reports please) and he never did it again.  Jude and Madden have not learned so quickly.  They did it approximately 20 times the first night-I almost lost my composure.  IN FACT-this brings me to our first picture:

If you look closely you will see all sorts of odd shaped wet spots on Cat's jeans as well as the couch.  And this is how it went:
Cade: (standing at the top of the stairs)  Mom the brother is out of his bed.
Me: (sitting on couch staring at Cat going "no way" in my mind)  ((silence))
Cade:  Mom?
Me: (drinking a glass of milk):  ((silence))
Cat: (looks at me and starts dying of laughter)
Me: (start laughing, spit milk all over the couch and Cat, choke)
And that's what it looked like.  I could not believe it.  Now, I just plan in it-every night.  I think Jude finally got tired of being spanked and now he just stands patiently in the corner of the bed staring at Madden climbing onto the dresser (by first emptying out and then standing in a drawer) and throwing EVERYthing off of the shelves.  The last three nights we have went in about an hour after we put the boys down and Madden is on the futon in their room, using Cade's Cars pillow and Cars comforter, all wrapped up and comfy.  Fairly cute even in his defiance.  I'll get a picture of this soon.  Other than that they really need haircuts (insists mommy), so they will get trims soon hopefully.  They are finally starting to talk more, not phrases but they have recently added "Nick" (Uncle Nick is very proud of them) and "cracker" to their vocabulary-obviously both necessities. 

As for mommy and daddy we are welcoming change.  We are in the process of trying to get a new vehicle (Chrysler Pacifica) so cross your fingers for that to happen in the next day are two.  We are also ready to move-we need a bigger place, the boys are getting older and well more loud, rowdy and bratty.  I'd love for them to have a play room instead of playing in the living room-it's hard to keep up with the Bachelor or our Mario Party with three boys running around creating havoc.  Hopefully we will move in the next couple of months and I am sure we will be in the same general area.

Daddy started playing rugby (thanks to mommy).  There is a team in Tacoma called the Tacoma Nomads.  http://tacomarugby.com/  They practice Tuesday and Thursday nights and their first games are this Saturday.  It should be fun.  Daddy and Mommy decided that since they met they have both gained a few too many pounds and are both out of shape.  Daddy has moved into action and mommy is hoping that her support of him will some how miraculously make her lose weight too.  Daddy has actually (believe it or not) boycotted mommy's baked goods.  I know we couldn't believe it either!  We are very proud of him and can't wait to watch him in action Saturday, we will be sure to take lots of pictures for our next blog :)

Mommy is excited because two of her best friends are pregnant-AT THE SAME TIME!  It is very exciting since mommy's friends need to catch up with her so we have someone new to play with.  Mommy is going to leave daddy with us and go on a girls roadtrip to Idaho in March.  None of us can wait!  Mommy wants to go play games with her friends around the clock and eat way too many snacks and daddy is just happy mommy will not be around to make him pick up his dirty socks and take out the trash.  We are happy because we know daddy is going to make Uncle Nick come hang out with us for four days of pizza, beer (for the horses, not us), video games and making messes (which mommy will be stuck cleaning up when she comes home).  We just hope she comes home because daddy shrinks the clothes if he has to do the laundry!

And that's about all our family is up to these days.  Here are some recent pictures of us all:

STAY TUNED!

I don't know if people like being hassled with an email everytime I post a new blog saying HEY CHECK OUT OUR BLOG! 

But since it had been a couple months since I did much on here I thought I'd send out the annoying reminder email.  But this is your notice!  I plan to stay on top of it from now, over the weekend I will have a couple new good posts and recent pictures-including tomorrow's Elton John/Billy Joel concert, so look again next week!

We love and miss you all..or at least most of you.

OH Big shout out to VP, Josh and Mini Luke who will be traveling to good ole WA and staying with us for a four day weekend of SWAP SWAP SWAP, 120 pizza rolls, perfect brownies and FAT ALBERTS!  HELL YEAH!  13 days!  There are sure to be a couple good blogs made possible due to that trip!

TiTi's Wedding!

We took a trip to Colorado December 31st-January 5th for Tess & Matt's wedding. The bad news is I think we only got five pictures of the wedding. Anytime we get cleaned up as family we somehow fail to make the time to take a nice family photo! A shame, I know. Here is what we managed to get at the wedding-which might I add the two little ring boys (eh hmm Jude and Madden) cried the WHOLE way down the aisle because they were tired!







Here's a few pictures from the rest of our trip:



Jude thinks if he closes his eyes you can't see him:









KRAPS with the KIDS, after this all the adults went to Gamblers Anonymous:

Christmas 2009..a little late!

Since my pictures have finally been uploaded, I figured it was better late than never to post our Christmas 2009 pictures:

Madden polishing off the cookies Santa left-Cade insisted on leaving animal cookies for Santa and Santa hates animal cookies..oops:




Jesse and Cade excited about the respective shaving kits Santa brought them:






Dinner at Uncle Mark and Aunt Vana's:

Cause I had a bad day…(thinking about) taking one down….

So we all want to lose weight, get into shape, eat better-right? Of course we do. But when your pants tell you to lose weight-it is clearly time to move into action.

Now the long and the short of it (or should I say the bad and the ugly) is this-MY PANTS BLEW OUT. Yeah-I know. The only thing I could add to make this story more embarrassing would be to say I was in a public place.

And you know I was. Target. South Hill. You may have saw me..or my underwear there. Embarassing I know. I don’t know if that is the worst part or the fact that as I walked out with my sweater around my waist and carrying my screaming and kicking three year old (to block the fact that I was wearing a tank top with NO bra-which five years ago, pre THREE kids would not have been such a bad thing) and he yells after asking me several times why we are leaving our cart full of unpaid for items behind and leaving “Mom if you pooped your pants you can just tell me that.” I almost wished I had-it’d be a lot less obvious and more likely than not warmer than the situation as hand.

Are you laughing? Good. Because I was too.

Now the nitty gritty-I bent over (taco shells=bottom shelf; I know-who buys taco shells at Target) and I heard a “rip”. Well I know it’s not my pants because that would make my pants too small. Which would make me too BIG for my pants. So I assume Cade ever so slyly (as he usually does) farted. Until I stood up. Instantly breeze on the ole behind. So I frantically turned my butt (conveniently) toward the refried beans as I reached around and much to my surprise was able to touch my pretty turquoise panties. On a side note this was a quick trip to Target-I was obviously not wearing my Sunday best. At this point the rip is I will guesstimate five inches long. I KNOW RIGHT?! So-I don’t panic. I am not shy. In fact I was laughing at myself. No big deal. I FINISH SHOPPING (if you know me-you know that I just don’t care). All is well.

As I proceed to check out Cade declares “Mom I have to go to the bathroom.” This is how the conversation went:

Fat girl-Cade can you please hold it, we will be home soon.
Cade-No Mom, I can’t.
Fat girl-Cade PLEASE just hold it, you will be fine, we are almost done.
Cade-Mom I can’t. I have to poop.
Fat girl-Ok, let’s go.

(Park cart at front of store, head to bathroom. Hole check-still five inches.)

I don’t do public restrooms. I just don’t. It has to be an emergency. And by emergency I mean I better be nine months pregnant with twins (I thought it was a dream) and my panties simply aren’t able to hold another piddle. So I strategically line the toilet seat with LOTS of toilet paper (Note to self and/or Target-toilet seat covers are a simple, cheap necessity-get with the program.)

(HOLE CHECK-Still five inches. Butt cheek feels a bit colder to the touch than five minutes prior.)

Now as he tears down his Thomas the Train underwear and is standing there (at attention if you will) waiting on me-I bend over..obviously not thinking….to pick him up. RIIIIIIIIIIIP. Now at first glance that looks like R.I.P. And in a way-it was. Rest in Peace Express jeans that no longer even have a backside to them.

I am facing Cade now staring at him in shock and trying to decide what my next course of action should be. He snaps at me “Mom, stop staring at me, can you turn around?” So I do. I am now in the corner. Yes-my three year old put me in the corner-holey pants and all. I mean have a heart little boy, have a heart! I decided that staying in the stall was not an option, especially since it now smelled terrible in there which was obviously at this point the least of my worries.

(Hole check-Eleven inches give or take. ¾ of one butt cheek-so a lot of butt-now exposed)

Cade-“Mom, I’m done.”
Fat girl-((RIIIIIIIIIIIP))

(Hole check-Seventeen inches-easily, ¾ of right thigh-in addition to ¾ of right butt cheek-now exposed)

Now some of you (if you even made it to this point in the story) are thinking did this really warrant a blog post? YES. In fact a select few of you (Nat, Liz, Cat) requested same. And you say ok fine-did it really warrant this LONG and descriptive of a blog post? YES. If I had just said “Hey guys, bad news, I’m fat, my pants ripped.” You probably would not have laughed. You probably would have felt bad for me. Don’t. I went straight home and ate a bag of Chips Ahoy. I KNOW RIGHT?!

So Cat and I had a brilliant idea to make sure that you understood the seriousness of this situation:






And FINALLY the moment you have ALL been waiting for (against my better judgment I have been persuaded to post this photo) so with all do embarassment, I provide you with the following days worth of laughter: