Breakfast with the Olsen Twins!!!!

Good Morning all! Just wanted to post some pics of the Little's enjoying there Turkey bacon and toast this morning. I think Evey may have enjoyed her toast more than usual. Maybe cause she didn't eat her dinner last night!



Briceson waiting patiently. Actually he had been standing up in his chair playing the air guitar singing a song about picking up pine cones in the yard with his daddy. It was a nice song, but very loud.

This is what she does when we tell her to take a bite. It is quite the performance.

Sometimes I think she may realy be a living Cabbage Patch Doll. And yes she is wearing truck/car PJ's because Briceson out grew them and I can't bring myself to buy all new girl ones. Don't' worry we don't make her wear his hand me down cloths! Well not usually. : ) Notice the PERFECTLY matching bow. Yeah, I'm that awesome. Not really, it just happen to be the one laying in the floor when her hair was getting in the butter of her toast!

After 4 pieces of bacon this monster was all full and ready to start the day! So the Tornado we call our day began!

Love you all,

Rox

1st Day of School

Kam jumped out of bed at 6:45 this morning and hit the ground running, she was so excited about school! She talked non-stop to her daddy at the breakfast table about how she was gonna have to write so much in first grade, she was worried her hand would hurt. When she got to her classroom she wouldn't let us walk her in, but she gave us big hugs and kisses at the door, so we haven't lost our baby completely, though she seemed so grown up today! Of course, she hugged on her teacher like she'd known her forever and went right in with her! Owen wouldn't get out of bed for anything this morning, we even sent Bear in to sniff him out, to no avail, but when he finally did wake up he was pretty excited! He has Kam's teacher from last year and knows his way around the classroom, so he marched right in like he owned the place, took a seat right next to his best friend, Ryan, and waved us out the door!

It was 58 degrees this morning, we had to bust out a sweater for Kam! The high is still 90...
Kam and her Daddy.
Owen and his best buddy!

The Dollhouse

Well, I think Grandma Faye will be pleased. She really is wiser than we've ever given her credit for, you know. For she was the mastermind behind the Dollhouse - the one that provided hours of enjoyment to you kids when you were little, and does the same for the many kids that pass through my house these days (even in it's slightly delapidated stated).

So, yesterday McKinley and I spent hours (literally) searching the town for all things needed to complete Nonnie's most recent endeavor - "the Dollhouse renovation project".

After trips to 2 Walmarts (one of them twice), Toys-R-Us, Target and Hobby Lobby, we acquired enough new pieces of dollhouse furniture to furnish 3 bedrooms, a nursery, living room, kitchen and dining room. We salvaged what we could from the old pieces (which included an entire bathroom, complete with toothbrush and toothpaste!), and Nonnie even had to get creative and "build" a bunk bed and a twin bed (I was quite impressed with the completed products I might add!). There's a whole new family, including 2 girls, one boy, a baby girl, a mom, a dad, and a grandma! (We'll be on the lookout for a grandpa). And, the Dollhouse has now been moved from it's less than glamourous location in the gameroom to a very elite piece of property known in our tight little circle as "the hidy hole"! (McKinley spent an hour sorting through and boxing up the previous contents of the hidy hole, and Papa moved the house in.)

The Dollhouse is the one childhood toy that every child (male, female, youngest, oldest) seems to want to play with.....which Grandma Faye obviously knew all along! Can't wait to see them all play with it - and Roxie, I wish you and yours were here! EveyLynn and Briceson will surely love it!

Now, here's where you all come in....the place still needs some decorating, so I'd like you to print some miniature pictures of your kids, put them in little "frames" (1 inch or so) and I'm going to hot glue (again, inspired by Grandma Faye) them to the walls in the "foyer"! Roxie, stick yours in the mail when they're done. Lindsey, you can send pictures of George and Ralphie!

I love you!
Mom

On Siblings...

"From the time we're born, our brothers and sisters are our collaborators and coconspirators, our role models and our cautionary tales"

-Jeffrey Kluger, author of The Sibling Effect

I don't think I've ever heard our relationships more accurately described.

"Mom's Kitchen Floor" laughter

Katie's story and pics of the kids in their "not beds" had me laughing! And Lindsey's reference to "Mom's kitchen floor laughing" took me back years, and years. First to recent times with the four of us (me, Roxie, Lindsey and Katie) in my kitchen floor, as fully grown persons, laughing so hard it hurt, hurting too bad to stop laughing, and unable to do a thing about it!! And then back a few years earlier, when you were still little girls, same kitchen floor, same laughter, tears streaming down our faces, holding ourselfves so we wouldn't pee our pants! And then I thought back many years earlier, of me and my mother and my sister, and oftentimes my grandma, in the kitchen floor (it was always in the kitchen that these occurences took place.....), laughing hysterically, unable to stop despite the physical pain in your back and your sides, gasping for air between peals of laughter, and lying exhausted afterwards with the warm glow that only follows a total release of every pent-up bit of stress!

This is apparently something that men are not able to fathom or understand, and thus they always stood by, looking on as if we were absolutely nuts, unable to appreciate the joy of the moment. So, Cody, join the ranks of the mystified men and just be thankful that you were there to witness that act of total abandment and lack of self control that this magical "kitchen floor laughter" brings to the women in this family!

I love you all - especially your laughter!
Mom

Let's play "What's wrong with this picture?"

On weekends sometimes we let the kids put themselves to bed. Tonight at bedtime Kam came in and said that since Bear was sleeping in Owen's bed (great!), would it be OK if she slept in a cardboard box (huh?) and Owen slept under the doll cradle(what?)? After we stopped laughing Brant and I looked at eachother and said what any parents would say...Sure, why not? We waited for them to come back in to explain why their sleeping arrangements hadn't worked out, but we never heard them again, and when we went to check this is what we found: Besides the fact that they appear to have dragged half of Kam's room into Owen's room with them...

What's wrong with this picture?

For starters, no one is asleep in the bed, not even the dog! Bear was cuddled up so sweetly on a sparkly tulle tutu...

Owen wasn't actually under the cradles, but has anyone noticed he's wearing a fleece jacket, zipped up and everything? Apparently it was chilly in his room? And look how sweetly Elmo is all tucked in right on top of him.

And then there's this girl...That's right folks, she wasn't kiddin', she's sleeping IN A CARDBOARD BOX!
Ah, the happy chaos we call parenthood! The way we saw it, our kids were in bed (ok, not technically) before eleven on a weekend. Nice work! So we threw a blanket over the kid in the box, removed the fleece jacket to prevent heat stroke, and patted ourselves on the back for another successful day of parenting!

our big adventure

greeting from texas.... hi family.
just wanted to share a few pictures from our road trip though texas and new mexico - i would have added regular mexico to this adventure but mom and cody insisted otherwise. i begged, i was at the boarded by accident, i saw mexico, but alas was out voted on the actual entering part.
anyways, we went to the desert in summer. hot, hot, hot. and beautiful and quiet and more stars than i knew could be seen with the naked eye......

so first we went to big bend national park with lions and skunks and bears oh my (yes a skunk fell in love with cody, brushed up against his leg like a cat as we were making dinner then CRAWLED INTO OUR TENT and i woke up face to face with a skunk - only a bug net separating us - but we escaped unsmelly so yeh for that). then we climbed 7000 foot high mountain. next we drove to the desert and i hugged this yucca cactus tree.


























this is balmorhea state park, which a huge spring fed pool in the middle of desert, an oasis of sorts. 20 feet deep, 76 degrees, and crystal clear to the bottom with fish swimming with you. pretty nifty lil place.










carlsbad caverns were amazing. a six mile hike - ALL UNDERGROUND. stalagmites and stalactites and big cavernous rooms filled with both. plus 56 degrees was a welcomed change from the 110 degree day it was above ground.





























alrighty then.... hope you enjoyed the vacation images and that all is well on the home fronts.
love you each and every one. and miss you like crazy.

love
lindsey and cody