Snow what?

Snow awesome! 

Spontaneous polar bear jog

Snow shoveling

Snow angel-ing

Snow sledding

Snow sillies

First Impressions

Thanks to Nico, we made one!  (This picture was taken our first Sunday here in Little Rock for the ward bulletin board.)

Go Hutches!

How can you be the best and the worst at the same time?

Just be Benjamin lately!  

I hate to say this, but he's just turned sort of awful!  But he's also just terribly, terribly cute!  Even in a super small Alabama onesie!  But again, so terrible!  Throwing toys, hitting Nico, screaming in the car, pulling Nico off of his chair at the table, dumping bins of toys we've just cleaned up, pushing Nico off of the little kid picnic table.  Do you see a trend?  Destruction and Nico.  That pretty much sums it up.

Except for his cuteness, you dig?  He's still cute.  Ridiculously so!  It's just so confusing!  I mean, one minute I'm offering him an apple and he points at it and says "baple" and "da"* and the next minute he's throwing the plate across the room and swearing at me in Russian!  Or whatever language he speaks!

People usually react to hearing that I have three boys by saying, "You have your hands full" or "You're one busy mom" or they simply just shudder.  Still, until about, oh, um, 2 days ago I really felt like I only had 2 boys and 1 baby.  I don't anymore.  It's three boys.  Three boys who might not be fluent in Russian, but who are fluent in the languages of throwing, screaming, teasing, jumping, and being pills.  Not all of the time, but now that Benjo's thrown his hat into the ring it's gettin' crazy up in here! 

Help me.  I miss my baby so much.

*("Yes" in Benjaminese is "da".  Benjaminese is a slavic tongue I guess.)

On my tombstone it will read:

"It's not a competition!"

All day, every day.  Please boys, just believe me.  It's not a competition to brush teeth, get dressed, get in the car, arrive at any given destination, and so on and so on and so on and so on and so flipping on!

They're killing me slowly with every race/fight/tantrum/victory dance and yet they're still just as cute as buttons. 


(These pics were taken in the old house...I'd forgotten about these pictures and about how bad that house was.  So so grateful to have moved.  Oh just so so grateful!)

I'm sorry that this is crude

But Jacob filled out a purposefully losing NCAA bracket for Nicholas yesterday morning.  For example, he chose West Virginia after they had already lost.  What a nice brother.

He did it all by himself.



Oh, what phonics hath wrought!

Virginia, Jacob, Virginia!!!! 

Greatest picture ever?

Matt thinks so.  I think it's more like EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE!  Either way I love it.

Except for the mountains of books and toys on the floor.  I got fed up a la Mama Bear and almost threw all of their toys away.  Our compromise was to pack some things away and to institute a post-dinner clean up.  EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIFE!

I like these guys.  They are funny guys.  So says El Guapo and so says I.  (That line often comes to mind as I deal with my own little 3 amigos.)

You do the math

Early morning + Unattended markers + Brotherly tomfoolery + Sleeping parents =

(Brace yourselves for some guilty faces and a bit of skin.)









































































































































































Just before a long shower that definitely didn't get it all off. (I realize Jacob is probably too old for me to post this picture, but I just gotta.)


















With some editing...


















As I took these pictures I was laughing inside while outside sternly shaking my head and saying things like, "Mommy is not happy about this -- turn to the right," (snap snap) "Not one bit." (snap snap).

And I thought this was something to talk about!

Fifty Percent

When I posted on my blog last night Matt pointed out that that this year I posted about 50% less than I did in 2008. At first I sort of shrugged at his comment and mumbled something that had the words "pregnancy", "busy", and "dishes" in it.

I don't know why, but we started looking at old posts from when we lived in Atlanta. Then the guilt came. Those archives were magical. There were so many little things about our old life that I had loved and since forgotten. My sunshine-filled kitchen, the view out of our back windows, the driveway/play area, the lovely road we lived on, so many things. To say nothing of the joys of when Jacob was our one and only, to when he became a big brother, to sweet mop topped Nicholas, to learning how to be parents of two. I loved looking back at the pictures AND the stories.

In all of the living we've been doing I had forgotten that Jacob wasn't always a questioning 4 year old. Completely forgotten. And Nicholas' perfectly round baby face and eyes had been replaced by his more grown up current shape. We spent a while clicking through and while we did we found ourselves laughing and reminiscing a lot. I actually cried a little bit I laughed so hard at this post.

Now, I really have been busy and pregnant and doing a lot of dishes in '09, but we've also been having a lot of fun. Fun vacations, fun visitors, fun trips to the park, fun times at home, and other fun stuff (fun). And really, that "fun" is indicative of our blessings. Blessings fit to record. Even the not so fun is something to be remembered, learned from and laughed at later. I've always believed this about this blog, but the "fruits of the blog" really hit home last night.

With this season of our life with only 2 kids winding down and the promise of a darling new baby on the horizon I am, ahem, resolved to post more. I realize again how much we benefit from it. So, expect more blogs, more "fun" and some major catch up from '09 in the coming months. Oh, and more pictures of these fellows.

Oh Blogger, Where Art Thou?

I'm straightening my couch cushions. It just keeps me too busy to blog.














I wonder who's messing them up!?! Hmmmm.

Messing

That's right. Jacob's become a messer.

He messes with Matt by mercilessly jumping on, pushing, and pinching Matt's stomach. He messes with me by pretending he doesn't like me. (That's awesome.) And he messes with Nicholas in every way one is capable of messing ALL DAY LONG.

What is messing, you ask?

Messing is, simply put, the act of pushing people's buttons. With brutal accuracy. Jacob is a master. If you don't like it when he does a certain thing (and you are fool enough to let him know it) he will do it again and again and again.

He's also adorable, sweet, brilliant and fun. But enough about that. Tonight I want the world to know that he messes with us all!

Poor Nicholas.

(Note Jacob's face. Ah the glee of messing.)

(Note Nico's bottom. Sometimes he tries to push his pants off. He never gets very far. My little crack baby.)

Laundry Day!

This stuff is reeeeally dirty!




































And oh, so cute.


















And just so you know, I wasn't fishing for photo ops. He did this on his own. I'm sure he was thinking, "This would be a good blog post!"

Thanks Nick. It was.

Do you ever dress your kids up like dancers and film a Beyonce video?

I do.



Here's the original video. For a reference point. I know there's a lot of rump shakin' and other such things...especially to invite my young boys to imitate...but it also really increases the humor of the thing. (Usually I don't even want Jacob to watch Arthur because I think it's too worldly--& annoying.) So enjoy my moral lapse with me! My mom's comment about the video is my favorite, "Man, those girls have adequate booties. (That does mean rear ends doesn't it?)".

This "project" was the brainchild of a friend of a friend. Apparently (I'm not hip with the young kids) this Beyonce video is the subject of extensive commentary, spoofs and ridicule. So, this friend asked that all of her friends make their own versions of the video as a birthday gift to her. Mardee told me that Jacob and Nicholas were just the dancers that her little Beyonce (Cadence) needed.

We had so much fun preparing and filming this little beauty. I really got in touch with my video making roots. Carly and I spent about half of our time together making movies when we were in junior high and high school. Easily half. Maybe 2/3. Good times however much time it was. So, it was like those days but with kids and husbands and Beyonce and iMovie.

Thanks to Mardee and to her friend Nor for this wonderful challenge. And now my desire for Jacob and Cadence to at least date later in life has increased 100 fold. Wouldn't it be nice to have this playing in a quiet spot at their wedding reception?

Oh, and do you like the surprise dancers?

They were right

They say never to leave a baby unattended, and they were right!

I was out of the room for about 15 seconds and this is what I came back to. (Minus the toothbrush which I gave to him right before I took this picture so that I could take the picture.)














He likes to get in there and figure things out.

Another example.














But in this example the comedy came in the getting out.














He just can't quite clear those cheeks.