Our new digs

Moving has been a big example of good news/bad news. For instance good news/bad news scenario #1. Good news: the unpacking is coming along. Bad news: I spend more time picking up the messes my children cause than actually unpacking. Good news/bad news scenario #2. Good news: we almost moved out AND we have renters all lined up. The bad news: It took us 3 times longer to get out than we thought and about a 100% more crap than we thought we had. Of course as someone pointed out we've had almost 13 years to squirrel said crap away. Good news/bad news scenario #3. Please see scenario #1. I could go on for a while but the point of this is to post pics of the new house. That's all you care about anyway. So for all you bad friends and family members who won't come visit us...this is for you.



PS. Please, please, please disregard the disarray!

Adventures in Nighttime Parenting

One of the things you don't quite get before you are a parent is how precious sleep is...yours AND your childs. Lately, Kenna has been skipping naps or sleeping for short stretches of time which brings back horrible visions of the sleep habits (or lack of them) of my oldest daughter. You know the one who never slept and cried constantly for 2 years. Luckily, while Kenna doesn't sleep much, she also doesn't cry much...as long as I am either holding her or sitting RIGHT NEXT TO HER. She is a little bit of a mama's girl. I always felt kind of bad I never had a child that prefered me to their Dad. Subconciously I must have sent many a heartfelt prayer upwards because the Lord cursed me, I mean BLESSED me with a Mama's Girl. Which brings me to the point of this post. After spending all day trying to conquer Mt. Wash-more and only getting the junk drawer cleaned and organized, (and I only accomplished this because I desperately needed a stapler and couldn't even open the drawer!), and constantly and continuely and endlessly holding Kenna I had finally had ENOUGH! I passed her to Steve, made dinner, put the kids to bed and in general tried to stay out of Kenna's line of sight. Steve put her to bed and we watched our fav show (So You Think You Can Dance, by the way) and Kenna very conviently woke up at the end and started to cry. I begged Steve to please get her back to sleep. (If I pick her up she ends up in our bed because she knows a sucker when she sees one). I brushed my teeth and went out to give Steve a kiss goodnight. Steve was cradling Kenna and rocking her while watching sports highlights. My husband is excellent at multitasking. Kenna took one look at me and then whipped her head up to look at who was holding her. After a horrified look, she started wailing. But it ended well for her. She ended up sleeping in our bed and kicked my back all night long. We enjoyed a looong night of no sleep. Yeah us!

P.S. As I write this post Kenna is clinging valiently to the chair, whining and pulling on my arm.

P.P.S. She won again. Apparently she can cry longer than I can ignore her. So after a whole day I give you 1 paragraph. Meanwhile Mt Wash-More is now a mountain range.

P.P.P.S. On another note Levi can finally use his secret zombie combat skills as his parents have joined their sleep deprived ranks. (See the post "It's Official").

It's Officially Official

Yes, I am officially the mother of a very important elected official. Levi is Student Council Historian for Culley Elementary School. I know, you are all jealous. His comment to me was, "I guess I'll have to fulfill all my campaign promises." That's how I know he'll never be a career politician.

It's Official

Levi was on the student council last year and had a blast. This year he decided to do it again. He informed me he WAS NOT running for any of the offices. His advisor strong armed him into by saying really nice things about him like 'He's kind to those around him' and my personal favorite 'he always helps out without being asked to.' I knew they must be lies because I very seldom, if ever, see him do those things for ME at home. Anyhoo, the end result was he decided to run for student council historian and that night we worked on his campaign poster. Steve and I figured the first thing we should do was pick a slogan but seeing how Kenna had killed off the last few remaining brain cells our other children hadn't, we couldn't think of a slogan. So we skipped that step and moved right along to the picture. I picked my favorite picture...

and Levi picked his favorite...

Guess which one made it on the poster. We then surfed the web trying to find any good slogans to steal. Levi's favorite was "Vote for Levi. If zombies attack the school, I secretly know to to combat them." Steve finally convinced him that "Levi for Historian. Making history since 1999" was a more appropriate choice. (Though I was kind of with Levi on the zombie slogan. Good thing he has one mature and responsible parent).

Friday was the special election assembly. Levi stood and articulatly expressed all the things he would do if elected student council historian. His speech brought tears to my eyes. He promised to be at and take pictures for every school event. He promised an end of the year slideshow. We should know the election results on Monday. I can't decide if I should be the proud mother of an elected official or that crazy mom who mumbles to herself as she drives him to every school function and actually puts the slideshow together. I'll probably be both.