Happy Birthday Grammy Kay!

Today is my mom's birthday. Hooray!

My mom is one of my favorite people in the world. She's smart, she's quirky, and she's fun.

She's so fun, in fact, we have adopted the name "Pied Piper" for her. Whenever the grandkids come to her house, they inevitably disappear into Grammy Kay's room and will inevitably reappear wearing all sorts of fun, crazy costumes. Case in point, Christmas a year ago, she had matching Disney Princess shawls and purses for all the girls. (Yes, that is Henry wearing a shawl too. Like he could resist the tempting call of the siren Pied Piper!)


Another reason to love her? She's dependable. Even before you have the baby, sometimes she'll come when you're horribly sick and pregnant and want to kill yourself, but you don't, because she comes and makes you freezer jam. She'll come again when you finally have that baby. She'll come and help and clean up and go out and buy you Christmas decorations for your new tree because she knows you don't have any money.


She's be known to throw a few awesome impromptu dance parties with her hip selection of songs on her hip iPod (that has, "Kay Smith Rocks," engraved on the back; so there's your proof -- she really is awesome).


She lets Henry cook with her. Cooking with a toddler? I can think of a million other things that are less stressful than that. She also does crazy things that give me an inordinate amount of anxiety just thinking about, like letting Henry push a chair up to the sink and pour spoonful after spoonful of soapy water onto a towel that she's strategically put there to soak up all the running water. Are you kidding? Oh man, I'm getting the chills just thinking about the mess. But that's her. The Pied Piper doesn't bat an eye at things like that.


And of course, as the nickname implies, she loves kids. The Pied Piper is truly one of the best grandmas I know. Henry loves her (and Ruby will too, just give her some time, she has trust issues, y'all) along with the rest of her 13 grandkids (soon to be 16 -- go Liz, Shelly, and Heather! Make us proud!).


Notice the similarities between that last pic and the next? My kids are about the same ages when these pictures were taken. I love that I have similar pictures of them with my mom. (Not to distract from my moving tribute to the Pied Piper, but come on Ruby, grow some hair already!)



Anyway, Happy Birthday Mom! We love you!

Bath Time Shenanigans

I'm lucky. Scott takes care of the kids' baths around here. I feel especially lucky after having a rough day with the kids. Today was one of those days.

This picture may look like a normal, fun, brotherly-love type bath experience. But oh no, today was different, my friends.


Tonight, Scott took Henry and Ruby upstairs for their bath while I cleaned up the kitchen after dinner. While Scott was changing Ruby's diaper, I heard Henry rushing around trying to get his clothes off so he could be first in the tub. About 67 seconds into the process, I heard a totally appalled and exasperated Scott say, "HENRY! Guh-ross! How would you like it if I put my bare bum on your head?!?" Poor Ruby, she's always the butt of Henry's jokes (pun intended, of course).

I couldn't help it. I just bust up laughing. Now, that was funny -- funny because Scott's "Guh-ross" totally had an unintentional Napoleon Dynamite quality to it but mostly funny because it happened on Scott's watch and not mine. Obnoxious things are so much funnier when they happen to other people, aren't they? (Especially after the day I had with Henry and his crazy antics.)

Oh Henry. (sigh)

Most days I feel like, "Can't live with him, can't live without him" was never a true statement until Henry came along.

Case in point, his harassment of poor sweet Ruby:

Inhabitants of the Frozen Tundra

This is what it's like for us.

The highest our thermometer got today was -1.

Currently, we're at a balmy -15, with a wind chill factor making it feel like -33.

We bravely ventured out to Target today and our Yaks barely made it.

I think this unbelievably freezing MLK Day was more of a Genghis Kahn type of day for me and mine.

Gender Confusion

Here's a little random sample of my kids' unique behavior today.


Henry walks out of my room, having gotten a hold of and experimented with my mascara, looking like this:



Then Ruby's running around with a death-grip on her favorite cars.


I'm going to pretend I'm not drawing any conclusions from this behavior.

Inquiring Minds Have Been DYING to Know

Henry gave his first "talk" in church yesterday and a few people have been asking for the follow-up.

This story would not be quite as good without the background detail, so here it is.

As we were hurriedly getting ready for church yesterday I asked Scott to hurry and type the notes for Henry's talk about the Biblical prophet, Noah.

So he goes over to the computer and is typing away for like 10 minutes while I get the kids dressed. All the while I'm thinking, "I'm glad he's typing this instead of me -- it'll save me time."

Boy was I wrong.

I walk over there only to discover this is what he had typed:

This is it, the moment you've all been waiting for, my talk on the prophet Noah. Settle down, please hold your applause until the end, there will be plenty of time for celebration and jubilee. So, how many you peeps heard of Noah? You know, the dude with the boat? Well, you ain't heard the half-a that story, it's a doozy. Before I start, I'd like to give a shout out to all the little people that got me here today, especially my daddy 'cause he drove the car and took me to Sunbeams. Also, can I get a woop woop from all the Sunbeams?! Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about!

Okay, so back to Noah and his magical floating animal bus. One day God tells Noah to build a boat 'cause He's gonna flood the whole earth. Crazy! The Big Man tells Noah to proclaim repentance to all the peeps that have gone astray, know what I'm sayin'?


And that's where I stopped him. Seriously? That's what he was doing for 10 precious minutes as I rushed around getting our kids ready? At the time I did NOT think it was even one bit funny but now I can give him a tiny little bit of credit for the, "can I get a woop woop from all the Sunbeams?!"

Anyway, after all the preparation and practicing, it turned out that the Primary's microphone was broken and nobody heard a dang word Henry said. Of all the luck!

I was just proud that he was brave enough to get up there. My little shy guy is growing up!

Here he is a couple hours after church celebrating his victorious (I realize the word "victorious" may be a bit strong considering no one even heard what he said, nor was anyone converted to Christianity by his persuasive ways, but hey, he was brave, so we're stickin' with victorious) day:

Just an officer of the law, keepin' the peace.
Speakin' of peace, peace man.

Wait! Is he flashing me a gang sign?