Sunday Fun!??

I have a confession to make. I don't know about the rest of you but Sundays are hard days around our house. There I said it. At this point in our lives Sundays are not the restful days they once were. Often before we leave for church it is crazy before we even get out the door. We try to get things organized the night before, but there is still a certain level of chaos that can't be avoided. Plus 9:00 church is never easy with four little ones. Then when we get home from church the kids just seem to go a little stir crazy. We try to think of reverent activities, but at some point our high energy kids just seem to loose it. Tempers start to flare and teasing, tears, and tantrums ensue, and then there are the kids reactions :)

Today we still had the dreaded triple three appear, but for a brief moment there was also laughter and bonding as a family. No there wasn't anything spiritual during this brief moment, but we did have fun as a family which is much better in my opinion than having to break up a squabble. Below are the products of playing around with photo booth on my Mac.

Gotta love a Mac.

We love the above the photo of Ken because we think he looks like a disney cartoon character.

We are seriously considering the potential of a future family Christmas Photo.

What do you think?

We even got Little Miss to participate when she woke up.

Remember how I said Sundays are hard. We had just gotten the kids to bed and breathed a sigh of relief that we had survived the day and Leo came flying down the stairs crying. Once we got him calmed down he told us the toilet was flooding. We raced upstairs to find the entire bathroom flooded. When Ken raced back downstairs to get tools to shut off the toilet he came back upstairs to tell me the water was coming through the ceiling in the kitchen and dripping on to the dish washer of clean dishes that I had just opened the door of to let the dishes dry out. Seriously what is it with us and Sundays!

Family Life From the Eyes of a Six Year Old

Earlier this week we had the Open House at school. When I went into Leo's class the teacher had me sit at his desk and this paper was lying on it for us to read. Leo wrote this himself and drew the picture. The writing says:

"I like my mom and my dad. My mom and dad play tickle monster."

The game tickle monster is a very elaborate game with complex rules. It involves mom and dad running around the house trying to catch the kids. The kids must run as fast as they can to avoid getting tickled. The game ends when either a kid or parent collapses, whichever happens first. Isn't it always interesting to see your family through the eyes of your kids. The drawing shows the couch in our sun room, which plays a very important part in the game because this is the safe place for the kids to go. Of course they only get 10 seconds to rest!

Busy Busy

We have had a busy week. Things are just piling up around here. A lot for me has been getting everything done at work and church before baby #4 comes along. I think I am going to get through all of it soon and then I won't have to worry once the baby comes.

This past weekend was the Asian festival. I love going - mostly because of the food. Ken wasn't able to go. He is high councilman in our stake and needed to prepare a talk.

I must be crazy because I took all 3 kids. The kids brought their allowance money and bought some treasures they just couldn't live without.

The kids favorite part was the martial arts display. They were amazed that even young kids could do so many moves.

The kids also liked the origami table.

We got there early so we could see the lion dance. It is a group of young teens.

Leo was so cute. He saw that other people were feeding the lions $1 for good luck. He got a dollar out of his own wallet and ran up and fed the lion.

Christmas Time

We hope you all had a great Christmas. We had fun and even got to see Santa. Evie was terrified of him and ran the other direction to try and get away. We finally convinced her to sit on my lap in front of Santa, and as long as she didn't look at him she was fine. We were very lucky to get to go to Sunriver and stay at Grandma Susan's house who was visiting family in Seattle.

We loaded the car and went over the river and through the woods.

At one point the kids got a hold of my camera as we were putting the chains on the van.

We had beautiful views on the drive over of Black Butte...

and Mt. Washington.

When we arrived we were a little disappointed at the sparsity of snow, but it didn't stop us from sledding.

The frost on the ground allowed the sled to travel really far.

Little Miss was a crack up. The other kids would be nervous, but Little Miss wanted to be on every sled ride. If we pulled her off the sled she would scream and cry until she was allowed back on. Even on the steep and fast runs she loved it.

Ken couldn't resist taking a run, and of course Little Miss had to join in as well.

Towards the end the kids figured out how to stand up and ride the sled. If you haven't figured it out yet we are sledding on a golf course, and Leo is "surfing" on a snow covered bunker.

Midge was a bit more cautious than her brother.

One of the things the kids love is eating at the kitchen table and watching the squirrels outside the window next to them. Midge snapped these photos.

Once we had been in Sunriver for a day my parents, Steve and Cathy, my brother Patch, and their two dogs Sophie and Roxy joined us for Christmas. We took them to see the lights at the lodge.

Every year they have a gingerbread house competition.

The older kids love looking at them, but as soon as Little Miss found out she couldn't eat any of the candy she was done and wanted to return to pet the bear.

Every year we let the kids open their pajama presents the night before Christmas. This year my mom made them pj bottoms and a matching pillowcase.

The night before Christmas when the kids were finally asleep we hauled up Susan's fake tree and surrounded the presents around the base. What a haul!

The next morning the kids were anxious to get started.

Roxy guarded the gifts. Unfortunately Little Miss had woken during the night with a fever so she wasn't feeling great, but once she realized what was going on she jumped in with the rest and had fun. Every time she opened one of her gifts she had to go around and show it to every member of the family, as well as each of the dogs.

We had a great Christmas and hope you all did as well.