ARG!

It's been a busy last few days.
Realize that I do most of my posting after kids go to bed so if I get distracted or have something else I have to do then I might not make it to the computer.
One night I was finishing a book because we had to return it to the library (someone had a hold on it...they probably heard about it on NPR just like Jim did). The book was good, it had a few graphic scenes in it but was an interesting concept of someone dieing and then waking up to find they could relive a portion of his life. The book was called Replay by Ken Grimwood and I definitely recommend it.
Then we had choir and watched a movie (No Reservations...another recommend on that one...it was good) and it very easily got late and was time for bed.
And then, we have made an impromptu trip back down to Nana and Pop's so we can get the car fixed by someone we trust. I finally get a chance to get back on and blog...only to find! They think my blog is spam and have to review it. I am guessing it was the Josie dialogue perhaps? Who knows but it was a bit frustrating.
Now we are just getting ready for the start of school around here. My how time flies.

"Dat!"

Josie is gaining a huge vocabulary....well...a huge vocabulary if you are around her enough to distinguish between the slight vowel differences between words. If you can translate these are some of words that she says:
Momma
Daddy (really "da")
Doug (du)
dog (do)
cat (at)
that (dat)
this (dit)
truck (druck)
duck (something similar to quack)

I have heard her say something for water (wa) but haven't heard it repeated, milk (mi), and various other things. So we are having a little vocabulary explosion around here. She is also really good at pointing (which is what is now accompanied by "dat" to add even more emphasis).

Andy, at the Monster Truck thing, saw the damaged cars that had been driven over. He said "I want to see the destruction mommy" so I don't know if destruction is a three year old word or not but I was impressed.

Home!

We are home. Impressively we made it in 5 hours with only really 2 stops that did not actually include any children exiting the car (one was a drive-thru and the other we were at a gas station and the kids got out of their seats but stayed in the car). Doug & Andy were only threatening each other for about the last hour of the drive so all in all not a bad drive considering.
Now I just have to recover from being gone for a few days. The laundry theoretically shouldn't be bad because we did laundry at Nana and Pop's yesterday...however this morning started with two out of three children peeing through their night-time diapers and one of those children decided that he would press himself up against me so that I had to change my shorts also.

You might be a redneck...

I used to chuckle because when I was growing up the directions to my house really did include "turn off the paved road."

Well, now I have ventured into another area that might be considered "red-neck"...or possibly considered "ways to torture your three year old who is terrified of loud noises."

Some parents take their children to kid's musicals or concerts or to the ice capades or something like that. We went to a Monster Truck Rally.
The pit party before hand was great. The boys (we left Jo with Nana and Pop) did really well waiting in line especially because it was raining (we were fortunately under a roof) and they had just woken up from a nap. Then they opened the doors and we went in and got to see the Monster Trucks before the event began. I have to admit I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but we walked in and there it was...Grave Digger (or at least one of the Grave Digger trucks because there are several) and I really was like "OMG! There's Pablo Huffacker!" He isn't the number one guy to drive that truck but he is up there. In addition there were four other trucks and there were a bunch of FMX Motorcycle riders all sitting around to give autographs. So we bought the cheapest souvenirs we could get away with, got every one's signatures on the back of the boys' shirts, and took pictures (to be posted another day). Then we bought over-priced dinners for the boys (Jim and I ate ahead of time while they were napping) and found our spots in the stands (the first row you could sit in since we bought our tickets far enough in advance and all tickets were the same price).
We did have ear-plugs and Doug was ok when they first moved the trucks to get ready for the start of the show. Then...well, then they started and Doug had a melt-down every time they would rev their engines. So Jim held him with ear plugs and hands over the ears and tears running down checks while they did wheelies. Doug and I left and walked the hallway circle around the outside of the arena during the racing. We went back in during the intermission and Doug was ok with the Motorcross guys whose motorcycles are not as loud as the big monster trucks. (I also thought these guys were in many ways more impressive because they were doing tricks off a huge jump and when you think about the fact that they are so high up in the air and don't have a roll cage around them, just their helmets....).
So for the second half Doug and I moved up to the very back row in the arena. It was still loud and Doug had ear plugs and his head pressed into my chest with my hand over the other ear, and he would startle every time they revved their engine...but now he actually watched and didn't cry. So we saw the doughnut contest and the freestyle (which the Grave Digger truck that had broken something during the intro was fixed for the second half) and by 30 minutes after the show Doug decided that he had had a "great time."

Random kid thoughts....(warning-some of it is a little X rated)

Doug- Apparently, as I was informed in the car the other day, Jesus owns a train.

Andy- If you don't see a dump truck as it passes, then mommy should run after it until she catches up to it and then she can drive it back so he can see it.

Andy- Only grown-ups have crotches...little kids only have butts.

Doug- Everyone should have a penis...mommy's should get one to pee out of and little girls can grow one.

EDIT*** Andy told me while we were in the car that "my booboo is leaking"....

Are we there yet?

We made it to Nana and Pop's. I think it must be innate that children ask the question "are we there yet" because I heard it starting about 90 minutes into the trip and it is a five hour trip. Every child slept at least some. Everyone ate a bunch in the car. The boys actually opted not to watch DVDs all the way (they watched the first third of the way) and Josie watched some too. I actually sat up front with Jim so that we could listen to a book on CD. That also meant that I had to get out of my seat a few times to help the boys in the back of the car. Did you know that if I stretched out over the large cooler that was in the seat behind me that I could pretty well reach the boys in the back?

Roasted Toasters...

While Ann was here with her kids they played in the backyard some. Her youngest would get on the tricycle and ride down the slope in our backyard. Now, Doug & Andy have done this but they don't have quite the steering and thought processes of a six-year-old so William was able to steer and go clear to the back corner of the yard. He decided that it was a "roller coaster."
Somehow, this label got lost in translation by Andy. Andy walked around declaring that he was fixing the "roasted toaster" to make it work.

One of THOSE days

So it definitely has been one of those days...you know, the one where everything you wanted to get done got pushed aside by all the things that needed to get done...and even some of those were substituted by things that suddenly became priority....things like cleaning the spilled chocolate milk out of the car seat, etc., etc.
But! It is getting better. Jim has arranged for a girl from church to come watch the kids and we are going out in (post-)celebration of our anniversary (it was Saturday). We have been married for 11 years and known each other for closer to 16.5 years. Wow...that is hard to believe.

Came, saw, forgot to take pictures...

My sister and her kids came to visit us. We had a good time, but of course I forgot to pull out the camera until the last hour when they were packing up the car. We showed them around our house, took them on campus, went to the Children's Museum, in general hung out (did laundry, dishes and all those things you have more of when you have nine people in a house), and then sent them merrily on their way. The kids played pretty well together (somehow three little boys ages 6, 3, and 3 are going to run into the occasional problem and it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt). So hopefully they will have a safe trip home that is uneventful.

Connected...again

My modem died yesterday morning...or more technically sometime during the night before that. It was working reasonably ok the evening before and then yesterday morning I got up and tried to get online only to discover that there were no lights whatsoever on the modem. I tried it in several outlets and resetting etc., but no luck. So amazingly I got the modem today even though it was theoretically being mailed today. So blog world I am back online! (Despite the fact that you probably hadn't realized that I was even offline).