6. Breakfast, diaper changes, whining, and playing.
7. 9:00-10:00ish - Bathtime
7a. At one point I enter the bathroom and notice the water is murky. I excuse the murkiness in two ways: 1. our tub isn't draining, so it's not the cleanest these days (note to self, get some draino and clean the tub). 2. How many days has it been since we've had bathtime?
7b. Clean up Aliyah, Xandra & Theia (notice some yuckies in the water, even resort to using the tap water because the bathwater just seems too dirty).
7c. Take Aliyah out of bath, dry her, and clothe her. Put her down for naptime.
7d. Return to get the other children out of the bathtub to see Xandra holding the bathseat with a pile of poop in it. "Mommy, Aliyah pooped in the bathtub."
7e. Sudden realization why the water was so murky.
7f. Exit children from the bathtub. Dry them off and attempt to drain the bathtub.
7g. Bathtub drain gets clogged with poop.
7h. Look desperately for the proper drain unclogging chemicals. No luck.
7i. Get everyone dressed, carry on with the day. Periodically check the bathtub, no progress.
8. Enter the bathroom to assist Theia with pottying only to see her slip in her own pee (guess I wasn't fast enough) and get her clean shirt wet with pee.
9. Change Theia's clothes, again.
10. Clean up the bathroom floor.
11. Early lunch, early naptime.
12. Joe brings home flowers, plunges the bathtub, and gets it to drain.
On tap for tomorrow: draino and clean the bathtub.
Bedtime is lots of fun at our house. The fun begins when we're getting ready for bed.
It certainly doesn't end, however, when we put the girls down for the night. Since Xandra and Theia share a room, they continue their playtime until they drop exhausted into bed. Some of their recent antics have involved shoving as much laundry as they can underneath their door to the hallway outside.
I made them pick it up and this was their method of pick up. In case you're unfamiliar with that contraption: it's a playmat for dollies with toys that dangle down for the dolly's entertainment. Doesn't everyone have one of those?
They've also taken to stripping themselves down to their diaper/underwear and shoving their clothes "in my crack" as Theia likes to call it. Translation: they actually put them in the crack between the wall and their bed.
When they've played and played and played and played. They finally fall fast asleep. We find them in all sorts of configurations on the bed, but this is by far the cutest to date.
If you can't see Theia' head, it's because her blanky is over her head.
She just couldn't hold on any longer. Still in her highchair, sippy cup in hand...zzzzzzzzz.
Anyone who knows me, probably knows two things about me:
1. I like to cook.
2. I'm a huge disaster.
Unfortunately, on occasion, those two pieces of my life merge and we have episodes in our kitchen like this:
You know, the kind of episode where I'm making pizza dough and set it on the oven to warm, just like I always do, and then just before we leave to go pick Joe up at the metro, I turn the oven up to 500 degrees so I can have it hot for the pizza when we get back. Normally at this point I remove the bowl from the stove top because the heat vent on the back of the oven gets quite hot and I'm ready to start rolling the dough out anyway. Unfortunately for us, this night was an exception to what normally happens.
Goodbye my lovely mixing bowl. It's sad to part after 5 1/2 years together. It was also sad to part with 1/2 of this pizza dough as it was partially cooked and unusable for our pizza. It could have been worse, the house could have burned down or ALL of the pizza could have been wrecked. We did get one pizza out of the deal that was completely edible and tasty. I'm pretty sure this is a case where ordering pizza would have actually been CHEAPER than making our own since the cost of cooking was wrecked pizza dough and a mixing bowl.
Just to assure everyone that this cooking mishap is not necessarily that unusual in my kitchen, I've included a picture of the less-than-beautiful red velvet cheesecake I made for Valentine's dinner. Don't get me wrong, the cake tasted great, but after 6 hours of baking and prepping the thing, it just loses some effect as a fancy, delectable restaurant quality dessert when it looks like this:
Xandra was not impressed with my cake and told me several times that the cake does not look good. Thanks, Xands. That shot actually looks good compared to what it looked like when it fell to the side in the fridge and rested against the milk jug. I'm sure that happens all the time at the Cheesecake Factory.
There were so many problems I don't even know where to begin. Obviously, the bottom layer was crooked. This is only a problem if you have three other layers to add to it, one of them being an entire cheesecake, which is probably too heavy to not be the bottom layer in the first place. In addition to layer difficulties, the frosting I used between layers was VERY slippery. This only contributed to a speeding of the tipping process in the fridge. I also ran out of frosting, which was also too thin. No one knew (okay, actually we both knew) any of this, though, when I sliced it into pieces and put it on a plate to serve two hours later. And no one cared, either as we eagerly devoured the delicious dessert.
Really, what would dinner at my house be without a few disasters (even without the kids) to accompany it, anyway?
After lots of playing with grandpa and cousins,
visiting with friends John & David
At the Minneapolis airport the girls enjoyed this play area. These pictures were all taken between the hours of 6 & 7 AM since our flight left just after 7AM.
After many hours of travel, we finally made it home sweet home.
After all the kids were down for the night, the adults had a quiet, candlelit steak dinner. It is always the Pull custom to have steak dinner for Christmas, but in years past we've endured it with the small fries crying, howling, yelling, and laughing right beside us. This year it was determined that steak dinners were meant for adults, so the kids went to bed and we started the real Christmas party.
Andy & Lisa
Beth & Josh
Highlights from present opening included dangly earrings, a shocking cell phone (it really does shock you when you push the buttons!), screaming, slingshot monkeys,
Bison blankets (NDSU) and videos,
and a 25 lb. bag of rice (which Crazy Man Tim is not sharing).
It was quiet, relaxing, and lots of fun.
Evie tries to open her present with Cora coaching and Liam observing
While Xandra opened her gifts, Evie happily tried on her new skirt and shirt and found the scarves and hats, too.
Liyah was very interested in all of the action. She got some great presents, too, but mostly wanted to crawl around, get in everyone else's presents and play with some beads she found on the floor.
There was also a book that makes lots and lots and lots of noise that she received. She really likes to play with it, but often can't get her hands on it because her older sisters are playing with it instead. Mommy keeps hoping the batteries will run out and never get replaced, but so far they're holding strong.
The fun continued with purses, play money, ponies, potato heads, and packaging.
Then there was playing,
more playing
