Cutest kids EVER...no really!

 I decided I like blogging. Honestly most of my days feel like the regular hum-drum of housework and tons of managing; better known as mothering. One of my sisters pointed out that sometimes it's hard for her to blog because she doesn't always have something "flowery" to say like apparently most blogs do. She got me to thinking about the reasons I blog.  It reminds me of the annual christmas letters that go out sometimes, highlighting or at least "spicing up" the negatives that happened in review of the year. I admit blogs do seem to encompass "happily-ever-after" posts exclusively.  Mine does too.  But I just wanted to clarify, why this is, at least for me. Statement #1: My life is full of upsets and arguments and loudness and choas sometimes.  We do get sick and sad and even tired of eachother often enough too. There's never enough $, and time and energy seems to slip away so easily. Life IS NOT perfect, no matter how I try to present it, or how it appears. Statement#2: Actual pictures and posts usually only occur for me when I am upbeat, energized and totally excited about a recent event, or I was fortunate to spot a glimpse of the innocense and simplicity of childhood behavoir. Statement #3:  I personally try to blog, if I have pictures to go along with it. Fortunately, no one is around snapping pics when the kids are arguing, I've lost my mind for the zillionth time, or dinner has been burned.  Besides, what kind of read would that be for all 5 of you out there who read my blog?  With all that said, I'm restating my 1st statement.  I like blogging. It is a break for me so that I will focus on my family and the blessed life we do have. I experience the regularities of life like everyone else, so what I report here are my oasis (es? How do you make that word plural?!) of happiness.  I'd miss them or forget about them if  didn't document them.  I'm not blogging to show off.  It's for me to relax, and remind myself of all the good that surrounds me.

Here's Ben all dressed up as wolverine.  Ben has always been my best make-believer.

McKenna loves playing out in the sand in the backyard.  I still don't know why she tastes the sand everyday, and then walks around with that gritty texture in her mouth for a little while.

McKenna helping mommy bake a cake. She repeated over and over, "I wanna tase it. tase it pweeze." 

O.k.  This one's a real jewel.  McKenna had been freely coming in and out of the house all afternoon, playing just fine, until I realized it had been a few minutes since I've seen or heard from her last.  Here's what I found; she had slipped on my tennis shoes that were by the back door, pulled down this pot of soil off the patio rail and began taking handfuls of dirt and placing it down in the shoes as best as she could.

 Another 80+temp day so we let the kids take turns spraying eachother with the hose while on the trampoline.

Easter and such...

At the end of March my in-laws came to visit from Chico, California.  This was their first visit to our home in Oklahoma.  We had a relaxing, but fun time together.  I must say, all my kids loved seeing their grandparents, but McKenna was really smitten by Nana and Papa.  Could it be all the attention they give her? Hmmmmm....

Here's picture of Nana holding McKenna and being silly together.

There is an awesome children's museum in Seminole, Ok (about 45 minutes away). We have a season pass and decided to play there one afternoon while Nana was visiting.  In this picture, the kids are acting in front of a green screen, like they do for weather forecasters.  All children like seeing themselves "on tv".

There is a pretend car repair shop at the musuem too.  Ben is changing the tire, while Caden and Conner do various other mechanic jobs.

This picture of Conner is blurry since he was standing inside a giant bubble that he created around himself simply by pulling on the rope.

The Easter bunny made a visit to a local park where there was a huge easter egg hunt.  Of course Glenn always corrects me and calls them easter egg rushes since it's over in less than a minute, and there's no hunting involved at all. I was sad to see that the twins are no longer enthralled by the easter bunny anymore.  What?! They're too old (7yrs.).  **sniffles**  Sadness.

Here's papa (a.k.a Larry; Glenn's stepdad), hanging with 3 out 4 of the grandkids. 

This is Glenn's family who came to visit.  There's (left to right) Elaina, Sarah, Glenn and his mom and dad. The only one missing is Glenn's other sister, Melissa.  I should of told Glenn to put on some sunglasses in order to fit in!

Last, but not least, even though there are a dozen more pictures beyond what I've posted, Nana orchestrated the dying of eggs.  Sometimes I'm a party-pooper when it comes to potentially messy projects so I was happy when Nana and Sarah dyed the easter eggs with the kids.  

Catch Up

Why does it always seem like I'm playing catch-up on here?  Because I am! So let me launch into the updates.  I've been struggling a lot lately. 4 weeks ago I had an impacted wisdom tooth.  It was too infected to get removed immediately, so I had to wait another week until I could get it removed.  Finally I got it removed, was moderately ok, until 3 days later when I developed dry-socket.  Long story short, I am one of the lucky ones who takes a lot longer to heal, (typically it takes 1-2 weeks for dry-socket).  I am still seeing the oral surgeon a month later to have the hole in my mouth packed with this nasty clove-tasting pain reliever. It's worth it though since the pain is so severe without it, and being pregnant I have only been able to take tylenol. I could go on-and-on about it, because it's posed a lot of problems and sleepless nights...but on to the happy things that makes everything so worth it...
 I did have another ultrasound and it showed that I'm still expecting a GIRL! I am getting more and more excited as I'm now half-way through the pregnancy. Picking out a name is tough though.  Almost every name I like belongs to someone else close to us.  Glenn's no help this time except at shooting down every idea of mine. At least Benjamin has been trying to help me. Dear child. He's five so he's beginning to spell words, or at least try.  That's where all these weird, creative baby names come up like "Mog. Cuz that rhymes with dog, mom".
Now the captions to all the pictures:

Between the picture above and the one below, which two, look the most alike?

This is a picture of the kids riding on a 4 wheeler for the 1st time ever at my brother Chad's house. They live only 1.5 hours away from us now, so we love visiting.  Everyone had a blast playing outside all day.

Glenn took the 3 boys to a neat park called Turner Falls and had fun exploring all day.  It's apparently a real neat tourist attraction in southern Oklahoma with lots of camping and swimming near the waterfalls. I didn't go because my wisdom tooth hurt so bad that day. I missed out it looks like:(

 

Obviously McKenna had a blast eating her cup of pudding!

Whew!  One of our first 80 degree days of the year!  VERY popsicle worthy!

More to come soon! Stay tuned!