Don't Take Dat.

My mom was visiting us one evening, and she was just loving Micah - he is quite fun to squish and hug and kiss.

As Mom was getting ready to leave, Sadie, quite distressed, pointed to Micah and said, "Don't take dat."

Mom said, "Don't take what? Micah?"

Sadie said, "Yeah. Don't take dat. He's my fayvit one [He's my favorite one]."

The Fuzzy Version of Alfalfa

Micah has this tuft of hair at the crown of his head that won't stay down. I think it's soooo cute. It reminds me of Alfalfa from Little Rascals, but fuzzy instead of slick and dark and thin.

Sometimes the whole mohawk area of his head is sticking up straight, just depending on the day. On these days, when Micah is chewing something, his soft spot moves up and down, causing the tuft of hair to gently sway. It's so funny.

Isn't he cute? Love this kid.

Paper Airplanes

Dylan is obsessed with paper airplanes. He probably makes like ten per day. Sometimes he tapes four pieces of computer paper together and makes one enormous airplane:

So, when I went to the library last week to pick up a book to read, I thought I'd see if they had some books on how to make some different kinds of paper airplanes. And voila, they had two. Ben and Dylan have been having a blast making them. Here are some samples:

I really should go through my scrapbook paper and give Dylan some sheets in colors that I don't really use anymore.

I'm totally excited, because I bought a paper airplane how-to book at Roberts, and it includes some sweet paper. I'm putting it in Dylan's Easter basket, and I think he's going to be thrilled.

Speaking of Chocolate...

Dylan's face looks like this at least once a day.

Chocolate Walls

I have never quite met such chocolate lovers as Nat and Pete. So it's fitting that, when Nat decided to paint her living room/kitchen, she chose two different colors of chocolate. She recruited Mom and I to help, because Pete wouldn't have anything to do with it. There are two reasons for this: 1) He is an Industrial Hygeinist, which means his job is all about safety practices. It freaks him out to climb a ladder or to watch others climb ladders. He wouldn't put Christmas lights on his house because of it. It's a major issue for him. 2) He likes white walls.

So Pete "watched the kids" while Mom, Nat, and I worked. I put that in quotes, because it's hard to contain four teeny kids in one downstairs room for an entire day. Troy kept escaping and coming upstairs to "help" us. Troy is Very Important. He always has to be in on the adult action. Screw playing with the other little kids. He was wearing his footed jammies, and he stepped in a tray of paint at one point. Nat ended up having to cut the foot off. (Not Troy's foot. The foot of his pajamas. Just wanted to clarify that.) Which is really what ends up happening to most footed jammies, at least in my house. My kids get too tall for them, but if we cut off the feet (of the jammies, not the children), they can last for a few more months.

Brock was so cute. For much of the day, he sat on the couch, which was pushed into the middle of the room, and lipsynced Kanye West songs. He stayed out of the way, for the most part, but at one point, he touched the wall by accident. The chocolate-colored paint on his hand kind of freaked him out.

Okay. Here is the "before" picture of the kitchen:

Sorry I don't have any "before" pictures of the living room. Here is the deep chocolate wall. It turned out beautifully:

Here's the opposite wall, which we painted the color of chocolate milk, except for the little recessed part above, which we painted that dark chocolate color:

See? Proof that it truly is the color of chocolate milk:

Here is the "after" shot of the kitchen. I think the colors look really nice against the light cupboards:

I was supposed to go to the Young Women's broadcast that night, but all I wanted to do was sleep, because it took us HOURS to paint. Painting is exhausting!!

Pete's Birthday

My brother-in-law, Pete's, birthday was a couple of weeks ago. My camera's batteries died while we were there, so I'm really glad Nat took pictures.

Pete cracks me up. He always sings to himself while we're all singing to him - "Happy Birthday to ME, Happy Birthday to ME...":

Sadie was anti-picture. I was trying to keep her there on the couch with me:

She hid behind a couch, and Nat coaxed her out:

Pete LOVES High School Musical. True story. Mom got him a HSM coloring book (and some other stuff):

Pete got some red-bottomed shoes from Nat. They call those shoes his "angry shoes":

I gave Pete a big piece of Black Dutch fudge from Sarah's Candy Cottage. Yummmm:

Cute Micah:

Me and Brocky:

How Mad Is She??

When Ben and I were first married and living in Salt Lake, we would go to the movies a lot, and while we sat in the theater, waiting for the movies to start, we'd watch all of the slideshow-like advertisements on the screen. One of the advertisements was for a flower shop in town, and it showed three bouquets of flowers, ranging from a small bouquet on the left to a huge bouquet on the right. And at the bottom of the screen, it said, "How mad is she??" We always laughed about that.

Ben got me flowers a couple of times in the last few months. Not because I was mad. More because I was just sad. Sad about our situation. Sad about having to be away from my kids. It was a hard few months for me. "How sad is she??"

I took some pictures of some of the flowers. They were beautiful. Flowers make life seem a little better, in my opinion.