Name that Tune

Emily has been singing this song a lot lately. When I actually stopped to listen to what she was singing, I started cracking up. I guess this is the church version (at least I know she has picked up something either in nursery or at home!)

The Secret Confessions of Addison Lacy

I have to make this quick. My mom fell asleep reading Emily a book, so I managed to sneak over while she was out. Really, who falls asleep in the middle of the day while reading a book? Especially to Emily who NEVER stops talking!! I guess maybe that means she doesn't get enough sleep at night or something. Oh well. Anyway, I've been wanting to make a confession, but my mom watches me like a hawk! (That or Cole is always on the computer.)
Here it is....
I am a thumbsucker!
There it's out! My parents are very much against it (because everyone tells them it is such a hard habit to break), so I knew that I would have to be the one to confess. They always pull my thumb out, especially my Dad. If you want to see a battle sometime, come to my house when I am tired and Dad is home. I put my thumb in, he pulls it out. I put my thumb back in, he pulls my thumb back out. Over and over. Sometimes when he pulls out my thumb and puts a pacifier in, I keep it in until he's not looking and then I spit it out and put my thumb back in. It's a pretty fun game!
My mom on the other hand just looks at me and says, "Addy take your thumb out of your mouth." And believe it or not, I look at her, give her a great big grin and actually take my thumb out. At least for a minute! (I want her to think I'm more obedient than my brother and sister.)
My Dad has also made such a big deal out of it that if Cole or Emily sees me with my thumb in my mouth, they sound the red alert. I can hear them now, "Addy has her thumb in her mouth!" Yelled at the top of their lungs. I will get my revenge on them one day!
There is however, one person who approves of my habit, but that's probably because he would approve of any legal habit I have!
Thanks for your support Grandpa! I miss you!

Kid-isms

After a rough Sunday (12:30 church is not ideal. It could be a long year!), I decided it was time to post some funny things my kids have done lately so I could be reminded that they really are cute!
One Saturday morning, I was sitting on the couch reading Emily books while Cole was watching TV. I looked up at one point and realized that he was flipping back and forth between at least two cartoons. I told him to pick a cartoon and stick with it. He told me if he did that, then he wouldn't know what was happening in the other one. I told him too bad, he had to pick one. He then asked if he could at least flip to the other one on commercials. I about fell off the couch laughing because he sounded just like his Dad does while watching sports on TV (flipping back and forth between multiple games, especially on commercials). Like father, like son I suppose.
Cole is currently into infomercials (which they show way too often on kid-friendly channels!) At least twice a day, he comes to tell me that we need to get the Snugglie or Bendaroos or the Hangers that triple your closet space or Blendy Pens or whatever other item they are promoting that day. Not only does he tell me what it is, but he also proceeds to list off all of the great qualities that the product has and why we should get it. Oh, my too smart boy!
There are all kinds of stories I could tell on Emily. She pretty much cracks me up every day. First of all, we were sitting in church one day and Emily pulled a book out of my bag and asked Chad to read it to her. Chad told her he was trying to listen and she needed to read it by herself. She looked at him with the saddest eyes and said, "But daddy, I 'tan't' read." Once again, I about fell down laughing.
Emily also likes to frequently tell me that the outfit she is wearing is cute. (Again, I'm not sure who's daughter she is. Her mother never dressed up like this!!)
Aunt Katie painted her fingernails and toenails when she was visiting a week ago (this picture is from a different painting session), and the very next morning, as soon as she got out of bed, Emily wanted her pj's off so she could make sure her toes were still painted. Even though it was a week ago, and the paint is mostly worn off, she still walks around asking people if they like her fingers and toes.
Addy, of course, does lots of cute things. When we were at my parent's house over the holidays, my dad showed her a very large stuffed reindeer. Every time she saw the reindeer after that, she started talking nonstop to it. (Oh great, yet another child who likes to talk!)

She is also very cute with her brother and sister. She loves when they come up to her and play with her. She frequently rewards them with giant smiles, which they love and which causes them to play with her more. I do have to admit that they are very cute when they interact with her!
This is Addy when Emily and her friend decided she needed some toys to play with. You can't really see her under all the toys, but you can see her little legs poking out the bottom. I think this was a day when she wasn't so fond of her sister!This was their finished product. At least she wasn't going to be bored?!
And, let's not forget the biggest kid of all in our family, although this is more in the "what were you thinking" department. The day after Christmas, Chad disappeared. I had heard him go into the garage, but I knew he had shorts and a t-shirt on, so I wasn't sure what he was doing out there. I open the door, and he is shoveling snow like this, which would have been fine if it was 45 or 50 degrees. However, I think it was less than 30 that day! Oh well, a wife tries. At least he was doing a good deed and shoveling, right?! I love him too!
Ok, I do love them all. And they are back to being cute again! (Of course that could just be because they are all asleep and the house is quiet, at least for a while.)

It's a Sad, Sad Day!!

After 2 weeks of fighting it and trying my hardest to avoid it, I have to admit defeat. Emily is no longer taking a daily nap. My 2 hours of semi-peace and quiet are no more. But, when I threaten her with everything I can possibly think of and she still climbs out of her bed and refuses to sleep, what is a mom to do?! And of course it happens about the time I was managing to get Addy down around the same time! Oh well, at least this means that she will go to bed earlier! (At least that is my hope and dream.)

Christmas Day...Finally!

I was greatly looking forward to this Christmas. Cole is starting to be old enough to remember things, so he was pretty excited and Emily always likes to follow Cole, so if he was excited, so was she! (This picture was taken before Christmas, but I'm considering our Christmas picture. I'm obviously not a professional!)
I woke up about 7ish, not wanting to miss the kids reaction when they walked out and saw the presents and stockings, but I stayed in bed and just listened. Addy woke up at some point and I brought her into our room. Emily came walking in about 8 and didn't say anything. I wasn't completely surprised because she usually just makes a beeline for our room in the morning and doesn't stop to do anything else. So we hung out in our room and waited for Cole. I just knew it was going to be great!

At 8:30, when Cole still wasn't awake, Chad decided he was going to take a shower. Cole finally walked in at about 8:45 and said nothing about Santa coming or anything. I was starting to go nuts and Chad was still in the shower so I couldn't even guide them out there! Finally, Chad finished and I starting asking Cole if we should check and see if Santa came or not. He looked at me and said, "Oh yeah, he came, I looked before I came in here." This was like 10 minutes after he came into our room! I couldn't believe I was so excited for a reaction and I got nothing!



It was now after 9 and we had not done a single Christmas morning thing! Who does that with a 4-year-old?!













Stockings were always my favorite part of Christmas morning growing up because Santa always brought us a new book and some other fun gadget, plus we could get up early and open our stockings without our parents. Santa was apparently better when I was a kid though because my kids aren't into the stockings nearly as much as I was! Although Cole wanted to show Chad every single piece of chocolate in his stocking! It was quite humorous.


After the stockings, it was on to the presents. Cole can read names now, so he was in charge of handing out the presents, although he sometimes confused the "To:" and "From:". Of course, he wasn't very speedy, which tried his Dad's patience at times, but for the most part, he did a good job.
Here are a few snapshots.













































































Addy and I in our Christmas morning glory!













Chad, freshly showered, looks much better than I do!








The kids were much cuter than their parents on Christmas morning! (Although Addy is a little lost amongst the presents and stockings.)













Ok, and now the fun stuff!
Every year, Santa brings Chad a new atlas because he's (Chad, not Santa) sort of a map geek! As shown in this picture, he's turning Cole into one as well! The two of them spent way too long examining the new atlas that is barely different from last year's version!



I was very excited for two of the gifts that Santa brought for the kids. First of all, we got a magazine in the mail about 6 weeks before Christmas that Cole looked through. He found this castle that he told me he really wanted. I tried to talk him out of it and into a different castle many times, but he stuck to his guns that he wanted the one from the magazine. So, I made sure Santa was going to bring him that castle. However, the picture on the box looked completely different than the one in the magazine and I did not get the reaction I was going for!

I was also very excited about a present for Emily that was an easel with a chalkboard on one side and a magnetic white board on the other side. So, I also made sure Santa brought that to Emily. However, due to its size, Santa did not wrap it, he just put it backwards so you couldn't tell what was in the box. Once again, that was apparently a mistake because I did not get the reaction that I was looking for there either! However, I should just stick with the $5 puzzle because that got the biggest reaction of all of her presents! Oh well! Live and learn!


Thankfully both presents have lived up to my hopes since then and have been played with a lot!
Just like that, the excitement of Christmas morning was over. Over a month of planning, shopping and wrapping was finished in just over 2 hours! (That's a little depressing to think about!) But, overall we had a great Christmas! We are grateful for our children and the good life that we have!

A Little Sugar and a Lot of Sprinkles!

Ok, since it's already the middle of January and I'm trying to get through all of my December pictures still, I thought about skipping the Christmas Cookie pictures. But, as I was looking through my pictures, I remembered some funny things that were too cute to resist sharing! So, December continues for a few more posts.

First of all, I obviously have not made sugar cookies enough because 1. I do not make good dough and 2. I forgot what a huge mess they are. But it's a Christmas tradition, so carry on, right?

We invited our cousins, Morgan and Mason over to help us decorate cookies. I was hoping the older influence would do us some good and make it a little easier. Which it did.
They all wanted to help roll out their own dough, so I let them. Which of course didn't go all that well, but live and learn! However, it did lead to one of the funny moments. Emily was "rolling" her dough out in front of her and I heard her say something about a turtle. I thought that was a little odd because I was pretty sure my Christmas cookie cutters did not have a turtle in them. So I looked over and saw this.
Somehow she had managed to roll her dough into a pretty good turtle shape and she was quite proud of herself.
After we baked them and let them cool (and played the Wii while we waited), it was on to decorating.
Cole started out pretty good, a normal amount of frosting and some sprinkles.
Morgan and Mason did a great job on theirs. They were very creative with their decorating. They made a baseball and a nicely frosted Santa Claus, etc. Just the influence I was looking for.
Cole continued to add sprinkles.
Emily went down for a nap somewhere in the baking and cooling part, but we saved some for her to decorate when she woke up.
And Cole continued to add sprinkles!
Seriously, his cookies were dripping with sprinkles! I wish I'd taken a picture of the finished products because there was a very obvious difference between the cookies made by the 9-year-olds and the cookies made by my kids! Oh well, they had a good time and Cole was proud of his cookies. Chad was even nice enough to choke down a few of them. (Although I think he scraped off half a bottle of sprinkles when Cole wasn't looking!)

The Rest of Las Vegas

Circus Circus wasn't the only fun thing that we did while we were in Las Vegas. We also went to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory to see the lights in the Cactus Garden and of course to have some chocolate! I'm not sure what is going on in this picture, but it's the best I have since Addy and I stayed out of the cold. If you look carefully, you can see the lights behind them.
Also at the Chocolate Factory, Weston got to hold Addy, which he thought was even better than chocolate!
We also got to see a real(?) mermaid! One of the casinos that's off of the Strip has a huge fish tank that every hour or so a Mermaid swims in. Emily thought she was great!
The next day, we took a trip to M & M World. (Yes, my kids are in different BYU clothes today!)
Our NASCAR junkies got to see the M & M car. Anyone know who the driver is? Cole does!
As we were walking down The Strip, we saw this funny guy who was spray painted gold and standing sideways.
We did however run into 1 major problem while we were walking around. How do you get 3 kids into a 2 person stroller? Stack them, of course!
One perk of Chad's job is that we get to stay at Planet Hollywood with the football team. They have a fun room that you can go hang out in. It has a big screen TV, ping pong, air hockey, lots of video games, and free ice cream and drinks. We almost just stayed in there the whole time! (This is a lousy picture from my phone. I never had the camera when we were in there.)
Then, according to Chad, the most important reason for going to Las Vegas. GAME DAY! Here Cole and Emily are teaching Addy how to sing Rise and Shout!
Aunt Katie was nice enough to keep the kids while Chad and I went to the game with his parents and my brother, Matt. Unfortunately, it was not a happy ending!
And then to finish the trip, we had to celebrate Uncle Matt's Birthday with a special birthday brownie that Aunt Katie helped Cole and Emily make for him. HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE MATT!