Anyhoo, here are a few updates on us recently:
--We did a 5 mile Walk for Heart Disease the other weekend, our whole family, along with some other people from Jeff's work and a couple thousand strangers. It was invigorating, in fact, albiet a bit stressful as Dilly threw his umpteenth fit because he had to sit in a stroller (Horrors!) and Zoe went to sleep in Daddy's arms....not so bad, that, but Noah wouldn't get out of the stroller and Dillon can't be trusted, so Jeff had to carry her, sleeping, the last 2 miles. I think he had a backache. I guess that's what we get for trying to do small marathons with small children. I liked it though....it was certainly out of the norm.
--We've been up to visit Mom, Grandpa, & DC in their new, gorgeous home in McKinney. It's really lovely...high ceilings, lots of crown moulding everywhere, lots of nice windows with trees outside, etc. I mean, this is a home that I wish we could buy & live in! So happy for them. While we were up there DC & Robert were going out to a movie ("The Owls of Gonohreaa" or something) and I blythely invited myself along with no tact whatsoever...and DC not only obligingly let me come, but insisted on paying for me. I told him it was ok, cuz he was my Dad, but that he'd better not make a habit of it. Joking aside, it was pretty nice to see a movie...it's been awhile. Jeff put all the kids to bed for me, bless his tired heart. He's been working pretty brutal hours recently.
--On the kid front, everyone is doing well. Noah is getting really turned on to learning & seems to have acclimated to his school nicely, THANK GOD. I was getting a little worried there at the beginning. He's trying to read everything in sight & sits there practicing his alphabet FOR FUN. I'm very proud of him.
Miz Boe is getting very big and ladylike. She can walk very well now, although she has this funny, old-lady-with-bad-hips sort of gait. Of course now she thinks she's going to be walking everywhere & getting in to everything, just because she can. At least she's not a Dilly #2, climbing the walls. And speaking of the young devil:
Dilly is well physically, but seems to be breaking out in a recent rash of misbehavior and especially naughty escapades. I sometimes dispair of that child. He's very smart and maybe gets bored, and we all know about an idle mind; consider these examples:
1. I often let the kids outside to play in the sprinkler, and since our backyard is fenced, I let them play by themselves. And no matter how much I adjure them by the living God not to, Dilly ALWAYS takes off his pullup and revels in the mud. When I say revels, he takes a full-on mud bath, face to feet, and lets not forget the crotch. It's so gross & I'm sure it's a miracle he doesn't have worms. He eats it too, spitting it out with astonishment on his face, like he had NO IDEA it tastes like....well, dirt. Please see the picture below, exhibit A.
Feel free to pull this up and view it in life size. Please note the expression on the face. 2. He has broken & damaged numerous things, the last one being our beloved camera. It's not that he's trying to be naughty, but he doesn't know how to obey when told not to touch things.
3. And this is the piece de restistance: the other night he went to sleep very early & awoke, unfortunately, at about 11:00 PM, bright eyed & bushy tailed, ready for action. Jeff & I were exhausted & told him to lay in his bed, and then (unwisely) went to sleep with him still awake. I woke up about 45 min. later to find him gone. I had a feeling I knew where he was, and I wasn't wrong: he was in my makeup again. He ADORES my makeup.....it's all in this big drawer in our bathroom & he's never allowed to touch it, and consequently he desires it above all things in this life. I guess it's like the most fun shiny finger paints ever. So I go in there, and I just gasped. My breath was literally taken away by the scope of his perfidy. It was like a movie scene of a crime or something, in it's grandness. My makeup was EVERYWHERE, spread all over. Powders were overturned, lip gloss wands were strewn promiscuously about, leaking gloss everywhere, and there were small, Dilly-sized hand prints, pink, all over our uncleanable, flat paint walls. He had taken 2 tubes of my lipstick and done hand artwork all over the walls. But that wasn't all. There, amid the wreckage of my makeup, staring at me like a deer in the headlights, stood my STARK NAKED son. He had removed his pjs & diaper, and was fully covered, head to toe, in a dusty pink lipstick. He had taken off his diaper and lovingly rubbed it into his crotch and fronie, which were both a lovely rose-pink, and sparkly to boot. It was in his hair, on his neck, everywhere. I CANNOT OVERSTATE THE CASE. Also, in places he was a shimmery golden color. Through my horror it occured to me that he had actually done a very good job of evenly spreading the lipstick all over himself...it was a smooth tone, very hard to achieve. But then, OH MY GOD OH MY GOD YOU BAD BAD BOY etc.
I washed him for 20 minutes with a scrubby and grease-cutting dishwasher liquid to get it off him. Companies make makeup hard to remove. I didn't spank him or anything. It was just too late in the night and I was too weary to care about punishment. But I did cry a little because of my destroyed make up & the mess. Jeff later told Dilly that he had made me cry, and he was so upset that he hasn't gotten into it again. We'll see how long that lasts.
Alright, I have no more time now. There are other stories, but this will have to do. I think, if you love us, you'll pray that we live through Dillon's childhood. Also, that he lives.
Mom & Dad, a little worse for wear
Noah the Barbarian
This has an explanation: that thing on his head it is a net, like a little butterfly net. Dilly was convinced that it was the perfect touch to make him a superhero, and very happily posed for these 2 pictures. The pose he created himself, naturally.
I just think this is the cutest thing in the world.
Starting out on our "walk" for heart health.
Someone took this pic for us...one of the few we have with all of us in the pic.
I think this one is a little better. I took it.
Pretty Aunty Abi, who doted on the kids when we were up visiting Mom.
Family fun at a lake near where Mom & DC live. We had a picnic! Yay.