Help...Somebody wake me!!

**WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING**

**********THE FOLLOWING BLOG IS READ AT YOUR OWN RISK*************

DO NOT, REPEAT, DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:

1. IF YOU ARE OR MAY BE EXPERIENCING ANY MORNING SICKNESS
2. IF YOU EXPERIENCE ANY TYPE OF A WEAK STOMACH
3. SMALL CHILDREN LOOKING OVER YOUR SHOULDER
4. AN UNCONTROLLABLE URGE TO DRY HEAVE


*While hopefully rare, evacuation from this blog may be required due to weak stomach syndrome. If this is the case simply scroll up very quickly or press the X at the top of your screen.*


CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED, FROM HERE ON IN YOUR ON YOUR OWN!!!


So it was the night before Christmas and I thought all was quite throughout the house. We needed to open one present so that we could get the kids ready to snuggle in their beds. When down by the tree there arose such a splatter, I sprang to the room to see what was the matter. When what to my wondering eyes should appear? Lexi was crying, with throw up all smeared! It didn't take long, yes I can be quite quick! To figure that Lexi must really be sick! (ok ok I'm done with this rhyming thing)



Jackson soon took full advantage of his parents helping Lexi and found a fun place to play horses, he could not understand why we would not let him continue playing!

As I'm sure you can imagine that it was a rough night for Lexi but thankfully she was better by morning and full of energy to open presents. We thought we were in the clear! Christmas day went with everyone feeling good. Friday came and we had a great day playing with friends, the Hansens were in town and we played all day. Jason and I thought that we would go to bed early and get some good sleep. At about 10:45 Jackson started crying. Jason went in to see what was wrong and that's when it all started to go downhill. He started yelling for backup, he needed the troops. I ran in to see poor little Jackson sitting on his bed all covered in puke! I looked at Jason just as he ran right past me and into the bathroom. Now I'd be lying if I did not say that I caught a case of the giggles. I thought to myself 'you call yourself a man? It's just a little puke, grow some and get in here and help me out!' But whether you are throwing up because your sick or just have a weak stomach it is not fun. So I told myself not to make eye contact so that I would not start laughing at him. But as he walked out of the bathroom wiping his mouth I could not keep a straight face and lost it. But after looking at him I realized that it may not be just weak stomach syndrome. He very well could have the man flu ( for those of you familiar with the man cold it is very similar). For the rest of the night those two were at it every 40 minutes. I started to think that maybe they were in some strange type of competition...who could barf more?!? We had Jackson in bed with us with a bowl in between the two sickies. At 2:00 a.m. Taylor joined in on the fun. By 2:15 poor baby Carter started in on the competition. At 4:00 I was holding a bowl for Taylor in one hand and one for Jackson in the other hand while listening to Jason in the bathroom. I thought I was in some horrible dream and was yelling at myself to wake up. That's when this bad dream turned into a nightmare...As I was holding the bowls I heard Anika running into the room and not make it to the bathroom. Could it get even worse? (I could not even escape it when I was sleeping...my dreams consisted of Jackson throwing up tiny ice sculptures.) We set up camp in our room and had a bowl within reach of everyone.

I was sleeping in room full of pukers and somehow managed to escape the sickness myself. I am happy to report that everyone is feeling better and life is back to normal...All but the smell in my bedroom!

My baby is four months

I can not believe my little guy is already four months...Time flies by when your having fun! (Technically he is four and a half months.) At Carter's four month check up he weighed a big 17 pounds 13 ounces. He is quite the tank. He also already has two teeth, they came in over a month ago. He really is a good baby, well as long as he's being held. Carter has been a true joy to our family and we all love him so very much!!

Thank goodness for husbands

So Jason came home and fixed my big white space. What would I do without him?!? Wait..I know what I'd do...I'd make you all scroll through endless nothingness to get to comment on something you probably don't want to comment on in the first place. I have to make it easy if I have any chance of getting feedback!

I so do not get how to do this blog stuff!

So I just did a post and realized I somehow left a ton of space with nohting in it at the end of the post. I have no idea what I did or how to fix it so I guess you just have to deal with it....SORRY!

rub-a-dub my kids in the tub

So we all have a saving grace....A place where we can put the kids so we can get a few things done. I used to find it hard to get myself ready in the morning without the kids constantly needing something from me. (I am NOT a morning person so the idea of getting myself up before the kids so I can get ready does not work!) We moved into our house a little over two years ago and I discovered the best thing in the world, a jet tub that makes the bubbles last forever! My kids have a blast in there while I have the luxury of getting myself ready. Who cares that I have to do a great deal of cleaning water off the floor and bubbles off the wall at least my kids are confined to one area. I was going through my pictures and realized that I have a ton of pictures of my kiddos in the bath so thought I'd share a few:

Christmas Lights...hanging them does NOT bring out Holiday Spirit!

Ok...for starters...this house is NOT my house. For those in Greeley, you may recognize it. The house is located over in Kelly Farms, and claims to have "over 100,000 lights" in the show. My family and I decided to check it out last Monday as part of our family home evening (a GREAT activity for those families with younger children...get them into jammies...and off you go). This house was amazing! Not only the lights, but the fact that you can turn your radio to a certain station and listen to Christmas music while you enjoy the lights. Then, on the half hour, the lights and music are coordinated into an amazing show. With all of that being said, I am sure you can all see just how this house could be a motivation for a "rookie Christmas lighter" such as myself. But dangit, if this guy could do 100,000 lights with music and computers and somehow doing this without being killed by his neighbors, I could do some simple lighting. So, off to Wal-mart to get the new thing for lighting...LED lights. What a concept! I can string together 91 sets of these lights off one outlet! Who in their right mind would have to string together 91 sets of lights? In this case that would be almost 1500 feet of lights...or almost 2300 lights! I guess this guy needed almost 50 outlets...no wonder he needs his own power station!

Sorry...side track. Well...I am proud to say that after an hour of shopping, and then another hour of prep work and finally an hour of putting lights up...here was the result!!!

Yep...you see it right...ONE strand of lights...25 in total! I put in almost 3 hours and this was my reward? According to my math, the guy above must have started around St Patricks Day to have completed this in time. However, I refused to be discouraged. And, after a decent pep talk in the mirror (I think it scared my children a bit....oops) I got started again.

As you can see...I actually started having fun. It wasn't all that bad. I hung some lights...freaked the kids out by being on the roof, and even got my mom to hang up on me when she called me on my cell and I simply answered, "Hey mom...I am hanging lights and am currently standing on my roof!"...CLICK. And, after all was said and done, I had hung almost 400 lights (I still have "light envy" with the super house above) and they looked good. However, I have 100 more to hang to complete what I wanted. Oh, and the colored lights for the trees...and the hanging snowflake lights for the porch...and the candy can lights to line the drive way...and the lighted wreaths on either side of the garage...and the blow up frosty the snowman for the yard....oh crap...I might be done by NEXT St Patricks Day. Well, the price to pay to have the holiday spirit shining brightly for all to see! The work in progess is below.

Gobble Gobble

Wow this year has gone by fast! Thanksgiving has come and gone. This Thanksgiving was spent with the people I am most grateful for...Family. Jason's parents and sister Erin came over along with my mom and sister Jaclyn from Utah and my sister Kelly and her hubby Bryce. We did what most people do on Thanksgiving...had tacos (YUM YUM). Okay not really we had the whole turkey dinner. The night before we made some cute little turkey cookies. Taylor made them at school and was dying to teach us all how to make them. She was asking us for a week to make them and we did what most parents do, told her we'd make them tomorrow. After a week of hearing tomorrow she finally said "What do I get if we don't make them tomorrow?". So I promised her $200 if we did not make them. So at 8:00 the next night I was quick to pull out the stuff. It actually was a lot of fun and they turned out pretty good.

As you can see, we ended up with a flock of turkeys...and they kept us up most of the night with their constant gobbling...

However, after a while the gobbling got too much to handle...and we decided it was time to take care of business!!!

Jackson enjoyed opening the kisses more than the making of the cookies, can't say I blame him!

We are still trying to figure out what was in that syringe that made the girls look like this!

How do you people do it?!?

So starting a blog was not good enough for you, now you actually want us to update it? For quite some time now people have been saying "Summer do you blog?", "you don't blog Summer?!?", "You need to start a blog". I kept telling people I just don't have the time. I can barely find time to pee by myself yet alone write a blog. In fact I'm not even peeing by myself right now, can you say lap top....yep that's right your all peeing with me! I figured it was the only way to get this blog done. I am in awe of all you bloggers. You somehow find the time to work your jobs, do the housework, be parents....please teach me your secerts! Okay okay I don't do well with peer pressure I'll get better at this blogging thing. Oh man who forgot to put on the new roll of toilet paper?

TOP TEN REASONS WE FINALLY STARTED THIS BLOG....

We figured everyone was entitled to a quick insight as to why we thought this blog was finally necessary. Please note, we are "newbies" at this and this site is UNDER CONSTRUCTION! However, there are 10 reasons that officially motivated us to join the "blogesphere"!

10. This is a wonderful way to capture the youth and innocence of our children...while they still posess youth and innocence.

9. It is SOOOO much better to read friends blogs on a regular basis than that Christmas letter that is sent out every year.

8. It is even better to avoid having to send out the aforementioned letter ourselves...Jason thinks that holiday sweaters make him look fatter than he really is!

7. Let's face it...we are the ultimate "victims" of peer pressure!!

6. This is so much more cool, and entertaining for that matter, than journaling!

5. We don't ever want to forget anything (like the time that Anika came home with "The Booger Touch"...is this the 21st century version of Cooties?)

4. With seven kids we will NEVER...EVER...be short on material to blog about!

3. You know...I really like that last one...can we use that one twice? Hey...it's our blog...we can!

2. We can not think of a better way to share ALL of the aspects of our family that we are both proud of...and ashamed of...probably more of the latter there.

And the #1 reason we are starting our blog: This is truly the ultimate way to hold crap over our kids heads when they get older...just what we want...leverage!