Carpet Polish

So guess what I spent 1-1/2 hours doing this afternoon? Cleaning up an entire crushed bottled of RED nail polish off my carpet. One of my children, who shall remain nameless (except that his alias is "The Destroyer") decided to take 2 bottle of nail polish and smash them together. Of course the one that shattered was O.P.I. red. A true bright red and also an $8 bottle of polish. It was new so the entire bottle spilled all over Jacob, me, my chair and mostly my poor innocent carpet. To make a long story short, after trying hundreds of combinations of chemicals (and filling my house with toxic fumes in the process) a combination of warm water, 100% pure acetone, hydrogen peroxide and a good scrub brush was what finally took most of it out. It literally took me well over an hour (the splotches covered a good 2 sq.ft.) but it looks good now. Although, I used all my acetone on the carpet (the chair is unsalvageable--thank goodness for slipcovers) so my hand, food, Jacob's hand, foot and stomach are all covered in red. It looks like we had a visit from an axe murderer. Jake's clothes had to go straight to the trash. (oops--guess I gave away who the culprit was...) Luckily he only got a few scratches. Actually he truly is lucky because I was painting my friend's toes at the time--her presence most likely spared the child a good swat on the bottom and an eternal time-out. Lucky kid.

Water, Forts and Ice Cream...is there more to life?

This past holiday weekend we went to my mom's house and, of course, made the requisite trip to Disneyland.  At California Adventure they have a few water play areas for kids.  We usually don't let our kids play in them too much because we don't want them to be sopping the rest of the day.  But, this day, it was SO hot, we relented.  I tried to get some good shots but the boys were constantly running around--impossible to catch.  They sure did have fun though.  By the end of it all they were SOAKED to the bone--I think I wrung a gallon of water out of Tyler's shirt.  It was all good though--they didn't complain about being wet once.  And in that hot sun they dried off pretty quickly.
We went to the park while we were there too--it's been a while since our house has been too hot to go to the park for a long time.  We used to go in the early morning but with school that doesn't work anymore.  Maggie loves the swing.  She sat in it the whole time, happy as a clam, even when it wasn't moving!
And here she is showing off her pretty Sunday dress.  Boy, my mom's church is QUIET!  Or maybe I am just used to the loud symphony we call church--our chapel is basically one main room so there is no place to take your children when they are being naughty.  So the noise level gets pretty high.  My kids just blend it there... not at my mom's!
Maggie has so many cute expressions but I can't ever capture them on camera.  This next one you can see a little bit.  When she gets excited she crinkles up her nose and laughs.  It is so adorable.
I just liked this picture....
A few Sundays ago the boys were bored.  We are trying hard to keep the Sabbath Day holy so we don't let them watch tv, play outside, or stuff like that on Sunday.  They decided to build a fort.  Their attempts at it were not too successful, so I stepped in and we built a pretty awesome fort.  Jacob, of course, kept pulling it down, but I fixed it most of the time.  They loved it.  There is just something about a fort when you are a kid...
This is what I see every time I go get Maggie from her nap--little jailbird.  
Last week on Thursday guess who came by our house?
The ice cream man!  The boys really wanted one and I never let them but I was feeling generous I suppose.  So I told them to go outside and they could each have one dollar to buy an ice cream with.  I figured for a dollar they could each get a small popsicle, push up pop, or small ice cream sandwich.  Well, guess how much the cheapest item was? $1.75.  I was shocked.  And it was for a dumb little popsicle.  Most things were $2.50.  Ridiculous.   I told the guy I only had two dollars, but he was nice and gave my kids each a popsicle anyway.  Who says kindness is dead?
The above is another attempt at trying to capture Maggie's crinkle nose expression.  She crawls everywhere now--but she has a funky crawl.  She crawls normally with the right leg, but only steps of her foot on the left side.  So it is like a half walk half crawl.  She loves getting around though, so no complaints.  Except that now she is starting to climb stairs.  Why do they have to grow up so fast?  I need a pause button...

A funny story...as you all well know, Jacob is my "rough 'n tumble" "man's man" kid.  Well, occasionally when Tyler throws a fit he threatens to do something, such as, "If you don't ____ I am going to throw this toy."  We generally respond with, "Go ahead and see what happens."  That usually snaps him to his senses because he knows exactly what will happen...and then that is the end of it.  Well, the other day Eric was telling Jacob to go to time out.  Jacob responded with, "If you tell me to go to time out then I am going to hit you in the mouth."  Eric:  "Go ahead and see what happens...."  The next thing Eric knew Jake socked him right in the kisser.  And it wasn't a little tap--Jake full on wound up and swung with all his might.  I think if Eric hadn't been laughing so hard he's have been crying!  Well, that'll teach us....