Christmas Card Quiz

• Guest post from Steve.

Can you guess which kid has a photoshopped head?

Isn't Photoshop great? You have 5 kids that you're trying to get to smile all at the same time without blinking or making rabbit ears (or any other kind of finger gesture, for that matter). If you're lucky, one out of 50 shots will look good. But with Photoshop, you don't need to take 50 pictures. Just a few. Then cut and paste the best head shots into the best overall picture. And voila, a decent picture! And that's what Susan did with our Christmas picture this year. (She hasn't mastered the airbrush and nip/tuck techniques of Photoshop yet, or I would be in the picture too). Can you guess the kid with the head that was cut/paste?

First, place your vote in the poll to the right, then you can check your answer in the comments. Don't peek!

Sam's Man Suit

Doesn't Sam like his new suit?

Or maybe he just wants his bottle that I'm holding hostage over my head.

I tried so hard to get a decent picture of Sam in his hilarious suit, one where he wasn't sucking on his bottle. You can't look like a little man with a bottle hanging out of your mouth, can you? It was a no-go. I finally got him to look up and smile briefly by banging myself on the top of the head with his bottle. But you can still see the tears in his eyes.

Tree Decorating

We had fun decorating the Christmas tree last night. The kids were very excited to pull out all of the ornaments and find the ones they had made throughout the past several years of school. It's always a challenge for me to come up with creative ways to tell them to hang one of their handmade ornaments in the back of the tree without hurting their feelings. Sarah finally caught on to what I was doing, so I had to explain to her, "I love all of the ornaments you made, but some of them are prettier than others, so I want those ones in the front!" She seemed to take it okay. They took turns using the ladder to get all of the good ornaments up high so Sam couldn't reach them.

Of course, it didn't take Sam long to figure out how to reach the best, most breakable ornaments.

While decorating the tree was fun, Matthew, pubescent boy that he is, was especially excited to hang up the kissing balls.

Everyone wanted to put the star on the top of the tree, but Matthew was the loudest and most obnoxious about it, so he got to do it.

All of the tree decorators were happy with our beautiful tree even though they had to decorate it almost exclusively on the top half.

Unfortunately, a tree that is decorated only on the top half tends to be very top heavy, so it looked somewhat like this in the morning only with fewer ornaments still on it. Luckily, no one was sleeping under it like we usually do the first night.

Abby was very happy, though. After we re-decorated the tree and strapped it to a bolt in the wall, she got to put the star back on the top.

And now we have fewer breakable ornaments for Sam to target.

Nervous Breakdown

My last post about the pies was somewhat deceptive in that it made me look very organized and efficient. So I told Paige my next post would be about my messy house and my nervous breakdown. I took pictures but can only bring myself to post the most mild of them - too embarrassing.

left to right: scary toy closet, boxes sitting in my living room, Sam's work on the kitchen floor, the least scary picture of my office

These are the reasons for my fast approaching nervous breakdown (the speed of its approach depends a lot on the time of the month):

• Sam won't stay out of the dogfood. It is his favorite snack. The other day, I caught him with his cheeks bulging. When I asked him what he had, he started spitting it out to give to me. He gave me an entire handful of soggy dogfood. It took him several spits to get it all out, and then he cried because I took away his snack.



• Yesterday, Sam took apart a pen and got blue ink all over himself - I'm still trying to figure out what else he got the ink on. It's even on his butt. (Don't ask me how - he had a diaper on.)



• This morning, Sam took apart another pen, and I found him sticking its various parts into an electrical outlet.



• He has lately learned to turn on the fireplace.



• I recently found 9 cans of food in the trashcan. Sam is obsessed with the trashcan, so we lose shoes, homework, books, toys, stainless steel mixing bowls, etc. to the trash. Steve finally put a lock on the pantry door. We had to put the lock high enough so that Sam couldn't just drag a chair over to unlock the pantry.



• My older kids leave the diswasher unlocked or open. Yesterday, Sam grabbed a 10 inch long sharp knife, and came running across the kitchen with it pointed straight at me to give it to me. I had just a second to decide: grab the knife or grab the kid, grab the knife or grab the kid. I nearly had a heart attack.

Abby posing with the knife for size perspective (Abby is 6 and very responsible with knives. She also only held this knife under close adult supervision, so no need to call CPS)

With the first few babies, we used to be pretty baby proof. Now, it's impossible to baby proof because the older kids all leave doors open, cupboards unlocked, gates open, pens out, outlet covers off, . . . The list goes on and on. It's a good thing he's cute.

Halloween

Halloween is over, and we survived. Here's a rundown of the afternoon:

• 4 arguments with kids (3 with the same kid)
• 1 crying child
• 4 blackmail episodes out of which I got clean bedrooms, a clean kitchen and a clean bathroom ("You're not trick-or-treating until your room is clean!")
• several attempts at decent pictures with camera phone because the good cameras are both broken (pictures stink, but I'll post them anyway)
• two hours of FUN and lots of CANDY
• 2 freezing and crying kids
• hot chocolate for everyone
• threats over candy wrappers on the floor
• bed (FINALLY)

All in all, a productive evening.

This is what Sam the pirate looks like without his bottle ("Avast ye scurvy dog! Brin' me me bottle or I'll see ye t' Davy Jones!")

So our only happy Sam picture is with the bottle. ("Arr, me hearty. That be a fine bit o' grog.")

Sarah and Abby, the Cowgirl and Indian. This is the first time since she's had any say in the matter that Sarah hasn't been an animal for Halloween. She still has an animal, but at least she's finally willing to be human.

Matthew as a baby riding on a werewolf's back. He won a couple of prizes at school and at a party. And today at school, they had a "Shout Out" over the PA system to Matthew for having an awesome costume.

He looked especially funny when he was sleeping on a dancing werewolf.

Headless Anna - several people told her that it was the best costume they'd seen all night. She looked awesome! Matthew also heard several times that his was the best costume. Good job guys!

Thank You Sam

Sam just cleaned the toilet for me. Thank you, Sam.

Then, after he brought the dripping toilet brush across the whole house and into the kitchen for me, I stripped his wet clothes off of him and left him in just his diaper while I washed the floor and ran his bath. While I did that, he took off his diaper and went back to the kitchen to pee all over the newly cleaned floor. Thank you again, Sam.

Sam Loves His Ba

This is what poor Sam has to resort to when his bottle gets left in his crib. He tried to pull it out first, but it wouldn't fit through the slats. Must be kind of like having your best friend in jail.

This Would Never Happen at Steven's House

Steven showed up at my house a little over a week ago when I had been gone for about a half hour. That's all the time it takes for my house to be completely taken apart. He walked in just a few minutes before I got there to naked Sam, flour all over the floor (Yes, that was about the 8th time - slow learner that I am, I finally moved the flour out of reach.), flour all over Sam's nether regions, various kitchen items and papers strewn all over the floor, countertops, etc., and several loads of laundry waiting to be folded in my living room. As I diapered Sam, swept up flour, and pulled out my hair, Steven tried in vain to help. He had a very concerned expression on his face the whole time he was here. I think he's worried about me.

My Big Brave Boy

Sam, my brave big boy, tried to follow me down the stairs last night, but a few steps from the bottom, he started crying and whining, and he refused to go any further. There was a costume monster hand on the step just below him that he was terrified to get near. I had to lift him over it while he twisted around in my arms to look back at the hand and make sure it wasn't following him. Then, when he went back upstairs, he had to press himself as close to the wall as possible to get past that scary hand and whimpered the whole time he was touching the step it was on! Click on the scary hands to see us torture him.

Father Of The Year

Steve gets the Father Of The Year Award; he got 16 month old Sam to do chores!

Sam's very favorite thing to do is to move things. He especially likes to move shoes. We find shoes in the bathtub, in the dishtowel drawer, in the trash can, in the dog food . . . He moves pan lids to the basement, measuring cups to the toilet (that one went straight into the trash), mixing bowls to the trash, dirty diapers out of the trash, and tampons all over the house (it's been over a month since that day, and I'm still finding tampons in random places) . . . Yesterday, he got into the 5 gallon flour canister and made a big pile of flour 3 feet away on the floor. He went back and forth and back and forth moving flour by the handful until he had the equivalent of at least a 5 pound bag piled up. Of course, he was covered head to toe as well (too bad the camera wasn't handy).

Steve wanted to clean out the garage yesterday, but I needed to try and regain some sanity for a few hours. So Steve kept Sam and didn't think he'd get anything done. But he was able to harness Sam's passion for moving things and got him to “help” clean the garage. Sam contentedly hung out in the garage with Steve moving tools and boxes for a couple of HOURS. I really think we’re on to something – we’re going to try him at sorting laundry next.