Too adorable for words!

Here are a few random photos of the boys from the last few weeks.


Mommy and Eli. He's the adorable one. I have to relish and savor these moments. He doesn't like to stay still much.


One of his happy places is the bath. He would hang out in there all day if I let him!


A rare moment: All 3 boys sitting together eating. There was no fighting, yelling, pushing or anything. Just sitting and eating and smiling. Wow!

Yeah, it's still really difficult to get one photo with all of them looking and smiling and not eating at the same time!

I love this kid! His smile is so contageous and just like his daddy's! Good thing I finally finshed his ducky towel. Sometimes it's the only way to get him out of the tub!

Happy Birthday Ana!

Briett, Ana, Sharon
Happy birthday to you, my dear friend! I am so grateful to have you in my life and I think you're just an amazing woman! I can't wait to spoil and adore your baby girl in a few months!

I'll start with this one...

We are blessed with a couple of very early risers! Eli thinks it's perfectly fine to wake up at 5am. It doesn't matter that there's no light outside or anything. He's off and running before anyone else. He's so kind to burst into our room to tell us to get up. If only I was quick enough to catch him so he wouldn't return to his room to flip on the light and start jumping in Noah's crib!

A few weeks ago Eli changed his M.O. Instead of barging into our room, he decided to explore the kitchen. Of course this isn't exactly a new idea either. I've been pulling him off the counters for months. The difference about this particular morning was that my lock on the fridge had broken a day or so before. Let me rephrase...Eli had broken the fridge lock. Well, he just wouldn't be himself if he didn't try to disarm, distroy, or take apart anything and everything he comes in contact with. So the fridge was lock-less for a couple of days. Big deal. What could happen?

I was sleeping and hoping during my sleep that this would be a day that Eli would finally sleep until at least 6:30 or 7am. Something prompted Kendall to get up and see what Eli was up to. I heard no yelling or scolding or anything. He just walked back to our room and said, "Honey, you have to come and look at this." Have you ever been so upset that you just couldn't say anything at all? No words would come, from either of us. This is what we saw:

Sometime around 5:30am, my wonderful 3 year old decided to "paint" in his room. He very quietly went to the UNLOCKED fridge and helped himself to beautiful paints: chocolate brown, carmel tan and mustard yellow (aka. hershey's syrup, carmel syrup, and honey mustard dressing). He decided it would be great fun to open these delicious paints and decorate his room, starting with the carpet. The crib, including the bedding, were not to be ignored!

Well, he knew he was in trouble, you can kind of see that in this last picture. We didn't know what to to...try to soak the stuff out? We're not equipped to deal with this! Within the hour we called a friend in our ward who has his own carpet cleaning business. We knew someone in the family would be up (they have a seminary student), and we lucked out that he was availble that morning. He came to our apartment and kind of shook his head like we had. He worked on it and, in my opinion, worked a near miracle! Sadly, he informed me that mustard is not just something that stains, it is a dye! Well, there is no evidence of the chocolate or carmel, but there is a slight yellow tint in the middle of the carpet. It's not bright, but it is noticible. I'm pretty sure we've lost our deposit on this apartment, but at least it's not really aweful looking.

I did buy a new fridge lock. Eli figured it out in about 20 minutes! Lucky for me, I think he figured it out accidently and seems to be unable to get in the fridge now. Whew! We might be incident free for a few days!

Been a while...

Yes, I do know how long it's been since I've posted. Winters are aweful for me and I'm working on pulling myself back together. Trust me, I've got some doozies to share!

Christmas with the Batsons 2008

On Sunday, the 21st, we opened a few presents since Eric was going to be leaving us for Christmas. The boys were thrilled with presents from the Grandmas! Star Wars Action Figures, Duplo Blocks and planes are just what our kids love!

Christmas Morning 2008!

Christmas is so fun and chaotic with tiny kids! The "babies" were up several times through the night so by 6 something they were ready to go! Unfortunately, Kendall and I were ready to GO back to bed! My mistake for leaving the christmas tree lights on through the night and putting all the presents out....Yeah, even half asleep Eli notices stuff like that!

Well, we got ourselves semi-concious and let the ripping begin! They tore those packages open with wreckless abandon and didn't care one bit what the tags said! Somehow we got it through, at least to Eli, which toys belonged to which kid. Ah, who am I kidding? They all go in the same toy box and Eli steals everything from Noah no matter what we say!

12-26-08

This one's for Megan! Noah was "reading" the newspaper while I was talking to you!

Snow, yup that's it!

We have apparently received more than 4 feet of snow all total since it started snowing on December 17th. ( The kids started their Christmas Vacation a couple of days early)

I love it! I think it is beautiful and I'm so glad I have nowhere I absolutely have to go. I'm super glad we decided months ago to stay home for Christmas and I'm even more glad that I have a husband who has a few weeks off from school! Yay!

Sometime around December 19th!...The snow days have all run together now.

It did take a while to find the van!

This is after the 2nd full day of snow. Well, that's old news, we've had more than 2 feet more since then!

Christmas Eve Excitement in North Spokane!

Our Eldest Snow Angel...It took him a while to get up out of that fluff!


Yeah, it really was relaxing. I can't believe how much I am loving this snow! Maybe it is because I am way UNDER-scheduled these days. I'm just relaxing and enjoying. Yes, there's some cabin fever going on, but that is remedied by my escaping child-less for a couple hours once in a while....last night it was to to the bookstore to just browse, uninterrupted! Oh and thank goodness for my huge Carhart coat! I'd never wear it anywhere I want to look cute or anything, but it sure is great for out in the snow when it's like 10 degrees!



Eli thinks he's in heaven!


We were both ready for a nap, he was fine with lounging on my legs in the snow. I'm pretty sure that his face was the ONLY part of his body that had a clue that it was cold outside!


Now...for the crazy part of the week! - Christmas Eve Day to be exact!
This is a picture of the building that is right next to and in line with ours. Notice the big section of railing that is missing?



This is the SUV in the "ditch" or whatever you would call it between the retaining wall and the apartment building. Apparently the lady couldn't stop. My question is this: How fast would one really be going when pulling into a tight parking area when there's tons of snow? Hmmmm?

It took a really huge tow truck and many hours to get the car out. I'm impressed they could get it out at all without a huge crane!