I LOVE CHOCOLATE!!

Before we get to the important chocolate part. Here are some pictures of the boys holding Ben - he is their favorite baby. The whole neighborhood is in love with Ben. The girls have made me promise I will tell them the next time Ben is visiting.


Now back to the business of chocolate. Love is probably not a strong enough word to describe how I feel about chocolate. I wish I liked things like jewelry instead (diamonds can't make you fat - just broke). For Mother's Day and my birthday Khuong got me some chocolate!! For my birthday he sent me on a scavenger hunt. I started in our room with the clue on the paper heart in the chocolate heart. The clue was as follows:
Mommy, come play with me
Where I like to pass away time
Swimming in the open sea
I'll be waiting for you

I of course made my way to the tub - Pence is a bath man. He especially loves to swim with his goggles on in the tub. This is what I found in the tub, with the next clue.
Mommy, come play with me
Where I like to pass away time
Feeding my pets
I'll be waiting for you

The computer was my next destination - Jacob has a pet Cheetah on webkins.com. (You may think I am mean, but I tried out a fish once. The boys fed it crystal light which ended with me accidentally pouring the fish down the drain) Therefore the computer was where I found this and my next clue.
Honey, come play with me
Where I like to pass away time
Doing inspired projects
I'll be waiting for you

The garage is the place for projects!! The last clue was:
Within our hearts
We bear a gift
For you to share
With those you care


This lead me back to my room and the original chocolate kiss heart - in the center under the covers was this awesome magic bullet!!! I had mentioned that I wanted one like 3 months ago - and the man got me one. (Khuong thought he was very clever because he only had to change one line for each of the first 3 clues)

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!!!

Well Darin - this crazy lady wanted to have a Cinco de Mayo party (she is the one in the green shirt in the pic above - look close she is skinny enough to be missed). I am all for parties if there is food. I got to have it at my house because the yard is large, but Darin did all the work. She made homemade tortillas, marinated all the chicken, made some kickin guacamole, and brought the pinata!! Julie made her fabulous salsa and beans to make it a true festival. I am sure you are wondering where all the mexicans are - well if truth be told the little asian kids are the closest thing you will find to a mexican there (besides me). I am sure you are wondering who this cool super hero was at our party - it is amazing what some styrofoam cups can do for your image.




Here is the bouncer Hang (K's sister) bought for us a long time ago. The kids have been bugging us to pull it out forever - I thought this warrented the work. It is only suppose to hold 2 at a time - I guess the kids didn't read that part. Can you see the static?



There of course was a pinata - Spencer cried when Dave (the pinata controller) moved it out of his bats way. Way to go Dave!!


Here was K at the end playing dandilion war with the kids. He keeps forgetting how much work it is to spray those dang dandelions. Oh he didn't spray them, I did - that is why he continues to encourage seed spreading.



This next picture is one of David - can you tell he is one of my favorite boys ever. What can I say - he wants to go home with me after the gym and even holds my hand to the car.



Here are the many faces of Becca - her favorite face to show me is the tongue one. I told her I wouldn't take anymore pictures of her if she kept sticking it out and she promptly quit it. This is a cute lady.

A toothless old man

Well I guess Jacob isn't an old man but definitely toothless. He pulled his latest one out because it was a little loose. He wanted me to do it but I refused and told him to wait for his dad. He was impatient and got a towel and did it himself. That kid is crazy tough. Here he is with his bath beard - I am sure one day he will be embarrassed to see that he enjoyed bubble baths even at the ripe old age of six. Tonight in his prayer he said "we thank thee for letting us be here on earth, and we are happy that we didn't chose to follow Satan".

Here is Spencer in a pair of his favorite pajamas - I think it is time for the size 24 month pajamas to be passed on. In the bearded picture Pence looks a little drugged, but I promise he isn't.



Here are a couple of pictures of a hottie named Khuong. We went away for the weekend without the kids - it was WONDERFUL!!! We did normal boring things like hang out. Of course we kept score

Event/Score K-Khuong, L-Lauren

*Ping Pong - K-6, L-1
Biking - K-super slow, L-kicked trash
Racquetball - K-5, L-0
**Kickball - K-4, L-0
Naps - K-0, L-2 (kicked trash again)

Oh so on paper I didn't do so good, but I was rockin at biking. I kept having to wait for K and when I asked him why he was going so slow. His answer was "because he fell once". PLEASE - of course I had to start cracking up!! Then I informed him that I fell once too. We traded stories and decided that my experience was more perilous, but his was obviously more life changing. I had some crappy girls bike (I don't think I've ever had a girls bike) - in the end Khuong traded me for his bike.

*Ping Pong - I did lose A LOT!! It is probably more pathetic that I made him play all the games left handed. In my defense he spent the 4 years of medical school perfecting his game. In the tournament in medical school he won first place and on a cruise won second place. He practically a professional

**Kickball was AWESOME!!! This game of kickball was like none you have ever played. We created this game in the racquetball court. You play it just like racquetball but with your feet. You have to serve it and kick it back on the wall after the first bounce. It probably sounds lame but it rocked.

The Smalley Clan

This last week I had the Smalley kids while their parents went house hunting in Utah. We of course had lots of fun, and then there were those moments of intense drama. This is a picture of day one - I should have known that it was a foreshadow of how dirty everyday was going to be. I truely was in awe at how dirty David could get - needless to say baths were mandatory every night. Spencer was mighty dirty before this picture, but he HAD to take a bath because the dirt was bugging him. I should have gotten a picture of the bath water.


This is some of the water fun that we had. I am sure the playset was not intended for this use, but what the heck!! David's white swim truncks will never be the same - sorry Julie. On Saturday the kids were outside for about 8 hours - the weather was really perfect this week. On Sunday it poured - perfect timing.



SLEEPOVER!! I think the defenition of a sleepover is that you all sleep in the same bed. What can I say, most of the nights the four oldest slept in the same bed. They really, really wanted to. We did seperate them one night because they were getting up too early. When the kids are down in the basement playing at 5 am something has to be done. I gave them a rule that they couldn't get out of bed if it wasn't light outside. They managed to stay in bed until 6 am every other morning. Jacob thought it was so cool to tell me "we got up in the middle of the night to play". Poor Becka - she was falling asleep by 9am on the way to the gym.

We ate smoothies I think 4 of the days. We got to create our own - marshmellows, bananas, apples, blackberries, blueberries, rasberries, strawberries (these 4 were frozen), chocolate syrup, oranges (I know - yuck!) milk, and ice cream. The kids were really creative. By the end of the week we ran out of supplies and it was just berries, ice cream and milk. In this picture they are all showing off their berry mustaches.

David did a LOT of eating. Here he is downing a papaya. When it was all gone K said "that kid ate more than half of it." For those of you who went to Ecuador you know what papaya does to you. I had to change a blow out the next day. No more papaya for you David!! My neighbor is in love with this cute boy.

Spencer and Becca being soo cute.


The week is over and Jacob and Spencer cried when they all left. Jacob loved having Sarah to play with. Everyday he would ask "how long until 4pm" - he would aske this several times until Sarah got off the bus. Spencer loved all of the company. I can honestly say that I would have 5 kids in a heartbeat. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun.

NAP

I will admit it - I like to take naps. I had an excuse for taking one this week - I was tired. I sat on my window seat so I could see all the kids outside - there were 8 of them out there. Then I dozed off. I could hear them playing and talking and every once in a while I would hear the word "cookies". When I finally really started to pay attention and look out I saw that they had filled up our empty sand turtle with mud and were making "cookies". They had also make mud sculptures. Then mine started to put their hand prints on the wall and smear mud on the door so on and so forth. I of course put a stop to it and then I went to do something. When I returned to glance out the window the two oldest girls were holding Pence up to my neighbors pool (it is an above ground one) so he could wash his hands in the pool. I of course watched it all happen just to make sure Pence's big head did not pull him over the edge. Then I had to go outside and discuss appropriate behavior with the kids. I seem to have to do this on a regular basis. Last year Pence decided to pee from the top of our play structure - he thought it was hilarious. These are pictures of some of the hand prints on the wall and the door. Khuong told me to take the pics, but I had already started to wash them off so the pictures are really faint. The door was especially caked in mud.


This is the door - can you see the smiley face one of the kids drew?

This is just to show that everyone loves my new chair!!

Book Tag

Melissa tagged me a while back. The rules are

1. Pick up the nearest book (at least 123 pages).
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the 5th sentence on your blog
5. Tag 5 people

Right now I have the 2nd Fablehaven book - the fifth sentence reads

"The platform was high enough to see over the nearest treetops down the slope from the cabin, which extended their view quite a distance."

definitely does not give away the ending.

Interestingly enough I picked up Jacobs BOM (the missionary ones) and the fifth sentence is

"O my brethren, hearken unto my words; arouse the faculties of your souls; shake yourselves that ye may awake from the slumber of death; and loose yourselves from the pains of hell that ye may not become angels to the devil, to be cast into that lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death."

I thought that was a pretty good fifth sentence - one that I better heed.

FAMILY

It was so much fun to have our family down for a week. The hit of the week was Daphne - we had never met her. She is of course so cute and the boys are in love with her. They wanted to sleep with her and hold her. Baby Spencer was fascinated with her bodily functions of course. He introduced her to all the neighborhood kids as "the baby who sometimes farts!" That is my boy - all into the stinky part of life. He actually says that his talent is being stinky. He also succeeded in irritating Uncle Spencer by calling him Uncle Daniel - to which Big Spencer would say - "stop calling me Daniel - my name is Spencer like yours", the kid is dense and kept on doing it. Above is a picture of the Daphinator in her little Easter hoodie. She is a whole 4 months and such a HAPPY and CUTE baby!!




We ventured to Philadelphia and DC. My heart is always so full when walking in DC. We walked to pretty much every monument and memorial. We were sooo tired by the end of the day. We stayed at the McFad's house and kept Joseph up really, really, really, late (sorry Michelle - it was totally Khuong). The big boys stayed up till like 4 playing Settlers of Catan. The next day we went to DC again and were much less productive. We got into the Natural History Museum, stopped by the money printing place, and the Holocaust Museum. That was a wonderful experience for us and the kids.

Settlers of Catan was the game of the week - I think only one night went by where we or K and S didn't play. Every night was a party - I would have to go to bed at like 2 or 3 - but the crazy big boys were up really late every night.


Here the boys are doing some Spiderman thing on the White House fence - that is how we enjoy history!! (This picture also tells me that K needs some new pants that maybe don't tapper so much - what can I say all his clothes are hand me downs)

This picture is seriously AWESOME!! I would like to introduce you to Spencer - this is kind of what he looks like having a tantrum. Sadly this is not really a tantrum - this is the picture of him after eating it by the reflecting pool. It was kind of funny. It took him a while after lying on the ground face down to decide that he was going to react with such feeling. Jacob was a little jealous that he didn't get to fall down and get dirty. He immediately tried to lie down and roll in the dirt, but Khuong caught him at his knees. Poor Jacob - if only he had executed his plan faster.



Big Pence, Daphne, and Sarah

Grandma, Sarah, and the kids (that little carrier for Daphne was awesome - she loved it)

I loved this picture of Jacob and Spencer - it was at the WWII memorial. If you look closely you can see Spencer is hooked up to Grandma's iPod - it was awesome because he was so quite while he was plugged in.

These are Jacob's little fingers.

It was a week filled with sleeping and playing. Grandma got sick and spent the four days after DC in bed. She finally felt better when she was leaving - lame!! We did get to hit the two dollar theatre the night before she left - 27 dresses was pretty good. I have come to understand that I kind of go into a depressed funk when they all leave, not to mention Khuong and I were crazy tired for like 3 days after they left.