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Yesterday while eating breakfast we had the following conversation:

Noah (completely insulted) said, “Some people called me a diaper baby at the beach when I was two!”

To which I responded by saying, “Yeah but that was a long time ago. You should forget about it.”

Hunter was snickering and giggling off to the side, spooning cereal into his mouth. And to him I said, “Oh yeah, Hunter. Think it’s funny? Cause you’ve been a diaper baby at the beach before. I have pictures!”

Denver chimed in at this point, “I remember. . . from heaven or from Mommy’s tummy. Whichever one.”

“You can’t remember heaven, Denver!” Was Hunter’s comeback. “You’ve been vealed.”

“It’s not vealed, it’s veiled.” I shot back, giggling myself. “And some people think babies can remember what Heaven was like.”

“I can remember too.” Denver said. “It was white!”

Everyone was sort of giggling and snickering at that point and we debated for awhile when a person could no longer remember heaven and what we thought heaven might look like. Were we veiled when we were born? Or was it when we started talking? Or maybe it was when we could start remembering and retaining things? Then I suggested we ask Caleb, that maybe he could still remember cause he was just two. So we did.

“Caleb, do you remember heaven?”

An enthusiastic “Yes” was his reply.

What does heaven look like, was our next question to which he replied, “A garbage truck!”

After we composed ourselves, I asked, “Is it a white garbage truck, Caleb?”

To which he replied, “NO! It’s a red garbage truck.”

And now while Caleb probably can’t wait to get there, I’m sort of wondering if Heaven’s not a little overrated. I was hoping for a little more than a glorified garbage truck to live in after I die. How about you?

The other day Denver came home from school and announced that Lexi wanted to marry him. “Oh,” I said. “What do you think about that?”

Denver shrugged his shoulders and then stated, “Lexi’s mom says she has to marry someone Jewish.”

To which I replied, “Do you want to marry Lexi? You’d have to become Jewish.”

Denver pondered for a bit, watching cars drive past our front window. And then he said, “Maybe.”

Maybe he wants to marry her or maybe he wants to be Jewish–I don’t know. Maybe both. Either way I’ve heard rumors that Lexi is pretty darn cute and Denver seems to have a pretty big crush on her. Speaking of marriage and crushes, did you know Mark and I have been married for eleven years today. Yeah, it’s true. And guess who forgot. That would be me. But the good news is, I haven’t forgotten how much I love him or how good the past eleven years have been. And I also haven’t forgotten what religion I am or that I didn’t have to become Jewish to marry him. And just the fact that I remember that much is a real, honest-to-goodness miracle. I love you Mark and Happy Anniversary.

Would you puh-lease hold still for just one second? The doorways all have safety gates in them, the cupboards all have locks and everything else has been duct-taped shut and yet, you still find a way to get into trouble. But if you’d just hold still for one second. . . .

Our alarm clock is the television. Every morning at 6:56 am the TV pops on and we are greeted by Mr. Weatherman and his handy dandy forecast. Yesterday when we woke up, it looked like this outside:

but the news told us that school was cancelled. Mark and I both scratched our heads and shrugged our shoulders and informed the kids there was no school. And they immediately plopped down in front of the TV and did this:

Fifteen minutes before noon, it started doing this:

So we made some of these to pass the time:

Kathy had them at Joe and Suzie’s house over Thanksgiving and had nothing but delicious things to say about them. They sounded easy enough to make so we gave it a shot. All you do is place a single rolo (or hershey kiss or Reses P.B. cup or whatever chocolate you like) in the center of a square pretzel (called Snaps). It was easy enough to do that even Caleb was helping us.

Then you stick them in the oven at 150 degrees until they are just melted. Remove them from the oven and squish an M&M (or peanut or whatever) in the center of the melted candy. Let cool and eat all day long because you can’t keep your fingers or your mouth off of them. Yum!

By the time we had these made and lunch eaten there was enough snow to go sledding. So we bundled up and headed out into the freezing rain which pelted our faces and stung like crazy. But the sledding was fun and even Caleb seemed to enjoy the fresh air and the sledding. Frozen and exhausted we returned home to watch a movie and eat popcorn and hot chocolate and have a much needed nap.

And then, after dinner we made our Annual Gingerbread Houses and sent all of our little selves into a complete sugar coma.

Then as soon as the kids were asleep so was I. I was totally exhausted. The boys were really hoping school would be cancelled again today but unfortunately for them, I prayed louder than they did and school (although delayed) was in session. They say a Noreaster is headed straight for us this Sunday. That would be nice, if church got cancelled. I love just staying home and being all cozy with the kids and watching movies and baking treats. What could be better?

Jericho’s feet after one of their really long baths. I use the bath as a playpen when I’m getting dressed in the morning. A little shaving cream, a few bubbles blown every now and then, a bath tub tint, and a milk jug with holes filled with water and ta-dah! Mommy’s dressed and ready for the day and all three babies are fresh and clean. . . and wrinkly!

Here’s the sequel to this post. Looks like the twins agree with Hunter. The best place to read a book is curled up in a laundry basket.

Ah. . . the best time of the day, when all three babies fall asleep.

The twins are into, onto, and under everything nowadays. There’s nothing they can’t reach or find and as a result we have invested in several safety gates. . . several safety gates.

The twins tend to do things together. Sometimes that means some very tight situations. But it doesn’t seem to phase them too much except for when one is in the bottom of the basket and one is laying across the top. Then they complain a bit. But when they’re squished in together nice and neat, everyone’s happy.

This weekend besides watching Christmas movies and running errands we made some homemade Christmas cards and some caramel marshmallow krispy treats. The cards were really fun and simple to make so I thought I’d share. Unfortunately most of you won’t be getting one of these in the mail. No. . . these are for teachers and cousins but don’t worry. Kathryn Michaels has designed us a most awesome Christmas card coming soon to a mailbox near you. Until then you might enjoy taking a look at these and making some of your own with your kids. All of our ideas came from Family Fun and they have several other ideas to choose from just in case you don’t like these. Happy card making!

Hanprint Santa by the twins and Noah

Thumbprint Reindeer by Caleb

Christmas Tree Card by Hunter and Denver

Is it better to mop the kitchen floor in the morning and spend the rest of the day watching it turn into a big black sticky mess? Or is it better to mop the floor right before I go to bed so it will stay clean for longer than five minutes but no one will get to enjoy that fresh Pinsol scent or the fact that their socks don’t stick to the floor, even if it is for just five minutes in the morning? I dunno. Either way the floor has got to be mopped daily. With three babies and twice as many boys who haven’t quite grasped the concept of wipe your feet it just has to be done. Otherwise we may never unstick our feet from the floor and be housebound forever.

When church is your social life and you want to go so bad you’d even consider going with a kid that swears he’s going to barf at any minute. And it’s even more pathetic because church isn’t even fun. It’s actually quite horrid most of the time. But when it’s the only day of the week you actually get to socialize, even the horrible stuff like vomit and six boys climbing all over the pew doesn’t seem so bad. But I wouldn’t know. Today I’m home with a kid that swears he’s going to barf any minute and a sore throat of my own.

leaving sounds much easier than staying.

More often than not I don’t shower alone. Usually I have at least one but more like three babies with me in the tub and I’ve had up to six at a time. . . really. I’m used to it and it doesn’t phase me anymore. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have the luxury of showering and going potty without an audience and it really doesn’t bother me. The more the merrier seems to be our theme when it comes to keeping ourselves clean and that’s just fine by me. But sometimes they start fighting in there and if you’ve ever been shoved in a shower you’ll know that it can be quite slick and hazardous and there’s definitely nothing more slippery than a naked baby lathered in soap sliding down the tub between everyone’s legs. So the other day in an attempt to entertain fighting children in the shower I sprayed some shaving cream on the wall and wa-lah! Instant fix! And it didn’t just fix the problem but it was really fun too. You can draw just about anything in the shower with a dallop of shaving cream, not to mention practice writing numbers, letters and shapes. And when you’re done, you just hose it off (or if you have a spray bottle handy, let the kids do it themselves.) And it’s white so it doesn’t stain the grout or leave a big mess on the kids. So for the past several baths with the babies we’ve used a lot of shaving cream and we’ve added at least a few more cans of it to our shopping list. And I just wonder why I didn’t think of this sooner. If you haven’t, you definitely should or at least let your kids try it–they’ll love it, I promise.