We Practice Halloween in Our House

This year has been sad for me. I like to make the boys Halloween costumes. Now don't be mistaken! I don't SEW! But I am quite handy with a hot glue gun! Last year the boys wanted to be robots. I spent a couple hours and this is what I came up with:

With real blinking lights and rocket packs that glowed red from the bottoms and also held their candy!

But this year....nope they wanted cheapo store bought costumes. I managed to guilt talk Tayton out of the cheapo costume by bribing him with a homemade (by someone else on EBay) Ash Ketchem (famous Pokemon Trainer) costume. Korbin was going to be Tayton's Pikachu but that didn't work out fast enough so he got to choose a cheapo costume. Lucky for me he decided to be a puppy! This makes me much happier than if he were to choose to be one of the costumes on the shelf that everyone else is size would be wearing.


This past weekend our local Shrine Club hosted their Halloween bash and the kids dressed for the occasion. This is where we go to practice Halloween. The kids get dressed up so we get to modify the costumes as needed to actually look good on Halloween night and at our other few Halloween festivities. My sweet Korbin couldn't just be a sweet puppy though. He put his Frankenstein hoodie under it and was the transformable FrankenPup!


He did tell me he'd be a little girl for Halloween but it's too late! I am fresh out of little girls dresses and tiara's! Next year for sure!

Just Run Me Over and Toss Me to the Pigs

Someone told me on our field trip the other day that the MOB sometimes grinds up the bodies of their victims and then feed it to the pigs because the pigs will eat the bones and all. So if you would kindly back over me with your vehicle and then grind me in a mulcher or something similar and toss me to the pigs I'd appreciate it!

These boys are wearing me down! It's going on ten o'clock and they are awake acting like maniacs! I'm pretty sure my head could explode at any given moment if I hear them say "excuse me mom I just want to ask you something" one.more.time!

That's all.

I'll come back in a little while and post a real post that might make sense....or not.

Really? Another One?

I have said it before and I'll say it again! I have a sick addiction to vacuum's! I love the colors and styles and sounds they make. I love the tracks on the floor after a good run with the vacuum. I love the attachments and the way that even if my house is a disaster all I have to do is hide the mess in the laundry room, run the vacuum and people think I cleaned!





Why am I acting so crazy you might be wondering? Well the girls over at SITS are it again!





They are giving away one of these:

And I want to win!

You can enter to win too!

When you see this button leave a comment! That's what SITS is all about!

She Did What?

Yep that's right I did it. The boys wanted to play with the chinchillas. I let them out and put up their little fence. Tayton was sitting in there with them on the floor building them a tower with waffle blocks. Next thing I know the dogs took off running and I just knew they were after a chinchilla. I was right. Poor Chimchar just hasn't learned The dogs tried to get her again! I am not spending that much money on a dog treat! They are too expensive to be eaten!

I was busy working on something for Kirke on my computer (he reads this otherwise I'd share it with you guys) and I couldn't stop to have chinchilla time. The boys weren't watching them close enough to let them play in the penned in area.

I told them if they wanted to play with Pikachu and Chimchar they had to do it where they were going to be safe.

So they did.

Korbin jumped at the chance to go on in and play.

Tayton was still building with the waffle blocks so he didn't join in the fun for a few more minutes. But soon he was playing too.


The boys thought they were really doing something great!

The chinchillas were very curious about their cage mates.

Look they each get their own floor of the chimichanga condo!

We're definitely getting our money back outta this cage. Korbin asked to sleep in there with the chinchillas. At one point Korbin wanted a drink so Tayton brought him a bottle of water with a straw. He took his drinks through the bars! It was so funny!

We had a good day today!

What The Heck is That?

I plugged my memory card into my computer to get the pictures of the dogs and the chimichangas the other night and I found some pictures I had never seen. This means I certainly did not take them.

I am always afraid to pick up a friends camera and look at the photos in them or on their computer because my friends are pervs very private people. But I've never feared my own memory card.

I laughed my tail off when this is what I found.

Why? Why would hey need to take a picture of this? Thank god there wasn't anything there. Too bad my lens cap was dangling!! GRRRRR!!
This IS NOT all we have in the fridge I swear! I fed them last week geesh give me a break!
Now you all know that I need to clean the oven. Thanks Korbin!
This is how I knew Korbin was the guilty party, well at least involved, Tayton had to have helped but this is Korbins buddy Memphis. He's had Memphis since he was probably a year old or less maybe.

This one speaks for itself........or not at all. Why would he do this?



Now on to my two favorites and when I know Tayton had to have helped out too!

This is Scrappy and Korbin hanging out......upside down in my camera!

This is my favorite. They captured Korbin being his true self!

Naughty little blond boys!

Are You Sure You Aren't Hurt Mom?

I was running around doing last minute things tonight before tucking the naughty little blond boys into their beds. I went into the kitchen and as I stepped over the baby gate door opening (used for other peoples kids not my own cause they have been climbing them since they were two) I stepped onto a plastic hanger that slid across the floor and I went with it. I fell into the hallway onto the carpet thankfully. The boys saw me fall and came running to me.


Tayton: Mom are you okay?


Me: Yes


Tate: Are you sure?


Me: Yes


Then he decided to help me up and kiss me.


Tate: Do you need help to make it up the stairs in case you're hurt?


Me: No I'm fine go get in bed I'll be right up.


Tate: Ok Mom.


Korbin: Are you sure you're okay?


Me: Yes I'm sure now get your butt in bed!


Korb: Did you hurt your boobs?


Me: WHAT??


Korb: Well they are lookin a little flattened!


Me: (trying to maintain my composure) Good night Korbin!

I'm pretty sure my boobs have not looked flattened since I was about 11! Guess he'll have high expectations of his women when he grows up!


Then I went into the bathroom to take out the trash and straighten up and that's when I saw this:



So I had to call both boys down and find out who took the screws out and where they were! Guess which naughty boy it was? Yep, it was Korbin. But don't let Tayton fool you. He once took a screwdrive through the entire house and removed every screw he could find. This included the little latch plates on the doors, apparently coolers have screws too.



Korbin brought me the screws and the screw driver and told me "here they are, they just came out of me!" What the heck does that mean? Doesn't' matter, I washed my hands after I put the screws back into the wall plate.


WOW!

I decided to introduce the dogs to the chinchillas tonight. I set up the little play area for the chinchillas and I let the dogs watch from outside the fence for a minute. Then I let Scrappy come in and lay next to me while the chinchillas played. They did really good so we let Allie join us. Here are some pictures. These chinchillas are not afraid of my dogs one little bit!

Super Silly Supper

We do strange things in this house.


I took part in the the My Favorite Things swap hosted by Sunshine and Lemonade at the beginning of the month. One of my gifts was a book called Great Kids are Homemade. It has all sorts of off the wall ideas on having family fun. Many are for meal times.

We decided to use the Mystery Meal idea. We modified it to fit our needs and this is what we ended up with:


First we planned a menu. Amber, Brandy and I decided we would use spaghetti. Keep in mind we had to feed 7 kids with no help from the dads cause they all decided they should be HERE instead.


We wrote out menus for each kid. The fun part was that we renamed almost everything. We didn't want them to know what we were having and it got really silly. We also added their eating tools to the menu with hopes of them choosing them first before their first second and third options.

Here is our menu:

• Plate..............Plate


• Cup................Cup (I know we're super creative like that)


• Wigglers.......Spaghetti noodles


• Drippers.......Sauce


• Sours.............Lemonade (not the best choice with spaghetti by the way)


• Uppers..........Fork


• Washy...........Napkin


• Flakies..........Parmesan Cheese


• Crusties........Garlic Bread


• Slurpers.......Straw (we used cups with lids so they couldn't drink till they had their slurpers)

When everyone arrived we took each kid into the dining room one by one to hand them their menu and explain the rules. The kids had to put a number 1 next to the first four items they'd like to receive. This meant some of them got Drippers (sauce) before their noodles. Or Parmesan cheese before everything else. It was a lot of fun. Then they had to place a number 2 by three items and a number 3 by the remaining items.

We made sure everyone had plate and cup listed as 1's but the rest varied. We served the dinner in three steps. We gave everyone their four items they listed as 1's and then waited in between and laughed and joked about why they weren't eating their sauce yet. Then we served the two's and waited in between. A couple of the kids asked for their fork last and ate with their fingers for a few minutes. And some only had sauce, Parmesan cheese and lemonade until we filled the #3 requests!

We called it Super Silly Supper and everyone loved it. We decided we'd do it once a month with different dinner ideas like taco's or sandwiches.

Here are some pictures. My little Tayton who a year ago could not stand anything on his hands ate spaghetti with his hands until the third round when he finally got his fork! I was so proud! That's a huge milestone for my SI kiddo!






It was so much fun!

Meet Jamie! You're gonna Love this!

A friend of mine has decided to use her awesome talents to make some extra money! She is creating custom designed Christmas Cards/invitations. She creates the design for you and all you have to do is upload it to walmart.com or the online printshop of your choice and have your cards ordered! It's simple and inexpensive!

Visit Jamies Website here and say hi!

Anything But Mexican Food

We have a fantastic Mexican resturant here in town. We go there a lot because we don't have much to choose from really. It's inexpensive and has the good mexican food that has the white cheese sauce instead of the yellow cheese and it's fantastic. We usually spend about 18 bucks for the boys and I to eat there.

The problem is that we eat there a ton. I always order the same steak fajita nachos and they are so freakin good! I'm okay with that! I could eat it every single week no problem! It would make me a happy girl!

Amber, Brandy and I were going out to dinner a couple nights ago. The question came up: "Where should we go?" We had to choose either the Mexican restaurant, fast food (gag), Cracker Barrel (boring) and a couple other more expensive places. Amber said "I don't want to have Mexican tonight lets go somewhere else." So I agree to go to Miller's, they have great burgers and fries and steaks and seafood and stuff; good enough, just more pricey.

We go in and get a table and browse through the menu for a while all trying to figure out what to have. I ordered a burger, Brandy ordered a burger, the kids all got grilled cheese or pasta. Then out comes the food and we hear the usual "who had the burger, the pasta, the chicken strips" and then I heard those words that set me on fire! "Who had the chicken quesadilla?"

ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME? The person keeping me from my steak fajita nachos because "I don't want Mexican tonight" ordered Mexican food from the damn steak house! Seriously? She could have had a GOOD quesadilla from **El Jimmy's!! I picked at my burger and was not impressed but we had a nice dinner overall too bad the food and the atmosphere did not top the Mexican restaurant AND it cost much more!

Amber will not pick the restaurant again! I will and I pick El Jimmy's!

**The name has been changed because we think it's funnier!

Giveaway's Galore!

Everybody is giving stuff away and I love it! I stumbled upon this giveaway on Brandy's blog and had to get in on the action!



This is a great giveaway! I checked it out and they have short sleeve and long sleeve and kids shirts! I'm impressed! And I want to win! Click the picture to check it out!

Kat's Assignment

I've decided to join MamaKat in her weekly writers workshop.

Begin with “I wish someone told me…”

I wish someone would have told me:

Boys do not all like to get muddy and dirty.

Laundry is a never ending cycle and will one day drive me to drink!

Two boys raised in the same house with the same rules will be so completely different!

Friends are not forever but love is. So I should love my friends.

That Missouri has more bugs than all of the three other states I've lived in combined, multiplied by the square root of Pi and then doubled!

My sarcasm will bite me in the butt when my youngest turns 5 and acts just like me!

To check pockets of all little blond boy clothing regardless of my fears of what I might find because when I slip on my jeans in the morning I might find a woodchip in an unfriendly area of my anatomy....thanks boys!!!

That wrapping up 120 hot wheels cars and over 100 Pokemon figures individually on Christmas Eve would result in having to unwrap 120 hot wheels cars and over 100 Pokemon figures on Christmas morning because naughty little blond boys were not impressed with having to work so hard!

And last but not least I wish someone would have told me how love I could have for three people and how lucky I'd feel to have the family that we've made .......nevermind this just in.....Korbin and Tayton are fighting Korbin just picked up a little table over his head and probably would have launched it at his brother if I hadn't intervened.

I wish someone would have told me that today I should have stayed in bed!!!

I would never!!

I was riding in Amber's car with her yesterday and she started to bicker with me about something, I can't remember what it was but I know that I was right it doesn't really matter.

What does matter is what happened next!

One of these two scenarios is what really happened.

She pulled the van over, the windows were down, we were in front of the fire department, she was yelling and screaming at me like a crazy woman. The fire men were sitting in an open bay and looking in our direction. I tried to jump out to make a run for it but she grabbed me by the hair and yanked me back in and sped away! I was scared! I was certain the MP's would be coming after us soon for a domestic dispute!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~OR~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She slammed on the breaks and pulled the van over right in front of the fire department. She and I were laughing and yelling back and forth at each other arguing. Then I looked up and saw the fire men sitting in the open bay looking out at us. We both cracked up laughing! I yelled help me but no one did. Amber sped away with me still in the car! I was certain the MP's would be coming after us soon for a domestic dispute!

You decide which ones true and whatever Amber says it's a lie!

She claims that I do crazy things like that all the time. But I would never!

There was never a time that Roxy and Amber were being whiny in the back seat and I suddenly pulled over to "call God" to ask him to stop the wind from blowing because they couldn't handle it and blamed my driving. No sir I did not!

Do not believe Amber when she tells a story of where after spending a few hours with both families together....in the daylight even... Amber's daughter said "Miss Michelle Korbin's mohawk came back"! I did not pull over the car tonight, jump out, pull open the back door and shriek in amazement as if I hadn't noticed it...........or cut his hair the night before!!

I have never pulled over on the side of the road and told my passengers to get out. I have never pulled over and put naughty little blond boys on the side of the road for being naughty.

Nope not me not ever! I would never do any of those things....nope not me!

Korbin and Those Damn Legs

Korbin came home "on red" again today. I spoke with his teacher after a classmate piped up "Korbin's on red today" when I was picking him up from school. I've mentioned before how much I love his teacher and this is still true. Thank God she has a good sense of humor!

Me: I hear Korbin is on red again?

Her: He is so far beyond red!

Me: Oh dear what happened now?

Her: He wasn't doing his work. I went over to remind him to get on task and he told me that the battery right here (pointed to her upper leg) was dead and it's invisible and no one can see it but it's dead and we can't fix it cause there's not another one. And he said "I do not eat salad!"

Me: What the heck does salad have to do with it?

Her: I have no idea! It was just out of the blue.

Me: I'm sorry, tomorrow I will send him in with duct tape.

She laughed and he gave her one of her big strong hugs! Thank god she loves him!

He's so naughty!!!! And creative and ............. well just like me. I will admit that he gets the whole making up stories out of the blue with no motive other than to see if anyone will laugh is all my fault.

Yesterday a friend of ours who I'm just getting to know said to another friend after I made a smart remark about something "only believe every third thing that Michelle says"!

That sounds about right!

The Secret is in The Sauce Blogathon

A great Blogathon with awesome prizes!

I found The Secret is in the Sauce (SITS). a while ago and only visited every now and then. That was until I actually took the time to realize what it was all about. This blog is designed to increase the comments and traffic on your blog by introducing you to other bloggers. There is a world of real life experience and information as well as tons of laughs and plent of tears. SITS is a way to connect and form friendships!

I have a few bloggers that I know are a part of the SITS community. Brandy, Amber, Tonya (who just won a Cricut....lucky girl), Seven Clown Circus, and The Petersons Go Public.

The last two I have just started to read because they were featured on SITS back in July.

Enjoy and remember when you see this button

LEAVE A COMMENT!!!!

The Kids Didn't Sign Up For This

I feel like a horrible mom.

Kirke joined the Army by choice.

I married a soldier by choice.

The boys didn't get a choice.

They were born into this lifestyle.

Sometimes it hits hard and I feel guilty for making this choice for them.

They deserve two parents home with them.

They shouldn't ever have to experience this pain of missing someone so much.

They shouldn't have to see their mommy cry because she's worried or missing their daddy.

They shouldn't have to go through this amount of stress at such a young age.

Unfortunately they do.

Tayton came down after being put to bed. He was really sad and missing his daddy so we decided to make daddy a video.

Here it is. Enjoy.

Please Excuse and send a Temp.

This "Monday Mission" is brought to you by the creative minds at Painted Maypole!

The Mission:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a post in the style of an excuse letter.


Dear Whoever Cares that I'm Going Under and Can Help Me,

Please excuse the Mom of these two Naughty Little Blond Boys from all household duties for the next 2-4 weeks. You see, she has been working her tail off and is stressed beyond belief. Since these household duties are not going to take care of themselves I'm also asking that you send in temporary assistance to aid in finding out what this house looks like clean maintaining a clean house. This should include but is not limited to laundry, kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, floors and scrubbing grubby little hand prints off the walls. This temp should be prepared to complete all other tasks requested during this leave of absence of the mom. These duties may include such things as helping with homework, cooking and getting kids ready for school in the event that the mom is placed on voluntary bed rest in preparation for the upcoming R&R and needing some serious beauty sleep.

Thank you for excusing said Mom and in advance for the Temp I'm certain will be ringing the bell bright and early tomorrow morning.

Mom of The Two Army Brats aka Naughty Little Blond Boys

New Layout

I loved Brandy's new layout so much I needed my own too! I couldn't let Brandy upstage me on her computer genius skills and blog design so I had to find a new layout too. I actually had to ask her for a little help but she got me through it.

What do you think?

Another Weekend

Another whole weekend has come to pass. That's one more weekend gone before we get to have husbands again even if it is only for two weeks! I'm so ready for our R&R I've been feeling super stressed lately so we did things a little differently this weekend. We normally have everyone over both Friday and Saturday night and spend our evening listening to kids fight and listening to each of us take turns yelling calmly disciplining the kids.

Friday night I had a need to fondue. Which basically is just a fancy word for fasting! We did hot oil fondue with different types of meat and tater tots! Cause we're high class like that! The problem with fondue is that you cook one bite at a time. We decided to make cheese dip and chips so that we wouldn't actually pass out from hunger while we patiently wait for our next bite to finish cooking. Eventually we gave up on the bite by bite method and we threw in a handful of tater tots. Apparently that didn't work out so well because they were frozen and tossing so many into the little pot of hot oil being heated by Sterno cooled the grease too much too fast. The tater tots turned into mashed taters and Taryn scooped it out, added salt and ketchup and ate them with a fork. I'm pretty sure that if you have to use a fork for tater tots somethings just not right. But that's just me.

Then on Saturday I grounded myself to the house to do laundry. That lasted until Amber told me the Fire Department was having an open house. My love for firefighting comes out every now and then but I generally keep it at bay but when I have the chance to pass it on to my kids I jump!

Unfortunately my kids who were excited to go to the open house must have fallen out of the car on the way there because the ones I showed up with stuck so far up my tail end the whole time they didn't want to do anything. So I did what any good mom would do and threatened them and forced them to participate. After that they were a little more involved. Here are some pictures.

We met Brandy there but didn't get any pictures since they got there as it was all ending.

Saturday we invited ourselves to dine at Amber's. Funny thing is that I still cooked. I'm okay with that, I grilled while she made the sides in the house. It was great. We get our meat from the "Cow Guys". They drive around in white truck with black spots like a cow. They sell us really good meat at really high prices but we're hooked. By the way we soooo don't pay the price on the website. Then we let the kids play outside for a bit and we headed home. It was really kind of a nice change.

Everyone else put their kids to bed while I take a more laid back approach to parenting and let my kids watch movies and bug me for a while longer. And then Korbin came to sit with me and was so sweet to fall asleep with his fruit loops in his lap. I took them away and again did what any normal parent would do and made faces at him so Amber (she came over to watch TV with me after he kids went to bed....the luxuries of having a grandparent living with you) could take pictures.

Then I woke him up and sent his butt to bed!

Today we just bummed around the house. I asked Tayton to get his backpack out of the van and he went to the garage and came back in empty handed. He told me he needed me to move the van forward. He opened up back door of the van and then tried to open the garage door, or close it or something. Either way the garage door got stuck on the back door of the van and I had to move it forward to solve the problem. This is the damage. I was a little upset then I remembered that my van looks like it drove through a freakin forrest after the kids have driven hot wheels cars on the side of the van so that there is a very clear race track engraved in my paint. Oh well. Here's the latest addition.

Gifts from Daddy

We got our first package from Kirke yesterday! We were very excited! He sent each of the boys a t-shirt with their name sewn on them in English and Arabic. He sent me a blanket with an American flag and the Statue of Liberty on it. It was so great to get to hold something in my hands that his hands had touched only days before that. Being able to sleep under the blanket that kept him warm a few days ago is an amazing comfort to me also.

The boys loved their new shirts so we took pictures. Kirke did so good by getting them each their favorite color!

I did not make them stand this close to the wall, they're killing me! Silly boys!

Like I had to force them to stand there or something, come on guys, relax a little would ya?

Kirke,

The boys and I love you and we miss you so much. Our days will go on with a missing piece until you're home to hold us and make us smile again. Be safe baby we love you and thank you for the gifts!

Love us forever,

Michelle and Your Boys