Random Pictures (Circa: End of August 2014)

 Eden and Liam were playing dress-up-sword-fighting and Viv was enjoying the show! 

 I love this one!

 Vivi Lu is such a good little baby.  She always has smiles for everyone!  We have been comparing baby pics of Liam and her, and boy is it ever close!  She is so much fun to be around too!  

 

Eden's Minnie Mouse Dress

 She is hunting her brothers.  Barbie and bus in one hand, laser gun in the other. 

 Tip toe, tip toe! 

 She just loves dressing up!  And I love the things she comes up with! 

 How cute is that!?!?  SUPER CUTE! 

These pics were taken the day that I took Sarah and Matt's pictures.  She followed me out to the car like this!! lol! 

WTF

Well, I had my whole Christmas morning breakfast planned out.  Every year for the past three or four years now I have made an overnight Christmas casserole that we can just pop in the oven in the morning.  This year I made sure to get all the ingredients and be prepared this week so I didn't have to go to the store for anything before or just after Christmas.  Well, Vivianne had Jeremy and I both up all night.  Poor girl needs to get to the doctor today.  Anyway, I finally came upstairs with her at 5am.  I find the McDonald's burger that Tristan saved eaten, the wrapper laid out across the stove with every last little tiny sliver of onion laid out across it.  Oh great, so Tristan was up in the middle of the night again. Then I opened the fridge and found that someone(hmmm, I wonder who) had opened the package of individual orange juices that I had gotten for the kids to have on Christmas morning.  I don't usually buy them, I get a big jug because it is cheaper that way but, thought I would splurge a little for Christmas.  And now there won't be enough for everyone.  It is SO annoying.  I know, in the scheme of things, it doesn't really matter but, Tristan has been told not to do these things like a freaking thousand million times and it just NEVER sinks in.  So, I went into his room where he is sleeping and find his garbage can overflowing, crap everywhere, and there as the crowning glory, the orange juice carton, sitting majestically on top of his book shelf.  I woke him up (6am) and told him to have the room spotless like lickety split and that he had ruined my Christmas morning breakfast.  Between him and Viv this day is starting out great.  Oh perfect, she puked again.

The City of Christmas

This evening when Jeremy got home from work we decided to toss everyone into the car and head over to Keokuk to see the City of Christmas.  Vivianne screamed bloody murder the whole ride to Keokuk.  She either didn't get rid of her ear infection or has a tooth coming through.  We got to McDonald's and ordered the world's biggest drive thru order ever (probably not, but, it sure felt like it).  At this point we needed to pull over to sort food so we pulled into Walgreens.  As I am sorting food, the wound from yesterday when I snipped my finger with the scissors opened up again and was getting blood all over.  Jeremy ran inside Walgreens to grab band-aids and some Baby Oragel just in case Vivi was actually teething.  I sorted the food as best I could and we went on to the City of Christmas.  By the way, the boys were GREAT during all of this.  And so was Eden.  And Liam was super helpful with Vivi and with sorting food out. We couldn't believe that Vivianne was the source of our noise and stress, lol!  We drove through all the lights and ate our nasty McDonald's.  And yes, it really was nasty.  I think I'm gonna vomit. Ugh.  But, the kids enjoyed all the lights and there were a ton of new ones too!  We stopped at the house that has the lights timed to music and watched a couple of songs there.  Then we looked at lights all the way home.  Eden loved trying to find the lights.  Something cute....she says "liced" instead of "lights".  It is so funny!  Anyway, a good night together as a family.  One to remember. 

Nauvoo Pumpkin Walk and Kelley Family Pumpkin Day 2014

 The kids walked in the parade this year.  Well, those three did anyway!  Liam might have been in there too.  There were so many people lining the streets that I kinda lost them until the end of the parade! 

 Kevin in full Beetleguise mode.  He goes all out every year and never fails to deliver.  He always embodies the whole role and makes it awesome!  I just wish I had my tripod so I could have gotten some decent pics of him.  

 Some of the pumpkins on the walk.  It was so crowded that I literally only saw these ones at the end of the walk.  Maybe one of these days the organizers will figure out that that many people can't find in a two block sidewalk space.  It's seriously getting so ridiculous that I don't even want to go up there anymore.  

 Kelley Pumpkin Day was awesome as usual but, much more laid back and fun that usual too.  We ate, played, crafted, carved, joked, and had tons of fun! 

 Tyson brought some hair paint and all the kids got in on it.  

Heck, even I got in on it this year! 

Like Grandpa Trapp

Cullen is totally channeling my Dad today.  His new train track was broke and needed fixed.  He bent down to fix it and afterwards said: "Fixed it.  I'm a genuis!" 

Funny Froo

My Eden has my fashion sense I think! lol!  She loves to dress up but, this day she was ready to go to school like this.  We convinced her to change out of her pajamas but, the hat and glasses had to stay. 

Perfection

 These three cuties were laying on the dining room floor together one day just playing and snuggling!  I love how all of the kids love Vivianne so much!! They all adjusted to her so well and everyone looks out for her.  Almost to a fault because there is always someone in her face, lol!  This is perfection!

Look how Viv and Liam are making the same exact face!  Twinsies!  All three of them look alike actually!  wow.

Sweet Moment

This morning I snipped my finger with the end of some scissors while helping Asher set up his Beyblade Statium that he got from Trisha and Josh at Kelley Christmas last night.  A bit later Cullen came up to me and saw my finger with a band-aid on it.
Cullen: I'm sorry that happened.
Me. Yeah but, it will get better soon.
Cullen: (Gives me a Kiss on the arm)  That is for the hurting. 
Awww, he is the sweetest!  Totally made my morning. 

Beggar's Night

 Nauvoo has Beggar's Night the night before Halloween.  Sometimes I like that and sometimes I don't.  The weather was perfect, even too warm at times.  I would rather have that than the rainy, cold, weather we had last year at Halloween time though.  

So, this guy is Robin (aka, Milo).  Isn't he cute?!  I didn't really try to hard to get the kids to do decent pictures.  They were all excited to get trick or treating and sometimes you just have to catch a few pics on the fly for memories sake! 

 I'm pretty sure that Milo's fingers got shut in the front screen door.  Poor kid.  So naturally I thought: Okay, Colista, now would be the perfect time to snap a picture of him.  Smh.  

 Cullen was a Pirate Captain.  He was a freaking cute one too.  I wish I had gotten an actual picture of his face!  He wore his eye patch and everything.  

He changed his mind about 25 times before finally deciding on pirate though. 

 Liam was Harry Potter.  I love, love, love, that he got into Harry Potter.  And he made the perfect Harry too.  

 Cedric was a mafia hitman.  Or a Mafia Kingpin or something.  Cedric has a style all his own and I love it.  

 Miss Froo was witch.  She loved her costume and so did I! It was amazing.  I bought it used for $20 off of Facebook.  I'm sure it cost a ton more brand new. She rocked it though and she got lots of comments from people while we were out trick or treating! 

 This is Batman.  Chase is a bit obsessed right now, as kids tend to do, lol! He made an awesome Batman! 

Asher was a Ninja Warrior.  He embraced the role and made it look good!! He was pretty proud of his costume too.  

So, we started at Debbie and Pat's house and went down Knight and Young street and were done.  The kids had plenty and we were just done.  ha!  We had a good time. 

The Drawing of The Maze

Someone (I think Trisha) gave two of these dry erase tablets to Asher one year for Christmas. He loved them but, doesn't use them much.  Cullen and Eden on the other hand, use them all the time!  This day Cullen was at the table for awhile and finally came to me and asked me to take a picture of his maze!  You can see where he tried to create false paths and what not.  I don't know if you could actually get the the end of the maze or not, lol! He was pretty proud of himself.  Love him~

Morning Rant

I hate everything.  Seriously.  Everything.  Every day is more stupid than the last.  What the freaking crap is going on?!?!?!?!!? 

The Mailbox

I LOVE this new house and the property that it is on.  I do.  But, the mail box is across the street pretty much in a field.  And not only that but, during the warmer months, spiders live in there! Every day is a battle getting the dang mail.  For reals, I would have to carefully pull each piece of mail out while holding on to only the very, very edge of it and shake the tiny black spider off each individual piece of mail.  Stupid.  We sprayed the mail box multiple times and it would help for a bit, then the little black spiders would be back.  Like I said, they are gone .....for now.  But, the mail box doesn't keep my freaking mail dry!!! My mail is always wet and it has ruined quite a few things already.  Dumb.  Just dumb.  Operation "Find the Mailbox of my Dreams" has commenced!

I Worry Too Much....Or Do I?

Well, Tristan is full steam ahead into the complete 180 that teenager-hood is.  It's heartbreaking, confusing, exciting, scary, and awful all rolled into one.  Most of our conversations make my head hurt....or worse, my heart.  And it's not just him that says mean things, it's me too in an effort to make him see my point of view but, it doesn't work.  Gah!  I don't know what to do with myself.  I want so many great things for him and he just doesn't want the same things.  I am trying to remember what it was like for me as a teenager and trying not to over-react and let him learn and discover on his own.  But, it's hard.  I started this post wanting to explain how I feel and I just can't.  Parenting is the hardest thing ever. Like ever.  Ever.  I hope my brain survives. 

Life.

We have been busy, busy, busy and it isn't going to get any better.  We haven't wanted to show our house until we get some things fixed up in it.  But, we have had a fair amount of interest in our house and Susan asked if she could take someone through.  We really didn't want her to but, if it meant that someone might buy it as is, then it would be worth it.  We went over there and did what we could before she took someone through. Turns out that person does not want to buy it as is.  But, there is still a more interest in it so we have been trying to meet up with the Amish guys to do the small projects in the house.  They should be here today or later this week.  We are going to have them patch the roof, finish the trim, lay new carpet, fix cabinet doors, possible build a small closet around the laundry area, and any other little odd jobs around.  We are going to hard core list and promote it after that.  I also think we are going to sell our swing set.

We also have been trying to find all our Christmas stuff in our storage shed and get it here to the house.  One whole box got ruined when one of my snow globes shattered all over everything else in the box and it all molded.  Really annoyed.  Of course the snow globe in question had been a gift from Vanessa a few years ago so the first words out of my mouth were: "Vanessa strikes again!"  haha!  Whatever.  My advent calendar that was a gift from Mark and Karina is yucky, one of my Christmas bears from 2013, my big cream colored stuffed snowman, my Santa statue, and a couple random things were ruined.  UGH.

I am having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit.  I don't feel the love from people this time of year, which is the complete opposite of how it is supposed to be.  I have big plans every year and every single year something gets left out or ruined.  So, this year, I am not going all out.  I am not giving personal, thoughtful gifts.  I am not doing advent.  I am not going out of my way to make it a thousand gatherings.  I am not going to make myself sad or mad because of rude comments other people make. Nope. I am going to keep my family to myself and enjoy each other.  Just the nine of us.  And soak up all the season has to offer that is good.

We did get our tree up this past weekend, which is good.  The kids were very excited.  There were no arguments or yelling.  They just crowded around (a bit much at times, lol) and all wanted to see their ornaments from years past.  We got it all done and then yesterday I found two more boxes of ornaments! doh!  So, I put a few on that were randoms and saved the rest for the people they belonged to.

We took Eden to the pediatric dentist in Burlington yesterday.  Boy was that fun.  Not.  At first she went into the waiting room and was very good.  But, as soon as she went into the back, it all started.  She screamed and cried and kicked and hit and screamed some more.  Luckily with all that screaming the dentist could see in her mouth.  She needs a crap ton of work done.  To the tune of about $10,000.  WHAT. THE. EFF?  Most of that would be hospital fees for sedation. etc.  And about $2,700 would be the actual dentist fee.  So, he said we should go to a pediatric dentist in Springfield so that our medical card would cover most of it and it could be done in a hospital. There is something fun to look forward to.

I also have meetings out the freaking butt with all kinds of different people to work with Eden and her IEP.  The problem with doing all of that stuff now is....doing all that stuff now.  Right in the midst of the full holiday swing.  That and it is never fun to do these things.  No one really gets how it feels to talk to others about your children and have to deal with these problems.  And then your kids constantly have this LABEL and a lot of times people don't want to do certain things with your kids because of these problems.  It makes me feel bad for them and there isn't much I can do about it.  I'm doing the best I can for them though and even though it never seems like enough to me, it is going to have to be.

The week before Thanksgiving Cullen stayed home from school for four days with a cough.  I took him to Dr. Davis when I took the other two.  He didn't seem worried and no one in my house had caught it (or caught it since then)so I have been just letting it take its course.  It is just now starting to go away.  It has been rather annoying though and that kid eats cough drops like they are going out of style.  

Vivianne is jabbering away like crazy! She makes cute little sounds and "talks" quite a bit.  She is gnawing and drooling like crazy and I expect a tooth very soon.  She also blows raspberries all the time too!  She loves to smile....pretty much all the time.  She is a joy to be around.  She is sitting up now although she still tips over pretty easily.  She rolls and scoots all over the floor and always ends up somewhere different from where I laid her down.