Seriously?

How hard is it to get a decent picture where all 4 kids FOLLOW DIRECTIONS and look at me? Apparently harder than I thought. This is just a few of about 45 pictures that didn't turn out. I got *maybe* 2 that will work for christmas cards.

Ben's new bed

I am at my wit's end with Ben and his sleeping as of late. This has been his permanent bed for the past 2 weeks....the bench in my room. He has been having terrible nightmares, and absolutely refuses to sleep in his bed. He thinks something bad is going to happen to Rich and I during the night. I have been trying very hard to get him to go to bed in his own bed, but after listening to him bawl and beg to come downstairs for an hour and a half, I finally just let him come down and sleep in here AGAIN! I don't know what to do. I don't want him to be majorly scared and stressed to sleep, but I don't want this to become a permanent habit either. WHAT DO I DO???? Supernanny, come to my rescue!

For Uncle Joel

Did you see these? I found them at Hy-Vee....they had Franken Berry too!

Doing the lens happy dance!!

I got my good lens back today, woohoo!!! And it works again! I was so excited I drug the kids back to the park to test it out. Luckily for them (and you!) it started sprinkling right when we got there, so I only got a few pics. Notice Matt's haircut....it's a #1, so as close to his scalp as possible without actually being bald. That'll teach him to self-cut his hair.

Sorry Grandpa Jim

Not to rub it in or anything, but it is 80 degrees here today! Ok, really it's too hot in my opinion....fall needs to be 20 or so degrees cooler. But poor Grandpa Jim is getting SNOW over in Western ND today! Yes, 2-4 inches by tomorrow, no joke! We are thinking of you northerners....Joel & Heidi I hope you guys don't get the big storm!

Ava and Grace in the backyard today in bare feet, t-shirts, shorts...popsicles in hand!

Those no good'ers

Some little twit stole the Obama sign from our yard two nights ago. I tried to blame Joel, but he swears it wasn't him. So when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, right? Tyler pieced together this mosaic out of the signs & stickers we had left from the caucus....not bad! We showed those poor losers!
The front:

Back:

Window:

Oh Matt

Really??!! No, you are not Mr. Impulsive Ben W. Kinney, who yesterday without his ADD meds toasted all 6 foil packages (that's 12 Pop-Tarts in all) of Pop-Tarts just because! You are not your brother Ben, who wanted to look at my wedding rings 'in the sunlight', and discarded them in the grass so I had to spend 30 minutes of my afternoon sifting through blades of grass! You know what happens when you put the scissors up against your hair, right?! RIGHT???