Its never a good thing...

When you look out the window and see this...

Thankfully it was not a house, just an old shed at Moses Lake Steel. But it sure looked nasty.

And it is also never a good thing....

When

you

walk

into

the

kitchen

and

find

this

...

...

...

...

$25 worth of formula on the floor and 1 guilty Miss Kate.

The container bragged about having 20% more, but I have a feeling I lost the extra 20%.

And, NO, I didn't throw this stuff away(it was a brand new can of the stuff)... I scooped as much up as possible and dumped it back in the can.

The container also noted its helpfullness in strengthening the immune system, so I figured the added germs would make that statement true for sure. ;)

I had to try and be very discreet with the camera so Kate wouldn't notice me taking pics of her naughtiness...cause this was too much to let pass without a picture.

Miss-chievious Kate II

We're almost 1/2 way into the "terrible twos" and life has been very interesting! :D

Miss Kate seems to be getting a bit more attitude with each passing month, and a bit more bossy along with her growing vocabulary. She has learned that Elliott goes crazy over food so whenever she gets a snack she goes and sits as close to him as possible, and as he longingly watches her every bite she calmly continues eating with great enthusiasm. If he reaches a hand out she sweetly tells him "No, Eh-ee-ut, don touch. You cant hav dat.".

I had to take the below photo after telling the girls to keep their juice in the kitchen. "NO JUICE ON THE CARPET, GIRLS" I told them firmly...so what do they do? Stand with toes on the the line. (In all fairness to cousin Adelynn I should mention that she was only copying what Kate was doing)

Miss Kate loves to draw and cut things...

and not only on paper... We have proof of that fact on furniture and clothes and...

HAIR!!!

I must confess I nearly had a heart attack when I saw this in the sink!! :D

She, appropriately, used the hair cutting scissors and tried to wash all the hair down the sink when she saw me headed her direction, so it doesn't look quite as dramatic as when I first caught sight of it. It looks like less when its all wet and matted than when it was lying in neat clumps all over the sink.

Thankfully she did a pretty decent job of cutting large clumps out of the under layer of hair and leaving a little to work with on the top.

Notice the short chunk sticking out above her left ear. She is missing several chunks from that area, chopped off at different lengths, but it blends in pretty well.

The part that shows the most is the bangs...

chopped off right near the roots, but again there is a few shreds left to cover it up,

Yes, she's embarrassed about it.

Are we done yet, mommy?

See, it covers pretty well.

Miss Kate also likes to use lotions and chapsticks or anything that appears to be that sort of thing.

Doesn't this look like some fun cream!?

The kids were quietly entertaining themselves in the bedroom at 6:30 this morning while I was getting stuff done in the kitchen and checking on them occasionally.

I found this guilty looking person on one of my "checks". :)

I have no idea why she felt the need to put the first aid cream on her eyes and face...I don't use any eye or face creams.

She also put it all over Elliott's face in a much thinner layer. If you look closely you can see it in his eyebrows. :)

(sorry about the poor lighting)

I guess I should tell a few good things about our Miss-chievious Kate after all that, because there is lots of good things about her. :)

I love to hear her break out singing one of the many sunday school songs she knows while she's busy helping me unload the dishwasher, sweep the floor, do the laundry, bake, cook, or while riding in the car or keeping Elliott happy.

My favorites are: "I hav da doy, doy, doy, doy, down in my heart, WHERE?"

translation: I have the joy, joy, joy, joy...

or

He will gabber, he will gabber, da gems fo hih kingum, ah da save one, ah da bite one, hih love an hih own.

translation: He will gather, the gems for his kingdom, all the saved ones, all the bright ones, his loved and his own.

Other songs she sings are:

Happy is the boy

O cling to the bible my boy,

O, happy day...

A little ship was on the sea...

The B-I-B-L-E, yes thats the book for me

This little light of mine

Isn't HE wonderful

Wide, wide, as the ocean

Stop, and let me tell you...

Jesus loves me

Jesus loves the little children

Trust and obey

The wise man built his house upon the rock...

I am so glad that Jesus loves me...

Behold, behold, I stand at the door and knock, knock, knock...

Around the throne of God in heaven will many children sing...

The funny thing is that she sings "happy birthday to you" right along with all the other songs. I'm just waiting for the day when she's old enough to choose a song to sing and gives out "happy birthday" in sunday school. :)

As for this little man, he has been very sick for the last couple of weeks. When I took him in on Tue. of last week they said Bronchitis and an Ear Infection. Yuck! So he is on steroids and an antibiotic just like his sister was around this time last year.

Thankfully, this week he has been back to his happy healthy 23 lb chunky hunk of a self for the most part. :D

Its so good to have our Little Man back! :)

Bye now. :)

Finally...

At long last, here is the promised post for you, Gramma Jo. I have been sorting through videos of the past several months and organizing them into categories, sort of, and getting rid of the stuff I don't want. Here is the first of several videos I have completed. They are all from between 3-4months of Elliott and 24-26months of Kate.

Enjoy! :)

Hugs and Kisses. :)

Miss-chievious Kate

Sometimes when she is quiet I find her being very angelic...

Such as when I rushed into the living room after a long period of silence, sure I was going to find disaster, only to find her sitting there on the floor diligently searching through the scriptures...

Other times not so much...

Like when I fell asleep reading her stories on the bed after a long night with a sick baby and jumped awake to find this disaster...(this is the messiest, gooiest, ooiest stuff to clean up) I did not take a picture of her before cleaning her up because there wasn't time. I didn't want her to get it anywhere more than she already had. She appeared to think is was furniture polish, and was using her lovely slimy white hands to spread it and a washcloth to polish. Unfortunately for her, her "night-night" was also covered in it so she had to take her nap without it. (It was finally clean 1 scrubbing, 1 soaking, and 2 washings later.) I had to wash her hands 6 times just to get rid of the pretty white gloves. I 'm counting my blessings that she kept the majority of it on the wipeable surfaces as it is a super royal pain to get out of materials/clothes/carpet. The alarm clock still has goop in all the cracks and crevices. :)

And there was the time I walked into her room to get her up one morning (after thinking she was sure sleeping a long time) and found her completely NAKED. She loves to undo zippers snaps and such so she stripped off her jammies and then removed her diaper as well. She tried to fold it neatly up just like mommy does and then set it on the dresser to be thrown away... and yes, she also peed in the bed afterwards. ...I thought I was actually caught up on the laundry for a minute, but I knew that couldn't be possible. :D

Sometimes she actually plays nicely with her cousins.

...And SHARES!!!

More often she likes to boss and annoy them...at least the littler ones don't know the difference. :)

Helping push Little Sprout in the walker... even though she doesn't need any help.

And then moving her chair right up against the walker so Little Sprout couldn't go anywhere...

every time Little Sprout backed up and started in another direction Miss Kate promptly moved her chair in front of her again.

But alas! Little Sprout is still smiling after all that so Miss Kate decided to try a different tactic...Ruffy in the face!

Playing and plotting mischief with Elliott

Hey, Elliott, see how dirty Fletch is. I bet we could get him nice and clean if we washed him in the toilet.

Don'tcha think so?!

Oh, hi mom, we weren't doing anything naughty, we're just sittin here doing nothin.

Mom turns around for a second:

_Fling_

Fletch the Puppy is sent flying through the air by Kate and smacks Elliott in the face.

Mom whips back around. "Kate did you just hit Elliott in the face with Fletch?"

Kate sits there smiling innocently, but saying nothing.

Something tells me by the look on his face that the answer is 'YES'.

They move down to the floor and the "playing" continues...

"Hey, Elliott, would you like me to teach you something?

You would?! Okay!"

"Did you know these are your eyes?"

*Poke* *Poke*

"And if you lift up your head a bit more *PUSH*

I'll show you where your mouth is." :)

Don't worry folks its all good. I'm pretty tough you know. :)

Miss Kate is a typical girl in that she loves to try on shoes and clothes ...usually ones that are way too big or way too small. :D Notice she has both of her legs in one pant leg of Elliotts jeans.

Miss Kate has become very helpful in entertaining Elliott these days...although I can't leave her alone with him or he gets a lot of stuff in the face. Often she covers him completely with a blanket as though that might make him go away for a while. Usually she set a book on his face or makes sure her toy "accidentally" hits him. The other day she had a thermometer up his nose. He never made a peep about it even though his eyes were all red and watery. (Have you ever tried sticking a thermometer up your nose? It ain't pleasant!) I did it back to her so she could see how it felt. :]

They often play together on the bed in the morning and evenings as I get ready for the day or night.

....Here sits Elliott feeling very bored...but wait...someone is coming in the door over there. Elliott can take it from here...

The suspense is killing me....

Oh goody, its Kate!

I don't like to take my eyes off of her when she's around cause you never know what might happen. I know she looks very innocent...

But she can get pretty wild sometimes.

Personally, I find her very exciting to watch! She does backflips...

"Hey, Elliott are you watching me!"

...and sommersaults!

And she tells me secrets....Psst!

I think she's really funny! :D

Oh, and I love to rock in the rocking chair with her...

...As long as she doesn't rock me out.

She rocks me violently ...BACK...and FORTH...

(or FORTH...and BACK according to the pictures.)

And I like it!!!

We also like to sing while we're rocking, her and I. It's just so cozy and relaxing. :) It always calms everyone down when Mommy is having a rough day.

It makes us very happy. And sometimes Kate even tells me stories

Even better...sometimes we all get to sit in the chair with Daddy and read stories!!! Kate doesn't let me see the scary parts. She says I might get nightmares.

Boy I sure am getting sleepy. I think it's time for a nap in my favorite chair. Good bye ya'all!

XOXO from Elliot (oh, and from Mommy and Kate too probably) :)