Done, Done and Done.

My friend Lois sent me this today and I laughed so hard I cried.  Needless to say, I've graduated from this 11-Step program :)


Thinking about having kids? Do this 11-Step Program first!

Lesson 1

1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2

Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their...
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3

A really good way to discover how the nights might feel...
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4

Can you stand the mess children make? T o find out...
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5

Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.

Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6

Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7

Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8

1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.

You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 9

Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you're thinking What's 'Noggin'?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10

Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying 'mommy' repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each 'mommy'; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11

Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the 'mommy' tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.


OH, but it's so worth it! :)

I love these pictures!

My friend Emilie took our pictures before Christmas.  I LOVE how they turned out!   I told her I wanted something colorful, and boy did she deliver :)

I dressed everyone in pink :) and we went to this fun house downtown.  It's actually a hostel and I was just imagining all the people in there looking at us through the window as we got our pictures taken...it was kind of embarrassing...

Check out Bridger's dead smile.  There is no life in those eyes!  He can be such a robot sometimes!  (and he would take that as a compliment, I'm sure!)  Kennedy couldn't keep her lips off of Charlotte  and Charlotte couldn't keep still!  After these kinds of photo events, I am always sweaty, hungry and in need of a nap!  I can only imagine how Emilie felt!!!

Dead, dead and more dead...but still kinda cute...

He's alive!!!  And such a handsome kid!

And here's our precious Kennedy--such a doll--and such a stinker.  She did the OPPOSITE of everything that day.  At least she's cute too :)

But Charlotte was soooo happy!  I love her smile!  It just lights up the whole room.  She's 6 1/2 months old in this picture.

I have the cutest kids!!!

The End.

Our snow-shoeing adventure!

We were so lucky to have Jeremy home with us over the Christmas Break!  It was such a nice, relaxing "stay-cation".  We went swimming, sledding, shopping and snow-shoeing (thanks for the recommendation Sini!) 

It was pretty cold up in the mountains with LOTS of snow!  But we were prepared and wore a lot of layers--I actually got hot at the end and never even needed to wear my gloves.  Let me just give a little run down of what went on that day....

We pull up to the place--ask everyone if they need to go to the bathroom--they say no.  We put on 123 layers of clothes.  Walk inside.  Rent show-shoes.  Kennedy has to go to the bathroom.  I take her.  I take of 123 of her layers.  She doesn't have to go after all.  Put the layers back on.  Grunt.

Put snow-shoes on.  Spend 30 minutes jimmy rigging Kennedy's snow shoes (her's weren't quite small enough, but it was the smallest they had...).  Finally we're ready to go!

Start out on the trail.  Walk 10 yards.  Kennedy is tired.  She is walking super slow.  Grunt.  I give her a pep talk.  Jeremy gives her a pep talk.  Finally we take off her snow shoes and let her walk in her boots.  She likes it better that way.  Wish we would have known....

It is bright and sunny and snowy outside!  Gorgeous!  Kennedy walks faster if we let her be the leader.  So...we do.  We make snow angels.  We throw snow balls.  We find a spider in the snow.  We think we hear a moose...but it's a cross country skiier.  Sigh!

Charlotte loves sitting in the backpack!  The kids love stopping for water breaks.  They drink out of a camel pak.  When I'm thirsty, I wait.  I don't want to drink their backwash :)

We walk across a frozen lake covered in snow.  I tell this to Bridger--then wonder if it will scare him.  He listens and then proceeds to jump up and down as hard as he can.  Great.  Now I'm scared that the ice will crack.  Plan out in my head how to save us all from drowning...or freezing to death...Decide that since we can still see the rental place from where we are that someone else can rescue us...

The kids get tired.  They don't think they can go on much longer.  Jeremy tells them they can have hot chocolate if they make it to the car.  They get a burst of energy.

I could keep walking, for hours more.  But not with the kids.  At least, not this time.

By the time we got back, I wondered what time it was.  Found out it had only been an hour.  Guess time goes by slower when you stop and smell the roses...  Maybe we'll wait till next year to take the kids again.  But there's a moonlight snow shoeing up at Sundance in February.  You better believe that's what Jer and I will be doing for Valentine's Day!

I just need to find a baby sitter.... Nessy??  You busy?