A mess sometimes

Right now this little spitfire is a handful.  She makes me so crazy sometimes.  Like yesterday, for example, at the doctors office.  There are only so many ways I can control her in that tiny little room crammed with way too many people.  And when I'm trying to listen to the doctor and Liv is jumping around like a wild child, trying to climb up on the exam table, making SO much noise, and basically just being out of control, I don't really know what to do.

No amount of threatening words or scary eyes did anything to calm her down yesterday.  And I couldn't really smack her on the bum in front of the doctor.  Right? Right. Anyway so I calmly told her that if she didn't listen and follow directions she wouldn't be able to get a sticker on the way out. 

And of course she didn't.  So I ended up dragging a screaming and crying three year old out of the office, shrieking about how I was the meanest mommy ever for not letting her get a sticker.

There were looks.

Sigh. 

And right now she is currently napping because she was so enraged when she couldn't get her baby doll blanket to lay just right in her baby doll crib that she was throwing things and screaming and when- heaven forbid- I tried to help, she yelled and screamed at me.  Like it was my fault I'm not a mind reader.  Plus what she wanted to have happen wasn't even physically possible.  So I put her in bed and she cried herself to sleep.

So wish me luck.  With her.  

I mean not that she isn't just adorable  With her glaring eyes and her love for lip gloss and her sweet side, which is really very sweet.  And she's funny and imaginative and smart and wonderful.  Just also. . . she's a mess sometimes. 

A walk with the boys

From outside the door of our room you could see a little boardwalk that crossed a big pond.  I wanted to walk along it, so one day when we were kind of rained out, in between the rain, Brice and I took these three boys on a walk to the boardwalk.

And they acted as typical 6 ad 8 year old boys would act. Silly and obnoxious.  But it was still fun.  I like seeing how they interact with each other.  How much fun they have.  How they laugh at such dumb things.  Although to them, they're not dumb things.  They're hilarious things.  Silly boys.

They looked over the railing into the pond to find turtle heads poking out of the water.  And Cam almost put his face right into a spider web, since webs filled the railings.  They all thought was funny.

And Granny had beads for all the kids to make name bracelets, which Jace thought was the coolest things ever.  He made probably twenty.  And thought thought he was so cool. 

And then they started making "pooping" faces.  So I took a picture of each of their "pooping" faces.  Because I'm cool like that.  

And the Cam is not a ham at all.  Riiiight. 

And then Jace gave me this look when he was finally annoyed with me taking pictures, and asking him to smile.  Okay, okay.  I get it. 

Daredevil mermaids

Just two random picture of Colton and Keanzie, the daredevils who loved going out in the boat even when it was cloudy and windy and the waves were very choppy.

Kimi and Livvy were the daredevil mermaids.  They wanted to ditch their floaties any chance they got, but then would still frolic on the water as if they had them on.  Pretty sure they would have efficiently drowned themselves if we let them.  We often had to go rescue them and force them to put their floaties on again.  Which would last for a while, and then they would sneakily be slipped off.

During these pictures, the cute little mermaids (which is what they were pretending to be) had been carried quite aways away from where we were set up.  Don't worry, I was following along with them. Anyway, I made them get out and they ran back along the beach tow where we were sitting. 

And then this little mermaid, who looks like she was grumpy a lot, wasn't really grumpy.  Only when she saw me with the camera did she get a little mad.  For some reason.  Maybe because she knew that when I had it out, I wouldn't be picking her up :)

Still the sunset. Will it ever end?

I know right.  Will the sunset pictures EVER end?

Maybe.

She's kind of a mama's girl.  This is her wanting me to hold her.

But then I started making funny noises and dances and she got over it.

For a little while, anyway.

A perfectly imperfect family picture :)