That is what Drew thinks is said on the Chuck E. Cheese commercial. After four kids we've learned NEVER to go there on a Saturday! Usually it's the restaurant they always choose for their birthday dinner, so off we went last Monday night. We had a pretty good time.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Where a kid can be a PIG!
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What once was lost now is found.
So, I accidentally deleted a PRICELESS picture from my digital camera. Dang it! I googled "recovering a deleted photo" and this site popped up:
www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/60
Lo and behold it worked! Yay!!!! I think you'll see why I was so thrilled to get it back...
Notice the Grip of Death Mallory has on me. Look at the rigid line of her body as she pulls away from Chuck E. As he began to approach, I felt her tighten up as her entire body squeezed mine. The whole ordeal only took about 10 seconds, so I don't think she'll be too traumatized. Funny!
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12:48 PM
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Thursday, February 7, 2008
Thank you American Family Insurance!
So, because Edward is such an awesome insurance agent, he racked up a bunch of points toward a campaign at American Family. You turn in your points and get to choose from a bunch of great products. The Sony Handycam is what I, I mean we chose. We have had our other video camera since I was pregnant with Ross nine years ago. It still works, but it won't keep a battery charged. We've tried several different batteries, so apparently it's the camera that is causing the trouble. Anyway, as I said, there were a lot of products to choose from. Edward really had his eye on some exercise equipment, but being the good man that he is, decided to use his points for something we both would use. ;)
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12:56 PM
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Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Friday, February 1, 2008
Happy Birthday, Grameo!
We just celebrated my great-grandma Rowe's 95th birthday! She is such a trooper. Two years ago she fell and broke her hip. We all asumed she wouldn't really recover. Thankfully we were wrong. After a hip replacement she resumed her life. Since her accident, she stays with her daughter during the week, but she stays at her own home (where she most definitely prefers) on the weekends. She has out-lived her husband by 35+ years and her son by 19+ years. Happy birthday, Grameo!
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3:06 PM
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Daniel Son
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10:01 PM
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Friday, January 25, 2008
Junie B. Jones
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3:48 PM
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Extreme Makeover

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1:39 PM
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Monday, January 14, 2008
Our Little Mary's Growing Up!

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11:23 PM
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Sunday, January 13, 2008
Two Little Razors
Mallory's first two teeth popped through a couple of weeks ago. The kids are infatuated with them. The first thing Elizabeth tells people is that she has teeth now. Drew keeps saying, "I thought babies only got one tooth." That is the image he sees in cartoons! I constantly have to tell the kids to keep their dirty little fingers out of her mouth. Mallory continues to amaze and entertain us.
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4:54 PM
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Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Right On!
I LOVE this article! How funny is this! If only we had more "Jane Hambleton's" we'd probably have less "Britney Spears'."
‘Meanest mom’ sells car after finding liquor
Iowa woman shares teen son’s misdeed with the world via newspaper ad
DES MOINES, Iowa - Jane Hambleton has dubbed herself the "meanest mom on the planet."
After finding alcohol in her son's car, she decided to sell the car and share her 19-year-old's misdeed with everyone — by placing an ad in the local newspaper.
The ad reads: "OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet."
Hambleton has heard from people besides interested buyers since recently placing the ad in The Des Moines Register.
The 48-year-old from Fort Dodge says she has fielded more than 70 telephone calls from emergency room technicians, nurses, school counselors and even a Georgia man who wanted to congratulate her.
"The ad cost a fortune, but you know what? I'm telling people what happened here," Hambleton says. "I'm not just gonna put the car for resale when there's nothing wrong with it, except the driver made a dumb decision.
"It's overwhelming the number of calls I've gotten from people saying 'Thank you, it's nice to see a responsible parent.' So far there are no calls from anyone saying, 'You're really strict. You're real overboard, lady.'"
The only critic is her son, who Hambleton says is "very, very unhappy" with the ad and claims the alcohol was left by a passenger.
Hambleton said she believes her son but has decided mercy isn't the best policy in this case. She says she set two rules when she bought the car at Thanksgiving: No booze, and always keep it locked.
The car has been sold, but Hambleton says she will continue the ad for another week — just for the feedback.
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10:58 PM
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Monday, January 7, 2008
The Champ
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8:53 AM
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Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
SNOW!
And this is what we got that night!
I thought the snow would make the house look prettier, but it didn't work. Still needs A LOT of work to make that happen.
Here is a shot from the balcony of Edward and the three big kids playing in the snow. This was a Sunday (church was cancelled and Edward was delighted for a chance to get out in the snow), and the kids had the day off of school on Monday. We only had about 3 inches, but our town doesn't function so well with snow. I'm sure our Utah, Chicago, & Pittsburgh family and friends find that funny, but our neighborhood streets don't get cleared very well so the buses can't run through the neighborhoods.
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8:09 PM
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Merry Christmas
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3:30 PM
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Sunday, December 16, 2007
Diversity
Today, I was sitting at the kitchen table, busy making hair bows for the girls. Elizabeth was sitting near me, drinking hot cocoa after a day in the snow. She asked, "Mom. Can I have a Bar Mitzvah?" After a good chuckle, I replied, "Darling, we're not Jewish." She then asked, "Are Jewish people rich?" I asked, "Where are you getting this stuff?" She replied, "Zack and Cody" (a show they watch on the Disney Channel).
Oh. This one really keeps us on our toes.
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10:12 PM
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Friday, December 14, 2007
Our visit with Santa
This is part of Winter Wonderland. Our city does an excellent job providing this service each year. There is a huge village display with electric trains running through out (Brother Gibson, you would be impressed!). They've built a walk-way over the village. There are lots of great decorations in the hall, and of course, the highlight is making the long walk to see Santa.
Finally, the big moment. They've waited for this since December 2006. If you'll look closely, this Santa might look a little familiar to some of you. It's a secret that my dad is actually one of Santa's helpers! The oldest two were amazed when they figured out what was happening. I told them it is a big responsibility to keep this secret. Elizabeth especially is having a hard time keeping this new secret. Their cousins were behind us in line, and they both wanted to rush right over to tell them. Of course they too figured it out once they got up there, but Andrea was telling them, "NO! Santa just looks familiar!"
Ross was smiling from ear to ear when he figured out what was going on. It was pretty cute.
Elizabeth was priceless! How I wish I had my video camera with me! First of all, she has quite a lengthy list this year. So she asked Santa for a guitar that wasn't "cheap" this year because last year he brought her one that broke right a way. After they were done talking, Santa whispered to her, "I love you" because he knew that she knew. I WISH YOU COULD HAVE SEEN HER FACE!!!!! It was hysterical!!!! She stopped for a minute to think about it, and she had these furrowed brows. Then she said, "WEIRD." Santa had to pause for a moment to regain his composure.
Drew kept pushing the other kids in front of him. I guess he needed proof that The Big Guy could be trusted. He told Santa he wanted a PlayStation. Can you tell he has a big brother? Luckily Santa knew what was going on and talked him into a new Buzz costume or super hero toys.
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9:57 AM
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#6
The sixth Felker niece of 2007 has arrived! Baby Lauren Emily was born to Andrew & Sarah and big sister Audrey on Wednesday. She weighed 7 lbs. 10 oz. and is 21 inches. I think she's beautiful and can't wait to get my hands on her! Hopefully if all goes well we will get to meet her in about two weeks. That makes 19 grandchildren under the age of 10!
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9:46 AM
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Sunday, December 9, 2007
Breakfast with Santa
Our Parents As Teachers organization hosted a breakfast with Santa on Saturday. They had some fun, kid-friendly crafts as well as sitting on the big-man-himself's knee. Actually, the line to see Santa was WAY too long, so we skipped that part. We'll get to see him in the next few days at our town's Winter Wonderland - very fun (of course I'll post pictures of that after we go!).
Even Mallory had a jolly good time!
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11:09 PM
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Saturday, December 8, 2007
Ornament making party
I have such a special Aunt Cathy. She is very thoughtful and fun. She invited her sisters, nieces and great-nieces over for a fun afternoon of ornament making. I'm glad Grammy was there with an extra set of hands.
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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
We were a little late setting up our tree this year (we've been so tied up with the play). We usually set it up on a family night. It's always fun to look at our ornaments and remember where they came from or who gave them to us. Most of our ornaments were given to us by Edward's dad's cousin, Carrie. She is a very special lady to our family. She never married or had children, so she has always kind of spoiled Edward and his siblings over the years. Each year since he was born she has given him an ornament. Now that we have children, she sends each of them several of their own ornaments each year. The kids love to find their own. We also have a tradition of buying an ornament on each vacation we take. So far we have ornaments representing Orlando, Bar Harbor, Maine, San Diego, New York City,and Montreal, Canada (somehow we missed one in Washington, D.C.).
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9:49 PM
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Nighty night
I don't know about you all that have young children, but at our house, bedtime can be absolute CHAOS! Actually, Elizabeth is usually excellent, but the boys... well that's another story. It usually sounds like elephants are break-dancing above us from about 8:30 until around10:00 each night. I'm serious. Elizabeth feels left out not having a roommate. She doesn't believe us when we tell her she'll be thankful for that in a few years. So every once in a while, we feel sorry enough for her that we allow her to sleep in the boys' room, even though we know we'll need to take a couple Advil before we retire to bed.
A couple of things about this first picture. There are exactly 14 inches between the boys' beds. At the other house, we stacked the beds into bunk beds, but they still shared the bottom twin bed each night. So, when we moved here I thought I'd put the beds really close together so they'd feel like they were in the same bed, but they'd still have their own space. Wrong. They still share a twin bed each night. Anyway, when Elizabeth bunks in with them, she has to sleep in that 14 inch space. Even though there is an extra bed. Even though there is plenty of other floor space. Crazy. Also, you'll notice that Drew fell asleep sitting up. Leaning against the metal bed frame. Ahh. Now that's a good night's sleep!
So, apparently on this particular night, Drew and Elizabeth were driving Ross nuts. Of course the chaos is never his fault. He decided they were too loud, so he said he would just sleep in the closet. And he did! When we came up to check on the "quiet" we found him in the closet with his pillow and blanket. Therefore, both beds were empty that night. Crazy.
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9:32 PM
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