3 mini snow noobs

While Amber and Mikkena were off having Mama-Daughter time. I decided to take the little girls on thier first wilderness adventure....sledding!

We were very excited.

Even the Belgian Garden Gnome was excited, and she rarely gets excited for anything other than treats and clean diapers.


As you can see from the snow pants and cowboy boots and the XXXLarge baby gloves we embarked without getting fashion approval from the boss lady.

We had a lot of fun, but what I didn't anticipate is that people that just learned to walk don't walk well on deep unstable frozen surfaces. Or maybe Annie learned how to walk from a marshmallow robot, at least that's what she looked like.

She did a lot of this. Step one: take picture. Step two: help baby.
Fun?

Horror in Your Brother-in-law's Basement

Move over Nightmare on 13th. We don't even want to hear about the Haunted Forest. We're here to bring you.............

The Basement of Despair!!!!!

Starring:

Mikkena as the Undead Disco Witch looking for her R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Alexis as the Maid and Paisley as the Ghost Baby

Tagan as the Mini Protector

And Deacon as the Spooky Butler





Come Visit.....If you dare!

How to BOOM without the Buck

One look at the $350 "bargain" priced firework package at Walmart and I knew I was in trouble. What's a poor college family with a hankerin for blowing stuff up going to do? Was Independence day over before it even began? Not if you're hanging with the Hills. We don't let being financially challenged stop us from making things go BOOM! Especially if we have some duct tape.


My Nephew Xander and I settled on a rock solid design for a rocket and tested it for launch.

It worked pretty good. See for your self. WARNING: Only the first 20 seconds of the video is relevant to rocket launching. The last part of the film is my artsy film director's (Mikkena) riveting documentary on child seating order during rocket launches. As you will soon see, Paisley will let Cody sit by her next time.

Apparently our "rock solid" design wasn't as rock solid as we thought. That's why I'm in school for counseling and not engineering. Look at Tagen's face, I think he's judging me.

After we got tired of shooting things in the air we decided to throw stuff at each other. The game started out boys versus girls, that is until my first water balloon smashed Elyse in the face. We then rearranged the teams so that it was everyone against me. I lost.






Elyse rushing me from behind posed a challenge, luckily I blocked it with my third hand conveniently protruding from my left hip.

Let's just say the coolest part of our day was not the fireworks.

She's BAAAAAAAACK!

Don't let her "Where's the beef?" look or her snaggle-tooth-canine grin fool you. This is not a dog, it's a baby. First, she's 5 pounds, she's carried every where she goes, she shakes when she's cold or scared and.....

She goes on walks being pushed in a stroller.

This is just getting sad. If Amber doesn't get pregnant soon we are going to have a zoo.

For those of you who don't remember Roxy's story check out my July 8th, 2008 post. Roxy was not in very good shape when we found her, and she is very fortunate that the Birchalls took such great care of her over the past year. Her breath has been officially downgraded from suffocating to poo-poo and she has gained 2 pounds (that's nearly half of her body weight). Well, she fits in our condo, and we love her. Mikkena really, really loves her.

PLUS!

I lifted this photo of my nephew Marcus off of my sister's (Adrienne) blog. I'm just surprised how much they are pushing the limits of infant fashion down in Kentucky. I thought cleavage showing peep-holes were reserved for the red carpet. I've tried a similar look, but mine was met with less enthusiasm.

Crack is wack!

The work begins..........

This week my youngest brother, Zach (you may remember him as the puking peep contest winner), left on a mission to Singapore. Before he left, he went on a 4 day lecture tour (he was receiving the lectures). His final stop was my house where I proceeded to deliver a two hour power point presentation on how to be a good missionary (only partly true). I figure I was fulfilling my two-part role as the oldest brother. I beat him up for the first 19 years of his life, now I get to spend the rest of the time telling him what to do. If he's smart, he'll forget half of the crap I told him and just work hard and have faith. I'm proud of you Zach! I can't wait to hear all about your time in Singapore. That is, if you can make it out of the MTC alive.

If any one wants to follow Zach's journey check out the link on my blog list thingy.

Missing Jane

This week our beloved Grandmother Jane returned to her Heavenly Father. I cannot say enough kind words about her. She was a wonderful, caring, loving, and spunky lady. She truly enriched our lives and we will miss her.

Annie's revenge

Last Thursday Amber's appendix (Annie) decided to make her presence known. She was tired of always being under-appreciated and considered a useless vestigial organ. She had her 15 minutes of fame, and we all paid attention. But sadly, this move ultimately led to her demise.

Amber came home from spending time preparing her grandmother, who had recently passed away, for her funeral, when she began complaining of stomach pains. She told me that it was the worse pain she had ever felt and told me that she needed an ambulance. I then gave the expert advice of "maybe we should just wait it out". We compromised and Amber let me drive her to the emergency room. It's a good thing she had her eyes closed so she didn't see me driving 75 MPH in a 40 MPH zone, or the 3 stop lights I ran. Mikkena noticed. Sorry Mikkena.

We arrived at the emergency room at 11:00 at night. After 4 hours of blood tests, CAT scans, puking, and prodding, Amber was admitted to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. Sorry Annie, maybe you should have just used your words.

At least Amber got to eat hospital food, which in her case is a good thing. We want to thank every one for your help and your visits, especially Sherine, Todd and Brandi. Thanks for taking care of Mikkena while we were having fun.