Why can't kids appreciate the beauty of sleep?

I thinks it's official.  Nap time at this house ceases to exist anymore.  I swear my other kids were still taking naps at Baylor's age.  He wants nothing to do with them.  He would much rather be doing this:

Why oh why can't kids appreciate sleep?  If they only knew how much less you get as an adult and how much more you want it.  Such a waste if you ask me.  

At least him and Nate are becoming best buddies.  

That's fine.  I've got my own bestie:

This boy has discovered he has a love for puzzles just like his favorite gal in the world (me).  Jammin to music, doing our puzzles.  Life doesn't get much better than that.  Well it might if I had any of these left to eat:

That's right, I pulled out my inner betty crocker and made some spudnuts.  I thought they were going to be a disaster as I was making them.  This bowl was full so I would say they were successful. 

anyone else have buyer's remorse?

It's only been a couple of weeks since Christmas and I already have buyer's remorse (even though it wasn't actually me that bought this particular item).  It's been 20ish days of nonstop fighting over who gets to play the PS3 at the Wright house.  The only reason I agreed on the PS3 in the first place is 1- Nate already had it ordered when he asked me about it.  Hello!  What ever happened to mutual decisions between husband and wife? Okay, apparently I agreed to it.  I have absolutely no recollection of that so I was either asleep or watching t.v.  He thinks he's pretty funny.  2-It was also considered a graduation present and 3-he found an excellent deal on a pre owned one on ebay.  So good that I am desperately hoping we didn't purchase a stolen item.  Here's to having faith in humanity and believing it was someone with money who just didn't want it any more. 

I'm so sick of hearing them fight over it I'm ready to put it back on ebay.....maybe I should do that and let Nate know about it after it has been sold.  Then we'll see who has the last laugh.  

I thought for sure after all the Christmas festivities were over and done the things that would get to me the most would be the play doh or the paintable glass figures grandma was nice enough to buy them. 

But nope, it's that blasted gaming system. It just might be the death of me.  Eventually they have to get sick of it.

Did anyone notice that this ocd mom actually said she got her kids play doh for Christmas?  That's right.  I'm working on my issues.  I've come to terms with the fact that the play doh is all mixed together and that it takes me 20 minutes to clean up 5 minutes of their fun.  When they ask to play with it I say sure,  grab me a treat, head to another room and all is well in the world.  Hence the reason there is no picture of them playing with it.  I was smart enough to stick around with the paint.  No way I was going to let them paint my counters.

Hello to another new year

Good-bye 2013....helllllooo 2014.  I can't say I am necessarily excited to see 2013 be over.  It was a pretty good year here at the Wright house.  Nothing too eventful happened which is usually a good thing.  We spent our New Years Eve doing what we always do, hanging out with Nate's family.  We ate a lot of crispy brown food, basically any and all things fried, however someone decided to spice it up a bit this year and bring a veggie tray.  I got made fun of by the father in law for bringing purple iced sugar cookie bars.  He said they looked like throw up.  Funny....I recall seeing him eat one or two.  Played a few games and won me 70 bucks baby.  The Wright's don't consider the dice game we played gambling.  All I have to say about that is I put in 5 dollars and walked away with 70. Booyah! We had 13 little boys screaming and running through the house. We set off some fireworks.   We had a good ol' time. 

I'm going to get a little sentimental and reflect for a minute on our 2013.

Dilon turned 10--boo to having a kid in double digits. I'm not that old-- and is in 5th grade.  Last year of grade school -- boo again.  I know I shouldn't say that. It is so fun to see the young man he is becoming and he is such a great help around the house.  It's just crazy to think I've been a mom for a decade.  Anyway, back to dilon.  He loves any and all sports.  Started up wrestling this year and did really good at it.  He's a lightweight but he held his own.  He also got his insulin pump which has been a huge help with his diabetes.  So much better than doing all those shots.  Dil really is such a good kid.  I know he will accomplish great things in life.

Grifin turned 8, started the 3rd grade and got baptized.   He also tried wrestling and decided he is a lover not a fighter.  I'm pretty sure he will never do that again.  But hey, at least he gave it a go.  He can still say the alphabet backwards, which I can now do also because of him.  Give it a try.  It's harder than you think.  This kid is definitely my little spit fire and keeps us on our toes.  It is amazing though how many people (especially adults) say what a great kid he is and how he has such a special spirit about him.  I would just like him to stop kicking holes in my walls.  Really he is learning to control his anger a lot better though so I can't complain too much.  Progress, we are making progress here, people.  He is such a blessing in our family. Our home would be so dull without our gus gus.

Dax, aka grandpa's little angel, turned 4 and started preschool.  He has also turned into mom's little devil.  I tell ya, he is so full of mischief right now I don't know what to do with him.  Once he gets in trouble all he has to do is flash that smile and all is forgotten.  I really need to look past the cuteness or we are going to be in big trouble.  He asks me about 2300 questions a day which has me wondering if he is trying to break some sort of record for retaining the most information a persons brain can hold.  He is also one of the most genuine little guys I know.  He compliments me all the time by telling me I look cute or he likes my shirt.  Plus he thinks I'm hilarious.  How long do you think I can keep him fooled?  I love the bundle of energy he is.

Baylor turned 2 and is growing up much faster than I would like him to.  He has turned into a little compilation of his three older brothers.  He is my little helper like dilon, a little spit fire like grif, and full of mischief like dax.  I have never had a kid get into more drawers/cupboards/closets, color on the walls, climb on top of any and everything the way this boy does.  I guess he is just trying to keep up with everyone else.  He screams as loud as ten small schoolgirls combined.  But he also still runs to me in the morning and just lets me hold and love him.  Freeze this time, please.  I look back at all we went through with him and how he shouldn't even be here and I still get choked up.  I know he has important work to do in this life and I can't wait to see what it is he will accomplish.

As for me and Nate (or is it Nate and I) not much has changed with us.  Oh wait, yes.  Yes. It. Has.  We made it through his last four years of school.  I know I sound greedy when I say "we"  but it was seriously a joint effort.  Maybe I should be more humble and give him the credit but nah.  I'm going to steal some as well.    Nate is now the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric and I am 2nd counselor in the primary.  Those are about the only changes I can think of that happened to us.....we are pretty boring here. 

This post has turned a little lengthy so I guess I better stop.  I'm sure there were all sorts of other happenings here but I have either already blogged about them or forgotten them.  Here's to hoping 2014 will be the best we can make it be.  Cheers!

Merry Merry Christmas

 Another Christmas come and gone.  It seems so crazy.  My kiddos had a great time, I had a great time.  We are so blessed.

Here are a few (and by few I mean a lot of) pics of our fun

 Grandma Taco's fish pond

 Sorry mike and amanda for destroying your beautiful new house by letting the kids decorate their own sugar cookies

 Christmas morning

 The big debate each year is whether or not Santa should wrap the presents.  I say no, nate says yes.  Nate won this year.

 The 13 grandsons in the pj's from grandpa and grandma squeaker....seriously, someone needs to get some pink in there.   I call not it.

A one-man band

So in my last post I wrote about how I thought that on Nate's last day of class there should be a big to-do.  Confetti, a marching band, noise makers etc.  But he got nothing more than me doing the happy dance.  Well turns out he must have had the same thought.  Let me rewind a bit to explain why.  We spent the whole day Saturday doing whatever we wanted.  No plans, NO HOMEWORK, nothing important scheduled.  We just rearranged rooms for the kiddos.  Nate was whining about needing a Dr. Pepper, so me being the great wife that I am went to get him one.  When I got home and walked in the door I heard some sort of music/screeching coming from the bedroom.  This is what I found:

Nate had found his clarinet and, for everyone's amusement, was rockin to Happy Birthday.  Turns out he got his marching band after all--sort of.  A one-man band that consisted of himself.  I still wished I would have had confetti.

I think I am most happy about him being home so he can help me with this little monster.

Why do I not remember my other boys doing stuff like this?  Baylor colored on my walls this week too but I wasn't so happy after that so there is no pic to document it.   When you are cooped up all day everyday I guess you make your own fun, which is extra fun when mom has to clean it all up.

Spring, how we long for you.

Where's the confetti

It's finally here!  After four and a half years Nate is finally finishing up school.  Two more finals then freedom.  He had his last class on Thursday night.  I have envisioned, many times, him walking in the house after his last class and having streamers and confetti flying.  A marching band playing "for he's a jolly good fellow".  Balloons and noise makers.  Lots of cheering.  Instead he walked in to me doing a happy dance.  All by myself.   I was imagining the streamers flying all around.  That has to count for something.  I wanted to throw some sort of a party for him but did that actually happen?  No.  I suck. 

Now what am I going to do with him being home at night?   I'm going to have to share the TV.  Hmmm, maybe he should go for his Masters after all.

random photos

I don't think I take a ton of pictures but I probably take more than is necessary.  I was going through them the other day so here are some of my favs. 

 Someone please freeze time. Please.  Love these moments.  The best part is how Baylor would rather watch his brothers laugh than watch the iPad.  They do love each other. 

 Oh my dear grif.  So sweet, yet so full of hell. How boring life would be without him.

 I had to take pics one Sunday morning because Dax found my grandpa pete's bow tie.  It looks cute 3 sizes too big, doesn't it? Bay decided he couldn't be outdone by Dax so I guess he figured a photo bomb would be his best option.  I had no idea he was even there. 

So it seems to look like I favor baylor a bit.  I don't mean to but 2 is such a cute age.  Plus he gladly lets me take pictures of him right now so i'm going to get as many as his willingness will let me.

Time to wrestle, boys

So i'm always trying my hardest to find something Grif likes that will get him active.  He can't sit in his room and play with legos forever, right?  He agreed to sign up for wrestling this year and was actually pretty excited about it. Then we got to the first practice and he cried.  The other kids were hurting him and he didn't want to be mean back.  Funny because he has no problem hurting/wrestling his brothers.  We convinced him it was okay to wrestle back and that it would be fun.  Well he stuck with it for a few weeks then decided the last week he was done. I could not for the life of me get him to get ready for practice or compete in the tournament.  I guess when the kid knows he doesn't like something he's not going to waste his time.  According to him he is never, ever wrestling again. Ever.  At least he gave it a good try, now he's back to legos on the floor.  Maybe i'm raising a future engineer.  

Dilon, on the other hand will play any and all sports if I let him.  He wanted to play basketball so I told him no wrestling then, it had to be one or the other.  Then I discovered that wrestling was about half the price of basketball so me being the super awesome mom that I am convinced him that he should wrestle instead.  Luckily he went along with it.  He wrestled when he was 5 or 6 but not since.  I was pleasantly surprised at how well he did.  He only lost twice all season and it was to the same kid. 

Their team got 2nd place in the tourney and the coach was nice enough to come find grif and let him get a medal with the rest of the team.  

Again, I am a super awesome mom and have no pictures of grif actually wrestling.  I thought it would be most convenient to just take them all the last day.   Lesson learned--always, always take pictures the first week just in case.  You never know when a strong willed child will decide the season is over.

Dilon is super excited for next year when he gets to advance to the older group of boys.  Then he gets to start rocking the singlet.  Another reason it is probably best Grif decided not to wrestle.  Can you imagine the fight we would have trying to get him to put one of those things on.  They couldn't even get him to take off his shirt when they were doing shirts vs. skins.  I do love that when he makes a decision though he sticks to his guns instead of letting others sway him.  That will come in handy some day.  I know it.