The Letter F...

I have an "F" picture for this one, but Grady uploaded it to his laptop. So...until I get on it, we will have to continue without. Pretend, for me, that it is here! I'll edit it in later..

F is for Feeding Frenzy and Fun! We FINALLY got to go feed the ducks. I took along the new camera for some practice and thought that I'd share it with you all.

Little Big Sis helping out SMyles with his bottle. He lost interest in it when he noticed what the Big Big Sis and Big Bro were up to.
An action shot that actually worked!
Super Zoomed in and it worked for me!
Another action shot that wasn't blurred out....I'm getting the hang of it.. YAHOO!! These ducks will walk right up to you for food. We had several other smaller birds gather around too, but Myles was trying to dive out of the stroller, so I was pretty busy getting the ones that I did get.
And just one of my flowers out front. I wanted to see what kind of picture it would turn out to be. I think that we will have some great ones to share from Alaska. We're expecting some bad thunderstorms this afternoon, so we'll see how these pretties look after. I may have to run out and move them to a more sheltered location.

Myles is climbing up the stairs...ALL THE WAY! I've gotta go get him.

The Alaska Railroad....Here We Come!

We booked a trip along the Alaska Railroad Coastal Classic Train. We will have a very, very, VERY long day. It should be an awesome time though. We will be able to roam the train, have breakfast aboard, and have several hours in Seward. We bought a new camera to practice up on for the trip. I will have to share some photos later, it's dinner time. Hope you are all having a great Saturday!

Thinking About Going GreenERRRRR.....

We have had a little fun the past 24 hours. We let our curiosity get the best of us, and went down to give the new Chevy Tahoe Hybrid a look. After a few questions, we ended up taking it out for a spin, and then for the night, and then for today. But, sadly (well, maybe,....I haven't really concluded on that one yet), it has been returned to it's home. We did fit the family in it, and, yes, it would pull the camper (amazingly). It was new....and I LOVE the SMELL of NEW CARS! It was fun, but, like most fun, it must to come to an end. We will keep our Whitie for a while and take a look at them when they have a few more reviews under their bumper. I have to say I was very impressed though! The fact that you could run on battery until about 20 mph, and that you could cruise down the highway at 60 mph on four cylinders was very impressive. I am convinced that we will someday revisit this baby for the fuel efficiency in town, and the gas guzzlin' trailer puller on the highway. But, until then....we had fun with you baby.....

....and ....I'll miss your yummy scent!

Another Photo Attempt....

The girls put on matching dresses for church yesterday, so I tried to get the boys to match. Stuart was in a little "fit" of his, and would not wear the same clothing as Myles, so we compromised and tried to make the match. Then on to the fun part....taking the pictures!

This may be the best one of all...

I love the laugh in this one....but what happened to Macy's smile? And notice Myles is clapping...that's his new thing! Fiona's is going in the big girl toy-et (how she says toilet).

This is the typical TROMBELY A.D.H.D. that runs in our family.....half of us here....half of us there.....ALWAYS the case!

I had to post this one. They fight like crazy most of the time, but I love, love, love this picture. These two missed each other while Stu and Dad were camping, but were back to their normal selves soon after the boys returned. Glad to see that they still have some love left for the other.
And a footie picture. I love little toes, and had to take the opportunity when it peeked at me. I want to do an actual posed one, but will probably have to wait for half of these kids to be really deeply sleeping and arrange it myself. Someday.......(that's me daydreaming about it!)

Sorry about the food crumbs in this picture. I gave Fiona the bag of chips while Macy and I colored the driveway Saturday. I still haven't washed it off, but the ants aren't colonizing around it either. Lucky me....knocking on wood. Have a great Monday, we're off to Costco for the necessities, the Post Office for stamps...to pay bills, and then to Fuddrucker's parking lot to feed the ducks for FUN!

Our Campers...

Well, we made it through the carless night. I was very worried about it for some odd reason (well...I WORRY about everything....CoooCooo!). No emergencies that warrented a taxi or the ambulance, so we are doin great. I started a post last night about our fun, girly day, but got sidetracked (imagine that....I know my A.D.D. has gotten tons worse with each pregnancy), and just deleted the first two sentences when I came back to the computer screen this morning. I just uploaded the pictures Grady and Stu brought back from their BIG Father Son Campout and thought that I'd share them....

hmmmm.....snow....why??? I'm not sure...haven't gotten the spill on these photos yet....
....gettin' ready for 'mallows or 'dogs maybe?...
....NICE BEANIE!!!! I made it on Thrusday night, but forgot to take a picture and upload it before I sent the camera away for a few days.....
...and the biggest news....STUART LOVES FISHING....everyone left camp this morning, and he had to go back for a few more casts before allowing Daddy to pack up to come home....
........LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THIS ONE!!!.........

They stayed in the suburban since it seemed crazy to put up our huge tent for the two of them and one night. They blew up the air mattress before leaving yesterday and had it all planned out. Sounds like it was a very, very late night and early, early morning for them. Glad I wasn't the only one with little to no sleep. Yes, mine was a self inflicted wound. I was up until about 1-ish trying to figure out the crochet patterns and then had to tend to Myles and Fiona after that. No biggie, I enjoyed the "ME TIME". I even took the girls walking this morning and mowed the front yard. Have a wonderful weekend.

What I've Been Doing....

The other night a friend of mine showed me a very cute baby beanie that she liked. I thought about it the rest of the night and was debating on whether I should just buy that one off of etsy, or if I should try to learn how to make them. Well, great minds think alike. The next morning I went out and bought the "I Taught Myself Crochet" starter kit and some yarn. THEN, she called and asked if I would like to take a class with her next month (about the EXACT same time her baby is due), and the rest is history. Here's my new fetish....

The first one was for Stuart. He has a Father/Son campout tomorrow night, so I thought it would be neat for him to take it. BUT.....I made it too small, so Myles got it....
...and he LOVES it!

Then next one that I made was for Macy, but Fiona wanted it, so Macy decided BEFORE it was finished that she would let Fiona have it. Here she is showing off as soon as I finished it...

I stayed up late last night to get Macy's done. She had a tough day yesterday, so I promised I'd get a good start on it when I put her to bed. I finished it this morning (we were up before 5:30!), and just finshed Stu's larger one. So....here's the four cutie pies......
...and I had to share this picture too, it was WAY TOO CUTE!!!!
I had a marker in Stuart's to help me remember where I was as far as getting it sized just right. He liked it so much that he wanted me to leave it in there. I am going to attempt to get one finished for Grady before they leave tomorrow. He's got a special request, so we will have to see how far my self teaching can go.

If I could get myself to sit down long enough to read the instructions thru, I may be able to follow the patterns that I have printed off the internet. I have some flowers that I'd like to add to the girl ones, but the patters consist of numbers and abbreviations...a bit too confusing (or time consuming) for me at this moment.

We have a Cub Scout end of the year pot luck tonight. Have a great weekend if I don't post again before then.....but, check back for Grady's cool cap... :)

A Long Weekend

We started off our weekend with Momma FINALLY getting a picture for you all to see how we watch TV....Trombley style! It all started with one Stu head, and then a Macy noggin would appear. Pretty soon we were seeing a blondie there too, and now....NOW....we have trained the newest member of the house to do the same. I can't tell if it is the heat that thing puts off that pulls them near, or if it is the fact that they just can't hear it. The world may never know.... We started in on painting the interior again. I have had a few requests for some pictures, so here are a few.

The before of the railing.....

...and the after. This has been done for sometime now, but still wanted to share.

The before of the upper hallway....
...and the after. We still need to paint the walls, but the trim and the doors are done!
We had a "small" get together yesterday. We cooked some dogs on the BBQ (do I sound like a redneck typing that?). We ended up with 15 (including one newborn and another on the way very soon!) children here and 9 adults here (one had to work that day :( sad. ). It started raining, so we ended up all in the house. Grady took pictures, but I don't know if I can post them, so I better play it safe. My kids are still talking about it. They had a blast! It wasn't too bad on me either. I think that maybe, just maybe, my hormones are going back to a more normal range finally! Did you all enjoy your extra day off?

Puddle Jumpin' ROUND TWO!

Mother Nature gave us a little tease today. The sun came out for a while and it was absolutely beautiful. They kids all went down for a nap...except Stuart. He was so excited for nice weather again. And when they woke up, it was pouring rain again. We were rushing around getting the garage cleaned up to make space for the suburban since hail was part of this thunderstorm (it never came here) and getting the dogs in the garage to keep them from having a heart attack with all of the thunder. Daddy came home a little early and took them out to have some more fun. Sweet Belle sporting her Dora Halloween costume (all day).
You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy.
Miss Macy having so much fun in the rain.
Myles safely watching it all from the warmth of the car.
Who do you think had more fun?




The kids or Daddy?

Puddle Jumpin' ROUND ONE!

It was 9:00 on a Friday morning....

After days (2 1/2 to be exact) of the kids begging, I finally gave in and took them out to puddle jump. We were finding better puddles farther and farther away from the house, so I had to load them up in the car. Myles and Momma needed some protection from the raindrops. Here's the best pictures I could snap in the rainstorm.

Here they were running back home. Stuart needed to use the restroom. I followed close by in the suburban telling them when to stop and then to cross. They had fun.

Some Guy's Kids....

Today was one of those days that you just HAVE to get out of the house. We were stuck inside all of yesterday (except for the 1.5 hours of preschool party...inside), and the rain has not let up. I needed to run to Cartridge World for some ink, so I decided that we would go walk the mall for some exercise. As we were unloading out of the car in the rainstorm....with puddles way deeper and way grosser (than I could find around my house) than this one...... ....I look down at the kids climbing out of the car and see these on Miss Macy's feet.....

...slippers that came with a night gown years ago....

"WHAT?!?!?!????!!!!"

"I told you that those would not work outside today! Get back in the car!"

"But, Mom, I don't have any shoes to wear in the rain." pouty face, pouty face.

And this I knew, of course. I just cleaned out the shoe box and packed up all of her tenny runners for Fiona later. She had one sneeker shoe...ONE ....that would fit her. We cleaned her room from closet to underbed searching for the other.....no luck. So, I really could not be mad at her for this.....keep quiet......the mall has a Payless, right??? I hope so....."okay, Macy, stay in the car until I have Myles loaded and then we will get you out and you run like crazy. Try to stay out of the puddles, your tights will just soak the water up." And we were off. First stop--Mall Directory. Second Stop--Payless Shoes. Her only request was that they had ties on them so that she could tie 'em. BONUS--BOGO 1/2 off sale! Yes, Fiona had to get another pair of shoes too. She will not take off her orange crocks, so we picked up a pair of pink Dora ones. Stu was feeling left out, so we tried desparately to find him a pair of summer sandals, but I promised something else for the poor kid. We pushed bear strollers around the Build A Bear for a while, and then headed down to Gymboree. I found these cute boxer briefs with airplanes on them online, but they were out of his size, so I was hoping for some here. YES! We SCORED again. He's happy and Myles doesn't know he was left out. SHHHH!

They even talked me into eating there. YUCK. I will not allow them to do that one again. I asked for two kids meal deals and had to pay for four. They charge per scoop? Why couldn't someone explain that one to me. You pay for the rice and then the topping. Crooks. But, I did manage to get the kids' energy burned down a little and have two asleep right now, so I better get back to invoicing. Have a Happy Thursday!

Preschool Graduation Party

We managed to make it through the entire preschool graduation party for Macy this afternoon. It was short and sweet. The kids all sat on the floor with the teacher (she was playing the guitar) and sang songs to us. We watched a slideshow set to music of the year, and ate cake. I met several other parents today, and found out alot of things....

1. They made me out to be super mom because:

A. I have four kids in the car with me;

B. I still look so cute with "perfect" hair (um, moouse and pull wet hair back into a bent ponytail....SUPERCUTE!)???;

C. I look so happy all of the time;

D. I manage to drop off Macy and pick her up on time everyday with the other kids in the car;

2. I must be SUPER ORGANIZED to have so many small children;

3. okay, I'm NOT supermom because I forgot my camera (and that made the other forgetful momma happy);

4. I could have given all of my kids away today...many people threatened to take them. I DID tell them that they would be hunting me down within hours. But it did make me think about what I could accomplish alot without the four kids and a husband in Wyoming......ummmm.....alot of fun.

Anyway, my hubby is home and he's chatting, so I lost my train of thought. I was just amazed how others see me. I guess that I'm not as grumpy as I see myself. Have a great evening.

NOTE: I just placed the rest of the post under the comments section....

MIA...well, Kinda....

I had another "wild hair" Friday and decided to redo the deck. I have some sickness that makes me start a thousand projects and then never quite finish them. Well, I did manage to get one completed from START TO FINISH in four days! The four hottest days, mind you. Let's face it, the deck was in dire need of attention when we bought the house last year, but I was HUGE and it was HOT, so I had to wait. It has been bugging the heck of me since. Here's the before....

..yeah...it really needs to be replaced....IT REALLY NEEDS TO BE REPLACED with TREX (or real wood), but I am CHEAP (can you tell what I want?). So, I had this wonderful idea to use a solid color stain (I call it paint) on it because I'm really cool like that. haha. I started in 84 degree weather on Friday afternoon. Yup, I CAN'T wait...that's me! My wonderful husband came home early just to help. By the time the kids were going to bed we had went through the entire gallon and had to stop. Grady and Fiona were up bright and early Saturday morning to buy more. I was origianlly thinking that I'd get away with 2 gallons max, but it took three. I just finished the second coat on the high traffic areas today. Way more work than I originally thought, but I am happy with the outcome. Ta-DA!!!!
See the Blueberries? They all three came back!!!

In my painting marathon, I have to say that I did manage to do some major "bad mommy things". Fiona had a crash with Macy on the bike last week while I was planting flowers out front. I warned them, but...

...and then I forgot the sunscreen. I used the broken table umbrella for Myles this weekend, but completely forgot to protect the other kids. I have some red on myself, but it was the poor fair skinned girl that I feel so bad about. She came upstairs three times Saturday night saying that her arm hurt. The two older ones managed fine....they have the skin made for sun just like me. AND, being the lazy momma that I was I put Fiona into big girl panties while we were outside. I was hoping that it would help her to understand. We went through many pairs, but she did go "Poo" on the toilet! I wasn't expecting anything when she said that she was done, but when she scooted forward we saw it. We had a huge cheering party for her. No more success stories since then though.... :(

We managed to take a break on Saturday morning to hit the zoo again. Stuart wanted to take Daddy back and then he wanted to invite his friend. We had a fun time and got to see Bruno the bear. He isn't out in the zoo area, but came out to a cage that was on the end of his home. A few more weeks and we can watch him play. I could not manage to get the four of them to look at me all together...

That's why we don't have any current family pictures.....

Well, I need to go check messages and get the house picked up AGAIN. Have a wonderful week.

Preschool Field Trip

Macy's class went on a Field Trip to the Zoo yesterday. My other children were feeling so left out that we decided to go too. I put the Burley back together and loaded it in the car. I remembered my camera, so here are a few pictures for you: Stuart was the BEST! We went through the gardens this time and he loved them. When we were walking through the Sensory Garden, we found a few patches of grass with the label "Elijah Blue Fescue". Stu was so excited, saying "I have a cousin named Elijah Blue!". I told him that is just what Nana calls Eli. We also sniffed some Lemon leaf thingies, and felt Lamb's Ear. It was neat to have only the children that enjoy "taking time to smell the roses".
Fiona's favorite....the Siberian Tiger.....she was on her way to go potty....I won't share that picture!
Here's where we ran into the preschool....at the wolf den!
And the HIT OF THE DAY was the river otters. They are usually sleeping everytime we come through, but today one was showing off! Stuart and Fiona ran along the window everytime that he came swimming by. We've decided that they need to clean out the tank though...wouldn't you agree?
Here's the bus leaving the zoo. I thought it would be fun to take a picture of all of the kids looking out the back windown, but there was a minivan in between us and the bus. We spent the entire 2 1/2 hours at the zoo, and now we are planning another trip back tomorrow with daddy. Have a great weekend!