It's only 11:03?

That's what Bret just said when he came up here and found me with Josh Groban (so to speak) blogging. I wanted to post these pictures of his latest crazed addiction. Elizabeth bought him a small wooden horse model before Christmas, and since then, he can't get enough. Evidently, his father can't get enough either, since he's bought practically EVERY one they sell. The men of the house (minus Kyle) have spent the eve to the new year building the ginormous aircraft carrier edition. Doug's currently down there re-thinking the purchase with a headache. He promised the boys they could stay up until midnight. I was okay with a 7:30 bedtime. Kate reminded me of just how quiet it used to be on new years eve. Not so much anymore with these party animal children of ours (and their father).

In other news, if you haven't acquired it yet, the new Josh Groban CD is just lovely.

Curiosity + Abby = Band Aid brand bandage.

This morning, while I was on the phone, and as Abby tinkered around in my bathroomm, despite being within what you would assume was the responsible view of her mother, she ended up in the bathtub with hair gel and a razor. The gel was smothered on her cheeks, and by the time I caught it, the razor was pressed diligently upon her upper lip. I gasped, she dropped the razor, and slowly, emerging through the lather came the blood. This genuinely freaked out said 3 year-old causing intense wailing at the sight of her own blood on the washcloth I used to soak it all up. When the dust settled, and she allowed me to apply a handy Band Aid to her mouth, she promptly fell asleep to the lull of "c'mon vamanos, everyone let's go. C'mon let's get to it, I know that we can do it! Where are we goin? The big blue hill. Where are we goin..." You get the drift. At any rate, I suppose the streak of curiosity will only get worse now that she's three, rather than dwindle, as I had hoped.

In my opinion, she looks like some toddler maffia member with an interesting mustache concoction. It suits her personality as well, as it turns out.

a hint of pear...

I was freed from the house this afternoon for some shopping, now that Doug's feeling a lil' better. I came home with a new motif for the table. Thanks to Erin's dashing sense of style, I walked out of Pier One with 2 heavy bags and a receipt I won't be showing my spouse.

Which is Worse?

A sick baby or a sick husband? Well...sadly, we ALL know the BLARING answer to that question. However... in this case, what makes it worse is: They're BOTH sick.
Merry Christmas to me.

The GOOD, the BAD, and the URGHHHHHH!

The Bad News is that it's been 10 days since I posted to my blog. The Good News is that I'm still here, vertical, and functioning, having not had a nervous breakdown in the past 10 days.

Merry Christmas Eve to all.

I will post pictures of the goings on from the past 10 days at some point when I

1.) can see the floor in my closet
2.) have removed the "santa's elf" nametag
3.) when I'm good and ready to

Also, a question: Has anyone ever followed through on the threat to not give their disobedient, ungrateful children ANYTHING for Christmas? Cuz, in the course of my writing this blog, I've had reason to consider doing just that, since my 2 daughters just lied to my face about eating chocolate in their beds that Abby (the hell-raiser) snuck down there with, when they were supposed to be sleeping so Santa could come, bla bla bla. I'm starting to think the whole idea is not worth the emotional turmoil it stirs up in my head. How 'bout Santa comes and raises the children?

The things Doug does (while sighing), just cuz he's so cool.

My husband is so patient. He thought his work was done when he finished painting all these boards for me. Little did he know when he came home from mutual last night I'd be sitting on the floor surrounded by wrapping paper and ribbon, with 30 books and plaques to wrap before this morning. Like the stellar soulmate he is, he sat with me and wrapped until his fingers were bleedin'. (ok not really, but it makes it sound better.) I was in charge of the PTO gifts to the teachers again this year. Ironically enough, the hardest part of creating the gifts was the 55 minutes I spent in the cafeteria at school getting the children's signatures on the back of the boards. That will drive any sane person over the edge. In case it's hard to decipher, the plaques say "I touch the future. I teach." awwwwwwww. They're also getting a Christmas Picture Book written by my friend's brother-in-law, "Atop the Tree Top," by Brian Taylor. I hope they enjoy them, not to mention the blood, sweat and tears that got wrapped in somewhere.

B.F.F.

I'm sure these three really will be 'best friends forever.' This is Whit's lil' preschool clique. From left to right ( olivia, tayia, and whit). They had their program last night and even though they cut in line, they all got to see Santa and take a precious picture in front of the big tree. Since we were sitting so stinkin' far back we didn't get many decent pictures during the performance. I guess you have to go to their church to get a good seat. They were all reserved when we got there, even though we were like the 5th family in line to get in the building. What has the Christmas Preschool Program world come to?

I'll huff and I'll puff....

I'll use this term loosely, but we "built" some gingerbread houses last night. Boys vs. Girls.

Of course, us girls were the clear winners at first, since Doug the homebuilder's creation wouldn't stay up. The roof kept falling down and then the wall caved in. Sadly, though...our house fell too, before we were finished. Like any responsible adults, we read the diretions AFTER we were done and realized we were supposed to let them sit before applying the candied embellishments. Oops.. Now, ironically, Doug and the boy's house stands, and ours is a disaster. Regardless, it was a nice festive lil' activity. The boys were on a sugar high until about 10:30 pm. I guess we should have started sooner. Merry Christmas!

Hosting, Toasting and so on...

Consumed by the Hosting...

Dabbled in Ham Roasting...

Proposed a lil' Toasting...(ok, not really, but we drank it, and it rhymed)

Instead of dishes, I'm Posting...Merry Christmas Poulsen Development Employees

Your Successes We're Boasting!

Parental Supervision

And Doug's photography debut: Bret taking great care of his baby brother while I console Abby from her near-fall into the water in the 35 degree weather on the day we took family pictures.

Mind you, Doug and I supervised this encounter between oldest and youngest. On the other hand, here's what happens when Bret is left unattended with his four siblings in the nursery at the church while I played the piano for the choir and Doug painted giant cacti with the youth for mutual. Bret thought Kyle might enjoy viewing the nursery goings-on from a CHAIR, and when he stepped away for "just two seconds" Kyle got a nice view of the floor instead. Eight year-olds aren't quite ready for babysitting.

Uh, yeah...Duh.

On the up side...just in time for Christmas: Kyle-dude, the red-nosed baby.

my Great Aunt who's really GREAT!

I'm posting these on Monday night, but technically they count for Tuesday's post, since I'm leaving at 4:00 AM tomorow for Phoenix

to fly to Oakland for my GREAT Aunt Miriam's funeral.

I'll always consider her another one of our grandmas. She is the cutest lil' ol' lady I ever did see.

These pictures were all taken five years ago at Grandma Lehnhof (her sister)'s funeral in January of 2002.

That's Whitney, believe it or not.

She looks like Kyle to me. Must be the Brown-eyed DOUGLAS genes they both

were fortunate enough to acquire.

Don't you want to just SQUEEEEZE her?

I guess I wasn't into wearing makeup back then?

Lucky for me, Aunt Miriam and the baby are attracting most of the attention.

This is her lil' clone, her daughter (dad's cousin) Miriam Lee. We love you both.

I'm sure she's having a grand time RIGHT NOW with Grandma, Grandpa and Dad chatting about the good ol' days in Westchester.

'Tis..sniffle...the...snifle...season.

I distributed one of the following to at least 4 of the 8 inhabitants in this house this morning.

Did I mention yet, how much I enjoy the winter months?

Shootin' in the wind

Yesterday afternoon I took advantage of the less-than-frigid weather (despite the fact that it WAS still windy and only about 50 degrees) and took some pictures of my friend Tina's family.

These were a few of my favorites

Celebrating 10 years in 31 hours...

Here are a couple of the highlights from our abbreviated anniversary trip to San Diego.We had various things pulling us back, but the time we did spend there was just pure bliss.

We stayed here:

We hung out some here:

And we spent a couple of hours here:

We also went on a cool dinner cruise, from which I have a souvenier photo, but I'll have to scan that, and just don't have the patience for that right now. I'll blog it later.

Thanks, my dearest douglas, for the great trip. Let's hope we

check off all those "to-do's" from that list we made before our 20 year anniversary.

When you love somebody...

Ok, so I'm still hung up on the Chicago concert I didnt' get to go to.

Regardless...here's my tribute to our 10th anniversary! I found roses on my desk this morning, awwwwww. I scanned an old wedding picture and made it black and white so it didn't look 10 years old. How backwards is that? I won't be posting for a couple of days, since Doug and I are leaving in the morning for our San Diego getaway. All our best wishes to Doug's parents who are tending 2 of the kids and a sick baby. 10 years, 5 kids, a mortgage, an SUV and a trampoline. What else could we have asked of you, ten years? Here's to many more!

MOM! There's a CROC in the dishwasher!

My favorite feature about the croc is the option to (when they look like this) throw them right into the dishwasher on a sterile cycle for a nice hefty cleaning. At first the kids freaked out when they found shoes in the dishwasher instead of cups, but now, it's no big whoop. Mom..Where are my shoes? Well, did you look in the dishwasher? Silly dishes, dishwashers are for shoes.

The 32 pages of Christmas...

On the....30th day before Christmas, my choir director gave to me:
a 32 page cantata that will surely kill me.

You know what I'll be doing for the next 4 weeks.

Bring on the holidays!

yours truly...the pianist.

Kyle, please smile...

I'm posting this happy picture of my baby taken on Thanksgiving to remind me that he's usually very happy. He's been sick since then, running a fever and miserable. He's been very patient though, and hopefully he'll turn the wellness corner today. This on another marathon Sunday. Oh, and remember when last Sunday I ordered my cold sore inhabitants to now free themselves from my mouth? Well, I must be more stressed than I thought, since I've acquired TWO more since last week, when they were supposed to be gone? For CRYING out loud!

Wearin o' the green...

Every now and then, Bret whips out his flourescent green bow-tie. To which, I smile and think of my brother Brian and how I thought it was great that his wedding colors were, well... flourescent green and flourescent green. Bret LOVES this tie (thank you Jenny for making them), and I think it's great that the memories of the wearin' o the green live on everytime I see him wear it. He chose to wear it last Sunday for our Primary Sacrament Meeting Program. It looked dashing with his navy blue suit coat.

our table, in phases, on Thanksgiving...

In sequential order, on how our table survived the day:

Pre-feast Bliss

Hand-crafted nametags made by none other than Bret S. Burch

A hefty pie line-up (pre-kid invasion)

What was left post-kid (well, and a substantial adult) invasion

and of course, when we found the surface of the table, what else but Settlers?

by the way, DOUG WON! We're having a special crown made.

Thank you table, for 'supporting' us, your family. Without you, we'd eat on the floor.

I dare ya...

More Burch Dialogue:

As I clean and prepare turkey to put into oven...
Whitney: Mom, what IS that?
Mom: This is what the turkey looks like before it's cooked.
(exit turkey from plastic cover/bag)
Whitney: Ewwwwwwwwwwww

(enter Tate)
Tate: What IS that?
Mom: This is what the turkey looks like before it's cooked.
Tate: Whitney, I dare you to touch it.
Whitney: No WAY!
Tate: I'll touch it if you touch it.

Tate: (upon touching it) Hey! It feels like a turkey!
Mom: Okay, Who wants to wash their hands and have a donut?

Memories from Basketland...

Doug gave me the assignment to make a gift basket for their title company yesterday. I had a great time creating this:

What says "Thank You" better than $100 worth of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory?

Maybe I haven't lost my basket-making touch after all...

Techno for Toddlers...

K, so how old is Dora the Exlorer anyway? I figure her show is aimed at entertaining the toddlers and preschoolers age, oh... idunno, 2 to 4 or 5? Okay. So is Dora much older or should we assume she's about the same age? Giving her the benefit of the doubt and suggesting that she were even like 6 or 7, I still thought it was strange when I overheard some dialogue on a recent episode. Dora's out with Boots (imagine that.) and she gets a call on her cell phone from her dad to let her know that her mom's having a baby and she needs to get home right away. I can relate to making sure the father's got a cell just in case he needs to get home for emergencies, but never heard of giving a phone to a 5 year old while she's off galavanting with her monkey friend on an adventure, just in case that on the off-chance while they're filming her exploration, her mom should go into labor and deliver twins. I love how flawless fantasy-land can be. Whitney wants to know if the cell phone she plays with will EVER be activated.

You're the meaning in my life...

If I didn't know better, I would have thought Shana and Elizabeth had been drinking more than just that snazzy new Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash when they arrived home from the Chicago concert Saturday in our brand new,very own Prescott Valley Events Center. Elizabeth took pictures and video, I'll have to snatch those from her soon. We missed the Clint Black concert on Friday, since we were headed to Mesa, but I heard it was great too. We're like,... on the map now! Doug and I plan to attend the professional bull riding tour in January. That should be fun. I'll be sure and wear my Wranglers and Ropers (when I get some, that is).

If you see something you JUST CAN'T MISS on the lineup of events there, keep in mind you've got a place to stay if you wanna come. Notice, will you, that the Doodlebops are coming in January...AND the Monster Truck Jam. Evidently, we appeal to a wide range of folks here in Prescott Valley.

Children glowing with the gospel light.

Today's our CSMP...my cold sores can cease and desist from this point forward. Wish us luck! I hope it goes better than my dream last night. I dreamt that I hired clowns to come entertain the congregation during the speaking parts.

Tina, I think I may have a phone for you...

So, I should have taken it as an omen when a few weeks ago, I got home from running (in the car) to a friend's house and saw my landline phone sitting on the back of my bumper! What a relief that it sat there nice and still while I drove 6 blocks away and back. Well, evidently cell phones are more inclined to need supervision while sitting on the bumper because tonight when I couldn't find my cell phone and remembered the last place I left it being on the bumper of Doug's truck, the memories of the previous experience suddenly came "I TRIED TO WARN YOU, YOU MORON!" flooding back. I actually left Elizabeth's keys on the bumper as well, so when he found them in the middle of the HIGHWAY about 2 miles away having been run over about 50 times I knew hope for the cell phone was lost. He came in after about 45 minutes of searching in the dark with his flashlight, said "well, I tried to call you, but for some reason I wasn't getting any reception on this:" and handed me the following components of what WAS my cell phone. What's funny is that I really WAS on the lookout for a phone for TINA because of THIS. So sorry Tina, I'll be needing a new phone of my own now. I'll letcha' know what I come up with.