The Making of M.O.M.

Welcome to this week's edition of Das Not Funny! Friday. I'd apologize in advance for the overuse of parenthesis and my inability to make this post short and sweet but that would only draw things out further. So instead, here's what you came for.

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This is my friend Grace.

(The one on the left, if you're unsure. I mean, I'm sure the cow is friendly an all, obviously, but the cow's not my friend. Unless she's been fire-grilled to medium rare and comes with her other friend Mr. Baked Potato Head, then we're BFFs.)

Anyway, Grace is about to begin her junior year of college. She just returned from a 9 week summer internship in Kenya with some other friends of ours. Our kids love Grace a whole lot. We went to the airport to pick up Grace when she got back home last week.

When Grace stopped by our house a few days ago, Elizabeth said "I missed you so much Grace! You still even smell like Swahili!"

I'm still trying to decide if that was a compliment.

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Grace brought back with her lots of Kenyan goodies including our kikoi dresses. And, every time I've seen Grace since her return from African she's been wearing a headscarf. So naturally, Grace thought it would be fun to put the headscarf on Ella. You know, to hold back all of her hair and stuff.

I'm sure Ella appreciates being our real, live dress up doll. I'm beginning to wonder if God accurately assessed our maturity level before assigning us all these kids. (For the record, Grace doesn't have 2 lazy eyes. Luke was trying to get Ella to look up for the camera and apparently his baby attracting hilarity caught Grace's eyes. Both of them.)

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On Tuesday night Elizabeth had her first ever sleepover. If you consider a sleepover one that includes sleeping in sleeping bags in our living room with someone other than your siblings when your guest's parents are not also staying at our house for the night. The girls chose to watch a Barbie movie so I allowed Lucas to choose a "boy" movie. He chose a Marvel comics animated movie. Something about Heroes. Clearly it wasn't nearly the attention grabber for me as the Barbie's Mermaid Tale movie. I mean, the plot line alone was magnificent or slightly above making me want to gouge my eyes out. You can decide.

Annnnyway, (there's a point, I promise) since watching the Superhero cartoon (where the caracters in a time of heroic need say, "Who's gonna hero up!?!" and that quote alone has been used by Lucas approximately 7,638 times since Tuesday night whilst he leaps off of something tall enough to make me gasp for air since I'm sure he's about to break a bone or fracture his skull. Thank you Marvel comics. I'll send you the bill for the injuries we are certain to acquire in the next 52 hours.)

Where was I? Oh yeah. GETTING TO THE POINT. Heh.

All that to say, Superheros have become a BIG DEAL around here. One day since Tuesday (I can't even stay on track while I'm typing so don't expect me to know what stinkin' day it was) someone (can't remember who) asked Lucas,

"Lucas, what's your superhero name?"

To which he replied, "Oh man! I'm never gonna talk about that."

Alrighty then. Hope our home is never in need of him to HERO UP! Or if a mysteriously masked man, who's only 4 feet tall, comes flying through our house in a time of rescue I'll just presume it's my unnamed superhero son and carry on.

Whichever.

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I've been working on this post on and off all day (Thursday) and shortly after dinner tonight, I was talking to Luke about Lucas' overuse of the phrase, "WHO'S GONNA HERO UP!!!" and how that phrase and Lucas' actions had saved me earlier from certain peril when the big girls decided it was time to tackle me and have a ticklefest.

Upon hearing the recount of his previous heroic effort, Lucas yells, "WHO'S GONNA HERO UP!" again and with it rushes Luke and punches him in the place that brings even grown-up heroes to their knees.

Which made Luke and I both burst into tears for entirely different reasons.

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As I said above, in much too many words, our sweet little friend Lauralyn spent the night on Tuesday night. As we went around the living room allowing each of the big kids to say their prayers my heart began to get nostalgic. Then Luke says, "Lauralyn, it's your turn to pray."

To which she tenderly responds with, "Knock, knock."

For the next 45 minutes the giggles did not subside. And the kids thought it was funny too.

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Aaron is potty training, which totally reminds me of why I never, ever, ever want a puppy ever, ever, ever again. Puddles are not totally uncommon in our house but typically they are innocent puddles of water or a liquid from a spilled sippy cup. With Aaron being nude from the waist down, our puddles aren't so innocent these days.

At any rate, Aaron finally, finally pooped in the potty. I got so excited sitting there in the bathroom with him (you know, trying to encourage him and thinking in my mind ONE LESS IN DIAPERS) and began squealing and clapping my hands. I use our hand sign language and say, "Aaron you pooped! More Aaron, more!"

To which he responds with, gruuuuunt.strain.fakepush., "It stuck."

Good to know. At least until later when it became dislodged right on the chair in the kitchen. Lucky me.

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And that's it for the Beaver house this week. Well, truthfully, there were others but I don't remember them. Let me know if there is anyone else writing Das Not Funny! Friday posts and I'll be happy to put up a Linky so that we can all read your funnies.

Happy Friday y'all. Try to hero up this weekend, okay?

Today will be photo overload. Proceed with caution. Or not.

My amazing friend Lindy sent home some dresses for our girls. Big deal, huh? Welllllll, they aren't just any dresses! They are dresses made from KIKOIS! And, let me tell you. Have mercy at the cuteness you are about to witness. It's almost more than I can handle.

The good news is that Lindy also sent back a TRUNKLOAD of stuff (along with lots and lots of kikois) all hand made in Kenya. I'm helping with a big fundraiser in early October and once that's over I'll open the Kenyan goodies up to you, here on my blog. I'm telling you, this stuff is AWESOME. Save up your dollars now ladies. Save 'em up.

And yes, I KNOW I'm going to overuse CAPS and italics in this post. But seriously. If you think the caps are loud and the italics are over the top YOU SHOULD BE INSIDE MY HEAD.

On with the photos. I'm posting so many because I promised Lindy good pictures of the girls in their dresses and do you know how stinkin' hard it is to get a good photo of a 6 year old, a 4 year old, a 2 year old and 4 month old?

Impossible, I think.

Here's the ~~best~~ only one I got of all 4 of them where someone didn't have their eyes closed and Ella wasn't trying to eat her dress or Elizabeth's. And this one is good. Even though Ella is clearly more enamored with her oldest brother than me by this point.

Oh my word at the sweetness. I seriously wanna just squeeze them all until they scream. But then I'd regret it because can I just tell you how dramatic a certain 2 of my girls are. Especially those two on the left.

Their wails can make my ears bleed.

Of course, Ashlee is a baby hog, so the first chance she got to sit up by Ella and "read" to her, she did. I love how it looks like Ella is reading along with her.

But that baby hogging and sweetness was short lived because approximately 37 seconds after that photos was taken, I snapped this one.

That girl LOVES her bike. Which is hysterical because this time last year she would only walk beside it and push it. Except she thought she was riding it because when I would ask her, "Ashlee, don't you want to ride?" She'd exclaim, "I am!"

Riiiight. Except you're not.

Elizabeth is OBSESSED with our neighbor's cats. We've told her she can only pet them when our neighbors are outside and, clearly, her ear is finely tuned to the sound of our neighbor's door opening. When they are not outside, she stands just inside our yard and stares at them, like this.

Well, not exactly like that because, you know, she's looking at me in that one. But you get the idea.

And this little girl. Well, I just wanna scoop her up and eat her. I mean, when she's not busy being dramatic which is apparently her new hobby. Ashlee has officially been dethroned as Drama Queen. Queen Olivia has recrowned Ashlee but a mere princess of all things drama. I think explosive drama must come in small packages, don't you?

Good thing she's cute.

And this girl, well, I'm still adjusting to the fact that she SIX. And while I'm adjusting to her new age, she's already begun telling me stories about "Back when I was 5 years old." Yeah. That was just 2 days ago. Slow down, missy.

In this next series of photos I'd like for you to take special notice of each of the big girls' agendas. I told them to "model." Apparently, modeling to Ashlee means work.it.girl. While modeling to Elizabeth means make-sure-Olivia-is-in-the-photo-nomatter-how-many-times-your-Mom-says-to-put-her-down.

Seriously, scroll down and watch them independently. Wow. Just...wow.

Clearly my off handed instruction of "put your hand on your hip or something" was taken seriously by Ashlee. Work it sassy. Work.it.

The next one is great of the older two and I thought Olivia would be a modeling whiz too except that she decided at the last second to bend over behind her sister which makes it look like Elizabeth has the lowest kneecap known to man.

Then I started losing them so naturally we had to do a shot of "Crazy face!"

I don't know what Ashlee is raising her hand for in this photo. Maybe she thought I said "Who wants more drama?" when I clearly said, "Who can look at Momma?"

Oh well. At least I finally got Olivia in there with the older two. Even though she decided it was time for a serenade. Did I mention she sings a lot? And by a lot I mean anytime she's awake.

This is Ashlee, mid camera click leaning forward to ask, "Can I see that one? I wanna see it!"

And, showing Elizabeth some birthday love.

Clearly, never a dull moment around here. Which is fine with me, because I love it that way.

Now, who wants to buy a kikoi and make their little girl a dress just like these? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?