Hobby Lobby with Hobbits

We went to Hobby Lobby.
We told the kids not to touch anything.
That was dumb.
Really dumb.

I think Tay only poked at the breakable things.  Whoever coined the term "bull in a china cabinet" was foreshadowing this experience.
She touched a plate on the display and created a landslide.
She fell off the cart three times.
She pulled down a tube of ornaments (that Ryan proudly caught like a true ninja).
She knocked over our entire cart, making a thunderous crash, creating a scene, spilling all of our contents, and bending the cart so it wobbled on three wheels for the rest of our crusade.  She seriously BENT the cart.  Everything about our presense was soooo obvious.

We let the kids each pick out a little tree for them to decorate.

I created a scene when I saw Tay's tree.  An uncontrollable laughter started and it ended with me on the floor.  (This is a recurring situation with me... laughter = floor.)

Are you kidding me?  Its look like a gimp tree had a gimp branch that had a gimp stick.  That gimp stick is now in Hobby Lobby and trying to be pushed off as a tree?  We bought it.

 

When is scaring a baby funny?

A lot of times. 
But, especially when its a Home Depot while watching the wood saw cut plywood!

 

A turkey's gender can be determined by it's droppings...

I have finally scrounged up all the pictures out there for a Turkey Day post!
I might have the best camera in my family, but I sure do not take the most pictures.  I am usually running around trying to keep pants on my three.  Thats a chore.

This annual trip to the farm would not have been complete without colds.  My kids and their parents are healthy and snot free about 97% of the year.  If we do get sick, its a little cold and its around the time of some event... like Thanksgiving.  While the mucus camped out in our nostrils, we all camped out in the barn.  There were 16 of us in there at one time, not counting the two dogs.  And we probably could've still fit the tractor and 4-wheeler in there with us if we were feeling really hillbilly.  Surprisingly, my kids slept pretty well, sans Maven.  This means I didn't sleep very well, either.  She couldn't breathe if she laid down, but she obviously couldn't sit up while sleeping.  I had her propped up with a few pillows, but there is only so much that can be done on a blow up mattress. 
The food was spectacular, as always.  Its almost required to brag about Thanksgiving food, and for the most part I bet the rest of the population does have pretty good grub.  But, until you've eaten turkey that has been deep fried next to an open pasture (that is doubling as a family baseball field) and green beans grown by your neighbor, you don't know nothin'.  That turkey will steam piping hot and ooze seasoned juice all over the platter just up until the prayer is over.  Then, its time to eat and it turns luke warm/cold-ish.  Every.Freaking.Time.  But, nobody seems to notice.  We all wipe our dusty fingers on our muddy overalls, pull up a folding chair, and dive in like its our last meal.
Later, after dinner, if you're our family, the women put their boots up and the men grab their makeup. 
What's that?  The men grab their makeup?
Yes.  But they don't wear it.  That'd be silly.  They just put it on the women.

 

 

 The makeovers:

 

The men with their works of art:

 

 

 

 

 Aunt Sandra and I tied for first place.  I guess I should say Shane and Ryan tied.  So, if oil and gas doesn't work out for them, at least they both have cosmetology as a back up.

 

 

 Now that family suuuure is a looker!

Next year, we need to hit up Walmart.  We just might blend right in!
 

Girls

I took Tay with me to get a pedicure.
Everyone was all "OH.MY.GOSH.  She is sooooo cute!". 
I was all "Thank you.  But just wait."
(Sometimes it makes me nervous when people tell me my kids are cute or well behaved.  Then I feel like they're watching us.  That is a lot to live up to.  And we never do live up to it for more than maybe 3 minutes.  Then I feel like we've let them down.  I think my kids my need to wear disclaimer signs or something.)
So, she had a huge audience, as usual with Tay.
The other customers were all talking to her asking her for her name, birthday, age... all the things that are weird to ask grown people.  Unless you're looking for immediate identity theft.
We went over to pick out nailpolish.  Tay broke a neon pink with glitter polish on the ground.  It splattered EVERYWHERE.  It must've been a Mary Poppins bottle because waaaay more polish spilled all over the place than what appeared to be in that bottle pre breakage.  And this was waaaay more neon than it looked.  I looked at the ground, the display case, the curtains, and the chairs, which were all glowing with pink splatter. 
The girl assured me that it was okay.  But, I've tried to scrub glitter polish off of my toes plenty of times.  I know better. That stuff is almost permanent.
She let us cut in line and took us to our massage chairs.
Tay's head hit right in the middle of the chair, so everytime the massaging roller ball came up, her head would bounce back and fourth.  I thought it was hilarious!  She changed the settings to "pound", which is supposed to mimic hands doing a karate chopping motion.  I knew what was coming, and started laughing before it even came.  Her head looked like a jackhammer.  I was cracking up at this point.
She tried to get away from it and fell out of the chair. 
Three of the Asian ladies came over to help.  They probably said something in Asianese about how I didn't stop and render aid to my own child.  But, I was helpless.  I can barely hold my bladder when I am laughing like that, much less help a 30 pound child get up.
So, they fixed her.  And they commented on how heavy she is.  I knodded.  Then she fell out of the chair again.  For no reason.
Fast forward....
Her nails were painted.  Mine were done.  We were leaving and she was barefoot.  She stepped into the ONLY water/mud puddle in the entire parking lot.  ON PURPOSE.  It hadn't rained.  So, it was probably some kind of chemical or urine.  I did what I could with a single baby wipe. 
Maybe we will try again when she is 14.

 

Puke

I got super sick with something weird.  I had an awful headache - all migraine-ish.  Then my stomach started to hurt really bad.  Then my entire body did a rewind... meaning everything I had eaten returned to my mouth.  Gross.  No one else was sick.  I think I ate some moldy granola.  I noticed later that they looked questionable and blueish, so I threw the bag away. 
Anyway... the kids decided they were going to help.
Christian says he has "magic hands" so he put them on my stomach.  He also put a wet rag on my forehead. 
Tay wanted to help, too.
She plopped a wet washrag on my face.  It felt like she had tried to plug up the Titanic with it.  There was a wet trail all the way from the bathroom to me.  My hair was wet, my face was wet, and my pillow was wet.  I asked her to go wring it out first.
She came back.  This time, with a finger extended towards me.  Ryan said she was just pretending.  So, I let her rub my face with her finger.  It didn't smell pretend.  It smelled like BioFreeze.  It didn't feel like pretend.  It burned. 
I hollered, "Nope.  That is not pretend!  She rubbed BioFreeze on my eye."
I told her to go wash her hands.  As she was trying to get off of me, she stepped on my ribs.  HARD.
She came back saying she needed to rub my back.  That sounded GREAT.  So, I turned over.  She tried to pull my pants down.  I made her quit.  She tried again saying she was going to fix my hiney.  Excuse me, whaaaa?  I checked her hands.  She had baby Vaseline slathered on her fingers.
In the end, I had wet hair, a cold wet pillow, a burning eyeball, a bruised rib, and a greasy backside.
Hopefully this is the end of her doctoring career. 

Grapevine Gawking, Part Dos

Since we were on a roll, we hit up the Gaylord after the aquarium.  We do this every year for our wedding anniversary.  And every year the kids come with us.  So, yeah... its super romantic and stuff.

 We stopped at the bar for some wine.  The kids wanted an $8 orange juice that they gulped down in 2 minutes.  That is $4 per minute.  That better have been the best freaking orange juice of their lives.

 Tay was the Santa creeper.  As other kids were coming up, she would walk closer and closer to Santa.  She had her hands up on her face thinking it made her inconspicuous.  This is the only picture I got of her stealth moves.  The nazi photographer said no one else was allowed to take pictures of Santa.

This is her photograph.

CK told Santa he wanted "a turtle and that's it because I don't really need anything else".
Tay told Santa she wanted candy.
Maven grabbed his beard.