in the mudhole with ben

unfortunately, i don't have a picture of the both of them all muddied up. to do so, i would have had to go inside to get my camera and leave the two of them alone......outside......together.......for a few seconds. and i fear what they could have accomplished alone......outside.....together.....in just a few seconds. therefore, i only have documentation of half of the muddiness (by the time i got my camera ben was changing clothes again for his nana's house...sorry, heather!) but, the squeals of delight were just too cute to break up the mud slinging.

decorating the eggs

mama explaining how it's done.

william going it alone.

william's got the hang of it. wes looks excited, doesn't he?

showing off the finished product. purple was by far the favorite color!

we're alive...barely

so, if you haven't heard "it's going around," let me be the first to tell you...IT'S FREAKIN' GOING AROUND! and we got it. bad.

last saturday night, william threw up around 8pm and then continued to do so for every hour throughout the night. (remember that post about william puking in the car? yeah, piece of cake.) it's one thing to take care of somebody with a stomach virus, but it's a whole 'nother ballgame when it's a 2 year old who doesn't get the concept of throwing up in the commode/garbage can/bucket/etc. and would rather throw up on himself/his bed/the carpet/couch/kitchen floor/etc. props to my washing machine for running 24/7 for a solid week. anyway, he continued like this for most of sunday. to make a long story short, wes got it sunday afternoon, i got it monday, and then chase got it on tuesday. i couldn't get my head off the pillow on tuesday morning, so chase called sarah kathryn who came over and graciously kept william and wes (who were not throwing up anymore....i thought.) yeah, she was sick all day thursday. (and sarah kathryn, if you happen to read this, i am soooooooo sorry! i'll make it up to you, i promise! you were such a blessing that tuesday!) anyway, william continued to throw up at least once in the middle of the night for the rest of week, but he was fine during the day. go figure. i was about to lose my mind on thursday when he threw up, yet again, so honey came up here and provided some much needed reinforcements. yay for honey! thank you so much for letting me get some sleep. on friday, everybody starting eating again, and i can say with jubilation that we all have officially recovered from the mutant stomach virus that tried to take us out. and, even though i had never cleaned up somebody else's vomit before 3 weeks ago, i do consider myself a professional now. please let me know if you need some tips!!

we did manage to get out of the house for a little bit at the end of the week. sweet sanity.

3 inches

spring break snow!

i love the weather. i should have gone into meteorology at state, but i went to pharmacy school instead. if anyone knows why...feel free to tell me.

anyway, i check the weather all the time, and i usually agree, but i'm always skeptical about the snow forecasts. i mean, they must tell us about once a month during the winter that it is going to snow....and it never, ever happens. big storm systems seem to always part like the red sea when they get to us, too, so when i heard about this projected 3 inches of snow....i doubted. even though i watched this huge mass of whiteness move across the radar this afternoon, i still didn't believe that it would actually hit us. remember, it was 70 degrees just 2 days ago, and i still have my flip-flops out. but, at about 3:30 this afternoon, i was proved wrong. and, william couldn't have been happier.

by the time it got dark, it was really coming down. he danced around in the snow flakes, tried to catch them, and tossed some snow balls.

even wes-man got out in it, although he didn't care for it too much.

maybe we can get some daytime pictures playing in the snow in the morning. or wait, is it going to be shorts/flip-flops weather tomorrow? maybe i'll just go stock up on claritin and the like because this crazy mississippi weather is sure to do a number on our whole house!

i'd like to buy a vowel, please!

those were the words i heard coming from the den tonight while i was cleaning the kitchen. that's right, my child is addicted to wheel of fortune. this has happened just this week. he first got a glimpse of it a few nights ago when the weather was so bad. i turned on the tv so i could see the little alert thingy at the bottom of the screen, and wheel of fortune was on. well, now he's hooked. he's asked me a million times in the last 2 days to watch wheel of fortune. unfortunately, it's not on the dvr list with dora and the backyardigans (though i may have to add it soon), so he has to wait until 6:30 to watch it. and believe you me...he does not forget. he acts like a crazy person pretending to spin the wheel and then clap for himself. then he shouts out letters, and he'll throw in an occasional "i'd like to buy a vowel, please!" and, then he'll yell at vanna to go touch those letters! i guess there are worse things he could watch.

the last few days when pat and vanna don't have his full attention, this cute little fireman has been "pouring out the fires" all over my house. apparently, they are everywhere.


and, when he tires of that, he takes a nap. but, not in the bed....oh, no. that would be too obvious. and comfortable. you know, because i paid good money for his bed. and his sheets. and his quilt. so....he sleeps in his window seat. probably dreaming of vanna.

a warm weekend (finally!)

i hate cold weather! i am a self-proclaimed hermit in the winter just because i can't stand all the coldness. my neighbors often comment on how they never see me when it's below 50 outside. give me 100 degree temperatures and sunshine, please! so anyway, much to my (and apparently my whole family and neighborhood's) liking, we had temps in the 70s all weekend. it was great, and we were outside for most of it. love that!!

my parents came to visit for a day or two before my mom leaves for italy this week. (she's going with a group of girls just to go. sounds fun, huh? i hope my friends are paying attention here.) anyway, we did lots of hanging out and eating. fun stuff.

my dad also brought some kites which william loved. unfortunately, there wasn't much wind on saturday when he was trying to teach him how to fly it, but they got it up in the air several times.










there was plenty of wind on sunday afternoon, however, and the kites were off. for a $2 kite from wal-mart, these things could go. you did good, daddy! we got out in our cul-de-sac and played with our neighbors, the surholts. i'm not sure who had more fun with those kites...the big boys or the little boys! william and ben had a blast flying them. ben figured it out really quickly, and he flew it for a long time until he managed to get tangled up in the string. and, i do mean tangled. there wasn't an arm or a leg that wasn't wrapped up, and he was not the least bit happy about it. but, i managed to get him free, and they were back at it. when they tired of kites, they played bumper cars with their front loaders. luckily, we all escaped without any tears, scratches, bumps, or bruises! wes and walt just sat happily beside each other taking it all in. wes even got in on the flying after a while.

after this beautiful weekend, it is supposed to rain tomorrow and snow on tuesday. if anyone needs me, i'll be hibernating!