Heritage

So did you know that I am more native American then anything else? Yup, I bet you could tell just by looking at my red hair, blue eyes, and pasty skin. I always get a kick out of driving through Indian territory on my way to Tulsa. Determined to beat a dead horse, I always call my mom from there and tell her I am communing with her people. (She's a 16th Cherokee.) The amazing thing about North West Arkansas is that we have a lot of Native Americans due to our closeness to Oklahoma and we have a lot of India Indians due to Walmart's recruiting for their IT department. So Jeff and I often have to specify whether we are talking about an Gandhi or a Sitting Bull Indian. Caught these bumper stickers a few months ago outside a Tuesday Morning and had to take a picture. Rock On Man!

Purple People Eater

So if you'll remember when we bought our house the dining room had nasty wall paper that was missing some sections due to the window into the kitchen that the previous owner had created. Taking the paper off was a pain in the butt. I now have the greatest of sympathies for people who have to remove wall paper. The worst part was the bottom half of the walls that had a textured paper. It left a fuzzy texture on the walls. So because we couldn't get all the walls completely flat we decided to texture the walls. (Also because every other wall in the house is textured and it would have been weird to have just the one room without texture.) After much pondering I decided to paint the room Purple. It was supposed to be more gray purple, but we actually like the purple purple best. It was quite a leap of faith. For about two weeks after I kept thinking purple? Really? But I think that all things considered it has turned out quite nice. Now all the rooms upstairs look finished leaving only the basement.

Addicted

Mae comes from a long line of addicts. I do believe that I was weaned from formula to diet Pepsi.

But at least she is willing to share.

Mellow or Tired?

I have noticed that my posts have been a bit kid centered of late. My attempts at composing a new Things That Must Go has been stalled basically because I am not annoyed enough to write any up. Does this mean that I have won the battle, and over come my anger? My surly ways? I sure hope not.

Like Father, Like Son

Hot Hot Hot!

Who saw this never ending heat wave coming. I thought things were bad last summer when we had a couple of weeks of 100 degree weather but it has been miserable since the end of May. We went from extreme flooding to extreme heat. I suppose that after six years of living in Northwest Arkansas the only consistency is inconsistency. Each year is different. I'll take a cold summer next year please.

Christmas in July

This is what everyone is getting for Christmas this year courtesy of my favorite site, passiveagressivenotes.com.

Different This Time

So to shake up the routine abit, my parents came out to visit a few days before the baby was scheduled to arrive in order to help with the kids. It was so fantastic to have help, and it was nice to enjoy my parents company for a few days before I was out of it. My mom and I even got in a morning of shopping and eating out sans kids. The earlier visit did cause us to have a different kind of blessing. We have been very privileged to have my dad here for all the kids blessings. Because my parents had to get back to their store for the fourth of July crowds, we needed to do the blessing rather early. We decided to have the blessing at home instead of church because my wards is so full of selfish crazy idiots who don't immunize their kids and don't stay home when their kids are sick, and there was no way in Hell that I was gonna take a four day old baby into that germ nest. So we had it at home and it was an incredible experience. Spike was blessed by Jeff with just my father to help. It took place after the kids went to bed so I could actually hear what was being said. Jeff mentioned missionary work a lot and overall it was a lovely blessing. I think maybe we will do this from now on, assuming I can ever be persuaded to have any more children. And for the record, his name is JEFFREY SPIKE LARKIN, in the records of the church and the social security office. We call him Spike and expect everyone else to. We are his parents and we have the right to be obnoxious about it. SO DEAL WITH IT.

Oddly enough we didn't get any shots of my parents with the kids this visit, so I am attaching a pic of the guys in the hospital.

Alone Time

Max is a people person; he hates being alone. Punishment for him is being asked to go play in his room or the playroom for awhile. On such a recent occasion Jeff and I asked him to go play in his room and gave him some fruit snacks to make it feel like less of a punishment. Later, Jeff walked by Max's room and saw this under the door. We aren't sure exactly what message Max was trying to send, but we thought it was pretty creative and rewarded him with another package slipped back under the door.

This Little Piggy

Max had normal feet, Mae has really small feet, and it looks to me like Spike has big feet. But perhaps this is just in relation to his skinny chicken legs. Spike loves to be swaddled, more so then the other two seemed to. He wants to be swaddled at all times and cries if he is not. Jeff has a problem though, he cannot seem to stop swaddling Spike too high up. I always have to come and fold down the blanket so the poor kid doesn't smother.

Miss Mae

Mae has been picking up more words lately; she also takes her own diapers to the trash can. She is growing up and out. A few months ago she really started chugging the milk and before we realized it she got a little plump. When she went to the doctor for a rash we learned she had gone from the 50th percentile for weight to the 90th percentile. Yeah, we switched to skim milk. I am sure it will all even out when she gets a growth spurt. For the most part she pays no notice to Spike. She does love his equipment though. She puts her bunny into his car seat, bouncy chair, and crib. She also tries to jam Spike's binky into his mouth when she finds it. She and my parents got along really well during their visit. She can be a very loving girl and has no problem with strangers as long as they have food.

Free Food

Happy Cow Day everyone! You know how I love free stuff. I did slack a bit this year. I did not have a costume for myself or Spike, but really I did just have a baby the week before, so I think I deserve a pass.

Furry Little Man

So Jeff is a bit on the hairy side. Besides the beard he has a bit of chest hair, has since jr. high school. (When my sister came to visit we took the kids to the pool and she almost dropped her son upon seeing Jeff with his shirt off.) I also have quite a bit of hair, on my head that is. I have like three heads of hair. I feel like I am cheating my hairdressers for all the thickness. The poor kids are doomed! Max has my thick thick hair. I wanted to grow his out a year or so ago to see what he would look like with a cool pony tail or something, but his hair was so thick that it just look so terribly shaggy after it passed two or so inches. Max has also inherited Jeff's furriness. Max is covered with an entire layer of clear fuzz. His little shoulders are so stinkin cute. He looks like a baby chick or something. Well Mr. Spike seems to have followed in our footsteps and not only has lots of hair, but quite a bit of his own fuzz. The funny thing about Spike is that his hair and fuzz are dark colored like Jeff. Today I even noticed some dark fuzz on Spike's ears. So adorable, I just hope he doesn't turn into a wolf boy or something.

Brothers

Max is such a sweet guy. He has been very loving to Spike. I asked him if he was excited to go to preschool and he said he was worried Baby Spike would miss him. Max has been having a really hard time lately, but I am glad he isn't taking it out on Spike or Mae.

Chicken Legs!

Okay so Spike is adorable. Love his cute hair, love that he looks like Max and at the same time doesn't. Love his chicken legs!!!!!

June 30th

Busy day at our house. The C-Section was scheduled for noon but then pushed up to 7:30 that morning. I am actually glad for the early slot cause then there were no other surgeries to push it back and make the wait longer. We got up at 4:30 to get there by 5:30. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight that evening so I was super parched. I think that was more annoying then the early morning. I was hooked up to machines when we got there then we waited around for a bit to get everything in order. The ironic part was that according to the machine I was having pretty regular contractions, although I didn't really feel them. So perhaps I would have had the baby that day anyway. They took me off to go get my spinal block. We dropped Jeff off to get changed into scrubs so he didn't have to watch. They had me start sitting up, but I got so dizzy they had to carefully drop me to my side. Then I almost threw up. Good Times! Once the spinal block was in place, I got a serious case of the giggles that lasted on and off for several more hours. I was laughing so hard at first that the doctors and nurses couldn't help but laugh along with me. They thought it was great. I suppose giggles are better then tears or screams. The C-section went quickly and the little guy was out. I was sewn up and then rolled to recovery. It was quite fun being rolled from the operating table to the gurney. All and all a really bizzaro morning. And best part of all there was a healthy beautiful boy to go with it. The nurses kept remarking on how big he was which we found funny compared to his brother. I love all his thick dark hair. He totally looks like Max but with darker coloring. Very much more like Jeff then the other two.

Spike!