Merry Christmas!

Huh?

I don't even know what to say except I am getting tired of going to my blog and seeing the same sweet picture of Griff sleeping in the johnny-jumper. Everytime I see that old post it makes me feel like my life is passing me by due to my lack of documentation. I have sat down several times with intentions of throwing something new and exciting up....I am easily distracted though, it's a curse.
Not to mention...life moves super fast and I just can't keep up. Sometimes laundry wins over blogging and facebook, it's a shame, but true. I forgot my point....see...easily distracted.

Oh yeah, life moves fast and the holidays move even quicker. Shopping, hustle, bustle, this, and that. I did get up bright and early to save 50% on so many pairs of socks. Question: Is it really saving when you spend nearly $300 on socks? Honestly, I was totally caught up in the moment, another personal flaw. I am going to put half of them away and pull them out in July. See, I will be super smart when that special time comes around when everyone has holes in their socks.

Another reason there has just been no time too blog (besides my 4 little people) is that I have kicked off my official effort to get the jiggle off. You know what I am talking about. I have half-heartedly gone at this effort since Griff was born nearly six months ago. I catch myself thinking that I am good enough. Who cares if I have 5 to 10 extra pounds. I have always worked so hard. I am the mother of 4 now, who cares if I have some junk in the trunk? Well, as of a few days ago, I DO! I haven't busted my butt after three other kids to let it all go now. I am here to say that my goals will be reached.....and then I will probably need a little surgery as the icing on the cake. Not that I am a cake. I am a person who wants to look great for myself. Start saving sugar Daddy!

Alright, I am done. Enough. I don't even know what my original point was and all the pictures I am going to post have nothing to do with what I have written. They are just pictures taken of the sweetest part of my days.

Sleepy guys and backwards girls.....that's how we like em.

So it was the end of the day. All I want is some peace, quiet, and to waste my night on the computer. Of course that can't happen, Griffin wants my attention. And of course, being the fabulous Mom that I am, I will appease him. So I hold him, comfort him, feed him, change him, play with him, whatever it takes. He seemed content enough to take a turn in the johnny-jump-up. So I engulf myself in mindless activities on the internet and before I know it, I have peace and I have quiet. Griffin is not one to cry himself to sleep, he usually cries himself into panic and hysterics. I guess he just needed a new setting to figure it out. Thank you johnny-jumper, and I love you sweet Griffin!

Alex is really into fashion....two year fashion. For the past three days she refuses to wear clothes anyway except backwards. Fine with me, as long as you keep dressing yourself. So I finally took the time on this third day to take a picture of her latest ensemble. Maybe I will start wearing my clothes backwards.....wait, then I would have a front butt.

Happy Halloween!!!

We had a super fun Halloween with family and friends! Here are some fun pics from that spooky day. Good clean family fun!
Griff dressed as my little punkin and Jackson was the grim reaper

Alex repeatedly told everyone what an angel she is, and she is right.

Dylan played the part of a darling 50's girl.

Happy Halloween

Creepy weekend!

We had a fun and busy weekend. Jackson had his last soccer game where he scored 4 goals! Nice going Jackson! The we made a Halloween treat. I know, what's the big deal, right? Well, this treat required planning, some patience, and dedication. These qualities are not regular for me. Anyways, the kids had fun and so did I, a success! Then Devin and I were off to the Lowry/John's annual Halloween bash. I am pleased to say we did more than throw on a pair of scrubs and call ourselves doctors. I walked all the way next door to my sister's house and borrowed some spooky garb. Thanks Hilary! I dressed as a witch or vampire, whichever you prefer. Devin dressed as a clown, kind of a creepy clown (let's be honest, all clowns are creepy). Griff dressed as a "Mama loving tough guy", check out his tatt if you can see it. It was a fun weekend! Bring on the next!

My baby is six weeks old!

Griff turned six weeks old this week and we are so thrilled. I just love have such a sweet tiny baby that never grows up. Don't be deceived by his large size, he's six weeks and he plans on staying little for a long time....Wait a minute...That can't be right....he was born in June. Okay, okay, he's four months old and I am in denial. I don't want to ever stop "burrito wrapping" him and no one can make me take out the head protector in his carseat. He's just too little. I am just going to have to put my foot down. From now on he is 4 months old! We love you Griff, stay little forever!

Honestly...does anyone else feel this way? Or am I completely alone? I will probably be rocking him to sleep until he moves out...sorry Griff.

Carpe Diem!!

Good times with the kidsThis is the handy work of Alex and Dylan while Devin and I napped
Can he just stay this way forever?

Griffin watching the football game with Dev

GREAT JOB DYLAN! So Dylan pulled off a kick over finally. And then yesterday she just did a back walkover out of the blue. Nice! My investment is paying off!
Can we keep him?
These are just a few of the things that have been going on as we run around life like crazy people! Let's all enjoy today!

A bonding moment.....

Just this last Monday I had the pleasure of having my wisdom tooth pulled. Yes, tooth. I only had one and that was great. The orthodontist said it would never come down...never say never, right. Well, it only took 15 years, but there it was.

I went in bright and early Monday morning and they gassed me up. I just kept asking them, "Is this stuff legal??" "Can I come in for weekly treatments??" They said they would work a deal with me....Lucky. Unfortunately the "high" ended quickly because it only took about 5 minutes to get the tooth out. Dreamy time over.

I took the tooth home as a souvenir and to have an educating moment with the kids. Jackson thought the tooth was especially cool. He has been working on losing his first tooth for about a month now. At about 9 that night Jackson and I were talking about how cool it would be for me to lose my last tooth and he his first on the same day. Well, we wanted to make our dream a reality. We got the dental floss and with a 1...2....YANK..... The tooth was just hanging. Jackson finished it off and we went to show Devin our handy work.

Jackson insisted that we both put our teeth under our pillows for the tooth fairy. The next morning I was sure glad I did. Jackson received $2 and I $1. I guess size doesn't matter with the tooth fairy after all. Good times with you Jackson! Loves.

A 2 year old trip to the salon....

So I put Alex to bed on night at around 9:30PM. I was getting ready to take off on a fun trip with friends the next morning. I ran around the house like a busy bee until about 11 PM and decided I had done enough and could go to sleep. I smelled some strong odors as I entered my bedroom and soon discover Alex.....She had climbed up to the high cabinets and retrieved the pink nail polish. Ok, nail polish, this wasn't the first time she had done this. Then I saw my pink hand towel and pink sink. Good one Alex! By the way...why is your face so shiny little girl and your hair standing straight up like and 80's rocker? Oh fun for Alex...she found the glittery lip gloss too. Good times! I guess rather than getting my nice, relaxing bubble bath I will give one to you at 11 PM. Sounds like fun! It's a good thing I love little monsters!

Meet my new friends

We have been married for 8 years, owned two different homes, and moved 7 times. We have been around. In all that time we have only purchased and planted 1 tree and some shrubs. Lame. Sad. Unfortunate.....Until yesterday! We have foliage! We purchased and planted a beautiful sunburst locust, a darling weeping cherry and several lovely grasses. It's as if I have had more children, I am so in love with them. (Don't worry Kiddos, Mom loves you more than the trees). So, welcome to our new family members, may you grow and flourish! We love you!

The edible baby.....by A. Chamberlain

I have a very talented friend who took these gorgeous pictures of Griffin at one week old. She also took the darling family picture at the top of the blog. I am so grateful to have these precious photos to remember Griffin as this tiny little morsel. Thank you so much Amy, for sharing your talents!

Check out all of Griff's photos at Amy's blog. http://amychamberlain.blogspot.com/

Goldilocks has lost her locks!

So we finally did it! We cut Dylan's hair off! She has been asking for a few months and we finally decided that we would let her decide the fate of her beautiful hair. I can't believe how grown-up she looks, especially with the TEMORARY pink and blue streaks. We love our Dilly!

A date at Boondocks

Jackson and I had a special day of fun at Boondocks. I was feeling bad about the fact that his summer is only 3 weeks and the last several weeks I have been wrapped up in recovering from the new baby. Apparently I was feeling recovered enough to go battle the heat and race cars, minature golf, and play laser tag. Jackson didn't know what we were doing until the morning of our special date. He was beaming with excitement when I told him the plan. It was so fun to have some quality one-on-one time with him. He is such a big helper and is always on the waiting list at home.
Jackson's favorite activity at Boondocks was playing laser tag. When we entered the dark battlefield for the first time I suggested that we stay close together, thinking that he would be nervous. He was appauled and said,"Mom, we can't stay together, we will make a bigger target!" Then he ran off on his own. What an awesome kid I have!

So many details and emotions!

There are so many details and emotions to deal with at our house lately. Each of the kids are going through their own emotions since baby Griffin came to join our clan. Jackson is the protective brother and often gets sent to the back burner because he is the most independant (sorry oldest child). Dylan is stubborn as ever, but will sometimes ease up for a moment. Our sweet little Alex has gone through a whole rainbow of emotions. At first she was suddenly a baby again. I could see the panic in her eyes when she would say, "Hold me Mama, I'm your baby!" I reassured her that we were still completely in love with her. Then she moved on to only communicating with screams and cries, that was a fun few days. Now she is back to, " I'm not a baby! I'm a big girl!", and we are grateful for this. Love you kids!

Now let's talk about details. Everytime I have had a baby I am reminded of all the details. I feel like I need a baby survival tool belt to carry all my supplies. Diapers, wipes, burp cloth, bouncer chair, etc. I left the house today with all four kids. I felt like I was on the ball and ready to face any challenge. So I am driving in the car singing with the kids and feeling pretty good and oops, I forgot the nursing pads, dang! Don't you just hate it when you forget one of the details? Well, I made it for a while, but then sprung a leak during lunch with Devin and two of his co-workers. I'm sure no one noticed, right? Next time I will put that detail at the top of my list.

I took these pictures of Griff today. I am by no means a photographer, I wish I was. What's up with the need to take pictures every five seconds with a new baby. I think it is my attempt to hang on to these first precious moment that go by too fast. Part of me wants to bottle Griffin up and do all I can to keep him just five days old. I just love his smell, his softness, his funny unconscious smiles, and especially those newborn squeaks. The other part, which is reality, understands that we can't go on like this forever. Eventually Devin will have to return to work and eventually I will need to get sleep in larger increments than two hours. So life must go on and Griffin must turn six days old. You can bet I will be all over him all along the way with this camera, just hoping to capture the reality of these first sweet days.

He's such a dude!

We just love our little man. He is such a DUDE. We are having so much fun taking pictures and just loving him. I just love the first days of a new baby, especially one that is mine. They smell so good, they are just so tiny and soft. I just want to eat him. He is so sweet. I won't eat him though, that would be way rude.

We have been careful to watch Griffin's two little mothers (Dylan and Alex). Dylan is so stubborn and independent that she thinks she should be able to wash him, change him, and do everything but nurse him on her own. She gets so completely offended and upset when I explain to her that it just can't happen that way. Alex has already mastered "baby talk". She is quite good at it. She is also a poker. I think she just wants to make sure that he is real. Sure enough he is real enough to cry when she pokes his eye.

Baby Griffin is Here!

Hooray for us! Baby Griffin came boogie boarding our way today! Griffin arrived June 20, 2008 at 6:16 PM. He weighs 8Lbs 2 OZ and is 19.5 inches long. It's been a wonderful day for our family. Jackson, Dylan, and Alex are bursting with excitement. They are ready to take him home, I am not quite ready for that though. I told Jackson he has two days to learn to change a diaper. He just says, " Oh Mom, you are just joking me." He knows me all too well.

Dear little baby Gorringe,

We were just wondering why you haven't come yet. I promise it will be so super fun to be in our family. I can tell you love your current situation so much, so I promise to take you swimming whenever you want. We love to swim, we can work it out. So on behalf of the whole Gorringe family, come on out, we can't wait!

Love,

Your big Mama Gorringe

(who would love to be smaller very soon)

Happy Birthday Devin! 30 Years Old!

We celebrated Devin's birthday Saturday and Sunday. Saturday night I arranged a little surprise party for him at one of our favorite resaurants, Bonsai, in Sandy. Here's how it all went down....The plan was to meet at the restaurant at 6 PM. Dev and I dropped the kids off at my parent's house a little early. I am usually running late so this was something different for me. Devin was prepared to drop the kids and take off immediately, but I needed to buy some time. Luckily my mom had some new pictures of my bro from Norway, where he is serving a mission. So I bought a few minutes, but not much. At this point we are about 12 minutes before six. As we left Mom's house I asked Devin where he wanted to eat, as I suspected, he said, "you choose". I acted really indecisive and we drove around for about 5 minutes. Then I suggested Bonsai. He didn't seem all that into it, but being the sweet husband that he is, of course he went along with it. I ran in Bonsai to put our name on the list ( this was already taken care of, I just wanted to see if anyone was there yet.) We were the first to arrive so I had to think quick. I suggested a nice stroll around the parking lot. If you have been to Bonsai lately you know that most everything around it is closed down and it is like a nice ghost town. Luckily Devin figured I was just trying to go into labor by walking around. During our 10-15 minute walk I saw each nearly all the members of our party sneak in the restaurant without being detected. Good job guys! We walked in and for a split second Devin just thought it a coinsodence to see a friend until everyone yelled "SURPRISE"! Devin was so surprised and had a great time! It was a hit.

Sunday was Devin's actual birthday so we had both of our parents over for a little party. We had dinner, opened presents, and sang happy birthday. It was such a fun weekend for us all!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEV! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!