Vintonville

Most of you know about Ethan’s true love and adoration for all “cuties.” Well, we have a system where they can earn nickels for doing their chores and service for others. So they’ve saved up for a while and recently I took Isaac and Ethan to Toys R Us to spend some of their nickels. Isaac found a million things he wanted, but Ethan just couldn’t find anything that held his interest for too long. Well, day before yesterday we found ourselves at Wal-Mart in the craft section. He spotted a bag of 1,000 bright colored cutie feathers and I knew at that moment, they had to be his. So he spent the $1.97 on them and has been in heaven ever since. The first thing he did when we got home was run to his bed, tear open the bag all over his bed, and rolled in the feathers, giggling and rubbing them and throwing them in the air. Needless to say, you can find hot pink, red, blue, orange and purple feathers anywhere you go in our house! I love Ethan!

Also, as I pick up the house, many times I find tiny treasures that the children have left behind and I don’t really know what to do with these treasures. So I started setting them on the ledge of our counter in the kitchen. As the treasures accumulated I thought, wow, this looks kind of ecclectic and artistic, I’ll make this a cool collection and continue to see how far around the kitchen we can stretch this!

(Click to make big and stuffs)

I just wanted to say Happy valentines day to you all and tell you I am so lucky to have you as my family. Today I am just working all day but on Saturday we are going to the monster truck rally for our Valentines date. Hopefully we will spot some good mullets and fill our lungs with dirt dust! Anyways hope your significant others treat you well today and give you some good ole lovin! Love you!!!

As you know by the pics we posted with Joshua’s underpants giving firm support to his little noggin instead of the things it was actually designed for, it’s Potty Training time in the Vinton household. We’ve been taking it nice and slow because we kind of like our carpets and flooring the way we bought them- urine/poop free.

In the end however, you can run, but you can’t hide. The little guy isn’t going to potty train himself, so this week we’re getting down to business. Joshua’s picked it up pretty well. Except for his nap and bedtime, he’s all over the “I gotta go Peeps!” warning and has even, in just a day, taken it to the big leagues by mounting and dismounting the toilet with the efficiency of a 5-year old veteran. The sequence below illustrates his technique and an early understanding of what “The Throne” truly means. Images have been through the censorship committee to protect the innocent.

[As usual, click on image to enlargen]

We had our family pic taken just before Christmas with the good intention of sending them out with Christmas greetings. Well, those good intentions must have their own brick on the road to hell, because they fell flat on their face. But, for those who haven’t seen it, here it is in all it’s brown-clothed glory. That’s a good lookin’ crew if I do say so myself. And by crew, I mean that smolderingly gorgeous Mama and the dashing young blonde lad. The guy in the background on the other hand… that guy must have done a lot of tracting in the rain or something.

Treadmills can be a great thing. Other times, not so much. In the hopes Ethan might feel a little better, behold Exhibit A:

Now take that guy and imagine Mari-Catherine in his place, and you’ll get an idea as to how she received these sweet treadmill hickies as shown in Exhibit B:

Behold the scene of the crime (i.e.- Exhibit C: white trace residue of skin excised from Mari-Catherine’s knees):

Now imagine MC, with iPod blaring, stepping off the treadmill to help Joshua with a movie. Now imagine MC forgetting she left the treadmill running what with not being able to hear it above her iPod. Imagine stepping on said treadmill as it hums along at level 5 and carries you swiftly into the wall, wedging your knees between said wall and the spinning fury of knobbed rubber that’s zipping along at a belt-sanding pace of 100 + RPM. It’s an Indian rope burn delight– treadmill style!

Between Ethan and Mari-Catherine, I hereby declare this week the official observance of Vinton “Tore-Up Leg Week”. Let the festivities resume!

Well no one has posted in a bit so I thought I would and add another one of my huge pictures. But I do this on purpose this time because I want you to see the gory details of this picture, and the sad expression on little e’s face.

So last weekend we went to Hannah Park campground with some friends and the children were frolicking about as the parents mingled and gossiped. When all of a sudden there was a loud shriek from the woods and I recognized it as Ethan’s shriek. So I ran to rescue him and the poor kid was stuck in a palm plant, wearing cutie shorts of course. Well these palm plants stalks are razor sharp with tiny thorns and Ethan legs got TORN up. Not to mention his little girl friend who was trying to save him ended up rubbing his legs a few times more against the stalks and when he saw his mommy coming he jumped to her and landed against another stalk which then cut his left leg up too. Screaming, tears, and blood permeated the surroundings. It was quite traumatic, especially when some other mommy, trying to help, poured a burning cream all over the cuts trying to stop the pain but moments later only found that it made things A LOT worse. So I frantically drove him to the bathroom and restraining him the whole time, rinsed his wounds. After he settled down he said, “Mommy, you hurt my heart” and began sobbing again. Ethan doesn’t like to be restrained. After some time, lovin’s, and an m&m rice crispy treat he was feeling a lot better. But those cuts man, I couldn’t believe it. Poor kiddo.

[Click the picture to see a larger image ]

So the previous video of Joshua doing a little boogaloo was a placeholder til I could put this together. I deleted the other post, so here’s Joshua warming it up to the club anthem “Sandstorm”. For REAL, Son.

Sorry, I guess I need to read up more on how to work my camera and get those files under control. But now that you’ve seen the picture, here’s the story. So I grabbed a left over cup of milk out of the fridge (yes Ben, it was Ethans! how did you know that?!) and saw that it looked clean, no floaties, and thought, oh yummy, I’ll have myself some graham crackers and milk with this! I delightedly began to eat away. I downed about 3 grahams, enjoying the melting in my mouth sensation as I dipped the 4th graham in and heard a…chink. What the? I stirred… chink, chink. And what you saw in the picture was what I saw too. A tasty nickel had taken a dip. SICK! Think of all the germs that were floating around in there! Who knows who’d touched that thing and what pee and poop it had been in! Gross! Should I get up and get a new cup of milk?… Well, no, I figured the damage had been done and was feeling too lazy to get up so I enjoyed a few more tasty soggy grahams and preserved the moment with a huge file photo. Mmm good. Love ya!

Finally. I know you all have been waiting for me the slacker but I finally got in! Well to let you all know my handsome husband will be going back to the studies at Utah State this fall. We are soo excited. Things are good with us newlyweds up here in Logan and we got like 2 feet of snow in the past 2 days! This week is crazy busy…working 2 jobs everyday and then trying to take care of Luke can be quite a handful. I am thinking about going pro with my weight lifting, what do you think !?