Announcing...another BOY for us!

Spike Lee Payton joined our fest of testosterone this Christmas and will grow to an estimated 3-4 pounds give or take. At 6 weeks old he is potty trained, very affectionate and such a joy!

Hieeee Every body!!

All right! My little monkey boy has now climbed down off of his "mama perch" and is freely exploring his world. Well, he has been more and more lately, but he now gets his lil tush up in the air and paddles those feet against the carpet, stretching, reaching, grunting and creeping all the way across the floor. It occasionally makes for some great mischief!...

Where he cannot creep to, he can roll to. He is determined and takes what objects he finds into very serious scrutiny. They must be inspected, tasted, hit, batted, twisted, chewed and the whole inspection process repeated several times before they are hastily thrown out to the side. (we have finally mastered letting go of objects we have secured in a firm grasp with the exception of mama's hair)

Big brothers are fascinating!

Cute Baby Socks!!!








Here is the Christmas sing along at the kid's elementary school...Ryan is in white antlers in the very back row, scratching his ear. He was waving and signing I love you thru the whole two songs the Kindergarten class sang. It was hilarious. I caught most on video, but it's too long to upload onto blogspot. A couple photos of the babe at the sing along and him sneaking in some mama milk...dinner and a show! woot!




Gingerbread house made by Ry guy.


Dec 22 Bradley turned 11!


Controller? What controller? I plead the fifth...

We have rollerblades, ripsticks, skateboards, scooters, footballs, nerf guns, pads, ramps, cones and random objects to incorporate into play...yet this is what my kids find to do...oh well, all was quiet for about 20 minutes.






When your baby outgrows his drool bibs...what do you do? Put them on the dog and catch some funny pics!
WAH! Feed me!

The pack of boys at Christmas. The far right is Will's little brother, often found at our house when not at school :) Matthew was actually in our custody for a couple years, so he's like another son in a way...except I would have been 12 or 13 to be his bio mom. eeks!

None the less...Merry late Christmas to all and Here's to an awesome New Year~2009!

wow oh wow

holy smokes! I am alive and back online...unfortunately I have only a moment before it is discovered that I am goofing off and not working on the computer we have inherited (shhh) so it's a quickie...

My sweet little chunky monkey has reached twenty pounds, and is now in one of those convertable car seats instead of the removable one (not that he could be lugged around in an infant one anyway). He is still in the rear facing position, but I am not thrilled with the new seat. He cut two teeth on the bottom Dec9 and Dec11 they came in. He has an adorable toothy grin now and I will shortly be getting my digital camera cleaned out and some new pics up for all to see.

The holidays went...well, as holidays do...loads of family drama, toppled with me and Oliver not feeling well at all the last few days...sharing my older kids with another family...it's been hectic, and I look forward to these last few days of Christmas vacation with all the kids home-peaceful and free of obligation....and a ton of new toys and books to find homes for.

Will is once again out of work-at least we made it thru the holidays. He is however now fully licensed including liability and bonds and all that jazz-and taking a new direction for employment-himself! He is putting his general contractors license in full swing, a little scary, but also good as the people he has been working for are unable to keep him fully employed-yet again, and we are unwilling to continue this pattern.

The new year is coming with new hope and new faith...and new pictures soon!
Randi Fay

Short Break!

Okay so my main PC crashed today (after 7 years) and I write this note out real quick from my moms house. My van ran out of gas this morning (I felt dumb) and triple A saved the day. My fridge is dripping water from unknown vacinty...I have three laptops that don't work, a main computer that refuses to go online now, and two xboxes ready for repairs, a DVD player that demands brand new prestine DVD's or it won't play. Yet my old VCR works great. My dryer no longer turns the clothes basket, but does get hot...so only the clothes on top of the wet load get dry. (not fun when you cloth diaper your baby)

Apparantly all my appliances are in competition for who gets replaced this christmas! And yet, I am grateful. I am grateful that it was just gas and not anything worse. I am grateful that the fridge still runs, even if it needs a bucket. I am grateful that I even own 4 computers and 2 xboxes. Mostly...as if I haven't said it enough...I have four healthy happy spirited boys. My husband has a job-many people don't. If being a blond and running my van out of gas is the worst of my problems, I got it pretty good. Everything will get repaired in time. It was great fun pushing the van back into the driveway this morning, my 12 year old, me, and my 80 something year old neighbor at 8am. Ryan was sitting in his booster seat (we were on the way to kindergarten) and as we got the van rocking, rocking, rocking and back up over the curb and into the driveway Ryan yells "Weeeee!" LOL. I try so hard to have his spirit. Amazing what you can learn from the little people.

Long story short, it may be a few weeks before I can put up a new post. Luckily my digital camera is less than two years old and works like a charm. I will work on filling it up with glorious pics of the family and post some next time I can. I hope and pray you all have magical holidays, but if nothing else I hope you can find gratitude somewhere in the midst of it all.

Love to all
See you soon!