Happy birthday, Annalise Rose!

They may look innocent and sweet...

... but so do baby crocodiles.

Anna is now the big 0 7 and had the wild bash to celebrate it. The cutest picture was of six little girls lined up in sleeping bags, with Milo at the end (with his own sleeping bag to boot), but I couldn't get everyone in the shot. A couple hours into this adventure I was questioning my judgement/sanity and wondering why I didn't just organize a party and then send them all home. This was after the Play Dough Episode, the Popcorn Wars, and me catching one of them in the act of telling a spooky story to wide eyed listeners, but before they looked so adorable settling down for sleep. I was a bit concerned for bedtime seeing as how I felt obligated to stay up later than they and we all know I am a noonish person, not a night owl and not a morning person either. So at 10:15 I was perched threateningly on the couch directly over their noggins, shushing any spotaneous outbursts caused by too much sugar in the system and bribing them with the thought of chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream in the morning for good little girls who sleep through the night. One little angel was making goofy noises into her pillow and when I said, 'Kambrie, time to zip it, girlfriend,' she popped up and said in wonderment, 'Oh my gosh, Mrs Williams! How'd you know it was me and not a dolphin?!' It's a gift, little crocodile, and don't call me Mrs Williams.

We got absolutely dumped on with snow last night here in Cheyenne. The wild bunny rabbits that run amuck through our neighborhood are burrowing in our woodpile and all you can see of them when they hop by are their ears poking out of the snow.

Oh, and Anna's new birthday fish is named Swimmy. Of course. I suggested Michael Phelps but no one cares what I think.

Not really Ace of Cakes worthy but cute enough.

"Maybe if I tie my unused clothing together I can escape down the window"

I hope everyone is enjoying the new blog here at blogger. I can't help but notice I only have one 'follower' and since she is a blood relative and judging from her picture, a big lush, I must accept the fact that I could never lead a cult. I've always been more of a sheep, I suppose, with a baa baa here and a baa baa there. A black sheep though, or at least dingy gray.

Today is the Middler's birthday. I'm posting a photo of her monkey/mermaid cake. She couldn't decide between the two loves of her life. For her gift she received from her adoring parents, a fish tank and a trip to PetCo to fill it up. The last fish we had were two betas named Goldie and Rainbow (both males but obviously in touch with their feminine sides), who lived for over two years. We hope our new guys thrive on neglect as well.

Wish me luck on Saturday as it's the Birthday Party Slumber Party with one 5 year old, two 6 year olds, and one brand spankin' new 7 year old. And an 8 and 1/2 year old who has been instructed by the birthday girl to make herself scarce. Not that they don't love each other dearly: when they aren't attempting to kill each other, they get along quite well. Just this past week they finally decided to quit sleeping in the same bed. Up until now we've had a top bunk for them and the bottom for the dog. I think the dog is the most annoyed by this turn of events now that he has to share the covers.

Gianni has become a bit of a pirate lately. By this I mean he is pillaging the house and then burying the loot. I have lost in the past day alone 2 bottles of Zyrtec, 4 binkies, my camera, several Tupperware containers, a sippy cup of rice milk and I'm sure several other treasures I haven't realized are missing yet. I found the medicine under the bed and my camera in a cupboard and the sippy cup in the bathtub. I have torn apart this house looking for the MIA binkies with no success, and then he strolled nonchalently by me with the orange polka dotted one in his piehole this morning. Now I have to spy on him, peeking around corners when he doesn't know I'm there, just to figure out where he is stashing all his booty. I know, you pacifier haters think I should lose them for good, but to be honest there's no better invention in the wide, wide world than those binkies. I plan on using them through the high school years, popping them in their mouths when they back talk or when they want to try kissing for the first time. Then y'all will be sorry you didn't get them hooked on them when your little sweeties were babies! Think of all the chatty relatives and friends, and longwinded preachers, and American Idol contestants we could silence with a good binky!

Cora has her first swim meet next month. She seems to be missing the competitive gene her parents vehemently deny they have. It's too hard with the Moose to stay and watch her practice (he wants to try fancy dives off the side of the pool when Mom's looking away) so I rarely hang out. And to be honest, they all look the same underwater and I always lose her anyway. But she's having fun and had sore muscles for the first time which was amusing. 'Mom, my legs and stomach hurt!' Mine would too with that kind of workout.

our little nitwits

Sorry about the change of website! The old one, not to sound ungrateful, kept wanting me to pay for space. And we all know how thrifty I am. I am Goodwill's Customer of the Month after all. So here I be and thanks for following!

Here's an excerpt of something I found cute and funny. It's a to-do list that the girls wrote the other day. If you can't decipher the creative spelling, the answers can be found below.

1. play in a box
2. read
3. woch tv
4. play Wii
5. tell koch koch jokes
6. tock
7. play outside

1. yep, it really is 'play in a box' 2. read 3. watch tv 4. play Wii 5. tell knock knock jokes 6. talk 7. play outside.

It reminds me of the list Buddy wrote for his dad in "Elf." But it was a busy day: no time for Snuggles I guess.

In other Williams' news: the dog, Milo, has spent an entire year training Gianni to play fetch and it has finally paid off. He used to roll the ball over with his nose next to a one month old infant and wait patiently for that same infant to jump to his feet, grab the ball, hurl it across the room, and then hand out bits of bacon from inside his onesie pocket when it's returned. Now that Moose is walking and gleefully throws footballs (and anything else) Milo's dedication has finally born fruit. It's pretty cute and one of these days if I can figure out how to turn the digital camera into a camcorder, I will post it for you all to laugh over. The Little Pitcher also likes to throw things down the stairs. He stands at the top and lobs all sort of things into space. Shoes, binkies, toys, books, dishes, crayons, they all go flying by my head at some point during the day. He also makes the sound effects to go with them - a high pitched noise for the flight, then a crashing sound for the landing.

Well, in a few days Anna will go from being the shortest six year old in town to being the shortest seven year old in town. Definetely due for a growth spurt, Roosky is still a little dynamo. She is getting the hang of reading (thank you, Lord!) and getting more and more independent. Cora is off with Daddy in Rock Springs for a couple days, so it's me and her and several showings of "Mamma Mia" and "Hairspray." A couple recent Anna-isms for you:

While referring to our landlord, she called him 'the guy who REALLY lives here."

When she asked if our friends were going to be able to adopt their foster son, we explained that these things take a lot of time to decide. She paused and thought for a bit and said, "well, I can understand that. It takes me like, 15 minutes to decide what kind of ice cream I want!"

While I'm sharing things that will embarrass them later in life, here's one from Cora. We were studying slavery and trying to make it appropriate for her age group I explained that a hundred years ago she wouldn't have been friends with her good friends, Sammy and Meeka or Jamel and Kiana. With the innocent reaction of a color blinded child, she burst out in wonder, "They're black?!?!"

Those are the good points of our days here. The filler is me wiping the boogers off my shoulder from my sniffly one year old, trying not to throttle the first grader who just read the word 'actually' but is stuck on the word 'go,' and having all out war with the eight year old who refuses to wear anything but holey jeans, Broncos tshirts, and a baseball cap to church. Those events are peppered with long, daily rounds of "sniff out where that dirty diaper got off to," cooking with a toddler sized leech attatched to my legs, a failing battle with the basement monster who is soiling more clothes than I can laundry, trying to hold onto misc. children in the mighty Wyoming wind, readings of the Twilight series because my age is obviously dyslexic and I'm really 13, and episodes of Lost Season 3 that aren't going to watch themselves. It's going to be a looooong winter/spring here in Wyoming, so be prepared for more pointless ramblings and musings that go nowhere!