It's a.......

GIRL!!!!! YAY!!!!!

(nate was right!! and can I just say how cute it is to see him get excited about having another girl :) what a cute Dad we have!)

We are very thrilled!!

Everything else looked good too, she's just a healthy, measuring right on, baby!

This does even things up a little, 3 boys and 3 girls, (charity counts Daddy and I, so it's 4 and 4 :)).

I must say it is taking me a while to come to grips with it (am I the only one who does this?) .... I was thinking this one was a boy, and I am still a little nervous that the Doc is wrong again (or should I say, we have another "late bloomer"). That's just me though :) Give it a day or two.... maybe a trip to Babies R Us (I just love to look around, I don't know if I've ever really bought anything there to speak of :) but it's my favorite store). We got a pretty good shot of her legs WIDE open, and there was no turtle there, so it's pretty certain..... I'm just paranoid :)

see, there really isn't anything there between the legs! Why am I so skeptical!

The girls are ECSTATIC!!! They keep chanting things like, "I'm so glad the baby is a girl!". They sat and ooohed and ahhhed at the ultrasound video when I was showing it to my Mom. They like to see the face..... I think the face is kinda scary.

Brad was slightly bummed.... but I think that he's going to be so adorable with a little sister. That will be fun to see I think. Luke is convinced that it is still a boy and will not budge on it. At least I'm not that bad :)

So yeah! We're totally excited! And we just passed hump day, so it's all downhill from here!

For those of you who care :) here are all of the ultrasound pictures (I decided not to add the whole video :)) from top to bottom they are, her bumb shot, head, head, and spine, she's beautiful!

Happy Father's Day!!

We did breakfast in bed for Nate (as usual) and then the kids all showered him with their gifts and cards. Then we frantically got ready for church and Nate helped Kelly write a talk (such a good dad!). Kelly did an awesome job on her talk.... wrote it herself and then stood up and read it herself.... apparently this is really unusual for Kindergartners in this ward :) but we were really proud of her. Nate got a sweet roll at church and then we all came home and spoiled ourselves with a LONG Sunday nap. It was awesome!! Luckily Nate woke us up when my Dad got home because we may have missed him. We got to do the Kiss Song for all the Dad's this year. My Dad, Nate, and my Brother.


This is the before picture:




This is the after picture.....


The kids are not gentle with the hershey kisses! They got totally clobbered! It was fun though. So fun that we did it twice :) Mostly so taht we could get it on video :) It's a fun tradition for us....

I failed to make our yummy pork chop dinner, the cake too, but it was still a nice day. Nate was spoiled, hopefully he enjoyed it. If any Dad deserves it, he does. Thank you Nate for being more than I could have ever asked for in a Dad for our children!! I hope you had a Happy Father's Day!!

Saturday

here's all the grandkids and a few from Malisa's Mom's side, of course Noah started crying and didn't end up in the professional one :(

Saturday was a big day for the Maynes Family. Especially after getting home at only 2:00 in the morning from the Manti Pageant, 7 AM came all too quickly. But we were excited to go to Malisa (Nate's brother's daugther) and Joe's sealing. So we got everyone all dressed up and headed down to the Salt Lake Temple. I LOVE going to sealings in that temple. It just brings back so many memories from our wedding day. It's just neat to go to any sealing though. Being reminded of everything and feeling the Spirit there. It was a really neat ceremony. The picture time was not my favorite. It was raining and Luke was freaking out about the rain, and we of course were unprepared (no jackets or anything) since the sun was nice and shiny when we left Bountiful that morning. We borrowed some umbrellas until the family pictures were done and then we were out of there.
We then had a little time to kill so we went and bought the kids some sunglasses at All A Dollar. Bradley's been begging me to let him buy some there ever since Chris let him use his back on Thursday. He was thrilled, and everyone couldn't stop talking about the ones that looked like Chris' and the ones that looked like Stephanie's. They are obsessed. Cracks me up.
Then we had the Luncheon which was really nicely done by Joe's family. I thought the food was amazing! They had this really yummy dutch oven Blueberry cobbler, but it tasted like it had cheesecake in it..... SO yummy!
Then we ran a few errands, I ran into a few stores looking for some new maternity clothes.... mine are just old and I think they all shrank or something because they don't fit me all that well anymore..... (yeah, that's the excuse I'm using for now). The kids all slept in the car (and I did too for a little while). Then we went to the reception. I can't even describe how well Ali and everyone did on that place.... it looked AMAZING!! Ali's good at making things really nice and really original.... I like that. It was beautiful. They had a cute little candy buffet as well, that my kids took full advantage of once Nate gave the go ahead. It was a nice reception.


here's the cute couple- I think they make the CUTEST couple


noah loved the candy buffet and was happy the kids kept bringing more over to our table :)

this is the cutest thing ever! when they opened up the dance floor to everyone, my sweet little gentleman, Bradley went over and asked his Grandma to dance. It was so cute!!! What a fun, cute Grandma too, I LOVE this picture!

My girls spent most of the evening on the dance floor, and this was at the end after the official dances. Cute Malisa is all about entertaining her neices. It's cute how much they love the bride.... I think it's the dress, but they just seem so enthralled when there's a bride in the room.... like Cinderella at Disneyland :)

Then we headed on home. We would have gotten home a lot sooner if I hadn't forgotten to get Nate's father's day stuff. EVERY YEAR I tell myself how simple it is for me to shop for Father's Day since the kids and I are at the store so much while Nate's at work, but EVERY YEAR for some reason, I put it off! Lots of times it's because of the money, or because I"m not 100% sure what i want to get him. This time it was because I needed to have a large, empty vehicle to get the gift I had really wanted to get. So I guess I have a better excuse this year, but regardless, we made Nate sit in the car while we all went in and picked out presents. Since I couldn't get what I wanted (and will be getting it for his bday instead), I decided to let the kids all pick out something that they thought Daddy would want. It was interesting :) I had to fight the urge to not turn down their ideas. I have my ideas of what Nate would want, they have theirs. They're not usually the same, but I really wanted their gifts to come from them, so I resisted. Kelly knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to get him some new work clothes. She found some pants right away, but the shirt was a tough one. She really didn't like any of them. And if anyone suggested any (which happened a LOT) she would refuse. Finally we found some white shirts that he could wear to work OR church, and since "he could wear that TOMORROW" it was a winner. Then we walked around the sports and garden sections for a while.... I found a nice little set of Bocce (it's a game that Nate played on his mission) and thought that would be perfect from Noah (no thought from him necessary :)) and while we were in that department Luke found the perfect frisbee horshoe game for Nate. He was set on it and carried it around with him for quite a while as Charity and Brad took forever making up their minds. Charity had wanted to look at the games and even though I had been avoiding the toy department like the plague.... I slipped up and walked right past the Thomas Train Sets. Luke caught a glimpse of them, dropped the game that had been wrapped up in his arms for the last 10 minutes and was sold on the train set..... for Daddy of course. I thought maybe I could talk him back into his game, so I just put it in the cart and moved on. Well, my plan did not work. Luke was set on the train set, and I was done (sore feet, tired kids, back aches.... you know). So I let him keep the train for Daddy and then I made the rule that nobody could change their minds. Bradley then realizing what a cool present the frisbee game was, decided that that was going to be his gift. Not long after though, he saw a bumblebee (kid) game and wanted that really bad. Unfortunately the girls were sticklers for the new rule and I had to enforce it. He was bummed, but decided that Daddy could just get him that bumblebee game for HIS birthday! fine. So Charity was the slow one. It took a long time for her to finally settle on getting him a "pillow and blanket". It seemed like a.... different idea--for Nate, but like I said, I wanted it to be from them. We did manage to find one of the comfort foam ones like Nate had had before we ditched everything in Alaska, so that was perfect, and then she found "the softest blanket she could find" for him as well. We were done!!! Finally relieved Nate from the car nap with Noah, and headed home.

It had been such a long day- mainly because of the late night- but a really enjoyable one as well. The kids totally crashed when we got home..... I do love that!

Manti Pageant

Friday I packed up the (borrowed from the Manwarings) big duffle back with blankets and warm clothes, and that night we headed down to Manti with our friends Chris and Stephanie for the Pageant. Nate and I are big road trip dorks :) so we had to buy goodies and snacks for the trip, and play lots of games and stuff on the way. Even though the drive wasn't really all that long (comparatively speaking). We did get stuck in some pretty nasty traffic at the point of the mountain and then some rush hour stuff near Provo that ended up costing us about an hour, but we had given ourselves plenty of time to get there. We stopped for some dinner in Ephraim, and then we were there. We had planned on sitting on our blankets in the "blanket section" but when we got there the whole section was taken (only because people's blankets were so spread out from each other.... new pet peeve of mine!). I begged everyone to let me just go slide some blankets over (not moving them, just sliding them over a little) but nobody would let me, I think they thought it was rude.... go figure! But I had my eyes glued on the blanket section the whole 20 minutes that we were in the chairs before the show started and at one point I noticed some people moving their blankets. I was SO on it. I hauled butt up there with a blanket and totally grabbed the spot before anyone else could! It was a stealthy mission, but I accomplished it. (And yes, I do feel like a dork about it now, but I couldn't bear the thought of sitting on those hard chairs the whole time..... I'd much rather lay down..... the kids too) So anyway. Turns out there was a reason those people had moved.... should have assumed.... it was way too slanted of a spot. We were sliding down the hill the entire time :). I kept wishing I hadn't been such a blanket section obsessed maniac. It was still better though I think. The kids all laid down and all but Charity were asleep by the end. Charity watched the whole show and while she "didn't understand most of it", she does enjoy plays and was pretty much glued to it the whole time. I was glad that everyone could be comfortable enough to sleep though.

It was really nice to have Chris and Stephanie with us. AND they totally take up some of the slack with our kids. Since they don't have theirs yet. Chris wrestled with the boys (not sure if it was all that willingly, but he's a good sport), and Stephanie and Charity played 21 questions while we waited. I just sat and took pictures of everyone :).

Nate's phone came in handy too... the kids love playing games on it.

(just to prove that i was there, not my favorite picture)

we decided that this temple looks like a castle

Even Noah got in on the fun.
Walking back to the car is always a challenge it seems like since it's so dark and there are cars and people all over the place. I had worried about that ahead of time, so the duffle bag eliminated some of the stress (I figured if everything went in one bag and the kids wouldn't be trying to haul back their own blankets and such that it would be easier..... course Nate got stuck carrying the humongous bag the whole way..... thank you muscles!) And then the smartest move I made to eliminate this after pageant stress was to take along 3 Air Traffic Controllers!! They were amazing in the crowds! They really are like WAY more aware of things than most people in those situations. It was piece of cake! There were plenty of eyes on the kids, plenty of eyes on the fastest route.... turned out great!

I thought it was a really nice little trip. Things went great! We had 4 little pottiers, and 2 pregnant women, so there were plenty of potty breaks. But other than that, pretty smooth and stressfree. I think we might make this a tradition.

Just cute

Kelly let Noah fall asleep on him. I thought it was sweet 1) that he would, and 2) that she was patient enough to sit there with him the whole time. Cute cute.

mmmmmmmmm

Yeah, so the other day we had NO FOOD in our house that could even remotely be considered breakfast. So I figured why not go all the way in the other direction and have ice cream cones. (this isn't the first time we've resorted to dessert for breakfast, but it was the first time I got cute pictures out of it, so I post)

I do have to mention that I was totally expecting some outrageous behavior for at least the first few hours of the day considering the sugar and chocolate, but I am happy to say.... didn't seem any different from how they are with Froot Loops or Frosted Flakes for breakfast. Probably because there's almost the same amount of sugar..... but anyway! Just happy that it was fun and low maintenance at the same time :)

Charity got her cast off!

Today was the big day! It was somewhat anti-climatic though since they gave her a brace. I probably shouldn't post all the details, they're boring, but I want to. They took off her cast, did the x-ray and then after a LONG wait, he came back in to say that it was "healed, but not all the way." That's annoying. I was SURE it would be healed after 4 weeks, Charity's got good strong bones, and it was four whole weeks! So then he says, "I'm going to leave this decision up to you, as her mom, you know her activity level. We can either re-cast her arm for another few weeks, or you can just make sure she is very cautious and takes it really easy for the next few weeks." WHAT???? leave it up to ME?? I thought you were the doctor! Charity's been counting down the days to get this cast off ever since she got it and will probably have a nervous breakdown if I choose to re-cast it. In fact she was mouthing, "no, no, no, no, no...." to me when he mentioned that option. So then he chimes in with, "there is one other thing we could do, we could send you home with a brace, and she could just use that during the day for the next few weeks." Well that sounded a little more realistic. It was still kind of tough because I KNOW that Charity is not going to take it easy. I had images of her hanging from the monkey bars a few weeks ago WITH the cast ON. But ME choosing to re-cast it! That would just be heartless! So anyway. We went with the brace. It's not as permanent and she CAN take it off, but we've decided taht she will keep it on as much as possible for at least the next 2 weeks. If nothing else, to remind her that she needs to be careful with it. Still no bike, trampoline, monkeybars, etc. so that's a bummer, but she's a little more liberated with just a brace :) Hopefully she doesn't hold this all against me later :) I need to get my kids to drink more milk.

The Maynes Family will soon be growing by two more feet!

Technically the two feet are already growing :).

I've tried to wait to post this so that I could tell most of you in person (those of you who when you opened this post and started feeling annoyed that I hadn't already told you.... that was for you), but I think it's just not going to happen! I feel so busy these days!! And frankly, I'm a little socially retarded right now..... more than usual. But we're really excited to announce that

WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!!!

I am about 18 weeks. Due November 20th

(obviously it will be a week or so before that.... c-section ya know)

The baby seems to be growing fine and looked great on the ultrasound at our first visit back in May.

I am excited to announce that I have finally felt the baby move and that was a very thrilling moment for me. It's funny how no matter how many times you've felt it.... it still feels new and exciting!

We are very excited for this baby.

I feel like I'm already getting anxious for this baby to be here. I don't usually get so anxious at this point, I'm usually still in the "what are we going to do with one more" stage.

But we are all really looking forward to being a family of 8.

(Kelly keeps telling people that if we

"just have 2 more kids, then we will have TEN people in our family!"

good job on the math there Kelz :) I love the "just 2 more kids" part)

I wanted to announce this before we find out the gender so you can all have a chance to guess. At our last visit, when we were scheduling our ultrasound appointment (for June 29th) he jokingly said, "we'll have the ultrasound so you can find out you're having another boy" :) HA HA! We'll see :)

I have kind of felt like this one is a boy, but Nate thinks it's a girl- we've both been wrong before. Charity and Kelly are SET on a girl, I think they'll cry if they get another brother :) and Brad's already named it Batman, so I think he's hoping for a boy. Luke's answer changes everytime I ask him :) He's undecided. Noah's so busy trying to stay the baby himself that he doesn't acknowledge the whole baby in the tummy business :).

So anyway. This pregnancy sure has given me a run for my money. Much harder than I remember it ever being. That was another reason I hadn't posted this yet.... I thought it would be best to wait until the morning sickness and all that yucky stuff was over so that I wasn't using my blog as a venting station for that stuff. I think the morning sickness is over for the most part, but I don't really feel that great yet..... still waiting for that. This baby is a sweet little blessing though and I don't want to sound ungrateful for that, so I promise I'll try not to complain too much.

And just for the record, I didn't SWALLOW the baby.... it IS in my uterus. Regardless of how I look. I'm not sure what happened, it's like my body pushed all my insides (chubs included unfortunately) UP like it's supposed to, but it did it before there was baby to take up the space it made! So I look weirder than usual. Hopefully that won't last too much longer, it's not my favorite thing.

It's crazy to think that we will have 6 kids before the year is over!!!

The more the merrier!

Monday's crazy fun

Kelly dancing to the music at Leatherby's

Monday was a pretty packed day. I had had a doctor appointment on 9000 South in the morning and we had wanted to meet up with some of Nate's family at Leatherby's in the evening, so we decided to just spend the whole day out that way. It ended up being a pretty fun (busy) day. Nate and the kids went to the Daybreak park while I was at the doctor. I loved the sound of my cute little family in the waiting room when I came out. I seriously have to laugh because the main thing I heard was cute little Luke singing "where is Daddy, where is Daddy, here he is...". Sucha cutie. But also the girls of course came running when they saw me. And Noah's little eyes lit up. (can't help but feel the love... I love it!) Then we had a little pb&j picnic before heading over to the dollar theater. I cannot believe how well our kids did during that movie! Race to Witch Mountain isn't exactly a little kid movie too. I had to keep covering the girls' eyes, and Brad keeps telling us he liked it except for the scary parts. But they just sat there the entire time! After the movie we went down to Murray Park and played our brains out. Does anyone else think it's funny to listen to the kids' conversations on the playground? I think it's hilarious. Kelly and Luke both got bullied several times, but Luke's pretty good at sticking up for himself (and he's got his BIG brother SuperBrad) and Kelly had Daddy come to her rescue. (seriously, she was sitting in the little spinning toy thing- completely incapacitated basically- and this little hoodlum comes over and starts spinning her WAY faster than she wanted to go and then picks up handfuls of woodchips and starts chucking them at her while she's spinning. She was crying by then and Nate was on his way over there when the kid started pinching her...... can you believe that!!! The annoying kids' dad was on the phone and when I heard his daughter go tattle on the kid about what he had done to Kelly the Dad says, "it's okay, he's just being a boy" !!!!!!!!!! I don't think I need to say how annoyed I was about this.... should be assumed. But nobody's perfect and I've really been trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, so.....) anyway. After the park we went to Target where Kelly spent her gift card from Aunt Jen and bought her puppy "Fluffly Angel" that's the name she gave it. She hasn't parted with it since. We also bought some underwear for Luke because he's finally in need of some new ones. (the accidents continue, but he's going potty enough on his own to make up for it in my opinion) Then we went and got some cheap food at Wendy's for dinner. The kids were hilarious there. They just kept doing funny things. I said, "should we go get you a high chair" to Noah as I walked over to the high chairs, and he actually piped out a cute little, "YEP!" Maybe it's not funny on here, but in person.... it was adorable! Then later, Bradley needed some more honey mustard (which he usually calls "bee sauce" for some reason) so I told him he could go up and ask the guy for some more- he and Kelly find every excuse to go up and ask for things at the counter- and as he hopped down to go do it, Luke hops out of his chair and says, "I going go ask that guy for some chicken nuggets"--- he had wanted some chicken nuggets rather than the hamburger he got LOL. Like it's that easy to get some more food. He's a nut. He also got locked in the bathroom....the door was too heavy for him to open from the inside apparently. We heard screaming. How traumatizing!! To be trapped inside a Men's Restroom.... I'd die. Luke took it pretty well. Charity had laid down across Kelly's chair while Kelly was in the bathroom (yes, they do spend more time in the bathrooms at public places than anything else) and Noah had quietly reached over and knocked over Kelly's water RIGHT where Charity's head was..... BARELY missed her! That was pretty exciting. And I think the perfect example of how tired we all were getting at this point, Nate and I both just sat there.... nobody jumped right up to clean up the ice water..... it still makes me laugh when I think about it. We were really like, "huh. oh well." But anyway. After Wendy's we went to Leatherby's for our ice cream with Nate's parents, Beth and Matt and their cute kids, and since Meg's water broke that morning.... that was it :) (Congratulations Meg!! I was so glad for you that you ended up having him on Monday afterall!!) It's been fun to see Beth and Matt and their family. I kept trying to remember my camera when we were hanging out this last week, but I finally did and just got these measely pictures.



I still think Reagan is just getting prettier and prettier everyday!! And she was a gorgeous baby! She and Charity and sometimes Kelly all get along pretty well. It's fun to watch them get all excited to sit by each other and stuff, even though they hardly know each other (thanks to the distance! move back Beth!!!) - cute cousins.

Lukey got to sit by Grandpa Russ....hopefully Grandpa didn't mind. Luke can be overwhelming from such a close distance when he's had such a big day. He actually spent most of his time in the bathroom there as well..... threatening to poop on me while he was going. Ya gotta love the talking while you're in the stall going.... I could do without some of it.

I was simply too lazy to stand up to get this picture.....should have I guess.

hugs goodbye!

After Leatherby's we came home. It was a big day for us. Lots of fun.

Carnival

Nate's parents invited us to a carnival that their neighborhood was putting on. They ended up having to do it in the community center because of the rain, but it still turned out pretty fun (and free I might add) the kids had a blast! When we got there, we quickly got our free popcorn and cotton candy (and we were glad we had because the line for them later was out the door). Then Noah and I ate everyone's leftover popcorn while we waited in the line for face painting (I can't count how many long lines we have stood in for face painting.... my kids just love it for some reason.....it was free this time though, so how could I let them down). The older kids all went with Daddy and cashed in on all the games. Bradley was the first person of the night to win the ring toss and got 2 prizes for it :) He was so proud of himself, it was cute. Then the kids all got their faces painted.

Kelly got a butterfly of course.



Brad's was spiderman.


Luke was going to get a dinosaur but ended up telling the lady, "dino-spider" and then the lady asked him if he wanted a spider or spiderman, he chose spiderman :) I thought the lady that did his did such an awesome job.

Charity got a dog.

After the face painting we headed on over to Grandma and Grandpa's bean bag toss game because the line had finally died down. The kids won way too many prizes over there :) and then Noah and I began standing in line for the balloon making clown (even though Beth warned us that she had been in that line for 40 minutes). I believe it was about 7:30 at this time. I figured we could bear to stand in line for an hour while the kids played the games a few more times. Little did I know we would be standing in that line for 2 hours! They were sweeping up the place, moving tables, getting things ready for the movie that followed while we were still standing in that line. They finally came over and passed out tickets to ONLY the people that were in line.... if you weren't in line you didn't get a balloon. Luckily my kids were right there with me when they passed out the tickets. I couldn't bear the thought of missing out on FREE balloon animals! You don't get too many opportunities like that!

My kids got a lot of practice tossing the bean bags....they'll be pros for the next carnival we go to.

(Noah stealing popcorn.... such coordination)

I did finally get Noah out of his stroller when there were less people there so he could walk around a little. He kept wanting to play with the water from the duck pond.

When we got to the front of the line they had limited the selection to butterfly, flower, or sword. Luckily Kelly had wanted a butterfly and Brad a sword. Charity had wanted a dog but was fine with her butterfly and funny little Luke used his big smile and happy little hop when asked, "butterfly, flower or sword?" to say, "SNAKE!" His cuteness won out and he got a snake :) I thought it was cute:) He made snake noises at all of us for the next 5 minutes sticking his snake in everyone's faces.... how adorable. So we finally went over and said goodnight to Grandma and Grandpa as it was now 9:30 and took a picture

and of course went potty (I love how they're all mid-potty-dance in this picture!). As we were leaving a big storm was picking up and the wind up there in Daybreak is just incredible. The kids were all a little freaked out (Charity's paranoia and questions really don't seem to help the younger kids much :)), but they were all just frantically trying to hang on to their balloons and worry about the rain and wind and lightning all at the same time. Finally I just told them to all hand their balloons to me (we were parked a little ways away) and I became the keeper of the balloons. It was a very stressful job! I don't even think Nate could have related to that moment (mainly because he was clear up ahead of us with Noah, unlocking the car LOL, jk), but it was nerve racking being responsible for those balloons. I could just see them popping from the wind or dropping and popping on the grass. And I don't know if it was all just because I knew it would devastate the kids, but I had just stood in line for 2 hours for those things, I wasn't about to see them ruined from some dumb storm!! I was tough though, and we stuck it out.... the balloons were tough and they stuck it out. In the car was another panic attack for all of my children. They weren't sure if it was better to have the windows down or up (duh) and then they didn't know if the light was going pop them or if the floor would..... it was intense! Finally we got things all figured out and there was a calm amidst the storm. Then about 4 minutes into the drive home we heard a loud POP!!! Charity's cute little butterfly had done it's time. It was done. She cried. Kelly offered Charity hers (awww!!!) which Charity refused (thank goodness!! As much as I like them to share, it's really just not a good idea..... they always want whatever they gave back! offering is just as good as sharing for my kids right now). Charity was quick to get over it though- SO IMPRESSIVE!! I was relieved and the rest of ride home we just oooohed and ahhhhed over the lightning that we could see over the whole valley. I just love lightning. The kids made Nate pull up into Grandpa's garage so that they wouldn't get struck by lightning. Someday this fear will end right??? It was a fun day. I don't want to forget it.

Girl Power

On Monday morning we decided to do a "game" to do some much needed cleaning in our house. Boys against girls (we named our team "Girl Power"), whichever team could clean the most rooms the fastest got breakfast in bed the next morning from the opposing team. It was so much work!!! As embarrassing as this is to say, it took 6 hours to complete the whole "house". We were trying to do some really deep cleaning, but I still think that's too long for such a small place. Either way.... The boys actually woke up early and got a head start, and me and the girls were stuck in their room for QUITE a while (it was a disaster, so we ended up rearranging it too), but somehow we pulled it off :) I'm pretty sure it's because I actually had real help from my teammates..... Brad and Luke were pretty much out after a couple of rooms and Noah.... well....... Both teams had finished 3 rooms and were both working on the fourth at the same time, so it was down to the clock. I kept trying to drag it out a little and found more things in my room to do, because I wasn't sure if the boys would handle us kicking their trash as much as we were about to..... I couldn't hold out too much longer though, poor Nate had chosen the Kitchen which....... well, I won't go into any detail..... it just needed a lot of work. I think we were still doing damage control from all of mine and Nate's being sick lately.
Anyway, we had a really good time for the most part and the girls and I enjoyed our Victory breakfast, pancakes and orange juice in bed, the next morning :) A clean house and breakfast in bed (which also implies sleeping in)..... does it get better than that? I don't think so.

Nate took these pictures for me (I was busy stuffing my face with the fluffiest pancakes ever), and I just had to point out that my kids look different in pictures that Nate takes..... not sure what it is, but it's different :) Kinda cool though.

I think we'll have to try this game when there's not as much to do..... it was pretty fun and I'm happy to say, we've done really well at keeping it nice.