After receiving billions of shiny new toys for Christmas, guess what my kids played with all day yesterday…
It was a boat for a little while and then became the cornerstone of an office cubicle where the kids typed up expense reports, wrote some emails, and made lots of important phone calls. I don’t know why we even go to stores to buy toys when a dumpster would suffice. Oh well.
xo
nessa dee
I have a few new prints that will be making their way into the shop soon!
Back to cleaning!
xo
nessa dee
Well I’m back after a week long hiatus. After celebrating four different Christmases with family, my house looks like a dirty clothes/new toys bomb exploded in every room. I have yet to look at the 4 billion pictures we took over Christmas. I’ve got quite a bit of catching up to do [housework, picture browsing, sending out Happy New Year cards in lieu of late Christmas cards, and sleep], so I thought I’d start the week off with a good little laugh. Here’s the latest Finannigans:
[To Audrie’s friend] You can spend the night all day!
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But Audrie, you already saw that tomorrow!
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My crazy towel is defeating me!
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Mom, I’m a little bit frustrated with cleaning up.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[Because I started vacuuming]
Finn: Mom, who’s coming over?
Me: No one.
Finn: Then why are you vacuuming?
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After passing by a place that smelled strongly of sulphur, Finn said: That smells ugly…maybe it’s Daisy. [his grandma’s dog]
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Holding out his arms, wanting me to fix his sleeves: Mom, can you roll up my britches?
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Finn: Why is that lady hiding under a blanket with her big tummy?
Me: Well she is growing babies in her tummy.
Finn: Maybe everybody eats babies.
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Mom, don’t take a picture of me because I have snot on my nose.
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Finn: Mom, I’m a little bit sad.
Me: Why are you sad?
Finn: Mom,I just like to eat food.
Me: I know you like to eat food.
Finn: Mom, I’m a little bit scared.
Me: Why are you scared?
Finn: Mom, I just like to play all day.
Me: You can play all day tomorrow.
Finn: I still love you.
Me: I still love you, too.
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Finn: Maybe we can drive to Denver and cut down a Christmas tree and put it on the roof of our car and tie it on with a rope to the roof of our car.
Me: Then what would we do with it?
Finn: Then we would take it off our car and put it in a sack.
Me: In a sack?
Finn: Yeah, we can put it standing in a sack like in Audrie’s book.
Me: Oh, okay. Then what would we do with it?
Finn: We would decorate it with ornaments and a star like our other Christmas tree and put it in our house.
Me: Where would we put it?
Finn: We can put it…outside. We can put it in front of our wall.
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[handing me the phone] Mom, you need to call Santa right now and tell him that I want an iron and a surfboard.
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[Sitting on his huge stuffed dog]
Mom, I’m on a ship and these are the ear shooters, and I shoot bullets out of the puppy nose cannon.
“Mom, do you want to hear this from Charlie Brown? ‘Ohh Brrother’.“
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Jonathan: Finn, how many fingers do you have?
Finn carefully counts his ten fingers
Finn: and I have two legs and two feet and one hair.
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Finn: Our jeep at MiMi's house is broken.
Jonathan: It is?
Finn: Yeah, the battery is dead.
Jonathan: Maybe we can fix it.
Finn: Yeah, you can take your tools to MiMi's house and fix the battery, and i will get in it, and audrie will get in it, and we will put our seatbelts on, and i will drrrriiiive!
[Finn on Smurfs]
Mom, that’s Gardenale. He has a cat named Azrael. Azrael likes to chase the Smurths. And that’s Grainy Smurth. Grainy Smurth is sad because he has no one to help him put up his books.
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When I was a little baby I had a dream about socks that floated over to me.
And when I was growed up, I had a dream about Disneyworld!
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Finn’s not the only one that has something to say around here…these are Audrieisms:
Jonathan: What superhero would you be?
Audrie: Not wonder woman. i don't want to wear a bra and panties and fly around.
Jonathan: How about spider-man?
Audrie: That could be fun. ooh, or how about caterpillar-woman?
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Me: Isolated?
Audrie: Yeah. Doesn’t that mean frozen?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In Sunday School…
Mrs. Taffinder: Does anyone know what “naught” means?
Audrie: Doesn’t it mean being bad, like you’re naughty?
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Oh these kids…they’re pure joy!
xo
nessa dee
We spent round one of our three Christmases in my hometown amongst my dad’s zoo, more than half of which he acquired because the animals just showed up one day. I think the word’s gotten around town that this man with the tough exterior is really a softie when it comes to strays, so many an animal has made its way over to the house to find food, shelter and a little bit of love. It’s made for quite the collection of critters, each of which needs ample time and attention from my own two critters.
Miss Berta is my favorite. She’s a HUGE pig originally purchased for meat, but her personality earned her a spot in the family. She’s such a character. She acts like a dog, loves to be scratched, and is very vocal until she gets fed.
Besides playing with the animals, the kids have to make enough time to take full advantage of everything the rural playground has to offer.
I love these next two pictures. 
xo
nessa dee
This is in one of the pens at my childhood home. After this hour of play amongst these weeds, I decided that I need to plant a bunch of clover in my backyard, never mow it, and let the kids loose. They had more fun playing in this than they do at they park.
Ah, the simple pleasures of childhood.
xo
nessa dee
We just got back from celebrating our first of three Christmas celebrations in my hometown. We came back for a quick breather and to get a few more things done at home before we leave tomorrow for round two. I’m going to be running around hopefully marking the last few things off my list, but I’ll probably look more like a chicken with its head cut off. Speaking of running, Finn had a lot of fun doing just that when I was trying to get their Christmas portraits. It was a bit difficult trying to stay in front of him and snap some pictures all while running backwards across unfamiliar territory, but I survived and against my nature, stayed on my feet.
I wish I could smile like that when I run. I don’t even think I could if I made the effort. When I run, I look like a fish out of water trying to catch my breath, and the sound I make when doing so, well, I’m sure I’ve been mistaken for an angry hippo. It’s not pretty.
Well, enough comparisons to animals today.
xo
nessa dee
We finally had an opportunity to take the kids’ Christmas pictures when the weather decided to cooperate. Since December rolled around it seems almost every day has been drizzly, rainy, foggy, and grey, and if we happened to have a sunny day, it was accompanied by biting cold winds. But with sunshine and 70 degrees in Sunday’s weather forecast, portraits were a must. If we had had forecasts for moods, hair, and attention spans, we might have planned otherwise. Unfortunately perfectly sunny weather doesn’t always coincide with perfectly sunny pictures.
Besides having a red chapped ring around his mouth and a bad case of bed head, Finn decided he would try to take a nap as we were driving to the location. When we tried to get him dressed in his outfit, the first tears of the day made an appearance. But, we got him settled down eventually and made our way to a favorite back alley to start snapping completely natural looking shots with elegantly windblown hair.
Then, an idea to stand Finn on Audrie’s shoulders, which was apparently painful set off the second set of tears for the day. So while trying to let one child calm down, I snapped some individual photos of the other, every one of them showcasing this natural smile…
After almost calling it quits [15 minutes and 100 goofy pictures in], still trying to dry one child’s tears, we moved onto another location.
It wasn’t until after a few more failed tries to cheer Miss Audrie up, and the discovery of some pretty rocks that things started to turn around…sort of. It seemed hunting for rocks and throwing them in puddles was much more exciting than posing for pictures. But, at least there were no more tears.
We eventually moved down the alley a bit and found some interesting doors for backdrops, but getting someone to stand in front of them, well, let’s just say he had his own ideas for the shots. There was…
posing…
jumping…
and a little bit of dancing.
We moved on yet again, and eventually got some card-worthy shots.
After an hour and 348 pictures, we decided to take one last picture on top of a trash can and call it quits.
It was quite an adventure. It was rough. It was tiring. It was frustrating. And it was hilarious. I have to say the trade off for not getting that “perfectly sunshiny picture” was getting 349 pictures that make me laugh every time I look at them. Plus who’s to say I didn’t get that perfect Christmas portrait after all?
