What a Whirlwind!!!

Today has been such a CRAZY day!!! This morning we were planning to take a family picture after church. We NEEDED a new picture to put on our Christmas cards. We tried taking family pictures a couple months ago and it was completely unsuccessful!!! As we were getting ready Lynn fell off his riding airplane outside and got all scratched up. We fixed him up and realized we were running out of daylight. We rushed to meet my brother-in-law Hyrum for pictures and his camera was almost dead. They could not find the camera charger so we had about 2% battery to get one good shot! Then he had to get an SD card from someone because that was missing too. As we were driving I said "I totally want Mt. Hood in the background!" We pulled up to our location and the hood was over Mt. Hood. THE HOOD WAS OVER MT. HOOD!!!!!!! No mountain top was visible... AT ALL! So we opted to walk down to the dock on the water. That special magic hour was in full force. The sun was shining among a beautiful Northwestern backdrop. The first picture was snapped, the camera died, and we realized the SD card was not in the camera. How many more things would have made it more obvious that we were not destined for family pictures that day, right???? Lesson learned!

Back to this morning... As I prepared us for church, David was gone at morning church meetings. Everything was great and I was determined to be out the door by 11 am (church starts at 11:30). Well all of the sudden a pipe starts spewing water under our bathroom sink. I turned the water off, panicked, and started clearing everything out from below the sink while trying to clean up the water. As this was all happening my boys came over to the bathroom door giggling at each other. I look over and my youngest son, Lynn, is COVERED in my LIPSENSE!!!! My expensive Lipsense lipgloss. AHHHHH!!!! I held it all together and thought, no big, I will just clean him off (but it was NOT coming off.) Well I go back to cleaning the bathroom and then I hear "mom, Lynn has the red paint." I looked out and he had a red paint bottle on my beautiful grey rug. I saw it was all closed up and thought "he is totally fine!" Next thing I know Stephen is running to me with the red bottle of craft paint. IT IS OPEN! I come out and my boys have red paint all over their sweaters and pants! I just about lost it. Okay lets be real... I LOST IT!!!!! As I am freaking out I look all over the house to see if paint is anywhere else. Well what do you know. Finger painting covered my french blue hutch.

.......I wanted to pull my hair out and curl up in the fetal position....But I had to act fast. All the paint on the hutch was cleaned up quickly and I decided that the boys were going to church just as they are. One, it was a story to tell. Two, I did not have any extra time to change them, Three, I did not want to change them and have them get another set of clothes dirty. Can I get an AMEN!!!!!!! What a morning!!! As I was herding my kids to the car, running around in heels looking like a chicken with my head cut off I realized something special. All of those incidents that happened this morning resembled everything that I do. My boys are around me all the time and just love to use all the things that mommy uses. Their curious little minds wanted to explore. These are days that, yes I cannot wait to hurdle over, but at the same time I love the learning experiences for both me and my boys. Plus, I was THRILLED to have Stephen come to me with the open bottle of paint. HE IS LISTENING!!! He told me when Lynn was getting into something he should not have been. I was so proud of Stephen for knowing when to get mommy!!!

Oh my goodness, when we got to church and walked in I knew everyone was going to say..."what happened??" ...and they did! This story was so ridiculous, hysterical, and beautiful all in one. So when we got home I knew our Christmas picture was obviously out of the question. Then, light bulb!! Why not just take a picture that depicts our life... so that is just what we did...

This is totally us! David and I, madly in love! Stephen chasing Poppy and Bammy's cat, while Lynn's doing his own thing. David and I enjoy dressing up, while the boys LOVE their footie pajamas. Lynn still has lip gloss all over his face and you cannot even see Stephen's face because as of recently he LOVES to hide in pictures. Our beautiful, crazy life! Love, The Richardson's