Welcome to the Murphy Life...

Con-Crete

2009-05-18T20:52:00.003-05:00

Haven and I were looking at a map tonight and pointing out the different states that our family lives in, and she said "I know where we live! We live in concrete!" I laughed so hard! She was close! (for those who don't know, we live in Crete!) Silly little girl... =)

Mother's Day

2009-05-10T21:23:00.002-05:00

Happy mother's day to all of you wonderful, hardworking mothers out there! I hope you all had a great day. Harrison made this for me in sunday school this morning and it cracked me up. If you can't read it, click on the picture to make it bigger.

He told me that the reason I was pretty as a beach is because of my beautiful blue eyes! What a charmer! =) Oh, and then he said "you are 17, right mom?" And of course I told him the truth... that I will always be 17! ha ha.

Fruits of the Spirit

2009-04-20T21:48:00.006-05:00

rain, rain, go away

2009-04-13T23:07:00.000-05:00

rain, rain, go away

come again another day

little Harrison wants to play...

2009-04-08T19:31:00.005-05:00

A few weeks ago we had Jody and Boz over to play poker. The kids had just gone to bed and Harrison was still awake. We kept hearing him messing around upstairs and I finally went to check on him. When I got to the foyer this is what I saw:

I had him interpret it... it says: "it's not fair that you guys get to eat!"

He saw that we had snacks (seriously, what is poker with out junk food?!) and apparently he was upset that he didn't get any! So he found some paper, made this sign, then posted it to the wall using soap and water!!

Hudson's first food

2009-04-06T20:17:00.008-05:00

Hudson had rice cereal for the first time tonight. He was not impressed! I don't think he actually ingested any of it!! We had good fun watching him though! I didn't get the best pics because I had to feed him then put it down and grab the camera after each bite. I missed most of his inital reactions, still funny though.

The whole thing was a bit traumatic for him! After I was done trying to force the spoon into his mouth he started sucking his hand (which he does to comfort himself) I think he got more rice cereal in him from sucking his hand then the several attempts I made to feed him.

Hudson's 4 month check-up

2009-04-03T18:14:00.005-05:00

Hudson had his 4 month check-up today he weighs a whopping 15lbs 13 oz!! My baby is getting big! Harrison went to the appointment with us and the doctor let him listen to Hudson's heartbeat and help measure him and stuff. Harrison likes the doctor and talked her ear off. He was telling her how he goes to work every morning (he actually does, every morning after breakfast he goes outside and "works" -work consists of either working in the yard raking, sweeping, picking up sticks, etc, or working in his "yard" and area of the yard where he has tools and pieces of wood and fence) and she asked him if he had any animals. He gave her this crazy look and said "I'm not a zoo keeper! I'm a carpenter and a fence man, I work for Master Fence and own many companies!!" It was so funny, he takes what he does VERY seriously and he couldn't believe she was asking him that!

Red Envelope Day!

2009-03-31T13:57:00.005-05:00

I'm sure most of you have heard about red evelope day (if you haven't you can read about it here: redenvelopeday.com) We had planned on participating and I was going to pick up some red envelopes over the weekend, but our whole family has been sick and I was never able to get to the store. Then it dawned on me that we could just color regular envelopes red! They might not be beautiful, but they get the job done!! The kids had a lot of fun helping me. We haven't finished yet, but so far we have about 15 ready to send.

If you are interested in doing it, it's not too late! Just send them here:

and write this on the back:

2009-03-17T17:14:00.004-05:00

Happy St. Patty's Day!!

Hudson's 2 month check-up

2009-01-30T15:46:00.002-06:00

Hudson had his check-up this afternoon. He weighs 12lbs 12 oz

and is 25 inches!! He went from being in the 60th percentile for height to the 90th! He definitely takes after Billy!

Haven's funny

2009-01-30T15:30:00.005-06:00

Hudson was crying a lot the other day and Haven came over and said the funniest thing to me:

Haven (very seriously): "Mom, can you handle this? Do you think you can handle this?
*pause*
Haven (somewhat frantically): "I don't think you can handle this mom, I'm going for help!"

She also told me another day when he was crying that she thought we were in over our heads!

2009-01-12T20:10:00.001-06:00

i am just posting to say that i've now officially posted more times this month than I did all last year!! who-hoo!!

more fun with hudson!

2009-01-12T19:58:00.006-06:00

snowy days

2009-01-11T22:56:00.015-06:00

things cold snowy days are good for:

fires

lying in bed...

and watching the snow fall

building marble runs...

for hours!!

Playing in the snow...

and working a bit too

and...

making hot chocolate mustaches!!

2009-01-09T21:07:00.007-06:00

Yes... more pictures! I can't help myself, Hudson makes me camera happy!! One of these days I'll actually post something substantial...

more updating...

2009-01-03T21:18:00.022-06:00

Some of you may have already seen these on facebook, but I'd thought I'd post them here as well for all of my non-facebook viewers! I took these in my backyard last September. My kids are difficult to photograph so I'm pretty happy with what I was able to get! These are a few of my favorites...

Hudson Pictures

2008-12-26T23:22:00.003-06:00

So I love baby body parts... especially feet!

2008-12-26T22:18:00.003-06:00

It’s been a busy few months around here! Thanks to everyone who has faithfully continued to check our blog! For those of you who don’t have facebook, you need to get it! I’m on there a lot more often than I am on here!

Here is a quick re-cap on what’s happened the past few months:

Haven turned 3
Harrison played t-ball
We had several fun weekends away
Both kids started preschool
We finished our bathroom remodel (almost)
We redecorated our bedroom
We finished most of the trim on the first floor
Hudson was born!!
Harrison turned 5

Hopefully I’ll be posting pics of all these things soon. But for now here are some random pics from the month of December.

These last few are from St. Nicholas Day. Since Harrison's b-day is the day before we usually have a cake for him too. (it's not the best pic, but it's the only one I got before my camera died!)

(sorry, can't figure out why these 2 pictures are so big!)

2008-05-09T08:23:00.001-05:00

9 months of mood swings and morning sickness

$10,000 in total medical expenses

Finally a reason to update my blog: PRICELESS!!

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-03-10T21:59:00.003-05:00

My amazing hubby surprised with me with an early 30th birthday present today.... a baby grand!!!!!! It was a total surprise until I saw it coming off of the truck this afternoon! I think I'm still in shock! Do I have the most amazing husband in the whole world, or what?! I love you honey!! THANK You!!!

Finally an update!!

2007-11-05T23:32:00.001-06:00

Hi everyone, I've missed you all! Hopefully I will be catching up sometime soon, but for now here are some fall pics of the kids.

*WARNING* there are a LOT of pictures to follow!!

I tried to narrow them down as best as I could, but how is a mommy to choose?! Btw, after the first 2 posts I figured out how to make the pics smaller. I don't feel like going back and changing the others, so I hope I don't cause anyone's computer to freeze up while opening all of them (sorry julie!) Anyway... enjoy!

They DO love each other!!!

2007-11-05T23:27:00.000-06:00

Mr. Harrison

2007-11-05T23:19:00.000-06:00

My little Haven

2007-11-05T22:09:00.000-06:00

coffee with a view...

2007-08-22T10:50:00.000-05:00

Good morning blog-world! I just thought I would share with you the view outside my kitchen window this morning...

Ahh…. Progress!!

Btw, I'm sorry for my prolonged absence! I’m hoping to get back on here in the near future and catch every one up on the Murphy life. I have TONS of pictures and stories from our summer! Talk to you soon...

Second Tri....

2007-07-20T12:33:00.000-05:00

Well, we survived our second triathlon... Barely!! It was brutal! It really kicked our butts! The swim wasn't bad, the water was pretty gross and murky and I was attacked by some seaweed, but we got through it realatively unscathed. Then.... there was the bike. I have never biked so hard in my life! The course was extremely hilly, it was literally one hill after another, and we had a really strong cross wind the whole time. Worst of all, I ran out of water around mile 7 or so and had to go the second half of the course without. Boy was that bad. By the time I got back to the transition area I felt like I was going to pass out. I was overheated and exhausted from all my exertion on the hills without water and feeling dizzy and nauseous. I had to sit down for a minute and pour water over my head and then I drank a bottle of water and off I went to the run. The run was our longest time to date. My leg was hurting and I still hadn't fully recovered from the bike and jody's knees were hurting, but we didn't give up! And we actually made it across the finish line 14 minutes faster than the last time! TOTAL TIME: 1 hour 55 minutes

(you know it's crazy when I hear that, because even though we may not be the fastest triathletes out there -ok, we are definitely not the fastest triathletes out there- I can't believe that we can keep our bodies in motion, and at that intensity, for almost 2 hours! I never would've thought that was possible a couple months ago! that just goes to show that anyone can do this! so who's training with us for next year??!)

don't you hate it when you think you're taking a nice picture and then you find out later that the other person was making a face?! Ha ha. anyway, this is my wonderful hubby loosening up my shoulders before the race.

our sexy alien look

having WAY too much fun! obviously blissfully unaware of what was to come on the bike

it took almost forever to get my left foot clicked into my pedal

almost to the end of the bike ride. don't be fooled, I felt even worse than i looked!

almost to the finish line

just a little further

almost....

whew! made it!!!

It was a lot of fun to have our family there to cheer us on!! (Thank you to everyone who came!!) Here are some pics of our cheerleading section!

i told you it was windy! poor little brody was blown to bits!

as i ran by harrison he handed me a "pumpkin" he found for me (it was actually a nut from a tree) I thought it was so sweet and cute so I ran with it in pocket the rest of the race!

julie was sneaky and tried not to get in any pictures, but here is her arm. at least we have proof that she was there!

Triathlon Overload?

2007-06-27T22:35:00.000-05:00

Sorry for those of you who are experiencing triathlon overload. These are the last of the pictures, I promise! (Look at it this way... at least I'm updating!)

The day before the race we went to a mandatory race expo. It was where we picked up our race packets, t-shirts (we got a really nice free shirt -whoo hoo!), etc, and got our bodies marked with our numbers. There were also a whole bunch of booths with cool gear and apparel and stuff (gotta love shopping) oh yeah, and starbucks! We sat in on a course talk and a transition clinic too, and had a good time overall despite the cold, rainy weather!

signing in and getting my "oh so cute" blue swim cap!

getting my numbers!

a little TOO excited about the free goodies!

fun in the rain!

Harrison and Billy came with (which was really nice, because Jody and I didn't have to worry about parking!) and they had a good time looking around. When we went to our clinics they hung out in downtown Naperville and had some quality guy time!

Seriously, I've never been so happy to have permanent marker all over my body!! (though 4 days later I'm not so thrilled with it! will this stuff EVER wash off?!)

i AM crazy!!

2007-06-26T10:47:00.000-05:00

Myspace Countdown Clocks at WishAFriend.com

My First Triathlon!!!

2007-06-25T20:49:00.000-05:00

Well... the big day is over, and I'm officially a Triathlete!

In an effort to keep this as short as possible, I've decided to mainly post pictures here and if you want the longer story about our triathlon you can check out my sister's site: jodyverhagen.blogspot.com Obviously since we did the tri together we'd pretty much say the same thing, and she's already said it!

The day started bright (well, ok not so bright as it was overcast all morning) and EARLY at 4:15am. We mangaged to get our butts moving and over to Naperville by a little after 5am. That gave us plenty of time to set up our transition area, wait in the port-o-potty line for 45 minutes and see the first 2 hours of the race! It kind of stunk that we were in the 31st heat out of 32, but it did give us plenty of time to calm our nerves. And it was helpful seeing everyone do it before us.

Guess we're going to have to work on our "game faces"

huddling for warmth. did I mention it was freezing?

feeling optimistic

showing off our bulging muscles!

i mentioned it was cold, right? as you can see here my true feelings are coming out as I am glaring at the lake! if looks could kill...!

The time actually flew by and before we knew it it was 9am and we found ourselves knee deep in a frigid lake in chilly weather along with 50 or so other certifiables wearing a serious amount of spandex (and goosebumps). Never the less, we were ready!! Here we are charging into the lake!!! (i'm the one with the gray criss-crossy straps and jody is in all black to my right)

ok... we didn't exactly charge. actually, I think we were one of the last ones to actually dive in and start swimming! we walked until we could no longer touch!

my arm =)

18 minutes later we were done with our "contact sport" i mean, swim! Then it was a 1/4 mile run up a hill to the transition area (cruel, i know!)

the first transition went smoothly. it was pretty easy to find our bikes since by that point the first 30 heats had already left!

it took a minute to get clicked into the pedals, but then i was off! (btw, I didn't fall once the whole day! though i did almost fall while i was trying to run in my cycling shoes!) =p

the bike was definitely my favorite part of the day

it took us 58 min to do 14.5 miles (I'm sure we could've done it faster if we hadn't chit-chatted most of the time!)

after a little refueling, a quick change of the shoes and a stop at the port-a-potty we started our run

before we knew it we were on the home stretch!

Whoops! I got a little confused and started running off the course. I'm not sure how I did it, because I actually had to go past the orange cones, and I never even noticed! There were no runners in front of us at that point and I saw a guy running with his kid off to the side and started following him, never realizing that he obviously wasn't in the race! Luckily Jody was there to get me back on track! i did make several on-lookers laugh though!

Triathletes!!

I thought the end was a bit disappointing. I had really hoped to be exhausted to the point of collapse when I crossed the finish line. But there was no drama. I crossed the finish line and felt great! Darn! It was awesome though! It was such a great feeling to have finished. I'm proud of our accomplishment and can't wait to work on our time now! 3 weeks until the next one!

lost and found

2007-06-21T21:19:00.000-05:00

GOOD NEWS....

I found my socks!!

BAD NEWS....

I found them on Billy's feet....

and I don't think they're going to fit me any more!

(how can this be even remotely comfortable?? They barely

even cover his heel!!!)

Yikes!

2007-06-19T22:33:00.000-05:00

Myspace Countdown Clocks at WishAFriend.com

My new love....

2007-06-19T21:21:00.000-05:00

I just realized that I never posted pics of my new baby! I got a new bike a few weeks ago, and I LOVE it!!! My last bike was really nice (I just got it last year), but it was a hybrid. The hybrid is fabulous for just regular riding around, but it just wasn't great for all of my triathlon/bike racing endeavors! Now I'm super aerodynamic and speedy! It is a LeMond Alpe D'Huez.

it's hard to tell in the picture but the white part it pearly and the blue part is really sparkly

I had these aerobars put on

and these clipless pedals

My "space age" cycling shoes. They don't have the most fashionable selection in cycling shoes!

I don't know if any of you have ever tried clipless pedals, but they are really hard to get used to! I can't tell how many times I fell while getting used to them! And it's no fun to fall while both of your feet are still attached to the pedals! As you can see from the picture, my pedals are all dinged up! I was going to post the picture of my legs bleeding after my first fall, but I forgot that they were on Jody's camera! Seriously though, if you just saw my legs you would think I was a 12 year old boy because of all the scrapes and bruises! Ha ha!

This is my old bike and our bike trailer. The bike is a Trek 7200 and really is a nice bike. I'm sure I will use it to tow the kids around. But... if anyone wants a bike and makes me a good offer... =)

2007-06-19T21:18:00.001-05:00

Oh, I forgot to put these up! Harrison helped me make Haven's birthday cake! I think his favorite part was licking the spatula afterwards!

Haven's 2nd birthday!

2007-06-18T13:36:00.000-05:00

hi everyone. guess what? i'm 2 years old now!

and I had a really fun birthday party!

This is me at my birthday party with my pretty dress.

there was a lot of yummy food at the party.

I figured since it was my party that i would just help myself!

yum.....

everyone brought be such nice presents!

and i had lots of help opening them

LOTS of help!

i got the most excited....

....when i saw the present from my daddy!

daddy got me a Strawberry Shortcake doll for me, and he picked it out all by himself!

i love her

my favorite part of all though was when everyone sang happy birthday to me!

thanks for looking at my pictures. and thanks to everyone who came to the party and played with me and brought me nice presents.

love, haven

another one bites the dust...

2007-06-05T20:24:00.000-05:00

and another one gone, and another one gone...

another one bites the dust...

Missed Me.... Didn't Ya?

2007-06-04T15:12:00.000-05:00

No, your eyes aren’t fooling you! I’ve updated my blog!!

As much as I love to make all you out there in blog-land happy by keeping my blog updated (I know you all check in on a regular basis to bask in the wit and wisdom -and of course the adorable pictures of my children- that I share with the world) I haven’t been able to keep up with blogging lately because I’ve just been too busy trying to keep up with life!

Recently I’ve started doing the bookwork for Billy’s/our business. It has been a lot of work trying to learn enough about accounting so that I don’t screw up our books or get us into trouble with the IRS! =p We also just changed accountants and found out that our other accountant screwed up a bunch of things (which we suspected, and hence why we are going to a new guy. But we didn’t realize the extent to which he screwed things up!) And I’ve had to go back and get the past six months of our books in order. All while learning our new software and trying to customize it to suit our needs. This in itself feels like a part-time job right now. Or accountant has been giving me “homework” to get done by certain dates and it feels like I’m back in school! And what makes me mad is that he basically says that I have no excuse for not getting it done because I “don’t work“. I want to send my kids to his office for a few hours and then ask him what he thinks! HA! Btw, thank you Aunt Cindy for loaning me "QuickBooks for Dummies!" =)

As usual, I have been spending spurts of time painting my house. I finished painting our backsplash, front door and closet door, started painting our porch, and I’m trying to finish painting our columns and trim through out the first floor. Oh, and then when I’m done with that I’ll finish the walls going up the stairs and in the upstairs hall (which I started FOREVER ago and never finished). Oh yeah, and the baseboards in the playroom. Oh, and the rest of the outside of the porch. And of course I want to repaint two walls on the main floor. Whew! (anyone know a good, FREE painter?!)(seriously.)

Haven’s birthday is today!! Our little sweetie is 2 years old! It’s crazy how time has flown! We had her birthday party Saturday and it was a lot of fun! She has been singing Happy Birthday to herself all week! So cute!

Triathlon training is kicking my butt! Ha ha! Actually, it’s not that bad. I really wish I had more time to put into it. It stinks because the last week and the next two weeks are supposed to be our hardest, biggest training weeks where we have to put in the most time/miles and Billy has been working so much that it’s been impossible to get it all in! And the tri is only 3 weeks away! Yikes! I’ve gotten up early a few times to work out before he leaves for work, but most of the time he leaves EARLY (5am or so) which makes it difficult!!

Well…. I think this post has gone on long enough. Don’t want to give anyone eye strain! I’ll try to come back soon and post some pictures and funny stories from the past few weeks. Thanks for reading! And for not forgetting about us! =)

Fun in a Chair -Part I

2007-04-25T20:33:00.000-05:00

My kids are easily amused, just give them a chair and they're happy!

Easter Day

2007-04-23T22:27:00.000-05:00

Still more pictures from Easter... I promise this is it!

We had Easter at my mom's house. It was a really nice afternoon. Bill (Billy's dad) was there (his mom was in Florida) so that was really great. Aunt Cindy, Uncle Don, Missy and Marc were also there. Marc is now one of Harrison's best friends! He's been talking about him non-stop!

This is Harrison being Harrison! Some where along the way he lost his tie.

Unfortunately I didn't get any decent pictures of Haven in her dress.

Easter Egg Hunt at Mamoo's House

2007-04-23T10:22:00.000-05:00

Easter Eve (aka The Great Sugar High of 2007)

2007-04-23T10:15:00.000-05:00

We're a little behind here, but here are our pics from Easter....

We gave the kiddos their Easter Baskets the night before Easter because we weren't going to have time to Easter morning. It's funny because in almost every picture they have their mouths FULL of candy!!! By the end of the night I had drool marks and goo all over my floors!

There favorite gifts were Haven's new "mudd boots" and Harrison's paints. We spent most of the night eating candy, trying on the boots and painting pictures.

Like I said, they both loved the boots. Easter morning Harrison came down and put them on and desperately wanted to wear them to church!

2007-04-16T09:36:00.000-05:00

We had such a great day yesterday! The weather was BEAUTIFUL!!! Jody and Boz came over to ride bikes with us in the afternoon. (We have a really nice bike path here by the way, if anyone ever wants to come over for a bike/run/walk!) I was so proud of us, we did our first “brick.” We biked 7 miles and then went for a run right afterwards. YEAH for us! If felt so great to finally be putting our “disciplines” together. (hey, I’m even starting to sound like a triathlete now! Ha ha!) Afterwards we had a bonfire and Mike and Christa stopped by. Billy and I borrowed Mike’s motorcycle and went for a ride. I forgot how much I love motorcycles!!!! I think we may just have to put our house improvements on hold and buy a bike. Oh, and a live in nanny so that we can go any time we want. Hmmm… on second thought maybe we’ll just have to wait a few years! Oh well…. we always have our Schwinns! =)

*ok, I was just informed that we have "Trek" bikes, not Schwinns. I'm sorry for any confusion this may have caused!

our past month in a nutshell

2007-04-14T23:05:00.000-05:00

Darn, I was doing so good at keeping this updated! The last few weeks have literally FLOWN by! Thanks to everyone who remembered our birthday! It was nice to get online and see that all of you thought of us!! Well, I’m just going to pick up from when I saw most of you last…..

Bunco was a blast! It was so good to see all of you guys again! Can’t wait for the next one!

Thanks for the purse trade, Becca! Hope mine is being good to you!

Our trip to Atlanta was wonderful! It was great to have time away from the kids and great to see our friends. I’ll probably post more on our trip later.

Our house is slowly coming together. I finished painting our dining room trim and doors. I also put together a million (ok, maybe just 50 or so) hinges together and between my dad, Harrison and Haven, we got the rest of our cabinet doors and drawer fronts on. Thank you Dad for all of your help!

Our countertops finally came in. They are currently sitting on our dining room floor waiting for me to finish our backsplash. They turned out even more beautiful than we hoped! We LOVE them!

The beginning of our backsplash.

I also entered our middle bathroom into a "kids bathroom makeover" contest. Tell me it's not the ugliest bathroom you ever did see!!

DISCLAIMER: We do not currently use this bathroom! (Unless you count using it as a large storage closet!)

This brings us up to Easter weekend (more or less!) I will post those pictures later because this post is quite long already and I have a lot of Easter pics and other random things that I would like to share! I missed you all!!

2007-03-12T20:11:00.000-05:00

Saturday Billy and the kiddos went to his parent's house for the day. They spent some time hanging out at the house, and in the afternoon they went to the circus! It was a small circus held indoors at Valpo University. The kids had a blast and ate a whole lot of new and colorful, sugary food! Unfortunately we didn't get any pics of the circus, but we did get some pics of Harrison "working" with grampy (he LOVES helping with yard work/shoveling/anything he can do outside where he gets to use his muscles and he feels like he's helping!) (by the way, we're willing to hire him out for a small fee!) =)

oh yeah, and haven was there too! =0

Our budding photographer

2007-03-09T16:25:00.000-06:00

Harrison got hold of the camera while I was putting Haven down for a nap. By the time I came back the camera was back on the counter where I had left it and I didn't know that anything had happened! Harrison kept trying to tell me something about the camera, but i wasn't sure what he wanted. I thought he wanted to see the pictures on it. Turns out he was telling me that he had taken pictures on it! 20 pictures to be exact! He actually did a pretty good job, and it was really interesting to see life through the eyes of a 3 year old! Here a just a few of the pictures he took (I took the liberty to name them)

"Box"this is his box house/space ship/truck/train -depending on what day it is!

"Chandelier in the sky"

"Painters Tape"

"Variation On Painters Tape"

girl time

2007-03-08T00:03:00.000-06:00

Hey girlies, anyone want to come over Friday night? Jody and I are getting together because our guys are going out, and we thought we'd see if any of you wanted to join us! Let me know if you're interested!

2007-03-07T17:45:00.000-06:00

Oh, I forgot to mention that we did get one drawer front installed. One lonely little drawer front in a sea of cabinets! I guess its a start!

False Alarm

2007-03-07T17:13:00.000-06:00

False alarm. We didn't get our cabinet doors and drawers on today. We hit a few minor snags and need to get some other parts before we can finish. Hopefully we can get everything in this weekend! *sigh*

productivity

2007-03-07T09:58:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a productive day in the Murphy house! Billy took the kids and went to his mom’s house for the day! Fun for them, not so fun for me. I stayed home and did some intensive pre-spring cleaning! I would’ve much rather gone with and had a fun day at my mother-in-laws house, but I did get a lot accomplished here, and it was nice of Billy (and his mom) to take the kids so I could get stuff done. Seems like I have this on-going list of things that I need to get done when I have extra time or when the kids are sleeping and I just never seem to get to the bottom of the list! Then last night my friend Dawn came over and she helped me paint until 11:30pm! AND…. we FINALLY got the rest of our hinges yesterday so this afternoon we are going to hang all of our cabinet doors and install the drawers!! HOOARY!! I’ll post some pictures this afternoon! I have to go get Harrison ready for school now. Just wanted to say hello to everyone!

A sad day for Mr. Snowman....

2007-03-02T10:18:00.000-06:00

Mr. Snowman isn't fairing too well in this weather. The kids are becoming increasingly disturbed as he is losing body parts! First his eyes fell out, than his smile came off, followed by his entire head! And now he is slowly becoming more and more emaciated. Harrison is taking it hard, poor guy!

(Btw, the Christmas ornaments were his eyes and the blue thing was his smile! What can I say, we're creative!)

2007-02-27T15:57:00.000-06:00

Hi. I had donuts for breakfast. And then I got to watch the garbage man. What a fun day! Love, Haven.

Capturing the Craziness!!

2007-02-23T15:14:00.000-06:00

We went to Target with Julie and her kids today and thought it would be fun to take the camera and capture the craziness that almost always ensues when we get together (and especially when we go shopping)! Upon coming home and looking at the pictures I was actually surprised by what I saw. Judging from these pictures, you might think that we had a good time, you might even be tempted to want to shop with us sometime --Don’t be fooled!!! Ha ha! I think I must have stopped taking pictures when things started getting really crazy, or maybe I was just busy shopping, because everyone looks relatively calm! (of course the camera doesn’t capture yelling and screaming!) =0 Ok, it actually wasn’t THAT bad. It used to be that bad, but it’s been getting better as the kiddos are getting older!

Reygann trying on purses

Haven saying "me too!"

I don't know how she does it, but Haven always turns herself around and gets stuck! She also has a knack for getting both feet into one hole and getting them stuck that way too!

I'm a pretty girl!

Strike a pose!

"you try it now, Reygann..."

"Look mom, now Reygann is pretty!"

Meanwhile... Harrison and Kylie were having their own little circus complete with acrobatics and disappearing acts!

Bathroom fun (how do I always end up being the one to take all 3 kids into the bathrom with me?!)

Haven is in a phase now where she will only eat things out of bags or plasic baggies! She must have been hungry because she wanted the big bag!

"Are we almost done yet?"

"Hello, Daddy? Can you come pick me up, it's nuts here!"

A random updating of pictures

2007-02-19T22:39:00.000-06:00

Making Valentine cookies. No fun shapes this year, our cookie cutters are still packed! (notice our lovely cabinets in the background!)

Haven got new shoes! She pulled these out of the box that we got our new sink in, and played with them all afternoon!

Haven trying to be Billy's secretary.

Harrison was under the weather for several days and couldn't play outside, so he decided to make a snowman inside with his kleenexes!

Lucky for him, the snow stuck around and he got to make a snowman after all. With daddy's help of course!

2007-02-19T21:17:00.000-06:00

No, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. I am actually updating my blog! I realize that it's been over a month since the last time I said that I would be updating soon. I'm sorry for this delay and any inconvience this may have caused, and we are actively taking steps to correct this problem. Please be assured that we will do our best to make sure this doesn't happen in the future. He he. (See, my PR skill HAVE paid off!)

Anyway, us Murphys have been doing well. One of the biggest things that has happened recently is that Billy quit his job and is working for himself full time! It is and will be a lot of work, but we are really excited. And it has been really great having Billy working from home. For the most part he stays in his office most of the day (when he's home) but it's nice to have lunch and breakfast with him. He can also take time off for special things, he took the afternoon off on Valentine's day and also took some time off so that we could all take Harrison to his first day of school!)

Harrison started "school!" It's actually just a program with the park district one day a week. But to him it's school! He just started last week and he loves it! When we were getting ready to take him to school he said that it was ok and that he would just wait for the bus to come get him! He was so disappointed when he found out that he wasn't going to be riding the bus!

He looks so serious here, this must have been after I told him that the school bus wasn't coming to get him!

Showing off his Elmo back-pack, which he was so excited to wear even though he has nothing to put in it!

Oh, I almost forgot! Our Durrango wouldn't start last week when it was really cold and I told Harrison that it needed a needed a new battery. Well, when we were inside later Harrison ran up to me SO excited because he had found some AA batteries and wanted to go fix the truck! It was so cute!

Hello world!

2007-01-12T19:30:00.000-06:00

Hello world! It's been a long time. I hope you haven't forgotten about us! As you can imagine, it's hard to get on here when you have two small children running around! My mother-in-law took Harrison for a few days though, so I have a bit of free time! And what I am I doing with my free time? Blogging! That's sad, isn't it?! Ha ha. Anyway, Harrison is having the time of his life at "Mimi's" house. He was so excited to stay with her that the morning he was supposed to go there (he wasn't leaving until after dinner) he woke up really early and emptied out his entire dresser and brought all of his clothes downstairs and piled them on a chair along with all sorts of other "neccessities" that a little 3 year old boy needs on a trip such as several canned goods, a whole stack of books and some hand soap! He then went and got me and told me that he had packed! He also got completely dressed all by himself for the first time! And apparently he was doing so well getting his clothes on that he just kept going because he ended up with 3 or 4 shirts on and wouldn't let me take them off! (If I were a good mother, or good Verhagen anyway, I would've taken a picture of all of these events. but of course I didn't, so you'll just have to use your imagination!)

Harrison has also become quite the helper around the house lately. He does a really good job helping me vaccuum and helping with dishes and laundry and picking up his things. The other day he called me from the other room to show me what a good helper he was being, well I walked in to see that the tv stand was completely white on top! He was so proud of the "cleaning" that he had done! I asked him to show me what he had cleaned with and pulled out Billy's deodorant from under the table!! It took me forever to get the white gunk out of all the cracks of the table!!

In other news.... we finally got a digital camera!!!! Now if I can only figure out how to work the darn thing I can start posting pictures! No, I haven't forgotten that I still owe you pictures from apple picking, the pumkin patch, halloween, Thanksgiving, Harrison's birthday, and Christmas! YIKES! I guess I need to get working on that! =O I will be posting pictures soon of our "rainy day party" that we had last week. (That's "soon" as in regular people time, not in Joan-posting time! LOL) Those of you who check Julie's blog have already seen them, but it's all I've got! Work with me!

Catching up

2006-11-30T19:12:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't been keeping my blog updated, life has been crazy busy lately. It's too bad I don't have the pictures to prove it! I took wonderful pictures of Thanksgiving, and of our family going "Christmas tree picking" (as Harrison calls it) and decorating the house, and of our progress on our house, and of all the other things that we've been up to. Only I'm one of those old fashioned people who don't own a digital camera! *gasp!* So unless I get highly motivated to run our film to the store as soon as we've finished a roll (which rarely happens) it usually ends up in film purgatory for a month or two. You can probably expect to see our apple picking pictures (which I promised about a month ago) somewhere around late December and Christmas pictures sometime in the spring! Just thought I'd give you a heads up! =)

I do, however, have Christmas pictures! It's a miracle to even have these. Anyone who knows my children can imagine how hard it is to keep them still long enough to get a picture! I had to bring my mom with just to play "catcher" because they both are constantly bolting! Enjoy!

Progress!

2006-11-13T10:47:00.000-06:00

We made all sorts of progress on our house this weekend. We are officially done installing the hardwood floors! Well, ok, *almost* officially done. We still have to put the baseboards back on and trim the edges by the steps, but other than that we're DONE!!! Oh joy of joys! And I finished painting all of the dining room trim. All 5 coats of it! That just leaves the walls in the dining room to finish painting and one more coat of paint on the living room crown moulding. And... our cabinets should be in sometime this week! And... as soon as we get our cabinets in and our new appliances running we can get rid of the fridge, stove and freezer in the playroom (that we have been temporarily using while our kitchen is out of order) and finally get that pulled together! HOORAY for us! HOORAY for progress!! HOORAY HOORAY! (I'm just a little excited!) I will try to post pictures soon.

My 4-wheeling family

2006-11-08T21:15:00.000-06:00

Well, apparently I have passed on the 4-wheeling gene to my kids. And not only that, but I'm pretty sure they also inherited the dare-devilness gene from both Billy and I. You should probably start praying for us now!!

Billy takes the kids out quite often. A lot of times he'll take them on a spin around the backyard while I'm finishing getting dinner ready. We didn't take a lot of pictures of Harrison riding, but that's because we have a million already. He's been riding them for a while. This is one of Haven's first times.

As you can see she has a blast, but also takes it very seriously! LOL!

Harrison is wearing Billy's helmet from when he was a little kid.

Hmm... is it me or do these pictures seem a lot bigger than the previous ones? I have no idea what happened?! Darn computers!

Why the Murphy life is never boring...

2006-11-02T22:19:00.000-06:00

Tonight after I put the kids to bed I had to go to the laundry-mat (no, our dryer is still not hooked up yet!) and while the laundry was drying I went grocery shopping. Well, when I was about half-way through the store one of the lights went off, and I was wondering what the heck was going on but I still kept shopping. But then another couple of lights went off. At this point I looked around to see what was going on and it was at this point I realized that I was the only shopper in the entire store! Actually as I look back I don't remember seeing any other shoppers in the store the whole time I was there, but at the time I was completely oblivious! So I high-tailed it over to the check-out to find out that they had closed almost 10 minutes earlier! Whoops! So since I ended up finishing my shopping early I drove home and put the groceries away and then drove back to the laundry-mat. I had just walked back in from taking a load out to the car when *CLICK* the doors lock! Apparently the place locks automatically lock at 10pm! Thank God I was locked IN and not OUT because my keys were inside! (not to mention ALL of billy's work clothes!) So I took the rest of the clothes out and drive home. When I got into my driveway I reached over to the passenger side to grab one of my laundry baskets and was in the middle of not-so-gracefully trying to maneuver it out of my door when all of a sudden I had a spotlight shinning on me! Scared the stink out of me!!! I couldn't see anything so I had no idea what was going on. Well, turns out I had been going 5 mph over the speed limit and a cop followed my down my street and into the driveway! (I did see lights behind me when I pulled down our road, but thought it was our neighbors) Luckily he let me go after a verbal remrimand to watch my "pedal foot." WHEW!!!! What a night.

My first post!

2006-11-02T00:15:00.000-06:00

Here are a few pics I took a couple of days ago. It was such a warm and beautiful day. We played outside all afternoon making "leaf angels" and swinging, and of course playing "cars." I don't know if we'll get any more days like that this year so we had to take advantage! Be prepared, I took a LOT of pictures. There will be many more to come!

Ok, well it's taken me forever to get this far (I'm not the most internet-savvy) and I just drank my last sip of coffee, so I think it's time to call it a night...