Oh Brother!

Tomorrow...

2012-02-13T23:03:00.002-07:00

It's 11:04 pm. It's Valentine's day tomorrow. I love Valentine's day. I'm JUST NOW getting the boys' valentines ready for school/friends. A true procrastinator through and through.

I'm excited for tomorrow, and what the day will bring. I love showering my boys with pink milk, heart-y food, and XOXO's!

I've just been reading some of my previous posts, and am REALLY deciding I need to blog more. Not even sure if anyone still reads this, or even reads blogs anymore for that matter - unless they're the insanely creative ones, or the hilarious & witty ones. Mine is neither of those things, but reading excerpts from our past is priceless to me, and I know it will be priceless for my boys someday too. For that reason I WILL JOURNAL MORE.

Will update on our LOVE day soon. Hope yours is filled with lots of love too!

--Mel

Finally HOME!

2011-02-01T14:38:00.005-07:00

We are finally home now after having our sweet baby boy. Nicholas Alma was born on Jan. 21. 2011. His initials are NAC and since his name is Nick we've already started calling him our little Nic-Nac (knick-knack) Hee,hee! Unfortunately, during the C-section he inhaled WAAAAAY too much amniotic fluid which made his lungs sticky and got him a ticket straight to the new NICU at the hospital. They had to intubate him and put a drug called "surfactant" into his lungs to help them clear it all out. This worked beautifully but now that he was in the NICU he had to "graduate" out. Which meant he had to practically behave a hundred times healthier than a normal baby before they'd let him come home! It seemed to take forever, and I HATED coming home without a baby! This was the first time that had happened to us, even with Gabe being a month early, he got to come home with us. Anyway, he got to come home on Thursday and we are SOOOO happy to have him home. I don't think there is a baby in the world more adored by his siblings than this one is. They talk to him in sweet sing-song voices, and beg to hold him. Gabe just stares at him for forever at a time, and then says things like "mom, every time I say 'Baby Nick it's your big brother Gabe', he smiles at me!" Will just laughs at everything he does, and every movement he makes. I think he's told me about 500 hundred times that baby "Nik-kiss" doesn't have any "teef" - which he remembers every time he sees him yawn or open his mouth. :) The big boys were INCREDIBLE while we were going back and forth to the hospital a billion times. I'm so thankful that they are off-track right now and were able to help so much and also to enjoy some time with their baby brother before going back to school! Now that he's home he is doing great, and adjusting to the noise and environment here perfectly. I told Mark that once I got this baby away from all his NICU nurses and home that I didn't plan on putting him down for weeks. I think Nicholas understood that because when we DO put him down, as in once or twice a day, he fusses and squirms like we've just laid him in a cactus tree, then we pick him up and cradle him and he is out like a light and will sleep for HOURS! A little spoiled? Yes. Do I plan on un-spoiling him anytime soon? NO WAY! This is my last baby, and I feel like it's already going too fast. He's 11 days old today!! He's only going to be "fold-in-half" tiny for another week or so. Pretty soon he'll be smiling, laughing, crawling! I really don't want to rush it - so I'm just as happy to sit and hold him as he is to sit and be held.

Mark was absolutely AMAZING as always with this baby. He took a week off and had this house running like a well-oiled machine. He had a laundry day, a vacuuming day, a toilet scrubbing day, floor scrubbing day, etc. The boys were cleaner (maybe not as cutely dressed?) than they've ever been, and so happy and content. He was so patient and loving with them and let them all trade off on sleeping in the big bed while I was gone. I told him they were going to be mad at me when I came home and messed everything up for them! When we brought Nicholas home he waited on the two of us hand and foot until yesterday when he had to go back to work. *sniff* We miss him SO much already!

My mom came in on Sunday, and has been filling the job of new servant very well! She keeps telling me to lay down or take a nap, and has been doing laundry, making beds and fixing lunches. We've also been so blessed with people bringing in meals. My amazing Aunt Ellen even cooked us an entire TURKEY DINNER, and it wasn't even her Sunday to cook dinner for her family! I'm not going to remember how to do anything when all my help goes away! :)

I am feeling great. I think my body was totally prepared for C-section #4. I have been able to take it really easy, and haven't needed anything for pain since the 2nd day at the hospital. I'm so relieved as it would have been even harder to try to take care of a baby in the NICU and feel horrible at the same time. I definitely think it is a tender mercy and am so thankful.

.......And the baby is awake! I will leave you with some pictures of this precious little boy. We love him SO much!

2010 Wrap-up!

2011-01-12T10:06:00.018-07:00

You mean to tell me I still have a blog?! Wow! I'm amazed this is still working!!

Just thought I'd update a little on the family, and try to achieve my goal of staying a little more on top of things in 2011. Goals, goals, goals, right? HOWEVER, I am proud to say I'm still going strong on my - er, Mark's goal of not drinking soda for a month. We're officially 12 days in. I admit, I am totally addicted and it was getting out of control. Especially with the caffeine in the coke I was getting at McDonald's almost every.single.day. CURSE YOU, LARGE DRINKS FOR A DOLLAR! I know what you're thinking.... A MONTH? aren't new years' resolutions supposed to be for the YEAR? Well, yes. But not for us - er, me. I've learned the hard way that long seemingly unreachable goals don't last very long for me, so Mark and I agreed to take it a day, or "month" at a time. Our hope was that we would see the amazing benefits and how great we feel after a month and that would be our motivation to keep on truckin'....Yeah, so far it's not working out so well. Some days are better than others, but this morning it was ALL I COULD DO not to run through McDonald's on my way home from taking Josh to school this morning (early for safety patrol, in the 10* weather - poor, poor adorable, volunteer for everything that comes my way kid). Anyway, my main motivation here is that I am D.E.T.E.R.M.I.N.E.D to nurse this baby, and coke will definitely not help either one of us. I wish nursing came easier to me, or my body I should say. I love it, LOVE the bonding and everything about it. The thing is, my body just slowwwwwly gives up on my milk supply until there is really nothing left - no matter how often I feed or pump. Grr. So, when I say I'm DETERMINED to nurse this baby, it's really no different than the others, I've been determined to nurse EVERY ONE OF THEM, but in the end I have to make the choice of: be stubborn and keep this up, or starve them to death, and so bank-breaking formula it is. Sigh.

WOW, two tangents (goals, and nursing) already started and I didn't even mean to blog about either of those things today!!

ANYWAY..... we are all doing great. I can't believe how big the boys are getting. It kills me really. I hate that they are growing up so fast. My big boys are really turning into fantastic young men, and I love that. They are incredible kids, with amazing spirits. I'm so thankful for their example to their little brothers. The little brothers, aren't so little either. What happened?? I swear I just had Will and now he is heading straight into the big FOUR this year. YIKES! Gabe will be SIX before I blink, then Sam NINE!! and the one that kills me the most, Joshua TWELVE. TWELVE???? GULP!! I want him to be in elementary school with his little brothers forever! No, I don't, but I DO, I really DO! ....sigh.

We had a good year in 2010. Gabe and Sam both had home birthday parties in April. Gabe had an awesome pirate/princess party, complete with a scavenger/treasure hunt with light up swords for the pirates and butterfly wands for the princesses. We took black plastic dollar store table cloths and cut them in strips to make pirate hats (TOTALLY CUTE!) and some of the girls dressed up as little pirates too, and princesses. If I had a girl I would dress her as a pirate for a pirate/princess party. Wait a minute, no I wouldn't. I would totally glam her up as a princess. Wait a minute, I don't have girls. Whew. One less thing.

(that is my new favorite quote from Forrest Gump, which we just caught 5 minutes of on TV the other night - the way he says "one less thing" cracks me up) WOW, I found the video (here)! Except when he says it, it cuts off pretty quick, but anyway - you get the idea: hee,hee.

Holy cats! ANYWAY, the pirate/princess party was awesome, we had a lot of fun, except if I remember correctly I totally underestimated the time for the party and I ended up with all the parents waiting for their kids in my entryway while we finished up the treasure hunt and took a group picture (thank you Melissa!!).
After Gabe's party, we cleaned up and got ready to party all over again for Sam the NEXT DAY! I painted shirts for the boys to wear to school on their birthdays. Sam's had a big number 8 on the front and on the back it said "it's great to be eight" it turned out super cute. I got the idea for the big number on the front from this blog (which I love) that I found while looking up lego party ideas. Sam's party was a lego racing party, and it has been my favorite home party to date. It was SOOO fun, and there are SO many things you can do with the lego theme. We had a ball. We copied the bridge making game from the above blog, and I made a fun bingo game, then they all built their own race cars and we raced them down a track. FUN FUN FUN. Most all of the ideas for decorating and games were found online - I love the never ending source of info and ideas available at our fingertips!
Then came Sam's special baptism day. What a wonderful day!! Mark says when they came out of the water and were getting dry and dressed that Sam was beaming from ear to ear, and said, "Did you feel this way when you were baptized Dad?, I wish we could do this every day!" What a cool kid. We were in charge of the program for his baptism, which has never happened before. So big brother Josh got to give a talk which was INCREDIBLE, man the spirit of that boy never ceases to amaze me. Then Gabe got to recite his memorized scripture Matthew 5:14 and also did an amazing job. We were so thankful to the wonderful family and friends who took time out of their busy schedule to be there for Sam. We all came back to the house and celebrated with pizza and strawberry cake w/whipped cream. YUM! It is a day we don't ever want to forget!

Next up was Joshua's birthday. It was his year to go somewhere fun - though I really need to switch things up a bit, because this year will be Gabe, Sam AND Will's turn for "go somewhere fun" parties, and Josh for the home party, that's a little uneven - don't you think?.....anyway. He took a bunch of friends to a waterpark in town called Cowabunga Bay (you can do that in June!). They had a BLAST. It was a ton of fun. The thing I love about "go somewhere fun" parties, is that the party takes place somewhere else and all the work is practically done for you, then when it's over you can come home to your nice clean house. Ahh. Anyway, it was great, and a wonderful way to celebrate our carefree ELEVEN year old! How is it possible that I don't have a SINGLE picture of his party or actual birthday. ACK!

Joshua earned his Arrow of Light in scouts this year. This is such a great accomplishment, and the arrow of light patch is the only one that gets to follow him from cubs to boy scouts. He is such a great kid and earned every bit of this great honor!
My handsome boy scouts!

Will turned THREE in August, which is just a little too young for a party I think (Lesson learned from Gabe's 3 year old party). SO, he chose to have an outside BBQ with Hamburgers and Hot dogs, and we made him a brownie train cake. He loved it, and still remembers and talks about it 5 months later! Speaking of our Three year old, it was such a big year for him! He potty trained pretty seamlessly - well before his third birthday and learned to talk like crazy. At the beginning of 2010 he was BARELY saying a few words, and by March or so, was speaking in complete sentences. He just exploded. He is so fun and funny. Three is TOTALLY his best age. I no longer have a "favorite" age, like I thought I did once. My boys all have had HARD ages and FANTASTIC ages, and it's been different with every one of them. THREE is Will's FANTASTIC age for sure. He is so good and sweet and has such a tender spirit. We don't know what we'd do without him!
Okay, that covers birthdays. We also got a summer membership to our favorite swimming place and spent most every single day there this summer. Gabe and Will made HUGE strides in the water this year. Gabe went from being too afraid to get in past his ankles, to JUMPING in the deep end (with life-jacket on, but STILL!) by the end of the summer. The bigs all took lessons for the first time too and LOVED them. Will just kind of took after everything he saw his big brothers do and was amazing in the water. I love love watching my children play in the water. There is just something so carefree and happy about it!
In May, Mark and I excitedly booked a cruise to Mexico for September. We were so excited, and decided that we'd "put off" new baby plans until then at least. Imagine our surprise in June when we found out we were expecting! Luckily, I wasn't showing too much yet come September, and I'm not usually very sick so we were able to enjoy our wonderful time together completely. We had so much fun, met some wonderful people, and just enjoyed every minute of it! It is so wonderful to take some time with your best friend, without all the little interruptions, of work, kids, chaos, etc. We also had the chance to visit with Mark's Aunt and Grandfather "Grandpa Morgan" (one of my very most favorite people in the entire world) for a night before our cruise departed and then for the afternoon when our cruise was over and we were headed home. It is time we completely cherished and won't ever forget. We heard some of his amazing war stories and just thoroughly enjoyed being able to visit without trying to keep kids quiet and entertained!
For Halloween this year, the boys all decided on home-made costumes, which was great and crazy at the same time. One of the "nice" things about our track on year round school, is that we are off track during Halloween. I love this, because it means they can just throw on whatever dress up costume they want to wear that day and hit the neighborhood! Well, this year, they ALL had Halloween parties at school before they went off track. SO, after pulling an all-nighter making and getting costumes ready, I spent the entire next day going back and forth a jillion times to help with parties, bring forgotten items, etc. I do remember though, in the midst of the chaos of the day having a very strong and thankful feeling wash over me, that said "you are so lucky, this is what you do, this is what being a mom is all about, and you're doing a good job today". I loved that feeling, I know it was from my Heavenly Father, and it made everything completely worth it. Anyway, come party day we had a Giant Pac-Man, the guy from the game "Operation" (who's actual name is "cavity Sam" - and we REALLY didn't know that, how funny!), and the Cat in the Hat. Fun, Fun, Fun! Will chose to be "Whyatt" from the PBS show Super Why, but come Halloween he actually went trick-or-treating as a Bumblebee. Fine with me, as it is a MUCH warmer costume! The boys had a blast trick-or-treating and came home with loads of loot. This year I didn't ration it, or make them put it in a community "family bowl" that I end up throwing away a month later, as I've done in the past. I gave them free reign, and I was happy to do it. I don't remember having to give up my candy at Halloween, or Easter time or any time when I was growing up, and I think I turned out okay. Plus, they didn't go crazy with it at all. I was super proud of them, even with free reign, we still threw away a TON of uneaten candy a few weeks ago!
Thanksgiving was SO NICE and relaxing. My mom came to visit and spend it with us. We haven't celebrated Thanksgiving with her in a long long time! For Christmas Eve in 2009 I followed Martha Stewarts directions for cooking a flat or "Spatchcocked" turkey. It is a way to flatten out a turkey, put it on a cookie sheet to cook and it cooks in 70 minutes! It was SOOOO good and moist, and was Mark's very favorite turkey of all time. He talked about it all year, so for Thanksgiving this year we did it again. It was even better than I remembered. SO YUM! Directions are here if you want them!
We had a wonderful relaxing day, filled with the scents of my childhood Thanksgivings, thanks to my Mom being here and cooking most all of the side dishes! When it was time to eat we all took a minute to express something we were thankful for, then we dug in and ate like Kings. After our bellies had settled a little we all went to see the new Disney movie Tangled. We ALL loved every minute of it. Seriously, she is my FAVORITE princess now!!! Mark was a little leary of taking the boys to a "princess" movie, but I assured him that it would have plenty in it for the boys to appreciate and they DID. They LOVED Flynn Rider, and the Horse, and Pascal (the little chameleon) and so did Mark. I'm dying to see it again! It was a wonderful end to a perfect day!
Christmas (YAY, ALMOST DONE!) was wonderful too. I wonder how many times I've said wonderful in this post??? Anyway, it was a little too stressed and crazy for my liking, but that is okay. In the past I've had years where I don't corral the chaos well enough, and then years where I'm determined and I do. This was a year where I didn't, so it felt way more busy and stressful. We even decided at the last minute not to do neighbor gifts. We've done neighbor gifts for Christmas every year that we've been in this house, so the decision not to do it didn't come easy, but was very much necessary for us. It didn't help the guilt I felt every time our wonderful neighbors brought something over for us though. HOWEVER, I already HAVE my neighbor gifts for 2011, so how is that for making up for it!! WOOHOO. This year is NOT going to be a chaos year, by golly!! :) ANYWAY, we did manage to quiet things down for the last week or so before the big day, and that really helped us all get into the Christmas spirit. We were able to achieve all of our highly anticipated family traditions, and enjoy the season.

We started it off by taking the kids out to pick up their ornaments for 2010. They had a blast, and loved their picks. Josh chose a star wars one - which thrilled him, as he now has 3 or 4 star wars ornaments in his collection, Sam chose a darling Snoopy with his little camp troop - to remind him that this is the year he started scouts and scout camp, Gabe chose a cool Iron Man guy, that lights up and Will chose a Cars ornament with McQueen and Mater around a Christmas tree. FUN! They loved them. We always write on the box why they chose it and a few other things and they love, love pulling them out year after year and reading about themselves from years past. Mark and I got ourselves a cruise ship ornament while on the cruise for our ornament this year. We try to get one for us, or a "family" one each year, so that we don't end up with a bare tree when our kids are grown and have taken all of their ornaments with them! We love this tradition!

Christmas eve, we welcomed family and feasted on ham, potatoes and lots of sides, and desserts. When everyone left we began our Christmas eve traditions which include giving our first gift of Christmas to Jesus. We have a basket that hangs on our tree, that has a slit in the top, and every year we take a slip of paper and write down something we're going to give Jesus in the coming year. Then we read over what we've done in the past and reflect on the joy of giving and trying. It is a sacred time for us. Then we open new jammies, get all jammied up and watch Luke II. In other years we've included other things here and there, but we always make sure to at least do these three things.

We put out milk and cookies for Santa, and Gabe made some yummy reindeer food at school so we included that, and scooted off to bed. The boys were SO excited for Christmas morning, they were worried they wouldn't be able to sleep at all, but luckily they did! Christmas morning started for us at about 7:30, not too bad, since Sam had been up since 6! Santa brought everyone 3 things this year. I've heard this idea a lot before, but most recently I think from the "design mom" blog, and I really loved the simplicity of it. So wrapped up from Santa was something to Wear, something to Read and something to Play with. The boys LOVED it and after opening Santa's gifts and checking out stockings we took a breakfast break, which always includes cinnamon rolls, lots of fruit, juice and milk. This year, Mark used some of the leftover ham and made us all scrambled eggs and ham, which was SO GOOD, we told him that needs to be added to our breakfast list for every year! After Breakfast we opened a few more presents, then played, a few more presents, then played, and so on. We didn't get done unwrapping until almost 6pm - which was so fun and relaxing. We all had a fantastic day, and got too, too spoiled as usual. It was fun to wake up the next day and go to church and enjoy the rest of the weekend.
I must admit that I don't think I'm the ONLY one in a nesting phase, as Mark was just as eager as I was to clean up and put everything away this year. We got everything put up and away in record time, and didn't even wait until new years day like we've done before. It was so nice to get everything cleaned up and put in it's home and get organized again!

SO, that about does it for 2010. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our newest baby brother Nicholas, who could come any day at this point! He finally has itsy bitsy clothes and onesies in his drawers (literally - FINALLY - as in, just washed and put in drawers last week! - talk about cutting it CLOSE!) We are so excited for him, I just can't wait to meet him. Will is maybe even more excited than me (nah, but close!), and hearing him ask about "baby Nik-kiss" is about the cutest thing in the universe. He has said for a long time that if his baby brother cries he will say, "no cry, baby, no cry - Will is here" melt.melt.melt.

I hope to blog again sometime in 2011 - we'll see how that goes. ;) We hope you all have a WONDERFUL (had to squeeze the word in ONE more time!) 2011!

I leave you with the shot of the day: Crazy hair day at school. Actually taken this morning, and actually blogged about on the same day. WOW! Maybe there's hope for me after all!

A poem for Gabe

2010-04-26T23:39:00.002-06:00

Okay, so It's been more than forever since my last blog post. I have no excuses or explanation. Well...I have lots of excuses and explanations, so finding just the right one is more the problem. ANYWAY! Let's play a little game where we pretend like this never happened and move on to bigger and better things....k? Okay, here goes.

It's GABE'S FIFTH BIRTHDAY TOMORROW!! I will try to add pictures later. But for now I just wanted to post this darling poem that I found. I think it's perfect.

A Verse for the Night Before a Birthday

(M. Meyer Kort)

When I have said my evening prayer,
And my clothes are folded on the chair,

And my mother switches off the light,
I'll still be four years old tonight.

But, from the very break of day,
Before the children rise and play,

Before the darkness turns to gold,
Tomorrow, I'll be five years old.

Five kisses when I wake,
Five candles on my cake!

We will wake him uber early tomorrow for our 2nd annual, "take the birthday child to McDonald's for breakfast before Daddy goes to work tradition" I can't wait.

Happy Birthday my Super Gabe! I love you!!!

August 24th

2009-08-24T09:34:00.004-06:00

On August 24th 1995, Mark and I entered the Temple to receive our endowments together. We were getting married just one week later. It was a special day. (I don't have a picture, how horrible is that?!)

On August 24th 2007, Our beautiful baby Will was born, our lives have been so blessed to have him in it. It was a special day.

Today, on August 24th 2009, the Oquirrh Mountain Temple (5 minutes from our home) is open to patrons for the first day. It was dedicated yesterday and Mark, Joshua and I were able to attend. It is a special day.

And today, this cute little boy turns TWO. It is a special day.

August 24th is a good day for us.

Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-21T22:40:00.003-06:00

To the most wonderful, devoted, and loving husband and daddy in the world.

We love you!

(Totally lame that I couldn't get the picture to turn. It was too wide I guess. Grr)

What do you say...

2009-06-07T20:19:00.004-06:00

When you haven't posted even a SINGLE word for TWO SOLID months?

Do you go crazy trying to catch up with everything you've said and done for the last 80+ days?

Do you just pretend it never happened at all and carry on like normal?

I'm not sure. I will figure it out and let you know. I will say this - my google reader has seven hundred and twenty two unread posts (yes, you read that right. Not Seven, not Seventy two, not twenty seven - SEVEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY TWO!) and I haven't checked private blogs since I don't even know when. I WILL catch up. I WILL return. Maybe not this last crazy week of school, but someday - I promise.

Until then, I will leave you with the latest picture that literally takes my breath away.

Oh my, they're cute - aren't they?!

oops!

2009-04-15T01:22:00.003-06:00

SO, yesterday was really warm. AND, because you know - if you don't like the weather here just wait an hour or two and it will change - there is snow on the horizon this week.
Yippee. (please sense sarcasm - I would hate for my effort to go to waste)

Yipp-STINKIN-EE!

I promised the boys we'd go to the park. Thankfully I DID remember to call my friend and tell her to put sunscreen on her boys since they were coming over too and would be joining us for our adventure. The thing is, I am really good at suggesting the right thing, without actually doing the right thing and as such, all 4 of the people that depend on me for survival went without that sunscreen thing. I DIDN'T even think twice about it. That is until we got home and I noticed Will was a little flushed, then I noticed Josh was a tiny bit flushed, then I noticed my NOSE was flushed and I thought, "wait a minute, a nose doesn't get flushed" and then it hit me.

Uh-oh.

As the day wore on, the cheeks and nose of the three of us got pinker and pinker until it was official, Will had his first ever sunburn.

Thing is, he didn't seem to mind, and lucky for me and my guilt he looked LOTS better today. Whew.

So, I have learned a very valuable lesson - and it is called: ~~Will looks SUPER cute with a sunburn~~ er, always put sunscreen on your children when going outside for any given amount of time. :)

Oh, and how can this little one be so big all of a sudden? It seriously feels like yesterday when he looked just like this. Sigh.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Hurry, QUICK!

2009-04-01T23:31:00.002-06:00

It's not too late to rush over to my wonderful sisters' blog and wish her a HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Okay, it probably IS too late, since I'm quite certain that I'm the only one up posting right now. BUT, I'm sure she won't mind if you stop by tomorrow. Just tell her it's my fault. She can't stay mad at me for very long. I'm just too irresistible. wait a minute, that's Gabe. GABE is just too irresistible, and she loves him like he was her very own. Therefore - she can't be mad at his real momma for long right? Right! Oh the power!

HaPpY BiRthDaY sWeEt SiS. I LoVe yOu!

You know those days

2009-03-26T08:30:00.007-06:00

when you wake up feeling energized and are determined to conquer the world and you just know you can do it because, I don't know why, but you just feel like you can?

This was one of those days.

The littles and I were excited to be going to lunch at 1:00 at Chic-Fil-A, we hadn't been in forever and better yet - I was so excited to be meeting a friend that I hadn't seen in AGES, literally like 2 years (and she lives 20 minutes - if that - away...so sad).

However, we've had a busy week and my house has suffered. A LOT. Plus, while laying in bed last night I decided it was high time that ALL AS.IN.EVERY.SINGLE.ONE of the toys were put in a happy home in the TOY ROOM downstairs. Why we have a perfectly capable toy room along with HUGE baskets of toys in EVERY CLOSET is beyond me. Where was I? Oh yeah.

So being a list maker and all and a happy flylady.com timer setter to boot I just knew I could handle everything on my list AHEAD of schedule. I got right to work by 8am.

Here is my list:

As you can see, I gave myself 15 minutes for the "toys" project. I wasn't ORGANIZING the toy room, just adding to it for now, I even allowed myself to place the boxes just inside the doorway. Two loads down, I hear Will playing happily in his crib. I think to myself quickly "he's awake, but he's happy, I'll let him play there until he starts to sound unhappy" this sounds good, so I proceed with load #3. Upon returning back up the stairs I start to hear his absolutely irresistible "muh-ma?" (Seriously, I've got to record it for you someday) I try to resist, and I can't. He's heard me shuffle baskets, he KNOWS I'm out here, he's calling my name and he just knows I'll be there soon. My heart and head battle it out. My heart wins. Afterward a flurry of diaper-cereal-more.cereal-more.cereal-oops.too.much.cereal-mopping.up.cereal.and.milk-clothes-Sesame.Street-MOM.GET.WILL!-MOM.GET.WILL-round 2,3,4 and 5 ensues. My 15 minute timer has easily gone off 8 times by now and I am 2 STINKING hours behind on a job that was supposed to take me 15 minutes. Grr.

I cross it off and move on to Laundry. I'm not too put out, I can make it up. The laundry is done after all, it shouldn't take more than 1/2 an hour to fold it up, right? Wrong. One very valuable lesson I've learned about myself is I am an EXTREME time UNDERestimator. Oh, and that if you type "cereal" more than a few times on your blog it starts to look really weird and you'll have to go to the pantry to verify that you've spelled it right, and that actually finding the WORD "cereal" is really hard to do on the cereal box, oh, and there it goes looking weird again. Where was I? Oh yeah.

It is now noon, lunch is in ONE HOUR and I've yet to do the kitchen, and I absolutely REFUSE to come home to a messy kitchen after lunch, so I put Gabe to work on getting dressed on his own and RUN AROUND LIKE MAD trying to take.out.garbage-nevermind.Josh.can.do.that-remove.toys.from.floor.of.kitchen-yes.some.of.the.very.toys.that.had.just.been.taken.downstairs-empty.dishwasher-rinse.dirty.dishes-load.dirty.dishes.... Where was I? Oh yeah.

It is 12:30 and I'm done-ish enough to satisfy for now, but I look like I've been cleaning all morning and lunch is in 1/2 hour. AS in being PRESENT AT RESTAURANT in 1/2 hour. I'm happy to report that I made it only a few minutes behind schedule, right Cindy? :) We had such a great time and leave with tired kids in tow. It is 3:30, I know that for the rest of the day not much is going to be accomplished, and I'm TIRED too. The bigs walk in at 3:45 fighting with each other. JOY. Josh had a rough day at school, and wouldn't tell Sam about it. Sam HATES being out of the loop and wouldn't quit pestering him. I can see Josh is upset and that he needs me ALONE for a minute to talk it through. Turns out, he had to stay in for recess to talk to his teacher about re-doing a math sheet. I couldn't tell if he was more upset about the teacher needing to talk to him or about missing recess, apparently, he didn't know either, both I guess. We hug for a few minutes and I purposely don't tell him what I'm thinking (because I was kind of thinking that it was a lot of hype for just one little missed recess - but I remind myself that I am NOT 9 and I keep my mouth shut). Whew. Where was I? Oh yeah.

I don't even know what time it is now. I know that I denied the boys their after school snack because their room looked like tornado-ville, and I insisted they clean it up in 20 minutes or less or they're waiting until dinnertime. I give them 20 plus 10 minutes for good measure and they still don't cut it. Now they have to wait. This does not make them happy. They are hungry. I am trying to teach them a valuable lesson. They don't see it that way. I start to wonder if I do either, but decide I've got to stand by my word. I learn something else. Whiny kids are no fun. Add HUNGER to the mix, then throw in a 3 year old who tuckered himself out playing with his "New fwends" and is crying on the couch for no reason (again, I'm not 3 - so what do I know) and a one year old who can NEVER handle the evening/dinnermaking/losing.mom.while.she.bustles.about.the.kitchen hour and you've got a recipe for DISASTER.

I am trying to hold it together but everything is unraveling behind me. Mark gets home and starts doing the only thing he knows how to for the screaming one year old and that is to feed him anything his heart desires, all the while the bigger kids BALK because they've been denied such goodness, and Sam wails that he hasn't eaten in like TWELVE HOURS (apparently breakfast and lunchtime don't count as eating - who knew!)

Mark wants to talk, we haven't seen each other all day but quickly gives up, even he can see we're losing this battle. He has to go to a meeting, I start to wonder if he actually skipped out the door, or if I'm just hallucinating - I think he did. I would have. It is now 6:30, dinner has STILL not been served, the boys have lots of homework, Will is still wailing and the cat - not to be left out - is scratching at the door to get out. (he thinks he's a dog) I need to lash out at something. I do the math. By process of elimination the cat's self confidence is by far the most impenetrable and I scream (really)
I'M.SORRY.TOBY.BUT.YOU.ARE.NOT.GOING.
OUT.RIGHT.NOW.SO.JUST.DEAL.WITH.IT!!!

He understands me, I just know it. He takes a few steps back, LEAPS onto the blinds, and hangs from the middle as the blinds crash over and over against the door. Even I must admit, it was revenge at it's finest. I totally jumped, HIGH. Well played, Toby.

But I don't stop there, I continue my rant, all self-confidence worries now put aside. "YOU STARVING KIDS SIT HERE AND EAT AND DON'T TALK - well, you can talk a little, but EAT, I am going OUT OF THIS ROOM FOR A MINUTE, AND PLEASE DON'T FOLLOW ME! The thing is, I never made it out. Turns out, I just needed to say it, then by the time I dished up my plate I felt better. Where was I? Oh yeah.

Daddy gets home, I hear him come in from the garage. You know it's bad when the first words out of his mouth are "Hey guys! You're still alive?!" oops. We sit for a minute on the couch, he puts my legs on his lap and we talk about our blessings, he makes sure I'm okay. This helps for the time being. But now dinner is done, the kitchen is deSTROYED again, and I'm helping with homework which is ABSOLUTELY.THE.LAST.THING.IN.THE.WORLD that I want to be doing at that moment - I am just SPENT - and so are they, but we persist and get through it. Meanwhile, I turn to Mark and announce that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES am I going to bed anytime soon (this cuts pretty low, as we both know our favorite time of day is our unwinding time - watching tv, or talking about the day and being together) and that he might as well just go now without me because I need time ALONE for a long long time while everyone else is asleep. He gets me there after all with a little plate of warm apple cobbler - he's sneaky that one. (that or I'm totally easy, the least I could have done was hold out for a foot rub!) The day ended with kisses and hugs all around, heartfelt ones. And you know what? Not ONE time in the midst of the craziness or my increasingly rotten mood did one person tell me to "snap out of it", "just get over it" or to "go away", none of them went screaming into their rooms, slamming their doors. They all endured the mommy of the moment and saw it gracefully to the end. Doing exactly as they were told, without hesitation. Once when I was complaining to Mark that I was frustrated because this, this, this, this and this all piled up at once and I felt really overwhelmed, Sam said lightheartedly "but, that's what mom's are supposed to do, right? They're supposed to handle everything." That's the only chastising I got, and it was more than deserved. Where was I? Oh yeah.

You know those days when you wake up feeling energized and are determined to conquer the world and you just know you can do it because, I don't know why, but you just feel like you can?

Today was one of those days.

Except it wasn't. Not EVEN close. That's okay, tomorrow is another day and I will try again - this time hopefully with a few extra helpings of patience. just in case.

Life is good.

Do you think...

2009-03-24T05:08:00.006-06:00

now that I've changed my blog design to brighter colors that Spring could perhaps stick around for more than a day or two around here?

If it works, then you're very welcome!

**come on, who are we kidding. We're going to have snow for DAYS! The weather man said not to forget that sometimes in our state it even snows in JUNE!

Stupid weatherman.

Oh, and sorry that the header is HUGE. It's either too big or too small, it's driving me CRAZY!

Happy SPRING!

*edited to add: Okay, I think I've got the header worked out. At least on my computer you don't need to scroll to the side to see the whole thing, but mine does have a wide screen. Please let me know if it looks funky when you pull it up on your computer and I'll keep tweaking if I need to. :)

A Mystery...

2009-03-05T12:07:00.003-07:00

Do you think the little boy that donated these items to the sleeping kitty also helped him brush his hair and teeth? ...thing is, I can't ask him, because all he does is grin proudly, point and say "uh, uh, uh!"

I guess we'll never know. I'm sure glad it isn't my toothbrush. ...sorry daddy.

Aaawwww Phooey.

2009-03-05T09:48:00.004-07:00

For the Soul

2009-03-04T10:09:00.009-07:00

Good-bye dreary February.

Hello, dreamy March!

Why will he taste chalk, and not bow-tie pasta?

Ahh, glorious, blissful 58 degree day!

Couldn't get this picture to rotate. Sorry.

Wait! Stop. Come here. Look at Mommy. Smile. Hey! Come back here. Stop. Hey Will?! Grr.

Gotcha!

Mr. Incredible and Mr. Spidey and Friends. Watching Enchanted. Could life be cuter?

Sunshine at 9am.

Life is good.

Once again, out of the mouth of Gabe

2009-02-26T15:24:00.004-07:00

Hey mom?" (thanks to his big brothers, this is how every new sentence starts)

-Yes?

"We are not supposed to drink Al-toe-hall, right mom?"

-Yes, that's right, we're not supposed to drink alcohol, it is very bad for us.

"Yep, and if people see that you are drinking alcohol they might think you are like a pirate or a skeleton, right mom?"

-Hmm, maybe!

"Yeah, but it's okay to dress UP like a pirate, but just not if you're going to the Temple, right mom?"

-Yes, it would not be a good idea to dress up like a pirate to go to the Temple. How did you get so smart?

"Bee-tuz."

"Mom?"

Yeah?

"I have a booger in my eye, can you get it?"

Ah, the randomness that comes from this little boy constantly astounds me. Another one of our favorite "Gabe-isms" is his song that combines "I.AM.IRON.MAN" (black sabbath) with "I am a child of God" he starts out with the Iron man and ends with the Child of God. Seriously, WHERE did he come from?! He is such a fun, and funny little kid. We love you "super Dabe!" (his favorite nickname for himself - and also appropriately the name for his Mii character)

Valentine Wrap-up

2009-02-17T08:42:00.006-07:00

Wow. What a CRAZY week! We are just now recouping from a week's worth of Valentine's days. I told Mark on Sunday that it's pretty sad when you need a weekend to recover from your weekend!

It was fun though. Joshua got to make a Valentine box for school and he was really excited about it. He has some of the funnest ideas. One of them was to put two box lids together to make a Wii fit board (one of the newest and well played with toys at the house), then he thought about using a giant cereal box for it, which was even better. We actually ended up trying to craft a basketball out of paper mache instead. We used paper towels and a 50/50 glue/water solution, instead of the newspaper technique. We've never tried any type of paper mache before so we had no idea what to expect. I vaguely remember doing it in elementary school, but not much - so we were pretty clueless. We covered a ballon with the paper towels on Wed. night. I figured it would have plenty of time to dry before Thurs. night to get painted and ready for Friday morning. BOY, was I WRONG! It was still goopy and wet on Thursday morning and I knew it would never dry in time. I began to prepare Joshua for the worst, and we tentatively planned on making the Wii fit board when he got home from school. As the day wore on it got a little drier and hardened a little more but was still pretty flimsy, we had almost given up when I remembered one of our valentine decorations that I thought might help. It has a circular spring with a support and when full is about the size of the balloon. We cut the balloon out, added the spring and counted our blessings that it WORKED! HOORAY! There's no way we'd have been able to use it without the spring to support it, when we popped the balloon it all scrunched up inwardly and completely deflated. Whew! Joshua was able to prime it (Jenna, the primer came through AGAIN, I swear it is bottomless!) and paint it all by himself! Then we cut out a "SPALDING" logo and pasted it on and I painted on the lines. What a task! I was glad we'd worked so hard when I went into his classroom on Friday and saw all of the amazing boxes. WOW. There was a furry monster, a candy eating machine with blinking lights, a box with a crank that pulls the cards through a hole, and a castle with a moat and a REAL GOLDFISH swimming inside. Man, I thought WE had worked hard!! I figured Josh would win a prize for SURE, but he didn't, there wasn't really a category for his though so he didn't feel too bad. The categories were things like: Most creative, most animalistic, funniest, most technological, etc. Nothing sporty or I'm sure he would've won, the other kids kept telling him how cool they thought it was so he was happy and so was I (that it was DONE!) :)

Here is a picture showing what Will did while we were making the Valentine box. It was LOUD.

Sam was kind enough to help us out too. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that it was PAST bedtime and offered a chance for him to sit on top of the counter. :)

Project complete! Sam's class made bags to hold their cards in, I am really thankful that we only had ONE box to do this time. I'm not looking forward to making 2, or 3 or *gasp* FOUR boxes!

I made their Valentines this year. It was so fun! I took a picture of them holding a straw, then cropped them and turned them into Valentines. We stuck suckers in their hands where the straw was so it looked like they were holding them. They turned out really great, which was good since I didn't have a plan B, and it was late Thursday night when we were putting them together!

I also got to help in Sam's class party Friday. I'm the room mom for his class and am in charge of the parties. I REALLY don't like being in charge, but there are a lot of GREAT moms in his class that always help out and that makes my life SOOOO much easier. We made darling candy necklaces, played bingo, passed out Valentines and made these cute little kisses mice.

Tutorial found here.

They had lots of fun, Sam loves when I help out, I know this is fleeting so I am grateful for it while it lasts. After helping with the party a friend and I went to Josh's class to play bingo with the kids after they passed out their valentines. We had a fun time embarrassing them. Every time we pulled a card that said "I love you" my friend made a big deal about how this one was for her son that she LOVES SO MUCH, he finally couldn't take it anymore and said "JOSH, tell YOUR mom to do that to YOU too so it's not just MY MOM! I took his cue and found Josh and kissed him right on top of his head, I figured I'd be dead when he got home but he didn't say a word, he's actually not the type to embarass easy, and still seems to enjoy the attention I give him. I'm sure that won't last much longer either. I'll soak it up while it lasts!

Saturday was CRAZY. The boys play Basketball in the morning and evening on Saturdays so our entire day seems full. I was planning on getting up early to make the boys our traditional heart pancakes and strawberry milk but the night before Mark and I decided we'd just get up and go to the game, then make breakfast afterward. At the game Mark leaned over and said, "how about I buy us breakfast on the way home and we can make a Valentine breakfast tomorrow when our morning isn't so busy" that sounded even better so that is what we did! Then because our night was busy as well, we just ate quickly and saved our candlelight Valentine dinner for Sunday too. We got home on Saturday and the boys opened their fun Valentines (a game and some crafts) and played with them for the day while Mark and I worked on organizing his office downstairs. We were so happy to get it DONE! For lunch on Saturday I made cute grill cheese sandwiches with wheat/white bread to make hearts, they were fun!

Sunday we had our heart pancakes with strawberry syrup for breakfast, then napped all day after church (none of us were feeling too well) skipping lunch completely, then had candlelight dinner with sparkling red punch and strawberry jello with whip cream on top. Whew. what a weekend. FUN as it was, it's good to be back to normal once again.

We hope you all had a wonderful weekend too!

Tender Mercies

2009-02-05T09:25:00.003-07:00

I woke up grumpy today. Really grumpy. I don't have that mommy filter that others seem to posses, the one where they wear a smile every day while talking to their kids, rain or shine, sickness, health, grumpy, ungrumpy...you get the idea. When I'm grumpy, everyone in the house knows it and can sense it.

Poor children.

While putting something in the garbage this morning Joshua replied:

"Ooh, this garbage is full, don't worry about it mom, I'll take care of it when I get home today"

3/4 of my grumpiness melted instantly.

One of Sam's friends rang the doorbell and pounded on the door frantically yelling "SAM, you're going to miss the bus, it's at the end of the street, you have to HURRY!"

Sam ran after him while Josh ran back to the bedroom to get his backpack. After running 1/2 way down the street Sam suddenly stops and runs back to the front yard.

"Love you MOM!" He called.

There went the last 1/4.

These boys! They play me like a fiddle! :)

My very own font!!

2009-02-03T14:13:00.004-07:00

I got the tip for this fun project on the Design Mom website (scroll down a bit to find it). It literally took me less than 20 minutes to create my VERY OWN FONT and it was all FREE! I'm going to do it again with a better pen so it's not so thick. I actually didn't really think it would work so I wasn't taking it too seriously but it DID work! I really can't believe how easy it was. I think this is SO COOL and I'm thinking about taking Design Mom's suggestion and having the big boys create one too. How fun would it be to do this yearly to see how their handwriting changes?!

If you have a scanner and you'd like to create your own font too go here. have fun!

OH.... Mamma Mia!

2009-01-23T00:52:00.005-07:00

The boys have expressed a little interest in wanting to watch the movie Mamma Mia lately. They are plenty familiar with the songs, thanks to a mommy that likes to blast the soundtrack while cleaning the house. Plus, their cousins Kyle and Kole mentioned while visiting a few weeks ago that they've seen the movie and liked it so that piqued their interest a little more. They are off track right now so we thought it would be a fun activity to do yesterday. They laid out blankets and popped a bowl of popcorn while I laid the squeaky Will down to nap.

There were 4 parts I knew I didn't want them to see so I was ready for them. I diverted their attention during the "part" in the beginning of "Dancing Queen", made them close their eyes so as not to see Bill's bum (but Sam peeked, I know because he couldn't supress his giggle quietly enough), skipped completely over the "does your mother know" song, and made them study a speck of dust on the ceiling fan during the man-to-man "embrace" at the end. I'm positive that the other innuendo's (and there are plenty) went completely over their head. We had a wonderful discussion about "traditional" vs. Temple marriages, and a touching discussion over why I don't like the song "Slipping through my fingers" because though they are still small I can't help but feel like they are growing up too fast. They thought this was funny because apparently they don't think they are growing up fast enough. Groan.

Later on they tried to remember the words to "Super Trouper" while putting on their pajamas. They came out to the kitchen and practiced outloud to see who could remember the most words using me as their helper and judge. It wasn't until Gabe started to orbit the kitchen table showing off his newly acquired dance moves and singing "Mamma ee-yuh, here we doe uh-den, my my...." that I began to wonder if maybe they should be spending a little more time with Daddy.

the Squeaky "Will"

2009-01-15T11:43:00.004-07:00

There is something to that theory, isn't there!? You know, the one about how the squeaky wheel gets the grease?

It sure seems to work that way around here.

While making waffles this morning my little Will was screaming, crying, weeping, wailing and thrashing about. tugging at my toes, getting in between the table and my legs and pushing with all his one-year-old might in hopes of pushing me backward and getting my attention away from the beating of eggs and toward his current predicament....which the cause of such is still unknown...except that I think he was just hungry and we've learned that when this kid is hungry you better feed him like two minutes ago.

SO, let's all take a guess at who got the first waffle.

Oh, don't let that charming little face fool you, look closely at the red cheeks and the watery eyes! He is deceiving you and you are all falling for it!

Don't let his attempt to make it all better by happily signing "thank you" fool you either! ....okay, nevermind..go ahead and let it fool you. Even I have to admit that that is pretty irresistible.

Seriously though, this kid is lucky he's so cute. I'm talking really really lucky. My mom thinks it's pretty funny. You know, being as I was her youngest and so "irresistible" too. :)

But hey, do you guys want the YUMMIEST Belgian Waffle recipe ever? It's from my sis-in-law Charlotte and it's AWESOME. I think the beaten egg whites is what makes this so fluffy and YUM. It's not hard either. The first time I made them it took me forever, but we've had them 4 times in 2 weeks (yeah, I'm kind of getting sick of 'em now) and I can whip them up in just a few minutes now.

Here goes:

2 eggs seperated in 2 bowls - white/yolks

beat egg yolks until they are yellow in color (I know.... they're ALREADY yellow...I just beat them for a minute or so until they are a little lighter yellow)

add:

3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup half&half (I substituted Evap. milk and it worked great)
1/3 cup veg. oil

mix well.

in another bowl add:

1 3/4 cup flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 tsp. salt

pour into egg yolk mixture.

Beat egg whites until they are white and stiff

Fold into yellow mixture. Poor into Belgian Waffle maker and enjoy!!

A Serenade

2009-01-02T19:07:00.004-07:00

We were honored to be the recipients of Gabe's first official solo last night. These were the words to the song he sang so beautifully to us:

I am a chi-deld of Dod. (Should I capitalize the D as I would if it was pronounced the correct way with a G? - I think so)

and He has sent me hewe.

Has diiven me and er-free home

wif pear-wents tind of dear (our favorite part - I guess we're just "kind-of dear") :)

weed me, died me, walkt (always the "t" at the end) besides me, help me find duh way.

Teach me all dat I must do, to wiive wif him someday.

Pretty good, don't you think? We were so impressed! For the proper words to the song (if you need them)go here.

Oh, what's that you say about Christmas? Well...it's not February yet, right Trish?! :) hee,hee.

Soon...I promise.

What's this you ask?

2008-12-23T12:27:00.004-07:00

Oh, nothing much. Just my totally awesome husband bringin' down the house at the University of Utah game!

A few weeks ago Mark told me that he had entered his and my name into a drawing at the University of Utah credit union for a chance to "shoot for loot". If they draw your name they give you tickets to the game and during one of the time-outs you get the chance to go down and shoot for loot. Well they drew MY name and called me and I said "can we pretend you drew my husbands name instead and he could make the shots for me?" and the guy said YES! I couldn't believe that he let us do that, but I was SO SO grateful that it could be him and not me! So we got to go to the game and about 12 minutes into the first quarter we started to make our way down to the court. He had 30 seconds to make 3 baskets. A lay up, a free throw and a three-pointer. If you shoot the lay up you get $50 and a chance to shoot a free throw, if you make the free throw you get $100 and a chance to shoot a 3 pointer and if you make the 3 pointer then you get $150 so there is a chance to win $300. He was really hoping that he could make the lay up and the free throw really fast so he could have a chance to shoot more times for the 3 pointer if he needed it. Did he need the time? See for yourself! (sorry for the screaming lunatic in the background....wait a minute, that's ME!)

Seriously, is he INCREDIBLE or what? There is absolutely nothing this guy can't do. I was so proud of him and it was so much fun! He seemed nervous until he got the ball in his hands, then he just looked like he was taking care of business, and that's just what he did! The guys that were helping us with where to go and rebounding the balls said that's the first time anyone has made them all in a row like that and asked him if he played college ball, they were so impressed. We figured out he made all 3 shots in 12 seconds, wouldn't it be nice if we could make $300 in 12 seconds every day?!! The very next morning oddly enough is when the laptop went from broken spacebar to dead keyboard and when I called him in tears he said we could use his winnings to buy a new computer, which is sitting under the tree until Christmas day. Husband, I love you and you totally ROCK!!! You want to watch it again, don't you? I know, me too! Here I'll save us some trouble and put it right here again. :)

Happy Halloween!

2008-12-10T13:05:00.013-07:00

Happy Halloween everyone!!

I know I'm a little late posting this, with Halloween being last Friday and all, but I thought better late than never...right?! So, Ladies and Gentlemen...I present to you:

The Swamp Creature:

Ben 10:

Don't know who that is? He's a cartoon character that looks like this:

Now go back to the picture of Sam...pretty good, don't ya think? Yes, he's wearing the watch on the wrong wrist. He's cool like that. The problem is, MOST people didn't know who he was! Oh well, he did and that's all that matters, right?

AND...here is a picture of the crew. The Bee and the Monkey didn't get individual shots, unless maybe they're still stuck on my camera card from ~~2 months ago~~ er last week. But they looked pretty cute too.

We had a really fun halloween! I was able to go and help at Sam's party, which was SO fun for him. He kept looking at me and grinning from ear to ear. It was awesome and so fun to see all the cute kids dressed up!

After school we went to our 5th halloween party of the season and then came home to get ready for trick-or-treating.
All six of us set out to see how far we'd get before the littles decided it was time to go home. They lasted about 2 circles, so Mark took them back to put Will to bed and put the pizza in the oven while the bigs and I set out for more. There was a little spook alley advertised in the neighborhood so we decided we'd go try to find it. It was fun! They had gone all out and the boys were a little scared to go in. The lady asked if they wanted "scary or non-scary" and they chose scary, but I think they were nervous about what they'd gotten themselves into. There was a guy at the end that started up a chainsaw and all the boys looked at him like: So...it's a big loud power tool, what's the big deal about that? clearly, they've yet to see a real halloween movie. :) We hit tons of houses by the time we were done. They all wanted to go to "so-and-so's house" over here and "so-and-so's house" over there until I think we'd covered the neighborhood twice! We had so much fun and we are still eating halloween candy...uh, which is not surprising at all since it was just last week, right?...silly me!

So, anyway...that is our halloween. Now it's your turn to get all of your halloween pictures up - I don't mind being the first one to do it. Being a leader comes quite naturally to me. Just get crackin!

...

...

...

*cricket...cricket...cricket*

...

WHAT?! What are all of you looking at me like that for???? You act like it's almost Christmas for crying out loud! Why on earth would I post Halloween pictures in December? YOU guys are weird!

...

...

Alright, alright, ALRIGHT, stop it already!! ....Fine. I admit that I'm a little behind. I'm SOOOOOO sorry! Please forgive me. It all started with a broken spacebar. Turns out, spacebars don't like coke. WHO KNEW!! Do ANY OF YOU REALIZE how INCREDIBLY common the spacebar is? Just try to go without it while you type the simplest of sentences. I dare ya! TRY IT! ....That's what I thought. NOW, do you understand where I've been the last two months? Putting a period in between.each.word.worked.for.awhile.but.I.think.it.was.pretty.annoying to people for the most part. Then I tried copying and pasting a space in between each word. I got so good at it that now when I try to use a computer with a working spacebar my thumbs don't know what to do! I also found all of the lovely hot keys available by using the "ctrl" button. Since I'd press "Ctrl V" to paste in my space, if I was ever on a roll and going too fast I'd accidentally type another letter instead of "V". Let me know if you'd like a list of what happens when you type "ctrl z,x,c or b" in the middle of a sentence, I'm a master at it now. ANYWAY, my laptop went from a broken spacebar to a completely dead keyboard. Grr. I'm blogging right now from my boys' computer (which is ancient, but working) and will be getting a new computer (thank you husband!) in a few days. Sigh. Add to that the holiday rush-to-make-everything-perfect and the normal day-to-day mom of four boys stuff and you've got an absent blogger. I've also got a house to clean, a pantry to organize and so much laundry to do that I bet if I started now I wouldn't get done until October 12th of 2011. It's a good think I don't exaggerate or then I'd have yet anOTHER problem, whew!

So anyway that (in a nutshell - a really really big nutshell) is where I've been. Thank you for missing me, and I promise to be better now and to catch up on commenting on yours and adding my new friends onto my blogger list. I've got lots to post so be ready with your listening eyes!! OR, just skip over all my really long ones. It's okay, I don't mind. I get bored reading them myself. :)

Love ya!

A boy and his....er...I mean his AUNT'S dog:

2008-11-04T16:42:00.007-07:00

Last night for FHE we had a lesson on voting and politics. Daddy explained the voting process and what he liked and disliked about the candidates. Then we went around and talked about who we were going to vote for and why. When it was Gabe's turn and we said "who are you going to vote for Gabe?" he jumped up and shouted NIKKI!!!!! (or Nitt-ee in gabespeak) Then Sam said, GABE, you can't vote for a DOG for the PRESIDENT, so he thought about it for a few seconds and shouted OKAY THEN! AUNT SHAWWAAHH!!(Sharla) So funny! It is so nice of Aunt Sharla to have a dog for us that we can play with when we want to and then let her go back to her own house when we're done. :) She is SUCH a good dog, so good natured and sweet! Gabe just LOVES Nikki and includes her in almost ALL of his bedtime (and lately mealtime) prayers!

We love you Nikki!!

what's for dinner?

2008-11-03T17:12:00.002-07:00

SOOOOoooooo..... I have nothing to cook for dinner tonight. I could make my friends' AWESOME Chicken Alfredo except that the chicken needs to bake in the crockpot for 3 hours and it is already 5pm. Upon checking the contents of my pantry I have come up with the following ingredients:

Halloween Candy
Halloween Candy
Halloween Candy
Can of Cream of Chicken Soup
Box of Cap'n Crunch

SO....I'm thinking about a "Cream of Snickers, Milky Way, 100 Grand, and twizzler casserole" with a side of steamed Cap'n Crunch. Should be awesome! OH, and did I mention we also have Halloween Candy? Maybe I should throw that in for dessert!

Hope you all have a wonderfully nutritious dinner, like ours. Go ahead and use my recipe, I don't mind sharing!

Fishy...

2008-10-21T15:40:00.005-06:00

There's something fishy going on around here....

Lately, whenever I put a freshly washed load of laundry on the couch by the time I turn around (practically) it is all FOLDED and ready for me to put away!!

A few days ago, my boys had banana splits for lunch and donuts for dinner!...NO, I didn't mean to say dessert.

I had my mom's famous lasagna (TOTALLY one of my comfort foods) for dinner last night and lunch today and I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO MAKE IT!...

All of the holes in our clothes and socks have been mended and Joshua's Wolf badge mysteriously appeared on his scout shirt!

The boys no longer have to do their chores alone... someone has been doing...er, HELPING them almost every day!...

Wait a minute! I think I've got it! GRANDMA must be in town!!!!!!

Yep...she is...and we're all getting a little spoiled!

Things to remember - Joshua edition

2008-10-12T00:29:00.010-06:00

Dear Joshua,

Remember awhile ago, when daddy gave you, Sam and Gabe a banana and there were only 3 left and one had bruises all over it? Remember daddy asking if anyone was willing to take the banana with the bruises on it and you spoke up and said "I will, Dad"

That was such a beautiful example of Sacrifice.

Remember before school got out for the summer, we were working on a project and you said something about it not being "symmetrical" and I (thinking you really didn't know what that word meant) asked you why it wasn't symmetrical and you said "Because in order for it to be symmetrical it needs to be congruent on both sides".

That was so brilliant

Remember about 6 months ago, when our Sacrament program had a picture of our new First Presidency on the cover, how when we woke up on Monday the picture had been cut out and placed on the fridge? When I asked who put it there you said "I did, I thought we should have that picture on our fridge so we could always remember them".

That was so touching.

Remember just last week when I was getting after you for tattling on your brother for the fifth time that morning and after I was done you waited for a good minute or two and then said in a total non-chalant and sing-song-ish voice "SOooo, how was your Young Women's meeting last night?" just to change the subject?

That was really funny.

And remember, the other day when we were all just hanging out around the house, I was in the kitchen and you and Sam were in the front room and you said "Sam, where's Will? Will you go see if he's in mom's room?" ...he was actually taking a nap and I hadn't even asked you to help watch him that day.

That was so sweet.

These are things I will remember forever. Along with the countless showings of affection you give to me, dad and your little brothers. We are so lucky to be a part of your amazing little 9 year old life. Please don't ever change.

Love, Mommy

The Tornado that died at our house.

2008-09-30T01:03:00.004-06:00

Did I ever tell you the story about the Tornado that got killed at our house? I didn't? Well pull up a chair!

I know what you're thinking. How do you kill a tornado? Well, I'm pretty sure that between the 6 of us, there's not a thing we can't accomplish if we work together.

It all began on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The daddy was taking a nap, the baby was taking a nap, the mommy was feeling guilt creep up inside her from all of the things she says she'll do someday but never actually does so she seized the moment, made a plan and went on a scavenger hunt of sorts to find her ingredients. Item #1: A glass jar. None in sight...not to be discouraged she bounds down the stairs to where her mom has other cool stuff hidden in the kitchen cabinets below and voila! A glass jar is found. CHECK! Item #2: Dish Soap. Check. Item #3: Food Coloring. CHECK! Item #4: Marble. CHECK! ...lest you think we're on a roll...Item#5: Lid for previously mentioned glass jar. Uh. Hmm. The only lid she can find is the one that roofed the teeny tiny jar "house" that held the captured grasshopper and 'Sam Proclaimed' newest member of our family (albeit for a VERY SHORT TIME) a few weeks prior, that had been lovingly adorned with a gazillion nail holes and rendered very un-waterproof. DARN! What to do what to do.. AHA! Again, not to be discouraged, the mommy remembers the yummy bear lake raspberry jam in the refrigerator and does a little switcheroo with the lids. (we are now the proud owners of bear lake raspberry jam with a seran wrapped and nail-holed lid) HOORAY! Now for the fun part! I excitedly gather the three boys beside me and start my commands. "Josh, fill this jar with water up to here", "Sam, pour three long squirts of dish soap here", "Gabe, stick this marble in here" (we forgot about the food coloring). Then they all watched with excited eyes as I spun the jar 'round and 'round in circles and then held it up for all to see! A TORNADO! WOW! OOH, AAH! WOAH! Happiness all around! Daddy wakes up and comes out to see what all the fuss is about, the baby wakes up and cries to come out and see what all the fuss is about and everyone takes a turn making the tornado in the jar. YIPPEE! And then, another idea starts brewing... Sam asks if we can add ANOTHER marble to the mix, to see if it makes an even BIGGER tornado. I say why not and they happily run off toward the marble stash, and then back to the kitchen. Happiness, happiness, glee, glee.

And then... it happens. Just like that, they killed the Tornado. "Oops" one of them says..."um, mom, dad, we broke the tornado" another one says. Mom and Dad (in unison) say "HOW?" another one says "we DON'T KNOW!" and that is their story. Nobody knows how, and nobody broke it, except that I think it was later determined that Sam broke it, but he still doesn't know how, and he still insists that it just broke "all by itself"...and then, we cleaned up broken glass, water, dish soap and marbles for a half an hour, and then Mark saved baby Will from nearly ingesting a broken piece of glass the size of his thumb (the NEXT DAY! - we REALLY thought we'd gotten it all!) and that is the story of the Tornado that died at our house.

The End.

ps. I'm saving this story for me to read the next time I have guilt creep up inside me for all the things I say I'll do but never actually do. See what can happen? Maybe it's better sometimes to just be lazy. After all...you just never know!

snapshots from a lazy Monday morning in September:

2008-09-29T23:52:00.005-06:00

Pancakes as big as your plate (or head)! We've been craving them ever since Anaise blogged about them here

Where's my pancake? I want my PANCAKE NOW!

If I were a cat, I'd have fallen asleep there too. Cute that he fell asleep on Gabe's blanket. Cuter that Joshua covered him up so he'd be "even more cozy".

What happens when you bribe your boys to entertain the baby in his crib while you take a shower. You come out of the bathroom greeted by a trio of stuffed animals dressed in build-a-bear and baby Will's duds.

What my sweetheart left for me on the kitchen counter - just because!

Mr. Incredible

2008-09-29T23:45:00.003-06:00

No...I am not talking about this guy:

I am talking about this guy:

If you know him at all, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There isn't a person on the planet that can meet Mark and feel like he is just an "average guy" there is nothing "average" about him. He is amazing, smart, funny (SO funny), witty, romantic, passionate, smart, funny, compassionate, and funny all rolled into a 6 ft. 2 inch BEAUTIFUL human being. Have I mentioned he's funny? He is. Hilarious actually, he truly makes me laugh every single day, multiple times. I know people say that about people they know, to make a point that the person they are talking about is really funny, but I'm serious when I say that he makes me laugh EVERY.SINGLE.DAY! Oh, and have I mentioned he's smart? Well he is. SERIOUSLY smart. I can prove it! Last Tuesday he found out that he PASSED the Audit exam for the CPA. PASSED it. Nailed it. CONQUERED it. Totally checked it off the on your way to becoming a CPA list. Audit exam? CHECK! Yes, there are 3 more to go, and yes, the financial one is next and is sure to be a doozy, but HE DID IT once and he's going to do it again I TELL YOU WHAT! WAHOO! I am so proud of him. He works SO HARD for us and he NEVER complains. We are so blessed to have this man in our lives. I love this picture of him. If you look close you can see his sparkly lips, thanks to my sparkly pina colada lip gloss from Bath and Body Works. I wonder how that got there! Okay, that's enough, now stop looking at my husbands lips.

WAY TO GO Daddy! We love you and are SOOOOOO proud of you! Thank you for being so wonderful. Oh, and thank you for letting me use your razor this morning in the shower...except that you didn't actually know that I used it, so you might want to change the blade now...fyi...and maybe a little bit too late.

ps. um...yeah. I'm a titch late posting this....okay, a lot late. He did pass it almost a week ago after all... and my cousin may or may not have posted about it already, which we all know means she did, which is pretty pathetic of me don't you think? Thank you Kandis for your support, only you (and the other few that have actually gone through taking the CPA exam) know what he's really going through and your support means so much to both of us!

Today I am thankful

2008-09-15T14:10:00.003-06:00

for Noggin and it's program this morning that taught my 3 year old the importance of optimism. To "not think about what you can't do, think about what you can do!" For instance: When it's raining, don't think about all the things you can't do in the rain, such as ride your bike or fly a kite, think instead of the things you CAN do in the rain, like splash in the rain puddles, or better yet... sit in a wagon pulled by garden snails!! Thank you Noggin, thank you so much.

Weekend Highlights:

2008-09-14T23:30:00.005-06:00

Temple Night, we did an endowment session for the first time in what seemed like forever. Our usual monthly temple nights are with a group in the ward that do sealings. We really REALLY enjoyed doing the session this time and plan to go early on temple nights from now on so we can do both. We also really love our tradition of going to Taco Time on our way home from the temple. We get our nachos and drink and go and park across the street to eat. Then we stop at Arctic Circle to get our awesome "free-tonight-because-we-went-to-the-temple" babysitter a chocolate oreo shake for a treat. We've done this every single time on our way home from the Temple for years. We're kind of wondering what we're going to do when the South Jordan Temple opens and we won't drive by Taco Time anymore - we might just have to go there anyway, we can't bear the thought of breaking tradition now!

Joshua got to go to a birthday party on Friday. They went bowling and he had a blast. He said he got one strike and he would have gotten a spare, but instead it was a foul because he stepped over the line. All of that practicing on Wii Sports must have paid off! :)

Friday night we finally had our traditional movie night with the boys. We've had so many projects (another post) going on lately that we've been putting it off. We all snuggled in our bedroom (Mark, Gabe, and I on the bed and Josh and Sam on the floor by the bed with oodles of blankets) ate popcorn and watched Back to the Future. SO fun... but my that Marty had quite the potty mouth in high-school! We're hoping he's cleaned up his act since the boys are convinced we're watching the next two in the coming weeks.

Samuel got to play with his cute friend Brodey. They are on different tracks this year so this was the first time since school started that they've gotten together to play. He had so much fun!

We went to lunch at AB's Drive-in (Sorry Aunt Ellen, we had coupons!) on Saturday. We all shared a chocolate-chip shake, YUM! Except when the cup seemed to get fuller than it was when we bought it...that's when Mark and I stopped eating and left the rest to the boys. Eww!

Then we went and drove by my childhood home. On a recent trip to the gym we ran into a boy from my old neighborhood (that I used to babysit for). He said he'd heard they were going to tear the home down and build another one in it's place. We thought we'd drive by to see if it was still standing so we could show the boys where I grew up. We also thought if it WAS in the process of being demolished we could steal a brick (Mark's sentimental idea) so that I could have it to remember it by. It was still standing, but looked SOOO different from the way I remembered it as a little girl. In fact, it looks more like I remember it in the above picture (taken from Google Maps), with the black shutters. The black shutters have since been removed and that makes a big difference. I was amazed at how different ALL the houses looked, not the way I remembered them in my mind at all, but still very beautiful. I so wished we could have gone inside where I could dash up the stairs 3 at a time, just once more for old times sake! I have such fond memories of this beautiful house and my childhood days spent in it. My pretty green and yellow room with white furniture and two window seats. The "big room". Our huge playroom with raw umber carpet where all our toys lived and we could play to our hearts content. The balcony where I could check in on my family or visitors from down below. The "huts" that my dad started for us in our closets by cutting through the Sheetrock and framing a room inside. Mine never got fully finished, but Shar's actually had carpet inside and a light so my friends and I would hold all of our secret clubhouse meetings in hers. :) The trampoline, the hot tub and playing, playing, playing. That is what I remember when I think of this house. It was so fun to reminisce about these things a little this weekend!

Our Stake Conference was today and not until the afternoon which meant we got to sleep in! ....Well, we meaning the boys and I, not Mark. Poor guy had a leadership meeting at 7AM! I'd already told him to come home and crawl back into bed for another hour or two but instead he got Will out of bed, fed everyone and brought ME breakfast in bed. Yummy ham and cheese omelets even! I really don't deserve this wonderful man!

We wrestled with our 1 year old for 2 hours during conference. This isn't so much of a highlight really, as it was just pure relief when it was over. That and the fact that we came out triumphant and didn't have to leave once...though the families around us might have wished a time or two that we had! We've dubbed Will the "Sacrament Monster" and he plays his role quite dramatically for the most part. He went pretty easy on us today with it being 2 hours long and all. It was still all we could do to get him home, get his belly full and in that bed though. Whew, one-year-old's are HARD WORK!!

And last but not least we got all dolled up (me) and "cool" (everyone else) for some individual pictures in the backyard. I took the plunge this year and ONLY bought the class picture from the boys' school. I NEVER display the school pics anyway since I take my own candid shots of the kids for my walls, but for some reason I've always felt too guilty to not buy at least the smallest package. This year however, I'd made up my mind. I checked "class picture only" on those envelopes and never looked back. ANYWAY, that left me really needing new individual shots. I think we got some good ones that I'll be posting later, but couldn't help but post these little "numbers" courtesy of our 9 year old photographer. Sam took our first few, but then I had Josh take the rest. Mark kept saying I "fired" Sam, but fired is a pretty harsh word. I prefer the term "on hold" instead. Temporarily "on hold" until he can figure out how to not cut off Mark's head or my chin. :)

Aren't we cute? ....our poor poor kids!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend too!

Visitor

2008-09-12T10:12:00.003-06:00

It was about 5-ish (in the morning) Will woke up screaming, I heard him, but gave him a few minutes to go back to sleep. He didn't. Sigh. I got up to retrieve (usually at the veeeery back corner under his crib by the wall) his binky and give it back, hoping that is all it would take. It wasn't. I retrieved the binky (exactly where I thought it would be) and gently laid him back down, he was soaking wet. I immediately regretted my decision the night before when I did the "feel" test and had determined that his diaper (pretty newly changed) was fine enough for the night. It wasn't. Sigh. I changed him and got him all warm and cozy (which made me feel happy) stuck in the bink and tip-toed away. Whew. 2 minutes later I hear tiny feet shuffling in my room. Moooom, (it's Gabe) tan I sweep wif zyou-dyzes? (you guys) Yes, I say sleepily and he snuggles happily in between us. Hi sweetheart, I say as he folds in close. "Heh-woah tweethow-t (sweetheart..that one was hard to write but is exactly how he says it), I wuz zyou"...."Mommy?" What? "Did zyou know zyou bed is SOOO tozy and warm?" Yes, I did. Are you warm? "zyes". Good. Are you happy? "zyes, zyou are duh BEST mom evah". You are the best boy sweetheart, I love you! "I wuz zyou too mom"...."mom?" what? "Zyou are tind-of goo-ishing me". Sorry, I'll give you more room. (Gabe then snuggles closer to dad) ....time passes... "Dad?"...."Dad?"...."DAAAD?"...."Mom?" What? "Daddy is goo-ishing me". Oh. Daddy?...DAAADDDYY (huh-what?) You're squishing Gabe. (Oh, sorry, I'll turn over)...time passes... "Mom?" What? "I sink I am doh-ing to doh back to my bed". Okay sweetheart, I love you! "I wuz zyou too." and he shuffles out.

Morning comes and I say happily "HEY!! Did you come visit mommy and daddy in the night?" to which Gabe stares blankly at me and says (like I've lost my mind) NOOOO, siwwy, I didn't come visit you, I sweeped in MY bed!

I wonder which one of us is right.

Inspired.

2008-09-10T17:53:00.007-06:00

Two days ago, the mommy of this house would not have in a gazillion years allowed this to happen:

Boys watching cartoons on mom and dad's bed BEFORE reading and spelling homework were done. (don't mind Gabe's stocking hands. He was being Mr. Incredible. Makes perfect sense, right?)

Especially when the 3 year old's room looked like this: (my, I do post "messy room" pictures a bit too often, don't I?)

However, yesterday the mommy of this house had a change of heart. She decided that the boys could watch cartoons on mom and dad's bed just because. Just because it's fun. Just because she can't even remember the last time they've been able to watch cartoons and just because she is healthy and happy and able to break the rules just this once. Her change of heart came from this family:

It seems that everyone has heard about them by now, how could I be so out of the loop? I immediately found their websites and have been immersed in the reading of NieNie's dialogs on her blog here ever since.

I've also been reading her sister's blog and my heart just aches for this sweet (and SUPER funny) family. Stephanie reminds me SO much of my blogging friends and her tragic accident just breaks my heart. I thought about my cousin Trish when I read this story: (only because you had a very similar post Trish, not because I think you lock your kids out of your house all day!) and I thought about super-mom Megan when I read this story: and in all of her writings I see bits and pieces of everyone and everything I love. Like so many people I know, this woman loves her faith and her husband and her family more than anything and shows it almost daily in her wonderful and creative posts. She and her husband are now in an AZ burn unit. She with burns over 83% of her body and he with burns over 30%. Reading and learning about her the last few days have completely inspired me to be better. A better wife, a better mother, a better homemaker and a better blogger. I use this blog as my family journal, yet there are times when I don't post for 3 weeks or even more. I strive to do better and I pray along with the rest of the blogging world for Stephanie and her husband and for her recovery. It seems I've had a lot of these kind of take-time-out-to-smell-the-roses types of lessons lately. I think my Heavenly Father is trying to tell me something, and I think today I'm going to start listening.

My Knight - another reason I'm happy today...

2008-09-10T15:57:00.007-06:00

To Mark:

Dear Knight in Shining Armor,

Alas there was but one icy cold can of coca-cola left in the refrigerator today and it has since been guzzled up. Would you fancy perhaps bringing us home an icy drink to mingle with the flavors of creamed tuna on toast that we shall be enjoying as a family this beautiful evening?

much obliged, my sweet prince...er, wait, I mean sir Knight,

I lovest thee very much,

your fair maiden

Reply:

Dear Maiden,

I suppose in my quest to conquer all the many dragons and slayers I have been battling today, I might find passage to the castle and bring you a delectable drink. However, it will take much sacrifice, as I must travel through the dark forest, pass over the poisonous moat and scale the castle wall, all whilst holding your passion drink in hand. I just have one question my love. Will the cost be worth my sacrifice?

Knight.

He is meaning a kiss, right? I love this guy. Passion drink, hee,hee,hee!

Reasons to be happy--updated

2008-09-10T13:07:00.005-06:00

We have thought about it and found lots of great reasons to be happy today, here is a partial list:

This guy got to eat some of his favorite things for breakfast: bananas, pears and graham crackers.

This guy gets to stay in his pajamas ALL day:

These guys LOVE each other:

and today when I asked Gabe if he could go and get Will's sippy cup for me in his room he said "Zyep! I shoo tan do dat foe zyou, mom!" I am so lucky!

sidenote: while eating our pears this morning, Gabe announced that to him they taste "dust wike appools" (just like apples) so we pondered about that for a moment. About 20 minutes later he said excitedly (no gabespeak here, I'm too tired): "Hey MOM! I know why Pears taste just like Apples! Because they are LEMONS!!" Who knew?! And now you've all learned something you didn't know. Glad to be of service. :)

update: I totally forgot to add the cutest part of the conversation, when Gabe explained to me something along the lines of "because they also have lots of water in them and that makes them taste very apple-ish" (sounded more like "ahpoowish", but you get the idea) My 3 year old said "Apple-ish" Isn't that cute? and TOTALLY something I would say. In my opinion, your regular vocabulary can be expanded by leaps and BOUNDS with the simple word of "ish". It is used very frequently around here, and now apparently by more than just me. YAY GabE!

It's raining!

2008-09-09T16:52:00.003-06:00

It's raining outside. Quite simple really...or is it?

I sent the middles outside to eat their snack. Josh is at scouts and Will is in bed. I went into the closet to get on my shoes so that I could go and mow the lawn - a task I've been meaning to complete all day but kept thinking the luminous clouds above me were going to break any minute and then I'd be stuck in the middle of a half mowed lawn soaking wet....

Anyway, back to the middles. I sent them out to eat their snack and am sitting in my closet getting on my shoes when Gabe walks in and announces: "Mom, it is tarting to rain outside so tan we dust eat our nacks inside duh house?" (please let me know if you need a translation on this)

I say with a sigh as I begin to remove the shoes I had just hunted for and put on my feet: "Yes, Gabe you can eat your snack inside, just please eat over your plate and try not to make a mess."

Gabe says: "Oh-tay MOM!" and is off.

In enters Sam who proceeds to tell me pretty much exactly the same thing, but perhaps not quite the same way... (I immediately e-mailed myself a copy of this conversation to be sure I could get it word for word)

"Mom, Um, it's raining outside, so can we eat our snacks INside? because it's raining outside and I think there is going to be a BIG storm, because you know Gabe's police car and that baseball thing that Gabe has that holds the ball up so you can whack it with a stick? Well, you know how that's kinda heavy? Well, the wind just TOTALLY blew it down, like it was like a invisible guy outside just doing it like *insert HUGE hand and arm motions here* SWOOSH, just like that. So I think it is going to be a BIG storm, so that is why maybe we should just eat our snacks inside. Okay?"

Yes, Sam - that is okay. Just please eat over your plate and try not to make a mess.

Sam: "Got it!"

So based on the difference between these two conversations and my WHOLE first paragraph about getting on my shoes and mowing the lawn - would you say that my little Sam comes by his talkative-ness naturally at least? At least there's that. And I couldn't help from blushing with pride. :)

Happy Happy 1st Birthday Baby Will!!!!

2008-08-24T23:50:00.009-06:00

I just canNOT believe that our little baby Will is ONE YEAR OLD today! To say the last year went by fast would be far too much of an understatement. It LITERALLY FLEW by. Isn't it amazing how many things a tiny baby learns to do in just one year? This little guy has been SO much fun and we just cannot imagine life without him in it. He is so funny and so smart. He knows exactly what he wants and usually figures out how to get it. He just loves his big brothers and I'm pretty sure he thinks he is just as old as they are. He is a Daddy's Boy through and through, but he does love to snuggle with Mommy occasionally too. He can sign the words: milk, bye-bye, night-night, and thank you. He LOVES monkeys and says the "ahh, ahh" part of the monkey sound, he hasn't gotten the beginning "ooh, ooh" part down quite yet. He also loves dogs and tries to make a doggy sound when he sees them. When we ask him what a "car" says he says "voom, voom" and it sounds pretty much just like that! It is so cute. He also blows kisses, which melts me EVERY single time. For his birthday today we all went into his room first thing singing "happy birthday to you!" He smiled when he first saw us, but then our singing freaked him out a little and he started to cry. We didn't know what was scarier, all of us coming toward him in his crib or our incredibly off-pitch singing - I'm sure it was a mixture of both. :) Poor little guy. He seemed to really love digging into his own little chocolate cake. Mark and I loved his look right at first, almost like he was saying "seriously guys, are you sure about this?" After his cake and a bath we let him play with his birthday presents which were a little dog stuffed animal that plays music from an mp3 player...which meant he kind of needed an mp3 player to go with it ... lucky for us, we already HAD a little mp3 player that I got on a great sale a few months ago kicking around so we threw that in - though I did ask myself more than once what kind of parent gives their one year old an mp3 player. Oh well, he LOVED it and I should have gotten video of him dancing. There are SOOOOOO many videos I need to take of this baby before he grows out of all of these adorable things he does. That is going on my priority list for the week. ANYWAY, he also got a "busy ball popper" which he just loved too - As a matter of fact ALL the boys loved it and played with it for a lot longer than should be normal for their ages since it was a baby toy and all. The ball popper was partly from Grandma Reading too because she sent him a darling birthday card and some birthday money a few weeks ago, she even called him today to wish him a happy birthday so she officially gets the prize for sending him his first birthday card and giving him his first telephone birthday greeting. After presents we all watched "America's Funniest Home Videos" and Will had fun fake laughing every time he heard one of us laugh. He topped off the night by shoving one of the ball popper balls in mom or dad's mouth and laughing hysterically when we blew them out at him. I guess for a one year old, the busy ball popper is fun but the human ball popper is even better! All in all, we had a great day with our little one year old. We are just so thankful for him, he couldn't be sweeter, or cuter in our opinion....though we could probably do without the high pitched scream he's been fancying lately. If our eardrums make it through this new little phase it will be a miracle. OUCH!!

We love you beautiful baby brother!

Thank you!

2008-08-06T17:07:00.004-06:00

Thank you everyone for the sweet birthday wishes, cards and phone calls today! I am so lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful friends and family!

Thank you to the sweetest man I have ever known in my life. Wow. I love you. I don't know what was more touching to me, reading his post or realizing that this is why he wouldn't let me near the computer for 3 AND A HALF hours!! I seriously can't believe he did this for me, and I can't believe how lucky I am to be married to my best friend and to be with him every single day.

Just thought I'd clear up something really quickly though for those that might be wondering....

I ONLY snore when I'm pregnant (weird) or really really tired. Mark thought it was so hilarious that one time that I woke myself up. he,hee.

Happy Birthday to my Beautiful Amazing wife!!!!

2008-08-05T23:49:00.004-06:00

What a historic and wonderful day August 6, 2008 is. It is historic due to the fact, this is the first time I have ever up-dated a blog, let alone ever even posted a comment. During the past few years, I've visited many different blogs and greatly enjoyed the stories and experiences of various family and friends. I sort of feel bad at times I simply just read a person’s blog and not leave a comment. I feel like I sometimes just take and not give back. Maybe this can be my blog confessional that I’m sorry for not leaving comments and I will try to do better. The truth is, I have been saving myself. Saving myself for that special moment when I blog for the first time. And today is that day I blog for the first time, for today is my wonderful wife’s birthday.

I’m so truly fortunate to have Melanie in my life. She is such an amazing person and the center of my world. I know that I married up. Melanie is definitely the better half – in all things. I can confidently admit this now that we have four children together. I knew the day Melanie agreed to marry me I struck the best deal of all time. At that time, I didn’t really know how I did it or why it happened, but for me it was the greatest blessing I have ever received. Anyhow, a few weeks back Melanie posted an up-date on her blog that mentioned how she was going to try and post 100 things about herself, but could only get to 53. As I read this I was appalled. I pulled out a piece of paper and listed four categories and was able to come up with a 100 things about Melanie in about 15 minutes. It was actually really fun to think about 100 hundred things about my spouse. For me, it was a real powerful reminder of how simply amazing Melanie is to me. I’ve carried my ‘100 things about Melanie list’ the past few weeks in my bag. It has become kind of a comfort to me. I’ve read it at work, in my car, on the bus, at home and even added more items to the list. Then I thought the other day, I should post my ‘100 things about Melanie list’ and share it with others. I was hesitant at first, but I know it’s important for me to allow others to feel the spirit of Melanie. So as a tribute to my wife on her birthday here is ‘100 things about Melanie’ (in no particular order)….

Talents
1. Computers - Melanie is known around our house as the ‘company computer guy’ she has always been very talented and skilled technologically. And she doesn’t even look like a nerd.
2. People Skills – She simply knows how to talk to people of all types.
3. Leadership – Melanie is one of those special people with the innate ability to naturally lead.
4. Drive – Anything Melanie has ever wanted to accomplish, she accomplishes. Even if she doesn’t sleep for three days
5. Learning – Melanie has brains! She is such a smarty. And again, an innate ability to learn anything.
6. Love – Melanie radiates love around her at all time. You would know if you were ever in the same room with her.
7. Perceptive – Melanie has the gifted ability to understand situations quickly.
8. Organized – Next time you are at our house, feel free to look in her children’s closets and dressers. No more explanation needed.
9. Creative – This is one of Melanie’s greatest strengths. She has always been so creative, as well as innovative. She constantly has ideas and solutions.
10. Understanding – Melanie is a great listener. She knows how to understand people and situations. I’ve witnessed many accounts of Melanie cheering up and strengthening someone just by the way she listens.
11. Non-Judgmental – Closely related to #10. Melanie is the most non-judgmental person I have ever known. I have never heard Melanie once compare what she does to anyone else. But, I have heard Melanie mention many times how she looks up to others because of what they do.
12. Listening – Closely related to #10 and #11. If you have talked to Melanie you would know what I mean.
13. Problem Solving – Melanie loves challenges. Problem solving is another one of her greatest strengths. From life challenges to home repair, Melanie will find the right solution.
14. Inspirational – One of my favorite movie lines is in Rocky II after Adrian wakes up from her comma. Rocky had been training to fight Apollo Creed, but when Adrian got sick it appeared the fight may not happen. While in the hospital bed Adrian asked Rocky to come a bit closer to her and says, “I want you to do something for me. Win, Win Rocky!” Melanie is my Adrian.
15. Enthusiastic – Melanie is never a downer.
16. Humble – She could only list 53 items about herself. How sad. But, Humble.
17. Courageous – Melanie is not afraid to let people know who she is.
18. Making Shoes – I think some day Melanie could open who own shoe store. She has made the coolest shoes for our boys. The boys love them every time they get a new pair. How awesome is that! A hot mom that makes shoes.
19. Clothes making/painting – In addition to making shoes, Melanie has also painted the boys shirts. Unfortunately, it is probably not as fun as making dresses, but it’s a good substitute.
20. Birthday party organizing – This could be another possible business venture for Melanie. She knows how to put on quite the kid bash.
21. Reading – Melanie is a really good reader. She has been known to read entire books in a single night. By the way, what is the hype with those twilight books? Anyhow, Reading is also her maiden name.
22. Writing – Melanie is a great writer. As you probably noticed, much better than I.
23. Coloring – If Melanie is competitive at all, coloring is where it would be. I’ve never been able to color without her critiquing me. I take back #11.
24. Motherhood – Again, one of Melanie’s greatest strengths. She fiercely loves her children and would do anything for them. There is much much more I could add here, but it would not come close to explain how great Melanie is within the role of Motherhood.
25. Photography – Melanie is a natural with photography. She has always had an interest in this area. It comes very easy to her. I think one of the reasons Melanie loves photography so much is the sheer fact she likes to see people smile and be happy.

Achievements
26. Mowing the Lawn – For some strange reason Melanie picked up mowing the lawn this summer. She claims that she loves it. And has even e-mailed photos of the mowed lawn to me at work. Is this normal?
27. Painting – Melanie has painted every single room in our house to perfection.
28. Gave birth to Joshua – 10 hours of labor. Melanie said, “Everything went perfectly and it was the best pregnancy ever”
29. Gave Birth to Samuel – Samuel was breech so Melanie had to have a C-section. She was a bit nervous going in, but performed magnificently.
30. Gave birth to Gabriel – Gabriel was not breech but was a C-section. Melanie again performed magnificently.
31. Gave birth to William – William was not breech but was also a C-section. This was Melanie’s 3rd C-section in 5 years. I think if the doctor had let Melanie hold the scalpel she would have performed the procedure herself. I know it’s weird, but after watching my wife give birth to each of our boys, I’ve always thought I would never want to get into a fistfight with that women. She would work me over.
32. Once made 7 out of 10 free throws on our new basketball hoop.
33. Pushed her children in a 5-K Race.
34. Can beat the entire family in guitar hero.
35. Had a kiss on top of the Empire State building with her husband.
36. Has put her foot in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. (No, not at the same time)
37. Hit by a truck and survived – Melanie’s big childhood accident was being hit after stepping off a UTA bus in front of her sister Sharla’s house. To this day Melanie likes to show off how her knee-cap can move around about 2 inches in every direction.
38. Canada & Mexico – Melanie has visited our bordering nations.
39. Changed peoples lives – Melanie is such a good friend to so many people. She makes friends so easily, and so many people love to be her friend. Joshua has this same quality.
40. Saved a girl from drowning – Melanie once was at a pool in which the pool repair person left his daughter unattended while working on the side of the house. The girl fell in and Melanie happened to hear a splash and went outside to see her at the bottom of the pool. It wasn’t on the news, but nevertheless a life was probably saved that day.
41. Visiting Teacher – Melanie is an accomplished visiting teacher. She loves the sisters assigned to her and is constantly thinking of ways to help them.
42.Plays the Piano – Melanie has always enjoyed playing the piano.
43. Read the book of Mormon – We once did this together. We both took turns reading each night. I would recommend it to every couple out there. It truly strengthened our testimony as well as our relationship.
44. Guiding our family - Our most important goal for our family is for each of us to return back to our Heavenly Father. Melanie is such an example of the type of people we should be in order to accomplish our goal.
45. Learned Sign Language – Melanie decided one day she wanted to learn sign language, so she did.
46. Spelling B Champion – Melanie has participated in many spelling B’s in her life. Along with coloring, Melanie is also openly competitive in this area as well.
47. Happy- Melanie is the happiest person I have ever met. Always smiling.
48. Melanie was born. – According to legend, Melanie was a surprise baby. An unplanned whoopsie. Contact Anna Marie if you are interested in further details.
49. Silk Pajamas- Melanie loves silk pajamas.
50. Blinking – Melanie can only blink one eye.

Things Melanie Loves
50. Pizza – Melanie loves Ham and pineapple pizza. And hates even the smell of pizza when pregnant. Currently, she loves pizza if that tells you anything.
51. Cheesecake- Melanie loves cheesecake anytime of day or night. During her last stay at the hospital with baby Will she had cheesecake everyday.
52. Kaui – Hawaii was one of Melanie’s most favorite trips of all time. We still talk about it - at least once a week - about when we are going back.
53. Whale Watches – While in Kaui we went Whale Watching. It was amazing. Melanie also has a whale tale necklace.
54. Shopping- No need for explanation here.
55. Helping others – Melanie loves to be in service of others. It is just simply part of who she is.
56. Sleeping in – Melanie loves to sleep in. Although with 4 boys this doesn’t happen as much as it should.
57. Late Night Movies
58. Summer Time
59. Beach – Melanie has always loved the beach. She has said she could hang out there all day long as long as her family was with her. Melanie continues to ask me to put applications in at the Snorkel Bob’s in Hawaii.
60. Top Ramen and Burritos – When we were dating it was really cool to go out with a girl that loved Top Ramen and burritos. But, after 13 years of marriage I can’t count how many times I have heard, “Do you want to have Top Raman and burritos tonight!” I love you dear.
61. Steak and Seafood – When we do go out… Melanie is a Steak and Seafood connoisseur.
62. Clothes – Melanie is addicted to buying clothes for her boys. I probably should have found help for her a few years ago.
63. Family – Melanie loves her extended family. Mike and Charlotte, David and Mandy, Sharla and Jeff. She is constantly thinking about them.
64. Friends – Melanie loves and adores her friends. Many of them are as close as family.
65. Gospel – Melanie loves the gospel and continuously centers her life on the Savior and her family.
66. Joshua – Melanie’s first born son. Joshua is a boy blueprint of his Mom.
67. Samuel – Melanie’s second born son. Samuel is mature beyond his years.
68. Gabriel – Melanie’s third born son. Gabriel is a true Momma’s boy to the end.
69. William – Melanie’s fourth born son. William is a perfect mix of Joshua and Samuel.
70. Parents – Melanie truly loves and deeply cares about her Parents Vern & Anna Marie.
71. Other Peoples kids – Melanie loves all children no matter whose they are.
72. Cotton Candy – A must buy every time we see a cotton candy machine.
73. Sandals – Especially when her toes are done.
74. Otter Pops and Snow cones

Beautiful things about Melanie
75. Brown Eyes – Melanie has wonderful amazing eyes.
76. Smile – As mentioned before, Melanie is always smiling
77. Hair - Melanie has pretty hair
78. Spirit – Her spirit is contagious.
79. Lips – Perfect Lips
80. Toes – They are all proportional cute little piggies.
81. Personality – I’ve heard you are supposed to marry someone who has a great personality because you will be talking with them a great deal. I could talk to Melanie forever. She will always be interesting to me.
82. Faith – Melanie has always been my greatest example in this area.
83. Humor – Melanie is really funny. She makes me laugh
84. Thoughtfulness – She is always thinking of others above her own self.
85. In the morning - (I know this is weird) But, Melanie is so beautiful in the morning to me. When I leave for work each day, Melanie is the last person I see before I head out the door. I just love to see her sleeping in bed and resting. It gives me all the inspiration I need to conquer the day.
86. Character – Unquestionable character
87. Daughter of our Heavenly Father
88. Floppy Ear – When Melanie was a child she played with one of her ears so much while sucking her thumb that the cartilage became weak and now it can nearly fold in half. Odd, but I think it is cute.
89. Scar on Hand – Melanie has a little scar on her hand from making suckers when she was a child. It gives her a little street credibility and makes her kind of look tough. At least she thinks it does. Anyhow, It is cute.
90. Watch Tan Line – This is something Melanie has worked quite hard at. And to be honest, she really does have a beautiful watch tan line.
91. Waking herself up snoring – One time I was watching TV in bed and Melanie was asleep snoring. She snored so loudly; she opened her eyes and said, “Was that me?” I answered, “Yes honey, that was you.” To which She replied, “I’m sorry” I told her she didn’t have to apologize for snoring. And besides, Melanie snores beautifully.
92. Nose – I once broke my nose playing basketball. I then realized just how beautiful Melanie’s nose was. She has the perfect nose
93. Family – Melanie really does have one of the most beautiful families. There are so many different family members that have beautiful qualities inside and out it has always been amazing to me. I look up to so many members of Melanie’s family.
94. Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
95. Arm Muscles – Melanie has tone arms.
96. Spiritual Giant – Melanie is truly a spiritual giant.
97. Charisma – Melanie exuberates charisma.
98. Brain – As mentioned before. Melanie has brains. She is so smart.
99. Nice – Melanie is nice.
100. Melanie is just a simply beautiful person.

I hope you have a Wonderful Birthday Sweet Heart. I love you Forever!

Your Husband,
Mark

New posts!

2008-08-01T10:45:00.002-06:00

So, I had a few posts that I never got completed but had started and they were in my blog list as "drafts". This morning I finally got them all done. The problem is, that they were set BEFORE all the recent ones I've posted so if you're interested in seeing them they are UNDER the "Sunday" post. I'll try to just do them as I go from now on....I'm SO behind!! :)

Day Four

2008-07-31T16:51:00.002-06:00

It's day four of the bigs' being back at school and so far today Gabe has poured a bottle of shampoo on the top of his head (after his bath and getting fully dressed), brushed the "mirror" instead of his teeth - yummy - and raided the chocolate chip cookies (previously mentioned). Lest you think this is all just a cry for attention we've also read stories and practiced letters and cuddled for part of the day. This poor kid is bored and I'm pooped. Losing my biggest helpers STINKS!

I have had fun with the littles though, we went shopping the other day and they loved being out and about. It's just SO weird having Josh and Sam gone for ALL day, we all miss them and can't wait for off-track time, just 8 more weeks and one day. Sigh.

Adventures in Mowing...

2008-07-31T14:03:00.004-06:00

Awhile ago, maybe as far back as last Fall, I remember talking to my friend Jenna on the phone and asking her how her day was going. She said it was going great and that she just got done mowing the lawn.

"What?! - did you say YOU just got done mowing the lawn?!" I asked in surprise. To which she replied that yes, SHE just got done mowing the lawn. I must have sounded more shocked than I meant to because she went on to tell me that it is something that she chooses to do and that she actually finds it kind of therapeutic. My little brain said "WHATEVER!" in my head and thought about all the times Mark mows the lawn and how hard it looks, it didn't seem very therapeutic to me. But, lately I got to thinking... Jenna has never steered me wrong before. In fact, quite the opposite, she is truly the strongest example of the person I want to be that I've ever had. This is no secret to her, I tell her all the time that I want to be Jenna when I grow up (despite the fact we're nearly the same age). I've yet to talk to her even when things might not be going great for one or both of us that I don't walk away feeling refreshed, energized and like a daughter of God. Plus, she also introduced me to the concept of "toilets and towels on Tuesdays" ....not a hard concept, just a matter of cleaning your bathrooms and washing your towels on Tuesdays - something that has truly stuck with me and sometimes even worked! I've also adopted her idea of everyone in the family owning their own color of towel (thanks to Charlotte buying us all our own color) and having a towel hook in their room. On Tuesdays, you wash the towels and hang them back on everybody's hooks and you're good for a week....or sometimes two or three if - like me, you only remember that it is Tuesday every other week or so. :)

ANYWAY, like I said, lately I got to thinking that Jenna has never steered me wrong before...maybe, just maybe there IS something to this lawn mowing thing. I decided one day to try it out. The timing was perfect, it was the week of Mark's birthday and what better present to give your hubby than the day off from mowing the lawn, right? So, I asked Mark to teach me the ropes and off I went! I mowed while he trimmed, we were the perfect team. I actually had FUN - I liked soaking up the sun and making cool designs in the grass. Not bad, I thought - and definitely worth trying again...someday. Well, "someday" came a little earlier than planned as the very next week on the night before "lawn mowing day" Mark didn't get much sleep. I was sort of responsible since I stayed up talking maybe a little bit too loudly to Charlotte and Mikele who had come to stay for a few days. Since I felt partly responsible I couldn't make Mark who was running on like 3 hours of sleep come home and mow - so I did it again, and this time solo. I enjoyed it the second time almost more than the first. Jenna was RIGHT! (though I never really doubted her) it WAS therapeutic - I could really get used to this! I e-mailed Mark and told him that I mowed again and that he didn't have to come home and do it. He jokingly asked if anyone we knew drove by and saw me and I joked back and told him "only our bishop, stake president and most of the elders quorum, not to worry" :) hee,hee. So, anyway, this morning I woke up and thought "Hey, it's Thursday - time to mow the lawn" and off I went. I really enjoy being able to get into a rhythm and just think and ponder. I think about my cute neighbor across the street when I'm mowing toward her house and I think about my cute neighbor next door to me when I'm mowing on the side of my house - I think about how blessed I am to live in this neighborhood, in this house and in this country. I look at the mountains on both sides of me and realize how beautiful our state is and just feel happy to be alive and I think about how my hard working husband won't have to come home and worry about working even harder and that makes me happy.

BUT, since I AM a girl after all I realized on this third go-around that I do have a few fears ...things that I bet Mark has never thought twice about...for instance:

What if I get a blister in these shoes since I refuse to wear socks with them because it looks too dorky....yeah, it would be worth it, there's NO way I'm wearing socks with these shoes.

What if my shirt looks too tight and shows all my fat.....maybe I should have worn one of Mark's t-shirts instead. Nah, then I would have looked frumpy...this one will have to do.

What if the Wasps resting happily in the nest that Joshua just found under the mailbox decide to initiate war on me while mowing and attack me from behind.

Speaking of bugs, what if ALL the bugs that I disturb while traipsing through the bushes (and there are a LOT of them) decide to join the wasps in their declaration of War and attack me from all sides. ....ewwww!

What if I do it wrong and Mark has to do it all over again.

What if I break the lawn mower and we have to buy a new stupid lawn mower instead of the flat screen tv that I really want instead.

What if the blower thing that Mark uses to blow all the grass clippings back on the lawn, that seems to weigh 10 times what I weigh (though realistically probably weighs less than ten pounds) suddenly switches to sucking power instead and sucks me and Gabe in. ACK!

What if the poisonous mushrooms that Gabe has scattered all over the lawn turn airborne when mowed/crunched up and I fall to my death on my freshly clipped grass and the lawn mower mows over me. Double ACK!

Okay, so I didn't really worry about the last two things...just needed some more items to make my point. :)

Thankfully, none of the above happened I didn't get a blister after all, and maybe after a good summers' worth of mowing I'll burn off all my fat and not have to worry about my shirt. Yeah, I'll go with that.

I also kind of wanted to try to mow a heart shape into the front but was too afraid I'd mess it up...I bet Mark's never had that thought either. :)

AND, I've decided the blower thing hates me. Oh, and it's stupid. And heavy. And stupid. And if it's secretly alive I bet it laughs at me while I try to use it, I can't blame it, I would laugh at me too because it's heavy and I can't hold it right and end up blowing all the grass INTO the garage and have to go deeper inside to blow it back out and it's stupid. (and if Gabe could read he'd be telling me right now "mommy, don't say too-pid")

Oh, and this is what happens when you send your 3 year old to his room for having a chocolate chip cookie party while you were mowing the lawn (when you've told him ALL morning that he can't have a cookie because he didn't eat his eggs) and then you sort of forget about him because you needed to take a picture of the lawn that you are so proud of to e-mail to your husband. oops. Sorry sweetheart, I will make it up to you when you wake up, I promise! (and in my defense, he fell asleep in less than 5 minutes...that's only 2 minutes longer than his normal time-out time so he must have really needed a nap today...right?)

First day of school!

2008-07-30T08:42:00.003-06:00

The big boys started school on Monday. I can't believe it is school time already. We've been on D-track pretty much every year until now and D-track doesn't start until the end of August but this year we switched tracks so they got jipped out of 3 whole weeks of their normal summer. I think I'm more upset about this than they are though because they were so excited to start 4th and 1st grade!

Sam had a bit of a rough start on his very first day by getting on the wrong bus and worrying me to death. The school had to call the bus dispatch to find out where my scared little 6 year old was! They found out that he was in fact on another bus and would be coming back to the school to drop him off to me. Whew! His cute teacher was worried too, poor lady! What a way to start your first day! He got off the bus and looked like he was about to cry so I just hugged him and asked him how his little adventure was and that I was so happy he was safe. Joshua however couldn't hold back (apparently big brother was scared too) and said "SAM! YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR ME WHEN YOU GET OUT OF SCHOOL, YOU HAVE TO GET ON THE RIGHT BUS, I WILL SHOW YOU WHICH BUS TO GET ON TOMORROW, YOU CAN'T DO THAT SAMUEL!!" I had to chuckle before telling him to chill and that Sam had been through enough as it was. Poor kid.

We are going to miss these big boys. I'm not sure who will miss them more, Gabe who will miss his playmates or me who will miss the help with Gabe. They've had such a fun week so far, they both love their teachers and Sam LOVES getting to have lunch in the cafeteria. Here's to a great year!!!

Oh just an FYI...the pictures above are what happens when you throw your boys in front of the house (not realizing it's in total sun and they are closing their eyes) because the bus is nearly at the bus stop and you really don't want to drive them, but also can't fathom not getting their picture on this special day. Sigh. Maybe I'll take more and pretend they were on the first day of school - they'll never remember, right?!

Sunday

2008-07-20T20:13:00.003-06:00

Today was such a wonderful Sunday. We started out the day by helping Joshua prepare for a talk he was supposed to give in Primary. Mark is such a wonderful speaker/teacher and he helped Josh by giving him some tips and pointers. Our little 9 year old ended up going up to the front of the room without a single look back and giving an incredible talk about the importance of missionary work and what even kids can do to help bring others to the Gospel - he didn't even use his notes! I just missed it and was so disapointed, but Mark was there and he and others told me what a great job he did with tears in their eyes. The amazing thing about it is that with Joshua, something even as simple as a 2 minute primary talk prepared the morning before it is supposed to be given can turn into an incredible spiritual event. I have no doubt in my mind that this boy is meant for great things. Just the fact that he was chosen to be the leader of 3 younger brothers tells me that his work on this earth is just beginning. I am so lucky to be his mom.

Then we had the opportunity to go and listen to Brandon give a talk in Sacrament meeting. He is preparing to go on his mission and his spirit and countenance is visibly changing and getting stronger right before our eyes. I had trouble fighting the tears as I listened to his words and felt the Spirit surrounding me. He is such a wonderful young man and I'm so proud of him. It may or may not have also helped that other than Will sleeping peacefully in my lap I was pretty much childless. My boys were all sitting next to or on the laps of their cousins and Aunt and Mark and I heard every word spoken in Sacrament meeting for quite possibly the first time in 9 years! It was bliss to say the least! :)

During Scripture study tonight we were reading in 1st Nephi chapter 17 about Nephi giving his brothers a speech about listening to our God and following his commandments. One of the examples Nephi gives is of Moses freeing the people from bondage. As soon as Gabe heard the word Moses he piped up "Hey! I know dat! We did yearn (learn) about dat in MY class!" I just said "yeah, you know him huh!" and tried to keep going thinking that he didn't REALLY know what he was talking about until he said "Uh-huh! And him did go in a basket in the water, we did read about him in my class" Mark and I couldn't believe that he really knew the story of baby Moses and could recount it just by hearing his name. Thank you thank you nursery leaders! We LOVE you!

What a wonderful day. We love Sundays. We are so thankful for our family and all of our blessings.

Birthday Fun!

2008-07-19T01:41:00.008-06:00

I love our spring and summer birthdays. When we had Joshua in June it made our birthdays all in the summer. June, July and August. I really wanted my next baby in May and was so excited when Sam was due on May 5th. Well, he had other ideas and decided to come a week early on April 28th. SO CLOSE! Then when we found out that Gabriel was due May 25th I was elated! This would be perfect - April, May, June, July and August!! I thought even if he was 2 full weeks early he'd still make his debut in May. I didn't plan on him being a MONTH early!! Little stinker! He decided he wanted the first birthday of the year and came a day before Sam on April 27th. So... though we skip May we do have all of our birthdays in the spring and summer which is so much fun. I posted about everyone's birthdays but never posted about the accompanying birthday parties that we had for their special day. Joshua wanted to take some of his friends to Wall-E on opening day so we had to wait for that to come out on June 27th. He took 7 friends and with Sam, Gabe, Mark and I we took up an ENTIRE row in the theatre. Every seat! Will chose to stay home and nap with our babysitter Jessica, which worked out SO nice for us. :) We bought 3 giant tubs of popcorn and every party goer got their own little drink. Then, when we turned in our tickets the guy gave all the kids a Wall-E watch! They were so excited! It was such a fun party, the boys all had a great time. We're so thankful that Joshua has such a cute and fun group of friends!

We also had a little family birthday party on his actual birthday. He requested brownies instead of cake and pizza (of course) for dinner. It was yummy!

We spent Mark's birthday at Ruby River for yummy steak with great friends and family. There wasn't really a movie playing that Mark was dying to see so we thought we'd play games or go bowling instead - we ended up just going home and playing RockBand for a little while and calling it a night since most everyone had a long drive home. For the record, Jeff TOTALLY rocked the microphone and got 98% on his first try! Shar and Dave were brave and sang too. I still haven't tried it, I'm too afraid I'd break the TV! :) Good job guys!

We had so much fun at Sam's birthday party too! He ended up inviting all the boys in his class and all his friends in the neighborhood and all in all there were over 15 kids (I can't remember the exact count but there were A LOT!) He wanted a Ben10 party and we played "Ben, Ben, TEN" (like Duck, Duck, Goose) and played pin the watch on Ben10. Everyone played outside for awhile and we had cake and ice cream. We bought Sam a new Ben10 watch and put it on his cake. He was SOOOO excited when he saw it. The highlight for the boys I think though was painting Ben10 shirts. We've had so much fun lately painting shirts (I'll post more details about that later) and the boys did SUCH a great job painting theirs. I went to take something to Sam at school the next school day and 3 of the boys in his class were proudly wearing their shirts. I was really nervous to attempt painting shirts with 15 six year olds but Mark came home to help and it went surprisingly well! We had such a fun day celebrating the new Mr. Six in our family!!

This is the video of Sam when he saw his cake and watch for the first time. We had to take it all inside to sing and blow out candles because the wind kept blowing the candles out for us!

I was excited to give Gabe his first real party this year and he was so excited too! He had a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party and invited all of his cute little friends. It was only an hour and a half, but WHEW, that was long enough for nine 3 year olds. I made a mental note to myself that 3 is perhaps just a titch too little for a birthday party. I have some priceless pictures though of the little ones crying their eyes out when they had to surrender their presents to the birthday boy. Poor little guys! We had fun Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cupcakes and played some cute games. For the gift bags we did fun little buckets with shovels and treats inside.

Here is a video of us singing Happy Birthday to Gabe (please ignore the completely off-key singing on my part...I usually try to get out of singing when I'm taping, but since I was practically the only one there that knew all the words I had no choice.)

I think that about wraps up the birthdays so far. Will hasn't had a single birthday yet, but that will change on Aug. 24th when he will be ONE - holy cow, I really can't believe he's almost one, WHERE DID THAT YEAR GO?!!

Happy 4th of July!

2008-07-19T01:40:00.006-06:00

With the 24th of July just around the corner you may be thinking I mean the 24th of July, but nope - I really mean the 4th of July. We had such a fun day and I've been in a blogging rut so I haven't written about it until now. ANYWAY - here is the gist of our day. :)

We woke up early to participate in our neighborhood 's 7th annual 4th of July parade. We dressed in our red white and blue's and put streamers on our bikes, scooters and stroller. We walked around the neighborhood by the park and met at the church afterward for a yummy pancake breakfast. The boys had such a good time, we were really happy we went and didn't sleep in (which ALSO sounded like lots of fun).

Sam on his scooter:

Josh on his bike:

Me and the littles:

We went home and rested for a minute and happened to catch the Nathan's hot dog eating contest on tv while flipping channels. Sam was with us and insisted on watching it even though he was just as disgusted with it as Mark and I were. Bleck! We were however, hoping (who knows why) that the mustard belt would stay on American soil. Hooray for Joey Chestnut for winning the match in the Nathan's hot dog eating contests' version of "overtime"! :)

Then we filled up the little swimming pool in the backyard and Mark and I surprised the boys by filling up some water balloons and starting and impromptu water fight. They are GOOD little water fighters and even though we totally drenched them and kept control of the water hose for most of the time they still managed to get us completely soaked with their super soakers and balloons. The funniest thing was when Gabe woke up and decided he needed to be in charge of the water hose. He took absolutely no prisoners and just turned it loose on all of us!

We decided this year to go and watch fireworks at a park, which is something we don't usually do. We've had lots of fun in the past by just putting on our own little firework show on our driveway but this time we thought the boys would enjoy seeing them light up the sky. We loaded up our blankets and snacks and stopped on our way to get a little Ceasars pizza and a big drink (Mark's idea and SUCH a good one!) and headed to the park. The only problem is, that there was a rodeo going on also and we didn't realize it would go SOOOO late and since they didn't start the firework show until after the rodeo we seemed to wait FOREVER after it turned dark for them to start. We were happy though that we got to hear our little neighbor across the street do the Mutton Bust at the rodeo. The boys loved hearing his name on the speakers when it was his turn to ride!

It was SUCH a fun family day, we all had a blast and slept good and hard that night. We're so thankful to live in this wonderful and free country and so thankful for all the selfless people that make our freedom possible. Happy Birthday America!!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!

2008-07-15T22:40:00.003-06:00

Today our best friend, husband and daddy turned 34! We are so thankful to have him in our lives! He had to work today which stinks but we celebrated when he got home with a yummy dinner, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and 34 melting candles (I had to change the batteries in my camera at the last minute – which didn’t help the melting candles much), and mint chocolate chip ice cream, some of his favorite things. We bought him a new watch - which he really needed - and the big boys made him a card and Sam gave him a dollar from his bank, they also got him “Rockband” for the Wii. I say got “him” but they pretty much used the excuse of his birthday to beg for Rockband for us - and I couldn’t help it…I caved. We’ve had lots of fun lately with Guitar Hero so we thought this would be a fun way for the whole family to join in on the fun. The boys just loved singing Happy Birthday and eating Daddy’s yummy cake. Will ESPECIALLY loved eating the chocolate cake and was BEGGING for more more more! He was covered in chocolate - it was so cute. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful husband and father, we thank our Heavenly Father for him every single day. Happy Happy Birthday Sweetheart!! We LOVE you!!

The sun will come out, tomorrow!

2008-06-24T23:29:00.003-06:00

A few nights ago as I was putting Gabe to bed he seemed grumpy so I asked him what was wrong. He said he didn't want to go to bed. I told him that it was okay and tomorrow would be a great day. Then I started singing "The sun will come out, tomorrow - but ya gotta hang on till tomorrow" I got through a whole verse and then gave him a kiss and he said "MOM?! - who teached you that?" I laughed and said it's from a movie called "Annie". Then it struck me that none of my kids had ever seen Annie and that made me sad. I promised him we'd watch it someday and added it as a priority on our summer to do list. Almost every night since then Gabe and I have sang this song together and he now almost knows it by heart, it is so cute. Tonight, I went downstairs convinced I'd find this movie on VHS down there somewhere and there it was, right on the bottom shelf. The boys and I skipped chores, got out tv trays and snuggled up downstairs to watch it. I'd forgotten how much I must have watched this movie as a kid, I know it's been at least 15 years since I've seen this and I still knew every single song by heart. I'd also forgotten how risque Carol Burnett's character was, she ran around in her skivvies for practically the entire movie. Weird. The boys LOVED it though, it really surprised me how intently they watched and Sam and Gabe were fascinated by Punjab at the end as I always was too. I just loved it when he rescued Annie and kicked Rooster down the bridge. Take THAT Rooster, you big meanie! Sam and Gabe both wanted to be Punjab as they were climbing into bed and Sam asked me to wrap his little white blanket around the top of his head (like a turban) so he'd look more like him. I told him it was time for bed but maybe tomorrow, to which he added "Oh yeah, then I can look for a big red crystal for the middle" HA!! I can't believe he noticed that. So so funny. He also noticed that Sandy "magically" got a leash in the middle of the movie and said "Mom, how did Sandy get a leash?" I hadn't noticed that in all my childhood years - leave it to my smarty pants little 6 year old to figure that out right away! Joshua told me at the end that he KNEW that they would decide to keep Annie forever because that would have been so sad for her to have to go back to the yucky orphanage. It made me so happy to spend this time with them tonight, they are such good boys and I'm so so lucky.

As promised

2008-06-24T23:27:00.004-06:00

I updated Joshua's birthday post with pictures (and I'm only a day late). For the record, I HATE scanning pictures. Blah.

9 years ago today....

2008-06-22T18:44:00.004-06:00

I became a mother. Wow. Has it REALLY been 9 whole years?! I can't believe it, the time has gone so fast. I remember absolutely everything about Joshua's baby and toddlerhood. I remember going to the store for the first time without him and thinking to myself "I'm a mommy and nobody here even knows it" I didn't like that nobody knew it and to this day I still prefer to have my beautiful boys with me when I go places because I am so so proud of who they are. I remember coming home from work on the day before his first birthday, knowing that I didn't have to go back the next day (because Mark and I took the day off to spend the day with him) and taking him outside to eat popsicles to celebrate the first official day of Summer. I have pictures of him sitting on a little blanket on the lawn eating popsicles one after the other in his little white onesie with not a care in the world. To this day he still goes through life with not a single care in the world, just a knowledge that everything has a way of working itself out and there is no reason or need to worry. I.Just.Love.This.Kid. This boy has changed my life in so many amazing and wonderful ways. This boy taught me what absolute and unconditional love at first sight feels like. This boy has a spirit about him that everyone around him can feel and see. This boy, my son, is more pure and innocent than any other 9 year old I know and I am so so so incredibly lucky to be his mom. There are times that I look at him and wonder how I got so blessed that he chose me to be his mother and other times (many times) that I look at him and know that I absolutely don't deserve him. Happy Happy Birthday my sweet son. We love you so much and are so thankful that you are a part of our eternal family.

His story:

I went to the doctor about 3 weeks before his due date. The doctor checked me and was so surprised to find that I was "progressing" a whole lot more rapidly than he expected me to be. His exact words were (and I quote) "SO, we'll see you next week if we don't see you before then!" He had a little gleam in his eye that told me that he really truly believed he'd see me sooner. Just for the record, I think this should be against the law. It got us SOOOOOO excited to have this baby right away and we started preparing to have this baby ANY DAY.... yeah right. We showed up to the appt the very next week stuck at the very same place as the week before. Grr. Then again a week later. Double Grr. I told the doctor how unfair it was that he told me 3 weeks prior that I would have this baby and I STILL HAVEN'T HAD THE BABY!!! I think he felt a little sorry for me because he scheduled me to be induced on the 23rd (this was the 21st) Wouldn't you know it, the very next morning my water broke! I called Mark at 6:15 am and said, "I think we're having a baby today!" I could hear the smile on his face when he said "okay, I'll be right there!" I took some time to put on my make up and do my hair and was waiting for him when he got home 15 minutes later. Our hospital was awhile away and my contractions were getting a little stronger as we got closer. I remember being at the hospital by 7:45, having an epidural by 8:30 and after a few pushes delivering an absolutely amazingly beautiful baby boy at 2:10 in the afternoon. He had the biggest and most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen on a newborn and I felt more love surge through me when I held him for the first time than I had prepared myself for. I knew I would love him, but WOW, seriously WOW. The whole experience couldn't have gone more smoothly and I remember thinking people that said having a baby was hard were crazy because it was such a wonderful and easy experience for me. (This line of thinking didn't last long as my 2nd, 3rd and 4th babies were c-sections)

Anyway, we couldn't have been broken in any more smoothly than we were with this sweet kid. We just love him so much and are so so thankful for him in our lives.

on a slightly different note...sorry about the hiatus as of late. It seems I fall into this rut quite frequently. Where I update pretty irregularly on a regular basis until WHAM I kind of disappear off of the face of the planet for awhile. I have two reasons for this last gap. #1) This is my 100th post and I tried to take Lisa and Reagan's lead and write 100 things about myself for my 100th post....yeah, um I'm BORING! I got to 53 and I got nothin' left. (I decided that writing about my son's birth was a good substitute for my 100th post so that solved my little problem) and #2) our laptop's battery cable is going out and only works it seems when the sky is a certain shade of blue and the temperature inside is 72 and a half degrees. It is sooooo temperamental - so I've had to say good-bye to my late night posts and my comments on everyone's blogs as of late. I've got SO much catching up to do and hope to do so this week sometime!!! Hope you all had a great weekend! We had a fun day today celebrating Mr. 9!!! (I promise to add pictures tomorrow - I didn't have a digital camera when Joshua was born so I have to *gasp* scan them! Eek!)

I absolutely LOVE the above picture. Sweet sweet little Elise and my little surfer dude giving the "peace" sign. So cute!

I've always known that Will looks just like Joshua did as a baby but the picture above is KILLING ME! If I didn't have a date on this one I don't think I'd know who was who years from now. It is SO CRAZY!
Here are the first day of summer pictures I was talking about, I remember this day like it was yesterday, I truly can't believe 8 years have passed since then.

Doing better!

2008-05-30T09:49:00.006-06:00

So sorry for the lack of updates as of late. Shar, David and I got home on Sunday night late and I've been playing catch-up the rest of this week! We had a WONDERFUL time in Phoenix which was a pleasant surprise as I wasn't looking forward to going at all. I didn't want to face seeing my mom in the hospital but I also NEEDED to go and see her in the hospital. I hated knowing she was stuck there while I was here, but the thought of going with my sister under those circumstances was so disheartening. I found myself wishing over and over that we were going to meet our mom for a fun girls' outing and not to see our sick mom in the hospital. We were trying to prepare ourselves for the worst and when we got there we were so pleasantly surprised. She was asleep when we walked in and Charlotte touched her foot and she opened her eyes, gave a huge smile and motioned with her hands for us to come hug her. So so sweet. She seemed so truly happy to see us and we were so truly happy to see her. She chatted with us all day and seemed a little relieved when we left for dinner that night so that she could sleep. We were on cloud 9!! Our mom was OKAY!! Then David, Mandy and Mike arrived on Friday morning and we went to see her and visited all day again. If she was relieved on Thursday to see us go I think a proper word would be ELATED to see us go on Friday night - she totally kicked us out (in a really nice, sweet way) I think we were wearing her out! :) As siblings we went to Chili's and to see Indiana Jones. It was so fun! We all came back on Saturday and watched as she seemed to get stronger and stronger with each day we were there. Saturday night we went to dinner at Lonestar Steakhouse with a bunch of the Arizona family...I want to say ALL the Arizona family but I don't want to leave anyone out! It was SO SO great to see everyone! Sunday was bittersweet as it was our last day AND we found out that she was getting surgery for her defibrillator on Monday which made us wish so badly that we could stay for that. It was SO hard to say good-bye. SO HARD. My heart felt heavy the whole rest of the night and I missed her the second I left the room. I'm so thankful that she is okay and that she is getting the proper care now so she can stick around for a LOT longer. I realized that I don't think I would function well at ALL without her. I just need her in my life simple as that and selfish as it sounds. I AM the baby after all, can't I be a little selfish - doesn't that come with the "baby of the family" territory? I told her that she was not allowed to pull a stunt like that EVER again. I hope she listened. :) What I didn't expect was how much of a good time I'd have with my siblings. Wow they are awesome people. I'm so lucky to have them in my life. We all bonded in a way that I will cherish forever. I have the coolest brothers and the best sister in the world. So so blessed! We took some great pictures. For all my family members out there: How many people you can name in the Lonestar Steakhouse pictures? :)

we took the picture above and both Shar and I said "MORGAN! You have to SMILE!" and he said "I DID!!" so then we took the picture below and he smiled bigger. :)

We had Mike, Charlotte, Mikele, Trent (Mikele's boyfriend), Corbin, Kyle, Kole, Morgan, Melanie, Jaron, Paige, Carma, Lamont, Chantel, Me, Shar, David, Mandy, Nathan, Teri (Nathan's girlfriend) and Malena!! SO SO FUN!!

My mom had the surgery done on Monday and it went well but was very painful. She is HOME NOW YAY! She went to the Dr. yesterday morning and threw up again so we are all still a little worried as to why. We really thought and hoped that her stomach issues had something to do with her heart and that they would go away when her heart was healthy again. We are still hoping that this was just an isolated incident and that she will continue to improve every day.

Shar thought a good caption for the picture above would be "my future's so bright I gotta wear shades!" I agree! The boys were supposed to do something silly but ended up just looking down at us. Party POOPERS!

Time to CHILL!

2008-05-30T08:49:00.003-06:00

This morning I discovered a little something about my parental skills as of late. It is DEFINITELY time to CHILL. The following event is what led to this eye-opening discovery:

On Tuesday Sam went to school decked out in his cute little brown GAP zip-up hoodie since the morning was going to be chilly and the afternoon was going to be warmer. (see, I watch the weather! Maybe I'm not doing such a bad job afterall - ahh, if only it were that simple!) He got home and we chatted and went on with our day. Fast forward to Wednesday when the same scenario was about to unfold with the hoodie chilly/warmer day and to our surprise, the hoodie was nowhere to be found. Sam wasn't quite sure if he brought it home and I didn't remember seeing it on him after school. I sent him to school in a different jacket and made him promise to look for his hoodie and to ask the bus driver if he'd seen it. He got home on Wednesday with no jacket. When I asked him if he looked for it he said "oops, I forgot". Grrr. I got a little more agitated and expressed the need to FIND IT TOMORROW! The next morning I reiterated my previous request. PLEASE look for your jacket today Sam, we NEED to get it back. Sam asks "what if I don't find it?" to which I say, "I don't know, but you NEED to find it or you'll be in big trouble!" (let me interrupt here just to point out that I say this phrase a LOT...but mostly out of jest in a teasing-ish voice and truly didn't think my kids ever took me seriously - especially Gabe who almost daily says MOM! Det me some Milk or zyou doh-een to be in BIG TWUBBLE!) SO, we said a quick prayer, I kissed them on their head and they were off to the bus. When Sam got home I quickly noticed there was still NO JACKET. I said "no jacket, huh?" but I actually said it really nicely because by now I had figured it was time to just say good-bye to the hoodie. He looks at me with his huge eyes and his lips were literally trembling as he explained that he looked for it ALL DAY. He asked his teacher and the bus driver AND his friends and that one of his friends had seen it but he didn't remember when. I looked at Sam and said "Sam, guess what - I'm NOT mad at you, it's OKAY". To which he just completely fell apart. Tears were streaming down his face and as I embraced him I thought the following: Note to self: This is SAM, this is NOT JOSHUA, this is your child that takes EVERYTHING literally and THIS is your sensitive one. OH THE GUILT! I'm pretty sure I felt my heart break in half. I quickly explained that I understood that he did his best to find it and that is all I ever wanted. My words from the morning came crashing down on me like a brick wall. I told him he'd be in big trouble. Did I REALLY say that to him?! I really didn't mean it!! GRRRRRRRR. I told him that we would go together later in the afternoon and look for it and how proud I was of him for remembering to look. So, for the rest of the day yesterday I stewed over the fact that my poor 6 year old was at school all day worrying about a stupid piece of cloth and probably afraid to walk in the door of his own house. How could I do that to him?!!!! Am I really teaching my children what is important in life when I'm so worried about a $15 article of clothing that my child is afraid to come home?! Um yeah. Time for a MAJOR reality check. I HATE mommy guilt. UGH.

And wouldn't you know it, we FOUND it in the HOUSE about an hour later. We were both so excited and laughed and hugged and bigger hugged. Then later I took the boys to the Mall because Webkinz are buy one get one free. Yep. That is why. They are buy one get one free. It has nothing to do with the fact that I am a crappy mother NOTHING at all. Nope. Buy one get one free I tell you. BUY 1 GET 1 FREE!! We are now the proud owners of two new family members: Roary the tiger -josh, and Andy Clarin Cain the Leopard - Sam (the names of his pets just KILL me! He also has "Dexter the diving dolphin" and his frog is named "Decky." This morning after thinking about it all night I'm sure, he announced that his leopard was now not just "Andy" but Andy Clarin Cain! How cute is that?!)

So yeah, please take a lesson from me today and if nothing else take a second to CHILL and hug your kids. Lucky for us, I think they can sense we're doing the best we can and REALLY LUCKY for us, they are SO forgiving. I'm SO thankful for that. Sigh.

Update:

2008-05-21T15:07:00.004-06:00

If you were quick and read this soon after I posted it, it has been updated twice. Just FYI. :)

I think my Aunt Judy said it best in one of her last e-mails so I'll just copy and paste. I hope she doesn't mind.

AnnaMarie is not doing well. Could not do angiogram this morning because her kidneys and liver were shutting down. The doctor at that point figured they were looking at open heart surgery once they could get her other systems functioning, which he predicted would take a few days at least. A few hours later they had succeeded at getting a good-enough look at her heart to see that there were no blockages, so that’s good news; the troublesome part of that is that there is now no explanation as to why it is not functioning sufficient to keep the other organs working. Arlene and Marian are still at the hospital and Charlotte and Mike will be there in a few minutes. Anna’s other kids will head down tomorrow. Vickie is on her way this afternoon (from Vegas), and Dan is making plans for Friday. The rest of us in Utah are in standby mode. Keep praying. Love, Judy

I just wanted to say thank you to our family and friends who have sent their kind words and prayers our way. I am so thankful for the Priesthood and the opportunity that my mom had to receive a blessing yesterday. Thankful to my Aunt who has made it possible for my brother and sister to fly there as soon as we can. Thankful to my Aunt who put her name down in the Temple and called to see if I needed anything only to realize I just needed someone to cry with for a minute. To ALL of my Aunts who have been there with my mom and helped in all the calling/updating/crying that has been going on since yesterday. So thankful to Charlotte who has made me feel the closest to being there with my mom as possible with her updates and love. So thankful to my cousin (Michele-you NEED a blog!) for calling just to see how I was holding up. Thankful for another cousin who has offered her home for any of us to stay in should we need more room. So so so thankful to all of you for loving my mom so much and for just being there. We are so blessed with such an incredible family. We at home are doing okay. Shar and I are flying out in the morning and I think David is coming on Friday. I have tried to keep my mind off of things by cleaning and organizing everything in sight. I'm now the proud owner of the cleanest refrigerator this side of the Mississippi. Cupboards, closets, junk drawers too. Spotless. Lucky for me, I don't think I could ever run out of things that need cleaning around here. Hmmm is that really lucky afterall?! I have told the last few people I have spoken with that I have cried enough for today and will possibly resume in the morning but for now, my quota is spent. I just REALLY REALLY need to see my mom.

I will try to keep updating as things come up. My Aunt Judy has done an AMAZING job with this though so it might just be double information. Please continue to keep her in your prayers. I have a good feeling now that things are going to be okay. I'm clinging to that and happy that I'll be there soon.

My Mom

2008-05-20T08:41:00.003-06:00

Wow. It's amazing how quickly your life and perspective can change. It can take about 2 seconds, or just one phone call. My sister-in-law Charlotte called me yesterday to tell me she was on her way to the hospital. My mom took herself to the hospital on Sunday night and they called Carma on Monday to let her know that she needed to come down right away and wouldn't tell her why. We had absolutely no idea what was wrong or what was happening, or even if she was stable. Charlotte called as she was a few miles from the hospital and promised to call and let me know the second she found out what was going on. I really think that was the worst 15 minutes of my life. I cried, and prayed, and worried, and thought the absolute worst. Charlotte called to let us know that she was stable and talking and they were going to admit her and take some tests. She called again later to let us know that the Cardiologist had been in and said that she may have suffered a heart attack 2 weeks ago and her heart has been getting weaker and weaker since that time. They are going to run a series of tests to see if there is any blockage in her heart and if so they will need to do bypass surgery. If not, there is also a possibility of putting her on a pacemaker. I absolutely hate that she is there and that I am here. I want to be with her so bad, I could scream. I hate that she was feeling sick in the first place and going through so much alone. I hate that I have no idea what is going on and what she will have to go through. I am SO thankful however, that she is getting the care that she needs now and that the heart attack didn't take her life away from me, as I know it so easily could have. I thank my Heavenly Father so much for the chance that I will have to see, hug and talk to her again, and I hope it's soon. I thought I'd update here for my family and those that know my mom and would like to know what is going on. Please pray for her to get better soon and call any of us (kids) if you need an update.

From Riches to Rags...

2008-05-13T08:48:00.003-06:00

by riches I mean the joy and fun of vacation and by rags I mean puke rags. Ugh. We got home on Wednesday, had a VERY lazy day Thursday because I was going to conquer the world on Friday (that was my excuse for being so lazy)...then came the puking 3 year old. Poor poor baby, he HATES to throw up - not that anyone really enjoys it, but he REALLY REALLY hates it! He still doesn't understand exactly what is happening or why. It was so sad. He was sick ALL day and finally crashed hard at 8pm and woke up feeling like new. Too bad I didn't. Ugh, Ugh, Ugh. I told Mark I just felt "pregnant" most of the day, it's the only way I can associate the mild nausea that accompanied everything I did on Saturday, kind of like how I feel while I'm pregnant, not really like I'm going to throw up, just not 100%. It was totally bearable until about 5pm and then I was miserable - I made it through the night without puking though so I considered myself very lucky...although sometimes you wish you could just so you could feel better. Josh wasn't feeling too great on Saturday either so we just took it easy and Mark finished the basketball hoop (more about that later). We all woke up feeling about 90% better so we made the family decision to go to church. This was really quite cute as Sam, sensing a possible "out" said he thought that maybe we shouldn't go since we had a "cough" (which we didn't) to which our little 8 year old missionary replied "I really think we should go Sam, we'll feel better if we do". I was so proud of him. Sam too, as he also made his own decision that going would be a good idea after all. We all felt better as the day went on until yesterday morning when Mark woke up sick. GRR! Poor guy came home from work (which just doesn't happen) and everything. I'm happy to report however that he woke up feeling better today and I think we are officially out of the woods. WHEW!!

Okay, enough about puke....moving on...

I saw this on Tib's blog the other day and it got me so excited so I thought I'd put it on mine also. I'm still not "feeling" Robert Pattinson for Edward. I mean SERIOUSLY?? I don't think he's that cute to be perfectly honest, and Edward is supposed to be the most beautiful thing on the planet, right?! Oh well, the part on the preview where he smiled and "took off" into the woods with her looked cute, so he might have promise afterall. I'm really REALLY hoping the movie will be at least 1/2 as good as the book. :)

Twilight

Oh, and I also wanted to share some of my highlights of Mothers day on Sunday. I made Mark promise that he wouldn't buy anything else for me since I got so spoiled on our trip. Since the boys hadn't seen anything that I had bought yet I told Mark to let them give me one of my dresses. When he told them he found me a dress in Seattle they were SOOOO excited. They said "how did you buy it without her seeing it DAD?!!!" So funny. They were glowing with anticipation as they handed me my dress on Sunday morning. They made me a steak lunch with salad and baked potatoes and brownies! YUM!!!

Sam made "me" a plate at school, that he has now officially taken back for himself. Little stinker. It is really cute, it has a rainbow and a picture of us on it. Joshua made one in Kindergarten too so now they both have one, I think Sam was just excited to finally have his own after watching Joshua use his plate for the last 3 years. :)

Joshua made me a darling card that I just loved. The front of it has a picture of him and says "I love my mom because she helps me with school and she feeds me and she buys clothes for me"

The inside says "My Mom is best at doing: Cooking, Throwing(? - not sure what I'm good at throwing - but it gave me a good laugh!), shopping and scrapbooking". Then on the other side it says: "My Mom's favorite food is Burritos, Dessert is Strawberry Shortcake, Color is Blue, T.V. show is American Idol, Clothing to wear is Nice Clothes, Hobby is Cooking, Place to go is the Mall. The picture he drew showed me with a shopping cart.

So, do you think my 8 year old thinks I like to shop?! Funny, funny. He should talk though, this is definitely something he got from me. He LOVES to shop so I guess now we know he comes by it naturally at least. :)

Anyway, then at Church I took Gabe to the bathroom and while I was straightening my dress in the mirror Gabe said "That is sure a pretty shirt we buy'd for zyou mom!" So cute! I just LOVE these boys! I'm so so lucky!!

Hope all of you had a wonderful day too!!! You all inspire me SO MUCH!! I'm so thankful for our blogging world!

Where in the WORLD have we been??

2008-05-08T14:26:00.010-06:00

Living the Seattle city life, that's where!! Mark needed to go to Seattle to attend a conference for work and I had the wonderful opportunity to tag along - sans kids. WAHOO!! It was a little tricky at first, figuring out where our kids would go and if it would be worth it or not to even try. We are SO blessed with wonderful friends that willingly took our boys in pairs of two. The bigs went to our neighbors, the Perillo's and had an ABSOLUTE BLAST, they didn't want to come home and said they didn't even miss us (sniff). The littles went to the Pahl's, and they are who I was worried about the most. They did great, thanks to Becky's AMAZING mothering skills. We are so so lucky to have such wonderful friends!

Once the cab pulled up to our hotel, one quick look around me told me I was in the right place. I practically squealed with delight as my eyes feasted upon a LUSH store, Macy's, Nordstrom, Gap and Old Navy all (with the exception of Lush) 3-4 stories high! I told Mark not to worry about me, I'd be JUST fine. Around a corner, there was a Nordstrom Rack, around another corner a Ross. YAY! Yes, I know most of these stores are available in my hometown but in my hometown I have 4 additional shadows that stick to me like glue and going to even ONE of these places would take me almost all day. I was in shopping heaven.

The first day there we got to the hotel to check in but our room wasn't ready so we dumped our bags and headed out to see the town. We walked to Pike Place Market. A famous marketplace located within walking distance of our hotel. It was SOOO much fun! We didn't get to see them throw the fish, but we heard all about it and it sounds like it would have been fun to watch. It was really neat to see all the fun handmade things for sale, and the fresh produce looked DELISH! We REALLY wanted to find some yummy fried fish or calamari to eat but by the time we chose one (for fish..we never found calamari) they were closing down so we had to settle for clam chowder. We had a great time pointing out things the boys would have loved here and there and holding hands and just being together! There was a reception for those attending the conference and their spouses so we had to get back to get ready for that. They had a great dinner prepared for us where we got to chat and get to know some of the other attendees. It ended early so Mark and I walked a few blocks to catch a movie. We watched "21" and stopped for ice cream from "ColdStone" on the way home. SO FUN!!

On Monday Mark awoke and went to "work" and I slept in, took a bath and headed out for some shopping. I've been DYING to try the products from LUSH ever since Sheriece and Tib have mentioned them on their blogs. The solid shampoo and conditioner sounded SO COOL and Tib mentions the bath bombs a lot so I knew this store HAD to be my first stop. It was SO NEAT! I ended up going back there 3 times during my stay and wish wish WISH they had one here. Sigh. It was a little hard admitting to Mark that I just dropped 50 bucks on toiletries. oops.

I also found Joshua some GREAT deals on some shirts at the Gap. This poor kids' wardrobe looks pretty shabby compared to all of his little brothers so it was nice to catch him up a bit. When Mark got back we walked over to Nordstrom Rack to look at their shoes and ended up finding a pair of Lucky Jeans for $40! Even on the half-yearly sale at Nordstrom they are NEVER EVEN CLOSE to that cheap. I told Mark whether he wanted them or not he was getting them. His jeans are all SO OLD and the one nice pair he owns I accidentally spilled bleach on a few years ago so I felt it was my duty to make him get a new pair. I couldn't talk him into getting the shoes though. He NEVER spends money on himself and I get SO TIRED of begging him so I gave in and we put them back. We went to dinner with everyone at a place called Gordon Biersch Brewery. It was pretty good and we got stuffed! I tried to save room for ice cream again but we just couldn't do it, we were WAY too full!

Tuesday Mark went to work again and I started off early knowing this was my last full day. I stopped at McDonald's for breakfast and was entertained by a local looney yelling at some imaginary people in the restaurant. It was pretty funny, but I felt kind of sorry for him. I went back to Nordstrom Rack to look for some jeans for me because SERIOUSLY 40 BUCKS!!! Then I went to Ross and looked around but it was CRAZY. I guess it is senior day on Tuesdays and everyone 50 and over saves 10%. The line was FOREVER LONG, but I did find some great deals there and got two dresses for $12.50 EACH! HOORAY! I rushed home to get ready as my brother Mike was picking us up for dinner. He has a job site in Seattle right now among other places and happened to be in town the same time we were! He took us to an AMAZING place called The Crab Pot. It was SO MUCH FUN! You place your order and they come out with butcher paper to lay on the table then they dump all your food in the middle of the table and give you a hammer. It was SO SO SO YUMMY and we ate and ate and ate and ate. Here are a few pictures of our food, my brother holding up the poor little shrimp in it's shell (I will admit, it was a little harder eating the shrimp this way, it made it more "real" that they used to be alive or something) and the table after most of the damage was done. I can't believe all that food went into our bodies, but MAN was it GOOD! We walked around and looked at the boats and the ocean for awhile, then he drove us back to our hotel and we walked around there for a bit, we went to the Pike Place Market again but it was empty so we stopped for ice cream again. FUN FUN! --Thank you brother, we had SUCH a great time!!

Wednesday was my "souvenir" day and I spent the morning getting the boys their Webkins and finding something for the Pahl's and Perillo's. We got Josh a snake, Sam a frog and Gabe a puppy. By the time I was done Mark was done with the conference and it was time to head to the airport. Whew. It went SOO fast and was SOOOO fun. I was so excited to see my boys again and once Wednesday came, I couldn't get home fast enough. By the time we waited for each other's flights - Mark flew Delta and I flew Southwest (THANKS MOM!) it was 6:30 before we could head home. I was SOO anxious to pick up the babies and I just KNEW Will would be SO EXCITED to see me. Um. Yeah. I was WAY OFF. I walked in and squealed and grabbed him out of Becky's arms and he FREAKED OUT. He started SCREAMING and couldn't be consoled. Mark finally grabbed him and threw him in the air a few times and got him laughing and I felt like chopped liver. Lucky for me, he grinned at me the whole way home so hopefully I just came at him too fast and his little 8 month old brain couldn't process what was happening. That, or he wants Becky to be his full time mommy which I'm not about to allow so I have to just hope it is the first one. :)

We had SUCH a great time and I've decided Seattle is ABSOLUTELY one of my very favorite cities ever. I want to take the boys back there SOOOOOOOO bad. Hopefully someday we can ALL go back and do more sightseeing!

My FAVORITE things about this trip were:

*Rediscovering Escalators. I've been doing the stroller/elevator thing for so long I almost forgot they still existed!! How fun it was to go up and down and up and down and up and down all the live long day!

*Realizing how seriously funny my husband is. My favorite had to be watching him whisper into his McDonald's cup "systems GO" and "all systems ABORT....ABORT, ABORT" at Nordstrom Rack. Apparently they "hired" him into their "loss management team" and he was watching a potential shoplifter...that I never actually saw (and just between us, I don't think he did either) and was about to call in the authorities. Maybe you had to be there but it was FUNNY!

*Sleeping in, showering, blow-drying and CURLING my hair EVERY DAY! I felt like a girl again...if only for a few days. :)

*Not worrying about a thing I ate because I walked it off the minute I stopped eating it! How fun to walk everywhere and not have to worry about driving around in traffic!

*Falling MORE in love with my husband all over again. Spending time with him just talking with absolutely no interruptions was so so so priceless.

*Mark letting me spend $100 or more a day. I'm pretty sure this wasn't in our budget, but I didn't complain. He totally spoiled me and it was SO FUN. I really don't deserve this wonderful man!

The story of Sam...

2008-04-28T16:51:00.011-06:00

It was about 11:30 pm, I was laying in bed and super uncomfortable. Mark and I started timing contractions about 1am and realized they were close so we decided to go to the hospital. We called Grandma and told her we were on our way. We woke up a sleeping little Joshua and headed to Grandma's house. We got to the hospital at about 2:30 am. My baby had been breech the entire pregnancy but miraculously had changed to the head down position just days before....or so we thought. When we got to the hospital the nurse checked to see how far along I was and said....I'm just going to get the ultrasound machine to see how this baby is positioned. I just don't think that's a head I'm feeling. The ultrasound machine confirmed my WORST fear. He was still breech and because I was in labor there was nothing they could do to turn him. They tried to stop my labor twice to no avail so at 7am we delivered our baby boy via cesarean. I was SO not happy about this. I'd been watching "A Baby Story" religiously every day and they always seemed to cry and have a really hard time when the doctors said they needed to do a c-section. It was my worst fear, though I really wasn't sure why...I just knew it must not be a good thing if it made everyone so unhappy. I was SO excited when the doctor told me he had turned and SOOOO upset when they said he either turned back, or never turned at all. Grr. Add to that the fact that we had been up since about 6am the day before (Mark and I had awoke early the day before and couldn't go back to sleep so we spent the day getting things done) and I was not in good shape. Either was Mark. I remember looking at him at one point and he looked green, really truly green and now I completely understand that expression whereas I hadn't before. We had an AMAZING anesthesiologist that was the saving grace of this whole experience. I remember bawling my eyes out and him wheeling me into the operating room and telling me how brave I was being. Although I wanted to SCREAM at him that this ISN'T WHAT BRAVERY LOOKS LIKE it did make me feel so much better. Also, as they strapped my arms down to the bars on the table I was crying that Mark could only hold one of my hands and the anesthesiologist happily said, "I'll hold your other hand for you!" and he did...through the WHOLE thing. Mark and I were so pleased with him, and we were lucky enough to get him again when we had Will, he was so funny and had a little photo shoot with Mark, the baby and I while they were stitching me up. ....sorry, I got carried away... ANYWAY, it was a really really yucky morning but the best part about the experience was the birth of this amazing little man that we call Sam. He was 7 pounds 1 ounce and 18 1/2 inches long. We noticed the little dimple in his chin before we noticed anything else! We also thought he had a TON of hair...until we had Gabriel and realized what a ton of hair really looks like. :) He made it all worth it and I'd do it all again right this very second if I needed to. I just LOVE this boy. Love love LOVE him. He is without doubt the smartest and wittiest little 6 year old I've ever met. We've been able to see his mind at work from the minute he was born. He's ALWAYS been such a thinker, he really has such a brilliant little mind. He's also VERY competitive...and absolutely COMMANDS fairness in every sense of the word around this house. He has always been a favorite with his teachers, I remember asking his preschool teacher how he was one day and she said "Oh...OH, he is so good... he is JUST SO good!" and I said "Really?, because he can be a challenge at home sometimes" and she didn't believe me AT ALL. Then, during Sam's first official parent teacher conference for Kindergarten at the beginning of the year his teacher said "I just wish I had 30 Samuel's" it was so funny. He is always so good about following the rules and trying to be a good boy. He is also absolutely strikingly beautiful, people stop us all the time at the places we go to tell us how beautiful he is. We love him SO much and don't know what we'd do without him in our family. We love you Mr. SIX!!!

When I was One,
I had just begun.

When I was Two,
I was nearly new.

When I was Three,
I was hardly Me.

When I was Four,
I was not much more.

When I was Five,
I was just alive.

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

-- A.A. Milne

This poem is perfectly Sam. He IS clever as ever, and he says he already "feels bigger" now that he is six"

Sorry about the billions of pictures...when I pulled out the CD for 2002 I couldn't decide which pictures to post so I posted them all....and now I'm going to go cry for a bit. Seriously, how can they grow up SO STINKING FAST!!!!
Everytime Mark would see this picture he'd say "there's my crooked head boys!" That's all I think about when I look at this picture now. :)

For all my family out there reading this, this is a picture of our cousin Shanel giving Sam his first haircut. I LOVE the expression on his face here!!

Oh! He also lost his FIRST TOOTH today!! What a day of milestones for this wonderful little man. He was SO excited and had to call daddy at work and call and wake up Grandma (she's an hour behind us so it was like 7am..YIKES) So fun!!

Happy Birthday, Mr. Three!

2008-04-27T10:35:00.007-06:00

3 years ago today I was on my way to a routine Dr.'s appointment. It was a Wednesday and the previous weekend had been a little hairy.... Friday morning I went to the hospital after having contractions right on top of each other all night long. I wouldn't let Mark go with me because I insisted that I would be coming back home WITHOUT a baby so there would really be no point to him coming along. I got there and they hooked me up to some machines to monitor the contractions. I remember the nurse coming in at one point to look at the paper spitting out of the machine and having a conversation with her that went something like this:

me: they seem to be a lot more mild now, I knew as soon as I came in things would stop.

Nurse: Well, it's always good to come in if your contractions are between 5-10 minutes apart and are at least a minute long and it looks like you are still contracting at least every 3-5 minutes.

me: Oh...but they're not even CLOSE to a minute long, right?...

Nurse: actually, your last one was 90 seconds.

me: oh. er. so what do we do now?

Nurse: Well, I'm just going to go and call Dr. Nichols and see if he wants you to deliver your baby or try to stop the labor.

me: WHAT?!!! I'm 5 weeks early, isn't that TOO early, isn't it automatic that you would at least TRY to stop my labor?

Nurse: Well, sometimes it's better at this stage to let nature take it's course, but I won't know anything until I see what he wants us to do.

me: Urgh. Okay, but if you think it would help could you please tell him that I really really CAN'T have this baby today!

Nurse: I will let him know.

I really said that, and I really meant it. I was absolutely NOT ready or prepared for this baby to come. We had no car seat for one thing. I'm not quite sure why, as we did have two other children and obviously had a car seat for them, but I think it may have gotten misplaced in our move. Also, it was coming up on Sam's birthday in less than a week and I had not bought a THING for him or made any other birthday-ish preperations. And, let's not forget the fact that my due date was OVER a month away!!! The thought that I could actually be having this baby right away absolutely overwhelmed me. Lucky for me, my wonderful doctor. sided with me and had the nurses give me a shot to try to stop the labor, and it WORKED! Happy HAPPY DAY! They sent me home with strict instructions to go straight home and take it easy. Yeah, right. I rushed home, picked up Sam from the neighbors house and took off to find a car seat, get a hospital bag ready, pick up some birthday presents and help Sam pick out a cake. Then had a yucky weekend of more contractions and a general feeling of total discomfort.

Okay, back to my routine Dr. Appointment on Wednesday - as I said before, it had been a rough week. I was ready to go in and have my doctor announce that all was well and to keep on keeping on. Not so. For starters I had lost weight, which apparently isn't a good thing when you're in your last stage of pregnancy. Then, when he measured me around the belly I was exactly the same as what I had measured two weeks before. I guess this isn't good. He sent me down for an ultrasound, just to make sure the baby was growing okay. It was really great to see him moving and sloshing around on the ultrasound and I was convinced everything was fine. I went back up to the office where Dr. Nichols looked at the baby's measurements and became more concerned. He said his head was measuring at 39 weeks and his little belly was only measuring at 33. This was FAR too big a difference for my doctor to handle and he said he thought I should come in the next day to deliver the baby. His main concern was that my placenta had given up and the baby wasn't getting the proper nutrients to sustain him and what he WAS getting was going to his brain so the rest of his little body was compensating. He said he was a little worried that this could have caused some damage to his brain. His other option was that I may have contracted some sort of virus along the way that didn't affect me but went straight to the baby and this could have caused some potential damage to his brain. "OR, we might deliver him and everything will be just fine, but no matter what I think he's better off out than in at this point", he said. This translated to me like this:

Option 1: Brain Damage
Option 2: Brain Damage
Option 3: Just fine

Those weren't good odds and I was TOTALLY freaked out. The doctor again said that he felt it would be best to deliver the baby the next day. I explained to him that tomorrow was my other child's birthday and is there ANY way we could do it before or after tomorrow. He immediately consented to deliver him that evening. I called Mark in tears and he tried to console me by saying "well, I have a big head...did you tell the doctor that?" I told him I did, but that it didn't matter. He said he'd leave right away. I met him at home to grab the hospital bag and head back. Mark had arranged for a friend of ours to meet us at the house to assist in a priesthood blessing after which I felt MUCH better, but still so, so scared. We called Lisa and asked if the boys could stay there until the next day when we could figure something out (thank you Lisa!) and off we went. My amazing doctor stayed there all day/evening for us and did such a wonderful job. We ended up delivering our little Gabriel via c-section at 10:01 pm and he was 5 pounds 12 oz and 18 1/2 inches long. He was absolutely perfect and so so beautiful. I remember Mark going back and forth between me and the baby and saying to me over and over "he has SO much hair, you should see his hair, he just has SOOOO much hair". He had a little trouble breathing and had to be in the level 2 nursery for a few days. I didn't even get to hold him until about 2pm the next day and they wouldn't let him come into our room until he was eating on his own and breathing without any help from the oxygen. We finally got him in our room 2 days later where we had a big (as big as it could be in a hospital room) birthday bash for little Sam and enjoyed our brand-new baby. As it turns out...he really did just have a big head like his daddy, and boy is it BIG. It's actually the same size if not a teensy bit bigger at three years old than Joshua's and Joshua is 9.

We just LOVE this kid. I can't believe it's been 3 years already. He has been such a joy to raise. I remember when he was about a month old telling Mark almost every day how "good" he had been that day, and then we finally realized that he was just a GOOD good baby. He really was angelic. He hardly ever cried, always smiled and was SO SO smart. He found ways to communicate with us SO early. I remember taking him to the Dr. when he was 10 months old and sitting in the waiting room playing with him and he kept saying "Doctor" over and over. It was surprisingly clear and I was convinced I had a genius on my hands. :) He became two almost overnight and brought all the fun "terrible two" stuff with it, but has always been just so cute and funny and wonderful. We are so lucky to have him in our family. Yesterday when I was frosting the cake for Sam's birthday party he kept saying "wow! Zyou (yes, that z is there on purpose. All his Y's have a z sound in front of them for some reason, he says the y sound...just not until after the z sound)Anyway, he kept saying "zyou do-een a DOOD job MOM!! (you're doing a good job, mom) and then last night as he was getting ready for bed he said "mom, zyou did such a dood job on Sammy's cake today". What a sweetheart. He really owns my heart, he says nearly every day "zyou my best friend mom!" I am so so lucky. And I really can't believe he's 3! We LOVE you Mr. Three!!

And sorry once again, for the novel. I thought I should document the experience since other than in Gabriel's journal, I don't think it's written down. Stay tuned tomorrow for "the story of Sam". :)

15 minutes later....

2008-04-09T18:05:00.004-06:00

Quick - isn't he?!!!

Oh why do I bother....why do I EVEN BOTHER!!! It's a good thing he's so CUTE...I find myself saying this a LOT lately....hmmmm!!

Aaaaaahhhhh.....Mission accomplished...

2008-04-09T16:54:00.003-06:00

I'd like to give a shout out to the folks that made this transformation possible. I'd personally like to thank (in order of appearance) Curious George, Clifford, Super Why, Dragon Tales, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Dora the Explorer, and Go Diego Go. Without these guys this day would not have been possible. I am NOT about to admit how much t.v. was watched by the two-year old of this household today....suffice it to say, EVERY one of these shows was watched AT LEAST once, and are AT LEAST 1/2 hour long. Mother of the year I tell you...MOTHER of THE YEAR!

Well, I'm off to salvage part of my day and attempt to do something at least somewhat meaningful with the people in this house that are wondering if Dora just might actually be their mommy. :)

Oh...and I would also like to thank Becky and Jason for letting me borrow Brayden for the afternoon to help keep Gabriel happy and even more out of the way - they played SOOO well!! We just LOVE this kid!!

Home can be a Heaven on Earth....

2008-04-09T09:20:00.005-06:00

...Unless of course, it looks like this:

Sigh. Double, triple and quadruple sigh, and a great big UUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!

Oh well....I'm off to go strap on my "lace-up" shoes, set my timer and shine my sink, wish me luck! ....One last looooong sigh.

Ice Cream!!

2008-04-08T15:35:00.006-06:00

It is the 8th of April and the Ice Cream Truck just took a drive around our neighborhood. Sam started running after him before I could tell him he needed to go get his dollar, so then I had to SHOUT it and he ran back to me, with strict instructions that I was to "Stay HERE and watch for the truck" until he came back outside (which I didn't do because I had to grab my camera!) When we made it back to our driveway he was coming back up in the opposite direction so it worked out great! Ice Cream trucks on the 8th of April....this is going to be an expensive summer!

All gone!

On the way back to the house Sam said "Wow, this is the BEST DAY EVER!" Isn't it fun when a dollar can turn a totally normal day into the BEST DAY EVER! While eating his popsicle he was thinking....this is what Sam does - he THINKS. He is the best 5 year old thinker I know. He was thinking about Ice Cream Trucks apparently and why they play music. This is what he came up with (word for word, I happened to be typing an e-mail and just started typing his words as he spoke them):

"Mom?"

*What?*

"I think I know why the Ice Cream Truck plays music so loud."

*oh yeah? Why?*

"Because if he didn't then none kids would be able to hear him and because then his ice cream would never ever get delivered, and HE would have to eat it all. Because children can't DRIVE to chase after the car and then they wouldn't even have a dollar, but if it plays music then the kids in the HOUSES will hear it and be able to get their money and run outside. "

*Yep Sam, I think you're right!*

This is what baby Will thought about us leaving him playing on the floor while we went to get ice cream....not happy...not happy ONE bit! Oh, but don't those eyes just KILL you!!

Colors!

2008-03-31T12:42:00.003-06:00

You'd think with my love of colors and the color wheel I would have done better at this little game. Still fun anyway!

46

How fun!

2008-03-30T18:09:00.001-06:00

I've seen this fun game on a lot of blogs lately so I thought I'd try it out. How fun!!!

81 words

Speedtest

My cute hubby...

2008-03-28T15:06:00.002-06:00

So I asked Mark to pick up some grapes and some chips from the store to go along with the Sloppy Jo's I was making for dinner last night. When he got home he made a big deal about some items in one of the sacks. He said "I bought something today for someone in our family that kind of gets forgotten about" (I knew he wasn't meaning me or the kids because he brings us home treats ALL the time) so my immediate guess was Toby the cat. I had no sooner said his name when Mark pulled out some cans of moist cat food and a catnip toy just for our furry little family member. I thought this was so sweet. Cuter still was when I went to put something in his wallet later that night and found his little post-it shopping list inside. It read:

Chips
Grapes
Bananas
Oranges
Cat food and toy

How funny that it wasn't even a last minute decision, but was carefully planned out. Toby REALLY appreciated it. So much so in fact that we had to take the catnip toy away after about 30 seconds. He was going CRAZY with it. I don't think he's ever had a "drugged-up" toy before. Poor kitty.

Smarter than a 3rd grader?

2008-03-27T17:03:00.004-06:00

After Joshua completed his homework tonight I asked him to bring it to me so that I could correct it. He said "okay...oh, and I'll get the calculator for you too".....

So sad...so very very sad.

Famous!

2008-03-26T12:58:00.006-06:00

Well....kind of.... :) for those of you that get catalogs from the "Oriental Trading Company" and happened to get their new one for spring 2008, I'd like you to go to pg. 44 lower left hand corner and read the name of the "sample" personalized pencils. For those of you without a catalog here's a picture:
Yep, our little Sam is famous, at least his name is! This has actually been the "name" on the pencils on every catalog I've received from them since Sam was an infant. A friend of mine noticed it first in her catalog forever ago and brought it to me to check it out. We've always thought it was so funny that his exact name is printed on them with the exact spelling and everything...I mean seriously, it's not like it's a hugely popular name! We thought it would be fun to call and order him some pencils with that name, just to see if they said anything, we could just tell them to send us the exact pencils from the photo. HAHA!

On a slightly similar note, this catalog is killing me with it's darling party stuff. I'm now convinced that Sam needs to have a "luau" party and Gabe needs to have a "Beach Monkey" party this year for the big 6 and 3. SO FUN!!

Look who's waving Bye-Bye!

2008-03-25T22:20:00.006-06:00

Will officially learned to wave Bye-Bye a few weeks ago. We couldn't be more proud. He really tries to mimick everything we do lately which seems to be pretty early if you ask me, I think he's just dying to catch up to his big brothers already! I'm also convinced I've taught him to sign "more" but I know that noone will believe me until I get it on tape, I don't think he has any idea what he's doing, but he puts his hands together just like I do when I sign it! It is so funny! :) He's SO cute and awkward when waving, his whole arm gets in on the act and then his fingers go straight to his mouth. I included a video for your viewing pleasure but I'll warn you, it involves an overkill amount of me saying bye-bye in an annoying sing-song voice (do I REALLY sound like that?!), a telephone interruption, and an underwear clad 2 year old. I couldn't get the baby to wave for ANYTHING the second time around, but at least Gabe provides us with some entertainment at the end!

I'm sorry...

2008-03-25T22:05:00.004-06:00

I was on the phone with Charlotte the other day when I walked into the front room and onto this scene...

Apparently, Sam had decided to clean up the front room by placing everything that was on the floor on top of Will as he was trying to enjoy his bottle. To break it down for you, he had a HUGE rattle (meant for the tray of a highchair) in one hand, a dinosaur in the other, another rattle between his head and left hand, a hat "laying" on top of his head, a Mickey Mouse bracelet around his right wrist (under the huge rattle) a tiny blanket and Gabe's sippy cup all piled on top of him. All I could think to say was "I'm sorry, baby" ....Poor little 4th child. :) Seriously though, these pictures might go down as my favorite of 2008. They absolutely CRACK me up!

Family Night at the Discovery Gateway

2008-03-24T11:57:00.003-06:00

I started this post yesterday knowing that we'd be going to the Gateway last night for FHE. They have a Children's Museum there and until last Thursday the boys and I had never been. We had the chance to go with a friend and her boys last week and the kids had SUCH a blast. I ended up buying a 6 month pass because it was only $25 more than what we were paying to get in anyway and now we can go for 6 months. The Gateway is a really fun outdoor shopping mall. Our favorite thing about it is that it has an awesome fountain in the summer that shoots water from the ground and is set to music. The boys LOVE it and we usually go at least 3 times while the boys are on summer vacation. Anyway, we had so much fun last week that we wanted to take Mark there to join in the fun with us. I planned on taking lots of pictures but unfortunately my camera batteries died after my 2nd picture. So cookie faced boys are the only pictures I have to share. :) We had a blast, it's kind of like entering a new world where everything is set to "kids" size and the adults are the minority. There is so much to do and explore, and you can just see their little minds soaking everything up. We were all so tired by the time we got home that everyone went straight to bed. All in all, it was a great night!

Easter Sunday

2008-03-23T21:07:00.006-06:00

Happy Easter everyone!! I hope you all had a wonderful day! Ours got off to a bit of a rocky start, but got lots better as the day went on. Poor Sam woke up in the middle of the night with a belly ache and threw up twice. Ugh. Poor guy! He did fall back to sleep though and felt a lot better in the morning thank goodness. Joshua was up bright and early and dashed in our room to ask if he could begin "the hunt". Since we hadn't gotten much sleep the night before we begged him for a few extra minutes of rest. He crawled into bed with us and russled about until we decided it just wasn't worth it to try to sleep any longer. Especially after Joshua - CONVINCED that Gabe had left his room - went out to find him, only to burst into his room and discover he hadn't gone anywhere afterall and was still sleeping....well WAS still sleeping until the bursting into the room incident. Ah, well....church begins at nine so we DID need to start getting things going. Last night Gabe and I discussed the Easter Bunny and where he thought the furry guy would hide his basket. We thought maybe by the piano, so that is the first place that Gabe went and GUESS WHAT?! There his basket was! He was the first to find his, followed closely by Will who found his on the fireplace. Josh and Sam had high hopes that their baskets would be hidden in very hard to find places so it took them quite awhile to find theirs. Joshua finally found his in the guest bathroom bathtub/shower and Sam (with a little prompting, and help from Gabe and Josh who happened to have discovered it earlier) found his inside the t.v. armoire. Joshua loved his Pokemon board game and his treats, Sam loved his little Ben10 guy and spiderman playdough mold, Gabe loved his new octopus playdough set (I think mom was more excited about this than anyone else...it looks like SO much fun! - I'm really not being sarcastic, it looks DARLING and I am REALLY excited to play with it...with the boys, of course..) :) And Will loved his little monkey rattle and bunny rattle. Mom and Dad enjoyed a few new shirts and lots of treats. It was so fun to wake up to a house full of surprises this morning!

We quickly made some toaster waffles for breakfast and hurried to get ready for church. The boys looked so handsome, Joshua in his Navy blue suit, Sam in his spring sweater (Joshua's from a few years ago), Gabe in his spring sweater and blue/yellow checkered shirt(Sam's from a few years ago) and Will in his blue/yellow checkered shirt (Gabe's from a few years ago). About 2 seconds from returning home the boys had already changed into play clothes much to my dismay. I wanted to get a picture first. Grr. oh well, we still have a lot of spring left, thank goodness. I'm sure I'll have another chance. Church was wonderful. Josh and Sam were really excited to sing their easter songs to us. Sam mentioned to me twice that he "knew ALL the words to the song" and was going to show me and wanted to make sure that I was paying VERY close attention. They sang "I feel my Savior's love" and "Did Jesus really live again" As soon as they started singing I started to tear up. I'm a TOTAL sap when it comes to children singing, ESPECIALLY when those children belong to me. What brought the tears the most was watching little Sam with his eyes FIXED on me, making sure I was watching him sing every word. I didn't dare take my eyes away from his, and only had a chance to glance at Joshua once or twice which worked out fine since Joshua wasn't worried about me at all and was just excited to be part of the scene. All I could think about was how lucky I was to have a little boy up there that cared more about singing to me at that moment than anything else and how I needed to cherish every second of it because that little boy is going to grow up SO FAST! I absolutely LOVE this time in our lives with these amazing little boys. They really seem to be at the perfect ages right now and sometimes I wish I could just freeze time altogether for awhile.

We had a wonderful Easter program, with beautiful testimonies of Christ, and the boys were SO good. It couldn't have been better. We're starting to cut the amount of "things" we're bringing to the meetings little by little each week. We're down to zero snacks, a Friend magazine, a few small books for Gabe and a bottle for Will. It's working out great, we're finding out that less is DEFINITELY more as everyone seems to be getting a little more out of the lessons/talks.

We came home and hurried to grab a light lunch and put the littles to bed so we could begin preparing our Easter dinner. We had the Birschbach's over along with Brandon's girlfriend Vanessa and her two sisters. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner of Ham, cheesy potatoes, two salads, two jello salads, rolls and cake. We played a game called "Boxers or Brief's" which was fun, except that I lost terribly. We had a great time playing and chatting. It was fun to have everyone here. Shar and I missed our mom who was working in Phoenix today, but we have high hopes of being with her next year if things work out like they should. All in all, it was a great day. Tomorrow is supposed to be SIXTY THREE degrees which I am absolutely PSYCHED about. I'm hoping it will be enough to get me through the days at the end of the week that have a "chance of snow" ERGH. I am SO TIRED OF stinking SNOW! Tomorrow is the last day of the boys' spring break so we are lucky that it is going to be so warm! We hope you all had a WONDERFUL Easter Sunday!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2008-03-17T23:53:00.002-06:00

We had a fun day today wearing GREEN!!! I've been so excited for the boys to wear their St. Patrick's Day shirts ever since I bought them a few weeks ago. My older two and sometimes three used to match ALL THE TIME. They were always perfectly coordinated and if they didn't have matching outfits I would at least put them (and sometimes ME!) in coordinating colors. I know, I'm a total nerd. But I LOVED it! Fast forward to 4 boys and now it is a total challenge for them all to match and I think this is actually their first set of identical shirts, I still try to color coordinate them a little but I'm losing my touch...or just REALLY outnumbered, who knows! Plus, Joshua is getting older and seems to be happier with the "cool" shirts like guitars or flames or skateboards than he is with matching his younger brothers. Sigh. Oh well, they LOVED matching today so it was lots of fun. Last Friday Josh was assigned the "show and teach" task where he is in charge of teaching a craft/project to his class. We did the pins that Sam is wearing in the picture. We went and got Sam out of class so he could come and make one too. They had so much fun with them, especially when it came time to pour the glitter on top of the glue. The whole class just LIT UP! It made me realize how much fun kids have with this kind of thing and that I really need to do more of this at home. He has SUCH a sweet class, they all seem to really respect and like each other which I think is kind of rare for 3rd graders.

Since there's no fun in dressing up with nowhere to go, as soon as Daddy came home we loaded up and went to eat at Cafe Rio. YUM! I was quite festive with my green salad (really, it's the ONLY thing I order there) and Mark with his burrito smothered in green sauce. :) The boys loved their free kids quesadillas and we loved that we were on our 10th punch on our card so we got one meal for FREE! Then, as luck would have it, Daddy went the wrong way in the parking lot and we got all turned around and somehow ended up in the McDonald's parking lot which called out for us to get ice cream cones for our FHE treat. I probably gained 5 pounds tonight! GRRRrr. We came home, had a lesson from Daddy about families and the importance of staying together, took pictures and went to bed....well they all went to bed. I'm still up and blogging as you can tell. Anyway, we had a fun day wearing green. I really should study up on this holiday, but all I know is that it has something to do with a guy named St. Patrick and perhaps something about driving out snakes?? I'm not sure how that has anything to do with the color green, leperchauns, pots of gold or four leaf clovers...but hey, at least none of us got pinched today!

This is the first picture we took at home. Daddy had just told them a dumb joke that they thought was HILARIOUS!

ROOMS

2008-03-15T01:24:00.007-06:00

I don't think I've posted pictures of the boys' rooms (except Will's) and I want to remember them at this stage forever so I took advantage of a clean house the other day and snapped away.

This is Gabe's room. I actually liked it a little more when it was a nursery because his crib bedding matched so perfectly. I was worried about the day when we moved the crib out and I'd have to find "boys" bedding in pastel colors to match his walls. I thought about this AFTER I'd painted of course... :) This quilt couldn't have been more perfect. I've called him my "little monkey" since the day he was born with all of his jet black hair on his head and down his back so I've always collected ANYTHING and EVERYTHING monkey for him. A friend of mine bought this set from Target for her son's room and the minute I saw it I KNEW it was what I needed for Gabe's. It had the lighter colors of his wall in the quilt, mixed with darker more boyish colors as contrast AND to top it off, was COVERED in monkeys!! The only problem was it was a discontinued Target line and my only source to find it was Ebay. GRRrr. I watched auctions for it for WEEKS, and they always ended WAY over $100 plus $25 or more for shipping which I just didn't want to pay. FINALLY I found one that was "buy it now" at $65 with free shipping AND a free coordinating pillow and light switch cover! I was SOOOOO excited. I also made the three pictures on his shelf which say "beautiful little monkey" in the darker colors to tie in the darker colors of the quilt. I do like the way it turned out a lot, but keep wondering if I should shade the outside edges of the stripes in the darker shades to make it look a little more rugged. ANYWAY....sorry you had to sit through the novel...this is just stuff I want to remember later! :)

This is Josh and Sam's room. It used to be the 4th car garage area, but was finished as an extra room that has been used as a storage room for the last few years. When Mark went on his MBA trip to Paris last May I used the time to pack up EVERYTHING in the storage room (the stuff is actually stuff that belongs to my mom) labeled everything and moved it into the garage, had a yard sale AND painted book shelves. I truly don't remember another time in my life that I've worked so hard for SO LONG. Mark was gone for ten days and I don't think I rested the entire time. I never got more than 4 hours of sleep each night AND I was 6 months pregnant! It was SO exhausting but SO SO SO worth it. I think I was fueled on determination and the fact that I could picture the way I wanted it to look and I was so excited to reach that point. The fact that I was "nesting" probably didn't hurt either. :) Also worth mentioning, the shelves with the blue curtains on either side is their closet. There wasn't a closet in the room so I had to improvise and make one. I love that they have their OWN space and each side has 3 levels of curtain rods so I can organize their summer/winter/church clothes a little more effectively. The shelves in the middle are for organizing the clothes that they will wear during the week. This gets done some weeks and others it doesn't....truthfully MOST weeks it doesn't get done, but at least it's a goal! :) I really couldn't have done it all without the help of my sis and her family. Jeff came by and helped move and secure shelves, Shar and Erika helped pack and move boxes and Elise stayed the ENTIRE day of the yard sale and played with the kids AND cleaned my house! LOVE them!!!

My favorite part of decorating their room was adding the art/computer area. I think I made about 15 trips to Lowes by the time the 10 days were over picking up shelves, and getting the wood for the peg board and the art/homework table. I picked up the totes and trash bin from Ikea which I think is what sparked the idea to make the table. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way it turned out and the boys love it too. They've really been great about keeping it clean and organized and it has been perfect for giving them a quiet place to study when things are going crazy in the house. It really is a good room for them with lots of space to play.

Look who found his feet!!

2008-03-15T01:17:00.002-06:00

Will has discovered his little piggy's in the last few weeks and just loves to grab onto them. It's SO STINKIN' CUTE!!!

SIX MONTHS!!!!

2008-03-15T00:43:00.003-06:00

HOLY COW! Where have the last 6 months gone? I absolutely cannot believe this wonderful little baby is already half a year old!!!

We went in on 2/27 (sorry, I'm WAY behind on the blogging front) for his 6 month checkup only to find that he had a horrible ear infection. I had mentioned to the Dr. that he'd had a little trouble sleeping the past few days, which I attributed to him cutting two of his top teeth. The Dr. literally gasped when he looked in his ears and said "oh wow, his ear is REALLY infected, it's actually GREEN inside!" POOR BABY!!! I wanted to cry! Gabe ALSO had an ear infection (surprise, surprise) so we left the office with a mild antibiotic for Will (since it was his first time on it) and a kick-butt antibiotic for Gabe (since it was his THIRD time on antibiotics IN A ROW!) We went back last Friday for their ten day checkup and they had both healed perfectly, whew! Their Dr. is so good about checking everyone's ears all at the same time. He's never asked me to make seperate appts. for the other kids and always asks for updates on everyone else on every visit. He's also extremely positive and laid back. We just love Dr. Jackson!

Anyway, we got Will's 6 month stats on 2/27 but had to wait until last Friday for him to get his immunizations.

Here's how he's shaping up!

Weight: 15 pounds 4 oz (10th percentile)

Length: 27 inches (75th percentile)

Head Circ: 44 (50th percentile)

The Dr. says he's "Tall and Skinny" and growing perfectly! We just LOVE this little boy!

No worries...

2008-03-15T00:21:00.002-06:00

Well, since Kandis FINALLY posted a comment on my last post I guess it's time for a new update. Hee,hee. :)

A few of you have expressed concern regarding my heart after reading my sisters post about me going in for an echo cardiogram. I just wanted to post and let you know that all is well and normal. It made us nervous for awhile because it was acting so weird - it started skipping beats (A LOT) just before our AZ trip so I went into the ER where they gave me an EKG and monitored me for awhile before sending me home with instructions to get a Holter (sp?) 24 hour heart monitor the next day. The weirdest thing for me was lying on the hospital bed and watching my heart beat, beat and then flatline, beat, beat, flatline....EERY! Anyway, I wore the monitor and when we got the results back the Dr. said there were about 2200 premature (skipped) heartbeats during the 24 hour period. He said sometimes this is a cause for concern and sometimes it is completely normal and just the way our heart or other muscles in our body act sometimes (like when your leg decides to twitch off and on out of the blue, etc.) He wanted me to get an Echo Cardiogram just to rule out a virus that might have settled in my heart which could have caused permanent damage. Lucky for me, it came back completely normal! The skipping has almost completely subsided also. It was pretty constant for a solid 3 weeks, but now only happens once or twice a week. SO, no worries - but thank you so much for your concern!! It looks like I'm going to stick around for awhile longer! :)

Conversation between 5 year olds

2008-02-28T14:18:00.003-07:00

Okay, so Sam has his little friend over today. The same friend from this previous post. They are turning into quite the buddies these two. I took them to Wendy's to get some lunch because I just didn't feel like fixing anything today. We're on our way home when I overhear this conversation:

Sam: Hey Brodey, guess what? (ALL of Sam's conversations lately start with "Guess What?")

Brodey: What?

Sam: Um, me and my dad watched this funny movie, and guess what the guy does with a ball?

Brodey: What?

Sam: He gets blood on it, so he paints a face on it and starts to talk to it, it was SO funny.

Brodey: Oh.

Sam: And guess what else?

Brodey: No, wait a minute, STOP! What was the name of the movie? (I thought that was so cute)

Sam: Oh, it was called "Castaway"

Brodey: Oh, hee,hee. Kind of like "Flushed Away"! And guess what happened in Flushed Away?

Sam: What?

Brodey: The guy gets flushed down THE TOILET!

Sam and Brodey simultaneously: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

....BOYS!

I'm GREEN?!

2008-02-28T14:07:00.002-07:00

I took AD's color personality test and my results came back GREEN. I didn't even know there was a green. I thought it was just Blue, Red, White and Yellow. I just saw that my cousin Carla's was Black so this is obviously not the same quiz that I'm used to. On the other one (I wish I knew the exact name) I was mostly yellow with a bit of blue. I always wished I was White though because that is the color of the Peacemaker and I'd like to think of myself as a peacemaker. Oh well, we are what we are....right?! :) SO, what color are YOU?

What's Your True Color?

My Result: Green

You're green, the color of growth and vigor. Good-hearted and giving, you have a knack for finding and bringing out the best in people. Green is the most down-to-earth color in the spectrum — reliable and trustworthy. People know they can count on you to be around in times of need, since your concern for people is genuine and sincere. You take pride in being a good friend. For you, success is measured in terms of personal achievement and growth, not by status or position. Rare as emeralds, greens are wonderful, natural people. It truly is your color!

What are you?
http://web.tickle.com/jumpto?test=colorogt&c=50652

Got it on Ebay!

2008-02-27T12:44:00.004-07:00

I just got this in an e-mail from my awesome AUNT CARMA with a note that said "I thought you might enjoy hearing mine and your mom's new theme song!" The funny thing is...I think she might be right! I think my mom got 3 or 4 packages in "bubble wrap" while we were visiting her a few weeks ago. I can't talk though, I definitely go through my "ebay" spurts where sometimes it seems as though I'm living on the site. I've been lots better lately though! It's a really funny song, except I'm still wondering why they spelled the word "Gonna" like "Gona' " - not that either of them are actually a word but weird anyway. I'm sure most of you have already seen it, but thought I'd post it anyway just for fun. This is dedicated to my mom and Aunt Carm. Oh, and to Cindy who is ABSOLUTELY my ebay guru. She's taking a break now but she's one mean sellin' machine when she's not....actually, she's really not mean at all, in fact, she bends over BACKWARD to make everyone happy. She's just amazing, I wanted to be just like her until I realized how much time and energy really goes into selling stuff. I did it one Christmas and did quite well but it TOTALLY ZAPPED me!!! So here's my question for YOU....what is your most favorite, or least favorite or most unusual or expensive or least expensive...etc... thing you've bought on ebay??? Mine (favorite and unusual) would have to be a set of Lily Padz - a set of reusable nursing pad thingy's. I bought them when I was pregnant with Gabe. I loved them! Okay...YOUR turn! Now GO!

2007 Slideshow

2008-02-21T15:22:00.002-07:00

I finally posted our 2007 Slideshow at the bottom of our blog. It's so weird to watch the show for 2006 and see Gabriel as still a little baby and then to have a new baby arrive in 2007. What a year! It is so much fun to be able to look back on a year in your life with pictures, video and music. I love technology! I really loved the songs on the show this year, they just seemed to fit with our life in 2007. I'll post it here too for easy viewing if you have the time to watch it. ....see, I promised a more upbeat post than the last! :) Thanks for watching!

Sick!

2008-02-21T14:30:00.004-07:00

Last Friday, Joshua woke up with a super high fever and all-over aches and pains which forced him to miss school. To put things into perspective this was only the THIRD time he'd ever missed school in his entire preschool-third grade life and the ONLY time he'd ever missed by being ill. He missed one day in Kindergarten when his baby brother Gabriel was born a month early and another day in 1st grade when we went to Disneyland. He had perfect attendance in 2nd Grade. This kid just DOESN'T get sick. I should have been warned. I should have been scared. I should have taken this as a sign of things to come. I didn't.

On Friday night, I coughed....twice. I woke up on Saturday morning feeling like I'd been hit by a freight train. I went to the Dr. because I've been having some recent issues with my heart (really not a big deal...more about this later, I promise) and felt achy and sore all over WITH tons of pressure in my chest and difficulty breathing. I hate going to the Dr. and try to avoid it at all costs but I forced myself to go because even I know there are things you just don't mess with and I thought that chest pressure and difficulty breathing were on that list of things. Well, I must have been wrong. I was told the wait would be at least an hour regardless of my symptoms and then when I did see the Dr. all she did was ask me a few questions and write out a prescription for a heavy cough medicine with a narcotic in it. She didn't even ASK me if I was pregnant or nursing...isn't that a pretty standard question for a woman my age? I left feeling like an idiot for even going in and feeling lucky at least for insurance that made it only cost me $20 to hear that I needed "plenty of fluids, and lots of rest" instead of WHO KNOWS how much I would have had to pay that they'll bill the insurance company for, I'm kind of anxious to get the bill just to see. Grr. ANYWAY, Saturday was a crappy day but looking back, I would take a THOUSAND of those Saturdays just to NEVER EVER EVER EVER have to live through another day like Sunday. Sunday was one big mess of being hot, then cold, then sweaty and clammy, then hot, then cold, then sweaty and clammy and pretty much feeling like I was walking through the valley of death the entire day long. I really don't ever remember feeling so sick. I should have known that anything that can take my no-time-to-get-sick-while-there's-fun-to-be-had 8 year old down would have to be pretty serious. Pretty serious it was. Ugh. I think I might FINALLY be able to classify myself among the living today. FINALLY. Have I said Ugh? Ugh. I need some sunshine, I don't think I've ever longed for spring/summer more in my entire life than right now. Last year when we went to AZ in Feb. we played in 80 degrees for a week, then came home to weather in about the 50's that continued to get warmer from there. This year we went to AZ and played in the 60-70 degrees (still nice and warm for us)and came home to weather in the 30's or below with 3 feet of snow and the weather is continuing to get COLDER. It was snowing AGAIN this morning. Ugh. Have I said Ugh? ugh, ugh, UGH.

That's all I've got for now. I promise to post soon with more upbeat and positive stuff - just had to shake this off today.

ps. Joshua is feeling lots better too. :)

How CUTE is this!!

2008-02-15T15:21:00.002-07:00

My friend Paul sent this to me in an e-mail and Mark and I just cracked up. First of all, the older boy is SO sweet to his baby brother, and when the baby chuckles in the end it is just hilarious. Thought you guys might enjoy it too.

Why I love Valentine's Day - by Melanie Cain

2008-02-15T09:58:00.010-07:00

This one's for you Aunt Ellen! (Diane)

Okay, I'll be honest, I haven't ALWAYS loved Valentine's day. It was never a really big deal in our house growing up and I remember being really jealous of my friend Amber every year because she was always decked out in new red or pink clothes and had new Valentine pencils and trinkets for school from her family on V-day which seemed like lots of fun - and I remember loving the class parties and passing out Valentines but it never went on my list of "Fav's" as far as holidays go. Even when I got married to my WONDERFUL Valentine it was never a BIG deal for us. We were comfortable with our love for each other and the fact that we tried to prove and show that daily instead of just on one day out of the year and when we DID try to go out the restaurant's were always packed and NOT worth the wait in our opinion. Also, I HATE February. I hate it. I actually hate January AND February for the same reason. It's PAINFULLY cold and Christmas is over so there doesn't seem to be a reason for the coldness anymore and (in most previous years) it doesn't even really snow, but it's so cold that the existing snow doesn't melt and just gets muddy and dirty and gross, then there's the foggy and disgusting air...I could go on and on but you get the idea. ANYWAY, it was just never a big deal for me. Fast forward to three and four kids later....I say to three and four kids because for some reason I didn't start making Valentine's day a big deal until we celebrated it with three kids. I really don't know why, maybe things just clicked and I thought "hey, this day could be fun afterall!" who knows... anyway, I remember a few years ago buying heart shape pankcake molds (they look like cookie cutters but are made of metal and have a wooden handle so you don't get burned) and thinking about how fun it would be to make those for the boys, so I woke up early and did and they LOOOOVVVVEEED it. Then, the next year we added some chocolate covered pretzels and strawberry milk to the breakfast scene, heart shaped pb&j's with a surprise note in the lunch box and so on, and so on.... Now, I look forward to this day ALL February long and it gets me through the yucky-ness that I loathe in this awful 2nd month of the year (going to AZ for two Feb's in a row has helped too) and my kids just LOVE this day. Plus, I've come to the conclusion that any day a mom with 4 BOYS can shower her family with girly pink and red and kissy stuff is a good day in my book! SO, in a nutshell (HA - I mean a novel!) THAT is why I love Valentine's day.

Yesterday seemed to get here REALLY fast though so I felt a little unprepared house-wise for this day-o-love, especially when I wanted everything to be perfect. Add to that, my hectic morning with the snow/school incident and things weren't off to the greatest start. BUT, things did get better. :) We made pink pancakes for breakfast with Strawberry Milk and I gave the boys some DARLING little mailboxes (that were in the dollar-spot at Target a few months ago) with their names on them and a little heart valentine note inside from me. They have LOVED these and spent a lot of their day writing each other notes and putting up the flags. (one of our most FAVORITE families has these little mailboxes for their kids and I've always thought that was the cutest thing so when I saw them at Target I nabbed them!) and I gave the big boys each a t-shirt from their school because the school colors are red and black so it was perfect. Gabriel got a cute little puppy in a bowl (don't ask me why it was in a bowl because I just don't get the connection - but hey, it was only $5 so I'll take the free bowl!) that he LOVES. We had a quick and normal lunch and managed to get the house cleaned AMAZINGLY in time for our traditional candle-lit dinner. I made heart shaped meatloaf and put some garlic/herb mashed potatoes in a bag and squooshed it out into a heart shape on our plates. We topped it off with steamed asparagus (thanks Charlotte!) that only Mark and I enjoyed, but the kids took a thank-you bite at least, and for dessert we had Strawberry Jello with Cool Whip. (I had planned on heart shaped cupcakes but just couldn't pull it off in time). My cute visiting teacher Kelly brought me a bouquet of beautiful flowers and my husband came home with treats for the boys and a gift certificate to a spa to get my nails/toes done or any other of their many services, and some money to spend on just myself - which the boys tried to talk me out of... they failed. :) We got Daddy a digital photo frame for work and his own red t-shirt from the boys' school because he really wanted one too. All in all, it was a REALLY good day. Last night Sam was sad that it was almost over and told us that Valentine's day was his favorite holiday. Mark said "even more than Halloween?" Sam said "YEP!" and we said "even more than Thanksgiving?" ...."YEP!" and finally the kicker... "even more than CHRISTMAS?" to which he said "YEP!" and then quickly decided that actually all of the holidays were his favorite. Still, I figure if he liked it more than all those holidays even for a second then today must have been a pretty good day. I hope that I succeed in showing my love for my beautiful family every day, and I love that I can shower them with pink and red and hearts at least one day a year!

above is a picture at Breakfast. (they are making hearts with their bodies in case you were wondering)

The potatoes and meatloaf in the picture look a litte gross. But it really looked neat in person!How cute are these boys in my life?!! Seriously!

This was Joshua's Valentine box for school. I remember as a child that our Valentine boxes were always a BIG event. (and it just occured to me that I didn't mention this in my novel about my childhood V-days above!) My dad helped us make the coolest boxes. One of our favorites was the Grandfather's clock - I'll have to search for some pictures... Anyway, Joshua wanted to do a basketball hoop so we used his basketball hoop/laundry basket thing from Ikea and that is where the kids put his Valentine's. It turned out really cute, he did a great job.

My Morning...

2008-02-14T13:09:00.003-07:00

This morning I planned on getting up early to make breakfast for the boys (more on the valentine stuff of the day in my next post) and lucky for me (?) my babies woke up pretty early so it worked out since I can usually talk myself into ANYTHING for a few more minutes of sleep....aw...the boys can have a banana for breakfast..no bananas? Hmm, rice cake anyone...oh, none of those? Here have a skittle!! .... so it really WAS good that the littles didn't feel like going back to bed. Anyway, I get up, make breakfast, get the boys ready...things are going pretty good - UNTIL it is time to go to the bus stop. Oops. I just realized I have to back up. This morning when Mark woke up and looked outside he came back in the room and asked if I planned to go anywhere today. I thought about it and told him no, I was staying home all day so he said he was going to take the Durango since it will be better in the snow and he was pretty sure the corolla wouldn't make it out of the driveway. Okay, back to the school bus. I was quite certain I sent them off with plenty of time but they got to the middle of the driveway and announced "nope, no kids" - meaning no kids at the bus stop - meaning they've missed the bus.... GGGGRRRRR. "Alright, I say - we'll have to go in the car, hurry and get in while I get the babies" (okay, that sounds really nice like I was all "no problem kiddos, let's all put our happy faces on and get in the car"....um, yeah - that's what it was like....almost exactly...gulp.) ANYWAY, I wasn't happy and I KNEW we would get stuck and WE DID right at the end of the driveway and into the road. ERGH! Lucky for me my wonderful next door neighbor happened to be trying out his new snow blower so I got out (in my slippers) and asked him to help me. He rescued me, and then said "I don't think school is starting for another few hours though, ours are still home - you might want to go call and see. So I go inside and there is a message from a friend of mine letting me know that school IS starting 2 hours late today (thank you Tricia!). So I park in my NEIGHBORS driveway and pile everyone back in the house, accidentally stepping in the deepest part of the snow on my way - and prepare to hunker down for a few more hours before needing to deal with this all over again. Lucky for me, my awesome neighbor thought it would be fun to test his snow blower out on MY driveway too, SO NICE! Anyway, about this time Mark decides to call and see how my Valentine's day is going. "CRAZY", I say and begin to tell my story. Guess what he tells me next?! "Oh yeah! I heard on the radio on my way into work that the schools were starting late!" This is followed of course by dead silence on my end.....and then... "um, honey - I really appreciate it when you call to tell me important things like when Britney Spears was staying at the same hotel we'd just been staying at in Vegas at the SAME time or when Heath Ledger died, or when we're supposed to be getting a "big storm" this afternoon etc, etc... but do you think that the next time you hear that the school that OUR children are attending will be closed for a few hours in the morning you could...oh I don't know...LET ME KNOW????!!!!!!!! GRRRrrr.

Actually since I had started to relax a little by this point and was kind of enjoying the boys home for the morning I wasn't too upset and found it pretty funny... lucky guy. :)

Oh mister sun...sun...mister golden sun...

2008-02-02T23:38:00.000-07:00

is (finally) SHINING DOWN ON ME!!! Oh blessed little sunshine with it's golden rays and warm happy air, I wondered when I'd see it again and granted we DID have to travel to Arizona to find it, but find it we did and I couldn't be happier. I feel like I'm defrosting and thawing out and it feels glorious! The boys and I traveled on Wednesday to Arizona for a week to see grandma (my mom) and we are having so much fun. I was a little worried about the plane ride by myself with 4 little boys but they did so awesome, I felt like a very lucky mom to be able to call them mine. We did get some pretty funny looks though as we were among the last to board and traveled ALL THE WAY to the back of the plane where I hoped we could do the least damage should things start to get out of hand. I was absolutely determined NOT to let myself stress about the trip and therefore did not allow us to have any carry-ons except Will's diaper bag. The boys all had their little "ipods" in their pockets with their favorite movies and music on them and that was that. They were thrilled to be on the plane. Sam at one point leaned back in his seat and said "this is my best day EVER!" They thought they were so big when they got to order their own drinks and were even more excited when they got the peanuts. They got two bags each and Sam chose to eat one bag and save the other to give to Daddy when we got back home. Gabe kept pointing to the inside of the bag and asking me where the m&m's were, I was confused by it for a minute until I realized the peanuts must have reminded him of the trail mix we have at home - the trail mix that he doesn't eat EXCEPT for the m&m's and the occasional raisin - so I think he was wondering what was up with that and why would anyone CHOOSE to just have the peanuts when they could have had m&m's instead, DUH! :) The plane ride was lots of fun and it was even better when we landed and were greeted by none other than our AWESOME AUNT CARMA! Because she works there she was able to come right up to the door of the plane and help me with the stroller and everything, it was so neat! Then we were surprised yet again by my brother Mike who changed his flight into phoenix to an earlier time just so he could be there to help out with bags and to see the boys, and of course we were all SOOOO excited to see GRANDMA FINALLY and as soon as Grandma picked Gabe up he waved to me and said "bye mom!" I guess he supposed I was just flying him there and flying back home. He really was determined that I was going to leave at some point and said "bye mom!" again when we got him buckled up in the car. The weather was pretty windy and kind of chilly but still gloriously warm compared to the 7 degrees I came from so I wasn't complaining! I can't believe it's already Sunday, the week is going WAY too fast and it's going to be SO hard to go home to the cold again. At least we'll get to see Daddy or else we might have been tempted to move right in!

Here are the boys reading up on the safety materials. I'll add more pictures tomorrow if I can, blogger isn't letting me add any more tonight for some reason!Oh, and tonight Gabe decided out of the blue to start calling Will "William". I was taking him potty and Will started to cry and Gabe said "uh-oh! I dot to doh save baby Wee-yam, baby Wee-yam needs me help!" and off he went to save the day. We NEVER call him William so I have absolutely NO IDEA where that came from but it was hilarious!

Tribute to the Prophet

2008-01-31T11:10:00.000-07:00

I saw this on youtube this morning and I loved it so I thought I'd share. I know there are a lot of them going around, but this one really touched me.

Reunited at last!

2008-01-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

About an hour ago we learned that our beloved Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley has passed away. We are overcome with sorrow and joy. It is so hard to imagine that he is really gone. We took time as a family to reminisce of him and talked for awhile about the power of his soothing words and unshakeable testimony. Just listening to him speak would strengthen my testimony more than I can even describe. I am so sorry for myself for the loss of him but so overjoyed that he is with his sweet Marjorie at last. He has missed her so much and has counted the days until he could reunite with her once again. He did such a great and marvelous work here on earth and will be so incredibly missed. We were reading the scriptures in the front room this evening when Mark's mom called and left the message on our answering machine that he had passed. Joshua was very visibly shaken by it, he gave Mark a look of complete shock and you could tell his little heart wondered what on earth we would do now. We let him lead us in prayer and then we all took a turn thanking our Heavenly Father for this wonderful man. We also took a minute to explain to the boys what would happen from here, and made sure to let them know what a happy and wonderful time this is for our sweet Prophet. I am going to miss him more than I can even express, but my heart is truly content. I feel so blessed just to have been able to know him. I can't help but feel overcome with emotion when I think about where he is now. He has dedicated his life teaching us about the things he is right this very moment experiencing, I find such incredible power in that thought. Good-bye dear Prophet. We love you and Miss you already.

FINALLY....

2008-01-17T01:01:00.000-07:00

added more of my favorite bloggers to my blog list. I LOVE this blogging world and am so happy to be able to add more friends! I LOVE you guys!!

P.s. Since I have them listed in alphabetical order I can't help but feel a little sorry for my sis who will always be on the bottom unless I can find a blog to add that starts with an x,y or z. I'll keep my eyes peeled.

p.s.s. Don't you think "keep your eyes peeled" is a weird expression? It sounds kind of gross to me, but apparently not gross enough to make me stop using the phrase. :)

p.s.s.s. should I be saying p.s.s. or p.p.s? I REALLY need to go to bed. GOODNIGHT!

p.p.p.p.s. I just walked myself through it....doesn't P.S. stand for "post script" so "post.post.script" makes more sense than "post.script.script." I got it now. However I could still be wrong. Okay, I'm REAAALLLYYYY signing off now, but in my defense when I logged on tonight I had like 5 new bloggers to read all about! You guys are killing me! (but please keep it up!)

What we've been up to...

2008-01-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

Playin' with Little People toys in our underwear

Watching Bob the Builder - or Bobba bulder, tan we fik it (Bob the Builder, can we fix it?) as Gabriel likes to call it. Notice the baby in the lower right watching along, I think you can almost make out his little nose stickin' out of the bouncer. :)
Making and eating Grilled Cheese sandwiches

Isn't life exciting?! He,he!

On a side note...isn't it pretty sad when you tell your five year old that you're having Grilled Cheese sandwiches for lunch and he asks "from where?" ...sigh. :)

I thought I'd also include a picture of Sam with his "long hair" he has LOVED growing it out and has forbidden me to cut it. It is finally getting to where it doesn't look quite so disheveled and out of place. All of the cowlicks are calming down a little and now I don't have to stare at him in Sacrament meeting and think about all the mothers who I just knew were thinking "I thought she cared about what her kids looked like in public, how sad" anymore. Whew.

American Idol

2008-01-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

I just got to watch it this morning. I've been SOOOOO lazy today. I sent the big kids off to school and me and the littles crawled back into my bed and that is where we spent the morning. My choices of things to watch were Law and Order SVU or American Idol. Since the babies were in the room I chose American Idol - Gabe loved it last season and I thought he might like to watch it with me again. I was right. The bed soon became a stage for his singing, dancing and entertaining, it was more fun watching him than watching the show. :) My favorite by far was Brooke White. I love how she showed the world how you can be so pure and sweet and still be happy. I loved her voice and I hope she goes far. She would be such a great role model. There were some others I loved and others that I watched with dropped jaw. Camille and Tib have also mentioned the show in recent posts...It's so fun to share and talk about stuff like this with other blog buddies. Anyone else join in the fun???

Here is the clip of Brooke's audition in case you missed it.

CuppyCake

2008-01-14T22:59:00.001-07:00

Seriously, this is the cutest thing ever. Shar sent me this song on my phone forever ago and I've always wondered who actually sang it because she sounded so incredibly cute. I finally took the time to google it and found it on youtube. LOVE IT!

Hands Down...

2008-01-14T15:40:00.000-07:00

my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE picture in 2007. I can't tell if Will's expression is sheer terror or complete shock. Either way, I think it is hilarious and it is priceless to me. :)

My little...Table Potato??

2008-01-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

The boys (including Gabe) all got these really cute little video/mp3 players (called the Disney Mix Max) for Christmas in 2006. Yes, Gabe was only 1 and 1/2 but I got them for a great price and I knew that he would want one someday too so I got three. Thanks to my amazing cousin Chantel I have every episode ever made of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse that I can put on his little "ipod". Well, sometime last year there was a great deal on this darling bear that doubles as speakers for an mp3 player. It has incredible sound and lights up and is so cute! Gabe loves it. The other day he decided to have lunch at the kitchen table and watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on his "ipod" at the same time. He also loves sneaking his snacks onto the couch when he is watching cartoons so he can watch and eat at the same time. Why do I get the sinking sensation that I'm creating a monster here?! Seriously, this can't be good. :)

***I had to edit this after I looked at the post because I realized how "posessed" the bear looks in the pictures. He really is quite cute, I promise!***