The Hall Family

Baby #5

2012-01-19T06:30:00.000-08:00

Simon David Hall
January 14th
3:04 am
6 pds 6 oz
19 inches long

And only four days late, that good boy! This is me, recovering from being slightly freaked out because my labor was really fast and I didn't have time to get my epidural. I had been slowly laboring the night and day before, and then after an evening of no contractions I figured that nothing was going to be happening. I woke up at midnight with pretty painful contractions (back labor again, ack) but they stayed about 8-10 minutes apart. After an hour I woke James up so he could help with some counter pressure on my back. I called my midwife and told her I was about ready to come in, and we called James' parents to come over and woke up my mom who was coming with. We left for the hospital at 2am. When I got checked in I was dilated to an 8. I asked for an epidural and they were really coy about it, like, "well, we need to get a bag of fluids in you and get you all checked in and then we'll see where we are." I guess that's better than saying, "there is no way there is going to be enough time, silly lady, you are on your own." My midwife came in and checked me and said that I was complete and crowning and that the best pain relief would be to push that baby out. Eep.

In between contractions I was going to a deeply zen place also known as exhaustion, and trying to relax as best I could. I know a lot of ladies put a lot of stock into "natural" childbirth, sans drugs and all, but I have never been one of those. I have always appreciated my epidurals, but mine have never made me a limp noodle. I can still move my legs, feel contractions, and even get up and walk afterwards. But I only have mine going for a few hours, not all day. Mebbe that makes a difference. And maybe in a month or so I'll be talking about how beautiful and naturally wonderful it all was, but right now all I can remember is HOLY CRAP MY CROTCH. 'Cause that's what it felt like. And the stitches afterward? I remember reading something about how you're all numb because of the pressure and all that, but that is BUNK. Felt. Every. Tug.

I really loved my midwives and the hospital I delivered at. James actually got to deliver Simon, isn't that cool?! After the head was out, he got to pull out his shoulders and body, wipe him off with a towel and put him on my stomach. He said it was "fun". And I'm SO GLAD. SO GLAD that this could be a fun experience for him. Snarky sarcasm aside, I am happy for him that he was able to do so much. He's wanted to since baby #1.

I'm really big into asking for lots of help with my other kids the first week after a baby so I can get lots of rest. So of course as soon as I bring this baby home my other kids all get sick with yucky croupy colds and are stuck at home. And I tell you, I'm not responsible for what I might do if they all keep coughing incessantly. It turns out I'm really short on patience and sympathy when I'm tired. Hmm.
So to sum up this long post, I now have 5 kids (ack!), my bottom hurted, I like epidurals, and sleep. The End.

Made me giggle a little too hard

2012-01-13T08:29:00.000-08:00

I was trying to explain this cartoon to my husband a few nights ago, and seriously I could not stop laughing long enough to get to the punch line. But it's so true, right? And then after a few weeks you calm down and don't need to be on Pinterest all the time.

Funny!

and I'm still pregnant

2012-01-09T10:50:00.000-08:00

... in case you were wondering. I was going to post some pictures about Christmas, but all my pics are on the Mac and James sent it in to be fixed. Nothing major is wrong, but with how much you pay for a Mac, they should always work perfectly, in my opinion. And they should send you a fruit basket if it doesn't work perfectly.

So when it gets back I'll put up some pictures of our super fun Christmas.

My mom is here for the month, and I've been keeping her busy working on all my sewing projects. They've stacked up, apparently. She just made me three pillow cases for my sofa cushions! Yeah! And I rest on the couch and try not to feel too guilty about the amount of sitting around and eating chocolate I'm doing. Those things are labor inducing, right? My due date is coming up and then I'm going to have to get real serious about walking on the treadmill and other fun things that perhaps will get this baby out of my tummy. Wish me luck!

and then this one had a birthday

2011-11-22T17:10:00.001-08:00

Our Brooklyn turned 6! This girl was so excited by all her presents. Which is good, because she really had no idea what she wanted. Brooklyn is more of a follower, and will go along with whatever someone else is playing. She's the first to come to me with the "I'm bored!" routine. She does love to draw, and uses the art table more than anyone.
I think she's finally decided to stop sucking her thumb, which I'm happy about. She wears a mitten on her hand some night, but most of all just reminds herself that she doesn't want to do it anymore. Yay! We've been trying to knock that habit for at least a year.

Brooklyn is my snuggly girl and loves to have her back scratched. She loves to help me or James with chores, and is a great friend to Brighton and the boys. We love that girl!

and then we got some candy

2011-11-13T17:06:00.000-08:00

This is before I went through it and threw away the most obnoxious candy, especially the bubble gum. And the next day I offered them a nickel for each piece of candy. Not a lot of takers, but some. I let the candy linger for about a week and then it was gone. We have to detox before holiday treats!
Brooklyn was Cinderella, and wore the dress I made her last Christmas. I made a few accessories, like the headband and choker. Brighton was a waitress, and I found her cute costume idea at family fun. It was a big hit. Logan wanted to be a cowboy, and we had some things in the dress-up bin so he wore that. Same thing for Spencer. Cute kids!

The pumpkins!

James got out his dremel and carved this impressive dragon. This has been my favorite so far, he did a really good job on it. It took about four hours! All in all, I think we had a successful Halloween. The kids went to three separate trick-or-treating events, and then we had a Halloween homeschool party with some friends.

Moving on to the next holiday!

in which we did some stuff.

2011-11-05T11:29:00.000-07:00

Riding the overpriced train at the zoo. Fun!

Playing with some watercolors that Grandpa Bliss sent. My kids love to paint. And draw, cut, color and glue. Which is why this is the art table, a small table in the kitchen dedicated just for projects. They have all their supplies close at hand. We go through a lot of paper and markers in this house, for sure.

a new post!

2011-10-15T16:11:00.000-07:00

I blame Pinterest. Seriously.

It might be slightly sad how much I think about my house. Maybe even 75% of the time. Could that be right?!? I'm not very good at decorating or coming up with ideas of how to move things around, but that's where Pinterest comes in handy. And I'm slowly figuring out what my style is. I've decorated with freebies and hand-me-downs for so long, that I really didn't know. And when I got in this house I just decorated the way I always have, and then wondered why I didn't like it and it didn't feel like "me". It was because it wasn't! And the house is so fun to think about, and we feel so blessed to have it. We have the most awesome backyard and we love having so much space. Even if we have to do some creative budgeting to make it all work.

This time of year is a busy one for me, because in addition to holidays I also have 3 birthdays thrown in the mix. And add in there a new baby. And I usually hand make several gifts for Christmas/Birthdays, so I'm trying to get that all done now while I still have the energy. Right now I'm feeling pretty productive! I sew for about an hour a night, otherwise I'm stripping paint off of cabinets.

Baby is growing, kids are growing, and life is good! We just got family pictures taken by a good friend who managed to make it look like we are just a super cute happy family that she just happened to follow around and take pictures of one day. (see pic above) Love!

I am homeschooling, and that makes my morning super busy. Brighton goes to public school for the specials, which is gym, music and art. She loves it, and I love that I can see her school from my driveway and she walks to and from by herself. She's gone for about 45 minutes a day, except for when she manages to sneak into the library and I have to go and fetch her. I'm glad that she likes it and is getting to know people. Brooklyn is officially in Kindergarten this year, which is not that different from what we did last year. Logan and Spencer always join in and work on something when we're doing school, or for the most part play with cars or balls. Those two are such boys. :)

Sometimes I feel like a homebody because I spend so much time with my family, but you know what, I love it! A bubble isn't bad, is it? I have the church and my family, and the occasional outside things. I just organized a block party for my neighborhood, (which turned out awesome, I am the coolest person on the block. :) And we have nice neighbors!) And I'm also teaching MJ Thriller to a few ladies in our ward to perform at the Trunk or Treat. Crazy fun!

Sorry, this is a sort of a christmas card type catch up! I promise to just post pictures next time and not journal at all! :)

The project that started (a) school

2011-08-26T12:17:00.000-07:00

We started the school year learning about animal classifications: Reptiles, Amphibians, and so on. This is one of our craft projects for Fish week. I got the idea from here, and the kids have LOVED it! All week they've been adding more and more fish. We ran out of paper plates, but the kids figured out that they can just make a circle from a paper and use that.

I'll try to start posting more often. I have my energy back, and so now I've been working on the house again, fixing little things and trying to figure out how to decorate it. So. Hard.

And I've discovered Pinterest, so a lot of time spent there. :) Hope you all had a fun summer!

Treasure Hunt

2011-07-01T07:57:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago we had the kids go on a treasure hunt, finding clues to help them figure out a special secret.

They found a baby bottle, baby socks, a pacifier and a baby spoon.

Their guess was, "Uuuh, maybe that maybe a baby was coming to visit?"

Well, they're half right... :)

Poop Problems

2011-06-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

Something else that has occupied much of my thoughts lately: Poop. And Logan.

Logan has had a bowel issue for about a year. He always got constipated about monthly and would have really painful bowel movements. When I potty-trained him, he just didn't want to poop anymore because he associated it with pain. It took me a while to figure out he had a problem other than potty-training troubles. By then his bowels were pretty impacted and stretched out. Which led to encopresis (you can google it if you want to), which basically means impacted bowels to the point where he can't feel the need to have a bowel movement because he's so stretched out and so poop just starts leaking out and he can't control it.

Super. Fun.

And I feel like this problem has led to other behavioral problems. He is so much more sensitive and unhappy than he used to be. And unwilling to try new things. And going to the bathroom has become a constant problem between us as I try to be patient and not get upset with him for constantly messing his pull-up and not wanting to go to the bathroom. I miss my sweet boy!

I took him to the Dr and he prescribed Miralax as a stool softener, which I don't think was a good idea. He has no control over his bowels, and it made his poop so runny that he would have big accidents all over. Outside. Playing with friends. :(

This problem has been hard for me because I don't know how to fix it. I have a new game plan now, which involved an enema to clean him out good, a low dose of Miralax to keep him from getting constipated, and a sticker chart for reminding him to use the bathroom. Actually, that's only half of it. My treatment plan also involves chiropractic adjustments, essential oils, change in diet, massaging his intestines to keep his digestion moving, and reflexology. And perhaps getting his energy tested if things don't start improving. And then maybe voodoo. :)

This problem usually takes months or years to clear up, so wish me luck! And please, if you've gone through this before or have any ideas that might help, please share!

End of School

2011-06-14T06:48:00.000-07:00

The kids wanted to study Mexico before we started school break. I think mostly because we could have a fiesta at the end. :) Which we did, complete with pinata! This is after we studied the temple ruins at Chichen Itza.
We built replicas out of sugar cubes, which was messy, a little sticky and a lot of fun! Now we're on break for the month of June, and we'll probably start up again with school mid-July. Or whenever I can get my act together. Meanwhile, we have swim lessons and I'm trying to figure out when I can squeeze in teaching piano. But if I can get that figured out, then James would be able to quit Best Buy and we'd have him around a little bit more. Time taken out of my day, a little bit more for me to do, but totally worth it!

Oh, side note. So I figured out where my pictures are on this oversized computer, and now I'm thinking maybe the problem is that I don't take pictures anymore. The last ones I could find were from Easter. :) Hmm, I'll have to get on that!

My life has changed so much...

2011-05-31T18:38:00.000-07:00

James bought a Mac. I'm telling you, it has really messed things up. Everything is in the wrong place, I don't know where my photos are, and it just feels different. James tells me to stop resisting, but I really don't like the change.

-pout-

The keyboard is different. The monitor is too big. I think he needs to stop working at Best Buy.

So, that's part of the reason I haven't posted in a while. That, and we've been working really hard on the house. And I'm tired. And at night after the house is cleaned up, I have a D&C class that I'm trying to finish up. Or eating ice cream watching TV.

Happy summer everyone!

New House: Family Room

2011-04-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

So this was the before. Black paneling, tan/pinkish wall. I swear the walls had a pink hue!

This is just the opposite view, which is kind of a reading corner for the kids. For now. I want to paint that rocking chair orange or red, for a pop of color!

After. We painted the walls a light brown, which turned out warmer than I liked and I'm not in love with it. But it's not going anywhere for a long time. I wallpapered behind the bookcases, and the rest is just a new rug and couch. Oh, and repainting the trim. It's a very brown room, but I'm on the lookout for some fun bright things. Sofa pillows, a fireplace screen, things like that. But we're in this room a lot, so it's a cozy family room!

Two weeks ago-

2011-04-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

Happy to have a house, no matter what state it's in! :)
The crazy kitchen- red plaid wallpaper with bright red walls and loooots of stainless steel accents. Wherever they could put them. Even on the cabinet doors!
The family room. I'll post some good "after"shots. We painted these walls and I put wallpaper up behind the bookshelves around the fireplace.
Setting up the bunk beds in the girls' room!
James and his dad ripping up the carpet in the dining room. That room is so great now~ it needs a post all to itself. More pictures to come!

Signs of spring

2011-04-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

The sun is out, the snow is melting, flowers are blooming..

and I just picked up two grocery sacks full of dog poo off my back lawn.

Public Service Announcement

2011-03-02T13:16:00.002-08:00

For all you proud and happy owners of large and hairy dogs...

please please please do not let your large and hairy dogs into your house.

It will cause the next owners of the home to clean the carpets twice to get up all the hair.

It will cause the next owners to seriously deodorize the carpet.

It will cause the next owners to fill a large garbage can full of dog hair picked up by their frequent vacuuming.

It will cause the next owners to take forever washing the walls and baseboards because they're basically just wiping dog hair around.

It will cause the next owners to forbid their children to come visit their new house until it's clean enough for them. (All right, I let them have short visits. But they have to keep their shoes on and then wash their hands.)

It will cause the next owners to assume the grout in the kitchen floor tile is brown, until scrubbing with a toothbrush reveals that it is actually white.

It will cause the next owners to involuntary gag several times.

To conclude: Please keep those large and hairy dogs outside, where I'm sure they will be very happy.

note: to all those dog owners, I don't mean to offend. I'm sure you love your dog. I am not a dog person and don't like to clean up after them. :) We've been in the house since Monday and still have several days of cleaning left. And then on to painting. Will we be living there by the end of the month? Who knows??

And don't even get me started on all the scratched up woodwork...

Countdown

2011-02-24T07:15:00.000-08:00

1: Days until the final walk-through of our house

4: Days until we close

9: Days until we move in

3: Number of times I have majorly freaked out about the house

1: Number of flat tires to be fixed

4: Number of weeks we've had sick kids- a fun mixture of flu and strep

I've been trying to find my zen- so many unknowns make it hard, as well as the sick kids. But this has been my week to get back on track. And I have a lot of good friends that have offered to watch the kids while I clean the house and get ready for the move. Sadly, they must not know me well enough, since I always take people up on those offers. :) Mwah hah ha.

Home stretch!

What kept my kids occupied yesterday...

2011-02-09T06:45:00.001-08:00

1. New Markers (natch! who can resist new markers?!)

2. Shiny silver piece of string. Apparently it's the same kind that Santa uses on his sleigh, because my kids were pretending North Pole all afternoon.

Hurray for simple things making kids happy!

My first kid in a cast sniff

2011-02-02T11:12:00.000-08:00

The big surprise was that it's Logan! I would have put my money on Brooklyn for sure. She's always been a big monkey. But where she can fall on her head and not get hurt, Logan can get a paper cut from a coloring book.

Last Sunday James stayed home sick from church with all of our strep-throated kids. One of the activities they came up with was jumping from the block bin onto the floor strewn with blocks. Not a mom-approved activity, I can tell you. Logan came down hard on a block and broke some bones, apparently.

Or not so apparently, as they didn't catch it in the x-rays taken in the emergency room. They declared him sprained and sent him on his way without even a foot brace. A few days later, after their radiologist had looked at it and with him still not walking on it, they sent us straightaway to a specialist. Anyway, he's got a cast on for two weeks and is doing great! He's the rock star of the family right now. :) Sorry I don't have a better picture, this is Grandma and Grandpa signing his manly blue cast.

Yes, we did it.

2011-01-31T10:33:00.000-08:00

I guess we bought a house. Thanks for all of your comments- It was really helpful to read through them and feel normal for freaking out. Those people on House Hunters(HGTV) never seem to be freaking out. What's wrong with them, eh? :)

I'm feeling pretty good about the decision. Our tax return is going to be twice as big as we were planning on (thank you, poverty! :)) and I keep finding ways that we're going to save. Of course, we also keep finding more things for the house that we're going to need to pay for. The house is in a great area and we are getting it for $30-50K less than the other houses on the street. But the previous owners didn't really update some big things like the roof, furnace and windows. The outside AC unit is getting old too. So those things could all break as soon as we get in the home, or last for several more years. Who knows. And the outside is pretty ugly. And the owners had dogs. :)

On the positive side- it's got tons of room (four bedrooms, an unfinished basement) and a great big backyard. So I think it will be okay. We close on February 28th, so we have some more waiting to do. And then DEFINITELY there will be some crazy cleaning going on. And then moving in. And then organizing. Yay! I love organizing. :)

As I've thought about buying a home, I have some serious psychological hang-ups. The responsibility of owning a home- it makes me feel old. Like the four kids I have don't do that. See, maybe there is something wrong with me! Sigh. :)

Housing

2011-01-12T11:22:00.000-08:00

Well. Back in October we found a house to rent. We walked through the house, said yup we'll rent it, and she said okay great. She was moving to Texas, so we were going to sign a contract when she got back in town. Long story short, two weeks before Christmas she let us know that she decided not to rent to us. We were stunned, since we were planning to move in the first week of January. It made for a depressing Christmas, to say the least. James does a better job at hiding his emotions. I was a snarly golem for a few days. I drove by the house a couple of times with a carton of eggs in the passenger seat. (Just kidding, but I did want to give her a piece of my mind. I mean, we told our kids about the house and everything!)

So, we started the process of getting a home loan again. Which has taken since October, and is still not ironed out. And we did find a house that we love, although it is at the top of our price range. In fact, we were going to make an offer on it yesterday, but I freaked out and couldn't go through with it. I have serious psychological issues about getting in so much debt. I hate not being able to count on a sure thing! I want to know FOR SURE what the mortgage payments will be, and I really don't like all the unknowns lurking about. Since I've never bought a home, and don't know what to expect.

And it irks me that James is so calm about it. I try to rile him up, believe me. I run through the budget numbers a few times a day, show him how little we'll be able to save a month, run through all these terrible scenarios like his car dying, a freak flood and/or termites. That could all happen at once, you know. And then where would we be? In trouble.

You see my problem. Any home owners that could give me advice? Make me more worried? Calm my fears? Feel free to ring in.

Gross and Funny, but mostly gross

2011-01-06T10:16:00.001-08:00

Preface: After it snows, I'll pour a little maple syrup on the new snow to let harden a bit. It doesn't get really hard, just gels up a bit more. Then the kids eat it as a treat.

Present Day: We're coming out of the gym and I hear Brooklyn yell, "Candy!", then scoop up a handful of snow and pop in her mouth, before I could do anything.

Then she spits it out.

Because it's pee.

{cringe}

and before you ask, yes, we have talked about the whole yellow snow thing. At length. She's just impulsive. Sigh. :)

Snapshots of GA

2010-11-29T06:32:00.001-08:00

The crew in the car. Yup, I did the 14 hour drive home all by my lonesome. There was some screaming, but then I calmed down and we were okay. :) Actually, the kids were all really good. And a little bit of preparation goes a long way. I had gotten some little presents at the dollar store, and would chuck them one every few hours. And I broke the time up with movies, coloring, snacks, and stops. And I had everything I need to hand back to the kids within arms reach. I'm an expert at chucking to the back seat. :0) My favorite thing for car trips is our travel ticker on the ceiling. I write the names of some of the cities we pass through on masking tape, and we have a little car that we move along the road. So the kids know how far we are from our destination. It was my friends idea a few years ago, and she even sketched me the little car. I laminated it (of course!) and still use it every trip. Thanks Rachel!
We went to Georgia to visit my sister Dawnelle. Hi Nelly! These pictures are sorta backwards in order, but oh well. We did a lot of this.
See, look at me sewing! This is when I fired out my kids Halloween costumes. I loved sewing at Dawnelle's house because our kids would all play and basically leave us alone to sew. Woohoo!
My sister, as much as I love her, is a weirdo. Here we are trimming the tree before Halloween. She's got no principles.

Proof for these next few pictures that I did not have the camera. :)Shooting water rockets of the back porch. Both of my girls got clobbered in the face. I mean, we were watching them shoot up and then fall! Why are we not moving out of the way? I mean, oh, poor babies! {sympathetic face}
Staying well out of the way now.
The kids had craft time too!
Walking along a nature path that Dawnelle was sure was filled with hooligans hiding and waiting to snatch us and/or our children. Like any hooligan would be thinking that two ladies with six small children would be an easy target. :) We be crazy like mother bears, yo!
Mass bath. It's a good thing they have an extra large tub! :)
Playing in their backyard. I loved the backyard and so did my kids!! I want one!
At one of Carter's baseball games. Those were just a hoot! It was so fun to watch all these little kids running around in their uniforms. Carter has a good arm on him! Brighton really enjoyed watching and practicing with Carter at home. I'm not very sports minded; I really need to think more about getting my kids involved in sports.

Our main purpose in going to GA was to get all our stuff of our storage unit (being Dawnelle's garage) and bring it back to IA. Bit of a bummer, but at least I got a trip out of it! Being with my sister and her family was tons of fun. I stayed for about a week and a half, and it was over way too soon. Hopefully living in Georgia will be in our future!

Kicking the habit

2010-11-26T08:59:00.000-08:00

What will we do for comfort?

Both of my girls have sucked their thumbs. Brighton stopped when she was five, using sheer willpower and the promise of a special dinner with dad once the thumb callous was gone. Logan had a pacifier at nap and bedtime until this past summer. He was sad when I took it away, but after a few days he was fine. A few months ago, Spencer starting sucking his index finger when I lay him down for bed. Can I hope for just a passing phase?

Brooklyn is having a hard time giving up the thumb. She was all set to stop sucking it when she was five years old, but now that the magic age has arrived, she's decided that she'd rather stop when she's six. I don't make a big deal about it, but she's started doing it more and more: at computer time, movie time, in the car, during reading time... it really does need to stop. So I tried this. (The seller is on vacation, but you should be able to get a good idea of the product from the pics.)

I really liked the idea of the soft thumb cover. First problem: Brooklyn is a tricksy girl, and slipped it right off. So I sent it back to be resized. Second problem: She started sucking her other thumb She told me that at first it felt funny but after a bit it was fun. Greeaat. {Shouldn't there be a font for sarcasm?} So I tried a reward- every day that she leaves the thumb cover on, she gets a piece of candy at bedtime. That worked for one night. We tried putting a glove over the other hand, to keep her from sucking that thumb. I don't want to buy another thumb cover! This morning she wakes up so excited to tell me that she didn't suck either thumb last night, instead she sucked her finger! And I have to laugh because she's telling me like it's the best idea ever and I should be so happy!

And I decided, not for the first time, that this girl is going to do whatever she wants to.

With one of her many bug friends. :)

My new favorite sound

2010-11-12T10:43:00.000-08:00

Brighton was in a helping mood and vacuumed the stairs for me this morning. And I decided that I love the sound of my kids running the vacuum! It really did put a smile on my face. And reminded me of when I was younger and all of us eight kids would be doing our morning chores.

My mom probably just loved the sound of all that vacuuming, dish washing, dusting, wiping off- all done by her kids.

I think I need to have some more kids --- and some more vacuums. :)

Halloween happened!

2010-11-05T12:06:00.000-07:00

Sadly, this is the best and only picture I have. I am just kicking myself now- but I'm hoping Grandma and Grandpa have better ones. I made the costumes while I was in Georgia visiting my sister Dawnelle. (Which was awesome, and needs its own post :)

Brighton is Princess Tiger Lily, Brooklyn is Tinker Bell, Logan was Peter Pan, and Spencer was a lost boy. Who had already lost his hat by the time we took this picture.

Our ward had a trunk or treat on Friday, we went door to door on Saturday, and celebrated James' birthday on Sunday. It was a sugar filled weekend!

I'm not a huge fan of the sweet treats- my kids don't get them daily- so I wanted the candy to be kept at a minimum. They all had a lot, so I told the kids that I would pay them five cents for every piece of candy they gave me. Brighton gave me a dollar's worth and Brooklyn parted with 30 cents worth. Logan said no. :) Of course, I do a little after bedtime sneaking. But it goes straight in the trash. I'm sooo not tempted by store candy. I'm not going to waste my time with second-rate treats. But if it's Dove chocolate or something homemade... that's another story. :)

Spencer

2010-10-13T07:15:00.000-07:00

My little Spencer boy is one!! His loves right now:

Dancing- he loves to shake his bootie. He'll get mad at you if you turn it off.

Mooching food- if you have it, he wants it. He loooves to eat with silverware. He can be a picky eater though. He usually likes the first 5-6 bites and then he's done with that course. I have to be pretty inventive. Some of his favorites are black beans and olives. Weird kid. :) You can see from the pictures that grandpa is an easy target.

Blankie- he gets his blankie at bedtime and he's always excited to see it. He loves to wrestle and chew on it. I usually find him sleeping curled up on it. Spencer also started sucking his index finger (!) about a month ago. Right now it's just when he goes to sleep, and hopefully he'll grow out of it soon.

Walking- he's been walking for a few months, and is pretty fast at it. He loves being able to follow the kids around.

Driving in the car- he sits next to Logan and those two are just silly together. He loves to look out the window.

Babbling- he talks to everybody, and it sure seems like he's saying something serious.

Spencer is such a sweet boy, and we all sure love him. Although I love my teensy babies, this age is fun too. He loves to try and do new things. Like buckle his seatbelt. :) Silly sweet boy.

Meanwhile...

2010-10-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

Little update on what we're doing: we're still looking at buying a house. This whole process takes forever!! I would love to be in our own place by Christmas, but I'm not sure if that's going to happen. We're working on consolidating our student loans, saving up money and finding a lender. We've mostly just looked at houses online and spent some time driving around neighborhoods. I don't want to talk to a real estate agent or go to an open house until we have a loan approved. And we're also busy getting other grown-up things figured out like health insurance. Sometimes I just want to go back to being a student! It's all I've known for the past ten years. This is all crazy new stuff.

We'll be leaving for Georgia this Friday to load up all our stuff and drive it back here. Well, James is doing that anyway. I'm going to stay and play for a while! Yay!!! The kids are all really excited. My sister and I are going to be working on Halloween costumes while I'm there, and I'm looking forward to having a crafting partner. Happy Fall everyone!!

umm, Hi!

2010-09-20T13:56:00.000-07:00

I've been such an absent blogger this summer. I have several good reasons that I won't bore you with. :) The summer has been filled with lots of fun activities, so I'll give you a quick rundown of the highlights:

homemade pinata

happy birthday Logan

local zoo

rodeo

short and expensive haircut

starting school

first steps

potty training

terrible but cheap haircut

two trips to Nauvoo

Whew!! After tres months of being apart, James flew back to join the family in Iowa at the end of July. He has been working at Best Buy part time while he continued the job search. We've been apart too many summers. I think 4 or 5. It's just not good for us, we need to stop doing it! There have been lots of ups and down as far as the job search. James would get an interview and our hopes would be high for a few weeks, and then would slump down when he didn't get the position. It's been an awful and emotional roller-coaster. But last week he was offered a position at Genesis Medical here in Davenport IA. So yay!

Um, is it awful that I spent several days being really depressed about this job? It's a great job, really exciting for him. But I'm kind of bummed about it being here in Iowa. What is that about??? We moved all our stuff to Georgia, we felt so sure that that was where we needed to end up. And although the job is great, it's not like our financial worries are over. But there, that's enough complaining. It's going to be great, and we'll make it work and continue to have faith. That's what we Mormons do, right?!

So we're looking into buying a home, and boy is that another stresser. I go between wanting to close my eyes until it's over and needing to know every single thing about the home buying process. I currently have five books from the library about real estate. :)

I'll try to be better about getting on the computer and keep ya'll posted. Thanks for all the prayers and good wishes from everyone!

The Atlanta Situation

2010-06-02T06:34:00.000-07:00

For those who aren't in the know, I thought I'd fill everyone in on what we are doing.

About Atlanta: Way back when, oh- six months ago? When James was applying for jobs at the end of his semester, we felt impressed that we needed to be in the Atlanta area. We also were pretty sure that we would not have a job beforehand and would just need to go out there and get one. I'm not sure if that last part was inspiration or just knowing how the Lord works with us. We're not one of those families where things end up in our lap. I guess we have more we need to learn about faith, and Heavenly Father likes to give us those opportunities. :)

So for the month of May, as soon as James was done with his degrees he drove down to Georgia to start looking for work. Not a ton of luck so far, but we keep hearing there is potential and companies are hiring. I packed up the house and kept the kids {mostly} happy until the end of May, when James flew back to help load up the moving van and drive our stuff down to Georgia. My sister has been awesome and is letting James stay with her and all of our stuff is just sitting in her garage. Thanks Dawnelle!

Right now I am staying with James' parents in Davenport, which is right on the Iowa/Illinois border. We're going to give this situation a month and then evaluate. We still feel like Georgia is right for us- we figure if we stay close to the spirit the Lord will let us know if we're not doing the right thing anymore. But we still feel good about Atlanta- who knows why?! This has been a good lesson in faith for me especially, as I like to have everything planned out and organized, and James not having a job is stressing both of us out. But we've been blessed with great family that are letting us take over their homes, and hopefully we'll catch a break soon. I don't always have access to a phone here and being on the computer is harder, so I won't be blogging as much. But we've restocked our adventure jar, and I'll have pictures to blog as soon as James gets a job and we get to our new house in Atlanta!

This I'll Miss: Cyride

2010-05-26T18:25:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's my home schooled upbringing, but I love riding on the bus. It's one of our favorite adventures!

The kids love not being in car seats, the novelty of all the seating, and especially all the big windows to watch the world pass by.

When we ride, we usually have the bus to ourselves. Probably because we go during the day and usually only to the mall or library. I can't figure out any more routes than that. :)

(Side note: Really, is there anything more difficult to read than a bus schedule? Each time, I have to call James to be sure I'm reading it right and usually feel frustratingly thick in the head. Probably because I can never figure out my north and south. :))
I love this small town and how safe I feel. Somehow, I can't picture me riding the bus with all my kiddos in Atlanta. We ♥ Cyride!

This I'll Miss

2010-05-24T18:19:00.001-07:00

This is the children section of our library. I know, right? In all my years of library-going, I have never been to a better library! :) The board books are in a fun alligator shelf, which is low to the ground for easy kid access. And there are tons. That whole thing is full, with extra bins underneath for more. There are also puzzles in there that you can check out and take home.
There is a puppet theater with two bins full of fun puppets that you can check out and take home.
All the picture books are in these great shelves which make it easy to flip through and find the one you want. There are pictures marking where the character books are, like Dora and Spot.
Logan's favorite things to do at the library- play with the trucks and the Lego table behind him. There is also a computer kiosk, and several fun stations throughout the area that change every few months. The rest of the library is equally fabulous. We are so going to miss this!!

M&M's make the best incentives

2010-05-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

That is really the only reason I ever have a bag on hand. I don't like bribing with candy, but sometimes it just works best, ya know?!

My latest application of the M&M incentive has been at dinnertime. Lately my kids have had a real problem keeping their bottom in their chair. They have to jump up to look out the window, make sure their toy is where they left it, look at their calendar, and a myriad of other silly reasons to be up out of their chair and not eating their meal. So I give them five M&M's at the beginning of the meal, and take one away each time they get out of their seat. At first most of them got taken away, but after a few times they're catching on. I only give them three now, and not every day. I like the idea of using this for politeness too.

Kids are so much more aware of their actions when chocolate covered candies are staring them in the face!

The new face of Brighton

2010-05-11T16:22:00.000-07:00

Yes, at age 6 Brighton needs glasses. :( Like mother, like daughter.

I'm happy for her that now she can see things she didn't even know that she was missing out on, like leaves on the trees. As soon as we walked out of the office she was so excited because she could see the car! She likes to take her glasses on and off to see how she can see things differently.

I'm sad for her that now she has to bother with glasses. Having to be careful with them, yearly check-ups, higher prescriptions, not being able to see when you wake up in the morning. All the stuff that I had to deal with from age 8 to age 20. When I got 'em lasered, yeah! My vision was really bad. -8 is legally blind and I was -10. When I was shopping around for Lasik a lot of the "bargain" places said that they hadn't seen anyone with eyes as bad as mine. No thank you, I'm not gonna be your guinea pig. When I was younger, my worst nightmares were not being to find my glasses and not being able to see anything. It was really emotional for me when I got up from the chair after Lasik and I could see.

So sorry that they couldn't fix my genetics as well as my vision. Oh, well- she looks cute, right?!

The Spencerspence

2010-05-10T07:08:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know. I come up with great nicknames. :) I also have little ditties that I sing to my babies, unique to each one. Spencer's is "Spencer, Spencer, it's gonna be okay" sung to the tune of Daisy, Daisy. Logan's was to the tune of La Bamba. I'm a genius!

This picture is after a recent haircut. His fluff was getting out of control. :) I need to get a video of him crawling. Seven months and already crawling! It's mostly an army crawl, but he gets around. I had to stop swaddling him and that made for a rough week. He also was getting two teeth, one of his top front and an incisor, at the same time! Same rough week. Made for even more rotten sleeper. I think it's getting better though.

I'm such a push-over with this little guy! I was so much tougher with my girls. I think it's because I know how quickly this stage passes. I love my little babies. I love nursing them and holding them when they sleep. And I know how delicate and precious they are.

a great find!

2010-05-09T06:52:00.000-07:00

Found: One small bird's nest.
Where: On a recent trip to Grandpa and Grandma Hall's house.
Also found: One (1) small cracked blue egg. Empty. Egg has been replaced with acorns for this photo.

my solution

2010-05-05T06:56:00.000-07:00

I don't want to sit around being depressed all month, so this is what I've cooked up. To keep me and the kids excited, we have an adventure jar! I've filled it with fun things to do, such as get a sno cone, go on a nature walk, have a pretend movie theater, and so on- enough to have an adventure a day for the month.(except for Sundays, when we'll rest from our adventures. :)) Each day one of the kids get to pull our adventure out of the jar. They've been really excited so far.

Today's adventure: Ride the bus to the library!

a sense of impending doom...

2010-04-29T15:21:00.000-07:00

The kids have been so snarly today! Picking fights, whining and so on. And I've been a tad snarly too, having a hard time being patient. Spencer has been his usual cheerful self, but he did take a short afternoon nap. Maybe that was his way of showing how upset he is that daddy is leaving on Saturday to spend the next month in Georgia looking for a job.

Sometimes I don't realize how much I look forward to him coming home, and the cheerful way he pitches in and helps out. How he tickles the kids until they can tell him where their femur is. How he teases them and they've learned to hardly ever take him seriously.

We're all going to miss him. Ain't no sunshine when he's gone.

kids with a camera

2010-04-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

Fairy Visitor

2010-04-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

Brighton lost her two bottom teeth! She had been wiggling one for weeks, and I didn't think she was ever going to get it out. I told her about the toilet paper trick (put a piece of toilet paper over the tooth and pull. Rocket science.), she tried it and it worked! We had just discovered that her second bottom tooth was wiggly the day before. I went upstairs to put Spencer to bed and she tried toilet paper on the second one and pulled it out!

She was so excited about A! FAIRY! COMING! TO! HER! HOUSE! that she made this little fairy sized envelope to put her teeth in. I was sure she would lose her teeth as she kept taking them out to show dad, Brooklyn, the man out walking his dog, etc. But she ended up with both of them that night and the tooth fairy left her two dollars!

Trees are budding...

2010-04-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

This was another fun activity that I tied into their school work.

Take a piece of paper and add a paper trunk.

Cut out 1" (ish) size squares out of tissue paper

Dab dots of glue in a branch like pattern and have kids scrunch up tissue paper and press onto the glue dot.

This is Logan showing his tissue paper ball. He loved this part!

Brooklyn sticking her "leaves" on.

Brighton's finished product. She wanted a swing on her tree. :)

We'll definitely do this again! We could do pink and white for spring blossoms, and fall colors later on.

What to do on an overcast day...

2010-04-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

Has anyone seen this book at their library? I just love it. It's a story about a town that was tired of the gloomy weather, so the baker decided to bake some sun bread so the sun would come out.
We love to bake sun bread on an overcast day.

The book has a good recipe on the back cover, but any bread recipe will do.

side note: Isn't that age when kids cannot give a sincere smile for the camera just fabulous? When pretty much every picture taken of them makes them look deranged and slightly crazy? Love it.Our finished products. Brighton decided to make a sun cat, Brooklyn a sun teddy bear, and Logan smooshed together a flower.

The best part? After we took our bread out of the oven, the sun came out. Success!!

the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth...

2010-04-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

The tooth fairy will be making her first appearance at our house pretty soon. She's been waiting to come for weeks actually, Brighton is a bit of a non-wiggler. Her permanent tooth got tired of waiting for space and came in behind. She has orthodontia in her future, that's for sure. :)

But I was wondering, since a precedent will be set here for the whole family, what's the going rate for your tooth fairy? I remember getting a buck a tooth and $2 for molars. One glorious week I lost four molars and was rich!

But ended up with bus tokens. (love that book!)

So, how much?

If you give a child a chore...

2010-04-08T16:38:00.001-07:00

they're going to get distracted. :)

Golly, do kids have the shortest attention spans ever?! I'm not asking a lot from them. We don't have to be ready to catch a bus at 7:30am, or to really ever go anywhere before noon. (Which is one of the reasons I home school.) I just want them to be ready for the day by 10:30, so we can start school.

Is that so hard?

Apparently. :)

If I send Brooklyn upstairs to get dressed, she spots the dress-ups and decides to be a ballerina.
If I ask Brighton to make her bed, she finds the book she hid under her pillow and reads for a half hour.
Logan is better, but I have to help him with his responsibilities. Get dressed, brush teeth, comb hair, clean room. I help him with all that.

The girls though- come on! I made them responsibility charts, so I can just ask them to check their charts instead of constantly nagging.

This is one of those kid things that I think is funny bordering on frustrating.
I'm not really complaining, just venting. Kids! :)

Fairy Tea Party

2010-04-04T19:08:00.000-07:00

I went to a Fairy Tea Party a few years ago at the Provo Library. It was so fancy, it was more like the fairy prom! I thought it would be really fun to do on my own, with my girls and their friends. I need something to look forward to during the ugly months of February and March. My family swaps valentines every year, and the kids and I always have fun making valentines. But after that fun is over, I'm just waiting and waiting for spring to get here.

So I decided that the first Saturday of March will now be the Fairy Queen's Annual Tea Party!

I invited six of my little girls' friends and asked three older girls to be my fairy helpers. I even sent save the date's out before the invitations.

{So posh!}

My three fairy helpers came over a few times before the big day to help me plan the menu, make wings, and plan the activities. My helpers were so great, and I could not have done it without them! Thanks to Fiona, Camilla and Ella who definitely do not read my blog. :)

Brighton and Brooklyn were really excited for a looong time, and had fun helping me with craft ideas and fancy food planning.
My helpers came about an hour early to help set up. After all the fairies arrived, we sat down and each fairy introduced herself and told us what kind of fairy she was. Then we had a talk on fairy manners before sitting down for lunch. I made little sandwiches (jam, ham and cucumber) and cheese scones served with lemonade. My fairy helpers were great here serving everyone.
This little girl on the right, Anne, was such a cutie! She stayed in character and always referred to me as "Fairy Queen". So sweet, I loved it! :)

We did two crafts- fairy wands and crowns. I liked the crown idea - using foil to make designs, but the wands didn't go well. I got out glitter, and it turns out that I can't handle the glitter.

After the crafts we had treats. I made little cupcakes, little cookies, cake balls and raspberry mousse. Fancy and fun! We had time for a little parade/dance and that was it. Two hours was a good time length. I have plans to make a fairy dress in the future, but this was the best I could do with limited time. My girls loved my skirt, which is actually a slip. Don't worry, I was wearing pants underneath. :) I also didn't get to decorate my house like I wanted to, draping tulle and putting flowers everywhere. All of my kids took turns being sick and throwing up the week before. Brooklyn actually spent the party watching from the couch because she had thrown up that morning. I'll have to make sure they know not to do that next time.

Now I get to plan for next year! :)

Back to the routine

2010-04-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

We've been on vacation to Utah (yay!) We got to see most of my family, all of James' family and to be a part of his sister Jennifer's wedding. Crazy fun!

I need to get my pictures off the camera - all five of them, I am so bad at remembering to take pictures!

I'm off to unpack and get settled, but will leave you all with this thought:

I was getting out applesauce as a snack for my kids, and they like to have cinnamon sprinkled on top. I grabbed a spice that looked like cinnamon out of the cupboard and sprinkled some on. Wrong one apparently. Cumin is NOT a good substitute for cinnamon. :)

Five in a Row

2010-03-07T15:28:00.000-08:00

No, this is not a pregnancy announcement. :)

Some of you know that I was home schooled and that I currently home school my children. I wanted to post about what I do, and some of the curriculum that I use. I am in no way an expert and I've only just begun. But we're having fun and I wanted to share!

We start off our day with Five in a Row.

The idea behind FIAR is that we read the same book every day for five days, and each day we pull something out of it to discuss. For example, one of the books we read was The Story of Ping. On Monday, we talked about China and the Yangtze River and found them on the map. The next day, we talked about things that float and tried finding different things around the house and testing them to see if they would float. The third day we talked about the illustrations, how they were done with pencils and made our own pictures. And so on.

This is something that I can do with all the kids (a plus) and is what they enjoy the most. Here are a few pictures of what we have done.

After reading Papa Piccolo, which is set in Venice and has a lot of water in the pictures, we talked about all the colors the illustrator used for the water. We did a little experiment making our own colors. We took blue and added a little green, black, and other colors to see what color would turn out.

I found this painting idea here, and for some reason using q-tips to paint make me feel less stressed. Otherwise I am a bundle of nerves, knowing it will get all over the table, clothes, chairs and possibly the floor. I reeeally dislike having carpet under the table.
We read The Glorious Flight, which is about Louis Bleriot who invented the first working airplane in France and flew the English Channel. Of course we made paper airplanes!

Five in a Row is great for us. By the way, I got the manual used off of amazon for about $25, and get the books from the library. Much cheaper that way. The manual just gives lots of suggestions/ideas for their book list, so I suppose you could even come up with those yourselves and do it for free! But I like someone to do some of my thinking for me. :)

I'll post later about the rest of school. But this is the start of our home school day!

Silly Kidlets

2010-03-06T06:46:00.000-08:00

We might have a problem...

2010-03-05T06:28:00.000-08:00

Alternate title: The New Printer

Our old printer (that had been given to us several years ago) had started to die, and I was tired of never being able to print in color. I mentioned to James that it was very important to me to have a good printer, preferably one that could scan and copy. I find myself wanting to do that a lot as a homeschooler. I swear I only casually mentioned this, but I forgot who I was talking to. My husband is a bit of a tech nerd- he loves to research the newest gadgets and gizmos. For example, this is our computer:

He built this himself.

Twice.

And I have to say, although I was skeptical about the double monitor thing at first, now I don't know how I did without. Could we do three? Or four?

And now this is our printer:My old printer used to sit on top of that black filing cabinet. The new printer takes up my entire end table. Look at that thing! Yes, James reassures me that he got an unbelievable price, lowest one on the internet and then even lower because it was open box- but lookatitlookatit! It's huge! Practically commercial size! Am I running a marketing office? I might even have to name it.

Conclusion: Don't idly mention things like this anymore. Like wanting a new camera. I can only imagine what he would choose. Let us not speak of it.

New Eyes

2010-02-22T07:00:00.001-08:00

I had someone come over to babysit a few days ago. Well, house sit really. James has class on Wednesday night, which is also the night our ward has young womens. I'm the secretary, so I don't have to be there every week, but I like to go a few times a month, to keep up with the girls and their activities. So those nights I get a babysitter, usually a young couple without kids. I have my kids in bed already so it's a boring night.

I'm sure there was an easier way to set all this up, but blah. There is the situation.

Anyway, I had someone new come over this week. This couple has been married maybe a year or so, and is pregnant (twins!) with their first- children, I guess. :) I was having a good night- dinner wasn't too traumatic, meaning the kids ate it without too much complaining. And they went to bed well and the house was looking pretty nice and clean. This couple was super nice about coming over- I usually feel bad about disrupting someone's night- but they were insistent that they didn't want anything in return except being able to watch TV. Because they don't have one.

I was chatting with them afterward, and it made me remember those years when James and I were first married. Going without and not having much. We slept on an air mattress for the first few months. Rented a couch from Wymount so we would have furniture. Brighton's bassinet was a box lid. :)

Lately I've been feeling like the list of things that I want to have upgraded- our wobbly table that we're outgrowing, our pots and pans that are scraped and have loose handles, things that we have used hard and are wearing out- that list is getting longer and longer. Having been in school pretty much the whole eight years we've been married, I always thought things would be better after we were finished with school. Not better, that's not what I mean. But maybe easier? I'd be able to start checking things off of my list. Not be using storage boxes as night stands. And as the end of school keeps coming (mid April) and no strong job possibilities are apparent, I'm thinking that my dream of so many years is not going to happen.

So I freaked out for a few weeks. I'm better now. :) No one really knows when I freak out except James and my sister. And maybe Brighton, who I lectured on the cost of envelopes when she wanted to use some to play with. That was a low point. :)

Anyways, back to the point. When I was talking to this young couple, I started to see my apartment as what it must look like to them. Two nice couches, nice entertainment system, double monitor computer, big ol' printer (more on that later), pictures on the walls, etc. I felt like telling them, "No, we're really poor! It just looks like we have a lot!" Most of our furniture has been given to us, or somebody was junking it and we sanded it down and fixed it up. Things like the computer, printer, entertainment system we saved up for. Or James worked an extra job or we sold something. But I realized that over the years, we've accumulated some nice things. Not everything on my list, and we take advantage of hand-me-downs and craigslist, but we have a lot. A lot for me to be grateful for. My list can wait.

I'm not a very good writer, but I've been thinking about this a lot and wanted to vocalize it. So thank you, poor young couple. :) You've helped me have a better perspective, and to appreciate what I have.

See, we go outside sometimes!

2010-02-17T11:32:00.000-08:00

Daddy made trails through the snow for the kids to walk through. He did that a lot as a kid, playing tag and other games.

-snow angel-

Mountains of snow! How fun!

This is the front of our house. James piled all this snow in front of our window to help insulate us from the cold wintry wind. Which goes right through this poorly made window. :) The snow really helps, and it makes an instant fort/slide for the kids to play on.

This was a few weeks ago. Now it's usually too cold or windy to play outside. And the snow is all crunchy and yucky anyway. Oh well, we had fun with the snow for a few weeks anyway.

Spring, anyone?

Winter day activity

2010-02-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

Isn't he cute? We are starting to feel the winter here in Iowa!! It seems like every day I wake up to more snow. The kids are still pretty good in the mornings with school, but the afternoon doldrums are hard. We all get cranky.
If this sounds like you, here is an activity idea! I found it here. Can I tell you what a lifesaver the internet is?! I especially love how many mommy blogs there are with activity ideas. I bookmark a whole bunch so I can revisit them. If I wasn't so lazy I'd put buttons on my blog, but again- lazy.
Edible peanut butter playdough that they decorated with pretzels, raisins and candy dots. Basically, whatever I had in the back of my cupboard. :)
Guaranteed to keep kids busy and happy for at least 30 minutes.

It's like I have a 9 year old boy...

2010-02-03T14:21:00.001-08:00

Brooklyn is obsessed with bodily functions and noises. She loves to talk about bottoms and other parts of the body- she'll even have conversations in the bathroom between herself and her bottom.

She voices both roles.

I'm sure this is just fine and normal, although annoying. We've restricted her potty talk to the bathroom, but right now our current issue is burping. She looooves to burp at meals. We tried to give her timeouts for burping, but they weren't having an effect and I didn't feel like it was a logical consequence. So right now, if she doesn't want to use her manners she doesn't get to sit at the table with us. If she wants to burp she has to eat in the kitchen.

I like this consequence, and I thought it would work because she hates being separated from the family. However, in this case, she doesn't care. She's happy to sit and burp it up in the kitchen.

How to kick this habit?!? Will she just grow out of it? Any ideas???

kids playing

2010-02-01T11:07:00.000-08:00

Good to see that Brighton's developing handwriting skills are being put to good use...

A project... finished

2010-01-30T10:57:00.000-08:00

I found the idea for this felt playhouse here. I don't think I come up with any original ideas, but I'm pretty good at imitation!
This fits over a card table. My measurements weren't perfect, and it's a little large. I think I'd like to make a slightly bigger frame out of PVC pipe. Cheap, and would disassemble easily.
I love all the little details on this. I think I will end up taking off the door and sewing in at the top so it can flip onto the roof. And I'll probably need to put something in the window (make a pane, or add vinyl or webbing) since the kids keep trying to crawl out of it. Even though not doing that is a rule for playing with the playhouse. That and not climbing on the roof. :)
And I need to make some flowers for the flowerbox.

It was really fun to sew with felt, but I think I'm ready for a break!

A project

2010-01-27T09:34:00.000-08:00

I need to take better pictures of this - tonight, okay? -but this is the project I'm working on right now. It's a playhouse that fits over a card table. It has a doghouse, a tree with apples, a garden with vegetables, and a mailbox. It's a lot of work but I'm having fun. I like making things like this for my family. Check out my black nail polish- yowza! (Present from Santa)

The not-so-fun thing is that I work on it after the kids are in bed. Which means that at 7pm I lug my machine out, my felt, my sewing stuff and get started. And then I put it all away at 9:30. Bother! My machine is like an anvil! Someday I'll have a craft room... :)

The Amazing, The Incredible Spencer!

2010-01-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

He's found his toes! Isn't he marvelous??!? :) Few things about Spencer:

-he's a head scratcher. You've got to watch him, or he'll get himself good and start bleeding all over. He's got scabs all over his head.

-not the best sleeper. He'll do great for a few days, then be up every hour for a few days after. Through the day, through the night. Not dependable, the little stinker.

-happy happy boy. He is hardly ever upset. He loves to squeal and jabber. He's lucky he's so cute considering his sleeping record.

Somebody's Watching Me...

2010-01-25T06:20:00.000-08:00

James made this handsome snowman with the kids a few weeks ago, right outside our side window. Which is great, right?

The thing is, I forget it's there. So when I'm walking through the house, I'll get startled by the tall figure watching me outside my window. You'd think I'd remember I've got a snowman out there, but no, it gets me a few times a day.

And with it being so cold, it's not going to melt anytime soon....

Birth Story- written months ago and never posted!

2010-01-10T19:15:00.000-08:00

I like reading/hearing others' birth stories, so I'll go ahead and post mine. Even though it's pretty boring. :)

I feel like I jumped through hoops to avoid a c-section with this baby! The Ames hospital doesn't perform VBAC's (vaginal birth after cesarean), which means I have to go up to Des Moines, a 45 minute drive. My doctor was really understanding of my situation, so I was seen here in town by a midwife until 36 weeks, and then transferred to Des Moines. I wanted to put off the long drive until absolutely necessary.

My OB was up-front about practice policy of only going a week past due, but since Logan was 10 days late I asked if he would make an exception and let me go longer if I happened to go overdue. Good thing we talked about that possibility!

On the 22nd I was 11 days overdue, and had tried {almost} everything I could think of to kick-start my labor. Otherwise I was scheduled to go into the hospital on Friday. My sweet sister Dawnelle, who was flying in the next day to "help" with the baby that was a no-show, called and bullied me into taking castor oil, the only thing I hadn't tried. Really, she wouldn't hang up the phone until I took it. She had already called James the day before and had him buy it. She called again at 4pm to make me take another dose. I started having serious contractions at 6:30pm. I knew they were serious because they were in my back- I have always had back labor. I hung around and ignored them as long as possible, because I did not want to make the long drive just to be sent home. I gave James the nod at midnight, and we headed out. (note- my bro-in-law happened to be visiting, so we didn't have to call anyone on my 5 person labor phone tree. Score!)

I had a CD with ocean sounds and music that I had kind of practiced Hypnobirthing with, so I did my best to relax on the way to the hospital. It worked pretty well, but my back was killing me.

After we made it to the hospital the nurse told me I was dilated to a 7/8 and had a bulging bag of waters that was probably preventing me from dilating further. I said, "Great! Don't break it until I get my epidural!" Last time I delivered not long after they broke my water. I got my drug of choice, the doc broke my water, a few contractions later I felt like I needed to push. I didn't have to push too long and Spencer Rollie was born at 2:47am.

The doctor didn't know that we didn't know the sex of the baby, so I had to ask while they were cutting the cord and cleaning him off. :) James insists that he told me but I guess I had stopped listening to him. :) They put him right on my tummy to finish rubbing him. I really liked the hospital and my nurses were really considerate of me. I snuggled him for a while and we were all talking about how big he was and wondering how much he weighed. The nurse asked me (!) so politely if she could take him to weigh him and all that other stuff. Really! She just waited there until I was ready to let go of him for a few minutes! I thought that was cool.

So, the end. Healthy baby, good delivery, easy recovery. Let's do it again! :) Well, after I kick my body back into shape anyway.

I feel like Little Jack Horner

2010-01-09T07:22:00.000-08:00

The last few days, my kids haven't wanted to watch a movie. At all! I've cut out our morning show since we do school in the mornings, and usually let them watch 45 min. of something in the afternoon while I'm making dinner. The last few days, I've tried to suggest movie time but they are much too busy playing to be bothered. It might be mailman, or ballerinas, or country store, or library- really whatever Brighton cooks up, she is sooo the ringleader - they just cannot be interrupted. Maybe because they know I'll make them tidy up before I turn on the show. :)

Anyway, back to my title. I'll think to myself, what a good mother am I, my kids don't even need TV! But, like little Jack, I didn't really do anything special. He just pulled a plum out of his pie, and I just have easy and creative kids.

PS- Christmas did happen at our house, but I haven't gotten the pics off the camera yet. All 5 of them. I hope I took more than that, but I know it wasn't a lot! Drat! I'll get some pictures up soon!

Cold weather tip!

2010-01-08T07:19:00.000-08:00

I got this idea from a friend who has a blog, and I suppose I could link to it, but I'm lazy. And I don't think she cares how many people look at her blog. :)

Nipple cream! Yeah, that's what I said! You know when your kids' cheeks/mouth/nose get really chapped from the -20 degree weather? I hate that too. But if you put lanolin on it at night, it clears up in a day or two. Really, if it can clear up blisters on your you-know-where's, it's got to help any kind of skin. Try it, it works!

Minnesota Farm

2009-12-10T14:34:00.000-08:00

I recently realized that I have family only two short hours away! Chris (and Jim) Possin is my dad's cousin, and their family have kids close to the ages of my siblings and me. Does that make sense? Somehow we're related. Anyway, I remember visiting their farm when I was about 13 and playing with my cousin Amy who was my age. We made barbie clothes and pinky-swore that we would find a way to buy a gameboy. The girls had an ongoing feud with the boys -- they put itching powder down the back of our shirts, we put makeup on them when they were sleeping, we had many water fights, but the culminating prank that won the war was stealing their underwear, wetting it down and then freezing it. We then took a hammer to them, which in hindsight was probably going a bit too far. Fun times on the farm!

Brighton and Brooklyn with my cousin Jim and the combine! I kept calling it a tractor and was corrected many times. A tractor pulls things. A combine harvests grain. Got it? We all had a fun ride bringing in the last of the corn.

They went out on their land and chopped down a Christmas tree! How Little House on the Prairie is that?!

Look! Me not cooking! This is Chris and Amy - Amy lives nearby and got to come over every day with her kids (similar ages to my kids) every day! It was so fun to chat with her, and our kids were instant friends, although I don't think they ever figured out names. They would just call out, "hey, friend..."
The front of their house. They had an addition put on a year ago and it seriously looks fabulous. It was so fun to be part of a big crazy household again! Chris has four kids still at home and is a homeschooling mom. Add Amy and her kids, and a husband that comes and goes throughout the day-- I was loving it and so were my kids. Chris has a wonderful "grandma house" with tons of toys for the kids to play with.

We'll be back soon!

Ballerina Boy!

2009-12-09T14:32:00.000-08:00

Why should girls have all the frilly fun?

(the boots add a masculine touch)

Our thankful turkey

2009-12-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

One of the things we did as part of school last month. Each day the girls cut out a feather and I wrote what they were thankful for. Isn't he cute!? :)

Thriller

2009-11-22T11:42:00.001-08:00

Our stake YW/YM had a talent show a few weeks ago, and this lovely group performed Michael Jackson's Thriller. The girls were having trouble coming up with something to do for the talent show, and so I volunteered (like a crazy person) to teach them the dance from Thriller.

The problem: I didn't know it.

So thanks to youtube tutorials, I learned the dance in two days and was able to teach it to some of our young women. It was really fun to learn, practice and perform, even though I am soooo not a dancer. It really tired me out and made me sore for a few days -- probably because I'd had a baby five weeks earlier. Hmm.

Anyways, I have the picture, the video and some good memories!

The Halloween Post

2009-11-11T07:21:00.001-08:00

For Halloween this year, Brighton was a ballerina, Brooklyn was little red riding hood, and Logan was a super hero. I made Brighton's tutu and Logan's cape, but thankfully we had Brooklyn's costume in our dress-up box and I didn't have to make anything else. :) Our ward's trunk-or-treat was on Wednesday, and then James took the kids out trick-or-treating or about an hour on Saturday. It was a fun holiday week!

I love to decorate for holidays, and we spend one school morning tracing and cutting out bats and ghosts to hang around our house, and draped spider webs over anything that we could. Spooky!

The ladybugs are swarming!

2009-11-02T07:00:00.001-08:00

For some reason unknown to me, our house is being attacked by ladybugs. There are 13 crawling around on my back door right now, and nearly that many on any window. I can see them flying around outside. Is this a sign of good luck? Are they plotting something? They're getting inside through our poorly sealed doors and crawl around on the ceiling. In the morning our floors are covered with little ladybug carcasses. The kids like to gather up handfuls and carry them around. I'm really not sure what is going on.And not to sound paranoid, but these pumpkin bats are glaring at me.

Especially this guy.

and This Boy...

2009-09-25T12:32:00.000-07:00

Spencer Rollie Hall
born Tuesday morning at 2:47am
9 pounds 8 ounces
21 inches long

Just a few thoughts/feelings-
surprise he's a boy
surprise he's so huge! (my girls were 5 pounds)
glad for another VBAC even though it took castor oil to get him here :)
11 days late- really, is that necessary?
tired but so happy

This boy!

2009-09-19T06:26:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if it's just another difference between boys and girls, but this little boy gets scraped up all the time! Yesterday was a doozy. Maybe it's his shoes?
Both knees scraped-
His upper lip, nose and forehead. It looks even worse now that it's scabbed over. What a rough-and-tumble boy! But super cute still, eh?!

Oh, and no baby yet. I'm a week over now, and I am tentatively set up for a c-section next Friday if my body is still doing nothing. Such a bother. :)

Stupid Cervix.

2009-09-12T06:24:00.000-07:00

Things to keep busy

2009-09-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

Knowing full well that my due date will come and go with no baby, I'm trying to stay busy.

I crocheted the edges of this baby blanket. My mom always gave us two blankets when we had a baby, and my kids have loved theirs to death. They love to finger the edges until it pretty much falls apart. Since that's not going to happen anymore- I'm making my own. I'll make the second one after the baby is here so I don't have to be so gender-neutral. I also want to ask around the ward for someone to teach me a different edge. I really like doing it, and it reminds me of Old mom. :)

I also got a fabulous pedicure. :) It's seriously one of my favorite treats to myself. If you are in Ames, get yourself to Serenity Nails!

I also made two Sunday dresses for Brighton, which I'll have to take a picture of and post later. I can't find dresses that are long enough or are the right style, so I'll probably be making a lot of dresses in the future. Brooklyn has to wear a size 6 just for the length, and she normally fits a size 2/3.

Iowa State Fair

2009-08-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

"Our state fair is a great state fair, don't miss it, don't even delay..."
Anyone seen that musical? Anyone??

I'm really bad at taking pictures, so I don't have a ton here. This whole week has been a family fun week since James had a break between his internship and start of classes. It has been so great!! He cleans the house and entertains the kids and I mostly just lie on the couch and look useless. He's making me look bad. :)

Anyways- back to the fair. I haven't been to a fair since I was twelve, and this was huge and amazing and exhausting!! This first pic is Brooklyn hugging Clifford at the PBS kids booth, where the kids enjoyed listening to a great storytime.

Looking at the baby ducks. This was probably my favorite thing- they had baby turkeys, chicks, piglets, calves, goats, and I think that's it. I've had a cold for forever (or three weeks) and my sense of smell and taste might never come back. So thankfully, I couldn't smell any of the animals. However, I couldn't smell any of the yummy/fattening fair food either. :(

Brighton's favorite thing: This area where they dressed up as farmers, got to plant and pick pretend vegetables, collect eggs, milk a cow (all pretend), and ride a tractor. At the end they sold their wares at the market and got a $1 to spend at the store!! Pretty cool! :)

I wish I had taken more pictures. The weather was not so great- it kept sprinkling on and off all morning. By the end of the day my legs weren't working very well. I've been taking it easy since then, doing more laying on the couch. Next week James is back to school, and we're going to miss him!

Nauvoo

2009-08-23T12:36:00.001-07:00

We went on a family vacation last weekend to Nauvoo. I think it was our first family vacation- we were all really excited to go. We got to stay in a hotel for the first time!! :)

James' parents live a few hours away from Nauvoo and they drove up to spend one of the days with us. This is J and his Dad trying out the stilts at the Pioneer Pastimes. Definitely a skill to work on. :)

Pioneer Pastimes was Brighton's favorite place. She loves to pretend and got completely into character as soon as she was dressed. They had a little schoolroom, a kitchen, place to wash your clothes, games to play- lots of fun stuff!! She told me that her house (the school room) was built after her father died, and the concerned look on her face here is the worry that she won't get to the sheep in time. It was her turn to take care of them. :)

The weekend we went was the last weekend the young performing missionaries were at Nauvoo (fun times, hey Bethany?!:) and so we went to as many shows as we could. Sunset by the Mississippi was a variety show with the senior and young missionaries, and so fun! There was a children's parade before the show, and the kids got to decorate hats and pick musical instruments to play.

Nauvoo closes down around 4, so we found a park to play at until dinner. The weather was so great! This really has been a fabulous summer. We only had one really hot/humid week, otherwise it's been really mild with a nice cool breeze. We're still loving it!!

Other favorites from Nauvoo: wagon rides, the traveling Brass Band, the temple, running into friends from KS and my sis-in-law Rebecca's parents (random!), the hotel pool, the bakery, the blacksmith shop, etc....

Barely Pregnant?!?!

2009-08-12T15:17:00.000-07:00

After all those comments from my last post about looking barely pregnant, I thought I better set the record straight. Barely pregnant, my eye. (Brighton took this pic, by the way.)

I'm definitely feeling it this last month! Too much baby stuffed in too little space. But I'm trying not to be that cranky complaining pregnant lady. Even though someone always asks me how much longer I have whenever I go out in public. Every. Single. Time. So fun!

I also have the unique experience after Wymount of being the only preggo gal in the ward. Whereas in Utah I'd be one of twenty. :) I'm definitely a spectacle.

So, there you go. Me pregnant with #4 at almost 36 weeks. Meh. :)

The Bix

2009-07-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

James ran in his first 10K on Saturday, the Bix. It's a pretty big race- the biggest non-marathon race in the US, actually. Even though most people have never heard of it. :) There were around 13,000 people running this year. This pic is of the start- you can't even see the end of the runners. Pretty cool. We tried to find James in the crowd, but there were just too many people.

Here we are with my mom-in-law (dad-in-law is taking the pic) bright and early to cheer James on. We brought breakfast and the kids were more interested in that. :)

After the race-

This was the 35th year of the Bix so everyone that finished got a medal. The girls thought that was pretty cool. :) Brighton kept saying, "I knew you could do it daddy, I knew you could get a medal!" Any subsequent races that don't involve a medal will be a let-down.

I was very proud of James. He had only run a distance of 3.5 miles, and it took him about 45 min. I was expecting him to finish in an hour and a half, maybe two hours- but his time was just over 60 min! Way to go James/Daddy!! We're hoping to race together next year, provided we're still close and I'm not pregnant. :)

Life doesn't get better than a cardboard box

2009-07-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

Except for two cardboard boxes!! Our dishwasher broke and was out of order for a week. I know I don't get any sympathy from some of my readers... :) It wouldn't have been that big of a hardship if I had a drying rack and if the water hose from the dishwasher didn't keep falling on the ground and spilling sewer-smelling water all over the floor. Anyway.

Our new dishwasher arrived- in a great sturdy box! The girls quickly latched onto it and made it into a playhouse. Our maintenance man- Russ- saw how much fun the kids were having and later dropped off another box from another replacement dishwasher. (He's a sweet guy, and likes my kids. Probably because they always watch him, fascinated by whatever he's doing, and Brooklyn always tells him that he's a good worker. :))

During the two weeks these boxes lived at our house, they were a playhouse with attached garage, a rocket ship, a kitten's box, a mermaid's grotto, a camping tent, and I'm sure a few others that I didn't catch. After they started to sag, I harvested some of the thick cardboard to cover with felt and make into a felt board for the Sunday Box. I saved a bit more in case I thought of more uses. Any ideas?

Superpowers

2009-06-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

Two superpowers that I would like to have:

1. The ability to slow time a bit so I was never late for anything

2. The ability to know what exactly I am mad about when I get frustrated about something

Tumbling Class

2009-06-22T12:47:00.000-07:00

The girls started a tumbling class that is offered through the Park and Rec, and have been loving it! I got to sit in the first time, and now I just drop them off. It's only for about 45 min, but it's still weird to just have Logan.

They do a lot of practicing at home, using my broom layed out on the floor as a balance beam. It's fun to see them so excited about learning something new. And using the fun equipment!

My 2 year old

2009-06-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

A few things about Logan:

he just had his 2nd birthday
looks so cute with his big-boy haircut
started finally talking! I think he can say at least 30 words. I love it when he calls after his sisters, "guys! guys!" He also reminds everyone to share. :)

The girls picked out what kind of birthday cake Logan got. Brooklyn was sure that he would want an Ariel cake, but then we decided on a car. Daddy made this racer!

His car collection. He looooves to play with his cars. Mostly lining them up- on the stairs; on top of books; on the edge of the couch cushion; on the coffee table... his favorite position to play with them is laying down on floor. I'm not sure why, but it's pretty cute!

Logan got a train set for his birthday, and he got right down on the floor to play with it properly. He loves his choo-choo train!

This guy is so sweet and mellow, I could have three more. He loves to follow his sisters around, and is an especially good friend to Brooklyn right now. They chase each other around, play with balls, dance and sing- whatever! We love our Logan!!

My least favorite chores

2009-06-04T09:21:00.001-07:00

1. Mopping
2. Cleaning the bathtub
3. Underwear sniffing

My Spouse's Stinky Schedule

2009-05-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

Monday: work from 7-5:30pm
Tuesday: work/TA from 7-10:00pm
Wednesday: work from 7-5:30
Thursday: work/TA from 7-10:00pm
Friday: work from 7-5:30pm
Saturday: class from 8:30-4:30pm

Poopy, I know. I make every meal and the kids don't even see their daddy two days out of the week. I've been spoiled and I miss it! Only 10 more weeks left! :)

Our six-state tour

2009-05-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

We had a family trip to visit my sister and her family a few weeks ago that took us through six states. Quite a trip! Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and finally Georgia. I think in that order. It was about a 16 hour drive. It was so fun to have James actually go on a big drive with me!! I've done the last several all on my lonesome. We stayed for a little over a week, and packed our days with fun-ness. I don't have any pictures, which is why I haven't blogged about it. I was hoping that Dawnelle would do it and I could just direct everyone over to her blog. But she hasn't. And it's been a month. My conclusion: She doesn't love me. *Sniff*

Some of the fun things we did:
*ate hot dogs and pizza at Costco
*went to IKEA
*made a raised bed garden practically by ourselves!
*bought a lot of food
*got a pedicure and massage
*semi-participated in a city-wide service project that their stake was in charge of
*had a birthday party for her son Carter who turned four! I made a really tacky fireman poster. I have not art skillz.
*filed papers
*watched DVR'd TV
*ate a lot of food
*went to the Dollar Tree
*James did a lot of fix-up work on their house
*got slushes at Cherry Limeades at Sonic
*saw illegal immigrants waiting in parking lots for jobs
*went to the zoo in Atlanta
*drove around and gawked at the huuuge houses. And that was just in her neighborhood! :)
*I mentioned The Pioneer Woman too many times and embarrassed myself. Seriously, I'm sure I sounded like a crazy person.

Easter flashback

2009-05-07T12:45:00.001-07:00

We made this fun treat for easter, trying to use up our peeps. Which none of my kids like. :) Cute little peep chick in a rice crispy nest, complete with chocolate eggs! Cute, eh?!

I got the idea from my sister's friend's blog- www.thislittleproject.blogspot.com. I've used her blog several other times for fun/cute crafty ideas. Check it out!!

Everyone had fun making them, and even more messy fun eating them.

Front Room: before and after

2009-05-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

Our front room got an updated look with some "new" furniture! (hand-me-downs from my sister, thanks Nelly!) This was our front room before. Ugly Betty (treadmill), small table, very little lounging room.

After: Bigger new table! We can actually fit food on it- hooray!

The luxury of TWO couches! Love it love it!

Not a big change or anything, but I love it. The couches just happen to match perfectly. And we've already had missionaries over to test out the new dining table. Fabulous! I also picked up a new silverware set while in Georgia (at Costco) and that also makes me happy. They feel heavy and sturdy and shiny. The cheap set we got seven years ago definitely needed to go. Fun stuff!

I heart Strawberry Jam!

2009-05-01T09:11:00.000-07:00

I was filling my fridge back up after our trip and found some really cheap strawberries. So the girls and I made jam- yahoo! They really loved crushing up the strawberries.

I found these cute little one cup containers, but now I'm thinking they are too small. Since we ate half of one for breakfast. I'll just have to make more!

Things

2009-04-15T11:14:00.001-07:00

Things I'm tired of:
1. socks
2. winter coats
3. Kids that can't buckle themselves in their car seats with winter coats
4. Brighton wearing holes in all of her pants. Every single pair!!
5. Carpet under our kitchen table. And the gallons (2 so far) of OJ spilled on it

Things I love:
1. Two days of 65 degree weather in a row!
2. Having events to look forward to- a parade and a trip to see my sister
3. Daily naps for me and Logan
4. The Easter candy being gone
5. The bag of twizzlers hidden in my sock drawer

Yes, I Can!

2009-04-10T07:44:00.000-07:00

Look at these beauties. I just canned something all by my lonesome for the first time. I feel so empowered! This is roast- and it can be made into a yummy gravy to have on top of rice or mashed potatoes, or used in enchiladas, or something like that.

My mom canned all the time, especially around Thanksgiving. Since I am squeemish around meat, I was usually in my room and not being much help. Now I wish I had learned the ropes.

I was really nervous about canning, afraid I'd do it wrong and I'd ruin the meat or make the pressure cooker explode or something. Thanks to several calls to a friend in the ward, I made it through. (Thanks Deb, for holding my hand and not rolling your eyes every time you saw my name on your caller ID!:)

This really was easy, and now I want to try canning chicken. Next time for roast though, I will get a better piece of meat. This roast was the fattiest, bloodiest piece of meat to ever to make a mess of my fridge and countertop. I did the roast in two batches, and the second run I was even cocky enough to do it when my kids were awake. Brighton was thrilled by the hissing of the pressure cooker. Hooray for food storage!

Signs of spring-

2009-04-09T09:58:00.000-07:00

You know it's spring when you start seeing people dressed as foam Statue of Libertys and pizza slices. :)

Enough of the bad day-

2009-04-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

We're moving on. :) Here are some pics of the girls doing a"learning time" activity. I think that this is actually a stalling technique of mine to avoid getting my homeschool act together. I need to figure out what I'm going to do. I have a vague idea, but that needs to be a lot more solid. Soon.

And I need to figure out what I'm going to do with Logan and Brooklyn while I'm doing school with Brighton. It's not going to take hours- more like one hour. I don't think kindergartend needs to be very intense. I'm making a goal to get on the phone with the other homeschooling moms in my ward and get it figured out by the end of the week!!

Amanda wants a bad day-

2009-03-16T10:00:00.001-07:00

Well, today isn't really bad. Yet. :) The sun is shining, and we have plans to walk to the park this afternoon. But I am out of diapers for Logan, and my neck is out of alignment and I've had a headache all day yesterday and today. Brooklyn sat at the table for an hour this morning refusing to eat her breakfast, and she has been at the lunch table for 45 min so far. And counting. The rule is that you have to stay at the table until you've finished. Brooklyn's record is two hours. Once she decides to eat she's fast, it just takes her a while to decide. But I swear that most of the food she eats is cold and mushy because she takes so long.

Brighton has a cold- cough, runny nose- and is grouchy. She's complaining right now about not liking the sun in her eyes. She hasn't really smiled all day, poor kid.

I wanted to get to Walmart this morning, but haven't managed to leave the house. I've been going through clothes boxes to figure out what the kids need and haven't done reading/writing with Brighton.

Somewhat of a less organized morning, we'll see if I can get my act together after my nap! :)

A day in the life of this mommy

2009-03-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

I'm always interested in what other moms do during the day. So I'm posting this in hopes that it will inspire others to do the same! :)

7:30a Wake up. Sit up in bed and blink my eyes for a few minutes. Read scriptures for 10 minutes. Head downstairs and join the fam for breakfast. After breakfast, J hops in the shower and I tidy up. The kids are usually happy to play by themselves for a bit in the morning, so I get some chores done. Clearing the table, cleaning the kitchen, vacuum the floor under the table{yuck}, head upstairs to make my bed, open the blinds in the kids' rooms and make the girls' beds. Get dressed, then call to the kids to get dressed. Brush four sets of teeth.

around 9:30 Sit down and do reading/writing with Brighton. This usually takes about a half an hour. Try to convince Brooklyn that she doesn't have to sit on top of me. The kids have snack and then watch a movie for about 45 min. I usually put my makeup on during that time, and play around on the computer.

around 11:30 James leaves for school. Make lunch for the kiddos. After clearing up I let them play until 12-12:30 or so, depending on how happy they are and how tired I am. Logan goes off to bed, Brooklyn goes down for quiet time (listening to a tape in her room for about 20 min) and Brighton plays on the computer. After Brooklyn's tape is over she heads downstairs to watch Brighton. On a good day, she stays down there. On a bad day, she wakes up Logan from his nap. Or me.
Anyways, I take a nap for about 45 min. Half of that time is usually just me trying to get my brain to shut off. Don't you hate that when you're trying to take a quick nap?!

1:30ish Up from my nap. I do learning time with Brooklyn and Brighton. Hopefully Logan will sleep until after we're done, but he's been taking short naps lately. We only spend a half hour or so. Something I did this past week is have them trace the outline of the letter we're working on -B-, and then put stickers on the outline. Then we made bear paper bag puppets. I try to let them do as much of it as possible themselves. Brooklyn's on this big "I can't do it" kick and we're trying to move past it. So frustrating. After that, they played with their puppets for a while, mostly taking off the googly eyes and glueing them back on. Logan insists on having his own puppet.

2:30-3 Snack time. I play the piano for a few minutes while they eat. Oh, I eat too. :) James comes home around 3:20 and has ten minutes before he leaves for Des Moines. He takes my car, which means I am stuck in the house. Rats. We'll pretend that this was one of the warmish days and we can go outside.

3:30 Coat up and head out. Brighton loves riding her bike, and Brooklyn loves the idea of it. As soon as she gets on her bike, she's easily frustrated, and then starts in with the whining and the "I can't do it!" I would love suggestions on how to stop this attitude. She ends up walking with me and Logan to the park for our apartment complex. We play pirates, swing, chase squirrels and such until we get too cold.

4:30 The kids get to watch a movie, again for about 45 min -1 hour while I make dinner.

5:30 Eat dinner. Clear the table and then chase kids upstairs for bath. We have to have lots of bubbles, because Logan freaks out if he sees himself going pee-pee in the tub. Which of course he always does as soon as he hits the water. This kid is so funny! So, the bubbles help. Logan is done with the bath first, after being soaked by his sisters. I get him lotioned up and dressed. The girls splash a lot and make a big water mess and then get out. They get their pj's on. If it's not too late, we play for a little bit, then do a quick clean. Brighton is a big helper with cleaning right now. Brooklyn, not so much.

7:00 bedtime. I put Logan down, then tuck in the girls. I read them a chapter from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Sing them a song, say good night. Threaten them just a little. They've been going to bed pretty well since I had Brooklyn stop taking a nap.

I finish cleaning up the house and get my pj's on. I try to decide what I'm in the mood for- sometimes I'm productive and get some sewing project done or go over the budget, but usually I sit and watch a movie and eat a mug of ice cream.

9:30 Head to bed. James gets home around 10:15, and I'm usually fast asleep.

So, there you go. A really long post about what my day is like. I didn't include the tantrums and all the whining that goes on. And the times I lose my patience and start counting a time out for someone. But I've been feeling better, and have more and more good days like this. And James is home a little more on other days. So. What are your days like? :)

Ugly Betty...

2009-03-05T11:37:00.001-08:00

So, I bought a piano for $75, and had it tuned for $90. A piano is beautiful, and makes beautiful music.

James got Ugly Betty for $650, which sits in my living room. And adds to the whole "home gym" theme I'm going for. In my living. room. :) I'm not saying I made the better purchase. I'm not saying that. Perhaps an upside is getting the kids all tired out?

Valentine's Day

2009-03-01T15:19:00.000-08:00

My family has swapped homemade valentines for years, and I love this tradition. The girls love getting valentines in the mail, and I think it's fun to see the creative things my siblings have come up with. As well as to create our own valentines. The list of "family" grown over the years, and I usually add a friend each year. (Rachle, you're on the list for next year!)

This year: we melted crayons and cut them out in small heart shaped, and added a cord for optional wearing. :) The girls peeled the paper and broke up the crayons, which they loved being

actually allowed to do something that's usually a no-no.

James usually makes me a big fancy dinner- but we nixed it this year (or rather I took a rain check) since I can't do smelly foods quite yet. But I am having more good days, thankfully.

Hope everyone had a good v-day!

Okay, the REAL addition...

2009-02-17T10:35:00.000-08:00

Yes, we are pregnant again! I just had my dr. app yesterday, and I am 10 weeks along with a DD of September 11th. I wasn't sure of my dates, because I had just gotten my IUD out. My uterus jumps at the chance to be pregnant, I guess. So. Let's see...

How have I been feeling? I knew right away that I was pregnant. Yuck. In fact, here is an excerpt from an email I sent to my mom-in-law a month ago.

In the afternoons I'm starting to run pretty low. I just feel yucky all day, and have no energy to do anything. I've started talking about myself in the 3rd person, like- "why can't that lady bother to wipe off the table? Like it's that big of a bother. What is wrong with her?!" Because that lady is so not me. I would never let my kid play on the computer for an hour so I could take a nap. Or hand my kid a box of fishies for snacktime. Or like last night, when that lady tried to get herself together to make a Walmart trip, but only managed to get five things on the list before the smells and crowd got to her and she had to escape home, stopping by KFC because she didn't want to even think about dinner.

Thankfully, I'm started to feel a bit better. Though I do have to be real careful about what I eat, since everything gives me heartburn. Like water. Real fun.

But we're pregnant, and excited!! When we told the girls yesterday they said that they had a baby that they were going to pop out too. So we're all excited! :)

a little independance

2009-02-12T10:08:00.000-08:00

I'm the type of Mom that tends to overdo- I get all their food ready for them, get their drinks, get their clothes out, that sort of thing. Even though Brighton and Brooklyn are old enough to do it themselves. I need to be better about teaching instead of just doing it for them. This past Sunday, we were all taking naps. (James grew up having family naptime on Sundays and is determined to keep it. :) Brighton usually just plays quietly with the Sunday box. After getting up- I take short naps- I found Brighton eating a piece of pizza at the table. She got the bag of leftover pizza out of the fridge, got a plate out of the cupboard, put the pizza in the microwave, pushed 123 and then start, and had herself a snack! She surprises me like that sometimes. (Amanda, this reminded me of Kallie and the ice cream story!)

Announcing a new addition!

2009-01-27T08:26:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah, I know what you were thinking. :)

We got a piano! I found it on craigslist for $75, can you believe it?! It needs to be tuned and we really don't have space for it, but I just couldn't pass it up.

I'm really hoping we can get out of our lease early, otherwise we'll all be crammed in here until September. And James has his eye on a treadmill. Maybe we'll just put it in the downstairs bathroom. Who needs two bathrooms, really? :) Back to the piano- I haven't played it a ton yet because of a few sticky keys and the tuning thing. But I just love having it! I love to see my kids climb up on the bench and plunk out notes while they sing along. I feel more musical already. :)

Good idea?

2009-01-20T07:39:00.000-08:00

Oh, the cleverness of me! -to quote Peter Pan. I was pretty proud of this anyway. I seemed to be plagued with small bathrooms with little counter space. And I'm stuck with wrestling with 4 bottles of hair product, brushes, combs, straighteners and blow dryers. And my three kids that NEED to be in the bathroom with me. I'm always worried that one of the kids will pull on the cords or rest their arm on my straightener, so now I tuck it up out of the way in this! It's just a hot pad with a pocket, but now I don't have to worry about someone with small fingers grabbing it, or wait until it cools down to put away. Pretty good idea, right?! :)

Photos!!

2009-01-20T07:28:00.000-08:00

I'm back on my old

computer, yay! Here are some curtains that I made for Brighton and Brooklyn's room. I backed it with blackout material, so they are pretty hefty. Brooklyn has been getting up really early and wakes EVERYONE up, so this was one of our attempts to get her to sleep in. It seemed to work for about three days. :) This is our next idea- this light. Here's hoping!

Coming soon!

2009-01-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

Sorry my posts have been so sporadic. I really like putting pictures up, but I haven't been able to do that with our PC on the fritz. Evidently it doesn't like being vacuumed out, and died a quick (but very painful on my husband's part) death. I've had to cope with a Mac, which I've not been gracious about at times. Turns out I'm an old dog that doesn't like learning new tricks. :) Several hundred dollars later, we are close to being back up and running! Pictures coming soon!

I feel like I live in Siberia. It is -20 today. Seriously!! We occasionally brave the wind and snow, but only a few times a week. I'm thinking about ordering my groceries in. Speaking of snow, it's crazy. It keeps going and going.... And the snow movers just keep moving it around into huge mountains! You have to be careful- you take a wrong step and you're in a drift up to your thigh. I'm definitely getting some boots.

The Kid's Music Post

2008-12-31T06:07:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post about this for a while. I just realized that late at night and early in the morning, when I'm cozy in my bed, I think in blog posts. But then never post! I'm so lazy. :)

To start, I LOVE kids music! After hearing adult song after song about love, sometimes it's a relief to hear a song about dancing hippos, am I right?! That's all we listen to in the car and at home, unless James is around. Then we listen to "Dad's music" (radio), which gets a groan from all of us. :) My current favorites:

Raffi- the biggest name in kid's music, if you have to start somewhere, start here. I love his mellow voice, and it's always good calming music. And I like that he sings about real stuff, like Jane Goodall, Canada, American Indians, and bananaphones. Baby Beluga is a favorite.

John Lithgow- I know, the actor! He is so expressive and fun to listen to. Singin' in the Bathtub was his first album, and my favorite. I can just picture him singing, having the best time.

Justin Roberts- I've actually been to a concert of his, so fun! These are definitely songs for dancing and having a good time. His Meltdown album is good, but his most recent, Popfly, is my most favoritest.

Steve Roslonek- I guess he's getting pretty famous, being on PBS and having performed at the White House easter egg roll. His album Marvelous Day is so fun. Spurtle the Turtle is my favorite. And Fast Monkey. :) This is fun upbeat music too.

Jessica Harper- I like her rich, mellow voice. And her talking/singing style that makes it seem like she was just talking to her kids and turned it into a song. Rhythm in Her Shoes is our favorite.

Tom Chapin- kid's folk music. He also sings about cool stuff, like the origin of ragtime, recycling, shyness, and lemonade stands. Check out Billy the Squid first, we love the Ghost of Bleak House. Brighton and Brooklyn can pretty much sing the thing from memory. (Okay, I can too.)

So there you have it folks, a good starting list. Wait, I forgot Sandra Boynton! Check out all of her CDs, they are great. Philadelphia Chickens has Kevin Bacon, Kevin Cline, Meryl Streep, Laura Linney and more performing. Happy listening!!