A-to-Z

This is the game we played in our family room during a lazy Sunday afternoon a couple of days ago. All the kids contributed.

I'm going on a trip and I'm taking:

-antelope
-bucket
-cat
-dog
-Easter Bunny
-flag
-grape
-harp
-igloo
-jellyfish
-kangaroo
-leper
-music
-nightlight
-octopus
-popcorn
-quilt
-rat
-sandpaper
-towel
-unicorn
-Vance (Brent's brother, who would come in VERY handy on a trip)
-watermelon
-x-ray
-yak
-zebra

I think this was the first time we got all the way through the alphabet!

What fun games do your kids like to play?

Keeping Me Humble

My kids are very good at keeping me humble. They're the first to tell me how great I am, but they're also the first to point out my weaknesses. And they somehow manage to do it in a completely innocent, non-judging sort of way, leaving me unable to feel resentment toward them like I might with other people pointing out my inadequacies.

For example, I've been feeling pretty good about myself physically lately. Brent and I have been exercising regularly, we've been trying to eat healthier, and our bodies are starting to show us the results. It feels good. So to bring me back to reality, here are a couple of conversations I've had lately with the littles.

Tink (while watching me do my make-up): Mom, what's that?

Me: A zit.

Tink (with a look of disgust-mixed-with-curiosity-mixed-with-horror on her face as her finger slowly makes its way up to my face. She almost touches it, but then pulls her hand back as if it might be contagious): Why is it so big and red?

Me: Because it was a big zit under the skin that hurt really bad so I tried to pop it too early and instead created a crater on my face.

Tink: Oh. Why do you have so many zits?

Me: Because I don't have a baby in my tummy. (One of my favorite things about being pregnant is the way my skin clears up. Post-partem, it all goes down the tubes again.)

I'm sure I completely confused the poor girl as to how a baby in my tummy could have anything to do with red dots on my face.

After this part of the conversation, I was feeling very paranoid about my crater-zit, so I tried to cover it up with a little cover-up concealer stick, which I NEVER use since putting anything on my skin usually just causes the break-outs to get worse.

Tink: What's that stuff?

Me: Stuff to try to cover up the zit and make it look less red.

Tink (after watching my pathetic attempts): It's not working, Mommy.

Me: I know. :(

------------ A few minutes later --------------

Tink (while watching me pluck my eyebrows): What are all those black dots on your face? (Around my eyebrows.)

Me: Hairs.

Tink: Why are they all around your eyebrows? That's not where they're supposed to grow.

Me: I know. Because life's unfair.


See? Keeping me humble. And to be fair to Tink, when I was all done with my make-up, she stood back to take a good look at me and said, "Mommy, you wook bootiful." Thanks, Tink. That almost makes up for the plummet in my self-esteem.

-----------------------------------------------

Another day, the girls were all playing with my hair. Roo decided to join in. (I LOVE it when they brush and play with my hair. It's one of my favorite things. I get into a zen-like trance and can't think straight.)

Roo: Mom, your hair is getting long!

Me: I know! Isn't it exciting?

Roo: Yeah, but I can see some hairs in here that aren't the same.

Me: I know, Roo.

Roo: They're white, Mom.

Me (losing my zen): I know, Roo.

Roo: There's a lot of them, Mom.

Me (zen flies out the window) : I know, Roo. Let's all play the Quiet-Game while we brush Mommy's hair now!



I have now decided that when I create my own worlds, there will be a law-of-nature that says that a person can't have zits and white hairs at the same time. And if she's 30 years old, she can't have either of them. Yeah, that's a good law.

Proud of My Kids

Of course after doing a whole post about myself, I'm feeling selfish. So here's a picture post showing my pride for my children.

(And yes, my not-quite-2-month-old has love handles. My father-in-law says I have "high-octane milk.")

This is really happening! (Well, not right this minute)

My midwife, C, came again this morning and things are progressing well. Baby's descending and is "in position." She seems to be a bit on the small side, which is just great with me! None of my kids have been very big, though. I'm pretty lucky that way. I'm 38 weeks and measuring just under that. (Sorry about the crappy picture.....it was the best I could get in front of my (apparently dirty) bathroom mirror.) Notice that she's low enough now that it looks like I have to pee when I'm holding the bottom of my stomach! :)

Last week C brought the birthing tub and all of my supplies for the birth (she brings HER supplies when she comes for the delivery).
The kids were asking all about what it was going to be like and I apparently didn't explain everything well enough to them. I did tell them that Daddy was going to "catch" the baby. Roo was very excited when Brent came home and saw it all. He exclaimed, "Yeah, and you can catch the baby with the net!" He's got it all figured out!

Here's my preparation for this new little one.

We are all getting very excited for this baby's arrival, but we're hoping she holds out another week or so since AJ is getting baptized on Saturday. We really don't want to have to postpone that.

And this baby is coming just in time. Because just this morning I decided to put Lady in pigtails for the first time. And yep, it's official. She's not a baby anymore.

Where in the world does the time go? And how do they grow up so fast? Are there any vitamins I can give them to slow down just a bit?

It's still a girl

I went in for a "real" ultrasound today. Originally I wasn't going to do a 20-week ultrasound since we'd already found out the gender and the technician who did that ultrasound checked other things out a bit. But I started to get paranoid that maybe he hadn't checked EVERYTHING out. And I have an online friend who's due just a few weeks after me who went in for her 20-week ultrasound and they got devastating news. Her baby is not going to live long after she's born. She has some chromosomal abnormalities and a cleft palate, among other things. Although news like this wouldn't change much about my pregnancy (I'd still choose to carry the baby to term, like my friend is) I'd like to know ahead of time to try to be prepared. So I scheduled my 20-week ultrasound for today (I'm 26 weeks today).

Luckily everything looked great! Her little heart was beating strong and we saw all 4 chambers. She's measuring just a few days ahead, which is great. And she's definitely still a girl. I'm actually really excited about it now.

Now if only we could come up with a name. We haven't had any time to think about that lately, so this little darling might just be nameless for quite sometime. I told Brent that since we're having her at home this time, it means there won't be some nurse breathing down our necks until we sign the birth certificate. This poor child could go weeks without a name!

So if any of you have any bright ideas, feel free to share! I never thought I'd have to name 4 girls!

Toddlers

Have you ever listened to yourself speaking to a toddler (or any child, for that matter) and realized you're saying things you NEVER thought you'd say? Lady's been a bit of a mischief-maker lately and I've found myself saying the most interesting things to her.

Here are a few of the recent ones:

"We don't eat dog food."

"We don't eat markers."

"We don't try to pull other peoples' eyelashes out."

"We don't open our mouths and let the dog lick our tongues."

"We don't fingerpaint on the walls with food."

"We don't draw on the walls or floors with pencils, crayons, or markers."

"We don't eat chapstick."

"We don't wash our hair with the dog's water."

"We don't sit in the dog's water bowl."

"We don't dump out all the puzzles at once, scatter the pieces everywhere, and then walk away."

"Mascara is NOT lipstick."

"We don't take things out of Mommy's and Daddy's drawers (deodorant, toothpaste, combs, brushes) and hide them where only you can find them again." (Moving is going to be like going on a treasure hunt....I'm sure we'll find plenty of things we never thought we'd see again.)

"We don't chew on spatulas and then put them back in the drawer."

These are just from the past few days. I'm sure if I put more thought into it I'd be able to come up with hundreds more (especially if I thought back to when all the kids were at this stage).

But so help me, I can't stay mad at her too long. She looks up at me with those big, blue eyes and I melt.

Just today, after I made the statement to her about fingerpainting with food on the wall, Roo said to me, "But you're going to forgive her, right?"

Me: with as serious a voice as I could muster "Why should I forgive her? Shouldn't I stay mad at her forever and ever? That's a big mess I'm going to have to clean up."

Roo: with chastisement in his voice "Mommy.....she's just a baby. She doesn't know any better. You HAVE to forgive her."

Where do you think he heard that?

Although I didn't get pics today of the beautiful art created on my wall with avacado and ranch dressing, here are some pics of when she sat in Ruby's water bowl.



And here are the big, blue eyes I have such a hard time resisting. :)

What have you found yourself saying that you never thought you would?

Pics from the weekend

Saturday morning we got up bright and early to run some errands. Lady made quite the mess with some jam at breakfast, so Brent HAD to get pics, of course. And then the other children insisted that we take pics of them too. (Is that the way it is at your house too?)

(ps......Don't you love Roo's toothless smile? I love listening to him talk now....he has to concentrate on how to say everything since the sound "s" is somewhat evasive these days.)

I walked in on this sweet moment before church yesterday morning. Sometimes these kids just make my heart melt! Maybe having 4 sisters in the house will be a beautiful thing after all.

Oh, and thank you to everyone who expressed concern over my fall a couple of weeks ago. I'm finally starting to feel better. My shoulder seems to be loosening up and I'm trying to keep it stretched out so that it stays that way. The headaches aren't hitting me as often the last couple of days either. I'm sure that Priesthood blessing I had Brent give me the other night had something to do with it too. ;) Thank heavens for such a great husband!

Nostalgia

The kids and I went to see my parents yesterday. They offered to babysit while Brent and I went out on a date. And who in the world says "no" to that? (Not us....ever!)

I drove the kids down after naptime and then later Brent and I met at the restaurant.

A couple of months ago, I was getting tired of the CDs that had been in our CD player in the van for a VERY long time. So I pulled out the CD case and fingered through it looking for something new. Well, I found something old and decided to expose the children to MY childhood music.

So I popped in Neil Diamond's "The Jazz Singer."
(It was one of about 3 albums that we listened to OVER and OVER again on every single trip growing up.)

The kids have been asking to listen to it ever since!

So yesterday afternoon, as we were driving down the freeway, I had waves of pure, magical nostalgia sweeping through the van. I don't think you could've wiped the smile off my face when Roo started singing along to "The Robert E. Lee." He had no idea how happy he made me.

Gotta love great memories and getting to re-live some of them through your kids!

Out of the Mouth of a Vegetarian Kid

Conversation between me, my sister (Aunt E) and Roo:

Roo: "What are you doing here, E? Did you come for a visit?"

Aunt E: "Actually, Roo, I'm going to be your mother now."

Me: "Yeah, Roo, I'm going to take cousin O back to his house and be his mommy now. Aunt E and I are trading places. What do you think?"

Roo: (laughing because he can tell we're joking)

Aunt E: "And guess what we're having for dinner tonight?"

Roo: "What?"

Aunt E: "Steak!"

Me: (laughing) "I don't think he even knows what that is."

Roo: (defensively) "Yes I do!"

Me: "What is it, Roo?"

Roo: (proudly) "Zebra!!!"


Some of you might get the context of Roo's answer right away (that is if you or your children have watched "Madagascar" more than 10 million times). For those of you unfamiliar, I'll let you in on the funny. In the movie, Alex the lion is becoming wild and is hungry for steak. So he envisions his best friend, Marty (the zebra), as steak and tries to take a bite of him. So in Roo's mind, steak = zebra.

I was laughing SOOOO hard after Roo's comment. But I had to let Aunt E in on the funniness since she was incredulous as to how my son could think that steak comes from zebras. (Aunt E's son isn't quite old enough yet to enjoy the hilarity of Alex and Marty (or any other movie, for that matter), and so she hasn't yet experienced the joy of having a movie repeated back to her word-for-word.......oh, the joy that awaits her.)

Stinkin' cute!

Ok, I know we're tall, but will these kids EVER slow down?

Roo wanted to measure himself this morning even thought we'd done it less than 3 months ago. So we went ahead and measured all the kids to see if there was any difference in 3 months. Holy cow! Brent had to measure Roo 3 times just to make sure we had it right.

Here are their stats:

AJ at 7 1/2 grew 1 inch and is now 53"

Roo (who will be 6 in January) grew 1 1/4" and is now 50"

Tink who is almost 3 1/2 grew 3/4" and is now 40"

And we didn't measure Lady 3 months ago, but we got the best measurement we could today (she wasn't super cooperative) and she was around 31 1/4"

I keep waiting for them to slow down, but it's just not happening. I think this might mean that AJ has finally outgrown her 5 pt harness carseat by height (meaning her shoulders are above the top slots. She's in a Britax Husky/now called the Regent). I'll have to check next time she gets in the car. But I feel pretty good about making it 7 1/2 years without having to use a booster. If she's outgrown it, she'll now move into the Britax Parkway booster she uses in Brent's car and Roo will move into the Husky.

Eveybody's always told me that kids grow up fast, but I didn't think it would be THIS fast!

Fun in the Snow

I didn't let the kids go outside yesterday to play in the snow and I kind of felt like a bad mom because of it. So I told them they could go out today after lunch. Immediately after lunch they were putting on their shoes to head out.

The coats didn't last very long at all. Not a big surprise. Notice Tink's outfit. I've learned I have to be very careful which battles to pick with her. And picking a battle over clothing has never turned out well. So I don't say anything anymore. I did mention that she might be cold in her skirt, so the capris were her compromise, I guess.