Catch-up 1: Christmas

Well, just like at everyone's house, Christmas came! Whether we were ready for it or not. I never did finish decorating the house this year, but I'm not complaining about that...made it VERY easy to take down and put away. As in years past, not many pictures happened on Christmas. As soon as the kids get out to the family room and start ripping into things, mom and dad's hands are too busy opening boxes, assembling toys, showing them the general workings, picking up trash, straightening up the boxes, bows, ribbons and toys, and trying to keep the dog from stealing the Hershey's kisses that are strewn around that the camera just sits idle. :)

We did finally visit Santa a few days before Christmas...good thing the kids didn't change their wish list, and for the record, Riley would have nothing to do with the man in red.



Here's a couple shots from Christmas morning:

Presenting Ellie on "Beatles RockBand" drums. You haven't fully lived until you've heard your almost 4 year old sing "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds". That's Riley in the back. This is the best photographic documentation she'd let me get.



My only picture of Nicole was of her in a trancelike state playing her new Wii game "Super Mario Galaxy". Not worth posting! Nicole spent ALL day playing Wii, RockBand, or her Nintendo DS (Imagine Teacher game). It was sort-of sick. Thankfully, she backed way off on her own in terms of screen time for the rest of Christmas break.

All Jared's dreams came true with the punching bag he got. We rearranged his room and hung it from the ceiling. He's a happy boy, and we enjoy telling him in his moments of general or specific (usually involving a certain sister) frustration to go take it out on his punching bag!

Eight is GREAT!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, eight is a big deal, and that is because that is the age the children are baptized and become members of our Church. I took Nicole out for a little photo shoot, first, so we could catch her at 8, and second, so I could send out some invites to Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles for the baptism! I, of course, procrastinated until the last possible day, so I was just praying I got some I could use. Nicole is funny....her fake smile is obviously fake and forced, but if you get her laugh for a genuine smile, she either throws her head back and laughs as well, opens her mouth up too big, or squints her eyes down to almost nonexistent....makes for fun pictures! But here are some of the good results:







We used the one above for her invitation. Not the typical baptism look, since she wasn't in a white dress, but the door was perfect to put words on with photoshop, so I was thrilled!

Since the other kids were there that afternoon, I caught some quick ones of them:







Riley hates having her picture taken and is highly uncooperative when we try.....Ron had to grab her and hold her arms down to her side in order to get this.....someday, she'll be sad she was such a stinker about it since she'll have hardly any pictures of these years. :)

School Pictures

Got the school pictures back, and we're much happier with them this year! They are centered, the kids hair isn't doing anything weird, and their smiles aren't as forced looking as last year's photos. Without further adieu:


Mommy's little buddy....age 3, attending 2 day a week neighborhood co-op preschool! So excited that it's at our house for the next two weeks. :)


Mr. 1st Grade....age 6, loves school, reading ability is exploding, loves math. Told us the other night how long the Euphrates River is. I can't remember the actual number, but it was long! (Although the picture looks like he is wearing a dirty shirt, he isn't. I am not loving our scanner.)


Second grade wonder. Her teacher is holding her back in reading...not because she's failing, but because she can read anything. We are slowing her down a bit so her comprehension can catch up, and just so she doesn't miss the fun books meant for her age. Also just "gets" math. She couldn't be my child. She must've been switched in the hospital! She turns 8 in a month and can't wait to be baptized.


Our High School-er.....I wonder when I'll get used to saying that?! Taking Honors English, Spanish, Chemistry, and Algebra among her classes.....maintaining good grades, and will get credit in them once she makes up her tardies in "attendance school"...Oops! She turns 16 in January and although she doesn't think it's true, the boys are lining up to ask her out. We are afraid. Ron is stocking up on ammunition and building a moat.

The Beauty of Organization

I finally finished a very long put-off project this week...

For months, the kids basement playroom has been uninhabitable.

You could not see the floor. They could not use the toys. It was completely beyond the point of them being able to clean it up, and I didn't want to do it and avoided the chore for as long as I could. I planned on getting it done before summer break, but put it off.

Then it was summer break.

The kids were home 24-7.

Then the weather changed, and we had the rainiest June ever. So, not only were the kids home....they were stuck INSIDE! Amazing what a little motivation for peace will do to kickstart me!

After a major purging, many trips to DI and the ward nursery bin, and a number of full garbage bags, the playroom is clean, neat, organized, and beautiful. The kids have also been threatened to within an inch of their lives instructed that they need to do their very best to keep it that way.






To address any questions that may arise from these photos:

• Yes, I am aware that the kids still have too many toys.
• Ellie has been wearing dress-ups since she was allowed to access the dress-up box again. She may never wear normal clothes again.
• The mural? I started that thing when I was pregnant with Jared. It's still not completed. He'll be six in a month. I have a serious problem with follow-through.
  

The rest of Halloween...

Pumpkins all lit and kids ready to go. (Off-topic, what is with the 5 year old and his forced smiles?! Ugh!) Riley and some friends stayed home and handed out candy while Ron and I took the kids around. They were die-hards and went farther than ever! Therefore, they now have so much candy it is sickening. Add into that all our leftovers, and I think we're set for a few months of treats....not kidding...we have a 5 lb. bag we never even opened! We thought we'd have more kids due to the good weather and it being Friday night, but we over calculated...oops! We did have a little bit of rain, as the sunrise predicted, but it was just on and off sprinkles, not enough to stop our little goblins.

Nicole kept trying to take off and leave us behind....she had candy to collect! But Jared was pretty good about being the "helper" big brother that I'd asked him to be and stuck with Ellie. Here he's making sure she doesn't walk in front of the car pulling into the driveway. Ahhhh, sweet!

Here's the "trick" Jared received. One of the homes was giving the kids potatoes as their treat, but then telling them they could trade it for a real treat. Most of the kids traded their spud back in. Not Jared! He thought it was very cool to have a potato. Of course two houses later he decided it was too heavy to haul around in his bag, so I got to carry it the rest of the night. ( I kept trying to let him carry some of his candy but he didn't fall for that!) I asked him what he wants to do with his tater, and he told me he wants to make soup.

Halloween Morning....

We woke up this morning to this:
Wow! What do they say about "red sky in the morning" though.....I hope we aren't in for rain tonight! ;)

Princess Nicole on her way to the royal school:

Officer Jared gave out a few tickets and beat up a few criminals with his billy club....
he's a tough guy!

Pictures of Princess Ellie coming....I've got to fix her hair before we head to the school Halloween parade!


**Edited** Here is princess Ellie.....I tried to get her to be a witch....nope! She HAD to be a princess, and she and Nicole chose the same dress, so we have twinner princesses at our house...and a cop...and a teenager running around in a scarf and neon pink WordPerfect hat and calling that her costume(?)!

For a look at Riley this morning, go here and scroll down about a page...this was before the hat...

I just counted it up....

Three weeks and three days until school starts again here.....August 18th!

Wow.....I have stuff to do! School supplies to purchase, Jared needs shirts, I need to figure out what Riley needs, and they all need new shoes and backpacks!

I really can't believe summer is almost over. :) :) :) :(

I Love To See The Temple...

Here's a good thing that came out of today's photo session....I caught this cute shot! This was after running a couple of actions on it(PW Vintage & a simple vignette frame). I ordered one for each of the little's bedrooms, because I've been meaning for the longest time to get a picture of the temple in their rooms. Now I've got it!

Slow week?!

Yep....not much going on around here....at least not really thrilling stuff anyway!

Monday, Nicole had her first piano recital. I am so glad to be done with that song! She's been practicing that little number since MARCH! I will really be so happy to never hear Matt, My Cat ever again in my life. :o) She did well...played her song a little too slow....and moved her mouth as she was counting, and was a bit distracted....which was evidenced by the fact that she let her eyes wander out to the audience during her playing! Oh well, she is her teacher's youngest student, and in my opinion did better than some of the older kids that started piano at the same time she did. If I get the nerve to try and upload the video we took, I'll add that later....I haven't even watched it though....that's how much I don't ever want to hear that song again! Here are some still shots though...

She's so talented, she plays with her eyes closed! just kidding....Mommy the master photographer only got one shot of her playing though, and I didn't check it close enough to notice that they were closed! Oops!

Flowers for our little performer.

The rest of this week was taken up with working on a little project for Father's Day. Which now Ron has a huge idea about, since I needed his help in editing the pictures.

We have a large wall in our dining area that has a picture on it that I'm tired of. So I wanted to take some cute pictures of the kids, blow them up, and make a picture wall. I decided to do a 16X20 of a group shot, and then surround that with 8X10's of each kid. I found some cute black frames for 50% off(woohoo!) at Hobby Lobby, and have spent the week trying to get shots of the kids...I finished off today and wondered to myself why I even try! I finally did get some good ones...but holy cow, my children do not follow instructions! I bet they will look back at these pictures one day and the only memory they will have is me freaking out at them to just look at the camera and smile! I hope that I can come to appreciate the pictures as well, as I gaze at them daily...and forget the frustration felt while taking them! ;o)

Here are some of the rejected shots....thank heaven for digital photography!

Riley really did do fine with the following of directions...it was the wind that kept "blowing" her shots! I crack myself up...

I'm pretty sure I asked for a smile....but instead I got this...

Ellie was much more interested in picking the flowers, smelling the flowers, not sitting down...pretty much anything was more interesting than looking at the camera.

Jared....in between the fake smiles and goofball poses I did get some cute shots of him.

There is the greatest place for pictures down by American Fork Hospital. Someone has a bunch of old cars, and they have built an old fashioned looking garage/gas station to store them at. The old rust buckets are outside, but the inside of the garage has a bunch of restored cars in it. Very fun for pictures!

The group shot....I have lots of these....between getting Nicole and Jared to just hold a pose and smile, and trying to get Ellie to just look at the camera....I almost gave up!

I think one of the most frustrating parts was editing all the pictures, and then downloading them to Costco for printing....only to realize that I needed to crop the pictures before I downloaded them. My editing and actions got all messed up if I didn't...so I had to go back and redo all of them...and I of course picked the photo sizes that require the most cropping (just FYI....if you are planning on printing your pictures in an 8X10/16X20 format, take the picture with a lot of extra space around it to allow for cropping. I, unfortunately, did not, so my favorite pictures that I chose to use lost a lot of their visual interest and charm because of it...dang it. Live and learn.:o) Oh, and 16X20 enlargements at Costco are mail order only. So Ron's Father's Day gift isn't going to be exactly complete when he gets it. Oops! Maybe the big print will show up next Saturday.

Randomness....

I haven't been posting much....because there's not much to post about! Just typical life going on here!

The teeth: Feeling much better now, thank you! I found some yummy soup at Costco, Roasted Red Pepper and tomato. I also made some tapioca pudding. It had been a long time since I had that. Those, along with cutting my food in teensy tinsey pieces, and I got through it. I'm still not comfortable, but anticipated I won't be for quite a few months now. The price for straight teeth! The worst is getting the brackets on at first. Sore teeth in combination with the inside of your lips getting ripped to shreds...thank goodness for the wax!

Nicole's blood test: perfectly normal, so we are scheduled at our local hospital for her tonsillectomy on the 22nd of April.

My friend just took her 4 year old to the ENT today...after me telling her about Nicole's big tonsils and her little guy's are even bigger. Different ENT, and he was telling her he really doesn't like taking out kids tonsils, think lots of them are unneeded, yada-yada-yada, then looks in his throat, turns to her, and says he wants to take them out Thursday...as in 2 days! His are so big that 90% of his airway is obstructed. Poor kid....they settled on next week though, so her hubby can help as he is off work. So I'll get to watch from the sidelines and see how their recovery goes in anticipation of ours.

My Aunt Carol is having surgery this week...gall bladder removal. Poor thing has been falling apart recently! She's had 2 major bouts with pulmonary emboli in the past 18 months, and shouldn't have survived either, but did, now her gall bladder needs to come out. A little scary for her as she has to come off her blood thinner for the surgery...but hopefully all will go well.

It was stunningly beautiful weather-wise yesterday. The kids were out playing and riding bikes without jackets even! It's amazing that we were all snow-covered just a month ago. So glad that Spring is springing! I'm even breaking out the BBQ for dinner tonight. It's been too long since I've had a nice burnt burger!

An extra 24 whole hours!!!!

February 29th..Leap year!!! What a day! Beautiful, sunny, blue sky, snow melting....I even discovered the daffodils starting to pop up out of the ground.....SPRING is coming!

And the best....what I've been hoping for for a couple years...a whole extra day in my year! Where shall I begin.....mop the floors, get laundry done, organize a room...I have all these extra hours at my disposal.

Maybe I'll just sit and play with my kids....after we get back from taking Nicole to the doctor...I'm pretty sure she has strep again. Good thing we are getting those tonsils out.

Funny for today...well, sorta funny. I was out in the car this morning waiting for Riley to join me so I could take her to school. She took forever to come out, and when she did, she said, "Mom, I think Joey(the dog) isn't breathing...he didn't move when I pet him as I was leaving." I told her he was fine, because I was pretty sure I saw him move this morning as I went out to the car. (He is a pretty lazy dog, and spends many mornings just sleeping away in his kennel, so I wasn't concerned.) But then I asked her, "What did you want me to do if he was dead, go in and give him CPR?!" Of course she answered yes....I had to explain to her that there was no way on EARTH I would do mouth to mouth or CPR on a dog....even if I liked him. She was mad, tears were flowing....I told her I'd go right home and check on him. Which I did and OF COURSE he's fine...just lazy. I would never be so lucky....we'll end up having the amazing immortal dog that will never die. So I texted Riley and told her all was well in the world and the dog lives so she could focus on school.

"A" is for Apple, and "S" is for Saturday Soccer games!

Well, Jared got better just in time for his 1st preschool field trip to the APPLE ORCHARD! It's great when one of the parents have connections so the kids can go to new and interesting places like this. (Nicole got to go to the dog wash last year!)

Since last week was "A" week, and the Thomas twin's grandpa owns an orchard, the kids got to see exactly where those yummy apples that we get at the store come from. They even got to pick one to eat! (If you have never tried a "Honey Crisp" apple, you haven't lived!) They also saw the fruit storage building where the apples go to get cleaned, sorted, and stored. Then there are some people that this same mom knows that have an interesting menagerie of animals in their back yard.....so at the end the kids got to go see the chickens, peacocks, goats, deer, llamas, and camels! (No pictures of that, sorry! I had to get home to greet Nicole's carpool.)

The kids enjoying the spoils!

Saturday was a return to soccer games. The kids both did well! They seem to have the general idea of what they are supposed to do. That is: get the ball, kick it to your goal. The whole part about passing it to team members that are open instead of hogging it all to yourself will come later I'm sure! At least I hope...





Nicole is in the middle there....her team is in navy uniforms, while the other team was in royal....kind of hard to tell any of them apart in this game! Nicole did get one goal toward the end of her game, and was pretty proud of herself.









**First, a disclaimer: No, our son is not wearing a soccer dress. For some reason, the league gives out uniforms that are veeerrrrryyyyyy large for the kids, and the littlest kids get the brunt of the largeness....most of these kids are just coming out of toddler sizes, and well, they don't make soccer uniforms in 4T. You should see the socks. They go all the way to the knee, then fold completely back over the shin guards to his ankle!

Jared actually had a very impressive goal in his game. The ball was kicked in, Jared got it, then took it all the way down the field into the goal!!! He was basically on fire after that and did really well the rest of the game, ending with one more goal. The best though was the little boy on the other team...he was about to get a goal, but then tripped, so he just grabbed the ball and threw it into the goal! Kids are the best! :)

Health Update

Jared: Antibiotics are taking care of the strep nicely, unfortunately he has now developed a nice runny nose and croupy cough courtesy of a virus. So along with antibiotics, he also gets chewable ibuprofen and benadryl. Because of the cough/nose thing he stayed home from preschool, and we also did not do pictures. School pictures, that is. Today is school picture day and I usually take the little kids as well....that way all the pictures in the hall match, and the packages are a WHOLE lot cheaper than Kiddie Kandids. To top it off, some of the cutest pictures of my kids have been from school pictures.

Nicole: Back to school today, feeling fine. When she came home, she sounded awfully hoarse and stuffy, and also has a stridorous cough.....all viral. Ibuprofen and benadryl all around!

Ellie: My poor incredibly miserable baby. She was roasting all night. We went to the ped this morning, and she has a double ear infection! Didn't even test her for strep. He didn't want to torture her with a throat swab (she doesn't like the Dr. much and fights them even listening to her with a stethoscope), and since she was being put on antibiotics, it would take care of the strep if she does have it.

The rest of us are good (knocking madly on wood) and intend to stay that way!!!! I'm now off to start cleaning and sanitizing my house.

Mother's Intuition wins again!

Illness update:

Nicole.....fever left Wednesday early evening. She was perky, fever free all night, and this morning when she woke up. She really wanted to go to school. So who am I to stop her? School was great. Alas, during lunch I look over to find her picking at her food, and with that hollow red-rimmed-eye look. I grab the thermometer...101.7!

fan-freaking-tastic.

I guess my bid for mother-of-the-year is now shot to heck since I sent my sick kid to spread the joy to the class. Oops.

Jared.....was absolutely miserable yesterday. Last night though, temp dropped and he was back to his perky self. Late last night, I checked on him, and he was roasting inside his own skin....104. Ibuprofen, and me checking on him every couple hours for the rest of the night. Woke up still hot, but then later his temp dropped and he seemed to be on the mend once again. Until after lunch....temp back up, and he looked and felt awful,and told me about it. Sheesh.

At this point, big flashing lights go off in my head, and I'm certain he has strep. So I call the Dr. and get the last appt of the day for him. I drag Nicole along because I have a plan...

We get there, and he is ten times more miserable and just wants to go home. Rapid strep test.....drum roll please.....POSITIVE! 100 points to Mothers Intuition! So, I then shove Nicole forward and rattle off that she's had a fever too so can we test her? Yep.....but her test was negative. Dr. did say that she may be too early though, so we cultured her and will find out for sure on Saturday.

So, no school for Nicole tomorrow...Jared has had his 1st dose of amoxicillin, and hated the taste of it so much that he spit half of it out on his shirt. Great. So now we'll be half a dose short at the end. I'll be making a bribery chart for him tomorrow, with gold stars and the promise of a toy in 10 days.

We caught Ellie with Jared's cup AGAIN tonight....she'll wake up with a fever Sunday morning so that I'll have to scramble for a nursery sub! It'll be great.

Lots of love and Lysol from our house!

Send in a replacement!

Ugh. I was awakened up by a whiney Jared this morning. What I assumed was a bad dream turned out to be a nice high fever, which I discovered right before his tummy rebelled against the nice big drink of water he had just taken. So my day started before 7, in the form of washing all my bedding.

I went in to wake up Nicole to get her ready for school to find her fevering as well.

yippee.

Hopefully whatever this is is short lived, and no one else gets it. Just my luck though, Jared had dropped his drink on the floor, and I realized this only because I looked into the family room just in time to see Ellie sucking on it. Noooooo!

hoorah.

I had a Parent Council meeting this morning(I'm the Academic Committee Chair), that I obviously did not go to. Nicole and Jared are both home(obviously!) camped out on the couches. The washing machine and dryer are running along nicely, as Jared's stomach rebelled again once he got on the couch, and he completely ignored the bucket he was holding in favor of his pillow and blanket.

So my day is set. It's amazing how quickly your job can change around a bunch of little kids. I went to bed last night thinking I'd be putting on my "Parent Council, mommy volunteering at school" hat, instead I have on my "nurse" hat, alternating with the "family laundress" hat.

Hope everyone is having more fun than me! ;)

"Jared, go get ready for church!"

I suppose I shouldn't complain....his tie is around his neck! And amazingly enough, his shirt is TUCKED IN! I love this kid.

Okay, I'll end the suspense.....

We did survive the rest of our trip to Colorado with much enjoyment, and without becoming bear food.....but we did see a total of 4 bears by the end of the week! The day after our little buddy in the previous post we went to Telluride, and saw two up on the hill below the airport as we were leaving town, and the 1st time we attempted Imogene Pass, Ron rode to the top of a hill to determine a good line for us to follow on the ATVs, and as he got to the top, he saw BIG #4 crossing the road....he quickly came back down and we headed back down the mountain and did Imogene another day! We had a blast on the ATV's, went to Yankee Boy Basin, over Engineer Pass to Animas Forks, where we saw some great old mine sites, and up to Imogene. We decided on that one, that we really don't need to go on the really steep shelf roads and switchbacks again....just to stay on the safer side! (pics to follow...) The wildflowers were incredible....beyond belief, especially on Imogene. Nicole asked me who planted them all. It was fun to tell her that Heavenly Father did it. She agreed that He sure must love us a lot to give us such a beautiful place to see! We were not disappointed with our choice of vacation locale again this year, and I was honestly sad as we were driving out of Yankee Boy that last day. We can safely say that we are Colorado and Ouray fans!

The littles on the gondola in Telluride

Glad we brought the raincoats!

Nicole and the flowers in Yankee Boy Basin

The picture does not do the flowers in Imogene justice

Dad, Nicole, and Jared check out the waterfall up close!

Above Imogene Basin....errr, don't look down!


At the top of Colorado! (We are at almost 13,000 ft here)
In our defense, and even though I was taking the picture, neither Ron or I realized the Jared was standing so close to that edge without an adult hand close by....pretty much made both of us feel ill when we saw this picture later....ugh! We must have a guardian angel. Thank goodness someone was looking out for us!