Perspective

Starting late Sunday night and early Monday morning a head cold snuck into our house and by Tuesday morning ALL of us had it. We have consumed approximately 6 - 8 large cans of Campbells Chunky Chicken Noodle Soup and about 16 - 20 quarts of Orange Juice. Needless to say it has been a LLLLLOOOOONNNNNGGGGG week.

I kind of feel guilty saying this, but it needs to be said. One of the good things that I liked this week was that the kids were sick and wanted to snuggle more than they wanted to make messes and get into things. It was kind of nice to see them just lay there. Sorry I am a horrible person, but it was a little nice. Mainly it was nice because for a couple of days all I could do was just lay there most of the day too.

But after wiping noses 976 times, being showered by 5, 381 sneezes and hearing 26,782 coughs, it got a little tiresome (not to mention the numerous "reminders" to COVER YOUR MOUTH). I am sorry to say that I did not have very much patience left by yesterday morning. We were actually supposed to go to Provo today to support Tyler (Bart's cousin) going through the temple, but we ended up just sending Bart as our representative. Last night I announced to Bart that we were all going no matter if we were sick or not, we needed to get out of this house so I didn't strangle one of the children. Then this morning I think Bart was having second thoughts about going because he was afraid to leave me alone with the kids again because he might come home to one or two less than what he left me with.

Well seeing Bart struggle with his decision this morning made me think a little and realize that even though I am a little sleep deprived (understatement of the year), the kids are probably feeling the same way I am. In fact they are probably silently pleading their dad, "please don't leave us with this psychotic woman again". Anyway, I was just thinking that when I am up with the kids I need to remember that they are awake and missing out on sleep too. I also need to remember that when one doesn't let me go to bed until 1:30 in the morning and another one makes me get up at 4:00 for the day, it doesn't mean that they are ganging up on me and trying to make me get more gray hairs.

After I had this epiphany I decided that I needed to change ME in order to set the mood for the rest of them. I have to say I am still trying to be patient (even when McKinley washes her hair in the bathroom sink with 1/2 the bottle of shampoo - spilling 1/3 of it on the counter). But this made me think about the kids and their feelings a little. I know this week I have been a little testy when any of them asked me for anything like when Grant asked for the 14th time to type on the computer and when Jackie asked for her 8th cup of milk. Anyway, I decided to take time to play with them. So I gathered up Luke and we went into McKinley and Jackie's room, sat crossed legged on the floor, and had brunch. We ate eggs, hotdogs, hot chocolate, milk (which Luke kept spilling on me - I now know why sippy cups were invented - even though we were just pretending), turkey, grapes, secret ingredient soup and 3 different kinds of pie. It really helped me to remember that they are just kids and that I need to chill myself out and stop adding my temper tantrums to the mix.



I know that having herbal tea isn't going magically make me have more patience, but it helped me to have a better perspective on the things that are important to me - my kiddos and their feelings. Sorry guys!

Cheesy or Brilliant??

We have had a little trouble around our house lately when we say our prayers. Someone is usually yelling that they want to say the prayer ("but I want to , but I want to"), another is saying the prayer but twisting on their stool with their eyes open and arms flying all over the place, and the other is trying to sneak bites of dinner. I have to say that even mom and dad aren't too reverent because usually one of us is playing referee with all the kids.


Well the other day I saw an idea for a family home evening on reverence that I thought would help us with reverence during our prayers. And since our kids are suckers for playing dress up I just knew it would work (at least I hoped it would). Anyway, I made a reverence crown and wrote "King of Me" on one side and "Queen of Me" on the other. This is to show that they have control over themselves and are the only ones who can make themselves be reverent. Then whoever is the most reverent during the prayer gets to wear the crown during that meal.

When I was cutting the crown out of the posterboard, I asked Bart what he thought about it and he said it was kind of cheesy. UUHH!!! What support! :) Well the next morning at breakfast it was decided that I was BRILLIANT!!!! In fact it has helped us so much that sometimes I "forget" to give the crown and they forget too so they are reverent just for being reverent. AAAAHHHHH Nice!!!! Jackie usually only gets it when she is saying the prayer because she is the "but I want to, but I want to" girl. But one day she will get there. This morning we even let Luke wear it. He sure looked Kingly!! :)


I also have to point out that you can be stripped of your title as king or queen by not being reverent while you are wearing the crown, hereby renouncing the thrown to the next reverent subject.


Brilliant - I know!

Happy Valentines Day!!

For Valentines Day last year I got all the kids a helium balloon on the spur of the moment trip to the store the night before and last November McKinley still remembered her balloon (with kisses on it) so I decided to make it a tradition to get them a balloon every year. However this time I got the balloons in the afternoon and left them in the car so the kids wouldn't find them until morning. Well it was a little cold in the car. Bart brought them in the house around 10:30 or so and they were fine, but by the morning they were laying on the ground. :( So I guess they get deflated helium balloons this year. I also made them candy leis which were a pretty big hit - Grant wouldn't eat his until that night, Jackie had hers half gone by the time I got the camera out to take a picture and McKinley of course was more interested in the balloon. :)

Bart got me these beautiful flowers. I took the picture a couple days after so they weren't sagging like this when he gave them to me. I would show you what I got Bart, but we ate it too fast. (When I say we I mean me - sorry Bart!) I guess we are meant to be together - Bart can usually eat a WHOLE bag of chips in one sitting. Me - it is chocolate. Oops!!

2010 Snapshot

When I first started this blog, I did it with the intention of keeping a journal for my kids. I consider myself to have a pretty good memory, but there are still a lot of things about my own childhood that I wish I knew. My mom never kept a journal and she passed away when I was 18. There have been more days than I can count since I have become a mom that I wish I could have her here to tell me what it was like when we were little. I would love to know what she did when this or that happened. Most of all I would just love to know her thoughts on many different things.


I started keeping little journals on the computer for my kids a few years ago, with little stories about each of them. Then our computer crashed and I lost it, now I just put it all here and we can all enjoy it and we won't lose it. I am also going to print it off so we can have a hard copy of it too.


While I was at the store the other day I ran into an old family friend and she couldn't believe I had four kids already. Then we were talking about how fun it is to have kids and how it will be gone before I know it. She then said something that I thought was pretty profound. She said, "The days are long, but the years sure fly by". How true that is!!! I hope that some day when I blink that it won't be completely gone. I am hoping that I can look back at this and remember what things were like.


Anyway, I saw this on a blog a few weeks ago and I am totally going to copy their idea. There are a lot of things and events that we remember such as vacations, holidays, etc. But it is the day-to-day things that we seem to forget eaiser so I am going to do a "snapshot" into our day for us to remember the little things. So when my kids turn into teenagers and we are all caught up in all the random activities I can remember what life was like when they still thought I was cool and wanted my attention. So here goes:

When Jackie takes a bath, we usually have to remove all the towels and clothes from the room otherwise they get sucked into the tub with her.


McKinley is 4 years old but she still climbs EVERYTHING! She has started to climb the door frames and hang from the center of the door. We are putting her in a ballet class this week so hopefully we can channel her energy elsewhere.

Grant is learning how to spell things. He can spell McKinley, Foxy, and Grant and he is working on other words as well. He loves to spell things on the computer, type them up, and print them out.


Grant and McKinley are learning how to make their beds and they are doing a great job at it too.


When we eat ice cream cones we have to use a spoon (I know - it's weird!).


This one has been going on for a couple of years, but whenever someone leaves our house, all the kids have to say (in this exact order) "Bye, See ya later, Have Fun, Be Careful", followed with blowing you a kiss.


When Jackie goes to the bathroom she has to strip down to nothing to do it. A week ago Sunday I forced her onto the the toilet at church WITH her dress ON. I won!! :)


Bart looses the remote to the TV about every 30 minutes or so.


When the kids see Bart going toward the TV they start yelling, "I don't want to watch football". He thinks I put them up to it, but he is WRONG! :) The fun thing is that when they want his attention, they tell him they want to watch football just so they can snuggle with him.


Bart is gone three nights a week (Young Mens, Young Mens Basketball, and His Basketball).


I am gone three nights a month (Enrichment, and Groceries twice a month).


We are finally at the point of not knowing how long we have gone WITHOUT having Family Home Evening instead of the other way around.


Our Family Home Evenings are between 5 and 15 minutes long.


I yell way more than I ever wanted to yell at my kids.


I teach Relief Society and I enjoy it more than I ever thought I would.


Bart is the 1st Counselor in the Young Mens Presidency.


We have about a million unfinished projects around the house.


We are outgrowing our house - our bedroom is our storage unit.


Luke just started to play with toys and the kids think it is fun to see him doing something other than just sitting there. He always gets a smile on his face when anyone talks to him.


Aspen sleeps in the garage at night and freezes in the back yard during the day - luckily it has been a relatively warm winter.


McKinley attends pre-school twice a week and is learning how to spell her own name.


Grant is attending Pre-Kindergarten class Monday - Thursday. He loves learning.

Grant loves to draw and is getting pretty good at it too.


We drink 6 gallons of milk in a week - Jackie is probably responsible for 1 1/2 - 2 gallons by herself.


The last few days the bus driver has to sit at our house for a few extra minutes because Grant stands there and yaks with them.


We wake up around 6:30 and 7:00 most days, but there have been 5:00 and 5:30 days lately.


We read stories every night on Grants bed - Scripture stories and another book of choice.


We rarely see the corner of the the bar, sometimes the bar itself.


Jackie has about three different laughs that I adore.



Luke loves to watch the kids play and loves it even more when they talk to him.


We are working on being reverent during our prayers.


McKinley won't give Bart a hug or a kiss in the morning because she thinks he is dirty when he is in his work clothes.


Grant, McKinley and Jackie are very good at saying please and thank you.


Luke likes to wake up in the middle of the night and talk and sing to us.


So there we go, us in 2010. :)

"Frosty the Snowman Kid"

Grant has been after me for about a month to build a snowman, so when it snowed so much last week, we went out and built one. I didn't get a picture of the finished product, but he was pretty cute. I say was because after it snowed, we hit a little warm spell which melted Frosty's face off. Grant cried on the way to church because we didn't have time to fix his face.

Here our some pictures of our venture in the snow:

Sledding

Grandpa Wally came down a couple of weeks ago and went sledding with us. Jackie fell asleep on the way so she slept in the truck and I fed Luke, so it was just Grant, McKinley and Grandpa Wally. After about 30-45 minutes, Grandpa got cold so they all came down and ate ding-dongs in the truck. It was a lot of fun to see my kiddos playing with Grandpa Wally - that doesn't happen very often so it was nice to see them having some kind of relationship with him. (I will write more about this later and I will hopefully be able to explain.) Here are a few pictures, I was in the truck with Luke for most of the time so there aren't very many.

Grant did about two and a half 360's the first trip down the hill.

McKinley giggled the entire time. When she would get to the bottom of the hill, she would just up and run back up the hill leaving her sled behind for Grant to bring back up for her. I was in the truck and couldn't tell if Grant was objecting to the whole thing, so I am just going to say how nice he was to carry her sled up the hill for her. After this happened a few times, I saw Grandpa giving McKinley a talking to, from then on she carried her own sled. :)

When Jackie woke up, Grant and I went down three or four times with her. Jackie had fun, but she wanted to walk up the hill by herself, after about half way, I couldn't take it anymore and I picked her up and ran to the top against her protesting.

Christmas 2009

So I am a little slow at getting Christmas posted, but better late than never right?! For Christmas this year, we spent the night at Grandma LaJean and Grandpa Paul's house. It was quite fun to have everyone together for Christmas. We started with a dinner on Christmas Eve, after which Grandma had the kids sing/listen to some songs, like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Grandma also made everyone dress like Rudolph - and I mean EVERYONE (even Luke - Kaelyn somehow got away without dressing up though).

Honk - Honk! :) (I love Jackie's tongue!)

Grandpa, the Red Nosed Reindeer!

Some of us had more fun with it than others.

After dinner and playing the kids all opened their Christmas Eve present (JAMMIES). Then Santa came and since we were all still awake, he decided just to make sure he had all the correct gifts, so he came in and visited with us.

McKinley got a little giddy and said she wanted a new bike, but luckily Santa knew that she had been wanting a Jessie doll for 2-3 months and remembered that was what she really wanted.

Grant kept adding things everytime we talked about what he was asking Santa for. Mostly he stuck with a castle and a yo-yo.

Luke was a trooper and was okay with sitting on Santa's lap.

Jackie was not okay but decided that she could sit next to Santa on Dad's lap.

Christmas Morning

Grant got his castle and the kids also got some walkie talkies. McKinley did get Jessie after all.

Nurse Jackie

It was a fun Christmas and we were very lucky to have everyone together to celebrate the birth of the Savior. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for a fun weekend.