Things I want to remember and am trying to forget.

First the things I would like to remember because they make me smile:
Last Thursday I had to take Brendan to the dentist for him to get some sealants in his molars to prevent cavities.  I hadn't prepped him that well this time to go to because last time he did so well (who wouldn't if you could just lay back in a chair and stare at a movie on the ceiling?)  So I just told him the morning of the appointment that we would be going to the dentist so that the dentist could make his teeth stronger.  His response was classic!
His eyes welled up with tears and his chin started to quiver as he choked up and asked, "But mom am I never going to be able to brush my teeth at night ever again?"  I just had to chuckle as I pulled him close to me and explained that he could continue to brush his teeth and that the dentist and mom and dad would really like it if he continued brushing his teeth.
Now something Brendan has asked me to try and forget:
Last night at dinner he asked me if yelling was a bad choice or a good choice.  I asked him what he thought it was and he said a bad choice.  I agreed and then he asked me "Well then why do you and dad yell every day?"  Ouch.  It really hurts when your kids call you out on something.  So I am trying to forget how to yell.  I really need to do better and usually I do pretty good at not yelling and speaking nicely to my children, but these past couple of days-I'll admit-have been pretty bad.  No tellin' why.  I can't even figure it out, but I have lost it one too many times for a while.  So Brendan and I made a deal.  I played his little game about trying to figure out if whining was a good choice or a bad choice and he guessed it was bad.  So if he can stop whining, I can stop yelling...wish me luck.
Next up:

Now we have instituted something new at our house.  We have been trying to hold regular Cleaning Parties!  A Party?  Yup.  We get our new timer out and set it for 15 minutes.  Then one of the kids get to choose an index card out of a bowl and figure out which room we get to go to.  We then make our way into that room and clean for 15 minutes.  We actually try to beat the timer.  When that 15 minutes is up, someone else gets to choose the next card and figure out which room we are headed to and we set the timer again and clean for only 15 minutes more.  I can usually get through 3 rooms with the kids and then they are distracted, but while they stay interested, they are so much help to me!  Even Lincoln.
One day I was just trying to tidy up quickly -not having declared that it was a Cleaning Party Day-and Brendan walks into the room.   He stops, looks at what I am doing and asks, "Hey mom, are you having a Cleaning Party without us?"
Loved it!
They soon had rags in their hands and were helping out...of course we had to get the timer out, though.  I have really enjoyed being able to work along side my kids.  They sure have made it fun and I appreciate all of their help and enthusiasm.
Next let's forget again:

I really don't know how she could be comfortable in this sleeping position, but when this girl crashes, she is gone.  More and more often she is crashing at about 5pm, sleeps until 7 or 8 and then wants to be awake until 1 or 2 in the morning!  I am trying to forget about how tired I am the next day after one of these crashes hits.  I really would like some help in this department because it really drives me crazy when she does this, but she is an absolute bear if I try to keep her awake...I know, I know, how could you ever be upset with a girl as pretty and cute as this?

Sleeping during the night has started to be quite the fiasco if you ask me.  3 days ago, all 5 of us ended up in the same bed in the morning.  Neil has promised a bigger bed after school is over.  That is what I look forward to these days.  Last night was better so maybe we are getting through this spat of sleepless nights.
Next something that the kids have remembered:

Now hopefully Neil will forgive be for posting such a flattering picture of him (one of the kids took it and it was the only one on the SD card that I have right now).  Last Friday I went out with girlfriends to a high school play.  One of the young women in our ward did an awesome job with her part!  But before I left, I made dinner for my cute family and then Neil said the blessing on the food.  Well, in the prayer he prayed that I would have a good time that night, but that I wouldn't be too crazy with my friends.  Well then I poured everyone a glass of water and Neil does this crazy thing where he pulls the pitcher of water way up high and then lets it fall into the cups.  The kids love it!  So that night, I tried to do it--and spilled some water and I said that I didn't need to be with friends in order to be crazy.  All of the kids thought I was crazy, though.
Well, days have passed and with Neil working in the ER right now he cannot be home for dinner and so I try and fly solo.  I tried to liven things up again the other night by pouring the water crazy...and spilled again.  Eliza said "Mom are you being too crazy again?"
It made me think of Neil and how much I miss all of the support and help that he is and that he has a way to always make things fun and helps us to laugh.  This is something that I really need to remember.  I love my husband!  I am proud of him for going to school so that he can spend more time with us in the future.
Next.

 

Lincoln is just so cute and at such a fun age.  He takes my mirror from me every morning when I do my hair...then I have to fight with him to get it back so that I can finish my hair.  Oh well.  This past weekend my baby became my toddler.  I finally broke down and gave him a hair cut.  The first haircut is always the hardest for me to give because it makes my babies grow up instantly.  But it was sorely needed and now he is just so cute.

I think that his favorite part of the haircut was being able to touch the clippers.  I wanted him to know that they wouldn't hurt him.  For the rest of the time all he wanted to do was touch them.  :)  But now he just looks so big and old and is ready to officially enter the nursery on Sunday!  YEAH!!!

He is just so cute...almost ready for school with a haircut like this.
And that about sums this catch-up post up.  Thanks to all of those faithful friends and family for reading all the way through this monstrous post.

Let's get Disney

This morning and for quite some time now Brendan, Eliza and Lincoln have loved getting Disney.  They will spin around in circles for minutes at a time and then resolve that they are Disney enough and be done.  Then they start spinning again and again just so they can get Disney. 
I think that it was Brendan that just came up with that and no matter how many times I have tried to correct him and let him know that it is dizzy and not Disney, he can't get it straight in his head.  Eliza does everything that Brendan does and Lincoln thinks he is 4 right along with them.  I love to be able to watch my kids playing nicely together.
Absolutely love it!

Best breakfast!

So I have been really tired lately and when I woke up to a really loud somebody knocking on my door, I ran out to get it.  Lincoln had been sleeping with me...and when I turned around from getting the door, this is what I saw!.  All three of them were eating sunchips that were left out from the night before (thanks Neil) and three kids totally zoned to morning cartoons.  Now I feel like a really good parent already today!  We'll have to see how the rest of the day plays out...it is bound to be definitely good based on the balanced and nutritious breakfast we all had!

Peanut Butter Cookies

Does your family like cookies?  Well ours sure does and I think my favorite are peanut butter ones because Neil makes them with the kids and it is just too cute the way that they work together as a TEAM!  :)  Last Sunday the kids helped Neil make cookies because our friends the Flynns were coming over and we haven't seen them in a long time.  They moved just 30 minutes away, but we haven't gotten together to play games for forever it seems! So we were happy that they were coming and Neil wanted to make cookies.  All of the kids had to help him.  I think that this was Lincoln's first time making cookies with his Dad.  Neil set Lincoln up on the counter and taught him how to turn on the mixer when it was time to mix all of the ingredients together.  That little brother is such a quick learner!  After the cookies were done mixing and the beater was up in the air, he decided to turn on the mixer again and little bits of dough went everywhere...especially all over DAD!  :)
Well the next step in making peanut butter cookies is rolling them into balls and then pressing them with a fork.  A long time ago when Brendan was just learning how to make pb cookies with his dad, Neil started making squishing sound effects when he would press the cookies with the fork.  It started a tradition and Brendan and Eliza started in with the squishes without having to be prompted at all.  Lincoln hasn't quite figured out the squishing sound or even using a fork yet.  He just wanted in on the action of squishing and this is what we got:

Good thing the stove top was not on.  We don't regularly set our children on top of the stove, but in tight quarters here we just don't have enough counter space! 

Eliza's face is the face of a very pleasant 2 year old little girl.  We love her dearly!

Brendan stole the camera and took this last picture of the cookies baking in the oven.  He then came and told us what he had done.
The cookies were very tasty and I had 5+ too many!  Thanks Neil and kids for the yummy entertainment and delicious cookies!

Pause

I am excited for this new year!  I can't believe that 2010 is here already.  Sometimes I wish that I could take just a little while and pause everything that is going on around me.  Wouldn't that be great?  The kids think that they can pause just about anything.  Today Eliza put her chips on pause so that she could come and help clean up her toys.  They have paused their playdough and even put their robots on pause.  See what the pause button on our DVR has done to my children?  Neil just asked me about 2 minutes before midnight if I could pause everything...has he become corrupted, too?  Just kidding.  What would I do if we could pause for a moment and take a look around.  I think that this is going to be my resolution for this upcoming year.  I would like to pause more often and take a look at my life and count all of the many blessings that I have.  I am happier when I can see them and I can see them more clearly when I pause for even 3 seconds each day.  :)

We got some snow today...lots of it and the kids got to go out and play with their Dad.  Lincoln didn't know what to think but Brendan loved it.  He said "Wha-hoo" every time he slid down the hill.  He is just such a boy and I love it.  Eliza just ate snow off her gloves the whole time.  She didn't like the sled at all.  Doesn't she just look so cute with her purple hat on.  Pink and purple are her favorite colors.  :)

I loved the festivities tonight.  We played Candyland and Squiggly Worms with the kids and then drank sparkling cider at 12 midnight hoosier time (9pm PST).  We figure that the 2 older kids were born there and as far as Brendan is concerned we are moving back there after Dad is done with school.  And they were super tired even at 9!  They are just so cute!

We are sad that we have to take the tree down tomorrow.  The kids don't want to take any of the Nativities down either.  This has been a good Christmas and New Year season.  Can't wait to see what next year has in store for us...Neil's graduation!!!!!! The countdown has begun!

Portland temple photo shoot

Some funny stories from the kids:  When Grandma and Traci took care of the kids while we were at the Portland Temple they were walking around the grounds and Brendan said, “we need a map.”  He was also the first one to see the temple from the freeway.  Out of the blue, not with us prompting him to look for it or a temple that he has ever been to before, he hollered our, “I see the temple.”  Right as we were passing the exit we were supposed to take.  I was impressed that he recognized it on his own as the house of the Lord.  He must have good parents.

Brendan also decided to be a cheeser when Traci started to take his picture.  He just started making all of these faces on his own:  

We are so appreciative to Grandma and Traci for watching the kiddos so that we could have an enjoyable time inside the temple.  

While playing back at home, Eliza took one of the tongues from the Mr. Potato Head dolls and said “Look a pink spitter.”  She is too young to understand that tongues are used for more than just spitting, right?  I mean, you can speak different languages with them, trill them, etc.

Funny kids.  Thanks Neil for the documentation!

Some funny kiddo quotes...well, just from Brendan

Brendan’s reply when I told Lincoln to take something out of his mouth.  “Dad, he just wants to smell what it looks like.”  One night at the dinner table when Brendan and I were having a typical disagreement and making our points known, Brendan said, “Dad, stop arguing with me!”  He turned the tables on that one.  

Brendan wants really bad to be SpiderMan for Halloween.  Eliza wants to be Jesse from Toy Story 2.  We have a Yoda costume for Lincoln.  We also have a princess Leah costume if Eliza wants to wear that.  

Grandma and Traci will be here for it so that will be fun.  We will see what we can come up with.

Books...do you just read them?

In our house we do a lot of things with books besides just reading them.  Brendan likes to lay them on the ground and build roads with them.

I thought this whole patchwork of books was really kind of clever!

Eliza has been found after long moments of silence just enjoying a good book in her room.  I love it when this happens:

Lincoln likes to eat them.  Seriously.  We have this set of 12 board books that have made it through 2 kids just fine with minimal wear and tear...expected!  But with this kid he has destroyed them and devoured them.  Covers have been torn from them and then eaten.  I just don't know why he does this.

We just love BOOKS!  We can learn so many things from good books.  One of the kids favorite places to go is to the library.  They absolutely love all of the books that we bring home.  We read them over and over and over and we love them.  Some of our favorite books have been Fancy Nancy, Cecily G and the 9 Monkeys, Are you a Horse, and Giraffe and a Half (just to name a few)

How's this for street proselyting? and HARD WORK!

We love our kids to death. We appreciate them wanting to help when we go out to rake the leaves and do any of the cleaning up around the apartments. They just make me want to smile all of the time...well, most of the time!

Squishing water...that's AMAZING!

For lunch today I made the Sunday classic of grilled cheese and tomato soup.  I let Eliza help me flip the sandwiches and once we flipped it over she responded, “That was amazing!”  Apparently I am an impressive flipper.  Although I didn’t even know that “amazing” was a part of her vocabulary. 

While we were eating our Sunday classic, I finished before Eliza and she wanted some help, so she came and sat by me so I could help her.  In between her bites, I took a drink of water and was swishing it around in my mouth to rinse the food out.  I had a lot of water and so my cheeks were full.  Eliza saw my puffed cheeks and couldn’t help but squish them.  She quickly clapped my cheeks and water gushed out onto her.  She thought that was the funniest thing and I was thoroughly entertained also, so I let her keep doing it and Brendan had to get involved also.  They were just continually slapping my face waiting for water to spray, but I was laughing so hard at times I couldn’t keep my cheeks puffed out and they just kept on hitting waiting for something to happen.  It was very hard to not spray water out of my nose also during the laughing spells.  In the end we were all wet, but had some great fun.  Luckily Julia was asleep so we didn’t get into trouble.

Lincoln just keeps on getting into the drawers.  We are going to have to do something about our climber.

I have two weeks left of my summer break.  It has gone by so fast.  The only good thing about starting back up with school is that the sooner I start the sooner I finish.  And the sooner I get to draw a regular paycheck again.
-Neil  

Beanbags and more

Yesterday was a monumentous day in my life...I finally finished Eliza's bean bag that has been mostly done for months! (Brendan's has been done forever.) I won't say that it was an easy task with Eliza being herself all day. She just makes me laugh. I laugh because otherwise I would scream! :) For example: She came over to my sewing machine and said (to the machine), "I don't want you in here because you are making it too shiny in here" and then slapped the machine with the toy that she had in her hand. I guess the little tiny light bulb that is in the machine was too much for her to handle or it was crowding her spotlight. I really don't know about that girl sometimes. She is just such a character! But I hope they enjoy their bean bags. They did a lot of work by cutting up foam to go in them. They are experts at using scissors now becuase of it.Meanwhile...in another neck of our wood...Lincoln is managing to get himself stuck in a lot of places. Although I wouldn't mind getting stuck here:
Oh another funny thing. Lincoln is at that stage where EVERYTHING goes in his mouth. Today as we were pulling a small toy out of his mouth Brendan provided the explanation as to why he is always doing this: "He just wants to smell what it looks like." Hmmm....thanks Brendan!

Heaven Help Me

How could these three cute kids be so crazy sometimes?

Yesterday I had to change my shirt 3 times because I got poo from Lincoln all over me that many times...Yuck! Hope things go better in that department today.

Today Neil has to go to Seattle so I offered to clean the pool so that he could get off on time. I was all but done over there and was just putting the pool-tester kit away to turn around and see my children throwing fist fulls of potting soil into the clean pool. Needless to say, the pH will really be off now and they had to sit in time out for the rest of the time that we were at the pool. I probably screamed a little too much at them, but I am just too tired to laugh about it right now...maybe in a couple of days. When I then got out the vacuum to clean, Lincoln started crying because he had had enough with sitting in the stroller already. Sorry, guy. Talk to your brother and sister about it. Eliza walked up to me when we were about to go and without any prompting said "Mom, I'm done being a crazy girl" and then said sorry for throwing dirt in the pool. Thanks Eliza. Maybe all of those promptings to say sorry are finally paying off.

I only hope that I will make it through the day and that my kids will still be alive when it is all over. I have enjoyed having Neil here all of the time this summer. I don't know how we are going to do it when he goes back to school in September!

Under the Table and Dreaming

I love that (most of the time) all of my kids can play nicely with one another. It just so happened that today they decided to play under their table. I thought it was cute!

Long time no blog...

A million things happened during the month of May...and I thought about blogging them...and never got around to it. So here is an update:

Brendan just got back from the Father and Son camp out this past weekend. It was the first time that he has gone and spent the night and he was pretty apprehensive about it all. When I got up the next morning I found his blanket sitting on the couch in our family room I was hoping that he survived the night ok. But he had a GREAT time and loved it. He did say that he missed me though and that makes me feel important. They went to Ensign Ranch (that famous one that we were stopped next to on our way to Maple Valley) and rode a horse, went in a canoe, went fishing, got to see a snake...all things boys and I heard that they threw lots of rocks-not at each other, but into the water. :) At family scripture study we have been letting the kids read a lot more. They love to repeat what we read, but lately Brendan has been wanting to read by himself. He tells us about the lions and zebras and everything else. What is funny about that is that we have been in the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi. Maybe he understands it better than us and is interpreting it into our language?

Eliza is such a beautiful princess. While Dad and Brendan were gone we got together with some friends and had a girls night with our girls (and baby boys, of course). We stayed up late talking about Fancy Nancy and eating chocolate cake at 10:00pm and scrapbooking...and just giggling! She is just so cute these days. Her eyes (which hid behind her hair most of the time) are such a deep, beautiful brown. I love looking into them. She has such the sense of humor, too. I can often find her in her room surrounded by books and reading one out loud. And if you interrupt her reading time she gets really upset. (She must be related to me because I am the same way when I get into a good book.) Her favorites are still Fancy Nancy and Curious George.  Sometimes she even falls asleep! I'm glad that she loves learning so much. The other day I was opening up the curtain in the morning and we get the bright morning sun through our windows in the morning. She said, "No, it's too shiny!" The sun was really bright but I don't know if she knows that word, yet. I don't know how she couldn't know that word because she has mastered so many others. It is fun to see her reading the scriptures and the hymnal at church. She will point out letters and gets so excited that she is recognizing them. I am pretty excited, too. Oh and something else is that she is on this kick where she wakes up and asks for Wheat Thins (specifically). I am ok with this as long as she doesn't go back to asking for chocolate pudding...Cwazy gwill! Favorite movie by far, right now, has to be Peter Pan. She loves it when they sing Following the Leader.

Lincoln is on all fours-no crawling yet, but I know that it is just around the corner! And he is eating solid foods now. When I say solid, I mean solid. He is anti spoon and it really is driving me crazy! I have made all of my own baby food with Brendan and Eliza and was all geared up to start with Lincoln (I have frozen mango cubes in the freezer) and he won't have anything to do with pureed stuff. He wants to grab something and put it in his mouth by himself or for me to put it in with my finger. He gags and throws up EVERYTHING else. This has been kind of hard for me...but I am learning-AGAIN-that every child is different and has their opinions about everything very early on. I love his giggle though. I find him laughing with the kids so much. They get a kick out of it, too. My heart has taken a picture a couple of times when I look at them playing together, giggling together, and communicating on their own level with each other. I really can feel a little bit of heaven in my home and that is a good feeling. It makes me feel like I am doing something right.

Neil is almost done with his classroom school year. We made a paper chain a couple of weeks ago and the kids love tearing one link off every day that he gets home. This is his last week of lectures and then next week is finals. YEAH! We are so proud of him. And he still finds time each week to go to his garage sales and get screaming deals! He has actually made some money reselling some things. The kids love to see what he brings home for them from the yard sales. I think that they think it is the coolest store or something. He is amazing and we are excited to honor him on Father's Day in a couple of weeks.

Life is good and we laugh a lot!

Random Pictures from May

Brendan is starting to write his letters. He was so proud of his B!

Eliza is starting to write, too...only this month it has been on herself!
It took a week+ to wear off

We sure are glad that she loves her baby brother so much. Lincoln is getting so big. We love his even bigger smiles!