Swenson Family Circus

iPhone Forgottens

2012-02-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

I rarely sync my iPhone with my computer so all the pics I take on it never get transferred over. But I recently did and here are a few fun ones....

Joey is deathly afraid of the carwash. The quality of the pic is terrible but Joey's face is classic. You have to soothe him the whole time or he completely loses it!
Shopping at the mall one day Maggie made a new friend...
Jacob loved soccer. It was his first foray into youth sports and he was digging it! I may have posted this pic before, but it was on my phone so I thought I'd post it again. How can you resist such a cute kid? The best part is he is as sweet as pie. So helpful and fun.
The boys' favorite thing is showering in our big shower (can you blame them?). They love to play with my shower caps. So when I want to use them the next morning they are all filled with water, inside and out.
Just a few fun pics.

Wisdom from the Past

2012-01-24T14:33:00.000-08:00

I have been recently compiling interesting stories about people in my family (and Eric's) to make a little Swenson Family Binder that will have some of our traditions written in it, a family tree, stories of our ancestors and our family motto and mission statement. In making it, I have been reading through a lot of things written by my grandmother and came across a quick story that rings so true. She is talking about when she was a girl and would go with her mother to visit friends several states away...

"It was a joy and an amazing thing to me when Mr. Fischer (he owned a grocery store) would take me to his store, after it was closed. He had a key! We would all go in there and I could have anything I wanted! That was really living because in those days candy was not a common part of what we ate. Eskimo Pies were my favorite…an ice cream bar covered in chocolate. When you do not have a great deal even those little things are a real treat and event in your life. I am happy to have had those experiences because it concerns me that in this day and age most things are old hat to children. They do not know the joy of such special treats as going to a shop and getting a cold soda, or a fresh hamburger! Well, I would not trade those experiences for the over-abundance of things available now. What is really left to bring a thrill to the children?"

I agree whole-heartedly. Does anyone else think their kids have it WAAAAYYY too easy? I seriously sit and think of ways to make life harder for my kids....

My favorite things

2012-01-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

Many of you have been asking to see some pictures of our house. I decided to take a few pictures of some of my favorite things in the house, just as highlights. First of all, the house was built with a large "nook" above the fireplace for a tv. That is where the cable came in. It was pretty strange since it is really high up--probably 7 feet at least to the BOTTOM of the nook space. So we rewired the cable and put the tv on the side wall. I couldn't figure out what to put in that space since it is like 5 feet across--huge! After a LONG time searching I finally found this clock which I love. It fits PERFECTLY and love it. Not just for design purposes, but I have this thing about always having to know what time it is. I think I am mildly OCD. Plus the candlesticks on the side were a cheap black set from Shopko. I recently repainted and antiqued them this nice dark turquoise color and it really bring a little pop of color up there.
Probably one of my FAVORITE things in the house (and the one thing that caused more headaches than anything else) is my picture wall. I LOVE picture walls--I think they make a house feel like a home, displaying my proudest accomplishments, my kids. I didn't want to spend a gazillion dollars on frames, but I had a ton of old dumpy mismatched frames. All the trim in my house is white--I love the crispness of it so it goes without saying I decided to go with white frames. Just so you know, spray painting dark frames white is no easy task. I won't go into it, but if you decide to do it, ask me first! I will save you some time and money. Arranging it was also a bear but I am so happy how it turned out. I love looking at this wall. Love Love Love.
Another thing I love is my dining room. Not necessarily having a dining room, but I love my table. I wanted it for years but wouldn't pay the money for it, then my friend told me that they sell it at the nicks and dents store--perfect since the table is already distressed! I called every day for probably 2 months and they finally got one it! I dropped everything and drove up there to snag it. Love it.
I also love my new centerpiece. I have developed an affinity for birds recently and saw this little guy in a shop and had to have him. I know it's a bit mix and match, but I like how I've got it set up.
I also recovered my entry bench that was black, and got a couple bird (told you I was into birds) pics for the wall. Definitely makes me happy when I come in the front door.
Besides my room (which you will see in a sec) Maggie's room is my favorite room in the house. The poor boys still have white walls and nothing interesting to decorate. We are hoping to finish the basement eventually and have them room down there so I haven't bothered doing anything with their space. But Maggie's room was that first to be done. I love the blue walls--so light and happy, with the flowers and her "castle" as she calls it (her bed). It makes me happy when I am in her room.
My fave room is my bedroom. It is awesome. I love the reading nook... I am trying hard to use color and pattern. I have been in a neutral rut for so long but I really love a more eclectic look, a mild eclectic. I would say my style is sophisticated whimsy?
Our upstairs is quite open to below and on either side of the balcony overlooking the great room are 2 alcoves. I hadn't been able to find anything I liked to put in them until a few days ago. Found these vases at Rod Works. Love the turquoise.
Okay, I recently redid some lamps for my master bedroom. I am not spending any more money on decorating right now so had to find a cheap way to do it. I forgot to take a before pic, but found 2 dollar lamps at a thrift store and redid them. They are now on my nightstands. This is basically what they looked like before...
Hopefully you can close up on the picture to see the lamps now. I wanted something fun and I am actually really happy how they turned out. I also love my bed..finally a king size!
And the best part of the house is my master shower and tub. Yes the tub takes half an hour to fill up, but it's worth it! And the shower has 7 heads, 5 of which get used daily, the other two a few times a week, mostly when the kids shower in there. I have to say, having multiple shower heads is awesome.
Well, those are my favorite things in my house, hopefully those of you who live far away can come and see it in person!

Christmas Morning

2011-12-26T09:26:00.000-08:00

I wanted to document the time so nobody thought I was exaggerating. This is after we had gotten started and I thought of it, so subtract ten minutes or so. This is also after keeping Tyler practically tied down in our bedroom for half an hour before allowing him to wake up his brothers and sister. Here we go.....Santa did indeed come. After all the worry Tyler was quite relieved. I wasn't too worried about it. I was confident he was coming. After all, we have great kids. Maggie saw her kitchen and didn't leave it alone for the next 2 hours. I bet Santa had a late night trying to put that thing together. I bet there were lots of things on it that made his frustrated too, like poor assembly directions and crooked screw holes...if I had to guess.
And even though Joey got woken up early he was having a great time claiming everyone else's gifts as his own while he ignored the things Santa left him. I am going to tell Santa to just bring us empty boxes next year. Boxes and maybe some tape and mixing spoons. Joey loves to play catch. So when he saw the ball he picked it right up and started playing.
Maggie got dishes and food to go with her kitchen.
Tyler was in heaven. He got everything he really wanted. It was a short list this year so his odds were better as far as getting his favorite things. Just look at his face.
Out of all the presents from me and Eric, grandma and Dick and everyone else, Jacob's favorite gift was this pocketknife Santa left him.

Cotton candy, yum!
As I said, Joey had a lot of fun getting into, or in this case, onto, the other kids' presents.
The boys both got scooters!

Finally Joey discovered what Santa left him, a blue rocking dog, just his size!
More presents, presents presents!

It was really a great Christmas, the kids got what they wanted, they loved their gifts, and we got to go to Church a few hours later to remember what Christmas is really all about. Tyler's verdict? "Best Christmas ever!"

Christmas Eve

2011-12-26T09:02:00.000-08:00

I am separating Christmas into sections. First comes Christmas eve at Aunt Jessica's house. I am sorry about all the pictures but I can't figure out how to do a collage. Grandma gave all the kids their new pj's. And here's the result of trying to get a picture with 8 kids in it to all look cute at the same time....

"Okay, look over here, smile! Joey joey joey!!! Smile!"
"Jake, push your hat up, look over here guys...Ashley smile...Maggie, look at the camera!"
"Okay, guys. come on, smile and look over here! Joey Joey Joey! Peek a boo! Maggie over here! Ashley smile!"
"JOEY! MAGGIE! ASHLEY, smile! Guys, look over here!"

For some reason my pictures posted out of order and I don't really feel like going through and rearranging things. So this is what you get. Eric helped out Santa with a tooth a couple months ago and Santa was so grateful he told Eric that he would come over and hang out with us and meet with the kids. Really, he was very grateful...
All the kids got a picture with him...

Santa told us the story of the Night Before Christmas. He gave each of the kids a little treat, we sang songs, but the real troopers of the night were grandpa...Santa was showing us what one of his elves look like....
And Uncle Mat. I am pretty sure Santa put spit on his forehead.....I guess Mat has been naughty this year.
Joey was very interested in the action.
Maggie was hot and cold. Half the time she didn't want to go near him, then the other half she was interrupting his story and walking up to him and talking to him.
This shot was a total coincidence. All the kids were sitting on the floor so I took a behind shot and look--you can see all 4 of my kids! Funny.
Santa telling us stories.
This is when he first arrived. I love the look on Tyler's face, pure magic.
It was such a fun night and really brought the spirit of Christmas to us.

Apart from Christmas, Maggie has decided she wants to wear lipstick. She came downstairs the other day with my lipstick all over her face. This is right after I told her she couldn't do that anymore....
She doesn't take rejection well.

And one of the boys must have taken this picture...
I just want to remember my tree that way. Yes, the boys decorated it, but they did a good job. Now, however, after Joey has gotten to it, the top half of the tree has so many ornaments you can hardly see any greenery. The bottom half? Bare.

Rewind to Thanksgiving

2011-12-26T08:46:00.000-08:00

Let's travel back in time together all the way back to Thanksgiving. We went down to St. George with Craig and Sharee for Thanksgiving weekend. It was the Swenson Family off-year (everyone has Thanksgiving at their in-laws) so we decided to crash Craig and Sharee's weekend down in sunny St. George. We had a blast. Grandpa brought his Rhino so we did a lot of exploring out in the desert. Climbing, hiking, rock collecting. You name it. The boys thought they had died and gone to heaven.

We had that Rhino packed full--Craig, Eric and Tyler in front, and me, Sharee, Maggie, Joey and Jacob in the back. I am pretty sure we exceeded the weight limit. But it is one tough little vehicle! We had planned to go to Chuck-A-Rama for Thanksgiving dinner but when we got there the line was literally wrapped around the BLOCK!!! A friend of mine went and said they waited in line almost 3 hours. We decided to ditch that idea and headed out to Mesquite for a casino buffet. I have to admit I was skeptical of the quality of a Mesquite buffet, but the one we went to was actually really good. I was pleasantly surprised. And the fact that we only waited 15 minutes or so was a major bonus.

On a side note, Joey has a new habit of falling asleep while eating lunch. I mean, mid-bite...
Poor little guy. Stay tuned for a Christmas update.

Whose behind? Mine.

2011-12-14T17:32:00.000-08:00

A whole month gone by and no blogging--time is flying! I had uploaded these pics a while ago but forgot to post them. So here's a quick recap of Swenson family life....

We went up to Temple Square in Salt Lake City for a Family Home Evening night a couple weeks ago to see the lights. They were gorgeous! As usual. It was cold so we bundled everyone up. I have to admit one of the more frustrating things in my life right now is getting kids into gloves. Anyone have any tips? Getting gloves on my kids is like trying to slip a limp fish into....well, a glove! Ugh. In spite of that, we managed to get everyone warm and cozy. I am pretty sure Joey was the most comfy of all.
Me and the kids and just a glimpse of the lights. I know, I have a conehead. But I was warm!
The kids were very interested in the Christus statue in the visitor's center. We explored a bit there and even took a quick tour of the conference center. (BTW, for all you women out there...go into the bathrooms there--more stall than you can even imagine. I think the bathroom is the size of a football field).
Here we are exploring the Visitor's Center and reading about how the church helps deliver food to those in need... Jacob was particularly interested in this. Maybe that's why he doesn't eat, because he plans to donate his food to the needy.
All in all it was a fun night and the kids were generally well behaved.

Merry Christmas from all of us!

2011-11-30T16:48:00.000-08:00

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

My Family Circus

2011-11-21T11:12:00.000-08:00

In case some of you have wondered why I named our blog the Swenson Family Circus, it is because that is exactly what it is. I took some liberties borrowing from the actual Family Circus cartoon--I should just use that as my family chronicle instead of a blog. These faves are up on my wall--they could have been snapshots from my life...

On a side note, I am sure all mothers feel my pain when I say my kids are constantly asking questions that have no answers. Or at least no answers I know of. Yesterday though, Jacob asked me a question I KNEW the answer to I thought it would be a one shot deal-one question, one answer. This is how it went down...

Jacob, holding up a gold dollar coin: Mom, how much is this?

Me: A dollar.

Jacob: No, how much is it?

Me: A dollar!

Jacob: No, mom, how MUCH is it?

Me: ONE dollar, 100 pennies.

Jacob: NO! HOW MUCH is it?

Me: Jacob, it is one dollar, that's how much it is!

Jacob, in a very exasperated tone: Mom, you just don't understand what I am talking about...

I guess not.

Guess who turned 3!!!

2011-11-14T11:38:00.001-08:00

That's right, my little Maggie-Moo is now the big 3! Maggie is so much fun. She is totally girly--will only wear skirts, loves church because it means she can dress up in her nice dresses, loves "pretties" in her hair, loves the color pink, and is our little princess. But even though she girl through and through she can hold her own with her brothers. I have to admit she has hit a bit of the "terrible twos (and threes in this case)" with her tantrums, but, hey...the girl knows what she wants. She's a little spitfire and keeps us laughing all the time. She likes to be naughty but flashes her coy smile and it melts your heart anyway. We love you Mags!

To celebrate I decided to make a rainbow cake. It started out as a lot of work (meaning dirty bowls and spoons) but was coming along nicely... Doesn't this look pretty?
Unfortunately, the pretty ended there. For some reason the cakes would NOT come out of the pans. I begged, pleaded and bribed but it was a no go. I don't know why--I've made this exact recipe before and I greased and floured the pans, but I think it may have something to do with the food coloring? I don't know. But I was...let's just say a bit annoyed since mixing all the colors took forever and lots of dirty bowls, etc. I tried to cut around the edges, scrape them out, no luck. So I finally put them back in the oven for a few minutes in the hopes it would help. After cutting off the sides and literally slamming them over and over again, and scraping with a spatula they finally came out. Needless to say they didn't look pretty. Half the cake was still in the pans. Ugh. But with a little frosting finesse I was able to mostly salvage what was left...

The inside didn't come out as pretty as I had hoped. But the recipe I used was different than the recipe for the rainbow cake (it just said to use a mix which is thicker than homemade batter so mine ran a litle). But Maggie still thought it was so pretty. And served with rainbow sherbet it still tasted like cake....with a lot of buttercream frosting filler!
Her cousins and aunts and uncles (sans the Cardons who we miss!) and grandma came over too. Sam helped Maggie open her presents...
She loved them all!

And yes, I did want her to look cuter for her party but she wasn't having it. She didn't want her hair up and she wanted to wear that outfit. I figured it wasn't worth the fight.

That may not have been worth the fight but this was...

Look closely and you will see an ENTIRE BAG of pretzels thrown all over the living room floor and crushed in pieces. This is what I came upstairs to after exercising the other day. Maggie was literally dancing on the pretzels to make them crunch, Joey was in heaven eating his heart out, and Jacob, as you can see by his guilty "uh oh" expression knew what was coming! They were all over, it was a new bag! This pic only shows half of it. Needless to say I was not happy.

On a brighter note, Tyler had his very first Pinewood Derby last week. He wanted and designed a bear car--dad and mom helped him carve and paint it (we don't trust him quite yet with the power tools). We warned his he wouldn't win because of non-aerodynamic shape, but he actually did pretty well. He won several of his races and came in around 8th out of 18. Not bad!

We all had a ton of fun and he got the award for Most Creative. Good job Ty!

Halloween

2011-11-03T14:26:00.001-07:00

I messed up and only got a picture of Jacob's pumpkin. I just didn't know Maggie was going to ruin all the pumpkins 5 minutes after I carved them. This one, however, is Jacob's. It looks AWESOME considering he did the ENTIRE thing himself--gutting, designing, and even cutting. The only thing I did was cut the top open and help him get started on the guts. I am really impressed.Tyler made a Frankenstein. He actually drew about 5 pictures on the pumpkins but they were so intricate there was no way I could carve them. Finally he drew a manageable Frankenstein but I still managed to mess it up. We salvaged it well enough. Maggie had a cute butterfly but she promptly ripped out the wings.
Maggie was "Pinkalicious" from the childrens book....
Tyler was what almost everyone else was this year it seems--Harry Potter....
Joey was a happy cow....
And Jacob was a Ninja. Awesome.
They had so much fun trick-or-treating and came home with loads of candy. By the time we got home it was pitch black and freezing out. But we still went to Aunt Katie's house for yummy food, family and MORE trick-or-treating! She has the best neighborhood for it--my boys came back with more than one full size candy bar! There was yummy soup too! Perfect for Halloween.
Another Halloween down--can't wait until I have to pick out costumes for next year! Booo aaa ha ha ha ha! (that is supposed to be an evil laugh....)

Camping at Capitol Reef

2011-11-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, it wasn't exactly "camping" considering we were staying in a house trailer with full utilities (microwave, beds, heat, toilet, etc) but it was still enjoying the outdoors. The boys had 2 days off school so we decided to take a little trip down south to Capitol Reef and do some hiking, rock throwing and collecting, and eating yummy camping food (namely s'mores, my personal favorite). We went on several hikes and the kids had a blast. There was a lot of great scenery, and cool rocks. We even found some geodes that we cracked open. Joey had the best seat in the house. He liked being up high where he could see.
Jacob and Tyler loved climbing up the rocks walls and hiding in the little cubbies. I call them cubbies because that is what Jacob said they were--cubbies for the Indian children who used to live there and go to school there a long time ago.
Maggie tried her best to keep up with the boys and, I am not going to lie, there were a few meltdowns. But after realizing she could do her own thing she calmed down a bit.
At the place where we had the trailer house there was a field where Tyler and Eric played football. The boys also played in the leaves--a treat since there were none at Fort Irwin. Joey was a pill--he wanted to walk by himself but couldn't quite maneuver the rocky terrain. That left him with a few scrapes and bruises, but he survived. We learned that, like my other boys, he has an affinity for sticks. Once he got hold of one you had better watch yourself if you tried to take it away. He was not letting ANYONE take his stick away.

I had to throw this pic in--yes, they are being nice to each other!
Joey was particularly happy when he had a sucker in hand. It didn't make mom happy since she ended up with sticky hair...
This was one of the last hikes we went on. I think it was called the Goosenecks. It was short but took you out to the edge of a huge gorge. I think the ranger said it was 800 feet deep. Seriously, about 10 feet behind the boys is a drop off into the gorge. There were moments when I actually thought I might throw up. Eric didn't seem phased but it was too much for me so I didn't let the boys play around. There was a lot of stern words from me!
Overall the trip was a success. Despite a lack of sleep at night--Joey did not want to sleep, neither did Maggie--it was a fun time. Who knows, maybe it will become a Swenson Family tradition!

Pics galore...

2011-10-19T07:56:00.000-07:00

I am short on time so lots of pics will make up for a lack of words. A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Jake asked a question I couldn't answer today. He looked at the speedometer in the van and asked what the highest number was. I said 160 mph. He said, "Wow, this car can go that fast!" I told him I didn't think the car could actually go that fast, and even if it could we could never drive it that fast because it's illegal. He asked, "Well then why do they put the numbers so high?" Seriously, right? Why do they? Like I am going to drive 160 mph down the road in my MINIVAN!? Yeah, I bought that car for speed...

A few of you have been asking to see pics of the house. It will come slowly, in installments (because I can't seem to keep it all clean with the kids running around). Here are pics of the office (to the left when you enter) and the dining room (to the right--a completely superfluous room but it came with the house so what are you gonna do?--actually we have used it several times already...)
Joey's new favorite place to play? In the innards of my paper shredder garbage. Ugh. One more thing I have to keep up on top of the desk (along with the garbage).
Last week Eric was playing football with Ty and all the neighborhood kids came to join. It was so cute to see Eric making plays with the kids. The kids all had so much fun. I've got the coolest hubby!

Even though there are only a few kids shown there were about 8 kids here...playing football in our tiny yard!

On Monday we met some friends at the Red Barn. It is a little south of our house and they have a pumpkin patch and stuff.
We all got to take a hayride down to the pumpkin patch.

We let the kids each pick out a pumpkin. It turned out to be way colder than we were prepared for. We better get used to winter quick...it's coming!
Here are most of the kids. They had a little kid-sized "corn maze." It was really made out of that wood behind them, but they loved it. Plus it was easy enough for them do to alone, I've been stuck in a corn maze once--they can be impossible to get out of! Of course I didn't call 911 like a lady did in Utah the other day!
By the end of the night it was FREEZING and poor Joey was wrapped up in Ty's jacket (I guess I should say poor Ty...) I love Joey's face here. He's thinking, "Why in the world am I out late in the pitch black and freezing cold? You do remember I am a baby, don't you?!?!?!"
The hayride back to the barn from the pumpkin patch.

Inside the barn they have the world's best ice cream...literally. Lots of treats and HUGE pumpkins. Look at the size of that thing.
It was a fun night with friends, pumpkins, treats and hayrides. How could we go wrong? Definitely a yearly tradition for us...starting now.

So sweet...

2011-10-14T06:41:00.000-07:00

Here is a conversation between me and Jacob yesterday...

Me: How are you liking school?

Jacob: I like it, but sometimes I feel sad when I go to school.

Me: Why do you feel sad?

Jacob: Because sometimes I want to stay home.

Me: Why do you want to stay home? You said you liked school.

Jacob: I like school, but I like you better.

What a cutie.

Catch Up

2011-10-01T12:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's time to play catch up. I usually don't wait so long between posts but I guess I've dropped the ball here. Really our lives have been made up of school, football and soccer. We did take a break to hike Stewart Falls. Me and Tyler and Jake went with Jessica and Cory and their girls and Grandma Sharee on this fun hike. The boys loved it and thought they were very "outdoorsy". It was a good hike and the falls were cool. The kids had a blast playing in the water to cool off.Joey's been keeping us busy too. His favorite spot of destruction is this kitchen cabinet...
He always heads straight for it and pulls everything out that he can. You think I'd learn and stop putting stuff in it, but I haven't yet. I figure it is something safe for him to play in. Kids are going to get into something and if he's satisfied with this instead of chemicals and dishes (he already broke one of my nice Corningware dishes) then so be it.

He did have a birthday on September 18th. My baby is ONE! I can't believe it. We had family over for a BBQ and had lots of treats. He was fascinated by the candle on the cake and kept trying to grab it. Me and Uncle Cory were on the ball so no burns.
He loved to look at the cake but, wouldn't you know, he wouldn't put a bite of it in his mouth. Just like his brother Jake. He was a little leery of the presents...
But maybe that was just because he was accosted by all the kids. Poor little guy!
Last weekend we decided on the spur of the moment to borrow Craig's boat and go fishing. The kids had fun, but there wasn't a fish to be seen. Of course, me kids are always happy when there is yummy snacks around.
Tyler is looking more and more like a legitimate fisherman!

And in-between all Tyler's football games we have Jacob's soccer. He LOVES it. He hustles the whole game, gets right in the action and is doing so great at it. I love it--watching a bunch of kindergartners play soccer is really quite entertaining.

Well, that's all for now. I will try to be better about keeping up. But pretty much if you are wondering what we are up to, I am either at a football game, soccer game, cleaning up after the kids, making them food or doing laundry. Yep, sounds about right! And having a whole lot of fun in between!

First Day of School!

2011-09-02T06:51:00.000-07:00

It has finally arrived (a few days late). Summer is officially over and school has begun. I now have TWO boys in school who are both very excited about it. Jacob has been asking for a couple weeks, incessantly, "How many more days until school?" He had to be extra patient and wait a whole week to start after Tyler started but he made it through. Here he is on his big day...Tyler was also very excited to go back to school. He likes his teacher a lot and also already knows some people in his class. This year we are implementing a "school shoes/play shoes" policy. Ty goes through shoes faster than anyone else I have ever seen. So we decided to buy him shoes for school only and then he has to change into his nasty play shoes after school. Hopefully this will save us having to buy new shoes in a month! So far so good.
With the boys back in school life is getting back some of its regimen. School, homework, Tyler in football, scouts and guitar lessons, and Jacob starting soccer. We definitely have a lot to keep us busy this year...can't wait until next summer!

Lake Powell

2011-08-14T16:44:00.000-07:00

Home for a bit and now it's back to traveling! This was our last big trip before school starts but it was a great one--we spent 3 days down at Lake Powell. 3 days of fun filled with swimming, eating, boating, eating, exploring, eating, wave-runnering (I know it isn't a word), spending time with fmaily, more swimming and more eating! We all had a blast! And no, we didn't throw Joey overboard... thanks to Katie and Mat who so graciously volunteered to watch him for us. It made for a much more enjoyable time!

Doing some swimming in the perfect-temperature water...
Although I can't seem to keep Maggie away from the water everyhere else, she did NOT want to get in the water at Lake Powell unless it was right along the shore. Luckily we found a great campsite with a shallow pool where the little ones loved to play. Here is one of the rare instances Aunt Jessica managed to cajole her into the water.
For those who haven't been Lake Powell scenery can't be beat--most of the Lake is bordered by sheer cliffs--it is awesome and gorgeous! For a little perspective, here is Eric and Kaylee and Ashley swimming toward one--the cliff goes another 100 feet up!
Jake having a good time...
Tubing and "Hot-Dogging" (Maggie loved the hot dog--and Mom loved riding it wither her since Uncle Cory couldn't go too fast!)
Here is the little shallow pool by our "campsite" (we were lucky enough to have a houseboat for luxury thanks to the Hiatts). The kids loved to pretend to ride on the wave-runners. After sitting on it and pretending to drive Jacob turns to Eric and asks, "Does this have missiles?"
Kaylee and Tyler were great explorers--finding all kinds of fish bones and building a cool fort from driftwood. They even set up a Lake Powell museum and play for us all!
I had to put this picture in since it is pretty much the only picture with me in it....pretty sad huh? But it does show the cool canyons...
Cliff jumping was a favorite of the trip--Jacob and Tyler are awesome jumpers. It took some convincing to get Ty to jump but once he did he wouldn't stop--and he just got braver and braver as you will see.
Let's make it a family affair...
We did have some TIRED kiddos!
Maggie finally decided she would get in the water as long as she had her "tube."
So Tyler got pretty brave jumping--braver than me or Eric! Look at him go!
Just for a little perspective this is him before jumping at the top of the cliff--INSANE! You are probably thinking I am a terrible mother for letting him jump this high....and you are probably right.
Taken the last day of our trip just exploring and enjoying the general splendor of it all.
Overall a great trip with great people--a winning combo!

Tyler's Baptized!

2011-08-09T07:20:00.000-07:00

It's official, I now have a child at the age of accountability! Tyler was baptized on Saturday. It was really nice--my mom was able to come out and see it and most of Eric's family was there too. We tried to get a family picture...this is the best we got...Look at those two handsome guys!
And Maggie was being so cute--she has this little closed mouth coy smile that is so adorable.
One more shot before the big event. Tyler was a little nervous but he did great. Although he said he didn't feel different after being baptized, he just "felt wet."
We had a little lunch at our house after where apparently we got everyone in the family sick...oops. Sorry everyone! It was a great day for us all. Well, one down and three more to go!

World Travelers

2011-08-02T17:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, maybe "world" travelers is an overstatement, but we have been traveling a lot! Eric's been traveling back and forth to California for a training course several times. While he was gone, I took the kids up to the Lee (Sharee's family) Family Reunion in Idaho. It was actually pretty fun (I only say that because, let's be honest, most family reunions are a bit lame). There was more candy there than in Willy Wonka's factory, and that combined with the plethora of blow-up water playthings made sure my kids had a blast. Joey enjoyed his very first sucker, under the watchful eye of Aunt Hillary...

The trip was a success. Soon after, or before--things have been a blur--we had Tyler's birthday party--LEGO themed. It was all things LEGO, LEGO chopsticks, building LEGO cars, LEGO candy towers, LEGO races, even a LEGO cake.

The cake didn't turn out quite as cute as I pictured it in my head, but the kids didn't care so neither did I.

Not long after that we headed to California to visit my mom. It was great because my sister and her family were down there as well so it was like our own little family reunion! Of course a trip to southern CA isn't complete without the beach...

Diving in waves...
Getting sand EVERYWHERE (picture me sighing and rolling my eyes...I mean really, how do kids get sand in places I didn't even know existed...plus you find it for weeks afterward...I think if there were ever a nuclear holocaust all that would survive would be sand sand sand...)

Finding cool treasures along the shore...(the highlight was a lobster tentacle)
My feeble attempts to get Joey to like to sit in the water...it was a "no-go".
Bathing in the warm sun....(I couldn't see Maggie for a moment then found her sun-bathing in another kid's sand pit).
We did lots of other fun stuff, like Pretend City kid's museum and playing in grandma's hot tub. But of course I didn't get any pictures of those things. We also took our little family (me, Eric and the kids) to San Diego for a night. We spent the first day at Sea World then the next day Eric had to go to another conference. You will be very impressed to hear that instead of going straight back up to my mom's house I braved an adventure with the kids all by myself. There is a "retired" aircraft carrier in San Diego called Midway. I have always wanted to see it and thought the boys would think it was cool so I decided to give it a go. Aren't you impressed? It was a relative success, all things considered, but little did I know I would be climbing up and down what they call "stairways" despite the fact they are as steep as ladders. Talk about nerve wracking watching Maggie climb up and down the million stairways with me trying to be prepared to catch her if she fell, all the while having Joey in the carrier sling on my hip. Phew! More than a few beads of swear fell from my brow that day--and not just from the workout! But it was pretty cool. The boys loved it. And you will be even more in awe of me when you see that I actually took a few pictures to boot!

Here the boys are trying their hardest to get the ship to move--and yes, that is Maggie's leg sticking up at the bottom. She decided it would be more fun to breakdance at the controls rather than steer. Remind me never to get on a boat with her in charge.
The boys loved sitting in the fighter jet cockpits.
Here is a view of one of the "stairways". This is not just the angle of the camera--they really are that steep.
We spent over 2 1/2 hours there and still didn't see the whole thing--it just kept going and going! But by the end Joey was kaput and wouldn't stop screaming no matter how much I jingled my keys in front of him. So we called it a day (morning) and headed back up to my mom's for one last afternoon of hot-tubbing (kid style of course). And left the next morning to come home.

So here we are back in real life for a couple days, then my mom comes out here for Tyler's baptism in a few days, then it is off to Lake Powell, then not too long after that school starts. Phew! I am worn out just writing this! But I love it--a summer crammed full of fun-ness is the best way to go!

Summer Fun

2011-07-18T16:53:00.000-07:00

Did you know that I live in a castle? It must be a castle because there is a princess who lives here. I can prove it, I got a picture of her eating Goldfish crackers in her Cinderella ball gown...On to more annoying things, when we first moved in there were some sparrows building a nest above our porch. They were working so hard and were almost done so I decided to let them be. Biggest mistake of my life. Little did I know they would have 5 babies, who would then grow into birds themselves, and all 7 of them together would create the biggest poop factory anyone has ever seen. It is truly a shame bird poop isn't worth anything--I'd have been a millionaire. I caught a pic of the little rascals before they flew the coop. Mom and dad aren't home right now...
You can bet that nest was knocked down the day those birdies could fly! I won't make that mistake next summer!

For the fourth of July we went to see the hot air balloon show in Provo. Eric was running a race so we decided to get up early and go with him. While he sweated blood and tears we sat enjoying the show, but unfortunately right as the balloons were getting up the wind picked up and they had to take them all down. A bit of a let down.
But we still had a good time hanging out. Plus we went out for breakfast after and anytime my kids get pancakes and bacon they are happy campers.
We also took a little day trip (day for us, overnight for others) up the canyon. The kids had a blast exploring and riding in the Rhino. Maggie was particularly cute, as always.
She loves the Rhino so much she spent most of her time climbing up into it and buckling herself in even though there was no one to drive her.
Back to home, I was upstairs and happened to look over the balcony and saw this...
Now what do you think could possibly be so enticing as to entertain all four children at once? My iPhone. Best money I ever spent! Even Joey was in on the action. It was so cute.

Ode to Jo(e)y

2011-07-12T12:22:00.001-07:00

Poor Joey...he is so neglected as far as picture taking goes! So I am dedicating this post to him. It's not that I don't mean to take pictures of him, my intentions are good, but to happen upon those cute moments, when the rest of the kids are not in my hair, when I have the camera close...well, it's like the stars need to align. Not to mention the fact that picture are almost always disappointing since they rarely capture children's cuteness. But I will try to be more diligent about capturing Joey's adorable-ness on camera so that he can't hold me accountable for all his problems when he's older because he was a neglected child.

Joey can be a little ornery at times...but usually as long as he is the center of attention he is okay. This sad face is because he is sick. Doesn't it make your heart break? Poor little guy.
Joey is growing so fast it makes me nostalgic already--he is almost a toddler and not a baby anymore. Boo hoo.
His favorite new pastime is showing off his skills at stair climbing. I keep finding him trying to climb up my big flight of wooden stairs--not very child friendly. Twice I have found him all but two or three stairs from the top--can you say HEART ATTACK! I swear I am not a neglectful mother, but he is fast! You can see that look in his eye here at the bottom of the stairs thinking about how excited he is to be climbing up the stairs!
He is such a sweet little chunk of a thing. I just want to squish him.

Anyway, there is my tribute to Joey, a sweet, attention loving, people person baby, soon to be toddler. You gotta love him.

A few new things

2011-06-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

I have been such a slacker about taking pictures lately. I don't know why but life seems so much busier in Utah. Before I know it my days are gone. But busy is good, I'd rather be busy than bored.

Maggie looked so cute for church the other day and I tried to get a cute picture but she refuses to be still so this is the best I got. The image I had in my head of the way I wanted it to look was better, but this one is okay too!
Doesn't this look like a dangerous shot? Tyler's legs are through the railing overlooking downstairs. Looks like he is about to jump off!
We went to the park to feed the ducks at Salem Pond, but to my surprise and the kids' disappointment there were no ducks to be had. Well, I guess that's not entirely true--there was a mama ducks with 4 ducklings but they didn't want anything to do with us or our stale bread. Oh well. The kids played at the small park there (did I mention it was small? and old--it still has a metal slide--those of us born before 1980 remember those burned bottoms!) and Tyler was my swing pusher!
Joey had fun watching the kids play. Luckily he was happy in his stroller for most of the time. He is such a fun little chunk. I just love to squish and squeeze him!
And Jacob showed us all his penchant for the monkey bars--I had to watch him every time he went across--which was many many many times.
My kids had some so-called "washable" colored bubbles that they have been waiting to play with once the weather warmed up. They decided to get them out the other day and I agreed thinking it would be fun and keep them occupied while I tried to sweep away some of the dirt from our sod laying party. Well, I was thinking "colored bubbles" would just be lightly tinted or something along those lines. Boy was I ever wrong. Look what happened...

They were absolutely covered. In blue, green and orange. And so was my driveway--oh, and the "washable" claim? Untrue. I even had my brother-in-law spray off the stains with a power washer and they are still there. Lighter, but there. Ugh. I even made sure to read the bottle first and it said, and I quote, "Rinse off asphalt and concrete with a garden hose." Ummmm, sorry Crayola--I should sue them for false advertising. What a mess. Plus I had little orange handprints all along the wall in the garage. Ugh again.

With all the business going on, we've gotten creative with Joey. Here he is playing in the back of the van while I sprayed (tried to) the bubbles off the drive.
And just yesterday the boys were in charge of watching Joey while I was cleaning up and I came upstairs to this.....
They had put Joey in their laundry basket (it was empty of dirty clothes, thank goodness) with some toys to keep him happy. And guess what? He sat in there happy as a clam for a good half hour at least. He probably would've stayed in longer if I hadn't gone and gotten him to change his diaper. Who knew?

I've got some catchin' up to do...

2011-06-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

Where does time go? It seems like the older I get the faster and faster it passes. I promise to make an effort to post more frequently! We're mostly settled here in our new house. A few things left with the house but they are small, and the yard is in the process of completion. It still looks like an empty dirt plot but now there are sprinklers under that dirt. Hooray!

It has finally stopped raining so much and the kids have been loving playing outside. They are getting pretty creative too....notice Jake's addition to his scooter.... Yes, those are deer antlers.
Joey is growing like a weed. I don't get many pics of him, partly because I am busy but it is mostly because he starts crying whenever people leave his side. So he will be doing something cute, but as soon as I get up to get the camera he starts crying...and that means no more photo-op of cuteness. But if he's around people he's usually relatively happy. Big smile, love it. And he has the BEST laugh of any little baby, as you will see later.
Noteworthy happenings: Jacob learned to ride a 2-wheeler. It took about 2 minutes. Nice. Now we can't get him off his bike!
There was a little carnival at Tyler's school. Lots of fun activities. Here are the boys jousting. I am thinking about buying one of these for the basement--you know, as a way for the boys to work out some aggression.
There was a little "train" made from a tractor pulling these cute cars....
Jacob turned 5! He had a party with old friends, new friends and family. It was great. The prize for favorite present goes to Aunt Jessica and family with the pillow pet alligator. He does love all his presents though.
As I mentioned the yard is currently under construction. Uncle Cory has been over doing the sprinkler system for us. What's great about Cory is that even though I am sure he'd like to just get the job done, he always takes the time to let the kids have some fun--Tyler got to drive the Bobcat and here they are getting a ride in the bucket...
We went out to Winger's restaurant last week or whenever (my brain is in some kind of time warp) and my kids were TERRIBLE! And when I say that, I mean it! Usually my kids are just okay at restaurants. Not great but not horrible, after all, they are only 1/2, 2, 5 and 7. I can't expect little angels. But they were downright devils! It was so bad it was comical. Literally Eric and I were laughing about it--only because we were at an early lunch and we were the only people in the place. I did catch them in a sweet, quickly fleeting, moment.
Tyler is playing coach pitch baseball. He is really enjoying it and doing well. I will take some pics at the next game--I usually have to drag all the kids to the game by myself because Eric is still at work so picture taking takes a back seat. But I did get this great one at a game Eric was able to attend--Joey loved hanging on to the fence. It was the only way we could keep him happy. Look how cute...
Besides a bunch of dirt, my backyard also has a big hole--actually it is all ready for the in-ground trampoline. But it looks like the kids don't care about the jumping, they have just as much fun playing in the hole!
I couldn't find Maggie yesterday and I found her in the garage. She had put her helmet on herself....
We went to a fun park and had a picnic with cousins. Just a few snapshots....

All Maggie wants to do at the park is swing....the whole time.
Joey's first time on a swing; he liked it!
Tyler on a spinning seat--they spin by themselves and make you (me) very dizzy!
And today I made a chocolate cake to bring to a dinner at a friend's house (yes, i am starting to make friends...hooray!) and I walked in the kitchen to find this... little stinker.
And last, but not least, do you remember earlier when I said Joey has the best laugh? Here's the proof...

Who's the Boss?

2011-05-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

Life has been really busy these past few weeks, but the house is getting put together and that makes me happy! I will post some pics soon, but today I just wanted to share a couple funny things.

A couple days ago Tyler said to me, "Mom, did you know there is a boy at school who like the color hot pink?" I responded, "Really?" Tyler: "Yeah, he said he likes hot pink because he likes hot girls." I had to pause for a minute and let that sink in...that a 7-year-old class mate of Tyler's is talking about hot girls. Then, just to see how innocent my sweet little boy is, asked, "What's a hot girl?" Tyler: "It's a girl who is really really cute." Oh dear..he's only 7! Boy am I going to be in trouble...

Jacob's birthday is in a few days. I asked him what kind of party he wanted.... He wants a rhinocerous beetle themed party. Could you expect anything less from Jacob?

Then this morning I overheard the boys talking at breakfast. Jacob said, "I am in charge of myself." to Tyler. Then together the boys discussed the topic. It didn't take them long to come to the conclusion (Tyler is saying this): "Maggie's in charge of Joey, you (Jacob) is in charge of Maggie, I (Tyler) am in charge of you (Jacob), Dad's in charge of me, and [pause for effect] mom is in charge of dad." I have trained my little padowans well.....

Catching up....

2011-05-01T14:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I know it has been a while and for that I am sorry. Life has been extremely busy and hectic and crazy the past month. We are now moved into our new house in Utah (pictures to follow--the house isn't put together yet so it will be a little bit longer) and Tyler is loving school and the neighborhood. There are tons of kids here. Just a bit of brief catching up..

Tyler was in flag football before we left Fort Irwin--he loved it! He was totally into every game and his team was awesome--they were undefeated. It was nice to see him in a sport he loved.
Our last couple weeks there, we had to cram in a few activities--you know, the kind you keep telling yourself you will get to but then the end comes around and you realize you still haven't done them! We went to the Fort Irwin Museum, pretty interesting! The kids loved the tanks outside the building...who wouldn't?
Then we climbed all over the painted rocks. If you've been to Fort Irwin you know exactly what I am talking about--as you pull into post there is a huge rock pile, more like boulders, all painted by the units that have come through Fort Irwin. There a ton of them, and a ton of rocks. Some are pretty badly weather beaten, some are okay, but some are just dang awesome. The pile is pretty high but the boys went hog wild--climbing as high as they could get. It was so much fun...this is one activity I wish we had done more of. Free + Fun = My kind of afternoon.

As per Fort Irwin tradition, we made a stop on our last day there as a family to "Kiss the Coyote." First a family shot (sans Dad who had to take the picture...)
Now the kissing...
Maggie didn't quite grasp the concept. She just kept looking at the camera saying, "Cheese!" And I told the boys to watch out for any bird droppings!

After some stressful days of repainting, packers and movers we got checked out and off we headed to Utah. We stopped off for a few days as my mom's, which the kids loved of course. On to Utah, we stayed with Eric's parents for a couple weeks which was very very generous of them. Finally got into our house and are still in the process of unpacking. As I said earlier, I will got some house pictures once it is put together more.

Yesterday we ran (walked) in a 5K fund raiser Hope for Sarah. It is for a woman, Sarah, who has stomach cancer. She knows Jessica's family (Eric's sister) and so we decided to do it as a family. We got up Saturday morning and it was freezing! Even snowing a bit. (I never thought I'd miss Fort Irwin heat, but...) But we decided to brave it anyway...we're creating memories, right? So we bundled up...
Got our numbers...(Right after this pic Jacob asked Eric, "What's this number? Is that how fast I am?" So cute.)

Tried to convince Joey we weren't crazy for getting him out there in the cold...
And set off running. Eric ran ahead and finished in about 7th place I think. He did well, Tyler ran ahead and I lost track, I lagged behind with Maggie, Joey and Jacob (yeah, I wondered how I got stuck with that lot myself....). Turns out Tyler is a running fool! He ran the whole way and did so good--beat a lot of grown-ups! You can see a bunch of adults behind him and this was at the end of the race. We were really proud he did so well and tried to hard.
Well, as you can guess, we've done a lot more than this, but I have got to take baby steps to get back into my routine. So for now, this is what you get. But just know we are having a good time here, but miss all our friends in California a LOT LOT LOT! Hope to see some of them soon....

Parting is such sweet sorrow

2011-03-16T19:54:00.001-07:00

Our time here at Fort Irwin is now drawing to a close, another chapter of our lives ended. We are definitely excited about our future, and some of you may think that we are elated in every possible way to leave our isolated desert home. But in truth, leaving Fort Irwin is bittersweet.

No, I will not miss having to fill 4 callings at church and having Sundays be my busiest day of the week. I will not miss 120 degree temps in the summer when even a dip in the pool can't make the heat less unbearable. I will not miss driving over and hour just to go out to eat (or anything else)...and that is to Denny's anyway. I will not miss a house so cramped we have a baby sleeping in the closet. I will not miss the grocery store (commissary) that has only slightly more selection than a 7-11. I will not miss the tank target practice rumbling my walls and knocking things off my shelves. And I won't miss the constant control the army keeps over our lives.

But, I will miss all my wonderful friends I have made here. I will miss the beautiful sunsets that I get a perfect view of from my back porch. I will miss the excitement in my children's eyes when they watch the helicopters zoom overhead (by the way, that never gets old). I will miss the mild winters when I can take my kids to the park. I will miss the serenity and quietness that comes with living in the desert. But most of all I will miss this place for the mere fact that this is where my family grew up. When we got here, we were a family of four, and Jacob was barely over a year old. We've added 4 years onto our married life, doubled our kids, and they call this place home. Tyler spent the bulk of his "little-boyhood" here. We've got great friends who will be dearly missed and are required to visit us every time they are in Utah (you know who you are...). Fort Irwin has been a challenge at times, but overall she has treated our family well. We will always look back on this time in our lives with a tender spot in our hearts for Fort Irwin....just don't think that means we would EVER come back!!!

Our kids when we moved here...

Our kids now...

My how time flies....

Rhyme Time

2011-03-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

Jacob is really into rhyming right now. Yesterday he came up to me and said, "You know a rhea, the big bird? Like from Diego? That rhymes with diarrhea." Nice.

Out of order

2011-03-09T07:57:00.000-08:00

Okay, so all the pics in this post are out of order, but I am short on time so it will have to suffice. I am confident in all of your ability to figure out what goes where.

I have to say first that life is speeding along at breakneck pace. I keep thinking it is Tuesday when it is Friday, that it is still the beginning of March when it is closer to the middle, and can't believe in less than 2 weeks we will be out of Fort Irwin for good, that my oldest will be baptized in a few months and that my little newborn is 6 months old! Where does the time go?

The other day was Dr. Suess' birthday (I am sure those of you with little kids knew that from all the stuff they did at school about it...) and Jacob's class got to make big Cat in the Hat hats at school. He brought it home and left it on the desk. A few minutes later I couldn't find Maggie so I walked around to the front room and saw this--I couldn't stop laughing for at least 3 minutes....
I haven't posted too many pics lately, so here is a spotlight of each wonderful child.

Joey is a chunk and a half. He loves to eat all the time--he outgrew all of his 6 month clothes a month and a half early. He is a total people person--hates to be alone, but loves to watch his brothers and sister play even though they often end up injuring him in some way with a bonk in the head or stepping on a hand. When he smiles his whole face lights up and his mouth opens hugely wide. It just melts your heart....even though he keeps my up at night!
Tyler isn't a little boy anymore--he is big grown-up kid. He loves to be independent. He is very social and is friends with just about everyone at Fort Irwin. He won an award at school for "Sharing and Caring" and when other kids got called up for their awards there was normal applause--when Ty was called up the auditorium erupted in "WOOHOO!"s and "GO TYLER!"s. He's a rock star! Plus he is so tender-hearted--it makes it more difficult at times but it also makes him so considerate and sweet and caring.
Maggie can definitely hold her own with her brothers. She is a little sassy girl. She has to have so much stuff in bed with her at night that it leaves little room for her to sleep--2 blankets, 4 baby dolls, at least one book, a huge stuffed dog, My Little Ponies, etc. I try to sneak away without giving her one of her items but she always knows. She keeps up with her older brothers amazingly well, but still loves all things girly including the color pink. If it's pink, it's Maggie's.
And Jacob is as Jacob'y as always. He is loud, excited about life and seems to have more vigor than his body can handle sometimes. So he always keeps our life interesting. He is a wonderful helper--always bringing diapers, getting things, and helping clean up. He always helps take care of Maggie and Joey, and loves playing with Joey too. He is very smart--his teachers always tell me that he is very smart, social, and they love having him in their class. We love having him as part of our family too.
I mean, seriously, how could anyone not love these guys?

One good thing about living in the desert is that it is outdoor weather 99% of the time. Yesterday was one of those days when it was sunny (as always) and 70 degrees so we went out back and rode bikes/scooters. The kids love playing outside--I will miss being able to go outside all winter long once we are living in Utah. Maggie got a new scooter for Christmas and she loves it! They played so well together...one of those rare moments when there is no fighting over toys or whose turn it is. It was jut a nice afternoon. Love it. Jacob gave us a preview of a song he is learning about kindergarten. The kids love to be filmed--it is so funny!

Dance Party

2011-02-16T16:27:00.000-08:00

At our house we often have "Dance Parties." It usually happens when I am out of things for the kids to keep busy with and they are beginning to get a little crazy. I blast some good dance tunes and we all expend a bit of pent up energy. Maggie has always loved a good beat--the girl can rock! After our dance party we all feel a little better about things. I highly recommend it. Another video for your viewing pleasure...

Fairytales...

2011-01-29T08:44:00.000-08:00

I am convinced that the person who wrote "Cinderella" had to be a mother. A mother of little kids. Kids who, though are fully capable of doing things on their own, insist on calling, "Mom! Mo-om! MOOOOOOMMMM! MOM, MOM, MOM!" for every little thing. Jacob is the biggest culprit, though Tyler does come into my room at 6 a.m. every morning just to tell me he is "just going to the bathroom"--so glad he wakes me up to share that. But yesterday Jacob was in a particularly "Mom-calling" mood. Every five minutes I heard him call for me, and if I didn't answer 5 seconds BEFORE he called for me he would call repeatedly and insistently--"Mom?" "MOM!" "MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM" You get the idea. It was driving me a little bonkers and I kept picturing in my head the song the mice from "Cinderella" sing--

"Cinderella, Cinderella night and day it's 'Cinderella', do the dishes, do the shopping, they always keep her hopping.....She goes around in circles 'til she's very very dizzy, still they holler 'Keep a' busy! Cinderell-y".

I totally sympathize with poor Cinderella. I told Jacob that I was changing my name from 'Mom" to 'Fred.' He looked at me quizically, then after a minute said, "Mom." Ugh. I told him I was taking the rest of the day off--doesn't Cinderella get to do that? Maybe in fairytales.

Growing Up

2011-01-20T07:28:00.000-08:00

I swear, every day I look at my kids and think how quickly they are growing up! All the kids love Joey and they are really very helpful. Maggie's job is bringing me diapers and then taking the dirty ones outside--she gets really mad if I do it myself. Hey, if she wants to take stinky diapers outside, then more power to her!As some of you may be aware, Jacob is probably the pickiest eater in the world. Eric and I are honestly surprised that he is actually growing. I go by the book--he can have cereal or waffles for breakfast, I make him something he likes for lunch, but for dinner he has to eat what I make. I don't think he has eaten dinner in over a year (do you remember the soup incident referred to in an earlier blog entry?). I keep sticking to it and experts keep saying that if you stick to it your child will learn to eat dinner. Well, they didn't plan on Jacob. So my new tactic is having him help me make dinner (which he enjoys doing anyway) and then maybe he'd be more likely to try it. I tried it first with a white chicken chili...
He actually tried it and said he liked it! But to my disappointment he still only ate a couple bites. Then I tried again the next night, but it wasn't as successful. Oh well, I guess I will keep plugging away!

Joey is getting so big! Of course when I see him alone he looks big, but next to his brothers he looks small. He is starting to laugh more and you can see glimpses of the fun stage that is coming up when they are very playful. Still waiting for him to sleep through the night though.
One last thing. Do you ever find something your kids have done and just laugh and admire their creativity? Late last night I went upstairs to go to bed and the light in the boys' bathroom was on. So I went in to turn it off and found this...
You may have to look closely, but he wrote "T-rex" on top, then actually composed a picture of a t-rex out of q-tips, a comb (the body), and floss picks (the hind leg and tail). He even included a small upper arm, neck and head. All in all it is a darn good representation of a t-rex, even drawn mostly to scale. I just wonder at his creativity--what on earth made him think to do that? He even signed his name "TY" at the bottom. You gotta love it...

Funny Story...

2011-01-09T08:27:00.000-08:00

Two funny things happened yesterday. First, we went down the the outlets to do a little light shopping. We realized after a while that Maggie had lost her shoe. I retraced our steps, went into all 4 stores we had been in looking around and asking salespeople but no one had seen it. Eric and I resigned to the fact it was lost, but considered ourselves lucky we were at the outlets so we could buy her a new pair (the outlets are the closest place to buy kids shoes--and they are an hour away!). We headed to Skechers and found the exact same pair she had (we love them) and bought them. Then we had Jacob take the lone old shoe and toss it in the garbage. Not 5 minutes later I was searching for something in the stroller and lo and behold I found, in one of our shopping bags, the other lost shoe. Ugh. So I ran back to Skechers while Eric got the kids in the car. I didn't see where Jacob threw the other one away, but Eric said it was in the garbage can under the ladder inside the Skechers store. So I hurry back, and start digging through the trash can under the ladder...no shoe! I wondered how it could have disappeared so quickly--until I turned around and saw 6, count them...6 ladders with trash cans underneath them. Oh brother. By the time I was digging through the 3rd trash can a salesperson suspiciously asked, "Ummm, can I help you?" I explained and we finally found the shoe in the 5th can, of course. I returned the new pair.

Then later we stopped at McDonald's for dinner to keep the kids happy for the long ride home. I guess to preface I should tell everyone that Jacob talks loud. And I don't just mean a little bit, or sometimes, he ALWAYS talks VERY LOUD, almost like he is shouting all the time. It is annoying and funny at the same time. So in McDonald's he was explaining that he wanted, "CHICKEN NUGGETS WITH THE SAUCE AND FRENCH FRIES TOO AND A MIXED SODA!" Eric and I laughed a little and I replied, mimicking his loud voice, "OKAY JACOB!" Then Jacob gets quiet, looks and me and says, "Mom, you don't have to yell."

Christmas!

2011-01-03T11:14:00.000-08:00

So to start, I must tell you about Jacob's rock collection. Tyler has started collecting nice polished rocks, so Jacob wanted his own collection. He decided to make it himself--he goes out all the time and finds "cool" rocks--even walking into church he bends over and picks up a few and puts them in his pocket. He has them all laid out over the table on our patio and loves to go outside and stare at them. It is amazing because he actually remembers each rock, has favorites, tells me where he got them, etc. It is so cute. And he is in heaven here--no shortage of rocks at Fort Irwin!Before we left on our adventures for the holidays, we built a gingerbread house. Can you guess how long it lasted? Well, Maggie ate the candy as it was being built, and by the end of the night the house was half demolished. By the next day any edible parts were gone...can you say sugar high? At least they had fun making it.
Jacob had his preschool Christmas program. He looked so cute. He sang louder than most other kids and knew all the movements. I met with his teacher a few weeks ago and she said he is really good in class--follows directions, helps other kids, is very smart, etc. She went on and on and it made me so proud! Jacob has always been very intense and it could have easily gone the other way with his behavior. He is such a funny kid. On the way home from Utah in the car he was very upset and kept growling and yelling, "My eyebrow is crooked!" It was very upsetting to him and I still have no idea what he was talking about...

First, the kids and I took off to my mom's for a few days. My sister and her family came down from the Bay Area and we got to spend some time together. It was great, except that everyone got sick. Jacob was throwing up (and never seemed to make it to the toilet) and the rest had coughs/colds. But we still managed to have a good time. Santa even came over to visit! Well, okay, it was only one of Santa's helpers, but he brought some good gifts!
Sorry not too many pics. But then I came home, unpacked, repacked and left for Utah. The kids had a blast playing in the snow. All except for Maggie. She was sick while we were there and made sure everyone knew how miserable she felt...what a pain! She was also sleep deprived. We got all the kids ready to go play in the snow and while I was getting something she actually fell asleep on the floor in all her snow gear. Poor little thing.
So Mags stayed home but the boys went sledding. By the way, I don't think there is anything more frustrating than putting gloves on kids... They had so much fun! They were troopers too--hiking their sleds back up the huge hill. Sometimes they got one of the snowmobilers to pick them up too which was nice.

Christmas Eve we all went to my sister-in-law Katie's house. Grandma Swenson gave all the kids pj's--here's the best pic I got (excluding Joey).
Christmas morning came and Santa didn't forget us. The kids were up bright and early (and I do mean early). They actually took some time opening their gifts so the unwrapping lasted more than a couple minutes, which was nice. Tyler's favorite gift was one Santa brought--Beyblades. Now, unless you have a boy ages 6-10 you probably have no idea what these are, but I firmly believe there is no kid on earth right now who loves Beyblades as much as Tyler does! It is rubbing off on Maggie too--she keeps taking them and yelling, "My beybade!" It is kind of funny...Tyler doesn't think so.
Jacob loves his remote control car...
And Maggie loves her Sing-a-ma-jig. I have to admit, that one is pretty cute!
We went up to visit my grandpa as well. It was great to see him. He loved seeing his great-grand-kids. Tyler was particularly sweet. He tried to make grandpa feel good by making comments about his nice view from his window and even told him that he had a nice bathroom! We went out to lunch and Tyler held his hand out of the restaurant. I didn't even ask him to! It sure made great-grandpa happy. Can you believe he is 92?
I won't go into too much more detail, except to say we had fun even though the kids were sick. It is always great to spend time with family and we can't wait until we move back there in a couple months. The kids had a blast with cousins, and by the end of the week we were all worn out, including dad...
So Merry Christmas everyone, even if it is a little late.

P.S. It snowed here at Fort Irwin! But by the time I got my camera ready to go it had all melted....oh well.

One more moment to boast....

2010-12-11T20:33:00.000-08:00

about my kids. Jacob had a Thanksgiving program at school a couple weeks ago. On the board they had a big turkey and each feather had a saying, "I am thankful for..." and the child's name on it. All the other feathers said things like "toys" "ice cream" "candy" etc. but there was one that stood out above all the rest--"Jesus." And can you believe it was Jacob's?!? Once again, my kids are a real inspiration to me. And it gives me a glimmer of hope that amongst all my efforts (and failures) as a mother at least something is getting through!

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

2010-12-10T10:51:00.000-08:00

We've been trying hard to teach our kids, particularly Tyler and Jacob, about the true meaning of Christmas and the spirit of charity. For Family Home Evening last week each boy picked a name off the "angel tree" and let them pick out the gift for the child in need they chose. But Eric and I felt like we wanted to do more.

So, we found out about some families in need and talked to the boys about them. We talked about how blessed we are and how Heavenly Father wants us to use our blessings to help others. We told the boys that if they wanted to help these families, they could go get some of their own money to donate to them, as much or as little as they wanted. Both boys, especially Tyler, have been learning the value of money. We let them earn money in different ways, they save it up, then they get to go buy a toy at the store. Tyler is really starting to understand the value of a dollar. So imagine the pride and tears in our eyes when both our boys ran upstairs, emptied out their little piggy banks into the envelopes we gave them and handed them to me and Eric. Jacob had almost $10 he has been saving for so long, and Tyler gave all his money as well. We talked about how there were 9 families in need, and Tyler lined up 9 envelopes, one for each family, and divided up his money--one dollar in each, one quarter, one dime, one nickel and one penny. It was just about everything he had, but he wanted to make sure each family got something.

I was so impressed with my boys--I know they are young and probably don't understand exactly what they were doing, but they knew they were giving up something they wanted to help someone else. I am so proud of them and hope this season I can be just as quick to give.

Pictures pictures pictures!

2010-12-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

So I realized I was taking hardly any pictures of Joseph (I've noticed it gets less and less with each successive child) so i've tried to ramp it up a bit.

Well, you probably guessed there isn't a whole lot going on around Thanksgiving around here. We found out about a deal to get into Knott's Berry Farm almost free but it expired Thanksgiving day--so we decided to go ahead and spend our Thanksgiving at Knott's. We went with our good friends the Larsons (remember Emma? this is her family). Well, looks like we have 2 more little lovebirds budding between our families...
That's Maggie with her best friend Ian. They are so funny together--usually get along but have the occasional love spat. They get so excited to see each other, it cracks me up. They had this mini-spin ride there and I just had images of a miniaturized date from the 50's watching these two. We had a pretty good time (Knott's is a little bit ghetto--but it is America's first--read "oldest"--theme park). The kids had fun, and being there with the Larson's was a blast. Then we had our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday over at the Larson's house (we spend a lot of time with them--Mindy and I are great friends, so are the guys and all the kids play really well together--you can't beat that!). We had a huge spread and it was so much fun. That is my favorite meal of the year!

Joey has been starting to smile a lot more, but I can't seem to get a picture of it. He loves to be held so you'd think my arms would be nice and toned but they are still flabby. Here's the little rugrat with his daddy.
Once again I couldn't catch the smile. He is even cuter in person--he just isn't too photogenic yet. His head it too floppy!

Here's Joey with Eric doing their guy thing--watching football on tv. Joey was totally into it!
And then there was Maggie. What a character. One minute you think she is the cutest sweetest funniest thing, then the next you are ready to leave her on the curb with a "FREE" sign around her neck. She looks so cute with her hair done, but she insists on pulling out her clips or ponytails. Not because she wants them out, but because she wants to look at her "pretties" (clips). Here she is after pulling one side out--she thought she was pretty special.
We blessed Joey at church today. We were going to bless him in Utah over Christmas, but decided this is our home right now--we've been here almost 4 years, this is where our friends are, where Joey was born, etc. And I am glad we blessed him here. Eric did a nice job and Joey didn't cry. Here are a few pics--they were all rushed before church so none are that great...

Floppy head....
Who's that handsome guy? Oh yeah, and Eric looks pretty nice too...
Well, I guess that's it for now. See you next time!

St. George

2010-11-24T14:28:00.000-08:00

Well, Joey is crying so the pictures will do most of the talking. We took a weekend trip up to St George and had a lot of fun! We went to Zion's Nat'l Park and did some light hiking. It was FREEZING cold when we got there (30 degrees) and I was totally unprepared. So I stayed in the car with Joey at first and Eric took the rest of the rugrats...Then it warmed up a little so we went for a short hike together. I know I don't look that great here, but oh well.

The kids all had a blast.
Tyler was holding the camera and took this shot. He told me, "I am going to take a really pretty picture getting everything in it--even the sky." He did a good job. What do you think, a future Ansel Adams?
Grandma and Grandpa Swenson came down on Saturday and surprised the kids. They loved it! Grandpa brought down his Rhino and took everyone for rides. It was a hit!

Maggie sure loves her "pop pop".

Sunday mornings are a beast (church doesn't start until 1:00) and I try not to let the kids watch tv or anything on Sunday. So the morning can get pretty boring. Last Sunday we decided to build a tent. We turned the ENTIRE front room into a fort. The boys loved it--Maggie ruined it a couple times but we were able to fix it. We left it up all day. Tyler and Jacob put on some costumes and ran around "spying" on me, including taking random pictures (none of which will be shown here due to their unflattering nature).
Sorry not too many details, but today it is all I can do to get the pictures up!

Happy Happy Birthday Maggie Dear!

2010-11-08T09:16:00.000-08:00

First of all, I have to tell you about my hairspray (sounds interesting already, right?). I bought a double pack of hairspray at Costco a while back and the brand written across the front in big letter is "BIG SEXY HAIR." I didn't think much of it, but it is also the hairspray I use for the kids. Well, Tyler is more observant than I thought--he dropped it a few days ago and said, "Oh no, the Big Sexy Hair!" and then yesterday I styled his hair and he said, "Spray some Big Sexy Hair on it!" Ugh, that sounds so bizarre coming from the mouth of a 7-year-old! I guess it could be worse....(Mom, what does sexy mean?) I was a nerd for Halloween and it was hard enough trying to explain to the boys what THAT was!

Maggie has recently taken a love to her backpack. Grandma Swenson gave it to her a long time ago, but until now it has sat dormant. Well, she hardly takes it off, calls it her "paa-pack." She even puts toys in it and stuff. It is so cute!
Joey is getting enormous. He is over 13 pounds now. He has started smiling a little, not too much though. I was lucky enough to get one (kind of) on camera... You can see the remnants of it at least.
Here he is showing off his muscles. (Note the size of his Swenson head...thanks dad.)
Jacob insisted....Joey looks indifferent. And no, my boys hardly ever wear shirts at home. I don't know what their deal it. Well, I guess they wear them all day, but they usually don't wear shirts to bed. I don't really care, but it looks like my kids are always half naked!
Another pic of Joey...it is so hard to get a good picture of babies at this age. They look so cute in person but it just never seems to translate to the camera. They always have some weird look or squished up face. At least it gives you an idea.
Maggie turned 2 yesterday and we had a little party at home, just us. She LOVES this show "Wow Wow Wubbzy" so I decided to make her a Wubbzy cake. It turned out pretty darn good if you ask me. For those who aren't familiar with Wubbzy you'll have to Google it so you can be impressed at my cake decorating skills.
Maggie knew exactly who it was (how could she not given my mad cake skills) and was OBSESSED with the cake. She wanted to look at it all day long. It was a relief to finally cut it up and not have to keep picking her up to see it. It made me feel good that she loved it so much! Now there's a girl who appreciates a cake!
She didn't get much, but her 2 main gifts were a dolly and stroller--note the expression of pure joy on her face. Do I really need to tell you how much she loves it?
She pushes everything around in the stroller, not just the doll--sippy cups, lite bright pieces, legos, anything she can get her hands on. And she loves the doll--she even held it while she ate her cake and ice cream!
All in all it was a success. Now no more birthdays until May!

Trick or Treat!

2010-10-31T19:43:00.001-07:00

Whew! What a weekend! Not only was I in charge of planning our branch Halloween party, but we also had our Sacrament Meeting program today. It was a very stressful week, and I am glad it is over. Here's a few highlights though...

Maggie's new favorite thing is this green skirt my friend gave me. Every morning when she wakes up and I go into her room she has it on. Most of the time she has dumped out her laundry basket to get it, but doggonit she wants to wear it. If I don't put it on her after I get her dressed she will go back upstairs and put it on again anyway, over her pants. It is really pretty funny. The boys have also been dressing up in different costumes lately and Maggie found one of their cowboy hats. Here is a typical idea of what Maggie looks like during the day....
Since Halloween was on a Sunday this year, Fort Irwin held trick-or-treating on Friday night. It is a small, isolated community so it is easy to do that and I think it is great! Now my kids get to go trick-or-treating! So Friday we had some friends come over for pizza and the kids all went out together. Here's my kids.... doesn't Maggie look so cute? That costume suits her 100%.
Jacob was Indiana Jones. I can't tell you how nervous I get when the boys try to crack that whip!
Tyler was a skeleton (obviously). We carved pumpkins a couple days ago. Our first year here we made the mistake of carving them a week in advance. Well, it is still warm here so the pumpkins were so rotted out a few days later they were thrown out well before Halloween night. This year we carved them on Thursday, and trick-or-treating was Friday. Perfect, because now it is Sunday and they are already going bad.
Maggie was obsessed with her pumpkin (or "punk" as she calls it). She carries it around and won't let the boys touch it. Hers is the little one of course. "My punk! I wan my punk!"
As I said it was a crazy busy week particularly Friday, Saturday and today. Nonstop, literally. I don't think I sat down yesterday until 8:30 at night. So Maggie has missed her naps and gotten to bed late each night. Needless to say she is very tired. I notice it was peculiarly quiet in the house after church today (church ends at 4 p.m.....this was around 5:00). I looked around and saw this....
I walked over to see what she was doing, thinking she was playing around, but no...she was DEAD ASLEEP! Is that some form of child abuse, denying your child sleep until they are so tired they sleep standing up, still holding their half eaten sucker in their hand? Guess I am guilty.
Poor little thing. Don't worry, she got to bed on time tonight. Let's hope this week is a slow one!

A Day in the Woods

2010-10-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

Well, we were getting a bit stir crazy at home (by "we" I mean me) so we spent a Saturday up at Big Bear and had a weenie roast. The big kids played, hiked a bit, built a fort, and had fun. Joey did this...Actually he wanted to be held most of the time. Maggie enjoying her lunch (that she only ate the chips, oreos and soda of...).
Who's that stud cookin' the dogs over that totally awesome (and illegal up here right now) propane stove?
Yes, we read online that fires are a no go right now so we brought the stove. Everything online and signs along the road on the way out to the site said propane stoves were okay, but we get there and there is a sign stapled to the table that said that actually right now propane stoves are not allowed either. Well, why they wait until you drive all the way in there to tell you is beyond me...and we didn't just drive 2 1/2 hours to eat raw hot dogs, so we went on the wild side and quickly cooked the dogs anyway. Wefigured we could pull the army card if any rangers caught us ("Oh, gosh sir. We didn't realize. You see my husband is in the army, gone a lot. We just came out to have some family time..."). Luckily no one caught us so I didn't have to whip out my feminine wiles. And to make it more authentic we at least roasted the dogs on sticks.
The boys worked on a fort (in fact, Eric and Tyler came up to this same camp site like 2 years ago and built a fort---it was STILL THERE!) and went scouring for logs. Jake found not a log, but a fallen tree and thought it was perfect for the fort. Here he is dragging it down the hill...
Not to be outdone, Tyler went and found himself a monster stick and proceeded to add that to the fort as well.
Although Maggie wasn't much of an outdoors-woman (every time her hands got dirty she's get upset, "Eeeeeww! Ka Ka!") and managed to trip on rocks and sticks every other step, she did enjoy the fort for a minute.
And here is Tyler with his masterpiece...
Eric tried to get a cute shot of Jake, this is the best we could come up with......typical Jake anyway.
A few days ago it decided to rain out here at Fort Irwin. Quite the novelty for us! And it was a downpour! Short lasted but exciting anyway. The kids instantly ran outside. I love the look of sheer joy on Jake's face...you'd think he had found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The boys were having so much fun....and yes, Tyler was outside in the rain with no shoes or socks on. Don't judge! If I'd made him put his shoes on first he'd have missed the rain--not only because it didn't rain too long, but because that kids is slow as molasses when it comes to putting his shoes and socks on.
Maggie (who probably has never seen real rain) wouldn't venture out from under the porch and kept asking me, "Whas it doo-een?" (Translation, "what's it doing?" Ha ha. Isn't that sad!?! She finally mustered up the nerve to go out in it once it had all but stopped except for a light mist. She still thought she was so cool to be out with her brothers though.
I will try to take more pics of Joey. If only I had an extra arm I could accomplish so much more!

Happy Halloween

2010-10-10T08:26:00.001-07:00

Well, you could only put 5 people on so I let Daddy be the witch instead of mom. Ha ha!

More pictures...

2010-10-07T07:02:00.001-07:00

Mostly Joseph still sleeps a lot, and when he isn't sleeping he is making funny looking expressions. The boys are still doting on him...One of his funny expressions...
Maggie is her usual self--she has claimed all of Joey's things as her own. She does share with him though. How kind of her. She climbed into his swing all by herself.
I walked in and saw this yesterday...
He wasn't squishing him, even though it looks a little like he was. But he was reading a book to him and it was so cute.

A random picture of Maggie.
And this is what Joseph does a lot of still, although he is waking up more and more.

See? Awake!
Well, I know the commentary lately has been lame, but I usually only have a couple minutes to try to post anything and during that time the kids are pestering me the whole time. So for now I guess the pictures will have to suffice.

Id, Ego and Superego

2010-10-06T19:02:00.000-07:00

Jacob suffers from no lack of confidence. Just now I told him he was a good big brother. He looked at me and informed me that, "I am also a good drawer, a good climber, I am a good cleaner upper, and I am good at listening all the time. And I am good at everything....and I am Daddy's best buddy!" Good job Jake. I don't think we'll have a problem with middle child syndrome with him.

Last night he also drew me a picture of a smiley face and gave it to me. He went over to Eric and said, "You don't get one, only mom gets one, because moms are special." Smart boy.

Horny Toad

2010-09-28T10:02:00.001-07:00

I forgot to post this, but a couple weeks ago the boys of the house went hiking up Mount Blackie here on post and they caught a horny toad lizard. It was pretty amazing because Tyler kept talking the whole time on the way up about how he was going to catch one that morning. Eric was more than skeptical since they are scarce and hard to see. Well what do you know, on the way down, Tyler found one. Eric caught it in his hat and brought it home to me...aren't I lucky? They let it loose on my kitchen table, despite my protests. The boys then made a little home for it in a baking dish. We kept it for a day, fed it some ants, watched it burrow itself in the sand, then it escaped. Tyler was sad it got away, but I was going to make him let it go after a couple days anyway. Jake loved holding it in his hand, but Tyler didn't want to. I don't blame him....although it was fun to look at.

Our New Toy!

2010-09-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

Before all the baby pics, I have to show you the helmet Tyler and Eric made. As you can tell by the crazed look in his eyes, Tyler loves it! Please ignore the inside-out backwards shirt...So our new toy is the hit of the house! Actually, the kids are very sweet with baby Joey. They love to look at him and hold him. It is sweet but a little nerve wracking since Tyler is really the only one who can hold him without assistance. The problem is that Jacob and Maggie don't want help holding him. So I sit right next to them very tense until I take Joey back! As you can see, we are all enamored with him.
You can kind of see his hair too. I think he will look like Tyler...maybe.
Maggie is the most obsessed of all. She thinks it is her baby. She wants to hold him all the time. She is very soft with him, most of the time, but if she his holding him and you try to touch him she will freak out and start yelling at you, "No no! Don't touch! Go 'way!" and hits your hand repeatedly until you comply.
But of course we have to give all the kids a turn...
And here is Maggie's reaction when we take him from her... classic. I think she is already coming into her terrible two's. She is being a real pesticator lately! I am going to call her Little Miss Bossie Britches. And I love the look on Jake's face....
Isn't he sweet? Now just got to get him sleeping! Ugh, aren't he first 6 weeks torture!?! That's why Heavenly Father makes them so cute...so you won't throw them out the window when they are up all night. We still love you Joey!

Lastly, today is Eric's birthday! Happy birthday! He has been such a champ this week with the kids--getting them ready for school, even packing lunches and remembering to turn in Tyler library books! I am thoroughly impressed and very grateful for his help....now the question is how do I manage next week when he goes back to work????

He's Here!

2010-09-19T17:08:00.000-07:00

This will be just a quick post since I am very tired, but I know you wanted to see a few pics of the new baby! Joseph Lee Swenson arrived Saturday morning (Sep. 18) at 11:23 a.m. He weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz--the biggest of all my kids! He is healthy and well....

School Pictures!

2010-09-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, my Tyler has been in school long to enough not just to already have his school pictures taken, but to actually receive them! Isn't he cute?

It took my utmost skills in bribery and cajoling to get him to wear what he calls a "button shirt." He is ADAMANTLY opposed to them in every way and refuses to wear them on anything but the most special occasion. But I managed--and even managed to convince him not to bring a t-shirt to change into after the picture was taken. Although the first thing he did when he got home was to run upstairs and change his shirt. It's too bad--he looks so handsome in them!

He also has a crush on his best friend Emma. It is so funny. I certainly don't encourage it (he is only 7 after all--girls should still have the cooties to him) but apparently there is no stopping him. He is head over heels. Tyler and Emma have grown up together here as both of them have lived here for the past 3 1/2 years. He is always making pictures or cards for her (usually Star Wars related--I'm sure she is swept off her feet) and bringing her stuff. They have a mutual arrangement that they can get married because Emma loves horses and we plan on having horses someday (you should've heard that conversation between the 2 of them), even if Emma did have some doubts about their relationship seeing that she is 3 months older than him. But the funniest thing was the other day Tyler runs in the house home from school and says, "What is Emma's phone number, I have to call her!" I asked why but he wouldn't tell me. I told him the number, figuring he wanted to ask if she could come over but he runs upstairs. I called him down (I was ignored) and after a minute he comes down and hands me the phone. I asked him what it was all about and he says something along the lines of, "Well, I heard that Emma liked this other boy and he has a crush on her and I wanted to know if she had a crush on him, but she said she doesn't have a crush on him." Ummmmm.....I know Tyler isn't a "fighter", but a "lover" at this age? He's got me worried a little until he pauses and says, "Mom, what's a crush?" I had to giggle. So concerned and he doesn't know what about! Mindy (Emma's mom and my best friend) calls me later and says on her end she hears Emma saying adamantly, "NO, Tyler, no, NO, no, I don't, no.....no." Then looks at her mom, rolls her eyes and sighs, "Boys!" Tell me about it, Emma. Tell me about it.

Where has the time gone?

2010-09-06T19:15:00.000-07:00

I swear, it feels like we just moved here a few months ago and already we are in the final stretch. Assuming Eric doesn't deploy (fingers crossed) we will be out of here the very beginning of April! I am a little behind--here is the picture of the boys' first day of school...Tyler in 2nd grade, Jacob in Preschool...To those who don't know when school actually started this probably seems about the right timing, however, school at Fort Irwin starts INSANELY early, as in OVER A MONTH AGO! We are no longer in the phase of getting going in school, we are talking math, spelling, writing tests, etc. I am just a little behind in posting the picture. Both boys are loving school...as is mom.... I refuse to post pictures of myself because I look, well, 9 months pregnant. Which I pretty much am so I guess that's okay. Here is a look at my belly...
Okay, okay, so that's not really my belly. But I feel like this little boy is kicking that hard. He is so active--he is ready to come out! If I come as early as all 3 of my other kids, that means this little guy (still unsettled on a name, can you believe it?) will be born on Sunday, THIS Sunday! As in 6 days from now! Holy moly. Didn't I just find out I was preggers anyway? It has ZOOMED by.

No doubt the "zoom-iness" comes from just being busy with the three other kids and life in general. A week or so ago Maggie tumbled off the edge of the trampoline and landed on her head (yes, we do have a net but it doesn't work very well when your kids are outside of it--mental note taken). She cried and Eric and I didn't think much of it, Eric picked her up and after a minute he took his hand off her back to look and see if she cut her head or not. As soon as he did her eyes rolled around a bit and she started collapsing backwards. FREAKED ME OUT! I took her to the ER to make sure she was okay. Long story short (too late) she is fine, was probably just seeing stars. Phew! Here Mags is in the ER. Not a happy camper. And yes, she was in her pj's when she was playing on the trampoline--don't judge me, it was 7:00 in the morning. Hey, if your kids got up at 5:30 a.m. you'd try to fill the time before school too!
On a good note, Tyler won a special award at school for exemplifying the character trait of the month, "cooperation." I was very proud of him. He is such a sweet boy and is always thinking of others...Jacob excluded, of course.
We spent the long weekend at my mom's, as one last hurrah get-away before freedom disappears for a fourth time. The kids had a blast, as always. I didn't take any pics, but my mom took a few when she took them to feed the ducks. They loved it.

My mom also took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese while she let Eric and I go out on our own...pretty sweet deal! Thanks mom! My mom found out that Maggie loves salad, or, more accurately, loves to lick salad dressing off lettuce. What a mess!
Well, I know I missed tons of fun stuff, but this will have to do. I will try to be better about pictures and posting, who knows, maybe next time I post we will have a new addition!

Out of the mouths of babes...

2010-08-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

Do you ever hear yourself out of the mouths of your children? Yesterday I told Jacob to put his plate in the sink. He proceeds to heave an exasperated sigh and say, "Do I have to do everything around here?!?"

Famous Daughter

2010-08-03T11:16:00.000-07:00

People keep telling me that Maggie looks like one of the Pitt/Jolie children. Seriously--like 3 people have said that to me since yesterday. I don't follow the Hollywood scene too much so I looked it up and actually I have to say I agree...they do look pretty similar. This is Shiloh slightly older than Mags is now...

I guess it shouldn't be too much of a surprise though, considering the fact that Eric and I DO bear a striking resemblance to Brad and Angelina...

I mean, really, I feel like I am looking in a mirror....it's almost eerie....

Princesses and Parties

2010-07-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

I've had a few requests to put up some pics of Maggie's new big girl bed. It is an adjustable bed so I can be this length, a couple feet longer or twin size. So she can grow into it. It looks so cute in her room. She wasn't too sure of it at first but now she loves it.
She loves the little light we put by her bed too--she turns it on to read a book and then off to go to sleep. Of course it takes a little prompting from me or Eric but she gets excited to do it!

Tyler had his birthday party a few days ago. It was a "Mad Scientist" party (no, I am not a party genius--I got the idea off the internet). I decorated with green crepe paper and tablecloth. Then for the centerpieces I had a green jello mold filled with bugs, jars of colored liquid with weird things in them, spoons, jars, frogs, etc.
As each of the kids arrived they got to put on their own "lab coat" with their name and radiation symbol in it, goggles and blue lab gloves. I even had green pray paint for their hair but decided to pass on it.
We spent most of the party doing fun experiments. We made bottles bubble over using vinegar and baking soda, made cool milk food coloring designs (below)...
tye-dyed t-shirts for them to take home....

made a coke bottle explode using mentos...
each kid got to make their very own "flubber" using borax, water and glue (it actually bounces!)...
and a few other smaller experiments. The kids all had so much fun. Then they got to decorate their own cupcakes making their own gross colors of frosting (most of which turned out brown). I was a fun party and all the kids loved it, especially Tyler. It was nice to have a fun party since he only invited 3 kids (all his friends have moved away and one was on vacation). So with so few kids I was able to do something a little more involved. It made him feel special. After all, they are only young once, get ONE party a year and even then only get them for a few years. It was fun to plan anyway.

Lastly, I tried to do Maggie's hair like Aunt Jessica did. Mine didn't turn out nearly as neat or cute, but it was a valiant first attempt. I will just have to keep practicing!

It's officially summer.

2010-07-20T19:01:00.000-07:00

Summer is officially here! I know that because every time I walk out of my house I feel like I am going to melt! It hovers around 110 everyday so I thought we'd get out the pool and sprinkler... The kids loved it and it is way less effort than dragging everyone to the pool, which we do anyway at least 3 times a week.
We got wet (I kept telling the boys to splash me on purpose so I could stay cool) and ate popcorn and popsicles. Can you guess what color Maggie had???
We took our second trip to Utah. Sadly I took ZERO pictures, so for the following you all can thank Eric. He and Craig took the boys camping/fishing. The boys thought they had died and gone to heaven. They did NOT want to come home.
They were so into it they even wanted to sleep outside under the stars. So they did even though Eric wasn't sure about it--of course, this decision was aided by the fact that the tent bag did not contain the necessary equipment to set it up. Lucky boys! Eric said that he found each of them at one point in the night curled up at the bottom of their sleeping bags. Must have been cold!
They spent a lot of time on Grandpa's boat fishing. Apparently Jacob outfished them all. Of course, that is from his own account and Jacob has been known to tell a few "stories."

They kept a couple of the fish because the boys were insistent and wanted to cook them up. Here they are examining the trout at the gutting table.
The men with their spoils....
Back at the Swenson's Maggie loved all the attention. She drove us all crazy getting into everything in the kitchen so Grandpa used a bunch of ropes to tie everything together. That only made it so no one could get any food. Looks like he and Mags made up.
So now we are home, getting back to life, boys in swimming lessons, keeping cool (or trying to at least). Tonight in the bathtub Jacob decided to give Maggie a new hairstyle...
A little too punk for me!
But it is good to be home where everything has a place. But did I mention our house was 93 degrees inside when we got home!!!!!!!!! I have never been so grateful for air conditioning in my life.

Surfin' USA

2010-07-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

We went to my mom's for a couple days last week just to get away, you know, after being gone for 2 weeks in Utah. No really, there isn't anything to do at Fort Irwin except go to the pool, literally, and the temp was hitting almost 110 so we took off for a bit. We spent one day at the beach. My kids had so much fun I think they would live at the beach if they could. Maggie loved it too and she surprisingly wasn't too much trouble, though I did have my mom there to help watch all the kids. I couldn't have done it by myself. Besides the fact that I am beginning to slightly resemble a beached whale.

Maggie enjoyed playing in the sand and water--she was fascinated.

The boys were in heaven--not only was it a beach, but this beach also has tidepools and we happened to arrive just at low tide. It was perfect! They found all kinds of crabs, hermit crabs, little fish, anemones, urchins, mussels, limpets, etc. Ty Ty the Science Guy was in his own particular kind of paradise.

The kids were so good I wish we could have stayed longer but it was starting to get cool so we had to get going.
The boys ran the whole length of the beach for a long time, poor Jake was so cute trying to keep up with Tyler. Below you will notice Tyler in the water...does it look familiar? Think '80's movie.......action........got it yet?
For those of you who can't figure it out--he is trying to do the "crane" move from "The Karate Kid." Pretty awesome skills. Jacob didn't practice his karate (it is pretty amazing that my kids can learn karate from watching a movie once--or at least in their minds they know karate) but he was so excited he couldn't contain himself.
He yelled like this several times. Almost as though his excitement were too much for him to handle. It was so funny---so Jacob. The boys found a hole someone had dug and abandoned. They took it over as their fort. The eventually filled it with seaweed they drug from all over the beach, thus ruining it for any future potential users.
Maggie decided to lay down on the sand despite my promptings for her to not to. She realized pretty quick it may not have been the best idea.
Back at my mom's the boys worked with Andrew (Dick's son, my mom's step-son, my step-brother, call him what you will) in the garage. This garage, by the way, has probably every tool you would ever need. It is a boy's paradise. Andrew was so nice to let the boys "hang out" with him to do guy stuff. They felt pretty cool hanging out with the big guys.
The next day we played in the hot tub and my mom bought a slip and slide that was a hit. My mom kept telling me to get one but I don't know how I could fit it onto my 6' square patch of grass. I'll reserve that fun for her house. The kids would all lay on their towels to warm up--even Maggie. She did that all by herself, she loves to copy her brothers!
All in all it has been a fun summer so far--and we are off again to Utah next week! Busy--but that is the best way. Well, I guess we will head off to the pool again today!

To sum up 3 weeks in a paragraph....

2010-06-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

Well, we have definitely done enough stuff in the past couple weeks to fill my blogging quota for the the year, so I have REALLY pared down the photos and I will only write on the interesting stuff. First off, I have very few *cute* pics of my kids. I set a goal a while back to take more good pictures but have failed miserably...you will see why in a moment. First a shot of Mags with her FAVORITE person in world....And here you see why I have all but given up taking good pictures of my kids. Every time I get the camera out they all start acting goofy. Well, at least, the BOYS act goofy--Maggie only wants to hold the camera and when I won't let her I get this....
She looked SO cute this one Sunday and the best picture I got of her is this....
Nice. She must take after her dad (just kidding, Eric....or not). Of course, nose picking is her favorite activity right now anyway, so at least the picture is true to life.

After the failed picture attempts, the kids and I took off for Utah for a couple weeks. Eric had a business trip to Boston for a week, then he came out and joined us. We all had a blast, especially the boys. My sister-in-law, Hillary, and her 2 sons, Nate and Josh, were there too. The days were filled with exploring, getting dirty, playing with a neighbors' dog, getting dirty, more exploring, more getting dirty.....you get the idea. It was great. The boys were always occupied and they played really well together considering the close quarters.

It seems like we were outside most of the time. Except for a couple days of rain the weather was pretty nice. Definitely cooler than Fort Irwin anyway, but it is a testament to the dryness of Death Valley when you think Utah Valley is humid.

Maggie loved being part of the action...at least she thought she was...which is good enough for me. Her favorite outdoor activity was stacking and unstacking some kid-sized plastic chairs that Grandma keeps on her deck. She loved it, but now that she is Miss Independent you couldn't help her at all or she would throw a fit. She is like that with most things now, including eating. Have you ever seen an 18-month-old after trying to eat a container of yogurt by herself? It is not a pretty sight. Nevertheless, Maggie had a blast and I am trying to remember to keep my distance and let her try things--maybe it will pay off when it comes time to potty train?

Here are the chairs pre-stack....

And post-stack....
One of the boys favorite things was tying some twine/rope to rocks and playing with them. I am still in shock there were no broken windows or heads by the time we left. Here is Tyler and cousin Josh with their rocks. Of course, Aunt Hillary and I almost got blisters from retying those darn things 100 times!
Sharee has lots of dress-up stuff which the kids loved. Tyler put this outfit together and called himself a ninja. He didn't care that the brown suit was the base for a monkey costume or that the eye cover was lined with sequins. Hey, who am I to judge? He can be the first "Femme-ape Ninja".
And then there was Jake.....
The adults had fun dressing up Maggie. This was my favorite outfit...she kept pulling the wigs off though. But she did LOVE the skirt. She wore it for a long time, danced in it, playing with it. It was sweet. Maybe she will still be girly even though she will have 3 brothers.
Another wig look....this time a blue wig we saw while walking through the BYU bookstore. I love her expression.
She has always loved riding in this baby buggy toy (see posts from Christmas) but she is getting a little big for it now. That combined with my growing belly making it harder for me to bend over and push her made it so she didn't get too much time riding in it---and thanks to Aunt Hillary for the times she did!
Craig and I took the kids for a small hike one morning. From left to right: Jacob, Tyler, Josh, Grandpa Craig with Maggie in tow, and Nathan.
The kids had a lot of fun. The trail was steep and each one of the boys fell at one point. Of course mine were the only ones to get hurt. Tyler scraped up his arm and Jacob took a good chunk of skin off his chin. I don't think I have a single picture of that boy without some kind of wound on his face.... I was glad Jacob came. He was a little slower than the big boys and I could use that as my excuse to lag behind. It is so sweet watching Jacob try to keep up with the big kids. He tries so hard and rarely gets frustrated. Maybe he doesn't even notice he lags behind. It is very endearing. Of course, I have never met a kid who can cause my own mood swings as quickly as Jake--one second you want to hug him forever and the next you are contemplating selling him on ebay.
I had lunch one day with my mom, her husband and my grandpa. My grandpa lives in the Salt Lake area and my mom happened to be visiting him while I was there. So we went to lunch and then to a SUPER fun park. The whole park is like a giant fort. I took tons of pics, but will just post one. The boys never wanted to leave! Lucky for me it started to drizzle so I used that as my excuse.
Maggie loves to drink. People kept asking me in Utah if she is dehydrated or something. She will stick her hands in anything wet and then suck on them) which is why we keep all the bathrooms locked at home--yes, she drinks toilet water if we let her..... Here she is dipping her hands in a puddle on the Swenson's driveway and licking them. I have given up trying to stop her long ago--though I did draw the line when she laid on the ground and tried to stick her face in the puddle to suck up the water. More on this in a minute.
Tyler was a big help to Grandma. He loved helping her prune her yard. I think he would have stayed out there all day is we would have let him use the pruners unsupervised. I only wish that love of hard work would translate into his chores at home.
When Eric came up, we all went for a little walk up Hobble Creek Canyon. We passed by some cows and the kids were enthralled. Maggie in particular, even though she kept calling them "doggies." We literally had to tear the kids off the fence to keep walking. And of course Tyler asked at least 200 unanswerable questions about cows, "What does it mean when the cow moos like that?" "How do the hooves grow on their feet?" 'What is their favorite kind of grass?"
Eric took Tyler fishing. They went fly fishing so Eric would cast it out and Tyler would reel it in. They apparently caught a ton of fish but only brought one home. Tyler couldn't have been prouder. He made me take about 10 pictures of him with his fish. I even cooked it up and he ate almost the entire trout all by himself! One side note about this BYU shirt--I bought it for him when we went to the BYU bookstore up there and he wanted to wear it EVERY day, and I mean, EVERY SINGLE DAY! Luckily with all the people staying at the Swenson's house someone was doing laundry most days and I could throw it in, but now that I am home he better get used to wearing it once a week!
Eric took Tyler, Jacob, Josh and Nate up camping for a day--it was supposed to be overnight but the weather wasn't too great so they came home in the evening. They hiked, had a weenie roast and made s'mores. They came back SO dirty. Imagine rolling in dirt, then standing in campfire smoke, then smearing melted marshmallow all over your face, then rolling in dirt again. Then rub hot dog grease on yourself....

Craig has a Rhino--like a 5-seater 4-wheeler vehicle. The boys loved going for rides in it so we decided to take Maggie and see what she would do. She loved it (though you can't tell here) but it made her hair stand on end. It looked so funny!
Toward the end of our trip we were invited to a fish fry up at a place called "The Ranch", a giant area of land with tons of trails, a picnic area, pond and water stuff. Very fun. Tyler decided to try out a canoe/kayak thing. At first he couldn't manage it at all, then got the hang of it and made his way all over the place!
Maggie even took a ride, well, tried. She hated the life-jacket (can you blame her?) but I wouldn't let her go out without one so she had to play by the water's edge.
So here I will continue with the fact that Maggie drinks anything...now that includes pond water and muddy pond water mixed with dirt in a bucket. She was such a pain at the ranch. If you tried to stop her from drinking it she would scream. So my choices were to 1)hold her down for 3 hours while everyone played and she screams or 2) give up the fight and hope she doesn't get giardia. I went with option 2 but got some flack for it from others. But hey, I doubt any of them would be willing to hold her while she screamed and fought back at them either. No signs of disease yet, but it may take a few more days. Though for all of you who gasp at the fact that I let her put that in her mouth (truth be told she didn't ingest more than 1/4 cupful...she mostly dipped rocks in the water then sucked them) I did find an interesting article today. You can check it out if you want (www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/23/grubby-children-scientists-immune-system) but the general idea is that scientists have now found that children exposed to more mild bacteria and such as small children have less incidence of disease as adults, including even allergies and hayfever! So for all you who suffer from allergies, don't you wish you could go back to your toddler days and drink a little pond water yourself? Maybe, maybe not!
To round out the trip we had dinner on Father's Day with Katie and her family. And what better way to end the trip than a nice summer day and 3 boys in the hammock with ice cream cones? Makes you feel like summer....

Pictures pictures pictures...

2010-05-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

I know I posted only a week ago, but at that point I realized I haven't taken many pictures lately so this week I tried to be better...and there were lots of photo ops!

The other day Maggie was playing with her doll again. She would lay it on the ground with her blanket, walk over to the closet and shut herself in it, of course, after saying, "Bye bye" to her doll. It was so funny. She must have done it 20 times. I don't know if she thought she was putting it to bed or going to 'work'.

Jacob had his birthday party on Saturday. It was really fun for the kids. He got some good presents and they all had a blast. No birthday cake though. Jacob hates cake, and I thought long and hard about making him one anyway just because. But, Jake insisted he didn't want one, he wanted "M & M cookies and green ice cream." So I skipped the cake (after all, it is Jake) and made cookies (which he didn't eat anyway) and served mint chip ice cream. Not too traditional but yummy nevertheless. Jacob still doesn't believe me when I tell him he is 4. He laughs as if to say, "Silly mom, you are such a nut!" Then tells me, "No, I am THREE!"
Eric is in Washington DC for the week so I went my mom's for a few days. The kids always have tons of fun. She has a fun hot tub in her backyard with a rock waterfall. The boys love to climb up to the top and play.

I also bought a bubble machine that was a hit. Maggie was fascinated....
She kept sticking her fingers in it and breaking it!
She is still cute though.
We went to a museum called, "Pretend City." It is pretty cool--there is a whole "town" complete with restaurant, post office, grocery store, beach (sand and all), house, construction site, garden, arts and crafts center, etc. The pics got a little out of order so here is one then more to follow....
One again, atop the waterfall (turned off this time). I worry a little about them up there, but with 2 boys and one on the way I have realized if I accept 2 things my life goes much smoother. 1) They will get dirty, very dirty. and 2) They will get hurt. My job is to try to keep the dirt outside and make sure that if they do get hurt they won't kill themselves. The fact that Jacob is still alive today is quite an accomplishment by anyone's standards.
My mom has a little toy dog that walks and barks. Maggie is in love with it. Maybe it is time to get a dog? Naw.
They were playing ring around the rosy and Maggie loved it.....
However, if she was slow to "fall down" Jacob took care of it--you can see him here coming after her to knock her down.
More Pretend City--they even have a place to paint on the wall!

Maggie trying to feed the baby chicks Ritz crackers through the glass.
Last of all, Maggie's latest "totally annoying but totally funny" thing is her obsession with the vacuum. As soon as I get it out she plops herself down right in front of it and starts grabbing at it. I have tried moving her but then she just walks back over to where I am trying to vacuum and sits down in front of it again. She has no fear of it at all--I push it up to her while it is running and she will lean over and lick the light and pat the top. I wonder what she sees as so fascinating? All I know is that it takes me 10 times longer to vacuum because I have to keep moving her around!

Drumroll please.....

2010-05-21T07:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I suppose I've been eating too many frogs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails........it's a BOY! Now I am not going to lie--I know it's taboo to say, but I am a little bummin'. I REALLY REALLY wanted another girl for many many reasons but alas, it isn't to be. Good news is that the baby looks great and healthy as far as they can tell. My belly isn't faring so well--I look huge for only being half-way there. Oh well, I guess by number 4 I can't be too hard on myself. Though it is pretty pathetic when you think your maternity clothes feel a bit snug. So now it's time to pick out a name....Eric is really pushing for Gus, but I keep reminding him this isn't a mouse from Cinderella. Tyler is reading this over my shoulder and just suggested the name Chunk--"You remember, like from the pirate movie, 'The Goonies'?" I am pulling mom veto on both of those. If I'm the one who has to get fat and actually HAVE the baby (Jacob told me last night to go to the dentist so he could take out the baby) then I get at least 65% say in the name! And just for reference Jacob's pick is Hunter. Sad that my craziest kid comes up with the most normal name.

I haven't taken any kid pics in a while (Jacob and Maggie have had pink eye--gross!) so photo ops were few and far between. Plus don't you think it is so frustrating how hard it is to capture the essence of your kids' cuteness on camera--a nearly impossible feat. Especially with Maggie now because she will be so cute and I will get out the camera--the next thing I know she sees the camera and runs up to it so I can't get any pictures. Ugh! Here are a few my mom took when she was out a while back...

Don't let the angelic smile fool you--she is just trying to lure you into her sweetness before she turns into The Pest-icator!

A few things...

2010-05-04T18:19:00.000-07:00

Jacob came to me the other day and told me he didn't like his bed because it didn't have a "cool" tent like Tyler's did. He said he needed a new bed. Well, I wasn't about to go buy him a bed, let alone that my house is way too small for anything other than a bunk bed, so I came up with this....It isn't perfect by any means, though I am pretty proud I was able to put in a "window"! Two actually, but I was making it late at night so couldn't go measure it in the boys' room. So the back side is a little off, but the kids don't care. I did make several mistakes but the boys don't care so it's all good! They LOVE playing in it and Jacob loves to sleep in it.

Then yesterday I turned on the oven and after a minute smelled a really weird BAD BAD BAD smell. The oven wasn't heating and none of the burners would turn on. I called the housing maintenance people and they filed it as an emergency and told me they would have to notify the fire dept. Okay, so we waited outside since it smelled to bad inside. A minute later we heard sirens. The boys said, "They are coming!" I told them that must be for something else--they wouldn't use the sirens for us! Lo and behold around the corner comes the fire truck, sirens blaring! 3 Firemen in their fire jackets and helmets came inside, pulled my oven out (totally embarrassing the mess that was under there by the way....) and checked for gas leaks. Turned out the construction down the way broke a gas main and the smell was the propane mixing with air or something. No biggie, but it certainly added some excitement to the kids' day!
Lastly, on Sunday Tyler kept opening the front door to look at some baby birds in a nest up on our porch eave. I told him to stop since every time he opened it Maggie would run outside and I would have to go catch her. He didn't listen so I told him firmly to knock it off. He got upset so tried to slam the door but ended up slamming his toe....
Nasty! I did feel bad, but I do have to admit there was a small part of me that wanted to shout out, "I told you so!" but I restrained myself. It looks so much worse in person! The nail is all raised up because of the swelling. Yuck! But he told me yesterday, "Mom, I wish I had listened to you and stopped opening the door." I'll take that as a minor victory, despite the wound.

Muddy Mayhem

2010-05-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

Do you think this is too close to watch tv?We went for a walk/bike ride (kids) last Saturday. Jacob is getting to be decent at riding his bike considering it is way too small, completely rusted from 4 years of use and being outside and basically falling apart (guess what he is getting for his birthday...). Still, he never complains....what a stud! Plus we can always tell where he is...."squeak squeak squeak...."
The other night we gave Maggie some "Chocolate Lush" dessert--I think she liked it...... She ended up licking the plate clean, then her high chair tray too.
The kids were outside playing and happened to turn on the hose (on my mom's watch). Mud ensued as did a few dirty kids. Maggie is perfecting her stink eye. In this instance she dropped her bowl of sunflower seeds in the mud and I wouldn't let her pick them out and eat them.
She got a little dirty but it definitely could have been worse. I know I am posting a few boring pictures, but I swear I could look at pictures of my kids all day long. Which is odd because they are way cuter in person and I get to see that all day long. I think it must be that looking at pictures there is no need to get them a snack, clean them off, stop the fighting, put them in time out, clean up messes, etc. etc. etc.

This morning Tyler slammed his toe in the door and was resting it while propping it up on a chair. Maggie decided he looked too comfortable so she climbed up and sat on him. The Jacob, never one to let the action pass him by, did the same. They all thought they were pretty silly.

Baseball baseball baseball

2010-04-22T14:33:00.000-07:00

We've been pretty busy out here in the desert. The weather has been good most days so we go outside a lot. Maggie LOVES to play outside. Any chance she gets she runs out the back door. I have to keep it locked all the time or she will go out back. She has even figured out how to get onto the trampoline! She can't get off yet, so that causes some problems.... We'll have to work on it.

The boys love to collect "treasures" (i.e. garbage) outside and put them in their special treasure boxes they each have. They also love to hammer everything so we went to Home Depot a while back and got some scrap wood, let them each pick out some washers, nails, S hooks, etc. A few things they found interesting. Now they can hammer away at their stuff and stay out of our real tool supplies. They love it! As you can see above, Maggie loves it too!

Maggie also LOVES this little plastic car. I found it outside the thrift shop here on post for free. I cleaned it up and brought it home. You know, sometimes you get stuff like that and it never gets used but this is different. All the kids love it but Maggie has claimed it as her own. She bolts outside and heads straight for it, gets in, then waves and calls, "Bye bye!"
Maggie also has a little quirky thing she does--she raises up her shoulders. It is so funny. She does it to be funny, too--like she understands it is a silly thing. I tried and tried to get a picture but she loves to act silly when she does it so I couldn't get her to hold still. This is the best I could get. I will have to try to get it on video....
I was really sick on Sunday and could hardly get out of bed. So I laid in bed while the kids watched a movie and Eric was gone at church. After a little while the boys came upstairs and brought me all this---waffles with syrup, a bowl of Nilla Wafers, glass of water for food, A glass dish of water and some soap in case I needed to wash my hands, several tissues, and a few toys to make me feel better. They also loaded me up with stuffed animals which you can't see because they are all on the bed. It was very sweet, although it made a mess for me to clean up later....
Tyler has been playing baseball here on post for a few weeks now. It keeps us busy. Officially there is one practice and 2 games per week, but his coach has added 2 additional practices each week too! That means Mon, Wed, Thu, Fri and Sat are all baseball days. Sheesh! I skip out on a few of the practices just because I think it is too much. But Tyler is doing so well! He is the best hitter on his team and Eric is working with him on catching. It is fun to watch him play, which is good, I guess, since I have so many opportunities to watch!

A couple videos

2010-04-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

Look what Tyler learned at school.....

Even though the boys were crazy, Maggie LOVES her baby!

HELP ME!

2010-03-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, so now she loves to stand on the open dishwasher door. Plus, notice my cell phone sitting there as well. I found her here licking chili out of that tupperware dish.....nice.

The other night Maggie was very tired. The boys were watching a movie and Eric sat Maggie on the sofa like this, and she just sat and sat....just like this....
Notice the pink spot on her head?
She snuck outside (she can open our doors--I often find her playing in the toilet water) to where Jacob had colored in a circle with pink chalk. Well, being Maggie, she decided to lick it. She put her face right down on the ground and started licking up the chalk. She enjoyed every minute of it.

Goings on....

2010-03-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

Well, recovery from the tonsillectomy has been pretty uneventful. The last few days of "soft food" got a little rough as Jacob was pretty much starving to death (the child won't eat anything normally, now for 10 days he can only eat mushy soft stuff). But we survived and now he is all healed up. For all of us who were hoping he would have a much better disposition once they were out....no luck as of yet. He seems about the same. Little stinker. Don't get me wrong--the boy can be sweet as pie when he decides to be....but when he feel otherwise you better watch out. The biggest difference is his voice--he used to have a cute little husky voice but now it is this high whiny voice. Much more annoying. At least he doesn't snore at night anymore. I have to go stand next to him to make sure he is still alive at night.

On to other things. The above picture is one of Tyler's Lego creations. A Star Wars "Superstation." Please ignore the sink full of dishes in the background.

Maggie's new favorite toy is this hard baby doll a friend gave us. It was old and she was getting rid of it and thought Mags might like it. Well, she hardly puts it down! She puts it's binky in it's mouth, and has even tried to give it her blankie. As you can see she is very excited about having her picture taken with it.
Maggie is also my new kitchen "helper" (read: "annoyance"). She is obsessed with the dishwasher. I found her taking out all the silverware the other day and putting it on the floor. I am so frustrated with her! She won't stay out of it--dirty, clean, doesn't matter. Takes dishes out, puts them in.....I can't keep the girl away! I know most of you are thinking, "Duh, just lock it." Well, whenever I keep it locked she starts it. At least 3 times a day I walk into the kitchen to turn off the dishwasher. So I leave it unlocked and I end up with dirty dishes all over the house. I leave it locked and she runs a cycle. Ugh--I can't wait until she outgrows this!
One more note: I don't know what it is with my kids and "science" (remember Tyler telling me he needed to collect some bones so he could "science them"?) but yesterday Jacob was on the trampoline and saw a coyote out in the fields (of dirt) behind our house. Either it ran away or was imaginary to begin with but neither Tyler or I could see it. Jacob then informed us that, "Only I can see it because I have science eyes that are really good at seeing science things." Well, that explains it.

My Little Hero

2010-02-26T07:09:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was the big day. For those who don't know, Jacob had his tonsils and adenoids removed. We got up bright and early at 4:45 a.m., got everyone ready, dropped Tyler and Maggie off with a friend and went on our way. It is a long drive to the hospital and it was difficult to explain to Jacob why he couldn't have anything to drink or eat. He was very thirsty and hungry. But he went with the flow pretty well. We got to the hospital and Jacob got to put on his "special pajamas." He liked that they were "blue-ish green-ish."

Normally they wait until little kids are asleep to give them their IV but it is much better if you can get it in before. Because he had done so well the day before getting his blood drawn they decided to try to put in his IV. He wasn't too excited about it, but didn't complain. He watched the nurse as she did it. She tried to put it in the back of his hand and he said, "Ouch ouch ouch! That hurts!" He didn't cry but his face looked like he wanted to. But the nurse couldn't get the vein so she had to pull it out and do it again in his elbow pit (I don't know what that part of your arm is called....). He didn't really whine for that one, I think he was just mostly not wanting to have do have it stuck in his arm AGAIN.
She got the vein and Jacob was SO good about not pulling on it or bending his arm too much. It was so funny because for all the rest of the day, even after we got home, he kept trying not to move that arm. We kept telling him it was okay but I think he was just doing it out of habit.
He was a trooper the whole time. I could tell he was getting a little nervous (see below) as we walked into the surgery department. Eric and I could only walk to the doorway, then they had to take him the rest of the way to the room alone. He never cried, just was quiet and watched. What a brave little guy.
All the doctors were amazed that he already had an IV in and then that he hadn't been pulling at it. Eric and I waited in the waiting room and after about half an hour the doctor came out and said everything went great. He actually said he normally takes the adenoids out first but Jacob's tonsils were so big he couldn't even get past them to get to the adenoids. So he had to do his routine backwards and take out his tonsils first. No biggie, but that just shows how BIG his tonsils were! The doc also commented on how brave Jacob was. He had never seen a 3-year-old so "stoic", as he put it. He said after they got into the surgery room Jacob was so good, never whined, helped them hold the mask on his face, etc. Good! We went back to recovery. The doctor said that Jacob better be crying otherwise there is something wrong with him! Well, he finally was. It was the anesthesia wearing off. He was a little agitated and wouldn't sit still until I was able to get him on my lap. Then he really settled down when Eric held him...he loves his daddy! He rested for a while after that.
He has done better than I expected. He drank some juice and ate some yogurt and ice cream and popsicles at home. He has complained a few times that his throat hurts, and I know it does, but he doesn't cry about it. He is doing well, we are just trying to get him to drink/eat as much as we can. Hopefully he will feel a lot better in a few days. As a side note, his voice already sounds different. I wonder what he will sound like when all the swelling goes down....

Medical Miracle

2010-02-24T17:48:00.000-08:00

Somehow Maggie managed to get her shirt above her head like this--yes, she did this completely by herself! She thought it was the funnest thing EVER and ran around the house laughing for like 20 minutes. Once she got bored with that then she kept putting her blanket over her head. So I tied it around her and for the next 20 minutes she thought THAT was the funnest thing ever. Wouldn't it be great to be so easily amused?
Today while I was in the shower I thought it was strange that Maggie didn't come in the bathroom and pull back the shower curtain over and over like she normally does. So after I went scouring the house (which was oddly silent) and getting a little worried that I couldn't find Maggie, I look over behind the kitchen table next to our shoe basket and this is what I saw....
Dead asleep on the floor. It was so pathetic looking! Poor little baby....

Tomorrow is Jacob's surgery. Today he had his pre-op appointments and had to get a blood draw from his arm. I was so worried because he has actually been really excited for his surgery and I thought this would totally scare him out of going tomorrow. So I prepared for the worst and watched as the 2 nurses came in. Jacob laid down on the table, put his arm out, they put the rubber band tourniquet on. Here it comes......Jacob watched calmly and didn't even flinch as he watched them put the needle in and the vial fill up with blood. He didn't make a peep or complain or cry or anything! That child is a miracle, and tough as nails! He told me it hurt a little bit but he was being brave. Even the nurses were shocked. How many 3 year olds can get a blood draw without even flinching? I was so proud of him I bought him 2 suckers, a bag of chips and gave him a quarter. Totally worth it!

Sciencification

2010-02-20T19:25:00.001-08:00

Tyler: "Mom, I like science now. I used to like cars but now I like science, like dinosaur fossils and stuff. I think I need to start collecting bones so I can science them." I told him he should definitely science some bones.....science the heck out of 'em.

A few videos for your viewing pleasure....

2010-02-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

Feeling blue? Try this one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXxYpaFFhg0

Thinking about enjoying a new snack? This is for you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23iBZ7b9Mx0

The grand finale. You think YOUR kids are driving you nuts? Here's my Saturday

morning.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DvD7_erxok

Sticker man and the Runaway...

2010-02-05T17:06:00.000-08:00

Every so often we get some stickers in the mail for whatever reason. Late one night this is what the boys decided to do with them (see above). At least if he gets lost someone can return him home (the stickers have our name on them).

Maggie's favorite activity is playing out front. I am assuming it's because she gets her little taste of freedom. She immediately takes off as fast as her short little stubby legs can carry her. She refuses to come back--I have to go and get her. As much as it is a pain, it is so funny. There she goes...!

Jacob was kind enough to bring her back this time....
She started getting a little cocky with her newfound liberties until I had to put her in her place.
A few days ago the boys got to paint some little wooden toys they picked out for 39 cents at Walmart. They LOVED it. It was a good activity to take up our Sunday morning since church doesn't start until 1:00.

All in all only a little mess and a lot of fun--a success in my book.

2010-01-31T08:58:00.000-08:00

I don't know why sometimes the videos stop working...anyone know? So I posted it on youtube for those who want to watch it over and over again, like me. Here is the link..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXMcWJXPPUg

Look who's Dancing Now

2010-01-29T11:52:00.000-08:00

I know the quality isn't great (our video camera is 6 1/2 years old) and the lighting is dark, but Maggie is a dancing fool now. Every time she hears any music she immediately starts dancing. It is way cuter in person, it seems like when I get the camera out she is less animated. But still something to entertain you. Sorry if you think it's too long--I am her mom, how am I supposed to edit her mad dancing skills?

Battling the Evil Empire

2010-01-21T08:16:00.000-08:00

This past weekend we went down to my mom's house and took the kids to Disneyland. The boys wanted to go watch the Jedi Training Academy (they have a whole little production and pick kids from the audience to train as Jedi's, then fight Darth Vadar) and guess what? Tyler got chosen to be a padowan! (I know way too much about this stuff) So he went up, got a Jedi robe and a "training light saber." Thank goodness it was just a training one--he might have come back with no head. He was very excited (even though this was his 2nd time doing it).
They teach a fighting routine--right shoulder, left shoulder, duck, right leg, left leg, strike to the head....I think. Here is Tyler practicing for his battle. Then, behold! The stage rose up and guess who came to join us...
Darth Maul made an appearance too. Jacob was a little scared of him. Can you blame him?
Anyway, Tyler got to fight Darth Vadar. The video is at the end of this post, since I still can't figure out how to get things in the right order. I don't have the advanced video program so I can't rotate it (well, I can for $29.95...but you guys can just turn your heads sideways for that amount). I took it with my camera--not I know I have to take my videos the other way!

Anyway, the boys had a great time at my moms. Tyler is a little professional bike rider now. He goes off curbs, stops fast to leave tire marks, and dad even put a piece of plastic on his bike to make noise. Jake still hasn't mastered the bike--so daddy helps him.

Here Tyler is holding up a sign he wrote, "For saul." (For sale.) He is trying to sell the pieces of plastic. I told him there wasn't too much traffic right now so why don't we try again later--good thing he forgot about his business venture.
Here is the sideways video--you know, it is just to give the effect of the zero-gravity in space....

We took Jacob to see an Otolaryngologist yesterday (aren't you impressed that I can spell that?). Turns out we were right--he needs his tonsils and adenoids removed and probably needs eartubes. Poor kid--he snores like a banshee, has sleep apnea, has a hard time swallowing food, always has a runny nose, etc. I guess all that is supposedly caused by his adenoids and tonsils being enlarged. The doc took one look and said he absolutely needs them removed and was surprised no doctor referred us sooner. Actually it was me who fought for the referral! So we are in the works to schedule the surgery. I guess the week after surgery is supposed to be torturous (on Jacob and thus on me) but he definitely needs this. Jacob has been a little nervous about it (I told him it won't hurt getting them out but he will have a little sore throat afterward--but offered him ice cream, applesauce and go-gurts when they are out). But he said to me last night, "Mom, I don't want to but I want to get my tonsils out so I can breathe better." Poor kid. I am sure this will help him. I will keep you all posted about the surgery!

Hiking

2010-01-13T11:28:00.000-08:00

Last weekend Eric took the boys hiking around Fort Irwin. The boys had a great time. Tyler was able to use his explorer pack he got for Christmas--complete with compass, binoculars, first aid kit, water bottles and pocket knife. They had so much fun. This next picture I put in for those of you who haven't been to our house--this is where we live! .....
Seriously, I know you guys think we are exaggerating when we say we live in the middle of nowhere, but we speak the truth! The road in the background is the road that we have to take every time we leave post--a 40-mile stretch of nothing between Barstow and Fort Irwin. Who knew we would ever consider a trip to Walmart "going to town." You all don't know how good you have it... Here are the boys atop one of the "mountains"--campfire and all. Looking through their binoculars. They felt so cool!
Back to things at home, not much going on since Christmas, just trying to get back into the swing of things. Maggie's new thing is putting her blanket over her head and walking around. She runs into walls, trips on toys, etc. It is so funny to watch. I wonder what is going through her head in moments like this?
Peek a boo!

Christmas Fun

2009-12-29T08:44:00.000-08:00

Well, we had a great Christmas this year, as you can see by the look on Maggie's face. She loved helping me un-decorate the tree. I spent countless hours (well...minutes) picking up ornaments, trying to get the little wire things back in to the tops of the balls, and trying to find a place to put them on the tree. If I were smart I guess I just wouldn't have decorated the bottom 2', but what fun would that have been for Maggie? See, I just have the best interest of my children at heart.

Before we left for Utah we got together with some friends for a yummy soup dinner and gingerbread house making extravaganza. It was so much fun...Tyler loved decorating his mini-house and the big house for the family. Jacob could really care less. I think his mini-graham cracker house had about one piece of candy on it. He just sat at the table and ate the candy out of the bowls. A child after my own heart....
The boys both had school Christmas programs. Tyler is in the back row on the left, waving. He sang a few songs with his class. He did great, it was fun to watch him. Although I am surprised he didn't have to go to the bathroom while he was up there (inevitably, every time he gets up to sing in sacrament with Primary he has to pee).
Obviously Jacob was very excited about his school program--Santa Claus even came!
Then we went out to Utah. Overall it was a fun time--we got to spend time with family, play in the snow, etc. We met up a couple times with my grandpa. Tyler took right to him. He wanted to hold his hand when we were out walking. It was so sweet. The boys still talk about going to see him. Can you believe he is 91 year old!?!
We don't have any snow clothes for Maggie so she didn't get to venture out into the cold too much. But I did my best to keep her warm and let her play out on the deck. She LOVED it!
Her favorite part was picking up chunks of snow off the deck and eating them. She was very fascinated by the whole snow thing.

And I am sure you can all guess how much the boys loved playing in the snow. Total novelty for my kids (and myself--growing up I always thought you "visited" the snow, no one actually lives in it!) Jacob made plenty of snow angels (and would proceed to ruin them right after). He also enjoyed eating the snow.....maybe my kids are dehydrated?
Tyler had the most fun. He explored everywhere, laid in the snow, face planted himself in the snow (on purpose), etc.
I helped them build a mini-snowman (not only did I not have snow boots, but the snow there is very hard to make a snowman out of). Once again, the boys destroyed it not 2 minutes after this picture--shocking.
One of the favorite activities while we were inside was this little "buggy" stroller. It is for a doll, but Maggie fit just perfectly. The boys would run her around the kitchen and she would laugh and laugh and kick her legs up and down. She had a blast!
Jacob decided to give it a go too--you can see this isn't quite as much an "action" shot.... he kept telling Maggie, "Faster!" She did her best.
Even thought Maggie slept TERRIBLY she had fun playing with all the kids and loved getting so much attention from everyone. She is such an attention hog--If she saw another adult holding a baby she would go up to them and whine until they picked her up--even if she didn't know them! We found she prefers men. She spent the majority of her time at Great Grandpa Swenson's Christmas get-together on Eric's cousin's husband's lap...she had never even laid eyes on him before! Her favorite, though, was Uncle Mat. If he was around, she was on his lap. Little flirt.
We spent an afternoon sledding. What fun!

The most fun was that we didn't have to hike the sleds and ourselves back up the hill--the people we were with had 4-wheelers...lazy man's "sled-lift"!

Christmas morning! Santa came and did a great job. He brought Tyler exactly what he has been asking for for weeks! Good job Santa. The sheer joy on Tyler's face was priceless. He hasn't stopped playing with that toy since the moment he first laid eyes on it.
Maggie opened her gifts, but prefers the boys stuff instead. You can see she isn't too excited about her "Pretty Learning Purse."
Jacob got a Batman and Robin helicopter set and a pirate ship. They battle the Star Wars tank that Tyler got. Jacob also was caught hiding on the stairs eating Christmas candy. When Eric asked him what he was doing he said, "I had to eat it over here because Mommy said I couldn't have any." Duh dad.
We borrowed a coat from some friends, it was a little big and Maggie didn't enjoy wearing it. You can see Jacob in the background NOT putting his shoes on. Classic.
Once again, the favorite buggy. She would put grandma's tupperware in it and push it around. Sleep tight little Rubbermaid!
We had a fun time, and it was nice to see everyone. But I am glad to be home!

ummm....

2009-12-18T12:19:00.000-08:00

Last night Jacob asked me if my legs were "spikey" to fight off the bad guys....

I shaved this morning.

Look at that Shiner!

2009-12-02T17:08:00.000-08:00

Maggie's new favorite things is bathing in the sink. It all started when she had a BAD (and I mean BAAAAAD) diaper rash. The doctor recommended letting her sit in an oatmeal bath. Well, I sure as all get out wasn't going to fill my bathtub up with oats to clean up so I plugged up the sink and let her sit in there. Boy was it a hit! Don't worry, I cleaned it all and gave her a new washrag to chew on. She loved it and it actually made preparing dinner a little easier!

Next is a sad sad picture....look at that black eye!
It is way worse in person. Poor Magster fell down the stairs on Monday. She literally toppled head over heels like a log. I tried to get to her in time, but obviously was not successful. But, she survived and was back climbing the stairs a few minutes later. And now she has her first battle wound...

Lastly, is my farewell to my nice Christmas tree. Growing up my family always had the tackiest Christmas tree--ornaments were mostly homemade, a little cheesy and strung helter -skelter. Bust the reason is that my mom allowed my sister and I to decorate it ourselves, and all those crazy looking ornaments meant something to us. So when I got old enough to have my own tree, I decided I wanted a very nice-looking, fancy tree. So that is what I have had since I have been married. Oh, the boys bring home ornaments they make at school but we find other places to hang them. But this year, as I was setting up my tree, I realized what a lame-o I am. I was actually decorating the tree myself while the kids and Eric were in the other room--I think I win the boring mom award for that (I didn't tell them they couldn't help--they didn't want to, no doubt because those boring fancy ornaments did not interest them in the slightest). So I have decided once and for all to bring back the fun of putting up and decorating the tree. I will bid farewell to my beautiful tree this year and starting next year I will begin a collection of tacky sentimental tree decorations. I may even get some silver tinsel to put on it. Because I remember my fondest memories of Christmas was getting to decorate the tree how I wanted, and putting each ornament up, thinking of how I got it or what it meant to me. My mom was great to let us do that. So farewell fancy Christmas, I am joining the "Kid Tree" clan, and I know it will lead to many more happy memories. Goodbye tree, see you when our youngest moves out!