Big Girl, Big changes

I can't believe how big Katy is getting. I was a little overwhelmed when I went to her Open House at school and the teacher started outlining the detention policy. What!?? Detentions?!! Not that I have to worry with Katy, but still she's just my little girl!! The YMCA added a parent/child Zumba class for kids over 7 that Katy loves going to. It is really fun Mom/ daughter date, but its Friday evenings so we don't make it all that often. We recently hit a major milestone. Major, but not necessarily welcomed, nor looked forward to. As parents. Jared and I have cursed all of our children, and we knew it was a matter of time. Two week-ends ago, we realized it was TIME. Time for glasses! When she couldn't even see the score plainly posted on the TV during the Ohio St vs USC game we were concerned. At church the next day, she couldn't read the page numbers for the hymns posted in the front. She kept trying to convince us she could see fine at school. Monday as she jumped off the bus, she reluctantly told me she was having trouble seeing at school. Thursday morning she got to play hookie for a few hours while her vision was tested and she picked out frames.
I was determined to let her get frames she really liked. Getting glasses can be a major blow to a girl's self esteem. I KNOW this can be true from personal experience. I wanted her experience to be as least traumatic as possible. I let her pick the frames she liked best before looking at the price tag : $149. It didn't seem too unreasonable and they were Hannah Montana glasses. I looked at a obviously cheaper pair laying nearby, $49. Hmm, that is a lot cheaper... but they were UGLY!! I was NOT going to do that to her. Resolved, we took the glasses over to the technician. Our insurance ended up paying for the frames and lenses completely!! I only had to pay a small co-pay on the exam and an estra fee to get more sturdy lenses (a necessity with my soccer loving daughter). I was SOOO glad I had let her pick out the ones she liked.
Exactly a week later, we picked them up, complete with a Hannah Montana purse case. It was funny driving home. "Wow, mom you're not blurry like before, I can see your face clearly!" I was blurry before?? "Oh, and look, I can read that sign, and that one too!!" I felt bad for not catching it earlier. Her Dad and Aunt both got glasses in 3rd grade. I held out until 5th! I guess its just a matter of time now for the other three.

She seems to be handling the transition well. There have only been a few mean comments. (The Mama bear in me had to be restrained!) For the most part, people seem to be a lot nicer than I remember kids being. But then again, maybe it seemed worse than it really was to me.

Birthday Boy

My baby boy is really not much of a baby anymore. He's 2 today!! In fact, when I tell him he's my baby he usually responds "No, I not a baby". My baby was born on Friday, September 28th, 2007. He was 9 1/2 lbs!! He's been the best baby. He was so easy we often forget what it can really be like to have a baby.

2007

He LOVES all of his sisters. I have to physically restrain him from running down the street when he sees the buses bringing the older two home at the end of the day. He will be a lost little boy when Bella goes next year. He has always been a snuggly little guy. He still loves to cuddle Mom and give her lots of hugs and kisses. He can be extremely territorial of me when his Dad tries to kiss or hug me. Lately he has starting imitating Dad. If Dad has a hat on, he needs one to. He enjoys sitting on his Dad's lap and watching baseball, football, basketball, soccer, etc... He is obsessed with all balls. He loves to swim. Whenever we go to the gym that has the outdoor pool he squeals "sweemming, sweemming" its going to be a long disappointing winter for him.

2008

He likes playing with his friends Isaac (affectionately called Baby Isaac by Jacob), Tyler (which sounds more like Tywer when Jacob says it) and the neighbor Tucker. Jacob has been known to start yelling "Baby Isaac" over and over again after spotting him during church. One of his favorite places is the zoo. We were supposed to go today for his B-day but we all have colds so the trip will have to be postponed. His favorite animals are "elepants", "pengins", "turtails", and "monkmeys".

2009

He really loves Diego, Elmo and Disney's Cars, but we went with the Diego theme since it ties in easily with zoo animals. We had jungle bug juice complete with worms and Rainforest sandwiches (peanutbutter and bananas) shaped like zoo animals with red pepper slices. His favorite part of dinner was the animal jigglers. Top that off with a Diego cake and icecream and we all dragging from the sugar overload over here. Good thing the girls usually request salad on their B-day and this should only be a once a year sugarfest. He got 2 trucks, a Diego puzzle, a Cars backpack, and a battery operated Diego truck that goes surprisingly far on its own. We danced to Animal Action, acted like the Bobo monkeys, and went on a safari to find all the jungle animals hiding around the house. ( I had a really cute video of him dancing to animal action, but it accidently got deleted of my camera) We also watched a slideshow of pictures from the last two years. I wasn't sure what a party would be like without any friends or extended family to share the fun with, but we had a blast tonight!!

Crushers Victory

I'm not one that's usually big on spontaneity. I usually have the day jammed packed with so many things its impossible not to have a schedule. If I see I big block of time open I get very anxious until I have something filled in. This drives my husband CRAZY!! He'd like nothing more than to spend all day Saturday relaxing around the house but on the rare occasions we're not carting our kids to all the activities, I'm carting the family on one of "Mom's adventures". I try to ease up a bit during college football, but I make no promises or guarantees. This is why DVRs were invented right? Anyway, the start of this school year has been even crazier than normal, which might explain why I didn't notice there were 3 evenings in a row without activities or projects. It was on the first of these three evenings around 5:20, when I got a call from my Mom that went something like this

Mom: The Crushers are playing in the championship game in St. Louis tonight. They lost 2 games and then won 2 games. This is the final game. You should go, you might be the only Crushers fans there.

Me: They're playing against the Gateway Grizzlies? I thought the Grizzlies were done. (The Grizzlies' stadium is on the IL side of St. Louis like us)

Mom: No, they're playing the River City Rascals


Me: Oh, that's WAAAAAAAAAAAY on the other side.

Mom: It would still be fun

Me: (I was about to give an excuse based on our evening obligations when it occurred to me that we had no obligations. The girls had already done their homework, completed their nightly reading, and practiced the piano. It was not a Activity Day week and the lawn was mowed. There were no PTO meetings or Enrichment activities. I had already worked out. I was dreading making dinner so sandwiches en route to a game sounded pretty appealing. My husband loves baseball so I knew he'd jump on board pretty quickly)
Maybe we will go.
At this point I was already online seeing exactly how far the other stadium was while I finished talking to my mom. I called Jared as soon as I hung up with her. After a few minutes of discussion (mostly because we're not spontaneous people and it felt strange to do something so last minute) Jared ordered the tickets (around 5:35) and packed up to drive home from work. By 6:10, when he pulled in the driveway, the kids were all in the car wearing sweat suits so they could sleep in them if we got home too late. I was waiting complete with sandwiches, chips, and drinks for all. The drive ended up being a little under an hour.
The beginning of the game wasn't looking so good for the Crushers. But, we were amazed to see a whole section of Crusher fans there. Our tickets, unfortunately, were smack in the middle of Rascal territory. The people in the seats in front of us and next to us failed to notice our Crusher attire and were having fun interacting with the kids. Then came our 7 run 4th inning. At this point we could finally start cheering. Our "neighbors" turned around in horror to discover we were in fact Crushers fans. I was nervous that our restless kids might not be as cute as they had been before the discovery of our loyalties. I was trying extra hard to keep them quiet and seated. In the end, Jacob, who can charm anyone, had them all eating out of his hand. The girls are pretty good at charming also. The lady in front of us even gave them her souvenir cowbell. Although, that may have been more revenge than goodwill. The cowbell has "mysteriously" disappeared after ringing non-stop for days and will remain that way for a looooooooong time. We finally pulled Jared and Jacob away from the game after 10pm. It was the start of the 8th inning and we were only up by 2 but with an hour drive home left and one girl in complete meltdown mode with 2 more close behind it was time to leave. By the time we walked to the car we had scored 3 more points. The Rascal rallied a few more runs but it was too little too late. The Crushers got the last out right as we crossed over the Mississippi River into Illinois and a second (no exaggeration) before we completely lost the radio station.
The Crushers won the Frontier League title in their first season. The final score was 13-10. It was a fun night. I might have to leave more holes in the schedule to allow for some spontaneity.

Bella and Katy (Notice the Indians shirts on all 3 girls)

(Jared and I actually have Crushers hats but you can't tell)

Jared and Jacob

Sleepy Head

This year our church starts at 11:30. Its great for Sunday mornings. Everyone can sleep in and get ready at a relaxed pace. There is time for last minute tweaks of lessons, talks, or sharing times. However, its not so great for little 2 yr old boys who still need a nap. (And sometimes even 4 yr old sisters who could use one!) By the time we get done chatting and get home its usually close to 3 pm. Too late for a nap unless he falls asleep in the car ride home. A couple of weeks ago we decided to take a Sunday evening walk. We weren't gone long when Jacob started to have a melt-down. I put him on my shoulders in an attempt to distract him from this fight with the girls. It worked and we continued our walk, but by the time we got home, Jacob had lost the fight. It was barely seven, but we didn't hear from him again until 7am the next morning.

Fishy business

A friend of mine started a preschool/playgroup for 2 yr olds. Its held once a month for 2 hours and has about 12 kids in it. We each take a month to be in charge. Its a mix of playtime and crafts/stories. Last month was my month to plan. Honestly, I was nervous. I very comfortable planning lessons and crafts for 4 yr olds, but this was out of my comfort zone. I'm not one that has ever really done crafts with my 2 yr old. I know its good for their development and creativity and what-not, but thats just not me. I'm not artsy and I don't like going through all that work for an age-group who most likely will want to do something else right then. What kind of crafts are 2yr olds even capable of? Maybe my kids got my lack of skill, but at age 2 they were just wildly scribbling on paper (with the exception of Xandy).

I turned to my trusty computer for ideas but that just ovewhelmed me. There were tons of ideas but which ones should I choose and how do I move smoothly from one activity to another? Then I turned to Tonya and Laura. They each have experience teaching 2 yr olds, maybe they had some brillant ideas. In the end, it was one of Laura's craft ideas that brought it all together. The cutest Rainbow Fish craft I'd ever seen. With a Fish theme settled on, I went to work planning. I set up a fishing pond (plastic round blue tablecloth which was $1@ Walmart), made fishing poles out of dowel rods, strings, and magnets, and cut out paperfish that were accessorized with paper clips. During the first part the kids played in the sandbox, fished, and had free play.

Then we gathered and made a fish out of a paper plate and attached it to a popsicle stick to use to sing some fish songs and finger plays. After we had our fill of fish songs, I read the book "The Rainbow Fish".

Afterwards, we made Laura's craft, and one of my favorite crafts ever which happens to also be one of the easiest, LEAST MESSY crafts ever- suncatchers. All you do is take a piece of contact paper and draw a shape on half of it. We of course, drew fish. Then peel off the paper on that half of the contact paper. Give your child an assortment of different colored sqaures of tissue paper. Even Jacob had a blast placing his tissue paper on the contact paper. When they have filled the shape, peel off the rest of the backing and fold that part of the contact paper over the shape. Flatten and cut out. Viola, you're done. Punch a hole and tie with string to wear as a necklace or hang as a sun catcher. (I know, I'm terrible at giving directions)

I served fish crackers and blue jello set in dixie cups with swedish fish suspended in the jello. I found this idea online. My only advice would be to use fish fruit snacks. The swedish fish turned to a weird color and consistency in the jello.

I think the day was a success overall, and the best part is I can sit back and enjoy the rest of the playgroups until next year!

Test run of some of the crafts
The fishing pond

Who doesn't like sidewalk chalk?

Why is it that in life we are constantly forgetting promises we make to ourselves. I remember telling myself after running a half marathon that I would never force it to run twice as far, yet I find myself training for a marathon. After a disastrous experience with Xandy and 4 yr old soccer, we said we would NEVER do 4 yr old soccer again no matter how hard a child begged. Yet, soccer season started and somehow Bella ended up on a team. She was so excited the day we signed up. She asked every hour for days if it was time for soccer yet. This is the problem with have sign ups months before the season starts. It would work better to have sign-ups the morning of. We're talking about 4 yr olds, their attention span is much to short to be excited about something for months. By the time the season rolled around, the excitement had dwindled and was replaced by apprehension.
Her coach called the week of the first game. Remembering the frustrating experience of coaching a bunch of 4 yr olds that want nothing to do with soccer despite their Gun-ho parents cheering on the sidelines, I gave him fair warning. "Bella will most likely just sit and watch the first game" I continued to explain that this is her M.O. Her first dance class was spent sitting in the middle of the floor watching everyone else. It took months of observation before she'd participate in primary. At the 3rd dance class, you'd never have guessed she'd refused to do anything the first time. She was dancing circles around everyone else. Sunday, during the Primary program she actually said her line, sending Jared and I into a deep shock.
The first few games of the season consisted of a 1/2 hr practice followed by a 1/2 hr game. We had to keep pushing her back on the field for practice and I'm not sure she ever touched the ball. After much coercion, she went and sat by her team for the game but refused to go on the field. The second game saw a some improvement. She hesitantly took the field during practice and even participated some. The first time the coach put her in the game, she willingly went out. She proudly stood in the middle of the field and watched the other kids run back and forth with the ball. But, she stood her ground and never moved from her little spot. She trotted off the field when it was time for subs and refused to play the rest of the day. The third game Bella trotted out to practice without any resistance. She grabbed her water and went to sit by her team for the game. When it was her turn she actually ran with the other kids and went in 3 different times. Although, she only kicked the ball when she started the kick-off. Other times the ball would come right at her and she'd back away. But hey, if she continues to improve over the next 3 games she might actually be enjoying herself.....just in time for the season to end.

BYU Blues

I thought Jacob and Jared looked cute in their BYU apparel last Saturday. I took this pictures with hopes of a fun blog after we won. To quote Alex "since our defense forgot to go to the game Saturday" I instead write this with a heavy heart. It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been a decent game, but that was painful!
Maybe its my fault they lost. I am an Ohio sports fan so historically all the teams I care about will lose. Maybe BYU is cursed because I'm a fan, and I know I'm not the only Ohio BYU fan. Anyway, we finally got both of our flags hung this year. We can hear our neighbor's blood boil everytime he drives by our house. He is a Michigan fan who is also a minister. The BYU and Ohio State flags are too much to handle at one house for him.

Darling Discounted Dresses

While looking for new running shoes, I ended up at a shoe store next to Old Navy. It was hard not to notice the giant window signs announcing their additional 50% of clearance items. I LOVE that sale!! I was disappointed after perusing the womens section and toddler boys area. So far this sale was not so great. I headed over to the girls section hoping to salvage the impromptu stop. The girls section did not disappoint. I found these darling dresses and was estatic when there was one in each of my girl's sizes. Its no secret that I have a serious addiction to matching all 3 girls, which reminds me of another story.... The girls went over to their friend Aria's house for Aria's b-day on Saturday. When they walked through the front door, Levi (her brother) looked at their shirts and shook his head saying " why do you girls ALWAYS match?"

Its not their fault Levi, and as long as they let me, I'll continue to match them. I realize its only a matter of time until they start revolting and I'm going to savor every moment I can!

Sneaky Peeking

Conversation over lunch yesterday:
Bella: Mom, I had my eyes closed, but Jacob had his eyes open during prayer. But Mom, really my eyes WERE closed, I just know his were open.

Mom: Bella, how do you know his eyes were open if yours were closed?

Bella: (ponders on this for several minutes) because I could hear his eyes blinking

Gotta say I was incredibly impressed with her creative thinking. I didn't think she'd be able to come up with anything. Now I guess I should be impressed with her "supersonic hearing"
Bella is always coming up with things to keep us laughing and on our toes. Here's another conversation that took place as I tucked her in bed:
Bella: Mom, you said when Sarah's mom comes to babysit us that you would let the girls sleep in my room
Mom: I never said that
Bella: yes you did!
Mom: I'm pretty sure I didn't
Bella: you said it really quietly and now you just don't remember that you whispered it
It was really hard not to laugh or yell "Nice try!" as I explained the girls needed to sleep in their own beds on a school night.

I hope they call me on a mission..

He even started to learn the words to the song. I just LOVE this little guy!!!

Mud in your Face

Friday afternoon we left for a camping trip. We hadn't been camping for over 2 years which is extremely unusual for us. We headed for a campground about an hour away and hoped to be able to find 2 spots. We were camping with some friends of ours. There wasn't much left when we got there, but we managed ot find 2 spots together. The sites were situated at the top of a small hill deep under the canopy of the woods. This is the view from where we had to leave the cars:

If you look closely you can see our tents.

After setting up camp, we had a campfire and ate the most scrumptious dutch oven meal made by Rochelle. The kids played "Blurt" (a card game), and well all enjoyed ourselved. Jacob thought the whole experience was a blast. We went to bed keeping our fingers crossed that the rain would hold off. The last 4 times we've camped its rained signficantly. A little rain doesn't scare me away, but it was beginning to get ridiculous. Sure enough, we woke up to the sound of rain. When we emerged from our tents, we were greeted by a giant mud pit. The fact that the sites were sloped, turned the mud pit into a mud slide. Even the adults were slipping and sliding as we tried to make out way down to the restrooms. Poor little Jacob face planted in the mud, and I thought I was close to following him. We knew even if it stopped raining the site was not drying out anytime this week and the forecast was calling for rain off and on all week-end.

This picture doesn't really do the mud pit any justice

We decided to throw the towel in, packed out and went home. We couldn't get the cars back into the site without risking getting stuck so we hauled everything back and forth. Meanwhile, the kids entertained themselves in the car. This was the idea of the moms who were not looking forward to 8 muddy kids.

As we were leaving we stopped in the shower house to use the bathrooms. They were still gross camp bathrooms but were a huge step up from the outhouse without lights that was in our part of the campground. Bella walked into a stall and exclamied "Mom, these potties are BEAUTIFUL, I LOVE these potties. I do NOT like those potties that go way way down!" It was pretty funny.

Don't feel to bad for us though because we ended up having a great week-end all around. The girls were most disappointed that they only got to camp one night and they didn't get to fish. We let them all sleep in sleeping bags on the floor Saturday and Sunday night. We even let them sleep on our floor one night and Jacob joined them for the first time. I usually make him sleep in his crib to keep my sanity. We intend to take them fishing and soon as their Dad gets home from the golf course this morning.

Jared made it home in time to watch both the Buckeye and Cougar football. The Buckeyes barely pulled off a win but the BYU game was amazing and I would have felt REALLY bad if he had missed it. (well, he had set it to record so he would've watched it later, but thats not the same)

As for me, I got something I've wanted for a loooong time. I have tried to convince Jared to get one on several occasions, but have never succeeded. Well, packing up camp, I started to again plead my case. He reminded me that I had just gotten paid (i'm my neighbors version of latchkey) and could do what I wanted with the money. So, between the Buckeye and Cougar game, we loaded up and bought this:

We still had all the food I was supposed to make for dinner Saturday night. So, we called the Pearsons and had them come over to "finish" our campout and pressed pause on the BYU game. We made dutch oven potatoes in my firepit (I know its kinda hill -billyish), and foil fajita dinners and dumpcake in the oven. It was another great evening!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Hope you had a great day! Thanks for being there through the years.

New do'

I got my hair cut this evening. I was WAY overdue for a cut. A couple of weeks ago, while flipping through a magazine, I found a cute style I wanted to try. So with the magazine page in hand, I headed out the door tonight. I love the girl who does my hair. She's way cute and fun. She's in the other ward that shares our building, and her parents are in our ward. I asked her if it would work on me and we discussed the length I wanted and then she does what she does best. If I was super rich, I'd pay her to do my hair everyday. It always looks so cute when she's done and even though I watch her carefully, and she gives me pointers, it NEVER looks the same when I do it at home. I am really pleased with it. The biggest trick will be trying to keep it straight on humid days, but at least my hair isn't as crazy in humidity as Monica's is (bonus points if you know what I'm talking about). I'm not sure what Jared thinks. He said I didn't look like his wife. I'm not sure whether thats a compliment or not.............






I'm now officially caught up with my blogging for the first times in months. Well at least for the next 24 hours. I'm sure there will be tons more pictures from this week-end

Jammy time

I love these PJs the girls have so we had to take a picture so we can look back years from now and reminisce

Its Apple Time!

Although I'm always sad to see summer end, I LOVE fall activities. A fun group of ladies from the ward went apple picking with the little ones on Tuesday. Bella and Jacob had loads of fun. It was hilarious to watch Jacob dragging his bag along when it got to full for him to carry. He finally relented and let me help, but initially he was determined to carry it himself. There was a neat play area in the front. The kids spent lots of time running around while the moms got much appreciated "girl talk" time. I know Katy and Xandy will insist that we go back when they can come so I didn't pick as many as we usually do. Jacob and Bella have probably eaten 3 apples a day since. It was the Jonathon variety that was ripe, so they are nice sized for tots.

I don't think we ever managed to get a group shot of all the kids, but here's my two with a couple of their friends

A bittersweet farewell

Last Thursday, I drove down to Herculaneum, MO to attend a baby shower for my dear friend Laura. I had lots of fun shopping for baby girl clothes, but had to restrain myself from buying too much. The girls love Laura and Connel and wanted to get something for the baby too. We took them to the store and told them to pick something out together. We must have been having extreme delusions that night. Have our kids ever agreed on anything? They think disagreeing is a fun game. If someone picks something they like, they'll quickly change their mind just to disagree. After trying to get them all to agree on something, we decided to let them each pick something smaller. This proved to be particularly difficult with Bella. She picked out about 5 items that cost over $30 a piece before finally settling on a cute ladybug rattle. Xandy made a last minute swap and exchanged the pink "I Love Daddy bib" for a package of pink/brown headbands (sorry Connel). Katy went the with item she had picked from the beginning- a toy set that attached to the baby carrier and played music.

Sunday we made the drive back down and took a picnic dinner to share with Laura and Connel. Due to conflicting vacation schedules, we hadn't seen them for a few months. Since they were moving the next day, we wanted to be able to say good-bye. We had an enjoyable picnic outside and always enjoy hanging out with the Pettersons. At least we know we can still see them when we go back to Cleveland for visits and maybe someday we'll be lucky enough to end up on the same project! The girls told me that if Laura doesn't have her baby early while we're there for Thanksgiving, then we are leaving our bags packed and heading back as soon as she has it. Sorry to disappoint girls, but you'll just have to wait until the next time we get back. The girls had fun with my camera and took surprisingly good pictures. Actually, their pictures turned out better than mine did. I'll have to leave the photography to them in the future.

Katy's photography debut:

Xandy's debut:

Bella's debut:

The favorite picture of the night's photographer is up for debate. Both Bella and Katy claim to have taken it. Jared thinks it might have been Bella, but Katy is insistent it was her. Who knows?

Farewell dear friends, we'll miss you in St. Louis, but have fun back among our Cleveland friends!!!