St. George "Vacation"

We just got back from a "vacation" to St. George for the baby blessing of my newest little niece, Kennedy.

I would use the term "vacation" lightly however, because I pretty much feel like I got ran over by a bus.  My kids - however - had a wonderful time playing endlessly with their cousins, sleeping in the same room as their cousins, and having no responsibilities.  

Why is it we get SO excited about a vacation, then after it's over we're just so grateful to be back home?  

Anyway, while I continue trying to recover from the "vacation", I thought I'd at least post some of the pictures I took while we were there.  Of course I didn't take my camera to anything that involved the actual reason we were there, you know...for the baby blessing...but I did take pictures at the park one day. 

We had put all the kids in their swimsuits under their clothes to go to a splash pad.  When we got there though, the splash pad had closed the day before...nice luck...so we played at the park instead.  It started raining and the kids took their shirts off saying "this is the splash pad now".

And now for the pictures.

Swinging...Addison's FAVORITE thing to do.  Luckily Grandpa was nice enough to keep her swinging and stay with her for a nice long time.

Monkey bars, slide races and climbing were also favorite activities.

As well as doing things that would have made Marty quite nervous.

And laughing at silly video's Grandma took on her cell phone.

Claire tried to pretend she was sad about the rain...but we got the truth out of her.

 

Laughing and playing with cousins.

 

Jeep rides

And Grandpa's FAMOUS pancakes.

For the kids, the trip couldn't have been better.  And really, I guess that's all that matters.

Pro's and Con's to Growing Up

As we prepare to welcome another baby into our home, my level of panic has steadily been on the rise.  Rather than getting more and more baby hungry and excited about a tiny little baby, I find myself watching mother's with a newborn and thinking "Oh crap, I have to do all that again".  (Don't judge, having a newborn is a little scary!)  But I do have to add, that a lot of the panic/worry is that our life is SO un-settled right now and in limbo that I'm not sure how we're going to handle throwing a baby in the mix.

But then as I watch my other kids continue to get older and more "independent" I have begun to realize that there are some serious pro's and con's to them growing up .  I decided to make a list to illustrate my point.

The pro's are followed by the con that goes hand in hand with it.

Pro's and Con's to Growing Up:

A.K.A. "Dreams vs. Reality

• Wipe their own bums
• Still yell from the bathroom for help to wipe their bums occasionally...which is just gross 
• Get dressed on their own
• Suddenly forget how to dress themselves when you're in a rush to go somewhere or can't find their shoes anywhere
• Help out more around the house
• Whine and complain about helping out around the house
• Easier to go places
• Can walk and run around stores rather than being strapped in a car seat.
• Can more easily entertain themselves
• Complain about being bored and having nothing to do.
• Communicate with words instead of different cries
• Resort to whining, back talk, groaning, grunting, screaming to communicate
• Sleeps through the night 
• Scares the crap out of you during the night by standing right by your face and yelling "Mom! Can I sleep with you?"
• Eats normal people food
• Refuses to eat anything but hot dogs, chicken nuggets and Tootsie Rolls
• Can feed themselves
• Decide that throwing food, spitting milk is way better than eating civilly
• Can go play out in the backyard without you having to watch their every move
• Digs through Grandma's garden and makes a huge muddy mess because you weren't watching their every move
• Can turn on a movie to distract them in order to take a shower 
• Can open the bathroom door and stand there holding the shower door/curtain open yelling at you and whining while you try to shower. 
• Learning more, getting smarter and starting to read
• Become know it all's, and mom is suddenly stupid.   Also begin reading your text messages/emails over your shoulder
• Goes to school
• School fundraiser/parties and other propaganda they bring home that they "HAVE TO DO!"

So really, maybe newborns aren't that bad after all!

Kid Funnies III

It's that time again.....time for KID FUNNIES!  Luckily (and surprisingly) there are a few funnies from Brielle this time around as well.  

Enjoy!

Brielle: Leroy (name has been changed) was bad today at school and had to get a white slip and go to the office!
Me:  Uh-oh, that's not good, did they have to call his parents or something?
Brielle:  I don't know what they do to him in the office.  Maybe they send him away with a wedgie or something.  I don't know, but it can't be good.


Brielle:  Mom, I have something bad to tell you.  There was a boy in my class whose skin was peeling, so we could almost see his bones! (I still haven't figured this out...but what the heck?)

My parent's don't have cable TV, so the one cartoon channel they have is Qubo.  Fortunately it is strictly cartoons, so it's available whenever.  Unfortunately instead of commercials, they have small infomercials between the cartoons for all sorts of stuff.  Thanks to those infomercials, Brielle knows all about some wrinkle reducing cream and had the following conversation with my mom:

Brielle:  Grandma, did you know if you just buy this cream that you could get rid of all those wrinkles on your face?!
Grandma:  That's okay, I like my wrinkles.  I've earned them all, it shows I've lived a good and happy life and I like them.  (AWESOME answer in my opinion)
Brielle:  Are you sure?  When I get older, I'm for sure getting the cream because I do NOT want to have wrinkles.

We've since had a discussion about 1. Being more tactful and 2. Infomercials not being true.

Brielle: Grandma...that shirt you're wearing kind of looks like a boy shirt.  (My poor mom.)

Claire: We talked all about M today at school, and a Moose brought us a muffin and left M's all over the room.  We read a book called "If You Give a Moose a Muffin".  And we practiced writing M's.  Oh, and look at my deer antlers we made!
Me:  I think they're probably moose antlers...since you talked about moose.
Claire: Well...I'm pretty sure moose are part of the deer family.


Claire's primary teacher here is Sister Cottrell.  Claire calls her Sister Quatro. 


Claire:  Mom, sometimes "parent" sounds a lot like "parrot"...which is crazy, because I don't know if there are parent parrots.  Do you?


Claire to my mom:  Sometimes grownups talk to themselves.
My mom:  Oh yeah, what do they say?
Claire:  I don't know, because they talk inside their heads to themselves.
My mom:  Yes, they usually call that thinking.
Claire:  Oh, I don't think inside my head.
My mom:  You don't?  Well what do you do when you think?
Claire:  Oh, I just scratch my head.


Claire:  Mom, I know why Grandma is smaller! (I'm assuming she means smaller than me)
Me:  Oh yeah?
Claire:  Yep.  Because sometimes when people get really old, they start to shrink!
Me:  (Laughing) Really?
Claire:  Yep.  She used to have longer arms, but they shrunk so she's smaller.  When she shrinks all the way back to a baby size, how old do you think I'll be?
Me:  Uh...she isn't going to shrink back to baby size.
Claire:  (Dissapointed) Oh, okay.


Claire has a girl in her class named Lomialagi.  This week they're talking about L, so they spotlighted Lomialagi.  When Claire came home she said, "We talked about that girl in our class whose name starts with an L.  Lomi-a-llama."  She isn't so great with names.


Standing at the door watching Brielle walk to school one morning, instead of a typical "Bye Brielle!", Claire yelled out at her, "I have a wedgie!".  I"m sure Brielle's day at school went much better knowing that, as well as all the neighbors who heard.

Addison is OBSESSED with coins.  If you leave any out within reach, you can guarantee they won't be there when you come back.  Her other habit is to put them inside her shirt - which is usually a onesie so they just get stuck in the bottom.  I went to change her diaper the other day, and 3 coins fell out of her onesie when I unbuttoned it.  It was like being paid to do a gross job!

What I've been busy doing (or growing)

So...let's just get this little tid bit of information out of the way quickly, shall we?  I started out this pregnancy overweight.  In fact, the appointment I had gone into where blood was drawn (which lead to the discovery of me being pregnant) was actually an appointment to go talk to my doctor about possibly having a thyroid issue or something else, because no matter what I did I had gained roughly 30 pounds in 3 months and me and the doctors were all starting to become concerned.

It was quite discouraging.

Starting a pregnancy already overweight isn't ideal.  I guess if I had to look at the silver lining, it would be that here - at about 25 weeks along - I've only gained 4 pounds (as opposed to my typical 25 by now). 
So there's a plus I suppose?

Anyway, I NEVER take pregnancy pictures, because I am not a pretty pregnant person.  I just get big all over...there is no cute little perfect bump where I am concerned.  But, I also feel that because Marty isn't around he is missing out on all the lovliness that is my largeness.  So...this is simply for him.


(Disclaimer: I tried having Brielle take a picture for me...that didn't go so well.  I then learned the hard way that you cannot use your flash when taking a picture in a mirror...duh, that should be obvious mirror picture taking knowledge...so we're left with this.  You take what you can get though, right?  I am obviously not an expert at taking pictures of myself...so awkward. Although, somehow I managed to get the picture to make me look smaller than I am in real life.  So I guess that was a small victory.)

And to think I have 14 weeks left of this (thanks to the C-section being a week earlier than the due date).  

Ugh...I hope I survive that much longer!