Super boring week!!!

Yep that's right -with 4 sick kids, we didn't really go anywhere or do anything all week. Monday we made a trip down to the doctor because Anna was complaining that her ear hurt. Turns out that she had an ear infection. Now after a week we are at the point where they are all starting to feel a bit better - so they are BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS!!!!! and of course the weather is now FREEZING so they can't go play outside and mommy is starting to feel sick so she doesn't want to take them anywhere... Hmmm well i guess that's winter! So here I am looking forward to spring and grateful that at least my kids are starting to feel a bit better. I will miss how snuggly they are when they are sick though. It's the one time I can get them to sit still for more than 30 seconds!


The girls had a primary activity on Friday night - so Aaron basically got mommy and daddy all to himself. He LOVED it. He loved having the one on one time. (Evelyn was asleep)

Well it's a new week....wish me luck!

Sick Kids

Well I succeeded in getting to bed earlier last week - and go figure but after getting up at 5 am and working out - I had NO problem getting to sleep at 10! The kids have all been sick this week in varying degrees - Anna and Evelyn seems to be getting the worst of it though. Anna has has a stomach bug that has us up to our ears in diarrhea, throw-up, and gas. Listening to her walk around all day letting it out like a grown man who just downed a pack of soda would be awfully amusing if I didn't know how miserable it was making her feel. We kept her home from church today and she took a nap from around 10 am to 5 pm. My poor tired baby.... The up side - mommy gets lots of sweet snuggle time. Evie has been sick too - mostly just congestion and coughing - but those two things make it awfully hard to nurse her!!

It's amazing to me the way Sundays have a way of putting things into perspective for me... Thursday, Friday and Saturday are the most exhausting days of the week for me - Dan is gone more on those days, so I miss him more and the kids miss him more. However on Sunday when he is around, and my mind is focused more on Christ, it's much easier to remember that while some days are hard, some days are great and it all balances out in the end. It's also much easier to make dinner when I don't have to listen to Evelyn scream at me while I do.... :)

This week was crazy busy - Aaron and Evelyn had doctor's appointments on Monday - both are doing well. Aaron is still on the shrimpy side - but he is healthy and progressing well. It's fun to hear him talk - he learns new words every day!!

Evelyn is also doing well - Doctor said she is advanced in her motor skills. She is getting close to rolling over and sitting on her own. Why aren't my kids ever happy to just sit and cuddle with me for more than 3 months....

We (and by we I really mean I - since this was on Saturday) took Aaron for his 2 year old pictures and they came out SO CUTE!!! What a handsome boy I have!!!! It was SO hard to choose just one! Here are some of my favs.

Tired Mommy....

Mommy has decided to make an effort to go to bed earlier.... It's not going to be easy - but after a week of feeling exhausted all week and feeling like I don't know where the week went - I've decided to make a change - starting tonight - So - I'm heading to bed after I write this with the hopes that it makes me able to get up at 5 am tomorrow to go to the gym.... :) wish me luck!

Eileen gave a talk in primary today - she did an excellent job!! She told daddy what to write down for her talk - then she stood up and read it all by her self in primary. Everyone was very impressed - I'm just happy that she isn't afraid to get up and that she loves the scriptures enough to do this.

Dan had a meeting this morning so I was left to get the kids fed, dressed and out the door for church by myself. I learned one thing....I need to get up earlier and go to bed earlier.... That way maybe I won't get so exhausted when Aaron decides to come visit me while I'm feeding Evelyn with a mouth full of food that he is dripping all over the house....or when the kids spend all of Sacrament Meeting fighting over who gets to sit on mommy's lap....or when Evelyn won't nurse in the mothers lounge because it's not the right place....

Oh well...maybe next week I'll be perfect.... well maybe not - but better anyway! :)

Anna drew a picture for Evie and put it on her lap - then they all posed around her playing with her and kissing her - they sure love her!

Made with "A Day in the Garden" by Fanette and Mimilou Designs. Template by Colies Corner

Happy Birthday Aaron

I can't believe my little boy is 2 years old!! We had Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Sandi and Uncle Jon up to celebrate. Daddy made an Oreo cake and Aaron had fun opening presents and playing with toys! He's such a sweet little boy (LOL - at least when he's not screaming and wiggling and kicking....) :) He got some Legos and some Thomas the Tank Engine train pieces. Fortunately his sisters like them too which makes him want to play with them even more!

Happy Birthday little guy! We all love you and are glad to have you in our family!!

Our Week

We've had a fun week - Temperatures here have dipped down in to the teens. The newsman actually said that on Wednesday it was colder here than it was in Anchorage Alaska! As a result, school was canceled for Dan on Thursday! We love having him home - but I think it was a little anti-climatic for him since it's one day off that he doesn't get later in the year and holidays just ended this last week!

More good news - our fish replacements are still alive! They have now lasted almost a week and we are excited to have managed to not kill them! The kids happily show them off to everyone who comes over! The kids have also decided that the fish like to be read to, so they will stand near the fish tank and read (haha well Eileen reads - Anna tells the story to the best of her memory and Aaron just jabbers) and hold the book up for them to see. Here is Aaron reading his upside down scriptures to them!

Made with "Man's Best Friend" by DDBN - Template by Pure Creativity Designs

Eileen is reading everything and this Monday during Family Home Evening - we all made New Years goals - Eileen made the goal to read the entire book of Alma this year! Anna's goal is to not peepee in her panties (so far so good!) and Aaron's (set by mommy) is to potty train. Eileen wants him to start now. :) She tries to sit him on the potty before every bath.

Evelyn is growing like crazy and is just a beautiful, sweet baby! Too bad she doesn't like me.... she is SUCH a daddy's girl!

Made with Morning Mocha by Nibbles Skribbles

Fish.....

The kids have been asking for pets recently - so Dan thought it would be a good idea to get them a fish tank for Christmas. We found one on sale and grabbed it and set it up for the kids Christmas Morning. We then followed all the instructions from the people at the pet store about getting our tank ready for fish then on Friday, we went down to the pet store to get some fish. For two days we were the proud owners of two cute fish.... then they died.... I think I am cursed with fish. I remember as a kid, we got a fish tank for my dad for his birthday... we had it set up with fish in it and hidden - when we took him to it - there was a dead fish floating on the top. Poor Fish. The kids are taking it well - but I think Eileen is the only one that gets it at all. So we will try again and hopefully somehow we will get some to survive into adulthood (or at least a week or two!)

For New Years Eve - my parents and Grandpa came up to play and watch a movie and eat food and do puzzles. Aaron and Anna loved trying to help - Eileen was entranced by the movie "Up" which (as usual) scared her. She's so sweet and gets so worried during movies that she hasn't seen before when something bad happens in them. Unless she already knows it will be ok - she worries. Sometimes I forget she is only 5....

Yesterday, while the kids were getting ready for bed, Dan and I were laying on the floor together and Dan looks at me and says "I'm sorry - but I'm SO ready to go back to work" HAHA - well at least I'm not the only one who gets exhausted by my kids!! :)

A new year and a new church time today had Dan and I rejoicing. (More than once I almost spontaneously broke into the Hallelujah Chorus.) The kids were much better behaved today - hopefully this will last! Anna is now officially in Primary and when we picked her up after church, she was all smiles and fun - she has some of her good friends in her class and a wonderful teacher! Eileen also got a new teacher for the new year and said today after church that she was Good! Her teacher is also a wonderful woman that I think will work well with Eileen's personality.

Anyway - HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!

CUTIE!!!

Heehee - I snapped this picture of Evelyn yesterday! Look at that smile!!!!

Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

We have had a wonderful holiday break so far. We just LOVE having daddy home!! My grandma was in town and so we had everyone up for dinner and went out for lunch. We had a great time being with family. That is always one of my favorite parts about the holidays is the chance to spend time together as a family.

Monday we took the girls to Walmart so that they could pick out gifts for each other. They picked out very sweet gifts and were so excited to surprise each other with their gifts. This is the hug after opening!
The kids had fun opening their gifts. I got creative this year and crocheted dresses for their cabbage patch dolls. Anna has been busy putting the dresses on the stuffed animals and all her dolls. Eileen immediatly dressed her cabbage patch doll and then left it dressed. Here's Aaron in the hat and mittens we got him. He's so cute!!

The kids final present was a fish tank. Dan found a really good deal and the kids have been asking for pets.... :) Tomorrow we are going to go to the pet store to let them pick out some fish.

We also got a white Christmas - for the first time, our family saw snow on the ground on Christmas morning. It made for some treacherous walking, but the streets weren't too bad! :)

We feel so blessed this Holiday season for our wonderful family, and especially grateful for the chance to see family we don't get to see much and the chance to talk to Dan's parents on their mission. We can't wait to see them in a few months! We feel blessed for the amazing people in our ward who love and serve us in so many ways - I hope I can repay all that has been done for us. We are especially grateful for our Savior who's birth we celebrate and the love that He gives!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! - it truly is the most wonderful time of the year

VACATION!!!!

Thank goodness - It's the holidays.... It's so nice to have my husband around!! Just a few funny things from last week.... :)

Eileen told me after finishing lunch (during which she had a banana) that she had eaten a "mutilated banana"

Aaron loves to see Christmas lights. Anytime we drive around when it is dark, he points at EVERY light he sees and says "Light Light" - and with all the Christmas lights, that means he is saying "Light Light" the whole time!

We had fun last night making and decorating cookies. The kids loved cutting them out and sneaking tastes of the dough and the frosting. When i made the dough for the cookies, I made it Sunday morning (because it needs to chill) and realized that we didn't have enough flour. So I used the cake flour that we had in our pantry... but it still wasn't enough... so we ground up oatmeal to make oatmeal flour.... At least they tasted good. :)

Anyway - counting down to Christmas and enjoing some family time! :) It sure is exhausting...gotta go to bed... :)

Busy, Busy!

We've had a busy week!! Dan was gone for his usual wrestling and young men's. I had a Relief Society Meeting this week and our ward Christmas Party.

I attempted a trip to the grocery store with all four kids this week....not the brightest idea - Aaron is still too young to understand the idea of staying next to me! And Anna would touch everything - so Aaron would have to go touch everything too. I've got one more idea as to how to make this possible without losing my sanity in the process - I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.... :)

I can't believe Evie is almost 3 months old - the last 3 months have just FLOWN! She is such a sweet little girl - she smiles and her whole face just lights up - it's beautiful! She is growing so fast - she is lifting her head up so well now.

Eileen and Anna are so fun to watch together - they play so well together and it's so fun to listen to their made up stories and to see their different personalities as they play.

Aaron is the little copy cat - he wants to do everything that his sisters are doing - which means that he spends a lot of time playing with princesses and baby dolls... Dan is thinking he needs some manly toys for Christmas! He's also looking around the ward for families with boy that we can hang out with to teach him how to "play like a boy." He's such a sweetie though. He is talking so much now - lots of it is just mimicking his sisters, but his vocabulary is steadily growing. We also have some friends with little boys near his age and it's been fun to play with them and watch him learning to play with other kids his age.

Hair

Eileen loves doing my hair. She puts pony tails in (up to 9 of them) and then all the hair clips she can find - the record right now is standing at 49 little clips in my hair. Today while she sat and did my hair, she stood behind me and did my hair while she gave lessons on how to do hair. She stood behind me saying things like "And then you grab the hair and put this around it and twist is and put it here" And putting clips in my hair, telling her imaginary audience how to get the maximum number of clips in and how each clip went in. Here are some pics of the hair stylist with me after she did my hair. She had only gotten 23 clips in this time! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

One of the perks of having a school teacher for a husband is that we got him home for the WHOLE week!!! Now that's a happy holiday! Dan and I had lots of things we wanted to get done this week - he got all of his done - I got about half way through mine.... We didn't "go anywhere" for the holidays - traveling with 4 young kids is not something we are willing to put ourselves through very often - especially now that any trips need to be driving for cost sake! We spent Thanksgiving Day at my parents house down in Plano with my parents and my sister and brother-in-law. We had a great time! The food was great and the company was great! Our kids just LOVE their grandparents and aunt and uncle! Of course I brought the camera to this family holiday... and of course I forgot to get it out..... :)

Saturday we took our annual trip up to the Christmas Tree farm to get our Christmas Tree. We brought some Christmas movies for the kids to watch and then had fun running around playing in the leaves looking at trees and taking a ride behind the tractor.

Today in the car as we headed to church, I had gotten very tired of Eileen's grumpy attitude, so we decided to play a little game called the Thankful game. we each took turns telling things that we are grateful for. Eileen passed her first too turns because she was too grumpy to come up with anything. Anna REALLY got into it and was very sweet. Eileen finally dispelled her gloomy cloud and got into it too. I'm thankful for so many things - and topping the list are the 5 people I see everyday!

YEY!!!!!!!!!

Well we survived to Dan's first big break - I'm really starting to wonder where this year has gone! This week has been mostly uneventful - we haven't gone too many places since the kids have been a bit sick this week. Monday we went for Evie's 2 month old check up. I'm really not sure where the last 2 months have gone - yet I can't imagine our family with out her!! She is such a sweetie. She is growing well and developing normally!

After we went to get her pictures taken - I forgot to bring her dress for pictures, so we glanced at what J.C. Penny's had on sale, and found this darling little dress!! She just looked like a little angel in it! Unfortunately on the way from the lobby to the picture studio - she pooped all over the dress, the floor and me... Thankfully they had Shout wipes and the photographer was able to hide the stained part.... :) She was soo sweet - but a bit cranky after all the cleaning up and bouncing around! Still we got some very sweet shots!

Eileen making funny faces after baths
Anna holding Evie - such a sweet big sister!!
Aaron learned to play with his food from his sisters....

Thankfully we are all feeling a bit better and are looking forward to having Dan home all next week - so much so that Dan and I have each made ourselves lists of what we want to get done... hopefully we get it all done with out exhausting ourselves!! :)

It has begun.....

What is it? - well 'it' could probably be many things - but the 'it' I'm talking about here is Wrestling Season. For those of you who don't know, that means that my sweet hubby is going to be gone every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night for his calling or for wrestling (except holidays) until March. The best that can be said of this is that it reminds all of us (as if we really needed a reminder) of what an amazing husband and father Dan is!! If you want proof - just listen to this conversation that Eileen and Dan had this afternoon -

Eileen: Lets play married daddy!
Dan: I'm already married.
Eileen: no just pretend daddy!!
Dan: ok so are you going to cook and clean?
Eileen: no that's what you do!
Dan: what do you do?
Eileen: I just sit and feed the baby

LOL - I am soo blessed to have a hubby who can make dinner while I worry about Evie.

We also took Eileen in for her 5 year old check up and everything is great! She is doing well socially and academically - and she is in the 50th percentileon her stats - so she is average size. In mommy terms that means she is beautiful, brilliant, gregarious and sweet!
Want proof? These are from her little photo session at J.C. Penny's
In other news - Aaron got his stitches out and has been picking at it ever since - so it's been bleeding all week. But life is good!

Events

Well this has been an eventful week for us. We had two big family events this week. Eileen's 5th Birthday was on Monday. I can't believe my little girl is 5 years old. She is such an amazing little girl and I feel so blessed to have her as part of our family. She is so sweet and creative and energetic and fun. She got to celebrate her birthday with her favorite dinner (Dutch Babies - kinda like pancakes....) and making cake with Daddy. (Haha - if you can't tell, there are two candles on that cupcake - a '2' and a '3' to make 5...)


Then she had a small party with some of her friends on Saturday. We played duck duck goose, hide and seek, and anything else we could come up with. Then since the weather has been beautiful, we sent them outside to play while we made pizzas for lunch. Each of these kids mothers is a friend of mine and I'm amazed at the talented women I am friends with!! Eileen got a beautiful hand made necklace which matches one that I got for my birthday (from the same friend.) She got an adorable crocheted hat and sewn apron from another friend and a cute little hair clip holder to hang up on her wall. Her final gift was a set of GIANT coloring princess pictures. She and Anna spent the entire rest of the day coloring those!!

Her final celebration was this evening at my parents house. We all got together for dinner, cake, ice cream and presents. Eileen got lots of cute clothes and some fun toys. It's so funny to see how excited she gets about the clothes!

Also today we blessed Evelyn. My Dad and Jon and Sandi came up to participate. The blessing was beautiful. As I listened (or tried to with the three other kids climbing all over me!) I was struck by the feeling that this sweet baby has been placed in our home and our family for a reason. That she belongs here - with us - now. Some people think I'm crazy having 4 kids in 5 years, and maybe I am - but there is nothing I would change!! Here are some pictures from after the blessing. The dress is one that I made - it's a good thing we didn't wait any longer to do the blessing - it barely fit!!!

Our big happy family!!