The Somers Family

Fall

2012-01-23T15:23:00.000-08:00

Yeah, pathetic, I know. It's been how long since I posted? Eh, well, you'll have to take what you can get! I'll do a short recap of the highlights to get you caught up to speed. This fall, we did homeschool with Raelin and it went pretty well! We met our goals and accomplished some great things, but it's a dang lot of work for me and it's hard on the babies because we have to try to cram all our errands into one day which makes for hungry, tired kids and they don't get the attention they need because I'm trying to keep Raelin stocked with projects and tasks for so much of the day. It's just too busy. Plus we'd only planned to do it for a semester anyway. So Raelin went back to public school at the beginning of the new year and it has been great! She seems to be enjoying it just fine and it sure makes my life easier!! Ultimately, I wish I could afford private school and get them a better education that way, but meanwhile, homeschool, to me, is the way to accomplish that. But my sanity is paramount. So public school it is.

Also, with fall comes the pumpkin patch! The kids love the pumpkin patch (Alaina still asks about it on a biweekly basis) and the one by our house does more and more cool FREE stuff every year. This year they had some awesome mazes and hay mountains to climb, which, if you know my kids, they LOVE!

They also had a corn pit that was loads of fun for the littles.

And we went on a hay ride around the farms.

The kids had a blast! Except for Landon when he went to eat the corn and I quickly, but not TOO roughly brushed it out of his hands. But, I mean, EW! And I'm so not a germaphobe, but last year we went kinda late in the year and it was all fermented and stinky and there are SO many people who climb all over in there and just ew. So I didn't want him to eat it and I think I startled him. This was his response:

So sad! I broke his poor little baby heart! Awwwwwwww. And yes, I took pictures of it. I'm so mean.

We went on some cool hikes (love the fall colors--I think that's the best thing there is about Utah!)

and climbed all the trees the kids could find (have I mentioned that they love to climb trees?)

For Halloween we carved our pumpkins (Brice's turned out particularly cool--it's the puking cowboy one)

and went trunk or treating and trick or treating. LOTS of candy!! Raelin was a lizard, Ryker was Batman, Alaina was a monkey, and Landon was a banana. I was particularly proud of Landon's banana costume. I made it from scratch and I loved how it turned out!

Alaina got this awesome fat lip when she landed face first taking a tumble off a chair. Clearly, it didn't slow her down.

Raelin had a birthday and turned 8! Her baptism was awesome but I'll do a separate post for that.

For her birthday, she got some great books (she's an avid reader)

and her own sewing machine! She's been taking a sewing class and making lots of cool stuff so we thought it would be cool for her to have her own machine so she didn't always have to compete with me for mine.

We played outside as much as we could in the awesomely unseasonably warm weather, which I love.

Look at this little cute guy! I love that face!

Winter has just finally hit us in the last week or so with our first real snowfalls and freezingness. I'm hoping it goes back to spring rains and warmth again soon because I was really enjoying that! I'm not a winter person, in case you didn't already know that. HATE winter. Though I do feel bad for the kids when they're hoping for snow to play in and don't get any. I just wish there was such a thing as warm snow...

Goblin Valley

2011-11-04T14:45:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, we took advantage of one of the last few weekends of good weather and we went to Goblin Valley. It was awesome! I love camping. I can't think of a better place for my kids and my sanity. Nowhere else can I let 'em run lose without worrying incessantly about what they're breaking and who they're bothering and what messes they're making. It's so relaxing! I know lots of people who hate camping for one reason or another (for other moms, it seems like it's mostly the dirt. Fortunately, I don't care about dirt at all. Especially fortunate since Landon is still a crawler and he loves to eat everything off the floor: rocks, beads, erasers, marbles, nuts, you name it! Needless to say, he was a mess!) or who find it more stressful than regular life, but for me, nothing could be easier. And I'm not so pregnant that sleeping on the ground is torture. It was perfect.

We set up camp on a little trail near this old ramshackle miner's house and once we set up camp, we wanted to climb up to the mine.

It included some challenges in the offroading department, which Brice was more than happy to attempt.

And then we hiked up this insanely steep mountain to get the the opening of the mine (which was sealed off). I am not the greatest climber.

I'm pretty much the biggest chicken in the world, which I guess is pretty contradictory to the rest of my personality, but is, nonetheless, the case. I HATE heights! And I hate feeling like I might fall and die. Weird, huh. The other factor is that for the last 8 years, most of those sorts of situations have happened while I'm carrying a baby on my back. Just panics me even more! If you've been with me on this blog for a while, you might remember my very first blog post about our trip to Zion's and all the great hikes we went on there. And you might remember that, despite the fact that for once I wasn't carrying a baby, I was still terrified! Nothing has changed. Yep, still a chicken. And my kids are ALL better climbers than I am. Even Alaina can climb faster and easier than I can. Getting shown up by a 2 year old....

The first night, we went to a guided tour in the park where a ranger taught us about the plant and animal life in the area and the rock formations and the stars. Landon was tired and fussy, so I missed a lot of it, but the older kids LOVED it! Ryker fell in love with the ranger, I think. ;)

The next day, we went back into the park, planning on another tour, but we got the time wrong. We still had a great time hiking around the valley floor with the "goblins" and playing hide and seek. Amazing place!

You see what I mean about letting 'em run lose?

Alaina and Daddy hiding! Shhhh!

Did I mention it was amazing?

Landon spent most of his time in a carrier on my back, but I picked a spot for him to get down and play for a while too. The sand was so fine and he really liked spreading it around on the rocks and sitting on them to play.

Raelin is an amazing climber. I rarely see her so bold and confident as she is when she's climbing something. Fun to watch!

Alaina liked to find rocks that became her cars and her cows. Funny little thing!

This was Ryker's dragon.

We played hide and seek for a long time there, working our way across the valley floor as we went. Ryker found a tunnel to hide in.

Alaina squeezed into a tiny crack.

Ryker went running across the valley to find Raelin

who was hiding here:

Later in the day, we went for a hike through a slot canyon. At the beginning we found a tree and Brice challenged Raelin to climb up the trunk and out onto a limb and then jump to the ground.

The first obstacle was this big branch she had to shimmy around.

Then there was a drop she had a hard time figuring out how to maneuver, but when she actually tried it, it was a piece of cake.

Then she just had to drop down below the tree and climb down Daddy (jumping was a bit much, she decided).

Throughout the rest of the slot canyon hike, Raelin was a mountain goat and Ryker was a mountain lion. Very fitting animals they each chose to impersonate. Raelin had a great goat noise she ran around making and Ryker growled his way through the hike.

Gotta love how the carrier accentuates the pregnant belly....

I have no idea what's up with the bubbles, but she was having fun with it and it was cracking me up! The concentration!

Even though it's out of focus, I had to post this picture. Love the face!

Alaina and Landon were having lots of fun playing in the sand at our turn-around spot

until Landon threw sand in her eye. Good thing Daddy was there to LICK the sand out!

Daddy gets big hugs from Landon while he rests and watches the older kids climb all over the canyon walls.

And Brice found this ledge he tried to climb. Almost made it!

It was a really fun and much-needed trip. I'm glad we got this last trip in before the cold set in!

Landon's Haircut

2011-11-04T14:10:00.001-07:00

Before:

So sad! I absolutely LOVE Landon's hair!

It's so soft and long and curly and surfer-dude-ish!

But, alas, all good things must come to an end. At least, when it comes to hair, it's usually temporary. I don't know what it was about Halloween, but apparently we turned a corner and the "girl" comments began.

I knew that day would come eventually, but the sudden consistency with which I was getting comments that indicated people thought Landon was a girl meant that he really needed a cut.

I'd also been wanting to cut it for a while because it's in his eyes all the time.

I'd been debating about it and putting it off for a while because I loved his surfer look and because I didn't know how to cut it in a way that would free up those eyes without giving him a mullet but also without losing too much length and those awesome curls. I was planning to take him in for this first time so that I could watch how someone who knew what they were doing would accomplish that, but in the end, I just wasn't going to get around to it anytime soon so I did it myself.

I think his haircut looks just fine but I really just liked the shaggy, curly, mop so much better.

It was just so Landon. I tried to cut it as close to how it was after the last time I cut it (just trimmed off the goofy baby hair) so that when it grows a couple inches, it will go right back to the surfer-dude look. Let's hope it works!

Boys' Birthdays

2011-10-11T07:47:00.000-07:00

For Landon's birthday (yeah, it was a while ago--June 25th), we went to the splash pad in Spanish Fork. Landon loved it! We had some friends and family join us and the kids all had lots of fun running and screaming and getting soaked.

Landon is the first of my kids to really go for it with the first-birthday cake. He just dug right in! I made him a turtle cake but we won't talk about that. Not my best piece of work. It was too hot so the pudding I used between cake layers melted all over the place and it pretty much looked like a big pile of glop. Tasty though!

Landon had a lot of fun opening gifts and he really likes cuddly toys. He likes to eat them....

Ryker got an electric drum set that Brice and I found on KSL (I love KSL! Have I mentioned that before?) and it's just so Ryker-y.

Ryker wanted a 4th of July themed birthday so we shot off fireworks and I made him a firework cake. Easiest cake I ever made!

Sorry it's not a very exciting or detailed post as is my usual M.O., but at this point, I'm so far behind that I'm just trying to get the highlights and catch back up. One day I'll stay caught up. Yeah, right.

WARNING!!!!! GRUESOME PICTURES OF RYKER'S LATEST INJURY!!

2011-10-02T21:21:00.001-07:00

So, I know I have tons to catch up on, but I just can't resist skipping ahead and posting about Ryker's injury today. The pictures are NOT for the faint of heart so I'll put them at the end so you can read the story without looking if you want to.

The Andrews (Brice's sister's family) are out visiting and the kids have been having a blast! They were all out in the front yard waiting for us to get out the door to go to Brice's brother's house for dinner. Ryker and some of his cousins were playing tag and Ryker was on the trailer in the front yard. He fell off and caught his leg on an L-shaped brace which just ripped right into his leg. Ouch! He screamed, which he does almost every time he gets even semi hurt. I kinda could tell by how he fell that he'd been jabbed pretty good by something, but being the awesome mom that I am, what do I do? I tell him not to scream. Uncle Wes was closer to him than I was, so he went over and scooped him up and carried him towards me. He asked, "Where do you want me to put him?" I said, "Uh, in the car. We're going to need some stitches." Wes turned him a little in his arms to see the wound and said, "Yep, I think you're right!" (Here, I would normally insert a picture of the wound, but for those of you who are squeamish, you're welcome, and I will save it for later so you don't have to see.) He put him on the porch while I ran through the house collecting shoes for my other kids and Brice, calling for Brice to hurry his buns up getting ready (he'd been in the shower) cuz we needed to go NOW, finding the insurance cards, and getting a towel to put over Ryker's gash. It wasn't bleeding much, fortunately. The cut kinda went in under the skin and a long way up through the fatty tissue, but not deep enough to get to the muscle, which is a lot more vascular and would have meant LOTS of blood. Wes, who is typically pretty squeamish, really stepped up and kept Ryker looking into his face and calm so that he wasn't looking into his cut and freaking out (when Ryker first got a good look at his cut when he was in Wes's arms, he said, "I can see my BONE!!" We quickly straightened out that misconception! He thought that the fatty tissue, being whitish yellow instead of blood-red, was his bone. He'd never seen fatty tissue before). We got Ryker loaded up in one car, the other kids loaded in the other, and we went to the Insta-Care while Wes drove the rest of our kids over to Brice's brother's house for dinner. Brice's sister drove her brood in their car. We were at the Insta-Care for about an hour or so. The doctor was great. He was so good with Ryker and thought Ryker was hilarious. He is. He was saying funny stuff and being his normal Ryker-y self. All happy and chipper. He didn't like the shot part, but otherwise, he said it was easy. He even seemed to feel a little bit of pain after the shot but decided he'd rather suffer through it than get more Lidocaine. While waiting for the doc, he decided to practice perfecting snapping his fingers (don't worry--not a scary pic):

And he would not stop moving around! Crazy kid! Brice and I talked to him and told him all the things that would happen and then the doc told him everything, step by step, before he did them as well. He also talked me through the stitching, teaching me names of techniques and explaining it to me because I guess he could see that I was interested. Brice, on the other hand, had to go take a couple of time-outs. He got queasy a couple of times and had to go sit in the chair behind the bed until the color came back into his face (it was mostly his lips that were really pale when I looked at him). Even Ryker was watching everything that was happening. A couple of times, the doctor or nurse's hands were in his way so he couldn't see and he fussed at them about it because he really wanted to watch everything that happened to him. He's such a Somers. Brice's dad will be so proud!

Ready for pictures? Stop here if you don't want to see them!!!!

Here's the wound at the hospital before they did anything other than put a topical numbing agent on it:

And here's the wound all stitched up with 18 stitches:

And now it's all cleaned up and ready to be bandaged:

Oh the adventures we have with Ryker in our family!!

The Lord has a sense of humor

2011-07-31T14:13:00.000-07:00

Well, I suppose since it's fairly common knowledge at this point, it's about time for an official bloggy announcement. For some reason, the Lord sees fit to play lots of practical jokes on us. Landon was our surprise baby and a welcome one. A bit early for comfort (Alaina was only 9 months old when I got pregnant with him) but what is life for if not to challenge and stretch us. Getting pregnant with him was, however, birth control operator neglect.

This time though, we did our part in the prevention department. We were entirely diligent in our birth control use and I have no explanation for how we have conceived yet another child. That's right. Baby #5 is on its way.

I'm not sure how to describe my feelings about this. I guess there's what I feel on the one hand and what I know on the other. I KNOW that this will all work out in the end. I KNOW that God has a plan in all of this and that He does not make mistakes. I KNOW that God can make it possible for me to carry, birth, nurse, and raise another child right now (though perhaps it's not part of His plan for me to maintain my sanity in the process?). But I FEEL much different about this whole thing. I feel like I'm not up for another pregnancy right now or anytime in the near future. I feel like I really have no interest in going through the apprehension of another birth (in the end, it works out fine, each better than the last, but the anticipation of having to be in such perfect control of my body and mind to work through the birthing process drug-free is daunting, though I can't see myself doing it any other way--using drugs I mean). I feel like I'm floundering with four kids and I just don't see how I can possibly manage five. I mean, you've seen how much I haven't blogged in the last year. There's a reason for that. I can hardly manage daily life. I'm so not looking forward to getting nursing established because that process can be more painful than childbirth. I'm also not excited about how to manage THREE kids three and under. That's right. Alaina will have just turned three when this one is born. Three kids in three years! You've GOT to be kidding me! The thing that had been getting me through the day sometimes was knowing that life is hard right now because I have two very small children who need help with everything, but that they will grow quickly enough and be able to do more things on their own in no time. Well, with another one coming, I'm just not sure how I can do three so close in age who will need SO much from me for such a long while yet.

I suppose that I knew there was another child waiting for us because when people would ask if we were done having kids, I would say that I would be fine to be done but that if the Lord had other plans for us, that was okay too. But He might have to yell for me to hear Him. I guess he succeeded there. Hearing it loud and clear! I just could never actually say flat out that we were done, so I guess I kinda knew we'd have another. Plus I have a girl name picked out that I was sad not to get to use when Landon came out a boy. Right there, I jinxed us. I just didn't think the Lord would plan for us to have another so soon! And ultimately, that's what giving me a run for my money. I'm so not feeling ready to do all this again right now!

So aside from feeling emotionally kinda unstable and unsure of myself and my ability to have a 5th child right now, I'm also feeling miserably ill. The thought of food makes me sick but not eating makes me sicker. And I have to eat every two hours or I feel like I'm on my deathbed. Nothing sounds good. Ever. But I'm forced to either be thinking about or eating food all. day. long. And when I think of something I might be able to choke down, I need it right this minute. Ugh! So, needless to say, the house is a disaster (I mean, it's always a disaster, but right now it really looks like some sort of tornado or earthquake rocked our world, which I guess it kinda did). Brice has had very little work the last few weeks which is sucking as far as paying the bills is concerned but is a Godsend for keeping the family functioning. He's been amazing about keeping up on dishes and making sure that SOMETHING gets done around the house every day, even if it's not enough to get us to a normal state of functioning. He also takes care of all the poopy diapers when he's home because that just sends me over the edge. And he makes my food for me as much as he can. And the kids' too. He also takes care of everything in the morning so I can sleep in and get my much-needed rest (I'm not a napper). He's so good to me! Even if he does get frustrated that I'm not helping around the house. But I think he gained some insight into my plight last night (whoa, that was a lot of -ights in a row) when I asked him how much work he'd be doing if he had food poisoning that lasted 6-8 weeks. A light went on behind his eyes. Total ah-ha moment.

Then there's the whole issue of moving and all that. With homebirthing, it's not quite as simple to just change care providers. Some midwives want to have you as a client for at least a specified amount of time before the birth--it keeps their risks low to know what's going on with their patients. Also, midwifery in California is FAR more expensive than it is here. So do we postpone our moving date until after the baby? Or do we go anyway and pay the higher cost and find a midwife for the last 2 months of care and the birth? The other thing is that part of the point of midwifery is to have a woman whom you trust and have built a rapport with. It's a little more difficult to do all of that there at the end. At any rate, I haven't done much to answer my own questions in this department because I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with all these decisions that now need to be made.

Oh, yeah. And add to all of this, the guilt that I feel for carrying a child that I'm not totally excited to have. Yeah. Great. I keep worrying that this poor kid will feel totally robbed and unwanted for his/her whole life because I feel so not excited right now. I'm sure I will love and adore this one just as much as my other four, but right now I don't feel anything like I did when I was pregnant with them. Where I should be feeling excitement and joy I feel fear and doubt. How do you remedy that one?

Well, now I'm just rambling. So that's the long and the short of it (mostly the long) so feel free to offer your congratulations or your condolences--both are appropriate at the moment.

Okay, but really. I do truly KNOW that it's going to be okay, so don't go thinking that I'm in the depths of despair, thinking my life is ruined or that I'm not going to love this baby or anything overly dramatic like that. I know that once the baby is here it will all be worth it. It's just right now, with 8 or 9 months of pain, discomfort, hard work, and fatigue staring me in the face, that I'm doubting my ability to rise to the challenge. But in the end I do KNOW that I CAN do it. Just scared to I guess. It's a lot to ask of one little mommy with 4 small kids already.

Oh, and due date: Brice's birthday! February 22 2012. That will mean that Alaina and Landon are 17 months apart and Landon and #5 (I think I'll start calling the baby Johnny 5) will be 20 months apart. Alaina and Johnny 5 will be 3 years and one month apart. Raelin will be 8 and Ryker will be 6.5. So we'll have 8, 6.5, 3, 2.5 and a newborn. Here goes nothin'.

Family Pictures

2011-07-31T12:32:00.000-07:00

We never get family pictures taken. In all our married life, we've done it twice. Our old ones were so outdated that we were missing half our kids. So my cousin did a photo shoot with us and we FINALLY got some new ones done! I LOVE them! We took them a few months ago, but I've been a blog-slacker and am just now getting around to posting them. I still haven't gotten them printed to hang on my wall but I will do that when financial aid comes in next month. This is the set I want to print--my most favorites:

I ADORE this picture! It melts my heart. It just captures so well how Brice feels about this little girl. She is such a light in our family. Such a precious picture!

Thank you, thank you, Trina!!!

My kids are so cool!

2011-07-10T16:57:00.001-07:00

I've been wanting to do this post for a while but I was hoping to collect more pictures. Eh, well, I'm just going to go for it and see what pics I have.

My kids do the most awesome things! Lots of times I get really frustrated with how much mess they make and how much trouble they cause, but by letting them make the messes and cause the trouble, they also develop independence, creativity, and ambition. So I try not to sweat the small stuff and focus more on all the awesome things they come up with to do with all their autonomy. Here are some recent examples of just how cool my kids are, in no particular order:

Landon lets me hold him on his back and toss him in the air and he tucks just perfectly to do a full 360 barrel roll. I've got to get it on video. He thinks it hilarious.

My kids caught a BIG fish in a POT!!!!!! This one blew me away! They came running in the house, all out of breath, and asked for a pot. I got them the camping pot and a while later they came back with this:

The kids build a fort with stuff from Brice's lumber stash and using all kinds of stuff to keep their "walls" from falling over. They played in it all day.

Landon can hang from the monkey bars.

The kids can set up their tent all by themselves! Love that. They camp in the backyard frequently.

Their fort they built up the canyon.

Raelin loves to dance. I love this outfit even though it's kinda weird. Her style is all her own and I love it. I think she pulls it off really well.

While Raelin's style carries over through all her outfits, Ryker has this one outfit that is a favorite. He loves to wear my soccer socks with shorts.

Landon eats dirt

And roots. And rocks (not pictured).

My cool kids in their cool shades.

Alaina manages to make a face full of food and drool look absolutely gorgeous. I don't know how she does it.

Raelin holds slimy salamanders and loves it.

She also climbs trees like nobody's business. There's a tree at the library that's about 50 feet tall and she can climb to the tippy top. It's hilarious to see her little face poking out of the branches way up there. And I totally trust her in trees too. She's like a leopard.

The breakfast they invented: Kiwi, toast, mango, and frosting.

They love to find the biggest hills around and run as fast as they can down them. Rolling down them is loads of fun too.

Alaina makes an awesome funny face.

My brother is AWESOME!

2011-06-11T17:20:00.001-07:00

My brother just graduated from the fire academy on Thursday and we are SO PROUD of him!

Twenty two weeks of early mornings, late nights, hard work, and dedication (sounds like motherhood). His academy is one of the most prestigious and difficult ones in the state and lots of other academies think they go way overboard.

His platoon outdid all the platoons of fire fighter recruits their chief had worked with before them. They are the cream of the crop.

When awards were being given out, Jesse got passed up for scholarships, best academic skills, most improved, most dedicated, and best manual skills. But then he got awarded TOP GUN!

Top Gun is the best all-around recruit and it was the highest award you can earn at the academy. That's my bro. Just call him Maverick. Or Goose. He loves it. ;) Not really. Actually, it pretty much embarrasses the crud out of him. It's loads of fun. We keep putting his plaque on display around the house and he keeps hiding it.

This is Jesse making his "I'm too cool" face with his gorgeous fiance.

This is Jesse's fabulous cheering section. We were the best cheerers in the audience.

My kids adore him. And at over 6' tall, he makes a great jungle gym.

This is the aptly named "misery log." The recruits had to use it in lots of their training excercises. They had to carry it on runs, pass it backwards over their heads and then run to the back of the line to catch it again when their turn came back around, do sit ups as a group holding it across their chests, and other such misery-making drills.

I'm so very proud of him! It's quite an achievement, and I look forward to watching him progress through his career. Good job, Jesse!!! You're awesome!!

Oh yeah...

2011-05-19T16:18:00.001-07:00

...The ones in the camera. I should blog those too so I can be totally caught up.

Raelin showing off her sweet dance moves: I love some of the outfits she comes up with. Sometimes goofy, but still SO much cooler than mine when I was a kid. No, you may not see any pictures of that. They're fit to be burned.

Landon was loving his sink bath.

And it is officially camping season!! YES! We are all so excited! We haven't been able to go yet due to schedules and weather, but the kids did camp in the backyard last weekend and we went up the canyon for dinner on Sunday. Landon was enjoying an Italian sausage. He might have picked it up off the ground... At least it didn't have mustard on it (mustard is grosser than dirt and harder to wash out).

Brice and the kids built this awesome tee-pee with a bunch of stuff they found by the campsite we were at.

The creek (currently a river) was amazing! I didn't get any pictures of it, but I'm sure we'll be back up again soon. The water is rushing and is spilling over its banks in many places. It's a pretty spectacular sight!
What a masterpiece! I wonder how long it will stand... We'll have to go back up soon and see.
I love this smiley face!

Ryker had his kindergarten graduation last night. It was so cute! The kids did such a great job! And it was short and sweet, which was good because Landon didn't nap and he was a bit of a wreck.

Ryker was having a really hard time looking at the camera and not at all the things going on in the auditorium. But this picture is so very Rykery. Also Rykery was the award he brought home today: "Most Energized." If that's not Ryker in a nutshell, I don't know what is!

As much as these two butt heads, they are also the best of friends!!

Congratulations, Ryker! Good job buddy!

Final random stuff

2011-05-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

Well, that didn't take nearly as many posts as I would have thought! So without any further adieu, here's the last of the updates in no particular order.

Brice took a Ju Jitsu class at BYU last semester and at the end of the semester he entered a tournament. He had three matches and lost but had a lot of fun! He'd had a crazy busy week with lots of heavy lifting and a little bit of illness and he just isn't in as good of shape as he once was. It was loads of fun to watch him and the kids had fun playing on the mats they set out for kids to play on. I only have a few pics and they didn't come out very well, but we got all three matches on video so it's okay. I just wanted to put something up here with his story. He's the one in dark clothes.

Codie cuddling with sick Alaina.

Love the crooked hat!

SO happy to be outside FINALLY! We went to the duck pond for lunch with Brice one of the first nice days we had and it was so fun!

Alaina loved chasing the ducks all over. She was so cute with her arms out, running all over!

We planted a couple trees and this is Alaina in one of the holes. I just loved her expression. It's so her.

Landon thought eating the dirt was the most wonderful thing ever.

Rocks weren't too shabby either.

Roots, not so much.

Trying to eat the dirt without getting his hands dirty? Just lap it right up, kiddo!

Raelin's been taking piano lessons from one of our amazing neighbors. I love her face; so focused!

We aren't very good at making sure she practices, but she's learning so much and she makes up songs on her own that are really pretty!

We were at the park recently and Raelin caught a baby bird! That girl amazes me! The little bird was so cute but so scared. The kids let it go and than chased it back over to where they found it.

My cool kids in their sunglasses.
Alaina fell asleep with her head buried like an ostrich.

Best Easter Ever

2011-05-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

This Easter was so great! It was unhurried, unchaotic, and more Christ-centered than any other Easter I can think of. We have a big family and we love having big holiday celebrations, but they are busy. This time, for some reason, things just worked out in such a way that everything was pretty low key. Brice got asked to speak in Sacrament meeting and his talk was great! I also loved that it gave us the opportunity to talk about the resurrection often for the week or two before that Sunday. It really helped to set the stage, I think. After church we came home and called around to see if Brice's brother or any of my family was going to come join us for the Resurrection egg hunt.

I like this tradition because I'm always looking for ways to bring more of Christ into the holidays that are ABOUT Him, but that are being overshadowed by marketing and consumption. This hunt is just 12 eggs and each has a scripture passage and a token from Christ's death and resurrection (a thorn, a small nail, a toothpick cross, a stone, etc.) and you read them in order so that it tells the story.

Brice's dad had been out for a visit and he was just about to head home, but we convinced him to stay for the hunt and the story and it ended up being just him and us.

Then we headed up to my parents' house where we had another egg hunt, this time with candy, but we'd decided to just do minimal candy and some eggs with money in them instead of candy. SO nice not to have just a crazy amount of candy and the absence of the sugar rush that goes with it! (Sorry the picture didn't rotate; you'll just have to turn your head this time--I'm not fixing it.)

I think that it really helped to keep the spirit of the holiday not to get all candied out. There's something about loads of candy that sends people (especially little kids) into a frenzy.

The egg hunt at my parents's house is always a favorite because the adults get to hunt too. It usually involves tree-climbing,

roof climbing, dismantling of various things in the yard, usually the fence, etc. These are two different trees that Raelin is in, by the way.

We all love it! This time, we also got to meet a pair of salamanders that were living in a sprinkler box.

How cool is this girl!!!

Usually this is a bring-your-friends-neighbors-and-acquaintences sort of thing because it's just so much fun, but this time it just worked out to be us, my parents, and my sister's family. It was nice to have a small group, even though the big group is also lots of fun. And the little boys were so cute, just kicking it in the grass and pokeing each other--their favorite pastime.

Oh, and this year we did something different for egg dying. I found this idea online and thought it looked like fun so we tried it! You just take the eggs (uncooked), wrap them in silk (ugly ties from the DI work GREAT!), then in a nylon, and boil them in water with 1/4 cup of vinegar for 15-20 min.

This is what we got! Not too shabby, eh?

Not all of them turned out, but the ones that did were so cool!

The other thing that I really liked this year was that the Easter story got told several times throughout the day which I thought was so great to keep the focus on Christ instead of bunnies and candy. Between Brice and the other speakers, the story was told in detail in Sacrament meeting, then I told it in the class I taught, then the egg hunt told it, then my mom told it after the egg hunt. It was a really great Easter and I hope that we can always do so well at remembering our Savior throughout that special day.

At least it hasn't been three months...

2011-05-19T12:42:00.000-07:00

Yup, still sucking at the blog thing. School's almost out and I'm hoping that helps. We'll see.

At any rate, here goes nothing. Catch-up might be a few posts long...

Birthdays. There are lots of them this time of year. Russell's (my nephew's) is on the 29th of March and then my dad's is April 1st, and then my niece's is the 2nd (but she lives in Cali, so we didn't get to celebrate with her), mine is the 4th, and my brother's is the 8th. Not to mention all the cousins and uncles interspersed throughout. My birthday was the best one I've had in a long time!! Maybe ever. I've kinda had not-so-amazing birthdays the last few years because it always comes around at the end of the semester when we are about out of money and finals are coming up so we're out of resources to invest in much of a birthday celebration. But this year, Brice made my birthday amazing!! He made me cinnamon pull-apart (what we call "ball-y coffee cake) for breakfast, and then he made me LOBSTER and crab legs for dinner!! It was fantastic! I was so impressed and mmmm, it was delicious! It was practically Red Lobster at home, complete with those cheesy rolls they have. My husband is an amazing chef! LOVE IT!

Then he somehow managed to get me a serger sewing machine! I've been wanting one for my diaper business to make the soakers and it's awesome! I've had so much fun with it and it sure is easier to make those soakers with the serger than to cut everything out and try to make sure the zig zag stitch catches all the layers. He's so good to me.

We also went to my parents house around my b-day and had a celebration with family. My dad and I had fun fighting over cups of milk (he made me laugh and I got some up my nose!) and blowing out candles and other dumb stuff.

The kids had a great time running and rolling down this huge hill at BYU.

Alaina thought it was so funny and she would pretend to fall and then roll the rest of the way. Gotta love the way she does her shoes too. We put them on her the right way, but as soon as she gets a chance, she undoes them, pulls the tongues out and redoes the velcro. She just likes 'em that way, with the tongues flopping all over the place. Funny girl.

If you ask Alaina to make a funny face, this is what you get.

This is the most recent diaper I made for Landon and I think it's my favorite. My business has been moving along slowly but surely. I've had pretty steady orders for the last little while. I love making diapers and talking to people about cloth diapering. It's always fun to get requests for fabrics I might not have thought to use and to see how they turn out!

I don't know why Alaina is putting a bucket on Russell's head and I didn't take this picture, but it's funny!

One morning, Raelin and Ryker surprised us with a breakfast creation. We came to the table to find this: toast, kiwi, orange frosting, blue frosting, and mango. They made up their own frosting recipe consisting of powdered sugar, granulated sugar, milk, and food coloring.

They instructed us to put the fruit on the toast and then pour the (rather runny) frosting over it. I was pretty skeptical, but it was actually not half bad!

I think a lot about how frustrated I get with a lot of their antics, but this one helped me to look at things in a different light. Instead of thinking about how much stuff they get into and how they just help themselves to so many things that aren't theirs to get into, I've also realized that (in part) because I don't (usually) freak out and ground them for life when they make messes and snatch food and all those other things that I always feel SO frustrated about but never know what to do about, they are really quite creative and self-confident. The invent wonderful games even though they make a big mess in the process. They are bold enough to invent a meal, again, making a big mess and using things I might not have wanted them to use. But if I scold and punish them for the mess making and being presumptuous, which is my instinct, I would stifle all this creativity and independence and that would be a tragedy. So I'm trying really hard to let go a little and see more of the good things that are happening instead of just the trouble their explorations cause. It's a work in progress because I hate how messy the house always is and I doubly hate how hard it is to get them to do an ounce of cleaning.

Baby-led weaning

2011-03-25T17:25:00.002-07:00

This is a post I've been wanting to do for a while. I've been collecting pictures specifically for this. Landon is between 6 and 7 months old in all these pictures.

Since I'm on a roll, I figured I get it done now. So, why is it that we have to come up with names for things that used to just be the natural course of life? Baby-led weaning? C'mon. You need a name for it? Apparently, since in this culture we rely on pureed baby food. What are we, birds? Okay, anyway. I'm not here to harp in the existing norms (okay maybe a little) but more to share what I've done, why I've done it, and how much I love it! SO much better than spoon feeding which I hate.

Basic premise:

1. Babies know how to get food from it's source from the first hour of their life. Why do we interrupt that with 6 months to a year of spoon feeding them?

2. I can't think of anything in nature that comes in a semi-liquid state; there are solids and there are liquids. It follows that pureed foods would seem unnatural to a baby. Landon doesn't even like applesauce even though he loves apples.

3. Babies know what and how much food their bodies need. They are drawn to the colors and smells of things that contain the nutrients they are in need of. When the parent chooses the jar of food to feed, the baby loses the opportunity to get the exact right things for his/her body. Also, most of us have a tendency to want to finish off the jar of baby food even if the baby is full. The baby will often lose the sense for being done eating when the body says it's full.

4. During the first year, baby can get everything he/she needs from breastmilk and solid foods are more for exploring and experimenting with taste, texture, smell, and color. No need to try to coerce baby to finish a meal.

Myths:

1. Babies will choke if food is too hard, thick, big, etc. Pureed food fed babies learn to swallow and later to chew. Baby-led weaning fed babies learn to chew and then to swallow. My own personal hypothesis is that this will actually reduce choking instances because a baby who learns to chew first will never forget to chew first.

2. Gagging=choking=danger. Gagging is how babies move things around in their mouths. Their gag reflex is much further forward in their mouths than that of an adult so the food is not as close to their airway when they gag as it would be if we gagged on a piece of food.

3. Babies don't like food with lots of flavor so start with rice cereal and then add flavors a little at a time. WHAT?! Thankfully, this ridiculous notion is being renounced by the same magazines that used to publish such rubbish. I'm pretty sure that a good portion of the finicky eaters we see today stem from being fed pureed, bland food. Bring on the peppers and the onions!

Personal experience:

With Alaina, I was lazy and I hated making and spoon feeding pureed food. I waited until she was about 9 months old before I really fed her many solids. By then, according to Western school of thought, babies are old enough to safely chew and swallow food. I diced up fruits and veggies real small and steamed them for her until I saw that I didn't need to dice them quite so small.

With Landon, I'd read up on the baby-led weaning philosophy and it just made so much sense to me. It was the right thing for us--why would I do it any other way? I tried pureed baby food a couple of times only because I had some in the house leftover from Alaina and I didn't have any fresh fruits or veggies that day. He hated it. He didn't want me to feed him and he would only take one bite before he zipped those lips and turned his head away. So when Landon was 6 months old, aside from two or three attempts at pureed food, I started giving him fresh fruits and veggies--big chunks of them. Usually about the size of his fist or bigger. And I didn't even steam anything. He LOVED it!

I could see that he wasn't really swallowing anything and that he was just mouthing things, experimenting with taste, texture and color. That quickly transitioned to chewing but still not swallowing. There was a little gagging but NO choking. Not even when he put this huge fist-sized chunk of chicken in his mouth:

I've never had to intervene to help him with his food. I gave him anything we were eating that didn't have chemicals, salt, or processed sugar. My favorite is a butternut squash and chicken dish that's seasoned with sage, olive oil, and a very small amount of salt. The whole family can eat it and we all love it! I tested whether or not Landon was showing a preference for things or just randomly grabbing whatever was there by putting 4 pieces of squash and one piece of chicken on his tray with the chicken in the middle (he'd been seeming to like the chicken better). He dove straight for the chicken, validating the idea that babies have a preference and their bodies tell them what they need.

Another thing I love is that when I make stir fry, I can give him a pile of everything we're eating (before I put the sauce on) and let him try all sorts of veggies and meat.

I'd like to say it's less messy, but that's just not true. It's a different kind of mess and one that I personally prefer. The pureed food drool and slime covering baby is not my favorite. This oatmeal and raisin meal wasn't the easiest to clean either, but I tried giving it to him in a bowl with a spoon but he threw the spoon on the floor and dumped the bowl upside-down first thing. Usually, though, I can just dust him off from chunks of peas, carrots, apple slices, or broccoli and he's good to go. I make Brice clean him up if it's bananas though. Ew.

Not only is this way SO much easier to me (I eat my food, he eats his, easier prep, lower cost), but it also seems like the natural order of things and I like that. I think it's a LOT more fun too! I love watching him try to coordinate his movements (good for motor development!) and I love watching him try new things. He seems to enjoy it as well! Oh, another cool thing: when he was just over 7 months old we went out to dinner to Red Lobster. I ordered him a side of asparagus without any seasonings and he was content and happy the whole time we were there. Yes, my baby likes asparagus! How cool is that!? I highly encourage all of you with babies to give it a shot. Still not sure? Feel free to ask questions!

Landon

2011-03-25T16:43:00.001-07:00

Last but not least, Landon. How this boy has grown!!

His hair is ridiculously long but I'm not sure what kind of cut to give him. A Ryker-cut just doesn't seem fitting. He's also extremely wiggly so thinking about bringing a pair of scissors anywhere near his little head is a bit intimidating. And there's no way I'm buzzing it. I love my boys' hair.

Landon started sitting up reasonably well around 7 months old (he's 9 months old today).

He started crawling at about 8 1/2 months old.

He's been so interesting to watch; so different from the other kids as far as development. The other three were all on the early end of the spectrum with milestones whereas Landon is on the late end. He's clearly healthy and happy so it's not a cause for concern or anything. It's kind of endearing actually. It makes him more needy too which is sometimes endearing and sometimes irritating (like when he needs more help falling asleep and his learning curve in that department is slower). Alaina particularly just flew from one stage to the next, giving us very little time to appreciate each stage. Landon spends quite a while at each level. It's interesting to watch how he just plugs along at his own pace. He seems oblivious to all the things going on around him that you'd think would motivate him to sit or crawl or babble. He's just happy being himself, which I love.

He's been our hardest sleeper

and our worst teether, but he's mostly a happy little guy...

until around 4:30 or so when he is only happy riding on my back in a carrier while I make dinner or do chores.

Alaina adores him and loves to hold him, but he's getting mobile enough that he's not liking that so much anymore. He's also mobile enough that he fell down the stairs the other morning. I wasn't out of bed yet and Brice had just left for school. When everyone left my room after family prayer, they left the door open. Landon was in my bathroom playing and I thought I was waking up enough to be aware of him so I didn't call after them to close the door (no one but me is really in the habit yet of keeping the stairs unaccessible to him). I guess I fell back asleep because the next thing I knew, I heard the terrible and distinct "thump thump thump thump" of a child falling down the stairs. I was out of bed and running before he hit the bottom, but the poor guy fell down the whole flight! Fortunately he wasn't hurt--he stopped crying in well under a minute after I picked him up. He had a small bump on the head but that had all but disappeared by the end of the day.

He has the most gorgeous eye color. They are so sparkly and bright! The ever-present drool, however, is not so attractive. At least he's not as bad as Alaina was. Also gotta love the spikey hair do.

Alaina

2011-03-25T15:54:00.001-07:00

Of course there's lots to tell about Alaina, cute little punkin. This girl always keeps me smiling! Like right now she just picked up a battery before Landon could get it in his mouth and she said, "ha ha ha!" This is a new thing she's been doing that cracks me up. It's hard for her to control the stops between ha's so it's really jerky and ever so funny. Something I should try to catch on video because describing it doesn't do it justice. Anyway, she had a birthday on January 17th and it was hilarious. She got these little battle bugs that vibrate and Brice got them because he knew she'd both love them and hate them at the same time. She's love them because she loves bugs but she's hate them because she has a little bit of sensory processing stuff and vibrating is totally outside her spectrum. After touching them once and freaking out, she would only watch them, utterly excited but she refused to touch them again for a good couple of weeks.

She also went to open her last present but we had used double stick tape and when she opened the first part, the tape stuck to her and it freaked her out and she wouldn't touch it again. This picture is her trying to hide from it because it "attacked" her. Funny little thing.

And here's her showing off her cute new jammies from Auntie Angel

Alaina was at the store with me and she pointed at a cake mix with hearts and stuff on it for Valentine's day and she pointed to it and said "Birt-day!" I don't think I'd said anything to her about her birthday coming up, but apparently she just knew. So I went with that and did a heart themed birthday for her.

I've been asking family to get my kids gifts that don't have a ton of pieces, are an activity or outing, or are consumable. My mom got Alaina a paint by numbers picture (consumable) and Alaina had a great time painting her horsies.

I'm an advocate for babywearing. It's good for attachment between wearer and baby, good for baby's development in many ways, and helps keep mom from getting flabby. I make and use all kinds of carriers. I love them. Alaina, it seems loves them too. She will frequently bring me a doll or stuffed animal and a carrier of some kind and say, "carryr" or "dolly ride" to ask me to help her put it on. Here she is with a blanket used as an African kanga carrier.

As soon as I put a carrier on her, she goes and checks it in the mirror (even though she can't see the mirror) just like mommy does, making sure that dolly is nice and secure. This is her looking over her shoulder trying to see how it looks in the mirror. Funny girl!

Here's a picture of me carrying Landon in an African kanga. It's a great carry because there's zero weight on your shoulders.

And here's a couple of Alaina with her mousie in a carrier that I made for her.

Alaina thinks time out is funny. She goes gladly every time I threaten her with it. Asking "Do you need a time out?" gets a smile and a happy child running for the nearest corner. Ugh. What do I do with THAT!? See? Happy as a clam as I call her out of time out.

Alaina's at the stage where she loves to be a helper . I love this stage. Most of the time...

I came downstairs one cold morning to find Alaina all snuggled up in a cozy blanket with a huge bag of animal crackers. Despite the fact that I can tell she understands the no-food-out-of-the-kitchen rule very well, she is constantly taking food wherever she wants if I'm not sitting right there babysitting. But she was so cute all curled up in this huge blanket so I had to take her picture instead of scolding her.

Ryker

2011-03-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

Ryker has been... difficult lately. But just now as I was flipping through pictures and thinking about what's been going on for him the last few months that I could post about, I'm realizing that there really hasn't been anything special going on for him and maybe that's the problem. Raelin got her puppy, Alaina had a birthday, Landon, being a baby, gets lots of time and attention. Ryker's kinda the odd man out. Hmm. Perhaps that's been the root of our trouble. He's just been SO destructive lately! Part of it is outgrowing his nap and being tired a lot too. But he's just had a compulsion towards pocket knives and Brice's bow and arrows and hammers and screw drivers and scissors and you name it! He also hacked up his second set of blinds so if you drive by our house and think how trashy it looks to have big holes in our blinds, now you know why. But I think my favorite destructive activity he's engaged in these past few months is unscrewing the drywall in his room after having kicked the walls so hard swinging in his swing that he knocked the putty out of the screw heads. And my least favorite was when he smuggled a pocketknife into my car and put gashes, scratches, and holes in a headrest and seat back. Yeah, he's lucky to be alive today.

Speaking of being alive, we went for a walk the other day and we went down this really steep hill. Ryker went FLYING down it on his scooter until he got the speed-wobbles and crashed and burned. Oh, it was a bad one! I watched him as I ran to him to see if he had any broken bones. But he put weight on both hands to get up and do his owie dance. Fortunately, no breaks. Just a big scab that covers his elbow halfway to his wrist, a torn pair of jeans (darn, they were one of the few he had without holes in the knees, but I guess that saved him from a worse knee injury, so it's worth it), and a scabby knee. Poor guy. Despite his extra destructive MO of late, he still has an angelic side to him; that big happy smile and excitement for life will brighten anyone's day!

Raelin

2011-03-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

Raelin is my hero!!! A little while ago, I had talked to Raelin about how important it was that she stop sucking her thumb because her permanent teeth are coming in (seemed like the argument that would work best on her at the moment). We looked at pictures of kids who had tooth damage because of thumb sucking and we looked at apparatuses kids had in their mouths to make them stop sucking. A week or so after that, she asked me to make her a new thumb guard to help her not suck her thumb. It actually worked this time!!!! She dedicated herself and finally made up her mind to stop sucking that thumb! She wore the thumb guard for about half of January and then she forgot it one day and did fine without it. She said she didn't need it anymore. I talked to her a little about maybe wearing it at night because she sucked her thumb in her sleep and had no idea she was doing it and that it would make it harder to break the habit. I didn't tell her she had to; I just said she should think about it. She was very diligent in making sure she went to bed with her thumb guard on--almost like she was afraid to do something that would bring back the habit and ruin all her hard work--but she didn't need it in the day at all after only about 2 weeks! I was so so so impressed with how diligent she was and how tough she was about it. She took the lead on it and made sure she was wearing it when she needed it. It was great to watch her be so strong! I've talked to Raelin over the years about all kinds of reasons for not sucking her thumb but the one that was most important to me was that I knew that when she sucked her thumb, she kind of turned in on herself and didn't engage in life as much. She was kinda mopey with that thing in her face. I was just certain that she would be so much more happy and engaged in life if she would quit. It has been wonderful to see her be bouncy and happy and SMILEY since she has stopped sucking her thumb! She talks more, she smiles more, she laughs more, she embraces life more. I love it! And the best part to her, I'm sure, is that she got a new puppy out of the deal! We'd told her over 2 years ago that she could have a puppy if she quit sucking her thumb. Well, she finally did it!! She earned her puppy. Here's her little Welsh corgi she named Codie:

She got him on February 18th and he was 8 weeks old. He's been a great little puppy! So cuddly and cute! The breed is not the greatest looking breed--a long stocky body with short stumpy legs and big ol' bat ears. Kinda funny looking. But Codie is a very cute kind of goofy-looking and his temperament and personality are great.

Raelin does most of the taking-care of for Codie and she's been great at teaching him to go potty outside (most of the time) and playing with him. He's small enough that he gets to go lots of places with us and she takes care of all of that too. They are a perfect little pair! Codie even plays soccer with Raelin!

He loves to hide under the couch but he's growing so fast that it won't be long before he can't fit anymore.

Baby corgis have floppy ears and between about 8 and 12 weeks, the cartilage hardens enough to make them stick up. Here's Codie when one ear had hardened and the other hadn't yet:

And here he is with them both up:

Congratulations Raelin!!! You did it!!

Oye

2011-03-25T11:17:00.001-07:00

Okay, so this blog thing... Yeah. It's really falling through the cracks. Sorry.

Here's a brief overview of the last 3 months and then I'll do a post for each kid.

I've been making lots of diapers for my business. It's moving slowly but it is moving. I really do love my cloth diapers. Weird how much I've come to hate disposables. And the ones I make are just so darn cute!

For "fun" people around here do math on the white board. I don't really get it, but hey, whatever makes them happy. Raelin even does math as a coping strategy when she's upset. Again, I have no understanding of how this could possibly make anyone feel BETTER and not worse, but whatever floats her boat! In this picture, Brice is teaching Raelin about fractions and graphing--rise over run and whatnot. It's a good thing Brice sticks to math and I stick to spelling when teaching our children. Brice would teach rabits and lizzards (click on the pic to enlarge and see what I mean) and I would teach 2+2=7. We balance each other well that way.

So, Alaina has a thing about dropping eggs on the floor. It must just be the greatest thing to her to see them crack and splatter all over the floor because anytime she gets alone in the kitchen, she gets out the carton of eggs and drops them ALL on the floor. (Right now she's standing next to me pointing to the picture and saying, "Essa egg messy." Love that girl!). The day before her birthday, we had just enough eggs for her birthday cake. She broke them all the morning of her b-day and since it was on Sunday and we don't go shopping on Sunday, we had to borrow eggs. A few days later I bought a full 18 carton of eggs and the very next morning they were ALL splattered on the floor:

She was not happy about the scolding she received. But I was certainly glad we had a dog at that moment. Dog tongue is by far the most efficient medium for cleaning up egg.

Most of what's kept me so busy lately is trying to figure out how to change the cleanliness habits of my entire family. First I tried cleaning the whole thing by myself to give us a good starting place. An impossible task. I've been learning that we need a schedule that includes free time and chore time and homework time and that we need to stick to it. It helps the kids not balk at doing chores when they're asked:

I've also learned that I need to restrict my kids' play area until they become better cleaners. I discovered one day why it was that I could never get the house picked up and why I was always so frustrated that the minute I turned my back on a clean room, a magic tornado swept through and destroyed all my hard work. My kids concoct these great imaginative games that require the use of every room in the house and all sorts of props from all over the house as well. The day I discovered this, they had forts in the living room (I hate forts), a firepit in the piano room, and a park in Ryker's room. To make forts, they get blankets and pillows from their bedrooms and bring them to the living room. To make a firepit, they took their moon chairs and blocks from the living room and set it up in the piano room. They also need sleeping bags and camping food. So you see how the WHOLE house gets turned upside down in three minutes. I hate to stifle their creativity, but until they are good at cleaning a mess that size, I've had to say no to making a mess that size. But we're making progress, so at least there's that. This has been a huge area of contention in our family, so wish us luck in getting the housekeeping under control around here!

Alaina

2011-01-21T15:43:00.003-08:00

Oh, boy.

So, I used to put Alaina in her crib for time out sometimes (we weren't getting the full effect from the time outs elsewhere in the house because she would just keep getting up). But then when she woke up in the mornings or from naps she started saying, "I stop it whiny!!" and that made me feel bad. So I started just putting her in her room and letting the isolation be the time out even though she has all her toys.

Yeah. So much for that. I just put her in timeout (and right before I closed the door she stuck her tongue out and razzed at me. Nice. Stinker) and within about 30 seconds I hear, "Got it! OUT!!!" and she waltzes out of her room all proud and smiling. Great. Just what I need. As if it wasn't bad enough that she's turning into a little snot, now she can open doors. Nothing is safe now...

See, like this! She's hiding in this tent, naked, sneaking crackers!! Never a dull moment!

Oh, and the other day, I totally shot my self in the foot because she needed to wash her hands but I was nursing Landon and instead of asking her to wait or interrupting Landon's meal, I said, "Go push the chair up to the sink and wash them yourself. DOH!!!" Now she uses that technique to get ANYTHING off the counters that she wants. Oh man! This little 2 year old is giving me a run for my money! She is into EVERYTHING!!!!

At least she's potty trained. Gotta be super grateful for that one! I think I'd be even more of a crazy person if I had to change TWO babies' poopy butts!

Wonderful Church Meeting

2011-01-02T14:49:00.000-08:00

Church today was so great! It was fast and testimony meeting, which means that, rather than having speakers lined up and armed and ready with carefully prepared talks, any member of the congregation is welcome to come up and bear their testimony of the Gospel. Today the meeting was particularly wonderful and the Spirit there was so strong! Feeling that Spirit is something I really need in my life as the mother of 4 young kids. I need my spiritual bucket refilled as often as possible. Motherhood is draining.

The members today who really spoke to me were, first, a friend and neighbor who followed up three of her children and said that she and her husband had tried as various times to encourage their kids to bear their testimonies in church and that she realized that she needed to be an example of that. She said, "It's SCARY up here! I'm shaking like no other!" SO TRUE!! I HATE public speaking and it's worse if I'm trying to speak about something near and dear to me like my love, faith, and knowledge of my Savior. She went on to say that even though it's scary, if she wants to encourage her kids to do it, she needs to be an example. And then she said that her kids were being such a great example to her today by coming up and sharing their sweet testimonies. I felt very much like she was talking to me and she was setting such a good example for me. I am terrified of bearing my testimony. I think I've only done it once or twice in Sacrament meeting ever. Brice tries to encourage me but I just can't! It's too scary.

Next, another friend and neighbor went up. I've gotten to know this sister through visiting teaching. Visiting teaching is a program we use to check up on each other and make sure the needs of our congregation are being met. The bishop can't visit and care for each member himself, so we delegate. Each of us are assigned a companion to go with and asked to visit a few other sisters each month to share a gospel message and make sure they are doing okay emotionally, spiritually, financially, etc. (the men in the ward do the same thing, but they visit and share a message with the whole family). I've had this sister as one of my visiting teaching ladies for over a year now. She is from Ecuador and her English is coming along but it isn't perfect. She is a dear woman with a soft, gentle, joyful, and loving spirit about her. Today she got up and started to speak. But quickly she realized that what she wanted to say was too important to her to struggle with the language. She changed over to Spanish. I caught some of it and Brice clued me in on what I missed. She said that her father had passed away last week (she told me a few weeks ago that he had cancer and wasn't expected to live much longer). She talked about what a great man he was; that when he learned of the gospel he said he would follow the Lord with all his might, mind, and strength and that he did so until his dying day. He was a great example to her and she is going to miss him but that she knows that through the plan of salvation she can be with him again. Hers was a testimony of strength and power; she knows the Lord and she knows that through Him, she will see her father again.

Waiting on the stand to go next after her was a friend of ours whom Brice has gone to school with since he started the engineering program and our two families have become close friends. They moved into our neighborhood last year with our encouragement and we love having them so close. This friend served a mission in Panama and speaks Spanish. When he got up to speak, he shared with the congregation who didn't understand Spanish what the sister before him has said. He told us that she had testified with strength that the plan of salvation and the Gospel are true. He told us that she had shared what a great man that her father was. Then he added his own testimony of the plan of salvation and the truthfulness of the gospel to hers with an equal measure of power and strength. He testified that this is the true and living gospel--living because we have prophets on the earth today to lead and to guide us in the ways of the Lord.

I was in awe at the workings of our Lord. There are many people in our ward who speak Spanish and I'm sure a lot of the congregation understood our sweet sister's testimony, and surely everyone felt her sweet spirit, but for those who didn't understand, it would have been a powerful and special testimony to miss. I felt like the hand of God was so very much in the room and in the hearts of the people, giving our sweet sister the courage to say what she wanted to say in the best way she could and then, especially, in prompting our friend to be there at just the right time to translate for our Spanish-speaking sister. It was a beautiful thing to witness. And I add my witness and testimony to theirs that the Gospel is true, the plan of salvation is real, that Christ lives, and He atoned for our sins because He knows us and loves us and He wants us to be able to return to live with God again, pure and spotless before Him. I have a very strong testimony that the Lord knows me individually. I'm not just another one of those people down there, muddling through. He knows my struggles, my trials, my successes, my heart. He has proven it to me time and time again. He has worked mighty miracles in my life. I see them and I witness that it is the hand of God in my life, protecting me and my family, lending me breath from day to day, my rock and my strength, without whom I would falter and fail and not know which way to turn. The Gospel gives my life direction and purpose. It brings me everlasting and eternal joy. I know these things to be true in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Landon's first haircut and 6 month stats

2010-12-29T13:31:00.002-08:00

Landon's hair has been getting a bit crazy. He's always had a lot of hair but most of what he was born with has fallen out to be replaced with new growth. Except for the long weird stuff he had on top that gets kinda greasy when he hasn't had a bath in a day or so:

I've been debating whether or not to cut it for a while. Jesse's fiancé suggested I wait until after they came out so she could see it. It was perfect because by the time she got here, I was SO ready to give that boy a haircut! The long stuff on top was just looking ridiculous. I mean, he's still cute as a button, but it was just so... well, you'll see.

The ones in PJ's were taken at Thanksgiving. My sister got a new camera and she has a TON of great pictures on it! The pj ones I stole from her blog. In fact, she has a ton of great pics up right now that are recent. If you check her blog now, I suggest scrolling through the whole page because it's filled with great pictures. If you get to it later, most of them are on her "Thanksgiving" post.

So here's before:

With Aunt Kyle:

See? Adorable. But check out after:

I'm SOOOO glad I cut it! He looks so handsome! I just cut it a day or two ago, so I'll post more of him as I take them.

Oh yeah. And stats.

Length: 26 5/8 inches
Weight: 15lbs. 4 oz.
Head circumference: 41.6 cm
Long and lean!

Landon can sit unassisted for a little while and is starting to be able to predict where he's going to fall and put a hand out to stop himself. But still he falls often. He's starting to get those knees up underneath to get into a crawling position. He can scoot all over the place. He rolls over occasionally. He can hold things in both hands and pass a toy from one hand to the other. Makes vowel sounds but no consonants yet. He is a happy and healthy baby and we love having him in our family!

Except for sometimes at 3 am when he just wants to scream for an hour for no apparent reason. Other than that, he's a piece of cake and sweet as pie!

On the fly

2010-12-29T11:52:00.000-08:00

Okay, I really just need to get caught up fast so that I can blog as I go. I keep not blogging because I have way too much to catch up on. It would be like 12 posts to get it all done. So instead of procrastinating indefinitely, I'll just fly through the last few months and give you my favorite pictures and the stories that go with them. Then maybe I can do a better job of staying relatively current (yeah, right).

So here goes in no particular order:

Landon thinks Alaina is hilarious (she is) and Alaina loves making him laugh.

Landon is the happiest little guy. He is full of smiles (Raelin calls him Mr. Smiles) and such a content and mellow kid. So grateful for that!

Raelin's been taking more and more of an interest in sports as time goes by. She is a natural athlete and she's super fast! For her birthday this year, Brice and I made her soccer goals. We even made the nets! You can learn anything on youtube!

Alaina is a total ham and she has the best smile and a contagious laugh. She is a joy to be around.

Handsome boy ready for church. Love this suit!! (and the comb over)Halloween. From left to right, Landon (a bone), Alaina (a dog), Ryker (a pirate), Raelin (a witch), Liam (a polar bear), and Russell (a monkey).

I usually like to make the kids' costumes, but this year I was content to just make one thing for each of them. Bet you can't guess what I made!

I made Ryker's dread locks! They turned out so COOL! Wool yarn, braided, thrown in the washer and then sewn to a red strip of cloth. Easy and awesome!

And I made Raelin's hat! I had some silky black fabric on hand leftover from my sister's wedding (they were table cloths or something) a few years back and I got some interfacing and there you have it! Tease out the hair and put on a witchy dress and she's ready to go!

Picking pumpkins. I love pictures of pumpkin picking because the colors are always so great. Wish my camera batteries hadn't started to die... I'd have taken more.

On top of the world! I'm standing at my full height to take this picture. The hay bales were stacked super high! Alaina loved it!

And here's my amazingly gorgeous husband. I just love his manly swagger. Mmmhm! I could watch that all day. Oh sorry. TMI? I digress.

Okay, but really though, he is quite amazing. Look at this playhouse he built this fall! He's just the greatest and I'm so proud of him and all his hard work. He can do the most amazing things!

More of Mr. Smiles! Love that happy face! He has the greatest laugh too. Ooh! I think I might have a video of it! I'll have to check.

Most of the time, for Christmas, I make things for extended family and we buy things for the kids. This year, I decided to make things for the kids and mostly buy things for family. So I made the kids a bunch of stuff. My favorite by far are these monsters. They are SO cute! I love them. I want one.

I also made the kids these cute frogs (among other things that I don't have pictures of yet).

Ryker has wanted a remote control helicopter for a year and a half now. We... Er, SANTA got it for him this year! He loves it! I think Brice and I like it just as much as he does. It's a cool toy!

Alaina got a dolly and a crib and a stroller. She loves dollies and set about right away to take Dolly for a walk and put her to bed. Such a good little momma! She loves her present!

Raelin got a really cool doll house (one that I even like because all the furniture is fixed--less mess!) but I don't have a good picture of it. She's got her thumb in her mouth in each one. Blah. I'll have to get some of her playing with it when she gets back from California--we let her go out for a week with her aunt and uncle to visit family.

My brother Jesse and his fiancé Carmen came out from California for Christmas and it was GREAT to hang out with them! They came over a lot and we got to play play play! The kids love them--Carmen, besides being beautiful, reads stories and listens to stories (she has the patience of a saint!) and Uncle Jesse is the coolest because he plays blocks with the kids and helped them build this awesome snowman. I've never seen such a cool snowman!

True to a little brother's nature, Jesse convinced Raelin to throw snowballs at me when I was trying to take their pictures.

Ryker's wrestling stance. Brice loves to teach the kids wrestling moves and they are getting pretty good! Now they just have to learn that jumping on Daddy, knees first is against the rules. Ouch!

Christmas tree shopping. The colors were great this day and I love these pictures!

Alaina, however, wouldn't let me get a good picture of her. She kept running away and hiding every time she saw me. Every picture is either blurry or she's exited the frame.

The kids got to see Santa at our church party (which was an amazing party! EVERYONE was there!)

Alaina was terrified! She didn't want to go but then Brice asked her if she wanted candy--always a sure-fire way to get her to do anything. So she consented to sit on his lap, but as soon as she was there, she freaked! But then she saw the candy canes. She stopped crying, reached over and grabbed a candy cane, and then resumed crying. So cute, funny, and sad all at the same time!

I gave Landon a bath, left to dress him, came back to drain the water, and found this:

Okay, well that about sums it up! There are lots more pictures and I'm sure tons of stories I'm missing, but so goes life. These are my favorites and if I think of anything else worth sharing, I'll be sure to post it! (uh huh. Because clearly, I have SO much extra time on my hands!)

Busy, busy! My new business!!

2010-12-12T21:22:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't been the most diligent blogger lately. I'm sure you all have been missing me desperately. Or maybe enjoying my silence so you can get other things done besides reading my long-winded ramblings. Whichever the case, I have been busy as a bee at my sewing machine. I've been making things for my kids (mostly baby things) for a long time and I've tried selling things here or there but just haven't come upon the right thing to really try to make a business of it. Until now.

I'd been using cloth diapers with Alaina for about 6 months before she was potty trained (yes, she is fully potty trained and has been since she was 20 months old! LOVE IT!). When Landon was born I couldn't use Alaina's cloth diapers on him because they were too big. I thought I'd just wait until he was big enough or something, but I was just really HATING putting him in disposables. Weird, huh. Well, one reason would be expected by anyone who knows me well: I hated spending the money. But I was surprised that I was bothered on an environmental level also. I'm not usually the "greenest" person around. I try not to abuse the earth, but I don't go out of my way to save it either. But as you look around at cloth diapers, you will inevitably come across statistics on the impact of disposable diapers on the environment. I guess I was feeling like, since I didn't mind doing diaper laundry and all that, I would really rather not contribute THAT much garbage to the landfills. Diapers are a HUGE contributer to the trash we generate in this country. Anyway, I looked around at diapers and just wasn't finding anything I liked enough to want to spend money on. The kind we'd had for Alaina was bothersome because you had to snap in a liner and separate things as you washed and rinsing was kind of a pain. I was sure there had to be a better idea. I finally found something I liked but I didn't want to spend that much money. I'm a tightwad; what can I say? So I started doing some research and found all the things I'd need (some if it was quite a challenge!) and I started making my own diapers. I've been liking them so much and liking making them that I thought maybe I'd make them to sell. I think that this business idea might actually go somewhere if I want it to because the materials are obscure and hard to find. Lots of the other things I've made wouldn't go anywhere, in part, because I live in Utah and everyone is crafty or has friends or family who is and they can just make their own baby stuff. So I'm going to give this a go. I've filled one order so far and I've made enough for Landon to have him in cloth full time and I've made 2 for Alaina for nighttime. I LOVE them!! And they are virtually leak-proof; way better than disposables in that regard for sure!

If any of you use cloth diapers and want to try mine out, I sell them to friends and family at a discount. And I'd appreciate it if you would spread the word to anyone you know who uses cloth diapers. Thanks! Here's the site:

MonkeyDoDiapers.blogspot.com

Holy cow!!

2010-12-11T17:41:00.001-08:00

Goodness gracious alive! What a night! Ryker is off his rocker tonight!

Ryker in a demanding tone: I'm starving! I need food immediately!

Me thinking: What the...??!! Who does he think he is? Who does he think I am? Surely he knows me better than to think that sort of attitude will get him ANYTHING he wants...

Moving on. I start cooking and get the kids going on clean-up so we have a spot to eat at the table.

Raelin dawdles. Ryker downright refuses to clean. Despite repeated warnings that he will not get food unless he cleans, he continues to cause trouble and pester everyone and clean nothing. Eventually he jabs Raelin with a freshly sharpened pencil and I send him to his room. When I get there, I find crayons all over the floor. Angry Ryker and writing utensils do NOT mix. So we clean up the crayons. A few minutes later, it becomes apparent that I must have missed a crayon or two because I can hear Ryker drawing on the walls upstairs (yes, I have finely tuned hearing and can hear and recognize these sorts of disastrous noises through walls and floors). I go up and take away his crayons and scold him. Okay, maybe I gave his rear end a swat or two as well.

Things finally settle down and those of us who were productive for at least 15 minutes before dinner, get to eat.

Ryker wailing: Please don't eat without me!!! PLEASE don't eat without me!!!

Pitiful

Ryker: I have to go potty!

Me: Ryker, you can only come out if you promise not to argue with me about why you should get to eat dinner.

Silence.

Ryker: I'm starving!

Me: Ryker, you chose not to work so you get no food.

Ryker: But I'm hungry!

Me: Then you should have helped clean.

Ryker crying: I want to clean! I want to clean!!! Please let me clean!!

Heart-wrenching.

But still no dinner. Sorry, Bud.

Kari's baby

2010-11-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

Originally, we'd wanted to make a trip out to California in the summer, but that never ended up working out. But my wonderful friend Kari, who may as well be my sister, was due to have a baby in the middle to end of September and she thought it would be fun if I could be there when her baby was born. Being the most amazing telepathic fortune telling momma I know, she was able to predict over a month ahead of time when her baby would be born. She was thinking the weekend of September 17th so she said that if we were able to come out, we should try to come around that time. It worked out for us to go out that weekend and lo and behold, Chloe was born on the 18th!

Kari took Hypnobabies via the home-study course. She is so in tune with her body and just has generally great intuition about things. I was pretty sure that if anyone could achieve pain-free birthing with Hypnobabies, it was Kari. As we talked about it during our pregnancies, I became more and more convinced that she would be pain free. I was so excited to see how things turned out for her!

Her hubby, Glen called me (and I'm so grateful that he was brave enough to call me at my in-law's house in the middle of the night!) at around 2:30 in the morning on Saturday and said that they were at the hospital and that Kari was at a 5 and that they would call again when things were closer. Glen called back a little before 4am and said that Chloe had been born around 3:30! The next thing out of Glen's mouth (he'd been a bit skeptical about the Hypnobabies thing) was, "Hypnobabies ROCKS!!!!" Then Kari got on the phone and told me a little about her birthing experience. She had done so great and had no pain right up until pushing when she lost her focus a little bit and started to feel some pain. But she made it!!!! I'm SO proud of her!
Doesn't she look AMAZING for just having had a baby a few hours earlier!?
We went down in the morning when everyone was up and ready and we got to meet little Chloe.
Proud Daddy. He was SO proud of Kari, too. He loved telling people how great she'd done with NO drugs!
Even though Landon was only 3 months old at the time, he was SO much bigger than a brand new baby. Mom and baby were doing great and they went home the next day.
Oh, and Kari MADE her own hospital gown! It was beautiful!
We got to visit them again at their house and join them for dinner. It was so great to see Kari and Glen and their cute, growing family! We love you! Congratulations! And sorry for taking SO LONG to post about your wonderful day and amazing accomplishment!

On a side note, my sister Gina had her baby Russell on March 29th. Landon was born 4 days shy of 3 months later on June 25th. Chloe was born one week shy of 3 months after that on September 18th. Interesting....

The Volcano

2010-11-16T19:02:00.001-08:00

Alternate title: Overwhelmed at how behind I am and therefore procrastinating

I've gotten SO behind on my blog, but everyone seems to be commenting on how behind they are, so I must not be the only one whose life is catching up with them. At any rate, I have some sewing I want to get done but I have to wait until Raelin is asleep so I can go in her room where my sewing table is and turn on the light (she'll sleep through anything). So I figured I'd at least get started.

So, in September (you see how behind I am!) we went to California and on the way we stopped outside of Barstow and camped for the night. Well, we kinda just threw some sleeping bags out on the semi-level ground and crashed. I love summer.

In the morning we went to a volcano that is off the 40 freeway for a morning hike and to hunt for lava tubes. Brice and I had gone hiking there when we were dating and afterwards we went ring shopping for the first time. A memorable trip! Brice remembered that when we were there last, we'd had to hike all the way around the volcano to get to the place where the tubes are. So this time he thought we might be able to get there faster if we parked off a different road and just crossed the lava fields instead of going all the way around the volcano. Well, it was good in theory, but we forgot one small detail: the lava tubes are right around the base of the volcano so it really is MUCH faster to go around the volcano than to hike across the whole field of lava rock. So this was our starting point:For any of you who have never traversed lava fields, think Armageddon's asteroid. "Scariest environment imaginable. That's all you had to say. Scariest environment imaginable." Strictly speaking, the environment wasn't so bad since we started out early in the morning, but it did start getting hot by the time we headed back to the car. As is evidenced by our beet-red faces. (You can't really tell in the picture, but Alaina's face is super red. Raelin is the only one who got Brice's skin through and through--the other kids all turn red in the heat like I do)
The terrain is the scary part. Mostly for Ryker. Poor guy. He fell over and over and over and over again. And every time, the unforgiving lava rocks scraped and gashed and generally tore him to shreds.
(this picture was taken days later; I should have taken it sooner, after it all scabbed over but before it had started healing)
He'd cry for a second, but then true to Ryker-form, he'd pick himself up and carry on. He has an indomitable spirit. I admire his courage so much. He's such an example to our family.

On a sensory note, it was interesting to watch his progression because the first hour or so consisted of him falling and falling and falling some more, but then he'd gotten enough sensory input that his balance was better, his motor planning was better, and his coordination was better. He started falling less! But before long, he started to get tired and then the repetitive falling recommenced.

So anyway, we hiked and hiked and hunted and hunted. The kids were getting tired but we hadn't found a good lava tube yet so we pressed on. Finally we found a lava cave, but I wouldn't quite call it a tunnel. It was open at both ends and it was about 50 X 200 feet. The ground was soft and sandy. And it was SHADY! We rested there for a bit and enjoyed the cool cavern. It would have made a great campsite. We continued hiking and the kids started complaining and whining and I was about done with that so I was getting interested in heading back. We'd been out there hiking through some of the toughest terrain I've ever hiked (and we'd forgotten to bring boots--just sneakers which were all pretty torn up by the end of the day, especially Ryker's) for several hours and we were out of water and it was getting hot. But we hadn't found a good tube yet. Brice and I split up. I think I had Landon at this time and Brice had Alaina, both in carriers. I took the two older kids and Brice just hunted speedy fast while the kids and I kinda moseyed. Raelin started losing it. She was getting so whiny and complainy. At one point I wanted to just run and look at something that looked promising for a second and I told Raelin to stay where she was while I ran ahead with Ryker and we'd be back in a minute. I partly just needed a break from the whining! I took a slightly deviated route back and called to Raelin to meet up with us (we could see each other almost the whole time). Out new route took us to a big indentation in the terrain and there was a smallish opening that looked like it might be something (even though there was a dead, dried up rattle snake at the entrance--we broke the rattle off and kept it as a souvenir--but we forgot to grab lava rocks!!) but I couldn't be sure because there was a big drop that I couldn't manage with Landon. I called Brice (cell reception! Yeah!) and had him come meet us. He went in and lo and behold! We found one! COOL! It was SO nice and offered a respite from the ever-increasing heat. We played around and crawled through the tiny tunnel at the end and Brice put the kids and Zuma up on a ledge to explore around. It was really cool! Sometimes we went single file through narrow parts and other times it opened up into big caverns. We got to the end and there was a sign in registry and everything. I'm guessing Landon is the youngest person at 2 and a half months to ever make the registry. And Zuma may very well be the first dog. Incidentally, it's making me really sad to go through these pictures and remember what a trooper she was on this trip now that she's been lost and missing for a month and a half. We sure do miss her. Ryker still prays every day that she'll find her way home. Such faith. I know God hears his/our prayers; I just hope it's in His plan to answer them the way we want Him to. Again. He's a very generous God to our family. But that's a topic that deserves it's own post but may be too special to publish on the Internet and would be more appropriate to write in a personal journal, but note to self: record the miracles from God in our life of late.

Back to the volcano expedition. We headed out of the lava tube and back across the endless lava field in the heat with no water. Not five minutes after we got out of the lava tube, I saw an opening that was probably another one, but we just didn't have it in us to explore that one. I really wanted to but I saw the logic in just going back.

It was a LONG hike back. It really tested us. All of us. Well, not so much Brice, but I don't do well in the heat (it triggers migraines) and I'd just had a baby less than three months prior and another one 17 months prior to him and I'd been carrying one baby or another for the past three hours. I was exhausted. And if I was exhausted, imagine how the 5 and 6 year olds felt! Their little legs had to go a lot farther than I did. We were helping the kids as best we could but they had to do most of it on their own. Raelin had been carrying the backpack for a lot of the trip, but she was just done with it. We'd tried it on Ryker but quickly realized that it was unfair to add that to his sensory burden. So I carried Alaina and the backpack and Brice carried Landon. Alaina whimpered the WHOLE way back. She was hot and tired (even though she'd managed a nap on Daddy's back on the way in) like the rest of us even though she hadn't been walking much. Ryker was falling and falling. He'd still pick himself up, but sometimes he'd cry about how this wasn't a good idea and we should never have brought him on this hike because it wasn't a good one for him with all his falling. But then he'd be all chipper a few minutes later and say, "This is SO cool and fun! Thank you for taking us here!" Until... We were going down a steep part and he'd asked for my help. I held his hand for a few steps but then it just got too much for me to have Alaina on my back, the backpack on my front and hold Ryker's hand, supporting a lot of his weight AND try to get myself down this thing. I told Ryker he'd have to do it alone. The instant I let go of him he crashed and crashed hard. It was downhill and jagged. He got pretty torn up. His legs were already a wreck, but this arm injury was from just that one fall.(the pictures of Ryker's war wounds totally do NOT do them justice! His legs were a tangled web of scratches and cuts and gashes)
I hauled him up into my arms and carried him for 100 yards or so until we got to Brice. Brice took Ryker from me and piggy backed him for a long while with Landon in a carrier on his front. Poor little guy. It took him quite a bit longer to recover from that one.

Once I put Ryker down I picked up Zuma. Brice and I had both been carrying her intermittently on the way back because her poor little feet were hot and you could see her prancing around on the black rock trying not to burn. Fortunately, she came away from the adventure unscathed, but that surprised me, what with the heat of the rocks in combination with their aggressive, skin-shredding properties.

At some point, I realized that the only way to finish this outing was to cheer and encourage the kids. It lifted my own spirits as well to talk to them about it. It was a really character forming thing for Raelin. It was... There are no words for it.

Raelin is typically very blaming and feels like everyone and everything is out to get her (wonder where she got that from...), but with this, she realized that the only way to end her misery was to walk. And the only person who could do anything about her problem was her. She saw that Mommy and Daddy were suffering right along with her and that no one was doing this TO her. We were all in the same boat; us against the hike.

As we talked and made up stupid songs (just keep walking, just keep walking. Thanks for the inspiration, Dory), her attitude started to improve and she stopped complaining and whining. Well, she still complained a little but it was more of a trying to be funny kind of thing like I do a lot rather than complaining in earnest. I talked to her about how I was thirsty and hot and tired and Alaina was heavy and I just wanted to sit down but that I knew if I did, it would be too hard to get back up. So I'd decided to just hike as hard as I could to get myself out of here. I think she started to see the logic to that and it helped her press on. I was so impressed with her and so excited and proud of her to see her build some character in that way.

We made it out of the pure lava and got to where it was sand with still plenty of rocks to maneuver, but it was quite a bit easier. We were getting closer and I asked the kids if they knew how to run a race. They said they didn't. I told them that you run and run and run until you just think you can't run anymore, but you don't stop, and then, when you see the finish line, you run just as fast as you possibly can. Ryker immediately started running. I called out to him to wait and told him that this is more like a walking kind of race. After a few minutes, though, we were close enough that ZUMA started to run!! Ryker said that Zuma was winning and I told him that he could run with her if he wanted. So he did! Raelin did too. I walked. I'd put Alaina down about ten minutes prior because I just plain couldn't carry her anymore. Brice advised against is because it would slow us down, but I told him that I just couldn't and that he could go on ahead if he wanted. It's been a LONG time since my limits have been pushed like that. All in all, we hiked for 4 hours and went at least 5 miles over some of the roughest terrain imaginable.

But it was worth it.

Worth it most of all to watch the growth in my kids. To watch Ryker maintain his good attitude despite the physical difficulty it presented, to pick himself up physically and emotionally every time he fell. To watch Raelin choose to have a good attitude, the RIGHT attitude when her normal tendency is to hate life. This is something she gets from me that I've overcome over time, but it pains me to no end to see her go through the same things I did--to feel like no one likes her and that she just doesn't measure up. It was just a miserable way to live and I don't wish it on anyone, especially not my own kid. We make a very conscious effort to teach her about choosing our attitude and perspective on things and about giving people and life the benefit of the doubt rather than feeling like everyone just wants us to be miserable. We talk a lot about not being the victim. This was a prime opportunity for her to feel like a total victim and to feel like it wasn't fair and that it was too hard and that she was defeated. It was one of the highlights of my life as a mom to see her choose, instead, to have character that day. Go Raelin!!! I love you!

Pretty Girl!

2010-10-13T21:13:00.000-07:00

I love this pretty face! I love the perpetual smile on her face and the wind in her crazy hair. She's such a joy!

I LOVE Landon's eyes

2010-10-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

All my kids eyes have changed over the course of their first two or three years but I keep hoping Landon's won't! They are SO pretty! I'm sure if they change they'll still be awesome but they are so crystal-y and bright.

Total Slacker

2010-10-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been totally neglectful about blogging lately. Oops. Four kids is boggling my mind. I thought we'd be getting into a groove. Not so! Life is crazy! There's just so much going on all the time that I can't catch my breath! We'll get it figured out soon enough, but in the meantime, whew! I wish I was the Energizer Bunny. I found an unfinished post and I think I'll just post it at whatever point it's at and move on. I think I've posted once or twice since I started it, so it will be down the page a little ways, but it has some great pictures so it's worth a look. I think I'll continue with the here's and there's and then post our Cali trip and whatever other categories of things are on my camera. And these are in backwards order because blogger hates to put the newer batch of uploaded pictures at the bottom of the post. I hate that.

Today I made a baby carrier for Alaina. I had some new ideas and I wanted to try them out without wasting cloth, so I just used scraps. It's called an onbuhimo and it's a Japanese style carrier, much like a mei tai except that instead of straps at the waist, there are rings. The shoulder straps go over the shoulders, cross in back, go through the rings and tie in back (or reverse that for a back carry. Confused? youtube has some videos if you're really curious). I totally got lucky with the shoulder strap on this one. In fact, the whole idea to make an onbuhimo instead of a mei tai was impromptu. I didn't have any fabric long enough for straps so I thought of using the rings at the waist (I'd seen pics of the Japanese style carrier before). Then I looked in my fabric stash and found a bunch of scarfs that my mom had given me and there happened to be a black one (I was hoping for two). I went back to the carrier and discovered that the top rail was open in such a way that I could just slide the scarf through the "tunnel" and voila! Two straps, no cutting, no sewing! Alaina thought it was great and I thought it was adorable!

None of the edges are finished, so you'll have to excuse the crudeness of it. I mostly wanted to see how the snappy idea I had would work. It's much too hard to explain, but I wanted to be able to have a narrower crotch seat so that Russell could sit forward facing comfortably. It would work, but it's not as pretty.

Yesterday Alaina wanted to give her dollies a ride in my mei tai. It looks so funny with little twin dolly heads poking out!

I LOVE that my girls can pull off boy clothes! I just think it's so darn cute!

Alaina does this funny little scrunched-shoulders run. I have to get it on video before she outgrows it. It's SO cute!

Sleeping boxer pose

Ryker came down with a fever one day at my parents house. He wasn't even phased about it. He looked SO sad, but when I asked him if he was okay (before I knew he had a fever) he said with a chipper voice, "Yeah! I'm fine!" He was sleepy but never cranky or anything. He's such a tough kid.

Alaina loves to walk around with things on her head and crash into things (she's a HUGE sensory seeker. It will be interesting to see how sensory things go with her as she gets older). This time it's a big box. At home she likes to walk around with a pink bucket on her head. It cracks me up! (We'd been working on potty training and she was running around semi nude hence the drawn-in shorts)

Baby asleep in Grammie's lap. Awwwww!

Alaina hunting bugs.

For Kari:

She couldn't get that Indian style pose back but she tried! (Yes, I said Indian style--she's got some Indian in her, right?)

More for Kari:

(Kari gave us some adorable outfits wanted to see pics of Alaina wearing them)

During potty training boot camp (read the full story here), we played in the backyard when the weather was nice. Hence the naked bum. But I love how much kids learn from watching their parents (and sometimes I hate it). I loved how Alaina was measuring and marking things. Cutie pie!

By the way, she's pretty much potty trained at 20 months! A few accidents here and there when things are out of the norm, and she wears a diaper at night, but all in all, I'd say she's got it! And as far as I'm concerned, baby pottying is the way to go! It didn't go quite like I'd hoped due to morning sickness putting things on hold, but it was still SO worth it to be done with diapers by 20 months and to have the potty training be SO stress free and power struggle free! I'd do it again. I AM doing it again with Landon.

Love Russell's shirt!

Airing some dirty laundry

2010-10-05T20:25:00.000-07:00

So, what does it mean when your child uses a 6 inch long bolt to whack and stab a picture of Christ? It means you were a good parent today.

At least, that's what I hope it means. Ryker had a hard day today. To his credit, he has had the BEST attitude the last few days. Whenever he gets "no" for an answer, his response has been, "that's okay" and he'll come up with some reason for why he can deal with not getting his way. Every time. He's such a good boy. But today was an off day. Today we went to the store and found a toy he really wanted and it was on clearance, so I bought it to use as a reward for not sucking his thumb. We went and got food and I let him pick a lot of treats: cheetos, chocolate milk, uncrustables, sprinkles for a kind of frosting he wanted... You get the idea. Lots of junk. When we got to the check out line, he asked for candy. I thought he had enough crap in the cart and said no to that one. His good attitude was nowhere to be found. Granted, he was tired and hungry, but still... We must learn to cope even when conditions are not optimal. He whined and complained and I ignored him. I asked him to help me unload the cart and he didn't. No biggie. Landon was just really done being in the carrier (I have to start using a different one for him right now because he hasn't been comfortable in my mei tai lately--too big for legs in, too small for legs out) and SCREAMING was all. But I let him sulk and took care of it myself. I went up to the register and then I noticed that the wipes were at the end and not on the conveyor belt enough to get pulled down the lane. I asked him to push them on all the way. He refused. I asked him to please be a helper. He went and pulled them all the way back so they weren't touching the conveyor belt at all! Amazingly, I didn't lose my cool like I usually do. I asked him if he was going to be a helper or if I should give the Imaginext toy back. He sulked. I put the wipes on the belt and handed the toy to the checker and asked her to take it back. He cried and yelled at me. Still kept my cool. I told him I was sorry he was sad and then ignored him. As we walked away from the line, he grabbed the waist strap of the mei tai and pulled backwards telling me he wanted me to go back and get him the toy. I drug him along behind me for a few steps until he let go and flopped on the floor. I'd taken Landon out of the carrier and was holding him in one arm while pulling the cart with the other hand. I had no way to get Ryker out of the store and to the car. So I left him there. Fortunately, we aren't in San Bernardino or any place scary and I wasn't overly worried about it, especially since I had a pretty good parking spot and wouldn't be too far away. I drove the cart out, put the baby in the car and turned back for Ryker. An employee was walking him out just then and he sulked across the parking lot to me. He complained and complained about how mean I was and how he hated me and this family. He said he never wanted to be a part of it and I made his life miserable. I went about getting the babies taken care of and ignored him. I usually blow up at him, not because of what he's saying (I know he doesn't mean it) so much as because it's ANNOYING! He never stops! And I hate how rude and malicious he is with his words. At one point I interrupted his monologue and picked him up gently and tenderly where I normally would have been rough and uncaring and I sat him in the car and hugged him (he hugged me back). I told him I was sorry that he was so sad but that if I bought him a toy when he was naughty, I was teaching him to be a bad boy. I talked to him about that for a minute or two and explained that God wanted me to teach him to be good and to obey his parents and to obey God, so I couldn't do things that would teach him to be a bad boy. He said that the way it works for him is that I have to buy him toys and candy when he's naughty and then he'll be good. I told him that all the time I was going to school I was learning how to be a good mom and what things work and what things don't and that I KNEW that rewarding bad behavior ALWAYS teaches little boys to be bad. I went and finished loading the groceries. He followed me and continued to complain. I picked him up (still gentle!) and put him in his seat and buckled him up. I usually yell at him to get his blankety blank (that part's just in my mind) behind in his seat and buckle up. He doesn't. I yell more. I throw him in the car and tell at him to do his seatbelt. Eventually, I threaten to take something he really wants or punish him really bad and he buckles up. Not this time! I just calmly put him in the car and buckled him up. We were going to go to the park for a picnic, but I told him that he had to choose to cheer up first. He didn't. He continued to complain so we just went home. I carried him up to his room with him trying to grab anything he could to slow us down: chairs, doorways, stair banisters, etc. I put him in his room without throwing him on his bed like usual and walked out. I went down to attend to the fussy babies who were both hungry. After I fed Landon, I thought I'd better go see what all the banging was coming from Ryker's room. I found him up there with a big bolt, banging it into a picture of Christ. I was shocked and appalled. All I could say was, "Wow, Ryker." I picked up the picture and the bolt and the other picture of Christ in his room (the one with a glass frame) and anything else that looked like it could be damaged or do damage and I went out. He screamed at me to let him out. He hasn't behaved that poorly in a long time. Not since before his birthday when we put a swing in his room (his swing has been broken for several weeks now and his behavior is slowly deteriorating--someone want to take some of Brice's load so he has a minute to fix it? Please? I'd really appreciate having the not out of control Ryker back!). If you know Ryker, you know that as much as he is terrible, he is also tender, sweet, loving, and good. I think and hope that his rationale for trying to put more nails into his Savior was that none of my regular buttons were working today and he hoped that by doing something SO bad, I would finally lose it and be my predictable, unstable, irrational, yelling, punishing self. I didn't lose my patience with him once that whole time. As appalling as it was to see him doing something so awful, I hope it means I was doing something right. For once.

I will admit that I did lose my patience with him later in the day when he was scratching Raelin and she asked him to stop nice and politely twice and he stopped for a second, thought about it, and scratched some more. I whacked him on the head with a stuffed animal. I'm not perfect. But I keep trying! I hope that I can have more days like today where I don't lose my cool and I don't let him get to me. It would be nice to do that, however, sans Christ-defacing behaviors.

Heres and theres

2010-09-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

Here's Alaina's time-out pose:
There's Ryker's I-fell-asleep-on-the-floor-with-my-light-on-and-my-hat-down pose:
Here's Alaina's I-got-a-gummy-bear-treat-for-going-pee-in-the-potty face:
Here's Landon's I-love-my-mommy smile (at least, that's what Brice calls it):
There's Russell's I-think-it's-hilarious-when-my-mommy-blows-in-my-face look:

(Taking suggestions for this picture's caption)

Landon's baby blessing

2010-09-06T20:37:00.001-07:00

In our church, infants receive a blessing in which their name is announced before God and witnesses and they are given blessings as the Spirit directs. Usually it is the father who gives the blessing (with other worthy Priesthood holders assisting by standing in a circle with one hand on the baby and the other on the shoulder of the man next to him) and he announces the baby's name and then blesses the baby with things like health, spiritual strength, desires for worthiness and service, to be a good example of Christian living, and things like that, according to what he feels God has in store for the child. Landon received his name and blessing yesterday.

Such a great day! The weather was beautiful, family and friends came from near and far, and the baby blessing Brice gave Landon was especially tender.

After church we went to our house and cooked up some delicious food! The fajitas were a hit! The chips and fresh salsa and bacon wrapped jalapeño poppers were scrumptious as well. And, of course, more cupcakes! I think I've eaten at least a dozen cupcakes this weekend. That's just wrong.

Visiting

2010-09-06T20:13:00.000-07:00

My grandparents, bless them, changed a ton of their plans to come out for Landon's baby blessing this weekend. We are SO glad they came and we had such a great time with them! They had a LOT of family to visit in their short stay in Utah, so on Saturday we met up with them and my cousin and her kids at my parents' house for a 4 generation gathering. The grown-ups all had a great time visiting and the kids had a great time running amok. ("Who, me?")The grandparents were in baby heaven! I always enjoy watching my Grandpa Tom (Landon's middle name is for him, by the way) with the kids and especially with the babies. He always takes a few minutes to hold them quietly and get to know them. He has a sense for the spirits of babies and it is so sweet to watch him tune into them and love them.There was Landon (2 months), Rachel (3 months), Russell (5 months), Alaina (19 months), and Gracie (a little over 2 years). The big kids (Raelin-6, Ryker-5, and Blake-4, I think) had fun going to a pond with my dad and picking apples in from a tree nearby to feed to the horse. They also climbed trees and played on the trampoline. Ryker got stuck in the tree and my grandpa climbed up to rescue him! I was going to, but he insisted. Christa and Gina and I (all the little mommas) had a great time chatting and laughing. Christa has the greatest sense of humor! We missed her husband Ryker (that's where we got our Ryker's name--isn't it such a great name!?), but he was busy working. Christa, if you're reading this, Gina and I decided we have to hang out more! We had SO MUCH FUN! And we ate LOTS of cupcakes. Mmmmm. And the kids ate lots of Ranch. Carrots and celery to toddlers are just orange and green spoons.

1st day of school

2010-09-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

Back to school... Raelin's in second grade and Ryker's in kindergarten. I had mixed feelings about it this year. We'd been making SO much progress on all sorts of things that we've been struggling with. The kids had been getting SO much better about doing chores and we were working on routines and habits. We were doing lots of sensory stuff with Ryker and working on teaching Raelin about having a better attitude. Raelin's just like I was--always feels like she's the victim and takes things WAY personally. It makes for a pretty sad childhood and I really want to teach her about agency and how to choose to be happy so that she doesn't have to learn it in her 20's like I did and waste all that time worrying so much about what people think of her. Through all of these efforts, I was enjoying my kids more because I was spending more time with them instead of only interacting with them when they needed something or were fighting. They were also fighting less because I was present to intervene and redirect sooner and they never got to the fighting stage. Well, I shouldn't say never; but a lot less often!

Raelin has a really loose tooth and she likes to poke it out between her lips--it makes her look like she has buck teeth!

And my handsome Ryker. He is just the cutest guy! Always full of smiles. Ryker loves life and you can see it in his face. I admire his ability to just be happy.

I couldn't decide between these two pictures because I like Ryker's little head tilt in the first one and Raelin's smile better in the second one, so I had to put them both up.

By the way, Ryker (in kindergarten) started a week after the rest of the school. That's why Raelin is in a different outfit in the pictures of both kids than in her first day of school pics.

You know what else I was thinking about that kind of strange? (Musings of a sleep-deprived, postpartum mother with rapidly depleting brain cells... Don't mind me) It's going to be FOUR YEARS until I send another kid into the school world! That's a long time. I mean, Raelin started school last year and Ryker, this year and I won't send another one off until 2014! I wonder what will happen with the babies in the meantime. It's like starting over kind of. I have 4 years where I'll spend substantially more time with the littles than with the bigger kids. And then I'll send the littles off boom, boom in a row too. It will be interesting to see how the two "sets" of kids turn out; I'm a much different mom than I was when I started out. Okay, I should stop rambling. Sorry! The end.

First Smiles

2010-09-06T19:38:00.000-07:00

It's been so funny to watch Landon learn how to smile. It's like you can tell he wants to but trying to figure out how to control the muscles is throwing him for a loop and he ends up making all these goofy faces! He's pretty much got it figured out now, but it's also dang hard to catch on camera. I might have better luck if someone else was behind the camera and I was soliciting the smiles. At any rate, here are the many faces of Landon as he learns to smile:

Long overdue baby shower post

2010-09-06T13:32:00.001-07:00

So I've been putting off this post because I don't have very many pictures from it--Gina took most of the pictures from that day and I was hoping to get them from her but we keep forgetting. So I'll post anyway because I am SO grateful to everyone who participated!

I got the crib I'd been coveting!!! Gina was going to have it be the group gift but my grandma decided to get it for us! And my sister-in-law got the mattress. I LOVE THIS CRIB! It makes me happy every time I see it! Isn't it pretty!

Right now it's turned 90 degrees from where it is in the above picture (like this:) so that the mattress of the crib is the same height at ours and it's like an extension of our mattress. It's a perfect cosleeper! It's like Landon is sleeping right there with us in our bed, but he doesn't take up any room and I don't crowd Brice for fear of Landon falling off the edge. I hardly notice waking up in the night to nurse him (but don't tell Brice that! I need him to think that I have good reason to sleep in! ;) Heehee!) When Landon is older and not needing to nurse in the night, we'll put the other rail on and move the crib away from our bed.

So, with the crib taken care of, Gina was wondering what to do for the group gift! She had a few ideas and she ran them by me and Brice and I talked. It worked out really well to not decide until after Landon was born because my post-baby body is just not cutting it and it's motivating me to want to get fit again. With the older kids in school and old enough to ride bikes a long way, a double jogging stroller was the perfect thing! I probably wouldn't have thought about it before the baby was born. And I also realized after having two little ones for a couple of weeks, how much a double stroller would be an asset. I've been out with it almost every day since I got it and I LOVE IT! I haven't noticed much improvement, but that's okay. It'll come. Maybe if I ate less sugar?

Alaina loves it too and she'll get all excited and say "buck-oh" (buckle) when she wants to go for a walk or a run. I've learned something about myself in recent years: I don't do well with goals. I tend to set unreasonable goals and then when I can't meet them, I bail on them entirely instead of modifying them or just doing my best. So my only goal for exercise has been that I'm not allowed to set any goals! I don't even allow myself to evaluate how many times per week I go out because then I'll start thinking about whether it's enough or not and whether it's more or less times than the week before. (Dang that competitive spirit of mine!) It's actually been working out quite well! I go out a lot and I really enjoy it. When I have a goal to meet, it sometimes (usually) becomes a chore, but so far, I don't feel like it's a chore one bit! I love it and I look forward to it and I end up wanting to just keep going and going. So a BIG thank you and a BIG hug to all of you who participated in the baby shower! The gifts were awesome and the party was lots of fun! I wish I had pictures of all the cute decorations Gina and my mom came up with, but I'll post them if I get them. Oh, one of the decorations is the string of baby onesies on the wall over the crib. Such a cute shower idea!

Stuff I've made

2010-09-06T11:54:00.000-07:00

So, I had this idea when Alaina was using a pacifier, but I never found stuffed animals I liked for a reasonable cost. But this time, I just wanted one for Landon, so I looked up online where I could get Beanie Babies. Walgreens was the answer. I went to get one, expecting it to cost about $5. But Walgreens had some knock-offs for $1! Yeah! So I bought three. Gina was over when I was making them into Binky Buddies and I convinced her to go get some for Russell. And here they are:

The boys both LOVE them! They just cuddle right up with them and Landon, at least, goes right to sleep. I've noticed that Landon falls asleep faster if he has the guy to cuddle AND the binky than if he just has the binky. Russell loves to cuddle and chew on his. They're so cute!

They're great because the binky doesn't get lost as much and the baby attaches to the toy and the binky, but when the binky has to go, they still have the toy for comfort.

I should have posted these a LONG time ago, but with the holidays, they kind of fell through the cracks. These are the things I made for Christmas gifts this last Christmas:

I bought a wood lathe for Brice a long time ago and it just sat in the garage. When Christmas was coming we were pretty broke and I was trying to think of something I could make for people for free. I remembered the wood lathe and I got on youtube and learned how to turn. This was my first bowl made out of some cottonwood I found up the canyon.

The next one I made out of the other half of the same cottonwood log, but I was a little better and this bowl is thicker and bigger.

I'd gone to a woodworking shop in Provo (they are awesome!) to ask some questions about the first bowl and the guy gave me a piece of honey locust wood. With it I made this bowl:

William let me have a couple pieces of walnut from their tree and I used it to make a birdhouse for Brice's mom. I used cottonwood for the top.

With another piece of walnut I made a box for Gina and Toby. This was a fun gift because I used it to announce to them that I was pregnant. I labeled the wooden box "the oven" and put two little dolls inside. One of them said, "Gina's bun" and the other said, "Morgan's bun." Gina's face was priceless!

This is a WAY fun hobby and I need to spruce up the lathe table so it's more sturdy before I turn on it again. I've been wanting to get to it this summer, but haven't yet. I'm getting more motivated with the weather getting cooler. I really want to make some more stuff! It would be nice to make another batch of Christmas gifts before it gets cold because last year I was pretty freezing making these things in the cold garage in December!

Cooper-D-Stupor

2010-09-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

Cooper has all sorts of nicknames: Cooper-D-Stupor, Cooper-Stee-Dooper, Cooper-Booper, Super Duper Cooper Pooper, just plain Stupor, and Alaina calls him Booper. It's a good name for him. He's such a goofy dog.

One day, we had him in the house and I went to go look for him. He was hiding in the laundry room:
Yesterday, Brice went to clean a mess he made in the bathroom with the pooper scooper shovel. Cooper is apparently scared of the pooper scooper shovel and went to hide... In the CAT crate!How he fit his big self in there is beyond me! And he was able to turn himself around in there too!

We plan to fix up a Cooper-proof dog run today but I'll have to try to get a picture of Cooper's signature pose: Front paws on top of the fence, big head peering over to survey the world below. So you'll be driving down the street and you'll see:
(I just went and took these pictures just now before the dog run is fully enclosed and Cooper can't get his big dome up over the top of the fence anymore.)
He's like Yertle the Turtle or something--ruler of all that he sees.

Wow, I'm behind!

2010-09-05T17:54:00.000-07:00

I hadn't realized how long it's been since I posted until I looked through the pictures on my camera and thought, "I haven't blogged ANY of these!!" So here we go. First I'll post the random pictures from the last little while and then I'll do a few separate posts about events or whatever I have pictures of that lend themselves to their own post. Okay, so in no particular order...

Alaina is adorable.

I love this picture of Landon cuddling his little mousie.

Alaina fits in Russell's clothes! Okay, well, Russell doesn't quite fit in this outfit yet, but Alaina got hers all wet or dirty or something and Gina loaned us this and I thought it was SO cute on her!

Shopping at Walmart, Alaina grabbed these off the shelf and started modeling for us. She's such a ham!

So, we pulled into the parking lot at WM and Brice saw this dog in the car and from the back, thought it was a lady. We had to get a picture. Can't tell you how many times we saw people taking pictures of Jax sitting in our car (always the driver's seat) looking all person-like. Wish we'd have been one of the picture-takers once...

People ask all the time how it is with 4 kids. Here's how it is:

They say not to cry over spilled milk, but sometimes, that's just all you can do. Everything else is relatively easy. It's Alaina who is the hardest due to her constant getting into things, lack of understanding and disobedience (she hasn't yet learned that she needs to do what mommy and daddy ask, which is rather hard to teach with a little sucker attached to me for a good portion of the day). Today, for instance, we were outside and she was dragging a toy vacuum towards the intersection by our house. Brice said, "Alaina, no!" She looked at him thoughtfully. He said, "You'll get a spankin'!" She said, "Okey," and headed out into the road.

We took the kids to the waterfall Brice and I had gone to for our anniversary.

Ryker was brave enough to get wet under it, but I think he rather regretted it later. Not so happy about being cold on the way back...

Little miss independent. Walking the log bridge all alone! I love Raelin in the background too!

It's a little blurry but I love this picture of the two of them with their heads together studying bugs. This is how they are most of the time, despite all the complaining I do about all their fighting. It's always one or the other.

My handsome man showing off his cheeser.

And my baby man showing off one of his first attempts at a cheeser. Trying to figure out how to coordinate all those muscles! He's mostly got it figured out now. And he's got way cute little dimples!

Look at that funny face! Love the eye brows, the little mouth, and especially the ears! He's only a month and a half old in this picture--look how well he holds that head! Which is funny because he's still such a squishy kid. Alaina was SO strong when she was born and Landon was pretty much the opposite--a complete mush ball. But he's growing fast!

Ryker's crane pose

Later in the evening, Ryker fell awkwardly between these two stumps and hit the back of his head. He's the only person I know who can fall forward but hit the back of their head. Poor guy.

We met my parents at this beautiful place called Daniel's Summit to hang out for the day at their campsite. The kids had a blast riding ATV's and playing. And getting dirty.

Ryker's sharpening Granddad's shovel. Where does he come up with this stuff? He just found a rock and started honing that edge! If it had been a proper medium, he'd have ended up with a pretty sharp edge! Where'd he learn to do that?

Why is it that kids never use things the way they were intended?

Landon's ever-present worried face:

Bunch of monkeys

Look how long he is!

Okay, well that's it for all the random stuff I had to catch up on. More to follow--stay tuned!

Ryker's face-plant

2010-08-19T14:06:00.000-07:00

Poor Ryker! He had occupational therapy today and he had a great time trying out THREE different kinds of swings! He loves to swing and today he got to try two new ones he'd never used before. He was having a ball! Then his therapist put him in this stretchy sack that velcroed up the back with his whole body (including his head) inside. The idea was that the therapist would sit on his rolling chair and hold the back of the sack and Ryker had to pull him around the room. Sounds simple enough. Ryker was pulling with all his might, but his therapist is well over 6 feet tall, so he wasn't really making any headway. Suddenly, his feet slipped out from under him and, since his hands were restrained by the sack, he went straight to his face! Oh, it looked so painful and sounded just AWFUL! Ouch! He started crying and doing his owie dance while his therapist worked to extricate him from his prison. I would have panicked, being so hurt and stuck in a sack like that! We got him out and started assessing the damage. His nose was bleeding and he had a small cut on the outside of his lip. He's hit his nose and gotten bloody noses before (including at another OT appointment, if you recall), but I've never seen his nose swell up before. Poor guy. He really hit it hard. I won't be the least bit surprised if he ends up with a black eye or two. He sat in Brice's lap for a few minutes until he was feeling a little better, but he still said he wanted to go home. The thing that I just love about Ryker is his forgiving nature. His therapist said, "Do you hate me?" and Ryker's immediate response was, "No, I still like you." The words just don't quite capture the emotion though. He was just so offhanded about it, like it was no big deal. If somebody had just about broken MY nose, and for the second time no less, I'd be kinda mad at them for a while. At least until I stopped bleeding and hurting. But not Ryker. It's like it never crosses his mind to be angry or upset about anything other than the pain. The kid's got character.

Raelin's cake

2010-08-19T13:58:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, Raelin wanted to make cookies. I told her to get out my cook book and choose a recipe. She chose Texas Sheet Cake (after she started, she realized it was cake and not cookies. Oops!). I've never made it before but I let her go for it. She started mixing ingredients and measuring them herself and everything. Then she said there was no more flour. Uh oh. I told her to just use some wheat flour to make up the difference. Then I thought to tell her to pre-heat the oven. She didn't know where to look for the temperature to set it for, so I came to take a look. Uh oh. The directions said to boil the butter, water and cocoa first and then add the dry ingredients. Too late now. She finished making the batter and I poured it into the pan for her and we tossed it in the oven. It took an hour to cook rather than the 20-25 minutes the recipe said. So, needless to say, I was a bit concerned about how this cake was going to turn out. Fortunately, it came out of the oven LOOKING like a cake...

Now for the taste test. Wow! It's actually quite good! You can certainly taste the wheat flour and it's better with frosting, but it's super moist and dense--more like zucchini or pumpkin bread. I really like it! Great job, Raelin! And she cleaned up pretty well after herself, too! I just wish I'd thought to take pictures!

Professional pictures

2010-08-11T16:10:00.000-07:00

Well, sort of. I have a friend who wanted to borrow a wooden stool to use as a prop in some pictures she wanted to take. I volunteered Ryker's red one. She offered to take some pictures of my kids in exchange. I totally got the sweet end of the deal, but hey, I'll take it!! She's not a professional photographer but I'd say she could be! Check these out!

While Alaina takes wonderful candids, she wasn't really getting the idea of a photo shoot. Guess she thought we were looking for a good mug shot.

Another mug shot of Alaina

Bribery works! I held up an M&M and asked her if she wanted a treat.

I'll take that as a yes.

Starting to complain because I'm not giving her treats fast enough. But if you've ever seen her with an M&M, you'll understand. That colorful candy shell ends up as colorful candy drool all down her chin and on her shirt. Not attractive for picture-taking.

"Want more treat! NOW! Or I'll kill you with my laser vision"

All four monkeys!

Love, love, love it! I never get professional pictures taken of my kids and I always wish I could. Now I have some and they make me SO HAPPY!

To Clarify...

2010-08-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

I have 2 clarifications to make regarding the previous post:

1. Not knowing anything about the great outdoors does not necessarily make one a stupid person; however, choosing to go caving without being properly prepared is the sort of thing that would certainly indicate stupidity. Are you HOPING to earn a Darwin Award?

2. According to Brice, the cliff I was talking about is not one that would result in certain death if you fell like I made it out to be. He says that if you tumbled as you fell, you might not stop until you hit the creek bed at the bottom. That sort of fall could kill you. But if you were smart and spread yourself out as you fell so that you slid down, you'd just get a sound beating, but you'd live. I'd hate for Brice to read this and think I'd misrepresented the danger factor. This was a "it's possible that you might die if you fall" hike, not a "you're certain to die if you fall" sort of hike. Though we have gone on "you're certain to die if you fall" hikes before (see my very first blog post--our anniversary trip to Zion's). Just not with kids. Oh, that's not true. The Timp caves hike is like that, but the trail is nice and wide and paved and Ryker was on a leash. I guess that one's a "you're certain to die if you fall off the edge" hike, but the likelihood of falling off the edge is slim.

Anniversary

2010-08-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

Our 8th anniversary was on Tuesday and we had a GREAT day! Gina and Toby watched the kids (THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!) for us so we could have the day to ourselves (Landon came with us, of course, but he's easy--he doesn't talk). Brice and I wanted to go hiking and find a cave so we looked around on the Internet for a while and then we picked one we thought we'd be able to find (they don't tell you where any of them are unless you're part of a caving club--it helps preserve the caves and keep stupid people who don't know the first thing about the outdoors from getting themselves killed--caves are dangerous!). We started our hike and it was STEEP!! I'm pretty much a complete wuss about heights. If I don't have like three things to hold on to (yes, I realize I only have two hands), I'm totally chicken. This super-steep hike was on loose dirt and rocks (at least, they felt loose to me) and there was a one-wrong-step-and-you're-falling-to-your-doom cliff on one side of the trail. And this cliff wasn't like a foot or two from the trail; it was RIGHT THERE. Talk about walking on the edge! So we hiked for a while and Brice loved it because it was one of the few times in our married life that his damsel has been in distress and needed rescuing. Apparently guys love that. He was almost giddy to be my knight in shining armor and hold my trembling hand to practically pull me up the mountain (my arms and back were sore the next day from clinging to him for dear life). I must admit that I was giddy too, but from intense fear. Part way up, we decided that this might go a little better if Brice carried Landon. Having a helpless baby to protect on this treacherous expedition wasn't helping my fear or anxiety, or my coordination. But when I took Landon out of the carrier, I realized he was hungry. So I stopped to nurse him and Brice decided to go scout around for a few minutes. He was gone longer than a few minutes, but since I hadn't heard any rock slides, I was pretty sure he was safe. In fact, I was kind of hoping that he'd found the cave and was taking a peak inside at least a little because I was feeling like, unless the rest of the trail was NO WORSE than where we'd been, it just wasn't safe enough to go any further with Landon. Brice finally got back and said that it gets a LOT worse and that he found the cave (but didn't want to go in without me--plus it's not very smart to go into a cave alone anyway) and only made it back by the power of prayer. Yeah, end of that hike! Down we go! I pretty much slid on my butt the whole way down (and discovered that it wasn't as slippery as I'd feared on my way up... But still steep! Much safer sitting down; I don't get vertigo when I'm sitting on the edge of sudden death, only when I'm standing on the edge of it). We made it (safely) to the car and decided to go watch a movie at the dollar theater and then go for another hike so as not to hike through the hottest part of the day. We went and saw Iron Man 2. I must say that the Iron Man movies are my favorite comic book movies. Tony Stark cracks me up! Then we went down to Payson to hike a trail I'd seen a sign for a long time ago that I though sounded like fun. It's a short hike that's all in the shade and ends at a waterfall that's in a little grotto, hence the name Grotto Trail.It was a nice, cool hike that we decided to take the kids on soon. It had lots of footbridges and creek crossings that the kids would love. Then we decided to go to another dollar movie (Brice loves going to the movies and spending a grand total of $4 for an anniversary sounds great when you're on a tight budget!) and we saw Robin Hood. It was a really fun and simple anniversary celebration. We had a great time being together and I especially enjoyed getting to spend time with Brice (awake) without kid interruptions.

Life with four kids

2010-08-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

Lots of people ask how it's going with four kids, so I'll tell ya. It's either going swimmingly or it's falling apart at the seams. For instance, right now, the house is peaceful and quiet and even somewhat clean! Alaina and Ryker are napping, Landon just fell asleep too and Raelin is reading quietly. I love nap time when it goes well. However, the scene from 30 minutes ago looked nothing even remotely like this one! Landon had woken up and was screaming for some attention, but I couldn't hold him and take Alaina potty so he had to wait. Alaina's been doing this thing where she wants to go to the potty every 5 minutes, but she won't actually GO ever. Raelin and Ryker had been working hard cleaning the upstairs all morning and they had earned coffee cake and were "dying" of starvation. I couldn't get the 13X9 pan full of cake out of the oven one handed, so Landon resumed screaming when I put him down. I also didn't want to eat holding Landon, but I was hungry too, so I tried to bounce him in a bouncy chair while I ate--I'm not that coordinated. Then Alaina was throwing her coffee cake all over the floor and on Landon's head, making him scream more. Alaina wanted to go potty again and getting her out of her chair to sit on the potty (but not go) results in crumbs all over the floor. Then Landon pooped. The older kids wanted milk. Alaina wanted milk. Landon wanted milk of a different variety. I wanted milk. Cups and milk all around and then Alaina wants to go pee again. Landon cries. Ryker spills his cake on the floor and needs help cleaning it up. Raelin tries to help him but he doesn't want her help. Everyone is screaming. Including me. That's having four kids at its worst. Most of the time it isn't like that. Getting ready to go somewhere, however, IS like that. Everyone needs help with every blessed thing--Raelin can NEVER find her shoes, Ryker can't find either the belt he wants or some socks, Alaina and Landon both need to be dressed by me and Alaina is certain to have carried off her shoes (she loves shoes) and left them in two different rooms in the house and Landon is bound to want to eat five minutes before it's time to leave. Oh, yeah, and I have to remember to dress myself. Don't forget that tiny detail.

I got brave the other day and let the kids finger paint with a little paint mixed with shaving cream. They had a pretty fun time. When I take Alaina in the shower with me, I put some shaving cream on the wall for her to use as soap so I don't have to keep filling up her hands with it. So she thought this was soap and by the end of this exercise, she was green all over. She worked particularly hard to wash her feet and her "privates." I told the other kids to paint the paper and not themselves even though Alaina was doing it. They had fun getting all goopy and writing their names in the shaving cream. I took Alaina up to give her a bath and seconds later, Ryker appeared with his whole leg and foot COVERED in green shaving cream! AAAAHHHH! I told him to rinse it off in the bath and I went down to survey the damage. Fortunately, he didn't track nearly as much through the house on the way to the bathroom as I was anticipating. I cleaned up what mess there was and went back up tot he bathroom. I found Ryker completely submerged in the tub with ALL HIS CLOTHES ON! AAAAHHHH! I told him to take his wet clothes off and get out of the tub. I left the room to try not to start screaming at him for all this trouble he'd caused when I was trying to do something fun for him. The next thing I heard was the distinct sound of sopping wet clothes being plopped on the carpet! AAAAHHHH! I yelled at Ryker to get his wet clothed OFF the carpet and get out of the tub and take a nap, for cryin' out loud! I'm sure Landon woke up and cried somewhere in the middle of this fiasco, but I can't remember for sure.

But most of the time, things aren't completely insane. It's usually only two kids (not shaving cream-covered green monsters) needing something at any given moment and one of them can usually be placated for at least a few minutes. Raelin is getting to be a big helper with Alaina. Ryker is a great fetcher of baby things. The two of them play together wonderfully most of the time. The biggest issue issue with the two of them is usually that I don't like the way they're talking to each other, so, while they would work it out on their own if I left them alone, I intervene to instruct them on speaking kindly. There's also a fair amount of tattling that I want to figure out how to eradicate. Oh, and the endless sneaking of food. I HATE that. Like I'm not going to notice that they just ate half the bag of Oreos. I don't even have to see the bag; the evidence is all over their faces and clothes! Hello! But other than that, the two older ones are really stepping up. They are doing a much better job of cleaning without arguing and that alone is making a huge difference! They really don't need a whole lot of help with most things so that frees me up to help the two babies and do all the things they need. The most difficult thing with the two babies is keeping Alaina out of trouble while nursing Landon. And she is trouble! She's into EVERYTHING! It's extremely difficult to enforce what I say to Alaina when I've got a parasite sucking the life out of me. I also have yet to master running errands with the two of them. So overall, I'd say things are going pretty well. A few trouble spots here and there, but we'll figure out how to get through them. It's also helped a lot to have Brice around more; it gives me a chance to figure out how to do four kids slowly with lots of breaks from going it alone. If I was doing four kids 24/7 like I was when Brice was in school, I think I'd pull my hair out and turn into a crazy person. Crazier might be more appropriate. But this way, by the time Brice goes back to school and I'm on my own with them more, I'll have a lot of it figured out.

Fourth of July, Visitors, and Randomness

2010-07-16T19:46:00.001-07:00

Well, I don't have a ton to report, but Brice is camping with the scouts tonight so I'm lonely and bored and I thought I should put up some recent pictures of Landon (and family)--they change so much in the beginning! Most of the pictures that have been taken lately are on Gina's camera (I'll try to get some from her blog to post here and I'll get a whole batch from her the next chance I get).

Summers for us are filled with visitors from California. Everyone is dying to get out of that state, I guess. And here I am, dying to get IN!

Alaina's dancing in this picture--she dances to any music she hears--so cute!
So this summer, we had Brice's sister and her family come for a week or so, during which, Brice finished his Spring term at BYU and started his first break from school in about three years. Then we had a week of no visitors at the end of which Landon was born. Then our friend Andria came out with her three kids and we had a couple of fun, big gatherings with them and all the mutual friends we have out here (think about 10-12 adults and about the same number if kids--all under 8. The park was our friend!).

Alaina had a great time eating anything left unattended. If you wanted your food or your drink, you'd better have hung on to it!Brice's parents' visit overlapped with Andria's and they were here for a week or so. We went on several hikes, Brice's dad helped him on a shed he had to build, saw a couple of movies, and we went to Jumpin' Jacks (always a favorite for the kids. And Brice). The day they left, Brice's other sister arrived and spent about four days out here. They were at the end of a two week vacation and were pretty beat (and so were we), so we mostly hung out here at the house and let the kids play while we chatted or slept. They even took the kids to the movies so Brice and I could spend some time resting. That was so nice! They left yesterday and now Kari and Glen are coming out for the weekend! I'm particularly looking forward to our Sunday dinner plans with a few other friends too! So much fun! We took some family pictures the week before Landon was born. We all LOVE my parents' property! Beautiful!

My sister played around with Alaina and took a ton of pictures of her. They turned out SO cute! She was able to capture her little personality so well. There are a bunch more pictures, but these are what I got off of Gina's blog, so more to come from this batch later.

Gina got Russell and Landon matching 4th of July shirts, so we decided that we'd better come up with something fun to do for the holiday because they HAD to wear their shirts! So we planned a little get together and ate some yummy food and played with fireworks that Gina and Toby brought. SO fun! The boys had a blast playing with fire and us girls and the kids had fun watching the show.

Amazing what a difference three months makes...

Look at that! Three months old and walking already!! What a stud! Heehee!

Look at that handsome boy!

Tia (Gina) and Toby took the kids for a couple days and they had all kinds of fun! One thing they did was go to a splash pad in Highland. They had a blast! And look, they DO love each other!More of cute Alaina. I LOVE this smile!

Ooooh!! Could she GET any cuter!!!???

Granddad with the newbies.

As you can see, Landon sure thinned out since his birth! He's got his daddy's build: long torso, short little legs...

And big, wide man hands.
(A friend asked me yesterday upon meeting Landon how I felt about breastfeeding my husband--Landon looks just like him! She cracks me up!)

A few more of Alaina (no one with a camera can get enough of this little girl. Not me, not Gina. Even random strangers take her picture. Should I be worried?)

Cooling off? Yeah, I always lay in a puddle when I'm too hot too.

Playing on the tramp
And this pretty little girl (I love the bangs-free face! So beautiful! I really hope she'll quit cutting them and let them grow out!) spends all the time she can up in trees. This tree is at Grammie and Granddad's house and I think it's her favorite one to climb. I think she literally spent 3 hours in it yesterday.