You Know the Drill

Eli was a naughty baby who does dastardly deeds for Halloween.

It's been such a long while since I have posted. Everything is it's usual crazy stuff around here. Here are a few quick highlights:

1. Eli started walking the day he turned 10 months old. He toddles- I should say shuffles- around on his tiny little feet like an old man. Already he has mastered turning and has done away with the pivot turn. He keeps trying to run to keep up with his siblings. The kid is crazy. He LOVES telephones and throws a royal fit if he can see one and no one will give it to him. Natalie loves to find him and hug him. Today they were both snuggling on my chest holding hands.
2. We've survived the recent flu/cold bout. It has been AWFUL! The twins missed almost an entire week of school. They were sad it was the pre-Christmas week with all the fun activities. I knew they were sick when they took naps voluntarily (where actual sleeping and not just resting were involved) for 3 days in a row.
3. Jason was laid off the week before Thanksgiving. We're very grateful that I felt a push to get the shopping done really early this year and had Christmas pretty much bought and paid for before it happened. He's been working hard applying for jobs, serving, working on skills, and doing any odd jobs on the side he can find. I'm so grateful for his hard work!
4. I missed a birthday post for Ben. He's grown up so much this year! He keeps getting tall so fast that his body can't seem to get sufficiently wide enough. He keeps getting skinnier and skinnier! He spends every second he can either drawing or playing outside and has become quite the artist. He loves scouts and we've signed him up to play basketball through the rec center starting in January. He is SO EXCITED! Eli and Natalie are always waiting for their turn to sit with him and Liam follows him around as much as possible-to Ben's great annoyance. The big news is that Ben has found love at last! He has a girlfriend named Ellie. We first discovered this when he wrote "Ben loves Ellie" in the snow with a stick. Later, we found he had written "Ben loves Ellie forever" on the bottom of Liam's mattress. Sounds like things are getting serious. I asked him what it means to have a girlfriend in 3rd grade. (Since they don't play together at recess.) He said he didn't know.
   
5. I got released from my primary calling and find myself adrift in the ward. The bishop said I'm on his radar but for now, I'm freeloading. Ha ha! I loved serving as the secretary and getting to know those kids, even though my time in there was brief. The women I worked with are amazing.
6. I've started accompanying a singing group of women. It has been a BLAST. We meet after the kids are in bed on Sunday evenings. I feel spoiled to be included into what I would consider the popular group. These women are courageous and have incredible talents and testimonies. I've learned so much from them.
   
7. We took our condo off the market and Kristen and Ron moved in at the beginning of November. The plan is to rent it out for a while and then try to sell it later when we have the energy to try again.
8. We are going through some major challenges but are so grateful for the gospel and all of the things we've learned during this trial! We have really come to value being with our children and each other. We're so grateful for the life of our Saviour, who has given us the chance to be together forever. We love Him and are grateful for His help and blessings! Merry Christmas to all of you!
   

Liam's sillies

Here are some of Liam's recent sillinesses:

Hey mom, watch this: Hello cumorah! (He meant Alohamora from "Harry Potter").

Dad, I've got good news and I've got bad news. The good news is that me and Jane and Lizzy didn't steal any brownies. The bad news is Ben did.

Mom, my tummy is ALWAYS empty, except when I eat brownies. Then it's full.

Family Pictures

We went and did our family pictures on Sunday after the last session of general conference. Luckily, the weather and light held just long enough for us to quickly (it took about 15 minutes total) take some shots. Thanks, Kristen, for helping with the hair!

The 3 Ring Circus

Everyone enjoys a night under the big top, right? Unless the big top is located in your bedroom and the amazingly weird sights and sounds happen all night long! My bed was the center ring. The bathroom and family room made good side rings and the kids bedrooms were staging areas.

It starts at 10 pm. No wait. Let's back up. Eli has slept through the night exactly twice in the last 4 months. Trying to take advantage and sleep while he is, we've been trying to go to bed "early". 10 is the best we seem to be able to do. We read scriptures, pray, talk, plan for the next day, and lights out at 10:30. At 10:30 and 5 seconds, Jason is asleep. Dork. (Not to say he's not helpful, he just has a talent to be able to fall asleep as soon as he wants to while I lack the ability to sleep...ever.) 10:31: thinking about Eli. Is he still breathing? He was coughing 2 seconds ago. Is he still alive!? Panic! Better check on him. Oh. He's cold. More blankets. NOW I can sleep.......10:35: Oh crud! I forgot to call and cancel the car insurance again! I've been paying that stupid payment for 2 months now on a car I no longer own. psbth.....I tell myself to stop thinking and go to sleep. 10:36 Oh! What about the laundry? Did I move it over? I can't remember? Oh wait! I did. Okay. There's nothing like wasting water and power rewashing loads over and over. 10:37: Was that Eli? It's Liam. 10:39: Liam comes crying out of his room itching and needing to pee. Wake up Jas. (It's his special job.) Liam has to be guided to the bathroom when he wakes up at night. Why? Don't ask me. 10:40: Jason puts Liam back in bed. 10:40 and 4 seconds: Jason is asleep. My mind wanders for the next 20 minutes. Wouldn't it be cool to go to Scotland? I'd like to go to Ephraim this weekend. Does the car need gas? I wonder if the gas payment has gone through yet? Stop IT! Count sheep. Yeah. 1. 2. 3. 4...Did I forget to make follow up appointments at the dentist? Shoot! I'll have to call tomorrow...COUNT...1. 2. 3. 4. , Etc. I start to drift off around 11. When...BAM! Something hits the window. A mouse falling into the window well? A rock slipped. What WAS that? I don't know. Not creeped out, but very distracted and curious. My mind wanders more. Drifting off at 11:15. Eli wakes up at 11:15 and 4 seconds. Feed Eli. Put him back in bed. Now the circus REALLY begins. He thinks it's time to play. Or burp. It's hard to tell when you're that out of it. Rock. Lay down. Get up. Sing. Kiss. Change diaper. Rock. Rock. Rock. The boy is asleep...in my bed. DANG IT! Just getting up to put him back, Natalie wakes up. Jason goes to take care of her. Her crying woke up Eli. Jason brings Natalie back to bed and we wrestle with 2 babies for a while. Hours or minutes later, Natalie is asleep on the couch, Eli is asleep in his car seat, Jason is asleep, Liam wakes up. Put Liam on the other couch. Kiss and love him. 3 a.m. Listen to 6 people coughing for 20 minutes. Start to fall asleep. Eli wakes up. Rock. Rock. Rock. Eli is asleep at 3:30 something. Sleep.....BAM, or rather loud talking. Ben is talking in his sleep again. Unintelligible something about school and Jane. Eli is stirring. NOOOOO!! Rock. Rock. Rock....Sleep-after my mind wanders for a while. About 4:30 am. 2 HOURS OF GLORIOUS SLEEP! 6:30, Jason leaves, Natalie wakes up and wants lovies, Eli wakes up and wants to eat. I turn on "Bouse", feed Eli, and drift back off to sleep. BAM! Eli head butts me on my cheekbone, looks at me, falls back asleep, and I get up for the day.

I still love being a mother.

Birthdays and update

I can't believe my kid the guy is 5! Liam is a silly kid. He likes to tell jokes and play silly games. One of his favorite things is eating. He LOVES grilled cheese sandwiches and would eat them for every meal if we let him. In fact, I over heard him telling Jane this gem the other day:
"When I was a baby, I loved cheese sandwiches and boobs."
He says hilarious stuff all the time. If I'm listening, I get lots of good laughs during the day. Liam does not like having his hair washed or taking naps. But, he LOVES taking baths and sometimes will stay in for about an hour by himself.
I think Liam had a pretty good birthday. He spends most of his days playing trains with his friend Thomas, so we fixed all of the GeoTrax (they had once been taken swimming), put batteries in everything and got some new additions to the GeoTrax airport for him. He spent all morning in the basement setting things up and trying them out.
He then got to take his friend Thomas miniature golfing and eat lunch at "The Pirate restaurant." He rounded the day off going shopping for presents from his grandmas. What a fun day!!

Natalie is still a monster but now she's 2 and we can blame it on her age! She likes to follow her older siblings around and mimic what they are doing. She sings lots of primary songs and LOVES, LOVES, LOVES nursery. She is potty training herself. (I earned it.) She loves to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (which she calls "Bouse") and Little Eisteins. She shouts "MOMMY!" and hands me the remote, says "Bouse," and gets what she wants. She's a good little sleeper and cuddler when she wants to be. Her favorite thing to do is get into new stuff and make a mess with it. She still loves makeup and lotion. In fact, the other day she painted the carpet on the stairs with lotion. Nice. She picks her own clothes out in the morning. I love to listen to her sweet voice singing "Twinkle, Twinkle" and watching her grin spread across her face when she's done something that she's proud of. (I love this picture, they're all watching the cake.)

Other happenings:
"Lige" is crawling all over and putting anything he can get his little grabby hands on into his mouth. He likes to wrestle and is keeping me up all night long most nights. We're tired but he's so sweet during the day, I forget to be mad at him. He is at the age where he gets bonks on his head as he tries to stand on his own, crawl under things that are too low, and walk along furniture.
The older kids love their school. I like that they walk home. My mom has been driving them to school in the morning so I went from 5 carpools/day last year to pretty much no carpools this year. Ben's teacher came to visit us last week and Ben proudly played her some songs on the piano and violin and then showed her the garden where she took his picture. I think it was one of the highlights of his life. Billy Bob and Janey are busy setting up their social agendas and learning how to do math and spelling. I'm going to miss their little notes spelled with the "sound spelling" technique. The other day, I found they had written notes to each other in sidewalk chalk: "Janey, you have chok on your fase." "I love Lizzy" (backward z's.) They are silly.

As a family, we have been memorizing "The Living Christ". I've been surprised at how quickly the kids, even Liam, are doing it. I seem to be the one slowing us up in that department. I have loved watching their testimonies and love for the Savior grow as we've talked about the meaning of what each line means. When they argue in the car, it has become my habit to start quoting and by the time I get to the last line, they are saying it along with me and the argument has ended. (Usually. ;)

Our condo has had some "maybe" offers. Meaning that people want it, but they're going REALLY SLOW or not sure if they can get financed. Hopefully, by the end of October it will be gone. Pray pray pray pray pray....infinity.

Camping Trip

Natalie is very independent

Our quaint campsite

We successfully went camping with all 6 kids. Whew! It was a lot of work, I think at one point I was begging Jason to go home with my mind, but so worth it!! For those of you who like a quick list as much as I do, here are some major events:

1. Natalie discovered s'mores and introduced them to my clothes.
2. Eli tried real solids for the first time, peach flavored rice puffs. I ate half the can on the way home.
3. Jas successfully lit the fire with only 2 matches.
4. We made our own hot dog roasting sticks.
5. Natalie hiked almost the whole way to the "Grotto" herself, and then I had to drag her away, kicking and screaming. She loves water.
6. Ben shared everything he learned in scouts so far with us.
7. The kids found Waldo about 507 times.
8. We drove the whole Nebo loop and got some amazing pictures!
9. Stargazing at night, just me and Jas.
10. Our camping spot fronted a giant open field where the kids discovered animals, room to run, and-Ben swears- a skeleton that came to life and tried to chase him!

We left Friday morning and stopped on the way up to hike to the grotto. Natalie kept trying to get out of my arms and down to the trail. During the last half, she was determined to get down into the water. She probably would have jumped and cheered when I took her shoes off if she knew how.

It took us a while to find a campsite. We didn't want to be to close to other people. In the end, we found a spot with onsite water that fronted a giant empty field that gave the kids a lot of entertainment and the campfire a lot of nice dry wood. We roasted hot dogs for dinner and s'mores for dessert. And then, as soon as the tent was cool enough the kids were excited to get in the tent and read together. We all took turns reading Harry Potter out loud and then hit the sack.

It took Natalie about 2 1/2 hours to fall asleep and Jason and I forgot to get mattresses for ourselves but it was still the best night's sleep I've had in about a month. We were kept awake for a while by a BYU ward and an eager Elder doing PPI's while walking around our tent. He returned later with a girl to flirt with. Finally, around 1 a.m. I had Jason ask them to talk somewhere else. He was surprised to find our tent sitting a few yards from him. ??? One line Jason heard from the couple was: "Hey, I know, let's talk about something deep....your bone marrow! Yeah, tell me about your bone marrow!" I am soooo glad I'm not single anymore.

The next day we packed up and drove the rest of the nebo loop, stopping on the way to test our 4-wheel drive, take pictures, and visit Devil's Kitchen. We're so glad we did it! Next year, we hope we can go for more than one night.

The Latest

We try to go somewhere as a family every Saturday during the summer. This week's trip was temple square. We had a really good time and the kids wanted to do everything. We'll have to go back again to get to the stuff we missed. The observation deck on the church office building was open so we rode to the top. Thank goodness none of the kids had ear infections! Mine were ringing from the rapid elevator ride but the kids just said they felt like they were flying.

Highs and lows

I was at a low point once. It was back to school time, Walmart, Saturday. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to take 4 kids to Walmart on a hot summer day, late in the afternoon. (I don't think we even had naps that day.) Maybe I thought since I was buying the kids backpacks, it would buy their love, devotion, and good behavior for the afternoon. Maybe it was driving me nuts to be stuck inside with not enough distractions to help the twins contain, at least in a very small way, their excitement about the upcoming debut into kindergarten. Not that I really wanted them to keep it in, just that I had to help them be patient until the first day of school actually began. You can only answer the question "How many more days?" so often before you go crazy.

Anyway, after many firm, yet loving reminders to stop whining, screaming, crying, etc. with threats of "Do you want me to put all of the backpacks back?" and "You'll have a nap when we get home" something snapped. I remember being conscious of that fact that I was at a low point. I tried to pry the offending child out of the cart when she employed the use of the oh-so-effective "rubber legs". I had meant to just get her out and put someone else in, but by the time I had wrestled her from the cart, I was gone and monster mom had replaced me. The lady in the aisle with me kept glaring at me. Well! I raised my hand and SPANKED MY CHILD IN WALMART!! That wiped the glare off the nosy lady's face...unfortunately she replaced it with a judgmental "what-kind-of-parent-are-you?" face. I glared right back at her and challenged her to call social services on me.

I write this experience because last night we savored a high. We went to the ward swimming party at the Scera. As I watched my little (and I mean little as in age) family play and laugh together all I could think about was how blessed I really am. I wished I could have gotten a picture of Jane and Lizzy holding tight to Jason while they stood under buckets of water that would fill and suddenly pour gallons of water on them. Or Ben begging to go swim in the deeper part-he normally won't go into the water very far or ever put his head under the water. Liam was calm and happy for the first time in a while, I think the cold water soothed him. I wish I could have captured Natalie's smile after she slid down the slide into the shallow water. She was wearing one of those suits that had inserts of floaties in it. She looked like a round little.... something adorable!!

Thanks Mom and Dad for taking Eli so we could spend a great night bonding with the other kids. We had a blast!!

Na na na na Life Goes On

Things have been pretty crazy since my last post. Well, actually, I think things have been a lot crazy since the twins came! I think the biggest thing we've learned in the last year is that life continues to move forward, whether we like it or not. Here's an update on the fam:Lizzy and Jane turned 6! They are pretty sure they are very grown up. They've lost several baby teeth and their new GIANT front teeth are movin' in. They were upset when school ended but have thrown all of their energy into taking full advantage of summer and new friends in a new neighborhood. Jane asked me yesterday if she could go around the neighborhood and make some new friends. (I had to explain to her that I have to be with her when she does this as the last time we went to the park, she went up to some strange grown-ups, "made them her friends," and proceeded to teach them all how to play a new game she had invented.) Liz is catching up on her reading and spends a lot of time running around playing mommy.Liam is really growing up. He often surprises me with his funny sense of humor. All the kids like to tell jokes. He seems to always be looking for a reason to laugh. He graduated from preschool and we all survived the program-but just barely. He got to say his line first ("America, America, it's for me, the land of the brave and the home of the free."-still gets stuck in my head.) After that, I had to stand next to the "stage" and keep him quiet for the rest of the program. His flag became a sword, his tambourine a hat, and so forth. The little girl next to him enjoyed playing with him. He informed me later that she was his girlfriend. Hmmm....
Ben has been enjoying the freedom that summer brings. I've had to take his bike away for a few days because he kept getting on it and just riding where ever he felt like going! He's really enjoying having so many grown-ups around to take him places. He's been trying all sorts of grown up things, particularly board games. He has now been initiated into the world of "Settlers".The babies are doing well. Though they are both growing up WAY TOO FAST! I wish I could pause them and enjoy each moment (except at night-sleep would be nice. I would like to have coherent thoughts during the day). Natalie is really starting to learn some new words. Her cute little voice always saves her from scoldings. She'll do something naughty, like maul grandma's fern, pull dirt out of the living room pot onto the newly shampooed carpet, or play in the toilet, and then look up at me with her big brown eyes, rosy cheeks, and curly strawberry hair. HOW CAN I GET MAD AT THAT?! Eli is learning everything about everything. He has grabby little fists now that put everything into his mouth. He likes to scream. I don't mean cry, I mean his babbles are screams. We went to the Hill Aerospace museum and he discovered that his voice echoed in the airplane hangers really well! He's a good sleeper and eater and has discovered the joys of solid food. What a nice boy!!

We've been following our summer tradition of going somewhere as a family every Saturday and have had some really fun outings. Sometimes I feel like it's the only time of the week when we all get along. I guess that's how it is in a big family, someone's always upset about something, but then there's always someone to cheer that person up!

We feel really blessed to be together and look forward to better circumstances. In the meantime, it's sure nice to have Grandma and Grandpa so close by. They kids love the extra attention and I love sharing kitchen and house hold projects with my mom! It's a spoiled woman who doesn't have to cook every night or do laundry every day!