Good ideas and bad ideas...

Making home made snow cones with the kids on this hot, hot day...

Good idea.

Shaving my son's head with my husband's beard trimmer...

Bad idea.

My cute kids

So we started our first family garden. I honestly don't know who's more excited about it, me or the kids. We were looking at the seeds and getting all excited and my girls started chatting about all the fun things we will harvest in 50-75 days. Olivia's carrots will be ready just in time for Thanksgiving... I hope. 

But then they started talking about people who don't have food. And maybe we should put out a sign and let poor people who don't have food come pick food from our garden. And give them a basket, and let them fill their basket with our veggies.

Made my heart warm and me giggle, and made me think, "Do you kids have any idea how much money we have spent on this garden already?"

I had no idea how expensive soil was! And the lumber for the box... plus all the work. I really hope this garden produces something. I am afraid we planted it in too shady of a spot.  But I was thinking it is AZ and the sun is still really strong here, so maybe it will be just right. *fingers crossed* But ya know we gotta feed all the poor people in Yuma so this garden has got to grow.

Olivia cooked dinner!

Olivia desperately wanted to cook dinner for us so I finally let her. I pulled up my "Yummies" board on Pinterest and let her pick whatever she wanted. She chose, Cheesey Vegetable Chowder. After school we went grocery shopping to get the ingredients we'd need. Then she did most of the work. She chopped carrots, potatoes, and broccoli. I did the onion since those make her cry. She stirred, and watched for it to boil, and added all the ingredients. I was HEAVILY supervising this dinner making deal, but she really did a lot herself. She was SO proud of it, and asked if she could cook every Friday. Sounds good to me!

Oh and don't you love the booty shot? And Nathan's birth mark that everyone thinks is poop the first time they change his diaper? Don't report us to the health dept... And they did start with clothes on, they just got wet and filthy and ended up stripping. Which is usually the norm around here? Anyone else? Anyone... ?

Oh this BOY!

His new favorite thing is to climb up here and try to catch the fish.

His old favorite thing is to feed Binky his food. I really have no idea how much Nathan eats vs how much he feeds the dog.

Don't really have much to say but want to keep updating!

Really there's not much to write about. Our days consist of swimming in our pool, watching Netflix, taking Olivia to and from school, and naps.

Oh wait there was something funny that happened yesterday.

So something glorious happens (almost) every day in our house. While Olivia is at school, Nathan takes a nap, and Abigail and I do "Mommy school". But then at 1:00, Mommy school is over and Abigail and I go take a nap together. It's the best. I wake up at 1:45-2:00 and then go do chores until it is time to wake up the littles and go get Olivia at 3:15.

Well some days are not so glorious and Nathan decides his nap is over at like 1:15. So as soon as I lay down and Abigail is asleep, he wakes up. Such was the case yesterday. But I didn't want to move. I listened to him yell from his crib, "Mom! Mommeeeeee... MOM..." Ya know the drill. Maybe 5 minutes of this, and then he starts yelling, "DAAAAAD! DADA" He totally gave up on me and started asking for his dad. Made me smile, and then after a couple minutes of that, I hear, "BINKY! *kissy sounds* BINKY! *kissy-dog-calling-sound*".  So he gave up on both of us and started calling the DOG! Cracked me up, and I finally dragged myself out of bed and got him up.

His sleep lately has been terrible. Short naps, going to bed late, waking up early... hoping it's a phase that ends very quickly.

What do you do when it's 115 degrees outside...

Today we put ice in my Ninja blender to see if it would really make snow like the infomercial says. And it did. So we had a little snowball fight, and then we looked up recipes for snow icecream and made it. I was not a big fan, but the kids loved it. And it kept us all nice and cool! And I felt like a fun mom. Lately I've been stressed about packing, unpacking, cleaning, etc. Today was FUN FRIDAY and we didn't clean much at all. And when we spilled stuff we just laughed. And we had a snowball fight in the house. It was fantastic.

Oh and one more important thing happened today...

Yes those PINK balloons means our new addition will be a baby sister!

And yes baby brother for Nathan would have been nice, we are super excited. Abigail especially wanted a sister, which you can see her happiness in that huge smile. Olivia was excited, but told me her dreams were lost because she really wanted another boy.

Today was better!

Just a little experience I want to write down so I can look back and remember it...

I have been praying my heart out about to handle my sometimes volatile children. Especially Olivia who has a heart of gold, but sometimes this little mean streak I just don't know what to do about. And the fighting. The constant fighting. I was just thinking the other day, "I swear 24 hours with these kids and President Monson (LDS Prophet) himself would be asking for a drink!"   But being the good Mormon Mommy that I am, I turned to prayer and scripture study instead of drinking myself into oblivion.

And for a while I wasn't really feeling anything different. I wasn't finding any answers in my scriptures. And then I read this,

 14 And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.

 15 But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another. (Mosiah 4:14-15)

Well I am doing pretty good at not letting them go hungry or naked. But that quarreling and fighting caught my attention. The part about serving the devil is a bit more extreme than our current situation (thank heavens), but the next verse just really pierced my soul.

Teach them love and serve one another.

So this has become my mantra. And our family motto, "Love One Another."

We made posters together and talked a lot about serving each other. They are still fighting, but I can tell they are trying. I've heard Olivia several times stop herself from flipping out and instead asking her sister nicely.

So we are like 2 days into this... but I hope it lasts. At least long enough for me to finish unpacking!

Long OVERDUE!

So there's this.... Baby #4 Due January 11th! (Which makes me 18 weeks pregnant)

And this... Our beautiful new home, that I have to pinch myself every time I drive up to it because I still can't believe we live here!

Oh and then this little cutie started Kindergarten!! Three days after we got here.  

Needless to say we have been BUSY! We also traveled to NJ and spent weeks with my family. And then to PA for Aaron's graduation. Did I really not blog any of this?

I honestly can't remember the last time I wrote or what I wrote about so I'm not going to worry about catching up. You see the big stuff up there. Baby, new house, new job, new town, new school. It's exciting times.

Being in our space again has been wonderful. I love, LOVE my in-laws. They are great, wonderful easy to get along with people. But having my own house is just the best feeling ever. In fact I'm writing this blog post sans pants just because I CAN. Sorry if that's TMI. But seriously some things you just take for granted.

Our new house has a pool so we swim every day. It has been great. And crazy. Abigail and Nathan both think they're Olympic swimmers, and both are pretty much just not drowning, barely. So I spend the entire time in the pool rescuing them. They jump off the side and "swim" to me. Then swim back to the side, climb out and do it again, and again and again. And trying to get Nathan to wait his turn is about as easy as getting permanent marker off the wall. So usually my arms are full of Abigail and Nathan. Meanwhile Olivia is a little fish and swims her little heart out. She dives, swims to the bottom, and does flips, and can swim the whole length of the pool without taking a breath. She's awesome. But she's also only 5, so of course I still constantly have my eyes on her as well. Two eyes, two arms, three kids. Yeah it's a little stressful!

Speaking of stressful... let's talk about 20 month old boys for a moment, shall we? Nathan is so sweet. He will give you kisses, and say the cutest version of "Thank you" you've ever heard any time you give him anything. He says hello and smiles to strangers he passes walking down the aisles of the store. And then two seconds later he rips his sister's hair out. Literally out of her poor little head. I have no idea what to do with him. We've done everything from ignoring him and giving lots of attention to his victim, to time outs, to pulling HIS hair. None of these have been very effective. He ended up in bed at 6:30 tonight because I was just so tired of it! Half the time it's completely unprovoked, and the other half is because he wants something his sister is playing with. Abigail is usually his victim of choice, but he's gotten Olivia quite a few times too. He is also obsessed with ice pops. And while I love our house and just about everything about it... the refrigerator it came with has the freezer door on the bottom. Where Nathan can go and pull out an ice pop and beg for it any time of day. Many, many times a day. And when the answer is no he is the most persistent creature on the planet. He will scream and cry, and pull at that freezer door all day long. He also loves to see his sisters playing nicely together with some game of some sort, and run over and completely destroy it. Pieces everywhere, girls screaming and crying, and Nathan laughing his head off. For real people. He climbs on the kitchen table. He throws his food on the floor. He turns the TV off when everyone is trying to watch a show. He needs constant attention. He wants me to be playing with him, entertaining him every moment he is awake. If not, he is causing all the havoc previously mentioned.   

Olivia is just as hot and cold as he is. She can be the sweetest most wonderful helper in the world. And then she can decide she wants to push Nathan's buttons as much he pushes hers. So she will grab his blanket, or touch him, or poke him, or whatever it is that makes him scream. But she is also the first one to run to him when he falls and gets hurt (which is about 100 times a day). She also goes to him when he wakes up in the morning and plays with him nicely until I can get my tired self out of bed. This morning she even changed his diaper! She has such a wonderful caring heart. But then sometimes this little mean streak comes out and I keep trying to squelch it, and nurture that caring part. I think we're getting there. She seems to be doing great in school. She loves going, and really likes her teacher.

Abigail has been doing "mommy school" again. She is so smart. I love spending time with her. She has the best smile and her little speech impediment is my favorite thing ever. I love the way she says everything. I love that she will still take a nap. I can't wait for her and Nathan to be able to play together. Today I got to spend time with just her and go shopping together. She was just so sweet the entire time. When she says her prayers at night she says, "And please bless Mommy, oh and I said her first because I love her the most, and please bless Daddy, because I love him too..." cracks me up every time. She can throw her little fits too. And she's very sensitive and cries at the drop of a hat. Which can drive me batty, but I try to remember she is 3 for pete's sake.

And then there's this new town. I can't find my way around to save my life. I get lost in our neighborhood frequently. But it hasn't quite been two weeks yet, so I'll give myself a break. We've met some great people and I am so excited for our time here. And honestly I hope it's a LONG time because moving sucks. Packing, loading, unloading, unpacking, putting away... it sucks! And we've done it a LOT the last few years. So I am more than ready to settle in and be here for a while. The kids also said they want to live here forever. So there ya go.

And now that we have internet, we are in our own house, and I have one child in school... maybe I'll update more! I'll try anyway. But if you are wondering why there are not as many updates read that post about Nathan again! By the time he goes to bed I am ready for bed.