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.

Knock, Knock

Abigail frequently tells knock-knock jokes that make absolutely no sense. They start out with, "Knock-Knock" the obligatory, "Who's there?"    "Frog."   "Frog, who?"   "Frog was jumping in a pond and he fell down on a rock and then he got up, and hopped around, but then fell again! .... Is that funny Mama?"   It is funny. The first 25 times. Then I'm just begging for quiet. But then yesterday Abigail told me one of her epic knock-knock jokes and something she said just hit me in the gut.

"Knock-Knock."
"Who's there?"
"Cow."
"Cow who?"
"A cow who was walking around a farm, and he didn't know he was a cow! He didn't know what he was because he never saw his mother."

And then maybe there was more she said after that, but that sentence reverberated around in my brain. He didn't know he was a cow because he never saw his mother. All of a sudden my role in her establishing her identity became so clear to me.

I could pontificate on this all day. But I can also just leave it at. He didn't know what he was because he never saw his mother.

Last day of preschool.

Okay I love having this blog to look back on what my kids were doing at what time. So this will be a boring post, probably very disjointed since Nathan is running around leaving a path of destruction behind him.

Today was Olivia's last day of preschool. She got to book 14! She still has huge confidence issues when it comes to reading but I'm so proud of how hard she tries. She is the sweetest girl and I'm so lucky to be her mom. Abigail was having a major freak out and Olivia was sitting next to her telling her to take deep breathes and just trying so hard to help her calm down. It was a sweet moment. She is always wanting to serve and surprise people. Her favorite thing right now is probably swimming. She asks every day if we can go swim at grandpa's. And the other day she raced her cousin across the pool, and she didn't seem nearly as fast as him, but when she realized he was about to win she got this lightening speed out of nowhere and beat him. I've stories about her dad doing the same thing so it cracked me up. I'm so excited and anxious for her to start Kindergarten this fall! So crazy.

Abigail officially gave up her binkies for reals this time. And she is struggling. She's 3 and a half. It's beyond time so there's no going back this time. But she literally has not taken a nap since May 1st. 15 days!!! It's ridiculous. She went from sleeping for 14 hours a day to about 10. I keep waiting for it to catch up to her but she's just super grumpy. She melts down at the drop of a hat and it's exhausting.

And then there's Nathan. Ya know that Taylor Swift song, Trouble? That's what we sing to Nathan all day long. "I knew you were trouble when you walked in, trouble, trouble, trouble..." Because 99.9% of the time he is doing something he shouldn't be. And it usually ends in injury or a huge mess. Probably even more exhausting than Abigail and her lack of sleep! He also got a weird bug bite last week and he got really swollen. It scared me half to death but he ended up being fine. We did go the doctor and get some medicine, and I think it helped a lot. Either way it is 10 times better than it was on Monday. He also pooped on the potty for the first time! And he just came to me and asked to take his diaper off and then he ran and sat on the potty! Nothing came out... but he's making the connection. I think. I hope. He still speaks mainly in grunts and pointing. His clearest words are "Iwanthat" (yes all one word in his mind) and "Thank youuuuu" and of course "mama" and he will sometimes say "Daddy" but he doesn't say it very often, even though he wants him all the time. He usually just cries and reaches for him without saying anything. Oh and "uh-oh" that's a common one. And he sings. Always singing. None of the words are decipherable, but sometimes I can catch the tune. And sometimes I will sing to him and he always claps when the song is over. Easy to please. I'm also fairly certain that he has a caffeine addiction. "Soda" is another word he uses frequently asking grandma, daddy and aunts for soda all day long.

And for the rest of what's going on... we still aren't completely sure where we are going to be when Aaron graduates. It is stressful, but we are just living one day a time and doing what we can. I am flying out to NJ on Friday with the kids. By myself. On a plane. For five and a half hours. By myself. With all three kids. I will need help from on high that day for sure. I'm counting on the girls to be good and just play quietly with some barbies or polly pockets and their DS's. My biggest worry is Nathan. I'm sure it won't be pretty but we'll survive.

Then come back here and hopefully know what we're doing and pack up and do it!

Dear Lily

Dear Lily,
     There is a line in a song that I sing to my own babies, but has been going through my head all day and I feel it's even more appropriate to sing to you. "On the day that you were born, the angels got together and decided to create dream come true..."
        On this day that you were born I felt the need to write something. Because I don't know what else to do. And I started to write a blog post (you'll learn all about those some day. It'll be like what they used to do back in the old days by the time you can read this I'm sure!) and it just wasn't coming out right. Then I realized I wanted to talk to you. And I wanted to tell you about my best friend, your Mama.
         I know I'm just one of many lucky people who get to call your Mama their best friend. This is because your Mama is the most amazing person ever. We first met in third grade in Miss Miller's class. But we didn't become best friends until our Bayshore Middle School days. I'll always be grateful that my last name started with W, and hers with T, because it meant we got to sit by each other for a lot of things and got to be in the same Homeroom. And then there was Mr. Pingatore's Science class. This is where your mom and I would sit in the back of the room and make each other laugh for 45 minutes, Monday-Friday. Mr. Pingatore never really yelled at us for talking or laughing, and we really got to know each other in that class. The first time we ever hung out, outside of school was at a gym on a "Teen Night". We went swimming, and your great-grandfather picked us up and dropped me off at home. I think that was the only time I ever met "PopPop", but I feel like I knew him because of Cathy's stories. From then on we were pretty much inseparable and spent as much time as we could together. Most of our time was spent talking about boys, wondering what it meant to fall in love, and reading greeting cards in the drug store to find answers.
          I can remember walking down my drive way with her and we were talking about how "old" we were because we were turning 13! We thought we were leaving our childhoods behind us and becoming adults. Little did we know just how much growing up we would do together! We listened to each other as we both "fell in love" for the first time. And cried on each others shoulders when those loves didn't work out.
         We grew up, but never grew apart. Well at least emotionally. Our lives took us different places, and now I live 2,000 miles away in Arizona. I miss your mom so much and wish I could be there cuddling you right now and hugging her! Lily, I hope you know how much you were wanted. I don't think I've ever known another baby to be so anticipated as you. I know when the time is right your mommy and daddy will tell you all about your angel brothers, and everything your mom and dad went through before they got you. But I want to let you know you have been prayed for long before you were born by multitudes of people who likely you will never even meet. You are loved beyond comprehension. By your parents and family, and friends, and even people who don't even know you! That is something so special, and as you grow up and wonder, as teenagers often do, why you are here, I want you to know you are here for a great purpose, Lily Grillo. You are important, and you are loved more than you could possibly know.
       I am so grateful to be friends with your Mama so I will have the opportunity to watch you grow up. I am sure as you grow up you will face lots of challenges like your mom did. But look to her for a great example of how to handle it. She has been through more than anyone else I know, and has always had the best attitude. You can look to your mom always, and I am certain she will be there for you to help you and guide you on this journey. She may not have all the answers, because the truth is none of us do, but your mom has grown and learned so much from all she been through, you would be hard pressed to find anyone more wise and understanding than she.
       I have not even met you yet, Lily, but I love you so much!

Love,
Lauren