Another phone update

This baby hasn't met a food she doesn't like. In fact, it doesn't even have to be food, if it fits in her mouth she will eat it. 

These girls got cute haircuts.

Abigail thought this is what her hair looked so she asked me to take a picture. Funny girl!

We are finding our groove as we are midway through the third week of school. So far the homework battles are not half as bad as I thought they were going to be. Although Aaron's schedule has been pretty nice lately and he's been home a lot to help during that awful time of getting home from school, cooking dinner, helping with homework, while taking care of 3 other kids! It is a crazy time, and unfortunately his schedule is not as nice to me this week. But one day at a time, and we'll get through it.

So Abigail and Nathan can never remember what meal is what. Lunch is often called dinner, breakfast is called lunch, dinner is almost always dinner though. So this morning I made waffles and Nathan said, "Thank you for the delicious dinner!" And Abigail laughed and said, "Nathan, that doesn't even make any sense." Which cracked me up, since it was literally yesterday she said the same thing. So I said, "Right Abigail, what is this meal called?" And she confidently replied, "WAFFLES!"

update from my phone.

These sisters love each other so much. Abigail is constantly asking to hold Eliza. We are all sad she's getting out of the wanting to be held stage. She'd much rather be crawling all over to find things to choke on.

My fear of the dentist has been well documented on this blog, so you can imagine my fear when I found out my babies had cavities. I do not want to pass this fear onto my kids, so I put on a brave face, and made Aaron take them for their fillings. He sent me these pictures as proof that they did great.

And honestly, have to mention Dr. Kempton at Children's Dental here in Yuma is amazing. My kids didn't even know they got shots of Novocain.  He told them he was putting a "bubble" in their mouths. When I asked about it they both swear they didn't get a shot. 

Oh happy baby, how I love you.

These faces! While Abigail is in preschool it's just us for a few hours in the morning Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Unfortunately Abigail's preschool is not really working out and I'm looking for other options. 

Nathan really loves to wear his sister's pajamas. I'm sure this won't last much longer, but for now it cracks me up.

So that's about all that's been going on here lately. Thinking we're going to start piano lessons and karate soon. Trying to plan some vacations for October break (my birthday), Christmas (New Jersey!), and just really loving life. Minus the moments I'm completely overwhelmed by all these people with all their needs, and wants and cries and whines... and Eliza wakes up at 3:30AM every day like clockwork. She goes back to sleep, but I can't. So I'm really tired. And yeah that's about it!

Funny stories

So tonight while putting Abigail to bed she wanted to tell me a story. I'm paraphrasing, but trying to use her words as much as I can remember.

"Once upon a time there was a little kitten. She wanted to start her own crew. So she went around looking for people for her crew. First, she met a turtle. He told her that his brothers were really mean, and they were telling him he was too slow, and they tried to break his shell, and then the broke their dad's favorite cup, and then blamed it on him! So the dad kicked him out. Now he was all alone. So the kitten invited turtle to join her crew." This goes on and on with different stories of how each animal was abandoned one way or another and ends up in Kitten's crew. The funniest by far was a toy that was abandoned by Santa. I stopped her and said, "Whoa! Santa would NEVER abandon a toy." And she said, "No, Mommy, this was a black Santa."

I know she doesn't even know the term black, for people with brown skin, and she was just meaning an evil Santa that wore black clothes. But the sentence taken out of context just still makes me laugh so hard.

Today I ran on the treadmill, and Nathan was watching from the daycare area. After I went to pick him I asked him if he saw me running super fast. He said, "Yeah! You fast. You look like a bear man!" How's that for encouraging. A bear man! Ha!

9 year Anniversary Trip To San DiegoI hav

Okay I uploaded these backwards, so here is our trip from finish, to start.

Kind of silly, but I took a picture of my leftovers because I was proud of them. I NEVER have leftovers, especially when it's something as delicious as this was. I was full, but it was sooo good, I normally would have kept eating until it was gone. This time I stopped myself, and asked for a box. Go me! (Not pictured.... when I devoured it on the way home, with my hands, like an animal.)

Aaand maybe it wasn't that big of a victory because we also ordered dessert. A cannoli in a chocolate shell! Yum.

Aaron's food.. probably the best Italian sausage I've ever tasted.

This was a seafood special with shrimp and scallops. It was SO good.

Calamari. Yummmm.

Got to spend a couple of hours here in the temple! We forgot to get a picture, so I took one when we drove past it again on the way home.

We did a little hike at Torrey Pines. It was beautiful! See for yourself...

Okay so we were feeling pretty awesome about ourselves for hiking up this far. It wasn't really THAT hard, but we weren't planning on hiking, until we were hiking, so I was in dress shoes, Aaron was in flipflops, I had a skirt on, etc. We were all, "Yeah we're so awesome." And then we turned a corner and saw this lady with her cane, she was probably about 90 years old, white haired, Asian lady. We felt slightly less awesome about ourselves.

Yeah... whale bones. Aaron didn't want me to touch it. But there was no sign that said don't touch. So this picture may or not may not be a picture of my rebellious nature. 

A saltmarsh. Where the rivers and streams meat the ocean, it's a weird kind of unique environment, that 90% of has been destroyed, but this one is preserved.  

These are the Torrey Pines.

Best. Gelato. Ever. Hands down. It was sooo good. This was raspberry and Tahitian vanilla.

There was a random British gift shop we wandered into. No clue what we were going to find, but Downton Abbey jewelry made this stop worth it!

A few years ago we were watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and Guy made these fish tacos look AMAZING. I have wanted to go ever since, but every time we've gone to San Diego we've had the kids, and other stuff to do. This time, this was literally the ONLY thing we planned on doing. And they didn't disappoint. So yummy. 

This was the view from our hotel room. We took a nice walk along that trail. It was perfect.

Pacific Ocean.

Shameless Dole Whip selife.

So about 30 minutes outside of Yuma is a town called Felicity, CA. And for some reason, someone decided it is the "Center Of The World." We missed the exit to actually go and explore and see what they have there, but we pulled over and I took these pictures from the highway.

There is this random staircase, which is actually part of the original Eiffel tower. And you thought the only thing France gave us was the Statue of Liberty...

So yeah that was our trip. We went with literally no plan. Just a "wherever the wind takes us" attitude. And it mostly worked out. Minus our ill-prepared hike, which I'm now paying for with a hurt foot. There is truly nothing better than 2 days without kids. Except maybe the moment when you get to see those kids again, and the hugs and kisses and smiles.  Funny how that works. And so grateful for Aaron's mom being willing to watch all 4 of these crazy kids of mine.

Last week of Summer Vacation!

So I really wanted a fun summer vacation for my kids and I think I was successful! We started summer off with a "Yes Day". I read about this somewhere, but basically I told the kids for the first day of summer I would do what I could to say yes to anything they asked. Just for today! Ice cream for breakfast? Yes! Watch TV? Yes. Go to Toys R Us? (This is probably where I should have drawn the line, but said yes anyway, with conditions. One toy each!) Visit Daddy at work? Yes. Stay up late? Yes. Read this book the 55th time? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It was memorable, and they still talk about it, and keep asking when the next yes day will be.

So then for our, almost, last day of summer I decided to surprise them and take them to SeaWorld. This just worked out because my sister-in-law and mother-in-law were already going. I wasn't sure I wanted to drive all that way by myself, deal with 4 kids at SeaWorld without the help of my husband, so I didn't make up my mind that we were going until literally two hours before we were on the road. The kids were super excited, mostly just to see their cousins.

I couldn't get both of these boogers to look at the camera at the same time... but their friendship has been so fun to watch develop. Nathan is becoming more and more a little boy, and so much less of a baby! Sad, but so cute.

These four girls. So lovable. They have so much fun together and their dynamic has changed a bit over the years, but if anything they love each other even more. It's great.

And talk about evolving relationships. This lovely lady has gone from a random person I served at Chili's, to my sister-in-law I didn't mind being around at family functions, to one of my very dearest friends, and truly like a sister to me. I know she reads this, so love you Allison!  It is so wonderful to have a person in your life who you can tell anything to, and someone who can relate so well to everything you are going through because she's right there with you going through much of the same struggles. Honestly, SeaWorld is probably my least favorite of all amusement parks, but each trip was worth it because I got to spend time with her!

We also went up to northern AZ for a family reunion, which I think I wrote about. It was a glorious few days of letting kids run and play and chatting with adults that I adore. Can't ask for much more than that. Well maybe better sleep, but you don't go to family reunions to catch up on sleep!

We swam in our pool almost every day.
We made messes.
We did chores.
We baked.
We served.

But don't let those last few paragraphs dissuade you from thinking it was all sunshine and rainbows.
We also drove each other nuts.
We yelled.
We cried.
We said sorry.
We stayed up too late.
We woke up too early.
And it was really hot.
It's still really hot.

Tomorrow brings first grade!!
And next week, preschool.
So exciting. I love watching these kids of mine grow up and make memories.

What's going on

These four kids looked super cute as we were leaving for church a couple of weeks ago, and we were actually running a bit early so I made them sit for a picture. This is the best I could get.

This is just a quick update for myself for future reference!

Olivia is 6 and about to start first grade next week. Right now she's obsessed with Mario Kart on the Wii-U. It's funny and since we're in the final days of summer vacation I'm letting her live it up. She is really excited for school to start. She doesn't want to take the bus this year, I'm going to drive her and I hope that once she meets some friends she'll want to take the bus and save me from the pick up/drop off line! But I'll be happy to spend the time with her. It feels like she's growing up so fast.

Abigail - 4 years old. Also obsessed with Mario Kart, but I think just because she wants to play with Olivia. She is just Abigail. Sweet, quick to listen, but the laziest of the bunch! When there is a job to do you, you will usually find Abigail hiding somewhere. Or, every once in a while she surprises us all and is the hardest worker. She'll be starting preschool three days a week, the week after next. I am sure she's going to love it. I'm going to miss her! And it's going to be a little crazy driving back and forth all of the time. I'm hoping I'll meet another mom who wants to carpool! But I'm looking forward to the mornings she's at preschool because Eliza will nap, and it will just be me and Nathan!

Nathan - 2.5  He's a funny little guy. He loves to make us laugh, and it's not hard because I laugh at just about everything he says. He's always surprising me with words he knows. He's finally completely potty trained, including naps and overnight! He can also be the biggest grump you've ever seen. A little black rain cloud, really.

Eliza - 6 months. She crawls. She still falls over when she's sitting up for a minute or so. She babbles nonstop. She eats everything in sight. Even things that were out of sight! She loves fruit and veggies. I just give her little pieces of whatever we're eating and she loves it. She sleeps about 12 hours every night. And she has two teeth.

The best way to spend Sacrament Meeting

Today this little cutie needed a nap during church. Lucky for me there aren't too many other nursing moms so I usually have the whole Mother's Lounge to myself. Comfy chair. Sleeping baby. No other kids. Able to hear the talks via some little black boom box. Heavenly. So of course I'm sitting there listening and think, "Hm, I should take a selfie." Don't judge. These moments are so fleeting I just wanted to capture it.

So do you want to know the secrets of my heart? I really don't have many secrets, I'm kind of over-sharer. But here's something you may not know. I feel like in my heart of hearts there is another little baby who just can't wait to be part of this family. Like, I keep telling myself, "NO! It is way too soon, you are nuts if you get pregnant right now." But then myself says things like, "It's not like it's going to get any easier." And then I had this thought that I don't think was really myself, but just that on ultrasound it looked like Eliza had a twin at one point. And from the moment I knew I was pregnant I had this feeling that it was twins. Specifically boy/girl twins. And I keep feeling like this little boy, who didn't get to be Eliza's twin can't wait to be with her again. And then I think that sounds crazy, unless you're Mormon and are super into Saturday's Warrior. Then you're like, "HAVE A BABY! WHY DIDN'T YOU KEEP YOUR PROMISE JIMMY!?"

So I keep praying and thinking about it. I guess if he's going to be the fifth baby in 7 years he better get used to having to wait and learn to be patient with me.

So yeah that's my secret. I have four kids and I want one more. And I still worry a lot about what people think about me. And I know a lot of people think that having that many kids is irresponsible. Or selfish. Or just plain crazy. And sometimes I think that is the biggest thing holding me back. Plus other stupid things. Like I have literally had the thought, "Well the Bravermans had four kids, and those siblings are like the closest siblings I've ever seen, and I want my kids to have that kind of relationship so I should have four kids." YES, the BRAVERMANS. As in, the family from Parenthood. As in a fictional, made up, not real family. So what's crazier? Basing my decision on cheesy mormon movies or NBC soap operas?

And I do worry that my kids don't get enough attention from me. That I'm too worn out from having so many kids that I can't be the best mother I could be if I had less kids. One thing I do not worry about is not having enough money for them. Not because we are so super rich, but because I think people are far more important than things. I don't know anyone who would have rather had more toys than a sibling. Ya know. But maybe I don't think long term. I know once they get older things get a lot more expensive. And then there's college, and weddings and missions.

So is this too personal to share with the world? Sorry. Just thinking outloud. And I'll probably regret it as soon as I hit post.

So let's change the topic...
Unrelated, - Nathan is two and a half now, and poop is the funniest thing in the world to him. Every joke involves poop. I guess we entered this stage that will last the rest of his life.