Pumpkin time

This year we finally got some pumpkins (orange ones) from our garden so we didn't buy any this year. We got 2 good size ones and then 2 little ones. We also were given 2 small ones from my midwife so we had 6 pumpkins to carve last night (we ended up only carving 5 of them though). My parents and sister were able to come over and help out this year.

Each of the kids had a pumpkin that was their own to work on. First they helped clean them out and then I gave them washable markers to draw a face on the pumpkin which we then helped them carve (except M&M who did it all herself this year). Afterwards we decorated & ate some cookies.

Left to right we have: Blondie, me, Luke, M&M and Kitty.

Funny Kitty

Yesterday we were in the car coming home from the grocery store and Kitty was getting mad at me because she had dropped a piece of candy and she wanted me to find it for her. I told her that I couldn't look for it because I was driving so she said to me in her meanest voice (almost growling), "Mom N!"

I think she got that from the fact that I sometimes call the kids by their full names when they have done something wrong, so she came up with this name for me...


Kitty also amazes us sometimes with how great her memory is. The other day we were trying to get the house cleaned up after dinner so DH told Kitty that if she helped she could have some ice cream afterwards. Well, it took us a lot longer to get things picked up (mostly because the kids were goofing off too much) that by the time we had finished it was time for bed - so we were just going to send them to bed without anything. We read some scriptures, said a family prayer and as soon as the prayer was finished, Kitty jumped up and said, "Hooray, it's time for ice cream!"


The other day DH came home from work while we were eating dinner. As soon as he walked in the door and Kitty saw him she said to him, "Where did you come from?"

Soccer

Today was the last game of the fall soccer season and finally we had beautiful weather for it. The last 4 weeks it has been freezing cold on the day of the game & raining/snowing for some of the games as well. Both M&M & Luke won their games and I think that they have both improved a lot and their teams have as well. This was also one of the only few weeks where their games didn't overlap so we were all able to attend both of them. My parents and my sister M & her boyfriend came to both games as well and we had a pizza lunch at our house afterwards. It's been a good experience for both of them. The teams will be the same in the spring (this league plays 8 games in the fall and 8 in the spring) but with the upcoming new addition to the family I won't be able to help out too much (the games start the first part of April and our baby is due in the middle of the month).

Swim lessons

M&M, Luke & Blondie took swim lessons during the three weeks that the kids were off track. It's nice doing them during the off-track times because the classes don't fill up as quickly and they're usually smaller. M&M & Luke were in the same class this time and there was only one other kid in the class with them. M&M did a great job & I really saw her progressing a lot with each class. I think she feels pretty confident in the water now. Luke had a little bit of a struggle in the class & will have to retake the level again next time (this was M&M's second time in the level). I think it was nice for them to have each other in the class though.

Blondie was in the beginners class for 3-5 year olds and there were 3 other kids in her class. This was Blondie's first time taking lessons and I was a little unsure how she would do. She is not the type of child who likes to try new things and it takes her a while to warm up to new people and situations. On the first day of classes I wasn't sure if she would even get in the water. After some coaxing by me and the teacher she finally got in and enjoyed herself for the most part. Each day was a little bit of a struggle just getting her in, but once she was in she usually had fun. She's still not too crazy about blowing bubbles & putting her face in the water, but I think she feels more comfortable in the water now.

I was glad that I was able to get the kids in lessons at the same time so we only had to be at the pool for one session. Kitty would have loved to take lessons as well but she has to wait until she turns 3. I think she could be a natural at it - she loves to just jump right in the water and has no fears.

Pregnancy update - Week 16

I had my midwife appointment on Wednesday and we were able to hear the heartbeat!

I have also started exploding this past week and can no longer comfortably fit into "normal" clothes. So I've had to break out the maternity clothes which is a sad thing because unfortunately, most of them are huge and the pants practically fall off of me. Speaking of maternity clothes, does anyone know a good place to buy petite sizes in maternity pants? I have been to numerous stores trying to find some new maternity pants for myself and the pants are all about a foot too long for me - no joke. Why is it that the makers of maternity clothes think that once women are pregnant, they are all the same height (and really tall apparently)? And I don't even consider myself particularly short - I'm 5' 5" - which is pretty close to average height for women. So, any help in finding some "average" size pants would be greatly appreciated!

Garden stew

On Sunday I made a Crockpot Stew with potatoes, carrots & onions from our garden. It was delicious! There's something very satisfying about eating foods that you grew yourself!

Pregnant or not??

I went to see my midwife about 2 weeks ago and we weren't able to find a heartbeat. It was a little disappointing, but don't be alarmed by this news - I have what is called a retroflexed, or retroverted, uterus which means that it is tipped back towards my lower back (not the normal position). Because of this it makes it hard to hear the heartbeat early on. Since I was only 11 weeks at the time, there is no reason to be concerned at this point (and the same thing happened when I was pregnant with Kitty). My midwife was able to tell that my uterus is growing and I definitely feel pregnant. DH just likes it when I can finally hear the heartbeat so that he knows that I'm not just imagining things...

I think that I was feeling the baby move last night which is exciting. At this point it can be hard to tell if it is actually the baby or just my own body but I'm pretty sure that I was feeling the baby last night. I have been lucky enough to feel movements very early on with all of my pregnancies. It's certainly an amazing feeling having something living moving & growing inside of my body.

BTW - The baby is supposed to be about 3 inches long from head to its rump at this point (and all of the organs are formed by now)...

One potato, two potato...

Last week we harvested some of the potatoes from our garden. The other patch needs another couple of weeks before we harvest them. Here are some pictures of two of my helpers!

Ugly tree!

We have the ugliest apple tree that I have ever seen! It is definitely in need of a good pruning! There are 2 branches that shoot straight up and there wasn't a single apple on either of them this year.

I was amazed though at how many apples we got from the tree this year. We were very diligent this year about spraying the tree with insecticide (every 2 weeks). This has to be done here in Utah or the tree gets infested with codling moth and all the apples will have worms. I have picked three plastic grocery bags full of the apples so far and there are still some on the tree. The apples are Granny Smith and the first year we lived here I picked them too early and the apple pie that I made was very, very tart. This year I had to pick them a little earlier than I wanted to because one of the branches was overloaded with apples and was starting to break. I was concerned that it was too early again but I didn't have any choice if we wanted to save the branch. I made apple crisp this weekend with some of the apples and it was delicious! Hooray! I gave one bag of the apples to my parents and now I need to figure out how to preserve the rest of them.

Luke's turn!

On Friday, September 28, Luke received the Principal's Pride Award for "participating in all classroom discussions". That's a nice way of saying that Luke likes to talk!

I try & help out in Luke's classroom 2-3 times a month and I had just been in on Wednesday to help. One of the mom's of a kid in Luke's class had just had a baby and the teacher had him tell the class about it. Then she had the kids come up to the front of the classroom who had show & tell for that day. Luke was one of them & he had brought his soccer uniform to show the class. After he showed his uniform & told the class a little about his team he said, "Oh, and my mom's pregnant." I was standing just off to the side waiting for the teacher to give me some work to do and all the kids turned to look at me. After the kids were sent off to do class work Mrs. Bray came up to me and told me why Luke was getting Principal's Pride Award. We both had a good laugh about that! We had just told M&M & Luke a few days earlier that I was pregnant and I guess hearing that another mom had had a baby made Luke remember our news... Mrs. Bray asked if I was okay with Luke announcing that and I told her that we wouldn't have told Luke if we weren't ready to share the news yet :) We both them commented on how different he is personality wise from M&M (she is definitely not a talker at school).

M&M & Luke have both announced the news to their primary classes - so I imagine we will start having people ask us about it soon...

Cold weather!

The last two weeks have been somewhat frustrating. We have had absolutely beautiful & warm weather during the week and then when the weekend hits it turns freezing cold and raining/snowing. It has made our Saturday soccer games somewhat interesting. Two Saturdays ago Luke had a game at noon (M&M thankfully had a bye week). It was a very cold day and I had Luke dress in sweat pants & a jacket under his uniform. He also wore gloves & a hat. The thermometer in the car read that the temperature was 39 degrees when we arrived at the field and it was raining. The coaches decided to just play 10 minute halves (instead of the usual 20 minutes). We were all outside watching with coats & gloves & umbrellas. I had M&M take Blondie & Kitty to the car after the first few minutes & watch from there because they were freezing. The amazing part about the game was that I didn't hear a word of complaint out of any of the players!

Last Friday didn't start out too bad. M&M had a game at 9 a.m. and Luke's was at 10:30 so we all were able to go to both games. At M&M's game I reffed the second half & I was fine in just a sweatshirt & sweat pants. By the time we got to Luke's game though the temperature started dropping and we all had to put coats & gloves on. It tried to rain on us off and on and then on the way home from the game we got a few snow flurries & there was some snow on the ground at our house when we got there. Today though, we're back up to the 70s! It's definitely been a fun Fall season!

Cute sayings

My parents have a great view of the city from their porch in the back of their house. One evening we were over there and the stars were starting to come out so my parents got out their telescope. At the time you could see one of the planets with its 4 moons around it when you looked through the telescope. When Luke looked out towards the city and saw all of the lights he said, "Do you know what that is? It's New York City!"

One of our neighbors works for the Pepsi company and quite often gets free products or promo items from the company for displays. One day his wife brought over some helium balloons for our kids. They were playing outside at the time and I wanted them to take the balloons inside, but they insisted on me tying them to their arms so they could play with them outside. The next thing I knew I heard Blondie starting to cry and looked up and saw that during their playing & running around, Blondie's ribbon that was attached to the balloon had caught on Luke's ribbon and hers broke and the balloon went flying up into the sky. I had to explain to her that we couldn't get it back and she was quite upset. A little while later she came to me and said, "Mom, I wish Dad had a helicopter..." (so he could get her balloon back!)

When DH was working on the brick path for the garden, occasionally the kids would come out to try and help too. One day Blondie was outside with us and was helping to carry some bricks. At one point she said to us as she was walking past, "Watch out for muscle woman!"

One day I was trying to get Blondie to put away some toys that were hers. I asked her if she could please take them and put them away downstairs, but she was not being very willing. Kitty was in the room at the time and came up to me and said, "I can do it. I'm nice!"

Busy, busy, busy!

On top of the fact that I'm pregnant & super tired all the time (especially in the afternoon), our family has gotten a lot busier this fall. M&M & Luke are both playing soccer right now, Blondie is taking a ballet class and M&M is taking a tumbling class as well as singing in her school choir. Also right now the kids are off track and I have the 3 older ones taking swim lessons 3 mornings a week. So my time & energy for blogging lately is practically zero!

Soccer started at the end of August and goes until the end of October. It consists of one practice each week for each of them and then games on Saturdays. Unfortunately they don't play at the same field and their times always seem to overlap just about every week. For the most part I have been going to M&M's games & DH has been going to Luke's games because the games are coach (or volunteer) reffed and I like to volunteer to ref M&M's games since no one else seems to know the rules... My parents have been able to come to a few of the games as well and I always check with my dad afterwards to make sure that I'm calling things right (he used to help coach my soccer team & some of my siblings' teams when we were growing up). I've also had to brush up on some of the rules because the last thing I want to do is call something and have all the parents muttering on the sidelines (yes that's what they do) and find out later that I was the one that was wrong. It's been somewhat of a frustrating experience because I started playing soccer at about M&M's age and the league that I played in had paid refs for all the games - which I think is a much better way to go. Luke's games aren't quite so bad with coaches reffing because they pretty much swarm the ball at his age and the rules are modified for them (plus they play on a much smaller field with much smaller goals). For Luke's age they play 4 vs 4 with no goalies or throw-ins and M&M's age they play 8 vs 8 with goalies and throw-ins. Most of my calls throughout the game are for the kids not throwing the ball in correctly...