Learning about gravity

MJ is now crawling and she is even trying to pull herself up to things already (just to the kneeling position)! She is also learning that the farther your head is off the ground, the easier it is to tip over and hurt yourself! At church on Sunday I had her sitting on the floor playing during Sunday School and for no reason she just tipped over backwards and banged her head pretty good on the floor. I had to quickly leave the room with her and several people came up to me afterwards to ask how she was doing!

Then last night she had pulled herself up onto her knees and was playing with the wooden castle that we have when her hand slipped when I was turned away for a moment and she banged her mouth into the castle! That upset her quite a bit and she had a bloody lip to show for it!
She is having a ton of fun today crawling around and exploring!! It's cute to watch!

Check out that smile on her face!!Exploring the laundry room

Full moon

The moon looked really cool the other day coming up over the mountain right around dusk:

Decorating Valentine cookies

Luke's party

There is good and bad that goes with Luke having a birthday at the beginning of the year. The good is that it is close enough to Christmas that I usually shop for his birthday presents at the same time I am doing Christmas shopping. Then by the time his birthday comes around I have very little if any shopping to do for it. The bad is that it usually falls at the same time that I am hurriedly trying to get together the family calendar for my family so I don't have much time or energy to devote to any kind of party for him.

This year was Luke's year to have a friend party and we talked him in to waiting a couple of weeks after his birthday. Partly because I was a little burned out energy wise and partly because my parents were going to be out of town and we needed them to come over and help watch the younger kids for us during the party time. My parents got back in town last Tuesday (Feb 15th) and we had originally planned on having the party that following Saturday (Feb 19th). I told my parents when I picked them up at the airport that we might be putting the party off another week again because we hadn't even gotten invitations out yet. When I mentioned this to Luke he started to get upset because he had already been talking to his friends at school about the party and had cleared the date with a couple of them already - and a couple of them wouldn't be available the following Saturday. So I talked it over with DH and we decided to keep the party for the 19th and made up invitations that night for Luke to give out to his friends.

Luke really wanted to go to a place this year called NickelMania. It is a place where they have all different kinds of video and arcade games and you pay for them with nickels - anywhere from 1-4 nickels per game. Luke invited 6 kids and amazingly they were able to come. We had them meet at our house for cupcakes and presents first. My parents came over to watch the 4 youngest kids and then DH took half the kids in one car and I took the other half with M&M in our van.

They had a wide range of games there - from the old classics like Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Q-bert and BurgerTime to Air Hockey, basketball shooting and ball-toss games to some of the more current video games. On some of the games you could win tickets and then you could use those tickets to buy some small toys and candy. I think that everyone had a good time and I know that Luke had a blast. Luke was very good about spending time with each of his friends while at NickelMania and spent time playing games with each of them. I think it might be a fun location to take some of the older kids for some fun family time. Unfortunately I took my camera with me and didn't take a single picture while we were there!! So here are some shots while the kids were at our house for the cupcakes and presents:Fortunately for me (and my parents) I was able to get MJ down for a nap before the party started and she only woke up about 45 minutes before we got back home! And it's nice to have that party under our belt!! Luke is definitely one of our more friendly kids and so he makes friends easily and has a lot of them at school. Because of that his friend parties tend to be a little more involved than some of the other kids and he has a hard time some years limiting the number of kids he invites!

Finally found one!

We have finally found a couch that we like to go in our living room! We still need to decide on the fabric we want, but we are making progress! I went to about 8 furniture stores on Monday while the kids were home from school and I took DH to Bassett Furniture last night to look at the one that I thought might be it. We will go back on Saturday to decide on the fabric and get it ordered. So after many weeks of looking and numerous trips to many different furniture stores in the valley, I think we have finally found one that we like!

Here is a link to a picture of the couch on the website if anyone is interested: Jefferson Sofa. We will probably be picking a fabric that is different from the standard and then we will get to pick out the accent pillows we want as well. Once we finally get the couch decided on we will be able to pick out accent chairs, area rug(s) and hopefully some type of storage unit for all of our piano and flute music. The only thing that this couch does not have that we were looking for is curved legs, so we will make sure that the chairs we pick out have them. I'm excited!!

Sisters

I forgot to post this picture from Christmas eve. Kay doesn't very often express interest in wanting to hold MJ, but on Christmas eve when we were getting set up for the kids to perform their musical numbers I sat down on the couch with MJ and Kay asked if she could hold him (she still doesn't get her pronouns right sometimes). M&M took this picture:My two cute blue-eyed babies! (Well, their eyes are blue for right now at least - we'll have to see if they stay that way.)

Kid talk

There was an open bag of conversation heart candy sitting on the kitchen counter. Kay came upstairs and saw it, grabbed a few and said, "Thanks Mom! You're the best!! You opened it for me?!?"

Finally the end of the implant saga!!

DH finally got his artificial tooth cemented onto his implant yesterday! We have finally come to the end of what has turned out to be an 8 month ordeal!!

DH had the screw for the implant put in last June and has been dealing with a temporary tooth attached to a retainer (called a flipper) ever since then. Several months into wearing it he was on a bike ride with some friends, bit down on a granola bar and snapped the tooth off of the flipper. DH typically took the tooth out to eat because his bottom teeth would hit it otherwise. He thought he would be okay this one time because it was just a small granola bar and he was biting down with his back teeth. Unfortunately, the granola bar was really hard and he broke it. Needless to say he was not a very happy camper when that happened. So ever since then he has been super gluing the tooth back onto the flipper and it would last anywhere from 1 day to a week or two depending on how well he was able to attach it. A couple of smaller pieces have broken off here and there and also been glued on (amazingly I found a small piece in the bathtub before I took a shower one day).

Unfortunately with it being the front tooth, everything has been a little more critical than when I had my implant done several years ago. We were waiting for the new year to get the final tooth done so that the insurance would pay for some of it. So DH went to the oral surgeon the first week of January and got the clear to go ahead with the permanent tooth. Then DH went to the dentist to have some impressions done and actually drove over to the dental lab that would be doing the tooth so they could take some more pictures and make sure they got the color just right. Then they told DH it would be about 3 weeks to get the tooth made.

DH had an appointment on January 31 to have the final tooth put in. He went in that morning and came home with no tooth! They put the tooth in at the office and had to scrape it down in the back because his lower tooth kept hitting it. They kept whittling down at it until they broke through the tooth! The dentist told DH that it should be an easy fix and they would send it back to the dental lab and have it back in a day or two. He was also told that they might end up having to file down a little of his bottom tooth to prevent it from hitting the implant. Well, DH got a call the next day saying it was going to take longer than they initially thought so an appointment was made for Wednesday, February 9th.

They then called back and asked if they could push it back another day, which DH couldn't because he was attending a conference in Salt Lake and had to present at it on Friday. DH was hoping to get the new tooth before the conference, but it didn't happen.

So the appointment was made for Monday (yesterday). DH went in and it turns out that they had to make a whole new tooth (which didn't make the dental lab guy too happy). They tried it on to make sure the fit was right before they cemented it on and luckily they didn't have to file down his bottom tooth at all. I think the tooth looks great and now DH is just trying to get used to it since it's been 8 months since he's had a tooth there!!

Little things

* Luke making a lunch for Blondie when she is running a few minutes late (without being asked).

* Blondie telling him "thank you" without being prompted.

* Blondie giving a big chocolate bar that she received at school to M&M because she doesn't think she can eat it all and she knows that M&M loves them.

* The kids (especially M&M) getting excited about receiving big homemade fudge kisses from Grandma N.

* Kay getting excited about receiving some Valentine candy and wanting to share with her dad.

* Spring fever!! We have been having unseasonably warm weather ever since last Saturday - highs in the upper 50s-60!!

* Watching M.J. figure out how to move around the room. She can now get herself to the sitting position on her own.

* M.J. getting excited when she sees her dad and crying if he walks away without picking her up!

* Kay being very polite and saying "please" and "thank-you" without being prompted.

* Making & decorating Valentine cookies with the kids.

Sitting big!

MJ has gotten much better at sitting on her own over the past week. It is fun being able to sit her on the floor somewhere with a few toys and know that she will stay there and play content for a little while! We think she will be very happy when she finally figures out how to crawl forwards (she can scoot backwards and go in circles but she doesn't really realize that she is doing it).

Somedays you just have to laugh!

This morning I had to get the 3 little ones up early to drive my parents to the airport. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home for a few items and then went home. Once we got home I got the kids breakfast and nursed MJ. After that Kay disappeared upstairs for a little while and then came downstairs with a stinky diaper. At around the same time I heard MJ filling up her britches as well so I laid them both down to change them. After I got Kay changed I moved on to MJ and saw that her diaper had leaked up the back pretty good so I asked Kitty to get me a plastic bag while I tried to save MJ's clothes (this is when it pays to have a onesie on the kids). So here I was standing MJ up and trying to get her onesie off without making a complete mess and Kitty is bringing me a plastic bag when all of a sudden I feel something wet on my leg. I look down and MJ is relieving herself right where she is standing and it has splashed from the plastic changing mat onto my pants. (I hadn't put a clean diaper on her yet because I wanted to get her all cleaned up first so I didn't dirty a second diaper right then.) All I could do at that point was laugh because it was a pretty funny picture! Somehow I managed to save MJ's clothes with the exception of her socks! :) My pants on the other hand needed to be changed!

Kid talk

Last night I was making a new dish for dinner, Creamy Chicken Taquitos, and Luke was asking me what was in it. I told him that it had chicken in it and he asked me what kind of chicken:

Me: "I'm not sure what you're asking. It's just chicken chicken."
Luke: "Well, what I mean is, is it laminated or something?"
Me: "Laminated chicken??"
Luke: "Yeah, when you put seasonings on it and let it sit in it."
Me: "Ummm, I think you mean marinated."


A week or so ago I was talking with Luke while I was making dinner and he mentioned that his teacher was telling them that he was alive when President Thomas Jefferson died. Hmmm, when Jefferson died huh? That would be one old teacher! (I think we decided that he misremembered the specific president and that it was really President John F. Kennedy.)

Restart?

Today is one of those days where I would like to go back to bed and hit the restart button on the day!! First off I have been trying to move MJ out of our bedroom and into the crib (sharing a room with Kay). Last night I put her down asleep in the crib and she woke up once and I got up and fed her and laid her back down. Then she woke up a second time (she's suffering from a cold right now) and this time it woke Kay up as well. For the past couple of weeks, Kay has been waking up in the middle of the night a couple of times a week and coming into my room to crawl into bed with me. Unfortunately some times Kay manages to wake up MJ because she is crying as she tries to find me in the dark and then I have to get up with MJ. Last night I was commenting to DH that it had been a couple of days since Kay has woken up and that it was nice to get a little more sleep. Well, last night when I got up with MJ the second time, Kay also woke up and had to follow me downstairs. Kay ended up waking up her dad as well because she went back upstairs to her room to find a blanket to bring down to the couch and DH woke up to her crying in her room because she couldn't get a blanket. I guess she finally managed to get one off of her bed because she came back downstairs and then kept disturbing MJ as I was trying to get her back to sleep. Finally I took Kay back up to her room with a cup of milk and told her that she had to stay there. MJ and I were then able to fall back asleep on the couch...

The next thing I knew I woke up when Luke came into the room and I asked him what time it was. It was 7:15 and I had not heard M&M get up yet and she is supposed to leave for the bus stop at 7:20. I quickly got up and called down the stairs and sure enough, M&M was still asleep. When she woke up she looked at the clock and started to get hysterical. I told her not to worry and just get herself ready for school - DH or I could drive her to school if she missed the bus. I guess she decided that she would rather hurry up and get herself to the bus stop. So she managed to get herself ready and out the door in about 5 minutes!! The funny part about this is that on Tuesday I was thinking about writing up a blog entry about how proud I was of M&M and her ability to get herself up for school in the mornings. Since Christmas break, she has been able to get herself up just fine every morning and quite often I am still in bed when she leaves (mostly because of the sleep deprivation I am experiencing due to Kay and MJ)...

After M&M left I went upstairs to get myself and the younger kids ready to get to the school by 8:15 for Blondie's Principal's Pride award (they do the awards ceremony before school). Kay was not a happy camper because of her lack of sleep the previous night, but we managed to make it to the school on time. After that, I decided that since we were all up and out already I would hit a couple of stores that I still had some returns from Christmastime to do. MJ managed to sleep through a good chunk of the shopping and was content until we made it home a little after 10:00.

My next chore for the day was to get some laundry done. So I went upstairs to get a few things from the hampers upstairs and I came across some wet pajamas and underwear from Kitty... I asked her if she had wet the bed last night - to which she didn't give me an answer (which means that she did). We have been struggling with her making it through the night dry ever since she was first potty trained. I have read that some kids just develop a little later with regards to this issue, so I haven't been too concerned. DH on the other hand doesn't like her wearing pull-ups to bed at her age so we tried before Christmastime to see if we could break her of it. After going several weeks where I was washing sheets 3-4 times a week, I said enough and bought her some more pull-ups again. Apparently though she went for a while without wetting the pull-ups so she decided on her own to stop wearing them to bed. I'm not sure how many days she has gone to bed without them, but I was telling DH last night that she had stopped on her own and was still dry - that is until last night!! Unfortunately she didn't tell me that it had happened and she had proceeded to make her bed (with the wet sheets) and piled a bunch of toys on top of it. I made her take everything off of her bed and get in the bathtub and put some more clean clothes on.

Then just about an hour ago I read on facebook that my midwife, who delivered my four middle kids, had her youngest daughter pass away in her sleep early this morning. I think she was just a few months older than Kay and she was born with most of her brain missing. My midwife's family adopted her when they heard about her from a friend that worked at the hospital where she was born. She was initially going to be adopted by another family but when she was born with her birth defects, the family didn't want her anymore. She was greatly loved by their family and never developed much beyond the newborn stage. She will be greatly missed by them, but she is in a better place now and not suffering anymore. So while they knew her life would be short because of her condition, it is still sad to hear about her leaving this life.

So can I hit the restart button now??

Principal's Pride

Blondie received the Principal's Pride award this morning for getting 100% on all of her spelling tests for the first half of the school year (16 tests). We learned last year that as long as I make her write her spelling words 3x a night at home then she doesn't have any problems with the words.

Family calendar time again!

After the usual amount of teeth-pulling and arm twisting, I was finally able to complete the calendars for my family on Monday and my mom mailed them for me. This was the 10th year that I have compiled and printed out these family calendars! It is fun for me to do since we all live so far apart and aren't able to see each other very often. Thankfully last summer we had a family reunion where all but one of my siblings were able to attend and we were able to get some good group pictures for most of the families. It's also fun for me and my kids to look back through the old calendars and see how everyone has grown over the years. It's also fun seeing how the look of the calendars has changed over the years and how much more professional this year's calendar looks compared to the first few that I did! (And amazingly I am still using the same printer that has lasted all of these years and still does an awesome job! It gets a good workout this time of year as I print out over 100 pages - mostly double-sided and half of those being full-size photos. This printer was the first item I ever bought on ebay.) Hopefully this is something that I can continue to do for another 10 years and more!

Sleep talking?

Over the last few weeks my husband and I have had two very weird conversations with Blondie during the night. The first time I think was around the first week of January, but already the details are a little fuzzy so I need to blog about it before I forget too much.

Blondie was just getting over a cold - runny nose, sore throat - when she woke up one night when DH was on his way up to bed. She was really hysterical and was definitely upset about something. DH tried talking with her but wasn't able to make much headway so he came downstairs where I was feeding MJ and asked if I had any suggestions. I told him to carry her down and I would try talking to her. So DH brought her down to the family room and she was still crying out like she was afraid or really upset about something. I asked her what was the matter and she said, "I don't like them!" I asked her what she didn't like and she responded, "My hands! I don't like my hands!" as she was grabbing and pulling at her hands. DH and I looked at each other and asked, "Are your hands hurting you?" She responded "no" they weren't hurting her. She was also kind of grabbing at her throat and mouth so we asked if her throat or mouth were hurting her and she said "no". Finally after asking her about different parts of her and if they were hurting, she finally started to wake up more and become more aware of her surroundings and what was going on. After a few minutes she was completely calm and ready to go back to bed...

Then a couple of nights ago Blondie was again fighting a similar cold and I was upstairs in my room when I heard someone crying out for Mom. At first I thought it was Kay waking up again (she was also sick and not sleeping well so far that night). I went to investigate who was calling for me when I saw Blondie awake in her bed. I went in and asked her what she needed.
Blondie: "I don't like the music."
Me: "What music? There's no music playing."
Blondie: "The pony music. I don't like the pony music!"
Me (looking puzzled): "There's no pony music playing so you should be just fine. Are you feeling alright? Is there anything you need?"
Blondie: "I guess."
Me: "What do you want me to get you?"
Blondie: "I don't know."
Then she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

When I asked Blondie the next day about the conversation, she had no recollection of any of it...

MJ update

MJ trying out the wood floor:She thinks it's fun to slide around on it. So far she only knows how to scoot backwards and in circles, but it is a start. Twice yesterday she managed to get herself almost completely under my bed with just her head poking out!

Happy Birthday Luke!

We now have a second child in the double digits! Luke turned 10 yesterday! We just had a small family party last night and will have a friend party for him later.His main gifts this year were Nerf N-strike Elite for the Wii and a Star Wars Lego set where you can make 8 different Star Wars vehicles (two at a time). He was also excited to get a football from his grandparents. We also gave him Mario & Sonic Heroes at the Olympics (for the Wii) with the understanding that it is a game for the family.
The awesome shirt that my mom found for him:Luke is a really good kid and his sisters are lucky to have him for a brother. He has become more and more of a tease as he gets older, but for the most part he is a really kind and caring brother. He is my only child who on a regular basis will volunteer to help me with things and when I ask him to do something for me, 9 times out of 10 he will do it without any complaining whatsoever. He even volunteers to change diapers for me and help me with dinner. In some ways he is definitely a typical boy, but I think having five sisters has definitely mellowed him out some. He is also a very friendly child and makes friends very easily.