Beanbag chairs

We have two small beanbag chairs that I bought a while ago.  I saw them one day at a store and wondered if they would match our sectional downstairs.  Well, I bought one and brought it home and it matched perfectly so I went back and bought a second one.  The kids LOVE them.  They are usually fighting over who gets to use them when we are watching the T.V. or reading scriptures in the family room.  MJ has started loving them too and I have found her several times this week sitting or laying on one of them and I snatched these pictures:

MJ snuggling up with a blanket (she put it on herself)

This is how she fell asleep for her nap yesterday (while watching Sesame Street)


Playing some Nintendo DS

Weather

We have been having our usual crazy Utah spring weather this year.  We have had already had a few days in the 80s where we had to turn on the air conditioner and now it's cooled off again.  We may need to turn the furnace back on this weekend.  So far we have had perfect weather for the kids' soccer games.  I'm not looking forward to the games in the upper 80s and 90s that we usually have by the end of the season.

We had an unusually mild winter with very little snow fall.  I think we maybe had 3 snowstorms over the winter where the snow stayed on the ground for at least one day.  It was pretty disappointing and we will pay for it this summer with the lack of water in the reservoirs here in Utah.

I was able to get out to work in the garden a little on Tuesday.  Hopefully I can get it ready here soon so we can start planting some things for this year.

Child Prayers

Usually at bedtime DH or I take Kay up to bed and get her a cup of milk and say a prayer with her.  One night we both got busy with something else and she went up to bed by herself.  When DH went up to check on her and say a prayer with her she told him that she had already said it on her own.  We weren't sure if we believed that or not, but decided not to press the issue.  The next night DH gave Kay her milk and she said that she wanted to go up to bed and say her prayer by herself.  DH let her but snuck up behind her and listened in at the doorway to see if she did it or not.  Well she said a very nice prayer on her own and then right after she was finished, MJ sat up in her crib and said something that was close to, "Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."  DH was quite amazed at this and went in and gave both of the girls a hug and a kiss and told them they had done a good job on their prayers.  It very cute and fulfilling when you see your kids actually learning from the things you are trying to teach them!

MJ and babies

MJ can be cute and sweet sometimes even though she drives us crazy. A little over a week ago I was talking to my brother through Facetime and he was trying to show me a close up view of his new baby. MJ just happened to come into my room at about this time so I told her to come over and see the baby. When she saw the baby on my ipad screen she came over to the ipad, got up close and kissed the screen right where the baby's face was. She then went into her bedroom and picked up one of the baby dolls and came back into my room and started planting kisses on the baby doll's face.

Kay talk

Kay was playing a princess game on the Nintendo Wii on Saturday and the character she was playing was leaving footprints behind her as she was walking.   Kay said, "These are my footsteps."  Then she paused for a few seconds and then said, "No, my shoe steps."  (The character was wearing shoes.)

 Also on Saturday DH and I had to do some juggling around of the kids and cars as we split up the soccer games that were being played that day.  On my way to Luke's game I stopped and switched cars with DH who was at Blondie's game that had just finished.   I left him the van with the younger 3 girls in the car.   When DH got into the car to drive them back home Kay said, "Dad, why did you steal Mom's car?"  DH explained that it wasn't Mom's car, but both of theirs.  Kay then said, "No, your car is the small car and Mom's car is the big car."

More trouble

Yesterday evening DH was reading in our bedroom and I was downstairs working on something on the computer. Kitty came in to tell her dad that MJ was in the bathtub. DH went and looked and then came downstairs to get me. As I was walking up the stairs I could smell something that smelled like the kids' bubble bath solution. Well, when I went in to see what MJ was doing she was just sitting in the bathtub playing with the toys in there and there was shampoo all over the bottom of the tub. She had taken the kids' shampoo that sits on a shelf on the side of the tub/shower area and had squirted it all over the tub. We decided to just let her have a bath so when we took her clothes off they were practically dripping in shampoo, especially her socks! Whenever she tried standing up she would slip and slide all over the place! I guess I need to start keeping the kids' shampoo higher up where she can't reach it.

We've started trying to keep the bathroom door upstairs closed because she likes to go in there lately and play with the water in the toilet or move the stool up to the counter so she can reach the hand soap or the toothbrushes or the light switch so she can turn it on and off!

MJ has also figured out how to climb onto the stools in the kitchen and I am constantly having to get her down and move things off of the counter out of her reach. She can also climb up the kids' bunk beds and thinks it's lots of fun to climb up there and bounce around. It's only a matter of time before she falls down and hurts herself...

Now if we could just get her to go to nursery!!

MJ talk

The other day I had Blondie and MJ in the car while I went to pick up Luke from soccer practice. We got there a few minutes early so I had Blondie unbuckle MJ from her car seat so she could play in the car while we waited. When Luke was finished and it was time to go I had Blondie buckle MJ back in her seat. Well, she was not happy about that at all and screamed and cried about half of the way home. Finally she stopped screaming and they she started saying in a very pitiful sounding voice, "Help! Help?? Help?!" We all busted up laughing when she started saying that!

Kitty turns 7!

Kitty had a good birthday this year. She has been really excited about it and counting down for it. She's really excited to be turning 8 next year though! Kitty is the type of person who would do just fine playing on her own all day. She is very good with entertaining MJ though and quite often I will find the two of them giggling together somewhere in the house. She has become a very good reader this year and her teacher has her bringing home chapter books to read. Kitty and Blondie often stay up late reading to each other in bed. Kitty has a really good memory for things and she also has a really good singing voice. I could see her becoming a great singer as she gets older.
It is hard being in a family of so many girls because everyone is jealous of each other's birthday presents and everyone wants you to share your new toys with them!

Goofy MJ

Yesterday I was in the kitchen decorating Kitty's birthday cake when I heard MJ laughing downstairs. When I went to to see what she was laughing about this is what I found:

Kid talk

A couple of days ago MJ was in Luke's room getting into something that she shouldn't have. When Luke went and took it away from her she stood up and said, "Okay! Fine!"

I brought Kay and MJ down to the kitchen for breakfast and Kay said, "Can we eat spiders for dinner?" (I have no idea where that one came from!)

Lately when I get after MJ for doing something she shouldn't be she says to me, "No touch!"

Rube Goldberg Project

M&M had to do a Rube Goldberg Project for her science class. Here is a link to her explanation and then the execution of it:

This first link is a bigger file that has the two combined. The last two clips are smaller files.

5 down, 1 to go

Let me just start by saying that I dislike potty training! It is so much work - not only for the child but especially for the parent! MJ was never an easy baby so I kept putting off potty training Kay thinking I would have more time and energy when MJ got a little older. Well, then I was diagnosed with cancer and my time and energy level went down the drain with all of the tests and treatments that I have gone through over the last 6 months. As Kay's 4th birthday got closer and closer I knew that I wanted her potty trained by her birthday if possible. I tried starting her training more than once over the last few months, but then gave up because of the amount of work required on my part. Well, the week of her birthday I really started pushing it and the Monday after her birthday I put her in underwear full time and she didn't have a single accident all week long from Monday through Saturday. We haven't been completely accident free since then, but she has been doing awesome and she is so proud of herself too. She is especially excited when she does a #2 in the potty and she has to call me upstairs to show me... The first week or so when she would want to show me she would ask, "Does that make you happy?" One time when she asked me that and I told her that I was happy and proud of her and she said, "Dad would say, 'Excellent.' " I went and told DH that and since then he has noticed himself saying, "Excellent" now and then and he had never realized it before.

Last Friday since Kay went the whole week without an accident I took her to the store to pick out a toy for a reward for doing so well. She picked out some My Little Pony toys.

Easter 2012

Sunday, April 8, 2012
After church we went to my parents' house for dinner and an Easter egg hunt for the kids. I let the girls wear their Easter dresses to show Grandma and Grandpa, but I made them take a change of clothes for playing in and the egg hunt. (DH took MJ home during the middle of Sacrament Meeting because she was being a pill and I told him that if he took her home to put to bed for a nap that I wanted him to take her dress off first!)

Getting nice and dirty in the sandbox:

Look what I found!:

Easter Dresses part 2

Here are some closer up pictures of the girls' Easter dresses:
They were all quite a bit of work so it was a good thing that I started when I did and that my mom was around to help out. My mom did a lot of the cutting out of the dress pieces (and a lot of it was done while she was watching my kids while I had to go to the Huntsman clinic). I found the fabric for all of the girls minus M&M while I was at the fabric store in the end of February buying the patterns. The problem with the dresses and fabric that I chose though is that there were basically 3 layers of everything! For Blondie, Kitty and Kay there was the overlay fabric, the main fabric and then the dress was lined from top to bottom. In addition to that they had a layer of tulle ruffle sewn to the bottom of the lining to add some body to the skirt. I modified things slightly here and there and I think they turned out beautiful! The overlay fabrics have flowers all over them which you can see best on the picture of Blondie's dress.
MJ's dress was the last one that I made. I had a different pattern for hers and I again modified it to get the look that I wanted. I bought the overlay for her dress at the same time as the other girls but ended up not buying quite enough of the main fabric of Kay's dress to make MJ's dress out of it. (I hadn't picked out or bought the pattern for MJ's dress yet when I bought the fabric). When I realized that I didn't have enough fabric, I went back to the store that I had originally bought it at and bought some more of the dark pink fabric. Well, when I pulled it out to show my mom so she could cut it out we discovered that it was not the same fabric! It was a little bit of a darker pink and was a little bit softer in feel. At first I tried going back to some fabric stores to see if I could find maybe a lighter shade of pink to use instead of one that was almost the same as Kay's, but not quite the same. Well, I wasn't able to find anything that I liked so I just used the darker fabric. I decided to just put the overlay fabric on the skirt of the dress and I designed a waistband and tie for the dress that I patterned after the dresses for the other girls. I put the overlay on the waistband as well and made the tie out of the overlay fabric. I couldn't find matching ribbon that was the right width for the dresses so I made the ties and waistbands out of fabric. The waistband and ties on the older girls' dresses were made from the main dress fabric without the overlay. MJ's dress was also lined so that added more sewing to the dress. (Just to give you an idea on the amount of sewing, all 4 of these dresses had 3 layers that had to be hemmed, the 3 older girls had a ruffle that was 144 inches wide and had to be gathered and then sewn onto the skirt lining and each of the dresses had a zipper! I ran through several spools of thread on these dresses!)

M&M was really excited to make this dress this year. I found a dress pattern in the misses section that I thought she might like and even though I knew the sizing was going to be a little bit big, I thought we could pull it off. We found this fabric at the store that M&M liked, the only problem was that she was concerned that it was a little see-through. So we decided to buy some lining and line the dress even though the pattern didn't call for it. It took a little bit of thinking on my part to figure out how to add the lining to the top of the dress because it was constructed very differently from other dress patterns that I have made. I was finally able to figure it out and I let M&M help on the parts that weren't too difficult. We were a little concerned that the dress was a little too low in the front and that M&M would be too self-conscious all day long always trying to adjust it so we decided to add some ribbon to the top to go along with the ribbon at the waistline. M&M was really pleased with the finished product and after a lot of driving around to shoe stores we found some cute shoes to go along with the dress!

All in all I think the dresses turned out beautifully and they were definitely some of the fancier dresses that I have done! And a lot more work than I have done in the past!!

Decorating eggs

Saturday, April 7, 2012The younger kids had a lot of fun decorating the eggs this year. The older kids are starting to not enjoy it quite as much. I had M&M help Kay and I had to do quite a bit of arm twisting to get Luke to join us as well. MJ had a ton of fun though! She kept picking up the eggs and dumping them in the egg dye and then she would stick her whole hand in the egg dye and pull the egg out and say, "Peekaboo egg!" It was quite funny, but I also had quite a job trying to keep her from breaking the eggs or making a mess everywhere! After we were through dying the eggs the middle girls had a lot of fun putting stickers all over them.

Happy 4th Birthday Kay!!

Friday, April 6, 2012
Kay had a fun birthday and got lots of fun toys. Lately she is looking so much bigger - more like a little girl than a toddler! She is a real sweetheart most of the time and loves to cuddle. She has been asking for a rainbow cake for her birthday and this is what I came up with. It took a while to do so many different colors and I had to keep switching the tips back and forth and cleaning them in-between. My parents came over for a pizza dinner and then Kay opened her presents and we ended with cake and ice cream.
MJ playing with one of Kay's new toys:
The girls all looking at her new coloring/sticker book:
Enjoying some cake and ice cream (rainbow sherbet was the "ice cream" of choice):

Easter dresses

I know that many of you want to see what the Easter dresses ended up looking like, so here is a picture of everyone (minus DH) in their Easter clothes. I will blog more details about the dresses and Easter once I get caught up on the rest of my posts.We were a very bright, colorful family at church!

Ensign Peak

DH came home from work on Tuesday and said that he was thinking about taking work off on Thursday and was wondering if there was anything that I wanted us to do as a family. After thinking about it for a little and putting into consideration the ages and attention spans of our kids, plus my less than stellar energy level lately, I decided that hiking Ensign Peak might be kind of fun. The hike is about a mile round trip and while it is uphill the whole first half, I thought that I could do it as well as the kids. DH has been working some long hours lately with the recent release of the 1940 census so he wanted to take a little bit of a break from work.

So Thursday morning we got up, packed some food for lunch and headed up to the Ensign Peak trailhead. DH carried MJ on his back and the rest of us walked. I had a hard time making it up the hill, but everyone else did fine. If you want to believe DH then the only reason I was struggling was because I am out of shape. I think that it also had something to do with my blood counts still being low, but what do I know... On the way up I had to stop every 50 feet or so to catch my breath. I was also feeling a little dizzy and light-headed, but I did make it and coming down was no problem at all. The weather was perfect with light jackets and sweatshirts - at least until we got to the top of the ridge. It was super windy up at the top and it was a bitter cold wind!

After we got back down to our car we drove around a little looking for a place to eat a picnic lunch. We finally found a place with nice park and playground in the Avenues, right next to the Salt Lake City Cemetery. The kids had a blast on the playground because it had some of the old playground equipment that is too dangerous for kids to play on today...