you know what it's time for!

Another picture from my phone. I swear I'm not going to turn into one of those people who only takes pictures with her phone and never with a real camera. But this wouldn't be my blog if I didn't document the first swim of the season, right?

It was windy, and about to rain at any minute, but my kids are die-hards. Or at least Alexis is--and you know all about her persuasive powers. I did not get in this time. Jeremy asked me why I didn't, since I have a maternity suit, so I told him that I'm pretty sure maternity suits are not meant for 39 week belly's.

The flu is making it's way through our house, and I hope it leaves for good before this new little guy arrives. I had it last weekend, Tyler had it on Wednesday, and now Jeremy's got it. It's a pretty nasty version of the flu, but it moves quickly, so hopefully Jeremy will be better soon.

Did you know that Wednesday is the day? Well really, it could be any day now. I went to the doctor and I'm dilated to a 3, which has never in my life happened before. With my previous two kids I never got past a 1 until they hooked me up to the Pitocin. So there's hope for me yet. But even if nothing happens until Wednesday, I'm still pretty proud of myself!

Yesterday Alexis "graduated" from kindergarten. I'm generally not of the mindset that it's necessary to throw graduation ceremonies and parties for things like preschool and kindergarten, but I have to admit it was pretty cute to see her up there with her class, and receiving her "diploma". I can't believe it was 9 months ago that she started kindergarten, and even though I'm afraid it's going to be a long summer, I'm really not ready to part with her all day long, starting in the fall. Kids really do grow up too fast.

Have I mentioned that I'm a little afraid of change? And there's a lot of it coming at me fast. I wonder if I can get it stop by throwing a big fit. Although I suppose life would just be easier if I learned to roll with it instead.

(But I might try the fit, just to see.)


(P.S. Do you think once this life sucking entity is no longer in my body, my blog might get funny again? I hope so, because even I'm bored reading my latest entries.)

buddy system

I love these kids. I really, really do. I took this picture today at the library because it reminded me of how they really are with each other. He's looking at a book about dinosaurs (of course) and she's looking at a Fancy Nancy book (of course), and they are smashed on that little couch together, neither one complaining. Occasionally Tyler will say, "Alexis, look a T-Rex!" and she'll hurry and look. Or she'll point out something funny in her book and he'll laugh along with her. It was all very sweet and cute and a good reminder to me of what good, loving kids they really are.

Because lately they've been crazy. And that is an understatement.

Two weeks from today I'll be induced (I've given up hope that the baby will come on his own), and I think the kids sense the change coming. Obviously they know about the baby, but they don't know what it will do to their world. But they sense it.

And on top of that we've had another recent change that has altered our world. I've tried to make the change an easy transition for them. I've tried to make it something they don't even notice, but they seem to be able to feel it. And the combination of these two things have made them C.R.A.Z.Y!

It was about this time in my pregnancy with Tyler that I started to panic for Alexis. I realized that her world was about to be rocked and I felt pretty bad about it. I worried that she would be lonely and feel abandoned. This time around, I don't feel those things. And I think it's because of the closeness that is evident in the picture above. They'll always have Jeremy and I, but if in the next few weeks they don't feel like they do, hopefully they'll feel like they have each other.

That is if they haven't killed each other before then.

It's been almost two weeks since I last blogged, I think that's a record for me. Besides the pregnancy we've got other things going on here that are a bit distracting. That would be my excuse, but mostly it's the pregnancy.

I believe my stomach has reached maximum capacity, so I'm hoping it'll stop stretching. And the bigger my stomach gets, the dumber my brain gets. Go ahead and bring up something intelligent around me, it'll be good for a laugh. Which leads me to wonder why I continue to watch Jeopardy nightly?

I'm down to 3 1/2 weeks or less! I've been experiencing pre-labor things that I never experienced with my first two, so I'm holding out hope that my body may actually go into labor on it's own this time. Jeremy finds that funny, so at least I've given him a reason to tease me.

I thought I'd share a few recent proud parenting moments, just for fun.

I've noticed lately that Alexis' manipulation tactics have expanded and she now uses prayer as a form of it. When given the opportunity to say our nightly family prayer, she'll often pray that Tyler stops doing whatever behavior she finds bad or undesirable. Occasionally if she's plenty upset with me she'll pray for me also, but it most often is directed at Tyler.

Tonight while we were up in the kids room putting them to bed, Jeremy pulled out his phone and opened up some "fart noise" app that he has on it. Tyler wanted a turn making a noise on the phone so Jeremy told him to go fart then. Tyler went over and sat on a chair, looked at us for about ten seconds, and then sure enough, farted on command. I'm pretty sure Jeremy will use that story someday when bragging about his kids. I just find it amazing.

Here's a cute picture of the kids taken the first night we moved them into the other bedroom, with their new bedding.
And lastly, here's a video that shows a fairly daily occurrence around here. I used to wrestle with my kids before I started growing another one in my stomach, and I think Tyler has really missed it. Now he knows that his only source of wrestling is Jeremy, so the minute Jeremy walks in the door from work something triggers in Tyler and he becomes insane. The other night he was especially wild so Jeremy grabbed the camera and took a few short videos of it. The best part is that Alexis recognized the craziness and went and put on what she called her "protecting gear". You'll notice a beanie and a helmet, socks on her hands, a backpack on her chest, and snow boots. Unfortunately, even with all her protective gear, she still doesn't stand a chance against Tyler.



I know that while watching that you were primarily concerned with the safety of our furniture, our TV, all our nice things. But don't worry, we're having a boxing ring installed next week.

a follow-up

**EDITED**

I had to come on here and tell you that my house is much improved from those last pictures I showed you. There's still a lot of work to be done, but we're moving along!

Also, remember how one time I mentioned that Alexis had a field trip and she didn't want me to go? I ended up getting asked to go, and the field trip was yesterday. She was disappointed at first and told me that I wasn't going to sit by her on the bus, but I think in the end she had fun with me there and only had to sit by me on the bus on the way home. When I asked her if she had fun even with me there she said "yes, but I kind of wish you hadn't come because then I would have been in a different group". Just one more reason why my motto as a mother is becoming: You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself. Or at least that's my motto at mealtimes, and the reason Jeremy sees peas (despite his complaints) included in the dinner at least once a month.

On a more serious note, I read a short news article online from our local news station this morning and it has me baffled. Recently a death warrant has been signed for a man in Utah who killed an attorney while trying to escape from a courthouse in 1981. This particular article announced that they are making commemorative coins for those involved in the execution in June. Commemorative coins for an execution? This is a mentality I don't understand. I can't bring myself to expound on this anymore than that, but I hope I'm not the only one that finds this is a little unnecessary. **Here's a correction to that last article. It makes a lot more sense now!**

On a lighter note and in conclusion because this is all my brain can handle today, this morning Tyler asked me how many years until the baby comes out. Some days it really feels like it takes years, but then I look at my gigantic list of things to do before he comes and I can only hope that it will take years.

it's getting messy over here

I only show you these pictures to help you feel better about yourselves today. I took them for my own sake, lest in a few months my sleep deprivation caused by a newborn makes me wish for a return to the days of pregnancy, I can look at these photos and remember.

Remember that in my pregnant state I do the very minimum to get by.

Remember that in my pregnant state I haven't cleaned up, or made the kids clean up, the toy room for weeks. I wish that were an exaggeration, but it's not.

Some of you have nice basements or hidden away spaces for your kids to play so you don't see the mess daily. I do not have that. I have a room directly across the hall from my room, and right next door to my kids room, that is viewed often. I see it when I wake up in the morning. I see it after breakfast when I go back upstairs to get ready. I see at night when I put my kids to bed. And I see it as though it's burned into my eyelids when I go to sleep.

Ready for it? Here is what our toy room/everything else room currently looks like:


And don't forget the closet:

It's pathetic really, and at this point I think I've given up on organizing those toys.

In order for our house to be baby ready we have to do some major purging. And I'm just waiting for a time when I can go through all those toys and get rid of half of them without the kids around.

Have I mentioned Alexis is a pack rat? So for her, parting with things (this includes garbage) is akin to a normal person parting with a necessary limb. It is traumatic to say the least.

I, however, have never considered myself a pack rat and try to not keep unnecessary things around. So I realized that I needed to go through all the old girl clothes I've been saving and get rid of most of them. I did that last week and now I understand Alexis a little more! It was kind of hard and a little emotional. And really ridiculous how many clothes I'd been hanging onto. Seriously, can one little girl really wear that many clothes??

But as I went through them those clothes brought back a lot of memories. It's funny how you can associate such a material thing with moments that matter. So I kept all the stuff that really held sentimental value or that I really loved, but the rest of it I'm passing on. I kept thinking that most of the memories I have from those clothes are associated with photos I've seen over and over, but I just looked through old pictures and most of the clothes aren't in them. So I guess they are actual memories. But here's a few photos I do have:

Purple velour pants, ridiculous purple shoes, flower onesie. This was a favorite outfit.

First time swimming
First time she attempted to take off her clothes (while she was supposed to be napping!)

Though I don't really care for Winnie the Pooh, she had a set of three different onesies that she wore a lot, and they were some of the hardest to part with. (p.s. what's up with her hair?)
I just really like this picture! And she wore that sweatshirt a lot!

And this dress was a favorite! I can still picture her crawling around church in it.

Loved this coat! I'm keeping it.

Her first Easter dress. This has been passed on to my niece that will be born in August.

That's enough of that. To sum up:

1. My house is a gigantic mess!
2. Jeremy and I are in the process of organizing and de-junking our entire house so the baby doesn't have to sleep outside.
3. This all needs to be done by June 2nd at the very latest (my induction date!!!!)
4. Alexis has had way too many clothes in her short life span of 5 1/2 years.
5. I am apparently having a hard time accepting the fact that my oldest is growing up.

And along the lines of #5, would it be weird to keep a pair of her first set of underwear in the memory box that I have for her?

6. Sometimes I ask really weird questions.

thinking of a title will cause Alexis to be late for school...

Should I start every post these days by mentioning how tired I am? How long would that take before it got old? Oh, it already is old? Never mind then, I'm not tired. I'm not exhausted. I'm not pooped. (That's a fancy word for tired). (A little Fancy Nancy humor for you).

I am quite pleased that it's the middle of April. Technically I have 2 months left of this pregnancy business, but I'm counting on less because I like to do stupid things like get my hopes up. But this morning I stepped on the scale and boy howdy was that a mistake! I hadn't prepped myself or anything. I just did it quickly before jumping in the shower, and then I spent the whole time in the shower worrying that my weight will cause it to collapse and crash through the floor to the kitchen below. That would be embarrassing! We'll just say I'm not one of those people who gains the safe and suggested amount of weight during pregnancy. I gain way more than that. So no wonder I'm (not) tired.

And now I challenge you to use the phrase "boy howdy" in a sentence today. It's kind of fun.

Last week I got it in my head that I need to learn how to cut boy's hair. I currently have 1 3/4 boys so I should really be responsible and frugal and learn to do it myself. I will never attempt this on Alexis, Jeremy or myself, I know my limits, but who cares if Tyler's hair looks stupid right? Obviously not us. Instead of asking the plethora of people who actually know how to do this, I turned to the Internet, turned on a movie for Tyler, then turned on the electric clippers. The result isn't terrible, especially if you don't look closely, but it's definitely done by a beginner. Fortunately his hair grows fast and we can try again in a few months. I should show you a picture, but I don't have one and I'm not about to chase him down to get one. I'm (not) too tired for that.

Here's a few pictures I do have. First, this is what Alexis is wearing today. Just wanted to document that the weird outfits continue.
Pants under a skirt is her new favorite look. And that is the tie to her bathrobe worn around her waist. When we went out this morning she said to me "Thanks for letting me wear my bathrobe tie today to school". She sounded genuinely surprised that I let her. When honestly, to me it got lost with the rest of the outfit so I didn't even think to tell her no. I'm starting to think that from here on out when I buy her new clothes I should only buy them in one or two colors and definitely nothing with prints. That way she's guaranteed to match.

However, I really do love her creativity. Which is what the next picture shows.
I took this picture because I thought that whatever she had made here was so darn creative. I mean, the helmet for the barbie is made out of half an Easter egg strapped to her head by a rubber band. And the pens were handles or paddles or something. Unfortunately I can't remember now what exactly it was supposed to be, but it sure was smart!

And now, I need help. My couches have a bunch of dumb little stains and watermarks on them. They are microfiber. Anyone know how to clean them up to look nice??

Now back to your Monday's everyone. Boy Howdy is mine busy!

The Trip Recap

Please pardon my long absence, I've been busy trying to keep everyone in this house from dying due to some illness or another. Perhaps that's a bit dramatic, but it sure felt like I was dying last night when I couldn't stop coughing and I had an extremely bad case of heartburn. I've had a cough for about a week, but it was really bad over the weekend. And as I told Jeremy, a bad cough is a mean trick to play on a pregnant woman who already has very limited bladder control.

And that's all I'll say about that.

This weekend was also The Trip. The one that I was so nervous about because we'd be camping, and there were no bathrooms, and we were in the middle of nowhere. That's everything I knew before. Then come the week of we discovered the weather forecast. And then I got sick. And then my mother in law got pink eye, and my father in law was still not over some bad case of the flu that he's had for several weeks. We were going to make an awesome group--yet we were determined to go!

But we woke up to go in the morning to several inches of snow on the ground with it still falling. And you know how I feel about snow. It is my opinion that a person should not plan on riding the Rhino when it looks like this:
That's the kind of weather we were driving through.

By the time we got to our destination it was cold but sunny with no snow, so we hosed off the frozen Rhino and went on our way.

And I have to say that the trip was actually a lot of fun! It had it's downs, like the fact that it was freezing most of the time and the wind that blew in the night making it hard to sleep. In fact the second night it was so windy that my brother in law's tent got flipped over, with him still inside it!

But the ups far outweighed them. Jeremy (and his parents) took such good care of me that I didn't have to do much. Also he borrowed a three inch foam mat that he put on top of the air mattress for me to sleep on and I'm pretty sure I slept better on that than I do at home. It was heaven! It really helped to insulate our sleeping bags from the cold so we stayed toasty warm all night.

There was the matter of the hike we went on that was supposed to be less than two miles round trip and ended up being at least twice that. Which normally wouldn't scare me but I'm carting around an extra 35 lbs and my core muscles are a little stretched out at the moment, so it probably goes without saying that that hike left me VERY tired. But it built character (I think)!

Within minutes of getting in the Rhino Jeremy had us sunk in a wash. But I've learned that it's not really fun unless someone has to be towed out of somewhere.

Jeremy and his dad on what we dubbed "the slant rock". It really is amazing the shapes you find some of these rocks in.

Lake Powell. Simply beautiful. It gave us all an itch to go back there and soon! (And with a boat.)

Jeremy, me, Cindy and Trent with Hole in the Rock and Lake Powell behind us. It was really cool to learn about the history behind this. Basically a group of Mormon Pioneers in 1880 lowered 26 wagons and 250 people, plus animals, down this really steep crack in the rocks to ferry across what was then a river. It is unimaginable how they did it, but somehow they did and everyone and everything survived.

This is what they called "Dance Hall Rock". It's shaped like and has the acoustics of an amphitheater and the pioneers would square dance here while they were camped waiting for the road to be ready.

And then we came home to more snow on Easter morning. But we also came home to two little cuties who were very excited to see us and get a visit from the Easter Bunny. Alexis has been talking about this Barbie bathtub for months, ever since she gave one to a friend for her birthday. And miraculously that's what the bunny brought. Jeremy finds it a little ridiculous that our daughter owns a toilet for her Barbies, but that's okay. I learned this weekend that toilets are essential, even for Barbies.

And Ty-guy of course got dinosaurs. He loves dinosaurs and spends half his day pretending that he is one. And I'm pretty certain that sometimes he's so into being a dinosaur that he thinks he really is one. Like the other day when Jeremy was washing Tyler's face and he said to him "Why are you wiping a T-Rex's face??"

And have I mentioned that he's a daddy's boy? Cause he is. Big time. And I love it!

Now back to Spring Break for us!

Alexis' no good, very bad day

Alexis is having a bad day, and I feel really sorry for her.

Yesterday she was perfectly fine, but this morning she woke up and her eyes were crusted shut from gunk pouring out of them all night. And she has puffy eyes and a runny nose. The doctors office called in some antibiotic eye drops for her, and even though her eyes aren't quite so gunky anymore, I'm afraid she is still contagious.

I told her this morning that she wouldn't get to go to school, and though she was sad she was okay with it. But I just barely called the school to excuse her and I guess that's when she remembered what today was. Today is the last day for the student teacher that's been in her class. They were going to have a party and Alexis really wanted to tell her goodbye. She cried and cried and cried, and I even cried for her! Please remember I'm hormonal, but she just sat there sobbing in my lap and there was nothing I could do to really make it better. I know she'll probably forget all about it in a few days, but that doesn't make the moment of sadness she feels any less painful for her or me.

And tonight she was supposed to go eat at Carl's Jr. (with a play place!) with her dad and brother and some friends, but she probably won't be doing that either. Poor girl.

And to top it all off she has to have eye drops in her eyes!

The bright side is that I let her have a doughnut for lunch. She needed it.

And I had a cinnamon roll for lunch. It's snowing--I needed it.

facts

Oh am I tired.

That is life these days. Tired, tired, and more tired.

With some sewing thrown in. And a few other projects.

And the ever present, ever loud, ever messy children.

Here's a question: Have my kids always been this messy, or does it just seem worse because it's so painful to bend over and help them clean up?

Here's some interesting facts about Alexis:
-She has bitten her lip three times today. Three! And every time she screams like the world is ending.
-She called Tyler "Chubby Buns" the other day and I'm pretty sure it's the best nickname I've heard yet.
-Today she told me that her class needs 5 mom volunteers for a field trip but that I am forbidden to go because she wants it to be special.
-Also today she was "hula" dancing and it was one of the cutest things I've seen her do. She tied two capes around her waist to act as her hula skirt, and a thin necktie around her chest area to support her you-know-what's. And if it weren't so revealing I'd show you all a picture.

Here's some interesting facts about Tyler:
-He does indeed have "Chubby Buns", but they are getting decidedly less chubby as he gets taller and less baby like.
-He is also very tired today, which means he likes to snuggle with me more and listen to me less.
-He is one of the most loyal brothers I have ever seen and also one of the scariest T-Rex's I have ever seen.
-He likes to help me with whatever I'm doing--whether it's sewing, cooking or cleaning.
-While I'm watching Jeopardy he asks every 5 minutes if it's over and who won. When it is over he has to know who won and is often times upset because it wasn't the person he wanted to win. (He never wants the girls to win--only the boys.)

Here's some interesting facts about me:
-I have zero interest in going on a field trip with a bunch of kindergartners. Too stressful for me, I'd spend every other second counting kids to make sure I have them all.
-I've done pretty well at keeping up with my dishes and keeping my kitchen clean for about a week!
-I get to see some of my good friends from college this next week and I can't wait!
-Next week I'm going on a 4 wheeling trip with Jeremy and his parents and brother. There will be no bathrooms (maybe a port-o-potty if I'm lucky) and I'll be sleeping in a tent. I will also be 30 weeks pregnant. I'm a little nervous (or a lot depending on the time of day and my hormones!)
-I have begun reading "Anna Karenina" and hope to actually make it all the way through.

Here's some interesting facts about Jeremy:
-He had the Rhino painted black because someone offered to do it for free. It looks cool.
-He's getting stuck with the kids a lot over the next five days but he hasn't complained. (Maybe I should give it a few days...)
-He graciously offered to build some sort of portable bathroom enclosure for our trip.
-Those are all the facts I have about him because he doesn't talk much and I don't see him much more than that.

And now I have filled my blogging quota for the week--too bad it wasn't more interesting. And just because everything is less lame when a picture is involved, here's one of Tyler helping me make pizza dough.

a follow-up

Yesterday morning Alexis was very distraught to discover that, yet again, Lucky and Larry (the leprechauns) had not come to get the letters she left for them. Evidently she had been leaving them out for three nights in a row and I was entirely unaware (see the post below about the pregnancy stupids). Fortunately, as I sat there searching my brain for any excuse as to why they hadn't come (again, the pregnancy stupids), she chimed in with, "Oh! They probably couldn't see the notes, they were too high for them". Then she promptly placed them on the floor, where they remained through the rest of the day.

Naturally guilt set in. As my mom put it, Alexis forced my hand. A leprechaun would be coming that night.

But first this leprechaun had to spend an hour on the phone calling every store in the area trying to track down those gold chocolate coins. Eventually they were found and all that was left was the note. Jeremy took pity on me and whipped up something way better than I would have. Of course he stole a lot of it from the Internet, since we have no idea what a leprechaun would write in a note, but we made the last two lines our own!

Then we hid the gold around the living room, rolled up the note like a scroll and played a few tricks. Green water in the toilet bowl (which I stole from Rachel, thanks! and which totally freaked Tyler out), a couch tipped on it's side, the family picture on the wall hung upside down, Alexis' backpack hanging from the light fixture, and some shoes found in the toy box.

I have to admit--it was fun! The kids reaction was totally worth it this morning and it's nice to do something out of the ordinary every once in awhile. It's just the planning ahead that really kills me.


The best part has been that all morning whenever they notice something slightly off around the house (and trust me, there's a lot of things) they blame it on Lucky. Lucky moved the cereal boxes into a different order, Lucky put a helmet in the laundry room, Lucky moved a blanket, etc. And for some reason if I were the one to do any of these things it would just be annoying, but because they think a leprechaun is doing it it's really funny and cool. I wish Lucky would have given that some forethought and gone through the humongous pile of papers and artwork in the corner of Alexis' room and thrown some out--because I'm not allowed within 10 feet of it.