my kids, lately

Summer is half over and we are still keeping busy. Here are a few pictures and stories of some of what we've been up to lately.

We went up Provo Canyon one evening with my parents, sister and brother-in-law, to have a picnic and take a short hike to some beaver dams. When we got to one Jeremy just kept on walking, straight into the water in his tennis shoes. So then I sent the kids in too, but as you can tell from the picture, the water was freezing! I love that Tyler has his tongue out in this picture.

Ryan dipped his feet in later. So far he's shown no fear of water, which is good but also a little worrisome. Jeremy's mom took all of her grandkids to an aquatic center last week and Ryan went under the water at least 7 or 8 times, and that was with me watching him like a hawk. Each time I'd pull him out of the water, he'd blink and spit and then keep on playing like nothing ever happened.

Speaking of Ryan, he's a little crazy. He wears me out with his constant movement, but is still the cutest thing ever. Judge me if you want, but I've discovered that sugar in some form makes him sit still and quiet for at least 3 minutes. This time it was a chocolate covered pretzel.

Do you like see-food??

Back at the end of April, Tyler and I planted some flower bulbs in our planter box. We planted them at the very end of the season, so we've had to wait until now for them to blossom. It's been fun for Tyler to water them, watch them, and wait for the flowers to show up. I haven't ever really grown anything before, so it's been fun for me too.

And apparently growing flowers is enough work for me, because the lawn has suffered. I apologize to my neighbors who overlook our tiny, pathetic backyard. We obviously need a sprinkler system badly because we suck at hand watering.

Any mom knows that kids are good for keeping you humble and letting you know what you're good for. Tyler did this last week when he--very seriously--asked if I was ever going to die. I told him that yes, someday I would. He thought for a minute and then with a concerned look on his face said, "Well, if you die who will make me breakfast?". Now I'm afraid to teach him how to pour his own cereal and milk for fear of becoming obsolete.

Lastly, today at the grocery store the cashier gave Alexis a bunch of stickers. This store never has kid stickers, they only have ones they put on food or bags, but they always give some to the kids. Today the stickers said "All Natural" in big bold letters. So Alexis put one on her chest on the right, gave one to Ryan, two to Tyler and then put the last one on her chest also, but this time on the left. I took one look at her two strategically placed "All Natural" stickers and had to keep the laughter in. I love the innocence of children!

June in a nutshell, kind of

I never used to understand why people would let a whole month go by before they updated their blog. But I think now, three weeks after my last post, I'm beginning to understand. My beloved little blog is badly neglected because there isn't enough time to do everything that needs to be done, and writing a blog post when I've got a dirty house and bored kids just doesn't seem as justifiable as it once was.

Also, I have a one-year-old. And he doesn't stop moving unless he's getting into trouble. I forgot that fact about one-year-olds, but its all coming back to me now.


June is the best month of the year, but also one of the busiest. Three out of the five of us (Ryan, Jeremy and I) have birthdays in June, as well as my dad. They are all about a week apart which means we have birthday cake weekly. What's not to love about that? We were camping with Jeremy's family this year on my birthday, and at this stage of life that's about as good as it gets for my birthday. I didn't have to make breakfast, lunch or dinner, I didn't have to bathe any kids (though I probably should have), they played with cousins all day, Jeremy put them to bed, and I got to go out on the Rhino twice.

I turned 29 this year, and I've been thinking about how my life has changed while in my twenties. I think for most people that's the decade of their life that changes them the most, and for me it's definitely true. I got married two weeks after I turned 20, so it's hard to determine what changes and growth were a result of simply getting older, and which were a result of being in such an important relationship at such a young age. But while in my twenties I gained a huge amount of confidence. I still have such a long way to go to become truly confident in myself and my abilities, but compared to my teenage self I am now a confident person. I've also learned more about what my talents are. I used to think I didn't have any talents, especially because as a youth it seems that everyone focuses on "measurable" talents. Good grades, scoring well on tests, being the star of a sports team, being a performer, those are all measurable talents. Being a friend to the lonely, having an innate sense of right and wrong, being a good listener, dispensing good advice, those are all immeasurable talents and I've found most of my talents lie in that realm. What I didn't know when I was young was that those things are talents and that they are just as important, if not more than, the types most people focus on. I've also learned that some talents emerge later in life. Just in the past six months I've started to develop a talent I never thought I had. It makes me excited to think about what my life will look like in another ten years.

The thing that I find the most amazing is that I've learned all of these things and developed this confidence in myself all while being a stay at home mom. I haven't had a corporate world instill any of this in me, I've developed it all while doing a job that most people overlook as not being important. Yet, it's the hardest job of all and forces a lot of growth and introspection, and I consider myself extremely blessed that I get to be home with my kids, all day, every day. (Even on the REALLY bad days!)

Now onto those kids that keep me employed:

It has been nice to have Alexis home. I was a little worried she would get bored and that she would make a lot of messes. So far she hasn't gotten bored, but she has made a lot of messes. I think that will always be life with Alexis. She thinks big and her excitement and ideas cannot be contained. There's a direct correlation between how excited she is over her latest idea and how much junk is all over the floor of her bedroom; she simply cannot stop to bother with things like cleaning up. She is also a big help with Ryan. The other day she fed him all of his oatmeal without me even asking her too. I'm starting to really see the advantage of having a daughter first!


Tyler seems to be struggling a bit with being the middle child and with getting older and wanting some independence. He's had his share of troubles with Alexis, but she is also his best friend. When they fight, they FIGHT. When they play well together it's heaven on earth. He knows how to spell "Tyler", "Alexis" and "Dad" all by himself. Yesterday he wrote "DAD" on a piece of paper, then drew a circle around it and a line through it and then gave it to Jeremy. He was trying to be funny, and he succeeded. Then to really get at Jeremy he took another piece of paper, wrote "Mom" on it with a heart around it and gave it to me. And he hasn't stopped laughing about it since. He's inherited a funny trait from me: whenever he's concentrating he has to stick his tongue out. And since I'm trying to teach him how to swim now, he swallows a lot of pool water with that tongue always out. He has also decided to start complaining about having to turn lights off after he leaves a room. For some reason he REALLY hates that he has to turn a light off and will whine about it to no end. If it were just at night that we had this issue I would understand that he might be a little afraid of the dark, but he only complains about it during the middle of the day. Of all the weird things to get upset about! I wonder how long until he figures out that he should just stop turning the light on in the first place?

And that leaves Ryan. He once upon a time was such a happy baby who rarely cried, but he now lets his opinions be known. Unfortunately because he has yet to say any words, I don't know what those opinions are. He is just generally whiny for the last half of the day. Is he hungry? Thirsty? Tired? Bored? Uncomfortable? Sick of hefting around all of that weight? No one knows! Despite the whining (which really isn't terrible) he is still adored by everybody that sees him. He is a mama's boy, though he likes to tease me by always giving Jeremy a kiss when he asks for one, but rarely giving me one. He's thinned out some but is still very solid, has the worlds fattest feet (I've only found one pair of shoes that will kind of fit him), and has some very cute curls crowning his head. He loves to be outside any chance he gets and has recently discovered the joy of throwing rocks. He has also learned how to turn himself in a circle and will do that until he's dizzy. Then he gets mad because he's too dizzy to walk straight and starts crying. While he's crying he tries to walk to me so I'll pick him up, but usually ends up somewhere completely different because he can't tell where he's going. It's very funny to me, but not ever to him.
Now, I must go. I hope my next post won't be a year from now, beginning with: "I used to never understand how someone could go a whole year without posting on their blog..."


*All pictures are from our recent family reunion with Jeremy's family at Yuba Lake. It was so much fun and we are so blessed to be part of such an incredible family.

annual "first swim of the season" post

Last Wednesday, when Jeremy got home from work, I took Alexis and Tyler over to the pool so they could swim. They had been begging for a week, but the weather hadn't really been cooperating, so I made them wait. We unfortunately haven't been back since because I want to wait until it gets a little warmer before I take Ryan in. And because I'm too afraid to try on my swimsuit.

We've been feeling the tight quarters of our little townhome lately. We love it here, but when we moved here 6 years ago we had one one-year-old and plans to leave again in two or three years. Plans change and families grow, but lately we've started thinking about moving on. (Thinking about it, that's as far as we've gotten!) And in the winter when there are toys everywhere and not enough rooms and a garage too full of stuff to park in, I really feel cramped here. But then I take my kids to the pool and I start to think that we can stick around longer. There is nothing in the world that is more fun to Alexis than swimming. You can see it written all over her face, as she comes up out of the water to get a breath, her face is plastered with a smile. I think she's even smiling underwater, she just can't help it.


So we are lucky 3 months out of the year to have that pool right next to us, calling our names all summer long. If we move we'll have to swim with the masses at a community pool...


This summer I plan to teach Tyler how to swim without that frog floatie. When he went on Wednesday he said that the floatie wasn't holding him up very well, so I guess he's finally gotten too big for it. I'm not sure how much time I'll be able to devote to it since I'll have Ryan to watch out for as well, so lets hope he's a fast learner!

uno

Today my baby turned one.


He got a big green ball, balloons, and lots of things to prepare him for the swim season. What more could a little guy ask for?


Oh yeah. Cake.

For the boy whose favorite things are crayons (he likes to be sneaky and get them when I'm not looking and then suck on them), I felt a crayon cake would be appropriate.


I've decided I'm glad that cake decorating is not my creative outlet of choice. I have no patience for it! And it's hard for me to spend so much time on something you are just going to eat anyway (this is also my problem with cooking).

My first two kids needed help figuring out what to do with cake when they turned one, but Ryan needed no such assistance. First he tried to pick it all up...

Then he decided to lick a little off his finger...

And before long he had it all over his face, hands and tummy.

He would have kept going and going but I was afraid he would get a tummy ache so I finally took it away...

I've thought all day about what I wanted to write about Ryan. I've had millions of thoughts swim through my mind, but they never come out sounding quite the way I want them to, and I'm too tired to work at it. So I'll say this, whether or not it sounds right.

If I have any more children they will owe their existence to Ryan. He has restored my faith in babykind and in my abilities to mother a baby.

Before I had him I wasn't sure I could handle another baby; babies are hard for me because I have so little control. But the combination of his easy going nature, and me maturing as a mother over the past few years, has caused me to love having him as a baby. I've lamented often lately that I don't want him to grow up--I've done it enough that the kids have turned it into a game. They'll ask me, "Mom, do you want Ryan to turn one?" And I'll pretend to cry and say "NO!! NO!!" Then they'll say, "Mom, do you want Ryan to turn two??" And I'll pretend to cry and say, "NO!! NO!!", and on it goes until I have no more pretend tears.

I try to not have many regrets in life, but one thing I do regret is that I was not the same mom to the baby versions of Alexis and Tyler that I have been to Ryan. I'm so much more relaxed and appreciative of all the cute little things he does than I was with them. They were a little more difficult as babies, but most of it is me. I suppose I do have them, and the years I have under my belt mothering them, to thank for my ability to enjoy the stage Ryan is in.

In fact, just last night I watched him climb on and off of a rocking horse over and over, and I sat thinking about how it was the best part of my day. There's something so miraculous and beautiful about watching a strong, healthy baby learn and test and discover new things about their environment. Fortunately, I now recognize that.

And so, though I'd stop him from growing right now if I could, I am endlessly grateful that I get to witness the inevitable:

A child that starts as a tiny baby in my arms,


then grows into a toddler,


a young boy, and eventually a man.

Aren't I the luckiest?? (times three!)




**For the truest of Ryan's fans, here's the video I took yesterday of him playing on the rocking horse. I'm sure it's nothing exciting to most of you, but I loved every second of it. Also, I thought my regular voice sounded annoying on video, but my baby talk voice is WAY worse!

recovery

On Mother's Day I decided I wanted to take a picture with all my children. I generally HATE having my picture taken, and I usually hate the result. But I've started to realize that other people do not hate the results. In fact, someday my kids might like to have a picture of them with their mom. So I sucked it up and piled us all on the bean bag chair, or "Rocky Mountain" as it's known in our house, and had Jeremy snap a few. Only two of them really turned out, so I'm sharing them with you. Even though it pains me to do so.

I'm not sure which one turned out the best. I've been meaning to post these all week but last week is a week I'd like to forget. It was LOOOONG and short all at once. It was packed full of everything but sleep. I spent more time away from my home and my kids than I normally care to (unless I'm on vacation, which I wasn't), and I had to move outside of my comfort zone a bit. And to top it off I had a cough and scratchy throat and sounded like a man all week. Listen to me, I'm such a whiner. Anyway, it was a busy and bizarre week and I'm glad it's over.

The one highlight of the week, however, was that for one whole day it warmed up enough that I could put shorts on Ryan! If you have ever seen his fat legs you know why this was the highlight of the week.
Today it's back to sweatshirt weather (on May 16th? That seems wrong...), but I look forward to warm days where I can gaze upon his fat rolls to my hearts content because they won't be hidden by clothing. And can you even imagine when I put him in a swimsuit??? My heart may stop! I told Jeremy yesterday that if we have any more babies they better be fat or I might not love them because once you've had fat (babies) you can never go back. (Which is ridiculous of course, I love all my babies.)

In other news (really, does any of this qualify as "news"?), yesterday Jeremy cut our grass for the first time this season and he cut a T into it. I remember when I was a teenager my brother, Peter, was taking his turn cutting the grass and spent quite a bit of time cutting his first name into it. Someday Jeremy and I aspire to having a lawn big enough for more than one letter, but for now I guess this will do.


I'm sure I have plenty of other things to write about, but this is all I can eek out now. Things to do, groceries to buy, kids to love on, bathrooms to clean, dishes to do (always), but I'm happy to be back to all of it. Except the dishes--some things will never change.

the last month of babydom...

Look! I'm finally getting around to posting Easter pictures. But probably only because it's better than the alternative (washing dishes). The Easter Bunny got a little smarter this year and brought very little candy (about 20 small jelly beans per kid), one dollar, and toys to keep them active.

At our house the Easter Bunny hides the kids baskets

Jeremy took these pictures of the kids while I was still upstairs getting ready for church, and when I looked at them later I felt a sense of accomplishment. I thought to myself, while looking at the picture of the three of them, "This is what I do!" That might not make much sense, but sometimes as a mother it's hard to measure what you do all day, or to see the products of your efforts. But when I look at them in that picture, I see it. I raise happy, well adjusted, well behaved, good children. That's what I do, and it's no small task. And if you do that too, give yourself a pat on the back. Or order your own Mother's Day gift, like I did yesterday.

In other sad news, yesterday this guy was officially 11 months old.

Which means today he's older than 11 months. Oh dear.

To celebrate, yesterday he spent the morning climbing up and coming back down the first two stairs. But sometimes he would only climb up one stair and come back down; then, not realizing he was already on the ground level, he would stick his leg out behind him feeling for the next stair to come down. It was very cute.

He has recently discovered that when he covers his ears the world sounds different. So he spends a good portion of the day looking like this (minus the yogurt on his chin):

I'm also beginning to suspect that he will be more mischievous than my other two (which really wouldn't be hard to do), but it's hard to tell when they are only one because at this age they get into everything. Just a few minutes ago he found where I keep the kids crayon bags, which is really exciting to him because he loves nothing more than to chew on crayons. So when I saw he had found them and was holding a crayon in his mouth I said, "NO!". He smiled and saw me coming towards him so he quickly "ran" back to the crayon bag to grab another one before I could get to him. It was very obvious that that was what he was trying to do. But he's also so good-natured that he doesn't even get upset when I take the crayons away and close off his access to them. Either that or he's thinking, "Oh, I'll find a way back. Just you wait."

He walks anywhere and everywhere--though his gait is a little weird. He doesn't bend his knees much and he swings his legs out to the side and to the front of him in a small circle. He looks more like a lumbering giant than a little baby, probably because he has a huge tummy that precedes the rest of his body wherever he goes.

He is still the most pleasant baby to have around. I never (or almost rarely) think, "Oh great, Ryan is up from a nap, let the work begin." He is pretty self-entertaining, he isn't very demanding, and everything he does is the cutest thing ever, so who wouldn't want that around? He is a blessing in my life, one of the many that I'm sure I don't deserve but have been given anyway.

project file

I just wanted to share some really simple projects that I've done lately. I haven't had much time for sewing, which is why it took me so long to make, or get around to making, many of these things.

First, I made the older kids summer pajamas. I HATE paying for pajamas, but I probably didn't save much money considering how cheap they have pajamas for sale at the dreaded Walmart. For these I bought a pack of 5 boys white undershirts to use as the tops. Fortunately for me, my kids are the same size so I only had to buy one pack. I dyed some of the shirts, while some I left white, then I appliqued designs from the fabric I made the shorts out of. Again, I only had to use one pattern (which I drew myself) because my kids are the same size. Though I did the hem of Alexis' a little shorter.


Those shirts are supposed to be black, but the dye didn't do the greatest job and I'm too lazy to dye them again. They are pajamas after all, they don't need to look that cute. I made three pairs for Tyler and two for Alexis. Which, of course, she demanded an explanation for. Does "Because." count as an explanation?

I also made Ryan a hooded towel, something I've been meaning to do since he was 2 months old. This is made out of a bath towel and half a matching hand towel. I added a pleat in the back to make it wrap around him a little better, and cut an "R" out of a really cheap washcloth and threw that on the towel too.

And then I attempted to take pictures of him using it, which really didn't go well.


This last project isn't a sewing project and is the one I'm most excited about. Ryan's room has been left mostly undecorated. We had grand plans for putting in a chair rail and painting the bottom half of the room orange, and then unemployment happened and we figured we should save our monies. But then we never got back to doing anything about it until a few months ago when I found this idea on a blog and knew I had to do it.

Jeremy cut the wood out for me and then I sanded and painted it. And then I attempted to nail one little nail in, which convinced him that he should do that part for me. He didn't so much love that, but he loves me so he persevered. And as he told someone yesterday, it was my project, not his, so it didn't have to be perfect. That's how we work around here.

After doing all the hard work of nailing, I thought he'd want to do the fun job of winding the thread around the nails, but he didn't think that sounded like fun. I'm here to tell you, it is FUN! Go make this, I urge you.




And that, among many other things, is what we have been up to lately.

4 words I don't want to hear in the morning...or anytime of the day

I made a mistake this morning, and boy did I pay for it. I think maybe my mothering brain hadn't quite turned on yet, or perhaps I'm just dumb. After we were all done eating breakfast I sat down to change Ryan's diaper. He, as usual, started crying and trying to roll away. I didn't have it in me to fight so I decided to let him crawl around for a few minutes without a diaper on.

"What's the worst that can happen?" I thought, "Pee on the floor?" This was Poor Thought Process #1.

After watching his cute naked bum for a few minutes I headed back into the kitchen to finish whatever I was in the middle of. I promptly forgot about naked-from-the-waist-down Ryan. This is Poor Thought Process #2.

About 10 minutes later, as I was in the middle of making my breakfast, Tyler starts frantically yelling "POOP ON THE CARPET! POOP ON THE CARPET!" I didn't immediately panic because I thought, "Oh, I guess a little leaked out of his diaper, I'm sure it's not much". This was Poor Thought Process #3. However, I quickly remembered that he actually didn't have a diaper on at all, and that the situation was probably a lot worse than I thought. I ran into the living room, a little afraid of what I might find.

There, by the toy box, sat my naked-from-the-waist-down son. He was sitting like babies usually do, splits style with his legs out to his sides. And in between his legs was a nice pile of POOP. Poop that he was clearly interested in, as I found it all over his legs, his shirt, his hands and various other areas of the carpet where he spread it.

I picked him up by the armpits and held him an arms length away from my body. Then I stood there thinking, "Should I clean the baby first, or should I clean the carpet first?" I really wasn't sure what to do, but then my brain fired up. I remembered that I have a daughter that practices her mothering skills (also known as, being bossy) all day. I carried Ryan upstairs, where I found Alexis hiding with her nose plugged, and quickly rinsed him in the tub. Then I filled it with clean water and instructed Alexis to sit there and watch him. As I went back downstairs I thought to myself, "Why is Jeremy never around when stuff like this happens??" But really, it's better that way. I'm pretty sure he would have thrown up, and then I'd have two messes to clean up.

And in a situation like that, it's always best to look on the bright side of things. So here's what I came up with:

At least there was no poop around, or in, his mouth.

Maybe if I tried harder I could come up with some more...

-------

In other news, it was Spring Break this last week, and we sure stayed busy. We went to a few fun places with friends, played with cousins, dyed Easter eggs, and Tyler even got to go out on the Rhino with Jeremy and my dad yesterday. We also started the week off by getting tubes put in Ryan's ears. Both ears were infected when we went in, which helped validate my decision to get it done. He did really well, though he did NOT like coming out of the anesthesia. And just this week he's started to make noises that sound like words, instead of just yells. Now I'll share a few pictures to help get your mind off poop.

Alexis and some friends twirling in skirts from the Church History Museum

Tyler and his best bud, Josh, doing their best to break this sound board

Playing at cousin's house

Pushing stuff around in cousin's backyard

Jeremy sunk that thing good!

don't feel sorry for him, he's okay with it

Just like being the oldest, there are advantages and disadvantages to being the youngest kid in the family.

Advantages: There's plenty of entertainment if mom's too busy to play with you, there are more people in the family that dote on you and constantly tell you how cute you are, you learn patience at a very young age, and mom and dad are a little more relaxed into parenthood by the time you come along.

Disadvantages: Why dwell on the negatives? All I'll say is, I'm pretty sure when Alexis was a baby she never had a sticker stuck to her forehead for several hours because some kid stuck it there and then mom was too busy to take it off.


I'm thinking of creating a special folder in my pictures file entitled "You can tell I have older siblings...". This picture could also go in there.



(In case you were wondering, I did jinx myself by going on and on about Ryan sleeping well. A few days after writing that he developed croup and hasn't slept well ever since. I think he's finally starting to get over it, but I'm not going to talk about that at all. I've learned my lesson.)