4.9.10

...John has taken a real interest in picking dandelions. Well, the day after Jacob got back from his trip to St. Louis he got off of work 3 hrs early. Since I was taking care of Maggie, Jacob decided to take John for a scooter ride around the neighborhood. On their way back John picked a dandelion and informed me, "I found candylions all over the where." :O)

February 25th - March 22nd

The weather has been cycling between nice and nasty for at least a week now. We got about 3 or 4 inches of snow and it was so cold and wet, we just didn’t go anywhere except to get the kids to and from school. It was kind of weird though because we’d just had a really nice 70-degree day before we got the storm (Friday 3/19)! Today (3/21) it was almost in the 60’s and tomorrow it’s supposed to be about 64-degrees. Then after that we drop down into the 30’s again and get more rain and snow. Darn it! :O(

So, what we’ve been up to in the last month… The Thursday after my last post (25^th February) Anna went to her Schools Skate City Night. She had a blast and has been begging to go back ever since. David decided about half an hour after the party started that he wanted to go; we had originally asked him and he said ‘no’ so we wouldn’t let him go and he pretty much threw a fit for the rest of the evening; we didn’t change our minds. We are thinking of doing Anna's 10th Birthday Party at Skate City, at least it's an idea on the table right now.

Every Friday since February 5^th, my friend Carley and her kids come over and hang out till like 5 or 6 in the evening. It’s lots of fun and I look forward to that every week!!!

Jacob had his last Role playing game with his guy friends on Saturday (2/27). They are taking a 3-month or more break due to different work/personal conflicts. Jacob isn’t too happy about it because he really wants to play and our friends the LeBleu’s are too busy with work to be able to play with us lately either! :O(

On Sunday the 28^th we hosted a Foosball Tournament at our house. Two of our closest friends and their families came and a guy, Jacob knows from work, and his family came too! They left earlier than everyone else, but I think we all had a good time!

On March 2^nd I finally got a hair cut! I had been contemplating doing it for ages and finally just went and did it; I got a slightly longer pixie cut. However I noticed that evening that my do was lopsided. I thought I could just wash it and it would fix the problem, but it didn't work, so I had to go back in next morning and get it fixed; Fortunately they were able to get me right in. It still hasn’t been cooperating very well (both sides don’t do the same thing) so I have to fudge with it and have cut it on each side a couple different times to try and get each side to do the same thing. One of these days it might do what I want! ;O)

On the 3^rd my friend Carley watched the boys so that I could go and get my eyes checked! I had been wearing contacts for almost a month and was getting really sick of it, so now I have contacts. However, they aren’t cooperating either because my eyes just don’t want to stay moist enough to focus. I’m not sure what is wrong with them? I probably should go back and have the doctor take a look at them to see what’s going on!

Later that afternoon I went out to a movie with my girlfriends. I think we went and watched “It’s Complicated”. It was funny, but not morally sound!

The next week on Monday (8^th) and Thursday (11^th) I had my friend Athena and her son, Hale, over. I haven’t been able to hang with her very often, she’s always so busy and she’s only going to get busier because she’s scheduled to be induced to have her baby this coming Thursday (25^th). Actually on Thursday I ended up watching Hale for about an hour while she went to a meeting, then came over and hung out till it was time for David to go to school. She stayed that long both days then took him to school for me. That was really nice cause then I was able to just feed Maggie and put her down for a nap and not have to worry about waiting till after I took David to school. Anyway, we had a good visit and got all caught up. :O)

On Tuesday the 9^th, Maggie turned 6 months! She was 14 lbs 9 oz. and 27” tall. She has put on almost 8 lbs and 7 inches in 6 months. Jacob took the day off because I had a doctor’s appointment earlier in the morning and then took Maggie to hers. He stayed home with the kids in the morning for me, and then watched the boys while I took Maggie in at 10. She got more shots and was pretty out of it for quite awhile after. Shots take so much out of babies! We also got a couple chores/errands done that we’d been wanting to get done, but don’t have the time to do on a regular work day. Jacob hung some blinds for me in the family room so that I don’t get blinded by the sun in the mornings. The sun rises on the back of the house and can have some pretty killer rays in the morning.

On the 12^th I went in for a doctors appointment to get my ankle checked out. It had been hurting me for two weeks and was only getting worse so I finally decided to go in. My doctor was baffled by my descriptions; she had no idea what was wrong. She ordered an x-ray, which I got later that afternoon. Her recommendations were 800 mg ibprophen 3 times a day, wrap, and elevate it, plus I’m supposed to try and stay off it as much as possible, which is pretty impossible with 4 kids! So it’s not getting much better and has actually been hurting a bit more off and on depending on how much I use it. My x-ray came back normal, so now my doctor says that she’ll order anything I want: therapy or an Ortho consult, etc. I’m not sure what to do, but all I know is that it isn’t getting better and I really need to work out or I’m not going to be losing any more weight any time soon!

Speaking of which, I’ve been doing Weight Watcher’s since January 24^th. As of March 13^th, 7 weeks on Weight Watcher’s, I have lost 15 lbs. However, since I haven’t been able to really work out the last two weeks, due to my ankle, I didn’t lose anything last week. This week, though, I’m determined to get some workouts in even if it’s just strength training. It’s really hard to do cardio if you can’t use your legs!!!

I got my brother to join me on the Weight Watcher’s life style change! He’s lost over 5lbs in two weeks, so he’s doing really well too!!! :O)

On Sunday the 14^th, after Church, we went to the Castle Rock Outlets. We spent at least 2 hrs walking around and checking out shops. That was fun, but a really bad idea cause my ankle was killing me afterwards!!! The rest of this week we haven’t been up to much! I’ve been trying to take it easy and stay off my ankle, but I still have to get things done around the house.

In the mail on Friday (3/19) I got a postcard stating that a JoAnne Fabric Store in Denver is going out of business. So Saturday morning (20th) Anna and I went to check it out. It was pretty disappointing, so we left about 15 min after arriving. From there we went to the ARC Thrift Store over by us to check things out (they are pretty much 50% off most items every Saturday). I got some Easter outfits or the making of Outfits for Anna, John, and Maggie. Anna's in particular was the best deal! It was marked for $2.99 and 50% off, so only $1.50. It had a minor stain on the front, which I didn't notice till the people and the front started freaking out about the price on the dress. They called someone from the back who then took it to the back to talk to another associate. Turns out that that particular dress had just been brought back the previous day due to the (minor) stains on the front and was originally marked $16.99. The lady who accepted the dress back put a lower price on the dress, but not the $2.99 tag. After all was discussed they finally gave me the dress for the price on the current tag, $2.99 and 50% off! $1.50 SCORE!!! The dresses label said 'Dry Clean Only', but I've been having some pretty good success with running stuff in the washer on the 'Delicate Cycle' then low or air drying them. So I used some Zout (my favorite stain cleaner) and about 2 hrs later the dress was as good as new!!! :O) I also picked up an Easter dress for Maggie and a vest and dress pants for John...now I just need to find something for David!

This week is going to be a little busier… I'll write more about that later!!! :O)

Conversations with the Boys :O)

***March 6th, 2010 ...Between John and Mom (Me) talking about his doll Theodore, whom he brought with him to see Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakqual...

"I don't want it," John exclaimed. "It's all yucky cause Anna kissed it."

"Will it be alright if Mommy kisses it? I asked.

"No." he replied. "Then it will be all yucky again!"

***March 10th, 2010 ...We were on our way to the airport to go and see Jacobs Mom Vonnie and the kids were being really noisy, especially Anna. I told them to be quite, but Anna persisted so I yelled back "Hey!"

Anna stopped.

Then David said, "Mom's watching you, she's always watching you!" (It's a modified quote from Monster Inc. to suit the situation.) :O)

***March 12th, 2010 ...Anna and David are always trying to outdo each other counting since David is learning in school. One day after school though David exclaimed proudly, "Dad, I counted all the way to infinity last night, and this morning!"

***Earlier this week, I'm not sure which day, I was going through sight word flash cards with David. We came to his name, 'David' he said it with a smile.

The next word was 'Riley'. He looked confused so I gave him a hint, "It's your middle name."

Then he exclaimed with an even bigger smile, "Spiderkid"! I started laughing. "That's not your middle name," I siad. "Your middle name is Riley. I named you that because it means 'Valiant', like a knight."

He looked so upset, "But Dad said that I could change my middle name to Spiderkid!" he protested.

...There was a bit more dialogue between us, but I found the whole conversation and his reaction so funny that I laughed for probably a whole 5 minutes or more and my eyes started watering I was laughing so hard. By the end David was laughing too! :O)

February 17th to the 23rd

February 17^th, 2010

Well, it’s been a bit longer than I expected to be writing again! It’s crazy how time flies; I can’t believe that February is more than half way over already! So, what’s been going on with us…

We’ve been working on and just finished (last night) Anna’s Science Fair Project! We did at least a full week of monitoring our squirrels eating different nuts we put out for them. We put out Spanish Peanuts, Virginia peanuts, almonds, and walnuts. We did a similar experiment last year with sunflower seeds, peanuts, and corn. The squirrels liked peanuts best, but this time around they liked almonds first, then walnuts, Spanish peanuts, and they’ve only really been eating the Virginia peanuts because there aren’t anymore of the other nuts. It was fun and we got Anna’s Project board done last night and she took it and last years board to school today. We’ll go to the Science Fair tomorrow night with a few extra props for display. (We have a plush squirrel and need to pick up a few of the different kinds of nuts that we used to display.) I think everyone had fun; we all participated in some way or another! :O)

On the 5^th Anna had her friend Carra over for a play date.Her mom, Carley, wanted to come over and see where we live so she’d know where to go in case of emergency. Carley walked over with her son Brandon and ended up staying the entire play date. We talked quite a bit and pretty much hit it off! She reminds me a lot of Sara in her personality and facial features. It’s pretty cool! They live just the other side of the school and are only about a 5 min speed walk from our house (as Carley put it the other day when they came over). We have gotten together quite a few times now. On the 6^th Carley, my friend Cindy and I went to a movie. So now I have a new friend and am really excited about it because she’s really fun to hang out with, plus Anna likes hanging out with Carra and Brandon plays video games with David.

February 21^st, 2010

On the 18^th was Anna’s Science Fair. We went and hung out for a bit and checked out other exhibits. One in particular that I liked was the one that they wanted to know if people could tell the difference between diet and regular root beer. They let people have samples and I knew the difference right off. I thought we should try something like that for Anna’s experiment next year, but this time instead of just two flavors we should try a whole bunch of different flavors. We’ll see though, her next project won’t be until next year this time, so we have some time to think about it!

Last week we had a pipe back up in the basement. There was about 1/2 to 3/4 inch of standing water on the floor in the laundry room. We had to have someone come and snake out our pipes. We also found out that our water heater was leaking and only working at 50% productivity. So not only did we get the snaking done, but we also got the water heater replaced. It’s going to use up almost all our refund money to cover this unexpected expense.Fortunately we have a credit card to cover it until the refund comes in! So in order to fix the pipe properly it will cost over $8000 or to just power wash the pipe will be a little over $4000.

We’ve started attending a couple new Church’s. We’ve gotten tired of people ignoring us at the other Church. They don’t have enough room for us in their lives, so we’re moving on trying to find another Church with people who want to be involved with us. So now we’ve been going to two different Church’s. The most recent Church is actually the one that Carley and her family have been going to since they got here about 9 months ago. It’s a really nice Church and the kids really like their classes. Actually Anna and David have both requested to go back which is rather unusual for them. They aren’t usually very excited about going to Church.

February 22^nd, 2010

Sorry about that…I keep starting this then get distracted with everything that’s going on around me!

Today after school we have Anna and David’s Parent/Teacher conferences.Jacob should be home about 3 and then we pretty much need to head out to their appointments. I don’t think we are going to have any problems with them; they are both doing really well! …Anna and David’s Parent/Teacher Conferences went well! Anna still needs to work a bit faster, but otherwise her work is done exceptionally well. David is doing much better with his numbers and reading.He isn’t a consistent reader, but he’s showed a great improvement. We’re working on sight words at home which will help more with his reading and he should be able to get through some beginning level reader book by the end of Kindergarten.

I’m trying to get some chores done today, laundry and just general cleaning. Speaking of which I need to go and check on the laundry real quick; I’ll be right back… Tomorrow is trash day so I have a temporary bag in the compactor right now so we don’t use up one of the expensive compactor bags for all the trash we collect today.

February 23^rd, 2010

Well, yesterday I did get some cleaning done. I’ve been really annoyed with how messy the playroom has been and since the kids don’t clean it very well or at all I decided to clean it myself; I even vacuumed. I’ve informed the boys that how clean the playroom is now is how clean I want it to be every night before the go to bed. We’ll see how long that lasts? :O)

So I also got a bunch of laundry done yesterday too! I only need to wash one more blanket and the whites and I’m done with laundry for a bit (though laundry is never ever really done). I also decided to go through my clothes and try and take out things that I don’t like or wear anymore; I’ve decided that as I lose weight and clothes don’t fit anymore that I’m just going to get rid of them so that I don’t have fat clothes sitting around saying “It’s okay for you to gain the weight back because you have your fat clothes to go back to.” I’ve also started Spring Cleaning a bit and really want to work more hard core on it, but don’t really have anywhere to store the stuff that I want to get rid of. I plan on having a garage sale in April or May some time to just get it out of the way. I don’t want to have the sale when our Community has it because that isn’t until the first weekend in August and it’s just way too hot to sit around then. I do go to the other sales though and I really like to shop the Ptarmigan Communities sale usually that same weekend too! :O)

So tomorrow I’m going to go to a movie with my girlfriends Cindy and Carley. We’re going to go and see “It’s Complicated” at the Cinema Grill and enjoy a yummy burger and fries (well at least that’s what I’m going to get).

A Little Update on Us

~January 29th, 2010

How are things for us?! Well...everyone is doing pretty well here. I'll start youngest and work myself up.

Maggie is growing every day and getting more and more interactive . At her 4 month visit she was almost 14 lbs. She's rolling over front to back and back to front, though not very often; It's mostly on accident. She's laughing more, she thinks everyone is funny, especially her sibs. She doesn't like to be in any one place for too long and she's just big enough to go in her jumperoo now, so I'll have to bring that downstairs here soon so that she can be upright and jump around while I'm doing chores or working with her brothers. She's moved on to 3-6 month clothes mostly and I think I need to put her back in size 2 diapers. She's had a bit of a cold here recently and is almost completely over her snuffles! Yay! :O)

I think Johns hair is getting darker. I just gave him a hair cut here in the last couple days and today I noticed while he was sitting in front of me that his hair seems darker (it wasn't wet). Maybe the darker hair is growing out as he gets older, everyone but him has some variation of dark brown hair, even Maggie. His hair is so fine though, I'm hoping that will thicken up one of these days too! John is really into kid movies right now. I usually sit him down to 2 or 3 Backyardigans or Diegos while I'm trying to get stuff done around the house. He also likes playing Legos with his older sibs and Lightening McQueen is still his favorite car. I'm not doing anything formally with him right now, though I'm trying to spend half an hour or so looking or reading through a book or two that he picks out; he really enjoys the flap books with hidden pictures underneath.

David is doing well in Kindergarten. Though there are days when he asks why he has to go back, though when he comes home he seems to have had a great time. David really enjoys video games, whether watching or playing. He's been playing Indiana Jones Legos 2 w/ Jacob occasionally and they are building some challenge levels for their characters to complete and having lots of fun doing it! David is getting better and better with his creativity every day; he comes up with stories almost as well as Anna does, if she'll let him. He has taken a better interest in drawing since we got a dry erase board for him and his writing isn't too bad for a Kindergartner who was never interested in writing or drawing before he went into Kindergarten. He's growing too and I think I'm going to have to get him some size 6 pants here soon cause his 5's are becoming high-waters and that drives me crazy!

Anna has a very unique fashion sense; she puts the oddest combination of clothing items together sometimes and it's hard to persuade her to change, so we usually just let her go with it (fortunately it doesn't happen very often). She's getting more and more into accessories and usually throws a bunch of jewelry on with scarves, hats, etc. Sometimes we have to make her tone down her choices to just one item to be presentable. :O) She's still brining home tons and tons of homework, which we need to talk to her teacher about yet again! They have way too much to do for a 4th grader, it's crazy! With as much homework as she has she doesn't have time to hardly do anything, but homework in an evening and that makes every one cranky! She's also having fun playing the Lego game with Jacob and David (it's only a 2 player game though).

I have been keeping busy! Having 4 kids makes ones life, really busy. Most of my time is spent taking care of all of Maggie's many, many needs right now, the rest of the families needs, my own and house work. I do have little bits of free time here and there, which I usually choose to spend on catching up on shows that I like to watch, while also catching up on Facebook. Though, last Saturday I joined Weight Watcher's in the hopes that I will start to lose weight! I have unfortunately gained all the weight I lost after Maggie was born and joining this program will hopefully help keep me motivated to stick to a more healthier (food related) life style. I've also been trying to work out as well, either using the treadmill or just this week I started doing one of my favorite workout videos. I will be attending meetings once a week to weigh in and get advice (tomorrow will be my second meeting; this time I'll be joining the 'Mom and Me' group designed specifically for mothers with kids). I can't do the 'Mom and Me' class, the boys are too noisy for the leader and it's too frustrating for me to try and keep them quite for the whole meeting, I can't pay attention. I've decided to do the early morning meeting on Saturday. I think they have a 7:15 meeting. I did weigh in at the meeting on Thursday. I had lost a little weight, hopefully I can keep that up! I worked out more this week than last week, hopefully working out more will help too!

~February 2nd~ Well, since Friday we've had a busy weekend. I went to a movie with Anna and my friend Cindy at the Cinema Grill, we watched "Twilight: New Moon" and I saved a bunch of points to be able to have a burger and fries and half a brownie sundae, which I shared with Anna.

We've been trying out a new Church lately. We've been three times now. We had attended our other Church for over 5 years and we are only close with 2 families, nobody else has the same interests as us or has any room for us in their lives so we are moving on, it's too frustrating! We haven't made any new friends at this other Church yet, but Jacob and I don't make friends very quickly. We made friends really quickly when we first went to our first Church because of Anna, she became friends with a boy and their family asked us out to lunch and we have been friends ever since. I'm thinking we are going to have to invite some people out to lunch to make friends or just get bolder. I told Jacob that we need to find a way to find friends like you'd use a dating service. Not sure why they don't have sites for that, you know, put your interests and morals out there and that matches you with other people with the same interests and morals as you! Oh and we also need to find people with our same sense of humor. That's gotten us in trouble with one family at our other Church. They just don't know use well enough or understand our humor so it came across offensive, oh well, I tried to work things out, but apparently they are still hurt...

We did a bit of running around Sunday evening. I wanted to go to a larger Target store to get some cuties (clementines) for the kids and some ruffle butt pants for Maggie that were on sale (so cute in a darker pink and navy). We also finished watching the Season 4 of Stargate SG1, which I need to give back to Cindy (we borrowed it from her, she has the whole series).

Little Update from December to January 19th

I started this letter the week I got back and then while cleaning up my desktop and then emptying my trash bin I accidentally got rid of the whole letter that I’d started (it was like two pages). I’ve been spending a lot of time with Jacob because he’s been getting home from work at 3pm. That’s about 15 min after the kids get home from school so we get to spend a lot more time together.

We had a great time visiting family and ended up staying on vacation longer than originally planned. We didn’t get home till the 2^nd of January. We stayed with Jacob’s mom Beth in Utah for three nights total, his mom Vonnie 3 nights, and then in Lewiston for 8 nights. We got to hang out with family quite a bit and took my family out for meals a couple times. The last day we were in town I took my Mom out for lunch before we left to head back home, John came with us.

We’ve changed a few of our nightly activities since we’ve been back. We are trying to eat dinner at the dinging room table every night, except for one night a week we do a movie night and have pizza in front of the TV. We’ve also started reading half an hour to 45 minutes with the kids before bed. We’ve finished a couple different books already! One book series in particular I decided to read ahead on because it’s so interesting; it’s about dragons. The kids really like them too! I’m actually on book 2 of the trilogy. (Finished book 2, waiting for book 3 to arrive in the mail any day now.)

Since we’ve been back we’ve been doing more and more laundry too. We are trying to potty train John and have had him in regular undies so we have to do a small load of soiled clothes each night. He just doesn’t seem to be interested in potty training at all! Plus I’ve had to do a bit more of my own laundries because I’m trying to work out a bit more and unfortunately I really sweat a lot when I work out!

On Wednesday the 13^th two of my girlfriends came over for a visit. I thought it was just going to be a chatting session, but turns out they were honoring my Birthday a day early. I got a gift card from each, Jill brought me my favorite cheesecake and Athena brought me some sunflowers and balloons, and a yummy soup and rolls for lunch. It was really nice to them!!! We had a good visit too, though it wasn’t long enough…

My Birthday was last Thursday the 14^th; I turned 31. Jacob took the day off and I got to do a bit of running around with him and the kids. We also went and got some Chinese take-home so that we could eat it more than once. It was really good! I didn’t get my Birthday dessert till Friday the 15^th when we took the kids to a movie at the Cinema Grill (it’s a discount theater here in town that serves meals while you watch a show); we watched "Planet 51".

Jacob only worked half a day on Friday then had Saturday through today off because of the Holiday. It’s been nice having him home so much!

Saturday the 16^th we went to the Denver Zoo. We got there about noon and stayed till a little after 3. We had debated trying out a new Church that evening when we got home, but decided against it and ended up watching our last disc of Psych Season 3. A little before 6 our doorbell went ‘dink’. We were really curious who would be coming by so late, we weren’t expecting anyone. Turns out that Jacob was scheduled to play his RPG with his guy friends and had totally forgotten about it (it wasn’t on the calendar). Fortunately the house wasn’t too messy and we were able to get most things picked up by the time everyone else arrived about half an hour later. Jacob ended up playing till after 10pm. He had lots of fun!

Yesterday I got Maggie some baby cereal and decided to see if she’d like it. She actually took it better than I thought she would. She even had some this evening while we were eating dinner and tried out baby applesauce too. The applesauce was too sour for her, she didn’t take it as well as the cereal. She’s getting much better with her eye hand coordination too and rolling over a bit more, though not very consistently.

Today I went out and did a bit of shopping with my friend Cindy. We were in Target for a really long time. We didn’t even notice how long we were there until I finally looked at my watch and realized that we’d been there for over and hour. We wrapped up our browsing and moved on to our next destination. We went to two more stores; which we were in and out of in less than 45 minutes. Pretty quick by our shopping standards! :O)

Anna went over to my friend Athena’s to play with her daughter for a couple hours shortly after I got back home.

~January 19^th

I’m trying to get some chores done today. It doesn’t look like I’ve really done anything around here, though I’ve done dishes, cleaned the kitchen, done laundry, organized the laundry room, and put baby clothes away (yesterday I stocked up on a bunch of clothes for Maggie for $1.75 and a few other items for under $3, score!).

Not sure what I’m going to make for dinner tonight. I have some hamburger thawing out, but I’m torn between a couple different meal ideas.

The kids are going to be out of school here in about 3 min. I have to go and meet them at the street in about ten minutes. Jacob won’t be getting off of work until 4:30 tonight since he stayed home this morning to watch the boys for me so I could go to a doctors appointment. He’s been getting home around 3 usually, which is really wonderful! He’ll be home the rest of the week at 3 though; no more doctors appointments this week, yay!

Well I’ve gotten the kids. For some reason they are taking 5 min longer to get to our street than they used to; I’ve told them they need to move faster. I’ve also decided that I’m going to make stroganoff over rice w/ green beans and corn for dinner; I’ll have to start that here in about 30 minutes or so.

Maggie is on her belly fussing, she doesn’t want to be there! I’m not sure why she just doesn’t just flip over, she knows how.

Anna is doing her homework finally. She decided to dress up and has procrastinated a bit too much. I’m not sure what all she is going to need to do today since she didn’t have school yesterday with the Holiday and all.

David has decided to sit and watch some talk shows with me. I just finished watching “The Bonnie Hunt Show” and now I’m watching “Rachael Ray”. He’s also playing with this little game right now and not really paying attention to the show.

John has for some reason decided to put on pjs. Whenever is just starts getting sort of dark out he thinks he needs to go and put his jammies on. It’s kind of overcast right now; it should be getting dark here in about an hour anyway. We aren’t going anywhere tonight so pjs are okay.

Jacob will be home in about 45 minutes. I need to go and get some laundry out of the drier and start dinner in a few minutes. I also need to take care of some kid issues.

An interesting quote from David age 4.

3/25/08 ~ "Wow, there are humans walking on the sidewalk!" :O)