Thanksgiving Jar

Our family did a Thankful Jar this year. We had one week to fill the jar with tiny peices of thanksgiving papers.

Our List:
yummy food
princess guitar
lincoln
snow
my wife
michelle
miss. colburn
food
friends
grandma
kian
chocolate banana shake
our house
nathan
tv
ensign
volleyball
spiderman game
massages
homework
guitars
learning the piano
macaroni and cheese
chapstick
the weather
sleep
go diego go
thankful jar
mommy
mommy and daddy
medicine
music
my husband
kristen chenowyth
savannah and ellie
drinks
monster trucks
the friend
my chitlins
home
temple
princesses
hearts
music
friends
church
kian
days off
pie
family
candies
lincoln
flowers
food
a job
leapfrog
me
auntie lissa
daddy
popovers
prayer
emily
sleep
cooking
mommy and daddy
toys
the dishwasher
michelle
cars
animals and wall stickers
the heater
mommy
homework
michelle's smile
kian
mariokart
kian
family
soup and tv
daddy
hugs

My Day

I'm writing this post for my own record. So when my kids are grown and I look back and wonder what I did with myself, I'll know.

6AM - awake with Lster, read books
6:15 - Mster wakes up, continue to read but add in a game they are making with the reading
6:30 - Kster wakes up, nurse
6:40-7:15 - feed all three breakfast, empty dishwasher, make Msters lunch, make dough for bread, clean kitchen
7:15- Family scriptures
7:20 - get Kster and I dressed
7:25 - get kids in car to take Mster to school
7:26 - knock at the door from roofers who need me to move the cars
7:30 - leave to drive Mster to school
7:35 - watch kids play "sweet ol' tag" with Msters classmates while they wait for the doors to open
7:50 - eat breakfast, feed Kster a snack, put in a load of laundry, clean basement bedroom, teach Lster the new wii game, roll out dough for bread
9AM - put Kster down for a nap in basement bedroom because roofers are really really loud
9:15 - exercise
9:55 - shower
10:05 - forget to put bread in oven, race to get it in. finish getting ready, check email.
10:15 - get a snack for Lster and get him ready for swim lessons
10:30 - wake up Kster
10:35 - take bread out of oven (pray its done)
11:00 - swimming lessons for Lster, I walk with Kster who wants to practise walking all around the pool over and over again.
11:40 - 12:35 - help Lster after swimming, go pick up coupons, get home
12:35 - lunch, check email, get canning stuff together, switch laundry around
1:00 - go to friends house to can peaches (1st time for both of us)
2:55 - realize we are not going to finish before I have to pick up Mster from school, realize I need to clean my friends bathroom and change a certain boy of mine before we can get Mster from school.
3:00 - race home to make the change
3:10 - leave to pick up Mster
3:20 pick up Mster
3:30 - get kids a snack, bathe Kster and Lster, switch laundry around
4:00 - leave for Msters gymnastics
4:15-4:30 - participate in parent involvement portion of gymnastics (struggle with Kster who just wants to crawl all over the equipment)
4:30 - 5:00 - Costco trip
5:00-5:15 - back at gym, helping Lster with schoolwork, try and watch Mster, keep Kster away from the water fountain
5:30-6:00 - make and eat dinner, get Mster started on homework
6:00 - get tired of Kster screaming put him to bed (note: no afternoon nap)
6:20 - help Mster with homework, clean kitchen from dinner
6:45 - FHE, and bedtime for kids
7:00-bed - paperwork and some tv and folding 3 loads of laundry

Things I'm Thinking About

Thing I'm Thinking About...in no particular order

Healthy eating
Exercise
Educating Lster
Getting Kster to nap
Spending time with Mster
Hair accessories
Learning piano
Practising piano
Budgeting
Shopping responsibly
Cleaning my house
Christmas presents
Being an Aunt
Being a fun Aunt
When my Amazon present from Mothers day is going to get here

Pretend Play

Mster: Are you coming swimming today?
Lster: No. My mom said no.
Mster: I thought your mom was dead.
Lster: Wait...you're right...she is...I can come.

We're starting to eat real food again

I've been on a little bit of a kick lately. After Kster was born I was in survival mode and dinner was whatever I had that I could make in just a few minutes at the last minute. But now things are starting to go back to normal and we are actually cooking again.

Last week we ate a meal everyday of the week.

Sunday - Short Rib burritos
Monday - Almond crusted Tilapia, mashed potatos and pineapple
Tuesday - Green eggs and Ham
Wednesday - Chicken Penne
Thursday - Chicken, potatos and salad
Friday - Sloppy Joes
Saturday - date night
Sunday - Homemade spaghetti and meatballs (incl. homemade spaghetti)
Monday - nacho mountains
Tuesday - oven baked fish and salad

I oftentimes had dinner all ready prepped and Cster came home and just finshed it off or made the whole thing. Is been great. Its workng.

I'm also posting this because we are having visitors this weekend and already we are planning pizza and going out so I just wanted to remind myself that we are doing good.

Its not always trying

I just wanted to write that my life is not always trying. So, this is me acknowledging that I have good days. I just don't want my mark in the world to be me griping about how life is hard, because there are moments in life which make life really great. Its those moments that often get lost in the day to day of motherhood.

One Pound

Some weeks are more trying then others. I decided to write down a couple of memories of this past week. There are some good times and bad times. Its been a bit of a long week.

1. My children played a game where their bedroom was full of hot lava and they were on fire and had to get out. (I swear they haven't been watching the news)

2. We spent the weekend drawing with markers. I originally had let the kids use the markers whenever they wanted but got very tired of giving timeouts for inappropriate marker use. I brought them out this weekend after a long hiatus to a supervised marker time. Lster drew a picture of his family and then proclaimed "This s me when I was daddy and you were in my tummy."

3. Kster moved from a tummy position to a sitting position after attempting to crawl.

4. Kster decided he didnt like egg yolk so I mashed it into a banana and he ate it fine.

5. In the car, Lster asked me to let him know when we were going to get to a red light so he could eat his booger. Then immediately told me to "nevermind".

6. I asked Mster if she could pick out every food that was in her dinner...and she did it. We had a baked ziti (with penne noodles). She picked out celery, spinach, meat, noodles, sauce (made with tomatos). She did miss the 1/2 cup of cauliflower puree that I added to the sauce.

7. Lster got croup

8. Lster swallowed a penny.

9. Cster went to St Louis for 6 days.

10. Mster decided to wash the table with a green cloth. She picked a green cloth because it was Lsters favorite color and he would be really upset if she got something green dirty. (that was pretty indicative of how the 2 got a long all week.)

11. Mster got her finger stuck in a hole in her car seat. It required a very nice neighbor who coaxed her fr 10 minutes to wiggle it out whilst she screamed bloody murder.

12. I finally figure out that when Lster asks if I want him to try to go to the bathroom the answer is no, I want him to go to the bathroom.

13. Bedtime got pushed back an hour...permanently.

14. The kids divised a game where Lsters clothes had to go to jail. These would be the clothes he was wearing.

15. I got put on antibiotics that make me have a constant headache, no desire to eat and big desire to vomit.

16. I deep cleaned the entire upstairs of the house and 1/2 the main floor.

And after this entire week of craziness, I stepped on the scale this morning and had lost 1 pound. Sometimes its the little things that we have to give thanks for. I could have gained a pound this week.

Lster writes

Here is some of Lster's chalk writing.

He wrote "walk", "hop" and "jump"

pajama fun

Lster why are your pants inside out? - Me

Because I couldn't get them inside in. - Lster

I love Lster's randomness

Mster and Lster are playing school.

He just wrote out the alphabet. Here's how it goes.

Me: ABCDEFGHI "Hey Lster, what's this you wrote next?"

Lster: Its a funny boot. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I Can't Do it All

My house is rarely ever clean. And by rarely I mean there has never been a time except when we did a walk thru when we first move in that every room in the house was spotless.

The problem is that I always get distracted by motherhood. Like as I type this Mster is lying on the couch battling death and asking me to read her stories and Lster is climbing off the couch head first begging me to "pull (him) up". FTR I've read lots of stories today and already pulled him up numerous times. Kster's finally asleep with his second nap. For his first nap I spent the entire time playing games and then doing science experiments with both of them.

So I just don't know how to do it all.

I wake up in the morning with great ideas of what I will accomplish housewise but the list is never done.

One morning this week I sat down for my 5 minute breakfast and was just about to get up and fold laundry for Kster's nap when Lster asked me to play flash cards with him. Lately he has been obsessed with learning. Its a good thing. Its a great thing. I have never been one to force learning on my kids. They just beg for it. I don't buy flash cards. Stuff like that just falls into our hands. These flash cards were a part of Mster's Valentine's Day cards from kids in her class and Lster loves them. (sidenote they are princess cards which makes me kind of laugh). So we sat down with our beans and practised adding and subtracting. He's been trying to figure it out for a few weeks now but it hasn't sunk in. This week it sunk in. He figured out how to add/subtract 0 and 1 and he learned how to add doubles (3+3, 5+5). FTR...he's 3. He's not even 3 1/2. And I just don't know what to do with him but hang out with him and keep teaching him stuff. But that means that my laundry area is perpetually covered in clothes. The bathrooms are not cleaned as much as they need to be and I often forget to think about dinner till 5pm.

I know that a perfect house is not important but I just haven't figured out the balance. Like how dirty is it okay to leave my house? or how many days in a row can I forget to cook dinner? or how often do I need to change my clothes when I get spit up on at least 6 times a day and so walk around the world with perpetual puke on my shoulder and leg.

And so my house will never be perfectly clean. It will not only never be perfectly clean, there wil always be a room that is in desperate need of cleaning. But my family is happy. My kids are polite, intelligent, funny, well rounded (but not perfect by any means and I can guarantee I'm ready to explode between 4-5pm everyday - that's another post) and that's what being a mom's about.

The Valentine Weekend Read-a-Thon

Its Scholastic Book Fair time at Msters school. Normally, I'm generally frustrated with all the fundraising that goes on throughout the school year. For the most part fundraising through the school envolves one of these principles:

1. Get the kids super hyped to sell a bunch of junk to their friends/family in the hopes up winning prizes.

2. Get the kids to buy crap at a ridiculous price to give to other people as "presents".

3. Sell crap at a ridiculous price.

But this post isn't about fundraising...its about the Book Fair (another attempt at fundraising which I've decided to support. Books are not crap.) As part of the hoorah of the event the students are invited to participate in a Read-a-Thon. Students from each grade are competing with each other to see how many books they can read in a certain amount of time. The winner of each grade gets to have ice cream with the principal. Mster thought this was a pretty cool idea so I decided to go all out and help her win.

Over the past 2 weeks we've gone to the library twice (we used to go weekly but we've been slacking) and took out loads of books. After we read them all and there was just the weekend left I started to think of ways to encourage reading and not have to check out the entire library. That's when I came up with the idea of reading all of our kids books in one weekend. I wasn't sure we could do it but I figured it was worth a try. Mster was excited. It seemed like a great idea.

And we had a super fun weekend reading. There was fort building, hot chocolate drinking, popcorn popping, Olympic breaks, pizza dinners, and all in all we read 147 books over the 2 week period (probably 110 of them this weekend). We didn't read all of our books. We probably still have 30 more to go but I'm pretty proud of us. Nobody said "I don't want to read anymore". They just kept listening to the stories and Mster even read a dozen or so books herself. I told her if she wanted to count board/easy books she had to read them herself.

And so the weekend o' reading fun is done but what I think is awesome is that winning the competition will just be icing on the cake because we truly had a great time. The house is trashed beyond belief but we had a great time.

9 Days

Its been 9 days and I'm still sick. I'm done. Seriously. I feel like I haven't gotten a break.

Csters been super busy coaching a mock trial for high school students. He's been gone the last 2 saturdays and was gone 3 nights this week too. Thats leaving work to go straight to the events. 3 kids when you are sick, sucks. And then when the trial was finally all done yesterday and I was going to have my support back a stupid restaurant gave Cster food poisoning.

So I should probably stop whining now.

The good news is that Lster is well on his way to saying goodbye to diapers. This is VERY exciting news. Being home all week has been good for something. :)

Sick Little Baby

It seems that I have a head cold. It sucks. At the same time I was getting my head/chest cold Mster and Lster decided to get the stomach flu and couldn't keep anything down. They are done and healthy but I, sadly, am still living in a big daze.

What is super sad is that I seem to have infected my sweet Kster. Everytime he coughs (and its a yucky cough we have) he gives off this little pouty face and cry and looks at me in a way that says..."why, mama, why." I feel the same way when I cough. But with him it makes me sad.

Today I am finally feeling like I can get vertical after an almost full day of horizontal yesterday. Part of this is because poor Kster is sleeping. Yesterday he took a 3+ hr nap and last night he slept for 12 1/2 hrs without a feeding. I woke up at 4am and had trouble getting back to sleep but that was still 6 hrs straight sleep. I finally did get back to sleep for another hour and was ready to get my baby when he woke up at 5:30AM. It may seem early to you but 6hr of uninterrupted sleep was heaven.

He has already woken up from his morning nap and it was only just over an hr so I'm not sure we'll get a repeat tonight.

But until then...6hr!!!!

(he has slept for more than 6 hr before I just was poor at timing it with my sleeping. I put him to bed at 5pm, because that's when he wanted to go, and then I went to bed between 10-11 and he woke up at 1AM for a feeding. My issues of late with his getting up was that they were even more frequent than the 1AM feeding. A 12 hr stretch is exactly what I need :) )

Sleep, Precious Sleep!

After much training, my 2 older kids are great sleepers. They sleep 12 hrs a night, well probably closer to 11-11.5hr and are happy and smart and yeah for them...

But they had a heck of a time getting to that stage. And Kster seems to be heading in the same direction.

I think I jinxed myself when I kept telling everybody he was my best sleeper. But he was. He once slept for 11 hrs. Unheard of in my other two at the same age. But mostly he would sleep for 8-10 hrs, eat and then go back to sleep for 4-2 hrs to make it 12 hrs.

And then Christmas happened and we went to family and he was up all the time eating and eating and eating and I finally gave him cereal (far earlier than my other ones because I figured he must be hungry). He eats it and loves it and we were doing better for awhile but now we're back to very frequent wake ups. My problem is...Kster sleeps on his tummy and has since he was born. He recently figured out how to roll from his tummy to his back and likes to wake up, roll over, realize he doesn't like being on his back, get stuck and scream till I go in there. He hasn't developped the roll from front to back skill which is much harder (musclewise) and usually happens at 7/8 months.

So I'm left trying to figure out what to do. I can just let him try and figure out how to sleep on his back (but I did try one night to let him cry and he bellowed for 90 minutes straight. When I went in he was on his back. It was the first time it happened). or I can wait it out till he can roll himself back.

In the long run it doesn't seem like a few months is a big deal but I need sleep. I like sleep. I don't like to get up repeatedly to soothe a baby back to sleep only to have him wake up again 2-3 hrs later.

I like sleep. I look at some of the older ladies that go to my church who have older kids (and no babies) and I think to myself that that will be me one day. Sleeping whenever I want....

And on a side sleeping note - I do find the fact that I am even debating what to do with Kster funny because anybody that knows me knows that I am a strict mom when it comes to sleeping. Let them cry. Make them go to bed and stop coddling in the middle of the night. I've helped numerous moms in the past, which I say this not to brag but to reiterate that I have very strong feelings about this, which is why my debate is so odd. I guess I just feel that its not right to make him be on his back, crying when he is physically incapable of fixing himself. It doesn't seem fair. Make a child learn to sleep but make sure he has the tools to actually accomplish the task.

And now I'm rambling.

Maybe this will be funny at a later date

So today Lster has interrupted the napping process for Kster, on both occasions. I'm not really happy about it. I now have a tired, cranky baby who wants to be held and I need to figure out what to do with him. Do I just throw him in his crib and hope he cries himself to sleep or have a ridiculously early bedtime which means he won't sleep in which means I won't sleep in tomorrow morning and probably will get up extra early.

In the midst of all this Lster had 2 moments which will probably be funny when I'm old and gray.

Me: Lster it smells. Did you poop?
Lster: Nope
Me: Don't lie to me. You did. Did you poop in the car or while doing a puzzle? (I'm trying to get him to recognize when he is doing it in hopes of getting him to recognize that he needs to and will not go in a diaper)
Lster: I didn't poop.
Me: Well then what smells really bad? (by this time I've checked and he's clear)
Lster: Maybe its you. Maybe you should check your bum.
Me: Really? You think its me?
Lster: Yep...its you.
Me: I don't know. I'll take a shower in a bit, I guess.
Lster: Okay...you should take a shower.

5 minutes past.

Me: Lster it really smells. Are you sure you don't have to poop?
Lster: I didn't go poop
Me: Get over here again. I'm going to check again. (This time he was not in the clear)

What is slightly humorous about this is that he actually had me believing that I was the one that smelled.

And second moment...

After being really upset about the meltdown that caused Kster not to sleep, I decided to have a serious talk to Lster about the importance of Kster's naps and the importance of letting me put him down and not interrupting the process. He took that moment to interrupt me with a burst out laughter and the exclamation that he farted.

Lunch

Today I asked the kids what they wanted for lunch. One picked peanut butter sandwiches and one picked Mac N Cheese. I told them I was not making their own lunch each and that they had to go away and decide amoungst themselves what we were having.

They came back with this idea:

They would each have a peanut butter sandwich while they waited for the Mac N Cheese to cook.

Whats going on in my life?

Organizing House - I am determined to get my house in order. I am exhorting all of my family members to hold on tightly to all that they hold dear because there is a lot of purging going on.

Exercise - After enjoying p90x, Cster bought me Insanity for Christmas. I am really, really enjoying the workouts. They do not kidd...it is INSANE!!

Mster - She's reading!!! Her teacher has given her a real book to try out and a spelling list. I always just thought Mster was just a smart little kid (which she is) but this week I realized that Msters a hard worker and really wants to do well. I love watching her work.

Lster - I'm just trying to control him and the Wii. I could not have done better at describing my interactions with Lster regarding the Wii any better than my friend. I'm excited for Lster to start at the Little Gym this week. He loves his friends and he'll have so much fun.

Kster - Kster is the one that is truly keeping me on my toes. He's such a good sleeper at night (knock on wood) but he does not want to nap. This leaves me with a bit of juggling to do during the day. But he has the best smile ever and he loves me (even if it is because I feed him). I think he's the best.

I've got other goals and activities that I'm working on that I may share in the future but I'm just really excited for this year. Its starting off a little chaotic as I try and get things in order but I just feel this is going to be a great year for our family.

Its not too late to get excited for 2010. In fact now that you've been in it for awhile it might be a good time to actually sit down and think about what you want for the year.

Why I love Mster!

Today on the way home from dance...

Mster: Did you notice that I was spending a bit of time with the a girl at the beginning of dance class today?
Me: I didn't. Why this girl?
Mster: Because this was her first time at dance and I really wanted to make her feel like she had a friend.

Leaving aside the fact that she shared her good deed of the day probably with the hopes of getting a pat on the back, I just think she's really great.

Oh my...

Overheard...

Lster: Mster. I want some almonds. Can you open some for me?
Mster: Well...I want you to practise.

Would you rather go to a birthday party or to the dentist?

Lster has a birthday party today. Mster has dentist appointment. They are both very excited.

Lster ran into the room at 6AM this morning shouting "Its a 6 on my clock. Lets go to the party."

Mster came in shortly later, dressed. When I asked why she exclaimed she was worried she would be late for the dentist. She is currently coloring a picture for her dentist and proclaiming that her teeth hurt...alot...so its really good that I got her an appointment. (FTR its a checkup and we've had no real mention of teeth hurting previously).

Its going to be a FUN day!!!

PS - I did eventually find the Christmas Spirit.

PPS - I've had a sore throat for over a week now. Its now travelling to the right side of my head towards my ear. That's bad, right?