She's still learning

Madison found the sunscreen and decided to help herself. It was bedtime, so it was pointless. 

Today she used the expensive face cream to lotion her entire body and she got into John's cologne and sprayed enough that you can smell her from across the apartment!

While writing this Madison got a Jocelyn bottle and filled it 7/8th full with formula powder. When John told her to stop she took off running to add water to it.

The other day Madison was "crying" and John asked her why she was crying. She immediately stopped looked at him and said: "that was my fake cry." She just fake cries so she can have what she wants she informed us. She's only two. Can you imagine what twelve is going to be like?

Friday night John and Alexis had the stomach flu. We each had about two and half hours of sleep. It was a a very long night for all of us needless to say. Alexis told me during one of her bouts of throwing up and she was a very brave little girl because she wasn't even crying! I concurred. Luckily we knew it would only be a 12 hour flu since Madison had it on Thursday. Madison however didn't wake us up after she'd lost her cookies multiple times in her bed, she just went back to sleep and told me in the morning. Crazy girl. She had it caked in her hair, all over her shirt, sheets, and comforter. BLAH.

Jocelyn likes to do what the big kids do. I found her in the kitchen the other day drawing her very own picture. She was so happy to be doing her own thing. She's learned how to stand up without holding onto anything, which means walking is right around the corner. AHH!

She has a vice grip like most little kids do, but it is usually my hair that is in her little fists. I'm ready to chop it all off so that I don't have to deal with it any more but John really likes my long hair. 

Drew has a new bike and he's terrified of riding it. We bought him a bike with training wheels so he'd give Madison the three wheeler. He's afraid of going too fast because he might fall. Too fast includes but is not limited to a normal persons walking speed, yes, you read that right. He prefers to walk his bike.

Alexis gave a talk in primary today. She was nervous, but she did really well. She read the talk all by herself and didn't want either of us to come up and help her. We were very proud. 

My three girls

Aren't they so cute?

Touring the floods

For my 29th birthday we took a couple of nice long walks to see the flooding throughout the Logan area. The kids loved getting out and stretching their legs - it's been nasty weather for too long! It was a great birthday - we relaxed and enjoyed doing nothing all day!! What is better than being with your family and not having any fights?
John also got me a house for my birthday! Hooray! It's only three doors down from where we are currently at. It's not officially ours yet, but it is under contract and by the end of June we should be completely done and able to move in!! Such a great gift. Next year I'm expecting a beach house in Florida!! ;)

Flooding 2011

 At the beginning.

 During the flooding.

 After.

 This is just east of the bridge pictured above. The sand wall they built didn't hold in the flooding at all.

 After the flooding. It washed away about 5 feet of road on the side.

 This was at the beginning of the flooding.

This is the same spot, but the banks caved in and the river flooded the pastures.

We talked to a nice guy who was watching the flooding who has lived here for the last 60 years. He said that this is the most excitement that this town has seen! Even the flooding of '83 and '84 didn't do this much damage.

Frog feet

How do you like my new shoes? Alexis thinks they make me look like I have frog feet!

They are super comfortable and really light which makes them great running shoes. I don't know if you can call what I do running, but maybe one day I can say I run.

Finishing swimming lessons

The kids finished their swimming lessons. Although none of them can float or swim, swimming lessons are over for the year. They all LOVED taking lesson and their teacher, Alyson. It was nice to have 40 minutes twice a week to only have one kid to entertain!

Jocelyn - 9 months already

My baby is getting so big!!

On March 23rd she started crawling, one day before she was eight months old!

She still has no teeth - which isn't surprising for our kids.

She LOVES to be outside and cries and cries until we take her out.

She loves to crawl around the house and find things she shouldn't be into, ie chalk, markers, barbies, etc.

She's our only brown eyed child, amazingly! My parents say that she looks just like I did as a baby - man was I cute! I think she looks just like the other two girls, she has darker coloring than they did though.

The kids love to hold her and play with her. When they do hold her she usually ends up crying, but the kids think it's cute when she cries so they don't mind, or so they say.

She's figured out that mamamama gets mom and dadadadada will get daddy! She likes to feed herself, can we say independent? She thinks that she can walk and she would take a step to start going and fall flat on  her face. She's quit trying to take steps while not holding onto something, but it's coming and I'm not ready.

Some days she's a great sleeper and you can just put her down and she'll asleep on her own, other days she screams and screams until we play the ant smasher game on the phone. The sound of the squishing bugs puts her to sleep within five minutes usually!

At her nine month appointment her stats were:

weight 16.25 pounds = 10%

length 27.5 in = 49%

head 17.2 in = 45%

In other words, she's tiny, not a surprise for us again.

Date night :-)

I put my phone in the middle pocket of this dress and it looks funky in this picture!

For our 7th anniversary John, Jocelyn and I went to the driving range and hit a bucket of balls. I had never done actual golfing, only miniature golfing and I discovered it is nothing like the real thing.

After golfing we went to Texas Roadhouse because neither of us had been there and we'd heard good things about it. John likes it, I was not impressed; I prefer Outback or Ruby River. 

To finish up we went for a nice walk along the Logan River Walk and went at our own pace - it was heavenly. 

Overall, we had a great date - our first one in a year, seriously - and we've decided to go on another date sooner rather than later. It helps that we found a babysitter that the kids LOVE and that we trust. The kids are already asking when they can have their babysitter back!

Bug Hunt

 How cute is this picture? Jocelyn was so happy to be outside and having fun; she's an outdoor baby already!

 Easter weekend we asked the kids if they wanted to go to an Easter Egg hunt or if they wanted to go to a bug hunt that was going on. They didn't take any time in deciding! They were so excited to go and find some cool bugs and boy did they ever find some cool ones. They had all sorts of bugs from spiders to grubs and flies and larva of different sorts.

 Madison was much more excited to eat the cookies that they had provided; she ate four of them!

Daddy helped find some of the bugs and hurt in finger in the process. He got a bunch of dead tree trunk rammed up inside of his fingernail. It took a good week for it to feel better.

One tooth down

We put the kids to bed on the 18th and Alexis came wandering out of her room an hour later to tell us that her tooth was really, really loose. She wanted to know if I could pull it out. I wasn't about to pull it out for her, if it hurt I would never have heard the end of it. I told her to twist it all the way around and see what happened. She got the tooth to pop out and she was so excited. Her new tooth is already starting to appear! The tooth fairy left her a lip gloss - just what she wanted. She was so excited that the tooth fairy knew exactly what she wanted without being told!! Way to go tooth fairy!

We're still having fun

I turned around to see Madison holding my cookie cupcakes that were in the oven. Yes, she pulled them out of the oven by herself with the rags. Lest you think I'm an awful parent, I had turned the oven off and the pan was cool. She however didn't know that, hence the rags. 

The other day Madison walked into the front room and told me to smell her underwear that she was holding. I realized, before smelling them, that she had peed them. Usually when she pees her underwear it is a little bit. I told her to put them in the laundry room and to get some new underwear. A few minutes later she comes back with her fingers held at a funny angle and proceeds to tell me that she has poop on them and can't get it off. I ushered her to the bathroom and put her in the shower. As I was rounding up her clothes and some lotion I saw the pee puddle that covered half the bathroom floor right before I stepped into it. While running back and forth between the two bathrooms I kept smelling poop. I'd flushed the toilet and Madison was in the shower so I couldn't figure out where the smell was coming from. It was then that I realized that she had smeared her poop on the wall. Yep, that's right, on my wall. The best part is that we were trying to get ready to leave for a young mens spaghetti dinner. John was at the church helping get everything cooked and ready so I was on my own. Thankfully he came home right after I discovered the smear and he cleaned it up! Hooray for amazing husbands!

While sitting at the dinner table Drew started whining that he had boogers. I told him to wipe them, I figured since he had a napkin right in front of him it was fairly obvious what he should do. Drew's response was comically disgusting at best. He said: "I don't have a shirt on, I can't wipe them!" Yep, that's my boy!

Alexis has Kindergarten graduation coming up and one of the songs they are doing is Three little monkeys teasing Mr. alligator. The other Kindergarten teachers name is Mrs. Allgood. John started calling the alligator Mrs. Alligooder. Alexis found this hysterically funny, she nearly snorted spaghetti through her nose. She doesn't dare sing it to Mrs. Allgood, but she likes it when we sing it around the house.

Jocelyn is a crawling maniac. She started crawling her very last day of being 7 months! She's been scooting around and getting into all sorts of things. She thought that she could walk for a week or so. Falling flat on her face multiple times seems to have cured that. She does "walk" when holding onto things and it's just a matter of time before she is a walking demon! She is a water baby through and through. She loves baths and showers and cries whenever she hears the water going and isn't in it!

Happy Easter

 Does someone look a little tired to you?

This year the Easter Bunny hid the kids' baskets and left clues around the house for them to follow. The kids loved having to look for their baskets. Alexis informed us that it was the worst Easter ever because we didn't decorate for it or have Easter pictures to color. John and I thought that it was a pretty great Easter, relaxing and lots of time with the kids just having fun. Maybe next time we'll get it right and have more Easter stuff for them.

Happy 6th Birthday Alexis

 Alexis turned six on the 6th! If you ask her she'll tell you that she still feels like she's 5. 

Alexis requested a pineapple upside down cake for her actual birthday cake, hence the no frosting.

 When we told her to pose for a birthday picture she had fun! 

 For her birthday party we invited ALL 25 of her classmates to a party. We had 13 of them show up!

Alexis requested a flower and animal birthday party. We had tarantula and flower cupcakes. We played a bean bag toss that all the kids loved. They would cheer each time someone made it in and ahh every time someone missed. They played pin the crown on the frog which was also a hit, they all took multiple turns. When it finally stopped raining, the kids went running outside. They had sack races and went nuts with the big swing in the back yard. Many of the kids didn't want to leave when it was time because they wanted to keep playing on the swings.

 All the kids waiting their turn for the bean bag toss.

 Opening gifts was a joke. They were all handing their gift and some were yelling out what they brought before she could open the gift because they were so excited!

John was the "timing referee". Because everyone loved the swings so much John had to yell switch every couple of minutes so that everyone would get a turn. Some didn't want in the swings, they preferred to run and then be drug by the swings. I'm pretty sure some parents were cursing my name when they saw the grass stains on their kids' clothes!