The Lions!

Adam's soccer team this last year was the Lions. Their team cheer was a lion roar and it was so cute it see all the kids do the roar. Adam is an excellent little soccer player. He likes playing goalie like his dad and was disappointment that the kids don't play with goalies at this age. He was the team's top scorer but was also good to run back and play defense. This is him saying "YES" after scoring a goal.

Playing defense

Ready for the kick off with his friend Zach

GOOOOOOLLLLLL! Golazo! Golazo!

Adam liked having his soccer hair (a mohawk-David Beckham looking thing)

The Lions 2010-2011
Back Row, left to right: Coach David, Tyson, Justin, Tanner, Adam, Coach Shawn
Front row, left to right: Zach, Amber, Levi, Naleah

Zach, Adam, Levi
Friends from our old neighborhood

The Green Gators

Jacob's soccer team was the green gators. They had lots of returning players from last year plus some new ones. They are a really good team. Their record was 13-1. I'm not suppose to keep track. They lost their very first game last Fall and that was it. It was a lot of fun to watch them progress and put plays together. By Spring season there wasn't another team that could compete with them. Almost every game David had to tell his players to let the other team score at least one goal. The team hated that and Jacob use to tell me "You always say to try my hardest so why do I have to stop and let them score a goal!" This is why I like my kids involved in sports. There are so many life lessons to be learned in the sports arena. I agonized forever about putting Jacob at a soccer academy for next year but finally decided to stick with recreational soccer one more year and then perhaps put both Jacob and Adam at the academy.

This is Jacob's goal. You can't see Jacob because of the yellow players but you can see the ball. Jacob scored 2 goals his last game. Once the score was about 5-0 David told the kids that no one could score except one person. Everyone had to set that person up to score. It was a lot of fun to watch the kids that don't always score get a goal this game.

Jacob and Jake on the sidelines

Half time instructions from the coach. These kids were really good at following David's coaching. He would tell them how to run the play and they could do it. We only had one girl on our team and she worked really hard keeping up with all those boys. She scored at our last game and I was as proud as her own mother.

Half time cheer. Go Gators!

Saturday mornings, Jacob and Adam got up and got dressed in their soccer stuff and then dressed Matthew in one of Jacob's old soccer uniforms and a pair of Adam's black dress socks that went past Matthew's knees. Then Matthew would slip his feet into Adam's extra cleats and he was ready for the games. At first I would get frustrated because I was constantly chasing Matthew around the games and trying to hold Lucas. Then I got smart and started bringing a ton of food to the games. Matthew was a lot happier and I could actually watch my boys play. It's hard when David's coaching plus he's always yelling at me to get his subs in or keep time. I'm always telling David I'm not his assistant coach but his assistant coaches weren't always at every game. It could get pretty crazy on the sidelines.

I am not a photographer and nothing proves that better than this next picture. Hi, could you be farther away to take this picture, Ashley? Back row, left to right: David, Nathan, Jake, Luke, Braden, Adam. Front Row, left to right: Issace, Kevin, Jacob, Aspen, Gabe

Nathan, Jacob and Jake
best buddies from our old neighborhood
Melanie and I were missing you, Pacen and Erica

I was glad to have soccer over for a few months. But it was bittersweet. I love having the boys play and they absolutely love it and having their Dad as a coach. He's coaching both teams again next year and I don't even want to think about when Matthew starts and David can't coach all 3 boys.

My first fondant cake

My little Adam celebrated his 5th birthday this month. He had preschool and soccer practice on his birthday so we celebrated several different time to get all the partying in. Here he is after preschool.

We hurried and opened presents before soccer practice and then went to dinner after practice.

On Saturday, he chose to go to the Legacy Center in Lehi and go swimming. He is a good little swimmer and doesn't seem to mind that he has to wear ear plugs. Matthew, however, saw the bucket of water drop before we got in the water and wanted nothing to do with swimming after that. We finally coaxed in him over in the lazy river but he would not go anywhere near the playground and bucket area.

Sunday we invited Grandma and Grandpa to come eat cake and ice cream with us. Adam requested a Batman cake and I thought it might be time to try out fondant icing. I've wanted to for a while but the birthday cake requests haven't exactly been fondant trying ideas (angry birds in fondant? I don't think so.) I'd tried marshmallow fondant before but failed miserable at it. It wasn't even pliable. So after much research I found a recipe, bought edible gylercin which is apparently a must have in fondant and we started out. After combining ingredients, you have to knead more powered sugar in and it becomes in wonderful elastic texture.

Then I added color and started rolling it out.

Then I laid the fondant over the cake.

Then I colored and rolled out some black fondant and David cut out the bat.

Our final product.

I kept the design simple because I wasn't sure I couldn't actually do it. But I thought it turned out awesome. The fondant is really fun to work with and looks so smooth and pretty. I was so unsure if I would be able to do it, I had bought vanilla frosting for back up. One thing we did learn is that even homemade fondant does not taste good even with almond flavoring in it. Next time I will frost a crumb frosting layer so that we can peel the fondant off and still have a little bit of frosting with the cake. Adam loved the cake and so everyone was happy!

4 month old Lucas

Lucas now weighs 15 pounds 12.5 ounces. Now you're probably thinking "wow, that is one fat baby" and you would be right. Except that Jacob weighed 19.5 pounds at 4 months and Adam 18 pounds. However I will give Lucas props because he started out exactly 1.5 pounds less than Jacob. So the moral of the story is that I have very fat babies. I also have very CUTE, fat babies.

I can't remember how tall Lucas was at the doctor but I remember it was the 18th percentile. So he's a shorty. Too short to actually jump in this jumper but he does like to sit in it. He likes to be upright or completely flat. He doesn't like to be reclining in his car seat or bouncy chair and is always trying to pull his head up.

Lucas has started drooling now. He always has his hands in his mouth and loves to chew on his fingers. I've even caught him sucking on his thumb a few times. It's probably wrong but it makes me a little bit sad it hasn't stuck. I sucked my thumb as a baby (okay, as a child also....okay almost as a teenager too) and I think it looks cute when babies suck their thumbs.

I hope and hope and hope that Lucas's hair is as awesome as Matthew's. We just can't get enough of his crazy curls. These hair shots were after I had watched a movie with Matthew is my lap. I had been running my fingers through his hair.

One last crazy shot of silly Matthew. Those are a pair of Jacob's soccer shorts on over his jeans. He insists on wearing a soccer uniform to the boys' games. It's 5 sizes to big and that's why it's on over the jeans and the drawstring is as tight as possible. Matthew is as crazy and mischievous as they come. In a few years, I'm afraid he's going to teach Lucas hiss naughty ways and I can picture all the trouble those two are going to get into.

School Activities and Mothers Day

At the beginning on the month Jacob had "Mother Goose Day" and had to dress up as a character from Mother Goose. About the only Mother Goose nursery rhyme I could think of was Jack and Jill and a bunch of others that had girl characters: Little Bo Peep, Little Miss Muffet etc. I even searched the Internet for costume ideas. The night before I was really stressing out about what I was going to do for Jacob which meant of course I couldn't fall asleep. So literally after praying about it, I remembered this one:
Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater
Had a wife a couldn't keep her
Put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept here very well
So a doll and a Halloween Pumpkin later, Peter Peter was ready for school. I really hate school activities like this. It's just more work for me and I stress about Jacob's feelings. And I really hate when you have to spend money on it, like the Leprechaun trap he had to make.

This school activity was much easier. Adam was in charge of the letter Y poster for preschool. We had a lot of fun doing it together and trying to think of words that start with Y and a snack to bring (Yogurt, well frozen go-gurts). I was especially proud of myself for letting Adam do everyone and not caring that things weren't straight nor glue on properly and that he sometimes using capital letters and other times lowercase letters. Okay, so maybe I cared but I didn't say anything to Adam.

This school activity was stressful only because I had to find a babysitter for Matthew and Lucas. Luckily David was able to just come home for the afternoon. Granted he was late and I called him 3 times and sent him a text message before he called me back. But I did make it on time. Adam's preschool teacher put on a Mother's Tea for Mothers Day. I got a special invitation and the kids did a cute little program and then we had juice, cake and a relish tray. The kids had made decorations and place cards and the moms all had tea cups and the kids plastic ones. It was really cute and fun!

Adam made me this pretty flower pot for me and it still in my kitchen window sill now and I really love having it there while I do dishes. Lucky for David, our son is so cute because I stopped being mad that he was late and once again not answering my phone calls.

Jacob made me a plate at school and wrapped it up so beautifully and hid it for days until I opened it on Sunday. He was especially excited when I pulled out a plate from the cupboard that I had made my mom when I was in second grade. He thought is was awesome that we had both drawn trees on our plates for our moms. Note that Matthew is clutching the ipad. That is his favorite thing in the world and it is a sad commentary on my mothering skills at how well he can use the ipad and play his games. However when I caught the boys playing the ipad at 11:00 pm on a Saturday night in Jacob's bed they got grounded from all electronics for 3 days. Those sneaky little pesters!

I really loved getting my home-made gifts from my boys this year. Sunday evening my parents and siblings came to my house for a carne asada taco dinner which was delicious. We had a great time together. David's gift to me was building me a garden. I have loved gardening these past few years and love even more canning the produce. Our home now had a small, over grown patch of garden and that was not going to work. So after hours and hours of work my garden now looks like this. We still have to lay landscape mat, add soil and plant but the weather is really not cooperating with us. And the place was out of compost of Saturday. But when it gets all done it's going to be beautiful and I'm so grateful to David for all his hard work.

One year ago....

A year ago last weekend we found out that we were expecting our 4th baby. It's a fun story how we found out and I've never written it down so I'm going to do so on my blog. David had a work conference in San Francisco and I got to meet up with him there. I flew in Wednesday afternoon and that night we had some great Italian food and saw Wicked. We both loved the show. That night David had some work to do but I was feeling sick and went to bed. I thought I had eaten too much.

Thursday after David's meetings, we rode the cable cars (my favorite)...

We visited Ghirardelli Square, art galleries and Pier 39 and saw the sea lions...

Thursday I did tell David that "that time of the month" was later than I thought it would be. But I hadn't been regular since having Adam so I wasn't too worried about it. But David did tease me about walking around too much because I was obviously with child. We weren't really trying to get pregnant but we weren't working very hard at preventing it either. Both of us wanted a 4th child.

Friday morning we got up early to visit Alcatraz Island before our flight home. As we were standing in line for our tickets, I was really sick and realized that David was right, I was probably pregnant. What convinced me even more was the ferry ride over the the island. I stood outside on the bow with the wind blowing in my face praying and praying I wasn't going to throw up. On the ferry ride back I got smart and bought a pretzel to eat.

The flight home was equally miserable. The plane was hot and stuffy and I was so nauseated. After we got home and thanked my parents for taking care of the boys and saw them out the door, David went to the drug store and bought a pregnancy test. I told him that I didn't need to take one and that I was 100% positive I was pregnant but he always wants to see the positive test. And positive it was! We told the boys Monday night at Family Home Evening and we told my parents the next day at Adam's birthday party. Although later I found out that Jacob and Adam had already spilled the beans to my mom in the car earlier that day. I was definitely sick but could still function and my goal was to just get through the end of the school year before the wheels came off. I remember the following week being so proud of myself to be able to get out of bed and get through my days even though I was sick all day and night. I even thought maybe it won't get any worse than this and I'll be able to make it work.

The last week of May was the last week of school. Monday morning we had Jacob's kindergarten graduation.

Monday night we had Adam preschool end of year program.

Tuesday was Jacob's huge dance festival.

Wednesday morning I woke up sickier than I had been and knew I was in trouble. Sure enough I ended up in the hospital that night with uncontrolably vomiting. So Thursday I missed Jacob's field day and Friday his last day of school but I almost made it to the end of the school year. The month of June my mom came every day to take care of me and the boys. The month of July mom and dad moved in with us and mom kept taking care of us. By the middle of August I felt better and could take care of the boys mostly. By September the morning sickness was gone and we moved the next week and then the pain and medical complications started. But now a year later we have a beautiful 4 month old boy and while I'll never forget how horrible the pregnancies are, in the end they are worth it.