Easter

 Happy Easter!  We had a great Easter with the kids.  We dyed eggs on Saturday night.  It was one of those things that we ONLY did because we love these kids, and they had their hopes up because we kind of forgot until like 9 at night, but the kids had their hearts set, so we pulled out the vinegar and got going.  It ended up being very fun and I'm glad we did it. 

 Sunday morning the kids had the traditional Easter egg hunt looking for their hard boiled eggs and the plastic eggs with candy too. 

 Church was wonderful.  I am the choir director and we sang one of my favorite songs, Because He Lives - by Sally Deford.  Anyway, so that was exciting.  I was also excited to see my kiddos wearing the clothes I made them.  I spent a long time making the girls their dresses, and made the boys ties in blue gingham to match their pink and yellow gingham.  I was so happy seeing them wear something I made them that looked so adorable - yes I'm biased.  haha. 

 After church on Easter we went over to John and Sara's for another fun Easter egg hunt and dinner.  The kids absolutely love playing with them.  It was so great to live close to them.

Luke and Jaxon

East for Spring Break

For Jerry's spring break we went to visit my sister, Ruth Ann in New Jersey.  It was so much fun.  The kids absolutely love playing with their cousins, and I, of course, love sister time:)  Ruth Ann was so kind and watched all of our kids so Jerry and I were able to go into New York to spend the entire day.  It was so much fun.  We sat in Times Square and ate lunch.  Then we walked around the streets, just having a blast.  We rode the subway and saw an actor from Saturday Night Live:)  It was so much fun spending the day in NYC.

Times Square

Naked Cowboy in Times Square

Rockefeller Center. 

Ground Zero

Jerry posing on Wall Street

Night time in New York

On Saturday we all went in to New York city together for a picnic in Central Park.  We went to the LDS temple.  It was beautiful to see a temple in the middle of such a crazy, busy city.  

I love Central Park.  We walked around a bit, and played on the playground after eating.  Then we went over to FAO Schwartz.  We were exhausted after a great long, fun day.

February Recap

February seemed to fly by.  It was cold and quick.  My friend and I started our own little 2 person sewing club.  haha.  We got together once a week to do some fun sewing projects.  I made these cute and easy skirts for the girls.

 Luke also started eating cereal in February!  YAY!!  We just LOVE this boy, but to say he's been a difficult baby is an understatement.  (Actually, as I'm writing this in July - he's really turned a corner these last couple weeks and is so much happier, and easier on me - more on this when I get up to date, hopefully this week)  I was excited to give him cereal because it would maybe help on his reflux and also make him sleep longer.  Nope and nope.  But he does really like eating food. 

Ready and waiting for his food.

 Ahh, such a cute boy.

Happy Birthday to our Sweet Sydney Paige

 Sydney turned 3 on February 9th.  It was a fun day with her.  I took the girls to get McDonald's for lunch.  The kids get their favorite meal for dinner, and Sydney's request was Macaroni and Cheese.  Nice and easy, works for me:)  Jerry made it home for cake and ice cream that night.  She LOVES all the Disney princesses.  And her favorite colors for the birthday week were purple and yellow, so she fell in love with this cake.  No, I didn't make it - I'm slackin' this year:) 

Sydney at 3

We love our Sydney!!!  She is such a fun, sweet, happy girl.  (Until she's not - then WATCH OUT!) :)  But really, she is generally very happy and just a sweetie with a very tender heart.  She is beautiful with her brown eyes, light blonde hair, and happy smile.  She loves to play with Hayden and Rebecca, and loves to tackle Luke.  She loves princesses and singing all their songs.  She LOVES animals.  She often pretends to be a kitty cat.  Her very favorite thing to play is "mombaby"  (basically pretending to be members of a family)  SEVERAL times a day she can be heard saying to someone, "Hey, let's play mombaby!" as if it's a completely new idea of a game we've never played. 
She is my little shadow.  Anywhere I go, she likes to go too.  She's a fun little buddy.  She does have a weird infatuation with my armpit.  Yes, she'll be embarrassed that I wrote this when she's older.  When she wants to cuddle she'll get her sippy cup with milk (almost the only thing she'll drink) and cuddle up next to me and tuck her hand in my armpit.  Yes, very weird and silly.  She is super silly and loves to make anyone laugh.  She sometimes speaks gibberish just to be silly and she calls it the language of "eyeball."  I also love it when she wants to whisper to me.  She whispers so soft that you can only hear her lips opening and closing - no sound of words at all. 
Sydney helps feed my need of hearing compliments.  She is SO very sweet.  She constantly gives compliments, and they are so sweet.  It just cracks me up though when sometimes she wants to say something sweet to you, but she doesn't really know what she's going to say till it comes out, like "Mom, you have nice ears." "Mom, I like your legs."  Or as I was driving one day she said, "Mom, you turn good."  Very sweet, and gives me a good little chuckle too. 
She is very verbal and tall for her age, so most people are surprised that she just turned 3 in February.  She has many nicknames, Syd Syd, Sydney Sue, Sinny, and Syd-er-id.  She loves going to nursery at church and will be starting preschool in the fall. 

Sydney at 2 years old

Sydney's 1st birthday

Sydney's Birth DAY

The day Sydney joined our family:)

We just love our little Sydney Sue.  Happy (late) Birthday Sweetie:)

POOP

I know, I'm not totally caught up yet, but I'm breaking the continuity for at least one post so that I don't forget it once I do get caught up. 

Jerry left last Sunday morning for CT to start his summer internship.  I stayed here with the kids so Hayden could finish out the school year.  We're one week down.  Hayden finished school yesterday, but since Jerry travels with his internship I won't be able to see him till Friday anyway, so we'll go up next week.  1 week to go.  Honestly, it has been a hard week.  Mainly because I was sick from Monday till about Thursday.  When you're sick everything is amplified, and so much harder.  I'm feeling much better today, but still have a constant headache, which probably has more to do with being single mom for the week, rather than any sickness I had. 

I am so lucky for my children.  I love them so much.  And, maybe I'm a bit biased, but I feel like I have some pretty good, amazing, sweet, talented, darling, and wonderful kids.  And I love being a mother so much.  As much as I love being a mom, it is also the toughest job I've ever had, and challenging both by my thoughts of beating myself up because I could always be doing more, and also because 4 children with their own independent personalities and attitudes that need to be fostered and raised into responsible, smart, caring, respectful, etc. etc, etc human beings while still keeping those wonderful personality traits that are theirs (that are sometimes so different than mine) is a big job.  And what is being a parent if your children don't try to push those boundaries that you've set up for them right?  Well, I think mine all decided that this week, the week that Jerry is gone, the week that I was sick, the week that Luke hasn't slept (wait, that's every week) was the week to test the boundaries.  Their little ears seemed to develop an immunity to my voice throughout the week.

I noticed tonight that if I ever want my kids to scatter, and leave me totally alone I need to announce that it is family clean up time.  Tonight as I announced within 1 minute of starting the cleaning process Rebecca remembered that she is "STARVING" and had to sneak some more food from the fridge because she might die without it.  Hayden suddenly had to go have a nice long visit in the bathroom, and Sydney just ran to hide in her room. When I noticed that I was the only one cleaning - while also holding Luke in one arm because he only slept 2 times today (both only as we were driving in the car, but didn't transfer to the crib - instead he decided to scream in his little jail cell for the next 40 minutes till his mom gave in - BOTH TIMES!!)  I got mad, angry, upset, FURIOUS!! 

I gathered all the kids into the living room to give them a good lecture.  The art of lecturing your kids is an important skill to possess.  After years of teaching school, and raising children I've learned a lot of the different methods of lecture.  I planned to use them all.  I started out with the whole "I'm disappointed in you" thing, which led to the sympathy, "I need your help, I can't do it alone" thing.  Then restating the situation of their fleeing the scene to their various places when I asked them to clean. Then to the harsher expectations aspect of it not being an option to sit out from family clean up time.  Next,  to a little guilt, reminding Hayden that he wanted last week's FHE lesson to be on the 10 commandments and 1 of the commandments is "Honor thy father and thy mother". Then the final kaboom of reminding the kids that I will take away every single toy they own, no tv time, no computer time, all video games will be gone and they will sit in their rooms and stare at the wall if they have to.  (Enough drama??) 

So what happens as I'm wrapping up my monologue of a dramatic lecture??  Are they getting it??  As I'm talking Hayden leans over to Rebecca and says, "Poop."

Yes, "Poop!"  Which of course makes all 3 kids burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter. 

....and that, my friends, is why Hayden had to go to time out for the first time in probably 3 years. 

So yes, those fun boundaries were reinforced.  Now they are all in bed, snoring away and I'm thinking back on the day, ready for it to be done, but even I get the giggles when I picture him leaning over to say, "POOP!"

I guess even through those "boundary pushing" times I can get some good momma laughs.

January Recap

OK!  I'm back!  Hopefully I'll get all caught up in the next few days then I;ll be able to write a "REAL" blog post instead of these catch up ones.
January was another busy month, but life started getting a little easier in January.  Jerry's classes, though still hard, they weren't quite as time consuming as the fall classes.  Also after the 2 modules in the fall he wasn't quite so "green" and afraid that he would for some reason get kicked out. (Crazy guy) So he tried to study a little more at home so we could at least see him during the week.  (His plan for the fall had been to make sure he got all his studying done before coming home, so that when he was home - he was home, not stressing about school.  But he found that he was never home with that plan, so that's why he started studying a bit more at home in January.
Luke still seemed to have his cough throughout January, but by the end of the month it FINALLY cleared up.  He had a constant cold from beginning of November throughout January.  He still wasn't sleeping much better that month, but at least he was starting to feel a bit better.  (He STILL isn't that great of a sleeper today though)

Jerry and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary in January! We didn't do much, but we did have a nice dinner here at home that night and went out on a date the next Friday night to celebrate our anniversary and Jerry's birthday.
I don't know who liked this cake more - Jerry or Hayden.  No I didn't make it, that requires 2 hands and since Luke is always in my arms, and hardly naps, it was too much for me to wrap my brain around.




 

I asked the girls to watch Luke for a few min, while mother nature called.  This is what happened in the meantime. haha!  Can you spot his face among all the stuffed animals??  They love their little brother.

Just another shot of this cutie pie.