Happy Halloween!

We had a Medeval theme for Halloween this year.

The Dashing Knight

The Beautiful Princess

And the not so Scary Dragon

Worth Every Penny

I've been having the "nesting" itch for several weeks now. On Monday I did something I've never done before - I had a cleaning company come in and do all those tasks that have been driving me crazy, but I haven't been able to get around to. And it was wonderful!

The house smelled so good as they cleaned all my fans, baseboards, blinds and the wood frames around all my windows. What took them 2.5 hours would have taken me the next several weeks to accomplish. I can't believe how much better I feel having these tasks done and it was worth every penny.

When Chuck got home from work he commented on how good it smelled. Then I proceeded to tell him how quick they were. He then asked, "How come they were so much quicker at cleaning than you are?" Now one thing he have to know about Chuck, clutter, dirt, disorganization it doesn't bother him a bit. So I knew he wasn't asking this in a mean way, but the obvious answer still made me laugh as I told him. "Let's see - there were two of them, they weren't big and pregnant, and they didn't have 3 little ones hanging on their legs as they tried to clean!" These factors tend to slow a person down!

It's Back

When I was pregnant with Bella I developed a horrible cold sore that basically took over my lower lip and looked horrendous for two weeks. I had never had a cold sore before so I wasn't sure what it was. I thought it may be a boil so I went to the dermatologist and he said that it was probably brought on by the pregnancy hormones. Well guess what, it's back in the exact same location! And looking just as horrible as it did last go round. It must be something with being pregnant with girls because I've only had 2 in my life. I'm very self conscious about having this huge growth on my face, but the kids reactions have really made me laugh.

Samuel was practicing his reading and I was sitting by him on the couch. I could tell he was getting distracted by my face because he just kept staring at me.
Samuel: Mom, what's that on your face?
Me: A cold sore.
Samuel: Well, just pick it off.
When I explained it wasn't that easy then he really began to ask all sorts of questions. He wanted to know what caused it, did it hurt, when would it go away etc. etc. We had quite a lengthy discussion about it because the kids is so curious about everything.

This morning I was sitting at the table near Bella and again I could see she was staring at my lovely growth.
Bella: Mom, what's on your lip.
Me: A cold sore.
Bella: Just lick it mom. (I guess she thought it was food I could just lick off my lips)
Again I explained it would go away in awhile. Then she began to laugh.

So if you see me, try not to get distracted by the unsightly cold sore. Just another thing brought on by the pregnancy.

1st Sentence

Isaac has been talking for months now and basically will say anything you tell him, but yesterday he said his first full sentence and it was a funny one!

I was sitting on the couch and he walked up to me stuck his finger in his nose, pulled it out, pointed it at me and said, "Boog, you eat that".

I laughed, but wondered where an 18 month old came up with that from. Such a little boy!

The Novel of an Entry

It’s been one of those days where nothing major goes wrong, just a lot of little things that by the end of the day have taken their toll.

The day started off early – like at 2:30 a.m. My typical time to wake up each morning and then lay awake for at least 3 hours trying to fall back asleep. I love my pregnancy insomnia! I have been spending the last few nights trying to make a decision that has been weighing very heavily on mind so sleep has been even more elusive. So let’s just say I started off the day a little tired.

Then the following happened:
Bella woke up in a very bad mood and was just screaming for no apparent reason. I finally got it out of her that she was “so sad” I hadn’t made her toast for breakfast. She hadn’t even told me she wanted toast she just began to cry. Isaac decided he was also unhappy and needed to scream to get my attention. So now I have 2 crying kids.

We’re rushing out the door because Samuel and Bella need to be at preschool and gymnastics at the same time. I tell the kids to get in the car while I finish changing Isaac’s diaper and I can hear them playing around instead of getting in their car seats. I holler for them to get their straps on and Bella hollers back that she has no seat.

We’re going to be right on time (I hate being late for things) except I now realize what Bella meant. Chuck had removed the car seats the night before and didn’t put them back. So despite the fact it probably cost me an extra minute, I call to tell him “thanks” for remembering to put the car seats back and that now I’m going to be late (I know not very nice of me! He did feel bad and brought me a donut for lunch). Once the seats are back in the car I have to get all the kids straps on because Bella is still in a bad mood and refuses to do it herself. Samuel is in the third row of seats and can’t get his buckled by himself and of course Isaac.

Now we’re off and Samuel informs me his foot is caught in the seatbelt. We get to preschool, I open up the back to let him out and he tells me again he can’t get out because his foot is caught. So I have to haul my big belly into the back of the Pilot to figure out the problem. And sure enough he had wound his foot around the seat belt that was hanging from the second row of seats. I tried to loosen it, but it just locked up even tighter. Let’s just say it took me several minutes to get him undone and at one point I thought I was going to have to drive to Chuck’s office so we could cut him loose. Luckily kids are flexible and somehow I got him free.

I pull up to gymnastics and run Bella into class 7 minutes late (did I mention I HATE being late!). Then I went back home to “relax” for a few minutes with just 1 kid. I read to Isaac for a few minutes then unload the dishwasher quickly before I need to pick Bella back up. Isaac loves to help me unload the utensils and throw them in the drawer. I notice when he is about done that many of them look wet for some reason. I look down to see that he is sucking on them and then throwing them in the drawer. Lovely – who needs clean utensils anyway.

As I’m pulling out of the garage I notice that a guy is clearing our huge weeds next to our block wall. Several weeks ago I mentioned to Chuck that our weeds were getting pretty big, but he told me he thought they looked very natural. (The HOA requires that our landscaping be natural vegetation, but I don’t think that includes weeds!). I know they’re really interested in selling the lot next to us so they must have decided we needed a little help in keeping things tidy. Over the next few hours I pull in and out of my garage 7 times passing this poor guy working on the weeds and just try to pretend like I don’t see him since it’s pretty embarrassing to be the ghetto neighbors with the big weeds!

Later I had my OB appointment and I had gained another 7 pounds. It’s okay I tell myself, but I am gaining more rapidly this go around. For several weeks now my right leg and feet have been causing me problems. I thought it was just because I’ve gained a lot of weight and our concrete floor is really hard. We don’t wear our shoes in the house so I bought a nice new pair of comfy shoes to just wear indoors. I’m the primary pianist in our ward and on Sunday we were practicing for the primary program so I was sitting at the piano for 2 hours. By the end my leg was really causing me a lot of pain. Up until then I hadn’t bothered to look at the back of my leg to see what the problem was, but when I got home I lifted up my skirt and asked Trina if there was something on the back of my leg. Well her reaction said it all. I looked back and was mortified at what I saw. Ugly looking veins poking out behind my knee and a big spot that looked like a bruise. Great, I would have to develop varicose veins on my last pregnancy! Today I showed the doctor my leg and he said I could either wear support hose or I needed to elevate my legs more during the day to help. I don’t particularly have a lot of time to just kick the legs up so I guess I’ll be getting the support hose – at least it’s not hot summer! Then he really made my day by saying they would probably fade after the pregnancy, but not go away. So call me vain, but I really am not excited about having one leg that looks like I’m 90. The only good thing about all this – my brother-in-law is a plastic surgeon so I’m thinking after I’ve had this baby and finished nursing I’ll just have him fix all my pregnancy related problems!

But the day did not end with this good news. I picked the kids up from my friend’s house and they had been playing in the sand so they were all extremely dirty and needed to get in the tub. Samuel fell asleep on the way home and so he was crying that he couldn’t get in the tub because he was tired and would fall asleep in the water and drown. Isaac hates the tub so he is standing up screaming about getting washed. He then begins to pee and because he's standing up it is going all over. But I was lucky because it didn't hit me it went the other way and covered the bathroom slate instead. Just another thing to need to clean at the moment! And every night Isaac wipes food in his hair, but tonight I was a little disheartened that he wiped syrup all over his head just after I had washed his hair.

On the bright side, Chuck got home from City Council in time to help put the kids to bed. As I’m typing this Isaac starts to cry and I find that he has his leg stuck in the slates of the crib and Chuck’s writing out a check to the IRS because they have determined we owe them more money.

Here’s to hoping tomorrow’s a little better than today!

Birthday Memories

Happy 3rd Birthday Bella Girl!

(Check out my photo blog for some more cute pictures of Bella that I took for her birthday invitation. I started redoing my photo blog months ago, but like everything else put the project on hold when I was feeling so sick. But now MAYBE I'll get around to adding to it!)

On each of the kids birthdays I like to show them the scrapbook of the pictures from the day they were born and pictures of when they were just little babies. I did this for Bella and it brought back so many memories (it actually got me really nervous that I am going to have to go through this again in a few months – each of the kids births has been really scary for me in different ways and I just hope I can do this one last time!)



Special things about Bella
· She had the biggest cheeks as a little baby. Every place we went people would comment on her cheeks. Her cheeks were so big you could actually look at her from the back and see them sticking out. They were so fun to kiss!

· When she was little I loved to dress her up in cute clothes, dresses, big headbands and bows. She’s the reason I became interested in photography. I wanted to capture those precious moments. (above was one of my first attempts)



· She’s not what I pictured having a little girl would be like. I would like to dress her up and have her hair looking cute, but she doesn't usually tolerate it. It didn’t take long for her to turn into what I affectionately call my little “raga muffin”. She has been dressing herself since before she was 2 and if I want her to wear something that matches we usually have a battle. She sometimes drives me crazy with the amount of clothing she will go through in one day. Typical day includes at least 3 to 5 outfit changes. It makes for a lot of laundry! I comb her hair every morning, but she pulls it out rather quickly. She just wants to do her hair herself which includes wearing a headband that looks like a throwback to the 80’s. Sometimes I worry about those coming teenage years!

· She’s very independent, strong willed, tough and my little crazy monkey.

· She loves to sing and is always making up her own songs. Some of them really make us laugh.

· She is such a sweet, loving and nurturing little girl. She takes care of both of her brothers. If anyone needs something she is running to help.

· She brings more joy into our family than I could have ever imagined!

We love you Bella Girl!

Bella's Birthday

Bella's actual birthday was fun, but pretty low key. We're having the family party next weekend because Dad and Grandpa were deer hunting this weekend. I started the day by making Bella's favorite breakfast - pancakes with a special added twist - they were pink.



We played at the park.

We opened a few more presents. Aunt Trina made Bella some cute hairbows and bracelets that match Kambree's.

This was one of Bella's birthday present from us. The dollhouse bed. We decided since we got Samuel a fun bed Bella needed a fun bed too. We gave her a choice between a slide bed or the dollhouse bed and she choose this. The kids love to play on it, but Bella still sleeps most nights in Samuel's room.

We always take the kids to dinner for their birthday and when I asked Bella where she wanted to eat she said, "At home". I asked her again clarifying that we were going to go somewhere to eat then she replied, "Costco". She's had to many shopping trips with her daddy trying out all the samples. Then Aunt Trina suggested McDonald's which everyone immediately got excited about, but I squashed that idea. Call me crazy, but I think I'll be avoiding playland for the next several months. I don't usually get to worked up over germs, but it just seems like a good breeding ground for nasty flu viruses! So then I suggested Pirate Island and the kids were even more excited about that. They love this place! (So I'm sure the game room has just as many germs as playland, but it isn't as nasty as the slides in playland. I had to crawl in to rescue Isaac several months back and let's just say I don't want to ever do that again!)

Bella gave us a scare while eating dinner. She was choking on a piece of cheese and I as I was trying to dig it out of her mouth it broke off then I had to really dig for the remaining piece. So scary! I told the kids they had to finish all their pizza before we played games. Bella didn't want to finish her piece so she started fake coughing and told me she couldn't eat anymore because it was choking her. I didn't make her finish since it was her birthday! We were so glad Trina and Kambree joined us for the weekend!

Bella's Birthday Party

We had a "Very Hungry Caterpillar" Birthday Party for Bella this year. This was the picture I put on the invitation. The actual invitation said,

3 years ago, by the light of the moon,
we knew our little girl was coming soon.
She continued to grow and by and by
all too quickly she became
our beautiful butterfly!

I am doing Joy School with Bella this year and we have such a fun group of girls and amazing moms. We decided that we would celebrate the girls birthdays during Joy School so this week I did Bella's party. I just love planning birthday parties so I had a lot of fun with this theme and making cute decorations. Chuck as always was a big help getting everything done. He made the awesome grass that is decorating the island.


We began by reading the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" Book and then the girls made their own caterpillars.

Then we feed our giant hungry caterpillar by trying to throw bean bags into his mouth. I ended up moving the caterpillar back because the girls could really throw!

Then the girls got in their "cocoons" and hoped around the family room.

We made butterflies

And then they all got their own set of butterfly wings and we had fun dancing around with them.



Thanks everyone for the fun presents. (Samuel was quick to point out that Bella's Tinkerbell doll was very pretty!)

The caterpillar cake. One of my friends had made this for her daughter's birthday and I thought it was so cute that I decided to give it a try after all it looked really quick and easy. Well, it was easy, but not very quick. It took a long time to mix up all the colors of frosting, load the bags, change the tip and I feel like I move at a much slower pace when I'm pregnant. But I finally finished just before midnight - I haven't stayed up that late in months!

Happy 3rd Birthday Bella girl!

I Love October!

I haven't been very good about blogging lately, but we have been doing a few fun activities these last several weeks.

I just love this time of year! So many fun things to do with the kids from now until December. It's like one continual party! We started our October festivities a little early this year. I bought a packet for making carmel apples about a week before October and then one evening when I was feeling really snacky (which is pretty much every night, but for some reason I just couldn't resist those carmels any longer) I opened the bag. Then I knew if we didn't make the carmel apples it was going to be too late - I would finish the bag within a few nights with no apples to show for it! Just like I finished the bag of chocolate chips without making the cookies. (This is why I gain so much weight when I'm pregnant!) So we got a jump on the carmel apples this year. Isaac was trying to eat the candy with the wrapper still on.


Samuel is like his mommy - he loves the sweets. Notice the two of us scrapping every ounce of carmel off the wax paper.

Bella on the other hand took one bite of the carmel apple and was done. I instead found her eating a graham cracker. She prefers crackers over almost any sweet.

We took the kids to Heritage days at the park where they got to ride in the fire truck around the block and spray the fire hose. They also had cupcakes, cookies, chips, drinks they were handing out. It's no wonder I came home feeling a little sick!

The Saturday of General Conference we took a little ride with the kids. This actually turned out to be a great way to actually listen to talks. When we're at home trying to watch with the kids we usually only hear a tiny fraction of what is being said. But with the kids held captive in the car we were able to listen to most of what was said.

But it wasn't all fun. I needed to get pictures of Bella in the fall leaves for her birthday invitation (I will post these later, they actually turned out really cute) and Chuck wanted to take a little hike. When we reached the place where he wanted to hike after driving for well over an hour I realized this was not what I had in mind for the pictures and the kids didn't want to hike because they were cold. So we got back in the car and continued to drive and drive and drive looking for the perfect picture spot. Poor Isaac eventually got car sick and threw up all over - notice his very sad face. It was still freezing on top of the mountain, but we had to get out, eat and get the pictures taken.

the best part of the trip for the kids was finding acorns.

Poor Isaac was just mad, but we finally found the picture spot I was looking for.

Pumpkin Patch

We took the kids to the pumpkin patch for FHE. Last year we nearly froze to death (yes Chuck and I have turned into cold weather wimps and of course the kids get cold when it drops below 80) so this year we decided to get our pumpkins early. The kids had a great time with all the little activities at the farm. Except I think Samuel may have his dad's weak stomach when it comes to spinning rides. After a few times around he was begging to get off because he didn't feel well.

We were really shocked when Isaac actually was willing to touch the animals. This is the kid that is petrified of dogs. The funniest thing was to see him using his baby sign for pig and walk right up to pet the pig. Isaac can say pig, but he still likes to sign it probably because he has changed the sign to include snorting and sticking his finger up his nose which he thinks is really funny.

We told the kids they had to be able to carry their own pumpkins back to the car because daddy couldn't pack all the pumpkins and Isaac too. We searched all around until everyone got one they could pack by themselves.

Isaac was really excited when I handed him his own baby pumpkin to carry.

Now hopefully we'll get around to decorating these in the next week or so.