Bedtime Hiding Fun

We have been doing the same bedtime routine for so long -

read scriptures, say a family prayer, brush teeth

Chuck takes the kids up to their room reads a book and sings them each their special song as he dances around the room with them
Then it's my turn

I do "treasure hunt" (basically a back scratch with actions to a little story that Chuck's mom did to them when they were growing up), help them say their own prayer, talk to them about something good and something bad that happened that day.

But a couple of months ago the kids decided it would be fun to switch it up a little. It started out with them hiding under their blankets on their bed and I would pretend I couldn't find them. They thought this was so funny and would laugh and laugh when I finally discovered them under their blankets. Then about a month ago Chuck got in on the hiding action.

I went upstairs and thought the kids were hiding under their blankets as normal. I walked around the room talking about how I couldn't find them, usually they would laugh under their covers, but not this night. I noticed one of the closet doors was slightly open so I shut it. Then I tackled the blanket on the lower bed and was shocked to find that it was only other blankets underneath. Then I pulled back the blankets on the top bunk and found Bella's caterpillar under the covers. I was totally surprised to find that they really weren't there - no wonder it was so quiet! In the mean time Chuck had come up the stairs to watch the scene unfold and was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes. Low and behold the kids were hiding in the closet and I had shut the door on them. They were so quiet they didn't even make a peep as I shut them in! And thus, a new tradition was born.

Now every night Chuck hides them and it's my job to find them somewhere in the room. I'm amazed with all the hiding places he has come up with. And the kids can remain absolutely silent while I search for them. They LOVE this little bedtime routine!

The kids supposedly hiding under their blankets.

But it's only the caterpillar.

They are always hiding under a blanket and tonight they were hiding behind the door.

Another night they were hiding in the corner behind this toy.

I have to be careful not to find them too fast as this might cause a HUGE disapointment. I cherish little things like this because I know before to long they will grow out of thinking it's fun to hide from their mommy!

So Big!

Jenna just turned 5 months. I decided I would try and sit her up and she can actually sit for a little while by herself before she topples over! It won't be very long before she is sitting like a pro. (She looks a little grumpy in the above shot, but then she flashed us her smile before she toppled over)

While we were walking around Temple Square last weekend, some older gentleman looked at Jenna and laughing said, "You need to feed that kid!".

I LOVE my little chunky babies, with their squishy cheeks you just can't kiss enough! Of course Jenna's cheeks pale in comparison to Bella's cheeks when she was this old.

Bella Update

I finally decided we just needed to cut Bella's hair off because it is always such a mess. I think her hair looks cute this short, but she doesn't like it. She has told me several times and again this morning as we were getting ready for church, "I don't like it this way. I just want it long like mommy's." So hopefully if I keep it short for awhile it will thicken up and maybe as she gets older and doesn't make such a mess of her hair we can try and grow it longer.

Several weeks ago Jenna was dressed in this outfit. Bella took one look at her and said, "The baby is not cute today mom." This coming from my little fashion princess herself!

The mermaid costume skirt does make a nice hair piece.


I heard Jenna squawking and looked over to see this. When I asked Bella what she was doing she said, "I'm just being the mom."

Here is another picture from our vacation.

Samuel spotted a dead fish out in the pond where we were fishing and he really wanted it for some reason. The next thing I know Samuel is rolling up Bella's capris. I thought it was really cute watching him help her with her pants until I hear him say, "Okay Bella there's the fish, go get it." And of course she heads out in the pond to retrieve the dead fish, but not before she slips on the mossy rocks and falls in. This is typical for those two - Samuel has some crazy idea and sends Bella to carry it out.

Just listening to Samuel and Bella most days makes me laugh. A couple of conversations that those two have had over the past few days that I need to record.

As their heading up the stairs mad at each other for some reason:

Bella: "Samuel, how many times do I have to tell you!" (I wonder where she has heard this expression)

Samuel: "You're not the mom Bella!"

Bella to Samuel after he hit his head: "Just be tough, be tough"

The two of them trying to work out a disagreement while sitting on the "repenting" spot:

Samuel: "Bella, you know better than to take my toy away."

Bella: "Yes, I know better, but I still wanted it."

Another picture from our vacation.

We were walking around Temple Square and I wanted to get our picture by some of the beautiful flowers. Just as Chuck was snapping the picture Bella just falls over for no apparent reason. This girl is always jumping, climbing and falling down!

Bella girl, you sure do keep us entertained and we love you so much!

Isaac Update

Our Isaac is definitely going through the terrible 2 stage. Most days he is mad at someone or everyone is mad at him - the fact that he hits, scratches and throws objects doesn't really go over well with the other kids. But he is very good with Jenna and we sure do love the kid!

Isaac has the widest feet. I have to buy his shoes way to big just so they will be wide enough to get them on.

(As a side note: Isaac is on my dad's old Chevelle that he drove in High School. I remember when I was younger and my dad had this car running for a little bit. I remember him driving like a crazy man around our property going so fast with rocks and dirt flying. We thought it was cool that he could shift without letting off the gas. My aunt told my uncle he couldn't ride around with my dad because he drove to wild. I would loved to have seen my dad with his long hippie hair racing this car in his younger years!)

Isaac is in the "I do it myself" stage. He won't let me help him with much. He wants to get himself dressed, put on his own straps in the car seat and fill up his cup. The only problem with the cup is that I now have water all over my floor most days. I try to remember to lock the fridge so he isn't constantly feeling up cups and dumping them out, but then one of the other kids unlocks it.

And the problem with wet concrete - it's slick!

Isaac is also going through a stage where he is scared of a lot of things. These two pictures are from our vacation and he is crying in both of them. We went to this great fishing pond and caught so many fish. The only problem - Isaac was scared of the fish! This is the first fish Samuel caught. Samuel flung it up onto the rocks and Isaac took of running and screaming Shark, Shark! I wished I would have got a video of the episode because it was really quite funny!

This is us at Lagoon and again Isaac is crying because he was afraid of the Merry-go-round. He was trying to fling himself off the horse and I was trying to get him to sit back up so I could get the strap off. It took Trina and I both to finally get him out of the strap. This was the first ride of the day and I was sure he wasn't going to go on any other rides, but this was the only one he hated.

Love this "little" guy terrible 2 stage and all!!

Public Restroom Nightmare!

We just returned home from a fun vacation. We spent time with both sides of the family and were go, go, going the entire time we were gone. Now we need a rest from our vacation! I have tons of pictures and stories and someday I may actually get around to posting them, but I did have to get this story down so I wouldn't forget.

I drove 5 1/2 hours by myself with the 4 kids to my parents home. I figured since I survived my last solo trip I could certainly do it again. Let me just say that the kids actually did really well this trip. No one even cried! There were a few moments when Isaac was causing problems, but this time I brought plenty of snacks that I kept distributing which somehow kept everyone happy. The kids weren't very interested in watching the DVD player so we sang songs, played games and talked a lot about what we were seeing out our windows. Talking with the kids made the time pass quickly for me as well.

But what solo trip with 4 kids would be complete without some sort of comical episode. We stopped halfway through our trip to eat lunch and nurse the baby. We had just ordered our food and sat down to eat when Samuel loudly declared for most everyone to hear that he needed to poop (a mom's worst nightmare when she is alone and has 4 kids she's going to need to take to the public restroom!!!).

Well this was just great timing! I couldn't send Samuel to the restroom by himself because the Wendy's where we were eating was attached to a gas station and the restroom was not even close to where we were sitting. I couldn't take Samuel to the bathroom and leave Bella in charge of the other kids and I couldn't take all the kids and leave the food we had just sat down to eat. So I told Samuel he was just going to have to hold it and promptly declared that everyone needed to eat as fast as they could. Poor Samuel after a few minutes couldn't even sit down and kept telling me it was coming! Somehow we managed to gulp down all of our food, get everything in the garbage and head to the restroom - only to find a line which extended out the door!!

The restroom had three stalls and was very tight. I really wanted to usher us all into the handicap stall, but it was not available once we finally got inside so I had to send Samuel to the first available stall. Then another stall opened so I sent Bella in. She was quickly done, but Samuel was taking FOREVER! I knew this was going to be a problem because he is not quick when it comes to this act. Let's just say that the next 15 or 20 minutes were not pleasant as I tried to entertain 3 kids in a very tight space while at least 9 other women came in to use the facilities. (This was a very happening restroom!)

I was thinking of every sort of game you can possible play while stuck in a public restroom. I told Isaac and Bella to pretend they were glue and see who could stick to the wall the longest. Then I had them wash their hands a few times. They were entertained by the hand dryer for a few minutes. Then I was having them jump on different squares. All the while women kept coming in and having to manuever around us to get into the other stalls. I finally stuck Jenna in her carseat under one of the sinks. I kept asking Samuel if he was hurrying. He would give me a loud play by play for everyone to hear every so often. This really was a comical nightmare!!

FINALLY Samuel was done and we got back in the car. I still had to nurse the baby but was so thankful she didn't start to cry while we were in the restroom for so long. All told, the stop took us 50 minutes! Chalk this up to another comical experience I survived with 4 little ones.

Jenna Update

A quick Jenna update:
I can't believe how quickly my baby is growing and constantly changing!


She is grabbing and trying to eat everything within her reach. I was packing our suitcases the other morning and found Jenna on the floor sucking on the legs of the suitcase.

She is also rolling all over the place. She rolls from one end of the front room to the next and even ends up on the concrete many times. The kids are very "helpful" and often are dragging her back onto the carpet.

And I'm very sad that it's time to say good bye to the bassinet for the last time. Now it's on to the playpen for Jenna. Because we have had all of our kids close together Samuel is the only baby that has gone from the bassinet to the crib. All the others have gone from the bassinet to the playpen because another kid is still in the crib.

Chuck is very excited that we can now start getting rid of some of the baby "stuff". Today I cleaned out my closet and have a big bag to take to the DI. It makes me sad to think I won't have another baby, but I actually didn't feel bad at all as I bagged up all my many sizes of inbetween clothes. Good riddance to the "fat" post baby pants and shirts!

Tonight I finally gave Jenna her first feeding of Rice Cereal. It's funny how with Samuel I was so excited to start introducing food and just couldn't wait until he was 4 months so I could feed him. Now with Jenna it's much easier to just nurse and not have to feed her, but since she's 5 months and showing a lot of interest in food I decided it's finally time to slowly start.

Just look at everyone gathered around for the big event. Jenna actually LOVED the rice cereal. The only bad thing was she kept grabbing the spoon and trying to stick it in her mouth by herself. Isaac was very hard to feed because he was always grabbing the spoon and trying to feed himself. I guess Jenna will probably be the same way. Oh my baby is just growing too fast!

Samuel Update

Time for a quick Samuel update:


Samuel had his Joy School graduation in June. This was Samuel's second Year of Joy School. We had an all boy group and they were a lot of fun to teach. I really love the Joy School program!



I did have to post one picture from our family vacation. My brother Brady bet Samuel $10 that he couldn't eat this HUGE piece of pizza (this after Samuel had already eaten one fairly decent size of pizza). Well, Brady didn't understand that Samuel loves to make money. We all watched and laughed as Samuel finished every bite of that huge slice and then was so excited to collect his money.

And tonight I took Samuel to the store with me so he could buy a Bakugan with his money he collected from my brother. He has been wanting one for so long, but the kids have so many toys that we told him he needed to earn the money and buy it himself. He was so excited to give the lady at Wal-Mart his money and then he was even more excited when he got his very own receipt.

We have been brainstorming about what to do with our kids as far as money and jobs. Samuel has been begging us for awhile now to get a job chart so he can work and earn money. I think we've finally come up with a system that will work for our family. We have decided that there are certain responsibilities and jobs that each kid needs to do just because they are a part of the family and then if they want to earn money they can do extra tasks. I'm sure we'll be tweaking the system as we go along, but Chuck and I both feel good about implementing this idea in our family.

Bella made this door hanger for Chuck in primary. Samuel was looking at the sign and made us laugh when he said, "If your the #1 dad, then who's dad is the #2 and #3 dad?". Then today he told Chuck that Grandpa Clayton and Grandpa Paul are both number zero and that is better than #1 since zero comes before 1. He just makes me laugh with all his heavy thinking!