Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Time to take a breath

This last week was crazy busy! Monday was a pretty normal day. Just school in the morning and we had some friends over to play in the afternoon. Tuesday morning was school again. Then in the afternoon we went to a playgroup, and then came home to swim at the neighbors house. That evening I had enrichment to go to. Then, on Wednesday things got even crazier. John left really early to go on a hike/campout with the young men. He was gone until Saturday! So, I guess I decided to fill my time up while he was gone.

We had school, and then went to a playgroup at the park. Then we went to another playgroup. Then we had to stop at the store, and we came home. I cleaned like a madwoman because I was having a party at my house that night. So, I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. And then we ran to Arby's to get some dinner. We got home just in time for the consultant to pull up. I had my party, which was a huge success! The kids got to stay up late and watch a movie downstairs during my party.

The next day didn't get any less busy. We had school, of course, and then we went to the Davis County Fair all afternoon. It was fun. We got to see a lot of animals and they had a cool little science tent set up where they had a bunch of different science type activities. I didn't get to take any pictures, though, because John had the camera with him up in the mountains. (Which, by the way, he almost broke because his bag of fish that he caught leaked on it!) Anyway, we had quiet evening and I put the kids to bed early to gear up for our next day.

Friday was the craziest of all! After school, my sister-in-law brought over her 3 kids (all under the age of 4) so I could watch them while she and her husband went to Salt Lake overnight to celebrate their anniversary. Yes, I said overnight! So, I had my Ethan (almost 3 months), her baby (9 months), her son (2 1/2), my Jared (3 1/2), her son (4), and my Joshua (5 1/2) by myself overnight!! To make it even more exciting, they had never been overnight somewhere without their mom! During the day they played outside a lot and were all pretty good. I had to break up a few fights here and there, but nothing too major. The fun started at bedtime. We had dinner (mac&cheese and hotdogs-I wanted to make sure everyone would eat it), and then I told them all if they helped clean up we could watch a movie before bed. They all did a great job cleaning up, so I turned on a movie. But, my sister-in-law's kids don't sit very still for movies...so that didn't go so well. I decided to go ahead and get them into bed. So, I tried to get them all ready, but both of the babies started crying. I tried holding them both, but they didn't like that. They wanted to be held alone. So, I've got 4 kids running around crazy and 2 babies crying. What do I do? I ended up having 2 of the neighborhood girls come over and hold the babies for me while I tried to get everyone else settled down.

That worked for awhile, but then they had to go home. I couldn't get the other kids to stay in bed, so I gave up on them and decided to just put my kids to bed instead. My kids were wonderful and had a perfect bedtime. After I got them to sleep, I tried again to get the other kids to bed. They just weren't having any of it. I tried having them talk to their mom a few times. I even tried to bribe them with candy and chocolate milk (I know that's horrible, but I was desperate!). NOthing seemed to work. By this time, the babies were both starting to get fussy again. Luckily, I had another lifesaver friend come over and help with the babies. Well, eventually I separated them and they finally went to sleep-2 1/2 hours after I started them! However, one of them was sleeping in my bed, and the other was sleeping in my babie's bed. That's where I was finally able to get them to sleep. I though, hey, no problem. I'll just bring up the air mattress from downstairs, and the baby and I will sleep in the family room. (The other baby was using the playpen.) That was fine, until I woke up in the middle of the night and the mattress was halfway deflated. I'm not sure what happened to it. Oh well. It was still fine. Everyone slept through the night, except Jared. He came out looking for me since I wasn't in my room. I was too tired to try to make him stay in his own bed, so I let him crash on the couch next to me.

So, the next morning came around. Everyone woke up at about 6:30, except Joshua. He woke up around 6, but I kicked him out and make him go back to bed. Anyway, I made Laura's baby a bottle, put him down on the floor next to me. Fed my baby. Changed both babie's diapers and clothes. Changed the other 2 kids diapers and clothes. Made sure my kids were dressed. And an hour had all ready flown by! I definately feel for mothers of twins and more! You're just constantly going, going, going! Anyway, the morning went pretty smoothly. I was expecting their parents to come get them around 11:00, but wasn't expecting John to get back until later that afternoon. But, he surprised me and got home at 10:30! I was sooo happy to see him after all that! It was a busy week, but a good one! We all survived and I'm sure I could do it again if I had to. :)

Sorry there's no pics, but I couldn't take any. :( But, here's some pics of John's peaceful mountain trip. (Actually he had some ups and downs on his trip to. He was with a bunch of teenage boys after all.) :)

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Swing set!!

Lately the boys have been very bored. We have all of their toys downstairs, but they refuse to play down there. They're scared of the basement I guess. Anyway, they end up laying around the house fighting and whining all afternoon. I've been going crazy! I never have a moments peace. It's either them in my face whining, or them arguing and fighting. Constantly. This weekend, we got a swingset and set it up. It's been so nice! As first, they whined and complained and wanted us to play on it with them. (That's another thing with them-they don't think they can do anything by themselves. They want us to do everything with them.) But, we ignored them, and eventually they ventured out by themselves and started playing. They've been out there for hours this weekend! Not inside whining at us! Yes! It was a success!


What a good helper!

I'm so happy to have such wonderful boys! The other day I was holding the baby because every time I put him down he started to cry. It was past time to be making dinner. Joshua came in and asked when dinner was going to be ready.
Me: Not for a long time. I haven't started cooking it yet.
Joshua: Why not?
Me: Because the baby cries when I put him down.
Joshua: (in a very matter of fact, yet helpful voice)Well...I can hold him for you.
Me: (thinking about it)Oh, ok. I guess that would be ok. Thanks!
So, I set them up on the couch, and Joshua held the baby for about 20 minutes while I got dinner started. It was wonderful!! He is so sweet with Ethan and just loves him to pieces! Here some pics to prove it really happened. :)



Field Trip

So, I mentioned before that I'm going to be homeschooling Joshua this year. As part of that, we're going to be going on some field trips so we can get out and have some fun. Some will be with other kids, some will be just with us. We also have playgroups we go to 2-3 times a week. Anyway, last week on Thursday we went our first field trip. We went to Wheeler Farm in Salt Lake. It was a lot of fun. We went on a hay ride around the farm and we saw the animals. Then we fed the ducks. Then we went over to this really neat little stream and the kids played in it. They started out with their pants rolled up just walking around, but ended up getting completely soaked. They loved it though! We played in the stream for about an hour. They were throwing leaves in and chasing them down the stream, and eventually they even started attempting to jump across it. Sometimes they made it, sometimes they didn't. :)

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Haircut

Last week I woke up one morning and was so tired of my hair. So, the next day I went and spontaneously got it all chopped off! And I even added bangs! It is a huge difference, and at first I wasn't sure about it, but now I'm happy with it. What do you think?

Willard Bay

As promised, I'm trying to keep more up to date on my blog. So, yesterday afternoon we went to Willard Bay for a couple hours. The boys went swimming with dad, while I stayed at the picnic table in the shade with the sleeping baby. It was fun to watch them out having fun together. John said they were looking for buried treasure along the shore and they skipped rocks and all kinds of stuff. They had a lot of fun. After that, we went and got ice cream cones. It was a fun Saturday afternoon. We really need to get out and do stuff like that more often. We don't usually go anywhere because I think it's too hard sometimes, but it really wasn't that big of a deal. I want to create more fun family memories like this one.