Whadda day!

Today has been a great day. I think a day like this is what being a Mom is about. I've been struggling  (I know. Another thing I'm struggling with) with having fun with my kids. It's hard for me with their different ages trying to find something that keeps them all happy and something I enjoy doing. I do not like playing with barbies, dolls or a lot of pretend things. I'm a lame Mom I know. I love games and just hanging out together, but sometimes that doesn't work or isn't fun enough for them. We had a few kids games but either the pieces are missing or I can't find them, so I thought I'd journey down to the DI to see what they had and I scored big time! I got I think 8 games for $11. We've played 2 so far today and they are having fun. Correction... WE are having fun.

--OH, and on a side note, I set Isabelle down because she was freaking out and I'm not lying, 10 seconds later I turn around and she's totally disappeared. I wasn't too worried. It was hard to try and spot her though because there were all these clothing racks around, so I got down on my knees to look for her..... nothing. I told Cooper and Caroline to help look.....nothing. So I thought the worst thing would be for her to get kidnapped so I walked to the front of the store 'cause I'd spot the thief or someone would bring her to the front of the store. Well as I get closer I see her walking OUT THE FRONT DOOR!!! There was this older lady there and she was looking around wondering where the psycho mother was and this man grabbed her hand before she was out in the parking lot. She had to have run the whole way up there because I was up there in less than 30 seconds. Little stinker.

Elizabeth came home and was so excited because..........

Yep. She got first place in the reflections photography division. The next round of judging isn't for another 2 months, but we don't care. We're so proud of her!

After another game and some snacks we headed over to a neighbor's house to pick some apples to make an apple crisp. We pulled our wagon to gather them up and Cooper pulled it all the way home. It was so cute. The girls were so great about washing and drying them and then I cut them up but unfortunately they were all past their prime. A little soft and not much flavor, so we'll be heading to the store tonight. :) They did look pretty though.

And yes.... we do have a little bit of crazy hair going on today!

We also took a few mintues to do a secret service for a neighbor and raked leaves and cleared the sidewalk off. It was really rewarding to watch the girls have fun working hard and working together. I was proud of them and it was fun to do a "secret service". We don't do it often enough.

A little while later we ran to a few stores and then headed over to Elizabeth's school for Literacy Night. It was super cute. It was a pirate theme and they had different stations with fun activities. The kids got popcorn, Caprisun's, hot rolls and lots of fun. It was a good day. I need to have more days like this with them. There were a few crazy moments, but all in all, I really loved being with them today. It's nice to have days like that!

Photographer in the making...

Elizabeth decided to do photography for the reflections contest at her school. She took all the pictures herself and decided instead of doing one she wanted to do a collage. I told her one time the five steps she had to do to get them all over there and ran to do something. I kept waiting for her to call me for help, but about 5 minutes later I walked back in and she was nearly done. I was amazed! How can a young brain remember something to do with technology so well and yet it can sometimes take older people several times to grasp. Amazing! Anyway... so I sent it off to get printed and picked it up later that night. The guy pulled the picture out and said, "do you have the copyright release for this?".

Me: What?

Guy: Do you have the release for this or are you the photographer of the picture?

Me: What did I print off? ( I thought that maybe I had accidentally printed off a picture from my photoshoot on Saturday)

He opened it up and it was Elizabeth's picture. I laughed.

Me: That picture was taken by my 6 year old daughter.

Guy: (leans over to the other guy) this was taken by a 6 year old

Other Guy: well, she must be destined for great things.

It made me smile. How funny. I do think she did a great job putting it together! It was so fun to watch her play around with the saturation and exposure and see what her creative eye ended up with. She loved it. Maybe she can be my assistant in a few years! :)

Just about me!

As many of you know, I've been struggling with losing weight for oh, like 4 years! I've had many things that have kept me from losing weight, mostly my own issues. I've had "a new day" a number of times and it just hasn't stuck for very long. I'd say "okay, I'm going to go without candy or sweets for a week." I make it a day and say to myself, "I guess I can do it, I just don't want to." So then I quit. I would think I had the self control to do it and fooled myself into thinking that if I could make it a day, I could make it as long as I wanted to.

Last winter we signed up at a gym and it was good. Brian said I could get a personal trainer and  that was great too. I worked out so hard and didn't see any real results on the scale. My trainer worked with my food and said I was doing everything right, but just wasn't losing. I was so frustrated. I was spending almost 2 hours a day at the gym. I had one week where it went well and I lost 3 pounds, but shortly after that we were in the process of moving and I couldn't keep up with it.

We moved up to Logan and lost our membership because they didn't have a gym up here. I also started feeling guilty about taking the kids to the daycare there for that long every day. I was starting to think this was just the way it was going to be for the next 4 years 'til my kids were in school and I could work out then. It was very frustrating. I hated waking up and putting on the same clothes that I packed away last year saying that I would for sure be out of them by this year. I hated, well, so many things. I hated the way I looked and the way I felt about how I looked.

Two weeks ago I started the South Beach Diet. I've done Weight Watchers and it's a great program, but I just didn't want to have to think about it. This diet took the thinking out of it. It also took out pretty much all the good things, but I didn't want to think about it, and this sounded easy enough. Surprisingly it was pretty easy. We went down to my parents house 2 days after I started it. The last timewe went down there I gained 3 pounds and just barely lost it, after 3 weeks. My Mom, being the great Mom and Grandma she is, made 2 different kinds of cookies for everyone to enjoy and had candy in various dishes around the house. I didn't even take one bite. Even at night when we were sitting around the table playing games and there was a plate full of cookies, I wasn't even tempted. I couldn't believe it. The next day we got pizza and I so wanted a bite, but I didn't. Again, couldn't believe my strength. There have been so many times in these two weeks that normally I would have taken a bite here or a little bit there and I didn't. I'm so freakin' proud of myself!!! Even through everyone in my house eating candy from Halloween. Not a bite here!

So it's been 2 weeks. I'm down 8 pounds and feel like I'm finally in control of myself. Brian told me I could buy an elliptical, so we did on Monday. Now I can work out at home when the kids are in bed, or in the morning before everyone wakes up and not feel guilty that I should be home with the family. I feel like there's light at the end of a tunnel that was so long I never thought I'd make it out of. Eight down, 22 to go!

Happy Halloween

Boy it's been a long and fun day! We started out at a corn maze. I thought it'd be fun for the kids, and it was, for the first 30 min. That's how long it took us to get lost and find our way back to the beginning. At least we could find the beginning. The kids wanted to jump on the hay, so we let them do that, then we did the kiddie maze. We were awesome at that one! Next time, just Bri and I will have to go on a date for the "adult" one. It was fun though.

After that we ran home and changed the kids into their costumes so they could go trick or treating at the mall. Not the best idea. Some stores weren't doing it, others were out of candy, but we stood in a forever long line and waited about 5 minutes in between stores to get a tootsie roll. Cooper and Isabelle were so fussy, so I took them home for naps while Brian took the other 2 girls out to main street where they were doing trick-or-treating there. It ended up being a nice break for me. About 2 hours of silence! Thanks babe!

Elizabeth was a witch, and I pretty one at that I might add! She had her school parade and wore the hat basically just because it covered her face. She is so funny sometimes about attention. Who would have thought she'd be shy..... at anything?!!!

Caroline originally said she wanted to be a dog, so I bought this cute headband thing and tail, but then she changed her mind and said she wanted to be Snow White, so that's what she was for her school day. I loved seeing her with black hair. You should have seen the shower! You'd think we hadn't cleaned it in months, oh wait, that's about accurate! (okay, not quite months)

So here is our attempt at trick-or-treating. Brian was going to stay home to hand out the candy and I said I'd take the kids out. This was how Cooper and Isabelle were by the first home. They didn't make it to the third! I turned them right back around and dropped them off with Brian and I took Liz and Caroline out for the big kid trick-or-treating! We snagged one of Elizabeth's best friends and she and her Mom and sister came with us. It was fun, aside from them standing completely off the porch at 75% of the homes waiting to see if they had a dog. One of  the first houses had a dog run out and jump on them, nearly knocking Caroline off the porch, so they were a little nervous at EVERY house! But we survived, they got their candy and are all now sleeping peacefully in bed. Missed being with Mom and Dad on Mom's bday. I like trick-or-treating in my home neighborhood. Elizabeth is already asking to go with friends, seems a little early too me! Happy Halloween!

Isn't this face just so darn cute?!!!

This wasn't the first of the drama for the day, but thought it was so telling of what the day was like with Cooper.

Oh, and before I forget to get this down, yesterday these two were so  stinkin' cute!!! I was trying to get them to help clean the basement and put away some clothes. I  admit, I'm horrible and doing chore charts and keeping on top of them to get their stuff done. I'd just rather do it and get it over with, but I am getting to the point where I'm getting overwhelmed and I know they're old enough to help. Well, Elizabeth was putting up a major stink about helping, but Caroline was doing fabulous and I kept telling Caroline how awesome she was and how great she was doing. Elizabeth was upset that I wasn't telling her but I said, "well, you're not doing anything". She took her stuff and put it away and I started vacuuming. I went into Cooper's room and she was in there all by herself folding all the clothes that were on her bed. She grabbed Caroline to join her and they cleaned Cooper's room, made his bed, cleaned their room and made their bed, cleaned Isabelles' room  and straightened the sheets in her crib. That room alone was a major accomplishment. I've been doing a little at a time because there are seasons of clothes to be sorted through in there. They even folded all the clothes, and I'm talking like at least 30 things. Then they went upstairs and cleaned our room and made the bed. I mean really cleaned it. Not just threw things in a pile. They folded everything and put things away. It was so cute and so nice. I guess they can do more than they let on. Time to jump on that! I just thought it was so cute and they were having so much fun doing it. I love these little stinkers!

In reverse order....

Last weekend we headed down to Sandy to say our goodbye's to Jill and Maya before they headed out to Arizona. Brian had been sick a few days before so we were trying decide if he should go or not. He said he felt fine Friday morning, so we all packed in the car and headed out. That whole weekend he was on and off with his fever. Guess he wasn't really better. Long story short on him, turns out he had swine flu which developed into bronchial pneumonia. So far, no one else has gotten it. Brian had to cancel patients on Monday to make sure he was in the clear. The Dr's office sent him home with a mask. I thought this was so sad and so funny at the same time.

The morning it snowed the girls asked if they could play in the snow as soon as they got home from school. Elizabeth was so excited to build a snowman, and so proud that she and Caroline did it all by themselves. I was pretty impressed too. I don't remember playing in the snow being fun, but they were sure loving it. So cute to see them out there building a snowman together.

We went to the pumpking walk for FHE the other night. It was pretty cool. All the displays were things made out of pumpkins. They were very creative and the kids had fun trying to find the hiding M&M. After all the displays they had these wooden stands you could put your face up to.


Why the tears you ask? Poor poor Cooper.

Unfortunately, he thought he was supposed to stick his head through, which he managed to do just fine, it was getting it back out that was the hard part. His poor ears were being smashed so bad. It took about 5 minutes to figure out how to get his head out. I thought we were going to have to cut his head out. I mean, it's not like peanut butter is going to help him in this case. His ears have red marks on them from squeezing through. So sad. We tried to get a picture of him doing it the right way, but he was scared of it and wouldn't go by it.




It was a fun night and we'll have to go back next year. Best part...it's free.


We also managed to do our pumpkins a few weeks ago, another FHE. Gotta love the holidays for easy ideas. Brian wanted to carve his, so Elizabeth wanted to, then followed by Caroline. I'm all about painting them. Easier and safer! Isabelle, Cooper and I painted ours. I didn't get a picture of Isabelle because she started eating the paint and I had to get it away before she overdosed on acrylic paint! :)




And just because I thought this picture was cute...

Happy Halloween!

Reminiscing

I've been going through my pictures to pull out all my "work" pictures and came across a few that I love. I know people say that your kids grow up before you know it and that you'll wish they were kids again. I've often felt that it goes by at normal speed if not a little slow, and that I can't wait for them to get older, but then I see their baby pictures and pictures from when they were younger and it makes me a little sad that they are getting older. I would like to be a little less depended on sometimes, but then I think that one day I'll look back and think "what was I thinking?!". I know a lot of times I gripe about my kids and their exuberant amount of energy, but I do love them! One on one we do a lot better. Heck, two on one even. When I do get the chance to have just one or two of them, I see how enjoyable they really can be. I love my munchkins. These 2 pictures tugged on a heart string for me.

Oh those eyes!

I love Cooper's brown eyes, but sometimes it's hard to get the light into them. Even though this one isn't in color, I love the way his eyes look. Such a sweet boy. (click on the picture to see it larger)

Oh my...

So this is what happens when I work at my computer and leave lunch on the kitchen table! OH, that's peanut butter by the way.

The Burning Bush

Brian came home from work one day and said, "don't you just love that burning bush?". I had to agree. One of the prettiest changes of fall if you ask me. So, Brian got a new lens and I grabbed Cooper, bribed him with chocolate and snapped a few pics. I only got the girls to sit still for like 1 sec. I really like this new lens Bri got for work. I hope I get to use it a little. Here are a few pics from our minute in front of our house with the burning bush.

Gotta Love Sundays!

I was trying to decide on what to write about for this past week. I had a few ideas on my list I could blog about:
1. Finding a dead mouse in our front yard
2. Finally figuring out how the mouse died
3. Taking the kids to a pumpkin launch and Lowe's for their cute kids workshop
4. Isabelle's endless screaming tantrums
5. My hot date to dinner and a movie where we were the only ones in the theater :)
6. How my camera has been in the shop for nearly 7 weeks and I want to kill the guy
7. How my sister and her fam are moving to Arizona in a few weeks
8. How Brian got his new ceiling tv's in his office
9. Or his new cerec machine

But the winner out of all these things is....... drum roll please.......
Sacrament Meeting!!!!

I know what you're thinking. How exciting could that be. Well, read on my dear friends and you will see.
Brian and I were asked to speak in church this week. I was already feeling a little more responsibility since I got called to teach the 15-16 year olds in Sunday School and this was going to be my first lesson. Well, aside from all the drama (aka Satan) this week while trying to prepare my talk, it was nothing compared to actually giving the talk. I mean first off, what were they thinking, asking us, with no family nearby, to both speak. What are we to do with the kids? Sure, we could have asked someone to watch them, but who do we punish? We're too new to really know. So we both sat in the congregation until Sacrament was over. Cooper was already fussy before the meeting started because he wanted to go straight to nursery. Isabelle was fussy because... well that's just how she is these days. I swear it's the dang teeth and I sure hope so because otherwise, she may be living with relatives shortly! Well, before we even got through the sacrament, all the "food" I brought for Isabelle was eaten up by her siblings (thanks to Bri :)) and 2 of my treats needed for my lesson. No real biggie though.
Well I was first to speak. I was already frustrated and frazzled more than I wanted to be from the fighting over who gets what pencil, or someone using someone else's coloring book, or questions every 5 sec (no exaggeration!) about whatever. I could not get the Spirit and was not looking forward to my talk. I used to love giving talks and enjoyed preparing them but I guess that was before I had 4 people so dependent on me 18/7. As soon as I got started, Cooper was on the stage. Brian quickly grabbed him and calmed him down. I went on talking a little about our family and mentioning a little something on the kids in hopes that it would get their attention and distract them from whatever commotion they were causing. Like for Cooper, I talked about how he has potty trained himself in the last 2 weeks. Why is this important to note? Read on.
My talk went fine. I actually did feel the Spirit while I gave it and especially when I bore my testimony about the Savior. It's been too long since I've shared my testimony. I used to be a lot better about it, but I'm not sure why lately. No good excuse really I guess. I went and sat down and after the musical number it was Brian's turn. As soon as he started talking, Cooper ran up and latched, no lie, on his leg. I had to rip him off. He was screaming, " I want Daddy". Nice drama scene for our new ward. So I had to calmly walk him off the stage, in which moment he chose to right hook me right in the back of the head. A loud chorus of "oohhhhhh" rang through the chapel. Nice Cooper! So I walked him out the door while mouthing to my parent-less children for Elizabeth to bring Isabelle to me. I guess she didn't get it because I waited out in the foyer for a minute at which point I heard Brian thank a lady over the speakers for getting Isabelle. After about 2 minutes of hearing her scream over the speakers, I went back to the door to get her. Oh lovely!
The rest of sacrament meeting went fine as far as I know since all the trouble was out in the foyer with me. While we were out there I thought I'd run Cooper to the bathroom. At home, he's a sitter, but taking all the socks and shoes and pants off are a little much, so standing is a little unfamiliar. Once he began, there was no stopping it and it was shooting all over the place and no matter how I tried to direct it, "it" had a mind of its own. Luckily no one else was in there while I was trying to clean it all up and yell at Isabelle to stay away from the other toilets. AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Once the meeting was over, I took Cooper to nursery and then went to teach my lesson. Through about 75% of it I heard Isabelle screaming outside my door. She knows where I am and since she isn't well behaved enough to stay in Sunday school, she walks to my door. Then there was the drama of Cooper screaming out my door because Brian was trying to take him to the bathroom. Oh joy! There wasn't any other major drama. Just minor when I was actually making it through Relief Society because Isabelle was being fairly good. The door opened and there was Cooper. "Does he need to go to the bathroom?" I asked. "He already did". Of course, since I mentioned he was potty trained, he had to make me a liar. With 15 min. left, I tried to find which room Brian was in and get him because I couldn't carry Isabelle, a 15 pound diaper bag and a wet child all out to the car. After 3 doors, I finally found him and he helped me load them up.
That's where the church drama ended, but don't think that's where the drama ended! The whole day has been endless drama. Sorry Satan, but you're wasting your time. I've hit my limit. Go bug somebody else!
Gotta' love sundays!