Charlotte- 18 months

So it took me a while to get some pictures of Charlotte at her 18 months old. For some reason it felt overwhelming to me to try and do, but we finally did and the first round did not go as well as I had hoped. I still got some of her true expressions, but I wanted to try again.

 So...... we tried again and I got a little more of what I was trying for.

She looks like such a big girl. I love it but it makes me sad too. My baby is growing up. She found a pacifier, or a pinky-pink as we call it, in a drawer and had a sudden taking to it. It's been like 7 months or more since she's used one, but she sure enjoyed it! Found her like this:

Love her!

Easter

Easter weekend was good fun. We had an egg hunt on Saturday with all the kiddos. Everyone came over for a bbq and then we followed it up with the egg hunt in the backyard. It was fun to watch all the kids run around. We couldn't find where we packed our easter baskets, so luckily our Halloween baskets we got on clearance for $. 25 this year were spring colors.Haha!

Easter day we had a great program that Brian put together for church. Julia was kind enough to come up and sit with our kids so I could also sing. I realized I miss singing. I haven't done it for a while 'cause once Brian opens his mouth in church, he is immediately sought after, especially for the choir, so I usually let him go, which is great. Not complaining. Just saying, it's been a while. He did a great job with the program.

Later that day we headed up to his parents house for a yummy Easter meal and the kids did a little egg hunt in the house as well. Great weekend and lots of yummy chocolate!

Sled Jumping

So after it snowed the first time after we moved here to PA, the kids went looking for our sleds and we couldn't find them. They must have gotten lost somewhere in the move, so I bought one to use the next time it snowed. Well we never really got enough snow to go sledding except one day and they were sleeping over at their cousins house.
  I ran a quick errand and came home to find this sport happening in our backyard.

That's all the use it got this year! Charlotte is not a fan of the trampoline, so she sat on the swing and looked at a book. Love my fam!

 

 I filmed some of it and then after everyone went in, Bella was outside by herself and came up with this.... made me laugh!

Arrrrgggg!

I can't do it! I cannot let it happen! I can't let another month go with only one post. How am I getting so lazy and behind on my posts?! I have been re-energized though and am going to do better. I did FHE on journals tonight. Brian tried to leave the room, his excuse being that he was watching Charlotte, but he needed this lesson just as much as the kids did! I talked on the importance of journal writing, or just documenting, be it through photos, writings, blogs, etc. I told the kids that my mind isn't the strongest and if I hadn't written in my journals, I wouldn't have half the memories from growing up, or them growing up. I had a few of my journals out, our blog books, their journals that I write in and a Father's journal I gave to Brian. I pulled out the Father one that I gave to Brian about 6 years ago and said to the kids, " how many stories do you think are in here about your Dad?' I kind of flipped through the book excitedly and then announced, "none". Both Caroline and Isabelle's excited expressions turned so sad. I thought Caroline was seriously going to cry, so I fed off it and said, " wouldn't it be terrible if Daddy died tomorrow and you didn't know any stories about him growing up?".  Brian was laughing of course, knowing that was all directed at him and told them, " just ask Grandma and GrandChud". Elizabeth told me to stop saying that because I also used that one on her this morning when she was using a very rude tone at me. I said, " boy I sure hope I don't die today and you end up feeling guilty for the way you treated me the last time you saw me." She got mad at said, "don't say that Mom!". I laugh thinking about it but I guess it probably isn't the best way to encourage kind tones. Anyway, I talked about how important journals are to me and my pictures. I got emotional as I told them that when we were moving the only 2 things I cared about being in the car with us and not on the truck were our journals and pictures. They are true treasures to me. Irreplaceable! So..... now I've got to update our family going-ons.


 So Cooper turned 5. Yep! The big 5! I called a gal I met in the ward who is amazing at cake decorating and asked her to help me make a cake for his birthday. He said he wanted a Mario cake since he's been totally into Marion Kart on the Wii. She came over with the cake made and frosted and Mario, the wheel and some of the little decorations already made. They had to dry in time, so she did that earlier and then she showed me different things as we rolled out the fondant to cover the cake and then I did all the little squares around the base and made a few little mushrooms and different pieces. It was fun. The kids came and watched some and really wanted to get involved, but it was bedtime. Sarah, my friend, let them cut some shapes out and let them eat some of the fondant and left some for the next morning.

We didn't let Cooper see it and hid it under a box. The next morning I was finishing up his birthday video and looked and saw Bella had the wheel in her hands. It too was hiding under the box, but she found it and I ran over there to save it before she broke it, only to find out that she had taken 3 bites out of it!!!!

I was so mad, of course, but luckily there was some left over white so I patched it up best I could. I don't know that anyone else noticed, and it was just a small piece of the cake, so it turned out okay. She was pretty upset and did apologize later. She just thought it tasted too good to pass up I guess.

 

Well Cooper did like the cake. I was hoping for a bigger reaction, but he said, "where's Bowser?".  Of course he let me know he liked it, but I was hoping for screams and what not, although I didn't think it'd really happen.

Other happenings..... absolutely beautiful weather! It's been a mild winter and early spring. I have to think that part of that is Heavenly Father blessing me because I absolutely hate winter and being in a new place cooped up for months and months is not easy. So I am thankful and we try to get out as much as we can. Amazing that the house can still get so messy so quickly! The kids have been wanting the trampoline up since we got here, so we finally put it up last week and surprisingly they are playing on it a ton! Seems to be a hot thing right now. They've had this boy Josh from down the street come play with them. He's 1 year older than Liz and there's been a little crush going on there and it's funny to watch and hear. Am I really getting this old?! On Saturday, after our "treasure hunt" from the Leprechaun, Brian played duck duck goose on the tramp with them. They love having him play with them. Fun way to play the game. You can't run, you have to jump to catch them. They were running here though.

I've started playing in a vball league and that's fun. Only had 1 game so far. I got called into the cub scouts and do that each Wednesday. Brian got called to be the choir director along with his calling of  teacher for the 10-11 year olds.

The kids are doing well. I keep getting frustrated with lack of respect, barking at them to do chores, home work and piano, little fights, unkind words, etc. I keep looking for ways to improve things things and keep praying we'll have more kindness in our home but it is hard! I can't help but think Satan is trying extra hard with our little kids because they are so awesome. We'll win though! We just keep trying and trying and praying and praying. Guess that's basically all we can do. I love my family! I've been noticing how quickly Charlotte is growing and it makes me sad. I'm pretty sure she's our last one and I've been feeling sad a little about it lately. I love my babies and she's nearly a toddler. I mean look at this one. Her hair is getting long, her facial features are changing and she's getting older.

She's been so fun. Her favorite place to be lately is the dryer.

She's got such a big grin. I love it! I love my kiddos.. Big and small. I've been aware of all the kids getting bigger. I keep thinking about Elizabeth getting so much older and aware. I remember being her age. It's scary. I see how people say it goes by fast, and treasure those moments, and I get that. I will miss them being small because I love so much about it and as soon as they get older, they're going to be gone so much more to various things, and then just gone. Makes me sad to think about, so I just won't. Well, that's about it for now.

Life

So I had this whole plan of doing "a day in the life of me" but I only got through a morning. Yikes! But my day is basically my morning repeated, with a few variations. We get  messes and things broken:


 

 We get upset children and tears bigger than life:

We do have a few calm moments and after Charlotte goes down for a nap, and we do "school":

We have a lot of frustrations and "poke my eyeballs out" moments, okay, maybe not poke my eyeballs out, but that's what came to mind when I saw this. She was majorly frustrated!

And yes, some days we do stay in our pajamas all day. I'll admit, I was one of those young gals that thought, "my kids will never be one of those dirty, messy hair, food on their face, pajama wearing kids", but I realize now, I was so unaware of my life to come. 

Yes, I know there are people who have the perfect children with bows in their girls hair and their boys faux hawk going on and super cute clothes and what not, but one thing I do have an am so grateful for is exactly what Charlotte's pajama's from the day before say: HAPPY kids! Love them! Messes, drama and all.

** In all fairness to Charlotte, I did have Bella stick her finger in her nose for effect. I know... but I had to set the picture up for effect. :)

Here's a video from the above frustration. Makes me laugh.

February- part 1

February is the worst month of the year in my opinion. Nothing to look forward too, fat gained from the hoildays that still needs to be lost, cold dreary weather, just blah! But this February hasn't been too bad. It started off great with my trip to Charleston that Brian gave me for Christmas. I'd be tracking the weather hoping for a good few sunny days and I was blessed with 3! It was such a fun trip too. Grandma and I had fun relaxing, eating out, doing the usual beach, market, California Dreamin', Bessingers outings and then just relaxing at night. Each morning I woke up and went for a walk. It was so nice to wake up when I wanted, throw on my shoes and walk out the door without bundling up 5 kids or looking for shoes or grabbing a diaper bag and food or any of that. Just really walking out the door and walking. It was sunny and calm and just ..... heaven! I love my kids, don't get me wrong, but this was like a break from reality heaven for my dreaming heaven. :)

The 2nd day there I went on a 2 hour walk. 2 hours! And I loved it. I realized how much I really love getting out and going for a walk. I have to do it more. Grandma was, of course, the perfect host and let me just sit and read or took me out to lunch or stayed up late watching a movie, or Romney's campaining trail, as she loves following that. It was great to spend some time with her and great to get a relaxing break from my everyday life. One night Grandma and I snuck out into a park to get this shot. We had flashlights and her pepper spray just in case. It's pretty freaky walking in the dark by a cliff that leads to water, but this shot was worth it!

Here are a few other shots that I took during that weekend. I'm thinking it needs to be a yearly thing! So.Much.Fun!!!

Elizabeth's Bday

So it's been almost a month since Elizabeth's bday and I am just now posting on the blog. There wasn't much that happened that day. It was a pretty normal day since she had school. She did take a treat to school. I tried to get her to take like an airhead for each kid or a ring pop 'cause we had all that at home already (reward system), but she said everyone brought doughnuts for their birthday and she didn't want to be different. I didn't want to spend like $25 on doughnuts so I asked her if she'd be okay with cupcakes. She said that was the second choice of things kids brought and after doing a survey of her classmates, it was approved, and half the cost! So..... cupcakes it was. She was not liking the idea of the attention it would bring taking them into the school, but she got over it and made it into her class with them.


After school we hung out and waited for daddy to get home. We had the missionaries over for dinner and had tacos, which was Elizabeth's request, along with "lime squeezy" as she's always called it. Just a lime drink with ice cream blended together. After that, Grandma, Granchud and Julia came over for cake (she wanted a soccer ice cream cake) and presents and the yearly birthday video.  It's been an adventurous year for this girl. Another new school, new friends and new experiences, but she's handled them all well and is growing up so quickly. Love this girl!

The drabness of January

So far this year has started out pretty uneventful and boring actually. The weather has been fairly mild which is nice. I have gotten on blogger to post something several times and have had nothing of interest to post, so I've decided this week I'm going to do " a day in my life" photo journaling, so look for that in the near future.

So like I said, nothing of particular interest has happened. Brian and I both have ward callings now. He's choir director (shocker) and 11 yr old primary teacher and I've been called to be a den leader over the Bears. So far it's been kind of fun, plus, in theory I'm supposed to come home after the kids are in bed, which is a nice little break for me. Hasn't happened yet, but I'm hopeful. :) We've had some good times hanging out with the Chudleigh fam and thanks to our Christmas gift from Mom and Dad "C" we've had a few dates out on the town, which are always the highlights of my week!

We haven't had hardly any snow, but we did get some Saturday and I woke up to the kids getting their snow stuff on. One of my least favorite things ever. For real. Someone is always crying about something not fitting right or feeling right and it takes like 30 min to get them dressed and out the door, and no lie, like 5 minutes later someone is coming in already begging for hot chocolate. Oh well. Such is life I spose. The older three stayed out for a while, especially Liz. She had fun digging a fort out there, even by herself. So, here are a few pictures from that. Hopefully something fun and exciting will be happening soon. In a positive way of course. I think next will be Elizabeth's bday. 9 years old. Wow!

Christmas Time

Oh the catch up game. Here we go: Got a tree. Cooper was the star hanger this year. Had to take it down (all the decorations and lights) and do it all again because we let the tree run out of water again. Seriously contemplating a fake tree. I think this is the 3rd year we've done that. But... it did survive until Christmas.

Finally put the train under the tree. had it for like 2 years, but this year it made it out of the box. The kids loved it. It was fun and magical to watch them by the tree just enjoying it so much.

No matter where Charlotte was in the house, once she heard the whistle blow, she was right at that tree. Amazingly enough, she never messed with it.

I think she, like myself, feels trapped in the house. One day I threw on this cute little coat and took her out and even though it was freezing, she was so happy to be out.

She's a little ham. She knows what gets reactions and makes us laugh. Sticking her finger up her nose is one of them. I might have to tone down my reaction so it doesn't become a habit! 

 Just can't get enough of her big brown eyes. Love them!

Found Isabelle like this in her room one day. So funny. I had to take a picture of it of course.

 Made the ginger bread houses again this year.  It actually was more fun this year since they're 2 years older and can do most of it themselves. They all really enjoyed doing it. Especially Caroline.

 She stuck around for at least 10 minutes after everyone else was done to put the finishing touches on hers.

 Finally had an adult Christmas party. I've been wanting to do it with my family, but it just never happened.  It did with Bri's family this year and it was so nice. We went out to dinner then came back to our place, had some treats, played the pipe chimes, had a white elephant DVD exchange, opened presents and played a game. All without the kids. And it was enjoyable! For everyone. We could actually pay attention when others were opening their presents and just enjoy being together. Loved it.

Christmas Eve we had a get together at Suzanne's with everyone. The cousins all did their presents there and then we came home, had dinner at our place with Mom and Dad C. and Julia. Afterwards we read the Christmas story and as usual, had the kids place the pieces by the stable as they were read. They seem to enjoy that. 

After that, the kids got to open their presents from Grandma and GranChud and they were quite surprised and thrilled. Even Cooper let out a scream about the doll house. He got his own presents though, Spiderman and Batman. Couldn't have been happier.

After that, they all got ready for bed and thanks to help from Brian and Julia, I got my magical tent set up for them. I had been planning this for a few weeks. It didn't turn out quite as big as I had pictured in my head, but the day just got so crazy and this was what we ended up with. I still thought it was great and they seemed to be thrilled with it too. All the kids slept under there, well, not Charlotte, and actually, we ended up taking Bella out and putting her in her bed. Cooper found a bulb that had blown, but the fuse was still in and he got quite a shock, but other than that, I think it will be a fun memory for them and we'll see how it turns out next year.

Love these people!!!

 Christmas day was great. I actually don't have any pictures 'cause I just took video, but they were so happy and excited. Especially Bella. She was so fun to watch. They actually woke up at 6:20, but only Santa had his present out and their stockings. We decided to wait and do the rest after church, which unfortunately, was at 9:30. They didn't get upset though which was nice. After church we came back and opened presents and then headed up to Bri's parents house for the day. It was fun to be with everyone and play game and just enjoy the food and each other. Holidays are so fun. Merry Christmas!

We made it

I feel like I've used that title a few times too many. But we did. We made it to PA.... barely. Truly! I should start at the beginning. A very good place to start. :) So Brian ditched out on us on September 27th. He drove himself out to PA to start his new job while the rest of us stayed behind to wait for the house to sell or rent. I was dreading being a single Mom. I could only image the worst, but it actually wasn't bad at all. The kids were surprisingly well behaved, we got along well, the went to bed like good children and I had a few hours at the end of the day to do whatever I wanted. We may have been unorganized in getting homework done, but I actually kept up pretty well on the house because I knew I could get a phone call at any minute saying someone wanted to come look at the house and that is the worst when the house is a mess, that and I didn't want to take out my stress of that on the kids. I wish I could keep the house that clean when Bri is around. I try, but for some reason it doesn't work as well. So the house had been under contract (sale) until about a week before Brian left. We weren't surprised it fell through. The couple was really a pain in the butt! We had a hard time deciding when the rest of the family should go out if nothing happened with the home, but we stuck with our plan and kept our moving truck and long story short, things worked out getting the home rented and moving on the original date. It wasn't without some frustration and uncertainty, but it all worked out. I know my strength was due to many who were praying HARD for me! I know I couldn't have done it without all the prayers. I had much more patience and was a lot more calm with the kids than normal. It was a nice feeling while it lasted. JK.  Getting the house all packed up and cleaned was NOT easy! There was a lot more to it than I was remembering, even though it was only 1 year ago. We did it in shifts then, so it was hard to really remember how much stuff we had. I had lots of help from my family and amazing ward members. There were people cleaning everything in my home and helping with kids. Of course, when I was in the last 2 days of it all, 2 of my kids got pink eye. I swear my kids get sick every time we move. I truly had angels helping me get everything done. Bri didn't come out until it was all done, and he's my work horse, so a lot of help was needed to get it all done.
 The truck showed up with not enough space, so they had to send a second truck, which didn't show up until about 11:00 at night. We ended up having to sleeping at a neighbor's house because our expectations of them being done were completely off from the actual time they took. Thank goodness for my neighbor Sue, who let us sleep at her home, watched my kids, took some to the movies, picked up prescriptions and rounded up the women who came and helped get my house clean. So glad to have been surrounded by wonderful people who would sacrifice time, money and energy to serve my family. I hope to be aware of situations where I can bless others lives as mine was.

UPDATED:
 I've had this post in draft for like 3 weeks. There were so many things to add and no great pictures, so I've dreaded putting it up, but I have to move on with my life. :) So here's the bullet list run down:
*  moved into house without anything. Borrowed kitchen stuff, clothes, air mattresses, blankets, etc.
* had issues getting kids into school since all documents were on the truck, but finally did and they both LOVE it. Yay.
* quite a bit behind in the school curriculum from our Utah school. So far, just Liz is in a math tutor class after school, but I think they may start Caroline. Grateful for that though to help them get caught up.
* car transmission blew up, no lie, as we pulled in the driveway of our new place. Only went about a week without a car. Went from SUV to van, but it's a lot easier with all the kids and it's a great car. Thanks to Bri's parents for helping us with that!
*Had a leak in the ceiling about 2 days after we moved in. Not a major big deal, but annoying.
* Have an awesome landlord/neighbor who not only supplied us with tons of blankets, soap, sheets, towels and such until our stuff came in, but replaced the new carpet he put in the dining area with laminate to our request because of our children and they're not so clean eating habits. Truthfully though, I spilled on it too.
* Great neighbors who are so kind and welcoming.
* Walking distance to the library which was a saver on the days with no car.
* Reoccuring pink eye at least 4 times
* Lots of time with Bri's family. The kids love playing with all of them.

There are just a few of the things I can think of off hand. All in all though, we are doing well and the kids have adjusted beautifully. It's a bummer we move in when it's winter and can't get to know the neighbors, but we'll have time for that in the spring I guess.