Heidi.... 7 months!!!

Heidi has been busy lately. Busy growing. Busy learning. She is an early achiever in my family. None of my other kids could do half of what she can do by this age. The one I want to stay a baby is determined to grow up faster than all the rest. I will say it is so fun to watch her figure things out and try new things. She is my heart. Here are some of her very recent achievements...

SITTING!!! (she can sit herself up even!)


CRAWLING!!!


ATTACKING BIG BROTHER!!!


PULLING UP!!!


PULLING UP IN BED!!! (a whole new bedtime problem)


And here she is eating cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory.


THE HAPPIEST BABY!!!

Still no teeth! Or HAIR!!! LOL

I love this little girl so much. There is no greater joy than children, unless my papa is right about grand and great-grandchildren...

Another Milestone

I was sitting on the couch crocheting, what else do I ever do, and Heidi crawled over to me. Yes, crawled. She isn't quite a pro yet, she looks a little drunk when she is crawling. She even does an occasional nose-dive into the carpet, you know the kind where your feet fly up in the air and almost hit you in the back of the head. But she can do it. I felt her hands grabbing at my legs. She wanted in my lap. Then I looked down over my cute flower I was working on, and she is standing up!!! She totally pulled up! I couldn't believe it. Jennifer witnessed it, too. I was so excited for her and I cheered and clapped for her and gave her the biggest hug. Then I thought, dang! I need a picture of that for my blog! Babies don't usually pull up on demand, so I posed her up on the couch for this picture. To be honest, she fell over the first time I stood her up there. But she held on long enough for me to snap this picture the second time. So it is a fake picture, but she really did pull up on her own.

I am so excited for all the new things she does, but a little sad, too. Every new thing she does marks her growth towards toddlerhood. I want her to stay my baby forever. She will always be my baby. I hope she doesn't hate me for it. :)

O Canada!

Jared just got back from a 3 week long class in Canada and he had a nice visit. He got to go to the West Edmonton Mall, where he found the Dollarama. He spent a whole seven dollars and got souveniers for everyone but ME. My family looks good in Canadian red, eh?

He didn't bring home any Canadian Bacon.

Little Peeker

This is what I get to see each morning when I go get Heidi out of bed...



I love her peeking over the edge of the bumper! She is SOOOO cute!

Teacher Gifts

I am really excited about my teacher gifts this year. Karalee showed these to me and we made them together. It was SO fun. I am definitely hooked, I want to make millions of them :D

SCRABBLE TILE PENDANTS!

Isn't it adorable?

The group of them.







And just so there is no confusion because of my "store-bought" looking packaging, this will be on the back of all of them ;)


Click on any image to enlarge if you want to see it up close :D

Moron? I think not.

What do your kids do when they are home sick from school? Megan perfects her skills at taking the Moron Test. It is the number one app on iphones. It is a pretty cool test that basically tests your ability to read and react. If you have an iphone or and ipod touch, I recommend it. (Thanks to Laura for telling me about it :) Here is Megan and her mad moron skills...



She has done it even faster since this video. I think 80.9 seconds. She did it at 90 seconds and I told her I could do it at 85, just guessing that I had to be better at it than her. She did it again and got to 84.5 secs. I tried to do it fast and I was half way through it and already her time was long gone and then I failed. So she is probably at least twice as fast as me! Get the app, it is fun to play and funner to watch your friends play it after you already know all the tricks.

Things that make you go hmmmm...

Today my house was shown to a couple. I was down the block and I saw them arrive and enter my house. I circled the block waiting for them to leave because I hadn't showered yet so I really couldn't go anywhere. People usually aren't there more than 15 minutes. Well, 30 minutes later they leave and I go in my house. I sat in my recliner and my foot touches a wet spot on my carpet. ??? I touch the carpet with my hand and do the dreaded sniff test. Great. It smells like PEE! What the heck! Heidi wears a diaper. Christian is in a pull up. How did that happen? Weird. I never saw an animal go in or any kids. Plus, there were drag marks in the carpet, too. Wider than a vacuum, like maybe a wheelchair. But there definitely was no one in a wheelchair in my house. Kinda wish I could have had a video recorder going on while there were here. Hmmmmm....

My Ethan is SIX Today!

I can't believe six years ago I gave birth to my first boy, a whopping 9 lbs 14 oz!


Ethan is such a special little guy. He is so sensitive and loving. He really cares for others. He is really smart and funny and he is all boy. I think he gives his teacher a hard time sometimes, having to pull his pin (change color) a little too often. But hey, I think overall he has had a pretty good year in Kindergarden. He surprises me with how much he really does know. I was excited to honor him all day. He got to wear a ribbon that said "my 6th birthday" on it.


I went to eat with him at school. That was really fun. When I got there his class had just went to the cafeteria and I was worried that he would get food from the lunch line, I brought him a special lunch. (Subway, there aren't many fast food restaurants that sell lunch at 10 am!!) But there he was sitting at the table next to all his friends with no lunch in front of him... waiting patiently for me :)!!! I was so impressed! He jumped up when he saw me and ran to me and we sat down together. We had a good lunch. He has some talkative friends I tell you!
Then a little later I went back up to the school and brought cupcakes for Ethan to share with his classmates. That was fun, everyone was so excited and Ethan felt so special handing out the cupcakes. Another little boy in class had a birthday today, too, and he brought cookies! Those kids were all sugared up!


When we got home from the school, Ethan's presents awaited him. He had fun tearing into them, even pausing a second to notice they were wrapped in Star Wars wrapping paper. He got a DS game, an Indiana Jones lego set, a regular lego set (these are the tiny legos, we are trying those out for the first time!) and his favorite gift... a bow and arrow.


We had a dinner of German pancakes and fresh fruit and sausage and then we headed to Chuck E Cheese's. Ethan got 20 tokens for free (coupon) and then I bought 100 tokens and we had fun! It wasn't crowded so that made it even better! And even though we had cupcakes earlier, Ethan needed a cake. I bought a candle for him to blow out and I had been eyeing the chocolate cake sold at CEC's for a long time and I was ready to try it out! So we showed Ethan the cakes, a boring unappetizing vanilla one and a decadent delicious awesome chocolate one. Look at what he picked...

Can you see the disappointment in Megan's eyes? Mine are much the same. But the important part was Ethan's happiness and he was happy with his choice.


A Birthday Collage, I love this little guy so much!

Happy Mother's Day!

I have to say that spending a Mother's Day cooking, cleaning, and taking care of four kids by myself is not how I would picture my day of supposed recognition, especially when my husband got to relax and read a book all day. (You shouldn't tell on yourself, Jared!) I wouldn't change poopy diapers or wipe up spit up from my shirt. I wouldn't take four kids to church alone or break up fights or listen to endless whining over what I made for dinner. I wouldn't make sure my house was immaculate and ready to show to prospective buyers making me 45 minutes late to church only to come home and see that no one came.

But that isn't all that happened today. I was showered with cards and love notes from my kids. I got slobbery kisses from Heidi, she grabs my hair and pulls me close and smashes her mouth on my face. Megan helped me get breakfast for everyone. Christian snuggled with me while we watch a few cartoons. Ethan told me I was the best mom ever. Oh, Megan did, too. I got to go to church with my wonderful, well behaved kids and get the cutest handprint momento/potpourri pillow. Instead of a carnation, all of us mothers got an awesome spiral bound collection of gospel pictures which is the best gift I have ever gotten from church for Mother's Day. A sweet friend who I teach with made chocolate covered strawberries for all the ladies in primary (my kids ate them, I did get one). I got to share a nice dinner courtesy of Stouffers with my kids filled with fun conversation and lots of laughs. Megan helped get dinner cleaned up so we could have our traditional Sunday Sundaes while we watch America's Funniest Home Videos. I got to kneel with my sweet children and listen to their prayers. All in all, today was filled with lots of happiness. Yes, I had to do everything myself, no husband to help. Yes, I had to do lots of things I don't consider pleasant or fun, but I am a mother, it is what I do. It is what I find joy in. It is the most important thing in my life. I wouldn't change a thing.

Aren't these so cute! Karalee is amazing as always...


My kids and all the wonderful things they gave me. Heidi is sleeping so she didn't get to be included in photos :(


A close up. I love it all, sweet thoughts from them to me.


Megan made this for me last week and it sat on my desk all week. I won't say if I read it before today or not ;) I love the sticky note on it!


Ahhh, what I made myself for mother's day.


Happy Mother's Day to all of my friends and especially to my mom, Nanny, and my mother-in-law. You all inspire me to be a better mother. I watch and learn from you and my kids benefit greatly. I am glad to have you all in my life.

And now I am off to my strawberries. I just might eat them all... Tomorrow the dieting begins.... LOL!!!

UPDATE: I only ate 4 strawberries before I thought I would die if I ate another LOL. That just means I have some for tomorrow :D Maybe that can be our FHE snack...

Ethan the Cowboy

Ethan had a Kindergarden program last Tuesday at school all about the great state of Texas. It was really cute. Here are the songs they sang...











I love Ethan's face in the fourth video and the words in the second, but the last one is prob my favorite. He is such a cute boy! I love him!!!

poop anyone?

I made quesadillas for dinner the other night with chicken, cheese, and black beans inside. If the beans weren't secured in with the cheese they fell out. When Christian picked up his quesadilla a couple beans plopped onto his plate. His face was total shock! Here is the conversation...

C: My food pooped!
me: It's not poop, they are beans.
C: oh, they are beans, *smile*
megan: no, Christian, it really is poop!
C: (terror on face) It's POOP???
Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOO Christian, they are beans! Megan, shut your mouth!
C: Oh, they are beans. (relief)

He didn't eat a bite.