Not much, but an update

Justin informed me yesterday that he keeps checking the blog for updates and reminded me that I haven’t posted in a while. It sounds a little strange that our family website would be the means of him keeping on top our family happenings, but unfortunately it seems to be the case these days. Justin been busy, busy and it seems like we’ve seen very little of him lately. Things at home have also been busy, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Abigail wrapped up her first basketball season undefeated. We had an entire three day break before she started practicing for spring soccer.



Yesterday I spent most of the day at the Seattle Temple with our stake Relief Society. This was the first Saturday in several weeks that Justin was home (technically, he should have also gone since one of his church responsibilities is working with the stake Relief Society, but we felt he was needed more at home). He asked me for three things that I wanted him to get done while I was gone… considering we’re in the middle of “March Madness” I was happy that he accomplished two of the three. One of the jobs was to dust the cobwebs around our 20+ foot ceilings. He even thought to have Abigail take a picture of the contraption he put together to get the job done… I thought he was quite clever. (That’s our broom and mop duct taped together)




The kids have been building lots of forts lately. I remember when I was a growing up we’d build huge forts in our basement. So fun - and hours of entertainment.



My before-baby-to-do-list is still incredibly long and sadly I am becoming quite useless. Just walking upstairs is exhausting – by the time I reach the top my heart is racing. My body is not cut out for this pregnancy stuff – it sure would be nice if someone else could carry her around for a little while for me. In spite of all the aches and pains, I am so grateful and excited for this baby to come into our family. I keep a calendar on my fridge and updated it this weekend. It’s exciting to know that somewhere on this calendar is our baby’s birthday. Now that her arrival is finally getting closer we’re thinking about names and it’s time to start looking at car seats, diapers, etc… Things I haven’t wanted to do because it just seemed SO far away. While I haven’t talked to my doctor about exact dates yet, I’m quite certain the latest we’ll have this baby is four weeks from tomorrow.

Just a cute picture of Abigail giving Jason a piggy-back ride.

Jason Lately

Okay so I know I’ve posted lots of “tidbits” about my kids lately, but over the past week I’ve written down several Jason moments that I want to remember and so I thought I’d might as well post them too. Besides that there’s an adorable video clip – so if you all the journaling is a bit much for you – just check out the video cause it really will make you smile.

Budding Artist? - Jason has had very little interest in anything artistic. We’ve been able to leave out crayons, markers, and scissors without any worry about Jason picking them up. I’m not exaggerating at all when I say his interests still lie heavily with cars and trains. The other night Abigail brought in her piano book and showed me that Jason had just scribbled on a page with a pencil he’d found lying around in the living room. Then he came in the kitchen showing Justin and I the pencil and saying “draw.” I proceeded to explain that we only draw on the kitchen table. The next thing I knew Jason was doing just that – drawing ON THE kitchen table. Justin and I couldn’t help but laugh, Jason on the other hand was shocked that I was stopping him from doing just what I had explained he could.

Next American Idol? - I wrote a while back of Jason’s love of Curious George. He definitely still adores that speech impaired monkey, but we’ve recently added Elmo to Jason’s favorite TV characters. Last week I was sitting in the office doing my thing while Jason was watching the last of Elmo’s World and during the closing song I heard Jason singing along. For most parents that’s probably not a big deal, but with Jason’s limited vocabulary that was HUGE for me. So I grabbed the video camera, rewound the show and caught it on tape:

Isn’t that just the cutest? I can hardly believe that Jason’s been doing speech therapy for almost a year. I still think that much of what he says can only be understood by me, but at this point being able to understand my boy is HUGE. We’re starting to get three word phrases and one of our newest phrases is “what’s that?” which he uses when we’re looking at picture books. I love being about to have little conversations with him. His voice is just adorable and the way he fluctuates his voice (imitating me I’m sure) cracks me up. He’s definitely making improvements and he seems to surprise me daily with some of the things that come out of his mouth. He’s a super smart kid – just a man of few words.

Working Hard – When kids are learning how to talk they need lots of reinforcement. As parents we give them praise when they say something new and we often repeat what they say – for example: kid says “wa-wa”, parent says “oh, you want some water?” Jason still struggles with a few consonants like “C” and “G”. So saying “Carly” is super difficult for him. So instead he calls her “Esa” Not sure how that sounds anything remotely like Carly, but he’s consistent with it and we’re grateful he at least has something he refers to her as. It cracked me up last week when I heard Justin mimicking Jason and called Carly “Alyssa”. I’ve found myself doing the same thing several times.

To help him with these difficult sounds, his speech therapist will use an infant spoon to hold down the tip of his tongue and then he’s can do it. She tells me that he just needs to catch on to what it feels like to say “C” and “G” and what his tongue needs to do. Right when she got here on Friday he ran into the kitchen and started rummaging through the utensil drawer for the spoon. She said that was the cutest thing that’s happened to her all week. Most 2 year-olds wouldn’t tolerate someone sticking something in their mouth and then expecting them to try and talk - while my two-year-old is completely cooperative. He works very hard during therapy and is definitely improving.

Early to bed, REALLY early to rise – Over the past week or so Jason has started waking up before 7am! In my house anything before 7am is still considered the dead of night and is unacceptable. The first time he woke up he went into the girl’s room and hopped up on their bed and woke them up. The second day he went into the girl’s room and started playing with a musical bus, we all woke up to “stop and go, stop and go on the school bus…” So he and I had a little talk after which he understood he can’t go into the girl’s room anymore in the morning. He’s done fantastic with that, but now he comes into my room instead. Sunday morning it was 5:53am! Thankfully, I was able to convince him it was still night-night-time and he went back to bed for an hour. So it’s looking like 12 hours at night and a 4 hour nap during the day is becoming too much. He still needs a nap though and I can’t imagine putting a time limit on how long he can nap, but the alternative of early mornings doesn’t sound so appealing either. Maybe he’s just trying to get me adjusted to the sleep deprivation I’ll be experiencing once this baby comes.

Mr. Sensitive – No kid likes to be corrected or told they can’t do something, but lately Jason has been VERY sensitive to correction. If he does something he shouldn’t and we (even in the nicest possible way) tell him he did something wrong, he breaks down in tears. Not tantrum, spoiled-little-brat tears, but you’ve broken my little heart tears. It really makes us feel bad for him… maybe we’re just totally getting played.

Pearly Whites - Last week we all visited the dentist for our semi-annual cleaning. And drum roll please….everyone came out cavity-free. This was Jason’s first visit to the dentist and I wasn’t sure how it would go. The girls were three when they started going to the dentist and did awesome. They let them take all the x-rays they wanted and sat perfectly still, mouth wide open while they got their teeth thoroughly cleaned. Jason is much more of a wild card, but thankfully he did awesome. They put Nemo on TV he was in the zone. The hygienist said she could have tap danced on his head and he wouldn’t have noticed. And he didn’t have any problem getting the x-rays either. Hooray for Jason!

Carly Turns Six!

Thursday was Carly’s sixth birthday. We knew we had a busy evening and wouldn’t be able to celebrate after school so Justin stayed home that morning so we could all eat breakfast together. Before we could do anything though Carly had to open up the box my Mom sent her last week. It was the perfect gift for our crafty-loving Carly. Lots of scissors that cut fun patterns, foam paper, and glitter glue.

It took less than a minute for her to have the kitchen table covered with her new supplies.

Whose idea was it to put chocolate chips in the pancakes??

The rest of the day was pretty ordinary. She wanted to take something into her class for her birthday, but her teacher doesn’t let the kids bring in any food. I was having a hard time coming up with something to hand out. Carly suggested pencils so being the cheapskate that I am we rummaged through our stash and came up with enough unsharpened pencils for everyone. Sad, I know, but why in the world would I buy pencils when we have plenty to spare?

We had her birthday party yesterday after school. I’ve known what I wanted to do for her party for several months. There’s a little yellow house on one of the main streets in town that we pass all the time that does ceramics. I checked it out a few weeks ago and knew it would be something Carly would love to do. We invited five friends to join us (plus two cousins and a sister). They were each able to pick out a small figurine to paint. It was interesting to see who was very detailed oriented (Abigail could have painted for hours) and which kids just slapped on the paint and called it good. We’re excited to see the final results after they get fired in the kiln. All the kids seemed to have a great time.

Afterward we came back to our house to open presents and have cake & ice-cream. Carly was so excited to choose the kind of birthday cake she wanted. She changed her mind several times, but that morning she settled on a butterfly cake. She chose the colors as well and insisted on black antennas.

It was an easy party to pull off which is exactly what I needed, but most importantly Carly had a blast and felt very special on her special day.

Few tidbits about Carly at six:

As mentioned she loves to be crafty. She loves it when I have scraps of cardstock for her to use. She pieces things together into fun designs. Recently Abigail even asked Carly to give her craft lessons. She’s very artistic and never says she’s bored – she’s always got something she wants to create. It seems we never have a meal in which Carly doesn’t have to clear off the kitchen table beforehand.

In the last few weeks Carly has started writing stories. I love this stage of development. She still asks for help with some spelling, but I love seeing her ideas written on paper.

Carly has a split personality when it comes to social situations.

Personality #1: She is very outgoing around people she knows. She is very friendly and gets along easily with others. Sadly though she has very few friends her age, but it’s not that she’s a loner. I asked her teacher who she hangs out with at recess and she told me she’s basically a floater. She plays with everyone (boy, girl, doesn’t matter). Nobody at her birthday party was her age – her friends are either older or younger than her. Thankfully she has a great big sister who includes her with all of her friends and Carly seems to fit in just fine.

Personality #2: Carly is very shy. She still hesitates to participate in church when she’s called on. She doesn’t like to be put on the spot and often shies from attention. Just singing Happy Birthday to her yesterday had her slumped down in her chair where I could hardly see her.

It must have been over a year ago that I was having a conversation with some friends about how our kids handle conflict. When it came to Carly nobody (including myself) could imagine her getting mad at someone. It’s not that she wasn’t sensitive, because she was (and is), but it would have been so unlike her to defend herself. Totally not the case now. She speaks her mind. She has strong opinions. And she’ll let them be known.

Carly loves to shower (while her older sister doesn’t) and she always wants to blow dry her hair. But she’s definitely not a high maintenance girl. There are many days as we walk to the bus stop that I notice we never even combed her hair and her clothes don’t match.

Carly knows how to push Jason’s buttons, but she does pay the price sometimes. Jason isn’t a hitter or biter, but he has (on more than one occasion) pulled Carly’s hair. She is very loving to her little brother though and is a big helper to her Mom.

We recently got a piano and if Carly isn’t crafting she’s playing the piano. We’re not going to be able to hold off piano lessons for her too much longer. The interest is definitely there and it’s amazing what she’s picked up just from watching Abigail.

Carly is SUPER excited about having a baby in our house. She plays at a friend’s house that recently had twins and she LOVES to hold them. Recently she was mentioning that she wants to help feed our baby, but she pointed out that I would need to feed (nurse) her when she’s really little. I told her that was true, but that I’m sure there would be times when we could give the baby a bottle. She then told me that I should probably be the one to give the baby a bottle so I could get used to it. Apparently, she’s the pro and I’m the one who needs some practice.

Happy Birthday Carly – you bring so much sugar and spice into our home! We love you!