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!

Basketball

Abigail’s first basketball season is coming to an end. She only has a few games left and then it’s on to spring soccer. She has the same fantastic coach that coaches her soccer team and many of the same girls from soccer have also been on her basketball team. They are a great group of girls and are easily the better team in the league. I was so glad I took the video camera to her game on Saturday cause she was on fire. She made at least seven baskets and has really come far for being her first time playing. You’d never know how nervous she gets before each game. In fact last week she told me she wished they only had practices and no games. Once she gets on the court though she clearly enjoys it.

Bon Jovi LIVE!!!

Friday was going to be just another day. I thought the pinnacle of excitement for me would be doing our taxes that morning. However, while running errands with Jason I heard on the radio they were giving away tickets to see Bon Jovi. I was so excited and texted Justin to see if he knew when they were coming. His first reply was “I think mid April” then “I’m wrong” then “it’s today”. Now I was totally freaking out. How did I not hear they were opening their tour here in Seattle?

I’ve only been to one real concert in my entire life. It was Boston when I was 17. I’ve been tempted many times, but Justin and I have completely different tastes in music. He’s seen Garth Brooks in concert three times and I’d choose Def Leppard or Bon Jovi any day. I’ve always said though that the ultimate concert for me would be to see Bon Jovi. And here they were in Seattle and I didn’t have tickets.

I immediately came home and got on the computer and was relieved to find that tickets were still available. What ever it took I knew I was going to see Bon Jovi.

We ended up deciding the best way to get tickets would be to head downtown and see what the box office still had available or purchase tickets off the street. As we were cruising downtown in the carpool lane I told Justin there was a cop in the far right lane. Justin has a cop-phobia so he very indiscreetly slowed down and got out of the carpool lane. Next we see the flashing lights and of course we’re thinking we’re in for a real expensive evening. The cop walked up to the car, looked us over and immediately asked if I was in labor and if we were heading to the hospital. We weren’t sure if it would help our case to tell him we were heading to the Bon Jovi concert so we simply said ‘no’. He took Justin’s license, registration, etc… and then let us go after telling us we had a headlight out. Phew! Anyhow, once downtown we found a guy selling great tickets at below cost. Done deal – we were in!

Dashboard Confessionals was the opening act and I to my surprise I even knew a few of their songs. I loved that they openly admitted to be nervous. First night touring with Bon Jovi… seriously, what band wouldn’t be a tad nervous? They were fantastic though.

Opening act: Dashboard Confessionals

Of course Bon Jovi was awesome. Our seats couldn’t have been more than 150 feet from the stage.

Video Clip for any Bon Jovi fans:

My favorite part of the concert was when he came out further into the crowd and sang “Hallelujah” and “Bed of Roses.”

Me and Jon

To see them play in person was really quite surreal. Definitely a dream of mine and they didn’t disappoint.

Isn’t this just as you’d picture Jon? And oh, my that smile of his!

Mid-Winter Break & Organization

Apparently this is our last mid-winter break. I’ve always thought it was a crazy break, coming only 6 weeks after a 2 week Christmas break, and followed shortly by a week-long spring break in April. I actually love having my kids at home with me all day and enjoying a week of lazy mornings, but it will be great to get out of school before the end of June next year. I’m trying to take full advantage of our time off this week. While many are heading off to Disneyland, Hawaii, and San Diego we’ve been doing some organizing.

We have a cupboard in our kitchen that the girls are able to keep some of their crafty stuff. Keeping it organized has been a battle we’ve been fighting for years. Most of the time we open the cupboard papers and stickers fall all over the floor. I was inspired to get organized by a recent post by Becky Higgins, a scrapbooking and organizing genius (link).

Craft Cupboard: the before and after



The craft cupboard really is one of the least of our organizational nightmares so we didn’t stop there. For the most part we enter our house through the garage, which means our laundry room is the first room I see everytime I come home. A few years ago we put in shelves so we could store our shoes, games, etc… We can fit a ton of stuff in there, but everything always seemed to just get shoved wherever we could cram it (loose puzzle pieces, craft projects, card games… basically anything and everything.)

This is what welcomed me home:


Of course, things tend to get worse before they get better:


Having the girls home has been a HUGE help, in fact we let them stay up til almost 10pm Monday night trying to finish getting the laundry room cleaned out.

Laundry Room: the before and after

Becky’s post was really about getting her bathroom closet organized so I decided it was time to get our linen/medicine closet organized. The results of this project make me the most excited. With the piles of medicine we had in here we never knew what we had (I found 3 bottles of Tylenol). This way everything has its place and the next time we need Children’s Tylenol in the middle of the night we won’t have to search for it.

Linen Closet: the before and after

Don’t get the wrong idea. These are probably the only 3 areas of my house at all presentable at this moment, but I’m working on it. This nesting stuff is really tiresome!

Freedom

Do you know there are people that actually enjoy working out? That blows my mind. I’ve spent the last two YEARS (nearly 28 months) forcing myself to go to the gym at least twice a week. Exercise had never been a part of my life up until that point. I can honestly say I’ve hated nearly every moment. Had it been free I never would have gone, but the fact that money was being deducted from my account each month the pressure of how to fit it into my week was always on my mind. What’s worse is that it did me very little good. My “baby weight” from Jason’s pregnancy came off slower than either of my two pregnancies before and I never even lost it all. Why would someone ever put forth that much effort to lose weight when they know full-well they will only gain it back again? I’ll give myself some slack because I didn’t think we’d brave another pregnancy. But here I am again, humongous (heavier than I’ve ever been at this point in any pregnancy) – despite the fact that I spent over two YEARS “getting in shape” and that I have continued to exercise throughout this pregnancy. All those hours, all that gas money, all the gym membership money wasted. Today is a bright day. As of today I no longer have a gym membership (technically I’m on medical leave due to my bad back). It’s been two years too long. I’m finally a free woman.

The Hardships of Nesting

.
I’m “nesting”
My to-do list is REALLY, really long
Which is a problem
While I have plenty of desire
I don’t have enough time
Or enough money
Or enough skill
Or enough energy
The result is feelings of stress and frustration

Over the past few days I tackled one of the many items on my before-baby-comes-to-do-list. Sorting through old clothing. Including each and every bin and box we’ve been storing in the garage. I knew it would be a big job, but wasn’t quite expecting to put in the 8-10 hours that it has taken. Typically I try and get rid of stuff we don’t need at the massive neighborhood garage sale in May, but this year it falls 2 weeks after my due date. While I’m not entirely confident I’ll be up for it this year, I’m going to do what I can to be prepared for it just in case.

It’s been fun to see some of the girls old baby clothes and hang up some of the things we will be able to use again, but it’s also been hard for me to go through Jason’s baby clothes. I feel quite certain we won’t have a need for any boy clothing ever again (yes, three years ago I was saying the same thing and look at where we are now). He had some really cute stuff that’s still in excellent condition and to sell it for a measly $2 is something I’m really struggling with. I don’t think it’s so much of a sentimental thing, I think it’s more of my being too frugal. Giving it all away for free does sound generous, but let’s face it, my cheap side overpowers my generous side 90% of the time.

Anyhow, everything has been gone through and I can check one task off my to-do list. However, you may be seeing our baby girl dressed in sweater vests and corduroys unless I can come to terms with letting go.

Abigail's Baptism Weekend

Abigail was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Saturday. This was a day that we have all been looking forward to for a very long time.

Abigail was baptized by her Dad. (baptism link)

After her baptism she was given the gift of the Holy Ghost and a special blessing from Justin. (Holy Ghost link)

It was an emotional day for me. So many blessings come from our membership in the church. How grateful I am to have the knowledge that we have. What a comfort it is to know that Abigail can have the Holy Ghost to help guide her throughout her life.

For years she’s been looking forward to receiving her very own set of scriptures. It’s a tradition in my family that my Mom gives each of her grandkids a set of scriptures when they get baptized. Abigail was thrilled! She’s already marked a few of her favorites.

Afterward we had refreshments at our house. Everything was egg-free and nut-free, including two yummy desserts. This was HUGE for Abigail. Can you imagine what it would be like to taste cheesecake for the first time in your life? Abigail thought everything was wonderful.

The person who gave the closing prayer after the baptism and confirmation suggested that those that were baptized write about their baptism so they will always remember how they felt. Abigail loves to write and took the time yesterday to put down her thoughts about her special day. As I read it today I was very touched. She included details about the people that were there and the songs that were sung (and the desserts that she loved), but she also wrote about feeling the spirit and how special she felt throughout the day. I hope she will always remember those feelings.

flowers from Justin's sister's family

and a new bracelet from Grandma & Grandpa Fletcher

We had a relaxing weekend with my Mom and her husband in town. It was exactly what I needed. My never-ending to-do list has been stressing me out lately so to spend an entire weekend playing games and reading was perfect. And it totally helps that both my Mom and Val were great at entertaining the kids and were always helping out around the house. My Mom gave Abigail Dominos for her birthday and with a little instruction from Val I now have two little Domino-addicts at my house. Thankfully it’s a fun game for the whole family so the hours we’ll spend playing will be enjoyable.

My Mom and Val left this afternoon. As we were driving away from the airport I noticed Carly was quietly crying in the back seat. Visits with Grandma mean so much to the kids and it’s always so emotional to say good-bye. Thankfully we won’t have to wait too long since she’ll be back in April to help when the new baby comes. And she’s promised Carly it will be more than just three days.

Two and a Half

Today is Jason’s half-birthday. That’s right, our little guy is already 2 ½ years old.

Jason reached a few milestones this past week. He has started putting three words together. We’re a no-shoe house so everytime we come home Jason sits down and wants help taking his shoes off. This past week “shoe off” progressed to “shoe off, please”. He uses this phrase several times a day now. I’m sure it helps that he gets lots of praise when it says it. When we were getting out of the van this afternoon and he wanted to be unbuckled he said, “me out, please.” We still have a long way to go, but we are so excited about all the progress he is making with his speech.

Another major milestone this week is that Jason has moved out of the nursery and into his BIG BOY room. Our once purple room was transformed into Jason’s new blue room over the weekend. The girls were excited to help out, but they made us much too nervous to let them help for very long.


Monday night was Jason first night in his new room and bed. He did awesome! He’s gone to bed super easy and has napped just as well (and long) as usual. I expected some sort of struggle but so far it’s been a breeze.

Justin got to pick out Jason’s bedding and went with the sport theme. All we need to complete his room is some navy curtains and maybe a couple pictures (for now we’re using the curtains from the nursery).

As we started painting we realized the color we selected is almost identical to the play kitchen in the corner. And yes, Jason is still using a binkie at night – that’s our next hurdle before the baby comes. Hopefully that transition goes just as smoothly.

I couldn’t resist taking a picture of Jason spending his first night in his BIG BOY room - what a cute kid!

"Wee-O"

Today Jason’s class had a field trip to the fire station. Jason LOVES cars, trains, construction equipment, fire trucks… all those boyish machines. We went to a fire station last year with Carly’s pre-school, but despite his fascination with fire engines he was too nervous to really enjoy it. What a difference a year makes. He had a blast today checking out all the trucks and hoses and didn’t hesitate at all to climb into the fire truck with a strange fireman.

He didn’t want to get out of the driver’s seat and kept signing “more” “more”

Carly and Jason on the backseat of an emergency responder

Group shot (only a few of these kiddos attend the same class as Jason)

One Good-Lookin' Family

(click image to see larger)

Late Night Party

Last night was Abigail’s “Late Night” birthday party. She’s been so excited about this party for ages. I’ll admit it kind of snuck up on us having been away for Christmas and then suddenly needing to get invitations out. We kept it super simple though so it wasn’t something we stressed out about at all. Like I mentioned before it was really hard to come up with our “list” – there’s no way we could invite all her friends from church, school, sports teams, and the neighborhood. Hopefully everyone understood and we didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings.

Including my girls we had a dozen girls at our house

(Jason also stayed up late for the party).

We played some fun games Justin found on the internet – “Who Am I?” where each girl was assigned an identity they needed to find out by only asking yes or no questions. Another fun game involved one of Abigail’s favorite candies – Skittles. Each girl took turns taking 2 skittles out of a bowl without looking. If the skittles were the same color they could eat them. If they were different colors they had to keep them in their mouth without swallowing them. By the time we called it quits our friend Lydia hadn’t had a single match and was holding over 20 skittles in her mouth.

Instead of cake we let the girls make their own ice-cream sundaes. Then we all watched “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.” Before we knew it, it was already 10 o’clock and time for us to send the girls home – hopefully they weren’t too sugared-up to go right to bed.

Overall it was a great party and I think everyone had a good time, especially our birthday girl.

Great at Eight

Today we celebrated Abigail’s eighth birthday. Lately we’ve been waking up with just enough time for Abigail to eat breakfast and comb her hair, but today we had an entire 35 minutes so there was plenty of time for her to shower and eat a special egg-free pancake breakfast before heading off to school.

For lunch we picked up Abigail from school and took her to McDonalds where as a special birthday treat, not only could she order a kids meal, but she was able to order a mighty kids meal. Really there’s nothing “mighty” about the mighty meal. Last week Abigail ate all but a few bites of her free gourmet adult-sized birthday burger at Red Robin, with French fries, and the large sundae they brought out to her. Kid’s meals just aren’t going to cut it for this girl much longer.


Abigail requested her favorite meal of chicken biscuits with rice for dinner after which we invited Justin’s family over for her favorite dessert… Oreo Madness.



Here’s a little about Abigail at eight: (If you don’t want to hear me praise her for all her incredibleness than you can skip this part, cause seriously she is the best)

Academically she continues to excel. She still maintains a top ten spot in her grade for reading and passing the most AR tests. She has mastered all of her multiplication and division math facts and is currently working on squares, which she thinks is a breeze cause it’s just like multiplication. If you ask me what 11 times 12 is I would need a calculator or a minute (or two) to work it out in my head. She has yet to misspell a spelling word on any spelling test EVER and I can’t take an ounce of credit for it. She does her homework on her own without any difficulty. She is also very excited to be learning cursive. She’s been making up her own version of cursive for over a year now so it will be good for her to learn the correct way.

She recently started playing basketball and has really good ball control when dribbling. I have yet to see them practice shooting, but I’m sure she’ll get that down in no time. I love that my kids didn’t inherit my severe lack of coordination. We are excited for her first game on the 23rd. I’m sure she’ll be very nervous but that she’ll do great.

Abigail is a friend to everyone. Seriously, people love her. She has so many friends that it was extremely difficult to trim down her birthday party invitees. Most of her friends are older than her. Only one friend coming to her party is younger and several are 2-3 years older, but you’d never guess it. While Abigail is mature beyond her age in many ways, she is also very naïve. She assumes nothing but the best intentions from everyone. Having older friends is slightly worrisome, while we’ve kept Abigail shielded from the likes of Hannah Montana and High School Musical other kids her age are already talking about boyfriends and popular celebrities and musical artists. If I could have it my way we’d keep life simple and innocent forever.

Abigail is very loving to her younger sister and brother and I am certain she’ll be a HUGE help once this baby arrives. She’s an excellent big sister. Unfortunately, if anyone is unhappy she immediately gets the blame. Not because she’s at fault, but I think that’s just how the pecking order goes. Our expectations have always been high for her and as a result she puts a lot of pressure on herself to do her best. The poor girl doesn’t give herself much slack.

Abigail is extremely easy to please. She wants for nothing. Several people have asked her what she wants for her birthday and she can’t think of a thing. She honestly wouldn’t even notice if a friend didn’t bring her a present. When I offered to take her to lunch for her birthday she said I didn’t have to because I took her out to McDonald’s last year for her birthday (of course we have been since then). Several times after lunch today she thanked me for taking her out… she takes very little for granted. We are so lucky! When we were deciding what treat to bring in for her class today, Abigail kept saying that she didn’t want to bring in rice krispie treats just because it was something she could eat. She said she was fine bringing in something that she couldn’t eat so that the class could have something better. Isn’t that nuts? What kid wants to take in some delicious treat and watch everyone else enjoy it on THEIR birthday?

To say we love this girl is an understatement. Our family wouldn’t function properly without her and we couldn’t be happier with the young lady she’s becoming.

Happy Birthday Abigail!

He’s Back - new and improved

Over the past few months I’ve been certain that we left our sweet little boy somewhere in the Caribbean. The boy we brought home was much more demanding, he had picked up an obnoxious whine, he didn’t love as freely, and wanted Mommy over Daddy 99.9% of the time. Of course nobody outside our home believed he could be that difficult, but we knew he wasn’t the same.

While we were in Utah Jason underwent a transformation of sorts. He wasn’t nearly as difficult, but he wasn’t completely back to his usual playful self either – he also had a major decrease in appetite.

I’m happy to report that by the time we returned home our sweet little guy had returned to us. Having been without him for the last 2 months I’m seriously having so much fun with him. He cracks me up all time, he wants to shower us with hugs and kisses, he is smiling and laughing so much more, and his appetite as big as his older sisters. Of course I’m sure he’ll always have his stubborn streak, but the difference has been amazing, wonderful, and very, very welcome.

In addition, to a new and improved attitude, Jason is talking a ton. Well, when you aren’t used to much talking at all, his current vocabulary is a HUGE improvement. He uses two word phrases all the time and shocks us with a new word nearly every day.

This past week we’ve overcome another huge hurdle. Jason slept in the same room as Justin and I when we were in Utah so we learned that the boy coughs a lot. It doesn’t seem to bother him at night, but Justin and I got to the point where both of us would rather sleep on the couch than share a room with Jason. During the last few days he’s been wheezy as well as still coughing. We’ve been through this before with Abigail and have hoped we’d be able to keep Jason off daily asthma medication, but it looks like he’s heading down the same path. We’ll meet with an allergist/asthma doctor next week to get their recommendation. In the meantime we’ve had to do some treatments with the nebulizer. In the past this has always been a struggle. What kid wants to be pined down for 20 minutes with a mask on their face while some machine loudly pumps meds into their body? Jason shocked me by being more than willing to cooperate. In fact this afternoon he held the mouthpiece in his mouth all by himself until every last drop was gone (watching Curious George, of course).

Welcome back Jason! We’ve missed you!

Happy New Year!

We had a great time welcoming in 2010 at my sister Brenda’s house. They’ve developed an impressive balloon drop contraption that we couldn’t wait to see in action.

But first there was a little Rock Band action

Justin and Cammy on the drums, Lee and Ray on vocals, Brenda on guitar and Carly handled the foot pedal of the drums.

Apparently during the week Abigail and Carly’s cousins introduced to them to Taylor Swift. Abigail knew all the words to many of her songs and had a great time singing along with her cousins.

We woke up Jason just in time for the balloon drop. He was highly impressed and was talking about it first thing the next morning (I just know he was dreaming about balloons and stars all night).

As if over 200 balloons and confetti wasn’t enough there was plenty of silly string to make the New Year even more exciting.

Thanks for a great party! Happy New Year!