Getting ready for Christmas. . .in May

I decided to try some color on the bench outside. It's not what I thought it would look like, but the kids loved helping paint it and they love having a green bench, so not a complete loss. 

I decided that I want to get Christmas completely done before the birth of our new little bundle. Not only will I have a new baby, I will be in school which means finals and my kids are usually sick most of the winter. Alexis will be in Kindergarten so I'm sure she'll be bringing home lots of fun stuff to share with us in the sick department. I've got all the gifts started and they should be done in the next couple of weeks! I realized last night that we were going to need some wrapping paper for all this and not many people sell Christmas wrapping paper year round!

For Christmas wrapping paper we rolled out the big roll of butcher paper and let the kids use paint and Christmas cookie cutters to decorate it. Once they figured out what to do they went to town. I think they'll love seeing "their" Christmas paper being used on gifts.

This last week our new little bundle quit moving like she had been and even when provoked she wouldn't move much at all. We had to run to SF to get the ultrasound, but she was just fine. She weighs 3 lbs, her heartbeat is fabulous and she measures exactly where she is supposed to. She has some hair on her head that we could see and she was trying to eat her umbilical cord, which made me laugh. The ultrasonographer couldn't get her to move either, which she thought was odd. She said that since everything looked good and there were no apparent problems that I shouldn't worry about it. So, all is well with our little bundle and she's even got hair!! (I think it'll be brown, only 10 weeks to go before we find out!)

Over due post

This WAS my birthday cake. We were sitting in the living room playing with the kids and Madison decided to slip out. She came to get us when she was ready to have her hands washed.

John surprised me with a bouquet of 28 balloons and a bag of Lindt truffles (28th birthday) MMM. The kids immediately broke into them and started eating.

This is how the kids slept while their bedroom was being torn apart and put back together.

After two and a half weeks, they finally finished and we now have the kids back in their bedroom!!

Madison discovered crayons and walls. She was so proud of herself that she took me by the hand to take me into the bathroom and show me what she'd done. Mommy wasn't happy needless to say.

The very NEXT day there was blue and red crayon drawings inside the kids' closet. I immediately punished Madison because she was excited to show me her work again. It was only after I looked at it a little closer that I realized that there was a heart drawn inside the closet. When I asked Alexis if she'd colored inside the closet she immediately gave herself and Drew up as additional culprits. After taking a group time-out, they all had to wash the wall until they complained that their arms hurt. It didn't take all that long. Then I took the crayons away for the day. Alexis' response to the crayons being taken away? That's not too bad. I remember saying stuff like that to my parents and wondering why they would get so frustrated.

Alexis' soccer team at their last game.

We were excited to be done with the constant running between soccer games and practices.

In June John is going to be running the Ragnar with eleven co-workers. The run starts in Logan and goes to Park City. Each person has three legs that they run, ranging from three to nine miles. His first leg is fairly close to us, so we took a family car ride to see what the trail looked like. It is a rocky dirt road that is partially shaded, wahoo! At the end of his leg we let the kids out to run around and play near the water. 

Drew refused to take his sunglasses off for the picture.

This was the only face I could get out of him when the sunglasses came off.

Alexis also didn't want to be left out of this picture so she ran to get in the shot.

When I told him to quit scrunching up his face, I got the arm.

This time Alexis was able to get her whole face in the picture.

Little Miss I can do it on my own!

Jazz & Mothers Day

Top Row L to R: Aydian and Madison

Middle row: Ryley holding Irelynn, Alexis, Corwynn holding Brayton and Drew

Saturday morning we did breakfast with Grandpa Rod and cousins. John enjoyed beating Grandpa and Brixton at ping pong, and Drew and Madison enjoyed picking up the ping pong balls and putting them back into the holders. The picture isn't anything to write home about, trying to get eight small kids to pose when they didn't want to sit was too much work.

(We took this picture from our seat, yes it was that high, we were nearly eye level with the MVP jerseys and such!)

John and I were able to go to the Jazz game on Saturday night. Our excuse for being able to splurge was that it was a Mothers Day/birthday gift. I had never been to a play-off game and it was a lot of fun, this particular game was much louder and faster paced than a normal game. We had seats one row from the top! We really enjoyed them though, John was able to stand whenever he wanted and we could see everything clearly. One down side - I'm getting fatter and I had to trek up and down each time I wanted to use the bathroom. (I would still sit there again.) John spilled the girl's drink everywhere when he was trying to cross in front of her.  It went everywhere!  They were Lakers fans so they just used the free Jazz t-shirt they got at the door to mop it up. John went and bought them a new drink to replace the one he demolished.  What a nice boy. We loved the second half of the game because the score kept going back and forth and the crowd was really getting into it. We ended up losing by one point.

For Mothers Day we went to Salem Pond for a picnic and to chat with Max when he made his Mothers Day call. A nice guy who was fishing let Drew reel in the fish he caught. Drew was so excited to be able to catch a fish, he's never been able to get one to bite!

Aunt Steph helping Madison act like a monkey!

Alexis thought it was great fun to go wading in the Pond. She would pull her dress up and get as deep as possible without getting any clothing wet.

Madison liked playing in the sand, not so much in the water.

Drew decided to just go wading.

This is one of the only pictures that we have of Mothers Day dinner with the Wadley side. We had a nice dinner at Angie's house and the kids loved playing outside with their cousins.

Relaxing finish to a very stressful week

Monday morning I woke up for my nightly pee trip, which was two hours late . . . hooray!! Sadly, had it been at the normal time, I might have discovered this much sooner. 

I thought I heard the kids playing in their room but when I checked they were fast asleep. Being half asleep myself, my next thought was that we might have a really big bug problem. I went looking for the cause of the sound and I found our ceiling leaking water at a rapid rate. I woke John up and he went to wake the neighbors to see what was going on. They weren't home, hence the reason that it was never stopped. We woke the landlords and stopped the water leakage. These were the spots that were readily visible, but when the restoration company came, they ripped out the entire section of ceiling from one side of the room to the other and right above the closets. It had made it to the other side of the room and started going down that wall too. Thankfully, it didn't ruin any of our stuff and the landlords were really good about getting someone there the same day to take care of it. Today we were able to unplug the fans, which had been running 24/7 for the last four days. I can't tell you how many times either John or I would stop by the bathroom to turn off the fan in there thinking someone had left it on!

Later that same day, our dishwasher started leaking water all over the floor. I'm not joking. It was on its last leg and of all days to decide to die, that one just happened to be it. I felt bad for the poor landlords, a soggy ceiling and a new dishwasher all in the same day. They've been really great about everything though, which has made everything run much more smoothly than it could've.

The best part of this is that I had finals all week, three of them to be exact. Yes, I was able to add more stress to an already stressful week. Thankfully my mom was able to come and help with the kids. She even went as far as to take them Thursday morning until Friday afternoon!! It was a little odd studying with complete quietness all around me, minus the fans. And for those wondering, my kids didn't miss John or me and they didn't get excited to see us when we picked them up. 

Today after my last final we headed down to Utah County to fetch our children and play. We saw Dr. Eric and everything is great with the pregnancy so far. I'd been having a lot of contractions and pressure, but I'm only dilated to a 1.5 with no effacement, so no need to worry! After making sure everything was good with the newest member, we headed to Aunt Pam's to go swimming and have some dinner. The kids loved swimming. I thought for sure they'd be exhausted and fall asleep on the way home, but I forgot that my kids don't sleep. In fact, it is 10 p.m. right now and they are still trying to fall asleep.

Drew wasn't so sure about the boogie board.

He was much happier in Madison's floater.

We decided to eat our messy strawberry dessert outside because it was so sunny and lovely. We should have checked the temperature prior to setting everything up. Can you tell I'm freezing? Aunt Pam surprised me with a candle and Happy Birthday song. This is our vain attempt to light the candle in the wind. Yes, I'm getting older this coming week . . . but lets be honest, I'm still in my 20's so it's not a big deal . . . yet.

Thank you Aunt Pam, the entire outing was wonderful and much needed!