Newest Hakes

Here he is . . . Brayton R. Hakes.

He was born on Valentines Day, how fun huh?

I still haven't seen him yet, but I've heard he's adorable and I can't wait.

Kristen did great with the delivery and Brixton didn't pass out . . .

way to go daddy!

I haven't posted forever because we lost our camera.

I really miss our camera. We'll find it I'm sure, fingers crossed!

*Updates*

I haven't been sick for two and half days!! I'm so excited.

The contractions have already started, at twelve weeks. Thankfully they're not consistently close enough to be worth worrying about right now, they're just annoying.

All looks good for now, we go in on the 5th to find out if everything looks great and to see what we are having. We didn't find out last time, but I was positive it was a girl. I have no clue what this one is. There is only one in there, but I keep thinking it's a boy and a girl. It will be nice to know what it is and that it is doing just fine.

All the kids want a brother, so here's hoping that they get what they want.

John is doing well as always.

Granted he's had to take over a lot of the household chores to keep things flowing smoothly, but he's handled it well and he's not a complainer so I wouldn't know if he was half dead! Now that I'm starting to feel better, he should get a little bit of a break from all the extra work.

Alexis still has a swollen lymph node in her neck, but the doctor said unless it starts to grow again we need not worry.

Alexis asked us at dinner the other night why we don't call each other John and Tiffani instead of Mom and Dad because it's confusing and she doesn't know if we're talking about each other or about our parents. She is definitely a thinker and she never ceases to stop thinking about things.

Drew has not caught anything that the rest of us have caught in the last few months, HOORAY!

In Sam's Club they were handing out samples of fish. Drew wanted to go get a sample and when I told him it was fish he said: "We don't eat fish, Pteranodons do." He loves to watch The Dinosaur Train on PBS and he's obviously learning something!

Madison is well . . . Madison.

She has potty trained but we still have accidents, only during the day.

She usually has accidents only when she needs to do #2 and we can have upwards of five peeing accidents in just a couple of hours. But it's a great tool for knowing when she needs to go. However, she's only had two accidents in the last four days so we might be getting past it.

She still hasn't had an accident at night, which is great!

AND she's starting to talk!! It's a minor miracle, we know.

She still prefers to grunt but she's starting to use her big words instead and it is wonderful when she does.

Her favorite word right now is UP, she loves to be apart of anything that is going on. 

She also loves to make angry faces at us. She'll give us a huge scowl and then two seconds later she'll give us a big smile and then hurry and scowl again. I want to get it on camera, but first I have to find it.

We bought a bread machine so that we can try and save some money. The kids love to eat bread and we can go through two loaves a week, easily. After doing some research we discovered that we'd save about fifty bucks this year on bread if we made our own even after buying the machine. Next year we should save more than one hundred fifty!

For family home evening we let the kids grind wheat for wheat bread.

We were nervous that the bread wouldn't turn out and that they would think that the new bread was nasty and wouldn't want any. We normally buy white bread for them and seven grain for John and I.

John and I were pleasantly surprised when the bread turned out and it tasted great. (I didn't even have to put a sugar topping on it to make it taste good!)

The kids loved it too and they love to help make the bread, so it's been a great purchase thus far.

The kids, especially Alexis, have started wearing out the knees in their pants. Instead of going and buying them new pants or making them do until summer, we bought a sewing machine so I could fix them. So far it has saved us more than we spent on it. I'm not great at sewing, but the job is getting done and it doesn't look too horrid. I'm sure with time and practice I'll get better and the fixes will look better too.

The nark

I was woken up this morning to this little face.

I have no clue how long he had been standing by my bed.

He was being as quiet as can be, wasn't poking me or trying to climb on top of me.

But, he was slowing rocking back and forth slightly hitting the bed each time that he did.

I turned over to see what was shaking my bed and he smiles at me and says:

"I didn't wake Maddie up two times, I didn't. She just woke up by herself."

And then he left.

So, we all know who woke Madison up and how many times he had to do it to get her out of bed.

I think it is adorable how little kids rat themselves out and don't even realize it.

While I was putting my contacts in, Alexis came up to me and said:

"We need to teach Maddie how to talk today because I'm tired of her always yelling at me."

If it was so easy, it would have been done months ago, I promise.

Madison just has no inclination to use her big words unless she's screaming "MAAAM" from across the room, house, yard, etc.

One day she'll decide to talk and I'm sure we'll never get her to stop once it happens.

As a side note, if I haven't been answering your calls don't feel bad.

I DO NOT want to talk on the phone.

I don't feel good and the idea of having to listen and comprehend and then actually respond with something that is intelligent without wanting to lose the contents of my stomach is not appealing.

So, if you really want to talk feel free to email or facebook or if you have Verizon, text.

As long as I'm awake, I'll usually respond.

Be forewarned, I usually fall asleep sometime during the morning for a nap, so afternoons work better for me!

Moving and the lower half of your body

Are we allowed to post pictures of butts?

I couldn't resist.

Madison went to the bathroom all by herself, without telling me.

When she came out she was naked from the waist down, or so I thought.

I kept telling her go get her bottoms so she could get dressed and she kept telling me no.

She turned around and did this little pose and I about died laughing.

She had put her underwear on, not correctly, but they were on. 

There was a big old bunch of underwear right above her butt, you might have to click on the picture to get a better view.

We went 11 days without the internet.

We survived, barely.

You don't realize how much you use the internet until you don't have it.

I use it to check our bank account, pay bills, all schooling, keeping in touch with Max and others via email and Facebook and it was all gone for 11 days.

I did switch my blackberry back on for those days but it was so slow that it wasn't really worth it.

The last few weeks have been so busy it's insane.

We moved apartments, hooray!

We have main level living, which is really nice. We also got an extra bedroom and a two car garage AND . . . .a huge backyard!

We had to move to nowhere ville USA, but it will be nice having extra room to move and not paying much more for it.

Madison is fully potty trained.

We still have accidents occasionally but she's doing so well.

She doesn't wet the bed at night and if she starts to pee her pants she'll usually stop and wait to finish until she gets to the toilet! None of the other kids had that type of control!

I went to Sam's Club and walked right past the diaper aisle, it was so nice and I will enjoy it for the next few months.

I still don't have a pregnancy belly, wahoo!

The last couple of weeks I've been super nauseated which is frustrating because I'm in the second trimester right now, but I suppose it could be worse.

Madison is being such an adventuresome child lately.

She gets into everything, and I mean everything.

She's learned how to push chairs to things that she wants, ugh.

She can take off her own clothes, which she loves to do.

She loves to flush the toilet. We haven't lost anything that we know of yet.

She loves to dig through the garbage to find things to play with.

She loves to smear herself, especially her hair, with soft things. IE lotion, toothpaste, butter, peanut butter, mayonnaise, spaghetti sauce, you get the idea.

Drew has discovered that he has his own personal built in toy, 

as each boy figures out at some point I'm sure.

I found him on the couch watching TV while playing with it.

I told him that we only touch it when we are in the bathroom, cleaning, peeing, etc.

I thought we'd cleared things up fairly well.

Madison had to pee and she kept knocking on the door to get in.

Drew piped up with: "You can come in, I'm not peeing!"

I couldn't help but laugh.

When Madison had finished he said: "I'm going to the bathroom, and I don't have to pee!"

This last Sunday I stayed home with Madison who had a nasty nose and cough while John took the older two to church.

When he came home he told me what Drew had done in Sacrament meeting.

Apparently our new ward building (yes, this was the first Sunday going to our new ward) is rather small and the seating is fairly tight. John was late and had to squeeze into the middle of the chapel in order to get a seat.

 Drew got bored I guess and decided to pull his toy out.

John about died. He hurried and made Drew put it away and tried to explain that we don't play with ourselves. John then told me that he didn't teach him such things, to which I replied: "Well I don't have one, so we both know it wasn't me!"

I'm still laughing at the thought of Drew doing this in the middle of church. This will be one of those stories that he just doesn't live down, ever.

Alexis is still being Alexis and loving trying to be in charge.

She is regailing us with her story of trapping a red bug when she was four years old, under a cup and not feeding it or giving it water and the next day it was dead.

She's so excited to tell us this story everyday because when she was two one of those bugs bite her and so she had to kill one.

We're all hoping she gets a new story soon.

John has been busy working and helping take care of the house while I'm sick/studying for tests.

He found an addiction recently, the TV show Lost.

He started watching it on Netflix and he's officially addicted.

This is not John's normal behavior toward something that is not sports related, but I'm glad he found something that he can enjoy at night while I've got my head buried in books.

A morning in our life

Yesterday I made an appointment to go see an OB GYN here in Logan because I thought that I might have miscarried. All of my pregnancy symptoms had disappeared. Turns out everything is just fine and I no longer have to pee a thousand times a day among other things!!

Baby peanut measured right on schedule at 10 weeks 4 days!

Last night Drew got a nosebleed while John was watching the kids while I was at school.

This morning I was woken up to Alexis screaming: "Mom, something's wrong with Drew and there's blood everywhere!"

Being woken from sleeping with this statement will make anyone jump out of bed.

I could hear Drew crying downstairs, but it wasn't an I'm dying cry it was more of an I'm scared cry.

Yesterday Madison broke my glasses, so I had to go downstairs half blind.

He had another bloody nose, his shirt is pictured above. Not only was it all over his shirt, his hands and his sleeves, it was also all over my blanket.

John was unaware that you put hydrogen peroxide on blood to remove it from clothing. So Drew's last nights clothing was dried with blood and I had all this new clothing to clean out too.

I ran out of peroxide before I got to last nights clothes or the blanket. WalMart, here we come!

On a positive note, Drew has learned that if he keeps his fingers out of his nose, it won't bleed anymore.

But wait, the day gets better.

I went upstairs to get dressed and put in my contacts.

When I came back downstairs, with my sight restored, what did I see?

One box of cereal dumped all over the floor.

One garbage can dumped all over the living room floor.

And, I smelled one dirty bum that needed changed.

This does not include all the toys that are scattered throughout the living room.

Once we got everything under control I sat down to eat some breakfast.

All of the kids wanted to eat breakfast again because they love me and I shouldn't have to eat alone, ever.

Madison decided to be a good helper and she took the milk and poured herself a new bowl of cereal.

We caught a break on this one.

I caught her right before her bowl overflowed! And, she had actually poured all the milk into the bowl and nowhere else!

Alexis is the only one that actually ate her new bowl of cereal.

Now lets talk about my youngest, Madison, who I firmly believe was put on earth to increase my patience levels.

She loves to hit, pull hair and yell at the top of her lungs.

When I say yell at the top of her lungs, don't imagine a normal yell, imagine something more akin to a hyena.

She whacked me in the face so many times yesterday that I got a black eye.

It's not bad, but enough that I look like a raccoon.

Poor Drew seems to be the one that gets hit and has his hair pulled more than anyone else.

He's learning to stay as far away from Madison as humanly possible.

She is completely potty trained . . . . at night.

She doesn't pee her diaper all night and then wakes up and goes pee in the toilet. Wahoo!

Then we get to day time peeing.

She used to tell me she needed to pee and we went a week with just a couple of accidents.

Now she tells me after she pees that she needs to go. (We're going through 15 diapers a day.)

It doesn't matter if she's just gone pee, she will pee again not ten minutes later and it's a ton!

The other day she went into the bathroom and puckered her little butt up and aimed towards the toilet, like Drew does, and peed herself. Lets not lie, it made me laugh!

Last night Alexis got really upset with the computer and she started getting mad at it like I do.

John said she was saying things like: "It's not that hard to do it, is it?   Why don't you just do what I want?"  Etc.

It's funny to hear that your little ones listen to when you are upset and mimic when they are in the same situation.

And one last cute story.

Last night I heard little footsteps run through the bathroom and flip on the light and then just stand there.

I called Drew to come and see me, I could tell it was him, and asked him what was wrong.

He said that there were monsters in his room. Then he told me that he wished that there were some dogs to make them go away.

I told him that since it was a dream he could dream some dogs to come and bite the monsters in the butt!!

He thought that this was so funny.

I thought it was funny that he would run through one dark room to get to another room to turn on the light.

Weekend fun

Last week I was so sick I thought I'd been run over with a semi-truck. John got it at the end of the week, but his only lasted for a day, lucky guy. But, we're better and now life is getting back to normal, wahoo!!

School started yesterday and I'm excited to have some brain stimulation. One month off is far too long.

On Thursday the kids and I drove to Spanish Fork. I was able to go and see my little peanut, who looks like a peanut! It was only 27 mm long. Angie was kind enough to let us stay with them for the weekend which was nice, the kids absolutely loved playing with their cousins.

Alexis and Miriam were like two storms colliding. They would get so wound up and then they would get everybody else wound up. It was funny to see how much fun they could have and how loud they could get! (I wish I'd taken my camera, they were having races down the stairs and it was so funny. Alexis ended up getting rug burn on her belly that is still healing.)

On Friday we went to see my friend Michelle who is about to pop, she's pregnant. We're very excited for her!! Hopefully the little one comes this week, keep your fingers crossed. George, her little guy, has taken up growling like a dinosaur. He has such a convincing growl that Alexis came in crying and Drew followed behind because he was scared. I thought it was funny, but I think George was annoyed that no one appreciated his amazing growling talent.

Then we went to see our old neighbors the Gaede's and the kids had so much fun there too. John came up that night, all the kids were excited to see him.

On Saturday Alexis and I went to Kristen's baby shower, which was a lot of fun and they had some really good food! After the baby shower the kids and I went to play with Beth in Salt Lake for a little while while John went to a mission reunion.

Overall it was a very busy week and we were so excited to get home!

On Saturday night we also went and bought a Wii. Yes, I finally got John to agree to it! It's so cold here that we can't go outside for more than a couple of minutes, but the kids need some sort of exercise so we bought the Fit so that we could keep them somewhat active. So far they love it and it is so fun to watch them try the different games and how excited they get about funny things like falling in the water.

I don't think I put Madison's statistics up for her 18 month check-up. Her head is in the 81%, weight 59% and height 86%.

As a side note, during dinner we usually ask John how his day went and then he asks the kids how their days went. John wasn't home for dinner and so Alexis asked me what I did. I figured she already knew, so I asked her what I did. She replied with: "You relaxed and you played on the computer and you sat and sat and sat." It made me laugh, it's funny to see what your kids actually think you do!

Little people conversations

Alexis: Drew will you do me a favor?

Drew: What?

Alexis: Throw this away for me (it was her empty nerds box).

Drew: No, it's yours, you throw it away.

Alexis: Please?

Drew: Okay.

Drew then goes and throws it away and then says: Alexis will you do me a favor?

Alexis: What?

Drew: Will you throw this away for me (it was his empty nerds box)?

Alexis: No, you throw it away.

Drew: Fine, I'll do myself a favor and throw it away!

They make me laugh with their little conversations!

Alexis and Drew were going back and forth with their barbies saying things like you're so beautiful and do you think my husbands handsome? Then I see Drew eye the barbie that is lying against the wall and continue on with their game. Then Alexis eyes the barbie and she continues on with their game for another few seconds before asking Drew: "Is your sister coming to the party tonight?" Drew looked at her and said: "No, she's at home naked." (The barbie wasn't dressed.) Alexis said: "It's okay, nobody will notice, she's against the wall, get her so we can have more people at our party."

And then today they have a huge bucket of animals, big enough that all three kids can fit in it with some of the animals, and Alexis put her kids in the bucket (Drew and Madison). I thought it was cute that they were pretending it was a bathtub but I busted up laughing when Drew requested more bubbles and Alexis went and fetched more stuffed animals. And then, Drew yells: "Mom, tell Madison to quit throwing the bubbles out of the bathtub, she's wasting them!"

Even though this week I've felt like a truck has run over me, the kids keep me laughing (and silently cursing under my breath).

New Years

John thought it would be fun to keep the kids up until midnight to welcome the new year.

Luckily, common sense prevailed and at 8:30 we let them bang pots and clap lids together so we could put them to bed.

This picture shows Drew getting tired of listening to the noise and telling Alexis to stop.

I was lucky and John let me fall asleep about 10. I guess that's what pregnancy will do to you!

John stayed up until 12:45 am celebrating the new year by cleaning up the house, what a great husband!

For Christmas Grandma Wadley gave the kids a binder with the Articles of Faith with pictures and key words to help them memorize them.

The kids absolutely love it.

They have the first one memorized and Drew is fascinated with The Holy Ghost.

He asked us where the Holy Ghost lived and we told him that it lives inside you. When you feel good or bad about something you're doing, that's the Holy Ghost letting you know if it is right or wrong. I thought that this was a fairly simple explanation but he took it to mean that it lives in his tummy. He likes to poke himself and say: "The Holy Ghost is really hard, see!"

I was watching a movie with the kids yesterday and I mimicked one of the characters thinking that I was being funny. Alexis turned around and quickly said: "Don't EVER do that again mom!"

I guess she doesn't appreciate my trying to be funny.

John rented the new Star Wars from Netflix, which I grudgingly let him do. Funny enough, I actually liked it. I thought for sure that they would make it about as stupid as Transformers 2. I would not buy it, but it was a good show that was worth watching once.