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.

Pregnancy

Is it possible to not feel pregnant but have all the pregnancy symptoms?

I'm nauseated, hungry, don't want to smell food, sore, tired, achy, peeing far more than should ever be allowed and a lot of other things that don't need posted.

However, I don't feel pregnant.

How is this possible?

I'm beginning to think that because I can still see my toes, bend over and move in any direction that I want to, I don't feel pregnant.

Any woman who has ever been pregnant knows what it is that I'm talking about. The last trimester is always a beast so even though I feel like I'm half dead I don't feel truly pregnant yet, isn't it great!

Christmas Day

Alexis and Drew opening their Santa gifts.

Madison decided on Christmas Eve that sleep was a luxury and not a necessity again. She woke up at 4:45 am and I didn't get her back to sleep until nearly 7!! (Drew woke up at about 2 because he was excited for Santa to come. I had to tell him he had to sleep until the sun woke up. I thought I had a couple more years before they started doing this!)

The kids came down the stairs at 8 and this is Madison waking up to the commotion of them opening their gifts.

Madison holding her Santa present up, she was so excited.

Santa brought Alexis and Madison the same exact gift, a my sized baby doll/barbie that was dressed as a fairy. They both love their dolls and they take them all over the place. Alexis was very excited that Santa brought her a doll that was "her age". Her doll is 10 years old according to her, which makes me chuckle.

Drew asked Santa for a barbie for Christmas, every single time he saw Santa and when we asked him what he wanted, without fail.

Christmas Eve Mrs. Claus was very worried that he wouldn't like his Dinosaur mountain, she was very tempted to go and buy him his very own barbie so that there wouldn't be any tears Christmas morning.

Mr. Claus was very definite that that would not be happening under any circumstances, unless Mrs. Claus completely over-ruled him.

As you can see, Mr. Claus gave him the Dinosaur mountain and . . . . Drew loves it.

When he opened it he said: "Mom, you were right, Santa was getting me a dinosaur."

I was worried that he wouldn't like it, but all the kids love it.

It growls when you push the button on his head and there are cool little trails that things fall down and get trapped in, just right for a little boy!!

Alexis gave Drew a Triceratops, he was sooooo excited.

Alexis bought Madison this little kitten. I think it is probably Madison's favorite gift. She loves having babies to carry around and put to bed and fake feed.

Madison bought Drew a Transformer. He had no clue what it was, so here I am showing him how it works!!

Alexis was so excited to open her very own fairy skirt, she ran and gave John and I hugs.

I made these skirts for cousins and friends for Christmas and Alexis wanted one so badly but I told her that they weren't for her.

She was so surprised!

Alexis and Drew in their fairy skirts.

Yes, I made Drew his own skirt. He loves to play with the girls so why leave him out?

He loved his "boy skirt" as he called it. I made it with boy colors so he could be a boy fairy.

John and a few others thought it was silly that I would do this, but I did it anyway.

Madison in her fairy skirt, she loved the bells on it.

Ignore the toilet paper under her nose.

I didn't want to take them to church last Sunday for fear of catching something but we went anyway and Drew and Madison both ended up with nasty colds.

(Is it really that hard to keep your kid at home when they are hacking and have a nasty nose? It annoys me to no end that people go to church sick.)

Drew was so excited to get this ducky game.

When he opened it he said something like, look mom I got duckies, just like Grandma's huh?

Christmas Eve

Doesn't this look unappetizing?

I was upstairs folding laundry and the kids decided that they were hungry.

Alexis is such a good helper and as she says, a good ingredient mixer, that she got them each their own piece of bread with butter on it.

The butter was so thick I'm surprised they didn't all have heart attacks that day.

We decided to act out Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem, John was the donkey. Alexis decided that she did not want to be Mary, so she was Joseph and Drew was Mary.

Drew has his teddy bear in his shirt because he was pregnant.

Here they are around the manger, which was the piano bench turned upside down.

They didn't like that there was only a blanket for him so they went and found a pillow to put underneath him so he would be comfortable.

Alexis was a shepherd looking for baby Jesus.

Madison was the bright shining start leading the way to baby Jesus.

And here she is being one of the wisemen that went looking for baby Jesus.

We stayed in Logan this year for Christmas and it was so nice to be able to sit back and relax.

We did what I've wanted to be our family tradition of reading The Night Before Christmas finally. We've never accomplished this goal because we've always had family things going on that would go too late to do it. It was nice to not have the running and shuffling this year, we enjoyed just being together.