The Garden Massacre

Last week I planted my Spring garden and was excited to see there were tons of worms in the garden. Well, Mathew discovered them and has been busy all week collecting them. In a way, it seems like a harmless activity but after a while, it did start to get disturbing to see the quantity of worms that were being taken out, examined and never making it. It has been a total massacre of worms. He doesn't kill them purposely but none have survived.

The first picture is his official worm-hunting outfit--note the picture was taken at night. He has been doing this litterally all day, every day this week. He comes in with dirt all over his face and I'm really hoping he hasn't eaten any worms but I can't be sure (see the second picture--you be the judge).

Saturday was a really fun day. We went on a long bike trip on a desert trail that runs from Phoenix to Cave Creek. It was about a 3 hour trip. The girls rode their bikes the whole way and Mathew rode his bike (w/ training wheels) about half way and ran the rest. Matt and I would trade off riding the bike and pushing the jogger with Troy and Mathew's bike. It was a beautiful day and the desert was so green.

The last picture is of our Michelin man. He is more and more alert everyday and loves to give smiles.

Cowgirl skater

Check out the bed head!

I bought a little tikes skateboard since I can see Ellie snooping around for a new challange. It's cool because there are 3 settings to make it safer for kids as they learn. This her trying it out with her new cowboy boots from Grandma. She's convinced and is telling everyone that the boots are made out of real snake skin...who knows, maybe they are.

Jeremiah Johnson

Here are some pictures Matt took while up in Eagar this weekend. I had to laugh because the girls reminded me of that old mountain-man movie "Jaramiah Johnson" (or at least a Scottsdale girl's equivalent).

Sophie once said she liked Eagar because she can just "smooth out and eat chocolate. So I guess these are pictures of the just "smoothing out". No pictures of them skiing came back but Matt said they did really well. The are both convinced they went on black diamonds but I guess even passing a sign that says black diamond counts for them.

Valentine's Day

Matt took the girls up to Eagar this weekend and I was worried about traveling with Troy this young so I stayed behind. I was feeling sorry for myself at first--missing all the fun again---but decided to try to enjoy my time with the boys. I spent 2 full days playing num-nums, hello, animals and variations of all of those games. Hopefully the one-on-one will pay off and not backfire.

I did get to spend a few hours outside planting a Spring garden. Planting with Mathew around is always a challenge but this time I gave him bags with rice and wheat in them and told him those were his seeds and gave him his own plot of land to plant in. Then I had my plot and seeds all to myself. I haven't had anything planted in 2 of the plots and today when I stuck the shovel in the dirt, it looked like the whole floor was moving--full of worms. Mathew actually spent the whole time catching worms and it made me sick to think how many worms he mutilated.

I don't know why the soil is all of the sudden so fertile but I'm excited to see if it makes a difference in the crops. Although worms or no worms, the real problem is that Mathew picks every thing as soon as it's sprouts. Last year, he brought in all my sprouted carrots and said "look Mom, I pick weeds".

I also took some time to update the blog...it feels good to catch up although it's probably too much for anyone to read.

Troy

Is it bragging if I say my baby is an angel? He only gets up one time in the night to feed and then goes back to sleep. He is so sweet during the day--hardly complains at all. He is starting to smile and coo. He doesn't give smiles away for free, you have to work a little for them but that makes them magical because they are genuine.

I like taking baths with him sometimes--he loves the water. He hasn't found his thumb but he likes to suck on the knuckle of his second finger. He loves his swing that has moving lights and music. He will sit an laugh and the objects floating around him and the start yelling at them when he gets sick of it.

Sometimes I feel overwhellmed with everyone because they just call out asking me for something or to do something...so demanding with little respect or gratitude. Troy on the other hand, just sits in his carrier looking at me--giving me lots of attention and his demands are reasonable.

I spend a lot of time talking to him trying to convince him that he is going to be the mellow one of the family.

Mathew still loves him too. In the picture he is reading to "Twoy" from Mao's little red book. Out of all of our kids, Mathew seems most taken with Troy. He's always asking "Where's Twoy?". Just for fun, I tease Mathew saying "can we give Troy some cake, or apples, etc. Mathew will laugh and say "Silly Mom, he's too Wi-ttow" (little).

He's 8 weeks old but is bursting out of his 0-3 month old clothes (yikes--he's growing too fast!)

Captain Trouble

I sometimes let the kids play with toys at the store and then
sneak them away before check out. I couldn't pry the light saber out of Tito's hand so I had to buy it. Our house is full of barbies and ponies so I have no idea where he learned to use a sword and a gun--I swear he was born that way.

Mathew is constantly talking but it's a bit like going to church in a foreign country. You just hear jiberish and then "Joseph Smith" and then jiberish again. Mathew will just jibber jaber and then you'll pick out an actual word like dinosaur or ball in the middle of it. That means he actually thinks he's saying something real.

He constantly wants to play with me and gets really upset

if I don't. It causes me a lot of anxiety to hear him crying--"play with me". It constantly makes me feel guilty but there is only so much time I can spend playing. His favorite games are:

"num- nums" (food) and "hello" (talking on the phone). He also loves playing animals and littlest pet shops.

I got an eliptical for Christmas and it came in this big box. The kids had a ton of fun painting the box and making a fort out of it. It made me wonder why we ever spend money on toys. Unfortunately it ended up making a huge mess with the paints.

Mathew started singing "Oh Damin, Oh Damin" the other day. I couldn't figure out what he was saying and I was afraid he'd heard someone swearing and was repeating it but then I realized he was singing "oh my darling" from Clementine. It did make a funny version of the song.

I captured part of the song in the video below although he turns into Buzz Lightyear half way through the song.

Dad's day

Last Saturday was a busy day. It started out with me taking Sophie to her friend's baptism. She and some other girls in the class sang "if the Savior stood beside me". It was really sweet (even though I watched from the doorway while Mathew was being wild in the hall.

Ellie had "Dad's Day" that morning--shaving Daddy was the highlight (they used popsicle sticks). Later she went to a birthday party while I took the other 3 to Walmart/McDonalds.


We started going rollerblading but realized Sophie had a Daddy-Daughter dance at school that night so we turned around. She came home from the dance on top of the clouds and said it was the best time she'd ever had in her life. I guess they were having so much fun that they kept on dancing for 30 minutes after it was over while everything was being picked up. Matt is really fun to dance with--that's how he hooked me too. Anyway, we've been turning on music and dancing again---so fun. We used to do that everyday but it's been a while. It basically always devolves into the kids getting in line waiting for Dad to swing them around.