Potty training, Sleep training and cross-training

I've been recently mourning the fact that I haven't been blogging in so long. If I don't write things down, it's almost as if they never happened. The kids have been asking me to tell them stories about when they were little but I'm surprised at how little I remember--how much gets lost.

The last few months I've been focusing on getting some fundamentals in place--Establishing schedules, routines, potty training Mathew and trying get in shape. Now that Troy's sleeping through the night, Mathew's peeing in the Potty and I've lost 40 pounds, I'm ready to begin documenting my life at some level again.

Yesterday was a true testament to how quickly kids grow up. Mathew made a huge leap in his drawing. For weeks he has sat at the table drawing lines and circles--spending 20+ minutes on his works of art and proudly replacing anything on the fridge with his work. Yesterday, his lines and circles turned into recognizable apple trees. Troy started doing patty-cake and pointing to his nose on demand. He looks at me with such intense eyes, just begging me to teach him a new trick.

We went to San Diego last weekend and stayed with my sister, Julia, and her family. We were able to use our free Sea World passes and went to the beach. The kids played in the ocean for 3 hours straight. Very fun.

Mathew loves dinosaurs but has his own version of their names: Rock-osaurus, Dino-saurus (my personal favorite), Broccolli-saurus (he corrects us when we say Brachiosaurus). There are more but I haven't fully decipered them yet. I caught Mathew standing on a ladder, with his pants at his ankles, trying to pee into the washing machine with a load of freshly-washed clothes. He still has that mischievious streak in him but at the same time is so loving. There isn't an hour that goes by in the day that he doesn't say "I wov you mommy" or give me a hug. So it all evens out in the end.

Summertime

I've gotten so behind on blogging. Mostly because we misplaced our camera charger for a few weeks and pictures are what give me ideas of what to right about. Anyway, this is what we've been doing with our time..

-Church: I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting 2 weeks ago. They'd ask me to speak 20 minutes on "the Sabbath--a delight". That's the longest talk I'd ever given and I put a lot of time and energy into it. It feels good to go through that every once in a while. Also, after more than 2 years, I was just released as RS teacher. I really enjoyed that calling even though it was a stress every month. At least it kept me honest with my scripture study, etc.

-Tennis: Matt has a dream of everyone playing tennis. The girls really like it and identify themselves as Tennis girls. We put them in a 2 week, 2 hour a day camp. It's really pushing Ellie's attention span although she made a friend there so it keeps her going. Sophie's improving a ton. Mathew cries that he wants to play so we got him a racket and I've been just throwing balls to him during the class--it's very cute.

-I hired a 12 yr old girl to come over 2 hours every morning to help me with my routine. While I do piano and reading with each girl, Sydney works with Mathew to do "chores and homework" (unload dishwasher, clean up books, work on coloring and cutting). While I work with one girl, the other does chores & homework. Then the girls play board games while I take Tito on a snooze cruise. So far it's been nice because it would take me all day on my own. This way we work hard for 2 hours and then have time for play.

-Gymnastics: Ellie and Mathew had been doing gymnastics but Sophie wanted to go too so we found a time where all of the kids take a class at the same time. It is the most enjoyable hour for me to sit and watch all 3 of them!

-Thundercats: Matt loves digging out old shows he watched when he was young..somehow got a hold of the old Thundercats episodes. The girls LOVE them. I was trying to hide them because I think they are a little too old for Ellie but she eats it up. Whenever Mathew is sleeping I let them watch an episode. Ellie tells everyone about the show that has really cool face painting and practices running like Cheetara.

-Mini-family reunion: Matt's cousin, Lee, and his family are moving to Guam with the Air Force so there was a reunion at a park last weekend. It was fun to see everyone and then we were able to hang out with Matt's cousins on Sunday and Monday too.

Visit with the cousins

James and Kristy stopped in Arizona for 2 weeks before going to Mexico City for the Summer (James has an internship). Here are some highlights:
-Filling our van to full capacity with kids/luggage
-Taking 7 kids ages 7&under all genetically siblings to the zoo twice
-Dancing in the rain with umbrellas
-Kids had a blast at a small amusement park in Phoenix.
-Ellie and Isaac bonding over Magic Tree House books
-James and Kristy buying a used Phil and Teds stroller on Craigs list and then realizing it was being sold at Costco for the same price. Then they sold the old one on craigs list and then bought a new one.....all of this within24 hours

Preschool graduation

Ellie had her preschool graduation this week. They had a little ceremony and each kid got and released a balloon. Ellie's was the only balloon that flopped to the floor and then I realized that she had been trying to suck the helium out of it. She is always looking for a laugh.

She was wearing a hand me down dress of Sophie's so I thought it was so funny that one of her friends showed up in the same dress.

Here is Ellie with her friend Jacob. They both insist that they are going to get married one day...hmmm. They are such sweet friends though.

The last picture is Ellie and her cross stitch project. I got it as a summer activity and she really loves it. She also likes to wear an old pair of my reading glasses (glass fell out of them).

Matt's b-day

Matt's birthday came and left. Poor guy had to work early so I think he was at work before any of us had woken up.

I was able to get someone to watch Tito while I went to see Sophie's performance of the "Three piggy opera at school". She is such a performer at heart. She's becoming so reserved but when she gets in front of a crowd she has no reservations. It was fun to watch. Here is a picture of Sophie (right) and her friend Rachel(left).

That night I made Matt's favorite meal (Turkish Shish-kebabs and rice). For desert, I made my Mom's recipe of baked Alaska. It was fun for the presentation mostly because the brownie was slightly burned. But it was fun and different (not quite as beautiful as my Mom's used to be).

I love this action shot of us keeping Tito's hands off of it for the picture. Also, I just noticed Troy's feet made it in the bottome picture.

For Matt's present, I got a digital photo frame he's been wanting for a while. I never wanted it because I'm not crazy about how it looks but it has been fun to actually look at pictures. It's funny to see how bad our memories are...it seems like we only remember things that we have pictures of.

Eagar

Last weekend we went to Eagar. Some highlights were:
-Playing in the irrigation water
-The kids got to ride horses with grandpa
-We cracked and ate a coconut
-Enjoying beautiful scenery/weather
-Feeding cows and horses
-Grandpa Sam's expressions...here are some of our favorites from the weekend:
(to Tito) "come on weenie-arm, you're slower than the second coming"

"you couldn't pour pee out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel"

"I haven't been this happy since the hogs ate my little brother"

(to Matt while fixing fence) "That's good enough for the girls we go with"

(to Tito--regarding his babbling) "When are you going to start talking white-man?"
"that'll make a rabbit slap a bear"

Weeks are flying by

A few weeks ago I ordered a grain grinder and mixer and have been looking forward to using them. When they arrived, I put the boxes aside for a time when I could carefully unwrap the new arrivals. I noticed the kids were being unusually quiet while I was practicing piano with Sophie and when I came out, there was a scene straight out of a Lost episode. They had stabbed the boxes with kebab sticks and forks.


Since then, we've gotten good use out of the machines. I'm trying to get my kids to like bread since they currently refuse to eat any kind of sandwich. I've been making a lot of pizza, cinnamon roles and other things that will help them ease into liking bread. I got this cool bread recipe that I love that uses lecithin instead of oil and makes 4 loaves of bread in under 1 hour. Between this and trying to use my food storage, there have been some growing pains as we transition what we eat.

Meal planning is more difficult for me than it should be. Take bread for instance. I've worked hard to take bread out of my diet because of my weight issues but then my kids stopped liking bread too. It's difficult to factor in different tastes, what's healthy, what's economical, etc. I'm still figuring it out. I'm really looking forward to this Summer and hoping the kids will participate more in the meal process.

American Express announced another set of major lay-offs. In the fall he survived a 10% of the workforce cut. He was the only person left on his row. Right now it looks like we may have dodged another round but we can never get too comfortable. I am heartbroken for all the people who lost their jobs though and will try to be prepared no matter what. The most important things, of couse, are family & health.

I took Ellie to the Elementary School office the other day and she said to the receptionist. "Excuse me, I'd like to register for Kindergarten please". What a moment. This girl feels so grown up--Hopefully her spirits are not dampened by the big kids on the playground.