farmer boy

Last week Nathan got 6 chickens. We're having a lot of fun with them. They're about 2 years old. They are very docile and nice, but a little naughty. They are eating some of their eggs. A lady was selling her 6 hens and her supplies so Nathan took the allowance he had saved up and got a small business loan from us and bought them. He was supposed to have built a coop with me, but it ended up that Todd built it. I started it, but it wasn't working, and so I stayed in with the girls and Todd did it. He did a great job. Nathan is taking care of the chickens and sells the eggs. I had to have a talk with those chickens about eating the profits. I gave him a business notebook where he writes details about all his sales.

Nathan could be a farm boy. He wants even more chickens and any other animal he could have. He LOVES animals. I would love to live in the country on lots of land and have lots of animals, too. We just finished the book "Farmer Boy" and it makes me want to live on a farm.

sewing

Tonight I borrowed a friend's sewing machine so that we could make bean bags for a service project for FHE (giving away bean bags to kids). That way they could learn a new skill and do service. The boys went with me to pick out the fabric, and then I taught them how to sew it and thread the machine (their very favorite part). Here is a bean bag that Alex sewed completely by himself. We're going to have to ask Grandma Judy how to do a hidden stitch to stitch up the hole, because I don't know how to do it. Nathan loved sewing but Alex REALLY loved it!

Then after the kids were in bed, I sewed some things. At 2am, Alex came down and scared me half to death! He had been reading "Superfudge" by Judy Bloom the whole time! He said he loves it. He never ever stays up late- he's always the first one asleep!

I sewed a dolly blanket and pillows. Katherine and I picked this out at the fabric store-I love the fabric!

Katherine saw this fabric with the ballerinas on it and HAD to have it! So I made her a little purse:

 Sat. we got a firepit and on Sun. we roasted hot dogs and smores in the backyard:

blah

I've been in a blah mood yesterday and today. I think it's because the kids have been really really cranky and I don't know why. Maybe it's also the weather, and my house being an overwhelming disaster, and maybe I need some adult attention. Todd and I even went on a date on Wed., but I've been feeling a little lonely. Or maybe just because of my blah mood. Gotta go- Katherine is screaming.

Here's a picture I found that Nathan drew of him playing Titan Quest on the computer:

Nathan lost a tooth and what's going on now

Me: What do you think the Tooth Fairy does with all those teeth?
Nathan: Maybe she builds her house with them because she doesn't have very good mushrooms. Remember that fairies live in mushrooms?

Nathan just lost his second tooth! Abbie just got her first tooth and Nathan just started loosing his teeth!

Abbie is like the Hungry Catapillar right now. She must be going through a growth spurt! But, she started sleeping through the night! She crawls around and just started pulling up. She is content crawling around exploring and only cries when her teeth hurt, she's poopy, hungry or tired. She is good entertaining herself. Right now I'm writing this and she's trying to stand up, smiling at me, waving a princess figurine around. She's naked except for her diaper.

The other day I bet Todd some money that he couldn't speak Spanish to the kids the whole day. He won. The kids thought he was a toy. They tried to get him to say something in English. Any kind of discipline was out the window. The kids (and Todd) laughed a lot that day. I took Katherine on a date that night and Alex said, "You're going to leave us with a Spanish speaking Daddy?"

Right now Nathan is lining up all the princess figurines and punching them which he said is "exploding them", complete with sound effects. Alex is reading books. He likes to read. Katherine is sleeping- she was screaming and crying for about 30 minutes straight so we put her to bed and she went right to sleep. That was at 6:30, I hope she stays asleep through the night. Katherine is now officially potty trained! She decided that she was going to potty train the day before we left for CA. She did really well while we were in CA. She had lots of #2 accidents but after an accident in the library that she wasn't happy about, and the other day when I said she had to clean herself up from now on (she was not happy about that) she's been doing really well. I'm very happy. Only one more left to go!!

date with Katherine

We started a tradition that we do a date once a month with each child. At the end of the year, I'm going to make a book for each child with all their dates in it. Todd and I switch taking the boys and girls (Abbie will go when she's a little older) each month. The day of the month of their birth is their "special day", but a lot of the time we go on a date with them on another date if we're going to a concert or something like that.

Right now Katherine is REALLY in to dance. I read her the book "Tanya likes to Dance" that we got at the library, and then I showed her some videos on Youtube of ballerinas and she was just mesmerized and always asked to watch the ballerinas on the computer. Then she started to dance. We got the DVD of the Nutcracker ballet on Netflix (and still haven't returned it. I think we'll need to buy it) and she watches that 24/7 and tries to copy what they do. One day I took her to get her own ballet slippers and dancing clothes and found that they have a Mommy and Me dancing class for her age at a dance studio by our house. Ever since then, she lives for that dancing class, and dances 24/7. I took her to the Nutcracker ballet, and she was enthralled for the entire 2 hour performace! So for her date this month (January), I took her to a dance concert "Carnival". It was really good and Katherine was so happy to be there. It was late- it didn't start until 7:30, and ended about 10pm, so I kept asking her if she wanted to stay or go home, and she always said, "stay and watch dancing!" We sat in the front row. In between each number, while they were getting ready for the next dance, Katherine kept saying, "watch more dancing!" It was a lyrical/interpretive dance so it wasn't the ballet she was used to. During the intermission she was just talking, talking, talking and she said they were "twirling and shaking". Close to the end Katherine got out of her seat and danced in the front while she watched, and at one point she reached her arms toward the dancers on the stage. In one number, they had little girls probably 3-6 years old or so, and her eyes got so wide and she said, "I want to dance on stage!!" She kept asking if she could dance on the stage so I told her at the end she could. So at the very end, as people were leaving, I let her get on the stage and dance around. Before we got in the car, she played in the snow a little. My mom said that when I was her age, I loved to sing and dance too. I don't know if she'll stick with dancing as she gets older, but I am glad that she has the personality of getting really into things like I do. She is a lot like I am so far.

 Before we went to the dance show, we got ice cream at Cold Stone. She chose bright blue ice cream with sprinkles and gummy bears:

Katherine with her dance program:

Dancing during intermission:

Do you see the little silhouette of the head with pigtails reaching over the stage at the dancer?

Dancing on the stage at the end:

Playing in the snow:

A very tired girl on the drive home:

Here are some pictures Jane took of Katherine dancing that I LOVE:

Biggest Loser finale and CA trip

Where do I even begin??!?? We drove to LA and went to Sea World and at Sea World they had a ballerina that I told Katherine was the Sugar Plum Fairy and I'm pretty sure that was the best thing of the whole trip for her:

Katherine was just SO excited!! She was dancing and just wanted to follow her and be by her.

Here are the kids feeding the dolphins:

Katherine and I did this while the boys rode a roller coaster at Sea World:

The day before the finale we spent the day at the beach in 84 degree sunshine!! I couldn't believe it was the middle of December! I told Todd we were moving! There were flowers all over everywhere-it was so nice! I love winter, but only for the month of December, and then I want it to be spring.

The night before the finale everyone gathered in the hotel lobby for my dad's big reveal. His brothers and mother were there and they were so shocked to see him so skinny! I had seen him in AR for the "where they are now" taping, but I was still shocked at how much he had lost since then, and I am still not used to this person who sounds like my dad, but doesn't look like my dad! My dad was all smiles:)

The next day was the finale!! We left our kids with my aunt and uncle in the hotel room, with Avery, Violet, Tom's girls and Nancy's kids (though Nancy was there too). It was crazy with all those kids in one hotel room, I felt very bad for Nancy, Diane and Larry!!! But, we found out that while we were gone, Nathan had thrown up and the babies had cried the whole time. They said it was so crazy that all they could do was laugh. They deserve a big medal or something!

We had met a lot of the other contestants on Biggest Loser in the hotel lobby the night before, and even Sunshine and Oneal from the last season, which was really fun! When we were getting in line to go in the studio, we saw Sam and Steffanie and I cut in line in front of Amanda (on accident) and talked to her for a minute, and we were in line with all the other families of the other contestants.


We got in the studio and it was surreal! We were THERE! We had made alot of neon colored posters to hold up for my dad. Allison Sweeny came out in her curlers and flip flops to talk to someone on the stage before the show. Some fans of my dad had come with signs for him and sat a few rows behind us. We talked to them a little bit. There was a guy that was in charge of the audience, getting us all excited and telling us when to applaud and stop and stuff. He told us we couldn't be too excited and that we could holler and do whatever we wanted. I was so nervous that I would holler or do something when I wasn't supposed to! Then they said, "We'll be on live tv in 5, 4, 3, 2,...." It was SO exciting! It was so wierd that MY DAD was going to be on that stage on live tv!! All the hoping and wishing he would get on the show, and here it was--he had MADE ITON THE SHOW!!! He didn't tell us he was going to be in a tux, he wanted it to be a surprise. But he said Mark had won, I heard him tell my mom. I was so excited when he walked out on the stage!! That was MY dad!! I was/am so proud of him and all the hard work he did! I was really nervous for him- this was LIVE tv! He had lost the second most percentage weight of ANYBODY, except Mark, who had been on the ranch the whole time, and then didn't have a job and went to live with his cousin so that he could just focus on his weight. My dad had a full time job, a family, and was at home most of time. They were going to, but ran out of time, present my dad with the "biggest transformation" award. He had lost the most body fat percentage of ANYBODY! So to me, he was the Biggest Loser. He had worked so hard, and it is just amazing to see how this weight loss has transformed his life. He's wanted this for so long, and HE DID IT!!! I really can't say enough how proud I am and how happy I am for him! He was just so happy and smiling from ear to ear that whole night!

After the finale we went to eat dinner all of us at a restaurant in a separate room and they had the show playing on tv's in the room. Poor sick Nathan fell asleep in the pack 'n play we brought.

The next day was DISNEYLAND!! The night before, Nathan had thrown up while we were at the show, and then woke up and threw up again when we got to our hotel room, and Abbie had had a fever, so I was pretty sure we weren't going to Disneyland the next day. Not to mention all of the kids had gone to bed really really late and we had to be AT the gates of Disneyland at 7:30am. That would mean 5 hours of sleep for the kids. Todd said that he wanted to go to Disneyland, and if it didn't work out and the kids fell apart, we could just go home. I thought he was NUTS, but he goes along with my nut ideas most of the time, so I decided to go along. So, off to Disneyland. To my biggest surprise, everything went just fine! Nathan rode all the roller coasters with no problem, and the other kids were just fine, despite no sleep. About the middle of the day Nathan wasn't feeling well, so he fell asleep in the stroller and when he woke up he was fine. It was a very fun day. My mom and dad, all my brother and sisters and their families, my dad's mom, my uncle Jim and wife Terri, Robert, uncle Tom and his family, Mike and his daughter and her family all went to Disneyland. My dad tried to take turns spending time with all of us. It was so funny/wierd that people would come up to my dad and ask for a picture with him, or people would whisper and say, "hey that's Rick!!" He was a celebrity! One person came up to him and said, "You are a stud!" and walked off. He said that happened all day at Disneyland! Then when we went to dinner, a couple congratulated him and as they walked away they said, "that's so wierd we saw him!" Of course, I think it's cool that we saw Sunshine and Oneal, but it's wierd because, he's just my dad. I've always thought he was something special, but now the world knows, too!

Nathan loves his Nana:

Katherine is a little apprehensive of some of the rides:

She liked Mickey Mouse, but was really scared of him in person. She was hugging me really tight in this picture. But she loves looking at this picture:

Katherine only watches the Nutcracker ballet and Signing Time, so she didn't know who the princesses were, but she thought they were cool:

Poor sick Nathan:

Katherine got a new fluffy pink skirt at Disneyland. Here she is on Daddy's shoulders with her new skirt:

It was really fun seeing all the Christmas decorations there:

We spent the next day at Disneyland again for Nathan's birthday, but it was just our family. For Nathan's birthday, he really wanted to go on a date with Nana, even more than going to Disneyland, but we told him that he could go on a date with her in northern CA because she couldn't that day.

Then we headed up to Northern CA where my dad's mom lives. We went to the Charles Dickens festival in San Francisco because every year we read "A Christmas Carol."

The kids made candles there:

Alex got fencing lessons:

They played old Victorian games:

Katherine rode on a man-powered carousel:

Abbie was so tired she fell asleep while I was holding her like this. I didn't even know she was asleep until someone said something:

The kids dancing on the stage:

There were people dressed up in costume and one couple had this carriage and baby that was so so cute!

The boys learning how to tie knots on London docks:

Katherine trying on a little Victorian dress:

The next day we went to a fancy restaurant to have a Christmas brunch with Nana (my dad's mom). It was really nice and we got all dressed up and everyone was ooing and ahing over the girls. In the bathroom some ladies asked to hold Abbie and told me I was very blessed. Yes! I am!! I have the best kids ever!

It was raining the rest of the time we were there, so instead of going whale watching, Todd took the boys to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium. Another day we went with everyone to a trampoline place and watched my dad do a flip off the trampoline into the foam pit, which he could not get out of:) hillarious. My uncle Jim and wife Terri came over and blew up HUGE balloons with the kids. The kids wrote letters to Santa, tied them on the balloons and let them go to the North Pole. I was fascinated!