i like/ i hate

The boys always want to write "I like"'s and "I hate"s in their journals. So I am going to do it, too.

I like flowers.
I like reading scriptures with my kids.
I like doing homeschool with my kids.
I like my new floor.
I like holidays.
I like gardening/yardwork.
I like Todd's days off of work.
I like checking my email.
I like dogs.

I hate mornings, and having to be somewhere anytime before noon.
I hate housework.
I hate housework.
I hate housework.
I really hate cleaning my house.

VERY embarrasing!

To the people eating breakfast at IHOP this morning:

I'm very sorry I ruined your breakfast by throwing up at my table, and then running to the bathroom and throwing up outside the bathroom (extra sorry to the table next to the bathroom), and the lady in the bathroom while I finished.
I'm very sorry to the IHOP workers who were very busy with a packed restaurant, all of whom seemed to be staring at me. I hope you didn't see the throw up on my leg or the wet spot on my pants.
And to the poor lady who had to clean it up: Lo siento mucho.

I assure you, this WILL BE MY LAST PREGNANCY!!!

second time ski lessons

After their lesson, we got hot chocolate and sat by the fire:

Katherine wanted to try on her brother's sunglasses:

Nathan before lessons:

Alex before lessons:

Alex is making a funny face:)

Val. boxes

Tonight the boys and I mod podged Val. boxes (not all the way dry).

boy date

On Saturday, I (Todd) took Alex and Nathan on a 'boy date'. That's what we call it when it's just the boys.

Alex wanted to go eat lunch at Tsing Tao, our favorite Chinese restaurant. (If you haven't eaten there, you're really missing out. It's in Payson - so it may seem a bit out of the way but you won't be disappointed). I think the main reason he wanted to go there was to try out his 'chopstick helper' - a little plastic holder that you put at the top of the chopsticks that acts like a sort of spring to make it easier to use. At any rate, the food was nummy!

Next, we went to Toys 'R Us, where the boys wanted to spend their money that they had been saving. Alex brought all of his money but Nathan only brought part of it - to ensure that he wouldn't spend it all. They both picked out a Lego set - Alex got a Star Wars ship and Nathan got an Atlantis robot shark.

Then, we went to the dinosaur museum. The boys wanted to go through the museum and see a movie in the 3D (like Imax) theatre. So, we went through the exibhit halls - rather quickly, though. I think the boys were excited to go look around at the gift shop. They did stop and play in the sand pit at the end - and even made a friend. They were telling him all about their video games and he was telling them about his. Then we went to the gift shop and the boys both used some of their leftover money to get a sucker - and Nathan got a crystal growing kit. To finish the day off, we saw a movie about dinosaurs in 3D.

Alex with his 3D glasses on, ready for the movie

Nathan with his glasses - and his sucker from the gift shop

Here are the boys - inspecting one of the 'hands on' exhibits

shaving sheep hair and royal treatment

Today Nathan said that he wanted to snuggle with me, so we went in my bed and "snuggled"; his body and mind go 100 mph, so most of the time he is doing somersaults and things on the bed. If I take a nap during the day, the boys get video game time, so Nathan told me he was going to scratch my hair to make me go to sleep. He was scratching my hair and said, "I am pretending I'm shaving sheep hair." Then he said, parting my hair, "Oh my gosh! I digged and found a pig's tail in here!" Then he said, "Now I'm going to dig in your brain... Here's the blood vessels! Now I'm to your chin. All done!... Now I'm digging through worms." He is so "creative" and crazy!

The boys like to give me "the royal treatment" at bedtime. They tell me to go take out my contacts and lay with them in their beds and they scratch my back and hair and massage my legs so that I will fall asleep in their bed (which I often do). They are such sweet boys!

blue face and cupcakes

Katherine is playing with her playdough. She doesn't even eat it!
Katherine is sick and I've been giving her popsicles-- can you tell? Her mouth is stained blue:

She looks so tiny sitting on this big couch. She was watching a signing time video we got at the library. She loves the videos and loves doing signs.

We made cupcakes and decorated them:

Today in math we were learning about fractions and I was using a pizza analogy. The boys decided they needed some pizza so they got their allowance money and I took them to Little Caesars. They walked in by themselves and put their money on the counter and got their pizza. They shared with me.

hope in parenting

We're reading in Alma 37 still (we only read a few verses each day and talk about it) where Alma is talking to his son Heleman. We're reading the part where he is talking about how important the golden plates and brass plates (the scriptures) are, and that he is handing these important plates to his son and gives him instructions. With the boys, we talked about how Heleman must have felt getting these important things from his father. I tried to think of something that is like that in my life, and I think that is like being a parent. Heavenly Father gave me His children, that are so important, to take care of. Alma told Heleman that if he kept the commandments and asked God about how he should take care of them, then the power of God would preserve the plates. Perhaps if I keep the commandments and ask God how to take care of my children, then I will know how to best take care of my children. They will have their agency to choose, but I will know I did everything I was supposed to.

Todd and I have been talking about how to teach our kids to stay away from pornography and how to teach our kids about sex. We want them to know that sex is not a bad thing, but that there are rules. It seems so complicated to me and pornography is so prevelant (and stuff like it) that it gives me lots of anxiety! This scripture gives me hope.

pic of our glorious new floor

parent child talks

Today we were reading Alma 37 where Alma is speaking to his son Heleman. In the scriptures a lot it has fathers having talks with their sons, and those scriptures are some of the best. Father son and parent child talks are important. If you could write a last letter to your child, what would you say?

Tooth fairy and "bummy"

The tooth fairy is coming tonight!

We went to the mall yesterday and katherine remembered where Build-a-Bear was and ran right into the store before anyone could catch her. We found her on her tip toes, her nose and fingers barely hanging over the edge where the stuffed animal bins were. Allison gave me a coupon for a free one, so we decided to let her have it. I grabbed the bunny and gave it to her and she ran to the front of the line and handed it to the worker who stuffs them. She was not happy when we had to tell her we had to wait in line. Luckily, it wasn't very long. She calls it her "bummy" and hasn't let go of it since she got it.

Katherine in her new spring dress and her bummy:

Thanks, Auntie Allison!

stuff

Today we went ice skating again with the homeschooling group. The moms and little kids were free, so I decided to take Katherine around the rink and see how she liked it. She wears size 4 shoe, and the smallest ice skates they had were 6, but they were SO tiny! I held her up and let her legs dangle on the ice and she kicked her little legs as we went around. She was so cute! Today all day she's been wearing her costume necklaces she got for Christmas. She loves them. Here's a picture of her with her necklaces and ice skates, but she was so much cuter in person (if you could imagine that!) because she was so tiny and had these tiny little skates on!

My kids are so great. I'm so lucky to be their mother. Kids don't care if your hair is done, if your make up is on, if you're a dufus or whatever. My kids love me because I'm their mother; and it's wonderful to have their unconditional love (at least until they become teenagers). After we went ice skating with the homeschool group, I took the kids out to lunch. It was so fun-- I really enjoyed being with them and talking with them. Katherine is cuter than anything, and she smiles at everyone and they say "what a doll!" and she is so fun; Nathan keeps me laughing; and Alex is fun to talk with--he's getting so grown up and he is such a sweet kid. I really had a fun time with them and I'm really glad I get to homeschool them so that I can be with them all day long and enjoy their company.

Last night just Katherine and I went on a "date" to Gymboree to use my Christmas gift card (thanks Todd:)) at the mall. I let Katherine run around and let her choose (mostly) where we'd go. She liked to run around the fountain and over the bridge and she was so cute! My date smelled poopy, though.

We've been getting educational videos from the library (and my kids love them, they are such smarties and so easy to teach!) and we'll watch them in the car when we go places. For Martin Luther King Jr. day we rented a video about him. What a great man. It's so sad how the African Americans were treated. Today I think one of America's inequalities is the health care system. I hope someday my children will teach their children about how things were changed so that everyone has equal access to healthcare. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. day!

this year's easter dress nominees

It's 2:40am and I am up looking at Easter dresses for Katherine!! What am I thinking?? Easter isn't until April! Which one do you like best?

I really like this one, but I always thought of Easter dresses as pastel colors and springy. What do you think?
This one I really love but I wish it were pink or purple;
I'd probably wash in a light pink or purple dye:

This one is hard to see. See it bigger here:

Remember this one from last year's nominations?

I really like this one, but you can barely see it. See it bigger here:

Nathan's morning math problem

Nathan was giving himself math problems this morning during breakfast. One problem was 150,000 times 60. He did it in his head, and he said the answer was 9 million. I had to do it on the calculator, and yep, he was right.

Tonight at dinner he was explaining how he figured it out. He had his dinner all over his face, and saying "w" for "r's" and "l's", he said, "Let's do it like this. You know 100,000 times 60 is 6 million, right Mommy? and half of that is 3 million, and 6 plus 3 is 9, so 9 million."

He asked me today if I would buy him a house when he grew up. I said he had to get a job and buy his own house. He said that he wanted to be a rock star when he grows up.

ski school

Park City is doing a deal right now where UT residents can get ski lessons for $25, including ski rental! I saw that the normal price for a kids ski school is $210. Today was their ski school and they were excited. They both liked it a lot. Alex did better than Nathan the teacher said, but they both had fun and did well. They both want to do it again. They can go back 3 more times at that price. While they were at ski school, Katherine and I went to Gymboree at the outlet mall and got some amazingly good deals on some amazingly cute outfits for summer and next winter:).

Alex is in a yellow jacket and Nathan is in the orange jacket. They are the two in the very middle (There is a faint orange circle around them I did on the computer):

This is when their lesson was done and they were skiing down to meet me:

Here's my second attempt doing the fancy thing with Katherine's hair. It turned out much better this time:

Hamming it up for the camera:

hairdos

Todd showed me how to put the pictures on the computer with the memory card-- yea!!
Here is a picture of Katherine with a candy cane stuck in her hair. I wanted to use this for our Christmas cards (hee hee):
This is after I got it out:

The boys let me play with their hair:). I had to pay them $1 to let me put this picture on the blog:

Katherine held still for my first attempt at doing something kind of "fancy". It's not perfect but not bad for my first try!

She is smiling for the camera:). She knows she's supposed to smile for the camera now, silly girl!

my kids

*The other day the dishwasher was open and Katherine started putting the dishes away! She was putting the silverware in the silverware drawer. Alex got up and said, I'll help her. So she handed him the dishes and he put them away. Who's kids are these??? SO SO cute!!

*I started reading the boys "The Lightning Thief" last night and they were very into it! Nathan said it was his favorite book. They kept asking me to read more and more and we ended up reading until midnight and got to page 75. They got into bed at 8:30 or 9. Here's one part so you can see why it's such a great hit with them, especially Nathan:

"Then the wierdest thing happened. Her (the pre-algebra teacher) eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.
Then things got even stranger.
Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.
"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.
Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.
With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword--Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day."

nothing much at all

1. Today I had my 2 boys in senior primary and my baby girl in nursery! They are growing up so fast!
2. I am not good at chit chat. I need some interpersonal skills, mine are lacking. Being pregnant has made things worse.
3. Katherine spilled OJ on the new floor and I JUST WIPED IT UP!!! If it were carpet instead of laminate, it would have been a big mess! I LOVE LOVE LOVE our new floor!!
4. Katherine is poopy.

Christmas

Our dumb camera is broken so I have no pictures of Christmas this year:(. But we had a great Christmas. My parents drove up here Christmas Eve night and suprised the boys Christmas morning. The boys got lots of presents and a Wii. They are probably the only kids who got math books in their stockings and were excited about it. Katherine got lots of things for her dollies and some jewlery and nail polish in her stocking. I got a new floor downstairs:). I am so happy. We also got a cheap used couch and loveseat until we can save up for a nice couch. It's fun to have my parents here. They are staying a whole week! I'm glad my dad got a new job so that he can have time off.

Before Christmas, we had fun with Tawnya and her family. The boys love playing with her boy Spencer. She is one of my best friends.

P.S. We ordered a new camera through Todd's work, but it hasn't gotten here yet.

breakfast and savers and ESP or something

My neighbor directly behind me is Nancy, the retired single lady with a pool that Nathan is going to marry when he gets older. She is also my visiting teacher and she invited me and my family for breakfast last Thurs. morning. When we got there she had the table set with her Christmas dishes, linens, Santa centerpiece, sausage, bacon, waffles, orange juice and raspberry cheesecake hot chocolate with marshmallows! Alex leaned over to me and whispered, "she did it all fancy for us!" I told that to Nancy and she said that she wanted us to feel special. We did feel special!
What a nice thing to do for us!

*********

Nathan and Alex get $5 every Sat. for allowance. They can spend it on whatever they want, so that instead of them asking for everything, we say they can get it with their allowance. Well, they have been great savers! With Nathan's birthday money, he is now at $100! He is very excited and I am very proud of my savers boys, a skill they did not learn from me:)

**********

Todd's sister Tawnya and I are good friends. She moved to Iowa a few years ago, unfortunately, because her husband is going to school there. She got pregnant with her first baby a few months before we got pregnant with Katherine. When she came to visit, she said the name they picked out was Spencer Bradford (Todd's family are direct decendants of William Bradford). I told her the name we had picked out for a boy was Nicholas Bradford. We had a girl and she had a boy. In July when they came out to visit, they called Spencer "Bubba" and we were caling Katherine "bubba", too. She is visiting right now and now she is calling Spencer "Bubs" and we call Katherine "Bubs"! She is now pregnant and one month ahead of me, and we found out we are both having girls. When she got here on Friday I asked her what they are going to name the baby and she said, "Abigail and call her Abby!" That is what we had picked out, too. I guess we'll have cousins with the same name! Her middle name is Lynne but we haven't decided on a middle name yet, but it won't be Lynne. We have it narrowed down to a few but haven't decided yet. Too wierd, huh??

Nathan's birthday

Nathan was so excited for his birthday that the night before he wanted to stay up until midnight when his birthday started. I was too tired, so I set my alarm and put it by his bed. He stayed up watching the time and woke me up. "The alarm went off! It's my birthday!" I don't remember what I said, but I wish I could have stayed up with him and sang happy birthday to him.

Nathan had an ice skating birthday party and 16 people were there! I'm glad he had a good turn out for his party. All of his friends from the street and all his friends from boys club (homeschool group) came. He had a Spongebob party and he wanted Daddy to make his cake instead of getting one at the store. He did wants toys on it, though. So Todd made his cake. After his party Todd took him to Build a Bear and he got a snowflake bear with a Santa suit. For his birthday dinner he asked for chips and hamburgers. Todd and I were puzzled, but Alex said, "good choice, Nathan." So Todd and Nathan made hamburgers and we had Doritos with it. He had a good birthday and he's so happy to be 6.

Happy Birthday Nathan!!

Nathan turns 6 today (Wed. Dec. 16)! Happy Birthday!

house project day 2

Day 2:
it's 3pm: the kids and I organized the toy closet, I swept and mopped the kitchen floor, cleaned off the counters, the boys wiped the table and chairs, the boys "cleaned" their room, and now I'm taking a break because I'm feeling a bit nauseaus (I hate that word...who can spell it?) and overwhlemed at cleaning this living room.

***

We cleaned the living room until 5 and got it mostly cleaned and then we all were just too tired to clean anymore. Now I'm exhausted.

what's going on around here

For our Christmas present to eachother, Todd and I are getting the house all clean and fixing up all the broken things that have been needing to be fixed this week. Today the kids and I cleaned out the car, and now it's 4pm. Oh my goodness.

The boys got out some hangers and played with them for about 2 or 3 days. Alex said he wanted an orange hanger for Christmas. They are so creative. They made roller coasters, pretended they were swords, etc. I think we should get rid of all our toys, they don't even play with them.
All they need is their imaginations, and of course a computer to play video games.

Last week Todd and I took the boys to "A Christmas Carol" at the Hale Center theater. That is my favorite one--I love it. We go about every year. This past Sat. Alex and I went on a "date" to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. Alex likes music like I do, so I thought he would like it. They only let kids 8 and up go, but I figured he's close enough. Walking from our parking lot to the building, Alex kept throwing snowballs at me:). On the way back to the car, we built a snowman. Then we went to Village Inn and got pancakes and hot chocolate. We had a really great time and he said he wanted to go again next year.

Yesterday night the family decorated stockings. I helped Katherine: I just put a blob of glue and she put a pom pom on it. I think she might have eaten one or two. We joked that she was going to get cancer. Then I put glitter glue on her finger so she could rub it on the stocking. She liked it. I'd take pictures but our camera won't work with our computer for some reason right now. Alex did the angel coming to the shepherds with Bethlehem in the background and Nathan did some abstract art.

Well, I better keep cleaning (and change Katherine's stinky diaper...again).

good parents

Todd and I stayed up late watching a bunch of episodes of the tv show "World's Strictest Parents." In the show, 2 wild teenagers go to a strict parent's house for a week. And in every single episode, the teenagers make huge improvements and it's really amazing. So, Todd and I decided to write down what we saw that was the same in all the strict families:

1. had the kids do hard work as part of the daily routine
2. the parents spent one on one personal positive time with each child
3. the parents had high expectations with clear rules and boundaries, and consequences for every broken rule
4. the parents stay calm; instead of yelling they use consequences instead. The consequences were usually a chore of hard work instead of going to their room or something
5. they find what the kid is interested in and use that to bond with them and strengthen their relationship
6. really open communication
7. lots of praise when they are doing anything right
8. lots and lots of family together time- work and play together
9. the parents in almost every show had the kids do service work
10. the parents don't let them run away; they make them face their problems (cool down period ok, though)
11. dad to boy and mom to girl relationship very important
12. the parents always expressed and showed love; without this the rules come across as domineering, but if the kids know they are loved, they see it as being cared for
13. be patient and consistent