Charlie

We got a fish on Thursday. He didn't make it for very long. I didn't even take a picture of him alive yet, and we had to have a funeral.

It was very interesting. Sam was sure he wasn't dead because his eyes were still open, until Auntie Maryann explained to him that fish don't have eyes. Process, process, process. Oh. Well, maybe he's sleeping. I don't think so, honey!

It provided a great family home evening topic, as the kids weren't even sure what a funeral was, and they got to hear about mortal bodies and where our spirits go when we die and what our resurrected body will be like. Then we each took turns saying something nice about Charlie... all I can say is, after that experience, I'm pretty sure I want Pearl to give my eulogy. She's a natural.

Poor Charlie. He doesn't look so good.
As Sam was Charlie's owner, he gets the privelege of flushing the toilet.
Bye bye, Charlie!
Ok, he can't resist a little smile. After all, he is a little boy who just got to flush something down the toilet. Come on, that's a little bit cool.
After we all leave, I catch him soflty saying "bye bye, Charlie" It was very sweet.

A few minutes later he comes into the office crying and needing cuddles. I easily distract him by helping him pick out names for our next fish that we'll get on Wednesday. We settled on Gabe. And we promise we won't go to Lee's Feed, we'll try another pet store. After that he felt much better.

As he was going potty before his bath, he blithely commented "Hey! My pee is going where my fish went!!!" Oh Sam, I'm never sure how much you understand...

Creek Walk 2011

Well, it was time for our annual creek walk - close enough to the rainy season to have a decent creek, but warm and sunny for less complaining when the children fall in... which Sam did within the first 3 minutes... as in SOPPING - his shoulders were wet! (thanks for the picture, Ashley!!!)

So, since I feared a repeat performance and had only brought him one extra change of clothes, he ended up sockless with wet undies and my sweatshirt on. Studly, I know.
Apparently, he did find a use for the long sleeves.
My boys both in their saggy outfits:)
Pearl and Tegan helped Max for a bit in the creek, they're at a great age, and want so badly to be helpful.
Things were going along great until one of Max's boots left him behind... ooh, cold water!
"Tegan, do you know what just happened?"
Yup, that's a wet sock!
That's ok, we got him straightened out so he and his bad self could wander around in his saggy onesie!
I wish I had gotten more pictures of all of our friends there... but, alas, Max demands so much of my time, and with the big kids totally running super far ahead and my duties as squirt cheese dispenser (harder than it sounds, let me tell you) I just didn't have as much time for the camera. Next time:)

(Me and the squirt cheese. Thank you, Ashley!)

Max is 18 months

This is him getting his "b" sound ready to say "ball." It's quite the production!

Max is 18 months old now. I love this kid! He makes me happy and he's a sweetie and our family wouldn't be the same without him.

He continues to love all things Sam. When he got super excited about a spiderman shirt (Sam has the same one), Jared said, "how does my 18 month old know about spiderman?" The answer - he doesn't have to, Sam does! Anything the big kids do, he tries to copy - including their taekwondo punches... that may get a little interesting... He's doing funny things now, like, this morning, when I went to get him out of his bed he applauded:)

His other favorites are vehicles of any kind, and putting away dishes from the dishwasher. He also loves Signing Time, and will sign for most things he wants now, like eat, outside, coat, shoes, all done, thank you, bath... you get the picture.

He says bath, book, ball, mom, dad, brother, eat, and yeah, fish, moo, neigh, baa, and maaa (for a goat) with more words coming every day.

I guess we'll keep him!

Earrings

Pearl has been holding on to her $20 gift card to Claire's since her birthday in November. Finally, today we cleared the boys from our schedule and went. She was able to get 7 pairs of earrings! Amazing, they were buy two get one free, then when we went to check out, one of the pairs was on clearance!!! We also got some extra backs (which has proved necessary already).

I tried to get her to go for the pretty silver danglys... no. She got 5 pairs of ANIMAL earrings!!!!
and some super garish heart-with-silver-wing earrings for valentines day.
She was one happy girl!

Samuel Streams

In our conversation while I drove Sam to school I learned some surprising facts. To give you any idea of the kind of deep and meaningful conversations we have.

Dad: Sooo... Where is the location of your secret base?
Sam: what's location?
Dad: where is your secret base?
Sam: Disneyland.
Dad: that's weird. Is that where you keep your robot army?
Sam: yeah. In the Bug Life caterpillar ride.
Dad: (disappointed, but hopeful) oh. Are they ready to take over the world?
Sam: no they give people ice cream.
Dad: (resigned) oh. I see. You build robots to give people ice cream.
Sam: I didn't build it, I found it. It was a gift from the Lord (said like a southern preacher with arms raised)
Dad: that seems unlikely. Why do you need to give people ice cream?
Sam: because the evil doctor Poofpints stole it from the people.
Dad: pooppants?
Sam: Poofpints.
Dad: poofpants?
Sam: poof---p-I-n-ts.
Dad: okay. Dr Poofpints.
Sam: evil.
Dad: right the evil Dr Poofpints. (hope restored)
Sam: he's very bad.
Dad: So do your robots have a freezer built into them?
Sam: yes. In their eyes. (holds ice cream cone under eye and blinks) the ice cream comes out of their eyes. It's the only place because the are covered in hands. And they look like wires.

I go on to learn that Samuel Streams has a red cape with blue and a big mask. He shot and killed the Dr with a big gun. His jet is capable of shooting down air pirates. Sights emerge from his shoes to aid in aiming the guns hidden in them.

P.S. - several days later he told me (Amy) that "God built all the grocery stores. He used the priesthood - you know, mom, the Power of God" I had to explain to him that God built the trees and grew the food and had men build the grocery stores... we're still working on that...

School Play

Sammy's preschool likes to put on plays... I haven't been dissapointed yet. This time, I heard over and over about the troll costume with the newspapers.... amazing. They had so much fun!

These videos are for the grandmas who didn't get to go see it!

Folsom Zoo

Do you know how awesome it is to have sisters and a sister in law so close? It's the best - especially when we all have kiddos the same ages. Really, I have to put a lot less effort into playdates and mom groups because I have that all built in - I am seriously so lucky.

We decided to take the kiddos to the Folsom Zoo one random Thursday morning. It was so much fun, the kids LOVE playing together, nothing excites them more than the knowledge that their cousins are going to be there too. Today was a momentous day for Max because he graduated from the stroller to the monkey... he liked it at first, until he figured out it was holding him back. Always something, right?

Yeah for family! We are seriously so blessed!

Pearl Reads

As part of our redecorating, we moved the bookcase from the office to the living room, which led me to get rid of the loveseat and buy a comfy leather recliner... and a kid recliner. So, now we have a cozy book nook and a comfy chair and a lamp and we spend lots of time in the living room now reading, which is better than using the living room as a hallway only:) Anyways, Max's new favorite book is To Market To Market, and it is pretty funny. You have to sing it to him. It's a lap sized board book, so it's huge, and heavy, and it's hilarious to watch him try to drag it around the house. He actually got it upstairs the other day, I'm not sure how. So, tonight while I was cooking dinner, Pearl read it to him for me, and I just had to get a picture. Priceless! So grateful to have such a big girl to help me out!

Stuff.

Update: Here are the pictures of the office! If you never saw the before (it was so bad, I didn't even take a picture, I should have...) imagine open shelves with ugly things crammed every which way, with a bookcase full of ugly things and a messy jared desk framing the area... now maybe you can start to appreciate how beautiful it is and understand why I haven't done much blogging this month!

Plus we got matching desks and they look adorable! Even with stuff all over them (they are getting lots of use!!!!)

I've been busy... redecorating. It becomes an obsession, so much so that Pearl had no clean underwear this morning, despite the fact that I really have been working nonstop. I'll say this time, that though I've bought some new furniture, there is more square footage of furniture leaving my house than entering... looking forward to bigger feeling cleaner rooms. My mostest exciting thing is the cabinets we're putting in the office... they have doors!!! And drawers!!! So it will look pretty!!! Won't that be nice? My biggest problem is that once I start doing something I want to do it, now today! Which means the rest of the house suffers and Jared sighs at me and says no, he's NOT doing that tonight. Well, we balance each other well, I think. Between us, the job gets done well and in a somewhat timely fashion.

We had taekwondo again tonight. It's not easy, but it's still fun. We did some ab work at the end, and I tell you, I was feeling every single one of my four pregancies. I am a wimp. Pearl was next to me, barely huffing. Embarassing, but good for her. Sam watched me tonight and he kept cheering for me while I was holding the target for another classmate. Seriously? That's the easy part (except for the first time she kicked it it kind of flew out of my hand and landed on Jared's head... oops. I used the wrist strap after that). I can now run and jump and do a side kick sort of. Phew!

Pictures

I've been taking a few pictures lately. It's slowed down somewhat, as every time I do a shoot lately I have to delete some things from my hard drive first, but my amazingly wonderful geeky husband is taking care of that tonight by installing a 500g hard drive on my computer (upgrading from 160, I love that man!). Anyway, here is a sample of what I've been up to, and some pictures I was happy about...

This is a high school senior that belongs to a friend of Sherry's. He had this amazing red guitar, I just couldn't resist... probably one of the coolest pictures I've ever taken. I took the money they gave me and upgraded to Aperture 3, which allowed me to make the guitar red, which I REALLY wanted to do as soon as I saw the raw file for this picture. If I was a professional and had a studio I would print it really big for my display wall. As it is, it would be weird for me to have another person's kid on my wall...
I took these pictures for John and Lora when they were here... I swear as we were getting in the car the overcast light went away, and the sun came streaming in, so they're a little more contrasty than I'd like, but it's amazing to get a smirk even out of Maya so I was proud anyway:)
Isn't she a cutie?!!!

Reading.

Well, I keep saying to myself (and any relatives who will listen) that Sam is going to be an early reader. The kid just adores books. He's thoroughly addicted to Starfall, and I started reading Bob books with him over vacation. He's doing pretty well.

Yesterday, he came up to me with a new book he had been reading, and in this particular book the words are all street signs (some sort of truck book). He brought this page to me and said "I know this one says "no fun" and this one says "no trucks" but what does this one say?" (It was "no parking - I helped him sound it out). Amazing. I'd say he's officially a reader! What a beautiful smart little boy... if only he would listen to his teachers every once in a while, I'd say he has a shining academic road before him... alas...

Taekwondo

Today was our first day of Taekwondo. I didn't get a picture of all four of us in our uniforms, things were a little too crazy for that! It was fun, except it was harder than it looked when I watched Pearl and Sam do it. I have increased respect for my little girl, she works really hard. Let's put it this way - during all of the running and sprints, my little slow girl was only one round behind me (which says a lot about how slow I am, but that's another story). Only a few hiccups, the babysitter was a few minutes late, but our friend Wes watched Max for a few minutes (thank you thank you, Wes!). And then there was the part where Max screamed for about 1/2 the class (at least the babysitter took him outside) oh, and my favorite part, the part where Jared puked after the warmup. Classic. My guess is that he'll be thinking twice about what he eats for lunch on tuesdays and wednesdays!!! Pearl and I were paired up to hold the target for each other during kicking drills (we made it a threesome when Jared was done puking) and that was just so precious. It was really nice to be able to spend time with her. I really do try, we do girl scouts, we go to plays, but so much of my time at home is sucked up by her brothers that it was nice to have a special 45 mintues where she gets her parents all to herself. (I want 45 minutes by myself with my parents, sometimes!!!). It was fun, I'm so glad I got everything worked out so we can do this together. Here's to a good night's sleep tonight, and some sore legs tomorrow!!!!

If a picture is worth a thousand words....

... than this is how my boys feel about the snow. Enough said.

PS to my faithful readers... I have spent the last day or two organizing pictures, and am woefully behind in some of my journaling. I'll be adding posts and dating them to where I SHOULD have posted them, so cruise on down through November and December (and maybe October) if you're bored... this is geared to those familiy members who say they check my blog EVERY DAY but never leave comments... just sayin', I feel no responsibility to provide your entertainment when you do nothing to further mine:)

New Year's Resolutions

I was reading a friend's blog about her new years resolutions. And seriously, I've had such a bad attitude about self improvement for most of this very tired child-rearing year, that my first response (after an initial surge of hatred that she was organized enough to actually write them down) was YUCK! I am so not making resolutions! And yet, after I read hers, I felt a little bit inspired. Of course, her resolutions are like way more cool than I have energy for, but I think I can come up with a few... so here they are:)

1. I will cook a healthy dinner for my family at least 3 (I was going to put 4, but let's be real here) nights a week even when Jared is out of town.

2. Take Taekwondo with the kids and finish the year with a green belt. (that's two belts up... hopefully I can do that!)

3. Keep my buisness up, which I love!

4. Go out on a date (a real one with a babysitter and lipstick) at least once a month (I was going to put week, but let's be reasonable, chances are he'll be gone 2 weekends a month) with my husband. I kind of like him.

5. Get a good picture of each of my children at least once a month.

6. Help Pearl sew 2 american girl doll outfits. (and if I don't make it, I'll have to buy four. That's the deal... Pearl probably prefers that I fail on this one... but it would be better for her and for me if we sewed together)

And, I think that's quite enough! Good luck to me, and good luck to you!!!!