Trading

Scott informed me my last post was depressing so sorry about that and this one is more up beat (no pictures again though, sorry)! I love trading, today I gave two of my nephews haircuts for some yummy chocolate chip cookies (my favorite). By time we left my sisters house where we had all gathered for our monthly family dinner there were only three cookies left in the bag (Make more next time Chad! J/K) but that is okay they were still good! Then when I got home I cut someones hair in our old ward (two streets over) in exchange for my boys church suits and white shirts to get dry cleaned. I know my sister trades a lot for haircuts too and I think it is the best thing ever. I have traded for 55 gal. water barrels, babysitting and all sorts of things. We should trade more in society everything is always about money and how much you can get for something, if we all traded and shared out talents wouldn't that be so nice??? I think so, too bad the world doesn't work that way huh?

Grave yards and crying babies!

I will warn you right off this is a pity party post so if you are not into that do not read. I was frustrated with Lila not sleeping well and was going to post about that when I read a post on one of my friends blogs about the same thing, I am very glad to know that I am at least not the only one out there, however if anyone has any helpful suggestions please post. Lila is not my first bad sleeper either, you think I would have learned some tricks from the other kids, and I have several books but they are packed away in the non-necessity boxes out in the garage, not that I have the energy to read them.
So back to the beginning...when Lila was younger she slept very well, she would go a good 7 hours (every once in a while longer), then one day about a month ago, she decided she didn't want to sleep anymore and that she had to eat every three to four hours at night. I thought it was because she was teething and not feeling well and that is probably where I made the mistake, if I would have from the very beginning let her cry it out we may not be in this mess. I did try to let her cry for a couple nights I would wait a while and then try to just pat her and not pick her up, leave the room again with her still crying and then do it over and over again until at some crazy time in the morning say 2 o'clockish I would cave and just nurse her so I could finally get some sleep. I gave up on that really fast. So any help would be useful to me at this point!
My second pathetic subject is the grave yard shift, now I am very happy it is only for a month and Scott still has a great schedule (it could be every night), but Scott has to work nights for the month of January, everyone in his department has to have a turn apparently to make sure they know how to do things right in the night. But this is not his first time on the grave yard shift so I knew before he started I was not going to like it and I kept telling myself I could handle it for two weeks it would be fine, then I found out it was three weeks which made me even more depressed and now two days into the second week with a baby that is out of control I am giving my self a pity party. On a positive note, it is a three day weekend so I can attempt to sleep in or nap a little for the next few days. Sorry for anyone who actually read this post I just had to vent for a minute!

Happy Birthday Grandpa Brad!

Yesterday was my dad's birthday. This picture is old it is missing the youngest 5 grandchildren but I love it. My dad is such an awesome grandfather the kids all love him and this is a typical moment with our family all the kids gathered around grandpa. He is always oustide playing with them and the kids all think grandpa is terrific. I love my dad so much and I am so grateful for his example. He is always calm, never yelling or letting his emotions get the best of him. He is always willing to help. He has a strong testimony and I have learned so much from him. I appreciate all he does for me and my family and for him being such a great dad and grandpa. We definately love him and are very lucky to have him as part of our family. Happy Birthday!!!!

The past two weeks of our lives in a nutshell!

I started blogging because I thought it would be a good way to kind of journal our lives. I don't really enjoy doing it, though, and so I procrastinate all the time and at this time of the year, when things get hectic, it is easy to put it off. So this is a really long post! My goal is to do better this next year. I don't have pictures of everything I wanted but these are some that are okay. We start off with Dallin's 6th birthday. We had the Marble's over for a firepit and smore's and hot chocolate instead of cake and ice cream. The kids had so much, and I was a little worried with that many kids around the fire but they did great, all except for Brig who singed his hair by touching it with one of the roasting sticks.
Brig had his Christmas program at preschool. He loves Mrs. Amber's and has a great time with cousins Jalyn and Ryker being in his class. He even sang! I think that is a first for any of my kids to actually sing in preschool. My sister Tanya's little girl, Londyn, is on the far left. She is not a part of the class but Tanya dropped her off in the middle of the night so she could go have Baby Holly at the hospital. Londyn is the exact opposite of my kids and wanted to be a part of it even though she didn't know anyone or what they were doing. It was pretty dang cute! Mrs. Amber even let her and my other nephew Logan stay for the rest of the party after the program was over which they both thought was so cool.

Brig did his best but you could tell he was hating every minute of the program. He didn't take his eyes off his teacher the whole time they were singing and only half-way did the actions. I really enjoy Brig! He is a good boy and very fun.

Londyn hung out at our house for a couple days while Tanya and Nick were at the hospital. I don't think she really got that she was getting a sibling but she loved talking about baby Holly and playing with Brig. The two of them started dancing to music on the TV they were watching and it was so cute they actually looked like they knew what they were doing. Dallin was dissappointed that Holly was not born on his birthday, but the day after.

The weekend before Christmas we had a party at my parent's house. Alden had been playing hard all day and I thought he was just tired. He layed down and I had him hold Lila for me. They looked so cute together; that is until he puked all over her, right as Santa was walking in to door too! All the boys ended up with a stomach bug. Luckily it was a quick one and we were done with it after three days.

Alden missed Santa but the rest of the kids got to see him. Dallin got some of the throw up on him so he changed into clothes that were a little too small and luckily i had extra clothes for Lila too. I missed the whole Santa thing trying to help Alden and after that the party kind of fell apart.

Christmas Eve we went over to the Thurston's to try again. We met at the temple first to look at the lights. We always have so much fun there. The kids love going in the visitor center.

At Grandpa's the kids played games, opened presents, and acted out the story of Baby Jesus being born. They have such a fun time doing that. They were excited to get their pajamas. We went over to Scott's sister's house after that and decorated cookies to leave for Santa. The boys were so excited I thought they would never go to sleep but they actually did pretty good.

The boys all had a great Christmas and were very happy with what they received. Santa left them an Xbox 360 and mom and dad gave them Nintendo DS's so they are video gamed out!! They play every waking second unless i am getting after them to go play and get some fresh air. The kids each drew a siblings name to buy a present for and Scott is creative enough to help Dallin. He had him draw a picture of a butterfly (to go with her room decor) and then he took him to find a frame for it. It was so sweet and cute of him and he was so excited to give it to her. We spent Christmas evening at Scott's parents house and i, of course, forgot the camera. We had fun having a white elephant exchange and the kids had a puzzle exchange. There was lots of food and fun games. We had a great time.

After Christmas in one of our many attempts to get the boys away from the video games for a while we went across the street to the park. Scott took Brigs training wheels off and helped him learn how to ride. He picked it up quick and loves being a big kid. He claims that now he can ride in the desert behind the house like his brothers. We will have to see about that!

Santa Picture

We went to Bass Pro Shop to see Santa this year. I stood in line while the kids checked out all the cool things in the store with Scott. They had a blast. I never knew that store was so interesting and entertaining. After we saw Santa, we went and ate at the Toby Keith restaraunt "I love this bar". It was fun. Very loud, but the kids were at their own table and the adults were at a table. our waitress did a great job with a group of 26 and the kids were all very well behaved. Scotts mom and dad were there along with sandee and her kids, Ryan, Heidi and their kids and Glen and kim's family. Too bad I forgot my camera so no pics of dinner. :(

Thanksgiving in Utah!!!

We stopped in St. George on our way up to Provo and had Thanksgiving lunch with my dad's family. They are so Awesome! I have the best family anyone could ever want including extended family. My Aunts are the best. I could write pages on how awesome they are but for times sack I will only name a few. Starting at the left Kim is so crafty and always has some sort of project for us to make. She always has even as a kid had stuff for us to do. Laurie use to make the cutest clothes for us and is just the sweetest person ever, very caring and loving. Darla would do anything for anyone. I will never forget how much compassion she showed me when I had a miscarriage several years ago and she drove so far out of her way to bring me dinner and make sure I was okay. Dori is like a sister to me. I was lucky enough that she lived with my family for a while growing up and I have just always loved hanging out with her.
My boys had so much fun playing kickball and football after we ate with all the uncles and cousins. This park next to Dori's house was so nice. The weather was absolutely perfect and it was just a beautiful day for Thanksgiving.

Grandma T, me, Lila and cutie pie Abby watching the kids play.

We had a great time eating a second Thanksgiving feast in Provo on Friday. Tanya's family was the only one who didn't make it since she is too pregnant, and Liz since she was working. Tara showed all the kids how to make turkey's out of cookies and candy and we had fun hanging out in the church building eating and playing. What a great time we had!!!

These are the youngest grandkids (for now). Hyrum is the youngest but soon to be the biggest. Lila is the smallest little peanut and Kariah and Sam are in the same boat. Sam is a big boy too. it is fun to see the size differences.

Hyrum is two months old and about 16 pounds. Lila is 5 months old and about 13 pounds. I couldn't believe the difference in them!

Lots to blog about from Utah...

Our family had so much fun in Utah. We spent Friday evening hanging out at BYU. We went to the bookstore and bowling (which my camera died so I will have to get pics of some of those things from my mom when she gets back in town next week) and to the Bean museum. The kids loved the animals there. Here is Dallin with the "Liger" (tiger/lion mix)
The boys infront of the jaguar

this elephant was huge!!! I couldn't believe all the animals they had in here it was crazy.

Alden by the tiger.

Park City and Salt Lake City Utah November 28 2009

Lila spent the Day all bundled up she had on several layers of clothes and a couple blankets. I wanted to make sure she stayed warm. she had the cutest hat and mittens on too. Girl stuff is so much funner than boys!
We decide to spend the day in Park City on Saturday. The boys have not been in the snow much so they had a blast tubing and ice skating .

Scott had never been ice skating before either so I gracously sat out with Lila to let him make a fool of himself instead of me doing it. He actually did just fine though. He spent most the time pushing Brig around and helping him stand up though. Brig loved it!

These little walkers were so cute and helped the kids stand and balance but were hard to push. Brig did better with out it but liked having it anyway.

Alden loves rollerblading and so he did great. People around were commenting on how good he was doing and they were all very surprised when I told them it was his first time on the ice.

Dallin had a blast and did great too although he fell quite a bit. I think he had as much fun falling as he did actually skating. Most the pics I took are of him on the ground.

The boys had so much fun tubing we could have done that all day. I was thinking we should have gotten a babysitter for Lila. Scott and I had to take turns sitting out with her. Brig liked to get pulled while sitting in his tube, that was just as fun to him as going down the hill.

My kids did not have the warmest clothes, we don't even own snow clothes. So they are totally looking nerdy but that is alright they had fun and that is what matters. We brought dry clothes to change into in the car but they didn't get as wet as I thought they would so that was good.

We had fun looking at the Temple lights although I lost the camera, it fell out of the stroller, so these are the only pics we have of there. We took them right when we were leaving. Luckily someone turned in our camera at the Joseph Smith building. I was really sad walking around thinking all of the pictures from the whole trip were lost. Our camera sucks though so it would have been a good excuse to buy a new one we just wouldn't have any pictures from the whole week.

Scott had a terrible eye infection that drove him crazy the whole trip and we had a very long day so this picture cracks me up we all look very tired and ready to go home! Little did we know with our hotel room right next to BYU stadium it would take us FOREVER cuz the BYU/UTAH game went into overtime and was just ending when we were getting back into Provo. Good thing for left over pie and indoor swimming pools, once we finally did get back ate and swam we were good to go again.

We have serious SLEEP issues

So last night I woke up at 1am for no apparent reason. Lila was still sleeping and everyone else was asleep. Well I layed there for about 1 1/2 hours trying to go back to sleep and finally decided to get up and try to make my self tired thinking Lila would wake up soon and want to eat since she had last nursed at 6pm. Well I got on the computer and checked out blogs (I didn't leave any comments though in case I was more asleep than I thought). Finally at 3:15 Lila woke up. I had pumped a bottle at 2:30 because I was feeling very full and thought she might eat quicker from a bottle. So in to feed her I go and here comes Brig, he had a bad dream. He fell asleep and I moved him to Alden's bed because Dallin was sprawled out on Brig's bed. He didn't stay asleep and followed me back to my bed. Lila didn't go back to sleep either so I went in and nursed her some more. She must have been very hungry for going so long with out eating. She went back to sleep and I carried Brig back to bed again. I lay in bed awake, yes still awake since 1 o'clock, why you ask? Well I wish I knew. Finally at 4;45 Scott alarm starts going off. at 5:30 (when he actually shuts it off for real and gets up). I fell asleep. At 6 Lila starts crying again. So it has been a really long night and as soon as these boys are off to school I am taking a long nap!!! Anyway on with my pictures, Brig some how managed to get back in my bed about the same time Scott was getting up. It is a wonder anyone can sleep with him around. We only have a queen bed and boy does he know how to sprawl out.

Lila can roll over and prefers to sleep on her tummy. If she happens to be in her car seat or swing she tries as hard as she can to roll over but can't make it and eventually gives up and falls asleep with her neck all keenked funny.

Alden slept on the couch last night, probably just because he knew I was going to have a hard time sleeping and think I might go try sleeping there. I don't dare lay in the boys beds, while I wash their sheets every week practically they are too gross for me. You never know if you might come across toys or food they weren't suppose to be eating or who knows what else.

And Yes Scott has sleep issues too and has to sleep with his "darth vader mask". I think he hates it but I sleep better when he is not snoring and so does he. (on a side note, Scott painted our cute prayer rock, we helped the boys all make one for FHE a few weeks back and they loved it). Dallin is the only one who slept normal although like I mentioned earlier he was not in his own bed, at least he was in his own room though!!!
Maybe tonight will be a better night...

Happy Halloween!

I will be totally honest with you. I was not it the trick or treat mood yesterday so these are the only pictures I took of my poor kids. This whole week had been totally crazy and I was so tired and cranky and we had a flat tire to fix and errands to run and we were running late like normal and I burned the soup I was making for the Marble's annual Halloween party. The night did get better though cuz I have fun in-laws that I love to hang out with so after dinner was over and I forgot about the soup life wasn't so bad. All three boys wanted to be ninja's from GI Joe, so Alden was Storm Shadow and Dallin and Brig were both Snake Eyes. Lila just wore a cute shirt and leggings from the dollar section at target cuz I'm cheap like that. I am going to hope that next Halloween is better.

Four years and Four months!

Brig turned four years old this month and Lila turned four months on the 16th. I took them in to the Dr. together for their well checks. It was pretty entertaining. Brig is much more out going than either of the other boys ever were (sometimes that is not a good thing either). Anyway, the Dr. asked him his shapes and colors which he did great on and then he started asking him his letters and numbers. He is not so great at those but unless you saw what the Dr. was pointing to you would never know. He just randomly said different #s and letters and didn't get any of them right but never stopped to say he didn't know what it was or anything. The next question was if he knew his address or phone number to which he replied with out so much as a pause, "1,2,3,4,5,6". The Dr. had a hard time not laughing on that one. He already gets a kick out of Brig cuz when we were in with Alden for his well check in May he asked Alden to "show him his guns" to which Brig asks the Dr "Do you have the tickets?" The Dr. totally confused asks the tickets to what? and Brig says "To the GUN show!" "BANG! BANG!" as he shows his muscles. He now mentions that everytime we go into his office. Brig was well and healthy though even though he is small just like the other boys (not as small as Alden though).
On to Lila...she is tiny as can be she was only 11 pounds, but she is healthy and definately growing she is just going to be little like her brothers only more so since she is a girl. Dr. was wanting to know if she rolls and stuff and I informed him that she sleeps on her stomach because that is how she likes it and she rolls all over. The picture above she rolled until she got stuck under her swing and got mad cuz she hit her head on the tile. Poor thing has a mean mom that has to run and grab the camera for a picture before I can rescue her.

This picture didn't turn out very well cuz my camera was on the wrong setting and she wouldn't hold still but she just looked so cute. Today was the first day cold enough to pull out the long sleeves and she got several comments on how cute her outfit was today so it became blog worthy. The sad thing is with all the different bows she has not a single one was the right color pink. What's a girl to do! I ended up just sticking a plan white one on her. She is lucky her Aunt Tanya and Aunt Kim know how to make bows. Kim has taught me how but I need lots of practice mine are not the greatest. A trip to the ribbons & lace is going to be in store for us really soon though with this outfit and a couple others in hand.