HOORAY for weekends!!!

What a fun weekend we had!
Friday night Steven decided that he couldn't take it anymore. We HAD to go see Harry Potter. I was pretty excited just to get away from the apartment and shhh (the kids too) for a minute. I needed a break. On the way to drop the kids off with my parents, the conversation went like this...
JS: Dad, I'm thirsty.

DAD: Okay, we're almost to Grandma's house, and i'll get you a drink.

JS: I said i'm fwirsty, Daddy.

MOM: JS, as soon as we get to Grandma's i'll get you a drink.

BABY: blah blah blah blah blah

JS: I don't WANT to go to Grandma's.

JL: Mom, can I be Belle for Halloween?

MOM: Yes, JL you can.

JS: I want a DRINK!!!

MOM: Does it look like we have a sink in here?

JS: I said i'm FWIRSTY!!

DAD: JS, don't yell in the car.

JL: Mom, the word toilet starts with the letter T.

MOM: Yes, honey, it does.

JS: Mom....

MOM: Let me guess, you're thirsty?

JL: 'I love you, you love me...we're a happy family...'

JS: GRRRRR!!! I don't want to go to Grandma's!!!

DAD: JS, don't yell in the car...

BABY: da da da da da da!

I was so glad to get to Grandma's house just to get out of the car. When we finally got there, I told my Mom good luck, handed her the diaper bag, and left as quickly as I could.
I spent a good chunk of the weekend with Steven. It was so nice. We also had a birthday party at the park today, which was fun. The kids played and left me alone for a good hour or so. It was nice to talk to someone about things other than big singing purple dinosaurs. I'm so glad for happy families.

Aches and Growing Pains

These babies were hard to bring to this earth. I have a condition called hyperemesis. Which basically means that I vomit until i'm dehydrated. I know, gross. That was my life for 9 months each time I was pregnant. I thought for sure that it would get easier each time I had a baby. I was wrong. When I was pregnant with JT I was admitted to the hospital where my doctor told me that if I would have gone another day in that condition, I probably would have lost the baby and my own life. I spent many days on the couch at home teathered to an IV pole. When he finally made it here to Earth, I was so happy. My doctor informed me that it probably wasn't a good idea to have any more babies. Six weeks later, I had a tubal ligation. That was the hardest decision of my life so far. I love my kids, and I always felt like there was going to be more than 3. Well, I guess I was wrong. My baby is going to be a year old in 8 days. He's walking all over the place. He seems more like a toddler now than a baby. It's been really tough for me to let him grow up. I love these three little monsters! They are my whole life. I get confirmations about once a month that I did the right thing. I really wanted another baby, but life isn't giving me that option anymore. I'm in the retired Mom's club. I am going to miss having binki's all over the house, along with onsies and little socks. I'm going to miss having to wash bottles at night, and nursing. I'm going to miss burp rags, and the baby swing. I'll miss the attention a Mom gets when a new baby is born. Call me crazy, but i'm going to miss diapers and the sweet smell of baby wipes, at least I get to have those for a couple more years. I guess i'll just rely on my siblings to share their babies with me until this ache in my heart goes away. I hope it does. Man, it hurts.

Happy Family...right

Don't let the picture fool you...this was for only about a minute today. The rest of the day was listening to kids argue, and whine. I worked so hard today! All I wanted was for the kids to get along and be nice to eachother.
I woke up early as always, and got JL to school. I came home, did laundry, dishes (twice), vacuumed, dusted, swept, cleaned the kids room, marinated some steaks for dinner, picked JL up from school, worked on a walk a thon activity for JL's school, and more laundry. I'm so tired! Also, I tweeked my back on Sunday,
so i've been hurting all day too. I wonder sometimes why I thought this Mom thing was such a good idea. It's so hard. I worked all morning long to get things cleaned up and looking nice so that I could have my sister and her hubby over for dinner. My sister was late for dinner, and Steven had to be at an instruction up at the school, so we ate without them...thank goodness. Dinner was awful. The steak tasted okay, but the potatoes were all runny and the gravy tasted like teriyaki. So I called my sister and uninvited her to dinner. Not only was the meal a flop, Steven was eating as fast as he could (probably so that his taste buds wouldn't be paralyzed) and JS was crying the whole time. I guess kids don't like to eat garbage after all...JL actually ate her potatoes, and JT ate some too, but it was still gross.
Why do we do this? I guess it's okay if it turns out well for you...but it didn't work out for me today. I'm so disappointed. I just thought that it would be a better night, with Steven here, and a nice meal with family and a clean house...and none of it turned out that way at all. I'm just bummed! Oh well, I guess there are other days that might turn out for me eh? Well, I guess I should stop complaining and go finish the laundry, because somewhere there's someone that has it way worse than I do.

I wish someone would've hit me in the head...

I know we've all done this before..
When I was younger, I always said I wouldn't do this or that.. for example; my mom used to smack our butts with a wooden spoon. I always said that I would never do that. HA! Sometimes a little smack on the bootie is the only way to straighten up my 3 year old. However, I don't use a wooden spoon. Also, I always said that people who bring cheerios in a tupperware to church were nuts. I thought that I would just have perfect children that would sit there and listen to the speakers, with folded arms and bowed heads. HA! Fruit snacks save me every Sunday. They are the only things that keep my kids happy. Oh! Another good one is that I said I would never let my kids eat in the car. That's a good one because as of this moment I have a ton of smashed up treats on the floor of our jeep. I'm sure that when I would say those things, moms all around me were snickering...I bet they were thinking 'you just wait honey..'
I wish they would have just said, "Hey stupid.. um yeah, i'm talking to you...hey um every child is different, and if you think that you can do it better than the other mom, good luck. It's all a trial run, and we're all just trying to do the best we can." Then I wish they would have smacked me upside the head.
I love being a Mom! It's the greatest job in the world! It's definately harder than I ever imagined. It pays nothing while the rewards are priceless! I love my 3 little terrors. They are my whole world. Those beautiful eyes and sweet cheeks are worth every messy diaper, every dirty dish, every mud pie, every bug that we should keep as a pet. I love this time in my life, and I hope to sit back, and slow down. I want to be able to look back and remember these times. Like I said, I wouldn't trade them for anything.

My son, the spider killer

So anyone that truly knows me, knows that I am DEATHLY afraid of spiders. I've seen big spiders, little spiders, medium spiders...i'm sorry, they all FREAK me out!!! (Thanks, Dad.) I've had many adventures with trying to get people to come over and kill a spider for me when my Steve isn't around. I've called the bishop's wife, the Relief Society President, and the next door neighbors. All of them think i'm crazy. Which might be true. Actually, it's a very good possibility.
We share a laundry room downstairs with 3 other couples. If you haven't read my other posts, i'll remind you. We live at a mortuary. No...you read that right...I said we live in a mortuary. Tales from the crypt? Yup. So one night our neighbor comes upstairs and informs us that there was a spider downstairs under my washer. I shuddered at the thought of it, and then she proceeded to tell me that it was so big, her first thought was that it was a mouse. I freaked out!! Which leads me to this other random thought...
I also HATE rodents! EW! They make my skin crawl...no pun intended. I hate spiders worse, but I also hate rodents. I don't understand how people can make them their pets. I've also had many adventures with mice, but I thought I would share this one, because it definately takes the cake. I woke up one night to nurse my 3 day old baby, JT. While i'm nursing, I ask Steven to go and get a burp rag for me. He jumps up, and gravity pulled him to the toilet for a potty break. The next thing I hear is a loud, "oh my hell.." So I jump up and get in there to find Steven standing on top of the toilet lid and he's flushing. He looks at me and says, "um, there was a rat in our toilet". Naturally, I was worried about it..HA I was so scared, I couldn't sleep. Well, I finally drifted off and the next thing I hear is this horrible screeching sound from my 5 year old daughter...she runs into the bedroom, screaming, "There's a mousey in the toilet!!" Steve jumps up, puts his shoes on, grabs a golf club and goes in there to find the rat still in the toilet. Needless to say, he beat the crap out of it. So a sterilized bathroom, and poisoned sewers later, my 5 year old still has issues with sitting on the toilet. Wow! That was a tangent! Back to the spider story...
So Thursday morning, JS, JT, and I get JL off to school. We come home and JS opens the front door to find a baby spider. Of course he knows i'm scared of the darn things. So he runs to his bedroom and i'm thinking, "oh no, i've ruined him. He's scared of spiders too". Oh no...he comes out with his 'spider killing' outfit on. He's got a bike helmet, a cowboy gun holster with a sword in it, shorts with cowboy boots, and a look on his face that would scare any creepy crawler. He opened the door and showed that spider his mad sword skills and then proceeded to stamp the tar out of him. "He's dead." To which I replied, "OH! My HERO!!" I'm so proud that I have a new spider killer in the house, what a relief.

Things i've learned today

My friend called at 2:30am. She was in labor with her third child. I sat up and worried about her until she finally showed up at 6:30am with her two other children. I usually watch my cousins babies everyday for about an hour and a half. So around 5:00pm, I had 7 children under 5. So I thought I would write about the things that i've learned today from the children...
1. Babies don't care what time it is, they are born when they feel like it.

2. Three year olds like to play together as long as they aren't touching eachother, or using eachother's stuff, or looking at eachother.

3. Minivans are HUGE!!!

4. Little kids think that big kids who go to school are way awesome.

5. Lunchtime with 5 kids should definately be against the law.

6. Kids that don't live at your house don't like to take naps.

7. Kids that don't live at your house and don't like to take naps and finally fall asleep can sleep for 4 hours or more. Especially when they've been up all night long.

8. When your daughter is mad because you braided her hair instead of curling it like she wanted you to decides that she doesn't like it and puts a TON of Vaseline in her hair to 'keep it out of her eyes', the only thing that gets it out is Dawn liquid soap.

9. Dawn liquid soap can burn your daughters eyes if you're not careful.

10. You can work all day long to get the neighborhood kids to love you, but in the end they fall in love with your husband when he's done nothing to win them over.

11. When they leave it's a relief, and you look around and realize that you've got quite the mess to clean up, but you wouldn't trade the crazy day for anything.

KINDERGARTEN blues...

I must say that sending my oldest to Kindergarten was easier than I thought. I'm not saying that I pulled up to the curb, and kicked her out. I'm just saying that I didn't bawl my eyes out like I thought I would. Don't get me wrong, I cried...just on the way home. It was only a tear or two, so there.
Now...the hard part is watching JS be bored. We drop JL off at school (really I don't kick her to the curb), and we come home, lay JT down for a nap, and we go to the living room to stare at eachother. Literally...we stare at eachother. Then after a minute or two, I ask, "So, what do you want to do?" And he kind of flinches and says something like, "I dunno...um yeah I guess i'll go ride my bike or something..." So I say okay and we go outside. Well, he rides up and down the sidewalk and then he stops in front of the apartment and says.."let's do something else.." So we go inside and read books for awhile. We pick JL up about 3 hours later and she gets in the car and starts telling us about her day in Kindergarten. She tells us about recess, and JS adds a hearty, "We DID THAT TOO!!!" Then I tell JL that we didn't do that too. Today after we picked her up and this whole conversation happend again, we got home and JS was throwing a fit. I haven't been able to figure this out. He's such a good boy, I just don't know what his problem is. Then he calms down, and it hits me...he's got the Kindergarten blues. He misses his big sister. This was confirmed later when he looked at me and said, "Mom, I want to go to school with JL". He loves his big sister!!! Somehow, someway, we did something right, and they actually love eachother more than I thought!!! How great!