10 months old

Berkley is 10 months old today. She is cutting her 4 top teeth right now, so needless to say, nap times and bedtimes have not been going very smoothly. I meant to take a picture of her teeth today, but she's asleep right now, so I'll take one tomorrow. She'll have 6 when these are through.

She is such a fun little girl. Every morning, when she makes her first squawks of the day, Logan, Hailey & Hudson fight over who gets to go get her out of bed. So we all usually end up going in there and she won't let anyone get her out, except for Mommy. As long as I get to hold her first, then she is fine with her brothers and sister holding her. LOL

She has been quite the drama queen with eating more coarse and textured foods. The second we feed her something that she doesn't like, she gags until she almost throws up. We have Uncle Mark to blame for it. I guess he went through a 'gagging stage' as a kid and I laugh so hard every time Rob talks about it. (But I'm not laughing too hard about it now!) I'll have to ask him how he grew out of it, so I can help Berkley! LOL So, right now, she loves eating "stage 1" foods.... rice cereal, sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas, pears, apples.... ya, it's ridiculous how picky she is. She hates anything green... I don't know who she gets that from??? All our other kids were chowing down table foods by now. So, I have no idea what to do. Any suggestions anyone?

She also has the cutest personality. She says so many things right now.

Hi

Thank you (Daynt doo)

Mama

Dada

Poop (ya, I know. We don't encourage it, but she totally whispers it now whenever we are changing her poopy diaper. Lovely!)

Uh oh! (she drops things on purpose just so she can say it)

She's said nana a couple times, but i think it was on accident, either way, she did say it. :)

Right now I'm trying to teach her to say Night night, but no luck yet.

She is crawling every where and is so fast! At night, when I tell the older kids to get in bed and I'll be down in a minute to say prayers with them, she will follow me around upstairs and stop at my feet, to make sure I pick her up, so I will take her with me to say goodnight with the kids. If I go without her, she cries so hard. When we get downstairs she practically jumps out of my arms to lay in each of the kids' beds with them while we say prayers. She absolutely LOVES her brothers and sister.

We can't even imagine our lives without her.

Just for fun, I thought I'd include this picture of Hailey at 11 months old, wearing the dress Berkley has on. This is one of my favorite pictures of Hailey when she was little.

Hudson's Christmas Program

Last week was Hudson's preschool Christmas program. It was ADORABLE!!! He kept playing with his tie, (out of nervousness, I'm sure) but it will always be something fun to laugh about. After the program, I managed to fix it, and get a picture of him up on the stage.

Spirit Day: Mismatch Day

Hailey has inherited my excitement for Spirit Days. She loves to go all out on them. Here she is on "Mismatch Day"

Logan, on the other hand, is just like Rob. And only dresses up after much coercing takes place. You can't tell, but he has navy blue long underwear underneath his shorts. He's so crazy, isn't he? LOL

Logan's TEMPOS concert

Logan has such a good singing voice. His school has a choir that 4th & 5th graders can join. He has quite a few friends that are in it with him and he really enjoys it. They put on the cutest Christmas program tonight. Unfortunately I didn't get that great of pictures of him, cuz I forgot my other lens at home. Woopsies! My friend who sat in the 2nd row took some really great pics, so I'll post those when she emails them to me.

Time for the gate!

I guess I need to child-proof everything now... Berkley started crawling the day before Thanksgiving. Oh my goodness. I don't know if I'm ready for this! She's my baby! I'm supposed to be able to set her down with all her toys and expect her to still be there 2 minutes later. Not set her down and find her clear across the room, or in the kitchen within 10 seconds. As I type this, Berkley just discovered the door stop spring that makes that really annoying sound. I better go get her. In the meantime, here's a video of our little wild woman!

Halloween 2010

I love Berkley's face in this one. She is so confused on who Spiderman is and wondering what he did with her brother! LOL

Hailey with Michael Jackson. The kids in her class were lining up to get his autograph! It was soo funny!

Bloggin' again

I've been busy updating my blog of all that's been going on with us the last 5 months! :) I have REALLY missed my blog and I'm having so much fun looking back through my pictures and re-living them as I write about them. Not even close to being done, but it's a start! Scroll down to see some of the things that we've been up to!

Hailey's been busy:

Losing teeth. Since she started 1st grade, she's lost her 2 front teeth. The first one she lost while at school. Her teacher sent her to the office and she got a "tooth necklace" and it was all very exciting. It was great in helping her not lose her tooth so the Tooth Fairy came that night.

The 2nd one she lost eating breakfast before going to school. She was so excited to take it to school and show her teacher that she lost it. I warned her that she shouldn't take it to school, to avoid losing it, because then the Tooth Fairy couldn't come. She, however, thought nothing of it. I have to give her credit, cuz she DID come home from school WITH her tooth. It wasn't until about 7:00 that night on a ride home in the car, that it somehow just happened to fall OUT of her "Tooth necklace" and into the dark abyss that is the back seat of our car where Logan and Hailey, er, live. She looked for about a half hour that night, through tears, and never found it. I gave her my "love and logic" parenting phrase, saying "how sad" it was. I'm pretty sure she cried until she fell asleep that night because the Tooth Fairy wasn't going to come. Very sad. But that darn Tooth Fairy was nicer than I would have been.

Silverwood

Every year the kids' school has a reading contest where if they read 900 minutes in a 1 month period, they get a free ticket to Silverwood. Well, Logan met his goal and got one. It was valid until September 26, 2010, except for weekends during the summer months. Needless to say, since I wasn't about to take all the kids by myself on a weekday, we were going to have to wait until summer was over. We had gone to Costco and bought tickets for me and Rob and had planned to go on the 4th of July, but it was freezing cold and raining that day, and that's when we went and stayed at Silver Mountain. So, me, not being able to let our tickets go to waste, insisted that we go on Saturday, September 25th, NO MATTER WHAT! So we (Rob and me and my sister) took our 'older kids' and their cousin, McLaine to Silverwood. It was such a beautiful day and we all had a blast. My mom was so awesome (as usual), and watched Hudson, Berkley and Olivia while we went. Let's just say it's not the most fun place to take a 3 and 2 year old that don't like to be left behind, and a baby. Makes me ill just thinking about it. ;)

Me and Travis

My first time going on "AFTERSHOCK". Jeana and McLaine were sitting next to each other, Rob was waiting with the kids, so I was riding "single". So I asked this kid next to me if I could ride with him. He was so funny. While we were buckling in, he told me that the scariest part is the beginning when you go backwards really fast and that I should just hold my breath, cuz the rest of it was alot of fun. I told him that I'd done the "Panic Plunge", and he said he doesn't do that ride. Anyways, a few hours later, we're walking through the park and I hear "HI!" and it was Travis. I had to get a picture with my rollercoaster buddy!

Berkley was eating her cereal yesterday morning and she was just talkin up a storm and I wanted to get it on tape. Unfortunately whenever I try to get her on video, the minute she sees it, she stops. So I had to 'secretly' videotape her, which is why it's not totally centered. Luckily she didn't stop, because we got "Soo big" on tape! :)

"Sooo big!"

Just so Berkley knows what she was doing when her brothers and sister started school...

Bros

I love that I can buy matching shirts for the boys! LOL Rob has 2 older brothers and his grandma would always buy them all matching shirts. Rob has 2 pictures from elementary school where he is wearing the same shirt, because there was a hand-me-down from his older brother for him to wear the following year! LOL Awesome. Maybe Hudson can wear Logan's shirt on his 1st day of kindergarten!

Logan and Hailey's 1st day of school 2010

Logan 4th grade; Hailey 1st grade

Hudson's First day of (pre) school

This year, I decided to "try" to put Hudson in preschool. We "tried" putting Logan in when he was 3 and he screamed and cried for 2 whole weeks, so I pulled him out and it was the best decision!

Hudson started preschool a day before Logan and Hailey's first day. It was really weird, because usually preschool doesn't start until after the elementary does, but for some reason, it was a day before. He was so excited to take his Superhero backpack to school and be such a big kid! He did really good when I took him in and hung up his backpack and everything, but the excitement soon turned into "wait, my mom doesn't stay with me?" Then the tears and hanging-on-to-my-leg-for-dear-life began. I helped him find a "center" to play with and gave him a kiss and left. Oh my gosh, it broke my heart. After school that day, they said he just sat in the "house" center and wouldn't join the other kids for circle time. I think he did warm up enough to have snack, but it was heartbreaking for me to hear. He cried for the first 2 weeks.... but just on Tuesdays (the days that I would take him). My friend that I started carpooling with said that he never cried when she took him. He's such a little stinker! I'd been being played the whole time! LOL Anyways, he's great now. Every once in awhile, he'll still get a little emotional and grab my leg and want another hug, but for the most part, he excitedly asks if he has school tomorrow. It's hard to explain that he only goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays! :)

Summer

Since summer is so short here in Spokane, we have been out enjoying every single last bit of the hot weather! I will post pictures and videos soon!

"Nothing more important in this world..."

I came across this video tonight from a friend's Facebook post... so timely for me with the last few weeks I've had with my kids.

5 months old

Our little Berkley is 5 months old today... She is just so much fun. I hate to say too much as to not jinx ourselves. That being said, I also think it's important to document the adorable things she does now, so I can look back on them when she is say... 6 (which just happens to be how old my "other" daughter is), and I feel like she doesn't do ANYTHING fun or adorable and just gives me sass all day long.... Oh wait, this post is about Berkley, not Hailey...

So, I'm going to document the wonderful things she does at 5 months old, because I adore her that much!

She is seriously soo happy!

She rolled over from her tummy to her back 3 times a couple days ago. But once I got the video camera ready, she wouldn't do it anymore...

She sort of eats rice cereal now. Doesn't quite know how to swallow it yet.

She is so "talkative". She jibbers and jabbers and giggles. She is so ticklish. Especially on her feet. Just like daddy.

She sleeps from 10/11:00 pm until 7 am... will wake up for a bottle and go back to sleep until 9 or 9:30... have NO idea how I lucked out with this!!! This is definitely something I don't want to jinx!

She LOVES books!

She LOVES her brothers and sister! She squeals whenever they come over to talk to her and loves when they hold her.

I love that the kids love her so much. I wish they could realize how much they love each other and stop fighting already! They would be so lost without each other! How do you help kids recognize how much they love their siblings? Can you tell what is eating at me right now? LOL

So, back to Berkley. I can't believe she's 5 months old already. The time has flown. We are definitely enjoying her. She is such a tremendous blessing to our family. I love my kids so much. I remember when I was little, wanting to be a mommy soooo bad! Now that I am one, I never imagined motherhood would be like this. Sometimes I need to take a breather and grasp onto those feelings I had as a child in my anticipation of being a mommy. What a tremendous blessing and responsibility it is to raise and teach our Heavenly Father's children. I am soo very grateful to know that I have Him to help me fulfill this calling. I know that with Him, I will succeed!

4th of July

We had planned on going camping for the 4th of July, but Mother Nature decided to be mean and give us 60 degree overcast weather. Well, we showed her! We got a hotel room up at Silver Mountain and enjoyed the indoor water park for 2 days! It was so nice just to "get out of town" for a little trip!

So when we got there, we took all our stuff up to our room and were ready for fun at the water park! We were waiting for the elevator, along with another family and when the elevator door opened, the people in front of us got in, but I wasn't sure if there was enough room for our family of 6. But they said there was enough room. So as we're getting into it, I see this man that looks really familiar. So, I go, "You look REALLY familiar to me." And he just smiled and I go "Are you from California?" he goes "Yes." I go "Are you President Wood?" he said "Yes!" He was our Stake President while we lived in Folsom, and while the Sacramento Temple was being built. He and his wife were just in a fatal car accident a year ago in June. They were on their way home from Girl's Camp, when their car rolled and his wife was killed instantly. So, you can imagine my surprise to see him in northern Idaho, with a woman. He was at the resort with his fiance, for her family reunion. I am still just shocked at the chances of seeing him. I mean, what are the odds, seriously!?? Anyways, he is such a sweet man and he looked so good.... especially considering all that he's been through in the last year! It's such a small world!

Here's a short video of Hailey doing the Wave Rider. Logan's video was too long, so I thought I'd spare you! :)

Hailey's Kindergarten Graduation

Hailey graduated from Kindergarten! She had such a wonderful teacher and we are really going to miss her! Her teacher put together the CUTeST slideshow of the kids' activities throughout the year and made the most adorable scrapbook for us. It is priceless. It has Hailey's first day of school picture, along with her stats, and documents how much she grew over the year. It is something that I hope Hudson and Berkley's kindergarten teachers put together for us too, since I know I won't get around to doing it! LOL

We're so happy that Hailey loves school so much. Mrs. Helma truly gave of herself whole-heartedly and we are so grateful for her!

This little stud turned 9

On June 24th, Logan turned 9! We had his birthday party at LASERQUEST and I think all the boys had a BLAST! (as you can see from their sweatiness) It was definitely a great place to have a party with eight hyper, sweaty, stinky 9 year old boys!

He also just received his "WOLF" in Scouts. He was so excited and we're very "pleased" with his accomplishment. He LOVES Scouts! Now if only it can teach him to keep things organized and in it's place... ie... baseball hat, scout book, belt for church, church shoes.... oh and teach him to hang up his clothes and keep his Legos organized (or even just off the floor)... that would be great! :) Since apparently having his mom and dad tell him every single day isn't doing the trick!