Happy Birthday Dad!

Dear Dad,

Happy Birthday! I hope you're having fun. I love you. You're fun to play with and I'm happy you're taking tomorrow off so I can play with you! happy birthday!!!
Love, tyler.

Dear Dad,
Happy birthday Dad. I'm glad you can take tomorrow off so we can do fun games. I'm glad that you are my dad because I love you. I hope you can come home early today. I'm glad that you take me on daddy dates. I like when you take me to Pirate Island.
Love, Robby

Dear Daddy,

Please take me to another Fancy Nancy party. Let's go to Macey's and eat some ice cream because I like to. I love you because you're so sweet. I like it when we play games. I wish we could go on a daddy date more often. Let's go on a daddy date with Lukey and me. And let's go on a daddy date with all my family, even Lukey. Happy birthday to you, you live in a jungle. Happy birthday to you.

Love, Annie

Dear Daddy,

I love you Da-da! I want Momma and you. Thanks Dad for letting me spit up all over you. Are you having fun at work? Happy Birthday to you Da-da! I really like you holding me. You're a great Dad! I love you.

Love, Luke

(with help from his brothers and sister)

Dear Andrew,

I love you so much. Thank you...for EVERYTHING! Happy Birthday Babe!

BFF&EA Je t'aime

Love, Becca

Mothers With Style

Meet my cousin Rosalynn.

I like to call her Rosie.

Meet her family.

Aren't they cute? And guess what...they will be adding a sweet baby boy to the picture this spring. I am thrilled!

I am going to let you in on a secret just in time for Christmas**.

Rosie makes jewelry.

Not just any jewelery. Take a look at this:

My sweet cousin made this for me. Isn't it lovely? Don't you want one? I suppose you'd want to change the names on yours, but don't worry, she can do that!

I just love that Rosie makes jewelry. It goes along so perfectly with my earliest memories of her. Growing up on the east coast meant growing up far away from almost all of my relatives. When I was young, our family would try to make it to Utah around Christmas time and it was so much fun for me to have a couple weeks of sleepovers with all my cousins. Along with staying up all night watching movies and making recordings of our fabulous renditions of Beach Boys songs, we loved to go shopping for Christmas gifts together. Jewelry was one of our favorite things to buy. Usually they were of the dollar store variety, but I don't think we could have loved those strings of fake pearls any more if they were real! Our taste has changed a bit over the years however, and now those fake pearls aren't quite as cool to wear. Thankfully, Rosie quite obviously knows what is in style, and her shop is just full of the most lovely, classy jewelry!

It has been fun to see that at we've grown older, we still have many of the same interests. One of those interests is baby wearing. Rosie knows everything there is to know about baby wearing, and I have loved learning from her. She also makes beautiful slings, and if you are lucky enough to be related to her, you have very likely received one as a gift. (Sorry for those of you who aren't lucky enough to be related to her!)

Rosie is a generous friend, an attentive mother, a considerate wife, and a really fun cousin. By far my most favorite thing about her is her contagious smile and her cheerful, optimistic attitude. I am sure that she has had a bad day, but I have never seen her act like it. Every single time I have ever seen her, she is smiling. (I think my family and friends would like me a whole lot better if I was more like that!)

Now, even if you are not a jewelry fan (seriously? who isn't?), you have got to check out Rosalynn's blog! She has the most fabulous blog! It is full of the most gorgeous, classy DIY projects that are both inexpensive and easy enough for even me to try! I love looking at them and thinking, "I could do that!", even if I never actually do sit down to make it.

Rosie just started making jewelery a few years ago, and I am amazed at her talent. It is so much fun being related to such a kind, generous person. I really hope that you enjoy getting to know her a little better too!

**Rosalynn's date for guaranteed Christmas delivery has already passed, but I talked with her and if you are interested in buying anything from her store, do it soon and she said it is very likely you'll receive it in time, since, being the organized person that she is, she's ahead of schedule with all the orders she already has! (In case it wasn't clear, I added in the part about her being so organzied! :)**

Letters

Dear Fall Weather,
Thank you for easing me into winter. You make leaving the summer more bearable. And I am loving the chance to sit by the fire and read to the kids. It was really very thoughtful for you to stick around a while.

Dear Annie,
I love that you sing things more than you say them. I love the words you get confused...like calling tomatoes potatoes and potatoes tomatoes, and then, since you got tired of asking me which was which, you just started calling them tah-pay-toes. Please don't ever learn the right way to say it.

Dear House,
Where's my nesting energy now? All I want to do at night is sit around. And it shows. Well, you were clean for a little while. A very little while. Maybe once I get enough enthusiasm for Christmas decorating, you'll look pretty once again.

Dear Wheat and Dairy and Sugar,
I miss you. Not nearly as much as I feared I would, but still, I do miss you.

Dear Tyler,
Even though I sometimes act frustrated, I actually really love how you can get so wrapped up in a book that you honestly can't hear a thing I am saying when I'm two feet away. I love how you will finish one book when we're at the library, another one on the way home, and two more before you go to bed--if they're about 100 pages or so--if they're any shorter, you'll read a lot more. I love that I just found a huge list of books to fill your appetite for reading, and I love that they have almost all of them at the library! Thank you for sharing your love of reading with your brothers and sister and for being so excited to read your favorite books out loud to them too.

Dear Laundry,
There's just so much of you. And you never stop needing to be washed. And dried. And folded. And put away. Is it really too much to ask for you to all be clean at once? Or for you to wash yourself?

Dear Thanksgiving,
Who knew that you would be more fun when I was doing all the planning and the work instead of just enjoying the food? I never would have guessed!! But last year was great, and I sure am excited for you to come again this year!

Dear Robby,
Do you know that I've never seen another kid who will sit and hold a baby for as long as you will? Even when Annie was born and you were only three, you would just sit and hold her and stare at her for so long. Thanks for being so willing to hold Luke so often and for loving him so much. You're going to be such a great dad!

Dear Running,
Welcome back! I know we're going much slower and shorter than we used to, but at least we're going! It's nice to have you back.


Dear Luke,
It still amazes me how absolutely irresistible a baby's smile can be, and a baby's smell, and a baby's soft skin, and even a baby's frown...especially yours. Thank you for staying small longer than any of your other siblings. It means so much to me. Thank you for being so sweet and sleeping so well and staying so calm through all of our craziness. Are you trying to avoid being the youngest child? Because right now you're doing a pretty amazing job of convincing me to have a dozen more babies just like you.

Dear Christmas,
How has it possibly been a year since you were here? You are my favorite holiday. And so I am working hard to really, really enjoy you this year. I know I always say this, but I am going to keep things simple this year. Really, I am. Now I just have to decide which things to cut out. Thank you for being the highlight of winter-time. I'd like it if you stayed around a little while longer. I think maybe we should start celebrating you now, and continue on through January (because-- don't tell January--but it really is kind of a let-down after December).

Dear Andrew,
I miss you. Las Vegas can't possibly be more fun than me, can it? Please come home. Five days is five days too long to go without seeing you.


With Love,
RMP

Healthy Halloween?

I feel a bit like the Grinch to admit this, but I don't love Halloween. I think I could almost love it--of course autumn is an incredibly gorgeous time of year; dressing up is so much fun; pumpkins are really quite charming--but it's that CANDY, all that CANDY that I can't quite get along with. I know as a kid that's the most fabulous part (did you watch the Seinfeld clip?!)...but as a parent, I always dread the inevitable sickness and crankiness that hits our family after we've taken that hit of sugar every Halloween. And yet, who wants to be the parent who keeps their kid from having the fun?

I have tried different strategies every year, but so far none of them have quite worked as well as I had hoped. For example, I'll never forget that one year that I let the boys (Annie was still a baby) have complete control over their candy and eat it whenever they wanted. I don't remember if I gave them a certain number of days of freedom before their candy would disappear, but it didn't really matter. Robby's candy was GONE in less than 48 hours. Several pounds of candy literally GONE. I was checking his bag of candy to see how much he had consumed (I think I became a little concerned when he did not eat one meal for the entire day) when I realized that every wrapper in there was empty. Whoever had recommended that plan to me (thinking that kids can only eat a certain amount of candy before feeling sick and stopping themselves) obviously did not know the limits of Robby (or Seinfeld!).

But the years when I took complete control over the candy and handed out a little bit at a time didn't go so well either. Every single day, multiple times a day, I was asked for just one piece or just one bite of candy. And it lasted and lasted and lasted. I know it should get to the point where I just throw it away, but I have this thing about my kids' stuff. I feel a responsibility to protect it, even if I've taken control over it. I feel like it's still theirs, and I can't throw it away without their permission without feeling incredibly guilty, especially when they come to you the next day (or month) and so sweetly ask, "Mom, what happened to my________?" It just feels like my job to protect my kids, and somehow that has also led into protecting their things as well. Does anyone else feel that way?

So I had been dreading this Halloween because I didn't have a plan for the candy that I was excited about. Luckily I ran into a friend of mine the day before Halloween and we started talking. Their family is a no sugar family (I mean that none of them ever eat any white sugar at all.), so I was asking how she handled the holiday. She told me that her kids all go trick-or-treating and when they return, they do a trade. She buys healthy treats and small toys that her kids trade in their candy for. Then they save all the candy to make gingerbread houses. Cool, huh?

So we tried it this year, and it worked really well. We didn't force them to trade, and we had a few hard bargainers (I had to throw some money into the deal by the end!), but everyone ended up happy. We did let our kids keep a few pieces of candy that they were free to eat whenever they wanted as well. And Andrew and I started a two week cleanse (part of which includes no sugar) right after Halloween, so that's kept us from eating it all ourselves! I think we've finally found our Halloween plan. We can't wait to make some crazy gingerbread houses! How do you guys handle the candy??

Despite my concerns about the candy,

WE HAVE HAD A LOT OF FUN THIS MONTH!

We went on a hayride and picked some pumpkins.

A local museum put on a Harry Potter night. We met Professor Trelawney who told us our fortunes, almost got whomped by the Whomping Willow, and concocted a few things in our Potions class.

The youth in our ward put together a Halloween party for the Primary kids. It was really cute and the kids had a blast (especially because that was before I decided on "The Halloween Plan", and every activity at the party included some form of sugary treat)!

Hooray! Papa came to town and took over the pumpkin carving duties that I was so neglecting.

Andrew and I are usually too worn out trying to get our kids all dressed up, so it's a bit unusual for us to be wearing anything fun. But we had some friends over for soup, salad, bread and caramel apples before trick-or-treating, and I guess their excitement about dressing up rubbed off. So here are the costumes for the night.

teacher, oriental lady, surfer dude, power ranger, harry potter

(Luke was snoozing during the one quick family photo op, but he was our cute little pumpkin!)

My favorite story from the holiday was about Annie's costume. She had planned for MONTHS to be Cinderella. She was even determined that she had to wear a BLUE dress, and the huge selection of princess dresses we already had just wasn't going to work, because nothing was the right shade of blue. Thankfully I didn't buy anything new and just figured we'd work something out. So you can imagine my surprise when my grandmother asked her just a few days before Halloween what she was going to be and she responded, "A teacher!" "A what?" I asked. "A teacher!" I had absolutely no frame of reference for when this change of mind took place, but the reason was soon discovered. There is a little girl next door (who is actually Tyler's age) that Annie just adores. She calls her one of her best friends and always wants to play with her. Thankfully, the girl seems to adore Annie as well and is always very sweet to her. One day, she put her glasses on Annie and then said, "Oh, you look just like a teacher! You should be a teacher for Halloween!". And that was all it took. I must say, I am quite a fan of the costume. The glasses cost $1, and everything else we had at home. Plus, she's the most adorable teacher I have ever seen. (As Andrew said, "Anyone can look like a teacher! What would we do without stereotypes?")

How was YOUR Halloween? Hope it was a happy one!

In The News

Have you ever been interviewed by a reporter? I've decided that it's kind of like bearing your testimony.* You know how you have all these thoughts and feelings inside that you're nervous to share, but feel like you should? And then when you do, the second you're done, an entire encyclopedia of eloquent sentences just fills your mind, and you wonder, "Why didn't I think to say that before?". And you're left wondering and worrying about what you did say, and whether or not it came across the way you meant it to. But still, overall, you're glad you got up there and said something. Well, I was interviewed by a reporter for the Daily Herald yesterday, and that's kind of how I felt. Here's the article if you're interested.


*In our church we have a meeting once a month where anyone can share their feelings about our religion with other members of the congregation.*

two

two minutes

two hours

two weeks two months

It's already been two months since our little Luke joined our family.

My, how he's grown!

We're all still madly in love with him, in case you couldn't tell.

Happy Halloween!

[Post by Andrew]

This brings back a lot of memories for me. I came across this children's book (Jerry Seinfeld's "Halloween" -- also a stand-up routine of his) when we took the family to the dentist a few weeks ago and I about died laughing while reading it to the kids in the waiting room when Becca was getting her teeth cleaned. I had to have Tyler pick it up and continue because I was laughing so hard I couldn't even keep reading. Of course, the fit of hysteria was partly related to only getting a couple hours sleep the night before (some middle of the night kid drama).

Anyhow... Enjoy!

Back to School

I planned to give myself the month of September to take it easy and not worry about school. (That's one of the reasons why we have school year round--so we can take a break anytime we need one!) But when I found myself alone with the kids all day for the first time last Monday, I decided that a bit of routine might be helpful for all of us. So I gathered everyone together in our schoolroom to begin our devotional. That was the moment when Luke decided to have his first blowout. So we paused before we had quite begun and the kids cheerfully ran upstairs to grab me diapers and a change of clothes for Luke (the first sign that shows you how unprepared I was that morning). After carefully extricating Luke from his clothes, I began changing his diaper and bathing him with wipes. I didn't do the traditional 'put the clean diaper under the dirty one' trick because his dirty diaper was just as messy on the outside as it was on the inside. (Can you see mistake number two just around the corner? You'd think with this being my fourth child, I would have seen it a little sooner.) As soon as he was perfectly clean, I prepared to put his new diaper on, when, of course, he began to wet all over the entire couch. Don't worry, the changing pad stayed completely dry. A new errand for the kids-going to get me the vinegar spray bottle. I cleaned Luke up again, quickly put his diaper on this time, and got him dressed. Then I laid him on the one dry section of the couch so I could clean the rest of it. Please don't ask me why I didn't put a burp cloth underneath his face, because I simply can not tell you. Oh, maybe it's because it had already been used to try and catch some of the previous body fluids that were erupting from my darling babe. So I didn't have it ready to catch the spit-up that Luke decided to leave behind on the one clean space that was left.

Even with our rocky beginning and the long delay, we still had a pretty productive day. We memorized a few more lines of our Robert Frost poem, the boys got through several math lessons, Robby finished a few reading lessons, and I read and pondered this quote for the rest of the day:

"The woman receives from the Spirit of God Himself the intuitions into the child's character, the capacity of appreciating its strength and its weakness, the faculty of calling forth the one and sustaining the other, in which lies the mystery of education, apart from which all its rules and measures are utterly vain and ineffectual."

~Rev. F. D. Maurice (found in Charlotte Mason's book, Home Education)

School is going to be a little different this year, but none of us are complaining. How could we when we get to have this adorable face smiling up at us all day?

(picture courtesy of my very talented sister in law...thank you Esther!!)

We're in Love...

with our little

Luke Benjamin Pincock

We're in love with...

the way he was born, peacefully at home surrounded by his family

We're in love with...

his sweet, patient, good-natured personality...he seems to know that there are three other kids in this family and he is already so willing to patiently wait his turn

We're in love with...

his smiles~he already gives us so many of them, when he's asleep and awake, and we love every one!

We're in love with...

his velvety head, his fuzzy face, his deep blue eyes, his satin smooth skin, and his tiny everything!

We're in love with...

his perfect, soft, delicious, newborn-ness

We love everything about you Luke. We're so happy you are a part of our family!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A note about his name: If you heard it from our kids first, you might have been informed that we named our child Luke Skywalker Pincock.

I am not exactly sure where the Star Wars fascination came from, since I haven't even seen the movies (no, not even the original ones--shocking, I know)-and I know my kids haven't. But nevertheless, the obsession is there. Just in case you were wondering, we were going for more of a scriptural heritage when we named our child.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PS Thank you so much to all of you for your congratulations and kind thoughts and calls. I'm sorry I still haven't had a chance to speak with many of you and hope to soon!

Baby Boy! More Details to Come...

Hi All,

Just wanted to let you know that Becca did an awesome job today and gave birth to a beautiful, 7 lb 1 oz baby boy at 4:40 p.m. They are both doing well and are getting some rest. We'll post more pics and details soon... including a name!

Nesting...

I owe a lot of you phone calls or emails.

I'm sorry.

It's just that after two straight months of family reunions, I finally realized that I was about to have a baby, and my nesting instinct hit hard.

For those of you who have been there, you probably don't need much of an explanation. And I'm not really sure I can explain it that well anyway. But for some crazy reason, it is now absolutely essential that every single corner in my house is clean and every single unfinished project since high school is completed.

My poor kids.

I have no desire to do anything except dust, sweep, mop, fold and put away laundry, clean baseboards, reorganize every cupboard and closet in my house, hang pictures that have sat in a box for the last year, go through and throw away old papers and letters that I've had for decades...You get the picture.

You'd think that I will never have the opportunity to clean my house again (although, knowing how well I've done at that with three kids, that may not be so far off the mark!).

If only I could bottle up this crazy energy and store it for days ahead. Unfortunately, I'll just have to resort to taking some pictures of my house that at one moment in time actually happened to be clean from top to bottom. Because I really don't think this is going to happen again, at least not for a long time.

I'd REALLY LOVE to talk to you dear friends soon. But first, I really need to go mop the kitchen floor and reorganize my pantry. (And I'm being completely serious.)

Turning EIGHT is GREAT!

I think every birthday is a special reason to celebrate, but there are definitely some birthdays that change your life more than others. Tyler had one of those momentous birthdays this year when he turned eight years old. First, and most importantly, this is the age where we believe a child is ready to make the choice to be baptized. We have spent the last year talking with him a lot about what this decision means, and have been touched by his desire to follow the example of our Savior. He chose to be baptized when we went to Maryland, and we were grateful to share this experience with many family members and friends. As a mother, it is hard to describe the feelings of watching your child grow and make these kinds of decisions in their life. To use Tyler's words, "I felt warm and happy inside." It was a special day for our family.

Another change this birthday has brought to our entire family has been the introduction of CUB SCOUTS. What a world we have entered into! Wow. I must admit that although I am a huge fan of setting goals and working towards something and of the philosophy of Scouting in general, it would be very easy for me to become overwhelmed and eliminate at least some of the time commitment Scouting requires if it weren't for this face...

Tyler's first day of Scouts~on his way to Den Meeting.

Right after his first day of Cub Scout Camp. He couldn't have been more thrilled.

Our first family Pack Meeting (the Raingutter Regatta for those of you who are also entrenched in this world). Poor Robby just doesn't know how he's going to wait two years to join in the fun. When Pack Meeting was over, Tyler said, "See, Robby, why I love Scouts so much? It's SO much fun!" (Not that Robby needed any persuasion about Scouts being fun. He and Annie are practically in tears any time Tyler gets to go to Scouts and they need to stay behind.)

We love Tyler so much and are so excited for all the new experiences he is having. But it is still shocking to me that eight years have flown by this quickly.

I'm sorry...were we supposed to keep blogging during the summer?!

I'm not going to start in on all the reasons that blogging has completely stopped for our family. Nor make any promises about how long it will continue. (Not that anyone would believe me anyway with my track record.) But I will post a few of our latest family pictures and just let you know that right now we are all healthy, happy, and here. (We just returned from a month long visit with our families.) (And I do apologize to any of you who do not use google reader, and have possibly come here only to see the same post over and over and over again. Sorry!) These pictures were taken by our very talented friend Amber (see previous post). We have had many things happen over the last few months, most of them very good things, and we will attempt to make a few more updates in the very near future. Hope that all of you are happy & healthy as well!