Perfect

I don't talk much about Ally. I told someone recently that it's hard to come up with stories about someone who is always so good. Here are some Ally stories.

Ally: I stayed in from recess today.

M: Whatever for? (O perfect child.)

Ally: I needed to finish my coloring project.

M: Did you finish it?

Ally: No, it takes a long time to make it perfect.

While talking to my mom:

Ally: I wish I was an only child.

M: Why?

Ally: So I could have my own room. Mommy says when Elijah goes on his mission I can have my own room then.

M: Why do you want your own room?

A: Because Lauren and Eden make the room messy! (she hates messy)

And: Can we do my spelling first? I LOVE my spelling! (I have never heard this before.)

Just in case you wondered what kind of child Ally is, she is a perfectionist. And clean. And except for a bit of whining, a pretty easy child to have around. :) How did she end up in this family?

Today at Church

Two things.

1.) We took Eden to nursery for the first time. She is only 15 months, but we could just not stand it in the hallways anymore. She loved it.

2.) Lauren's teacher told me this story. They were having sharing time in the Chapel. Lauren was sitting with her teacher and kept trying to look down her shirt. Then she looked down her own shirt and said, "I don't have any. "

I was horrified. "My child was looking down your shirt?" Luckily the teacher had a sense of humor about it. Lauren is going to be very sad when they switch teachers.

Going Well....

I think the kitten therapy is going well...don't you?

Shocker

Remember this at the beginning of the summer?But the END of the summer it became THIS. That's right, Lauren learned to ride a bike.
Matt fixed her bike at the beginning of July and she took off on her training wheels. By the end of the summer we noticed she wasn't actually using the training wheels. So Matt took them off and she took off again. Without them.

Way to go Lauren!

Back to School

August was also when the kids went back to school. At the last minute we found out that Elijah was accepted into the gifted program. This meant that I was going to have three kids in three different elementary schools. It was quite the crazy start to school with figuring out pick up and drop off schedules. Admittedly, I still am struggling a bit on one of the days.

This is Elijah on his first day of ALL 4th Grade. His shirt says "Living Legend."

Ally was not interested in moving schools, so she stayed at the neighborhood school. This is her on first day of 1st grade.
A week later Lauren started Preschool. She is going to the same preschool she went to last year starting in March. But they changed the teacher. Here she is waiting for her bus. (Last year she had two teachers and one of the teachers got caught drunk at school this school year and is no longer a teacher.)
Eden is helping Lauren get ready.

First and Last Camping Trip

We went camping right before school started. We just went to a small camp site up Provo canyon behind Squaw Peak. I forget the name of it. We went because Ally begged and begged.

The actual camping wasn't too bad. We lounged around the campfire and ate our meal. The real fun began after bedtime. Of course it took the kids a while to go to sleep.

Of course it took our neighbors even longer.

I'd say....FOUR TIMES longer. But they sure enjoyed themselves.

Four.

Times.

Matt and I were doubting her sincerity.

It's okay, we slept when we got home.

We had fun by the fire.
The kids lite marshmallows on fire and ate chips for dinner.
I'd like to say this was the end of the story. But it was not the end of the story.

Ally picked up a friend up in the mountains.

We discovered this friend several days later.

It was a tick and it was attached to her scalp.

We took her to the doctor and he pulled it out. And I asked:

"What should I do if she gets an infection?"

He said: "The chances of her getting an infection are really low."

And of course...

She got an infection.

And we may never go camping again.

One Final One

I supposed I'm going to have to serial blog. And I'm sorry the the next few days of quick, high picture, low writing posts. There are two reasons I am two months behind. THE Halloween Costumes and I my thyroid went wonky after I stopped nursing. I seriously stopped functioning after nine. And my best blogging time has been after 10. I'm feeling 80% better and the costumes are done.

I really left off on Eden's first birthday...

Eden turned one in August.

For her birthday we had pizza and cake! Eden is a pizza fan!

Next we opened presents. She loved her Mickey ears! (For the two seconds it took to take this picture. I know she'll thank me later though.)
She got to wear one of those timely One outfits. And looked adorable in it. Now I'm not quite so sure what to do with it... But I will think of something!
Her smash cake was a Tinkerbell cake. Lauren was eaten up with jealousy.
The Cake Sisters made her a Princess cake. It was very tasty, although it had trouble traveling across town. Still looks good enough to eat!
Turns out Eden is a great smasher! But judging by the state she puts my house in, this was really no surprise.
Lastly, the growth chart. She was taller than Lauren but just shorter than Ally. I hope they aren't always this close in height. It's going to be challenging to squeeze them all in the same spot.

Cupcake Anyone?

Introducing the newest member of our family.

(Kitty is like my mom, always blinks for pictures.)

After months of debate, we decided to get a kitty. I have a good friend with several aminals and Lauren has a really, really hard time going to her house. Rather than continue to catch her in mid-air, we decided to do some pet therapy. After talking to her teacher we decided a dog is too in your face, (and since I hate them that was a no-brainer.) A kitten is just what the doctor or rather therapist ordered.

She is a 10 week old kitten. And everyone loves her already. But truthfully, she really loves me and is learning to love them.

Matt is not a happy camper, but I told his it was inevitable when he married a "cat lady" as he terms it. But he sees the benefit it will have to Lauren's life if she is not QUITE so afraid of animals all the time.

We looked around for over a month before we found her too. Kitty's at the pound now cost $94 to adopt, since you have to pay for the microchip, shots, boarding fees, and neutering in advance. Yikes.

But a girl I've known for a long time was looking to get rid of this cutie here.

I wanted to name her, so I named her Cupcake after Stephanie Plum. I also thought Scout would be nice. Matt suggested I name her Cosin (Cosign) after the last cat was named Tangent, but Cupcake it is. Sometimes I call her Babe though,when she is being naughty... (Book joke.)

Where Was I?

On September 11th, I was at home in my apartment in Tucson sleeping. I had just found out a couple weeks earlier that I was pregnant. I was also student teaching at the time. I also had a nasty cold. Made worse by the pregnancy. I was woken up that day to a phone call from my mom. She told me to turn on our TV. Someone had flown planes into the World Trade Center.

"On purpose?" I asked.

"People don't accidently fly planes into two different buildings right next to each other." she replied.

True.

I turned on the TV and watched while I got ready for school. And it was incredibly sad to watch. Matt and I slowly figured out that it wasn't debre falling out of the building, but people jumping out. And soon after we started watching, we watched the buildings crumble to the ground. We were speechless. How could that happen? Who would do such a thing? Why would terrorists do this? What are they going to attack next?

I went to school and started to run a fever so they sent me home.

And for three days I sat at home and all that was on TV was horrible sad things. I felt so bad. Matt would come how from work and I would be crying. Nobody but the Home Shopping Network showed their normal programming. I would watch it for a break.

My birthday was a few days later. It was not a pleasant birthday. (Worst Birthday EVER.)

I was worried about my baby with the fever.

I started to get better. The kindergarten students were more upset that the local McDonald's burned down.

A couple weeks later SNL had their first broadcast since it had happened. My favorite moment when Lorne Michaels asked Mayor Rudy Giuliani if it is okay to be funny. His answer made me laugh.

"Why start now?" the Mayor replied straight faced.

A month later someone shot a Sikh man because he wore a turban. They assumed he was a terrorist.

It was horrible. It didn't really start to feel normal until January.

Quiz

I have a question for you. What is missing in this picture?If you look in this picture it IS pictured in here.
It is also in here.
No it's not the Mickey ears.

No it's not the outfit.

It's Eden's eye.

The goop is gone. It disappeared on it's own about a week ago. And hopefully it's gone for good!

No more pirate baby for us!

Y

A couple days after the aquarium we gathered up the troops and hiked the Y with my brother. Matt and Christian had never done this hike and it was only 1.2 miles so we thought it might be okay to haul 6 kids up.

Here we are at the start of the hike. We made the three older kids pack their own water for the first time with camel packs. I LOVED it.
And for ONCE Lauren is the only one looking at the camera. She did fantastic the whole way up.

Lyric looks tired actually. I think we are two switchbacks up at this point.
Denise would KILL me if she knew I was putting a picture of her pregnant up. But it shows her and all the kids skipping up the mountain and I can't resist putting it up.

Why, THAT'S strange! The image appears to be broken! It's like bad karma or something.
We did make it to the top. Or rather the bottom of the Y. That was enough for us.
Except for Christian and Tian. They went for the gold and hiked to the TOP of the Y. It's a looooonnnng way up there. I hope they had fun.
We started hiking back down. And that's when things started to go wrong. Lyric fell and scraped her knee. Elijah was "tired" and it turns out "down" isn't Lauren's favorite thing. Which I discovered when she screamed the whole way down.

The WHOLE WAY DOWN. (repressed trauma there)
She has a very piercing scream. But I was a nice mommy and helped her the whole time. Because I love her.
And we barely noticed Eden was there! She was so quiet!
Later the kids played at my parents. Eden and Topher played, Lauren and Tian played. And Elijah and Lyric played. Ally was suffering from jealousy and chose to watch TV.
And here they are. Watching TV together. An excellent cousin activity if I do say so myself.

Griffindor's vs. the Aquarium

My kids were overjoyed to get two different sets of cousins in town at the same time. The first family we got to see was the Griffin's. We wanted to spend the day with them. So drove up to Salt Lake to meet them at the Mexican Restaurant of Matt's choice. Which I forget the name of, but is pictured behind me in the picture below.

We are all looking cute and ready to see the Griffin's. For the most part.
After lunch we went to The Living Planet Aquarium. Because we had never been and they have penguins. So we went to go see it. I have to say, it reminded me of Cabella's. Except it wasn't just local fish and we had to pay a lot of money.

Ally and Tim gazing at the penguins.
Then we went to the Stingray petting. I discovered that I don't like to touch stingrays. And Matt is really quick with the camera. Dang it.
Ally and Alexis like to gaze at the stingrays. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of fish gazing going on. Gazing at turtles. Gazing at seahorses. Gazing at Eels. I paid a lot of money to gaze at stuff...
Elijah and Tim. Too cool for us mortals. And Lauren.
They did have this cute little reading nook. It looked like a boat. If there was a couch, I would have spent more time in there.
Riding the frog. This is not a real frog. Because that would have made Lauren scream. In fact, this is the only place we went this summer where Lauren DIDN'T scream. Maybe I should consider going back....
After the aquarium we went to the Griffin's hotel and went swimming! Elijah was especially thrilled because he got to go in a HOT TUB. For no more than five minutes at a time, but still...A HOT TUB!
Eden, my lily pad. She loved swimming for the first time. I think this is the last time we will be using our trusty lily pad. Which has been my all time favorite pool toy. It is awesome not having to watch your kids in the pool. (JUST KIDDING!)

After the pool we took off the El Pollo Loco and partook of dinner.

Elijah and Tim are playing. I think. No one was harmed in the making of this blog post.

And because he isn't in any of the pictures...Nick was there too!

Ally and Alexis love to play together!!
Hopefully someday we can do it again. Anyone else want come see us and do some Utah related activities?

Future Salesman

About a week ago Matt told me that he had to go to Highland Days and help with a booth his bosses had put together for their clinic. He wanted us to all go with him. We could walk around and look at stuff while he tries to drum up more clients with his coworkers.

I was nervous because I didn't know WHAT I was going to do for at least two hours with all the kids and no money to entertain them.

We told the kids we were going and we thought there may be a parade.

When we got there this morning we were a bit late. We started to walk through the other booths and couldn't find the one for his work. We toured the entire park looking for it.

When we finally found it, nothing was set up and the banner was on the ground. Matt and I quickly set to work hanging it up, then we took some promotional water bottles and hit the disbanding parade crowds. Matt started handing them to people.

Then the kids decided to help and would hand them out to people that we walked by.

When we got back to the booth the kids wanted to keep going. Especially Elijah. And Ally.

It turns out he is really good at it. He would hand them a water bottle and a brochure and tell them they should come talk to us at the booth. Seriously, this is the best my kids have EVER been. Eden was the hardest and that was only because she kept walking into the crowds. Or playing with the next booths watches or pulling the wagon away. The girl has some mad walking skills.

We rewarded him with a hamburger. We couldn't believe how good he was. People would walk up and tell us, "That boy is GOOD. He told us if we want a free water we needed to talk to you." Seriously? We didn't tell him to say that, but it worked like a charm.

That boy is going to own the world someday.

And here's hoping for some more clients for Matt!

Eden's First Bath

With her sister's that is. Because of her clogged tear duct she has been bathing with ME. But she wanted in with them.

But Lauren's face made me laugh here.

4th of July

Ah the fourth of July. One of my favorite holiday's. And one of the reasons is FIREWORKS! Yay!

Ally is beyond thrilled to be able to light fireworks.
Of course, this is Lauren. "Did you say fireworks? I HATE fireworks!"
And of course here's Eden, "Fireworks? What are fireworks?"
Lauren was soon in meltdown mode as the rest of us warmed up the lighters.
Elijah took a turn playing with fire.
I helped Ally light up a few.
My dad made Lauren's day. He put her in the car. Here she isn't so sure about the window being down. She is too close. Of course we helped her out by lighting some in front of the car.
Ahhhh, much better. Now the window is open and she can use Ally as a shield. Now any stray firework will hit Ally first.

I have to say, the charm is wearing off of the 4th of July, when you have a daughter who hates this holiday. It's a little sad, every night she sits in her room, staring out at all the scary fireworks. I can't wait until tonight, the last legal night for firework ends.