The Shirt

This shirt has had a long life. It was first worn by Jeff back in the seventies, and now it is on Parker. Taylor wore it as well. It's fun to look back and see Jeff and Taylor in the same shirt. If we are lucky, Carter will wear it as well. Anyway, I had to put the infamous shirt on the blog.

crazy kiddos!

Our kids are so funny sometimes. Yes they can drive me crazy, but most of the time they make me laugh too. For example just two minutes ago Taylor walked up here (it's 10:30 pm)rambling about something - he was basically asleep. We just said go back to bed and he did. Random. Anyway, here are a few fun pictures of some of their latest things. Don't you think Parker looks like Robin Williams with those glasses.

Droopy Diapers

I am so fed up with leaky diapers! If anyone has a solution to diapers that leak at night I'd love to hear it. Poor Carter wakes up at least once, sometimes twice, a night soaking wet. I truly believe he would sleep through the night if he could stay dry. I currently have four different types of diapers in my bedroom (Huggies, Pampers, Parent's Choice, White Cloud) all of which have leaked. With my other kids, Luvs seemed to work the best, but when I tried to buy them at Walmart I couldn't find them. Anyway, I'm just complaining because I'm tired, but if anyone has a solution please let me know.

Crazy Saturday

This Saturday was quite a busy one. We had a family picture scheduled at 11:20 at the Mall, which in the past has been a big enough event by itself. That was not enough for us though, we decided to go to the ward service project as well at 9 am. Of course we arrived late because I was trying to get everyone's hair done for the picture in hopes that the transition from leaf raking to dressed nice for the photo would be an easy one. Well, the leaf raking was a little colder and windier than I'd expected (so much for the hair). I was also not as helpful as I'd hoped since I had to hold Carter who was not happy with the cold wind. We worked hard and quick since we couldn't stay long, and luckily the Ronald McDonald House (the place we were serving) had hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls for the kids which made the miserable cold all better. Taylor and Jeff actually did a lot, and Taylor left saying he felt good that we'd done that. Yeah! Gotta love those moments when your kids are happy about doing good. Anyway, we ran home, changed and made it to the photo only five minutes late. The kids did great too (must have been blessed for going to the service project.) The rest of the day involved grocery shopping and stake conference meetings, so not too eventful just busy. Anyway, it always feels good to look back on a busy day and say "We made it".

Our sweet little Carter!

Carter is such a sweetheart. He continually proves to be an easy going kid who is content to roll all over the house. He's not crawling yet, but he can get around pretty well. One of his favorite things is the dishwasher. As soon as I open it to unload or load the dishes, he immediately rolls over to start playing with the dishwasher door. He gets himself underneath it and kicks it up and down. Maybe he'll be a soccer player or the kicker for a football team since he loves to kick things so much. His other two favorite activities include kicking our lamp until the lamp shade it spinning around, and lifting the piano bench up while lying underneath it and kicking up. Both activities are not great for baby safety, so we have to keep him from doing them, but when put down on the ground, he immediately tries to get to the lamp or the piano. Silly kid. Here's a funny picture of his "lolly pop kid" hairdo from the Wizard of Oz.

Happy Birthday Parker!

Parker turned 3 on November 3rd. I still can't believe my baby is turning into a little boy so fast. He really enjoyed his birthday because he got to open presents and eat cake. I'm not sure how much he really understood though, because when I'd say Happy Birthday Parker, he's respond "Happy Birthday to you too." He's so funny. Parker got more tools for his birthday, some great books, a planet hero guy, and a Batman Imaginex play set -- he's been in heaven playing with them these last two weeks. The best part for him is that he finally has some toys of his own which he protects pretty valiantly. He is learning to share pretty well though. It's a little hard at three.

Halloween Pictures

Yes, these are late in coming, but I wanted to post them anyway. We had a fun Halloween, and are still eating candy. The funniest memory of Halloween this year for me was when Parker told me it was time to go out and get candy after it got dark the day after Halloween. I had to explain that we can only go Trick-or-Treating once a year. He was pretty disappointed.

Pumkin Carving.

We carved our pumpkins Sunday night because Jeff was headed out of town the next day. I didn't think I'd be able to handle five kids and pumpkin carving alone. As it was, the evening was great because our home teachers came over to visit and ended up lending us a helping hand. I think our pumpkin carving time was cut in half. Anyway, the kids had fun, and the pumpkins turned out cute.

Pumpkins

Fall Fun!

I love the Fall. The weather is cooler, the leaves are changing, and there is an encitement in the air with regards to the upcoming holiday season. (maybe that's because stores are already carrying Christmas stuff. What???) Anyway, it's a fun time, and we've been busy doing the Fall stuff. We went to pick apples at an apple orchard, we played at the pumpkin patch, and we finished off the soccer season. Here are just a couple of pictures of what we've been up to.

Binky Be Gone!

We are proud to say that Parker has officially given up his binky. He'd been living life with only having his binky at bedtime and live was good. We then cut the binkies in half which kind of bugged Parker, but he continued to use them even though we said, "They are broken now, you should throw them away." Well, we finally convinced him to give them to the binky fairy so he could get a toy, and he agreed. At first we were going to have the binky fairy come at night, but we decided that probably wouldn't fly. Then we just decided to have him take his binkies to the store to buy a toy with his binkies. This is what we did, but Parker kept the idea of a binky fairy in his mind and kept telling me he was going to be shy around the binky fairly. Well, Target was where we went, so I think Parker now thinks the binky fairy works there. He picked out his tools, and proudly gave his binkies to the questioning cashier. I tried to hint to her what we were doing, but she didn't get it. It turned out ok, because Parker didn't really catch that we were just buying a toy. Anyway, he is in love with his tool belt, and has done beautifully without a binky. I thought there would be big fits, but there hasn't. The only time he said anything was the first day when he was supposed to take a nap and the said, "I going be sad without my binky." He didn't take a nap that day, but went to bed great because he was so tired. It's nice to have that milestone crossed.

Fancy Nancys

Ashley and Emily had fun dressing up like Fancy Nancy (the children's book character)the other day. I just thought the picture was cute.

Park Fun

Another thing that has kept us busy lately has been playing outside. There are only a few months when it is actually enjoyable to be outside in Kansas and now is one of those months. It's not hot and humid so you can be outside without sweating to death, and we have not started the bitter cold time yet. Parker and Emily love to be outside too, so that helps. Going to the park makes it even better because there are no crickets. We seem to have a lot of them in our yard and Parker hates them. Anyway, Carter is proving to be a park fan as well. Here are some of our latest pictures.

Birthday photos

Busy Times.

These last couple of weeks have been very busy at our house. It mainly had to do with Ashley's and my birthday last week. Thank you everyone who called or left notes on facebook or e-mail. It's nice to feel loved. Anyway, we had a lot of fun having a birthday party for Ashley and her friends Friday evening, and then celebrating as a family on Sunday. Ashley's party was a lot of fun even though it wore me out. It was a pre-tend sleepover at which the little girls came, made their own pizza's for dinner, put on kid make-up, decorated pillow cases and made bead necklaces, ate cake and ice cream (of course) and watched 30 minutes of a movie before their parents came to get them. Jeff, Taylor and Parker were gone on a Father's and Son camp-out, so it was me, Carter and ten giggling little girls. Luckily I'd invited a babysitter friend of our's over to help with Carter and other things. She was great. It turned out to be a success, and the best part was the smile on Ashley's face. I have to say, Emily was having the time or her life. I think she thought it was her party. The only time it got rough was when it was time for bed and she was mad because she hadn't gotten any presents. Poor thing. My birthday was great too because Jeff made me a cake. That's a big deal. I was pretty impressed. All-in-all it was a great weekend. As for this week, my only excuse for not blogging is I was doing visiting teaching. One of these days I'm going to figure out how to get it done before the end of the month. I don't know how the time flies by so fast. I really love to visit all the sisters, it's just that time slips away from me and before I know it we are at the end of the month again. Hopefully they know we love them even if we show up the last week of the month.

Teeth - coming and going

I never thought teeth would be such an important part of my life, but as of late they have been. Carter has recently grown his first two teeth, and I believe he is working on more due to his fussy behavior and anxious chewing. I'm glad he has some teeth now because I think we can start giving him more real table food instead of the pureed food you buy at the store. I did, however, attempt to give him something other than the babyfood, and found he is not quite ready for it. He apparently has Taylor's gag reflex, so I'm going to move slowly into the larger food area in order to avoid having to re-feed him too much. (Taylor threw up everything with any bumps in it.) Anyway, he looks really cute with his two bottom teeth.

On the other end of the kid group, teeth are falling out right and left. Ashley has lost her second top middle tooth, leaving the most adorable gap in her smile. She also lost another tooth on the bottom. Then, the other day Taylor came up and said he lost a tooth. I didn't even know it was loose, and apparently he didn't either??? Or so he says. Yesterday he came home with another tooth out. Crazy kid. Anyway, the tooth fairy has become a regular visitor at our house. Poor Emily and Parker keep pulling on their teeth hoping to lose one so they can get money too.
Unfortunately for them it may be a few years yet. (At least we hope so)

Medicine - bad or good

This week has been a bit rough as far as health goes. It started with Ashley getting sick Sunday morning with fever/stomach ache/head ache (sure sign of strep for Ashley). Of course Monday was a holiday so no doctors were available, and even though Ashley acted like she had strep and had been exposed to it, the doctor wouldn't just give me medicine. Luckily our friend is a pediatrician, and he was willing to do a strep test and give her medicine. She was able to go to school on Tuesday - yeah! Well, Monday night Emily started running a fever also, so of course Tuesday brought with it a trip to the doctor. They did a strep culture, and she too had strep. I knew it was only a matter of time before Parker got sick, but I never realized how short of time it would be. As we were walking out of the doctor's office Parker started crying about hurting. By the time we got home he was running a temp of 101. Luckily, the doctor didn't make me bring him in for a culture too. They said once two kids in a family have strep, they will treat the others if they get sick. Amoxicillin is a wonderful thing, at least for Ashley and Emily. They got better right a way and were able to go to school. (much to Emily's chagrin) Parker, however, got worse - crying constantly that his mouth hurt. He also started getting red dots and blisters in his mouth. At first I thought, "we can't have hand-foot-mouth disease too", but then I realized that it might be the medicine. As I re-read the bottle of the medicine given to Parker, I realized that the doctor called in the amoxicillin even though he is allergic to it. Poor kid. We have stopped the Amox, and have given him an antihistimine. He'll hopefully get a new antibiotic tomorrow. I had wondered if he really was allergic to amoxicillin, but apparently he is. Good to know.

First day of real preschool.

Emily started preschool for real today. We did a parent run preschool with some friends last year which worked out well, but most of the kids went to kindergarten so we had to try something different. Emily is going to the same preschool as Taylor and Ashley did, so I thought she'd feel right at home since she's been there a lot. I was just a bit wrong. We went to the open house yesterday for her to get used to the classroom and to see where she'd put her backpack. She was a little shy, but seemed to have fun playing with the toys. Well, as we got ready to go this morning Emily decided she didn't want to go. She refused to put on her socks and shoes, she then refused to get in the car, and finally she refused to get out of the car. After peeling her out of the van and walking into the school with her screaming at the top of her lungs (Parker was crying too because I couldn't hold his hand while carrying Carter and pulling Emily along - great fun!) she still wouldn't go into the classroom to participate. I offered to stay a few minutes, only to discover that staying only made it worse. Finally, the teacher just took her from me while she was screaming so I could leave. Talk about feeling bad about leaving your kid at preschool. If I hadn't been through similar things with Taylor I would have been in tears. I did call 15 minutes later to see if she'd calmed down and she had. When I picked her up she was all smiles and had enjoyed the day. Hopefully the next time will be a little easier. (No picture available due to dead battery. I don't think it would have been pretty anyway.)

Feast or Famine

Well, I just finished changing my fifth poopy diaper for the morning! Phew. Sorry for the potty language, but it's a big part of my life lately. Anyway, hopefully Carter's little system will regulate itself soon. It's either nothing for the day, or it's a diaper change every hour. We are also hoping to potty train Parker soon, I just have to get the courage to attempt it. Anyway, that is not exactly what I got on here to write. I was actually going to put a picture of the peaches Jeff and I canned at about 11 pm Friday night, but low and behold the battery of our camera is dead and refuses to be recharged. We are pretty proud of the peaches though. The bottles are so pretty that we hate to open any of them to eat. I guess we'll just let them sit on the shelf for awhile and look pretty. I've been trying to organize our food storage lately so we can kind of see what we have and what we need. It's actually been kind of fun. I guess I need to put camera batteries on the list of needs though. Anyway, that's about it for my life right now. Oh, I did just finish the last book of the Twilight series. Excellent. It's probably good I'm done with them though, because I didn't get anything done this past week.

One last thing. Check out this blog http://seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com . It's hilarious.

Finally up to date.

Well, I think that about covers our trip this summer. Sorry about the multitude of pictures, but we did so many different things that it was hard to put them all in one slide show. Hopefully you won't get motion sickness looking at the blog. Sorry for taking so long to get them uploaded also. We had a few technical difficulties here. Anyway, I just wanted to get those on and say thanks to all of our family for making our vacation so fun.

I am also including the pictures of the kids on the first day of school. Taylor was very excited, and Ashley was very nervous, but they both did great. Taylor watched out for Ashley on the bus, letting her sit by him. It's hard to believe they have almost been in school two weeks now. Time flies. I miss them during the day already, believe it or not. They are great kids.

Loving Lava/Blair Family Reunion

Crazy Cabin Fun! Goggles and helmets were a hit.