6 am wakeup call

so, come here often?

2011-05-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

because i sure dont... I never really meant to put this away for so long. This was suposed to be the way I captured all of our lasts here in blacksburg before we leave our home for so long for new adventures, and to tell you the truth, I'm not really sure why I walked away. there was much i wanted to say here but it always seemed a little to personal for public eyes.
--i cried yesterday for the first time. i was driving to go to my kids elementary school after dropping cara off at preschool. cut through tech campus, had my ipod playing my favorite mix (skeleton key, for those who care--actually go listen to it... the cello is amazing!), saw the kids loading their cars to leave the burg for the summer. thinking of my dinner plans with good friends who i would be saying goodbye to that night for the last time (ive had 3 going away dinners now with the same group of friends, man i love them!) and the tears started rolling. I have neevr been more grateful for my oversized glasses as i was at that moment. to bad it didnt hide the red nose and blotchy cheeks.
--i took my oldest 3 kids hiking the other day to the cascades. just them, and it was glorious. van the man came down with a horrible strep (strep g) and was knocked out for over a week with high fevers. he was horrid. john gave me a break and let me take them out for some peace, hiking, and freezing waters at the bottom of the falls. as an added bonus, tons of tech cadets where there having the time of their lives and the boys loved watching them flip and wrestle each other into the water. very therauptic.
--we are trying to buy a house. the company we are working with is frustrating and isn't used to dealing with med school loans. i fear it will fall apart under us, but we are to late in the game to switch companies. On the same level of frustration, despite john being required to report for duty on june 10 at 7 am, we have no orders in hand which means there is no way to set up a move, close on the house, etc. i fear that this will put me and the kids moving out of the burg much later then we hoped. kids are suposed to start school in new city aug. 8, so the sooner we get there, the better for them.
--ive been sick. not like flu sick and not horrible sick but just blah for so long. after finally getting off my butt and going to see a dr., i was diagnosed with something called hashimotos. it meant a whole lifestyle change. no gluten, no casien, no soy, walnuts, peanuts. cooking almost all veggies and some fruits before consumption but i finally feel better. i have energy. i cook dinner again, i sleep at night. it has truly been an amazing experience to finally feel normal again. i cheated on the diet this past weekend. i wanted icecream. badly. i ate it and felt like crap. fingers swollen, sore joints. i felt old again. i remember now why i went on this diet in the first place and doubt i will break it next time i crave icecream. (i bought coconut milk icecream last night for my next weak moment... we'll see if it holds up to the denali extreme maximum fudge moose tracks soy, gluten and casein laden icecream that is my downfall.) ...maybe pizza would be worth the cheat??
--it was mothers day this past weekend. i have the coolest family. john got me an iphone. jo made me a book all about me (and this kid is hilarious...), tay rolled his eyes and gave me a hug, cara made me a treasure box full of hershey kisses then ate them all since I cant. m gave me a gorgoues plant. van gave me a big kiss. i love my kids. I neevr planned on having so many, so young, or maybe not at all, but i am so grateful for the path my life took despite my immediate intentions
--john graduates in less then a month. i cannot wait. i am ready for it to be my turn. i feel like i have put so much on hold these past 8 years and am ready to catch up. i applied to college. i am hoping most of my credits will transfer and i can make this 4 yr degree take 3 or less. i want to feel challenged again. have discussions that make me think. read things that are required and not rhyming books... i am ready
--its almost my birthday. i feel old.
--cara is old. that makes me feel even older.
--i got carded the other night at a local bar after the final orchestra concert with my amazing friends. i was pissed as it meant walking back to my car in the pouring rain. i was also very much flattered.
--ive been working out at the gym my kids have been going to. i see myself getting stronger, losing weight and feeling better about myself. i need to kick my caffeine habit....
--as we reach the final push, john is doubling rotations and is working 12 hr ER shifts in addition to his regular 8-5 job. did i mention i cannot wait til june 4th graduation?

2011-01-24T13:28:00.000-08:00

There is NOTHING I love better then a day spent shopping with my 2 year old! (ok, totally kidding... there are many things I woudl rather do then have to go shopping with my kid, like getting multiple vaccinations, an oil change on my car and a looooong wait at the DMV) nevertheless (i love using that word in sentences!) we were out of everything we needed, namely bleach and shout so out we headed. I realized something horrible while we were out today: My daughter calls me Amy in public as in "yook Amy, a princess gackgack!", or "yook amy, pop-pop (popcorn...) I have noticed it before but she kinda goes back and forth most of the time. today i couldn't get her to call me mom. totally wierd.
Did anyone notice the new outfit she ruined yesterday? think adorable satin grey dress with white polka dots courtesy of my fav. cheap store Old navy with a pair of pink tights with stiched in mary janes and a black bolero, with little french braids in her hair. She looked awesome, right up until it was time to leave for church the first time and she spilled juice (red carrot juice) down her front. then we got to church (late, of course) and there was a potluck after church that I forgot about until I walked in to late to even get a seat in the chapel. Setting a stellar example, the kids and I decided to bail and go home and make soup and came back to church in time for me to teach a class... anyway... this is what the trip to target was for. totally ruined. i don't know if it was the juice or the mexican she ate after church but her dress is a total grease sponge. It is now being rewashed after proper soaking of stain remover along with several other shirts of hers.

I sent Jo back to school 2 weeks ago and have been so happy as a result... He was driving me crazy! My need to be creative returned the same day.. coincidence??? I am currently working on 4 of these and hope to have all of them done before we move... That may be wishful thinking... I also made these adorable letters for a baby girls bedroom that match her room colors...

I love the o.. it is fuzzy paper!

And took the kids to a hockey game (husbandless, out of town and got back at midnight... ugh... We would have been back sooner but we found a starbucks open late and graced the store with 5 noisy kids up way past bedtime...) We met our good friends the Champions and the Fishers for that fun, free night! diva was terrified of the game at first but has since talked of nothing else besides Hokey Hockey.

and if you look 5 rows above the bright blue sign, you would notice my sister in law and her cute family enjoying the game. Totally random meeting up with them, but so fun to see her super cute 3 year olds!

And in 100% random news: I finally bought an Ipod adaptor for my car. i am in serious anticiaption for the iphone to be comign to verizon next month and wanted to make sure I was ready. I feel like 35% cooler then I did last week. Listening to stuff other then top 40s radio is good for my soul. now when i cruise around in my car I can listen to this, this, or this and it makes me oh so happy! maybe one day i wont have to rock the minivan....

Because I am the worst at this....

2011-01-04T06:20:00.001-08:00

you get a 2 whole months of updates... in reverse, because I like to shake it up that way (or i really stink at uploading pictures using the blogger upload, take your pick) Ok, so since we are going in reverse... My mom finished the dress Christmas am. before they came to see our family. Snow also fell Christmas day which ment that finally sun carebear got to wear it. And she loved it! It's tea length (mid calf) and she showed it off to everyone! It looked great on her (and my mother is sooo talented!) Thanks Mom!

New years day our extremely tired family (see below) loaded up the van and drove to visit my parents for the day. My sister Heather was in town with her very cute family and we hadn't seen them for a while. We even got a fun surpirse visit from my aunt, uncle and cousin, who just got back from his mission! My mom made fajitas and we all pigged out! There were 3 of my siblings there, and that doesnt happen very often anymore! After lunch we drove across town to see my brother nates new (5 bedroom, jealous!) house.

New years Eve: we went to our friends house for the annual all night party. Even cara rocked it til the clock struck 12! We all had a great time, and I think I will have to continue this tradition when we move, sans alcohol... We sure will miss the friends we have here.

Cara at midnight with her noise maker

van the man.. we've been coming since he was caras age

Christmas day: my dad, brother kelly, and brother nate and his wife tara came for lunch. My mom was sick so she stayed home but the rest of us had a great visit and the kids always love seeing them.

Christmas morning: we had an awesome quiet morning opening presents and eating 2 breakfasts! (the things you dont realize you will have to do until you have 4 boys!) Van got his pillow pet that he had been asking for and we weren't goping to get for him until he started asking santa for an electric guitar. Suddenly a mute toy seemed like a much better choice.

each of the kids had fun this year picking a name of a sibling and buying a gift for them. They love the tradition of this and have a great time giving the toy. I love the reactions and their excitement when the gift is given!

Santa gave Cara a new hex bug in her stocking! She calls it pink and she lost her old one at old navy a few weeks before Christmas and asked often to play with it.

Santa filled the stockings! We had a really good time this year with Christmas. As the kids get older and most of them are in on the surprise of mom and dad being santa, they have had such a good time encouraging the magic in the younger kids... in some really interesting ways. In school, vans class watched polar express and he was given a ticket. On Christmas eve, he was so excited to go to bed because he had a ticket "and it wont even cost you any money!" I was wondering when he had gotten it in his head that he was going to be able to ride it until I overheard Jo telling him that HE rode it every year and that he would get van on it to.... dont really know whether to be irritated that he is flat out lying, or amused... eiother way, he woke upo Christmas morning telling me all about his trip...funny kids.

the boys woke up super early, and we let them go downstairs and open stockings. I had to eventually go get cara out of bed and when she woke up, she looked around and said presents. She knew who had come!

Christmas eve: kids in bed, gifts under tree. We had to put the cookies and milk out, the kids forgot! We spent Christmas eve day cleaning the house and baking cookies (peanut butter in a muffin tin then sticking reeses cups in the middle, yum!) we went to an afternoon mass as a family and it was beautiful! There were candles burning, lots of live greenery and beautiful music. At the end of the mass, they dimmed the lights and we all sang silent night. I am so glad we took the kids! After that, we came home and made chicken cordon blue, put reindeer food on the front porch, opened our traditional Christmas eve gift of pajamas, and then the read the true Christmas story. the kids rushed to bed after that, they were so anxious for Christmas to come!

listening to the night before Christmas

reindeer food on porch (we sweep it off after they go to bed)

my daughter in one of her favorite outfits... she LOVES the green vest!

Kelly and John: the sat before Christmas we always go to richmond and play dirty santa with my moms family. We give away horrible gifts to each other and have a great meal and a lot of fun! One of the best gifts this year was the mirror cover from my aunts bathroom that was just remodeled. I made everyone pose with it and we got tons of laughs!

my parents are awesome!

our gift that we gave away this year was a red prom dress from who knows when that we hid in a gingerbread box. My brother kelly got it this year!

my aunt karen gave all the little girls (her granddaughter, cara, my cousins baby girl twin, and my sisters baby) these awesome green vests. I think the look like the grinch with the hoods up!

papa and my cousins laura baby boy (she has twins)

Before Richmond, we had been in fredericksburg visiting Johns parents and grandmother. the kids didnt have school that fri due to snow so we headed up and spent the afternoon and night.

Johns mom just lost a ton of weight.. doesn't she look great!

cara was totally obsessed with her grandfather. she would not leave him alone, and he didnt seem to mind at all (except when she smudged the pictures!)

early dec: we decorated gingerbread house, made gingerbread men from scratch and had a ton of orchestra concerts. i had 2 different concerts, and tay, jo and M all played in one. this was M's first concert (he started cello this fall, tay and jo have played violin for abt a year and a half now)

cara ate the whole house before she finished decorating it. pateince is not her strong suit!

our friend jack broughtover the gingerbread houses. I watch him 4 afternoons a week while his mom works with bacteria...

Our ward put on the Christmas story at the annual party this year. It was hilarious. M was a wiseman, jo a sheppard, van sang in the silent night sign language choir, and tay was the camel. (and he was so obnoxious abt it, he pretended to chew cud the whole time)

m in red, tay in camel suit.

this is my shy kid, and this is not his things at all! We used to have to drag him out eveytime the primary would sing a song bc he would start crying and screaming bc he didnt want to go stand in front of everyone. he's come a long way....

the kid with the staff kept hooking people around the neck. I finally took it away from him (he's in my primary class) but i laughed first...

cara had a great time running around the gym the whole night. it had been so cold here and there was snow on the ground all dec. and she doesn't really like snow.. It was nice to be out!

early dec: on a night that had temps. dropping into low single digits, our town had their annual Christmas parade and lighting of the tree. It was so miserable, but we went since the oldest 3 boys were in the parade with their scout troop. Van, cara and i went and got calzones (john was on surgery this month so we barley saw him) and tried to stay warm. Cara was terrified by the parade at first (the marching band and trucks were to loud) but by the time santa closed the parade on the fire truck she felt better about it.

the first sat in dec. I took the kids to finish Christmas shopping. John had gone in early to work so I called to see if they wanted anything from panera. He said no, but that he would meet us there for breakfast. Since he was done for the day, we decided we would drive to our favorite tree farm. The horses pull you out and you get to cut your tree. We have gone to this place several of the last few years and the trees are so beautiful. We love the challenge of finding our perfect tree!

tay is such a big kid! With john having been gone 6 months of this past year he has really stepped into a bigger role within the house of being helpful. His newest big kid job? he wanted to be the one to cut the tree. he got it part of the way down then passed the saw to john.

As we were cutting the tree, snow began to fall. (this snow is still on the ground, btw..) by the time we were done waiting for our tree to be picked up, bagged and loaded on our car (while we ate hotdogs and drank hot chocolate) it was really heavy.

so when we got home, the kids headed out to play in it and do some sledding. the keep saying "this will be the last time we get to play in the snow."everytime it snows they get nervous and rush right out

van with a snowball...

sun. afternoon we decorated the tree!

not sure I reccomend this method...

all the orchestra concerts....

santa came to the town concert and passed out candy canes (this is where van decided he needed a black electirc guitar, to which santa replied oh, ok, i think we can do that until he saw my face then quickly backtracked and I said that doesnt the north pole have a lot of pillow pets. He agreed very quickly.

Our Christmas card photo shoot. We were running late to church so we took them to the famers market while their clothes were still clean to get some pics.

cara has her arm up because in the pic i took right before, van had his arm up. she is such a little copycat

We took our annual tgiving trip to the outer banks again this year. What a relaxing break it always is, and we already decided that even though John won't be able to go next year, I will take the kids by myself. We had a 13 bedroom house this year and went with a total of about 50 people. the kids all have such a wonderful time boogie boarding, playing in the sand, seeing their friends, and staying up late! On thanksgiving all the kids put on a talent show, which in the 4 years we've been going is getting better every year! after tgiving dinner, our family went out alone to the beach to have a few minutes of quiet time. It was so nice to be out in the wamr air, listening to the ocean, and reflect on everything we are greatful for. We've had a long year, with john being gone for a lot of it, and some setbacks and frustrations that we werent expecting so it was nice to focus on the positive out there and enjoy being together

the kids table at thanksgiving dinner. i think there were 35 kids this year

the boys had a great time builing and digging, and van even hit the waves for the first time ever. cara wouldn't stay out of the water and kept running straight into the water and I would have to chase her down and put her back in the sand, no fear!

annual football on the beach game

tay tried his hand at ocean kayaking in the safety of a small pool of water. maybe next year we'll get him in the ocean with it, he loves boogie boarding!

match night!

2010-12-14T22:11:00.000-08:00

our army match list for residency:
1. Fort Benning, Columbus GA
2. Hawaii
3. Fort lewis, Washington St
4. Fort Gordon, Augusta GA
5. Washington DC
6. Fort Hood, Texas
7. Fort Bragg, NC

We get to take the kids out to breakfast tomorrow morning. School is delayed 2 hours for the bitter cold and negative temperatures. We have to break the news to them that this is the last winter for the next 3 years that they will get to enjoy these ~~seasonably warm~~ i mean frigid freezing temperatures. We are packing up our family of proper southwestern virginians and heading into the unknown land of the DEEP south. We are headed to Columbus GA! We are super excited, and will be just 1.5 hrs away from atlanta! we all loved it when we visited this fall and love that our good friends the Marshalls live just 45 minutes away from where we will be settling! Congrats on the match john!!

2010-11-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

We baptized out third this past weekend.. It was an amazing experience. I have the privelage of being his primary teacher and he is just an amazing guy. He is still so unbelievably shy and had a hard time at the baptism because of all the attention focused on him. He had his grandpa and Uncle Fredy speak and the spirit was so strong. I guess you could say we had waterworks going on, and in more ways then one...

the realization the the baptism font DOES NOT take 2 hours to fill as per bishops instructions...

I have been trying so hard to potty train Sassy. She loves the idea: get treats when she sits, wearing panties, which have been so much fun to find as I fold laundry! Such a far cry from the boys superhero undies they had at her age! however, there is something missing. She chooses 3-7 pairs to wear at a time and holds her pee until I have to diaper her for us to run errands or for her no nap. She has also peed through the whole stack of them. Not quite there, and i wouldn't stress except she is the one who wants to wear them and I dont think I should discourage it.

A few weeks ago a friend offered us 4 tickets to the hokie game (the week after we spent a small fortune that could have purchsed an island somewhere to take the kids, and on our 11th anniversary!!!) i had already agreed to babysit an extra kid while his parents went to the game so Van and his friend Alden went together with John and Aldens dad. those boys are so sweet together!

Sassy turned 2 on the 17th of Oct! What a wonderful day for us as we enjoy never having a 1 year old EVER AGAIN! It is so fun to go through each stage with her KNOWING it will never be this way again. I am so satisfied watching the older boys get old and seeing sweet girl getting there also. i am over baby stuff and ready to move on. We got her a tinkerbell bike (and she found T's helmet) and she has been having a great time sitting on it. She is not able to pedal but I am sure that will come soon!

The fri before her bday we took lunch over after she had her Parents Morning Out class and we celebrated with some of her friends from class. She had a great time adn really enjoyed practicing opening presents.

Her friends are sooo cute! She has 4 really sweet friends who are all within 6 months of each other and they have been together since she was born (shes the youngest) we will miss them so much when we move.

Seconds on cupcakes! Happy camper!

I've bee getting tons of people asking me how homeschooling is going. To be perfectly honest, we are getting good at it. Some days I feel really lazy or have tons to do and send him upstairs to read for a few hours, but this is the first time he has ever taken a chapter book and read it cover to cover. He used to pick it up, skim middles, get bored and be done. In the past 3 weeks, he has read the first 3 Percy Jackson books. That in itself is a total change. His math is also improving and we have been doing a lot of logic work as he really struggles with things like that. He is becoming a more logical thinker and is applying that into other areas of his life. WE are really enjoying history. We have spoent the last month on ancient egypt and i have learned so much! WE are currently mummifying a chicken and will wrap it in 4 weeks when the salt, baking powder and baking soda finish drying it out. We have also made a scroll and will make a clay tablet this week and then will subject them to the oven, the rain and his brothers to discuss why the tablets were better at preserving info vs. the scrolls. He is learning so much. On the other hand, I am so bored. all the time. it is tough having a 9 yr. old as your everyday all day companion. it makes me glad he isnt an only child and he's bored too. he doesn't know how to handle not having his brothers around. I think he is glad to be home and i am glad for his growth, but I am looking very forward to next year when all 4 boys are back at school and Sassy will be in preschool at least 2 mornings a week (she only goes 1 day right now) I need that selfish time. i am a better mom when i get it. (and a better wife)

the nile river- we planted grass and flooded the nile weekly to represent olden condtitions. the grass is flourishing, much like crops on the fertile nile valley! the projects have been so valuable for tying everything together for him.

I feel unsettled. I get this way every election day for a few different reasons but this year seems worse. I am unhappy with govt. and the games they play. I hate waiting to see the results and seeing if it flipped sides or stayed the same. i hate the candidates and their opinions. i feel they are all wrong (wish colbert would run! ha!) I also feel unsettled in my personal life. We are atthis awkward crossroads where 1 number makes a world of a difference. i obsessively check websites to find the magic number and the date when it will be announced. We are waiting for THE BOARD SCORE (insert scary music here) this has been a sticky spot for our family recently and until the number is released, our paycheck is not. it is a really frustratinf holding pattern and I feel so much anxeity over it. I hate the unsettled middle, i hate not knowing and i hate waiting (i saw a really funny sign from the rally to restore sanity/march to keep fear alive held the other day : WHAT DO WE WANT? pateince! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW! totally the way i feel today!) So, since you have a few pieces of my scattered mind, maybe I should leave you with a few more:

today: I am going to listen to Christmas music and clean the house (dealing with little sleep as baby broke crib, was moved into toddler bed and WONT SLEEP ANYMORE)

----i got toy story 3 for 3.99! I love good deals and by buying a tide detergent I would have purchasded anyway (also on sale and used a coupon) and a thing of bounty paper towels (ditto on bought anyways, on sale and using coupon) CVS sold the dvd for 3.99 with the 25 P&g purchase! I had 3 neighborhood kids over this am to watch it.

---right now I am listening to this and the sounds of my daughter dumping an entire box of wheat thins on the kitchen floor that really needs to be swept, mopped and overall disenfected.

---I am looking very forward to nap time today where I am going to curl up with this which is long and hard to read but makes me feel smart (unlike atlas shrugged, where I cant get more then 50 pages in without being bored to tears. Should i keep going??)

---T and M didnt eat their halloween candy. their gym coach challenged them to eat 5 pieces and get rid of the rest. i took it a step further and offered them a new hex bug if they ate none of it. It was amazing. Jo ate his pieces.

---t and I are running a 5k this weekend. in the forecasted snow. his first ever. i am excited and hoping he can finish it. he has the goal of doing a mini triathalon for his 11th bday which involves a 5k, 300m swim and a 10 mile bike ride. he is my hero.

lo que paso

2010-10-17T14:53:00.000-07:00

We have reached this really frustrating point in med school land: the point where EVERYTHING is out of my control... During med school, I have had the option of nagging John to study, nagging John to turn in paperwork, nagging John to do extra work. friday he submitted his residency application. I can no longer do anything. Everything is out of my hands. Dec. 15th we will find out where we head but until then, I wait (and not very pateintly) We ranked hawaii, columbus GA, and tacoma washington in our top 3 (but not in that order) We plan on staying up until after midnight the 14th to find out where we go and then take the kids to breakfast and telling them where we move mid june. Until then, we window shop houses at our different places and wonder where the cards will fall.

Bucket List items (9 and 7) and other such things

2010-10-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

Hey Ya'll, i got me a new post here....

Man, I am the WORST at this! I love fall because we stay so busy doing really cool things but then 5 years later when I finally get around to pulling out the scrapbooks I forgot when, where and why we did all these awesome things, so in the spirit of being helpful later (much later) down the road, let's catch up... shall we? Grab a cup of cocoa... this is a loooong one... First and foremost, I feel like i should mention that like everyone else, my kids also returned to school, quite a bit later then in previos years due to a problem with the high schoolers and where excactly they would go to school (they ended up in the middle school building after a mid winter roof collapse last year) sending the middle schoolers to a close town for school... so, a week late and not a DAY to early, my kids started back to school a week later then originally planned...much to my chagrin. but alas, it has been worth it! Van the man started k this year, making my daily life MUCH quieter. he is having a blast but I am really not sure how much he is getting out of it this year. Luckily I plan on having him repeat next year already 9since his bday is so late he will miss the first grade cutoff in several of the states we are looking at for next year. first day pictures taken in front of our new residence while waiting for bus.

Not really sure what to tell you abt this one except i pull out the camera and my kids all look awkwardly at me.

yay! 35 minutes late the bus FINALLY makes it to our house so I can start the school day for Jo who is homeschooling this year, per his request.

He works so diligently on his math (it's on;ly a show) while our baby prodigy practices her instrument all day. She loves it, I promise. And I only make her practice 5 hours a day. She naps the other 3 hours.

After 4 days of school, I had enough and decided a vacation was not only well deserved, but practically required. John was in GA for the month so I pulled the kids out of school Fri. morning, missing 4 days, and we drove to 'bama to visit some good friends that live near where John was rotating. The vacation was off to a bang as first thing Sat am Jo took a golf club to the back of the head. I should have taken him to the ER, but being the practical family we are (and the fact that I was waaay to organzied when my mom took my kids on vacationw hile I was in tx) I didnt have his insurance card bc it was still packed from that trip soooo john found some fake glue skin stuff left over from when one of the marshalls had an injury and we ghetto glued his head back together best we could. (6 weeks later- ugly scar and huge knot still, prob should have gone in)

After the injurt, we headed to the local sonic, bamas finest for a healthy and tasty lunch. It was hot and bright!The kids had soo much fun playing together that labor day weekend! We grilled out, made cafe rio salads, and spent a lot of time bumming around (we never made it to go see Auborn Univ, the only thing we had decided to go see!) We had fun watching the hokies vs. boise state game until they lost, but our kids had fun dressing the part of the cheering section.

Here the girls watch my little ponies (or something girly) instead of football... I'm pretty sure hokies lost bc good luck charms were not actively engaged in game. (or maybe it had moer to do with the fact Audrey removed her hokie clothing??)

The older kids did a lot of that... They could be found laying around gthe bed rooms, lined up in the hallway with power cords using every available outlet, or streched throughout the living room all screaming at the screens and to each other. They had totally missed each other (It had been 5 months since we had seen them)

One of the main reasons we came to visit john is we are hoping when the match results come down that the army will love us and let us head back this way to fort benning, we have listed in #1 (hawaii-2, tacoma washington-3) and we will find out dec. 15th where we will end up. We headed into columbus on sun. to check out the ward and town, as well as the base. WE LOVED it! The kids Loved the fact that there is a krispy creme (we picked up fresh donuts on our way back to the marshalss) and a firehouse sub. that did it for them. The funnel cake fries at the burger king on base was their fav. thing abt the actual base. We liked the ward well enough, and went over to a current residents hopuse for dlunch afterwards. Everyone seemed really nice adn we are excited to find out where we will end up now more then before!

there is an awesome infantry museum right off base we took the kids to. AMazing, and very moving.

I finally dragged myself back into town in time for the boys to go back to school thurs. I left Alabama Tues am and went back to base to say goodbye to John and take a tour fo the hosptial. After drivign all day with the kids, I was exhausted and called my awesome brother in law and got to see their cute family and stay overnight there. I was planning on leaving super early wed. but didnt make it on the road til almost lunchtime. it was nice to have that freedom since I am homeschooling the kid that can't handle missing that much school. Fri. Our sassy baby started parents morning out. she goes fri mornings and its where I worked up until this year. it is sooo nice not working, and she LOVES going! there are only 7 other kids and 5 of them are girs that she played with all last year and summer too!

Random pic of the at home crew...

And then at the end of Sept. van turned 5! He picked a black cake, which I was pretty sure was for over the hills but whatev... I would have baked a cake myself except i was out of eggs and out of a husband to watch other kids while i went to the store for 1 thing. (it was goood too!)

Toy story lego set from mom and dad

and a kung zhu warrier from his friend jack

He choose to go to the local greek resteraunt for dinner so we picked up his best friend Alden and headed that way

they are so cute together!

A few days later, Daddy rode the train for philly into lburg! (he flew from Ga to PA to take a test first though. the kids hadnt seen him in almost a month so they were excited to be up way past bedtime to collect him, esp. because they had a busy afternoon doing...

whatever sassy is watching....

their first road race! As part of my dads bday surprise (more abt that in a min.) my mom signed all 4 boys up to run the amazing kids run. They all did really well, tay ran it in 7:57, took 32 overall abd 10th in age group, jo-12:43, 312 overall and 106 in age group, Mas-9:48, 146 overall and 49th overall but the real surpriose for me was van- he finished 10th overall (in the 5 and under group) out of , with a time of 10:24. I was shocked he could run it that fast! (above-post race with medals)

the boys were really excited for the timing chips on their shoes! they felt professional!

Pre race (and if I'm being really honest, pre stinkiness, they're that age..) The next morning, my dad was embarking on the race he had been training for months for. He was so excited and nrevous about this race. (bucket list item 9) My brother Kelly made an excuse to come into town and we used picking John up from train station as our excuse and he thought we were coming to watch him. He kept asking me and kelly if he could register us for the race (to which we made up lame excuses but no outright lies about why that was a bad idea- ie- my knees are sore (which they were) or no, you dont need to (bc my mom already had...) That morning, he left early for the race. As soon as he was out of the door, all of us sprang to action. John, me, my brother Kelly all got up, dressed and ate in record time. a sitter came to my moms house to watch the kids and we headed to the race. My sister Lyns and my sis in law were there to walk the 4 mile race w. my mom and we surprised my dad on the starting line! It was amazing, (and he cried) and I beat my course time by 19 minutes! must have been the good vibes bc i def. didnt train well enough for the race.

The starting gun shot (the course is a there and back course and i got passed the other way by these guys at my mile 3 (they were on 7)

John at the finish

my finish- i passed 2 guys right at the end and finished in 1:42, which I was super happy with

before ther race- the big reveal. I have no idea how my mom managed to keep all of us coming into town to run this a surprise from him! My sis in law drove 2 hours each way to grab my sis from college the night before, my cousin for pa drove down and we had a wonderful party afterwards!

all of us before the race- my brother kelly finished in 75 minutes, and my dad came in under his goal time of 1:40 by several minutes! Good race day for all of us! (and it only took a week to start walking normally again)

in the beg. of oct, M turned 8! He got a bakugan from his brothers and an ipod shuffle from mom and dad

turning 8 means starting cub scouts! Here are the boys in their uniforms! looking good guys!

fri we celebrated M, Van and Sassy bday with a combined pool party! We had a great time! The Marshalls came into town to help us celebrate a big weekend and it was grat seeing them again as well!

Sassy had a great time swimming! (she gets really jealous watching jo swim 3 afternoons a week)

Audrey and Cara

the almost brithday girl! (mid oct she will turn 2!)

After the bday party, we brought the kids home and put them to bed WAY to late. the next morning we took all the kids (minus 3 babies) to the hokie football game, where it was HOT but we were so glad we took the kids. We had a great time watching the hokies win solid over CMU and the kids had fun going to the game. For most of the kids it was their first football game. Van was HOT (it got up to 80) and they enjoyed nachos, sno cups, and tons of soda. After the game we came back and had a cafe rio party with some friends to celebrate the Marshalls being here and football season. It made us really miss some friends who have moved away that would have normally come over. I took some great pics of the game and accidentaly deleted them from this post so the pics will get their own post. Tay loved the whole game and was way into jiggling keys on third downs. Everytime the bird gobbled over the PA he pulled the keys out and shook them!

Sunday morning the Marshalls planned on getting out of town early but it was foiled by plans to go to Mabry mill instead. the weather was beautiful and the colors on the parkway were amazing! the kids loved playing in the water ways that mabry built to collect water for his mill floating leaves and getting wet. The kids always play so nicely together and it seems like we never have to break up fights. Between grass sledding and scooter riding they stayed so busy enjoyiong the fall weather. We had a wonderful weekend visiting with good friends and celebrating and we are off to such a busy fall!

bucket list item #8

2010-09-18T19:21:00.001-07:00

The Marine Mud run: Salem, VA 9-18-2010: I met my dad in Salem along with a few friends for the annual marine mud run that raises money for toys for tots... Great charity, great fun! Today was also my dads 60th birthday so I made him a special shirt to celebrate! We got there EARLY (745) and picked up our packets then waited, and waited, and waited... the race is a 5k with part of the race taking place in a river, (maybe 200m??) that is waist deep and 2 huge mud pits, one you kinda swim through. If you werent dirty, the marines chased after you to encourage you to fall into the mud amd swim through it.... After the race... dad took 2nd in his age group and placed overall around 230. I finshed at 252 out of 810... not to bad!

Beautiful group pic in front of port a potties... We girls got CLASS

I ran in my chucks because my racing shoes are like embarrasingly ortopedic and I didnt want to throw them away because they took 3 hours to find (the running store guy made me try on almost every pair of shoes and kept making me run up and down an alley while he watched... while i realize that sounds sketchy, it was much more boring then anything.) and i didnt want to go through that again... I am a little sad to have thrown them away but they were sooooo gross... (and I do have 4 other pairs of chucks, and now have an exucse to replace them, right??)

the kids were A-May-Zing!!! i was so proud of their patience, they were hoping we would let them roll through the mud as well afterwards so we threw them in the river instead:

oh look, all cleaned up now! Anna and I went back to the river we ran through and laid down in it to get clean. Such a refreshing numbing clean...

The Blacksburg Bucket List

2010-09-12T17:39:00.000-07:00

When we realized our days here in the burg were becoming seriously numbered, the kids and i sat down and created a bucket list of things we really wanted to do before we moved away. The list grew as we approached the start of our 1 year. John will graduate June 4th and we anticipate moving early that next week. The list we made covered everything from June 4th 2010 until July 1, 2011... Several of these items have been done already and I have been so far behind journaling that I will have to catch it up later but I wanted to post the list and then go back and catch it up... since we will prob. not live in va, the list has also grown to cover some random va activities as well... we prob wont get to everything on the list but we thought it would be fun to see how many we can knock out!

The LIST (in no particular order)
1.bike the whole huckelberry
2. hike the cascades when there is ice on it
3. 4th july parade*
4. one more stepping out*
5. run the whole huckelberry
6.hike the cascades and swim
7. hokie football game
8. marine mud run *
9.va 10 miler
10.night at english fields
11.international fair
12.summer musical one last time*
13.tech hockey game
14.huge going away party for the kids at nellies cave
15.pay off all credit card debt
16.get picture taken at the vt on airport and vcom
17.retake as many of the hokie bird statues now that they've moved into the permanent location (like 4 years ago...)
18.buy a house
19.tay- get his weebolos
20.baptize m
21.jo- get his bear
22.camp at white rock
23.camp at claytor
24.one more amazement square
25.skate park day
26.blueberry pciking in the valley
27.Christmas parade
28.joes tree farm
29.service Christmas project
30.volunteer at Christmas store
31.india garden--1-more-time
32.Christmas eve at kabuki and then henderson hill
33. tubing on new river
34. chemistry magic show
35. go see the cow w. hole in stomach
36. 2 more semesters of bcs
37. Christmas concert
38. Burruss hall photo
39. April 16th fun run and visit memorial
40. Spring game and tailgating
41. Turkey leg
42. movie at lyric
43. celebrate match day with kids

-and then we have the things that will be done more then 1 time, playing at our favorite parks, seeing friends, and my orchestra group, etc. I know this year will be hard for us and the kids since this is all we've known... John has been here since he was on 5th grade and i came 12 years ago... I am so excited to have a list of things that my kis felt were important (and some of them me and John) to set a guideline for what we will be doing this year!

dear john-

2010-06-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

today i am tired. after i got off the phone with you last night i had every intention of going to bed, but i stayed up late finishing drying the laundry (i did 8 loads yesterday and had to dry all of them..) and folding them and sorting them.) and watched americas got talent which was kidly entertaining while doing chores. i tossed and turned again all night. i don't know if its because im hot (your side of the bed stays cooler though bc of the fan so i made myself totally comftorable) or if I'm stressed with the move this weekend...) then the care bear woke up at 430 this am. her night times have been getting progressively later and her wakings earlier so today enough was enough and i took her in. She weighs 21 pounds, which is great bc at her 18 month check they wanted her to be 22 by age 2 so we have 4 months to pack the last pound on her. I was pleased. there was also nothing wropng with her. that made me very displeased. i was really hoping for a quick fix but i guess we will keep waiting out this cold an the teething. she is cutting all 4 canines... we also experienced a huge break through- sun. she drank 1/2 of a warm horizons milk box. (she also threw up in her mouth later that day, and i'm pretty sure it's related..) she hasn't touched milk since however except on her shredded wheats...
this am when i took the older 2 to be dropped off at camp we waited and the ride never showed up. totally frustrating as this is the same family that made the kids late for camp yesterday. anyways, one of the dads ended up taking them out but it means that our group is without an adult today and that i have to go pick them up. totally lame, and it means that i have 1 to many kids so i have to find someone to watch one of our kids so i can run out there and it means the kids miss xfit unless we book it back ( totally my plan...) things with micro champion are going really well with 1 exception... he has NO AIM. whatsoever. fire hose bad. i make him clorox wipe the bathroom everytime he pees. i do not have any idea how his mom shares a bathroom with him (she lets him use her master.. i would never!) totally gross... he needs a man to teach him to pee. i think i am going to pay tay an hours wage to potty train him;-)
yesterday i had my most ghetto moment of my entire life. i often feel ghetto when i take lal the kids out and they are dirty and whiny or whatever but i actually had a serious moment. i left tay home w. m and van while i took jo and baby to wash our clothes (for the last time ever!!!!) i stopped at wendys and got them frostys to help with the 45 wash cycle wait. knowing that she would make an absolute mess with a melting frosty on a 100 degree day, i took of her cute outfit (her owl tank and multi colored brown and pink layer skirt) and left her in her gap tennies and her diaper, but rather then putting a less favorite outfit on her i choose to leave her naked bc i didnt want to dirty another outift and risk staining it until we get a place with a washer. she made such a sticky mess, all in her neck and her hair was getting stuck in it, down her tummy and it was caught in the front of her diaper. then she leaked it all over her legs onto the hot black vinyl dirty bench where it pooled around her diaper. when all was said and done, her diaper was competely brown. ill let you guess what it looked like... it was nasty. i went out to the car nad dug around and found 1 diaper, gave her a baby wipe bath and changed her diaper. she immediatly pooped in her new clean diaper. she was stinky the whole rest of the time bc i had used the clean diaper to replace a barely wet diaper that just looked bad (really bad...) oh well, memeroable way to end that laundramat visits i suppose.
micro champion brought over a wii game called just dance. it's hilarious! it's a 4 player game that the younger boys were all playing earlier. care bear is totally scared of it, like wiggles scared... i put her down for a nap (yes, at 10 am..) and need to finish packing our house. I am hoping to finish the whole upstairs today so tomorrow I can finish in the basement. SOOOO ready to be done!

dear john-

2010-06-21T10:26:00.000-07:00

well... is it monday already? I hope your pt test went well this am so you can escape the full wrath of am pt in the texas heat... we had a very bizarre weekend here... sat at 8 we were at our garden eating blueberries off the bush since there wasn't enough to pick and take home but we picked peas and squash and sour apples to make applesauce (kids idea, and I confess i threw them away... i wasn't able to handle the mess of applesauce this week) and onions (which went in yesterdays chili!).. after leaving the garden, i told the kids we would run to the luandramat, start our laundry then go get donuts. When we were leaving the laundrmat, we met this super nice old woman with a wican bumper sticker carrying a cockato (sp?) on her arm. She let each of the boys try to hold it but van was scared of it and the bird was scared of m. He esp liked jo though. the bird went to jo several different times. We went and got donuts and i got complimented on our kids behavior! yay! later sat we ran to target to get a bday gift for one of vans friends then headed to the family party. our neighbor that we love (with the months name) was wearing a seashell bra. literally. it was interesting. the party had a hawaii theme and they had a luau in the backyard. she is such an interesting woman. she must have ordered 20 pizzas for maybe 30 people and spent hundreds on her sons 5th party. After the party (630) we headed to the pool for a little while before the storm kicked us out.
i hope you enjoed your fathers day. sorry we were way lame and didnt send you anything, poor forthought on my part. thanks for entertaining the kids for so ,ong on the phone last night though!
i have micro champion today and so far so well. the oldest 2 are at scout camp this week, i drove them out this morning and was glad i did bc they were missing jos registration. not sure what happened there, but we got it all taken care of. this should be the only time i have to drive them out there, i worked it out so i can pay gas money to not have to go that far. i have the boys settled down watching toy story 1 in anticipation to see number 3 next week. champion is going today so i am sure the bioys will be pressuring but w. older kids gone all this week, and me gone all next week it will be into the first week of july before we make it. i was sad at how fast this apst weekend went. i didnt get nearly as much accomplished as i hoped. we are moving fri into sat (for sure this time) and i cannot wait to get things out of boxes.. sun night lynz and kev came over for her bday dinner. she requested indian tacos so i made a ton of chili (more in freezor for later!) and made the whole feast. tay and i made a choc cake, cooled it, cut it in half, melted mint choc. chip icecream and made her a wonderful cake. we did a layer of ice cream, cake, hersheys bars layed all the way across the cake, which then the warm cake melted a bit, more ice cream, cake then frosting. it was beyond good (i just ate another peice after lunch today!) we had a good time and it was nice bc they left pretty early. i watched about a boy last night. anna loaned it to me. it was good, in a weird way. our house was so hot last night we all had a hard time sleeping. i felt like i tossed all morning just to get woken up by the phone at 630. we were out of the door by 740, so i neeed to be up, it was just a little painful.
anyway.. rest of the day: sprinkler time for little kids, then gym for van and m while i get boys from church parking lot. they reusted breakfast for dinner so thats on the menu, and i am hoping they will all be so tired they will pass out early! i have got to get more packing done!!

talk to you soon!

Dear john-

2010-06-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

I made steak fajitas for dinner. you would have loved them! i found this salsa from food lion that was on closeout price for 1.09 and it was greenish and some steak that expired today so dinner was supercheap! i simmered the steak in the green salsa (which ended up being super spicy which the kids loved) and then as soon as i got it on the table realized we had no lettuce, sour cream, tomatoes or cheese so diva and i ran out quickly to grab those things (and found ice cream 4/10.00 and shredded wheat buy one get one free!) dinner was good! I just threw van in the tub and am waiting for diva to finish her dinner so i can scrub them both down really well. I was going to let them stay up and have movie night and talk to you but several things happened to change that.. first off, i have lost my debit card again so i didn't rent from blue box. second, anna is coming over to discuss plans for me watching micro champion and to have a girls night (which will probally consist of some mario or arrested development followed by large quantities of ice cream)
Last night i opened the hamsters cage to feed her and I dont know if its because i was tired and moving slow, or if desperaux has a new taste for freedom but that stupid hamster escaped. luckily she didnt get to far becasue she ran under the table where we keep her cage and i blocked her in with blankets she didn't try to climb over and after a few failed attempts to catch her, i stuc the top part of her cage in there with her and she promptly ran into it and i dumped her back in. she may never get fed again.
van woke me up at 4 am this morning climbing into bed and tossing for 2 hours until his brothers woke up to watch tv. i (and baby) slept until 745 this morning. i was shocked. i got out of bed, took a quick shower then went to check on her. she was sitting up in bed playing with her crib toys. when i came home for my lunch break, she was heading down for a nap and slept from 1-4:30... i dont know if she is growing (other then her hair at least) or if the past couple days of feeling off adn teething had knocked her out, but i am seriously hoping for a repeat performance tomorrow.
tomorrow the kids and i are heading out early to go pick from our garden and do some weeding. afterwards we will head to laundramat then get donuts (from the local best with some spare change i have) while it washes. we will be heading home to dry it and get some housework done but i think we will spend most of the day at the pool. i want to give the kids some down play time... anyways. i am sure i will hear your voice in a little while, but i wont talk long tonight. love ya!

dear john-

2010-06-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

tomorrow is my last day of work! (for a few days anyway) I am super excited to have a break! your daughter woke up at 5:05 today, but didn't seem sick at all. I guess the puke at the grocery store was just a fluke. she was crying and grouchy and i was worried we were in for another long morning but she curled up on me and fell back asleep in our bed and let me sleep til 720! It was much needed! the job has been really fun but it makes for long days. today with the younger class we worked on our fathers day cards. the kids had a great time making them and sully was really excited to make this for you but we need an address of where to send it. i took pictures of each of the kids in the class to put in the cards and developed them after the swim meet tonight (which was a disater btw. taking 5 kids to the drug store after a swim meet while they are all dripping wet and without dinner at 8 pm is a baaaaaad idea) jo had a playdate this morning w. the twins and the kid you dont like;-) so he came to work with me and the twins mom picked him up and took him to the park. i was really glad she was willing to do that and he didn't miss out. I am worried about how much he will miss his friends next year when school starts and he isn't going. Jo came back to art camp this afternoon and had a really great time. We are doing a unit on Egypt so we have been working on several related projects and there is a kid in the class from Egypt (actually several) and they speak the language and know the culture, so that was a pretty cool coincedence for us. we've made cartouches, made scrolls by making paper, today we made a heiroglyphic mosaic. They've made salt maps of Egypt and the Nile and today we started a mixed media painting on muslin using metallic paints. Aside from Egypt projects, the older kids made a painting out of black posterboard, neon paints and aluminum foil and had to research phospecent bays. they really enjoyed that one as well. It has been such a fun perk to be ableto have van go to class with me in the am and jo in the pm. M will be in my next session and we will be doing very similar projects with a slight twist due to a couple kids repeating the course (spyix out of clay instead of a cartouche, etc.) both of our kids have had a great time in the class, but jo is taking things away and is dissapointed it ends tomorrow. He has made a few good friends that he hangs out with, 2 of them are kids from tkd that he really likes which is nice for him. he has also made friends with a little boy who was the only kid in the class of 22 that didnt have another kid from the same school there. Everyone else knew at least 1 other kid but this boy and he and Jo are very similar in build and interests. It has been a good week for both of them! (van has 3 kids from his preschool in camp with him and is having a blast.) After work today i rushed home, took the sitter home and rushed to kids to a 5 pm swim team warm up. (i got home from work at 430...) i didnt feed them ahead of time but did pack some snacks. We only swam against 1 other team tonight so the meet went super fast, and they only had free and back and our kids weren't even on a relay so we were able to leave early and get to the drug store to develop pictures. when we finally mad it home i made them spaghetti and opened 3 cans of oranges (which is the only thing diva ate) and threw all 5 of them in the shower and staight to bed. they all fell asleep pretty quickly but i also threatened to take away weekend wii time and tv privelages so maybe they were just quieter about it tonight then in the past few days. I am def. not travelling this weekend. I am just to tired and the kids are bummed but they haven't had any free time at the pool since the sitter isn't comftorable taking them so i think we can have a great time here relaxing and swimming. i also have to cut the grass since frank has cut his twice now. i suppose i will borrow the across the streets mower 3 more times before our lease ends... speaking of lease endings.... when we made paper with the pm class, i took the screen door off of our back porch to give the kids a screen with a frame to work their paper out onto. it worked perfectly and the kids were very carfeul with it but the all thought it was really funny that i had taken it off our door (not that it stays on...) ok, diva is awake and crying, i am going to start an episode of arrested development and hold ehr til she goes bakc to sleep (she is getting all 4 canines and is about to finally lose that toenail... she just keeps picking at it...) ok. goodnight!

dear John-

2010-06-16T19:14:00.001-07:00

I finally got the computer up and running tonight! It was great talking to you earlier this evening, but I forgot to tell you a few kep oints of our day: first off, sweet girl had not thrown up again, but we snuggled and she watched so you think you can dance with me and applauded their efforts. She really seemed to enjoy watching them. Ok: our house is running a very comftorable 80 degrees, but not squeaking. Should i call maintenance or let it go? I cannot wait to finally move and get out ofboxes for the first time in 3 weeks. Having our moved delayed has actually been really good for us, financially and stress wise. since our amazing babysitter lives super close it has made my driving much easier. Her mom has been bringing her in the am and then I drop her off at home when I am done for the day. It has worked out great! when we move next week the class after that week is held across town at our fav. school so it will mean a ton of driving. I think ym van is getting sicker. I may just be paranoid bc I know i pay way close attention to how it feels, but I think it is chugging worse today then last week. We may have to bite the bullet and sink some money into a downpayment for something else. I will be really irritated to have 2 car payments but i am wondering if we have any other choice now. i will def. start looking bc i really want to be able to travel some this week and there is a certain car trip to a place up north that I will be missing at this point.
diva is almost out of diapers. i am really not wanting to buy another pack but would feel super ghetto washing diapers in the laundramat. guess tomorrow i will go pick up a pack to get us through next week.
k i supose that is all that i didnt tell you on the phone... have a great night!
go to mexico and find george for me while you are down that way!

Dear John-

2010-06-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

First I have to tell you that your old computer drives me crazy and part of me wishes we had already fixed the old desktop, even if it meant paying the monthly fee... (the other half of me is still super cheap and not tooo irritated.) anyways...
Van fell asleep crying last night. he was being a huge pain in the butt to his brothers since they are all still sleeping on the floor in the playroom. he was jumping on them and at 9 still hadn't settled in. i made him come lay in our bed and he fell asleep holding the picture of you from your dresser, the one where Jo is a baby. I sang him his goodnight song and he sobbed the whole time. he finally fell asleep and i carried him to bed. I was asleep by 930 last night.
I am finally becoming a morning person. After 10+ years of being married and you always having to get up early with the kids I am finally pulling my weight. miss thang woke up again this morning in the 5 am hour. I was having a crazy dream (that I actually remember: I was in some bizarelly small town and they had built all of these institutional type buildings inbetween there really cute quaint buildings. when i was walking through the village they were wrecking all of the houses down. They had had the olympics there and when they ended they were ripping all the buildings down so people wouldn't come visit... weird...) anyways I was dreaming away and i heard her yelling at me from the other room. I am very diappointed as I would have loved to have had a few more minutes of sleep (like maybe 90ish) I pulled her into bed with me and she was mad about everything. the hole in the foot of her pajamas (so i stripped her) then realized she was poopy so I changed it. then she wanted a water cup so i grabbed the princess one without thinking. It leaked all over my shirt and our sheets so i tossed it across the room and went and got her another one which of course was no longer good enough. I finally got up at 6 when she started asking for "beffast". We were done at the grocery store by 745 am. work was fun today. i was really glad to have an excuse to leave for a while today as I was exhausted with her by the time it was time for me to go. the babysitter had a better day today also. She followed my schedule to a t mon which meant that even though baby girl was tired and crying by 10, she kept her up til 1 bc of the schedule. today I assured her to deviate as neeed. Miss thang went down around 1020 and slept for 2.5 hours and was so much more pleasant all afternoon. I am really glad, as I am really not wanting to scare sitter away. She brought the avatar the last something for them to watch and they loved it. They are even doing their schoolwork for her without whining. the older 3 boys have had swim team yesterday and today in the am and have practice tomorrow night after scouts and thurs. morning. hopefully they will do well on thrus night swim meet. M is actually loving it the most, which is totally a surprise to me. tonight when I got home from work i realized i had to go to the laundramat def. to wash my 2 work shirts. I took all the kids to the laundramat to throw the wash in and then took the kids to our fav. tues night dinner place for food. I had no desire to cook. baby girl and van were both crying (baby bc she is a punk and van bc he was starving hungry)

dear john-

2010-06-14T15:42:00.000-07:00

i started my new job today! it was long but mostly fun. i was glad to be home tonight in time to cook dinner and was even gladder (i know...) that i missed the kids and the house was still standing. let's see if i can make it through the week. I dont know how working single parents do it! they seemed to enjoy having a sitter all day even though it made me super frustrated to realize more then half of my take home pay was going to be enjoyed by the sitter (again, how do they do it?) I never made it to the grocery store today so we have even less to eat tomorrow then the meager choices today, but dinner for tomorrow is already ready (country style ribs w. mexican rub, corn, and a salad, if i make it to the store tomorrow after work) I also now need to go to the laundromat as the kids have run through clothes like only you can imagine and we still are without a washer. its really sad bc i dont have any cute stories to tell you about our day or funny things the kids did. i can tell you little miss thang woke up at 530 today... good thing i went to bed by 10 last night! i am sooo tired that it may be even earlier tonight! i am letting the kids watch a tv show they really wanted to watch sun but made them go to bed instead. our 4 year old cried a bit off and on last night but really hasnt had to many issues today. the kids missed Xfit due to lack of rides but made it to swim team. they have practice every day this week exceot fri and a meet thurs. night. hope you had a great day and i will try to get pictures up tomorrow, if i take any! happy monday!
-your wife

2010-05-26T19:06:00.000-07:00

Oh, hey... I have a blog... guess it's about time it was updated... There is a very good reason I have been such a bad blogger. The computer I am using while the man of the house is out of town is this old:

Jonas Dec. 24

Taylor- mid dec.

Mason- mid dec.

anybody want to take a guess as to the year? 2004. In computer years, its like 72 years old. really. it takes literally an hour to load and get online. so anyway. we are flying through the last few weeks of school. I cannot wait! this year has totally flown by and i am really excited for summer time. In fact, I even made a list of goals: 1. quit job 2. swim a ton 3. teach the kids to clean the whole house and 4. teach sully how to swim... should be a great one

quick updates before i sign off for night (and maybe the rest of better computers absence) Baby girl has gotten so big. I'll have to post a recent pic soon bc her hair has gotten so long and she is losing the baby look and looks so old all of the sudden. she is so hilarious. she has gotten tons of words recently like "princess", "pretty" "poop" and can say most of her brothers names, cup, and many others. she is trying to potty train herself and says potty as she tries to strip all of her clothes off. today i needed a few minutes to try to finish packing some boxes (we're moving in 4 weeks) and put the wiggles on for her. she is not a tv girl so i sat with her for a few minutes to try to get her interested. They came on the screen and she freaked out and started signing and saying all done. She grabbed onto me and wouldnt let me put her down. I turned it off and took her into the back of the house with me. A few minutes later she walked halfway down the hallway then turned around and ran back screaming all done. I am pretty sure she will have nighmares tonight (not that i blame her at all, those guys are super frightening)

sully is finishing up his preschool year and is signed up for k next year! we are both very ready. he finished up his season of soccer last week and was on the golden pumacougarkittydoggy team (coach let them name themselves....) he also used black makeup and gave them kitty whiskers every week in order to intemidate the other team. they looked awesome. he scored at least a goal per game and had a blast playing. He started a new kids class today at a local gym called crossfit (the older boys started there a little while ago) and had a blast!
T, Jo, and M are all ready for school to be out. I am still planning on homeschooling jo although we got a solid diagnosis on him this past week and after starting correct meds this week i think we may finally have him a little more under control (such a relief!) I am already noticing a difference in his diet and the way he feels. (he was having a hard time working through the school day bc he never felt well) he finishes his SOLS fri and has done pretty well the last few weeks of school! I pulled all the kids off of Tae kwon do bc the violence level in our house kept rising and started them at a gym called cross fit (see if you have one.. it is INTENSE!) my kids have muscles i never knew existed! the coach has them doing box jumps (t can jump a 24 inch box with 500 reps!!!) and jo and t can make it to the top of a roof level rope... its pretty fun watching the kids do things the adults have lost the ability to do, and i am amazed at the things my older boys can do. they totally make me look weak (who am i kidding, i totally am...) so i have been working out in the mornings doing biggest loser bootcamp.... it hurts... ok. thats all

2010-03-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

It's Spring time, and around here, that means it's spring clear out time! We are getting ready for (another) move. Despite our best plans to stay in this house all 4 yrs. of med school, nobody mentioned to our rental company our desires to stay here with a resonable rent, so alas we begin the spring clear out to get ready. we will move in july across town to a place half the size of our current residence. CLS has already caught the bug and it seems that everytime i turn around she is dumping something else in the trashcan... today it was sippy cups, socks, and the dinner she didn't want. In big news... I finally weaned her!! this is a huge accomplishment and to celebrate, she slept through the night last night. We aer over joyed, to say the least!

Jo turned 9 earlier this month! I did wrap his present in candy can wrapping paper left over from the holidays, but he didn't seem to mind to much! the lego kit stayed together less then a week before being shattered. this is the last kit he will get for a loooookng while.

we met with his teacher mon. who has been expressing major concern for him recently. He is not doing well in the classroom. He is a B/C student, but is not speaking in class and is struglling in a few other areas. We have decided to pull him from our beloved school. He and i are attending the open house for the local catholic school in town, but he (and I) both are planning to homeschool next year. the open house is so we can say we explored all options. And I am totally excited abt having him home next year! I put in notice with my job that I won't sign a contract to return, and have already begun building lesson plans involving many art [projects and hands on science, since that is really how he learns best. We are also having him tested for some food allergies to see if some of these issues are dietary.

CLS went to the Dr. this month for several flus and FINALLY hit the 19 pound mark! I am so excited, as this has been a long time coming, but her attitude is becoming stronger by the day, even if her weight isn't....

looking forward to spring break next week!!!!

ob la di, ob la da...

2010-02-15T19:44:00.001-08:00

jonas- dec. 04

i feel like a superhero... my sidekick has been out of town for 16 days, the kids have been to school once in that time and i didn't lose it... in fact, i have LOVED this. my house has been (overall) cleaner then normal, i did my once a month grocery shopping w. all 5 of them (it took 2.5 hrs, and I saved almost 30% of my totalbill using coupons) and then cooked 30 freezer meals, i started 4 quilts, and baby girls scrapbbok, the boys have been great abt. playing with their sister (who is walking-ish now) and they didn't play wii all day (um, most days...) some days its the small things that matter... we have been BLESSED with like a million inches of snow and they have been to school 2 full weeks since dec. 15th. unfortunantly tomorrow, the kids return to school, i go back to work and the speed of life will catch back up with us. in the meantime, i will revel in my superheroness and pretend it's amazing abilities that helped me get so much done rather then 3 weeks of being snowed in. heres to hoping that the 40 rumored inches of snow that are suposed to hit on the 24th come quickly and that someone comes over to take my kids sledding, because i have had enough of that.

go to facebook if you wanna see the pictures...

2010-01-12T18:23:00.001-08:00

So... we've been here, busy, and out of the loop... It's been nice! In Oct. or Nov., the family computer caught a virus... badly, and we have yet to fix it. Then my cell phone broke (and broke again) and I lost all my contacts. twice. despite the frustrations, i have spent much less time online and connected to others and have spent much more time playing with the kids, cleaning the house, and spending time with John. It's been very nice to step back. Have I even blogged Halloween?? I have no clue where i even am here.. i have never been a good journal(er?) and that has proven very true here!
Thansgiving was spent once again at the beach with good friends, good food, and many memories... We headed back to the Beachy Keen house for the third year at the OBX. A big storm had knocked out all of the beach access and had washed out a lot of the dunes. It was sad to see so much damage. Ginger and I drove down to the beach access and got stuck in her 4 wheel drive the beach was so messed up.. that led to a looong walk back to the house before we were rescued (thanks popes!) with many adventures for Sullivan and Audrey... we loved ssing our good friends the marshalls, whom we have missed dearly since they left bburg last year, and it was fun to see the regulars at the beach house. We went with 3 current families from our ward and it was so fun getting to know them in new ways... thanksgiving is a favorite holiday of mine. I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude as I reflect on our wonderful year. While there have been bumps, and even a few spikes in the road for us this year, we are well protected, have been surronded with beautiful, healthy children, and have our needs met. We have been blessed with good friends, who set great examples for us, and a wonderful extended family. these is nothing else I could ask for in my life..... there was an experience at the beach that reminded me of the blessing of family and protection where we had a scary moment happen to one of the families children that could have been a very serious accident, and thanks to the careful eye of friends, and the guidance of the spirit, turned out fine...
Once we were home from our trip, it was time to get ready for Christmas! John and I have been working really hard and doing the Dave ramsey thing so we did an all cash Christmas. It was so nice this year to have that stress gone and was a great learning experience.... We cut way back on the extras, and the kids didn't even notice. It was awesome to focus on our nightly Christmas book moments where we shared scriptures, stories, and carols to candlelight. Those are the things I know the kids will remember, as those sweet moments are what I remember from my childhood. It was such a sweet experience to put Christ more centered in our everyday lives as we went through December. Conversations were had with our children that we usually rush through in everyday life. I am grateful we slowed down and really appreciated what we experienced in Dec.
T and Jo started violin in Sept. and we LOVEd the first concert in mid. dec. T was very serious abt. it and played every note to the best of his ability. jo didn't rosin or tighten his bow and prob. didn't even play half the notes, but performed his heart out! It is so funny watching how different they are, esp. when we watch them side by side in moments like that! Also in Dec. we had the chance to go to a local university and watch my little sister perform as a lead in the play liza and the Riddling cave. the makeup and costumes were amazing, and she was so funny to watch. The kids loved the show and the chance to meet the cast afterwards.
A few days before Christmas, we got a major snow (12-18 inches, depending on whom you ask...) and the boys had a blast having Dad take them out every night til 9. we live in a great neighborhood that has some of the best hills in town and also a huge college community so they built ramps and jumps... sore bottoms and cold fingers later, they would come dragging home, all crying from exhaustion, ready for that big cup of hot chocolate where they would plan the next nights sledding plans, much to dads chagrin...
Due to the snow, we had to tweak our travel plans.. we spent Christmas at home adn had a nice quiet morning...or as quiet as Christmas can be with 4 boys getting nerf guns.... and then headed out that afternoon to visit my parents. The next day we went to Richmond, where we were surprised with a ring on my grandfathers girlfriends hand! It was super cute!!!!
New years was spent watching the hokies WIN at our good friends house, then T, CLS, and i headed to Jersey to visit my sister, her husband and their new baby... Heather took us around atlantic city, and my 9 yr old fell in love with it... He loved the lighthouse in the middle of town, the boardwalk and the waves, and exp. all the casinos... taj mahal was his favorite. We are so greatful for their hospitality in having us for the weekend, and was wonderful to be there while they blessed their sweet baby girl!
now? back to life... the kids all started back to school early jan. we have missed several days this past week due to stomach flu, and I am sending all the kids back to school tomorrow... I am really looking forward to that! I went to the dr. a few days before tgiving and was diagnosed with hyper thyroid after losing 7 pounds in 2 weeks and a ton of hair... it has caused me to be super grouchy and tired... I am looking forward to getting that straightened out this coming month... other then that, life carries on... I will be back in 2 months;-)

sad realization

2009-11-05T16:08:00.000-08:00

What I want....
What I have...
I have been really trying to learn a lot more abt photography and editing photos. I have recently come to the horrible conclusion that my "new" camera sucks, and doesnt have a high enough mega pixel count to BLOW my photos up. Bummer.

anybody else mad about this??

2009-10-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

http://news.aol.com/article/hot-mormon-muffins-calendar-debuts/737136?icid=mainmaindl2link6http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fhot-mormon-muffins-calendar-debuts%2F737136

Long overdue....

2009-10-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

Ugh. I hate it when i reverse the order on all my pics... it drives me crazy! Ok... just wanted to post some pics and tell my faithful 2 readers whats been going on! First and foremost... CLS has been impossible recently. Her bangs come down to her mouth but still arent long enought o tuck behind her ears so I have to do her hair every morning. What a chore! Her new favorite thing to do while I work is suck the water out of the spray bottle, eat the brush, and try to take the rubberbands out of my mouth (I have to put them in my mouth to stretch them and she grabs them adn tries to eat them... turkey)

CLS turned 1 on the 17th! You can check out her blog for more cute pics!

She got a walker for her birthday and the baby (whom I named Kensington since John wouldn't let me name an actual child that...) fit perfectly! hopefully this will give her some MUCH needed motivation to walk (hasn't happened so far though)

I made new friends! They are slightly mental and need very pateint people in their lives and I'm the one! Ok, not really, but we did have a great time making tutus together and then they were brave enough to model their works of art. I learned how to make tutus and have made plenty for CLS... she HATES them!

M turned 7 in early Oct. We had a pokemon party with ALL the leftover from where T turned 5 (4.5 years ago!) It felt great to get all the plates and cups out of my closet! We borrowed a HUGE bounce house from a friend that took up our entire basement and the kids had a blast!!! He is still such an easy going kid and is loving first grade!

The birthday boy!

The oldest three got their green belts in tae know do!

Here they are rocking it out at testing

Van started back to preshcool! He is going 5 mornings a week trying to get him ready for K next year.

Van turned 4 in Sept! He is such a funny guy with plenty of attitude.

In fact, when i got the pic of him holding up 4 fingers developed, he asked me why I didnt print the one of him being grumpy...

We celebrated his bday with a star wars party... The lightsabers were a huge hit and the result of many injuries (pool noodles and aweome duct tape!) th eyoung jedis were super wild, but the weather was great so John put them through jedi training camp in ourbackyard.

I spent my whole summer working on Joseph and the technicolor dreamcoat. before you enlarge the pic to find me in a ridiculous costume, ill just say i wont be found;-) I played in the pit as part of the Paroahs pilharmonic and had a blast! The part was pretty staight forward but not boringly easy. It made this semester of orchestra be so boring bc of how much fun we had working on a play! the show turned out great, and it was really fun for me to do something that required brain power!

We took a summer vacation to Charlotte, NC thissummer and stayed with the bro-in-law and family. We went to Carowinds one day to give the boys their roller coaster fix and downtown Charlotte the next. We went to the Childrens museum and walked around downtown. it was the first time my poor sheltered children had ever riden a metro or been in a big city... They ha a blast! We got back at 10 pm the night before school started for them... not the best idea, but the best time!!

Currently you ask?? All the kids and John have swine flu. its been almost a week and van just got it today so it looks like we have almost a week to go... heres hoping they are to sick to go trick or treating, as we have no costumes and i HATE the candy...

2009-09-29T16:48:00.000-07:00

Iknow its been a while since i posted... Sullivan celebrated a birthday and I have taken tons of pictures, but i have been just so busy recently, and eveytime i get on to actually do a blog update, I get distracted. It's worth it, I promise~

and my niece finally came!

2009-08-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

Congrats to Heather and Fredy who welcomed baby Bella to their family!

http://perezposts.blogspot.com/

2009-08-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

The 1994 yellow mustang, with 77,000 miles... a gift from Grandad to Daddy when he was still a teenager! Many people know him from his car... I see him on the bypass driving and know it's him. We talked about our kids having this as their first car when they are old enough. We planned to garage keep it and restore it.

His drivers seat. No longer attached to the floorboards, this seat is totally falling apart. 2 years ago there was barely a tear at the top.

His dad's old phone.. Do they even make these anymore? The phone is perhaps worth more then the car itself...

The roof. Totally ripping up both sides. We were excited the day we found white duct tape, as it matched much better then the silver he had been using.

the wheels are so pitted he has a tire that is always flat that has to be filled with air at least every other day. the tire shop has worked on it so many times and has finally said the seal is the best it will be at this point. (taken in oct. 2007)

We had to sell the mustang today. It was actually really sad. I have tons of pics of friends and kids in that car, and many memories of driving around with Daddy in the car. One favorite is when we were driving north and we passed his sister driving her 93 yellow mustang coming south. He found a wonderful tradein at a local dealer and was able to negotiate a pretty fair trade in. I never thought I would see the day that he initated the purchase of a more family friendly car. This will get much better gas mileage for rotations next year though and can actually fit most of our family. All 4 boys rode home with him today and actually fit really well. I am so excited that he finally has a car that is "new" and one that he picked out, but we are so grateful for the mustang as it lasted 10 wonderful years for us, and saved us a ton of money from car payments.

the other kids were already buckled into the backseat. they were to excited to wait!

The Summer Museum Tour

2009-08-28T17:12:00.000-07:00

While John was (still) busy with boards related things, the kids and i headed to my parents house for a week. During that week, we hit 3 different "play museums" with the kids. They got to touch all sorts of marine life including sharks, ride in manned maneuvering units, and learn about holograms. They played with colorful shadows, built huge structures with PVC pipes, and learned how wind moves objects. They watched butterflies emerge from a chrysalises in a butterfly garden and touched madagascar hissing cockroaches. They experiemented with arch structures, orbits, and mirrors. But most of all, they learned that their Gritty can have a lot of fun playing with the toys too! Thanks for such a great gift mom! We have used the museum membership pass at 4 different museums in the past month, and LOVED every minute of it. Education beyond what the classroom can offer!

I am WOMAN!

2009-08-26T18:11:00.000-07:00

This was summer of the boards for us. John took a very time intensive (read expensive) class that ran most of July, including weekends to teach him everything VCOM never bothered to the first go round to (what exactly does the 35,000 a year do then, if they dont teach the students? Glad you asked... you shoudd see the lawn...) It was really hard having him so busy but still around. I think next summer when he goes to texas for most of the summer it will actually be a little bit easier bc he will just not be here, rather then jsut being here but to busy... anyway. so it was hard, but he took the boards on the 13th and so we actually got to see him a little bit and the boys got to spend some time with him before they went back to school on the 19th! Anyways.... during july, when he was so busy, our ward was having a campout, and the kids were so excited to go, so we packed it up and headed out without John. i was so nervous, but it actually went ok. I went out on thrus. with 2 of my friends who were also husband-less adn we had a great time! There were a few rules that I broke in the effort to make it easier.
The first rule- I let my oldest run around like this. For a whole day. With a bandana.

2. CL attacked this poor sweet boy, and i let her, because she wasn't eating dirt in there.

3- i fed her all sorts of things I shouldn't have. fried donuts, watermelon, anything i could reach to keep her happier in her stroller because she wasn't eating dirt there either.

4- I didn't make my kids wash their hands or faces before meals.

5- they played in a creek all day. they even drank a fair amount of it

6- they (again) tended their own fire all day.

We had such an awesome time! it is nice to know that i can take them all out like this and do things with them now. WE headed out thurs. and got to camp right as it starte dto get dark. I pitched my tent way far away from Mels and Stephanies due to location and we went over to their fire to make banana boats. At 10, we headed back to our tent and realized how far we were from them (in the whole camp, us 3 girls and our kids were about the only ones) and it was totally creepy so we dragged our tent all the way across a site so we could be closer. The kids all slept amazingly well and it got really cool! The kdis all played in the creek and in the fire the next day and I barely saw the older boys. Van spent the day eating marshmellows with his friends and that night by the time the rest of the ward had arrived, felt totally sick. At 10 he threw up by our fire so I packed EVERYTHING back up and showed up on our doorstep at 11. We had to throw all the kids int eh tub they were so gross and several of the swim trunks ended up in the trash too... Next time i will prob. be more careful with what they wear...

campfire donuts!!!

I was so proud of myself! I learned how to pitch our tent, light our lantern, start my own fire, and cook over our camp stove. I know that prob. sounds lame, but it was a great experience!

Cousins came to town!

2009-07-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

Some of me favorite memories as a child were the many weeks I spent in Pa and NY visiting with my cousins during the summertime. I got to go see several Broadway plays, run all over New york City, explore Pittsburg (without adult supervision...), ride the inclines, and swim in the lake daily. It was always so much fun and I looked forward all year to the next adventure with my cousin Megan. This year, we had the chance to begin what will hopefully become a long standing tradition for our kids! With my little nephew still in the NICU, our family thought it would be fun to have the cousins that used to live in town with us back in town for a visit. July 4th I met them in Charlotte with a few of my kids, where we had a late breakfast with Johns brothers family and there sweet girls and Johns sister and her 3 boys that i was bringing home for the week. We hightailed it back home to celebrate the 4th. and we had a blast! I had to play in our towns holiday concert and we made it back just in time for that. After the concert, the boys lit sparklers and had a snap war with the poppit things that you throw on the ground.

Van LOVED the fireworks this year!

CL was less then impressed and slept through most of the display

the firework display was a lot shorter this year then normal, but there were tons of big ones!

My nephew B- he LOVED sparklers and i burned my thumb countless times lighting almost 100 of those suckers

E and A after the fireworks.. traffic was horrible after the fireworks so rather then sitting in the car fighting traffic for an hour we went back to the park and the kids played til almost 11 pm before heading back to our house to do even more sparklers (what can i say...we love to party!)

some friends from church had these things that lit on fire and they would grow... they were totally gross, but of course since my kids are pyros.... they had Jaren see how many could be stacked on top and still light and Jaren totally got into seeing how many they could light at once...

more sparklers

my nephews! On the way back into town we stopped at an old navy and got all the cousins matching shirts! (I am such a dork, I know, but I was really excited abt. it!)

our towns patriotic concert... we played the real 1812 overture but had to use a computer for the cannon sounds... the town wouldnt even let us use the fake cannon that they use at football games...

We had so much fun with the cousins here! We went blueberry picking...

gotta love child labor! they helped me pick 10 pounds of berries!

B quickly gave up on picking though!

and van only ate... their buckets were still empty when we left an hour later

and we swam almost every day!

and we celebrated A's 9th birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY A!!!

CL enjoyed the dessert!

When it was time for cousins to go home, Their mom met us in a nearby town midway from Johns sister Stephanie. She brought her family up for a dinner one evening. I got to see all of my nieces and nephews this week, a totally rare event! We had such a great time with the boys this week! Thanks for sharing them Mike and Lauren!!

2009-06-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

It is so worth putting that to bed to wake up to this:

CL: 8 months old

where the road goes from here

2009-06-23T07:08:00.000-07:00

Summertime, and our house is cleaner then normal... Kinda goes against the laws of nature! I always forget (until summertime finally rolls around again) how much I really enjoy being home. The school year for us is always such a chaotic whirlwind or commuting kids to school, work, after school sports, play dates, meetings... I really love the slower pace the summer offers us and the chance to recommit to the house. During the school year our family spend very little time home. I once figured out how much we pay per day to live here, and was appalled at how little we use it for that cost. By the end of the summer, I often feel stressed and burned out from the long hours, but for now, I am loving it! We have a great schedule that involves my kids sitting down in the morning and doing school work, some tv/video game time and pool time almost daily. the only commitment we have is tae kwon do, and that schedule is flexible. Every summer morning I wake up questioning my decision to go back to work in the fall. I am having a really hard time with this. The main reason I work is to pay for Vans preschool cost. We love the preschool he attends, and we have been there for 6 (going on 7) years. The teachers have changed very little and our family is comfortable there. Last year, I worked really hard and made no take home money above and beyond tuition. It makes me feel like C is suffering as a result. She is on no schedule and gets no naps most days. I love the job in the fact that my kids are right there and I dont miss anything they are doing, but hate having to take my baby into a classroom full of snotty kids. so here we stand, and I have a choice to make. if I stop working, Van stops going to preschool. He thrives on being busy and having lots of people around him. How long will it take for him to settle in to a less busy, quieter routine. His b-day is a late Sept. one. Do I pay for 1 more year of preschool then send him off to school at age 4 to be the youngest kid in his class? Do I pull him out of preschool for this year, then re-send him the next? I feel almost guilty pulling him away from his (wonderful) group of friends, but I know when we move in 2 years I will have those same feelings with all the kids.
Its time to sit down and focus on things that are really important and try to figure out what is going to work best for us at this time. This next school year is going to be one of many changes as John starts rotations and will be gone out of state for almost half of this next year. It reminds me of my favorite poem, the road not taken....

I just want to be able to look back on these next 2 years and KNOW that I did what was best for van, and honestly, I just don't know what that is yet...

the young kids wilderness survival guide

2009-06-14T19:17:00.001-07:00

After a camping trip where our family took a week and camped in new york, we realized we still had a lot to learn abt. camping with several little kids. luckily, for us, our ward planned a cub scout camp out, and we were able to perfect our camping technique. We learned many valuable lessons during the camping trip, and we would love to share our wealth of knowledge with each of you. Here goes: 10 year old are practically adults. they are totally old enough to build, start, and tend their own fires. no adult supervision is necessary or appreciated. in fact, ts face says it all....

And what should the adults do while kids play with fire? I'm glad you asked! Bring a trebuchet. grownups get very bored camping and this helps alleviate boredom. it is not necessary to watch your kids while camping.... it's only woods around them. shoot the trebuchet at other campsites.

Dinner tastes better in the dark. Don't even start the fire until at least 7 pm. It only takes a few hours to get the coals ready and dinner cooked.

wild beasts are always on the move. beware, as they do bite.

allow the kids to put up the tent. that way, if it falls down during the night you can totally blame it on the kids!

propane helps any fire get going better. keep the kids away and let the dads play!

no hand feeding the animals! they bite!!!
hopefully this will help everyone have a very successful camping trip. please do not hesitate to ask any questions, we have plenty of experience!!!!

genius like this must run in families

2009-06-13T08:17:00.001-07:00

i don't mean to brag (but will anyway) but i have THE smartest kids! not only are they cute, calm, polite to the point where it hurts, read only classical lit... i could go on and on.... here is the newest great accomplishment...

just shy of 8 months old, my brilliant, beautiful daughter can already....

take off her own diaper...
next trick i fear will be finger painting in mixed mediums....

my new nephew!

2009-06-07T16:43:00.001-07:00

I've been waiting very pateintly (haha) f0r 10 days to see pictures of my new, tiny nephew! here they are!

http://www.hokiemarshmans.blogspot.com/

he is so beautiful! Welcome to the family John

2009-05-28T18:05:00.001-07:00

life gets away sometimes. so much has passed since I posted last..... I always have great intentions of updating my blog to reflect things going on and to be able to keep a record for when i finally pull out my scrapbook albums and catch them up but little moments continue to pass me by before I can remember to write them down and they they are gone.... Jo got baptized in April. it was beautiful and wonderful and completely terrifying. The accountability that falls on me scares me sometimes. Am I teaching my kids enough, or will I be held accountable? will the choices he make be good ones.... He continues to struggle as i continue searching for a diagnosis. I cannot for the life of me put my finger on what is wrong with him. I think one day when he is diagnosed with something everything will click into place for me. it sinks in at different times, but today it was as we were sitting doing homework, he couldn't tell me what 2+3 was. hes finishing 2nd grade. little moments like that hit home for me. I don't want him growing up struggling every step of the way. i look at him sometimes and wonder if he feels like he's drowning. M heard J telling me a homework problem and could answer it faster then jo. I don't want him constantly feeling overshadowed. i speak from experience that it is hard being stuck in the middle of 2 very intelligent siblings. i often resented my older and younger sister for how easy school came for them. i do not want to foster that same resentment in jo, but i don't know how to end it...

i have been feeling really lethargic recently. i am looking forward to the end of the school year and the change that it will bring for our family. we all need down time. i have a really hard time this time of year. our ward is every transient (as is our town) and every may brings more changes then i can handle.... good friends leave and the process of making friends only to have them move begins again. this year is hitting me esp. hard as some of my longest and best friends are leaving. i am anxious to have john graduate (as you can see from my ticker) but am nervous abt. residency too. I feel stuck in the middle of 2 hard places....

t, jo, and m get to test for their orange belt in a week! that means they get to start sparring! i am totally looking forward to seeing them get to fight, i think it will be good for some of them to get hit, and some of them to be allowed to hit... our instructor matches them well! I took a kickboxing/cardio class last night at their studio and loved it... it has been such a great place for our family to be.

van finished his preschool for the year. he is such a firecracker.... he has no inside voice and no mouth filter.... he keeps me laughing non-stop.... (when i'm not asking him to be quiet, at least)

cl amazes me everyday with how little sleep she can function on. she is still not sleeping through the night (she wakes up 2-5 times a night) and is still not napping more then 2 hours total during the day. i need suggestions!! crying it out doesn't seem to be working, she simply doesn't sleep....

our boys had their pinewood derby event a few weeks ago, and unfortunately, their cousins Adam and evans winning tradition did not rub off on them! Mike, give us help next year!!! they had a great time though, and i think we learned a lot about how to help them improve their cars for next year.

sorry for the total rambling post... i feel so overwhelmed right now with drama in so many different places (work, pto, kids) that i feel like my thoughts are so scattered right now... i need a vacation!!!!

it kinda feels like this

2009-04-03T19:22:00.001-07:00

my house is messy. not like toys on the floor messy. MESSY. DIRTY. It has rained for weeks straight and all the mud from outside is in my carpet messy. Breakfast gets eaten on our way out of the door messy. clothes get thrown in drawers (maybe) messy. easter eggs from parties opened and eaten and left for someone else to clean up messy. Thank goodness for Spring break... here's to 10 (yes, 10!!!) days of no work, school or commitments to clean it up and clean it out! (and until my house looks like the one above, please don't call social services... )

man I'm old (aka t turned 9)

2009-03-28T19:39:00.001-07:00

T turned 9 today. I would really like to know where my baby went... He wears a size 10 jean, a size 4 shoe, and is 50 pounds lighter then me... The day of him being smaller then me are numbered, and that to me is a scary thing.... We took him and 2 friends out today for his birthday. We went to tech to go bowling (gotta love the student rate of 1.25 a game!) then out to Red Robin (yummmmm) for dinner. We had a great time, and I won... (oops, not abt me, sorry!)

only in blacksburg does an outing require a picture with a bird... blacksburg is home to 75 of these hand painted hokie birds, and everywhere we go we run into them

yay! his very own Ipod! it was really funny to sit down with him and load it today. When Jo got his, we wanted the killers and fall out boy on his. T wanted Dave Matthews. They have such different tastes.

no cast!

John and I (ok, fine, I) am always amazed at the dress code in this town. All three of ts friends were wearing hokie shirts, John had on a hokie shirt, and I had on a VCOM shirt (same thing). Over our hokie shirts, three of us were wearing hokie sweatshirts. Obsessed, or is it just just because blacksburg could be the best place ever (Katie!!!)??

oh, look... did I mention I won? this was the grownups lane scores... I (kindly) kicked John, Carol and Seans trash! (and yes, i know 107 is not a great score... and yes, t's friend got a turkey, and almost beat me...)

CL was clearly impressed with her mothers amazing bowling skills. She told me herself.

ok! since I did it for Jo...

9 little known facts abt T:

(and I am bragging. It's his birthday!)

9. He reads at a 6-7th grade reading level. His favorite books are the Harry Potters.

8. he is a great soccer player

7. he has the ability to listen to a song a few times and memorize all the lyrics

6. he loves listening to musicals and singing along. Les mis and urinetown are his 2 favorites

5. He got glasses when he was 3. he saw a plane in the sky and bark on the tree for the first time ever.

4. He misses his best friend Andrew and hasn't made a new best friend since Andrew moved, which led us to discover he is actually kinda shy.

3. he loves scouts. he earned his bobcat in a week, his wolf in 10 months with 3 arrow points and is super excited to start bear now.

2. when he is embarrassed his (big) ears turn the brightest shade of red I have ever seen. It is extremely adorable and I love to make him blush by calling him my T smoochie kins

and number 1: He is such a loving and thoughtful big brother. if cl is crying and i am busy, I often come in to find him bouncing her, singing to her or even just holding her hand. He gives up his last piece of candy to a brother who is sad, and his seat at the table to avoid fights. He is awesome!!

The crowning of MR. VCOM

2009-03-24T17:48:00.001-07:00

Move over Miss America.... there is a much more prestigious beauty pageant around.... The Mr. VCOM pageant.... here are the doctors of tomorrow donning their most impressive scrubs, evening wear and showing off their very intense talents. Only 12 guys from the first and 2nd year classes were nominated, and John was one of them, so I made him do it!
Gone are the days where frilly dresses, spray tans and hair extensions win the award....

Check out the new generation of pageant kids.... the only thing missing is the stage moms (thank goodness!)

Here are all the contestants doing their very intense choreography to Sexy Back...

the talent competition was awesome! here is John performing his talent (reading a story to the boys, complete with awesome voices, and the Darth maul song from star wars during the wild rumpus in the wild things book)

Van kept waving to the judges and cracking them up... he was to cute!

Tommy ate chicken wings... Very impressive!

rapping... don't you love the outfit??

The overall winner (daniel), who tied for talent performing if you like it then you shouldve put a ring on it....

Chris singing an original song abt the evil prof. at VCOM (he tied for talent, and rightfully so!)

The best talent by far... a ribbon dance to the song chariots of fire...... it was absolutely hilarious... complete with Molly Shannonish leaps and stirrup pants... i was in tears

more talents...

the sashing.... these guys tied for best talent

and Daniel taking Mr. VCOM

all the guys... this was def. so much fun!

and we finally finished around 10 p... it was a LONG night for the kids but we had such an awesome time.. i don't remember the last time I laughed that hard! (and John shouldve totally won... I mean, look at him)

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh

2009-03-24T17:20:00.001-07:00

The naughty leprechauns came again... they of course made a huge mess, and ironically, it was only on surfaces that needed to be scrubbed... those smart creatures! they traipsed across our dining room table (hadn't been cleaned from breakfast), the oven door (cleaned never) the fridge doors (over a month) and ALL over the kitchen floor (don't even ask) then, the worst part of all, the left a huge rainbow on the dirtiest window of our whole house... man, how horrible. And the worst part? In order to eat the candy from the pot of gold.... that's right.... the kids had to clean up the leprechaun mess first! happy St. patricks day to all of you (even if you ain't got a drop of Irish blood in you)

van (Irish for black eyes) had to get his cast redone (he broke his first one) on St. Patrick's day, and opted for a very festive green one over his existing black cast. Here he is (sideways?? whats up w/ that??) showing you not only his new cast, but his perfect form high block. GO Van!

2009-03-24T17:13:00.001-07:00

Ever see the movie the three ninjas? Be scared..... a few of them will test for yellow belt in April. We have really enjoyed trying a new sport this spring!

Happy (much belated) birthday Jo!!!

2009-03-24T16:40:00.001-07:00

Jo turned 8 (march 6th) and we had so much fun celebrating his birthday! Since this was a big b-day for him (we do a big party at 8 since they are getting baptized, and it's a big deal, we also do parties at 5, and will do them at 12 and 16) he choose to have it at the bowling alley. He invited 9 friends, and they had a great time bowling. they turned off all the lights and did a boogie bowl- where all the kids bowl under the black light. He has the nicest friends!
The coolest part of the whole day was present time. Jo is a bit of a ham, and him and his friends all have their little inside jokes... Jo always claims his favorite food to be ketchup and that mustard is his worst enemy. he takes the joke so far as to claim to invent ketchup ice cream when he's older, and takes dares to eat ketchup on all sorts of weird food. For his birthday, not one but 2 of his friends brought him bottles of ketchup.... It made me think of a shirt his aunt has that says I put ketchup on my ketchup.... He should make her proud!

We scheduled his baptism for April so that more of his family can come into town for it... we are so excited to see all the cousins, aunts, uncles, and g-parents!!!

I am so proud of him. He is such an amazing little guy!!!

Here are 8 little known facts about Jo, to celebrate his birthday:

8. He loves to draw. He makes little books and illustrates them wonderfully! They usually involve a bad animal like a scorpion or a monster truck with fangs.

7. He has the most creative imagination.

6. He was 90% deaf until he was almost 2, suffered seizures as a baby, has gone through years of speech therapy, has to wear an eye patch several hours a day, and has a few other ongoing medical problems that would isolate other kids and he NEVER complains (other then abt the eye patch)

5. He weighs the same as our 4 year old and is often mistaken for M's twin

4. He is named after the weezer song, we didn't realize until later (when we started going back to church) Jo is a name in the scriptures. It makes me love the name even more now that we know who Jo was.

3. He is an Irish twin, born 11 months after his brother (technically, my first 3 kids are considered Irish, or Vatican triplets...). He was a huge surprise and his first few months of life are a complete blur. thank goodness for pictures! We are not however Catholic.

2. He has no athletic ability. He would much rather draw or build then to do anything sports related. TAekwondo is the only exception at this time.

and the #1 interesting fact abt Jo: He is the coolest kid I have ever met in my life. He prefers hoodies and baggy jeans, vans, picks out the coolest glasses and wears his ball caps crooked. He cracks me up every day with his quirky little ways and idioms. He is all around his own person, and he honestly doesn't care what people think about him.

Jo- thanks for being you! You make our family complete!!

Black is for ninjas

2009-02-28T15:11:00.001-08:00

it was time... it's been almost 3 years since the last broken bone in our house... this one at least has a better story then the last (m fell off the couch on mothers day a few years ago and broke his arm.) Thurs. was early release for the boys school. They got out at 1 pm and we usually use those days to do play dates. This particular day, t had a friend, jo had 2 (twin brothers), m had 1, then i had van and cl... lose count? that's 9 kids 9 and under...
WE spent a lovely usually warm afternoon playing outside. We walked to the park and then they "dug for treasure" in my back yard. A blissful afternoon... Around 4, I was loading kids in my car to take them home. I got back, and started looking around and realized mud was EVERYWHERE... on chairs in the dining room, on the stairs, in the hall, bathroom... no room was spared... I sent the kids downstairs to play so I could begin cleanup before dinnertime. I was granted 5 minutes of peaceful cleaning before the kids were upstairs screaming. Jo was crying because his head had gotten bumped by van. We quickly calmed him down, but van was still upset. i looked all over his head for a bump. I finally asked where it hurt. He pointed to his hand. the conversation went a little like this: "what hurts??!!" V: "my hand!!" "Your hand?? What did you do?" V: "I punched Jo in the head" We noticed it swelling, bruising, and becoming warm to the touch immediately. i called the ped. at 515 and they got him right in. John took him over and was referred to the ER. They x-rayed and called us back the next day. He broke a small bone in his hand. I took him yesterday to get the cast. Here in his own words, is the story of how he broke it...
Dr: Hey buddy, what did you do to your hand?
V: i punched my brother in the head.
Dr.: Why?
V: because m pushed me off the table so i punched jo in the head when I fell down.

When I asked M why he pushed van off the table, he shrugged his shoulders, and with the most angelic look replied "It was his turn"
van got defensive and yelled that it was not his turn, it was Jo' turn to be pushed of the table...

he chose a black cast bc he wanted to be like a ninja. my kids are weird.

to many firsts...

2009-02-28T14:35:00.001-08:00

cl is getting so big! we took her to her 4 month checkup on Feb. 17... she weighed in at 12.6 pounds and is 25 inches long. She is still such a joy to us!

we have been trying to start her on foods. She hates it all, much to my disappointment. My kids never seem to sleep well until they are eating a real dinner each night. these are pics from her very first attempt of a meal....

stupid reversed pictures... if you scroll down, then back up, you can see cls first haircut (which she screamed through..)... we paid 2.00 for her to get her bangs cut, and they even gave her a cute certificate to commemorate this special occasion. and just for the record, yes, this was what we used our university wards valentines day babysitting time for.... The lady who cut it was super excited as she had never cut hair on a person so young!

after all the rubber bands came out...

the before... her bangs when wet and straight were almost to her nose!

another circus

2009-02-28T09:38:00.001-08:00

I thought it would be fun to take our circus to the circus... I remember as a child being so excited when our elem. school passed out free kids tickets to the circus and our parents would take us. It seemed so magical and larger then life back then. Now? The circus makes me sad. I loved watching how excited my kids were to see the white tiger, or watching the elephant roll across the ring on a barrel. It was neat (in a very gross way) watching someone bend backwards and balance on their chins, and it was scary watching people hanging toe to toe and holding on by only their teeth.

However, it bothered me greatly to see the animals cowering in fear from a barbaric long haired man screaming at them. The gorgeous dogs had mange... the tigers were bored... the kids had a great time, and I will never point those things out to them. I want them to keep the magical feeling for a few more years, but I wish cirque de soleil would come. Now that is a circus I would love to take my circus to...

confession of a bad mom

2009-01-28T10:33:00.001-08:00

I did it. I swore as a younger mom I would never utter the words that came from my mouth today. on the way to preschool this morning, van began complaining (again) about a little kid who is constantly hitting him, bumping into him, and punching him. It is not being resolved at school in a way that makes me happy. In my classroom, we call parents and they come pick up their habitual offender. In the preschool class where this occurs, the child gets a treat if he stops after only hitting one or 2 kids... so today, i told van to just hit him back...

I fear i will get a phone call from preschool telling me that this is going on...

VICTORY is being able to say it...

2009-01-21T11:08:00.001-08:00

It seems in most families there is one kid who has no luck... In ours, its Jo... from birth, he has struggled with the weirdest health difficulties. Looking back and piecing it together, we realize they are all connected, but everything is clearer in retrospect... At birth, he weighed a whopping 6 pounds. After a few months of slow weight gain, he was diagnosed with borderline failure to thrive and gross motor delay. In his first year of life, he had 7 ear infections and several sinus infections. At 13 months, he had febrile seizures that sent him to the ER 2 times, once he quit breathing. At 18 months, still underweight, he went in for surgery where they put tubes in and took adenoids out, then 3 months later he went back in and had his tonsils out. He was tested at 90% hearing loss and wasn't speaking at all. After years of speech therapy and some movement therapy (which, to Johns chagrin, included ballet classes...) He seems like a normal, healthy and happy child now...

We switched the boys to a new dentist and yesterday was the first appointment. After he had seen all 4 boys, he called me back to his office to discuss each one with him. He immediately put Jo's chart on the bottom and said the concern needed to go last... When we got to his chart, the first thing he told me was that Jo has a shor... (where i interrupted, yes, shortened frenum (Ankyloglossia or tongue tied) , I know) he looked at me and asked why it had never been taken care of. His old dentist told me there was no need for it, and he couldn't do it.... Turns out, this leads to periodontal problems later in life. I knew he had one bc it led to his poor weight gain (he couldn't nurse well), which led to formula, which led to excess ear infections (my nursing babies have NEVER had ear infections...) the ear infections caused the seizures (bc of extreme temp spikes related to infections) , and it spiraled down from there... His speech therapist told us at the end of last year that he was speaking as well as he would ever be able to, and that she would continue working with him, but the r's will prob. never be clear.

On feb. 11th, jo will go in for a quick in office procedure where they will snip and stitch and his frenum will no longer be an issue!!! (and he'll get to eat a ton of ice cream!) the dentist seems to feel that this will help with his speech problems, and I am hoping the r sounds will FINALLY come!

(the frenum is the flap of skin that attaches the tongue to the bottom of the mouth. Jos' comes to the very front of his tongue, causing him to be unable to stick out his tongue very far, or curve it into the shapes to make clear speech sounds)

i need some help! (followed by some adourable pics)

2009-01-21T10:50:00.001-08:00

OK- here is a comp. problem that I am having that is causing some major issues...

I have several hundred photos in my Dec. folder. I always just upload them and leave them numbered as they upload (ie. Dec. 2008 359) I never go back and rename the files. The other day, I noticed they had gotten scrambled. so number 1 wasn't anymore, it was like number 24 and it was totally scrambled the whole way down. I moved all the photos around so that they were back in the right number and then double clicked to open them and realized that the images were now scrambled. If I look at Dec. 2008 1, the thumbnail shows me its a picture of Carlos, one of my super cute students. When i double click on the thumbnail, it opens to a picture of my brother kelly on Christmas. Why is this happening, and how do i fix it?? I have never heard of this happening before, and cannot figure out what I did... Ok, thanks! now for some pictures:

CL turned 3 months on the 17th! She shows no sign of losing her hair, loves to sit in her bumbo and loves to watch her brothers do just about anything! (she is also getting FAT! 12 pounds, 4 ounces)

Her hair is still so much fun to play with! She sits so patiently while i fix it, and it makes her look like such a big girl. When i leave her hair down, it gets in her face so I am trying to decide to cut bangs or let it grow...

Finally, I love Stephanie! Here she is holding CL while her super cute boys slept away, unaware that there mother was showing love to another baby... How very dirty of her! thanks for letting us crash your house, we love having you guys living so close!!!

jumping the gun a little bit....

2009-01-04T18:12:00.001-08:00

I am still trying to catch up my blogging. not because i think you guys are super worried abt how i spent my new years(looking at pics of friends on facebook), or what my kids got for Christmas (a wii), or any of that jazz, but because it helps me when I go back and scrapbook... so i know that this is jumping the gun on all of that stuff, but i just want to remember this while it is still fresh...

the past week, John and I spent a ton of time rearranging the entire house. we moved all 4 boys downstairs to the "green" room, the second "master bedroom" of the house we are in. that room had previously been the scrapbook/craft/iron pile holder/junk room. Everything from there went to the playroom for the week while we moved everything else around. we turned T and M's old room into an office, and put the bookshelves there, and van and jo room into cl's room. it felt so good to open up space from our main living areas and get CL out of our room ( i am sleeping so much better!)

having a girl has opened up a whole new world here... it may sound silly, but it has given me the chance to try my hand in things i have never tried... I have learned bow making recently, and am having a ton of fun trying different styles, and learning how to do simple things like making clips. It is neat to have new talents develop! This past weekend, I made cl a bow holder. Each of the kids have a monogram initial above their beds with their name stamped on it. I went a little further with hers, and am really pleased with how it turned out. It makes me want to go back and redo the boys and make theirs a little more fun. I also for the first time fixed cls hair before church this morning. She wears clips everyday to keep her bangs out of her eyes, but there are some really fun blogs i stumbled across like this one and this one that I love looking at, and they link to tons more each... its like an art form, and while i don't think i could ever see myself spending that much time on her hair, i remember sitting at my moms feet many mornings while she pulled my hair into a french braid or curled it in rollers for Easter and Christmas time. I remember how loved I felt as she spent time on that, and can totally see the drive behind it. I had a really good time fixing her hair this morning, and she smiled and cooed the whole time i played with her hair, it was really nice! When i finished, T announced that she looked hideous. I can see where he is coming from, without any hair in her face, she looked extremely fat and round! I do think hideous was taking it a bit far, though! I call them tiny messy buns... the rubber bands are the tiny ones you buy at the store, and then I threaded a black button through each band before putting her hair up.... I learned that from one of those talented above mentioned moms! I was really proud of myself, and think that i will try more tomorrow, but in the back (she has enough for 2 piggies in the back already!!)

on a side note... van has been "difficult" lately. i am sure it is a result of cl taking over his baby position, and hes not mean... just difficult. For example... he wanted to do something, i don't even remember what it was now, but he had been told no, and firmly, as he had asked several times. after sulking out of the room and thinking about it for a minute, he returned to tell us that "I will just say sorry later..." ugh

CL's Blessing

2009-01-04T07:50:00.001-08:00

We blessed CL the day after the reception in l'burg since so much of my family was already in town. Johns parents drove down to be there, and stef and her boys came down from Roanoke. It was such a wonderful day! I am so grateful for the family that was able to make the trip and be there with us, and we really missed those who could not.
My mom made her dress, and it was the same one I wore when I was blessed (28 years ago... YIKES!!!) and she looked beautiful in the white dress.... SIDE NOTE: my mom entered this dress into a contest and won best in show as well as best in the baby category in the chesterfield county fair in 1980.. the embroidery covers a lot of the dress, and it is BEAUTIFUL! my mom rocks!
I see a lot of my mom in CL, and I am so grateful my mom has talents I can only dream about. She passed on a box of my embroidered baby/toddler clothes for CL... i feel like I have been waiting for so long to put these on a kid!

John, CL, and Amy

Our whole crazy family...and the baby sleeps through it all!

My brother nate had to work, so he sent his girlfriend Tara in his place. She is so awesome, and i was glad she came! Johns mom
made it just in time, and brought Lisa and her mom with her. Grandma Haren had never met CL or Van, so I was really glad she could come! Stephanie came with her super cute boys, Jack and Alex, as well as her bro and sis in laws, Catherine and Todd... it is such a small world, as Catherine turned out to be my little sisters RA at college...

After the blessing, we headed to my parents house for some lunch. It was so fun to have my whole family together for the weekend, and it was great having a bit of Johns family be able to join us for the special day!

Alex, Stephanie, and Jack

4 generations!

Lyndsay and Tara

wedding reception pics

2008-12-30T10:47:00.001-08:00

my sister got married back in Sept. but waited until Nov. to have her local reception... a few pics for her! the cute couple! Heather and Fredy

peggy rogers, my papa, my dad, and my papas "lady friend"

holly, CL, susan

ew. gross... they're kissing

all of the originals: heather, amy, nate, kelly, holly, lyndsay and the rents: Bob and Sandy.. together for the first time in 2 months.... (that is totally a record, btw...)

the siblings

holly, t, cl, nate, and nates gf tara

a blast from the past.. my bff from elem. school! erica and amy

my super cute grandma...

please excuse the 1 handed typing. welcome to the family fredy!

I have a confession

2008-12-30T08:57:00.001-08:00

While we were driving to the beach, we passed this diner..... I guess it's like a landmark... If you've passed diggers diner, you're almost there! We look for it every year... This year, I thought it would be a good idea to stop there for breakfast on the way home. Diggers Diner celebrates all things grave digger. Grave Digger is a monster truck. Having grown up in VA all my life, and now living in an area where there are race tracks, monster truck shows, and rodeos, I have tried to shy away from them at every possibility. The thought of watching cars race around a track bores me to sleep. The thought of the smells of watching a rodeo makes me gag. the thought of the sound of a monster truck show has me running for ear plugs. But yes. It looks like I will now be taking the kids to such an event. The diner is located on the drivers property. It has a ramp to jump a school bus, all the trucks from the team, a workshop, tons of trucks... van is now obsessed with all things grave digger. Yesterday we were shopping at my fav. store (target) and I was a few end caps ahead of him. Over all of the crazy holiday bargain shoppers, I heard his sweet voice swell above the crowds: "Look mom, gravedigger!!" as he jumped for joy. Yes, grave digger. On the front of a greeting card. If I ever get a grave digger greeting card from somebody, I would cry. It does not seem like the kind of thing I would enjoy getting a birthday sentiment on. The grave digger wishes you a happy birthday??? Not for me.

on the plus side, in NC they are required to post sanitation scores in each public place serving food. the diner had a 99.9 score... and the food was really good...

tough guy poses

a fanta monster truck? that is practically heaven on earth for these addicts

vacation: how do i love thee? let me count the ways

2008-12-13T15:17:00.001-08:00

I've been meaning to post about thanksgiving ever since we got back from the beach and between work and kids, just haven't found the time to sit and upload photos, but now that the kids are out of school, time is all we have... We all enjoyed our second thanksgiving at the outer banks this year... here are a few of the things i love about this vacation...

time to be together as a family. uninterrupted, and on our own schedule and time... it is so peaceful.

time to sleep (and catch up on sleep)

friends we don't see as often as we wished

many kids for the boys to play with... (this year there were 18 adults and 27 kids in the house...)

a place for the adults to relax and veg out

water. lots and lots of (cold) water to enjoy

Thanksgiving football game on the beach

lots of sand to play in

the joy of being in nature, surrounded by what I feel are some of the most beautiful creations we have been blessed to experience

Good friends, who share wonderful experiences with us and our kids

We are so grateful to be blessed with such a wonderful group of friends. Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time of year, and i really enjoyed the chance to reflect on all the things in my life I have been blessed with.

a few random pics from before thanksgiving: CL got sick (again)a week before we needed to leave with an eye infection and horrible cold. She was sooo pitiful. Luckily the ocean air was exactly what she needed and seemed to feel better once we got there.

painting babies toes are harder then I expected...

great smiles!

Every childs dream

2008-11-18T10:21:00.001-08:00

M had a field trip yesterday to meet "community helpers" to go along with their communities unit they have been working on. In your town, community helpers are probably police officers, firemen, crossing guards... I can think of a ton of professions that could be labeled community helpers, and for them I am grateful. Imagine my surprise when upon reading the permission form, the community helpers they were to go meet were the trainers that work with the Virginia tech football team... don't get me wrong, i love football. In fact when John and I got married he didn't watch football at all, i am guilty for beginning that OBSESSION, but I still don't quite see how the trainers of those fine, well behaved grown men qualify as community helpers, but i digress.... So yesterday was the field trip. Our school usually has a hard time finding enough chaperone's and since it was my day off, I volunteered to go tour the football field, the tunnel, practice fields, etc. Upon arriving at the Merryman Center (home of trophies and hokie birds) and seeing the buses pull up, I realized I didn't need to worry abt. lack of volunteers. Every child but 2-4 depending on class, had a parent with them. 90% of the parents were dads. Ms eyes were wide the entire morning. I wish I had brought my camera... His cousins dads cousins (got that??) plays for the hokies and M was so excited to see marshman written everywhere.

They got to go through the tunnel and stand on the field and look all around at the 66,000 seats that are usually full and loud. They got to see trophies, the weight room where the players work out, practice squats. They were all excited the whole trip, and had a great time seeing all the things the football players get to do, but NOTHING brought excitement like when they got to walk through the players lounge. The lounge is not usually part of the tour, but one of the kids in ms class has a dad that works with the team so we got to see it. When the kids walked into the lounge, almost immediately they all started screaming that they were going to grow up and play football. Even the girls. The reason? the lounge had a big screen tv, a pool table, and abt 20 video game machines. (and Evans, asleep on the couch...) So thank you, K teachers, thank you for teaching my kids all abt community helpers. It was indeed a very productive field trip.

pictures

2008-11-08T18:18:00.001-08:00

it is so hard to believe CL is already 3 weeks old... the time has flown. Life with 5 has been crazy. (why did nobody ever warn me???) We have been blessed with an amazing baby. She almost never cries, and is so patient with the schedule we keep. I wanted to post some pics of the growth we have seen in her the past 3 weeks, and I will post Halloween later (we had an interesting evening...) So I'll start with the most recent (since blogger has reversed the order of my photos.... whats up with that?) CL was a butterfly for Halloween. her costume was extremely ridiculous, but i thoroughly enjoyed dressing her up with tights and wings... i have been waiting a LONG time for that! (and yes, that is a pink stroller she is sitting in, just couldn't re use the blue stroller!)

I love bows! I love her hair! 1 week old

we enjoyed a visit from Stephanie and her adorable boys when she was 6 days old. her boys were slightly interested, its so hard to believe they were that size just over a year ago, they grow so fast!

3 weeks old

my mom came and visited for a few days while john had finals. she stayed with some family in Christiansburg but came over in the mornings to take the kids to school for me (we commute our kids to a school across town due to great teachers) and it was so nice having her here to visit. we went shopping, i took naps, she took van out on a date, it was great. I think she enjoyed her visit, and i def. missed her when she left.

3 days old... look at the difference already!

we have been battling all sorts of funk in this house. since having her, van has had 2 rounds of stomach flu. He is currently in what i hope is the end of this round. Hes been sick since Thurs. night and is still throwing up... John is finally kicking a horrible cold/cough that he picked up during finals (which he did AMAZINGLY well on! i had to take CL in to the doc. on Mon. due to a horrible cold and pink eye. she was so pitiful, i hate it when they get sick so young. my pediatrician helped me feel better though, he reminded me this was probably inevitable (the ped. at the hospital at discharge told me to be careful where i took her my first 2 months.... how in the world is that even possible????) she was already up to 7 pounds 10 ounces, so she is growing well! the boys love her and she even is sleeping pretty well. overall, we are very much enjoying the blessing of a new baby!

She's here!

2008-10-22T11:32:00.001-07:00

CL was born Friday, Oct. 17! She is the sweetest girl on earth, and I have gotten NOTHING done since she's been born b/c I have to hold her and look at her all day. Its a tough job;-) We went in at 6 am for a scheduled inducement, and she was born at 9:01. John got to deliver her since he is in med school (the first thing he said was its still a girl!)! She was 7 pounds, 1 ounce and was 20 3/4 long. She was our biggest baby, and was born with dimples on both cheeks and the greatest head of hair. In the sunlight it looks like shes already gotten highlights! We think she looks the most like M (see above) but has less defined eyebrows (thank goodness) and shorter eyelashes. Overall she is sleeping really well, (up to 4 hours at a time at night!) smiles a lot (i know its not on purpose, but still adorable!) and is so sweet! it has been so much fun to put so much pink on her!
Van wasn't phased at all at her unhappiness, and has done really well with his adjustment as big brother.
T and Jo with her
look at her hair! poor girl already has a mullet!
John is absolutely in love with her already! I guess the saying daddy's girl is true. John made the comment when she was just a few hours old that the most un-datable girl ever has just been born...

She already has enough hair for clips!!! too much fun! (1 day old, showing the rare eyes)
the nurses felt she needed a special hat to remind us she was a girl. They took 2 hospital hats and fashioned a lovely bow for her! I kept calling her him until we got her dressed in real clothes to take her home!
she has fat cheeks and fat thighs... poor girl!
She didn't really wake up and respond to much her first few hours. John went to go get the kids from school around 1 pm so they could come meet her. When the boys walked in the room, she opened her eyes and looked for them. it was so neat to see her recognize them, and the boys thought that was really cool that she watched them.

Big smiles when we left the hospital... look at her great dimples!

in other news: after 3 weeks without a washer (and doing 20 loads a week at the Laundromat) John and I went Mon and got a washer! it gets delivered sat. so CL and I went and did 10 loads yesterday to get us through til the new one comes (a Maytag!!! Merry Christmas to us!) promptly upon returning home with everything in the entire house clean, she proceeded to blow out on her very cute jeans and girly onesie...

Jo had a field trip to the pumpkin patch this morning. It was so beautiful in the valley. I went 2 weeks ago with vans class and the trees on all sides were still mostly green with a few reds peeking through. today there were more oranges and reds then greens. I sure will miss this place when we have to leave. It was beautiful. Ill post the pics later.

John starts finals next mon. he has 6 finals next week, then 3 more the following week.... Good luck John!!!

HELP!!!

2008-10-08T17:29:00.001-07:00

so we went to the doctor today, and it doesn't appear that she will wait 20 more days.... We need a middle name for this girl before she gets here! post your favorite name in the comments box. It has to go with Carrington. We thought Grace was going to be the middle name, but from working in a catholic church and having so many people ask us her name, i got tired of tons of them saying things like "that's my daughters middle name" or my baby that's due in ___ weeks is going to be named grace... anyway. send us some help! I like Reese and Tate, John doesn't really seem to have anything he likes a lot...

happy birthday (other baby)

2008-10-04T17:47:00.001-07:00

M turned 6 today! I cannot believe how fast the past 6 years have gone! He is such a fun guy, is always so smiley, and is sooo optimistic and cheerful. He is def. our ray of sunshine with his brothers, and is such a peacemaker.
He FINALLY got a DS! John and I found a pokemon ds, and he played it all morning, he was so excited to finally be able to link with his brothers and play games with them!
At lunch time, we met 7 of his friends at the bowling alley for a fun party. It was wonderful, i didn't have to clean, cook, clean up, entertain.... it was the easiest party ever! M got a strike on his first try, but his friend Nicky ended up scoring over 100 points. we only made it through 8 frames before the boys were done and ready to eat, but it was great fun!

My parents came into town to visit my little sister (who just started college here) and stopped by the bowling alley to visit M's party. he was so excited to see them, and it was a nice surprise for the boys. We had such a great day today, and I am so thankful for the blessing my third is in my life!

top 3 reasons I love this boy...

2008-10-04T17:32:00.001-07:00

Look whos "free!!!"

Let me honor the boy (late, of course) with the top 3 reason I love this kid:

3. He has the greatest laugh. He plays this game where he says "I yummy" and you have to pretend to gobble him up and blow on his belly while he belly laughs until he says "I yucky" at which point you have to pretend to be totally grossed out that you had your mouth on him and pretend to spit him out. The game repeats until he runs to the bathroom so he doesnt have an accident because he laughs so hard, or until I have to go cook dinner. He would do this all day long if he could.

(van 2 days old)

2. He gives the best kisses (complete with totally stinky kids breath). BUT, you cant just kiss him. He first has to smooch the lips, then turn your head to plant a kiss on the cheek of his choice. He is absolutelty loveable, and still likes to snuggle.

(van 1 year with his daddy)

and the number 1 reason why this boy is the greatest: with delicious faces like these, whats not to love??? (van at his second birthday (l) and third birthday (bottom)

we celebrated his third birthday with a glorified playdate. we had 4 friends come over after preschool for chicken nuggets and apple slices. I was totally lazy and stopped by walmart and bought a premade lightning mcqueen cake for him (cars is his favorite movie, and he is obsessed!) and the kids just ate lunch and played. he had a great time, and it was so fun to celebrate this big birthday with him!!!! happy birthday baby!!!

Lengthy Post

2008-09-14T07:20:00.001-07:00

so..... it always takes me so long to update this... We have been so busy recently, so I will start with current and work back! Last weekend, my older sister Heather got married! Her and Fredy got married in the dc temple, then we drove through tropical storm Hanna (it was HORRIBLE) to jersey for the reception later that evening. We had such a blast! The dj was awesome, the food delicious, and we rocked the reception until LATE! Heather looked gorgeous, and Fredy looked so handsome. the boys even stayed and danced until well after 10, and M even picked up a girlfriend. It was the first time the 6 of us kids had been together in a super long time, and Kelly and Holly had never met fredy, and none of us but Heather had ever met Hollys boyfriend Koji, so we had a blast hanging out....

Heather and my dad

Lyndsay and Kelly

the boys having a great time

the happy couple!

my aunt, uncle, a few cousins, and my family

holly and koji

we went for another 4d sonogram a few weeks ago, and it is still a girl! She looks just like van did in his sonogram pics, and you can see her hair in the pictures. the technician was amazed at how much hair she has!

van started preschool! His teacher this year is Ms. Kim, and we LOVE her! M had her 2 years ago, and she is just such a sweet person, I am so glad Van got her, I don't know any other teacher there who could handle him quite as well as she can. Van going back to school means I went back to school. We actually have a great class this year, very few criers, which is amazing, and we just moved to a new building over the summer, so we have an awesome new classroom. I love it! van still hasn't learned to smile for pictures.... he still has that horrible cheese face.

Van and good friend

My friend Kelly threw me a shower 2 weeks ago to celebrate Carringtons upcoming arrival. We had to schedule it early, so it didn't interfere with football games... the pain of living in a college town... Her mom Donna made the cake, and Kelly made this adorable diaper cake. She held it on the weekend my mom and dad were in town, moving my youngest sister Lyndsay onto campus, so they came! It was really fun having my mom meet some of my friends up here, and getting to be there. Even though she only lives 2 hrs away, it is hard with her work schedule to make it up here often for things like that.

It has become something of a tradition for the boys and I to go to smith mountain lake with Kelly and her kids late summer. The lake is always dead, and her in laws own a lake front home so we get to BBQ and swim without worrying abt trying to keep everyone close. Brian took us out on his boat, but T was the only one of my boys brave enough to try tubing. It was so funny watching him fly through the air whenever Brian hit waves. Van wasn't so sure abt the boat at first but totally warmed up to it as we went along.

Jo, Christian, M, T, Julia

Hokie football season... We got together with some friends for the last open practice of the year before the official kickoff of the season. It is always fun to go watch these practices, as you get great seats, and it doesn't matter if the kids really watch the game or not bc you didn't have to pay 40.00 to bring them. (plus the kettle corn is the BEST!) I took the flattering pic of #67 for you Lauren and Mike! hope you enjoy your cousins belly;-)

After the game we went to macados with some friends... What a fun way to start the weekend!

Yea! school started for the older boys mid august! They each have awesome teachers, M is in K and has the same teacher both of his older brothers had, Jo started 2nd, and T is in 3rd and got the teacher I wanted him to have. Everyone (but T) was excited, and it was so weird only having 1 at home. This is the first time since Jo was born that i have been home alone w/ only 1... I still don't get as much done as I wish, but it sure is easier to run errands!

And finally, the biggest news... In august T and his cousin got baptized. we waited until Aug. even though T turned 8 in march so he could do it the same time as his cousin. We had such an awesome weekend! it was so special, and we loved having so many family members able to be there for his special day.

He did it!

2008-07-30T15:34:00.001-07:00

After 2 whole days of serious potty training, we have decieded van is potty trained! He made it through last night dry, and is in the same underwear from 8 am w/ only 1 accident early this morning! YEA VAN!!! (and all it took was TONS of suckers;-) )

this is the first time in 8 years and 4 months we have not had a child in diapers!!!

due to a request...

2008-07-30T07:28:00.001-07:00

this is sadly one of the only pregnant photos i have so far... this was taken in mid july, so i was roughly 25 weeks along.....

July update

2008-07-29T14:59:00.001-07:00

I have been so bad at updating recently! We have loved summertime... we spend a ton of time at the pool (it is soooo nice having 2 pools in walking distance) and the kids have the best butt tans to prove it! We have been working every morning doing a summer school type routine with the boys, and it has been really enlightening to see exactly where their strengths and weaknesses lie. It has been a great experience, and confirmed my belief that I could NEVER home school my kids (not like it has EVER been a serious consideration for me...) In mid July, we took the boys to Ithaca, New York and spent a week camping at one of the state parks there. We had such a great time seeing uncle kelly, visiting extended family during a reunion, and cooking over campfires! Halfway through our trip our tent flooded (it had an inch of water in it!) and we ended up at kellys very bachelor townhouse for the night. Def. an experience we wont soon forget, but the rest of the trip was sunny and dry. The boys LOVED cooking over fires, making s'mores and lemon chicken. We will def. try to do another camping trip soon...

The highlight of our trip to New York was the day we spent in Palmyra, NY. We toured the printing press where the first Book of Mormon was published, and since we had yet to buy T his own set of scriptures, we got them at the bookstore next to the original printing press... he thought it was so cool, and I enjoyed the sentiment as well. We also went to the Smiths Farm, and the Sacred Grove, and topped the evening off watching the hill Cumorah pageant. The boys thought it was so magical, Nephi building the boat amazed them, and they seemed to get a lot out of seeing their favorite scripture stories come to life. Van fell asleep at King Noah, and M fell asleep when Christ came to the Americas. the older 2 boys stayed awake for the whole thing, and loved every minute of it! It was Johns first time to Palymra as well, and it is def. a vacation worth taking.... We will go back soon. The Spirit is so strong, and it feels like you walk through time touring the area.... T was highly offended at the protesters who lined the streets with their bull horns to protest the pageant. He took a long time to calm down (Dad, why are they calling us stupid??) but enjoyed the evening other then that.

Before we left for New York, we went blueberry picking! I had gone a few days earlier and picked a few pounds only to bring them home and have the kids DEVOUR them, so the day before we left, we went and picked again, and came home with 10 pounds. We took 5 to NY with us, and the rest are almost gone.... Unbelievable. We had a great time. Van ate all of his. He would pick them into his bucket, then eat them all out and start again. The older boys would find us "magic bushes" where the berries were excellent and eat all the big ones before they would start picking.

The picture is out of order, but T just finished his first season of swim team! He had a great year, and started off pretty slow. (he wont dive off the blocks bc he almost hit his head on the bottom of the pool the first meet) but by the end of the season he was consistently scoring for his team! Championship was this past sat and he got DQ'd in breaststroke, but would have taken 6th overall, he took 7th overall in free, and 5th overall in back! I am so proud of how hard he worked, and am amazed at the change to his body as a result of so much pool time. They grow up so fast!!!

And.... since I am already working backwards... Happy 4th of July! We spent all morning at the pool enjoying a rainy (hard...) bbq with tons of games. the rain broke mid afternoon and we headed to the park for my orchestra group to play a concert. Right before we were supposed to play, it started pouring again so we hung around under the tent and Van and a cute friend of his Graham had a throwdown to keep us all entertained. Finally the rain ended and we could play our show. T had a great time playing with sparklers as it got dark and we lost LOST van for several minutes in a crowd of hundreds. it was horrifying, to say the least. Luckily he wandered back to the blanket while we were looking for him and we found him unharmed... The boys had fun making their t-shirts for the day, and even now when van wears his he calls it his July fourth shirt and wants to go back and watch the fireworks...

FInally, recent news:

i went to the doc today (john and I went as a date, then out to lunch!! THANKS CAROL!) and have finally packed on the pounds! 4.5 to be exact, to put my preg. weight gain to 9 pounds! I feel so much better knowing I am closer to where I should be. HE scheduled another 4d sonogram for 4 more weeks, so we'll end up getting 2 of those, in addition to the 5 we have already had! I love my doctor! We settled on baby C Grace (i think.... right john??) and he has asked me for 10 more weeks. Hopefully my body will co-operate and we will make it to 37 weeks. She is getting so big, and is already stuck under my ribs. I have no idea what I will do when she is triple this size! I feel like there is nowhere else for her to....

YEA!

2008-07-02T14:00:00.001-07:00

Johns done with first year! let summer vacation officially begin!!!

Cascades, take 2!

2008-06-25T12:06:00.001-07:00

We spent last Saturday hiking the cascades. I LOVE that hike! Last year the hiking trip didn't go so well at all. This year, with an older Van, we were actually able to make it in decent time. We learned our lesson and ate lunch BEFORE we began hiking, and then had watermelon waiting in a cooler at the bottom of the hill. YUM! Van got to see a black snake, and John only had to carry him abt a quarter of the hike. I love the fact they are getting older, it just makes things like this so much easier!

Van, John, Kevin, baby A, M, T, Christy, Jo

I cant figure out how to work my friends Picasa album, so the pics are tiny! VAn fell face first into the water that was running off the pond at the top. He was soaking for the whole trip down the mountain! He also made a huge mess eating watermelon! The weather was perfect, and actually a little cool! Thanks for the great pics Kevin! Will you teach me how to download them in a bigger size next????

Oh, btw-We need a middle name for baby girl C... any suggestions? we have so far Grace, Paige, and Tate (my fav. John HATES:-) )

*56 days left until school starts again

think pink??

2008-06-16T13:47:00.001-07:00

for those of you who have heard this story, please bear with me... Ever since I was pregnant with my oldest, who is 8, I have had the bad habit of buying girls clothes whenever i found something adorable on sale. I ended up with this large collection of pinks, purples, and creams that could rival any best dressed child. It was totally an obsession, but one that has over the years tamed itself. 3 years ago, we found out after 3 boys, that number 4 would be a girl! I went totally overboard, and bought tons of (non-returnable) girls clothes from ebay. a few weeks later, we found out that my doc was wrong and we were really expecting baby boy 4...

so, for the past 8 years, my collection has grown with little use. Today we had a confirmation sonogram and we are excited to announce the clothes will FINALLY be put to good use in Oct! (we were totally going to be surprised, it was way to much work:-) ) so now the only question is what to do with the 10 Tupperware boxes of boys clothes?????

long time, no post

2008-06-07T18:16:00.001-07:00

Wow! IT has been such along time since I last posted! We have been so busy these past few weeks.... I guess I will work backwards since that is how i uploaded pics! We have been hitting the pool everyday the past 2 weeks. The weather has been so hot, and we have the BEST amenities in our neighborhood! the boys are all getting so nice and tan! T started swim team last week, and the middle 2 will start swim lessons again next week. van is fearless in the water and can "swim" under water all by himself. never a dull moment with that one. i got a super cute maternity tank and have loved getting in the water as our a/c is broken right now.
School ended may 30 for the boys and we are in a great summer routine already. we are doing the summer bridge books, which are fantastic as well as the comprehensive curriculum for M. the boys so far enjoy it and there has been no complaints yet. we spend abt 1 1/2 each morning working on school work, then T reads for 1-2 hrs at bedtime every night while jo reads a few chapters during the morning. jo is reading slightly above grade level now, and only has 1 more speech sounds to master. he had such a great year, and worked so hard! I am very proud of him. the pic above is of his schools independence celebration. they learned abt America, and why we celebrate the 4th of July. they had a cute parade, ate watermelon and sang a ton of patriotic songs. This age is so cute, and he will do great in 2nd grade next year! T moves up to 3rd and had a great year as well! we spent memorial weekend in l'burg meeting Fredy! we had a blast, and our kids are so excited abt uncle Fredy from "guat-e-mala who speaks Spanish, and cooks good". we had a great time hanging out with the family, and cannot wait until heather and Fredy get married and we can make the uncle title (or tio title) official! We love you guys!!!!

the older 3 boys finished up soccer for the year. T will play academy next year, and jo and M will continue regular seasons. they all had a great time, and we will def. miss coach Tim who has been T's coach since kindergarten.
van at a visit to a friends farm in may
T's class musical: Disney favorites
in may, the binkie fairy came and took vans pacifiers. long overdue, he got lighting mcqueen bed sheets, and pokemon figures for releasing his pacifiers. He hasn't slept well since;-)
M ended his preschool year may 23rd. he is off to kindergarten next year, and super excited!

in other news, i got released from young women, and called to be the primary 8 teacher. i LOVE teaching T and have such an awesome class. John and i are also getting another new calling tomorrow:-/

we hit the half way point in this pregnancy this week! We saw the baby last Mon and have an idea as to what we are having... the cord was kind of in the way. john and i went out on a date tonight and picked a few names! it feels like it is getting so close! I read somewhere that staying off the comp. helps with morning sickness, and that is so true. i haven't been sick in almost a week, and have been off medicine for it for over 3 weeks now. it feels so good to feel more normal, and be able to cook, eat and clean the house. when i went to the doc Mon, my weight gain for the entire pregnancy was -1 pounds. I am hoping when i go back next time to have gotten back into the positive and added some numbers to that. i think i was just so sick at first it has been hard to get back into eating normally. despite that, the baby looks great, we get sonograms every 4 weeks bc my doc is delivering this one free (he has a buy 4, get the 5th free policy and so he turns on the machine every time i go in!!!) i have more pics of this baby already then i do of Van total it seems like! all right, i think that is everything! more soon