He did it!

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...

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

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!

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

Cascades, take 2!

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??

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

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