Birthday

Still catching up.

Cash had a birthday back in June.  Ryan went and did some magic tricks for his school class.  It was really fun and a great age to do magic tricks for and made Ryan look really awesome.  :)

 

 

 

We had a little party during our usual park day - Backyardigans at his request (my kids for some reason think you must always have a tv-show themed birthday party - probably because they watch too much tv :), and as always the cake took me way too long and I wished for my day back and a store-bought cake instead (although it was tasty since I don't like cake much so I doctor it up a lot and add lots of yummy fillings and stuff).

I even spent hours filling up about 180 water balloons for a really fun water balloon war - we did boys against girls on opposite sides of the fence and the balloons were up sort of close to the fence so they had to get wet or dodge the throws to get their balloons.  Little did I know that my three wimps would have one water balloon burst near them and spend the rest of the time crying their eyes out (the birthday boy especially) so much so that Cash only threw one water balloon the whole time.  Oh brother.

 

Not even a week after he turned 5, this happened:

 

The first lost tooth. For some strange reason, more than anything - more than a child starting kindergarten or whatever, this losing a tooth makes me feel OLD.  I don't know why, but I feel like an old mom now.  I think especially since I wasn't ready for it at all.  It seemed so unexpected that I wasn't prepared to be a mom with a child getting adult teeth I guess.  But Cash was totally unfazed.  I think because no one else his age has even started losing teeth he was just like - hey, my tooth fell out. What's for lunch?

But Cash is still a sweet boy.  It seems to be a little more of an emotional age, a little more dramatic, more crying, more knowingly devious actions towards his brothers, but a fun age too.  Our conversations regularly challenge my brain as he asks me how old he is.  Then how many months he is.  Then how many weeks, days and seconds....(this gets progressively harder as he asks the same questions about my age).  Time references are also the same - how long until we go to such and such a place?  How many seconds is that?  He regularly refers to himself as 61 right now (that would be his age in months if you're confused when he tells you this).  He is a good listener to his teachers and can come home and tell me everything he learned in church.  It's also sweet to see him develop sympathy.  I haven't dealt with death much with my kids knowing it would come up on it's own eventually, so since we've been in Utah Cash has asked about my dad.  When I told him my dad had died and wasn't here any more he so sweetly and genuinely looked at me and said, "Oh, that's so sad."  He's a good kid and definitely my loving child.  He has even started paying attention to the baby - which is a total rarity among his siblings.  Now Ryan's only concern is that I fatten him up so his food-loving brothers don't pass him up. Well, it's not my fault he got Ryan's genes and the twins got mine.

Pre-K program

Cash had an end of the year program at his school at the end of Pre-K.  I was a little surprised that for the kid who cries at the top of his lungs when he has to sing up on the stand in church, he did a great job. Even though he was nervous, he was very focused on doing all the steps exactly right and was super cute.  It was a pretty ambitious program for an elementary school - his class did 2 numbers from "Cats" and then there were about 20 other numbers from all sorts of various musicals, etc. 

 

For thinking our kids are so big, he sure isn't the biggest kid in the class.  He's a June birthday though so a lot of them are 9 and 10 months older than he is.  

 

 

I will say I'm pretty impressed with all he learned in his pre-K class.  I would have preferred one that was a little more creative, but you can't really complain when your kid can read and do math at age 4.  And when he can rattle off the continents and tells you there are 4 oceans and you have to say, "Oh, right. Um, what are they?"

And of course, another classic attempt at a family pictures.

Beds

This is the bed I want to get for the boys.  I love everything about it - even the cute girl bedding - too bad it will not look that cute when we really have it.  I'm sure if the boys have their way it will be covered in something aesthetically unappealing like Spider Man.  Why do we have to have such different taste? I should just get whatever I want and say it came with the bed and then they won't think they have a choice - the only problem is that I'm sure I can't afford whatever it is that I would want. 

Anyhow, does anyone have any other suggestions for bunk beds or any other three-kids-in-a-room options that they like?  I love that this has stairs and a trundle and full size beds.  I wish it was cheaper, but all the cheaper ones have ladders or uglier designs and look less solid.  I'm sure this bed will see lots of action in it's time, so sturdy is probably better. 

Little baby Diesel is going to be the prince of the house being the only person who has a bedroom all to himself.  (I will be slightly jealous. :) But I'm sick of sharing my room with all my babies and maybe this will help little fussy sleeper become a little more routine. 

Oh, and um, I guess you should get your 5 year-old out of a crib before he starts Kindergarten.  Don't tell him it's totally weird that he's still in one... he doesn't know any better! It's just if he had one the others would want one and they were naughty boys who needed crib tents so no way was I letting them in big beds without any restraining options.  I mean, Cash can climb in and out of it fine....but yeah, pretty sure that doesn't make you the cool kid in school.  :)

Welcome home

Nothing says Utah and heals those travel woes like a nice thick milkshake and some french fries with fry sauce.  :)  We did make it.  It wasn't fun, and I'm not really sure I would do it to myself again, but we did it. Although faced with the same budget we have now and another chance to come home for a month, maybe I would forget by then how it was and do it again.  And it's true, the further west we got the nicer people were and some old couple even helped us off the plane in Utah.  And in the end, it was probably worth it. My kids have already let me know that "Utah is awesomer that Miami." 

I agree.

(And in case you don't know the awesomeness of fry sauce you are really missing out on the ketchup/mayo combination that for some reason is really GOOD! And really Utah.)

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

I just spent 7 hours in the airport.  I am back at home.  That's right, 7 hours, no luggage, and haven't moved an INCH.  I usually console myself that these flights by myself are, I figure, just one miserable day out of my life.  Not so this time.  Due to mostly one gate attendant's mistakes I have to get up and do it all again tomorrow. I already exhausted most of my airport entertainment and all the special treats I'd bought for the kids. The baby was a fussy mess and only slept 20 minutes during that whole time, and my back is already worn out from holding him all those hours. My great plan to keep the kids up from their naps so they'd sleep on the plane really backfired when we, well, never made it on the plane. Made those long miserable hours waiting in the airport even more miserable. And some angry woman turned around and shushed me - for a crying baby.  Seriously?

Cash and I were both in tears by the end of the day.

May the airport odds be ever in my favor tomorrow.

Crazy

It has finally sunk in and I'm feeling a little frantic. In the middle of the night I woke up and realized: What if I have to wipe a bum?  I can NEVER  just set the baby down!  So what do I do when I'm on the plane nursing a baby and having to wipe a bum at the same time?!??  So yes, I've been trying just not to think about the flight because there's just not a whole lot I can do about it - except worry, so I've been trying to ignore it.  It's probably just a given that at some point I will be trying to juggle a nursing baby and 3 nutcases and will probably flash the whole plane. It's probably a given that I will (again) have to spend 20 minutes sticking my head out the lavatory door suggesting people go use another one since my toddler will possibly be in there until the plane lands. And it's probably a given that I will just shut my eyes and pretend that I, too, am wondering who's screaming child that is over there across the aisle.

So today I've been frantically trying to tie up loose ends and get stuff ready so I can be gone for a month and a half.  And the house went crazy!  Not only was I running back and forth between rooms feeling all over the place and frenzied, but every time I'd come out to the kids it was total mayhem.  First these kids are going to eat me out of house and home. Not 10 minutes after breakfast I come out to this sight:

Ashton rummaging around in the cupboards helping himself to granola bars and whatever else he could find in there (with no pants and a bum full of un-wiped poop); and yes, that's Phoenix tipping back on a Costco-sized jug of honey. Good grief.

Then we find Ashton had so sweetly covered little baby Diesel in his blanky that was soaked in pee from his morning bed-wetting episode.

After I go put that in the wash I turn back around to find one kid chasing down another kid with the powered on dustbuster, while the third is balancing the 4-foot long squeegee over his head trying to clean the ceiling light fixtures....

Ten minutes after that I hear Ashton howling for help and go in to find he's trapped himself in a butterfly net and can't get it off....

Honestly if I even make it to the plane alive it might be a miracle.

Luckily the little butterball takes it all in stride.


Takes whatever toys his brothers decide to pile on him that day.


And entices us to at least stop and smile for a few minutes amidst all the craziness!

Nice

Ryan has been off for a couple weeks.  He had a week of vacation and now has a week between when residency ends and fellowship starts.  Man, I need a hubby who gets summer break - it's AWESOME!  We haven't gone anywhere big since it's too hot for Disneyworld or anything to sound appealing to us, but we go swimming all the time, take the kids to movies, go to the park, go to Chuck e Cheese.  It's been so nice.  (I'm totally laughing re-reading this: who doesn't long for their spouse to have time off so they can go to Chuck e Cheese together???)

I also crammed in a super quick project when I realized I had a coupon that was going to expire and tried to hurry and do a scrapbook for the twins.  I had meant to get around to doing a baby book for them before Diesel came, but of course that didn't happen.  But with a hubby at home I hardly slept or showered for 2 days and got it done!  What turned out to be all 132 pages of it!  It was less, but then as I was looking through the blog for some pictures I got to reading some of the old posts.  It was so funny and there were so many great details in there about them that I just had to add some of it in here and there into their baby book.  I'm sure some day they'll be happy to have it.  I would love to know what I was like as a kid or stories about funny stuff I did, but I'm sure no one remembers a lot of exact details.  So I hope they'll like it.  It did make me glad I blogged so much.  There was so much I'd already forgotten and that time in my life is such a blur that it made me remember exactly what it was like!  In fact, after doing the picture portion of the scrapbook, I was like, "Sheesh, Ryan, the twins were so cute.  Maybe they just got a bad rap because there was two of them.  Look how cute and smiley they were!"  Then I got to reading the blog and I had even forgotten all the naughtiness I thought I was remembering!  Wow.  But it also made me sad that I'm too busy to blog all the funny every day things as much as I used to and now it's just trying to keep up with the big stuff. 

Anyway, another week of spousal bliss and then I'm off to Utah with all 4 boys by myself.  Sheesh, it seems to get worse every time.  I thought 3 and a huge belly was bad....