Wall Walking

One of our greatest summer joys is walking along the garden wall. The kids often retreat to the backyard to walk along the edge of the garden as they look for bugs, (sometimes bunnies!), and to take a pick of the spinach or onion chives to munch on. Ellie especially loves reaching down to take a bite of a spinach leaf. The only problem is she doesn't decipher well on her own which one is the spinach leaf. We've found her several times spitting out the leaves of a tomato or cucumber plant!

I am so grateful for Scott who loves to garden and has brought some greenery to our backyard. The other morning Jared looked out the window at the garden and said, "Yep, our garden is looking pretty good." The kids all take pride in the garden and are always anxious to find a new bloom. Hopefully this year's garden will meet their expectations!

Great Grandma and Grandpa

I'm behind in my blogging so will try to catch up on some of the things that have been going on while I've been moping around the house praying to feel better.

My grandpa's brother, Lyle has lived here in Albuquerque for the last 50 years or so. His wife passed away a couple of weeks ago so grandma and grandpa Porter drove down from Utah to attend the funeral and support Lyle. We were so excited it meant they got to see us too. My kids were thrilled and couldn't wait for them to get here.

Grandpa and Grandma took the kids to the vending machine at their motel and bought everyone something of their choosing. It was like a dream come true for my kids. Their mom is way too stingy to buy something out of a vending machine so it was an exciting novelty for the kids.

We went swimming at the pool at their motel and discovered that Ellie has absolutely no fear of the water. She loved every minute of it, and I know I'm going to have to watch her closely. She wanted to jump in the water by herself with no one catching her!

Grandpa also tuned our piano. Thank you Grandpa! It was nice to have them hang around with us for a few hours. I think one of my most favorite memories was watching Jared sit quietly on Grandpa's lap during Sacrament Meeting. I could tell Jared just loved it, and it made me smile. We wish we lived closer and could see them more often!

Routines

This is Ellie's nighttime ritual. EVERY night after I tuck her in her bed she quietly creeps out of bed to arrange her own sleeping set-up. She is so quiet you don't even know she's awake. It must be more comfortable to sleep on piles of clothes she has emptied from every dresser drawer in her room than it is to sleep in her nice bed because she does this time and time again. You might feel frustrated if you are ever looking for clothes for Ellie and Jared in their dresser. I've gotten so tired of putting the clothes back in proper order just for them to be pulled out again that I've started just throwing them back anyway they go.

Many two year olds are still sleeping in their cribs. This is one of the nightmares of having a child with the "climb out of crib at early age" gene. Locked in a crib you can't get into so much trouble. Somehow every one of my kids have inherited this gene (probably from their troublemaker dad) because they have all started climbing out of their cribs by 18 months!

These were a few pictures from Ellie's Eucerin encounter. While we thought she was napping, she was painting the walls, carpets, beds and curtains with thick greasy Eucerin creme. My pictures don't do the mess I found justice. The carpet mess shown was just a small portion of the actual mess. It took me over an hour to clean this nightmare up, and I sometimes still find a spot of lotion on something that I missed!

I am a Mother

Almost eight years ago I became a mother. This is what we emailed to our family to announce my first pregnancy with Kaitlyn.


To announce Brynn's arrival I put together a small photo album of pictures of Kaitlyn and stuck a picture of my ultrasound of Brynn in the pages with the due date written on it.

Sorry Jared and Ellie. I must have just called on the phone to tell everyone. I can't remember doing anything creative.

Since the advent of the blog I know more about my brother's and sister's lives than I ever have, but hardly ever talk to them. I know within a day every one of my siblings will have checked my new post. So for baby #5 I'll announce it on my blog with this:
Twelve weeks along. Due at Thanksgiving. Praying fervently that morning sickness will end soon.

Happy Mother's Day!

Successful?

Ellie has been showing the tell-tale signs of potty training readiness. She’s dry at nap time. She loves to sit on the potty and actually goes. She rips off her diaper the minute she wets it. I’ve always followed my kids lead. When they show an interest I think I better run with it before they decide they’re not interested after all. It’s worked so far…all the kids have been potty-trained around two years old. I count this as one of my greatest blessings.
And so I’ve been working with Ellie. Oh how I hope this is not a false alarm!

Today she was playing outside in the fort of our swingset. I watched her as she took the toy kitchen pot she was playing with (our little kitchen is up in the fort) and squatted over it. I knew immediately what she was doing. “Ellie!” I screamed. “Come down here and go in the potty!” I cajoled. But to no avail. She smiled and showed me her filled pot.

This isn’t the first time she’s done something like that. A couple days ago I found her sitting in a little mixing bowl in the middle of the kitchen. I will not disclose which bowl for fear of some family members (err, Scott) not being able to look past this happenstance and never being able to use the bowl again. I guess she couldn’t resist…it was just the right size for her little bum. Why not use it for a potty? I assure you it was disinfected properly.

Now obviously Ellie knew she needed to go each of these times; and it was never on the floor. So can I count these as successes?

Puh-lease Mom!

Sometimes the constant badgering and begging ("Puh-lease Mom! Puh-lease with cupcakes on top!") of the kids gets to me and I give in. A few weeks ago it was true spring-like weather (not the horrible cold, windy weather of late). I was outside working while the kids played. They claimed that it was just so horribly hot they were going to die (just wait kids...it will get that way soon!). Could they pul-lease go through the Elmo sprinkler?!

Now, the kids ask me this EVERY time it's a little tiny bit warm and I have to tell them that it is not as warm as they think and will freeze if they get wet. Besides that, it means changing clothes and bringing down four towels that will invariably get dirty enough to have to wash. It means slathering everyone down with sunscreen. It means little pieces of grass sticking on their legs and brought all over the house and wet bodies in and out of the house. It always seems like a lot of work when I can't guarantee they will make it worth my while by spending enough time out there. But this time...I relented. It was pretty hot, and surprisingly there was no wind at the time.

I'm glad I gave in. The kids had a blast, and I enjoyed watching their laughter. Ellie was not interested in getting wet, but LOVED laying in all the towels. (She also discovered the joy of her swimming suit and didn't want to take it off for a few days). The kids even stayed outside for an hour which was more than I expected.

Spot and Dot

I think Jared understands that I will never allow a dog. Taking matters into his own hands, he’s decided to be the family pet, “Spot” the big dog (never, never call him a “little” dog). He crawls on all fours, when he wants to be held he jumps up and pats his “paws” on your chest until you pick him up, he whimpers when he doesn’t get what he wants, barks to get our attention and wants to drink water from a bowl. The other day he licked me. Yuck! I told him to please never lick me again. “Bark, bark, but I’m Spot mom.” I explained to him that I don’t like real or pretend dogs to ever lick me. “But mom, I love it when dogs lick me!” Some people like it, some people don’t. Now he just licks Ellie. And Ellie has joined the bandwagon. She’s our new puppy “Little Dot.” She has picked up very quickly on all the dog mannerisms. It’s all a little too real for me!