Some More About My Kids

I have an ultrasound update coming, but I wanted pictures so I'll get it up soon. FYI, I've posted several today.

I couldn't resist putting these pictures of the kids sleeping at their Aunt Belinda's house on here. Darren looked so big, not like a baby anymore. This was the night that we had a date night a few weeks back. The kids had fun playing wii, chasing their pets, and taking a bath in their huge tub. As I was typing this I looked over and saw Annie watching tv with a box on her head looking through the hole in the side. It was so funny I had to take a picture. Darren is often found with a box on his head, but its hard to take a clear picture of him.

This paper was Carlyn's first attempt at sounding out words to write them. She knew Carlyn and Annie, but guessed at Darren. In case you can't see it clearly it says "Dirin" in the middle.

On the outside it said, "SPRAS" for surprise. I was totally impressed. I couldn't do that at 5.

Just a cute picture of Carlyn.

And a cute picture of Annie.

Yup! That's my little guy. He always wants to get his hair done when the girls are getting theirs done. I usually put a head band in and he'll pull in off after a couple hours, but I was noticing how long his hair was and I couldn't resist. He looks so much like Carlyn did.

I know I've done mostly posts about my funny children, but their imaginations are in full bloom and I'm loving it. The other day at my grandma's house they were playing and one of them would be the doctor and the other would put the baby doll in her shirt. Then she'd call for the doctor to come take the baby out. Drama would follow about how they needed help walking and needed help with the baby. I wonder if that's how I seemed to them and that's what they remember from Darren being born. I have to write them down because I forget them. I had 2 others in my mind that I just forgot!

Darren only recently started watching videos. On the way home from CA, actually. He especially loves Thomas the train. This is him watching it in the waiting room of Carlyn's computer class. He never sits that still otherwise. Doesn't he look big?

I went to check on the girls after they were asleep one night and I found Annie like this.

Love the glasses!

Mathew's Birthday

Last weekend we went to my parent's house to celebrate Mathew's birthday. We played a card game or two and ate a delicious lasagna lunch.

Too cute! I couldn't resist this one. Mathew blowing out the candles, while Evynn and Darren eye the cheesecake.

Mathew with all the grandkids in Utah. Jaycie in back, Aili on the left, then Evynn, Mathew holding Darren, Carlyn, Sharice, and Anneliese. And don't forget the cheesecakes!!!

I love you little brother!

PS3 and Wii

Rick's new project is fixing PS3s and selling them. He's always got one trying out new games before he sells them. (BTW, if anyone is interested in buying one, let me know.) The biggest problem is that the games are not really for kids. Most of them are so graphic that I don't even like them to watch Rick play. So when one guy called and offered to trade a wii plus accessories and games for a PS3 Rick couldn't pass it up. Annie still has trouble using the controller sometimes, but Carlyn is getting better and wants to play all the time.

Look at what a natural she is. If only she had the coordination to watch the screen and strum she's beat me! Our future guitarist.

Serious game faces.
I couldn't get one of him pretending to play once he saw the camera. He thinks he needs a controller if someone else is playing so we like these legacy controllers for him.

New Years Fun

We spent New Year's Eve and a few days afterwards at my parent's new home. It is really nice because we have a little more room than their old house. The kids love it there and we do too. We had a nice dinner on Christmas Eve. My brother and his family were here from CA and my sister who lives in my parent's old house was there most of the time too. My younger brother, Mathew was there with his girlfriend Lindsay that night too, so we just missed Emily and her family from TX. We had a lot of fun playing card games, eating, playing the wii, playing the PS3, and watching movies.

Darren trying to play rock band. He did not want to be left out.

Barrett and the kids playing in the snow.

Last time I brought all the snow clothes they didn't use them, so I didn't this time. They had cowboy boots and Carlyn was fine until they got so weighed down with snow that she lost them and stepped into the snow in bare feet! Thank goodness uncle Barrett came to the rescue.

The little girls playing the wii. We had 3 at the house plus Rick's PS3 so there was never a lack of video games.

My parent's house is lovely with lots of light. Unfortunately sunlight is one of Rick's biggest triggers for migraines. So he wore his sunglasses almost the whole time, but still got one the first day. This is Rick getting accupuncture from my brother in law. What a fun way to bring in the new year. He had something like 28 in his body and 6 in his head. It was really great of Dallin to do that but my girls take after me and got a little freaked out. Rick spent most of his time in the closet playing PS3. It was kind of funny. My brother kept asking when Rick was going to come out of the closet :)

The girls got Rick's new shorts and this is what came of it. Too funny!

Christmas...finally

So I finally got the pictures downloaded so here we go! I was not up to my normal this Christmas and I feel kinda bad about that, but we still had a great holiday, including our trip.

Carlyn had a ballet recital and was the most adorable one there. I know, others will disagree, but they'll be wrong. :)

Her teacher, Martina is in the back with the older class. On the front Jane, Emma, Grace, Daxia, & Carlyn

Carlyn at her preschool Christmas program. She knew her part really well but was shy about saying it. I was trying to catch Darren from running away and almost missed it.

Almost every time I tried to take a picture our neighborhood boy, Cache, stood up or pulled a face :) So here is one of Carlyn not looking at me, but you can see her. She's in the back in the pink dress.

Here is our pathetic Christmas tree. Carlyn was the only one who decorated this year. Rick doesn't care, Annie and I were sick and Darren had too much fun pulling them off. So we had one little section decorated this year.

Our ward made stockings and pillowcases at Enrichment meeting in December, but I was sick, so when I went to my parent's house for a couple days before Christmas I sewed them up. I already had the material and my mom helped me make the stockings. I think they turned out very cute. Here is Annie showing them off. I made the stockings opposite colors for girls vs. boy. We'll see if the boy one I made will work for next year in June.

This is cute Darren in his Christmas jammies. He can't fall asleep without his bottle and bear.

I love Christmas Eve and the tradition of having a fancy dinner. Then we open one present: pajamas. Darren got Thomas (his new favorite), Annie got Tinkerbell, and Carlyn got High School Musical jammies. Christmas morning was very low key with just a few presents (due to our trip.) We gave the kids stuffed animals from Disneyland to remember the trip. Santa gave Carlyn some rings and a necklace; Annie lipgloss, a bracelet, and necklace; Darren got a truck. They were about $4 each and my kids couldn't have cared less. :) They loved them because they got just what they wanted. The kids gave me a can opener and Rick some shorts. Rick and I gave each other movies and found it funny that I gave him the chick flick and he gave me the sports movie. The kids gave each other little presents too and had as much fun with those as anything.

With their stuffed animals from Disneyland.

Carlyn and Annie with their princess pianos from Grandma Linda who came over with Maureen and Delynn later on Christmas. They got little blanket/stuffed animal sets from her too. Belinda and Josh came, but the pictures didn't turn out great. She gave the girls princess phones and Darren got a little toy laptop, which has been used by them all, but is most handy when I'm trying to work on the computer so he feels like he has one too.

I was glad not to have to go anywhere for a few days because it snowed like crazy. We had a great time watching new movies and playing PS3. I had my sinus stuff hit hard and suffered from a migraine for a couple days. On Saturday we had my Potter family party. Speaking of migraines, Rick started a new medicine to hopefully prevent migraines and all it did was knock him out. As soon as we got back from Disneyland (and a little while we were there) he couldn't stay awake if he sat down. It lasted for over a month. It was not fun and didn't prevent migraines in that time either.
This is Rick sleeping during the family party with Darren trying to get the candy canes off the table.

Aunt Susan and Uncle Mark read a silly story for the kids. Half of the great grandkids that were there were from my family (nieces and my kids.) We had a wonderful dinner and a pinata with way more candy than any of us wanted to take home.

We finally got around to visiting the grandmas. This is the kids with Grandma White. Darren loved her Christmas scene and candy dish. She gave the girls $5 and little stuffed animals and Darren got a nice soft blanket. Grandma Hilton gave us money and Grandma Potter gave them stuffed animals so they got quite a few for Christmas and love them all. Oh, my parents gave them books too. Not to leave them out. :)

Oh, my kids

I was doing Carlyn's hair the other day and I use Infusium 23 to brush out the snarls, then I use water and sometimes gel while doing it and hairspray at the end. I sprayed her hair with water and she said, "What are you spraying on my hair?" "Water." "Oh, if it was confusion or hair spray you'd better warn me." I laughed so hard imagining me spraying confusion on her. :)

Annie says nearly every day, "Mom. We should go to Disneyland today. We should go there everyday."

Annie still has some cute baby words she says. All of a sudden she says three "thflee". So I heard her say, "Nama (her grandma), I'm thflee and a half!"

We were looking at books yesterday and Darren pointed at a sheep and said, "BAAA." Really loud, then said duck as he pointed to one. He hardly repeats words yet though. I'm also trying to teach him that garbage is gross and not to play in and I say "Ka ka." He says, "Da da" back. It cracks us up, everyone except Daddy.

Funny Kids and a Few Happenings

I'm so behind on posts with a ton of pictures to download, and I'm annoyed with my slow computer. I usually use the laptop but I don't have a way to download the pictures here so the few I have are from someone else. I haven't really felt like blogging, so forgive me for blending several into one.

Okay, so maybe I'm the only one who will think this is cute, but my kids are so funny! I put at the end of the last post about the girls playing "hospital" which totally cracked me up, but I have to tell you some of the funny things they say and the things Darren does.

Annie got a new Book of Mormon from her new Sunbeam teachers and is so proud of it. I tried to hide it so I knew where it would be on Sunday and she found it and was flipping through the pages. I heard her say to Carlyn, "This is my Book of Mormon. Mr. Church gave it to me." Knowing both her teachers and female I asked, "Who is Mr. Church?" "Dat man. At church. Dat gave me my Book of Mormon." I finally figured out that she got mister and sister mixed up and says church because she can't remember their last names. :)

I can't believe Annie is a Sunbeam (Sunbean if you ask her) already. Here is a picture of her class (minus a couple kids). Annie is the one leaning on the table in case you can't tell. She was a little nervous the first day, wanting me to sit with her for a minute, but then she was fine. She's really quiet in sharing/singing time which is totally opposite how she is at home. Maybe she'll loosen up eventually.

Every time we drive within view of the hospital Carlyn says, "Look! There's the hospital where the baby's going to be born." Every time. No matter how many times a day we pass it.

Darren has an innate sense of how to play video games. Whether we were playing darts, bowling, tennis, rock band on the wii or a video game on the PS3 he knew just what to do and would try his hardest to pick up a controller and play (not too poorly on Sonic, I might add) and if he couldn't get the right one, he'd pick up any remote he could find and do the right actions. We were laughing so hard at him playing the guitar for rock band with Daddy's help. SO CUTE! He's getting so smart too and communicating so much more with words and signs. I do have a picture of this, so I'll have to post it later. He also learned how to snort and now runs around snorting and laughing. He also figured out that he like to stand and pee in the tub (naughty and annoying, but also a little funny).

Carlyn said, "Mom, I've got to change out of these jammies. Its sweltering in here." Sweltering! Thanks Word Girl (PBS kids, if you don't know.)

Two weeks ago I felt kind of guilty for having so much "Me" time. I had 2 dr appointments, a dinner with some girls friends on Thursday night, a Mamma Mia party Friday night (which deserves a post of its own but that would involve incriminating pictures of my singing and dancing with my neighbors), and a baby shower Saturday morning. I got home and felt a little guilty when Rick whispered to me, "We really need a date, but I don't know if we can find a babysitter at this last minute." It was a Saturday late afternoon, but I agreed that we did need a date. So, he called his sister Belinda who happily watched the kids at her house. They ate, played wii, she gave them baths for Sunday in her huge tub, and the kids played with their cats and dog. They were on cloud 9. But here's the funny part: the kids were playing in the hall when Rick said that so they had no idea they were going to Auntie Bee's house. I heard Carlyn the next minute saying, "I'll be Aunt Bee. I'll make the snacks for us and you go play with Josh (Aunt Bee's boyfriend.)" Annie said, "Come on Josh, let's go play. Aunt Bee, you come when you are done with the snacks." The went on in this scenario for several minutes while Rick and I were cracking up. Thanks Bee and Josh, we really did need a date and enjoyed it very much. We had a wonderful dinner and I got to finally see "Twilight" which I liked much more than I expected after everyone's comments.

Every year a group of friends from high school gets together at Christmas time and has a party. This year we had to put it off until after Christmas and it was last Saturday. I'm glad we do it and we really need to do it more than once a year. There are two pictures because her husband wasn't home until after Jody needed to leave. We had a wonderful meal and visited at Marilee's house.

Me, looking very big and prego, next to Mesha, Jody, Sarah, and my best friend growing up, Heather

Heather swapped out with Marilee to take the picture. Marilee is due in about a month with her first baby, the others happily done having kids. We're coming up on our 15th reunion this fall. CRAZY!

Monday afternoon we got to go the Draper Temple Open House and it was great! It is so organized and kind of amazing to realize the number of volunteers it takes every day of the open house, which lasts quite a long time. The girls especially loved going inside the temple and seeing how pretty it was. I'm really glad we got to go. First we watched a little movie at a nearby chapel assigned ahead of time. Then we got on buses and they drove us to the temple. The kids thought that was pretty cool. It dropped us off at a covered walkway to the temple. Then we took the tour through the temple. The girls loved that they got their own brochures and checked each picture off as we went through. It was so cute. I could really see that Carlyn was understanding when we said there was a place for baptisms for the dead, and then the place where people got married. They loved the Celestial room too, the chandelier especially, and were excited because on Sunday they'd just learned the Plan of Salvation so they recognized Celestial from that. So cute. Darren just liked how it was so quiet and he could make so much noise when nobody else was. We tried to shush him, but a 17 month old doesn't listen too well. When you leave it takes you on a covered walk again to the chapel next door for water and cookies and a beautiful display and then out to the buses again. Did I mention I was so glad we got to go? :)

Pregnancy, Props, and a little Misc

Well, I was feeling excited that I was almost half way done with my pregnancy. As of Monday I thought I was 19 weeks. When I got the dr office Monday afternoon, in a horrible snowstorm I might add, my dr told me that I'm really two weeks behind. I know its not that big of a deal, but the last two weeks I'm pregnant I know I'll be wishing I could really have been done already. I also can't seem to kick this sinus garbage that I have going on. For some reason its worse when I'm pregnant. I hope I pull out of it soon.

I had 2 really good customer service experiences today. The first was that I went to Harmon's for groceries. Actually, I go there specifically because I know I'll have good customer service there and I can drive up and they'll load my groceries. Even Albertson's or Smith's employees just look at you like you're crazy most of the time when you ask and forget it at Walmart.

The other was that I went through the drive through at my credit union and made a deposit. As a afterthought I asked if they had a calendar. She said yes, but she couldn't put it is the tube at the drive through. I said thanks and I'd run in for it. I don't know if she could tell I was sick or was just nice, but she ran it out to me and brought me an extra one too. So nice and above what she needed to do.

When I got home from the store today the girls were playing hospital. I heard one say, "Okay patient, I'm going downstairs now. I'll come back later to check on you." So cute.

Charlie

When talking about baby #4 Carlyn has always insisted it will be a boy and Annie has insisted it will be a girl. Rick has only insisted that we don't find out what it will be. This is very hard for me. Well, I've been trying to talk myself into not finding out for Rick's sake, but struggling with it.

The other day I was putting the kids in the tub and Annie said something about our new baby brother. I asked if she had changed her mind about it being a girl and she said, "Yeah. Its a boy." I forget which one said next, "Yeah, and you should name him Charlie," but the other quickly agreed. I asked where they got that from-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Charlie from the Santa Clause. Carlyn said from the Santa Clause but maybe Charlie Brown too. I said I didn't know and we finished the bath.

Later I was talking to Rick telling him about it. We thought it was really cute. After telling my family several times it was starting to grow on me. So we've come to a decision. We will not find out if its a girl or boy and we will call the baby Charlie (Charley) until the baby is born and then we'll see if we still like the name or not.