Dude on the run...almost

We have now moved into a new phase (well, new with Darren at least!). He is now on the move. He has been slowly crawling for a couple weeks but this last week he kicked it into high gear. If motivated (i.e. open door, I'm not looking, sees my phone, etc.) he starts crawling with a turbo boost. It seems that he doesn't like to hurt his knees and he crawls stink bug style sometimes. He also pushes with one foot underneath him. It is funny to watch him. But I can't get anything done because I'm always stopping him from doing anything dangerous or sweeping his mouth out.

Unlike my girls, he went straight to pulling himself up. This kid seems ready to run. I can't believe how adept he is at pulling himself up and even starting to walk around the furniture. It took a couple months for for the girls to try, they were a lot more cautious.

Sick kiddies

I hate having kids who are sick. Not that anyone loves it-what I mean is that it is the worst part of being a mom, even worse than tantrums and sleepless nights. Especially when they are young and can't tell you what's wrong or there's nothing I can do to make it go away.

My kids seem to keep rotating through several different viruses and aren't super sick, but they rotate between sore throats, coughs, runny noses, ear aches, fevers, headaches, stomach aches, and occasional throw up sessions. Usually not all at once, but its been a long 24 hours with a couple fun weeks before that.

Tonight Carlyn was complaining of a sore throat and I had done everything I could and she was just laying there whining and I said a prayer with her. She looked at me and said, "Dad could give me a blessing, huh?" I said yes and she ran to him to ask. Oh the faith of a little child. Before that she wouldn't settle down to go to sleep and after she just hugged us and climbed in bed and went to sleep. Annie, who is mostly better, jumped up after Carlyn was done and sat tall and grinned and said, "I have blessing too, Daddy." After the blessing she turned and gave him the biggest hug. While it hasn't been fun having sick kids, it was so special to have this experience. I'm so thankful to Rick for the good dad he is and that he can give our children blessings. I'm thankful for the priesthood he has and honors.

Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day. We went to Moroni where they had a huge stake dinner for Mothers & Daughters. It was lovely. We got all dolled up and went to dinner. We had 13 of us there (and 3 in spirit-Emily we missed you!) including 8 granddaughters. It was a wonderful turkey dinner (what else in Moroni?) with baked potatoes, salad, cooked carrotts, & cake. It was so fun to be there together. They used to have them when I was young, but I can't remember the last one they had.

Rick and the kids bought me 3 beautiful yellow/red roses, one to represent each child. They were beautiful. They also gave me a card with a rooster on the front and inside it said "to the woman who rules the roost!" and played the chicken song. Funny!!! He also ordered me the Twilight series books, but they haven't gotten here yet. It was nice just to have a little time together. What a blessing family is!

I found an article by Whitney Permann in LDS Living Magazine. She talks about the tough parts of motherhood compared to contractions and calls the good things that come up, you know the ones that just make you so happy to be a mom, "mother mercies". I really liked that. Its kind of like my story with the girls being naughty and falling asleep. Here's the link if you want to check it out. http://www.ldslivingmagazine.com/articles/show/1518

Girls just wanna have fun

This is my girls and their cousin. I missed the funniest part when Carlyn helped them put their hands just right. Its a little long, so I don't care if you stop it, just not before the funny part. Sorry about the lighting; the sunlight hurts my grandma's eyes. I thought this was hilarious and wanted to share it with you! FYI, at the end, my Mom asked where they learned to do that and Carlyn said, "We didn't learn it. We just had it in our brains!"

Pre Mother's Day Post

It isn't easy being a mom of 3 kids under 5. Sometimes it is really hard. I try to balance between time for myself and each of them, housework, and the many other things a Mom does in a day. Somehow I feel like I'm failing in every area. Carlyn told me that I love Darren more than them and it made me sad. I do hold him more, but I do try to scoop them into my arms as many times a day as possible and tell them how much I love them. My house is a disaster (don't even get me started on the yard). Yet, somehow, I know that I'm doing a good job. We have family home evenings and many prayers with our children. I read to them. I talk to them and listen to them. I play with them. I get time away from them occasionally (yes, that's important). I know I'm not perfect, but I love my children. One reason I take (and post) so many pictures is because I need to see them sometimes to remind me why I really, truly LOVE being a Mom.

I often go walking in meadows of Clover...

(Carlyn says meadows of Grover!)

That's what this picture reminded me of. Perfect for Mother's Day

Candid shot of Annie & Grandma

I think this is just the sweetest.

Thanks Carisa for the matching dresses, the girls love them and so do I.

These pictures of the girls in bed have a story behind them. The other day the girls were fighting all day and when I would step in and encourage them to be nice they would start yelling at me and sometimes saying really naughty things or take a swing at me. After all day of this I sent them to their bedroom so I could compose myself because I had yelled too much and was getting really angry. Anyway, I called my sister so I could calm down. She gave me a pep talk that reminded me why I'm a mom and that I do love them and they love me. We hung up and I went down to apologize and they were asleep. I kissed them and apologized anyway and then I took pictures. They look so innocent and perfect when they're sleeping. I felt horrible for yelling. It was only 6:30 at night. They woke up about 11 and had a snack and went back to bed. It was really frustrating at the time, but since then I've been able to keep calm even when they are fighting like cats and dogs. Even though I hate it when I yell, I was glad to have this experience and maybe it was most appropriate right before Mother's Day.

Other happenings this week

Earlier this week Rick and I were able to go to the premier of Iron Man. We dropped the kids at Joel & Jessica's house and met his sister Belinda accompanied by boyfriend Josh. It was crazy. People were cheering and clapping during the movie. I know I wasn't the only one skeptical of Robert Downey Jr., but he did a great job. It was good, but Rick LOVED it and I only liked it. Total man movie. It was a little cheesy at parts, but I think all comic book movies are. I haven't been without Darren very many times for that long, but he did well.

Front runner is a UTA train that runs from SL to Odgen. It is brand new and they had free days the few days until the end of April. I didn't find out til the 30th, so we decided to load up the kids and battle the crowds. It was so cold waiting the 20+ minutes for the train. We should have had coats and mittens and we only had jackets. Wow, it was packed and the trains were running slower due to the weight. Luckily, we were able to find seats on the way north and 1 seat on the way back. We thought we might go all the way to Ogden and back, but we jumped ship in Layton and headed back. It was supposed to be a 2 hour total round trip, but it was that just to Layton and back. It has a few kinks to work out, but it was nice. It was a little crazy and the kids were done on the way back so I forgot to take pictures.

Uh Oh! Bonny goofed.

Bonny gave me ADMIN access to her blog - she doesn't know what she's done. Ha Ha Ha. Actually, she has to tell me when to check it. Which is to say that now I have a reason to sabotage, uh, read it more often.

Crazy kids

When my children aren't sweetly sleeping, here are some of the silly things they do.

Beg for toenails and fingernails to be painted. The same color is boring.
I can't feed D at my grandma's house because he leans all the way over to the piano, so once I just scooted his chair up to it. He "went to town" as C would say.

One way to keep him from getting into trouble.

Much easier than the tub. He's surprised at every splash and had a blast.

Girls and their babies. C's is Belle and A's is Sarah.

The always have to wear skirts or dresses lately and they LOVE hats!

A and her hat. Notice the yellow socks she picked!

Little D

Today Darren was into everything! He still isn't crawling per se, but he sure gets around. Mostly he does push ups and rocks back and forth on his hands and knees. I only have blurry pictures of that though. I guess he's going to bypass crawling and head straight to standing up to furniture. He sat up from laying a few days ago too. I did help him the last tiny bit in standing up to this, but he did most. At this age it is amazing the difference a day can make. Or a week. Then he found his way over to the DVDs. He was laughing and having fun pulling them off. Afterward he looked through them like he was choosing which to watch. It was really cute.

Ring around the roses (or tulips & daffodils)

The girls in my Grandma's back yard. Posing, of course.

Sleepy head

Do you ever catch your kids sleeping in funny positions or funny places. I do all the time. These are just a few to give you an idea of what its like at our house to find them asleep. D asleep in his crib hunched over his bear.

I would call her Sleeping Beauty, but she insists that she's Snow White.

On the couch cushions on the floor

Annie fell asleep at Marie Callendar's with her head in my hand, but I was feeding the baby so my mom picked her up.

Carlyn pretending to be asleep, but she did sleep here one afternoon

Twilight and a bad back

Last week I woke up and my back was out. I was in a lot of pain and couldn't stand up straight. Its done that before, but not for about 7 years. UGH. No wonder, my little 8 month old is a hefty 19+ pounds. That just made it worse. It was torture taking him from his crib to the changing table and then into the kitchen. After some debate I decided to pack up (well, Rick packed up because every tiny thing was painful to me) and drive to my parent's house. My sister and her chiropractor husband live there because he's just opening a chiropractic office there. Convenient, huh? The only debate came because sitting was terribly painful and its a 2 hour drive. I stuck an ice pack behind me and took off.

We went to the office Wednesday night and he started to torture me. JUST KIDDING! But it did hurt because I was in so much pain. His treatments were aggressive and he used electric stimulation, accupuncture (helpful, but I hate needles), decompression (a contraption that stretches out your spine), adjustments, and a massager. All with state of the art equipment. Very nice. He stuck me in a brace and told me to use ice often. I felt much better by Friday, but stayed til Saturday. Thanks Dallin!!!

While on my bedrest my sister lent me Twilight to read. I admit that I was hesitant, but naturally I got sucked in and LOVE the book. I finished it Saturday night just after I got back so I called around and found a friend in my ward who let me borrow the next 2. Thanks Heather for lending me your babies. I was functional, but still in pain so I decided to come back Tuesday (no Tuesdays with grandmas.) I still feel a little uncomfortable sitting too long but I'm so much better. I'm also done with New Moon and Eclipse. Finished this morning. I kind of wish that I'd waited until closer to when the 4th book comes out. UGH! I wish I could put a couple pictures of the kids, but not tonight. I've got to get some sleep. My kiddies are done sleeping at grandma's house and didn't sleep well last night. When I went for a treatment today the girlies cried and said they wanted to go home. They are home bodies, no matter how much they love grandma, grandpa and the "tousins."

Sweet laughter

Keep watching. It gets better. Darren playing with Grandpa Hilton.

Conference

I love to listen to conference and I always love the Saturday sessions and believe that some of the best talks are on Saturday. I'm sad to say that I didn't hear much from any of the sessions, but I did hear a little more of Sunday afternoon. My kids are bored out of their minds during conference and I tried the coloring thing, sending them to the other room to play, etc., but they would always end up right in front of me being a less than a year old, 2 year old, and a 4 year old. I was saying to Rick that I loved President Monson, but I was having a hard time in my mind transitioning him from "story teller apostle" to prophet and that I hadn't heard a dang thing yet. Not 10 minutes later Elder Ballard came on and said he wanted to talk specifically to young mothers. I ran back in front of the tv and magically the kids were quite so I could listen. My friend highlighted the points and I stole them from her. They are:
Recognize that the joys of motherhood come in moments.
Focus more on doing and less on getting it done.
Don't overschedule. Have unstructured time.
Find time for ourselves.
Pray, study and teach the gospel.
Thank you Elder Ballard. That was just what I needed. I love being a mom, but its really hard right now. I loved President Monson's talk at the end of conference. He was still the story teller, but now he's the prophet instead of the apostle. I felt that strongly and am thankful for that. I also heard Elder Bednar's talk about praying with faith and really appreciated that too. I learned a lot. Thank you Heavenly Father for hearing my cries and letting me hear that if nothing else.

Fun night

I got movie premiere passes from Utah Family magazine and we decided to go. After the drama of a long day with 3 kids and chasing down tickets, standing in line, spending the time between at Rick's grandma's house we finally saw Nim's Island. It was a cute show and we did have fun, though Annie fell asleep in line and Darren's diaper leaked and I ended up with pee all over my shirt. Oh well, I'm a mom, what are you gonna do?