i'm supposed to love my job...

...well today I don't. and I know its because we had a late night last night, and my kids are tired, so therefore they are grumpy and ornery and uncooperative. To tell you the truth I am sick of the fighting, fighting, fighting. They fight me to do chores, eat good food, not go out to eat every time we are hungry and out of the house. Maybe I should come up with restautant type meals to serve. But you know, I am tired, I don't feel like being creative. I just want the work to get done and on to the play time. I don't even want play time. I just want me time. Time to do things I would like to do. Things that I need to do. maybe its all me, maybe if I went back to bed I would feel tons better. That sounds good.

schools in

So Wednesday was the first day of school. Just as a reminder of how old we are now.

Cori-12 7th grade. She attends Desert Hills Middle School. She has 7 classes. She was a little disappointed when she thought she got two bad classes that she hadn't signed up for. But when she got to school and in her classes, she was happy to find out that they just had different names and she did get her food and sewing classes that she wanted. She is a beautiful young lady.

Kathryn-10 5th grade. She attends Bloomington Hills Elementary School, as do the other two kids. She loves her teacher. She was a bit upset that she got a man teacher, and that most of her friends were in other classes. But she has made it through the first few days and is doing great.

Sydney-8 3rd grade. Sydney was really disappointed half way through summer when she got a letter in the mail that said her teacher (who she was so excited about, young, spirited woman) decided to not return to work, so she could stay home with her baby. And to make it worse the replacement is a man who has been teaching for 20 years. Not exactly the young and spirited woman she was hoping for. But for the most part Mr. Randall is fine. Sydney is going to do great.

Tanner-6 1st grade. He loves being at school all day, making his lunch and being able to play with all his friends at recess. He did say though that it was kind of boring going all day. I was so excited that the first two days of school I got no fight in him getting dressed and ready. and even making his own lunch. Well that stopped today. We had a late night and he didn't want to do anything I needed him to do this morning. I guess all is back to normal.

Logan-4 will start preschool in a few weeks. He is happy to go to school with our neighbor boys. I am sure Austin is going to have a fit the first few times Logan leaves him.

Austin-2 is a fireball. He is brave and crazy. He is a happy go lucky kid. He is very giving and helpful and also the "for sure" definition of terrible two. He takes charge of Gage, thinking that he isn't allowed to play with anything. But he loves to go to nursery though and walks right in and says- bye mom, see ya later.

Gage-17 months. Can you believe how the time flies. Just yesterday it seems he was in the NICU with tubes all over and as tiny as ever. But not today. He is about 20 pounds, and a good size kid. He is crawling all over the house. He loves the bathroom. I think because when the door is open it is very bright in there, because of the tubular skylight we have in there. He can say about 6-7 words, plus sign the word for "more". Today he said YEE HAW. It was very cute. He is a very happy baby, which is good, because as much as he loves me, and cries when I'm not here, he does very well with all the people that come to see him each month. We have a Physical Therapist that comes once a month to help him get stronger in sitting, crawling and eventually pulling up and walking. We have a Occupational Therapist that comes in and watches how he eats, and does normal tasks, and gives us advice on how to help him reach our goals. We also have an eye specialist who comes and really just plays with him and gives me ideas on how to keep his glasses and patch on. We are scheduled for eye surgery the 4th of Sept. He is cross eyed and needs some help fixing that. We also have a learning consultant coming over twice a month. She helps keep up with all the advice the others give and gives me new ideas to try. We also attend a gross motor class once a week to help get him interested in what the other kids are doing. And after seeing all those kids, he is doing great. Just a bit behind. He'll catch up. after looking at all that, no wonder my house is a wreck. I guess I need to get a better schedule. Less reading and more working.

summer

Hi all.
I have been horrible about posting. So I thought I would just post some misc. pics of us doing stuff.

well I was going to, but I can't find the cord to transfer pictures over. So, for now, does anyone have a great knack at organizing? I need you. Do you want to come stay at my house, I will cook for you. that is about as much as I can offer right now. :)
hope all is well.

14.4

HI!!!!

So, of course its been a few weeks since I posted anything new. What can I say, schools out, and we are busy. We have had a great couple weeks though. Lets see, Cori turned 12!! Can you believe it??!! I can't. I am still in shock. She is a beautiful girl and I love watching her mature and turn into a young lady. We also took a trip up north, to visit Kim and Joe and meet Zachary. He is a cutie. Want to check out some pics of him and the family visit Kim and Joe @ josephandkim.blogspot.com We had a great time up there. and the only pictures I took the whole

time were these...

Gage was a tired boy!! But he loves his bottle!!

anyway, on to the important stuff.

Last night I weighed in at weight watchers. And I am down another 2 pounds. I was so excited. Because, Jared was rubbing it in my face in the morning that he had lost 2 pounds and he was going to win the days competition. Sorry buddy, I lost two pounds too. HA. I am determined to win. If nothing else. hahahaha. I am really motivated to lose the weight. I know it isn't going to be easy. I thought for sure this week wasn't going to show in my favor, no exercise, and not eating the greatest because we weren't at home, and then we were traveling. I never eat good when I travel. But it turned out okay. That just means that next week will be even better.

WOOHOO for me.

Thanks for listening to me celebrate.

Hope you have a most wonderful, beautiful happy day.

10 pounds!!

At the end of March I went and joined weight watchers. I decided I was ready to commit myself to better eating habits and more exercise. It has been 7 full weeks, I am starting week 8. I am down a total of 10 pounds!!!! WOOHOO. I am enjoying my food, and looking for ways to get more movement into my crazy days. We are all benefiting from me being on weight watchers. I am trying to have healthier food in the house, skipping the junky isles and buying some food that is fat free. I think it is starving Jared, but otherwise we are doing well. We are in a competition- who can lose 20 pounds first. I think I am winning as of last night. We'll see how it goes!! We'll keep you posted.

Happy Mothers Day. Love you lots. Hope you had a wonderful day. I know I was really spoiled. I got to sleep in, Jared made me an omlette for breakfast-that was a special treat. I got to open my presents. And my kids each made me cards at church. I took a little nap this afternoon, and Jared made dinner. The kids cleaned up. Pretty nice day.

Dancing with the Stars

Last week was our school's rendition of Dancing with the Stars. The kids have been practicing at school for months. The theme was "The Beat of Happy Feet". The Kindergarten did the march of the penquins. Tanner has a great tshirt with a mom and baby penguin on it. He also made a big penguin that they used to march around the football field. Sydney's grade did a Virginia Reel Dance. They had a great time. Each girl was across from a boy, and danced with that boy. Except for my daughter, who for some reason was dancing with her best friend, instead. Someday they will like boys!! :) Kathryn's grade did the Cha Cha Slide. Out of all the dances theirs was the most "hip". It was so Kathryn too. She is into being cool, and looking cute, and liking boys. This dance was hip, and cool and she was dancing like she loved it. And she is good at it too. I have some pictures, but our camera doesn't do long distance close ups well. So I will try and point out each of the kids. Then later I will add individuals of each of the kids. They were all so excited to be part of this. I am glad they stuck with it and had fun.

I took some pictures, but you can't really tell which one is my kid. So I will try and give you some clues.

• This is Tanner and the Kindergarten getting ready. He is in the back row of kids that are sitting down, second from the end.
  

• This next one is what the penguins looked like on their march.
  
  
  
  
  
• Sydney is in the pink shirt with the visor, black shorts at the front of the line.
  
  
  
  

• Time for the ribbons.
  

• Kathryn is in the row on the right, second from the front. One kids is way in front but kinda to the right, and then she to the left of the kid.
  
  

• Kathryn giving us a back view of her Cha Cha Slide #4 shirt. and helping pick up the hats that flew away. It got so windy during their dance I don't think one 4th grader kept their hat on.

it was really a great and fun night.

Gage

Wow! It seems like forever since I last posted anything on the blog. And I don't have a good reason either. I started a post devoted to my little man Gage-which hopefully I will finish soon, but I can't find the disk with some pictures that I was wanting to use. Then my MSN server has been down and I wasn't accessing the internet, now I am using Internet Explorer, trying to wait patiently for the server to work again.

We captured some cute pictures of Gage enjoying his first tastes of sugar. It was whipped topping and he really enjoyed it. I couldn't really get a good smile out of him because everytime the flash went off he would frown. But we still got a couple cute ones.

I am sure Gage likes what dad feeds him a whole lot more than what mom is trying to shove down him.

Here's a cute picture, just because it makes me smile.

kids funnies

The kids are always doing funny things. But this one made me chuckle and I thought i would share a side of Tanner that we don't see everyday...

Yesterday at school he was sitting next to this girl Amelia and the room helper (who happens to be our Bishops wife, she volunteers at the school to help the kids that are a little behind) so anyway, she is helping Amelia, and Tanner and Amelia start talking about how her dad brushes her teeth. Tanner looks at her very sternly and says, "Your dad isn't supposed to brush your teeth, you are supposed to brush your teeth." Sister Daniels said Tanner got this look on his face and continued to look at her with a indignant look and was so shocked that she didn't brush her own teeth. Ya gotta love boys.

Then onto the terrific and troublesome two year old. Austin is a cutie. And when he smiles at me, I melt a bit inside. But last night at dinner he was a busy boy. Logan comes running over and says, "DAD. Austin is on the table and is dumping the salt, Like this," showing him how he is shaking the salt shaker, all over the table!! Jared gets up and runs over to the other table and gets Austin down. As soon as he is free he gets up to the nearby table and starts dumping the salt there too. Then Jared gets him down and passes him to me. I hold him for a bit and then let him go, and he goes straight for another salt shaker!! The people that were sitting on the same side of the restaurant were shaking there heads at us, like- don't people control there kids anymore these days. all we could do was laugh, and Jared carried Austin out piggy back.
I guess that shows he's coming out of the cute stage and onto the wonderful stage of destruction. Yay for me. :)