Ashy Bash

Ashley is currently terrified of bugs, also dogs. She freaks out when she sees a fly in the house. She has to point it out to me and won't relax until we swat it. Heaven forbid it actually fly toward her, it causes a full scale panic. She also points out all spiders and any other crawly things on the ground. It often turns out to be a little piece of mulch from our back yard, but better safe than sorry, right? Just last week the girls were playing outside finding roly polies. Camille loves them and brought one in the house to show me. She and Em were taking turns holding it, and then they took it back outside to let it go. Unfortunately just after earning his freedom Ashley squashed him. She was proud of herself but the other girls came to tell me all distrought and crying. It was quite comical. Our neighbors have two wild little dogs that frequently escape when their daughters go in our out of the house. My kids will run screaming for the house or the back yard when they do, all in terror. Ashley gets so scared she will freeze and just tremble. She likes to see the dogs but prefers they take no notice of her.

A Few of her favorite things include sunglasses, babies, band-aids, playing outside (especially without shoes), fruitsnacks (which she is begging for every morning by 7am), baths, going potty, trying on shoes, purses, chapstick, and Grandma.

She knows the names of all our friends in the ward, but calls the dads only by their last name. Sunday she saw our friend Bill Nalen across the hall and said, "Mom! I saw Nalen!" Jerry Larsen is "Larsen," even when she is speaking directly to him. Anybody we don't know is a "danger." It sounds pretty funny when she runs in from playing outside and says, "Mom, there's a danger!" Meaning she saw someone out there. If we see someone in the store she will either ask, "What's that Mom?" or ask if it's a "danger."

Bash likes to be the center of attention, and get a laugh. She makes faces, pretends to burp at the table, snorts loudly, announces every time she toots, and has a hilarious fake laugh. Once I was getting mad at her because she took off her diaper and peed in her bed during naptime. I sat her on the potty and gave her a mean look to show her I was very upset. She made a little face and said, "Am I funny mom?" I said NO. She then gave a little pout and said, "I wanna be funny!"

She is such a lovey, snuggly little thing. When someone leaves the house to go somewhere she says, "Huggie, Huggie!" and gets very upset if she doesn't get one. She comes up to me lots and asks to be held, or to snuggle me. She also spontaneously grabs my leg or hugs me and says, "I love mommy." She does it to Justin, too. When I get mad at her she won't be happy until I sit and hold her for a minute and she knows I still love her. If I stay mad she hovers around me whining and pouting until I'll stop and hold her a bit then she can go about her business.

I wish I had a picture of this but she has a fettish about getting stuff inbetween her toes. She will sit down and examine them one by one, pulling them apart and swiping with her finger if she finds "nasty the toes!"

single parenthood

Justin is away at Scout Camp for a couple days, and I'm thinking single parenthood is overrated. My kids have been pretty good, but the hard times really kill me--like for example when they are all three screaming or talking to me at once. Tonight Ashley started melting down at 6:30, crying over every little thing. I was reading stories--not exactly your high stress activity--and I told her to shhh because she wouldn't stop whining while I was reading. I wish I had a picture of the face she gave me. "MOM! Why you say Shhhhh!?"

How may girls is too many?

It turns out for me, that would be four. But not to worry, we will soon have a little more testosterone flowing in our house! It's a boy!

New Tatics

Tonight we put Ashley to bed by herself, usually she goes at the same time as Camille, and she didn't like it too much. She yelled down to me for about an hour, here are some of the comments:
"Mom!"
"Mom!"
"Is it morning?"
"Mom?"
"Mom, I need my blankie, it's on the floor." (It wasn't when I put her in bed.)
"Mommy!"
"Mom!"
"I took off my pants!"
"I took off my pants! I took off my pants! I took off my pants! I took off my pants!"
"Mom, I took off my pants!"
"Mom, I took off my diaper."
"I mean I took off my pants, not my diaper."
"Mom!"

about 45 minutes into the yelling:
"Camille!"
"Camille, go to bed with me!"

After getting no responses she finally started talking to and playing with a toy dog she had in bed. I did eventually go up and tell her to be quiet and gave her the blankie, and she finally went to sleep.

Gone Campin'

Last weekend we went camping! Wuhoo, our first time as a family! We went to Chatfield with a few other families in our ward. The site is less than 10 miles from our house, which was nice. The weather was great and so was the company. The kids acted like old pros. They wore their old jeans, and got good and dirty for me. I wish I had taken a picture of Camille and Emma's feet Saturday when I put them in the bath, I'd never seen blacker, dirtier feet.

When we were hanging around the fire at dusk, Ashley turned to me in her camp chair and asked, "What's this mom? What's this?" I had no idea what she was talking about so I asked what and she said, "are we camping?" Like, is this all we do? She had a little suffed dog she brought and wandered around with it stuffed inside her shirt most of the night.

A couple of us brought bikes and the older ones had a ball riding around. Emma was one of a couple who had just learned and they only plowed over two little kids. It was a nice big area though, with lots of empty roads so it was a great spot for bike riding.

One of the families brought a mini house bouncer thing, and that was a big hit. The same family also had the brilliant idea to bring a bunch of glow sticks, and that is how we kept track of all the kids after dark. We plan on going again soon, it was a great weekend.

here's Camille

I would describe Camille as a somewhat volatile child. You know that nursery rhyme about the little girl who had a little curl? That is Camille exactly. The interesting thing is that she can flip from sweet to furious in a matter of seconds. She is known for screaming when she gets frustrated, so we hear that a lot. Even more interesting (and more rare) is that she can also flip back to sweet, although it happens much less. She will tell me, "I changed my mind, I'm going to be happy." and she does. It is very difficult to predict what will precipitate these changes, I don't even try. There are a few common ones, for example finding a treasured item moved from where she carefully placed it, being bossed around or mothered by Emma, or not being able to accomplish something she is trying to do like get her sunday dress on.

In reference to the above mentioned habit of stashing treasures, this is the same child who caused me some alarm one day when I found my wedding ring missing from beside the bathroom sink. I thought perhaps Justin had hidden it (which he sometimes does) to punish me for leaving it out, but I called him at work and he assured me he had seen it there when he left that morning. Later in the day--after checking the pockets of every pair of pants I own--I thought to ask the kids. "Girls, have you seen mommy's special wedding ring?" Emma said no, but Camille said yes. I said, where is it? "Oh, I'll show you, it's right here." She proceeded to take me upstairs and reach her little arm behind a dresser to get my ring. I about died, I couldn't tell if it was from relief that my diamond was not lost or the fact that I would never have found it on my own! When she was small and she fell, we would not go rescue her because the first person to reach her became the villian responsible for her trouble and she would smack them. We would look away and pretend we didn't notice, in which case she usually would scream but at least not take it out on someone else.

Cam is so very creative, one of her dominant traits. She is a self-entertaining child, and was an easy baby. She will go with a bucket of polly pockets to some corner of the house and amuse herself for hours. She has a great imagination for play, and loves to imitate movies. She also has a great sense of humor and it's so fun to watch movies with her and see where she will laugh out loud. Often it is when a cartoon character gets smashed or hit with something. She has been quoting the funny parts of movies to me since she could barely talk! She used to love Shrek a lot and now is into Cinderella III, and the Return of Jafar. She likes the part where Iago says, "you got a problem pinkie?" to a flamingo and then knocks it over. She told me today she had named her special pink blanket "pinkie."

This picture was taken during the big blizzard we had this last December. We took the kids out that day to play in the snow, and Camille wasn't a fan. Right after I forced her to pose for this pic I sent her inside where she happily sat on the couch and watched a movie.

She is also my most sensitive child, and the one it most breaks my heart to get mad at, because she does not cry often so when she does tear up you know she is sincerely hurt. When she has her feelings hurt she will go hide or try to hold it in, and you should see that little face! My favorite face of hers is when she is beaming with pride--when she has managed to accomplish something or receives praise, it is so much fun to see her soak it it!

Did you ever see a girl so loaded with personality?

Our "baby"

Ashley is the funniest baby. We just love her, but it's so hard to describe her funny moments because she says such adult things that don't sound funny without her little lisp and voice attached to them. Today, however she did say something that translates. We are buying my mom's van so I took it in this morning to get an estimate on some damage on it. When we hopped into our old car we had a discussion about where the van was--my kids love it and we have been driving it for about a week. Ashley asked if it was broken, and I said yes. She said, "oh, you need a kiss? I give the car a kiss, it will be all better" she was going to kiss the van to make it better. I love how kids translate ideas to other situations!

My Very First Post On My Own Blog

This is a test post to see if my blog template is cute. If it's not I'm blaming everything on Cat Yeates.