Keeping up

I'm shooting for about a post per week, so far I'm doing pretty good--if only I could keep up as well with my house keeping.

Ash was well for two days and then Camille started throwing up. Luckily she has it under control and i haven't had to clean up messes. I really hope Nate doesn't get it.

Justin has a work dinner tonight, so we are having eggs for dinner and then I promised Ashley I would take her to Toys R Us to spend the gift card Nana sent for her birthday. IF she gets her room cleaned in time, of course. A tedious process of tattletelling, screaming, bossing, and whining. I'm going up to split up the jobs now so she and Camille can finish their work at their own pace. Snail's pace.

Did you know...

That it snows in Dallas? I heard it did, but in two years I'd never seen it and didn't quite believe it. Who knew that a state that melts me at least 6 months out of 12 could also look like this:
We got about 7 or 8 inches total, but (don't laugh CO) school was cancelled.Today was supposed to be my day to catch up, clean, finish laundy, organize. Instead:

Each of the girls had a friend over (in an attempt to keep them away from my immediate area) but my diabolical plan failed and I spent the entire morning at the beck and call of seven little children who wanted to play in the snow. I hunted mittens and hats, tried to mediate fights over the two pair of boots we have, answered unending knocks at the door, put Nate on the tramp, took Nate off the tramp, got snacks, provided dry pants and socks, refit wet mittens, answered more knocks at the door, tried to keep wet boots off the carpet, made slushies, wiped up spilled juice, answered calls for Emma on MY cell phone, etc. etc. etc. They were so loud coming and going that Nate never took a nap. I took a picture of each girl with her friend.

Ashley and Meghan

Camille and Mackenzie

Emma and Abby

Now all the friends are gone, and it is still a disaster, and I'm out of here. I called a sitter and I'm going out to dinner. I'll worry about the rest tomorrow.

For those who have been watching...

Some random daily life:After a holiday of road tripping and watching lots of movies, I can't tear Nate away from the TV. He loves to watch Dora the Explorer, Handy Manny, Max and Ruby, Spongebob, and most especially Disney's Cars. If Lightning (pictured above) was not lost, Bubb would be have him in his hand still. Nate doesn't like to run errands with me, he would rather stay home and watch TV and play around the coffee table with his cars. If I do entice him to go with promises of watching Lightning McQueen in the car, he is mad when I turn off the car to run in a store and throws tantrums. He carries on and on in a very dramatic (older three sisters) kind of way and tells me "I'm crying!" When I try to talk to him reasonably.



Nate and Ashley are such good buddies. They play all day happily with each other and unless Ashley mothers Nate too much things go pretty smoothly. He is always looking for her when she isn't around, and he runs to hug her when she has been at school. She helps him with things (like getting snacks) and wants to be the one to wake him up from his nap. All the kids like to do that, they fight over who's turn it is to get him up.



Emma is growing so big. She acts like she is 16 and not 9 going on 10. She is so responsible, I never have to ask her to do her homework or shower and get ready for school. In fact--she often wakes me up for the day telling me what time it is and giving me a report on what the other kids are doing. She has choir practice every Wednesday, and it makes Justin crazy when she reminds him every Tuesday night. He has told her he can remember, he is the one who drives her to school those mornings, but she reminds him every week anyway. I have a little trouble with her because she is so grown up and responsible, she doesn't like it when I say no to her and always wants to know why or tries to change my mind with reasoning.


Camille is Camille. Mornings are not her thing. She has so many tardies now that if we get any more we get in trouble. Last week she was sick, and stayed home Monday and Tuesday. Then I sent her back to school Wednesday, and she did just fine. Thursday I had just driven 25 minutes from home with four small children in my car, marched them all into the mall and we had just met my SIL at a play place when I got a call from the school nurse. I had to march the four kids back out to the car and drive all the way back home to pick her up. It was not my best day, the little four weren't happy either! But Camille bopped her way out of the school with a big smile on her face and happily settled into the lazy boy to watch TV. I didn't even bother to send her Friday.

Day to day business

Nate fell on the sidewalk and split his poor lip open. It is pretty much completely healed now, one week later but he looked pretty sad last week.

I love these twinkly eyes, the wavy gold hair, and the little mole on her cheek. She lost a tooth Sunday, she came up to me and I pulled it right out with a paper towel. She lost it the first night so then she wrote a cute note to the tooth fairy to put under her pillow but we found the tooth in her bed. She got her dollar this morning.

Soccer Saturday

After nearly two weeks of rain, cancelled practices and games, we finally had our first soccer games today. I think Ash likes her new uniform. She was so cute, and had a great time. She scored a goal! She was at the front of the bumblebee pack and took it to the net. When we cheered for her she got a shy look on her face like she felt bad about it. Later in the game she had a great assist. She put if right on the line and a teammate tipped it in.
Ashy's coach is fantastic. At first I was worried because he is a little die hard--he wanted to have two practices a week. (For 4 year olds I think it's a little aggressive.) But I will say he runs a great practice, and despite multiple cancelled practices he had the girls ready for their game. The best part about him is his talent with interacting with the girls. He is able to motivate them without threats or anger, and is great about being sympathetic without encouraging drama. He gave one girl some extra play time today because she really wanted a goal.

Nate was good during the first game: there was a baby behind us he played with. He also spent some time shooting on a free goal with Emma and eating snacks I brought.
Smack in the middle of the other girls games Emma had pictures, of course. I had to leave Ash and truck clear across the fields, lugging the chubby kid who refused to walk. On the plus side I was able to steal a great team photo so I don't have to pay 30 bones for it. Cha Ching. There is one girl with her eyes closed, but it's not my kid!

Then we hoofed it back over to pick up Ashley and catch the end of Camille's game. It was getting pretty hot by then, and Nate still wouldn't walk. Not sure why. He had a harder time during Cam's game because he always tries to go for Justin when he can see him across the field. He made a couple escape attempts, and made it to midfield one time but luckily the play was at the other end.
Camille played well in her game. Ironically enough, she is not aggressive at all on the soccer field. She hangs back and follows the play from a distance. She did get a foot on the ball a few times and loves to do throw ins. Three out of seven players on her team no showed, so the four played the whole game with no subs. They were beat by the end.


Notice Emma's cute flower clip, the latest outlet for my craftiness.


This is Nate showing me his "truck." He loves to bite one corner of a cracker and then say, "Mom, truck" and drive it around with sound effects. He even says, "beep, beep, beep" when he backs it up. All in all a good soccer day.

My Camilly

Lest you think Cam is always in a bad mood, I had fun doing homework with her yesterday. She gets a word with scrambled letters and has to cut them up to make other words. I made the word "burp" and after looking at it for a bit she started to laugh. She cracked up again while writing it down on her paper and said, "Ahhh, that never gets old!"

Here is an example of her fun sense of humor:

WARNING hibernating bear!

Camille is tough in the morning. From the minute I get her up, she folds her arms, stomps her feet, and screams at anyone who talks to her. This morning for example, I woke her up to get in a nice warm bath. The bath was too hot, and she refused to get in and said she hated school. It was the worst day of her life. (She said that yesterday too. I considered pointing it out to her but held back.) Then she was mad because she couldn't get her nightgown off by herself. She was upset because she couldn't get out of the tub first (Ashley was almost finished with her bath by now.) Then because she had to wash with soap. When I asked her to get out she moaned with frustration, and after she had complained about getting in. Then she was furious because she had nothing to wear. Emma's clothes didn't fit, they were too long. When I produced a perfectly clean pair of capris from the dryer, she didn't want to wear that outfit and refused to go to school. I said it was against the law for her to stay home and she said she hated the police, with her arms folded. But she finally did get dressed, and started playing with her dollhouse. At this point we have ten minutes before we are supposed to leave.
Downstairs, she got mad at me because there was nothing she wanted to eat. I made a few suggestions which were vhemently refused, so I told her to figure it out on her own or go hungry to school. She found some cereal. She obstinately put on her shoes trying to wiggle as much as possible while I combed her hair, and I told her she would have to go to bed at 7:00 tonight if she didn't start cooperating. We stomped our way to the car. After I started it up Ashley told me Camille wasn't buckled so I told her to buckle up. She screamed at Ashley for tattling but put her seatbelt on. Then she said she hated little sisters and I told her to keep her mouth shut, she hadn't said one nice thing all morning. Thankfully she did. I'd like to tell you it was an unusually rough morning, but it wasn't. It's all completely routine.

Nate is thankfully less abrasive when he wakes up. He usually snuggles who ever gets him out of bed for a minute or so, and then eats what the girls are eating for breakfast. This morning he needed more cereal and nobody was there to help so he helped himself. He laughed with us when we laughed at him and posed for me when I got the camera.

time for updates

Happy Birthday Billy!

Camillly is the cutest little seven-year-old you ever saw. She has a fun smile and a great sense of humor. She loves Tom and Jerry, Spongebob, and all things High School Musical. She is a sensitive thoughtful girl, and I worry sometimes about her fragile self confidence. One of her latest things is wanting me to pick out her clothes for her. (Perhaps it stems from her getting dressed inappropriately for the weather and me telling her to change--she hates that.) She will make some man so happy some day: for her birthday she asked for BBQ brisket, sausage, and bacon. So we had them all.

She has turned into a great little reader, it is cute the way she shows me the pictures and reads me the books she brings home from school. She also is doing so well with reading the scriptures, I'm amazed sometimes at the words she figures out. She is a great little organizer. She likes to put her own clothes away, and organize the barbies in Ashley's doll house. She loves to write notes and leaves us little love notes almost daily. She is a great kid.

I love this smile.

And our little Bubb is starting to talk! Oh my, nothing gets my heart like little baby words. It is so hard to catch him on video, but I'm trying. In his vocabulary:

Mom

Daddy

Emma

Ashy (poor Camilly, he hasn't figured out how to say her name yet and it breaks her heart)

bird

doggie

woof

ba ba, passy, blanket (those three all sound pretty much the same)

mine

here you go (more like "eh go!")

please

thank you

bye bye

stuck

stinky Oh!

all gone

uh oh

and of course, ball

He also blows kisses, one of our favorite tricks.
It is my absolute favorite stage of babyhood, the learning to talk part. I finally get a little hint of what goes on in their minds and see the intelligence working, it just melts my heart.
He is such a lovey little man, he gives us lots of hugs and snuggles and pats. It is impossible not to adore him.

fhe--wii

Ohh good times. Sorry about the camera jiggling, but I couldn't stop laughing! Justin got me wii fit for Christmas, and we sure are enjoying it. Camille rocks the hula hoop. And check out Emma's warrior pose.

Rock Band

Today I heard Camille singing "Dead or Alive" in the bathroom. Thanks for the housewarming gift Larsons!

First Day of School!!!

This is such a happy occasion for me, and despite what it looks in the picture it is happy for my kids too. They woke up a 6:00 am on their first day of school. Emma set her alarm and woke Camille, they ate breakfast, got dressed, packed lunches, and were ready to go with time to spare, they were so excited. Camille was visibly trembling with excitement--I thought she might start bouncing. They are loving school and doing well, they both have made new friends they talk about and ask for play dates. Emma's friend is Marilee, and Camille's is well I forget, but we are planning playdates soon, so maybe I can post pictures of them.

The only one it is sad for is poor Ashley. I am just not exciting enough for her. I am hard pressed to keep her little busy body occupied. I signed her up for a dance class, so we'll be happy when that starts Monday. I think she will love it. We'll keep you posted.