What a day

Well today started out pretty nice. Taylor slept through the night, Kaylee did too and stayed dry in underwear. I was feeling pretty refreshed. The kids ate breakfast pretty well and were happy...until 8:30 am when Kaylee started having a meltdown. Mainly over a binky. (i am so ready to cut hers and throw it away but i was told i have to wait until her birthday.) I wouldnt let her have it. She is supposed to only have it at naps and bed. We fight about it ALL the time it seems and she will cry and scream for a very long time. So today was no different with the binky thing. I tried to convince her to do everything i could think of to take her mind off the binky. We sat and rocked for a little bit and all 3 kids were fighting in my lap. I decided i need 3 legs. (this number could go up if i so happen to have more children) Taylor decided to join in on the crying and screaming and wanting me to hold her too. They both followed me around crying. Nothing seemed to help them be happy. The 2 girls are great competitors. I gave in and sent Kaylee to bed at 9:45. I laid Tay down at 10. Around then Ethan went to Mary's house to play. I was able to get laundry started and unload the dishwasher, and sign Ethan up for baseball when Kaylee came out and walks right in to Taylors room and wakes her up looking for me (i was down stairs) only to tell me she has to poop. so it is now 10:45 and i have a screaming baby again. I think Taylor is teething and that is the main reason she was grumpy today. I gave the kids a snack and then Mason (a neighbor kid) came over to play. Besides the fact they seem to need to come over the gate every 5 minutes this was a welcome visit because it made Kaylee happy and no more crying. Ethan and Kaylee were happily playing downstairs while I fed Tay and began to clean the kitchen. I went down to check on the kids. We have had bad weather today, rain, snow, hail, wind. There was enough snow and hail accumulated that the kids decided to open the back door and have a snowball fight in the house. I walked down to see snow everywhere and the door open. It was on the walls, stairs, couches, floor, and in their hands. Well Mason went home after that and the kids were on clean up duty. This wasnt real successful. We were left with wet walls, couches and floors. Kaylee went to bed shortly after this for real this time. And after Ethan ate lunch i let him watch cartoons for a little bit. Tay was already in bed with medicine so i had some quiet time. I cleaned a little...learned how to do the self clean on the oven and then did some more laundry. Then Ethan calls me down to tell me the portable heater is not working. He was standing near it with a robe on covering the heater to get warm. This must have over heated the heater or something. It works now though.

Kaylee woke up from her nap at 1:30 pretty happy and again told me she had to poop. At least she didnt wake Taylor this time. So i got her some lunch and made Taylor some too because she was due to wake up. They were happy for a while. Mason came back over and he and Ethan went out to play even though it was cold. Things went pretty well the rest of the day. We went to Marys for dinner. It was a sort of birthday dinner for Rob (who is out of town). We enjoyed Cafe Rio. Kaylee was a little bit tired and fought with Nate and then decided she was done and wanted to go home. She put on her shoes and coat and left. I ran out to get her to convince her to stay a little longer. She was hard to bargain with. But i won. So we stayed for dessert. When i told the kids it was time to leave Kaylee came running. Ethan began to cry. We finally got everyone home and called Rob and set up the web cam. This was fun for a few minutes but it is very hard while you have 3 kids competing for attention in my lap and doing weird things in the camera while in my lap. Then Tay began to scream and we called it quits shortly there after. By this time Ethan had said his tummy hurts and i kind of brushed it off. We went upstairs to get ready for bed. I got all 3 in jammies (ethan because he wasnt feeling well needed help). We read our scriptures and by then Tay was screaming because she wanted to eat and was tired. So i sent Ethan and Kaylee to their rooms...they actually went and were being quiet...I fed Taylor. In the middle of feeding Kaylee starts to cry. I ignored her until i was done. I laid Tay down and went to the other room. Kaylee is crying and pointing at something. I look down and see dark spots on the floor and bed. I look up toward Ethan and see lots of Barf. I laughed. I probably should not have. The look on his face was so pathetic. He didnt say a word. Not even to call me after it happened. He was covered along with his bed, pillow the side of the bed which it ran down and dripped on Kaylee's bed, the floor, her leg, blanket, the ladder. It was every where and disgusting. So i got Ethan down bathed him cleaned the mess up started laundry, got the kids beds remade and in bed and Here i am writing this. What a crazy day. I am left with an oven to wipe out , a dirty house and more laundry.

What can I say: I am a mom. This is my wonderful life. I wouldnt trade it for anything. Days will always be tough but there is just something so sweet when your kids ask you to sing them one more song at the of a day like this or Wish their daddy a happy birthday via web cam and make funny faces in the camera. Kids are wonderful and i have the hardest but most awesome job of all. I am a Mom.

Time Flies

Well i am back again. And of course my baby just started to scream....

Taylor has taken her first steps!!! She did on March 4th. We are excited but at the same time that means she can get into more stuff. It keeps me on my toes that is for sure. She is doing well. We are working on weaning and sleeping through the night. Hopefully we can accom

plish both quickly. We are going to Hawaii in just over a month an she needs to have both done by the time we go. She is a good girl though.

here is a clip of her walking. Taylor gets so excited to do walk. it is great. Ethan is doing well. with the warmer temperatures lately he has been outside a ton. It is only March and the boy is tanning up nicely. Just like his dad. He is constantly playing with his friends.

We were able to go to St. George last weekend. It was a nice little get away.

Unfortunately the weather could have been nicer. It rained for a

while on Saturday But we were able to enjoy our time. We went hiking just above the city. The kids loved it. Tay loved to eat the red s

and. We

also went to the volcano cones around the area. It was cool. Unfortunately we didnt make it to the top of the c

one. Kaylee was a little to tired and it was kind of cold and windy so we called it quits. The trail also wrapped all the way around the volcano and was longer than expected. Maybe next time. We didnt get much sleep on the trip either. Taylor had a very hard time sleeping. The Kids loved the hot tub and jumping on the beds in the room. They could live there and be f

ine. Kaylee thinks that hotels are called "St. George." Its funny. this picture ethan took

my kids love to get the camera and take pictures. Too bad that ended in a broken camera once so now i am a little more protective. They did get a hold of it a few times and took about 50

pictures of Taylor. and some of eachother. here are a few:

These are of Mason (the neighbor) and Kaylee. I think they were playing a house like game. They are funny.

this picture is the kids in Dress-ups. I made Ethan an Emperor robe. I wonder if i

should be concerned that he likes the bad guys so much. Especially ones like the emperor. Kaylee is in her princess dress ups as alwlays.

this picture is just how happy tay gets with her daddy!! so cute.

Well we are good. I miss Rob who is in Puerto Rico. He will be there for his birthday. I look forward to seeing him on his return. Hopefully i will be sane. We are excited for spring. We have planted flowers and some of our garden already. We got Hibiscus, Daisy, Lilies, planted strawberries, lettuce and an onion and will hopefully get some more planted in the next few days. I have worked hard on the garden and hopefully will have a nice productive garden. Life is crazy. but i love it. The world is even scarier. I just pray that we will be fine.

take care for now...renee

So this morning Kaylee asked me to get her a drink in a sippy cup and I told her to wait until i was finished feeding Taylor. So i look over a minute later and see Ethan getting her a drink and said to kaylee "oh is Ethan helping you get a drink?" then Ethan replies "Thats cuz Im nicer than you"

my response "you're probably right"

Kids are so great and so funny

Well it has been a while. But we are still good and all alive. Since the beginning of January nothing too exciting has happened. I have had another birthday. the big 27. Rob got me an ipod and I am surprised how much i use it. It is a nice thing to have especially for workouts. I have been good at keeping up with that resolution and also the book reading. I finished book number 2 last night. Right in the nick of time. I have not yet decided on book 3.

It has been nice that Rob has not had to travel as much lately. He has only been gone once so far this year to Wisconsin. There is 2 trips planned to Puerto Rico one the end of March (he will be gone for his birthday) and then he is home a week and then back to Puerto Rico. We will see if it works like that. Trips tend to change. We are grateful for his job though which allows us to pay our bills.

The kids are well over all. They have been pretty healthy this winter. We had the battle with swine flu in October and have only had little colds since. We are grateful for our health. Being sick is no fun. Ethan is getting excited to start kindergarten. This is a big relief because he is a shy boy until you get to know him. A little like me i guess. Big groups are really intimidating for him. We did Itty bitty soccer and he was really scared. the first and last day he wouldnt go out there at all. He stayed by me. The 2nd and 5th day he held his coaches hand and the 3rd and 4th days he just stood around with his team. I am sure it will hit him on the first day of school but we have registered and he is excited as of now. It kind of scares me to send him through a public school system but we will try it at least for now. He asks when he gets to go to real school and said that he will get to do lots of fun stuff in school. I think it will hit me harder then him. So will his birthday. He will be 5 this year. I know that is not normally that big a deal but for me it is a little different. My mom died when i turned 5 so realizing that and knowing my son is almost the same age makes me realize just how young i was and that every day i get with my son after he turns 5 is more than i had with my mom. Life throws us curve balls and it is how we adjust to and hit them that makes us who we are. I hope that i have been able to hit it out of the park.

Kaylee is pretty good. She has had a problem with wetting her pants lately. She peed on the floor 6 times in three days. 3 of those were after i cleaned the carpets. I was a little upset by that. I think I was a little meaner than needed. We hope to break her of this habit and soon. She also wants to go to school. I might look into a preschool or play group for the fall. That would make her happy. She is a smart girl. She already counts to 20 (she is just over 2 1/2) and is learning her ABC's and knows her colors and some shapes. I think having an older sibling close in age is a great help.

Taylor is almost 9 months old. She started crawling the beginning of january and has not stopped moving since. She is a determined little girl. She cruises around the furniture and is gaining confidence and lets go of things and stands for several seconds. She doesnt quite sleep through the night yet. We moved her to her own room and got Ethan and Kaylee bunk beds in the other. Since we put Tay in her own room she went from Waking up 3 times to 1 time. It may not be perfect but i will take it. We need to work on that and weaning her though because Rob and I are going to Hawaii the first week of May. We are going on a cruise and are so excited. Tay loves to eat real food and has pretty much given up baby food. She does pretty well with real food and feeding herself. She is so cute. She is beginning to like Rob more too. She will play with him when i am in the room now too instead of crying and trying to get to me. It is probably because he has been away less often. She is a cute little girl.

As for me, I am well. I just try to keep up with the demands of motherhood. These demands have stretched my limits. Patience should be a virtue I own but never seems to be one i fully can grasp. There are so many opportunities to master patience but i continue to fail. Maybe someday....when my kids are grown with kids of their own. My home never seems to be clean but i try. There is always something to do and never gets done. So in essence i am never bored. I look forward to spring and i know my kids do too. Especially Ethan who has a great love for the outdoors. I am excited to go camping and hiking this year. So is the rest of the Family. We love the outdoors. Life is good and i am greatly blessed. I love the Lord and hope i am able to teach my kids the same. bye for now

Renee

Wow!! 2010

Wow time flies. I cant believe that it is 2010 already. We had a pretty good month of December. Rob went to Puerto Rico in the beginning of the month and enjoyed the tropical warm weather. What a nice break from the cold. We hosted the family Christmas party (renee's side) at our house. It turned out pretty well. We werent able to go sledding but had a good time anyway. We had a nice ham for dinner, decorated cookies, played a game, exchanged gifts, and the highlight was Santa. My brother arranged for Santa to come. Ethan asked for an army gun, and Kaylee asked for a purple bike and purple helmet. (she didnt get by the way, those are for her birthday) It turned out rather nice. It was a great time to be with family. I was expecting some sort of drama but it all went well, and for that i am thankful.

The craziest thing that happened over the month was that my mother-in-law got married. This was unexpected to us all. She met him just before thanksgiving and got married on december 21. It was fast and unexpected but we hope she is happy. She seems to be so. We hope she still comes out to visit us as often as before.

Then we had Christmas. This was so much fun with the kids. They were so excited. We went to Robs sisters houses for Christmas Eve. We had a nice dinner, followed by a talent show by the kids, (it was awesome), then off to the nativity play by the kids (ethan was a shepherd, and kaylee an angel) it was so cute. Mary and Joseph are the cutest 2 kids possible. props to them. then we did gifts. It was a lot of fun. We came home and put out cookies and coke for santa. (Because Santa loves Coke) and the kids hurried to bed. Rob did his traditional Betos trip with the brother-in-laws and i got to work on the presents. Kaylee got a princess castle tent. it is enormous. It is 5x5x5 feet. it is huge. It took a lot of work to put it together. It has actual metal poles and is quite sturdy. she loves it though. She got disney princess dressup clothes and we cant get her out of them. Is cute. Ethan got some cool hot wheels tracks, dart gun and his army gun. Taylor got a little pink princess rocking horse. Rob and I covered the banister with blankets and put up the gate with a blanket on it so the kids couldnt go right down there when they woke up. we wanted to have breakfast first. At 6:45 am Ethan woke up and Rob and I heard him hit the gate and knock it over. Rob jumped out of bed and was able to prevent him from going downstairs. We got up and had french toast for breakfast then headed downstairs. It was so much fun to see the kids faces. The were excited and had lots of fun. We got a Wii as well. It has been so fun. It amazes me how good Ethan is at it. Kaylee likes to try it too. Over all the day was fun. The kids got entirely too much. I already have most of their birthday presents too.

We are on to the new year. We went to Heathers house where we had a fondue party and enjoyed one anothers company. We played the Karaoke on the play station. It was so fun. I was suprised that none of my kids went to sleep. Taylor slept for half hour or so but that was it. they were all up until about 1am. I cant believe it. They just keep going. They had lots of fun playing with cousins and watching movies.

so my news years resolutions are (in no particular order of importance):

1. Workout 5 days a week

2. Read at least 1 book a month

3. Read the entire Old Testament

4. Serve my family with a better attitude

5. Be more positive and Kind

hopefully i can live up to these

well that is all for now.

happy new year

renee

I know its been a while. So hopefully i can catch up for the past month. We did catch the mouse. We caught it monday November 2. Rob had to check the traps when he got home from work monday. I was too chicken to check. Kaylee was a little distraught when daddy put the "sweet mouse" as she called it and put it in a bag and threw it away. For several days she would tell me the mouse died and was killed and she genuinely looked sad. I think we are over that now. we have had a pretty good month. Rob went to New York for a few days. His hotel was right across from the Twin Tower sight. He took a few pictures it was kind of neat.

The kids are growing like crazy. Taylor is quickly approaching 6 months old. She has 1 tooth and another almost here. She has bitten me more than she should have. She sits up really well now and can stand and hold onto the bars in the banister all by herself. She will be on the move in no time.

Kaylee is learning who is a boy and girl. We ask her if so and so is a girl or boy and she responds. We asked her if Gabe (a nephew) was a girl and her response was "Gabe gorl ever gen" meaning Gabe is not a girl. She still uses that phrase for everything. We have started taking her to church now without a diaper. She has done really well. Now we have to work on nighttime training but that is all. We dont have to worry when we leave the house anymore. That is exciting.

Ethan is great. He earned 20 stickers for doing well in school so we were able to go to Mcdonalds. he loved it. He is so excited for Christmas. He has been driving me nuts about wrapping presents. We still need to do some shopping for him but for the most part we are done. He has made me laugh a few times witht he things he has said. Once he got hit by something and said "that hit my nuts" coming from a 4 year old made me laugh. It can be hard to keep a straight face. The other was when he was putting a dress on Kaylees little sleeping beauty doll and said "It looks like she can feed a baby too." He is too observant. Apparently babies get milk from my stomach. What will i do when he starts asking questions.

We had a good Thanksgiving. We ate over at Marys house. It is nice that we live next door to Robs sister. Rob cooked the 23 pound bird and we took it over. It was us and Robs 3 sisters and their families. It turned out nicely. We had a family get together with the Bishop side the sunday before. We drove out to Tooele to Jenny's. We got caught in a snow storm headed out there. It was a horrible one. We could barely see. We tested out the 4 wheel drive on the car for the first time. We had to turn off our head lights at times so we could see. It was horrible. We mad it though. For Christmas it looks like we will be having the Christmas party at our house. Hopefully all will go well.

Mouse!!

Well Rob and I were watching a show and we heard what sounds like a mouse in our ceiling. AAAAHHH. I hate mice. We looked to see where it could have come in from and we think it was the garage. Rob sealed the hole and went to get traps. I hope that there is only one and that it doesnt come into the main part of the house. I would scream. I dont like them. Hopefully we can solve the problem quickly.

On a brighter note, today was Halloween. Ethan was an army guy, Kaylee was an angel, and Taylor was a turtle. They were so cute. Picture will follow if my computer will ever load them. (its taking forever) They went to the trunk-or-treat at the park and then Rob took them around the neighborhood to a few homes. They had lots of fun. Unfortunately they become way to wired when candy is inhaled.

Over the past few weeks things have been crazy. Rob went to Puerto Rico and I believe that he brought back the flu. He came home late friday night and by tuesday the rest of us were showing symptoms. Ethan had a fever for 2-3 days and a little bit of a cough and was extra sleepy for a few days. Other than that he was alright. Kaylee got hit hard. She not only had a fever but developed Croup and was so bad Wednesday the 21st that we decided to take her to the ER because she had a hard time breathing. This was our first trip to the ER as parents. I had Rob give her a blessing before they went. They gave her steroids which didn't help, then some inhaled medicine, which didn't do much, then a breathing treatment. Nothing did a whole lot of good so they (Rob and Kaylee) came home at about 5am. They also tested her for the flu. We got the results Thursday night and it was positive for the Flu and probable for Swine Flu. so it looks like we had swine flu go through the house. Kaylee sounded a lot better the next day but was still fevered and tired. She was sickfor about 10 days or so and had a lingering cough. We all had the chills too. I had a cough, achy joints and muscles, headache, sore throat, the works. It was not fun. Taylor seemed to be alright. She had a very small fever (not quite a degree over) and a tiny cough. she had a higher fever Thursday night and when we found out it was the flu I made sure to call the DR. in the morning. The dr. put her on Tamiflu. She didn't seem to get any worse. No more fever, and coughed a few times and was a little restless. But overall she stayed pretty healthy. For that I am very grateful. We are finally all better. Ethan was so grateful to get back outside and play with his friends. He begged for a week to play. Then it snowed (monday and tuesday this week) and he had to wait longer.

Taylor is basically sitting now on her own. She is a strong girl. She like to sit in the exersaucer and grab at anything she can. she likes "real" food and has now tried 4 different things...peaches, applesauce, greenbeans and rice cereal. She first tired "real food" on October 9. Rob got the honors of feeding her some rice cereal with applesauce. She loved it. She is a huge fan of food and does quite well.

Kaylee sounds more like Ethan every day. She has increased her usage of "ever again" to mean "not" as well. Like when she says "pants dirty ever gen" it means her pants arent dirty.

She also follows her brother in that she will tell me she cant do some thing. This usually occurs when she needs to go to the bathroom and "cant" pull down her pants, and also when she "cant" do what her mom asks. She also adopted the phrase "too much." Ethan tends to cry and complain when we ask him to pick up his toys and always says that there is "too much" or "too many." Kaylee now uses these phrases when she is asked to pick up something. We usually respond with "then i guess we need to throw some away because there is too many." this only sometimes helps. They certainly are funny kids. One thing that i really like is that they have said I love you more lately. This makes up for all the times i am told that i am so mean or that i am not liked. One day while in the car I was "so mean" (Ethan lost his chance for having gum because he hit his sister) and Ethan told me he didnt like me over and over. I told him if he said it again that he would go to a time out. He was about to say it again but caught himself before it came out all the way and changed it to "im never going to play with you ever again." I hate to hear things like this but i guess you cant really be a good mom with out hearing it.

We started a "service jar" where the kids get to put pennies in a jar for either good deeds or acts of service. It is cute to see the excitement on the kids face when they drop the pennies in the jar. I need to be more on the ball with it to encourage the acts of kindness and i know they like it. Right now i will sometimes suggest things for them to do to help them learn what good deeds and service are. But more often then not, they (especially) Ethan will do something on his own. This jar helps me to focus on the good things they do. I need to focus so much more on the good things they do. I think the jar will help me with that.

well i think this is all for now. Until next time....

renee