Pesky Birthday

Yesterday was the Big Day for Noelle. Fortunately, she only turned two and didn't seem to notice that we could only squeeze her celebration in between our morning and evening church activities that we had going on. In fact, she probably would have appreciated a lot less attention and people trying to make her play with things just because they were her 'presents'.

Here she is retreating from the cupcake that was on fire.

Here she is trying to look enthused about Mitch's picture he'd made her.
THE DAY AFTER:

Mitch loves playing with Noelle's My Little Pony and brushing its long mane.
Ethan is a great daddy to Noelle's new baby.
And here is Isaac enjoying Noelle's new wheels.
Where is Birthday girl and why is she not enjoying her loot or at least yelling at her brothers that those toys are "mine!"?
Here she is. Playing with Isaac's building toys. Oh well. At least everybody is happy.

Potty Time

Noelle sitting on the portable potty seat last winter. That was when it was fun. It's not fun anymore

There are many different theories on potty training. It's one of those sensitive parenting issues where you are an eager over-achiever (come on, was Jr. really potty trained at 18 months??) or you are a little too passive ("Sis will do it when she's ready even if it means staying home from kindergarten") or you are perfect like me and aim for anything before the third Birthday.

Noelle is two on Saturday and it's time she got acclimated to the potty lingo (of the appropriate nature, of course. She's heard potty lingo her whole life living with her brothers). We have checked out potty books from the library and even checked out this Elmo movie:
Have you seen this? Noelle likes Elmo but she's still not really into TV (she knows that TV time is the best time to play with her brother's stuff because they are clueless), so it was not really that beneficial to her. But her brothers? They LOVED it. Those forbidden potty words coming out of Muppet's mouths was mesmerizing. In fact, Isaac felt a little guilty watching it and told me later that he didn't think it was really ''appropriate'' some of the things they were saying. (And if you know Isaac, this was a very ironic comment)

Also, there are various potty board books that we've checked out. Again, the different euphemisms out there make these books more entertaining than anything. How many different ways can there be to describe basic bodily functions? Many. I know the ones we use are pretty strange to outsiders, but hey, I think yours are probably pretty silly too.

Noelle has little interest in actually sitting on the potty right now, so we're not giving up our diaper budget yet. Just tell me this: Are boys or girls easier to potty train? Because I've heard impassioned testimonies on both sides.

Moving on from the Hairy Belly

This picture has nothing to do with anything, but I needed to get your attention off the previous post. Apparently if you post pix of hairy bellies everybody in the ward wants to talk about it. Anyway, thanks for the nice comments (and as for some of the not-so-nice comments....that really could have been my pre-baby belly! If you squinted really hard and were standing far away. In the dark.)

But the big news besides that other big news we're done talking about, is that Mitch is getting new shoes!! Wahoo for him!

Why is this big news? Because technically, as the second boy, he doesn't need new shoes. He is blessed to be the frequent recipient of smelly, already worn, slightly ugly shoes from his older brother. This has been a fairly smooth transition until recently. For some reason Mitch has not wanted to wear the next hand-me-downs, and instead is wearing his sandals everyday to school. But it's getting colder and his sandals seem to be shrinking and little boys need to wear shoes if they are going to be good competition in chasing girls at recess.
My issue is always the bottom line. Why buy new shoes if there are a pair of shoes that would work? Shouldn't he just be grateful to have shoes to wear? Even if they have Ike's foot germs in them? I just couldn't justify buying him new shoes. We would just have to come up with creative ways to make him wear them. Involving grounding and magical powers that kill Ike's germs.

This is the part of the story where Hub comes in and saves the day. He is why the kids get Happy Meals on occasion and more presents at Christmas and on Birthdays than they would otherwise get. He said, "Just get the poor kid a new pair of shoes for once." That was it. Done deal. Decreed from the man who makes the money. Hopefully Mitch will love his new pairs of shoes so much that he doesn't notice he's wearing Ike's old pants and shirt....

A Timeline of my Tummy

This picture is how my stomach looked a couple months ago. You might think that looks like a different face, but it's just the strange angle of the camera and the weird black backdrop we have in our house. Scroll down for a current picture.
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And this is how my tummy looks today. I am bursting out of my nice polyester shirts. And somehow I have a hairy belly now. But this is nothing compared to how it will look in a few more months.

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This is a profile shot of how I will look at the company picnic in case they have one in the spring. I'm not sure why my shirt will be undone. Let's not focus on that.
There you have it. Due date March 6th. Pray for a quick ab recovery.

Living with the Divas

DIVA #1
DIVA #2

I'm left alone all day with the divas. The other two somewhat rational children get to go to school. This leaves me alone with the demanding ones.

Diva #1 insists on watching TV before he consumes his breakfast. Preferably, he'd like me to deliver it to him on a tray while he watches TV. And he'd like his oatmeal with 'nothing in it' meaning none of those dried fruit things that make the oatmeal flavorful. And upon being told that we only have oatmeal with somethings in it, he proceeds to throw a diva tantrum. He orders me to pick out all dried apples and those black specks called CINNAMON before he will eat it.

Diva #2 has her own special demands. She insists on getting dressed all by herself even though she has yet to master her own diapering skills and still puts two legs in one hole of her pants. She has incredible diva powers and knows when I am trying to sneakily assist her. She refuses to wear anything fleecy (there goes our winter wardrobe) and has a special fondness for things that don't match. Being as this diva is not even two for another 17 days, I am very worried about her clothing future.

The divas throw awesome fits when they don't get their way. These tantrums happen frequently since I can't really pick out cinnamon from a packet of oatmeal and Diva #2 really needs her diaper properly applied. So we deal with it and I just try to picture the day when my divas are making money like the other divas out there. Then it will be worth it.

It is very funny to hear Ethan yelling at me, "Don't call me a diva!" when he's being particularly demanding.

All We Do is Party

We didn't go to any grandma's house yesterday or have anyone over. I pictured a nice quiet Sunday where everyone could go to bed on time. However, you would have thought the world was coming to an end. "We're not going anywhere??!" each of the verbal ones asked a couple of times. I tried to tell the kids that this was a rare opportunity to enjoy each other and reflect in quiet solitude the important things of life. Instead, there was lots of VeggieTales watching and fighting. Oh, well. At least they went to bed on time.

I should have shown them my blog. Then the little bored children would remember that they actually leave the house quite a bit. Maybe that's the problem. They forget how to stay at home all day.

We started off the weekend with the Kite Festival. This is a new thing at the Spanish Fork Reservoir. Due to my awesome photography skills you can't even tell that the main attraction in the photo is the jet ski pulling a large kite behind it.
There were lots of huge cool kites flying but we spent most of our time on the playground of course.

We then went on our belated Labor Day hike that we missed due to the rain. As you can tell from the picture, the hike is actually on a dirt road. This enabled Grandpa to 'drive' his hike and set up a sweet spot to await us. We explained to some of the more jealous kids that Grandpa has hiked enough in his lifetime (how many boy scouts did he raise? And who likes to hike more than mom?) to earn this pass.

I think Dad enjoyed this hike more than most. He had his laptop to work on while listening to the BYU game on his radio. I think he was disappointed we weren't a little longer finding him.

We also finally finished putting our basketball hoop up this weekend. So far we've only bounced the ball in the neighbors backyard about ten times. Good thing they were already used to fetching our footballs and baseballs so a basketball is just a pleasant surprise.

Soccer--Everyone is doing it.

Halfway through soccer season. Ike and Mitch are playing again this year but we are making Ethan wait another year before his debut. It's very fun to watch them play even though it eats up three nights a week. Hub is coaching Mitch's team and helping out w/ Ike's when needed. This means my sideline job is to mostly keep Noelle and Ethan off the field and out of my purse (why are they always convinced I hide a stash of candy in there? I don't for the very reason it means they'll be digging through my purse)

Here's Ike on the run (blonde boy in the blue). He gets into the games and always is moving the ball. He gets mad when he's subbed out even though his face is flaming red from all the running and he looks as if he has heat stroke.

This is Mitch (in the yellow shirt, dead center, cheesing at the camera). There weren't as many running shots of him since he generally prefers the ball to come right to him if he's going to kick it. The game had started when Mitch noticed I had my camera ready so of his own accord he stopped moving and smiled (as did the girl next to him) so I could get a good shot.

Something I have noticed since putting my kids into sports-- I am not one of the parents who quietly sits on the sidelines. I am constantly coaching and yelling. Not mean and abusive yells, mind you ( I save those for the privacy of my home), but helpful shouts of encouragement and advice. Sometimes I am by other parents who do this as well--mostly moms---but then there are the times when I am sitting by the mute ones--mostly dads-- and I feel a little self-conscious when I start jumping up and down and shrieking. Do the mute ones just not see the point of yelling when the kids can't hear? Am I really annoying them? Or have they just had a long day at work? What kind of fan are you?

Party Weekend in Bullet Format

• Firework party at our house. The one time a year we actually are un-lazy enough to host anything. Just can't beat that kind of city sponsored entertainment. Fortunately I was the only one to see the ashes on the cookie plates once I took them inside. Good thing everyone has really tough intestines.


• Fire station tour and children's fair. Skipped out on the children's parade but still scored the treats and free carnival tix.

• BYU football game with my daddio. Further proof that I am his favorite. Too bad he didn't love me enough to upgrade his tix to the shady side of the stadium. Sweating next to 64,000 of my fellow fans is just part of the experience though and I ain't complaining (anymore).
• Sunday stuff. We have had the kids sit in a specific order on the pew for the last few weeks with Noelle being the 'floater' (meaning she pretty much sits on everybody and everywhere at some point during SM). This has worked wonders and we've been getting a lot more out of this meeting than we have in several years.
• Rainy parade and games with cousins. I obviously was very neglectful w/ the camera this weekend, but several other bloggy friends have posted pix of the downpour. Ike didn't want to give up any candy just because he was soaking wet, but it was way too cold to stay.
• Ethan's first day of preschool. He is so not like his older brothers who required much hand-holding/shoving to get into their preschool room. In fact, he didn't even want me to take him because he was so excited to carpool and go in his friend Wyatt's car.
• That was that. It's always fun to have extra family in town and we look forward to the next holiday weekend so it can happen again!