Getting Out

I finally feel like I am slowly back to feeling capable of getting out of the house with all of the kids again.  Definitely not to the store if I can avoid it, but I voluntarily took the kids out for lunch last week before Davin went to preschool at Corner Bakery.  It was actually really fun and gave me confidence that I will be back to my normal outing mommying soon enough.

It helps that Beckett can go 3-4 hours between feedings and that he will take a bottle while out and about.  This weekend we spent a lot of time out together as a family too.  We all went to dinner and Toys R Us on Friday night.  Weston spent the last of his birthday money on a couple more Skylanders and his first Chima Lego set.

Saturday Ian worked all day, but took a few hours off to go to the Planetarium with us.  We saw the new Flight of the Butterflies 3D movie about the migration of the monarchs.  It was really beautiful and fascinating.  I love our Planetarium pass!  We all got free popcorn, saw the movie for free, and explored the exhibits.  Great freebie outing!  I'm excited for future outings with my cuties and to start using all of our passes!

And a happy Beckett picture for good measure

Weston's Plans

Weston loves to make elaborate plans for things.  For example . . . a few weeks ago Weston told me about an idea he had of something to do together as a family.  He wanted to turn off all the lights, light candles, have hot chocolate and tell stories.  I thought it sounded like a fun idea and I told him he could plan it for FHE.  Other things came up for FHE the past few weeks and I felt horrible every time Weston asked if we could do his idea and I told him no or not yet.  I just couldn't put him off any longer.  

So this Monday I told him we would do it.  Unfortunately Ian was working late (February is a notoriously busy time at his job.  I think he has worked late at least half of the Valentine's Days since he has had this job).  Earlier that day Talia and I made the sacrifice of picking up some donuts to go with our hot chocolate.  Then after dinner and baths we turned off (most of) the lights, lit a candle, drank hot chocolate and ate donuts while we took turns reading our favorite scripture out loud and/or telling our favorite scripture story.

It was really fun!  Weston went first and read his favorite scripture, 1 Nephi 3:7, "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."  He said it was his favorite because he likes Nephi and thinks it is cool that he built a ship.  And because it goes along with one of his favorite primary songs.

I shared my favorite Book of Mormon scripture with my kids, Mosiah 2:41, "And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God.  For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness.  O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it." I love this scripture because it is so encouraging and happy.  It's also simple.  Live the commandments faithfully and be happy.  Now and forever.  Love it!

Davin wanted a turn too.  He picked a random scripture in 1st Nephi that talked about Nephi consulting with his brothers.  We talked about how he likes to play with his brothers and talk to them.  I thought it was pretty adorable that Weston helped him read it out.

Talia wanted a turn too but she can't read or even say most of the words so instead I just asked her questions about Jesus.  Weston and I each told a scripture story.  I had Weston close our FHE with his testimony.  He did such a great job.  He is a good kid with a strong spirit who loves the gospel.  I am so proud of all the good things he is doing and I hope that he continues to have so much enthusiasm for learning and living the teachings of our Savior.

Talia and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

This weekend was a struggle with my girl.  She is so challenging.  By far my biggest handful of a toddler.  She screams and throws tantrums like my boys never did.  She is stubborn and demanding.  She is not overly affectionate so if she gives you loves then they are extra special.  This weekend I just had had it with her.  Part of it was typical toddler stuff (not listening/obeying, wanting something every .3 seconds) and part of it was my hormonal state and part of it is just Talia's personality.  Needless to say I lost it for a little bit.

I'm not proud to say that I literally threw her baby doll stroller out the door when I tripped over it in the kitchen for the umpteenth time.  Or that I had to rearrange her bedroom so that she couldn't kick the blinds after her 3rd timeout of the morning.  Or that I had to go lock myself in my bathroom and bang my head against the counter before noon.

But I am proud to say that after banging my head against the counter I took a few deep breaths, left my head where it was and prayed.  I am not really a superfluous pray-er.  I probably should be, but it's not my immediate thought when I'm frustrated.  However, Saturday morning I was at the end of my mommy rope.  Ian was at work and I knew I had to somehow get Talia off her bed and move forward with our day.  Oh and not sell her on KSL.

Most of you probably pray all the time about parenting, but I am still kind of new to it.  Maybe that's because parenting my boys was always relatively easy.  Or because they were never really the problem--I was the problem--so it didn't really seem like I needed to pray so much about parenting.  Don't get me wrong, I always pray for patience (it's not my strong suit) and for guidance to be a good mom, but specifically about how to deal with a particular child on a particular day?  Not so much.  I didn't get some big revelation or anything, but Heavenly Father definitely answered my prayer.  I was able to feel peace and assurance that I could show the love I had deep deep down for my daughter when I went back in to get her off timeout.

It was a turning point in the day.  Not that the rest of the day was easy, but it was better.  So much better.  And all that kicking and screaming wore Talia out enough that she took a great nap.  She was a much happier girl post nap and I was a happier mommy.

She loves to listen to my headphones while I stretch after a basement workout.  Teenager in training.  Yikes!

I love Talia with all my heart.  When she is happy she is the sweetest, most adorable little girl on the planet.  And that is what I am going to choose to focus on.  And when she's not being so sweet I'm striving to not make it about me, but simply about her learning to fit into the rules of our house.  So today I wanted to share some of my favorite phone pics and videos of sweet Tal.  We love our girl and I am grateful for the things she is teaching me and the opportunity God has given me to be her mother.  I know He will continue to help me do a good job at it.

Tal loves her baby brother!

Talia loves to color!

Tal was so excited when Daddy took her along for some playtime in the snow.

We call this new hairstyle "both" because it's a braid AND a ponytail!

Time for a treat with Mom while the boys were at school this morning.  This girl has a major sweet tooth!

Talia has never watched the movie Cars, but she loves whatever her brothers have.

Talia telling us who her favorite princess is.

This is what bedtime looks like when your two year old takes a 3 hour nap from 2-5pm.

Weston's 7th Birthday!

My firstborn turned 7 years old on Tuesday.  It was a fun day.  He took mini chocolate donuts into his class for a birthday treat.  He wanted mini cupcakes but the only ones I could find were bright pink with heart sprinkles on them.  I assumed he wouldn't want those.  I was right.  :)  He got a card signed by his class and little gift bag from his teacher.  When he came home he played Lego's in the basement and played Skylanders with his new characters that he got from friends at his party. 

It snowed a ton during the day but we still ventured out for Weston's birthday dinner.  He really wanted to go to Wingers.  Apparently he is a "big fan of their chicken tenders."We had fun at dinner.  The restaurant was pretty empty on a snowy Tuesday night which is good for bringing 4 kids out for a meal.  They were actually pretty good.  Weston ate all of his food and was super excited when he got a birthday piece of asphalt pie.

We went home after dinner and opened presents.  He was very excited since he had to just look at his presents sitting on the piano all day long.  He got Battleship, a cool Lego building book, a Lego tie fighter set, a hot wheels car with a camera built in so you can record action video, lots of candy, and a new Ninjago backpack.  Lucky kid.

We ended the evening with singing him Happy Birthday and having chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, a birthday fave around our house.  Weston still struggled with the candles even though I put them pretty close together.  We will have to work on that for next year.  I think he had a very fun birthday.


Weston at 7 years old . . . He is fun and silly.  He likes to be crazy and talk in silly voices.  He likes jokes.  He is very into building Lego's.  He is a great reader and is currently reading the Book of Mormon with me and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Ian.  He does well in school.  His favorite subject is writing.  He wants to be an author when he grows up.  He also loves recess, especially tether ball.  He is helpful with his siblings and around the house.  He is a growing, healthy kid, but his 7 year old check up revealed his is still a couple inches too short to ride all the big rides at Disneyland (he's 45 inches).  I sure love my sweet, good, funny, smart big boy!

Why Thursdays Can Be Great

I don't think I have ever in my life heard anyone say that Thursday is their favorite day of the week, but here's 10 reasons why this Thursday is pretty awesome:

1. I only have 3 loads of laundry to do instead of the typical 4!

2. The sun is shining! (I'm so happy about it!)

3. It's the last day of January.  The January that never ends and is bitter cold.  There has been snow on the ground every day this month.  Definitely glad that it's the end of the month.

4. My visiting teachers came over today!  (Random happenstance that it's the last day of the month? ;))  And I always love having other adults to chat with.

5. Beckett slept in AND took a nap.  And it's only 1:15 in the afternoon!

6. I washed my sheets.  I can't wait to go to bed tonight.  I love fresh, clean, well tucked in sheets.

7. Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting.  It makes any day better. 
(Although I'm kind of less excited about it than I would normally be because I have a final weigh in for a weight loss challenge on Monday and I think that this cake is going to ruin my chances of getting to my goal in time)

8. I'm teaching the presidency message lesson in Relief Society this Sunday and so I have been spending extra time just browsing Conference talks and reading scriptures trying to find exactly what I want to talk about.  It's uplifting.  I should do it more often, rather than only when I am getting ready to teach.  :)

9. I ignored the vacuuming for a little while and snuggled Talia and read her a stack of books.  It was good mommy time and I needed some loves from that sassy girl.

10. Did I mention THE SUN IS SHINING?!?

Lego Party!

Weston is going to be 7 years old next week and today we celebrated with his adorable friends.  He wanted a Lego party and it was a very fun, very easy theme.  I loved it!  This party was very budget friendly and pretty simple.  For decor I made these fun Lego banners and used balloons and crepe paper from the dollar store.  I did various solid primary colors for the table settings.  It all looked so festive!

The kids gathered and went nuts playing in the basement.  We gathered them up for some pizza lunch (thank you Little Caesar's!  So easy, so cheap, and so well liked).  After lunch we played a fun Lego game where each kid got a little bag of Legos to add to a group creation.  We did this in two teams.  It was pretty fun and was really the only Lego related activity we did.

 

 

 

 

The other game we played was the Name Game.  We played this group game at our neighbor's house last weekend and Weston had so much fun he asked if we could play it at his party.  Each person picks a random "name."  The name can be a phrase, a number, an actual name, anything.  For example you could be Sweaty Man or 5,000 or Hot Lava Booger.  Each person tells their name to the moderator who keeps a list of who is who.  Then you go around the circle and take turns guessing people's names.  For example, "Weston, are you Sweaty Man?"  To which he giggles hysterically and says "no." (because obviously he would be Hot Lava Booger)  If you guess someone correctly they join your team and you get another guess.  Whoever acquires everyone on their team by the end wins.  Anyway, it was silly and fun.

After games Weston opened presents.  He got a couple new Skylander characters, a couple Lego sets, and some Angry Birds Star Wars sets.  Such fun, generous friends!  Then it was time for cake.  I made a yellow Lego cake.  As you all know I am not much of a creative cake maker, but this one was pretty easy.  I just baked 6 cupcakes and the rest of the batter went in a 9x13. I cut off the cupcake tops and used the cupcake bottoms as the Lego nubbins.  Frost and voila!  A Lego!  Weston had a hard time blowing out all of his candles in one go and then he inhaled the smoke.  Silly boy.  I think you still get your wish though if you give it your best effort.  :)

 

 

 

By the time we finished cake there was only about 10 minutes left for the kids to play in the basement before parents arrived.  We had a few kids stay late because their siblings had basketball games so we watched a few YouTube videos too while Weston opened some of his Angry Birds toys.

 

I decided to forgo the traditional goodie bag.  Instead our guests got to take home a little baggie of Lego brick candy.  It tastes kind of like Sweet Tarts and you can actually build with it!

I had planned to play a game called I Spy Lego Guy but completely forgot to have the kids do it.  We had about 4 kids left after the party and they saw one of the little guys and played the game on their own.  They each took turns re-hiding the Lego guys and then searching for them.  I am glad that they ended up getting used!

I had also planned to play Pin the Head on Lego Guy, but I ran out of yellow paper and didn't want to go get more last night, so instead I just made the poster board Lego guy as a decoration.  He went on the front door to greet our guests.

 

 

Weston said he had a lot of fun at his party so I count it a success!  And I was kind of proud of my crafty efforts.  All ideas for this party were borrowed from HERE and HERE.  I honestly don't know how my mom threw birthday parties for 4 kids every year without the Internet.

Happy 7th Birthday Weston!

Train Show

Last Saturday I got a little one on one time with Weston.  I took him to the model train convention at Thanksgiving Point.  It was pretty cool.  We aren't super into trains, but there were quite a few set up and one had a little scavenger hunt list of things to look for in the exhibit.  We liked that.  We even had to find an action figure Agent P and Dr. Doofenshmirtz.  Weston also got to try his hand at controlling a couple of the smaller model trains that were set up. 

The highlight of the outing though was seeing the ginormous Lego train set.  It wasn't just trains though.  It was a train going around these huge sets.  There was a train depot section, alien section, Star Wars section, Wizard of Oz, Ghostbusters, tons of Lord of the Rings sets, the Statue of Liberty, and more.  It was very impressive and Weston was in awe.  After we saw the trains we went to lunch at the deli.  It was a really fun little afternoon with my almost 7 year old. 

Speaking of cute boys . . . my littlest cute boy is officially four months old!  Stop growing up so fast Mr. Beckett!

Who me?

Talia sharing baby secrets.

This kid loves his Bumbo!