Those of you who know me are aware of the fact that when Stan and I first got married that we struggled with infertility for years. After years of heartache, we decided to adopt. After that decision, it was still over 2 1/2 years before we got Jake, making 5 1/2 years in all. Once I found out that we were getting Jake, several of my good friends threw me a very nice baby shower. (It feels pretty weird getting a baby shower when you're not pregnant.) At that shower, a friend of mine gave me a little blue glass vase. I thought it was a little odd, but then she explained to me that is was for when Jake picks flowers for me. Many of the women there told me how their little boys would always bring them flowers. I loved the gift and thought it was such a sweet idea.
I have always kept that little blue vase close by. For years it has sat empty on the window sill above my sink waiting for the day that Jake picks me a flower. Today, that long awaited day finally came. Jake is always picking things in the backyard, and has brought stuff in to me in the past, but mainly to hold and then he demands it back. Today he came in holding a flower (actually a weed) with no stem and told me that it was for me. My heart just melted. That vase is a visual reminder to me of all I have been through and I have waited for years to have a flower to put in it. Thanks for filling my vase Jake, and my heart.
I don't have my camera right now because I loaned it to my sister, Amy. I searched for a picture that showed the vase. This is a picture from months ago when I baked a 12 layer cake, but in the background in the corner of the window sill, you can see my little vase.
This morning, as I was under a pile of children, I was smelling something rather unpleasant. I put Brooke down and did a quick diaper sweep to see who was dirty. Luckily, all were still clean and I guess someone mucst have had a little gas. I then realized that I had a shoulderful of spit-up. I was sitting on the floor and leaning to get a burp cloth when I feel someone tugging on the back of my pants. I look back and Kate is tugging on my pants and says, "Ooooh, yucky poo poo." Nice. Thanks for the diaper check, Kate.
A couple more:
The other day we were explaing to Jake that Halloween was this weekend and that it was only Tuesday. He replied rather sternly, "Not Tuesday! Four days!".
Jake was sitting at the kitchen island and wanted more chips with his lunch. Me: How do you ask? Jake: Please... Me giving him a hard time: Can you say pretty please? Jake: No! I just say please! I guess I shouldn't try to ask for more than that.
One that had me and Stan laughing a couple weeks ago: I bought a toy at a yard sale that had a million little pieces. (It is the toy where you iron a bunch of little beads together after putting them in a shape. It is just for Jake to use with adult supervision.) He was so excited to get to play with it, but we told him that he could not do it until Kate was down for her nap. So, when we got home from church on Sunday Jake kept asking, "When is Kate going to take a nap?". Over and over we got this question. Then he would ask Kate, "Kate, are you tired? Do you need to take a nap yet?". He has never been so anxious for her to nap. Finally, when I started carrying her up the stairs, he ran over to the fridge and pointed to the top (where his toy was) and demanded to Stan, "I want that!". He is a persistent little bugger.
As I wrote the last line of that story, Jake crawled up on the sofa beside me and just gave me a big hug and said, "I just miss you mommy, I miss you." I might need to go play with a little boy and be done with blogging.
So, I am starting a new series of posts titled "Mommy Moments". These are mainly for me to record and look back on, but others might enjoy them.
Mommy Moment #1: Last Thursday, I got all the kids ready and headed to the zoo to meet Amy and her guy, Lorrin. It was a fun, but long day. It was going to be an even more full day since I had a stake primary meeting that night up at the stake center. So, after the zoo I was already worn out and I was going to have to leave for my meeting soon after Stan got home, so there was no hope of him taking the kids so that I could rest a little. I was really trying to find any way to lay down just for a little bit because I was just so exhausted. I finally got Brooke to take a nap, and as I was going upstairs to lay her in her crib, I decided I would go lay down in my bed and just keep the door open so that I could keep an ear out for the kids who were downstairs watching a show. Well, the show was almost to the end so about 30 seconds after I lay down I hear, "Mom! Mom! Where are you?". I say nothing. 10 seconds later, I hear the footsteps coming upstairs. I hover a little more under my covers hoping to hide for a minute or two more. No luck. 'Thing one' and 'thing two' have found my hideout. They commence to climb all over me and shove their little faces into mine. Jake follows this action with shouts of "We love you mom." He at least knows how to redeem himself a little bit and make me smile. They were good enough to hang out for a little while with me in bed, and I would open my eyes to see Kate occasionally getting into my make-up. I finally mustered up enough energy to pull my body from my comfortable bed to find that Kate has almost completely emptied a full pallet of eyeshadow and has decorated her face and body in a shimmering brown layer of make-up. I am finding that there is no rest without paying some consequences, mainly cleaning up whatever they destroy while I am turned away. I have so many things that could easily consume 100% of my time. Trying to do everything definitely spreads me thin. I have no maid, or chef, or nanny, and I have recently decided to pull my kiddos out of preschool (for several reasons). Now, it is going to be even harder to accomplish everything (or anything) without any breaks.
Occasionally, I do get out and go for a walk when Stan gets home. Recently, I have been listening to the book 'Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book it talks about how people who become the absolute best at what they do normally have to spend 10,000 hours doing it. Since being a mom is a 24 hour, 7 day a week job, I have spent a little over 35,000 hours in just 4 years, being a mom. So, this means that I should be an absolute expert by now, especially with 3 little kiddos, right? I wish.... but, I do try.
Today Jake turned 4 years old. We have done a party for Jake every year, and I was leaning towards not having a party. However, as he has gotten older, he has seen how much fun birthday parties are and has come to appreciate them a lot more. He has been asking for a dinosaur birthday party with balloons, decorations, friends, and presents. Here are some photos from today's festivities.
Jake's birthday decor. The mountain of dinosaur cupcakes. The dinosaur cave. The kids colored pictures to decorate the dinosaur cave and then roasted marshmallows in the fireplace. The dinosaur volcano. I decided to do this on a whim and put it together in about 10 minutes. The kids loved it. Video of the volcano. Kids enjoying cake and ice cream. We had a total of 15 kids here. My favorite 4 year old. (I love this age.) Then tonight we had a ward chili cookoff and trunk-or-treat. I have a chili recipe that I made a week ago. My family loved it so I decided to make it for the ward social. It is a white chicken chili and is a really good recipe. I actually ended up winning the "best all round" category with it. Then we had a fun time with trunk-or-treat. My friend, LeAnn, is nice enough to be a family photographer each year at this event. Thanks LeAnn! (Also, as you can probably see, Kate did not like wearing her costume. I was lucky just to get her into clothes. I think I might need to get her some kind of a princess dress, although I love the little duck costume that I have for her.)
We spent the last couple of days hanging out with our good friends, the Kartchners. Friday they came over for dinner and Jaimee brought some dough and apple pie filling and made some great stuff. Here are Ryan and Kate having a ball playing with the leftover dough. Saturday morning, Jaimee and I did a little yardsaling and I found a couple of really good deals. Afterwards, our families packed up the kids and headed down to the Rock Ranch. The weather forecast from the day prior made it seem like it wouldn't be that cold and I thought it would be pretty sunny. I was very wrong. We were trying to stay warm all day. And, unfortunately my little 2 year old is not a fan of hoods or hats. She was shivering but refused anything that might help keep her warm, even a blanket. Despite being cold, we had a great time. There is a ton of fun stuff to do down there and the kids loved it. Kate especially LOVED the pony ride. She went 3 times. This girl is an animal lover and has no fear of any animal. Here are some pics of our day. We have been to the Rock Ranch in the past, but were particularly impressed with it this year. They are expanding and adding some great stuff. I highly recommend it.
This past weekend we went camping up in Ellijay with the Lorenzana family. We had a lot of good clean fun. Ok, maybe not so clean.
We left Friday afternoon and headed for the mountains. We made reservations at a private campgound that we had never been to because all the state parks were booked. When we got there, the place looked like a joke. We did not like any of the tent sites and their trout pond was really pathetic. Once we talked to the hostess lady, we found a good spot for us to set up camp. We found a nice area where the kids would be able to run around and we were right next to a restroom that was surprisingly well taken care of. So, we ended up being quite happy with the place. Our only hope was that we would be able to ge there and set up camp before the rain came. We were lucky that we were able to get everything up as were the Lorenzanas. After dinner we were sitting around the campfire. It was pretty dark so we weren't able to see how many clouds there were. Suddenly, I felt one drop of rain and then about .5 seconds later the sky opened up on us. Luckily, the kids were already in bed, so I threw a bunch of stuff under our shelter and in the van and ran for the tent. The wind was blowing so hard and our tent was leaking just a little. The storm was very short lived; only about 5 minutes or so. Once it passed, we realized that the wind had blown our shelter over onto our van. Luckily, our van was fine, but two legs of the shelter were bent. It held up through the weekend, but was ruined and we had to break off the legs to pack it up. Good thing I still had my reciept. It went back to the store this morning.
Here are the Lorenzanas sitting around thecampfire before we got dumped on.
So, the next day was pretty overcast and drizzly, but it did not keep us from having fun. After breakfast, we headed to the Ellijay apple festival. We had a lot of fun looking at all the cute handmade crafts. The kids loved all the fun things for them to do. They esp. loved the little train ride. After a while, the rain started coming down jsut a little harder. We decided to grab a shuttle back to the van. We were all a little wet and one of us was a little tired.
On the way back to our campsite, we stopped at a place called Panorama Apples. This place was so cute and the kids loved it. They had really yummy fried apple pies.
They had a window looking into their kitchen where the kids enjoyed watching the man make all the apple pies.
They had a little bluegrass band playing music upstairs. We grabbed some homemade choloclate ice cream for the kids and headed up there to enjoy our goodies and listen to the local music.
Outside the store there were a ton of pumpkins. We were letting the kids pick out a couple of them. Kate picked hers out first. This place is located on quite a big hill that is covered in kudzu. Well, as I was helping Jake pick out his pumpkin, I looked back and realized that Kate was facing this hill with her pumpkin, and I knew what was about to happen....but, I was too late. The pumpkin was chucked as far as she was able to throw it. I thought it was gone; luckily Stan was willing to try to dig for it. Success! I don't think so Kate. Huge scale for the pumpkins.
And here some extra shots of the kids and our campsite. After a wet Saturday, Sunday ended up being a beautiful day. We took our time packing up so the everything could dry off. So, camping trip #2 is also a success. (Even after having kids climb into bed with us each night and having to fix a flat tire.) I guess we might be a camping family for good. Even though it is hard work, there is something so relaxing about camping. I love it!
I like to think that I try to do my part in several different ways. Here are just a couple.
First: I like to think that I am doing my part in giving the EPA something to complain about. I think that I could, single-handedly, be doing enough to be their next big complaint. Because we have 3 little ones (2 in diapers and one still in pull-ups occasionally) we change a LOT of diapers. I recently found a great site called diapers.com. I sat and did some figuring and found out that I can order diapers online, and have them shipped to me for the same price as me having to go and buy them at Wal-Mart. I am not a fan of our Wal-Mart these days, with all the renovations going on (not that I loved them that much to begin with). (Sidenote: a friend of mine mentioned the other day that their new 'store brand' look, seems to resemble the Dharma Intiative food from Lost. It is true...not very attractive.) Moving on...So, today I got my first package of diapers delivered to my door. 2 Huge boxes of Luvs; these should last us a while. Note that one box is a size 3 and one is a size 4. I have one chunky little baby and one skinny little 2 year old. The size 4's are even a bit big on Kate. Since we change so many diapers around here, one piece of furniture that has come to grace our living room is this lovely changing table. (aka, diaper central) Everyone will be doing this soon. I really don't like to bring attention to the fact that I am such a trend-setter, but this is defintely going to catch on. Ok, more like 'I can't wait to get this thing out of our main living area ASAP!'. Unfortunately, function and convenience outweigh attractiveness these days. I know you wouldn't think of it to look at me...Ok, you would. I think that we do enough diaper duty around here that they might just name the local landfill after me. Seriously...Diapers.. And more diapers. I definitely fall short of living the "green life". Maybe one day...
Second: Ok, so I'm not so much 'doing my part' here, as I am being resourceful. I am really trying to focus on Jake learning. My life is so hectic that is it hard to find time to sit everyday and teach him all his letters and how to read. We read a lot of books, but not much more than that. So, this might not be anything new to those of you with kids, but I have been introduced to the best website EVER! It is www.starfall.com. Jake loves it and has been learning a ton. Today, after school, he did not ask to watch any of his shows. All he wanted to do was to play on the computer. This website is so simple and right on his level. He interacts and repeats a much of what he hears. Kate loves to watch while Jake plays. And this is what I love to do while they are both engrossed in the computer.
Here is a little video of Jake. I love his explanation of his computer game.
He is a little hard to understand, but if you listen closely, my favorite part is where he talks about Jesus making her feel better. A week and half ago Jake got sick so my dad came over to help give him a blessing and we taught him how Jesus can help him feel better. Glad to see that he remembers a little of what we teach him.
And a look ahead: my next post will be about our little weekend campout that we are about to go on. I am spending today packing (and blogging). We are going up to Ellijay with the Lorenzanas to the apple festival. Weather.com predicts a 60% chance of rain on Saturday. Hopefully, we don't get too wet. Fingers crossed.
Since Brooke's 1 month check-up, I knew that there was a possibility that her dr. would quit the practice. Things were pretty much falling apart there and I was already thinking about switching. They told me that Brooke did not have to come back until October. When I went to make the appt.(b/c I hadn't switched yet) I learned that they had told me to bring her back a month late and that her dr. had indeed quit. I requested all of my kids records and said goodbye.
I thought I had a pretty good idea to take them to a family practice dr. so that when we were all sick, we could all just go to the same place. Bad idea. The whole office was head over heels to see such a little baby. I knew pretty quickly that Brooke being there was quite a novel thing. They absolutely loooved Brooke, but I had less than warm feelings for them by the time I left. They originally weighed her with all her clothes on + a blanket. The Dr. luckily remedied that. Then they did not have one of the vaccines they needed. Worst of all, the nurse who was going to be giving Brooke her shot came into the room visibly upset. I asked her what was up and she replied that she had been crying b/c she had to give a baby a shot. I promptly told her to forget it and that I would just take her to a pediatrician. She convinced me that she was fine so we just went ahead. I had already invested 2 1/2 hours, so we did the shots. Needless to say, we will not be going back there anytime soon. Apparently, "Family Practice" is not exactly that. They say they take any age, but fall quite a bit shy of the more specific care that pediatrician's give. I got all of her records from that visit and went home to find an actual pediatrician. So by the time Brooke has her 4 month appointment, she will have seen 3 dr.s. I am not so happy about this. I just hope that I will like this next dr. and that we will be there for quite some time.
So, Brooke's stats, as of last week, are that she weighs 14.5 lbs and is in the 90th percentile for weight, head, and length.
She is such an easy and mellow baby. She is a pretty good sleeper; we still get up once a night, but she just eats and goes back to sleep. She is quick to smile and coo and will just jabber on and on. She is such a sweet little girl.
Here is a little video of Brooke with her Aunt Winnie in the background talking to her. Winnie showed it to me and I thought it was pretty funny.
This is my first accomplishment....my longest reciept ever! Every Thursday, after I drop the kiddos at their little preschool, I head to Publix for my weekly coupon shopping. This past week's shopping ended up being my largest purchase to date. My cart was overflowing and we had to use two carts to wheel it all out to my car. Have I ever told you how much I love Publix? Oh, I could make a whole post about this...maybe one day I will. Moving on... So, every Thursday, the same little old guy helps me out to my van and loads my groceries while I buckle Brooke in the car. This last week, he was telling me that I was the best couponer that their store has; that there is one lady who might rival me, but that I was probably the best. Usually my shamelessness would have allowed me to feel victorious at this statement, but I kind of wanted to crawl under a rock. I have quite the reputation there and everyone knows me. I might need to start rotating which Publix I go to. At least they haven't kicked me out yet, but they might soon.
I have been tracking my purchases and recording how much I have spent and saved. Over the course of the last couple months (not including this last trip) I have spent $181.48 and saved $430.91. All of this couponing really helps to build up food storage. -- So, how much did all of those grocieries add up to? Well, I spent $122, and I saved $186. It is still a good bit that I spent, but it was a great deal for the amount that I got..... And for the record, I really don't consider myself great at all this couponing stuff. I really don't have the time to master all the drugstores and their deals. I do Publix and a very little bit at Kroger (have I ever told you how much I very strongly have a passionate dislike for Kroger? That pretty much all adds up to hate, but hate is such a strong word.) I don't waste my time trying to jump through a million hoops to get the deals. Publix is easy and sraight forward. I try to keep it as simple as possible.
Now, my favorite accompishment: If you have followed my blog in the past, you know that I have a love of baking. Well, I think I have found my proudest baking project to date. I am pretty sure that I have perfected the art of making rolls. It took me about 9 months working on them, and about three months for them to rise to this level. They sure are yummy!
So, we still have a garden. It think we started building and planting this garden back in February and it has been going strong ever since. We did a second planting a couple months ago. We added more tomatoes, along with some pole beans, okra, and eggplant. My dad built the babmboo lattice for the pole beans and they have been growing like crazy. Today after church I went out and gathered some fresh veggies from the garden. Here is some of our latest garden goodies.
Here's the garden:
We had a ton of beans and okra, so this is what we had for lunch.
In unrelated news: My sister, Amy, comes over and hangs with me a few times a week. Mainly we cook, eat, and she holds Brooke. Here are a couple of my favorite gals.
Brooklyn is 10 weeks today. She is such a good baby and is so different from her big sister, Kate. Kate was always such a small baby and is still so little. Brooklyn, on the other hand, is such a little fatty. I think she looks even fatter in pictures than in real life, but she is a chub either way. She is getting much better at sleeping at night. She only wakes up once, and sometimes, not at all. She has been smiling and cooing for a few weeks now. Here are a few shots from this morning. Those are the most kissable cheeks ever! mmm...mmm...mmm...
This weekend we packed up the fam (kids and all) to go camping with some of our good friends in our old Newnan ward. We were on the fence as to whether we should go, esp. since Brooke is still so young. After mulling it over, we decided to be brave and go for it. We knew that Jake would absolutely love it, and we were right. He had so much fun and it was great that there were so many other kids there for our kids to play with. There were definitely some crazy moments, but we are very glad that we went and it was fun spending time with some of our good friends. Here are some pictures from our trip. They are in random order, b/c I don't feel like cutting and pasting all of them.
We went to Cheaha State Park in Alabama; the highest point in the state. They had this great little boardwalk trail that was great for our aged kids. It was only about 1/2 mile, round trip. It ends at a beautiful overlook. This is a picture of me hiking with Brooke. Wendy leading a line of kids down the boardwalk. Our campsite Jake out in the woods playing. He loved this camping trip more than anyone. The beautiful view from the end of our walk. Our van was packed full. We had to buckle the kids in and then pack more stuff in. Here's Jake and Kate with all our camp gear. Kate hitching a ride with dad. We were in charge of Sunday morning breakfast. Here is stan flipping pancakes. Ok, so my last post was about Kate and how she loves my make-up. Well, the kids were obsessed with playing in the tent. I thought it was fine and there wouldn't really be anything that they could get into. Somehow, Kate was able to find my make-up bag and once again decided to eat my mascara. I don't know what is up with her. However, I packed my waterproof mascara for camping so it was all the more difficult to clean up. (Sidenote: I don't know why I packed make-up, as I never put a stitch of it on the entire weekend. Next time, it will stay at home.) The kiddos playing in the woods behind our campsite. Ok, my favorite meal this weekend was when the Gonzalez family was in charge of dinner. Carlos brought up his super grill and made the best BBQ. It was heaven. The good stuff. Our family at the overlook. Poor Stan had to sacrifice being home with his big HDTV and watching the first weekend of college football. He willingly opted to go camping and miss BYU's first game. However, he sat in the car one night listening to the game. As I was slowly getting more irritated at his anti-social behavior, he emerged to tell us that there were 3 minutes left in the game and the BYU had just got the lead by one point. Well, a bunch of us piled into my van to listen to the last 3 mintues. Justin, who was in the front seat, found my camera and took this lovely shot. At least we got to listen to BYU's victory over the third ranked team in the country, Oklahoma. Go Cougars! Kate on a fallen tree. Kids on our boardwalk hike. Our group of campers. o We had a great weekend!
Kate is soooo good at being 2. I think I need to find her some play make-up since she is obsessed with mine. I guess I need to start locking my bedroom door.
This is our resident garden robber. He showed up one day and now we see him everyday. We might give him a name and try to convince the kids that we actually have a pet. The kids love to chase him around the yard with sticks.
Next Saturday is BYU's first football game. Stan is a bit giddy these days with the football season creeping closer. Since last season, we have purchased a nice plasma TV with HD and Stan is getting 'The Mountain' network on Direct TV so he can watch all the games. All our Saturdays for the next 3 months should be pretty fun!
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! All the news of the "Johnson World" is now at your fingertips. It may not be worthy of the biggest headlines, but if you care to read, then stay and catch up on what is going on in our lives.
