Dan and Mindy Lawlor Family Blog

Talks, new callings, and sickness

2010-08-29T15:30:00.000-07:00

With a move, it is inevitable that you will get asked to speak in Church. Fortunately, the week we were asked to speak, we had stake conference in between so there was plenty of time to prepare. Or fret. I have never been fond of public speaking. Today was our big day. I have to say I absolutely love our new ward. I feel so comfortable there. I don't really have any friends yet, but there are a lot of really friendly people. Dan was called to be the scout master about a month ago. And is getting the hang of things with that. I was called a couple of weeks ago but sustained today to be the second counselor in the Primary Presidency. I have been in Relief Society for so long, I am a little nervous but very excited. I love working in the Primary. And I love that I will be able to learn new ways to help my kids grow in the gospel. I love how excited they were to see me in there today. I love the Primary President, she is the neatest person, and I am looking forward to being back into the swing of things. Being without a calling for so long leaves a big void in your life. I never thought I would be so grateful to be busy. It is a good feeling. This all comes though, at an interesting time in my life. We are getting settled still, and it has been a bit overwhelming. We are still faced with some big challenges. Then about a month ago or so, maybe not quite that long. I started to get really sick. I had really bad headaches and couldn't quite pinpoint what was wrong. I couldn't figure out why things tasted so bad and even worse, that things smelled so bad. So to be funny, Daniel brought home a pregnancy test. I scoffed. There was no way that I could be pregnant. None. So I said I will show you, and took the test. And it was of course positive even before I set it on the counter. Apparently, someone thinks that we need a substitute for our basketball team. It is even funnier that people are not surprised when I tell them. Why does everyone automatically assume that when I say "I have something to tell you" they say "you're pregnant!" I think I was the only one shocked by the news. So, according to my best calculations, I am due the end of March. Which really is the perfect time. Having spring babies is the best. I will be big pregnant during the cold months, but the baby (girl) will be here when it starts to get a little warmer. I was bummed though that we are finally going to experience snow, and I won't be able to go sledding with the kids. There is always next year. I mentioned I think it is a girl, just keeping with our boy/girl pattern. But I am pretty positive it is a girl. We should know for sure sometime in November. I have been really sick. I am about 9 1/2 almost 10 weeks. I go to my first Dr apt tomorrow, to find out a more for sure due date. Blessing come in such mysterious ways. We are so excited to have a new baby but I wasn't really prepared yet for this one. The beginning is so hard for me, maybe that is why it was a surprise, I wasn't ready to be so sick. I have really great days followed by very difficult ones. But I cannot complain. My kids are doing so well, it works out for me to rest on the hard days. I become more grateful for the good days when I can get things done. And Dan helps a ton. He is so good to me. I should be back into the swing of things in a couple of weeks. The kids start school next Tuesday and are so excited for that. I loved our summertime together and I am sad to see it end, but I am really excited for schedules and routines. All in all, I am really grateful today. I looked at my kids when I was on the stand today, and I felt so blessed. It helped me to stop feeling overwhelmed at the things that we have been going through and just made me feel a renewed sense of purpose. I am also really grateful that even though I was very sick this morning, that I made it through my talk. I was a little worried about passing out or getting sick all over the pulpit. I guess if I had, that might be the last time I would be asked to speak in church for a really long time. :)

Small acts of Kindness

2010-07-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

Today I needed to run a few errands. The kids were going in slow motion and we missed our window of opportunity to leave before Blake had to take a nap. He fell asleep at 10am which was about 2 1/2 hours before normal nap time. Then I went to check on the girls who were playing downstairs I found a sleeping Alyssa. She never takes a nap! Anyway, with my kids it is errand suicide if you go after a certain time. 3:30-4:00 hour is that time for us. I just have learned that if we want to have a decent shopping experience, go in the morning hours, it is just a more pleasant experience. Well, because we needed things for dinner, and I was determined to make it out of the house today, we left at 3:30. After a couple of fast errands, we went to the grocery store. Because I have 5 kids, and they are 8 and under, I get a lot of looks from people. At least I think that is why they look at me. Although when I got home today and saw my hair, (it was pretty humid today) that could have been the reason for the looks. Anyway, we were in the bread isle when a mom with a new baby stopped me. She looked at me, saw Zach melting down because he couldn't get Alyssa to let go of the frosting with sprinkles he wanted to hold, she says, "wow. You are amazing! This is my 3rd baby and I am terrified to take all three of my kids out together!" I said thank you, and held my head a little higher, and gave her my advice if you go anywhere, to go after breakfast, but before lunch or it won't go well. (kidding-well, sort of) we talked for a bit more, and she again said "wow, I just really admire you." and went on her way. Then right after that another lady pointed her finger at us and started counting. And she said, "wow. You are amazing. They are beautiful. Can we help you in any way??" The lady behind her also said some words of kindness, and smiled. After a couple more meltdowns, trying to hold Blake and push the cart, we finally made it to the check out. (Before we even got into the store, I was mentally prepared for melting down kids, mainly because of the hour. They were hungry and tired and we needed to be home. So I wasn't impatient with them, but at the same time we were supermarket sweeping as fast as we could.) When I got to the check out, I had two kids in the cart, and the other three amazingly enough were very close. I was putting the heavy things on the belt and I look over and all I see are hands reaching up all over the candy and gum. No faces just hands. They were clawing for treats. It was like the infery in Harry Potter grabbing for stuff. Can we have this? Can we have that? I had already gotten them a little treat earlier, so I resisted. Just as I was about to cave in, it was our turn. As I moved the cart through the isle Blake made his protest known that he wasn't getting any candy to the people in the next store over. He was so mad. After the cashier rang up my order in record time, I have really never seen anyone check and bag so fast, she reached over her register and patted me on the shoulder. "Hang in there she said. You are doing a great job." Can I just tell you the difference it made in my day and in my entire countenance to have perfect strangers try to lift my spirits? It made all the difference in the world. I got home got the dishes done, dinner started, house cleaned, I just felt so renewed by just a few words of kindness and a few kind smiles. So the next time you feel like complimenting someone, but think "what will they care-it is such a small thing to say something nice" Trust me, small acts of kindness will make a huge difference in someones life. And see, people in the east really aren't all that bad. :) And I am so happy to have a new favorite grocery store, just two minutes away from my house.

Not all doom and gloom

2010-07-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

Sides of the road... use in case of an "emergency"

is there really a place called truth or consequences?

Ok, so I feel like I my previous posts have been more on the serious/gloomy side of things. Not all was/is sad/hard for us. For example, today it is raining and last night we had a good thunderstorm. LOVE IT! But that's not what I want to blog about today. The trip, for me at least, went by really fast. Before we left I was a little concerned about how the kids would do in the car. Sometimes driving home from school, which was about a 10 minute drive, seemed like hours. I am happy to report, despite Blake being really sick, it was actually really fun! We had a great time. By the time we got to Philadelphia, we were exhausted but the kids did really well. The part that took the longest was bathroom trips. Why is it that they always have to go after we passed the rest stops? Ok, so for the first time ever, we had to teach the girls how to go to the bathroom on the side of the road. Katelyn bawled. She DID NOT want to do this. (I did think ahead and had the girls wear skirts just in case...) So somewhere in New Mexico we had to stop. Zach jumps out and waters the farm over the hill, (TMI I know, but it was really funny because Ethan said "wow Zach, nice distance"-BOYS!) So as we are trying to get Katelyn to just take care of business so we can get going, I look over at Alyssa and she had just gotten right to business. She didn't care a bit. That was funny. Restrooms were always a little scary for me, mainly I was concerned about the kids. But no matter how stinky or smelly bathrooms were, the girls always would say, "we liked the soap, it had our favorite soap" (the foamy kind) Or it was especially fun if the soap was pink. No matter where we would go they would always talk about the soap. Girls.

The worst though was when there was no where to pull off. The kids weren't very helpful either not giving us any notice that they might have to go to the bathroom soon. Zach was screaming in agony because he had to go so bad, and we were in traffic, with no shoulder to pull off. So I thew him a pull up. Go in this Zach. Next time I need to be more specific in my directions because instead of unbuckling and putting pull up on, (we were in stand still traffic) he placed the pull up strategically over his clothes and well, so gross. The pull up didn't even get wet. Ohhhh so many stories to tell. We had a great time, after months without being together as a family it was nice to take this trip together and just have time even if it was in the car. We got to see a lot of fun things. And yes, tv was a big help. I have always loved road trips though. Very good times.

Motels were a little bit of a different story. The coolest part was that even thought the beds were really hard, Zach successfully learned to do flips on them. Cannot believe I don't have video of that!!!

Punxsutawney and Pittsburgh 2006

2010-07-13T06:47:00.000-07:00

Crazy freeways and bridges and people merging from out of nowhere. I refused to drive here.

At the Pittsburgh Airport -some kind of new security screening system :)

We ate here, POSITIVE this was the diner that Bill Murray stuffed a whole piece of Angel food cake into his mouth(What). In our defense, it was similar and we figured the movie was 20 years old, changes must have been made...

Punxy

We didn't get any pictures of this, but we stopped at a walmart on our way to Punxy and there were Amish inside buying stuff, and smoking outside the store. It was very much Amish there. The farms and homes that they have are amazing. So pristine! On our way into Philadelphia we also drove through Amish country, and they had quilt displays and a fabric store in a beautiful old home. They also had wooden pieces of furniture and swingsets that they had built. Amazing stuff.

These groundhog statues are everywhere

Sometimes hard to get a really good picture at 80 miles an hour.

Penn State area

City

Why Pennsylvania

2010-07-13T06:09:00.000-07:00

Good question. To be honest, we are not really sure. It kind of started about four years ago. We lived next door to a crazy lady (no really, she was crazy) but I got to know her pretty well. She scared me a little at first because she did really strange and unusual things. (She showed up at her next door neighbor's house without clothes-that kind of crazy) Anyway, she had cancer and was really very sick and she lived alone. I would help her with odd jobs at her home, and helped her pack when she moved out. One day before she moved, she came over to talk to me about something, a footstool I think. Anyway, we somehow got on the subject of where she is from. She said she was from a town called Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. She described the town, and the home she owned and said that it was for rent. I had never heard of Bethlehem, PA so when she left two hours later I googled it. It was a cute little town and Dan and I began talking about how fun it would be to move away for a while for a little adventure. I grew up air force so after being in one place for more than 3 years I would always get the itch to move. Well, we kind of stopped talking about it, but it never left our minds. We were always thinking about it. So in Sept of 2006 Dan and I decided to take a trip to Pittsburgh, it didn't seem as far away as Bethlehem, plus Bethlehem is a small college town, and there really weren't very many jobs or anything. So grandma and grandpa Lawlor watched our kids (0f course two days before we left Zach was diagnosed with pneumonia) and we flew to Pittsburgh for a few days. We had a fun trip, and now that we have a GPS we think our trip would have been a lot more fun for us if we had one back then. We saw some beautiful country, some scary parts of the city, it was just different for us. Dan grew up in AZ and served his mission in Idaho. So this was something new and exciting. One of the funnest things that we did was go to Punxsutawney. (Groundhog Day!) The festival there is HUGE and people come from all over the world. It was very quiet when we were there though. (We are nerds, what can I say. We went all over that town so we could find the diner and the hotel ect... from the movie. We found out when we got home it was actually filmed somewhere outside of Chicago-the area where they have the festival in Punxy was too small for filming. We laughed so hard!) Still a cool place to see. Anyway, we left there not really feeling good about Pittsburgh, but still wanting our adventure. About a year ago maybe longer, my brother Corey talked to Dan about a job in Philadelphia, but nothing really came from it then. When Dan took his job with the charter school, neither one of us felt very good about it. In fact it took us a long time to tell anyone. We were desparate for a better paying job/career-we had been searching for so long. When you get that feeling that you shouldn't do something, no matter how right and perfect it seems, you should listen to it! Let's just say if certain people had been a little nicer, that experience would have gone very differently. Which was also the weirdest part. Dan did really well at that job, despite hardly any training. The kids loved him, and the parents seemed ok with him too. In fact, it was kind of the oddest thing that it didn't work out. All the pieces were there. Dan "quit" at the end of October, (someday I will blog about our miraculous two Decembers-in a row, but those things are almost too sacred to Blog about right now. I really can't talk about those events without a lot of tears. I will say again, prayers are answered and miracles happen.) back to the story... right after Dan "quit"-with no job prospects-very scary, Corey said that he got a call wondering if Dan was still interested in the job. There were some concerns that we voiced knowing that there was another person interested in the job, but were reassured that the other person interested was actually pursuing another company. We were so excited that Linda (the owner of the company) thought of Dan at this particular time, that Dan had just quit his job, if he hadn't and things had gone well, we wouldn't be here. And our house had just "sold". So we jumped. It took until the end of January to get offical word, and our dream was starting to come together. There were still a lot of things stacked against us, but at the same time it started to flow. But we also know there is opposition in all things, and we all have to go through trials. We knew it wouldn't be easy, but we also knew this was were we needed to be. So here we are. Bethlahem is about an hour or so north of us.

Miracles and Gratitude

2010-07-12T09:18:00.000-07:00

So I have been trying to find a good way to post some of the events that have happened to us. Ideally, it would be nice to write them in order, but today I am reflecting on some of the miracles that happened to us. I think I have said this a few times, but as hard as things were I cannot deny the miracles, and I don't know if I would have paid as much attention to the tender mercies if we hadn't been going through such a difficult process. But there are two signifigant instances that are on my mind today where I really felt like I was being watched over. The first came after the first full week we were here. We had been staying near the airport so the commute for Dan wouldn't be too difficult. But that also meant that we were staying in south west Philadelphia. (I had to laugh because the Fresh Prince of Bel Air song came into my mind so many times, "In west Philadelphia I was born and raised...) anyway... for the weekend we decided to go stay in an area where we were looking to live. We checked out of our hotel at around 11, I drove Dan into Center City, which is not my favorite place to drive, and then the kids and I went out to the area we were going to stay at. To preface this, before we left Tucson we had contacted some wards to let them know we were looking for a place to live, just to spread the word. One of the ward Relief Society presidents called me a couple of days before we left to see what she could do. Come to find out she and one of her counselors made it their personal mission to help us find a home. As I drove to our new hotel, I decided before we checked in to take the kids to the park. And to look at different neighborhoods. (During the time we were searching, I filled our car with gas at least 3 times a week-my poor kids.) Anyway, as we were driving I was feeling pretty distressed and discouraged. We had come so far, and we were so tired and just felt pretty helpless, but at the same time, there was a great deal of peace. I guess impatience is more the word I need to use about how I felt. Anyway, as we were driving, the relief society president called out of the blue to talk to me to see how we were doing. It was so nice to know that in this great big city, that someone knew we were there, and they cared about what was happening to us. It was just a nice feeling. Shortly after we arrived at the park, her counslor called. Her name is Charity. (No really, it is, and it fits her.) Charity offered to have us come and stay at her home. Charity has 5 boys and 1 girl. And she called me, a complete stranger and offered a home to my family of 7. I cancelled our hotel reservations, a little hesitant I have to admit, mainly because I really did not want to burden her family. But my kids needed room to run and friends to play with. What a blessing for my family. We stayed with them for a few days and then not wanting to overstay our welcome, we went to yet another hotel. This hotel was a "higher end" that we got a good deal on. However, we happened to arrive on a high school graduation night, and all they had available was a smoking room. After we arrived, the air stopped working, the sink had gotten clogged and flooded the bathroom and they only had a room with a king bed. So they moved us to another room, that didn't have hot water. Anyway, by the time we got settled it was well after midnight. The next day was Sunday, and the ward we wanted to go to was at 9am. Well, we found another ward that started at 1pm. The only ward around us that started that late was about 30 minutes away from where we were staying. Not really realizing how long it would take us, and not really knowing our way around just trusting a GPS that wasn't current on construction, (neither were we) we ended up being late. The temptation to not go was really strong. Our family is a big parade when we walk into church late, and it is one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world. But we wanted to be there for solace more than anything, and decided to go. We were sitting in Sunday school and a girl tapped me on the sholder and asked if we were new. I kind of laughed and said, sort of. And told her we had just moved from Arizona. (Wait for this, you won't believe it.) She said, "So did we." come to find out, they were in my sister's ward, and knew all of the same people that we knew. If you have ever doubted that Heavenly Father is not aware of you, let me tell you that I know that he is. I have always believed that, but now I have proof. Mainly because of what happened the next day. We needed to check out of our hotel because they were going to raise our rate to a rediculous amout. So we packed up everything in the pouring rain and Dan went to work. Did I mention it was raining? Normally I love the rain, but this just was a lot to handle. No home, pouring rain, all the kids and our stuff smushed into our car. And I was alone to find somewhere to go as Dan had obligations at work. For an instant, I let a discouraging thought go through my mind. Then as quickly as it came, I made it leave. I started the car and headed for my new friend Autumn's house. I called her and said, "can we come play" hoping my tears of gratitude wouldn't show in my voice. My burden of not having a home wasn't taken away, but the burden of not having anywhere to go was lifted. And then came more peace. My kids had a place to play, new friends, it was a tremendous blessing. And I thank Heavenly Father every day for watching over me, blessing us, and helping me to realize how very aware He is of me. Even though it wasn't the right time for my burdens to be taken away, he lifted them, and eased them. Through the selfless acts of others. If a home had been immediately provided for our family it would have been a miracle, but at the same time, what would I have learned? We life in a world where everything is instant. It is so easy to be impatient. Learning patience, and becoming patient is seemingly very difficult. At the same time, when you are patient you can see things in ways that you wouldn't think of. Being patient makes things a lot more clear. There were days when I felt I couldn't go another step, the burden was just too hard. And even now, I sometimes feel that-who doesn't?? But I have these amazing miracles to remember and the 5 little (growing faster every day) miracles that surround me everyday and suddenly I become more patient during dicouraging times. If everything came instantly, there would be no reason for patience. I also think with increased patience comes a lot more gratitude. When you are patient you don't focus on things that you cannot change. You focus more on the things that are good and important in life. I am so grateful for miracles in my life. And today, it is so important for me to show my gratitude for those who walk beside me to lift my burdens. To me, you are are what make my life miraculous. So thank you. Ialso have to give a huge shout out to Dan, the most patient person I know. To watch him through all of this, I have to say I have NEVER seen a more patient person. Thank you Dan for your example. You are amazing.

Pictures in no particular order

2010-07-07T21:28:00.000-07:00

city and another view of Dan's office

Watching tv while we were using wifi at Mcdonnalds. Looking for a motel on the internet was always a huge challenge for us.

The building with the spire is Dan's office. He is on the 51st floor.

2010-07-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

Green!

Dan got razzed a little bit about not having a lot of driving endurance. He decided to prove everyone wrong and drove all day and night this is the sunrise that woke me up.

he's not really sleeping...

the fire that happened the day after we moved in. This pict is looking out of our living room window. (We are in a three story townhouse)

It's been a while...

2010-07-07T19:54:00.000-07:00

Well, I am really not sure where to begin. For the past year or so, actually a little longer I guess, things haven't quite gone how we would have planned. Or even how we would expect. I am not sure how much of the past year's events I will post about, I want to keep our blog upbeat, and most of the events of the past year have been anything but that. For those who don't know, we are in Philadelphia now. Well, in a suburb called North Wales. Dan started a new career in February and that brought us here. Although we miss our extended family and friends from Tucson, we knew even before we received the job offer way back in October when we "sold" our home that we were pretty much already gone from Tucson. It started for us a couple of years before that though. I won't go into that here, it is better to let things go, and for those of you who know me well, know that is not an easy thing for me to do. The stress of our life from the past year has caught up to me, and the only reason I bring it up is hopefully I can inspire people in some small way to keep going when you feel like you can't. Daniel took this job and left us on January 31st, the day after Ethan's baptism. (I will have to blog about that event and so many others later) That day was probably the biggest turning point for us. I remember being at the airport with all of our kids, and watching Dan hug them all. I remember hugging him, not knowing when I would see him again, and just feeling like I couldn't catch a breath. Our plans were not definite at that point when we would get to be together. I remember when it was time for us to go, I got all of the kids on the elevator and Dan and I looked at each other until the doors closed. I sobbed all the way out to the car. Then I realized I had left my wallet at home, and Dan had forgotten to give me cash and I was stuck in the airport parking lot with no way to pay for parking. So the kids and I scrounged for all the coins we could find, and drove away. Pulled into the wrong lane in all of my brainlessness and had to back up (it said cash only, but would only take dollars-since when do coins not count as cash??) got into another lane and the kid said "$2.00" (I want my two dollars!) Had to pay him in nickles, dimes and one quarter I even explained I forgot my wallet, he must get that a lot because he was unfazed. (Don't ever do that on a toll road by the way-also another story for another time). The next 11 weeks went by in a blur-well, the days did. When it was night and quiet, that was a different story. It was about the time that Blake dumped 2 gallons of stain on my parents kitchen floor that we decided house or no house, it is definitely time to go. So, no house, a seriously expensive trip in front of us, very little money, and off we went. I could sit here all night and tell you of the sad, and scary and heartbreaking things that happened on our trip. But I am not going to. What I will tell you that this was absolutely the challenge of my life. Dan's too, but he was at work most of the time. (and I am telling this story, he can blog about his perspective later :) ) But without this challenge (that sadly, is far from over) I would not have known some of the things I was capable of. I would not have relied more on the Lord than I ever have. I would not have felt more love, and seen as many miracles as I saw challenges. I would not have been as grateful as I am now for the little worldly things that I have. In fact, one dreary, exhausting day I was kind of grumbling to myself as I drove, just wanting a home to go to. (for those of you who don't know, we left the end of April, and were "homeless" until the end of June.) That day, I had driven Dan into work. (That is a feat in and of itself-not as bad as NYC I am told, but for me, ahhhhhh! Over bridges and everything!) As I was grumbling to myself about our plight our GPS took me to a part of town that you really don't want to know about. Minivan with a turtle top and all, down these streets with these rundown buildings and as I look out the window I literally saw people digging in dumpsters for their needs. This experience has happened more than once, and I am humbled every time, I am also reminded that I need to get a new GPS.
One of the funniest driving stories is here I am with 5 kids in a loaded down van with a turtle top driving down the freeways of Philadelphia. I was on my way to meet a realtor in a place called Conshohocken, and the best way to describe where I was is that it reminded me of the streets of San Fransisco, very hilly, very narrow. I was on the freeway GPS said to stay right. Tons of construction, so street made me stay left. I had to turn around, and it took me to the toll roads. I had to pay $1.60 to turn around! (that happend more than once too) anyway, as I am driving down this narrow hilly road to meet the realtor, a large man in a white tank top (can I get any more politically correct) was standing next to a police officer. I was driving very slow, trying to find where I needed to go, and all of a sudden he starts pointing at our car top carrier. I looked at him and gave him a thumbs up, "yes, it's a car top carrier, thank you." thinking he was making fun of me (I got that a lot) When I finally got to the neighborhood, I stopped the car, looked up and realized that the car top carrier somewhere on my trip (I had been driving for about 4 hours by this point) had flown up and was wide open. (Can I tell you how many times I heard the song "Bad Day" go through my mind?) That particular experience though, made me laugh so hard. I had been through the toll booths and on the crowded freeways... Thumbs up.
Through all of this Blake had been sick. He was sick with the flu and respiratory problems, double ear infections, it was awful. We had stayed with a family who happened to have a nebulizer that we were able to use, but he just would not get better. The nearest urgent care that would take babies was about an hour away. The next day we moved to a different town to another friend's house (so many stories to tell!) anyway, at about 8:30pm that night, Blake was so bad we decided to take him to urgent care. Fortunately it was only about 5 minutes away. My friend watched the rest of our kids, and Dan and I ran to urgent care. As we pulled up, Blake had been coughing so hard he threw up in the parking lot. By the time we got in to urgent care, it was 2 minutes to closing time. They took us, amazing in and of itself. They gave us the forms to fill out. What is your current address-we don't have one. Do you have your insurance card-no, we have insurance but cards haven't been mailed (this is a Sunday night, no way to verify). They said, "we will do a one time courtesy visit for you." WHAT?! Who does that?? The dr. looked at him, he had pink eye, double ear infection, and severe breathing issues. She said, "we need to do xrays to make sure it is not pneumonia." It wasn't thank goodness, but we did leave with 4 different prescriptions. As we are walking out, we asked how much we owed, since we had not anticipated xrays too. They said "you don't owe anything. Just remember to bring your card next time you come." Seriously, who does that?!
So, you are probably wondering why it took so long to find a home. Well, for one no one can get approved for a mortgage so everyone is renting, so homes go really fast. We are also a lot bigger than the average family and although we were ok squeezing into a small house, there are laws about how many people can be allowed into rental homes. A lot of homes denied us because of our family size. (Several times, I would get to a home and they would look at all of the kids, and say no right then and there.) Then there is a cost issue. Although work has been really generous with us, homes out here are insanly expensive and we just couldn't make it work. We were told several times that we were being too picky, but let me reassure you we would not put our family and ourselves through all that we have gone through because I don't like the look of a house, or I wanted certain things. After what we went though in Tucson, I was grateful to have a home, regardless of what it looked like. There was also the issue that we only brought one car, and with the cost of homes, can't really afford another one for Dan right now, so we had to be in an area with a train. It was the perfect storm for failure. There were so many things working against us. No matter our planning or saving or calling or driving around it just would not come together for us. But all of a sudden, it worked out. It's still a little weird to drive somewhere with the kids, and be able to have a home to drive back to. As I said before, as tramatic as some things have been for us, I cannot deny that we have been tremendously blessed. We made it here, with no incidents (besides leaving a day and a half late because Dan was sick, kids were sick, and poor Blake) but we made it through. We stayed in scary parts of town, and survived. We were in New Jersey the first night we got here, and the lobby of the hotel we were going to stay at closed at midnight. Our GPS decided that it didn't want to work after midnight either, and we were driving around New Jersey until 3 am. We ended up in Camdon which we were told NEVER to go to Camdon. And there we were at 3 in the morning. Looking out my window when we were stopped at a red light, looking at a seemingly deserted building, until people started coming out of the doorways onto the pitch black side walk. We made it through that. Broke a few laws, but I think we were justified.
Really, what is life without a little adventure? Or in our case, a lot... But Iwill say that I don't go a whole lot of places these days. We are so grateful to be togther, to be in a home, and as Ethan says in his prayers "thank you for blessing us with a home so we don't have to stay in any more stinky hotels, motels or microtels." So, I do have a million more stories to tell, and a bunch of shout outs to so many people who made this adventure bearable. But for now, wanted to let whoever is reading this, that we are alive and well and so grateful to be here. I was asked the question the other day if I would do it over again. The answer is yes. 100% yes. Experiences in life help you learn and grow and help you to become better than you were yesterday. Would there be anything we would have done differntly? Absolutely. But again, it is all part of the learning process. Do I want any more challenges? Um, no think I am good for now.

Baby Pictures

2009-02-19T14:29:00.000-08:00

Does he look a little nervous to you?

Grandpa Smith gave Baby Blake his first puppy.

11 days old already! I can't believe how fast time is going. It seemed to stand still the last week that I was pregnant. Here are just some more pictures of our new little guy. Things are still going really well. I am still so amazed at what a good sleeper he is. The kids keep asking me "when does he wake up?" I said "about 2:00 in the morning." :)

Love of Reading

2009-02-19T14:17:00.000-08:00

I am a big reader. Although these days, I am lucky to get to read my email let alone a good book. But some of my fondest memories as a child was when my mom would read to me. There was just something about her voice that was so comforting. Being away for a couple of days and sometimes being so tired at night, it seemed like forever since I read to my kids. (Although it had only been a few days.) So one night last week, I decided to read a couple of stories to the kids. It turned into almost two hours of reading! Zach and Ethan wanted to read a "boy" book, so Ethan read a couple of stories to Zach. Even though it was really late, I didn't want to stop reading. They get so captivated and it is nice to hold them without a big basketball in the way!

Valentine's Day at School

2009-02-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

The first graders had a fun Valentine's party planned, and it was also love of reading week. The Principal decided that Friday would be storybook character day, where the kids could dress up as their favorite storybook character. Ethan's class, however requested that for their "friendship social" that the kids dress up in their best party clothes. So here is what we came up with. Ethan wore his tie and vest that he wore for Cody and Eloise's wedding. It was great that it happened to be RED! And Katelyn was a princess of course. So much fun for them! They haven't gotten ready that fast for school in a really long time!

Daddy Daughter Dance

2009-02-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

I keep forgetting to fix the red eyes on my pictures. I guess I am just happy that I remember to take pictures!!!

Alyssa looking more like Cinderella... (wearing her FAVORITE SHOES no less...)

With my original induction date, I was worried about how I would be able to deliver a baby and get a 5 year old ready for her first daddy daughter dance. I was so grateful for how things turned out! The boys and Alyssa and I had a fun night with pizza and a movie. I am so torn between wanting to pause time, and wanting to see what happens next. They are getting so old so fast, it is just so sad and so exciting at the same time! Katelyn was so excited to go to the dance. Dan made the night really special for her. He ordered her a corsage and everything. I wish I would have taken an after picture. She came home with her hair and her bow all out of place and she had even torn a small part on her dress. I said, "what happened?" Dan said, "a lot of crazy dancing!" They stayed for the whole dance and then went out for ice cream. What a fun memory for both of them.

Lawlor--Party of 7!

2009-02-16T17:53:00.000-08:00

BLAKE THOMAS

FEBRUARY 8, 2009

8LBS 15 OZ, 21 1/2 INCHES

He opened his eyes the first night, and had the most confused look on his face... I said "I know, I am not quite sure what happened either..."
We are going to need a bigger boat...

I made the kids Big brother big sister tee shirts. You can't see Blake's, but his says Baby brother... They are fun to make and the nurses all love them. I will post better picts of the tshirts when I get them :)

They are like an At&t commercial... more bars in more places...

Well, it has already been a week, and what a week! I went to church on the 8th, and came home not feeling very well. By the time Dan came home from Stake Choir practice, I said, "you better call my parents." We finally left for the hospital a little before 10pm (I was contracting pretty hard by this time, but had to get all the kids clothes set out for the next day, and straighten up the kitchen.... who wants to come home to dirty dishes...) :) We got to the hospital and by this time I am in tears because it was hurting so bad. So we check in, and they send me to triage. I told her I was at a 4 1/2 on Thursday, but she still sent me for a "labor check". So I get back there, change into a way too small hospital gown, climb into the oh so uncomfortable bed. The nurse calmly comes in to hook me up to monitors, after several more painful contractions, she says, "let's check you." Ohhhh you are at an 8! I need to call your Dr! She tries to put an iv in my hand, and misses, ouch! We ditch our bags in the hallway, she and Dan run me to a delivery room, I ask (nicely!!!) for drugs, and they say "no, there is no time" I said, Tylenol? anything? They thought it was funny, I wasn't joking.... The dr comes in, I push, decide against pushing for a minute, because it hurt... then as I was laying there I thought, "I have two choices, sit here in agony or end this" So I pushed again, and out he came. Then they give me a Percocet, and a Motrin. Haha. So all in all, from the time we checked into the hospital to the time he was born was 37 minutes. I just kept saying "I did it"! I never, ever, ever thought I could do that without any meds. But I was so grateful for how things turned out. I wish I could describe to you what an amazing experience it was. There are really no words. I received a blessing earlier in the day, and I have to say that I was helped all the way through that wonderfully painful experience.

Dan was a huge comfort to me, and I had awesome nurses. I have to say it was just the best experience, I could not have planned it better. It was kind of funny because he came so fast, Dan and I were completely in shock. Dan was worried about me, so he stayed by my side to make sure I was ok. They had taken Blake to clean him up, (and weigh him, the nurses didn't believe he was only 8 lbs 15 oz, so they brought in another scale) :) finally I snapped out of it, and said, "Dan, we just had a baby! Go take his picture!!!" (We weren't expecting him until Friday...I was scheduled to be induced that day, but thank goodness he came on the 8th, I didn't want a Friday the 13th baby!)

I kept saying all along, I had the best pregnancy, and then the best delivery. So I couldn't have a good baby too, that is just not how things work. Well... he is a great baby. He rarely cries, and at night he cries to eat and then goes right back to sleep. I asked Dan if we should be worried or just really grateful that he doesn't cry. He brings such a sweet spirit to our home.

I feel really good, although I think the adrenaline is wearing off. I am exhausted. But I am recovering really fast. When I had Ethan, my dr told me that I was made to have babies. I guess she was right. I just feel so blessed. I watched Dan play soccer with the kids tonight while I was holding Blake. Really, there are no words to express how I feel about my little (haha) family. It is amazing to me how blessed we are. And even with reality sinking in, and the piles of laundry, dishes to be done, lunches to be made, etc, etc, etc... I have never been so grateful for all that I have to do.

For me, this is definitely no ordinary miracle!!!!

Texas Road House

2009-01-18T17:15:00.001-08:00

Ethan got a 100% on his spelling test. Whenever the kids get a 100, the teacher puts a dot on their noses to let everyone know they did so well. He wouldn't wash itoff, so here is Ethan with his green nose.

We tried to explain that we were going to take him home, with or without the box...

Katelyn received a "compassion" award from school, a couple of months ago. And with that award came a free kids meal from Texas Road House. Then last week Ethan received a free kids meal for a reading accomplishment. And Dan and I received a gift certificate for Texas Road House for Christmas. Seemed like someone was telling us to go there :) and since I am all for having dinner that I don't have to cook or clean up after, we went on Friday. We tried to get there before the rush, but didn't quite make it, so we had to wait about 15 minutes. Dan and I kept saying, "they are being so good". We were quite amazed at how well behaved they were. That restraunt is usually pretty noisy, which was fine with us. I realized if we were going to take our kids out, that is a really good place because no one expects quiet there. I have to say that when I look at my kids, I think, hmmm 4 kids. No big deal. I mean, we didn't have them all at once, so we have had time to adjust, and get used to the idea of having all of them around. And then for me to be pregnant, well, it is just kind of normal for us. :) But when you walk through a crowded restraunt, I was noticing people looking at us in a "what in the world" sort of way. And I truly felt like I was in a parade, and thought maybe I should start waving or something. I kept hearing, did you see how many kids they have? I felt like saying back, we are on a school field trip, the bus is right outside. (All joking aside, sometimes I wish I had a bus so there would be a little more room for everyone/everything.) haha. Well, shortly after we were seated, they really turned the music up. Zach and Ethan got Sprite, and Katelyn and Alyssa got lemonaid. (Katelyn does NOT like soda, she says it's too hot) anyway, I am not quite sure what they put into the kids drinks because once the music turned up they turned into kids I have never seen before. Zach was dancing like a crazy guy, (he was sitting across from Katelyn and Ethan) and they both were laughing so hard at him. Which egged him on even more. It was so funny to watch, and I looked at Dan at one point, and said, "people are going to think there is something really wrong with him." :) Needless to say, we had a really fun time. We usually don't like to take the kids out to restraunts because it is inevitable that someone will melt down. But I have to say that if you have kids and you want to go out, take them there. It's so loud, no one really notices what the heck your kids are doing. One waitress said, "you should bring them back on Tuesday, it's kids night, free ice cream and everything." Dan made a good point that we should start keeping a list of all the places that do kids night. We had so much fun with them, and it helped that we didn't have to pay for food that they didn't eat. :)

*Here is Zach going crazy. The lady behind us was a little ornery, so I tried to keep him from at least hitting or kicking the bench. It is really hard to discipline a child when you are laughing so hard. (you'll probably have to pause my dumb playlist to get the full effect.)

Katelyn

2009-01-18T17:10:00.000-08:00

So at lunch after church today we were talking to the kids about their favorite parts of church. Ethan said he loves primary, and when asked what he loved about primary, he said singing and his friends, and his teachers... Zach said he loved primary because he got to sing. And he loves his friends. He said that Lincoln and Brock are his favorite friends at church. Then we get to Katelyn. She sits up straighter in her chair, gets a thoughtful look on her face, and says, "when they talk about Jesus I feel the spririt and it makes me happy." So for all of you who are primary teachers, or who will be just know that they really are paying attention! :)

Anxiety

2009-01-18T11:56:00.000-08:00

Usually by 34-35 weeks of pregnancy, I get really anxious. I get a little impatient, mainly because of how uncomfortable it gets to be pregnant. But this time, I am not anxious about that. I am grateful to still be pregnant and grateful to be able to carry to term without too many complications. I think that is something I have always taken for granted. Lately, though my anxiety lies with the questions of "will the baby be ok"? "Will I be ok"? What if something happens? I have heard just recently so many people that I know that are going through challenging times related to pregnancy or births and it makes me really nervous to think that maybe something bad could happen to any of us at any time. It is hard not to think of those things. All of the "what ifs". Dan is a huge comfort when I get like this, I have never seen any one have such a take things as they come kind of attitude like Dan does. It is pretty amazing to witness. Another reason for my anxiety is the fact that we are having another boy. After Zach was born, I was told by my dr. that boys don't do nearly as well as girls, as far as breathing goes. When we had Zach, he came out at 9lbs and 4oz, seemingly normal. But shortly after he was born I noticed that he was having a hard time breathing. Like he had fluid in his lungs. So my nurse took him and said "it's probably nothing, but let's just check". Shortly after that, the head nurse of the special care nursery came in and didn't have him with her. I knew that was a bad sign. She told us he may have an infection, that he stopped breathing when he was in the nursery, so they had to put an IV of antibiotics in him. Well, they couldn't get the IV in his hand, so she said, just to prepare you, it is in his head. "It looks a lot worse than what it is". Then a couple of days later, shortly before we were to be sent home, he stopped breathing while I was feeding him. We believe that he was choking, and thankfully he was hooked up to all of the monitors so all the alarms went off, and nurses came runnning, but that bought us a few more days in the hospital. So we ended up being there ten days total. I still remember the first day (actually it was in the middle of the night) that they made me go home. I was no longer a patient at the hospital, and I had to leave. I cried the whole way home, and almost couldn't bear it to see the empty basinet, and all of the things that we prepared for him. It was a good thing I was so exahusted, otherwise I don't think I would have slept at all. It is still amazing to me that during that difficult time, the amount of peace and happiness I felt, even though he wasn't home with us. I keep looking for that now, it is kind of funny in an interesting way that I don't feel that peace now, and nothing is happening. Nothing is really going wrong, in fact it seems like everything is going perfectly, with the pregnancy that is. There is still a lot of things that we are dealing with that just won't work out for some reason or another. I think the frustrating part about all of that, is that we still aren't sure where Heavenly Father wants us to be right now. Anyway, that is a whole new can of worms, and best saved for another posting. Here are some pictures of our Zach in the hospital, and then some when he was a couple of months old. I remember in the blessing that Dan gave him the day that he stopped breathing, he blessed him to be healthy and strong. He ended up being such a big baby it was sometimes really hard to carry him. I am grateful for those experiences in life that remind you that Heavenly Father is aware of you, and remembering that time is bringing comfort to me now, as I am getting ready to go through this all again. I keep thinking about this new little guy of ours, who will be here in just a month. He must really have something special to do here, at this particular time. Now I feel better. There really is something to be said about record keeping and remembering the experiences that you go through in life to see how you have been watched over, and carried even during the hardest of learning experiences.

The nurses called this his "party hat". He kept trying to pull out his IV, so they had to put this over it. Blessing day in June (about a month and a half old)
About a month old.
Zach at 3 months About 6 months old. All he could do was sit.

Zach, Zach, Zach

2009-01-14T19:57:00.000-08:00

Ok, so this kid of mine makes me laugh every day. He just has one of those personalities that makes your day brighter. He played all day at a friend's house, (Thanks Summer, are you recovering by the way?!) and then he came home and played outside forever. So when it was time for dinner, I told everyone to go wash their hands. Well, apparently he was thirsty because I caught him not washing his hands, but drinking out of the faucet. (we do have cups...) anyway, I said "Zach, what are you doing?" "drinking". ooookkkkk, "Zach, what is on your face?" (it looked like he had eaten a whole secret stash of chocolate, of course I was wondering where that stash was....) he looks in the mirror, and says, "oh, that is called dirt." very matter of fact. Ask a stupid question.....

Some new Pictures

2009-01-13T16:42:00.000-08:00

Recent family picture Alyssa and Elsie, what are you doing....??? :)

Cousins

Alyssa with baby Joshua

JanaKaye (Jer's wife) in the back, Eloise, (Cody's wife) me, Allison (Corey's wife) and Lindsey

Patiently waiting for their turn :)

Abby and Alyssa, I forgot to "fix" their eyes!

Apparently you can't ever be too prepared...

Zach's first day in Sunbeams

January 13th, 2009--Already!?

2009-01-13T16:02:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Just a few updates, nothing big...

Ok, so at my last dr appointment the dr and I talked about a possible induction date. (I am usually induced a few days early) So the tentative date is Friday the 13th. :) Either that, or I have to wait and go on my own. Honestly, with this pregnancy, I am good either way. But today I realize hmmm, in a month I am going to have five kids. I think I should go take a nap. :)
We got the kids report cards last week, and I have to say hurray! They did so good. They are really enjoying school, and my hope is that I can make this enthusiasm last! Although, it is almost impossible to wake them up! I think we are still catching up from all of the late nights over Christmas break, but oh my goodness. Ethan even has an alarm clock! Although, there have been a few days where he will wake up with the alarm clock, and get ready even before I am up. He is getting so old. :)

This year, Ethan is in CTR 8, and it is weird for me to think he will be in scouts soon. Katelyn is in CTR 6, and Zach is a Sunbeam! Alyssa is in the nursery, and has decided it is an okay place to be.

For the last couple of days at preschool, Zach has started to say, "Ms. Dana, I don't feel well... I can't do my papers". Of course he can play like crazy, but he just can't color his papers. I was working with him yesterday, and he says, "mom, I can't color anymore, can you do it for me?" in his scratchiest voice. What a faker. :) I can't clean up my toys because my stomach hurts.....
Alyssa is talking a lot more, and although it is hard to let her go into nursery, once she is in there, she is fine. She seems really happy, running around the house with one of Katelyn's shoes on, (they are too big for her to wear two, so she wears just one). I think she can sense that there are some big changes coming, all of a sudden she screams "no, no!" when she has to go to bed. That has not ever happened before. It breaks my heart to hear her cry, since she rarely does. But she has turned into a really good pretender lately. When she plays with her dolls, she pretends that they are sad and crying, and then gives them a "baby cup"aka bottle. Is she really almost 2? :)
Katelyn is doing really well in school, and she is getting so tall! She is such a sweetheart. She said that one of her friends at school was crying and she walked him to his bus and then walked back to her bus. She said she even gave him a hug to help him to feel better. I said did he feel better, she said, "no, but I tried to help him." So cute, I wish I could have seen it. She and Alyssa got to be good buddies over the break. It is fun to watch them together. Although, they like to play on Katelyn's bed, Alyssa's favorite thing to do. I wouldn't mind so much, if it weren't up so high!
Dan is still job searching. It has been pretty frustrating lately. We are a little confused as to what to do next. I can't imagine making these important decisions without prayer and a little extra guidance. I recently got a email from a friend who is going through the adoption process. I can't imagine what they are going through, but as I look at both situations, the thing we have in common is patience and relying on the Lord.
I am feeling really great these days. This has been a really great pregnancy. Over the holidays, I don't know if it was because I wasn't sleeping enough with all the fun going on, or what, but I wasn't doing so great. It was a little hard not to complain, the pain was sometimes so bad, but I made it through. I don't think I was all that fun to be around, but in my defense, I was a little worried about things not going so well with the pregnancy, and just plain exhausted. But all is well, and he and I are both healthy and strong. I still can't believe it is only a month away. Although, it is getting difficult to be comfortable at night. :) This is the first pregnancy though that Dan has been around a lot more, and he is so helpful. It is really hard to find anything to complain about these days. We have been so blessed and despite the bumps in the road we are still facing, we are happy and optimistic for future days. I have just come to realize that this is all going by so fast, that I need to enjoy every minute.

Star Wars Party

2008-12-17T13:47:00.000-08:00

Thanks Uncle Corey for the awesome photoshop effects!

Darth Dad, Ethan, He is your father

Okay, Updates...

2008-12-17T13:13:00.000-08:00

Well, November brought a broken washer, and a dead car battery.... :) But the beginning of December brought some really wonderful things. I wish I could tell you all the amazing things that have happened for us in the past couple of weeks. So many kind things from so many people. I can't even say thank you without crying. And it isn't so much the things that they have done, but the hope that they have brought to our family. I have learned the value of service and how far it can stretch. I have also learned that there is so much good in the world that I need to do that I don't really have time to worry about what is going wrong, and just be happy with what life is teaching me. I guess essentially I have learned to not be so selfish. Giving is what makes people happy. Giving hope to someone who doesn't really have any reason to hope. Ohhhh. My kids just got home! One more day and they are mine for a couple of weeks. I am so excited. This is such a fun time! They are so excited. We were at the Christmas party and Santa came in and I said "Ethan, do you want to go see Santa?" He said, "but I don't know what I want yet, I can't go see him until I know what I want!" He was so worried about it. :) Ahh. so much fun!!!!! Okay, I am off and running, so I will have to post the sad news about the mini van tomorrow. (The breaks... $500.00..... sigh. sigh. deep breath. sigh.)

Is Christmas really next week!?

2008-12-17T12:16:00.001-08:00

Wow, I can't believe how behind I am in my postings! Life, as it is for everyone else has been so much fun, but really busy. I wanted to first post some new fun pictures, and then I will tell you what has been going on with us....

2008-12-17T12:14:00.000-08:00

Our neighbor gave us some chocolate Christmas truffles, (the round chocolates that are the size of golf balls) and Alyssa went crazy. She put a whole one in her mouth. Nummy.

One day I washed Zach's bedding and it wasn't done by bed time, so he slept on the bottom bunk in Katelyn's room. I was wrapping Christmas presents in the living room, and I heard a noise...I looked at Dan in total panic and said "kid!" He went to check on them and this is what he found.... :)

After church on Sunday, Alyssa was playing with Barbies, and fell asleep. (I can't wait until 9am church! It is hard when they fall asleep at 5pm!)

Ethan had a Star Wars Birthday party. Complete with Storm Trooper. So now he is apart of our Christmas decor... (I am not sure how long I will be able to stand it. He scares the heck out of me when I go get a drink of water in the middle of the night. It has been two weeks, and I still get startled... Stupid storm trooper.)

I couldn't pass up the antique picts at the mall. I have always wanted to do that. We only got one picture, so we scanned it so we could post it. I LOVE Zach's smile. He is such a goof.

Grandpa asking Santa to speak on Sunday... Since Grandpa ended up speaking, I am assuming that Santa said "ho, ho, NO!"

Ethan in the crowd at the First grade program. :)

The Muppet Twelve Days of Christmas (AKA Grandma Smith's Song)

2008-11-17T15:39:00.000-08:00

(Song #2 0n the playlist down below)When Dan and I were first married, Dan thought it was really funny that when my mom would sometimes panic, (I am going to be in so much trouble for this...) her voice would go like ten octives higher and she kind of well, sounded like well... (at first we couldn't really say what she sounded like) So one day we are driving, and we hear this song, and got to the part where "Beaker" starts to sing, we started to laugh so hard, because we both at the same time said "that's it!" When my mom panics, she sounds like "Beaker". (memememe) anyway, sorry mom, but even now 8 years later, we hear this song, and just die laughing. badambumpbump.

Mondy, Monday

2008-11-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning with a renewed sense of wanting to accomplish everything on my to do list. And then I realized that I had about ten to do lists. And settled on trying to prioritize the lists and then starting out. It's now after four, and I am finally done redoing my to do lists. So now I have a lot to get done tomorrow! I ate lunch with just Zach today (Alyssa took an early nap). Ohhh to be three again. He makes me laugh so hard. (Out of nowhere, comments like, "Mom, I don't like to go underwater in a big pool, just a little kid pool or a bathtub", or "do you know how to make bubbles in a bathtub, you go like this..." and showed me what to do with his lips.) After lunch he said, "mom, do you want to see what I can do?" He laid down on the carpet in the living room (on his back) and said "this is how you make a snow angel". And proceeded to make a "snow angel" on the carpet. I don't know where he comes up with this stuff, and then realized a small sad fact of life, that he has never even seen snow!!! Our poor deprived children. I have to say that is the hardest part about Tucson for me. I really miss seasons. Especially now that the holidays are coming. But if we lived somewhere that had seasons we wouldn't have our extended family around. I guess it is not really a choice. Anyway, just kind of a random day, but in my little world with lots of kids and being 26 1/2 weeks pregnant, to get the dishes done, a bunch of laundry, and watch Zach make "snow angels" in the carpet, it has been a pretty productive day. :)
I am getting really excited for the holidays, and starting a few new traditions in our family now that are kids are getting a little older. I just want to make things as fun and memorable as I possibly can for the kids. They won't really remember the gifts, but I want them to always remember having a lot of fun. Speaking of kids, all of them (Dan included) are in my kitchen light sabor fighting. Dan just lost, I better go save him. And it's family night! My kids love family night. I keep wondering how long it will last. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will be a long time. I know, I know it is wishful thinking. But for now, I need to go and get the craft together, and finish my lesson on graditude. Oh, and try to get Alyssa to say Daddy instead of Dan. So much to do!!!! :)

A good night sleep can do wonders

2008-11-15T09:54:00.001-08:00

My favorite time of the day is the morning. When the kids wake up, hair a mess, jammies twisted, and they walk around with their eyes half opened. (Not very straight either) What makes our mornings so nice is that all of our kids 99% of the time will wake up happy and excited for a new day. The boys woke up a little earlier than normal for a Saturday, they were talking and laughing and getting ready to watch Star Wars. Completely equipped with blankets and pillows. Alyssa woke up next, and wanted to see the guys. (Hi guys, she always says) and then she came running into my room a little while later, Katie! Katie! So excited that Katelyn had finally gotten out of bed. No fighting, no drama, just everyone happy as could be. It illustrated to me the darkness I felt last night, to the brightness of a new day. I think we have all been there now and again in the dark, I guess the trick is to not stay there for very long. I found that once you let yourself go there, it is so hard to leave! But today, it was so much nicer to feel the bright new sun, and to feel the happiness that radiated from my kids.
So, off to do the laundry I let myself put off. (has anyone seen the commercial of the enormous ball of laundry that rolls into the backyard? that's my pile) haha. Which to me, says that we are so blessed to have clothes for our kids to wear, and I am blessed that my washer still works, for now... Dan is almost home, and then we will take our kids to see the wonders of Tucson, (most likely the park, or the zoo, or if we are really, really crazy, the mall to see if Santa really is here before Thanksgiving!) Seriously.

Bad Day....

2008-11-14T19:48:00.000-08:00

I used to be one that would wish time away, you know I can't wait until this happens, or I can't wait until this is over.... But I have to say, after the week we have just had, I am so grateful that this week is over. The funny part about being thankful for that, is that the problem is still there! For the past few days it just seems like all we have gotten is bad news, well not bad, just discouraging. It has been pretty hard to take. Mainly because I am having trouble shaking this hopeless feeling. I did ok earlier today, but right before I went to get the kids from school, I received an email with some really discouraging news. (Job search stuff) anyway, it kind of just took the breath out of me. Funny thing though, we get in the car to get kids, and the 'Bad Day' song came on the radio right when I turned on the car. Hahaha. To say the least. Then Ethan got off the bus, and told me about something discouraging that happened at school and I felt so bad for him. So we came home, I gave everyone a snack, made sure they were all safe, went to my room locked the door and had a good cry. The hiccup kind of crying that you can't really stop. So embarrassing. I mean, what happened today was really nothing compared to the big scope of things. But for some reason, I just came apart. I have nothing to complain about, that is the sad thing. Everyone is happy, healthy, we have what we need... the list of great things that go on in our family is endless. But this one little email, a couple of sentences, and crash! What in the world?! (Ok, so I am writing this under the assumption that not too many people read my blog, and really the main reason is for my own therapy.) I love to write, and I love to go back and look on past experiences and see how far I have come, and how much stronger I am for facing challenges in life. When I have days like this I think of Dan, and how he handles things. He is a rock. I can't even believe some of the things that are thrown at him, and he should have been a line backer because he just squares his shoulders, puts his head down and plows through. Me, I lock the door and hiccup cry. What a girl. :) To give you just a glimpse of how Dan takes things... when we were living in our Meadowbrook house, Dan was of course in school and it was finals time. (Big assignment/test thing in a math class if I remember right) Katelyn was about two months old, Dan goes out to go to school, and our front yard is completely flooded. Our main water line burst. (I am still trying to overcome my grudge against the idiots who even thought of polybutylene) So, he comes inside, says something about shutting off the water, and knowing that he had so much school work to do, and the obligation of taking care of his family, he changes his clothes, and digs up our front yard. He even borrowed a saw and other tools and cut up our driveway to lay a new water line, because of course, the hookup is on the other side of the driveway, seriously whoever put the house plans together... I did not hear one word of complaint. Not one. He always says, what is complaining going to do? (Although, when the pipes burst inside the house a couple of months later and flooded the kids rooms, and damaged just about every wall we had, not to mention the carpet... well I think I saw him roll his eyes once or twice...) :)

Now, seriously. This was a big problem for us, and it got solved. We got through it. So what in the world is my problem today?! I was pretty glad for once that I didn't have anyone over 6 to talk to right then, not that I could really talk through the hiccups. Interesting too, that for the past few days I have been rereading conference talks. Elder Wirthlin, "Come what may, and love it", and Elder Holland, "The Ministry of Angels" But just yesterday when I was wondering how to continue to have hope, when all I feel is discouraged, was President Uchtdorf, The Infinite Power of Hope. He said, "despair drains from us all that is vibrant and joyful and leaves behind the empty remnants of what life was meant to be..." Interesting how Apostles, teachers and so often visiting teachers and home teachers can hit the nail on the head. So today was not such a good day. Tomorrow is Saturday. I get to be with all of my kids for the whole day, and Dan only works for a few hours tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a good day. I hope. :) For any of you who have a lot of time on your hands and care a little for what I have to say, when you feel despair, cry it out. But get back up, go out and dig if you have to, but remember to always have hope. President Uchtdorf said, "Despair kills ambition, advances sickness, pollutes the soul and deadens the heart. Despair can seem like a staircase that leads only and forever downward." He says this about hope, "Hope, on the other hand, is like the beam of sunlight rising up and above the horizon of our present circumstances. It pierces the darkness with a brilliant dawn...." Hmmm Utter darkness, or brilliant dawn. Definately, tomorrow will be a much better day.

Some of my favorite picts...

2008-11-13T21:27:00.000-08:00

AsI have said a million times, I feel like life is going a million miles a minute. Here are a few pictures that I had forgotten about...

The zoo needs to get a bigger Elephant. Every time we go to the zoo we always get a pict of all our kids on the elephant, but somehow I don't think our new baby will fit...

Tom Selleck as a boy... Alyssa loves her babies

2008-11-13T20:20:00.000-08:00

The boys were having a "slumber party" and pretending to be asleep... Alyssa loves ice cream!

Kids, Kids, Kids

2008-11-13T19:29:00.001-08:00

Yesterday Dan left to go to work at 4am, he came home changed, went to the career fair, came home, ate and went to young men's, then stayed at the church until after 10 finishing up some clerk stuff. I feel a little spoiled because ever since he finished school because he is home a lot more. I knew he was going to be gone all day yesterday, and I was not looking forward to it. The only "complaint" I have these days about being pregnant is that I just get so tired! Anyway, so last night after bath time, the kids were playing and winding down. Once they were calm enough, we had our nightly scripture and prayer routine. As we were reading scriptures, Alyssa wandered off. I kept thinking, what is she into? But since I had a captive audience, I didn't dare leave to go look for her. We said our prayer, and right as Ethan was saying Amen, Alyssa came around the corner with a bottle of (what used to be a full bottle) hand soap. (Mind you, she has ALREADY had a bath) Her hair was soaking wet with soap. She thought it was mousse. She says "oh, pretty", and put more in her hair. Do I laugh, do I cry? Do I get mad? What do I do? It was not only in her hair, but all over the floor, the bathroom, some of the carpet, although I have to say I am so grateful for all of the tile that we have. It was like a bad math problem, how do you put three kids to bed while washing hand soap out of a toddler? (I knew if I left the other three, than it would completely undo all the work I did to calm them down enough to fall asleep) you see the dilemma. Fortunately, I had some tired kids, so they went to bed, and Alyssa enjoyed a second bath.
Tonight Dan was home, and was a sweetheart to take care of all of the kids at tub time. (It is getting so hard to breathe while bending over the tub to wash kids.) P.S. Dan is amazing, and helps out so much. Anyway, the kids were excited to have daddy home, so while we were reading scriptures tonight, Zach was sitting on Dan's lap. All of a sudden, he says watch this, and does a back flip off of Dan's lap. Complete with the jumping up with his hands in the air like a true gymnast. We were so amazed that we asked him to do it again. So here we are trying to keep the spirit in our home while watching Zach discover a new talent. Finally he sat still, and got a glazed look in his eyes, he was so tired. I said Zach, you get to sleep in tomorrow, aren't you excited? (I know I would be!!!!) Katelyn said, sleep in what?! What is he going to sleep in mom? What is so funny mom? These kids make me laugh so hard. I am still missing my camera! We need a new charger for the batteries and keep forgetting. Until of course, we want to use it. Alyssa was wearing Zach's "snugglie" jammies tonight, because her room gets cold, and all of her's were in the laundry. They were huge on her. It made her mad to walk. She is talking so much more, so tonight while we were reading we let her have a turn, and holy cow, she repeated almost every word from the whole verse. I guess I keep forgetting that she will be two in just four months. But still, I keep thinking that she is still just a baby. I can't believe how fast time is going. I think I say that every time I post, but seriously.
I feel like I need to give another shout out to Dan. We are going through such frustrating challenges right now, and I can't remember even one time that he has complained about things. I got so tired last night that I left the dishes expecting to do them this morning, and Dan came home from the church so late and after only having maybe 4 hours of sleep, he did the dishes so I wouldn't have to wake up to a mess, and then got up again to be to work by 5am. Not one word of complaint. He is such a saint. Especially after all the frustrations that have happened to us this week. It is starting to take a toll, but he just takes it all in stride. Really what else is there to do? He is such a great example to me. I just wish I wasn't so hormonal, I cry at just about everything these days. It makes it really hard to have hope. I think though I really should stop reading the news, then maybe I wouldn't cry so much. :)

Random Happenings

2008-11-09T21:05:00.000-08:00

Last week was pretty eventful. On Sunday Katelyn had a loose tooth that was so ready to be pulled, but she would not let us touch it. Well, Dan asked if he could see it, and she started to cry thinking that he was going to pull it, and all of a sudden she shouted, "I got it!" Then she started to cry even harder. It is such a bummer that we left our camera at Cody and Eloise's, and then an even bigger bummer to find that we let the batteries die. So she lost her second tooth last week, and hopefully I will get a picture before it grows back in!
Ethan came home last week, and said that he wanted to run for 1st grade class leader. The kids who decided that they wanted to run were asked to prepare a speech and read it to the class and then the class would vote. (On election day) He tells me this on Monday night right before bed, and elections are the next day. So Tuesday morning we work on his speech, which I was a little nervous about for him because he is so shy, but who am I to hold him back and tell him he can't do something. So my little guy gets up in front of his whole class and gives his speech and I was ready to cry because I could not believe how confident he looked and how well he did! I kept thinking Never, ever underestimate your children! He gets done and runs over to me, "mom, did I do a good job?!" I could barely say yes. I was so happy he chose to get out of his comfort zone and go for it! In the end two of the cutest girls were chosen to be their leaders, but he wasn't phased a bit! I asked him when he got home from school who he voted for, and he said, with a grin, "Gabby and Delany". Good sport. :)
The week of Halloween I was able to go with Katelyn's class on her field trip to the same pumpkin patch with the weeds from he....aven knows where (It's Sunday) on the school bus no less. Pregnant people shouldn't ride school buses for over an hour. But we had fun, and it was fun to be with Katelyn and her friends and see her in her element. I can't believe how grown up she is. On Friday of that same week I was able to go and help in Ethan's class for his Halloween activities. That was a great time too. I was so impressed with the teachers and the efforts that they put into that day for the kids. I was also impressed to see my son dancing!!!!!! One of the classrooms had a fun dance for the kids to do at the end of their activity, and there he was with all the rest of them. My son. Who when he starts to do anything, will stop if he knows someone is watching him. Can you believe that I left the camera home for both events?! Although these days, I am so grateful I remember to get everyone to where they need to go! Having everyone dressed in matching clothes is also an added bonus. I am trying not to put too much pressure on myself. (I ALWAYS have the camera!!!) Oh well, hopefully I have written some good descriptions.

PUMPKIN PATCH

2008-11-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

2008-11-09T20:51:00.000-08:00

2008-11-09T20:46:00.000-08:00

2008-11-09T20:33:00.000-08:00

Usually we go to Apple Annie's, but this year we opted for a change. I can't remember the last time we didn't go to Apple Annie's, so that was kind of sad for us to break tradition. But Katelyn's class was going to a patch we hadn't heard of, it was a little closer, so we decided to try it out. They had a hay maze, a petting zoo and lots of other fun things that Apple Annie's didn't have. However, their pumpkin patch was so bad. The sticky, pokey weeds were taller than the adults and we had to hack our way through. The kids were so miserable! It was awful. I wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that they had a "vote for Obama" table set up. Boo hiss. Anyway, most of it was a lot of fun, but I would have been happy to take the hay ride around the patch, and pick one from the little store they had set up. Good times. And it was a lot of fun, because everyone (but Jer and Jana and family sniff, sniff) were there. We missed you guys!!!!!!!

Halloween Fun!

2008-11-09T20:22:00.000-08:00

More Fun...

2008-11-09T20:03:00.001-08:00

Ward Halloween party, one of the "booths" was lightsabor fighting. The boys weren't too excited about that.... haha Darth, Luke, a witch and a Princess (Grandma Lawlor is AMAZING and made the Luke, witch and princess costumes)

I straightened Zach's hair for four different events. He was such a trooper! It didn't stay straight for too long, but I was amazed that he even let me do it! Anything to look like Luke Skywalker!

and more fun...

2008-11-09T19:49:00.000-08:00

Zach's preschool class

MS. Cooper with Alyssa. This is Ethan's teacher, and she is AWESOME!
Pumpkin carving activity at the school

We had a lot of fun events the week of Halloween. Of course I had to get a little bit on the sick side, so I wasn't entirely up for all of the fun, but the kids had a blast. I hate being sick during these times, I feel like I am too grumpy to enjoy things. But here are some of the picts of our kids.

Primary Program

2008-11-09T19:35:00.000-08:00

Today was our ward's primary program. I was so impressed with the kids in the ward, and the leaders. They did such a good job. Ethan was asked to recite the third article of faith. I was proud that he had taken it upon himself to memorize it. We work on those things here and there, but I will admit not nearly as much as we should. I often get overwhelmed at the responsibility of teaching the kids, and what to teach and priorities! But they are eager to learn the things of the Gospel, and that is so helpful. Katelyn had her part memorized the first week we started to work on it. But she got a little nervous and I think they thought her hesitation was because she needed help, and so that confused her a little bit. But for as shy as my kids are, I was so proud of them! It was so fun to watch them sing their little hearts out. I taught relief society today. The lesson was on the Second Coming and the Millennium. To have read all of the things about destruction and desolation and things to come and wars and contentions, to watch those kids today filled my heart with a lot of faith and hope for the future. It was really a good day.
Although getting to church for us is another story. Involving Alyssa having and accident in the tub, to a toilet overflowing. Etc... Seriously, for us, we are kind of used to having catastrophes on Sunday. It means that we are on the right track! But it is always worth what we go through to get to church. After church today, Zach's teacher called and said that she had to share with us something that happened today. Zach was on one of the riding toys in the nursery, and another little boy really wanted to ride it. Without really any expectation at all, the nursery leader asked Zach if he could let the other little boy have a turn. She said Zach didn't even hesitate, he got off the bike, said here you go and went and found something else to do. I heard Dan say on the phone things like, that was my kid? and That is really nice to hear. So here is a shout out to the kids for a great day. Alyssa even stayed in the nursery without a lot of drama. Way to go guys! I was so proud of you!
When we got home from our two minute drive from the church, Alyssa was sound asleep. But because we get home so late we didn't want her to sleep for too long, because we wanted her to go to bed before 10. So Dan laid her on a pillow in the living room, and covered her with a blanket. Katelyn came in, looked at Alyssa and said, "ohhh". And then she went to get some of her favorite dolls and a bear, and laid them all next to Alyssa. Dan said, "Katelyn, that was nice of you." and Katelyn said, "well, I didn't want Alyssa to get scared". I have to say, it was a really good day!

We're still here...

2008-11-09T19:20:00.000-08:00

I can't believe how fast time is going. October was such a blur. There were a lot of fun events, but it just seemed like it was over too fast. I am now almost 26 weeks pregnant, and I feel great. I get tired, obviously, but other than that, it is going really well. The kids help out so much and I think this time around is a little different because Dan is home a lot more because he is done with school. His schedule the past couple of months has been nice, although as nice as it is, we are hoping it will change soon! It is so hard to know what to do when you are job searching. Certainly kids play a huge part in our decisions, but throw in the fact that we are expecting again, we have to be really careful about our choices. And then the fact that no matter what we decide, it is ultimately up to the people who are doing the hiring, well, and Heavenly Father.
I would love to comment on the events of last week, and all of the election hoopla and the comments that I made on the news articles. But today I think that I can safely say it is what it is, and I have to make good and sure that I teach my family good and correct principles. And stay away from that nonsense as much as possible. Especially because I am pregnant and the stress it causes me to listen to talk radio, or read the news on the Internet. I especially become a little disturbed when I google LDS temples to get some clip art for my lesson and see images that should be kept sacred. Very disheartening. So, for now I think I will keep my blog what I have wanted it to be all along and that is the comings and goings of our family. And leave the nonsense to the rest of the world.
I guess that I should catch up on October.... That may take all of Novemeber, but I will see what I can do....

2008-10-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

There was a question about the marks on the dolls legs. Alyssa's favorite thing to do is to sneak the markers and crayons. She loves to color, but hasn't found the brilliance of coloring on paper. The world, (her face, arms, dolls, couches, etc...) is her canvas. So the marks on the dolls legs are a result of red marker on the poor baby. Although we buy nothing but washable marker, crayons... Alas, my doll is tattooed forever.

This was one of my favorite dolls when I was little. I love that Alyssa and the doll have the same hair... The pictures are a little dark, sorry. Dan is so much better at taking the picts.

Katelyn and the Doctor

2008-09-30T18:35:00.000-07:00

So we decided to take the kids to the doctor to get a flu shot. Well, the flu mist. Ethan sat on the table and took it like a man. No problem. Zach sits on the table kicking his feet, "I'll do it!" The first side shocked him and he said, "it's kind of hot." Well, as far as I know it isn't hot, but it must burn a little bit. Second side, he flinched a little, but not bad for a three year old. (This is the kid that when we took him to his first dentist visit, didn't move a muscle while his teeth got cleaned. Which was amazing to us because the other two at his age kicked the dentist, and at one office we were asked not to come back.) Anyway, so Katelyn, who started to cry when we first got there, was absolutely hysterical when Zach said "it's hot." So we sat her on the table and said, you can either have the mist up your nose, or you can get a shot in your arm. (The last time she got a shot, at 4 years, she kicked the nurse, and the needle almost broke in her arm.) Okay, so she wants it in her nose. The nurse just gets close to her, Dan is holding her head, kind of hugging her, and she starts to scream like we are killing her. She screamed soooooo loud!!! Oh my heck. I could not believe how loud she screamed. And of course the entire office heard her. So we get looks from EVERYONE as we march out. (Having a large family we are like a parade everywhere we go anyway, so we are kind of used to it.) What I don't understand though is when they look at you like you are a bad parent. As if we love it when our kids scream and yell. It wasn't as if she was being bad, there is a huge difference between being scared to death, and being a bad kid.
Once when I took the kids in I ran into my OB doctor and we were talking about if Dan and I were going to have another baby any time soon. One of the receptionists overheard our conversation. So a little while later, she apparently thought I had left, I hear the receptionist talk about how crazy I was to want more kids, etc.... As if it was any of her business. That was back in May, so I am sure she was surprised yesterday to see that my stomach has expanded a lot. :)I don't know what she was all bent out of shape for. The more kids I have the more her job is secure.
We really aren't sure what to do about some of Katelyn's fears. You mention the word doctor, and she goes and hides under her bed. She is afraid of her own shadow. No really. One night before she went to bed, she had to go to the bathroom. The hall bathroom was occupied, so she went into ours. All of a sudden Dan hears her screaming her head off and she comes running in to get him. "I saw something in there!!!" So Dan walks back with her, "okay Katelyn what did you see?" "That!" She was pointing to her shadow. She used to come into our bedroom pretty often really upset because she has had a bad dream. So finally I said, "Katelyn, when I am afraid of something, I say a prayer to Heavenly Father. He will help me to be brave and to not be afraid anymore." So every night before she falls asleep, I hear my little girl, "Dear Heavenly Father, please help me to be brave and to not be afraid, and to help me sleep." She hasn't woken up during the night since. We tried that when we go to the doctor... so I hate to think what would happen at the office if we didn't say a prayer first!

So this is what they do when I am gone....

2008-09-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

Dan is such a fun dad!

Field Trip!

2008-09-25T12:02:00.000-07:00

I am still scratching my head wondering where the time has gone. I took Katelyn on this field trip last year, and I am still amazed Zach is old enough to go. He was a lot of fun to watch today. Towards the end of the tour of the fire house, he really had to go to the bathroom. We were all upstairs, but when Zach was done, everyone had already gone back down stairs. Zach could hear them talking, and he yelled, "oh no! They started without us!" So he ran to catch up to the group. The Captain who gave us the tour was asking the kids what their favorite part of the tour was. Zach raises his hand and said, "I just went potty." The Captain said "give me knuckles". The firefighters who were watching were laughing so hard. Zach is just so animated about everything. It was a lot of fun for the kids, and the firefighters really did a good job making it really exciting for them. They got to watch one slide down the pole. Zach says, Hey can I do that?! Such a boy. Too much fun. Right as we were saying thank you, they got a call and had to rush out, sirens and all. So that was really exciting for the kids. Although Zach was pretty disappointed that they didn't let him climb up the really tall ladder on the ladder truck. Ohhh.

Beauty Parlor

2008-09-25T11:47:00.001-07:00

Ok, so Alyssa is such a girl. She loves to have her hair (what hair she has) done. She will sit still and let me comb it, spray it, and put a clip in it. (Although the second she walks away the clips come out) She follows Katelyn's lead. I was just really amazed that she didn't try to pull the curlers out.

I have to admit, I am loving this. They are such sweet girls. It is a lot of fun with them around.

We have a tie breaker!

2008-09-23T16:47:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! (Sorry for the cheesy music, we are so excited!) Today we went to the dr. for our ultrasound. (I CANNOT believe how fast it is going, I am 19 weeks...)

I love that the offices have big tvs so everyone who comes can see. (When I had Ethan, we all had to look on the tiny monitor) So that was a fun family activity for us and fun to have grandma Smith there. The kids got to see their new Baby Brother on the tv. Surprise! Surprise! Everyone keeps asking me how I know before hand what we are having. The answer is, I really don't know. I just know. And this time, the kids all knew. Everyone said it's a boy. It still does not seem real. He started to kick a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say I am so excited to have another little one. I have been feeling better than ever, and able to get so much done, I feel a lot more productive than I have in months. Which is such a nice feeling. I was pretty emotional today. Just seeing all of my kids there watching the screen at the new little life and the wonderment of it all. I was so overwhelmed, I just felt so blessed.

Everything looked healthy during the ultrasound and the baby is right on schedule. Katelyn said, "is the baby coming today?!" They are all so excited.

We are home now, and Ethan and Zach are fighting as I am typing this, Alyssa is pulling all of the wipes out of the container, and Katelyn is dumping out her dress-ups. I am so excited to have another one.....hmmmm. :)

Well, off to another event at the school.

Camping!

2008-09-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

Her favorite chair

Ethan really liked using the ax, it was a pretty dull one, but made me a little nervous!

Katelyn's deciding if she needs to go "that bad". Stinky bathrooms!

Dan finally had a weekend off, so we decided to take the gang camping. We have been wanting to go all summer long, but thought we should wait until Alyssa started walking. Who knew she would take her sweet time with that! We surprised the kids and set off for Mt Lemmon. (A lot later than we wanted to, isn't that the way it always goes?)
We got to our favorite camp site just as the sun was setting. Which by the way, we were amazed at how much they charge now for a one night camp site. I said for that kind of money, they should have valet parking and put up your tent for you! Anyway, we unloaded and cooked dinner,

(hot dogs what else?) Katelyn took forever to roast her hot dog, she was afraid it would get black things on it, (burned) and so she held it mostly outside of the fire pit. As we were eating, Katelyn started to cry, well, wail. She was so upset. Upon investigation, we realized that she was upset by the uninvited guests (bugs, flies and moths) that we had at dinner. Okay, her being afraid of the moths were my fault, the week before I was in the kids bathroom getting a hair tie for one of the girls. A moth flew out at me and startled me. I screamed and did the "bug dance" that I learned from my mother. For the rest of the week, Katelyn would not go down the hallway without an escort. So back to camping, she was very upset by the moth intrusion. So we told her to go sit by the fire, because they would not get her there.

All's well that ends well.

So after dinner, we set out to put up the tent. By now, it is dark. Note to self, Alyssa is terrified of the dark. So when Dan needed my help, (soooo sad) Alyssa sat on the ground sobbing Mom! Mom! So heartbreaking. When we got in the tent, she is still crying, nigh night! Nigh Night! And was pointing outside. (when Ethan was a baby he couldn't say good night, so he said nigh night, it stuck, so everyone says it) So I took that as, I want to go home and go to bed in my crib! I have to say, that now that she is getting older I don't get to hold her very often. So that night was kind of nice, because she held on to me and would not let me put her down. It was also kind of nice, because Dan had to do all of the work Haha. Just kidding Dan.

The good news was that the kids were so tired that they slept all night and even though it was a little colder than we are used to, it was a great night. Alyssa even slept all night. And they even slept in! Not long enough though, and I told them when they woke us up that the sun comes up faster in the mountains and it was still the middle of the night and to go back to sleep. No, they did not buy it, but it was a nice try.
Zach was the first one awake and we heard him say in his deep sleepy Zach voice, Ethan wake up, it's morning. Then (Ethan was buried deep in his sleeping bag because it was so cold) Katelyn! Wake up! Ethan's gone!!! He was so worried he lost Ethan.

We had a fun time, and wondered why we don't go more often. Although, Alyssa still hates the tent, she refused to go in it, even in the day time. :) The boys were in their element. While Dan and Ethan were taking down the tent, Zach started to throw pine cones. I looked up just in time for him to hit a tree with a pine cone and it bounced back and almost hit him in the head. He said, Cool! Too much fun. But it went by way too fast.

So a bag of marshmallows later, we headed back for home and reality.

Quote of the day...
So this morning (Sunday) the boys were playing with their light sabers (sabors?wow who knew sabers were in the spell checker... up until I married Dan I thought they were savors) anyway, I said, hey, it's Sunday. We don't play Star Wars on Sunday. Ethan said "It's not real Star Wars mom, it's Sunday Star Wars, we're not really hitting each other." Oh really.

Speaking of quotes, so many times the kids say stuff that make us laugh so hard, and I always intend on writing it down. Intend being the key word. So for anyone who cares, here are some of the quotes from the kids...

When we were talking about the new baby, Katelyn said "is he going to be here this week?" Ethan said, "No, Katelyn. February is when mom's gonna burp the baby out."

Oh, if it were only that easy.

Zach hit a little boy at preschool on second or third day. So on the way home we were talking about hitting. I said in my best concerned mother voice, "Zach when you hit at preschool, it makes Ms. Dana really sad." He said, "no mom, it makes her really mad!" Well, at least he gets it. :)

Heart Beep

2008-09-07T19:21:00.000-07:00

Last week Katelyn was having a hard time getting ready for school. She was just going so slow! So I told her that if she didn't hurry she would have to go with me to the doctor. She is absolutely terrified of the doctor's office, so that helped her get dressed and out the door in no time. She later asked me if I was sick. I said, no why? She asked why I had to go to the dr., and if I had to get shots. I told her I was going for a check up and that the dr. was going to listen to the baby's heart beat. She said Oh! I want to go with you to the dr, I want to hear the baby's heart beep!
The dr appointment went pretty well. I always enjoy those visits, to reassure me that things are going the way that they are supposed to. It is really hard to believe that I am already 16 weeks. I love this part of the pregnancy because I feel great, and I am not too big yet, so I can still move around. It still hasn't sunk in yet, for me. Every time I go to the dr., I say is there really a baby in there? She just laughs at me. I finally had to break out the "fat pants" (Dan calls them the Thanksgiving pants) I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. :)

Zach's lessons in numbers and letters

2008-08-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

Ok, (this is kind of funny) so today Zach and I were having our letter of the day and number of the day lesson (thank you Sesame street) Today it was the letter B and the number 5. So we started to name all the things that start with b. Balloons, butterflies... and then with the number 5. So I started thinking of all the things that come in 5s....

5 Fingers

5 Toes

Jackson 5

Five for Fighting (if I go crazy will you still call me Superman?)

5 for $5

Johnny 5

Fab 5

Katelyn's 5

High 5..... on and on and on.....

You see from this that I need to get out more. A lot more.

Well, then to continue on with our lesson, I had him count 5 things that started with B. (5 birds, one stone...) :)

5 bugs

5 butterflies

5 bells

5 babies

oh wait.... that is only 4.......

But if you add one more........

You get 5!!!

Ok, so that was a really long way to announce... That in February we will have a basketball team!

Are any of you shocked? We were!!!!! Let's just say that although this was NOT part of the immediate plan, we believe in miracles, and apparently Heavenly Father knows what we need better than we do.

We found out about our little miracle baby at the end of June. I had an ultrasound about two weeks ago (actually, the day Cody and Eloise came home with Joshua...funny story), so the official due date is February 19, 2009, which makes me 14 weeks along. (Although, Dr. Fewell said she will schedule and induction a week early, "you know the drill" she said). Everything is good, and we are healthy. Aside from being a little tired, things are going well, and going by FAST! The really good news is that I am finally feeling better! :) YEA! I was so busy, I hardly (haha) noticed...Except at night, and in the morning... :) and mostly on the Sundays when I taught relief society... I did not think I was going to make it on those days. We will find out if it is a boy or a girl on Sept 23rd. (I am fairly certain it is a boy, but it will be nice to have confirmation.) Although we are bursting at the seams as it is, we are grateful to be so blessed.
It was funny, a couple of days before we found out, someone gave us a nice set of bunk beds. Who knew the girls would need them so soon!

I am sure you all have a million questions/comments...so hopefully we will hear from you soon.

SURPRISE!

2008-08-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our family blog

2008-08-20T21:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, ok. I feel like I have been a little out of touch with so many of you. I decided that now that the kids are in school I could take the time to get this up and running.
For those of you who aren't quite up to speed on the goings on with us, here is a little update.

Daniel graduated with a business degree last December. As of late, we have not been able to find our niche yet, meaning a "real" job, but we are endlessly searching, posting resumes, networking, yada, yada, yada. For some reason this is still our trial, and apparently there is still much for us to learn from this. :)

Mindy... Well, I have been up to the same old thing. I really enjoy my reading outs and I am picking up hobbies here and there. Just trying to keep it balanced. I spend so much of my time with the kids or cleaning the house, I feel pretty wiped out by the end of the day. But as sad as I was to watch Ethan and Katelyn get on the bus for school, it is kind of nice to only have Zach to chase after while Alyssa sleeps. We are starting some new phases in our life, that are really fun and exciting. I am trying to take pictures of every minute, I know I won't get this back.

Ethan... is 6 1/2 and started first grade this year. He has half of a front tooth, and that is very exciting for him. He thinks he looks weird without front teeth. He really enjoys school and this summer, started to really love swimming. He still likes puzzles, video games, all the normal 6-7 year old stuff. It is so fun to see him grow and learn new skills, and for me, to have one less kid to dress in the morning is bliss.

Katelyn... is 5 and has finally decided it is ok to be a big girl. She has come out of her shell, and loves life. She loves school and primary. She amazes me every day. The other day she got off of the bus, and said "look I have a loose tooth!" Sure enough, she has two loose teeth. She seems so little to have loose teeth!! Katelyn decided it was ok to put her face in the water, but not her whole head, baby steps. She loves dress up and dancing, and painting, coloring and drawing. She could paint all day.

Zachary... is 3, and very good at being 3 I might add. He is a trip. He makes me laugh all the time. He is a big goofball. (We finally got him to stop yelling, "Hi Grandpa" from the back of the chapel during Sacrament meeting...) He started preschool last week, and his teacher said, "I wouldn't describe him as mellow..." He loves to help with laundry, and dishes, and I am taking full advantage of that. His favorite thing right now is Star Wars and he really wants to be Yoda for Halloween. To have three kids who can dress themselves is amazing to me, and I keep wondering how did I do things before? (Ethan was 3 when I had Zach...)

Alyssa... is 17 months and finally walking!!! ohhhhh noooo... she is finally walking. We call her the stealth baby, because she gets into everything so quietly. She came into the bathroom two Sundays in a row when I was fixing my hair, snuck out a tube of mascara and got it all over her, the couch... everywhere. (Did I mention two weeks in a row?) Didn't say a word, she was so quite I didn't even notice her. She has been such a fun baby to have around, it is really hard to get mad at her. She loves to wear necklaces, bracelets, and carry purses. Such a girl! She is starting to be a little more vocal, and on Sunday during Sacrament meeting I took something away from her that she didn't need to have, she screamed like I was hurting her, and tried to bite me! That was very funny to us, mainly because she has ALWAYS been so calm and pleasant. She is starting to talk a little more here and there. This is one of the funnest stages. They are so small but can do and understand so much. It is amazing.

All in all, despite the trial of a job search, we are really happy. Crazy, yes. But we feel so blessed (and definitely overwhelmed) to have all of these little ones depending on us. They are sweet kids, and make life a lot of fun. :)