Trampolining and such

One kid got baptized, one designed her own t-shirt, and one stuffed her face in a cake.

On the new trampoline:

Zoe made a cake at a party and decided the best use of it would be sticking her face in it:

Isabella went to Brent's work to job shadow him. She got to design and print her own t-shirt:

Noah was baptized by Uncle Matt:

What a handsome boy.

Zoe's Eleventh

Yes, Zoe's birthday was a couple of months ago and I never posted anything on it. At least we celebrated it on time, huh? So here's a little now. She's 11 now! And she had a sleepover/late night party with a few of her friends. I'm pretty sure they all had fun and they are all good kids who aren't too crazy so it didn't drive the mom crazy having all those girls sleeping over.

Another First Day Of School

The new school year has come again. Isabella had her first day of Jr. High-7th grade. Zoe is now in 5th and Noah is in 2nd. They're growing up too fast, dang it! They all had a good first week and no one cried or had any horror stories. Success!

Zoe's New Room

Remember this?

So I finally finished Zoe's room redo. Now I can retire my paintbrush again for a good long time.

Before it was Isabella's and Zoe's room. I loved the pink room. I believe everyone should have a pink room at one time or another. If I was single and I had enough space I would have a pink room just for fun. Okay, I think I may have liked the pink room more than the girls did!

But time marches on and Isabella has her own room now and Zoe has a new and improved room of the purple variety:

These Kids of Mine

It's been one of those weeks where you just look back and think, Dang I love those kids!

First of all, Noah. Noah uses his foot as a break for his bike. His bike has a couple of perfectly functional breaks so I cannot be blamed for this. Unlike so many other traumas in my children's lives. This time he was unfortunately wearing his flipflops and it all ended in bloody hysterics and Noah later hobbling around like a spazy old man.

                               Big bandaged toe there on the left foot

Zoe had her end of year piano recital. She struggled and it was touch and go there for a minute but she didn't quit and she ended up doing quite well. She was a trooper and I was a proud mama.

Isabella graduated from elementary school! I can't believe she is off to Jr. High in the fall. She has worked so hard and I'm so proud of her.

                                           First day of kindergarten

Last day of sixth grade and elementary school. Ready for Jr. High. Help us all!                                               

Best Home Movies Ever

Well, to me anyway. From Brent's short stint as master home videographer. He really needs to take that up again.

Catching Up With Kids

Isabella and Noah each had birthdays. Isabella turned twelve. (Gasp!) Noah turned seven. Well, the birthdays were actually in January. I am just that behind. Isabella got the cool new purple mountain bike.

Zoe joined myself and Isabella in the land of the glasses wearers. Isn't she cute?

Future Lawyer

Zoe comes home from school and tells me she went to the principal's office today. Now I know something is suspicious because up to this point she's had model behavior at school (at school, not always at home but at school she's good as gold). She reminds me of this persuasive argument paper the 4th graders had to write to the principal a while back. She wrote hers on bullies. She was trying to convince the principal to help out the kids when they run into bullies. Good thinking. She mentioned these two boys who like to call kids names, they are rude and one day apparently one came up to Noah and screamed in his ear after school. Zoe had told me about this and the times they've called people names. I've basically told them to ignore them (unless they scream in Noah's ear again, they're not making my kid go deaf). They pretty much sound like small time thugs to me.

So the principal reads her paper and she was so convincing in her argument he wants to talk to her about it. She goes in the office and waits for him to call her and doesn't even know why she's there. She's all nervous, of course. Then he calls her in and asks her about the things she's written in her paper. He asks her their names and she tells him the name she can remember. He starts looking at his computer and figures out who the boys are, then takes off without telling her what he's doing. She waits there for a while then he comes back into the office with the two boys. He asks them if this really happened and they make some lame excuse about not remembering but the principal isn't buying it. He tells Zoe to let him know if they ever bother her or anyone else again and lets her leave, keeping the boys there.

Crazy story! But I gotta say I'm proud of her for being so brave. If I was her as a kid I would have been scared to death to meet any boys I accused of bullying, but then I was a big chicken girl. I'd say she's pretty darned good at the persuasive argument. Maybe I'll have her write him another paper on getting a security guard down by the path to keep the teenagers from taking kids' scooters out on joyrides.

Zoe's Zombie Art

Zoe always does the most entertaining art.

The Birthday Party

So the Friday after Zoe's birthday she had her birthday party. We did a scavenger hunt. (Or is it a treasure hunt? Not sure what the difference is.) The kids had a lot of fun searching for the treasure. I had a lot of fun planning it, always like getting crafty! And it was a record planning time for me- five days! It was threatening rain but the weather turned out just right. I made the party a little too long and girls were running around starting to get bored at the end but other than that it went off without a hitch. Brent made the cool treasure map above.

Running in search of clues

Reading a clue at the park

Puting the treasure map together

The treasure chest

The booty!

A Couple Birthday Pics (see post below)

Zoe is nine today!

Happy Birthday Zoe!

Today at 3:35 pm Zoe turns 9! (See sidebar, she told me to be sure to update it!) What can I say about Zoe? When I was pregnant with Zoe and we were considering her name, the name Zoe seemed like something you would have to live up to if it were yours. The name Zoe made me think of someone who was fun, brave, carefree, adventurous, and above all unique. Zoe lives up to that and more. She has truly been an interesting child to have around here. She is one of the most strong willed, stubborn people I have ever met. As a baby she was all smiles and laughs but that soon changed to a very challenging young girl as she got older. I've been really proud of her lately. She had a trying first half of the year (therefore, so did her parents). She was definitely a handful and on top of that seemed to be developing obsessive compulsive disorder. Spending tons of time in the bathroom, washing her hands (you know how Zoe gets the bleeding hands in the winter, well this was about ten times as bad as usual.) I had to set all the clocks forward about 7 minutes so she could get out the door to school on time without me harassing her. This problem even crept into the day she was baptized. She was so excited to get baptized and it was a very special day but afterward she was really upset because she felt so much pressure over having to be good now. She thought she had to be perfect from then on. I had to finally sit down with her and re-explain repentance to her and that no one is perfect after they get baptized and that's the cool thing about repentance, that we get to start anew every time we do it and try to improve ourselves. Finally it all clicked for her and things settled down. It took a long time and the long boring winter didn't help any, but we finally figured out what was wrong with her. She quit sucking her thumb (finally) right before school started last year and that was always a comfort thing for her. She has always been a high strung girl but she could at least go lay down and have that thumb to comfort her. Without it she was terribly distressed and it took months to work through that. She seems like she's matured a lot lately and the thought of her as a teenager in a few years doesn't strike terror in my heart like it once did. She's still a spitfire, of course, but she has always had this really sweet side too. She is so good about playing with Noah most of the time and they really have fun together. All the kids, although they do get on one another's nerves on a regular basis, are really loving toward each other and look out for one another. Once in a while we'll be out at the store or somewhere and I'll look back and Isabella and Zoe will be acting like the best of friends, laughing and holding hands. I love those times! I don't know where they got that because my siblings and I gagged at the thought of ever hugging each other or saying I love you. Anyway, we love having Zoe in our family, she is the queen of silly from time to time, making us all laugh. She amazes me with how smart and curious she is. I think it's cool that she asks for educational toys for her birthday like binoculars and stethoscopes. She has so many natural talents, I guess that is why she has that stubborn personality, to balance things out. I love this girl and I'm so grateful to have her and her brother and sister in our family!
(I'll get some birthday pics up later today!)

Back to School!

Thursday was the first day of school so I have to (excuse me, I get too) put the required first day pics up. Zoe is sporting her new shorter "do" and Isabella has her new glasses! 4 more days 'til Noah starts!

3rd Grade here I come!

5th Grade already?!!

Kids 1k race!

This morning Isabella, Zoe, and Noah ran the 1k Teddy Bear Race for The Children's Justice Center in West Jordan. They did awesome! Isabella and Zoe ran together and came in a little bit before Noah. I ran alongside Noah to keep him going. They had a great time and of course their favorite part was getting a teddy bear at the end.

Moose on Life Support

I thought this was way funny so I had to take a picture. Noah's stuffed moose has quite a few holes so Noah and Zoe set him up in the hospital. Please keep Moose in your thoughts.;o)

Moose in the ICU

Happy, Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms and Grandmas out there! Mother's Day makes me miss the good old days when my babies were really babies. So I thought I'd share a few memories. This is a novel I know, but bear in mind I'm doing this blogging thing for journaling purposes too!

Isabella was born 4 weeks early on January 4, 1998. We went to the hospital on Saturday morning and they gave me an IV of drugs to stop the labor since I was only 35 weeks and 6 days pregnant. I went home after and ended up back in the hospital that night and they let me stay since they figured I'd be 36 weeks when she was born (as if 24 hours would have really made that much of a difference!) So after sleeping through the night with an epidural, she was born in the morning weighing in at 6lbs 13oz. She was so tiny and had trouble figuring out how to do a lot of things when she was little so I often wondered if another week or two in the womb would have helped with that. She cried a lot as a baby. I think it was sort of a double whammy. She was a fussy baby with clueless parents. I was scarcely around babies before I had one and had no idea what to do with the little thing, even though I read lots of books on the subject. One example of how stupid we were as new parents is how excited we were to start having quality family time together. When Isabella was 4 months old Spring was here and we went to the store and bought a bike seat. We asked the guy in the bike shop if they had any bike helmets for babies. He said no, of course and looked at us and our baby as if we were idiots. So we went home and put the bike seat on Brent's bike, deciding we'd get a helmet just as soon as she was big enough. We took her for a ride that lasted about fifteen minutes and she screamed the whole time and was kind of slumped over in her seat. When we got back we felt terrible and didn't take her for another bike ride until she was about eighteen months old.

Isabella~Our first Baby!

Zoe was our second. She was born 2 weeks early on September 29, 1999, and was the most exciting birth of the three. I remember going to the bank in the morning while having contractions and hanging out at home, not wanting to make Brent leave work earlier than necessary or make Cathy, my mother-in-law, leave her job teaching high school before school got out (she was going to watch Isabella). When I got to the hospital I was crying and the nurse said she could tell it would be soon just from the look on my face. Zoe was born 30 minutes later, weighing in at 7lbs. 3 oz. I didn't have time for an epidural but they did give me a shot to numb the pain. It was the most painful thing I'd ever been through but when she was born I thought it was the coolest experience I'd ever had! I was so happy afterward to have experienced natural childbirth (for the most part anyway). She was a good baby and slept through the night on her own from an early age. She was very happy as a baby and had this funny laugh that she still does every once in a while. Later when she became a difficult (but lovable) pre-schooler, I was often shocked because she had been so happy as a baby!

Zoe sucked her thumb for almost eight years and was even
doing it in her ultrasound picture!

Noah is the baby of our family. After the great experience I had having Zoe I wanted to do the natural childbirth thing so Brent and I took a Lamaze class. We were, of course, the only couple in the class who already had two kids. We went to the hospital 9 days before Noah's due date. The natural childbirth thing didn't quite work out. We walked around a few hours before I gave in and got the epidural around 2 am. I was really tired and they wanted to put an internal monitor on Noah and attach it to his head because the nurse said they couldn't get a good reading on his heart rate when I was moving around during contractions. It's kind of hard to sit still during contractions! So I got the epidural because I didn't want anyone putting probes on my baby's head. Well Brent fell asleep for the next few hours and I laid there with my legs feeling really weird because of the epidural. I couldn't sleep and sat there watching the movie "Footloose" on TV with no volume because it wasn't working for some reason. Finally around 7 am it was time and poor Brent had to wake up from his nap and Noah was born pretty quick. I don't like the expression "popping babies out" but that's what it was like with him. Two pushes and he popped right out, weighing in at 9lbs 2oz. He was so big and looked like he was two months old on the day he was born! We decided he had better be the last because if we had anymore this one would wait for the due date (couldn't have that!) and would weigh 10lbs! He was a sweet, cuddly baby and I really enjoyed my time with him as a baby, knowing he would be the last one.

Noah was one freakin' cute baby boy!

Me, pregnant with Isabella. Second trimester, all cute and glowing. Never suspecting I'd gain 50lbs with each pregnancy and never be "cute and pregnant" again because I'd look like I was four months pregnant a week after the pregnancy test in subsequent pregnancies!;)

I actually like this picture of me in the hospital right after Isabella was born, all looking like a pizza face. I was blessed with reasonably easy pregnancies with nothing worse than a little sciatica here and there. But the picture shows how we all sacrifice for our children in one way or another to bring them into this world. For me with Isabella it was horrible acne and rosacea (I still have a bit of the rosacea) and people asking me on a daily basis: What's wrong with your face? Why is your face so red? Have you tried anything for that? To which I always answered, "No, I haven't tried anything. I don't even ever wash my face!" One person even used it as an opportunity to try to sell me Amway!