Saturday

Do you ever have a day where you just don't feel like being a mom? Today is one of those days. There really isn't any major reasons, I just don't feel like making lunch, listening to whining, reminding people to sit right at the table, eat at the table, stop being so loud, asking them to clean up, listening to at least one person not like the food served, etc. It does seem like every time A hits a new milestone I get worn out (guess who's walking! and who learned to climb up the big step stool in the kitchen or who discovered how much fun mud is when my back is turned!). And of course school started so there are new schedules, new worries, adjustments to be made (for me, too!) and details to get worked out (like how and when is A going to nap). See - nothing major but all of it added up and I just don't feel like doing it!

Thankfully I have an amazing husband. Of course without this there is no way I would have so many kids. He is wonderful. He dealt with lunch while I read email, played Lego Star Wars with the girls while I took a short nap (A decided 2:30AM was a nice time to wake up), then he and M cleaned most of the house while they listened to the BYU football game this afternoon (M has been counting down the days til BYU football!) while I took E and Mg on a butterfly hunt and got out of the house (they don't care about football and I was tired of cleaning all week and never having it look clean!!!). Now he's finishing putting them to bed while I "express my emotions" on a blog. I'm not sure why I felt like doing that, but I am.

All is not lost - I have a craft project waiting for me, a girlie movie to watch (I haven't done that in a REALLY long time) and a Costco bag of chocolate chips in the fridge. And tomorrow will be a better day :)

Back to School!

Today was the big day! They have been so excited the last several days (especially as they thought about their new clothes!). M knew what to expect although she really wanted to know which friends were in her class. E was so excited for all the new things that first grade brings - her own desk, recess on the big playground, lunch at school, computer lab, etc. We had to explain that she wouldn't do high school buddies, computer lab and other such things all on the first day but that it would come! She actually has the same teacher M did last year and I think she was happy with that since she was familiar with it. E has been SO excited and did great today! She was most excited about her desk and having the chance to hold their classroom pet, Azul, the leopard gecko. M was happy to see her teacher was really nice (apparently she met her once last year when the teacher was grumpy) and she had a few good friends in the class (and several she did NOT like were not in the class this year!) and there were lots of great stuff in her room. Should be a great year for both :)

Apparently we went for style not pretty this year :) You can't tell but her entire shirt is covered in sequins!!!
Isn't she adorable! I can't believe she's a first grader already!
I love this kid - always wants to be like her big sisters :) Isn't her smile adorable! She's been REALLY apprehensive about the school year coming (she's been really clingy and needing extra attention) but I think she'll be happy having mommy to herself again, especially when A is down for a nap! She doesn't seem to like change and she's known something was coming but she did well today.
Her own desk!
Already hard at work!!!

I'm sad - the summer seemed to go by so fast and I miss having all my girls around me but I know it will be good for A and Mg to get a little more attention and I have this wild idea that since I'm not picking up a kindergartener I might be able to work on some long put off projects after lunch while Mg has a quiet time (video) and A sleeps. We'll see - I'm not getting my hopes up!!! The girls all seem happy and I'm so grateful to live in a great place with great schools and wonderful friends - hooray for life!!

New pets

We've had a few new pets join our family lately. The girls have been enjoying their bug catching. E has gotten into and decided she would like to have her own collection, too.
However one of the girls found a preying mantis near our house and it was instantly adopted by E who named it "Beauty" and has been very diligent about catching flies to feed it. She is looking forward to it growing so she can add it to her bug collection.

Obviously Mg has no fears! The praying mantis climbed all over the gigling girls!
And E had to take her new pet on a ride (it's in a box with a white lid on the back of our neighbors tricycle!)
Later we found a second, much larger praying mantis which E is also feeding that will go into M's bug collection (who would have thought that with me having 4 girls I would be doing all of this!!!). Oh well, it's fun and we've enjoyed the summer project! Little A is growing up so fast! She loves to walk behind this little car but she really loves to get a ride on it from her big sister (who is such a fantastic big sister!!!)

A few days ago some friends came over for dinner - they are both excited and knowledgable about the entomology world so they brought her collection over and enjoyed our girls collection and we had a fun nature hike together, where we got our 3rd newest pet - a nice black beetle. I'm assured he won't bite, stink or anything else so M is taking great care of "Crawly" as he was named and is later excited to add it to her collection. Mg walks everywhere outside with it and gives it rides on her scooter and such. What a life!

Update...

Okay so I just finished leaving a comment on everyone's blog - it took a little longer but it was fun since I've been lurking on a few random people's blog and it was fun to let them know. I'm not very good at leaving comments! If I didn't leave a comment on yours please leave me a note so I get your address - I love keeping up with friends!!

A challenge

So as always the sun comes out, although some days it's still partly cloudy. Little A is still sick and had a 103 fever but no ear infection so we're hoping for some quick improvement. I can't believe my big girls are going back to school :( I should probably get us back on a morning routine soon!

So I think I need to whine more often - I got so many comments! Thanks for the love! :) It's finally gotten me to put on my idea that I've had for several months but never gotten around to posting. I know there are lots of blogs that I check and the people probably have no idea that I'm checking it so here is my challenge to everyone...take a few minutes to leave a comment on ALL of the blogs that you check (or at least your friends) and leave a little love and challenge them to leave a comment on their friends, too. I think it will be fun to see how many people actually check our blogs! Leave a challenge on your blog to have people leave a comment, too if you want! It shouldn't take too long but we could all use a little love, right! Happy commenting...I'm off to do mine!

Drastic improvement...

Okay, so while I was whining on my blog a few minutes ago it turns out my oldest daughter went upstairs and cleaned their entire bedroom, including putting everyone's laundry away, as a surprise for me. You can't beat that! I can now go on with my day, and thank heavens for little girls :) Now, to go clean up the poop!

One of those days...

I hate these days!! I woke up to a disaster house - I'm not sure why. I had a dentist appointment (yuk) and had to ask a friend to watch the kids until a grumpy daddy could get home for lunch. Got to my dentist appointment and 45 min later they tell me they can't find my chart. Grr. Then they say they're running behind and can I come back after lunch. Grr. This happened last time, too. I told them no I have people watching my kids and at least do a cleaning (which they ran out of time to do last time!). They had to re xray my mouth (since my chart is still missing). They finally put me in a room and then the receptionist comes in to tell me that my insurance won't work at their office. Well, it did last time!!! She apologized and said she should have checked it earlier but since my chart was missing she didn't realize I was coming and that I'd need to call my insurance and that they couldn't do anything today. Excuse me??!!! I told them (not so nicely - I truly never speak this way in public!) this was the second time I'd been to their office, sat for a very long time, told to go away so they could have their lunch and then not have any work done and it was inexcusable and they needed to figure out a way to be better organized and left. Then I called the grumpy husband, burst out in tears (I seriously never do this!!!!), and got some cheese sticks along with my chicken sandwich for lunch (food always helps!) and came home. Then I had several other paper work issues to deal with since we'd been gone so long and some church stuff to deal with so I spent almost an hour on the phone while A slept. I THOUGHT the big kids were watching a movie and so I sat in the other room so I wouldn't talk too loud. Turns out they had taken the cushions off the couch and then started to take the stuffing out of the cushions!!! HELLO!!!! Of course it was the 3 year olds fault-like the big kids couldn't have come and TOLD me about it!! Thankfully I was still on the phone during this discovery so they didn't get yelled at but the TV was turned off and they were sent to the playroom to clean it while I came to vent and eat chocolate brownies bites I was smart enough to get from Costco while I vent on my blog. Oh yea, and while writing this I'm told there is poop in the bathroom from Mg who for the first time is going poop in the toilet (and there is much excitment because that means we get ice cream!) except she didn't realize at first she was going poop so it's on the bathrrom floor instead of in the toilet but at least that's easily cleaned, right??? I should be very excited that she is going poop in the toilet. Yea!! I'm supposed to go play soccer again tonight - something tells me there better be an ambulance close by unless there are some drastic improvements in my day!!! I'm going to have to play an awful lot of soccer to burn off all my brownie bites, but they were sure worth it!! "The un will come out...tomorrow!!!" (Can I go to bed now, please??!)

We're Back!

After a long and wonderful vacation we finally made it home. It was a long drive - and since I didn't sleep well the two nights before we left I was pretty tired during the drive but we made it safe and sound. We're grateful for our blessings - as we made the turn into our apartment complex our car made a funny sound. It turns out whenever you turn the steering wheel to the left it makes a bad sound. Grr. A week or so before we left we had to have several parts replaced in the car including the front struts. A few days later the car was back because they put in a bad part on the side that is now making the noise (and we were at a good repair shop getting good parts!!). So it looks like we're going back again but we're really grateful the car made it through the trip without any problems. :)

Today has been a long day trying to unpack everything and get the house ready for Sunday. Of course there was plenty of mail to go through - several of which required immedate attention but I'm tired of doing all that so I'm eating cheese and chocolate and posting on my blog :)

We had a great trip. Really, it was wonderful. Daddy was gone for almost a week in the beginning but we did quite well. My sister has 4 kids almost exactly the same ages as my kids (and they live next door to Grandma!) and her oldest 3 are girls as well and they are best of friends so we had a great time just hanging out, letting the kids play and swim and do fun crafts with Grandma (and enjoying their Wii in the evening!). When Daddy came back we went to Idaho for a family reunion with Daddy's family. I was miserably sick but the kids had a great time and loved playing with their cousins there and going swimming and they had fun camping (A was sick and did not like camping however and she and I ended up sleeping in the car that night). Later we had fun with Daddy's family having princess parties and such. It was nice to be together. It seems like there was always at least one person sick (hello...it's AUGUST!!!) but it wasn't bad (except for when it was me) and it was so nice to be together.

My little brother and his wife had their first baby several months ago and they were coming to Utah a few days after we were supposed to leave so we decided to stay a little longer so we could get some family pictures and spend a day together. Since Daddy is busy writing his dissertation we could lock him in a room and let him out for food and the rest of us could play while he worked. It worked well and I'm grateful we stayed. I even got to beat my little brother at Mario Kart on the Wii (and I beat my sweet husband several times, too!!!) (I"m not competative!!!).

Now we're back and the dishwasher is running (thanks Daddy!) and the home is clean and life is good (although we miss our family!). Mg keeps asking when her cousin is going to get to our house! We have a short week and a half before school starts and I'm looking forward to enjoying my girls these last few days!

We're still switching to a new computer and our trip pictures are currently on Daddy's laptop so who knows when or if I'll get pictures up. Maybe I can post a picture of Daddy's discovery today - he took the big girls on a bike ride this morning while A slept so I could unpack and clean. M came home so excited - Daddy had found a moth for her - and then it was actually two moths who were mating! Great. Thanks Daddy. They rode back to our house happy and into the freezer they went. To quote Daddy "at least they died happy." I refuse to pin them that way. Thanks Daddy.

How's that for a way to end a post :) Hm, got to end a different way. Some of you have asked what's going on with Daddy. He actually had two interviews while we were visiting family. Both went well - one of them would be doing what he is doing now (which is not what he wants to be doing the rest of his life) and the other one was with a professor who is doing some neat human medical research (which is what he wants to do). We have tentative offers from both but we don't have any details worked out or anything. He needs to finish writing his thesis and get his work published before we can go anywhere. They are talking about December...we'll see. He got lots of writing done while we were gone and things are really taking shape. It is most important that he get a good publication out of his work before he moves on to a job but both professors seemed willing to wait. As with all science things may take longer and situations always change so we're trying not to get too excited but it would sure be nice to live closer to family :)

I should probably go back to working...thanks again family for the great times together and sorry to friends in Utah we didn't see...we actually didn't see any friends this trip (mainly because Mommy was sick and it just didn't happen but you can all feel better that we didn't see anyone...not just you!!) and we're looking forward to catching up with friends here! Love, Sarah