It's about time for a post...

Inspired by all the recent blog posts by family and friends, I decided I better give at least an update, although pictures will be random! :)

Michael got to go on a field trip to a near by farm. They had several baby animals for the kids to hold and pet. They fed bread to the pigs, cows, goats, and a llama! The final stop was the chicken coup, where they each gathered one egg for the farmer. 

Here is my first picture I've taken while pregnant. I think I was 18 or 19 weeks. And Yes, I was as tired as I looked!

 

Here are some fun shots of the new baby at the 21 week ultrasound. The tech cooperated and the baby's gender will still be a surprise. I'm going in again in 8 weeks for a second ultra sound. 

This is my favorite shot. He/she has his arms up ready to fight! It must have heard his siblings and is practicing some moves...

For Spring break, we went to the Lincoln City, a town on the Oregon coast, with some friends. There were lots of places with tide pools where we found tons of fun critters.

These cute little girls are all just months apart and were super cute playing together. 

For lunch one day, we went to the famous Mo's crab shack. Brinly loved the clam chowder! She would say "More please, AHHHHH" and open her mouth big and wide.

Michael was cracking us up while we were waiting for our food. He was just off in his own little world, singing songs, making faces, doing who-knows-what in his brain. 

One of the hi-lights of the trip was this giant sand dune on the coast. It was quite the work out to get to the top, but once there, it was a total blast!

 Here is a crystal that Chelsea grew...for months....just sitting on our kitchen counter....growing. 

It was a lovely. :)

Miss Brinly is getting bigger, even though I don't like to admit it. She has learned all sorts of big words. We are really struggling with the potty training, so she has multiple baths each day. We talk about how Daddy doesn't go potty in his pants, and Chelsea doesn't go potty in her pants, etc. We were running some errands one day and I asked if she needed to go. 

She said "No. I don't need to go potty. I don't pee in my pants. I Responsible!"

If only that were true...

The elementary school and muffins with mom day! 

For my birthday, the kids got up the morning of, at 2 AM (with Dan of course) to bake me a cake. I must be getting to be a heavy sleeper, because I didn't hear/smell a thing! Love my thoughtful family!

The Activity days had a special brunch with mom, where the girls taught us all about the manners they had learned at their previous activity. 

This last weekend, we went to Walla Walla, a gorgeous town about an hour East of us. I was impressed with all the fancy restaurants lining main street, and the fun restored old homes! Our friend Annalise was staying with us for the weekend, so that made it extra fun. Brinly is snuggled on her lap under the blanket. 

We went there to watch the lighted balloon festival.  The balloons stayed on the ground, but it was neat to see them all lit up. The kids kept having contests about which was the favorite balloon.

It was a fun, quick trip, but we had to head home right after the lighted balloons. I had the lucky task of speaking in sacrament meeting the next day for Mother's day.  :)

Michael's closet

Yeah, I don't think Part 2, Part 3, or Part 4 of the New York trip will happen. I'll try. No Promises though..... I find I ramble too much, and these posts end up MUCH longer than anticipated. 

I have felt so sluggish and tired this pregnancy. It's probably not different from my other pregnancies, but having 3 OTHER active kids who have activities and places to be, more laundry, bigger meals, etc. I'm just plain pooped!

I have had ZERO motivation to do anything. I focus on getting showered and dressed, kids off to school, the laundry done (it takes me 4 days instead of the 4 hours it used too). Dinner has been on Dan lately, and the house is a wreck.

But NOW I am in the second trimester and am feeling much more like myself. 

So, I tackled a project I have been wanting to do for over a year now. 

Michael's closet. 

This was AFTER I had started tidying up a bit. The blue bin on the top of his shelf is for outgrown clothes that we are keeping, but it's so high, I just toss the clothes on top, until they start falling down on me again. The garbage bag is full of hand me down clothes from awesome friends. The lamp shade...I don't have an explanation for. Then he has some sweaters and shorts. 

The bar is too high for him to reach, so he just tugs on the shirts until the come down, OR the hanger breaks. The shoe organizer was working. *YES! The sweater organizer was for me to put each day's clothes, so getting dressed isn't so much an issue. Then he has the pack in play tossed in there, and a few random toys and hats on the floor. 

Let's just say, it was bugging me. A lot little.

So, I spent a day planning. Okay, months of searching for ideas on pinterest and other closet organizers on the web. Drew up my plans on graph paper with exact measurements. 

Michael's closet has this 45 degree angle in one of the back corners. It was a little bit of a challenge for me to work with, since I wasn't exactly sure what the angle was at first. 

As with MOST of my projects, this one took longer, had lots of setbacks, disappointments, and frustrations. 

1. I went to Home Depot Friday morning, got my supplies, and went to work. I thought I could easily get it done before Michael got home from school. 

2. Then, I put a huge hole in the wall, trying to take apart the old closet. I was using a block behind my hammer to pry up nails, like we had done in my closet and the girls closet, which had worked fine. But this time, the ENTIRE block went through the wall. So, I got to spend the day patching, texturing, priming, and repainting the closet. Actually, it took two days, since I had to wait for the plaster to dry, and take a dried-out can of interior paint (let to us when we bought the home) to be color matched. I had previous tried this at home depot 3 times, but the color was never even close. I finally just took it to the original paint dealer and they got MUCh closer. My other option was to paint the entire closet another color. 

3. FINALLY, Monday I was able to start building. I wanted to do three rods on the left, but I realized it just wasn't practical. The new baby will share this room with Michael, so I was hoping to have the top rod for baby clothes, the second rod for Michael's shirts, and the bottom rod for pants and shorts. His room is not very big, so my goal was to eliminate the use of his old dresser. ANYWAY, I had to rethink the closet and get over my discouragement that my plan was not going to work. 

4. My measurements were so exact with the shelves, that I forgot to account for a few milimeters width of the metal clips for the adjustable shelves. I was so proud at how square I had made my cuts with the use of just my circular saw too! ARGH. The shelves were litterally a saw blade too big to fit. Luckily I have several friends with awesome tools, so I called one up and she helped me make my mitered cuts and shave off the fraction on the shelves. 

5. Okay, enough of my griping. Here is is finished. (I think I will put a shelf on top of the first rod, but that would require a 45 degree cut, which I don't have the greatest tools for. 

 Here it is with all the stuff in it. The blue bin is now on the floor where I can easily toss outgrown clothes. Next to that is his new laundry hamper.  The other bins are for shorts, athletic gear, and pajamas, with an empty bin left! The smaller cream bins hold underwear, socks, undershirts, and ties. 

The top blue bins are empty, except for one that holds his sweaters. Even though it was more frustrating, I'm glad it's done and I'm very happy with it. Michael even is excited about it, which really helps!

Now that my mojo is back, I'll have to find some more projects!

New York part 1

Dan and I had the opportunity to take a special trip to celebrate out 10 year anniversary. 

My vote was for somewhere warm. 

Dan wanted to go to New York. His argument was that every Christmas movie you can think of was filmed in New York, so where better a place to visit during the Holidays? I was more worried about the crowds and the cold, but then he told me we could go see wicked, and I was sold!

Dan's parents and sister Katherine and her family watched our kids for us so we could go. There is no way we could have gone if it wasn't for them, so Thank you!!!

After dropping off the kids, we flew out of the Seattle Airport on a 7:00 AM flight, Friday morning

6 hours later, we arrived at JFK.  At least one of us enjoyed the long flight. :)

We debated about how to get to our hotel, but finally chose to just take a cab. Although it would be the most expensive choice, we didn't want to spend the time with a shuttle van, or get lost on the bus or subway. 

Big Mistake.

I didn't think we would make it to the hotel alive.

We waited in line at the airport and got into a taxi like this one:

It was 5:00 NY time, a.k.a "rush hour". Lots of traffic. Apparently our cab driver didn't get the memo. He drove 70-80 miles an hour the entire time. How did he maintain this speed in rush hour? Lots of honking, slamming of breaks at the LAST second, and lots of off and on ramps. 

He must have been very confident, this 19 (?) yr old boy driver, because he was texting the entire time. 

I was terrified. Sweaty hands, white knuckles, nausea, terrified. 

When we finally arrived at the hotel, I could barely walk, my knees were so wobbly. We vowed never to step inside another taxi again. I realize it is a different culture, but I will NEVER do that again. 

We stayed at the Hotel Wellington. It came as a package deal with our flight, so I was pretty proud of my find. 

The lobby looked great. The pictures on the website looked decent. Not 5 Stars, but good enough for what we were willing to pay. 

From the lobby, we were directed to the East wing:

Notice the two elevators on either side of the doorway? I think that was the main hotel. We were directed down the hall, and through another door way. 

Then down these stairs, and our tiny elevators were on the right. You could maybe fit 3 or 4 people in them. I think this was the servants quarters originally. 

There were about 5 rooms on our floor. We never saw anyone on our floor, and only heard someone once or twice.  Our room was pretty small, and the bathroom was tiny. "Romantic" I guess you could say. It wasn't as clean as I had hoped, but we weren't paying $$$ either.  

After we explored the hotel, we decided to walk around NYC. 

The location of our hotel was fantastic. We were next door to Carnegie Hall (although we never saw anything there, or went inside), and only a few blocks from Times Square. 

It was cold that night. I wore long johns, two sweaters, my coat, gloves and a scarf. I never wear a scarf. I was barely able to stay warm. :) 

The lights and the action was awesome though.

Although some of the advertisements I would have preferred not to have seen. 

We returned to our hotel, rubbed our aching feet, but excited to explore more of the city in the morning.

Silly Brinly

This girl makes me laugh. 

Not just a slight smile-laugh

or a little chuckle...

But like loud laughter!

the other night at dinner, we were all just eating and talking, like normal, and then Brinly says 

"Mommy! Mommy! Yook at me!"

I look over, and she's cross eyed! After I calmed down, we had to duplicate the moment, which required the assistance of Chelsea's finger. 

Brinly LOVES Dora. She knows  most of the songs, and plays Dora and Boots with any two figures she can find (Duck and cow, baby doll and car, etc. )


On the potty: "Mommy, You big!" 
 "Yes, and Daddy is bigger. Who's the biggest?"
"Big Tall Mountain!"








Dan has always done this "growly-bear" thing, where he will growl at the kids. It would usually scare Chelsea and Michael, but not Brinly. She just puts up her hand and says "Swiper, NO swiping! Swiper, NO swiping! Swiper, NOOOOOO swiping!"






Dan gave her a horsey ride to bed last night. When he got to her bed and dropped her off, she said
"Gracias, Horsey!" That is the first time we've heard any spanish from her. At least she's learning something, from Dora, right?

Then after she had been put to bed, kissed, sung too, drink of water, kissed again, lights out, I went downstairs. Then I heard her voice calling me, again.

When I got to her room she says "Mommy, I need to cry." 
"You need to cry?!"
"Uh huh."
"okay...." so I walk over to her bed "Okay, I'm here, you can cry now."
Then she proceeded to whine-cry whimper. After a couple seconds she stopped.
"I done now. Night mommy!"
and she went to sleep.


And I went to bed with a huge smile and happy dreams of my cute kids.

Minute to win-it

During the holidays, we played a fun game called "Minute to win-it."   It's from the game-show on NBC. I had never seen it, but heard the name quite often and decided to take a peak.

If you haven't played this, DO IT. It's a great date game, family game, and even for a kids' birthday party.

You can go here to find a HUGE list of games, and even some video demonstrations.

We were having so much fun, I didn't take too many pictures.

A Hillarious one is "bobblehead"

You attach a pedometer to two oposing contestant's heads. We just clipped them on to one of the girls stretch head bands. Then they have to shake their head as fast and hard as they can to get the most counters. 

This is the "Holiday Hustle"

Contestants on the same team attach yard-sticks to their waste. They have one minute to unravel ribbon from one stick to the next, without using their hands. (Ahem! Michael!)

Another really funny one was

Jingle in the Trunk

You attach an empty tissue box with about 20 Jingle bells to two oposing contestants, on their backsides. Then they have to wiggle their "trunk" to get the bells out. The first to complete the task in under 1 minute, wins!

Hanky Panky

You would want to play this before the above game. two contestants compete to see who can empty a tissue box first by removing each individual tissue sheets with one hand.

I forget what this one was called, but you had to stack the cups in a pyramid and then take down so only a single stack of cups remain. I can't remember if it was only one handed or two. 

our favorite was "Face the Gingerbread man" or in our case, 

the Vanilla wafer.

Contestants must stay sitting. A cookie is placed on the forehead. Using only facial muscles (no hands) the contestant must move the cookie down to his mouth and eat it. 

It's a LOT harder than it sounds. Trust me.

And just because my face doesn't grace this blog enough, here are some more for your viewing pleasure.

 An up-the-nose shot!

 This is one reason why I don't drink....

We played several others, but this post is getting long. I'm trying not to get burned out with blogging again, and to post more. So, that's it for now. GO PLAY it! It's soo fun. Just designate someone to be a photographer because it's a memory-maker for sure!

Michael turns 6! (about 3 months ago...)

Yeah, I know,  it's about time.

Let's just not talk about it and move on...

Michael turned 6 back in November. Here he is about to run through the barrier that is officially keeping him from actually being 6. His last moments as a five year old (sniff....sniff)

Chelsea helped me make these cute robots (thank you pinterest) for his class birthday treat. 

We wanted to take things easy on ourselves (me). We splurged and had his party hosted at a local gymnastics center. It. Was. AWESOME!

They had three huge rooms that the kids could run around and play in. A giant bounce house,

 zipline, 

jump-track,  and a center for littler kids.

  After getting a few things set up, I realized the kids were being quiet, so I went to track them down. 

When I found them, I laughed and just watched. They played in this little wooden bus for about 10-15 minutes! With all the awesome, Active things to do, they chose to play pretend in a school bus.

I didn't have to do a thing for this party. They had two hosts their who led the kids in activities and games. Of course, one being the parachute.

They made a giant tent for Michael and he did some serious dance moves for us in the middle.

Then we tried to wrap him up in the chute, and then pull fast to make him spin....but it didn't really work. 

Then they had a nerf-gun war. They turned off all the lights, and had a disco ball shining and the kids went crazy. 

Michael wanted a Bey-blade cake, or a pokemon cake, and while I've done some pretty awesome (ahem) cakes in the past, this was way past my level of frosting. I can frost with different colors and add sprinkles, but artwork? Nah...

So, I made cupcakes in ice-cream cones. He loved it. (Phew!)

He got some really cool stuff from his friends,

We made him wait to open his family presents until Dan got home from work, so he got to stare at them all. day. long. :) 

He was most excited about this...

And a lot less excited about this:

(but isn't he sooo handsome in it?!)

Here's his mini cake from the left-over batter and frosting from the cupcakes. Just enough for all of us to get one piece. 

Happy Birthday Potatoe!