Crazy for Leprechaun's

My kids are going leprechaun crazy!  Apparently there were leprechauns in the school yesterday that caused all kinds of mischief and did little pranks.  It has Cara and Caleb dreaming green.  Apparently Caleb could see leprechaun tracks with his leprechaun spy glasses, but they "must have disappeared" when Cara got the glasses on. 

Cara wrote a darling note in green inviting any leprechauns into our house.  The note was written phonetically and had no spaces between the words, but I am sure that leprechauns can read kindergarten writing.

Cara also went through our fridge looking for green food to help her lure in a leprechaun and found a green pepper.  At that point Caleb decided to pitch in and decorate the plate in hopes of catching a leprechaun.  We did have a close call.  A leprechaun did come and eat the pepper leaving only a tinny piece and he left a note that said something like "thank me lucky stars."  Cara has the note and the piece of pepper in her backpack to show her class on Monday. We did hear some mysterious door knocking and other sounds, but we never did catch that leprechaun!

This picture of Ali dressed up for St. Patricks Day was just too cute to not include.

Cara is 6!

Cara is such a fun birthday girl!  She is so grateful for every little thing and SO EXCITED!  It has been wonderful to celebrate with her this year.  Her "real" birthday was on Thursday and she got some great gifts including starting violin lessons.  She got to start them on her birthday and she is really excited.  She says that she wants to learn the cello, but she will learn the violin first.  I am thrilled to have an aspiring musician.  Music is a direction that I really support.  We planned her party for the Saturday following her birthday so that Connie and Colby could come.  I asked Connie to head it up since I am in survival mode.  Connie picked the art theme which Cara loved.  I did make the cake.  (Just in case you can't tell it is a painters pallet.)  Of course we had to have some green frosting since her party was on St. Patricks day. 

Cara has never blown out all of her own candles.  Usually Caleb gets impatient and helps her out, but this year she got them all.  Probably one at a time because I have about 10 pictures, but she did it.  The miracle was that she didn't start her hair on fire with all of that blowing and those bouncing curls.
 

Her friends at the party were so cute.  In fact, I couldn't pick one picture.  We started the party sponge painting these aprons.  It was a great girl project.  

Top: Sydney, Korinne, Cara, Jessica, Taylor
Bottom: Halle, Jenna, Sarah

We played some pictionary.  They just chose their own "thing to draw" and whoever guessed it got to draw next.  They really enjoyed the play dough sculpting activity.  Connie would give them something to sculpt like a cake, balloons, the number 6 ect. and they would have 1-2 minutes to make their creation.  I think a fun time was had by all. 

The boys had their own fun.  They were mostly happy about the cake and ice cream and bugging the girls when they could.

Cara scored some awesome gifts from her friends including these press on nails she is sporting.  What more could a six year old ask for!  Our Sweet Caroline is growing up. 

Ali Turned 2!

Ali was happy to celebrate her 2nd birthday with a couple of new outfits, 

some new shoes and a dinner trip to Chic-Fil-A. 

Cloths and shoes is what you get when you have a practical mom who feels like there are more than enough toys in the house.  Ali didn't mind a bit.  I don't think she understand what birthday means, but she did understand that it was her special day and she loved the attention.

Everyone was happy about the trip out for dinner and the reason to party!

Blowing out the candle is something that she didn't get, but she did like the look of it.

I wasn't up to making Ali a birthday cake so we went with an icecream cake.  She loved it!

Connie and Colby came over for Ali's "party" and had a post party preparing for Cara's birthday part next Saturday.

Grandma Iva is the one who always brings the fun wrapped birthday presents.  Of course Andy and Cara both wanted to take care of unwrapping it for Ali.

It was a cute little Dora picnic basket.  You would think that it was Andy's, but Ali was quick to put him in his place.

She played with it all afternoon.  She is just growing up so fast!!

The Vail of Forgetfulness

Disclaimer: I am very grateful for the opportunity I have to bare my own children.  I know that it is one of the greatest blessings in life.  I am so happy to be expecting baby #5.  I'm quite sure I never really forgot my other pregnancies, I just found getting pregnant again worth it, but there is some level of forgetfulness. 

It is 5 AM and I can’t sleep.  I am almost 25 weeks preggo and feeling super nauseous.  I got up to take some medicine so that I don’t feel so sick and so that I can sleep.  I hope that it will kick in quickly!  I may be able to sleep through the sick feeling except that I have turned into a punching bag.  Now that I am up it seems like he is resting, but while I was lying in bed my baby was having a dance party. 

This pregnancy has been SO HARD on me and my family that I am almost sure it will be my last.  I am ready to raise and enjoy the children that I have.  With that in mind I thought I should record some of the hard things so that I don’t forget and decide to do this to myself again.

1. Throwing up and feeling nauseous is so much a part of my life that I hardly remember what it feels like to not feel sick.  (Ironically I just took a puke brake.  Sadly I don’t feel done or better I just have a nasty taste in my mouth and watery eyes.)
2. In part due to the high doses of medication I take in order to keep food down I have terrible constipation. 
3. My syatic back pain is back causing me to have difficulty getting around.  I never know when I take a step if it will send shooting pain down my leg, and if I am up too much in a day the back pain is almost unbearable.
4. Pain and sickness cause me to be grumpy.  I don’t like to be short tempered and crabby with my family, but it is so hard when I don’t feel good.
5. It is hard to imagine that anyone could be as tired as a sick pregnant lady.  I feel like I could sleep any time.  (Except right now of course while the house is quite and everyone else is sleeping.)  When I can, I nap while Ali is napping, and I try to go to bed early so that I can function, but much of the time I feel so tired.
6. Keeping up on regular daily tasks seems impossible. Some nights when I look at the toys on the floor and feel my aching back and tired body I just want to burst into tears or start screaming.  Luckily I recognize that braking point and hit the tub while Josh and the kids clean up and get ready for bed.
7. Heartburn has become a constant.  I am so sorry for people who suffer from heartburn on a daily basis.  I know that there is a cure for mine – have a baby.  In the mean time it is uncomfortable and defiantly something to add to the list.
8. This is not an extensive list it includes nothing of labor, delivery, post-pardum or a bunch of other things that I may not be experiencing at this moment.

I know there are people that have it worse than me, and I think the worse thing of all would be infertility.  I guess I just want my children to know that getting them here was no easy experience!  

8 is Great!

When did my tinny little baby turn into my big, handsome, stubborn, excited, and sometimes crazy eight year old?  This has been a wonderful birthday week.  To avoid being talked into multiple birthday parties, I've learned my lesson with Caleb, I insisted on having his party on his birthday this year.

He was so mad at me when I told him that he couldn't have a big theme party.  I agreed to let him invite three friends to go bowling.  Of course he snuck in a fourth friend and finally became became satisfied with bowling.  What more could a kid ask for?  Really, Caleb would ask for the moon!

Andy sat by the cake all afternoon waiting for Caleb and his friends to come home from school.  

Caleb's friends were so cute and generous.  He invited Maggie, Will, Isaac and Matthew.  I forgot the camera when we went bowling, but they all seemed to have a good time.  They were so cute cheering for each other.  Caleb won by a landslide which also made him happy.

Caleb was so happy!  Josh and I gave him a pogo stick.  I guess that is the going thing in the neighborhood right now, but the best gift he got was from Gabe, an iPhone 3.  It works as an ipod touch because it won't make or receive calls or connect to the internet.  For Caleb all he really wants is the hand held games and music.  I feel like he gets too much screen time as is, but it is nice to have one more "reward" for my bag of tricks to get him to do his homework.

Today was Caleb's baptism.  Josh and I were both excited, and hope that the Gift of the Holy Ghost will help him to make good decisions.  I have no doubt that Caleb will be a wonderful adult, that is if he makes it to adulthood.  His energy is almost more than I can stand.  He wants to go go go even at the expense of being obedient.  It doesn't hurt to hope for a miracle right, that his desire to be obedient TO ME (he is good for most others) will be strengthened. 

He was baptized and confirmed by his dad.  Josh did a great job.

I spoke.  Is it prideful for me to feel like it was good?  My topic was the Holy Ghost and I made the analogy of joining Heavenly Fathers team and that they Holy Ghost is like the coach.  I had to ask Caleb and the two other kids to "look at me" 3-4 times during the talk, but I really felt the spirit while I was giving it.  I know that this is the most important team he will ever join.

We had our core group of family support for the day.  My parents and Josh's parents came.  Merle, Cody, Steph, Connie, Colby and Danny were here along with April and Ethen.  It is days like this that we sure wish that Cathie's family with the majority of the cousins lived close.  It is a good thing when Ethen is available.

His grandpa's Lonn and Neil were the whiteness.  In the confirmation circle was Josh, Lonn, Neil, Cody, Colby and our friend, a member of the bishopric, Scott Findley.

My mom had her second knee replaced on Tuesday and checked out of the hospital for a few hours to come and then went back to the hospital after dinner.

We had a feast of ham and baked potatoes after the meeting.  Celeb got set of scriptures, and was very happy.  The day was perfect.