Wo is me...

Last week kicked my butt!

(The majority of this post is me complaining so feel free to walk away now.

However since blogging has become my journal of sorts I'm going to go ahead and whine away.)

It started off sunday with our family hosting "family dinner". This is when the 5 families (about 30 of us) that live here in Alton get together for sunday dinner. Sunday dinner's only happen twice a month and all of us sister's/in-laws take turns hosting. The last time it was our turn it fell on Christmas Day. Even though we all live so close we really don't have a lot of contact with each other through out the week. Family dinner's are pretty relaxed. The adults sit around and visit with one another while all the kiddo's play together. Even though there's a lot of people and a lot of dishes by the end every one is VERY good about sticking around and helping with the clean up.

Family dinner wasn't overwhelming for me by itself. I just had no idea what the rest of the week had instore for our family.

Monday I spent the day getting ready for Preschool and getting some homework for myself done knowing our family was leaving town for the weekend.

Tuesday morning started off with preschool which lasted 3 hours. I try to have a lot of fun with my 6 kids learning about our theme for the week. When preschool is over it can take up to an hour of clean up time for me. I put all there work books and pencil boxes away. I've got craft stuff all over to be put back up. My table gets all the glue washed off it and my floor gets all the little cut pieces of paper swept away. Some days are worse than others but I've learned quickly that preschool can be quite messy. When my preschool mess was picked up and put away I had to start gathering all my needed supplies for mutual that night. My beehives and I were in charge of introducing the new YW/YM theme for the year, Arise and Shine Forth. We had 6 different challenges set up for all the youth to complete in teams. It was a lot of work! We didn't get home until 9 that night.

Wednesday morning (10am) I had to teach a "freezer meal" class for enrichment. I was asked VERY short notice to do this class. They asked me to bring a hand out of our families favorite freezer meals and to bring everything needed to put a freezer meal or two together. With everything I had to do the day before, come wed. morning I was not prepared. I got up early and got right to work. Everything went well during the class and I felt pretty good about it but I was tired. Wednesday afternoon I spent preparing for the next day's preschool.

Thursday morning I did the preschool thing. When that was over with I started on laundry and just cleaning the house in general so it would be ready for us to leave the next morning to Prescott Valley. Madelyn had her 1st basketball practice after school making me have to drive down to Orderville to pick her up. While in Orderville we got to sit around waiting for our truck to be inspected so that I could renew it's expired license before going out of town. On our way home I got a text from my visiting teachers asking if they could come visit that night or the next morning. Being we were leaving I told them they could come that night. Unfortunately it was just one more thing added to everything else that needed to be done.

Friday morning we got up and left the house about 9am. Long story short the 51/2 hour drive turned into a 8 hour drive. Yeah for us!!! We couldn't get to PV fast enough. We enjoyed our night with friends. Stayed up way to long talking and just enjoyed each other's company.

Saturday morning both dad's went to work. Leaving the 2 moms to drag 8 kids to Good Will for there 50% off day and then on to Target. We did get some awsome deals while shopping. Later that night we took both families to our favorite restaurant Garcia's. Garcia's is a mexican restaraunt. It's probably not any better than any other mexican resaraunt but it became our families favorite because on wed. nights kids eat FREE! While living there this was great we'd walk away feeding our family of 5 for about $16.

Sunday morning our plan was to attend 8am church just for sacrament meeting and then head on home. However that morning none of my kids had been bathed and none of them wanted to go. Kory and I talked about this and in the end we decided it might be a bit much asking them to sit for an hour through sacrament just to get in the truck for another 5 1/2 hr. drive home. So to my disapointment we loaded up and hit the road. Our trip home started off well. But to quicly Emily started complaining that her ear hurt. Soon after that my ears started to hurt. Not having a lot of snacks left we cut up several apples hoping that the chewing would pop our ears. Not so! By the time we got to Flagstaff (only 2 hours away from PV) both Emily and I were in tears. I have never had such an ear ache. We stopped at a gas station and picked up several things of gum hoping that would help. I'll admit while chewing my ears would pop but then immediately feel plugged again. Emily cried almost the entire way home. She'd fall asleep just to wake up a few minutes later complaining about her ears. It only took us 6 hours to get home but I swear it felt longer than our trip to PV. We got home in time to attend another family dinner which was great not having to come up with something to cook that night. I hated leaving such warm weather we had to play in Prescott Valley to come home to a cold 48 degree house, 55 degree's outside with a storm blowing in. When we got home from family dinner I felt so sick! Within the hour I was on the toilet not knowing which end to stick down. I was absolutely miserable. I went to bed early and tried to sleep it off. Monday the puking went away along with the diahria and ear ache but was left with a nasty cold. Since then I can hardly breathe. I am constanly blowing my nose. My eyes literally leak continually. I've got red marks where this leakage runs down my cheeks. I look like I have "sad" clown eyes. Can I say just once more how miserable I am. I stayed in bed almost all day monday and let Kory run the household. Tuesday I spent the day on the couch watching my kids destroy the place and NOT caring a bit about it. That night the kids and I did go to the church to participate in the Scout's Blue and Gold. Following it was mutual. The other leaders after looking at me sent me home to bed which I was so thankful for. The crusher at Kory's work broke during the day, after getting the new part and it still not working everyone was sent home early. This will suck when we get his paycheck but it was so nice to have him get home the same time I got home last night from the church. I went to bed and let him get the rest of the kids to bed.

This morning I woke up to no more leaky eyes and I could breathe easier. For just one second I thought I was well. But then I discovered that I can cough up a lung and my chest hurts so bad every time I do. Oh ya, Did I mention I had no voice at all! By this afternoon my voice kinda came back although it's very horse and I called my doctor to see what I could take for this dang cold. Sudafed, just plain old sudafed. I have sudafed, it's not plain but not having any other options for me and being at my wits end I took 2 pills anyways. Oh my goodness do I feel better tonight. I can breathe without coughing, my chest doesn't hurt and my kids can hear what I'm trying to say. All this just in time for Brayden to fall asleep on my bed and wet his pants. I've stripped my bed and have thrown them in the washer but I am not waiting for everything to be dried. I am sleeping on top of a blanket tonight with others thrown on top. Looking around my house tonight does not make me feel any better. I wish I were a kid that gets to go to school tommorrow and come home to a clean house. Or maybe I'm wealthy enough that a maid will come in and take care of it all. I know this sickness will pass and my house will eventually get put back to gether. I'm just not sure when!

Why does anyone get sick?

Seriously though I think that as busy as I was last week and the lack of rest I had I just wore myself out. I was so tired and a little overwhelmed last week. The previous week 2 of my kids were suffering with the croop. While in PV Hunter's croop flared up and we gave him a breathing treatment. Maybe that's part of what I've got. I will admit I'm thankful that all the "crap" that hit me waited until we got home instead of at a friends house away from home. I know this to will pass. I just hope it hurries. I don't know how much longer I can take this. I do know I will have so much more empathy the next time my kids get sick!

24 weeks...

Yesterday I hit my 24th week mark. This past month has gone by so quickly. I wanted to compare how I have grown this past month so I'm sharing last months picture too.
Might be a bit bigger..... not much though.
I won't complain. I know I'll get plenty bigger over the next 4 months.

The CONSTANT feeling of needing to pee has subsided. I can almost go the whole night with only having to get up once to relieve myself. Yeah!! Although it seems like during those last few weeks of pregnancy that constant need returns. Glad I've got 3 months before I hit that again!

I'm not craving eggs as much any more but I still eat them for breakfast at least 3 times a week.
Green vegies are still my thing.
It was spinach and broccoli but now mostly broccoli or asparagus.
Thank goodness for Bountiful Basketts which is where I've been getting all these fresh veggies on a regular basis. My kids have learned to take all they want the first time the bowl is passed around because it will be gone by the time they are ready for seconds. I hope this baby doesn't come out looking green!

Madelyn has been able to feel the baby move. I am LOVING her excitement with this pregnancy. Hunter hasn't shown an interest in feeling the baby and the younger ones aren't patient to wait long enough. I'm excited to see what their reactions will be when she gets a little stronger and it's easier to feel her movements. I think they'll be hooked after they feel baby move for the first time just like Madelyn is.

My only pregnancy wo right now is how tired I can feel. During the middle trimester is the time that I should be feeling my BEST! I don't remember ever feeling this tired during any of my other pregnancies. This is definetly a first. At last months doctor's appointment I mentioned this and was told to take a multi vitamin daily. Not having any at home cause' I don't do the daily pill thing I went right out and bought a bottle. After just 3 days I could feel a difference. My fatigue was gone. This lasted for almost 3 weeks. Than.... last wed I felt like it came back and hit me with a vengence. It was bad! I got up that morning with my big kiddo's at 6am. When they walked out that door a little after 7 I went back to bed and didn't get out of bed until almost 10. I did my morning ritual but was still so so tired. I put Brayden down for a nap at 1 and slept another 2 hours with him. Kory came home early from work to grab a tool he needed later that night at 8p.m and I was already in bed for the night. I just felt exhausted. The next morning I went back to bed AGAIN after the big kids left. I got up a little after 9 only because I had preschool in less than an hour. When preschool was over I used Brayden as my excuse and went in to take a nap that I desperatly needed. Kory came home for lunch before I had dozed off and was teasing me about still being in bed. He asked if I was taking my vitamins? Huh???? Seriously, I don't know when it happened but I know it was just a few days before this sudden fatigue hit me that I had forgotten all about them and quit taking them. Since then I leave them out where I can see them and Kory's got the kids asking me daily if I have taken my vitamin's. Despite being annoyed by this it is working. I'm still tired but the kind of schedule we are living right now and everything on my plate at the moment I think this is to be expected. I can handle this kind of tired it's the other kind that I can't handle. This baby must be really sucking the vitamins out of me. With the constant daily reminders from EVERYONE living in this house I don't think I will be forgeting again to take my vitamins. It's amazing to me how much better I feel, how much more energy I have when I take one little pill daily. Not ever feeling like I was NEEDING a multi vitamin I'm assuming this need will continue through my pregnancy and probably while breast feeding. I'm thinking taking a vitamin daily just might become a daily habit for me. Possibly even for forever now.

Preschool Fun

We've had some fun during preschool these past 2 weeks. Last Tuesday we had ourselves a very fun Valentines Day party but Thursday we had our normal schoolwork to do. We worked out of our workbooks that gave everyone some good practice writing the letter "N" correctly.  love this picture because of Brayden. He knows the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make better than Emily. However, when it comes to writing them, she's much a head of the game. Doesn't keep him from trying though.
I did something different, something I had never done before. We painted letter N's with cooked noodles instead of a regular paint brush. At first the kids thought I was crazy, but they LOVED it. I loved the way the pictures turned out.

This week we celebrated President's Day.
Do you know who's on the quarter?
Do you know who's on the dollar?
Thanks to an easy/catchy song Hunter learned in kindergarten all 5 of my preschool kids do.
It's George Washington.
He also happened to celebrate a birthday yesterday (in between preschool days).

On Tuesday this was our craft we made.
Meet George Washington and the currency his face is on...
We talked a lot about George Washington, our very 1st President. Though if you ask the kids the majority still tells me he was our 1st prophet! LOL
I shared the story of when he was a little boy and cut down his dad's most prized cherry tree. So of course, we had to paint a cherry tree to help us remember the story.

Today's big project was making our very own American Flag.

I don't know how much these little ones will remember of this week and our celebration of living in a free country. I hope though that something will stick with them over the next few years even if it's only our little song about George Washington being on our currency and being President #1.

Valentines Day

Valentine's morning my kiddo's came down for breakfast to this. Each had their very own box of candy, a baggie of homeade carmels and pretzel/rolo treat and a heart shaped swirly straw. I do NOT like straws and I almost NEVER buy them. These "special" straws can be used all day long but at the end of the day I tell them they are now done and gone. The kids throw them away for me. When no one is watching I pull them out of the garbage, wash them and put them back in my valentine box. These straws have now been given 3 years in a row. I laugh that they haven't caught on yet!My breakfast pictures turned out too blurry to post. I served pink heart shaped pancakes with pink strawberry syrup and a heart on top made out of cool whip thanks to the spray cool whip cans. They were in heaven!

Monday night for FHE the kids and I put there valentines together. When it came time to make something for the teachers I realized I really slacked off this year. I had NOTHING to give them, I hadn't even thought about them. What is my problem? In the end I pulled out my heart shaped cake pan and made chocolate chip cookie bars.
The kids then made a special valentines and attached it to the big cookies.

A little story about Madelyn's valentine outfit.... She came to me about 2 weeks ago and asked if I remembered that Valentines was just around the corner. She then asked if I was going to make her a valentine shirt like I have done for many years now. Not wanting to disappoint her yet not having a fabric store down the street or a Wal Mart for a new plain tee I wasn't sure if I could come up with one. So I asked her to help me design what she wanted with what we already had. Madelyn surprised me with her creativity. She spent an hour or two creating different valentine shirt designs on paper. She then picked a plain brown tee she already had and some corresponding fabric we pulled out of my scrap fabric drawer. Lucky for her the fabric she picked out matched her bright pink pants she was hoping to wear on Valentine's. I wish I would have saved her paper with the different drawings of valentine shirt ideas. They were all so cute! 

Ta da....
Here she is.
I love this girl's enthusiasm when it comes to the holidays. Her and I are quite alike when it comes to this. We both love all holidays and want to go all out for them. Make them memorable!
She couldn't stop with just the outfit. She asked for hearts in her hair too. And so we created two pigtails and turned them into heart shapes and added some ribbons to the bottoms. She LOVED the way she looked when she went to school.

I really struggle on Tuesdays. They are by far my busiest days of the week. It seems all morning I'm getting ready for preschool and then when that's finally over at 1 p.m. I get lunch, clean up from preschool and prepare for mutual later that night. The kids get home from school just for Hunter to run off to scouts. When he get's home we eat dinner and off we all go for mutual and then don't get home till about 9pm. By the time I crawl into bed Tuesday nights I am beyond exhausted. I know being pregnant has a lot to do with this. So, when it came to our valentine dinner instead of going all out which I would have liked to do I did an easy meal instead. We had spaghetti and a homemade heart breadstick with pink lemonade. For dessert we ate our extra heart shaped cookie bar. It was yummy and it worked for us this year.

It was a busy but great Valentine's Day.

My daughters are so different. Madelyn loves the frills, the dressing up, she WANTS her hair done each day with a matching bow attached. She loves the holidays and enjoys "dressing up" for them.

Emily on the other hand could really care less. While making Madelyn's shirt she asked me if I was going to make her one too. I told her NO!..... Why????

I made her a Halloween shirt that she refused to wear. Didn't matter that she picked the shirt and the corresponding fabric. At Christmas she did the same thing. I told her then that I would not be making her anything else since she refuses to wear them. I spend a lot of time and energy creating these holiday shirts and I don't appreciate her attitude towards them. Especially when she asks me to make her one specifically and then refuses to wear it. It's not that she doesn't like the way the shirt has turned out she just doesn't want to wear them anymore. And so, I am done!

After the big kids left for school Valentine morning Emily asked if she had a new shirt too?

When I said no, I'll admit I was almost hoping for a little temper tantrum, anything to show that she was jealous or disappointed that she didn't have a valentine shirt to wear like big sister.

But all she said was, "Good, I don't want one".

Well, I'm glad little one because I didn't waste my time making you one.

I feel like we are raising our girls the same way, yet they are so different and, in more ways, than just dressing up for the holidays.

It will be interesting to see the personality of this new baby girl that's going to join our family.

Preschool Valentines Party

Tuesday my preschool kids celebrated Valentines like all their big siblings. Being preschool is only 3 hours I didn't feel like we could party the whole time so I TRIED making "learning" extra fun on this special day. One of the many activites for the day was to graph a box of sweeet hearts.We played a matching game... lowercase to uppercase letters.
The funnest part Emily told me later was when I let them frost sugar cookies. They each got to frost one for themselves for snack and then they each got 2 more cookies to frost and decorate for their parents.

Another game we played involved dice.

Each child had his own paper and 2 dice. When rolled they counted the black dots and put a marshmallow on the corresponding number.

Our project of the day was to make a valentine holder.

It drives me crazy that this little man squints his eyes EVERY time I try to take his picture.

When our project was complete the kids were able to pass out there valentines to each other.

Preschool was a sucess and so was our little party.

I was tired after the party, a little more than usual.

But it was worth it, to see all the smiling kiddo's.

It's A Girl

I had my ultra sound yesterday morning.

It's a girl!!!!!

Kory and I decided that since this is going to be our last baby we'd take all the kids to the ultrasound appt. Hunter and Madelyn are old enough that we hope they will remember this experience. Before the ultrasound we took a tally of what the baby was going to be.

Madelyn and Emily thought/hoped for a girl.

Hunter and Brayden (with Hunter's help) thought/hoped for a boy.

Mom and Dad kept saying as long as the baby was healthy and strong we didn't care. However, if we had to choose (the kids wanted us to) we'd both choose boy. As fun as a little girls are they can be full of drama. It's seems our house has had a little too much drama lately. With Emily going to kindergarten next year I thought it would be great to have a little brother to play with for Brayden.

When the technician took the pictures between the legs I saw the 3 white lines. She asked me if I could tell what the baby was. Having 2 already, I said I believe those three white lines means It's a girl. She confirmed it. Emily was thrilled. She was jumping up and down saying, "yes, yes, yes. I knew it was going to be a girl". Then ALL day she kept asking, "Can we go back to the hospital to get that baby out now?" Madelyn was just as thrilled but kept her excitement to herself a little better than her sister. Hunter leaned over to me and quietly asked,"is there another baby in there? It could be a boy!" His question made me feel sorry for him. He really did want another brother.

On the way home Madelyn drove both Kory and I absolutely CRAZY!!! This girl just had too many thoughts running through her head like: "Where are we going to put another bed in our bedroom. We already have 2 beds in there!"

"We're going to have to get a bigger dresser. The one we have now barely holds my clothes and Emily's".

"Maybe dad can make us bunk beds. Emily can sleep on the top and we can put a bigger bed on the bottom that I will share with the baby".

"Where are we going to keep all the baby stuff? Like the crib and her little chairs and her swing?"

"Mom you can make all 3 of us matching easter dresses."

"Our table's not big enough for another person. We need a bigger table."

"Can the baby sleep in my room and when she wakes up I'll bring her to you?"

"Are you going to hang her clothes like you do ours or fold them like you do the boys?"

"Mom did you know that we don't even have a car seat for the baby?"

"Mom, you know those initial letters you hung over my bed and Emily's? Your going to have to make another one for this baby."

Seriously the questions/statements went on and on and on. Finally Kory reminded her that we still have about 4 1/2 months to make all these decisions. Lets talk about them later.

PLEASE!!!!

Listening to her talk was kinda making me nervous. I was realizing I didn't have an answer to the majority of her question's. It's a good thing we still have a little while before baby joins our family. We are so not ready for a baby. And she is right we have absolutely NOTHING for a baby.

Why oh why did I get rid of everything after Brayden???

I am getting excited for another little girl. It's been a while. It'll be fun to make new bows and bracelets. Another 1st doll and just the fun that little girls bring. As far as names go Kory's a brat!! He never wants to discuss names until the baby is born. I swear he does this just to irritate me. Despite what he says, all of our kids names were picked out before they were born except for Emily. The ONLY reason her name wasn't picked out was because we were letting her be a suprise. However I felt like the baby would be a boy, all the wives tales said it would be a boy. Every one around me told me they thought it was going to be a boy. I had 2 outifts to take to the hospital to bring our new baby home in. One was for a boy and the other one was for a girl. However, I knew it was going to be a boy so I left the girl outfit at home and only brought the boy outfit. I didn't buy a lot of clothing while being prenant but what I did buy well... was saved for Brayden because it was all boy! Needless to say Emily wasn't even a consideration until she was born. But that girl was named before we left the hospital.

As of now the kids and I are leaning towards Kylie, not sure about a middle name yet. I liked Kaleb better but baby's not going to be a boy. Kory says he doesn't like Kylie but I've HEARD that with all my pregnancies until the babie's born and he says, "I really don't care, that sounds fine, whatever you want." So until then with all the extra help I have with this prenancy baby is now being called Kylie. By the time baby is born Kory will probably be used to it and just assume the baby's been named with out any input from him. I'm afraid if he wants a say in this he had better jump on the band wagon and do it soon!

1st Month of Preschool

Since I was laid off several months ago, I have been trying to find another job. Living so far away from a city has made it a bit difficult to do. While working in St. George my travel time didn't bother me to much as I really loved my job, I enjoyed being there. Now that I've had a break from having a 4 hour commute to work twice a week I've decided that I really don't want to do that again. These past few months I've made many phone calls and was constantly looking on craigslist and ksl.com. But I still haven't found anything close by. Before Christmas Break I learned that my sister-in-law who was currently teaching preschool for our town was looking for someone to take over for her. I did have another sister-in-law that was talking about doing it but decided she liked the 3 hour break 2 times a week that she currently had and wasn't too sure about teaching preschool as she had never done it before. Being jobless I decided to give it a try.

I teach preschool every tue/thur from 10am-1pm. I've got 6 kids. Four girls and 2 boys. 3 of these kids will start kindergarten later this year and the other 3 will have one more year of preschool left. Brayden will be old enough to attend next year which helped me make my decision of taking over. Each week we learn a new letter/number and I try to pick a theme that correlates with that weeks letter.

My first week teaching we had the theme Ice Cream to go along with the letter I. 

Somehow I missed pictures of our ice cream party.

This is Rachel and Emily. They are cousins and are just 3 days apart!

I must have forgotten to take pictures during our J/Jungle theme week.

For the letter K we read books about kings and then made our very own crowns so that we could be king for the WHOLE week during preschool.

We also made a kite and talked about a few shapes.

Our letter L fell during the week of Ground Hog's day. On tuesday we talked about hibernation and learned about the different animals that hibernate. Thursday was Ground Hog's day so we made our very own groud hog and had it guess if we still had 6 more weeks of winter or if it was Spring. Being it was snowing outside during preschool every little ground hog decided we had 6 more weeks of winter, cause it doesn't snow in the spring!

Here's our groundhog treat.

This week is the letter M/Monster theme.

Today our snack was little apple monster's

We practiced writing the letter M, we wrote words that began with the letter M like: me, my, mom and monster. We read a silly book about monsters and for our craft? We made our very own monster to take home out of an empty tp roll and "stuff" from my craft drawer.

Kylie, cousin Bella, cousin Rachel

Who doesn't love monster's?

All about Madelyn

I believe it was just last week that our kids celebrated the 100th day of school. Madelyn was given a blank poster board and was asked to bring it back with 100 items. I love these kind of projects that my kids get to do. It's great to see them brain storming and coming up with their very own ideas of what to do. After rummaging through a few drawers Madelyn decided we had enough fishy crackers to do her project with. I thought that she'd just glue them on and be done with it. Boy was I wrong! After she cut the pond out and glued the fishy's to it she just kept going on and on and on. Near the end she thought the picture would be even better with clouds. She started to cut out paper when she saw the bowl of left over popcorn on the counter from the afternoon snack. Why not use popcorn for clouds? This girl amazes me with her creativity sometimes. She worked very hard on this project and I think she did a great job!

The 2nd week of January Madelyn participated in a mini cheer camp. She loved it! She had 3 days of 1 1/2 hours of practice with her age group. Then Friday night at half time during the high school girls basketball game they performed.

 Goooooooo.... Valley!!

Isn't she cute????