Here comes trouble

You might look at this face and think he's cute. Which of course you're spot on about. He was saying "cheeeeese!" as I took the picture. Miracle of miracles, he'e eyes are open! He usually keeps them shut tight when we try to take his picture. I don't know why his eyes are watery, he wasn't sad, just leaky eyes I guess. Not only is this little kid cute, he is full of mischief and trouble! I'm talking trouble with a capitol T! You know those times when small children "help" and you find yourself thinking that what they are doing is actually no help at all? Yes, of course you do! We've all had moments of feeling like we're going to explode because we could make dinner or cookies or the bed or clean up the toys or unload the dishwasher(you get it) about a million times faster than this little person is doing it. Well, with this kid, I don't just think it. I'm pretty sure that at least 700 times a day he hears, "actually, that's not helping at all".  I feel like by the time I've asked him to stop doing whatever he's doing, fixed what he broke (yesterday he pulled out all the shoes and then disassembled the shoe cubby. No lie.),  cleaned up what he dumped or put away whatever sharp object he's be running with, he's moved on to something else. I'm not kidding. One of his favorite things to do is push the stool over to the counter where there is a light switch he can reach whilst standing on said stool. He stands there and flips the light on and off. Admittedly, that's not that big of a deal. What is a big deal is that he loses interest in the light fairly quickly. He then moves onto the toaster, which he loves to push the thing down and turn the toaster on. Now, I don't want you to think that I stand back and let him do this of my own free will and choice. No sir, I do not. He waits until I'm knee deep in wiping up the water he just dumped all over the floor. You might be thinking, don't give him water in a cup. I don't! We give it to him in a water bottle. The kind that you have to screw the lid onto. The kind that adults use. He has learned how to unscrew it and with a smirk on his face dumps the entire thing on the floor. So, while I'm cleaning it up, he takes advantage and starts for the light switch/ toaster spot. While I'm cleaning up the small lake that is now rolling along the grout of the kitchen, the lights are being turned on and off in rapid sequence. Just when I think I might have a seizure from the lights, it stops and I hear the toaster being played with. I leave the water and pray that I'll have time to finish cleaning it up before someone slips and falls and cracks their head open on the tile. Have I mentioned that I hate tile? I hate tile. I digress, by the time I make it the five feet to remove this small child from the toaster he has somehow managed to not only play with the toaster one handed, but using his other hand he has gotten into the knife drawer and has pulled most of them out, might even be sucking on one while asking for an apple. Put the toaster in a cupboard you say? He loves to play in the cupboards! He would just pull it out, drag it over to the air hockey table, unplug the table and try to plug the toaster in. No, I'm not exaggerating, something else he loves to do is plug and unplug the air hockey table. Put the knives where he can't get to them. There. Is. No. Such. Place! I take him down, put the stool away, clean up the knives just to turn and see that he has moved to the other cupboard and has pulled out all the pans and lids, has one foot in a pan and another one on a lid and is trying to use them as skates. I have him help me clean it up and as I'm closing the cupboard, he has opened the dishwasher and pulled the bottom rack out.

Off he goes. He loves to push it running full speed around the kitchen. Our downstairs is a loop and so he tries to go in circles. Truthfully folks there are some days that I just don't care. Yes young one, please push that rack around the house if it means you aren't playing with the knives or the toaster or the toilet. The toilet. I have a love hate relationship with the toilet. I love that it's convenient and that it flushes. On the other hand I hate that it's convenient and that it flushes. M and K put one car in the toilet when they were little. K dropped it in but only after M told him to. I fished it out, cleaned it well enough that surgery could have been performed on it and gave it back to them. I told them not to put toys in the toilet, they said ok and that was the end of it. Well, except for the one time K wanted to know if undies would flush down, they do. Anyway, they didn't play in the toilet. Little B on the other hand L.O.V.E.S to play in the toilet. I try not to let him out of my site during his waking hours because if I do, he'll go play in the toilet. If I notice that he stopped running around the loop of the downstairs while screaming at the top of his lungs, which is also high on his list of things he likes to do. So, if he doesn't finish a lap, we have a conversation that goes something like this.

Me:"B?!"

Little B:"Huh?"

Me:"What are you doing?!"

Little B: no response

Me:" Get out of the toilet!"

At which point he comes shooting out of the bathroom. This is a true story folks. It happens at least once a day. Here is where I fall. In the morning after breakfast I send M and K upstairs to brush their teeth, make their beds and get dressed. Well, little B follows them. (It's not like I'm laying on the couch wrapped in a blanket sleeping. I'm cleaning up breakfast and yelling out the time. If I don't yell out how long they have until we leave, they won't be ready on time. I also have to clean up whatever disaster little B has created in the half an hour he's been awake.) He loves to walk around with his toothbrush so he can brush his teeth. He loves to get his socks that he wants to wear for the day and throw them over the banister along with his blanket and sometimes if we're lucky, his pillow and his monkey and clothes etc. etc. etc. I can hear him talking with M and K, but as soon as it's quite I know that something is going down. I might even hear K saying,"B! stop playing in the toilet! Mommy! B is playing in the toilet again." I go upstairs, scrub little B down and tell him not to play in the potty. At which point he always, without fail asks, "why?" If I don't hear the silence quick enough or if both M and K are in their rooms, then it's almost a given that I will find a toy floating in a toilet. The pool toys are usually the victims. I found two of those squishy balls you can take to the pool and squeeze and they fill with water and then you throw them, you know what I mean right? Well, I found two of those in the toilet one day. I took them out and threw them away. Well, a couple days later M came and said that the toilet was clogged. I said I would come fix it, but of course I forgot. Well, that night I lifted the toilet lid and saw that the water was all the way to the top. I told B that M had told me it was clogged but I forgot about it. B being the hero that he is said he would fix it. We were talking about what could be clogging it, because the water was clean so we didn't think it was, well, ya know. Anyway I just shook my head and then my eyes got real big. I knew what was clogging it. I looked in the garbage can and sure enough, one of the swimming balls was missing. Little B had come into the bathroom, stuck his hand in the garbage can, gotten the swimming ball and flushed it. Not great! Thankfully when B plunged it, it went all the way down. There is nothing that is safe from being dunked by little B.

Case and point. This is his monkey. He loves his monkey. He calls it his baby and will carry it around with him, well, until he throws it across the room, or at whoever is in his line of fire. This is not the first time his monkey has taken the plunge. The first time we couldn't find it before he went to bed. he doesn't have to have it to go to sleep, he just likes to. We really couldn't find it. We looked all over the house. We ended up just putting him to bed without it. After he was in bed I had this sinking feeling that we should look in the toilets. I walked into the master bathroom, lifted the lid and found his poor sad monkey shoved inside. I don't know when he did it. That particular day had been a busy one, so he really was with me or next to me all day. The monkey had soaked up a lot of water, so it had to have been there for hours. I'm guessing he did it while M and K were getting ready for school. We pulled it out and put it in the washer. This morning I was folding laundry. He told me that he was going to go get his baby. I watched him walk down the hall, but instead of turning left to go into his room, he turned right. That's where the bathroom is. I went running down the hall, but it was too late. He must have put it in there earlier this morning. When I got to the bathroom he was trying to pull it out. I told him to leave it so I could hold it above the garbage can as I walked it down the hall to the washer. The good news is that the toilets in our house are usually flushed after they are used, so at least the water is clean for whatever toy is going for a swim that day. Poor little toys! I love little B! Heaven knows that, but sometimes he makes my hair turn from brown into bright white! 

 

M's turn

I couldn't do a post about the boys and leave her out could I? If I had been smart I would have done all of it on one post. Oh well. M still does gymnastics and loves it. I took the camera a couple weeks ago. They went to do the rope and I was so happy that I was going to be able to get a picture. Of course that was the one week when her teacher told them doing the rope was optional and M didn't do it. Bummer! I know this will come as a shock, but I did manage to get a couple pictures.

I love watching her flip around. Sometimes I don't get to watch as much as I would like because I have to chase little B around. She has improved a lot over the last year and she still loves to go every week, so that's really good.

This is just because she's cute. I love that she's the other girl in this house. We share perfume and can almost share shoes which is really exciting! Sometimes she starts to laugh and can't stop, she's the best! I just love her!

Basketball!

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but K has a very specific order in which he will try sports. First was soccer, then football, now basketball and then he'll try baseball. Well, it's basketball season round these parts and we're in it full swing. We showed up to the first practice and found out that K's friend from school is on his basketball team. I don't know if K looks like he loves basketball because he really loves it or if it's because H is on his team and he loves playing with him. Whatever the reason, K loves basketball! Watching them play is adorable. There are no fouls called, they can travel and double dribble. It's awesome when one of the kids gets the ball on one end of the court and runs, holding the ball, all the way to the other end to shoot it. You can hear parents from all over the gym yelling,"dribble it! You need to dribble the ball!" It seems like if the kid can hear their parents and they try to dribble it, it hits their foot and they end up kicking it. Holding it and running seems like a much safer bet! I have learned that K gets all of his athletic ability from me. Poor kid! He got the ball and was running, and actually doing a semi-productive dribble, to the basket to shoot the ball. I was cheering like mad! Little B won't sit and watch the games, so B and I switch off with sitting on the bleachers and watching, and walking around with little B. It was my turn to be watching K play when this amazing play was unfolding. I was clapping and yelling for him as he shot the ball, when my ears tune in to B yelling from the side lines,"K! That's the wrong basket! Don't shoot it!" I had no idea that he was running towards the wrong basket. Thankfully, K missed the shot, but he still had a huge smile on his face. Clearly, he didn't know that he had shot at the wrong basket either. B may have the dominate genes when it comes to the looks of our children, but I donated the genes for their amazing sport skills!

I love that he's using both hands to dribble! That's my boy!

Sitting with his friend H as they watch the game. They get so into it and they keep score on their own. They've told me that they've won every game by a lot! We love watching him play and love that he has such a great time.

Croup is really crappy!

Little B is the first kid in this family to have Croup. It's not great! He woke up late Saturday night with the cough. It's so weird to me that neither of our other kids had it, but we knew what it was as soon as we heard the cough. I can't believe how much he sounded exactly like a seal. I had heard that that's what it sounds like and I have heard a seal bark; but to have that sound come out of our little boy was a little unnerving. He also had a fever. I used to worry out loud about fevers until my dear husband told me that there really isn't any reason to get worked up over a fever unless it's about 104 or higher. So when we took his temperature and it was 103.1, I just freaked out on the inside. B on the other hand very calmly went to the cupboard and got the Tylenol. I was thinking about rushing him to the Emergency Room, having them take one listen to him and having them sing my praises for being such a concerned and loving mother that we would venture out at such a late hour to seek medical attention for a child who's fever was very high and who's cough was the worst sounding cough the hospital employees had ever heard. Instead, we gave him a teaspoon of Tylenol for the fever and held him until he was ready to go back to bed. He was awake an hour later because he couldn't breath or sleep while in his bed. We had tried shoving couch cushions under his mattress to try and elevate his head so hopefully he could sleep, yeah, that didn't seem to help at all. He wouldn't sleep unless I was holding him, so that's what I did. Needless to say, neither of us got a whole lot of sleep. of course I had sharing time on Sunday. Our primary has over 100 kids and most of them are in the Valiant 11 class. Most of the Valiant 11 class are annoyingly loud boys. Not a whole lot of sleep mixed with boys that were ripping the curtains and throwing little pieces of fabric at the heads of the kids in front of them while the teachers just sat there and watched, made for a less than spiritual experience in Sr. primary. Then in Jr. primary I didn't have enough things for all the kids to help with in the lesson, which I thought was pretty normal. Ya know, you tell them you're watching for reverent helpers. Well, one little girl didn't get a chance to help and burst into tears screaming that she had wanted to help. Not great, I felt so bad, but if every kid in our primary got to help every week, we'd never get to go home. We would just live at the church so that all 100+ kids could have a turn helping with sharing time. Anyway, now I know that before I do sharing time next month, I need about 15 hours of sleep the night before so I can be more prepared for the battle that lays ahead of me! When we got home B had evidence all over his shirt that little B had slept on him while we were gone. B said he didn't want to lay there the whole time we were at church, so he had scooted out form under little B and taken a picture.

 The poor thing just didn't feel very good. Thankfully he slept a lot better last night and even stayed awake until 10:00 this morning before he was so tired that he was almost asleep by the time I carried him upstairs and put him down for a nap. Croup is awful and we're really hoping that he feels all the way better really soon.

The trouble with a big kid bed

We moved little B from his crib to a toddler bed. It worked out just great except for now he can open doors. Easy fix you say, put on one of those baby proof door knob thingys. We tried. He pulls it back until the hole in the center is away from the door knob. He then sticks his little fingers in the hole and leans back. Using all of his body weight he pops the child proof door knob thingy off, turns the door knob and out he goes to play in the toilet. Wish I could say he's only played in the toilet once, but I can't. Anyway, both M and K wouldn't take naps much after 18 months old. I wanted Little B to be different. Honestly folks, I don't know how much longer he'll last. Since he's figured out how to bust out of the not so child proof door, I have resorted to using a tie to tie the door shut until he's asleep. I untie it as soon as he's sleeping, so don't judge. Now, one day not so long ago, I had tied his door shut. I went to lay on the floor to look under his door to see if I could see his feet or if he had gotten back in bed and fallen asleep. We have an extra twin bed in his room. He was standing at the bed. I came back downstairs and waited about five minutes and then I went and checked on him again. He was in the same spot. I untied the ties and went in. 

He was totally asleep. The poor thing was sleeping while he stood at the side of the bed. I wondered why he hadn't just climbed on the bed and fallen asleep.

I moved his monkey and tried to get a better shot. There on the floor are his pillow and blanket. He could have laid on the floor, but instead he fell asleep next to the bed. It's tough to get a good nap when you're big enough to climb out of bed!

Happy New Year!

Before we talk about New Years Eve, let's talk about my favorite Christmas tradition. Painting our ornaments is by far my favorite tradition. I love that the ornaments they pick to paint are so personality oriented. Like little miss M. She picked a heart with ribbons on the front of it. Of course she would pick the heart. Not only is she so sweet and loving(most of the time :) ), but she is all girl. She loves things to smell good and look good, with the exception of her room; which she doesn't care about at all! But generally speaking she likes things to look, smell and just be pretty and nice. I love this picture! Not only does it show them painting their ornaments, but it also shows that she's left handed! I think it's so awesome that she's left handed. I long to be left handed so much that all I'll say is that the mirrors in this house aren't used only for dancing and singing in front of anymore! They also fulfill my desire to be left handed! Or, at least to appear that way.  

Now, moving on to New Years. We were all pretty healthy through New Years Eve. M did have a weird fever, but no other symptom except she was tired. But it seems that as soon as Midnight stuck, our healthy streak ended.

Here's proof that four of the five of us made it all the way to midnight! This is the first year these two have been awake when the ball dropped. Can I just ask a question? What's with the ball dropping? Isn't dropping the ball in anything in life a bad thing? So, why on New Years Eve do so many people pack into Time Square to watch a huge ball drop? What an odd thing to call a tradition. Anyway, Yay for making it to midnight and being able to welcome in the New Year! B woke up Thursday with a small back spasm. Meaning, he could hardly move because some muscles in his back had freaked out. He's gone to the Dr about it in the past and they say sorry, ride it out. He had his back issues, M's fever was higher and she was even more tired and then K was starting to complain about his tummy hurting. The inevitable happened. Bodily fluid started springing forth and out. Not great! K was so kind to share with me. Cleaning up after a sick kid when you yourself don't feel good should be against the laws of nature! The stomach bug hung around until Saturday night. I am happy to report that everyone was able to report back to school and work today. I was even able to use my new padded sports bra that I found on sale, in my size at Maurices! It's bright orange and I love it! Can I just say that I love Maurices?! Truth, if there was a t-shirt that said, "I love Maurices", I'm pretty sure I would but it and wear it a lot! Their jeans are usually on sale and their sizing makes me feel so good about myself. Their clearance racks are great! Last time I was in there I found a pair of capris on the clearance rack for $6.49! I would have rounded up to $6.50, but they didn't cost that much!!! I truly love that store! Anyway, where was I, oh yeah, we're all healthy and happy! 

What else, what else.... I don't have anything to say really, so I'll just put some pictures on and call it good.

AH yes, the infamous clothes on the floor picture. That can only mean one thing. There's a kid around our house somewhere that had clothing on a few minutes ago, but no longer does.

Here sits the culprit. He loves to take his clothes off. Honestly there have been days when he removes his clothing in the wee hours of the morning and the lazy side of me takes over and he stays in just a diaper all day. Thankfully the diaper stays in place. It's so annoying once they find out how to take that off. He had stripped, found a chip on the counter and was so happy sitting on the chair, eating his snack and watching that cars go by.

This act is what causes us to tie the fridge shut. He opens it, climbs in and gets yogurt. Which is fine except for the nasty diapers eating five+ yogurts a day causes. At least he had his clothes on still!

We'll end with this one. The fellas in this house got new BYU shirt's from grandma B for Christmas. I got little B dressed first one morning. K saw him and said he wanted to match. He came down from getting dressed and said he didn't have a white shirt to wear under, so he just put on his blue one. But, "It still matches because we both have long sleeves on and grey pants. Well, I didn't have grey pants, I only had my blue fuzzy pants so I'm wearing those instead, but we still look the same." Imagine hearing all this while K is running and jumping and doing somersaults and causing mayhem, that's just how it goes when he's telling you something. If you didn't imagine him doing such things as you read his quote the first time, you must go read it again thinking such things. He's wild and crazy to say the least!

We had an amazing 2014. We were able to do such fun things as a family and make some awesome memories! We are so thankful that my sister, E, still has her foot after an awful motorcycle accident that very easily could have left her with only one foot. Speaking of feet, we're also thankful that my brother, A, still has his foot and toes after a 3000 pound trailer fell on it and crushed it. Let's not forget my nephew, R, that thankfully still has his eyesight after a wood chip went in it and risked leaving him blind. Little, M, we are so thankful that even though you fell in the fire, you are still here and that your burns aren't worse. L, hang in there dude! We're praying that you get to leave the hospital soon and that you and your mom will be able to go back to Texas with your dad and S! I love coming from a huge family, but sometimes it feels like because there are so many of us, there's always at least one major medical event each year. This year there was just more than one! We truly are so thankful that all of these people are still here and that they are still part of our lives. We hope and pray that this new year is full of happy memories and that we will be able to stay close to family, maybe even get a little closer! To 2014 we say farewell and to 2015 we say, bring it!