Living Planet Aquarium

We started a family chart about a month ago to help us have better spiritual habits.  Every time we had family prayers, scripture reading, FHE, or Brett or I went to the temple we would have the boys color in one of the circles.  We let them know that when the chart was all filled up we would have a special activity.  Well, we filled it up so we took the boys to the Aquarium.  The boys really loved it!  Here are a few of the things we got to see/do:

Crocodiles!

Penguins, they liked these.

Otters!  They really loved these guys.  You can’t really see them clearly in the picture but they were rolling around wrestling and playing with each other and the boys thought it was the most fun thing to see.  We saved the touch exhibit for last and this was by far their favorite!  Both of the boys got to pet a Manta Ray.

Easter

Easter Sunday was beautiful. The weather was sunny and warm and it was wonderful to spend time together.

-Church = wonderful

-Pictures in the grass. . . getting all three boys to look at me and smile at the same time

is slightly impossible.

-After church the boys blew kisses into empty eggs and hid them for Brett to find when he got home. After one accidental sneeze into an egg, it then became a funny game of catching sneezes. Brett was fun enough to play along, so when he got home and opened the eggs he 'wiped' the sneezes off his face, and caught the kisses.

-For quiet time we let the boys play with their Easter presents quietly while Brett, Owen, and I all took a nap. After a while I was woken by silence, so I went down and found that the boys had snuck out to the front yard to explore with their magnifying glasses. Hyrum was pointing the magnifying glass at the ground (in the shade) trying to start a fire like they do in Toy Story. Anyway, I decided I would teach him the right way to magnify the sun. He, Noah and I had so much fun doing it. The boys were amazed, and for once I wasn't the mean mom:) I burned a smiley face onto a paper and they got a kick out of that. I know that they will learn how to do this eventually, so it might as well be from me with my rules.

-With all the cleaning I had been doing this last week I really haven't been in the mood to do any cooking, so Brett bought some Panda Express for us to eat Saturday and Sunday night. Yea, not a great Easter meal, but it is what it is:). It was still a wonderful Easter and I have so much to be grateful for.

Pre-Easter Egg hunt!

On Saturday we went to two different Easter egg hunts. In the morning when we told them that we were going to two egg hunts they were pretty excited. Hyrum immediately went down to the basement to get my hand weights. He started doing lifts and other random exercises. When I asked him about it, he said he needed to lift weights to get super big muscles so he could carry all of his eggs. The first hunt was sponsored by the city. The hunt began with a big fire truck siren at 11am and all eggs were gone at 11:05! Hyrum managed to grab two eggs and I grabbed one for Noah, because he was a bit confused in the chaos. They got to meet the Easter bunny. Hyrum loved it and gave lots of hugs, while Noah clung to my leg, scared. They had fun. Then in the afternoon we had a neighborhood egg hunt too. This was a lot more fun for the kids, because there were less kids and more eggs per kid.

These were my attempts at taking their picture just before the siren blew:)

After a long day of running and hunting eggs Noah was so exhausted that he literally crashed on the couch and fell asleep.

Challenge, Grime, and Bath Time

It has been a CRAZY week. I finished a 30 day fitness challenge this week that has been fun to participate in. I committed with some neighbors to exercise a minimum of 30 minutes a day for 30 days. Of the 30 days I only missed three days (2 were on Sundays and the other was just chaotic busy) I traded babysitting with a friend of mine three days a week, so we could both get good runs in. The rest of the week I alternated between Pilates and one hour of Just Dance(fun!). I was happy to see the scale showing that I lost 9 pounds, however my clothes aren't really showing that I lost anything. Either way, I'm feeling great, and it was a great jump-start to really losing this baby weight.

This week was also a big week because I did some MAJOR spring cleaning. Sometimes it feels impossible to keep the house clean with the kids leaving messes everywhere they go. Now I may not feel so bad about the messes, because at least I know the messes are in very dirt/dust free rooms:) I even got some serious scrubbing done on my kitchen appliances.

Finally, this would not be a real family journal without recording one of the boys' favorite activities. BATH TIME!!!

Then, the sad moment when it's time to let the water out. . . they just stayed in to play with the bubbles.

Socks, Flour, Hunger Games

The weather has been beautiful this week and I've been really looking forward to spring. Hyrum asks everyday, sometimes a few times a day, if it's time to plant the garden yet. He LOVES working in the garden, and I'm getting pretty excited too. Our perfect, easy going Baby O has been acting like a normal baby(crying, needy, must be held, etc.), which means one thing. . . teething! I still feel like he's a newborn but he's getting older way to fast for me! He can now sit up by himself and he constantly has something in his mouth. He's been eating like a maniac, but managed to not gain any weight beween seing the doctor at 4 month and his 6 month

appointment this week. He's in the 95% for height, which seems to follow the pattern of our other boys. He's adorable and LOVES laughing at his older brothers. His eyes are a little more brown now, but still seem to change in certain lighting. His nurse at the Ped.'s office complimented him on his 'big blue eyes'.

Once a month I grind a bunch of wheat with my boys to last for the rest of the month. Hyrum and Noah love helping me with the wheat grinder and pouring into the storage containers. This week, after finishing a batch of flour I needed to help Owen and left Noah in the kitchen with a big bowl of flour. About five minutes later I came in and found Noah completely covered. It was SO funny! HE had flour on every strand of hair, eyelashes, clothes, EVERYTHING. I don't know how he managed to cover himself so fully, but I'm sure a great deal of throwing occurred. He spent twenty minutes cleaning everything off the floor and counter, before I sent him to his bathroom for a major shake down. Noah just loves being dirty!

After a long week I was so excited to have a girls night. I went to see the Hunger Games at a Pre-Premier viewing, the night before it officially came out. I got the book read just in time and I had so much fun.

Avocados anyone?

We recently started Owen on his first ‘real’ foods. I’m excited to be making his baby food at home.  I now have the freedom to make more of what I want.  We started with avocado and then went to acorn squash.  Coming up will be peas, bananas, and who knows?  Here’s a look at Owen’s very first taste of flavorful food:

“What is this stuff?!”

“I’m not sure how I feel about this.”

  

“Okay, this is actually really good.  I want more!”

 

PS. Owen slept from 8pm to 8 am last night!!!

Feeling Good

Yes, this is a picture of my wrinkly laundry. I was washing the whites earlier this week. I pulled the church shirts out of the dryer, still wet, and put them on hangers. A little while later, I went back in and saw that I had unknowingly hung them in age order. It made me happy to see these white shirts and to think about how blessed I am to be the mother of three little boys and the wife to a wonderful husband. My boys are so small and needy in so many ways, but someday I will be the needy one and they will be my help. It scares me and excites me how fast they are growing up. Twenty years from now they could be anything in the world, but right now at this moment they are mine and I want to do a better job of remembering that. Brett’s worked quite a few 15 hour+ days lately and on those days sometimes I loose my patience with the boys, sometimes I feel like I’m not a very fun mom, sometimes I let them watch more TV then I would like, but when the house is quiet and everyone is asleep I know that they love me. This week I made a conscious effort to try harder. I was sure to spend one on one time with all three boys at least once a day. I tried to take more deep breaths before scolding them about something they had done. I replaced “go play downstairs, I’m trying to get this done” or “not now, maybe later” with one of these three phrases, “Yes, let’s do it!”, “I would love to. . . ,I will finish this quick so I can spend more time with you. Do you want to help me finish?” or “I just set the kitchen timer for 5 minutes. I’m going to finish what I can of . . ., but when the timer goes off then you’ll have my full attention.” These few changes have made a big difference in the boys’ attitudes and mine. I can’t say I was perfect at it. I lost my temper a few times and I got inpatient, but it’s a start.

This week had two more noteworthy things happen that I must record, because this is my journal. This is the week I finally decided to plunge into sleep training Owen. I was getting sick of being tired all the time and being cranky every morning. We started Monday night by putting the pack-n-play in the basement with the monitor receiver in our bedroom. He spent a good chunk of 8-midnight crying. We went in a few times to comfort him and give him his binky, but we didn’t pick him up. He woke up a few times after that crying before morning, but it wasn’t very long. Monday night pretty much completely exhausted him, because on Tuesday night he slept from about 8 until 6am!!!! He was the happiest baby in the world on Wednesday! Wednesday night went okay, but not great. I put him down at about 7:00. He woke up and I fed him at eleven, then he slept until 3:15. 3:15 until 4 was crying/screaming. Brett had gotten home from work only a few hours before that, so I decided to pick him up and rock him to sleep, but not feed him. He fell asleep quickly in my arms and slept until 8. I used to be anti-cry it out. It just seemed so cruel, but after Noah (he would wake up and want to be nursed and held every 2-3 hours up until we made him cry it out at 9 months old) I know my body just can’t handle the sleep depravation anymore. I am really happy with his progress, and I’m glad to not be a zombie anymore.

A neighbor of mine made a 30 day, 30 minutes or more workout every day, challenge and I accepted. I’ve been really loving the challenge and support from others that are participating. One of my good friends and I are swapping babysitting three days a week and I do workout videos at home for the others. So far, I have gone running twice (and I will again tomorrow) and done core training Yoga twice. It’s incredible how great I feel already! My goal is to fit comfortably into my ‘skinny’ clothes by my birthday in September. I’m feeling motivated, lets hope I can stay on track.