Maggie

We (or I should say Nick) finally decided on a name for our bug. We had lots of good options and I should say thank you to everyone who gave us suggestions. It may not be my favorite but Maggie is a good name.

here she is eating Joe

Joe and Nick took the engine out on Saturday and did stuff to it. She runs much better now and Nick has started driving her to work.

When Nick still had his motorcycle we could hear him coming and going and it was fun for the kids to get excited when Daddy came home. Now with another noisy car we get to hear him come home again which makes this daily reunion even more exciting! ( Though I doubt our neighbors enjoy it :)

This was the sad moment of the day. Jodi and I took the girls with us to the fabric store and when we came home Aaron's bike looked like this. He had a mini kite that he had been running around with outside. He thought it would be a good idea to tie his kite to his bike and fly it while he rode around. I guess it was working for a while but unfortunately the string got stuck in the wheel. Aaron was very sad and tried to hold back tears unsuccessfully. He doesn't get devastated very often so I was very sad for him.

Cow kids

My friend Kandice had a party for her daughter Kayln's 3rd birthday last Saturday. It was on a ranch with animals and horse rides. My kids have been excited for weeks to dress up as cowboys and cowgirls for the party.

The best group shot I was able to get. (Cute group pics get harder with each new kid)

My kids personal favorite.

(Elsie loved being bounced around and would hysterically laugh when she fell over but since I had to be in there with her I couldn't get a picture.)

Charlotte was the only one in my clan who braved the big horse.

Chow time!!

Elsie did amazingly well walking around in those huge boots.

The disgruntled quilter

Aaron is going to get his own room soon and I thought it would be fun to give it a theme. Naturally he chose Pirates. Jodi gave me a quilting book about three years ago and I thought this would be a fun time to try to make one rather than spend $50 on one at Target. There happened to be some really cute pirate material at Hancock's right now so today I went to get it. I felt like I was being frugal until I got to the register.

Can you believe that this small stack of fabric cost $90??!!

I started shopping online to see if I could find a cheaper one. There were some pirate ones that were cute for about $120 which helped me feel a little better, but seriously is my time only worth $30? This better be one darn cute quilt.

Finally walking!!

I finally got Elsie walking on tape. She has been taking steps for about a month. She still crawls everywhere though, which is weird. Once my other kids could walk they never tried crawling again. I am ready for her to be done and stop getting dirty and worn out knees.

The happy couple

Charlotte desperately wants to marry Aaron and tells him two or three times a day. He used to want to marry her too before I made the mistake of telling them that it was illegal. It didn't deter Charlotte but Aaron asked me "Mommy, if I marry Charlotte, will I go to jail?" and since then has decided that he should marry Jasmine in his preschool class. Well this broke Charlotte's heart. I try telling him that when she grows up she won't still want to marry him so it's OK to say that he will, but he usually doesn't play along.

Today Charlotte once again said, in a sad tone, "Aaron I really really want to marry you" He started to say "No" and I shot him a look. So he changed his mind and said "OK, you can marry me because when we grow up we will just break-up."

I'm not really sure where he heard the term "break-up" and a little disturbed by his thought that when you are married you can simply "break-up" but it pleased Charlotte so I let it be.

Pacifier fiend

The skin around Elsie's mouth has been drying out due to the colder weather and the moisture that would collect around her pacifier all night. It was pretty disgusting and lotion wasn't cutting it so I made the decision the take the pacifier away. I thought it was going pretty well for the first couple of days. I even forbade Nick from taking one to church ( I teach primary so he gets her for the last two hours alone). But the past few days she has been a different child. She is grumpy, she wakes up all night, she won't nap. I usually don't back down when it comes to things like this but I was tempted yesterday. Nick said No, he told me to be strong, he said to follow through. Last night she cried from four to six. I was strong, I didn't give in.

Then today she was whining when she was supposed to be napping. I went to check in on her and her hands were covered in hair! She had been pulling out her own hair!!! It reminded me of a story I heard about a kid who pulled out his eyebrows because his parents made him stop sucking his thumb. I quickly grabbed one out of the drawer (relieved I hadn't thrown them all away) and gave it to her. It was like a tearful reunion of two old friends. She would suck, pull it out to gaze lovingly at it and then suck some more. She didn't make a peep when I placed her back in her crib and she is now peacefully sleeping. I think I need to research a pacifiers anonymous group.

Making up

Aaron and Charlotte have been fighting over toys a lot the past few months and I really don't know what to do about it. Should I bite my tongue and let them work it out by themselves? Should I send them both to time out? Should I take the toy they are fighting over away? I'm stumped. Today they were fighting over some Knex and I couldn't stand it any more. I sent them both to time out, then made them sit at the table and each say 5 nice things about the other. I don't think they quite got the idea but their thoughts were darn cute.

Aaron: I love you

Charlotte: I want to marry you

Aaron: I like to share my toys with you

Charlotte: I like to share my toys with you

Aaron: I like your bows

Charlotte: I like your soccer shirt

Aaron: I love your dress

Charlotte: I like your calendar

Aaron: I love your pretty eyes

Charlotte: I love your cool eyes

For Grandma Siggy

Aren't they sweet in their new blue sweaters from Nick's Grandma.

The Fisherman's Wife

My kids like to play "Mom and Dad", a little game where they run around calling each other husband and wife (for example: "husband, did you catch any fish?") and quite often ask me to pretend to be the grandma and watch a baby doll while they go to work. Really it is just Charlotte who likes to play this game and she pretends like Aaron is playing along too. Today Aaron was fishing off of his bed and Charlotte wanted to play along.

Aaron would cast off over the side of the bunk bed and when he had caught a fish Charlotte would unhook it

and then cook it on the piano.

Such a little mommy, feeding her baby some fish. While tending to her baby Aaron called down from the top bunk "Hey, aren't you going to make my breakfast?" (Is he Nick's son or what?)

So then she made a fish breakfast for them also. They decided to use their umbrellas as forks.

New addition

On Saturday we bought a new car!! Well new to us. It is a 67 VW bug and we love it. We had to drive to Los Banos on Saturday to pick it up. Joe, Jodi and Charity met us there so Nick and Joe could work on the breaks before we drove it home. While the boys were working/playing and Joe was imparting some of his VW knowledge on Nick, the girls (and Aaron) went to breakfast.

We are still thinking of a name for her. Nick and I both agree that Charlotte would be an absolutely perfect name for her but since we have already used that one we are trying to find something else. Some options are Sonya or Nadia. I like Julia but Nick doesn't. Nick likes Nicole but I don't. Aaron likes Jack and Charlotte likes Mermaid. We need help. Comment some ideas if you have any.

Elsie's first meal of tortellini. Her mouth loved it so much she thought her face might enjoy it too.

New Year Resolutions

My new year resolution for last year was to read scriptures every night as a family. We went from reading maybe once a week to about 5 nights a week. Pretty good I think but I am going to keep that one on my list and try to pick up those extra two days this year. Also on my list is writing in our Journals every week during FHE. We started last night and the kids thought it was great.


Aaron: "We had our Christmas tree up. I got a pirate ship from Santa. I helped Dad set up the train track around the Christmas tree."

Charlotte:"Santa brought me a bicycle. Santa's elf's made it. He also brought Dora knee pads and a helmet."

My personal goal for the year: Keeping my sink free of dirty dishes.

How we entertain ourselves