28 November, 2006

Tuesday

This morning I went online and decided what present to get Abbi from Grandma. I ordered an assortment of instruments and in it was a drum and a tambourine. Just after ordering it I went to the kitchen to do the dishes while Kacen was sleeping and of course Abbi had to be there with me. She opened up the cupboard next to me and started pulling out the pots and pans. As she would pull them out she said, "drum, drum, drum." So cute and also a great assurance that I picked a good gift for her. I was having trouble deciding between three items.

Yesterday Kacen rolled over for the first time. He did it repeatedly, every time thatI would put him on to his tummy he would roll over on to his back.I remember that with one of my children, I think it was Alona. She hated to be on her tummy. She screamed bloody murder whenever she was left tummy down on the floor. And Kacen has just started fitting into his 0-3 mo clothes! No more pj's all the time. And the clothes are so cute on him!

This morning we woke up to the first real snow fall of the season. And right after breakfast they wanted the door "Open". They had their little gloves on and couldn't manage to turn the knob on the door. They had a blast, Abbi kept sliding down the hill in our backyard and got a wet tush!

And might I say, Chiropractors ar great! Children aren't pain in the necks they are a pain in the back!

27 November, 2006

Recent Events

This year was a first, we attended only one home for thanksgiving. Every previous year would go to 2-3 different family members homes. Every year for me since I was a small child I have gone to my grandmother' s home for thanksgiving except for when I was in foster care. This year we chose to go to Paul's mom's house. I was so glad that we went, with us there it didn't seem as sparce. Four of Paul's brothers and sisters were not there. I know that my grandma had plenty of family show up to her house! I just missed her stuffing and potatoes. Marta makes great food, her pies are awesome.

I had planned on making a pumpkin pie this year, I didn't plan very well though. It was 10:30 the night before thanksgiving and I had almost finished making the salad that I was supposed to bring and was dead tired. I knew that it would take atleast two hours to make the pie and if I wanted more than three hours of sleep I had to go to bed right then. So I went with bringing a pecan pie, one that Kelly said that he liked. Marta made a really good raspberry pie and an apple caramel pie, mmm good.
We watched CARS while we were waiting for the turkey to get done. I usually really don't like animated kids shows, but I liked this one! It was a really cute movie.
Marta is planning on going to Alaska to be with Laura on Christmas so I have been selected to get the presents for the children from her. That will be a task, Alona knows what she wants(a guitar & piggy bank)then of course there is the boots that would be nice during winter and the arts and craft things and Abbi is easy to buy for but then there is Kacen a little two month old by the time that Christmas will be here. I am going to find it difficult finding what to get him from grandma.
Before we left the girls were jumping all over Bud, and he says, am I a jungle gym? They were a bunch of wild girls, climbing and jumping all over him.

Today Paul starts two new classes and he had to wake up at 7:30 to get there. I hope that it all works out with him getting home at about midnight. Before he was going into school at 11:00. So this will be a big change. I hope he does well. He gets to see what classes that he has when he gets there.
I am worn out after a night of Kacen waking up every hour and a half. Lately he has been sleeping in three hour intervals in the night. I was getting to the point where I really didn't want to get out of bed when I would hear him an hour after laying back down.

*Laura I read your blog and saw Emily's comment that you had your baby. Good Luck! Hope to hear more from you.

20 November, 2006

One Month

One month ago until NOW

Doing with a little less:

Time for shopping (because of baby feeding schedule) 40 minutes including drive time. I was having two hours to complete this task before.
New Usual Time for sleep: 5 hours, compared to 8-9 hours one month ago
Quiet Time: O seconds, compared to atleast 5 minutes when I had two children.
Outside Time: If I am lucky I get a little more than an hour. It is to cold to take the baby out.
Showers uninterrupted without a bathroom door: O, Abbi seems to think that Mommy takes showers with bubbles. She parts the curtains with a hyped up exasperation of"BUBBLES"!

Though I have less time for most everything, I seem to make the most of the hour of playtime that I have with the girls. I am able to pack a lot of quality time in the hour that we have. Today(I wrote this on Monday) we were able to play baseball. Alona hit a lot of tennis balls with her oversized plastic bat. She was great! I am the one that needs to work on my throw, her batting is perfect. Abbi is more like a silly puppy. I try to play catch with her and instead of throwing the ball back to me she brings up and gives it to me. We were able to run around the backyard 7 times. It really is a workout. I say we because through a forth of each of the times running Abbi would come up to me and say "up,up" and so I carried her while running. She thought that it was the funnest thing, she would throw herself backwards and laugh. She would also try to run with me, her cute self and those little legs! We played in the leaves and they both raked them up. Alona does great at raking them in a pile. And then Abbi was so adorable watching a little one year old rake up leaves. And then I had to run in and start dinner, Abbi actually stayed outside and played with Alona. They played with the tree and the leaves. Abbi when coming in says, "tree,tree" she had fun! And Alona came in with a slug in her hair. They really must have been havin throwin leaves around to get that in her hair!
I took the camera out to take pictures of the girls and the camera wouldn't even turn on. Come to find out, Paul took my batteries and put them in the remote control to the television. So to bad for me.
The girls are a big help especially Alona, she not only picks up after herself but her sister also. They share a room, so when Abbi doesn't pick up, Alona gets stuck doing the whole thing. She is a good sport. Abbi picks up or does things to help when I am right there showing her what to do. Though when she finds a comb she likes to help brush hair, her hair and her brothers. :)

And Now Kacen is one month old. He still seems so little though I know that he has grown more than a pound and an inch. He sleeps so much better at night than he did soon after birth and is awake so much more during the day, enough to drive me nuts. He looks at me cross-eyed just like both girls did.Whenever I put him down he screams hysterically within five minutes, he always has to be held. After he falls asleep, I have to hold him for about an hour before I can lay him down. If I lay him down before then he wakes up screaming and I have to start it all over again.
Picture of a one-month-old Kacen this morning at 5 a.m. And the four of us last night at my great grandmas birthday. I look awful, I would like to say that I could blame it on the 3 hours of sleep that I had received. The children are so darn cute in the picture though.

18 November, 2006

Who Would Have Thought

I was reading to the girls today, and they would pull out any book and bring it to me to read. We read a Thomas the tank engine book and then came "The Berenstains B Book". Alona practically has the first book memorized, the second book she knows what it is talking about and if the pictures are pointed out she can tell how the book goes. I started to point out some of the shorter words and asking her what they were. The last word that I asked her she did not respond with "I don't know" or "I know" and then not really know. She looks at the letters and says "B-OOM, BOOM". That was awesome, who would have thought she would read her first word today!

13 November, 2006

Three Ring Circus

I actually got up the guts to take the children to the store on Saturday night. We were almost out of milk and I wanted to be able to look for Alona a dress to get her pictures taken today. Of course the girls were their normal selves, a little rambunctious. Throwing things from the cart, pulling things from shelves and Alona was dead set on having a skirt, though I couldn't find a shirt to go with it and I found this cute dress, but she didn't want to even consider it.So it took us an hour to get "milk". But I was so happy when leaving, for the most part it was uneventful. Kacen slept the whole time!!! And the girls didn't have me pulling my hair out by the time that we were finished. I was pleased with how well it actually turned out going shopping with three children.

Alona & her new skirt!!

Then today, it was a little more challenging. I took them to get pictures done. The photographer had a 4-year old who was throwing props at her and every time that she was positioned Alona would move out of where she was put. Abbi didn't have the slightest of what the lady was trying to do with her. She gave her a piece of candy to hold in her fists so that Abbi would keep her fist by the side of her head. It was so cute, Abbi held on to that candy with her fist just like the lady had showed her, but the lady wanted both hands in fists at the same spot. Abbi did not understand this, the photographer was very irritated and would not take the picture, I thought that it looked cute. And then once Kacen was awake, of course all he wanted to do was cry and eat. So I am going to try to take him to JCPenny's later with a coupon that I have. If Alona was that ladies child I do believe she would have been popped, Alona was so defiant, rude and mean.
The photographer at the end asked me how I do it. Having one at time you get used to each one as they come. Then while walking out to the car, I saw a woman with four children and I was thinking the same thing, How does she do it?

09 November, 2006

Adjusting

I do believe that it will be a very long time before I feel like I am back to normal. Almost every day I have a huge migraine, which is due to lack of sleep, children screaming, baby crying and everyday life added on top of that. Currently is his schedule still changes from day to day. But the most typical one so far is he wakes up between seven and eight o'clock and is awake until 10:30 or eleven. He gets to sleep by eating, he is not hungry. That is just how he likes to be comforted. Then he sleeps until about one and then is awake for another two to three hours and then sleeps another two hours. When he is awake he is eating constantly, the cycle usually ends between 7:30 and 10:30 at night when he goes to sleep for about four hours and then he wakes up around 1:00 a.m. and then again at 5:00 a.m. and then the 7-8 a.m. morning wake up. Twice he has woken up during the day, once at three in the afternoon and then stayed awake until two in the morning. I had a hard time keeping my eyes open those nights.

It is hard to do anything with the girls in the morning because I am running around with a baby attached. But I do my best, I usually am able to get them breakfast and read them a book with one child on each side, and this morning I cleaned while feeding him too. I am not able to get dressed until he goes back to sleep around 11:00 a.m. so I feel as though I am not able to get much done. Alona usually watches cartoons while I am feeding the baby in the morning. I really hate this, I am not one for much television. I try to keep the girls away from the television as much as possible and usually only let them watch one show a day. This has not been the case lately.I have not been able to play with them as much lately. When he is asleep I play with the girls and clean the house and manage to get dressed a lot to fit into a couple of hours.

I haven't been able to go shopping in three weeks. And I am afraid to go! Three children, one cart and lots of groceries and diapers, NO WAY!!! How will I ever manage the next few years with needing food? My cupboards are alright, I just have no snack foods am out of yogurt, string cheese stuff like that.

03 November, 2006

Canee, Canee!

This is Abbi's excited way of saying candy! She wasn't so sure about going trick-or-treating. And all that she could muster out of her mouth was "treet"! She really enjoyed the candy that night and especially the next day.
Earlier that day I went to the store before Paul left for work and bought a big bag of Halloween candy. Our ward was having a trunk-r-treat at 4:30 and everyone had to bring candy. I was planning on going downtown trick or treating at 3:00 and then going to the trunk r treat.
I laid down to rest a little before two, Alona was occupied and Abbi was asleep. I then realized when getting up that I had fallen asleep and that it was now past three o'clock. I called the friend that I was supposed to meet down there and she wasn't there yet either. So I decided that I could hurry and get ready and then just not spend as much time as I had planned with the downtown trick or treating and then go to the trunk or treat. So I hurried and was driving down 900 East when the 4-runner started jerking back and forth. The more I pushed on the gas the slower that the vehicle would go, but when taking my foot off of the gas and applying it to the clutch the jerking would stop and the car was ok though still it was barely moving. I was able to turn down 7th North and go about a quarter mile before it just would not go anymore and I pulled off to the side of the road with my hazard lights on. I then called Paul, I told him everything that was going on, and he plainly asks "Is the gas light on?" The gas light was always on so I hadn't thought much of it. But yes it was, and Paul says well thats it, I needed gas! So I called the friend that I was supposed to meet and she came and rescued me.

We went to University Avenue in Provo, where all of the businesses on that street for about five blocks gave out candy. By the time that we arrived it was past four o'clock and there was no way that I would be able to go to the trunk-r-treat.
My friends helped me with the girls until their grandma arrived. It was great to have help. Abbi was so cute, for the first while, the Elmo head was covering her face. She couldn't see a thing. But she just kept walking as happy as a clam she was. I held Kacen and walked with him the entire time. It was more than an hour. He stayed asleep the whole time which kind of worried me cause he hadn't eaten in awhile, but it all worked out. He must of liked the motion. It started out being 49 degrees at the time that we started and by the time that we went to the car it was 41 degrees. It dropped 8 in degrees in less than two hours.
Alona got a kazoo that she loves to pieces, she loves music. She goes around the house playing it. She says...I can't wait until Santa comes so that he can bring me my guitar. She is convinced that Santa is bringing her a guitar.
Abbi the next day opened every single sucker in her bucket and stuck them somewhere! She didn't want to finish a single one.