I can only do so much

The title of this post I was thinking this in my head while Abbi was hurting Alona in the tub and throwing buckets of water onto the floor, Kacen was in his high chair hungry and screaming, the children had thrown their food by the garbage can and by the sink and the dishes were piled up and this is just what I could see and hear and I was the only non-child home and there was only one me!

This past week me and all three kids made zucchini bread and Kacen wanted to help with the flour while it was on the floor. Alona was measuring flour into the measuring cup. Abbi got to stir and put it into the bread pan. And then while it was cooking the girls made fish pizza. Abbi got a hold of red finger paint and put the gold fish on the pizza pan with it.

Abbi's new favorite phrase: "Aunt Nad-a-lee!"

Andy and Natalie are married! Charmalee watched the kids for an hour while we were in the temple. So awesome, I am so happy for them, it was so great to be around them. They just had that new couple fire to them! It reminded me of how it used to be before kids and before life happened. Alona was asked how she knew it was the temple and she said because Moroni's on top.

Our Activity for the day: making folder games. We started making our first folder game which will be matching upper and lower case letters. We glued a tree that we made onto the inside of each side of the folder and made apples with upper case letters that we glued to the tree. I also made the lower case letters, I just need to make them into apples. And the last things, laminating and attaching the velcro. More folder games to come.

Accomplishments for the week: we me and the kids all got hair cuts! And I did all four of them. Well Alona got a hold of the scissors and so I had to make her hair all the same length. Abbi's hair in the back was all curly and none was the same length, so now it is straight and she is missing her curls. Kacen had his hair shortened and his head is trying to readjust from the lack of curls as well. And well my hair doesn't look as gross, no more split ends and well it just looks better!

We have a door on our bathroom! Given now I do believe that any one who has a bigger butt than me will not be able to sit on our toilet. Paul moved the washer right up next to the toilet seat and squished the dryer right up next to it and put the door on wallah! I was / am distraught that we are stuck here for who knows how long and having a hard time with this place and so Paul tried to make it a little better.
The cutest comment, I was talking to Alona about being able to have a house/ a place where we could hang up pictures, have a bathroom door and many other things and she says "Mom when we get to Heaven, we'll have a house!"That is definetly the sweetest thing and it lifted my spirit.

Kacen got in his eighth tooth. He stood up without holding onto anything and today he even stood up without having help by pulling himself up to anything, he just did it from being on his knees! He took three steps on Wednesday! He can wave! He can quack like a duck and tried to say baa like the sheep that we saw on Wednesday!

Sicknesses for the week: Mastitis, ouch! And now Kacen likes to use his teeth while nursing, geeze. Paul has a ganglion cyst on his wrist that he has an appointment for.

a new found sleep

He ate, he fell asleep, his sister woke him up, I laid him down, screaming, holding, swing...ahhh!

The first time Kacen fell asleep for me with something other than eating. He can do it, I would love to hold and rock him though whenever I do he wants to eat. I love holding my baby. Usually Paul is the only one that can get him to sleep in the swing, but tonight it happened!

Cheering On

I had my mind set hat this morning we were going on the two mile walk. I woke the girls up after I had fed the baby, they got dressed and by the time that they were eating I could see that if we tried to make it in time it would be more stress than we needed. So we actually passed the ladies going the opposite direction on the way on our walk. They were already returning home. On going up every hill on our walk Alona chanted for me...you can do it, you can do it! we talked about this on the way up, mommy would need some encouragement since we weren't walking with the ladies. So that is what Alona gave me, and it worked. Even though it was pre-coached hearing her say those words kept me going. You'd have to see the hills that we do to know that, yes you need support and encouragement to muster them, especially pushing two and carrying one child.
On the way home Kacen fell asleep and so I was holding his head up with my left arm and pushing with my right arm. When we had less than half a mile left, I asked Alona to get out and walk so that it would be easier to push. When she got out, she says "Mom, I can push it for you!" And that's just what she did! She pushed it the rest of the way home!

Kacen has his stitches out now! He did great, there was just one stitch that was stubborn and took a few times of clipping it for it to come out. There should be very little scaring, Paul thinks there won't be a scar at all.

New Discovery

These are just the cutest little shoes ever. The Chilren's Place also had them in a bright blue and I usually adore blue but the bright blue just didn't fit with Kacen. These tan ones I figured would go with any outfit. The Children's Place is a great little kids store, the greatest find!!

Puppy Pals

I was giving Abbi a bath, Kacen was right next to me holding onto to the outside of the tub. He had crawled right up next to me, and he had a marker in his hand. The next thing I knew he fell and the end of the marker went into his eyelid. It was a bad enough cut that I didn't know if I should take him in or not. I took him to an after hours pediatrician clinic, the doctor looked at his eye and could tell that he needed stitches. and that thank goodness nothing else was wrong with his eye. The doctor couldn't do it because Kacen needed anesthesia and the pediatrician couldn't do anesthetic. I did not understand that, but ok. So we (Me and all three children drove to the ER) for the third time in the past two months. We waited for an hour and then I finally asked the nurse how much longer of a wait that it would be, she directed me to a phone. The operator on the phone was like what, this is for registration, so we both agreed that the nurse at the ER desk was totally confused. I asked her again, oh your room is ready, lets go back!
It was atleast a half hour before they gave him anesthesia. It was an injection in his thigh that wanted to bleed afterward. It took a few minutes and then his eyes were wide open, he was lying on his back, not moving or making a sound... so very unnatural for my little 9 month old. The whole time that we were there I kept trying to call Paul, he no longer has an answering machine at work and no one would transfer me. I was trying to see if he could pick up the girls and take them home to bed. We were at the ER until 11:40, didn't make it home until past midnight and my children were still awake. We got home and Paul had been wondering where we had been. The doctor gave him six stitches, they are blue and now when he blinks it looks like he is wearing blue mascara. I'm not sure if you can see them in the pictures that I tried to take. I was more concerned with getting him to the doctor and getting Abbi out of the tub than taking pictures after he got hurt. It was a pretty gnarly cut.Paul asked if it went all the way through...No, it tore the skin so far apart and was so deep that it needed stitches to heal back together. He gets to be taken back to the ER triage on Wednesday to get his stitches taken out.
At the ER they gave us stickers of puppies, Alona told me, we are all puppy pals now, after her and Abbi shared their stickers with me and Kacen. They also watched Ella Enchanted and got little stuffed animals, juice and crackers. They weren't even phased by the screaming, bleeding brother who was getting stitches, amazing!

This morning the girls slept in until almost ten o'clock, this is unheard of!! Going to bed at midnight really did it to them. I was able to be up early enough clean and make pancakes! Kacen ate a blueberry pancake! He really enjoys them, especially sideways.:)

Need I say More

My baby has stitches ...


details to come. I am too tired and just got home from the ER, which we were at for four hours!

Letter of the Day

this week we have been doing an all drawn out letter of the day. the letter F, Fish! they went to a pet shop and put water into their fish bowls. We had cotton balls and dabbed them in light blue paint and then glued fish on.(They picked their fish and put them in their fish bowl)They were all different colors and were numbered too! Hopefully Abbi will catch on, ok I know she will but it will be so excited to see it when it finally happens, to have the work paying off.
Today was letter G, the hard G sound...Giraffe, gerbil. We traced the letter Gg and then wrote them all on our own. Abbi colored her G and Alona wrote her own letters, she is now practicing writing in between the lines! Then we made giraffe puppets with brown paper bags and sang giraffe songs.

GIRAFFE:

Of all the animals in the zoo,
I am the tallest. That is true.
Who am I? I am the giraffe.
I am brown and white with a little red,
And I have two knobs on the top of my head.
Who am I? I am a giraffe.
My neck is long, I am very tall,
But I don't have very much voice at all.
Who am I? I am a giraffe.
I have one big ear on each side of my head.
High up in the air is where I am fed.
Who am I? I am a giraffe.
I walk right up to the tallest tree.
And I eat the leaves that are good for me.
Who am I? I am a giraffe.

When we got home from running our errands, Abbi decided to attack! Her giraffe decided to be a monster of a Giraffe, I'm gonna bite you! She ate Kacen's hand as he was laughing hysterically. Alona was displeased that her giraffe was all crinkled but warmed up to the idea of playing ferociously.

Good Day

We went and got Kacen's pictures taken, he is so photogenic! Big huge smiles in every photo. We went and looked in build-a-bear workshop while our pictures were being printed. They really enjoyed looking and playing in there. Then we took a detour to the bathroom and on the way out, we stopped to play, In the middle of the mall there is a big tree that you can climb up and then slided own the slide that is attached to it. We stopped at the post office on the way home, and each of the girls got to put an envelope into the slot, I pulled it down, they put their envelopes in I then opened it again and showed them that it was empty. Alona had no questions, she already knew what was going on. Abbi's priceless expression was as though her envelope had been taken into the abyss beyond never to be seen again.
We had snacks when we got home and then Abbi told me that she was tired, I went to look in her bed a little while later and no Abbi, peering into the other rooms I see that she had covered herself up into her dad's covers and brought all of her accessories from her bed and fallen asleep! Too cute!Kacen actually took a nap today!! I am so relieved when he does, I am able to get some housework done, read to the girls and play with them. Abbi learns best by hands on, we counted books today and potatoes! we took the potatoes out of the bag and then counted them one by one as we put them back. And counted the books into different piles. Yesterday Kacen stood up for a few seconds without holding onto anything!! It won't be long now!
Alona came home today with loads of dinosaur drawings and work. We brought a t-shirt to pre-school last week and she wore it home today, on it it said "Alonasaurus" and had a dinosaur painted on it and some trees, water, etc. And a huge painted paper triceratops accompanied her home as well.


Saturday photo, all eating graham crackers.







Is this winter, or summer I think they are a bit confused!









Alona was licking the cheese grater
on Monday while grating the cheese.
Yes, she grates cheese and pleads with me to do it!

tag-a-longs

Yes, I love those kind of girl scout cookies. But the kids and I tagged along with Paul to the temple while our soon to be sister-in-law received her endowments. Explaining things to children is always fun! We dropped Paul off and then we went and got snacks and gas... nutter butters, cheetos, and sweedish fish! Not a very healthy snack I know, but we don't get to have those things very often and the kids really loved them. We then drove back to the park that we saw on the way down from the temple and went to the bathroom. This was the best part, the bathrooms had a water fountain with Cold Water. So we just had to dump out our hot water per Alona's request and put in cold, Great request! then we played teeter totter and swings, it was fun Alona was in the baby swing and it was just so amusing. They didn't have any other choices for swings. So My almost five year old with how big that she is was sitting in a little baby swing in a skirt, can you picture it! And Kacen was swinging too, ihe kept kicking his legs like there was no tomorrow and squealing from excitement. And then we played bowling in the tennis courts. Kacen wanted to take the pins and Abbi wanted to knock them over when it was any one else's turn. Then we went to the temple and sat, played with the flowers, colored and walked around the temple looking at the view and the beautiful scenery that was there. We came up to a Swimming Pool, and to their disappointment it was a man-made waterfall.
Then we went to the olive garden where the girls ate their pizza real good and my adventurous Abbi tried salad and artichoke dip! Kacen grabbed gobs of food off of my plate, like some fettucine and tomatoes, he also liked the garlic bread, he liked it so much that half of it ended up on the floor beneath my feet. And then we get home and I unload the car to find that my planner is not there which has my drivers license, debit and credit cards, etc.