What's up...

Hey. I can't believe it's almost Wednesday! The week has just flown by. On Friday, Jake went to a screening. I have been worried about his speech for some time now. I did it through the school district (cause it's free). They determined that he does have a speech problem. He goes to another assessment on May 1st, where they will determine if he qualifies for the program. I really hope he does. The program is a special preschool where he would go and they would work on his speech, but have it be a fun experience for him, and there would be no fees involved. I have always been a little bit worried about his speech, and didn't want to be the kind of mom who just assumed it would get better with time. They determined that outside (of the family) people could understand 80% of what he says. Example: snake sounds like "nake" and the sn sound is one of the first sounds that kids say that should be understandable. (Kristin says it really well.) So, that's the update on Jake.

Kristin started ballet again on Monday. I have really struggled with finding her a little ballet class here. I wanted her to go somewhere and just have fun. I want her to love dancing, for the sake of dancing. My other concern is modesty. I don't want a place that has them wear recital dresses that would make my 3 year old look like a $2 hooker or wear make-up that makes her look like Jon Benet Ramsey. With the help of Cherice, I found the perfect place. It is called Wasatch Dance. From what I understand, a BYU dance graduate started it. They have to wear capped sleeved black leotards. For the recitals, they wear their leotard, and then have a costume that goes over the leotard. They also only have 1 recital a year. She loved it on Monday. She really loves watching herself dance in the mirror. The other day, Kristin and I were dancing in the kitchen, and she was moving her shoulders. She asked me, "are my hips moving?" I told her no, and then had to show her how to get them moving. She sure is cute. Here is a picture of her and Kinlee at ballet. Those 2 girls are becoming fast friends! It's great! You'll notice that Kristin is looking at herself in the mirror...

Jake got to do a special thing on Sunday night. Jake's absolute favorite thing to do is stay in hotels. Don't know why, but it is. For my dad's work, he has to drive all over Utah. He had to go pick up a check from someone on Monday morning, so he left Sunday night, took Jake, and they stayed in a hotel. They picked up the check, stopped in Moab, and brought Jake home on Monday night. Jake had a blast climbing on all the rocks. Here are a few pictures they brought back:

Here is my favorite picture of him:

Apparently Jake ate straight junk food. Oh, except for the bacon (aka beef jerky)! :)

Kyle has strep throat. YEP, again! This is ridiculous! I hate when he misses school! This is his 3rd strep in 2 months. Our doctor here is awesome though. Kyle hates when they do the strep test on him, so the doctor said, how 'bout you do it to me? Kyle said, OK! The doctor said that no one had ever taken him up on that, but he got Kyle a swab and a tongue depresser, and told him how to do it. Kyle swabbed Dr. Good and Dr. Good gagged and got watery eyes. Kyle thought it was the greatest thing ever! What a good doctor! We love him. Kristin calls him Brian (his first name) and he loves it when she does! I'm sending Kyle back to school tomorrow. He's watched way too much TV today, and with all his whining, he's better off at school than at home with me...I can't take it anymore! I do feel bad for him, cause he is sick, but he's the WORST sick person EVER!

Haley is 4 months old today, and weighs 10 lbs. She is just now starting to fit into Kristin's old 0-3 month clothes. It's great, cause they're summer clothes. She still wears size 1 diapers and is the cutest thing ever. Last night we caught her doing this:

It was the cutest thing ever. I took a picture, and then we immediately removed her thumb. For those of you who know me well, know that I will do EVERYTHING in my power so that my kids won't suck their thumbs...(only for the reason of how do you ever take it away?)

Here is Haley before church on Sunday. On Sunday night we had a dinner party. For the occasion, I got a new kitchen table. Well, I didn't get it just because we had a dinner party, I have been wanting a new one for awhile, I just had a good excuse to finally go and get it. (It matches my house so much better too!) Here is a picture of the table. It is as tall as a counter top and is square and seats 8. I wanted it tall so that I could use the chairs for bar stools as well. I love it. Troy is still irritated that I bought it, but I work hard too, and he wants 1/2 of our backyard to be a basketball court...so I thought it was a good compromise! I'm all kinds of crazy about my table. I wash it constantly. And I keep it clean! (For those of you who know me, know how huge that is! Usually I am doing some sort of project on my kitchen table)

Oh, the dinner party was awesome! We had Sam and his family, Scotty and his family, and James (aka Miller) and his family come over. We loved it! It's so much fun to hang out with those guys! Those are all guys Troy grew up with and we all graduated from Copper Hills in 1996! I really hope to hang out with them more! It was so fun having friends over. We'll have to do it again. Oh, and since we were making fun of the Nell's not having a blog, or high speed internet for that reason, I told them I would post their picture on the blog...here it is: love you, Nells!

Haircut

I got my hair cut a few weeks ago. I have my pony tail in a ziploc baggie. I would like to donate it to locks of love, but I'm not sure if it's long enough. So, it stays in a baggie until I get around to figuring it out. I got Jake to take my picture this morning. Here it is! I thought I would really regret chopping it, but it is SO easy to do my hair now, and I do it everyday, so it's great! You know how after you have a baby, your hair starts falling out? Well, it was getting bad...Thanks Cari (Nielsen-Sorensen) you did a fantastic job!

Last week...

Man! The past week has been crazy, but aren't they all? Kristin got sick, I mean really sick. The doctor was so worried about her ( he told us that today, after she was better, just how worried he was about her!)! She had a wierd rash, fever, and told us her mouth hurt. The rash led the doc to believe she had (can't spell this...but it was highly talked about in Oregon) meningicoccal disease. She had bloodwork done, and shots of penicillin. She went into the doctors office 3 times last week, and each time she would go in, she would have different sores in her mouth. Her gums were so swollen and bloody, that they almost completely covered 2 of her teeth. She didn't eat anything but chocolate milk and water for 5 days. She would carry around 2 sippy cups. One with chocolate milk, one with water. She had to hurry and drink the water after she took a drink of chocolate milk, cause it hurt her mouth so much. (Oh, and her breath stunk so bad, I wanted to die!) The doctor decided it was hand, foot, and mouth, even though she was only having problems in her mouth. (Sarah - my friend - later told me that her doc said hf&m is so mutated, it is different on everybody) A few sores moved to the outside of her face. 6, to be exact. Two huge ones, One is in the corner of her eye the other is on her chin. They are scabs now, but still looks nasty! She's better now, but had a hard week. She would constantly say,"Mommy, I got hurt." I would say, "where?" she would say, "in my mouth". She was crying and moaning, it was so sad! She was so hungry too! I felt bad. She was in so much pain, we had to get tylenol with codine for her. She was a beast though! You would never think a cute 2 year old could be such a beast, but she was. At one point, we were driving in the car and she was moaning, mommy, mommy, over and over. I said, "What honey, what do you need?" She hollered at me, "I wasn't saying mommy to you, I was saying it to anybody!" That's just an example of how beasty she was!

This is her after she got blood drawn. You can see the bandaid. Anyways...We tried to teach Kyle how to ride a bike without training wheels today. If you know Kyle, you know he doesn't have a high pain threshold, so it was interesting. This is a pic of him falling. Check out the look of terror on his face...He's getting better...hopefully by tomorrow he'll have it!
Haley had her 4 month well check today. In 1 week, she gained 9 oz! She is still only in the 3rd percentile probably. That is HUGE for her. She got weighed last week, and she was 9 lbs. 7 oz. I went back on milk, to see if anything would change, and in the one week she did awesome! I was totally preparing myself to go to formula. Now, I have no restrictions, and I can nurse her (no food for her til she's 6 months). That is a huge relief! She is doing good. She's been such a happy girl the past week. I think it's the weather. It's been gorgeous. 75 degrees here today! AWESOME! We got Haley a new seat. It's called a bumba seat. (The one she has is a generic one, but they were all out of the authentic bumbas - dangit - I wanted to get a pink one). I saw it on a girls blog, and it was just what Haley needed. Here she is out front watching Kyle learn to ride his bike.

When we got the chair, we put it on the counter. Haley was asleep, and Jake was looking at it. He said, "So, where does the pee go?" We had to wake him up to show him how it worked, and that it wasn't a potty chair...funny kid...

Well, Kyle started his fever on Saturday. It's not HF&M, so hopefully he will be better soon...looks like another week of sickness...surprise, surprise...

Venting...

I am not a lover of animals, okay, I pretty much hate them. I am going to lose it with my neighbors! One neighbor lets her 3 dogs run wild, like they're her kids. She gets home from work, and sets them loose in the front yard to poop on my lawn. Somebody just moved into the house next door (has 11 kids) and lets their cat run wild. It just took me and the kids 15 minutes to get it out of our garage! What is it with psycho animal people? (no offense, but come on...) I don't let my kids poop on other people's lawn (nor my own), I don't let my kids wander into my neighbors garages! What is it with people? Hmmm...I need to call animal control...this is ridiculous!

Holy cow, it's been forever!

I can't believe it's almost the middle of March! Things have been crazy here! My business has been so busy, I have done almost nothing but work! Well, I did manage to become the coach of Kyle's indoor soccer team. I didn't want to, but I got volunteered somehow, so we do that on Saturdays. Jake plays too, and he's actually on my sister-in-law, Teisha's, team. Since I am Kyle's coach, I don't have pics of him yet, but here's a pic of Jake playing. He's HILARIOUS to watch! He'll stop playing to make sure we're watching, and he'll wave, it's pretty funny. He runs hard and gets lots of energy out!

Last week we went to the last home BYU basketball game. They were their conference Champions this year, so it was fun. We got 4 tickets, and members of Troy's family went to the game too. I think in total, we had 17 seats! It was fun having more people keep the kids occupied! We actually got down to Provo early, so we went to the BYU bookstore. We bought a BYU soccer ball. While we were waiting for the rest of the family, and the tickets, we played soccer in front of the administration building. It was fun. I think that was my favorite part of the day!

Jake has been up to no good, as usual. He came downstairs after getting into my mascara. Apparently this is where he thought it should go:

Haley was weighed 2 days ago. She weighs 9 lbs. 8 oz. She has a well check in a few weeks, so we'll see how she is on the charts. As long as she's still on her 5th percentile curve, I think she's okay. She has had a cold for the past month (it seems). She loves when her brothers and sister pay attention to her. She likes to hold things in her hands. Troy put her in the swing and had to give her a little stuffed lamb (all the way from Scotland, thanks Camille!).

At Kyle's school, they had a St. Patrick's Day party on March 1st. (I know, why they picked that date is beyond me!) Anyways, the kids had a blast running around the gym dancing the river dance!

Daxton was the funniest to watch. He wouldn't uncross his arms, and he was constantly kicking his legs forward!

That's what's been happening here!