Beaters

What on earth do you do when you have more kids than beaters!?!? :)

All Over the Place!

Lately Jenna has been all over the place while sleeping!! We find her sleeping in the hallway, on the floor of her room, by her closet and we even found her downstairs one morning... fast asleep on the floor by the couch! (I now make sure to close the gate at the top of the stairs each night!!)

95% of the time when I find her somewhere other than her bed, she is wearing something different than what I put her to bed in! The only thing left in her dresser is pajamas and swimsuits - which are usually re-arranged each morning after she has dug through them trying to find something to put on! If I lay her clothes out for the next morning, I will often find her sleeping in them by the time I wake up! She has an obsession with changing clothes (true girl). It's the first thing she does every night when we get home from daycare/work. She will go straight up to her room and change. Usually putting on pajamas (b/c that is all she can reach!). I then have to coerce her to go back up and put her clothes back on so we can go outside!

I am not sure if her waking up in the middle of the night and changing clothes or moving to a new spot to sleep may be sleep walking?? I used to sleep walk when I was a kid!! Once I even left the house and my Mom found me outside at the camper looking for my barbies!! Yikes! I guess it could be sleep walking - or maybe she is just THAT obsessed with changing clothes that she feels the need to do it over and over throughout the night?!?

And if changing sleeping spots and changing clothes wasn't enough.... I think she is also experiencing night terrors. I would say 3-4 nights a week I will wake up to her screaming and yelling "No, No, NO, NO, Nooo". When I go into her room, I find her kicking and flailing around. There is nothing I can do to comfort her. In fact, if I try, she screams harder and pushes me away. It doesn't last long. 3-4 minutes maybe. Then she just goes back to sleep. So strange. I am not sure if it's true night terrors or just "Jenna being Jenna". :)

Doesn't sleeping in her bed all cuddled up look SOO much more comfortable than the hallway floor?!?! :)

Blind Spot Reminders

We have all heard the horrible, horrible stories on the news about children accidentally being backed over in their driveways. It's just a terrible thing to think about and I don't want to dwell on a sad and tragic topic, but I saw a video clip from the Early Show and I found the information to be so scary.

The video indicates that approximately 50 children are backed over every week in the United States! They showed how they can line up 60 (yes, SIXTY) kids behind this SUV and you cannot see them in the side mirrors or rear-view mirror! How scary is that!?


A mini-van has a blind spot of 29 feet behind it.
An SUV has a blind spot of 39 feet.
And a truck has a blind spot of 50 feet!
Yikes.

I know we are all very cautious of this type of thing. And a lot of us are doing a quick walk-around of the vehicle as we're buckling kids in. But a quote in the story reminds us that this can happen to anyone!!

Rashdorf -Nelson said, "This can happen to anyone. It has nothing to do with negligence. It has nothing to do with not being an attentive parent. It has everything to do with not being able to see behind you when you back up."

Click here to view the whole story and watch the video.

Speed Bumps

The other day as I was transporting the boys from preschool back to daycare, we passed through a neighborhood that had a speed bump. I find the speed bumps rather ANNOYING, but the boys love them and love it when I take the street that has them!

As we slowed down to go over the speed bump, the boys started talking amongst themselves about how the road workers get the speed bumps on the road. It was such a cute conversation! They are pretty sure that they use glue and then they jump on the speed bump after they glue it so that it sticks really good. Then they must wait about a day before they let anyone drive over it so that the glue has time to dry. Makes sense to me!! :) I sat up front and smiled to myself as the boys imagined how it was done! So cute!

Don't ask me how it's REALLY done. I have no clue! I am going to stick with the glue, jumping and then waiting a day theory! :)

All in Due Time

Last night after I picked up the kids, we went to get Bryce's haircut. Jenna said, "I get haircut too!"

Flashes of Jenna's first (and only) haircut started to pop into my head. She screamed and SCREAMED as the poor woman tried to cut Jenna's hair! It was a disaster. Here's a picture of that first haircut to refresh your memory!

I looked at Jenna and said, "You want to sit there like a big girl and get your haircut?" She said, "uh huh", shaking her head yes as if it was no big deal and like she does this all the time! I hesitated, but if she wanted to get her haircut, how could I say no?? I reluctantly gave the woman Jenna's name and crossed my fingers!

When it was Jenna's turn, she sat up in that chair like it was her job... and did exactly as she was told..... look down, ok, look in the mirror, etc. I watched in awe as Jenna got her haircut like a BIG GIRL!

My husband often says that Jenna will do things on her own schedule. If you push her and make her do them when she is not ready, WATCH OUT! But all in due time, she will come around!

Disclaimer - I am in NO WAY admitting my husband is right. :)

One Fish, Two Fish........ 12 Fish??

Bryce & Jenna got to do some fishing with Grandma & Grandpa over the weekend. Bryce was so excited when he had a bite 15 seconds after casting into the pond!!!

This was what you call VERY EXCITING fishing! Bryce caught 12 fish! It didn't matter how far he cast it, in what direction or anything... give it about 30 seconds and he had another bite!!

Jenna caught a fish too! She had a little incident shortly after this picture... she fell in the mud as she tried to help Grandma reel one in. I happened to catch the whole debacle on video camera! It's priceless! She's such a girly girl!! :)

It was a perfect day to catch a few fish... or 12. :)

Are you Shhh-ing me??

Yesterday as we were on our way home, Bryce was singing a song in the backseat. Jenna kept saying "SHHHH". Bryce kept singing. Jenna said, "BRYCE, SHHHHHHHHH". He ignored her and continued to sing. Jenna said again (more frustrated this time), "BRRRRRYYYYYCCCCEEEEEE, SHHHHHHHHHHHHH, SHHHHHHHHHH". She finally got his attention! He said, "Why Jenna?" Jenna said, "SHH, Mommy Driving!"

Apparently, Jenna is under the impression that I cannot concentrate on driving with too much noise in the background. I found this rather humorous, considering I'm typically driving with her screaming her head off in the backseat! :)

She stuck with it the whole way home! She made everyone be very quiet, so that I could drive in peace! Very nice of my little sweetie!

Stranger Danger!!

Recently, there have been a number of attempted child abductions in the area we live - meaning the town we live in and 3-4 towns close to us. I cringe as I read and hear about these attempts. Thankfully, all of the children have been taught well and have ran away! But cringe isn't even the word that would describe the way I felt today when I heard there was an attempted abduction just a BLOCK from my house. Yes - one short block!


That is WAY too close to home for this Mama Bear! Do you guys remember this Berenstain Bears book? I think I am going to go pick it up tonight. (If I can find it.)

We have had a few stranger-danger talks at our house. Like I said, this has been going on for a couple months. I don't feel that I have mastered the technique of talking about strangers though. I don't want to be scary. But I want them to know this is REAL. We've come up with a password that a driver would have to know in order for Bryce to get into a vehicle with them. The more I think about it though, I don't know that I like the whole "password" idea. I do not want him close enough to communicate with these monsters. And knowing my little trusting sweetheart, he would give them one guess and then be so excited to tell them the right answer! :)

I have explained that I would NEVER, EVER, EVER send someone he doesn't know to pick him up - ANYWHERE. NEVER. I told him if anyone ever tells him that I sent them to get him, to run and never get in a vehicle. I would never do that. Neither would Dad.

I have told him to scream and run as fast as he can back home (or to school, or to daycare, etc). I fought back tears as he looked at me with wide eyes and tears welting up and said "But what if I don't know how to get back home?" Ohh - heart wrenching! I told him to run to the closest house he recognizes or to a Mommy walking with her kids.

I ended up making it scary. I didn't want him to cry. I just want him to be safe. I'm looking for tips/tricks you have? What do you tell your kids? What do you remember being told as a kid? What sticks with you? (Leave a comment or email me.)

I'm also working on getting him to memorize our address and phone number. He almost has our address figured out. But you know what, we had it EASY as kids... we only had to remember a 4 digit phone number. He has to memorize a 10 digit number!! You know what else made it easy for us as kids? Those black stars they would put in house windows marking which houses were "safe" that we could run to when we were in trouble. Are you kidding me!?!? Who came up with that brilliant idea? Any fool could make a printout of a huge star and place it in their window! (Sorry - got a little off topic there. But you sure wonder why that idea didn't stick!! haha!)

Thanks for any advise you have!

Di Vinyl

This past Christmas, my sister and I had a vinyl wall print made for Sheri. She had been talking about how she wanted to put all of the grandkids hand prints on the toy room wall, and we thought a cute saying to go along with the hand prints would make it extra special.

These are my hands

My hands will do

A thousand loving things for you

And you will remember

When I am tall...

That once my hands

Were just this small.

We finished putting the hand prints around the saying over Easter weekend. (But there will soon be a new set of hand prints to add!!) It looks so cute! (The perfectionist in me would almost like to re-do my kids prints though - they both moved their fingers along the wall!!)

Di Vinyl, out of Marengo, did this custom vinyl print for us! Stephanie Wieck is the owner and was great to work with! Click here to check out her website! She can help you create the perfect vinyl piece for your house or to give as a gift! She said she had done a lot of wedding gifts... she can create a floating frame that holds the wedding date and monogram!

Stephanie is also designing products to enhance medical equipment. She has created walker bags, bi-pap and c-pap hose covers, catheter bag covers, and many more! She wants to make it easier to live with the equipment that has become a part of people's lives! Click here to check out her Divine Dignity website. She has some really nice products!

Soccer Mom??

Am I cut out to be a Soccer Mom??

Well, I do have the van....

The problem is that I know NOTHING about soccer. Like really..... Nothing! Soccer was not big in the area I grew up in - you know, back in the day! I think it's gaining a lot of popularity now, but back then we may have played it once or twice in gym class?? (did we??) That's the extent of my exposure!

Last night was Bryce's first soccer practice! He had a BLAST and was so excited to play! I picked up some shin guards at Sports Authority for $1.97! Yes - one dollar and 97 cents! SCORE! (How many points is a goal in soccer!? ha!) We also got some cute soccer shoes on the clearance rack for $9 and some soccer shorts on sale for $7.99! He was ready. He demonstrated how fast the shoes made him! FAST! :)

Even if his Mom had NO idea what to expect, he still looked the part. Or did he?? Turns out that those shin guards are supposed to go UNDER the socks! Wow. I have a lot to learn.

It does make sense though because let me tell you.... he got MUDDY! And those shin guards are hard to clean and not something you just throw in the washer. At least I don't think you're supposed to! Hell - I have no idea! I washed them in the sink and hung them to dry. I figured I better play it safe. I mean, I wouldn't want to ruin a pair of $1.97 shin guards!

I do have to wonder if those little Velcro straps would hurt up against your skin when they are UNDER your socks though? Do you wear 2 pairs of socks? Do you fold the socks down over the shin guards?

I AM going to get these shin guards figured out! I'll leave the rest up to the coaches! Hopefully I'll learn a thing or two about soccer this year as well! I think it's a sport Bryce could really enjoy and be good at!

GO BLUE THUNDER!!!

A little damage

Wow - what a storm we had last night! It sounded like a train was crashing into the back of my house!! Miraculously, my kiddos slept through the whole thing. I heard a very loud crash that sounded like glass, and I sprinted into Jenna's room. I had been contemplating waking the kids up to go downstairs. The wind was so strong! When I heard the crash, I thought for sure Jenna's window had broke! I ran in there to find her sleeping soundly and everything to be in place. We checked the basement, then finally figured out that our deck had been hit by a flying trampoline. At least that is what we think may have happened. We didn't see it, but the trampoline had landed in our backyard, so that is what makes the most sense.

Looks like a weekend project is in store for my hubby! :) This can easily be fixed! I'm just thankful that is all the damage we had!

Happy Easter!

Wow! What a fun-filled, busy weekend!! We headed "home" on Friday and stopped at my Mom's. The kids searched for eggs and enjoyed their first sugar-high of the weekend! We spent the night there and stayed for some pancakes on Saturday morning. We were kind of worried about how the rest of the weekend was going to go when we walked out to a flat tire on our van as we were getting ready to leave!!! :( We filled it up with air and were able to make it back to town, so that was good! And lucky for us, it was able to be fixed instead of needing a new tire!! :) Yay!!

While our tire was being fixed, my Mom & I took the kids to see the Easter Bunny! Bryce was excited! Jenna..... not so much! She acted as though she was going to sit on his lap - but once it was her turn, the tides changed! She spent the rest of the weekend talking about how the "Easter Bunny is going to bite her"! haha! :)

After seeing the bunny, we headed to Cory's parents house and started the day with Hayden's 7th birthday party!! I have such a hard time believing that Hayden is SEVEN years old! Wow! It seems like just yesterday I was emailing baby pictures of him to my friends, bragging about what a cute nephew I had! That cute little baby has turned into quite a special and sweet little boy! Hayden is GREAT with his younger cousins. He is so nice to the girls and he plays great with Bryce -- even letting him win the games they are playing every once in awhile!! :)

We always love a cousin photo-op! I think they are getting better at this! This was one of the best and easiest photo sessions we've had!! :) (Jenna, Bryce, Demi, Hayden & Bella)

Next, we celebrated my niece, Demi's 2nd birthday! Demi is a sweet little princess with beautiful curls! Watching Demi and Jenna (and Bella too) play together is so cute and special! I think these girls will grow up to cause major grey hairs for us!! Demi is going to be a big sister and just found out that she will be having a little SISTER!! :) Demi will be such a big help! She's been practicing a lot with her baby dolls!

She had a BLAST when we sang Happy Birthday to her!! OMG! It was PRICELESS!!

Here is the video of her while we sang! What a cutie!!

Next up was an egg hunt in the backyard! Here's Bryce helping Jenna find some eggs! He's such a sweet big brother!

And once the sun went down, we retired to the kitchen to color some hard boiled eggs!

Before church on Easter morning, I took the kids outside to try to get a couple pictures in their cute little matching Easter outfits! We started on the deck and there was QUITE the breeze! I thought this picture was funny! If you could hear them - they were saying "We're COLD - let's go inside!!!! WHY are you making us do this Mom?!?" :)

So we went out to the front step, where the house blocked the wind! Got a MUCH better picture!

Here we are at church..... YES - in the basement of the church!!! Arg! My little stinker Jenna had a very hard time with the whole "staying quiet" thing and since there was also a baptism going on, I felt bad having her cry out every few minutes. We spent a lot of the sermon down in the basement watching a cartoon Christian movie! :)

After church, we headed to my Dad's house! They have a GREAT backyard with plenty of room to run and play! There were bubbles.......

and Kites.... a little Golfing.... and of course, an Easter Egg hunt!

Bryce and Grandpa also had a sword fight down in the basement! I think Bryce won!!

We got home last night to see that the Easter Bunny had found our house as well! What a great, great weekend! So many fun activities and a lot of good family time! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend as well!

Are you a Fool?

Happy April Fools Day! This is one of my favorite days of the year!!! We didn't plan many pranks this year though..... OR DID WE!?!?!?

Have you been fooled yet today?