No more headaches and being domestic

Ever since Lexi  started kindergarten she has come home complaining of headaches. I just kept telling her that she was dehydrated and to drink more water. Well after 4 weeks i decided I should probably see if there was another reason why she was getting headaches. Our first stop was to my optometrist who after two hours in her office with four kids decided she didn't know what was wrong due to Lexis inconsistent answers and sent us to a pediatric ophthalmologist. I waited another couple weeks because I didn't want to waste my time in another Dr/s office to be told that she was fine. When I finally took her we found out that her right eye is considered a lazy eye even though you cant tell by looking at her and her brain has been ignoring it. So when she started school and is learning to read her brain is trying to figure out what eye or eyes to use and it getting confused - thus the headaches. I still maintain she needs to drink more water :). So she needs to wear glasses for the next year or two to re-train her brain to look through both eyes and then unless she inherited my vision she wont have to wear glasses anymore. She took her time picking out what glasses she wanted - posing on front of the mirrors and finally picked out a cute hot pink pair. I may be a little  biased but I must say that she looks so cute!

We also started using a new chore chart. We have had chore charts before but the kids like this one because they get to move the magnets over when they are finished with that chore. Even Jadie likes to do it. This is the first week so we'll see how it works once the newness wears off. So see - even i can be domestic - with some help of a very creative friend of course. I did do the magnets myself though and  I made home made bread last week too :) We decided that the chores that affect the family ( dinner chores and sat chores) are ones that need to be done just because they are part of the family and need to do their part. The chores that only effect them( clean rooms, piano. homework) are the ones that they will get paid for. So far it is working - i put the responsibility on them and now I dont remind them all the time - if they forget, they dont get money for that day.

Oh my aching ... everything

Okay - so I put a shirt on last Sunday that I have worn throughout my WHOLE pregnancies before. Yea - that was funny. It didnt fit. Do I really have 10 1/2 more weeks to go? Can I really get any bigger? When was the last time I slept through the night - without getting up to pee at least three times? Or kids coming in every hour. Ummmmm - dont remember. Can you tell by the circles under my eyes? I tried to edit them out- but there was only so much I could do. November 23 is the big day. Hopefully my body holds out that long and this little guy stays put until then..  I have another ultrasound on the 23 to see if he is still breech - i think he is- and to see if the placenta has moved. Although feeling him move around - as uncomfortable as it is - never gets old.Cant wait to meet you little one!

Summer recap

Here are some things we did this summer - in so many words


 Took baths ...

Took naps ... she almost made it to the pantry to get out a snack

Softball and baseball...

Waited patiently in line to hit pinatas hoping that no one would break it before our turn...

Found out that when you talk and make sounds into a fan it sounds really cool ...

Celebrated miss  princess Jadie's third birthday..

Went to Pinetop and St. Johns over July 24th where we got to :

Watch the parade and then get sprayed by the firetrucks...

Ride an 800 lb. pig named miss piggy - Jadie was the only one that would get on her...

Had some  mad ping-pong games...

Just relax on the porch swings...

Celebrated Nana Gonzalez's 92nd birthday...

Learned to tie a tie - still working on that one...

And did laundry.

- Just another summer of good times -

Surving the first week of school

School started last week and I am just now getting around to posting some pictures. Of course the good mother that I am, I forgot my camera on the first day so I have a picture of them getting off the bus on the first day. Thanks to a friend who has a son in Lexi's class I do have a couple pictures of her. The kids seem to like their classes and teachers. Bailee is Vice President of the student council this year. Raden still likes to find his friends on the playground and either play star wars or run from the girls chasing them, and Lexi is loving school and is doing better adjusting than I had hoped. It is pretty quiet around here now and is taking some adjusting on my part too - Jadie seems to be trying to make up for the quiet by turning into quite an energetic little girl. Here's to a new year!

Traditions are ...

I grew up with a lot of family traditions. Besides some of the  holiday ones ( some of which I hold very close to my heart and will continue to have with my own family) one that came to mind was eating Cheetos at my Grammie and Grandpa's house when ever we went over there to swim in the summer time. I doubt that was thought of as a tradition at the time - but it turned into one. I dont know if it was because we didn't have Cheetos at home or if good memories sometimes turn into traditions but for whatever reason that was something I will always remember. I dont think I realized how much family traditions would mean to me. Until I started thinking about what family traditions I wanted my kids to remember and cherish. I've had lots of ideas, and some have actually even come pretty close to what I had pictured in my mind. Others flopped horribly - but maybe those will become memories too.


I think we started one  tonight that will stick around. I wanted to do something special with my kids the night before school started.  Lexi especially is really nervous since she is starting kindergarten. On a whim we decided to have dinner by candlelight. Bailee also thought listening to some music would be cool too.

If you  notice, we are eating on paper plates. Dinner was spaghetti with bottled sauce and canned fruit - which is actually pretty good considering Jared is working and I just dont cook if he isnt home. And it wasnt perfect - Bailee spilled her plate of spaghetti in the silverware drawer after some sauce burned her hand -    one of the candles we ended up having to blow out early because the wax was dripping all over the table, Raden refused to put sauce on his noodles, Jadie wouldnt sit on her own seat and we had to close the shutters to make it dark enough for the full candle effect -  But it was a good time. It was suggested during dinner that we eat spaghetti the night before school every year and when someone was finished with their dinner they got to blow out one of  the candles. We might not keep that last one, it got a little crazy.

So to finish the title - (and please excuse my limited vocabulary - reading "Goodnight Moon"  for the past 11 years had sapped any big words I once knew)


Traditions are .... planned, unplanned, grand, small, near perfect or flopped moments that need to be grasped onto and cherished.


Now -  I need to go find a way to toughen up so I'm not a crybaby tomorrow when we take them to school.  

Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God

Answered prayer - be careful what you ask for

Okay so a little back ground for this post - We had our home teachers from church come over a couple Sundays ago and were talking to us about talents. They asked the kids what talents they had and then asked them what talents Jared and I had. Jared got "good at basketball and baseball , take care of people, firefighter'' and a couple others. When they asked about me -  I'm thinking " taking care of you, cooking, playing games, reading to you,staying up all night with you when you're sick or have a nightmare, going through all the pain when I was in labor to bring you here! ( okay maybe thats not a talent but they better appreciate it) , blah, blah blah" all the stuff we moms do selflessly everyday. That's not what I got - I just got dead silence. Then Bailee says " cleaning" - okay I can take that one. But then Raden pipes up and says " I would have to say yelling"    AAAAHHHH!!!! Seriously? I would have taken the dead silence! Of course Jared is on the other side of the couch busting up laughing and the home teachers are graciously trying hard to not smile too much but I am completely mortified and embarrassed. Then along with those feelings comes an even stronger one of complete shame- like someone had just completely stabbed me though the heart. It hurt - a lot. Mostly because I know that I do yell too much. I like to think of it as raising my voice when the kids dont listen but I guess they think of it differently. Of all the things that I hope my kids remember me by, yelling wasn't exactly on my list of hopes. And it hurt because I had been trying - really hard. So my goal was to pray each morning for one thing - to help me not to react. To ask  Heavenly Father to help me to slow down and look at each situation and then act instead of just immediately reacting to what ever was going on. So yesterday morning I said my morning prayers and included that plea. A little while later I was at the computer trying to get some bills finished after breakfast and Lexi was just starting to get breakfast - we are constantly waiting on that girl. So I hear the refrigerator open and then a loud thunk and then Bailee yelling ( guess I know where she gets it) at Lexi to not just stand there but to pick it up because it is getting everywhere. Okay- I decide not to go in there right away so I can take a second to not react. It doesnt help that Bailee comes running in telling that there is milk all over the kitchen. So I take a breath and then slowly go into the kitchen. On the floor is a once full gallon of milk that is now split in half with all of the milk all over the kitchen. And I mean, floor, counters, walls, cuboards, oven, - you name it and milk was on it. But I looked and Lexi and she was starting to cry - she does a good fake one, but this was a real one - her little lip was trembling and she  felt really bad about it. Being the middle child she really does get left out pretty often ( not little enough to really have to be taken care of but too little to do everything by herself) and she said that she just wanted to be big and try to get the milk by herself but she dropped it getting it down.

Trust me - this picture does not even begin to do justice.

I was able to not react. I held her and told her that it was okay - that she was more important than the milk and that the floor needed to be mopped anyway - it really didnt, Jared just did it the day before, but that was what I kept telling myself. I also did the whole - say " I wont get mad" 10 times because in reality it wasnt something to get mad over. That actually works by the way. So an hour and a half later the kitchen was clean - again - and Lexi was feeling better.

So the moral of this long post was not to say look at the good job i did - but to say that prayers are answered. I have been praying for a long time for help to not react to things and I think that I just expected that someday I would just get handed this great gift of patience and long suffering and I was getting a little frustrated that Heavenly Father was taking so long to give me this gift. Then when this all happened I realized  - hello - that this was an opportunity  - one of many  - given to me to LEARN patience and long suffering. When we ask for something, we are expected to do our part and work hard. Then Heavenly Father will make up the difference. I know that I could never make it all the way by myself. Now,  I know that spilled milk is not a big deal. But it opened my eyes to how Heavenly Father answers prayers. SO - be careful what you pray for because you will probably be given the opportunity to learn it.

13 Bike Ride Rules

Okay - if anyone ever thinks about taking four kids on a bike ride - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE look at these rules first. It will save a lot of heartache and trouble.

1 - Dont go in the months of May- Sept. Or at least go before 5 am or after 9 pm. Otherwise you will die of heat stroke.You'd think I'd know that by now - and we were out of the house by 7:30 am

2- Dont go when you are almost five months pregnant - it makes it hard to run alongside the kids that you are trying to teach how to ride.

3- Try to make sure that there is a one adult  to one kid that cant ride ratio.

4- Make sure everyone pees BEFORE you leave the house

5- After you make sure there is air in all the tires double check that the tires all KEEP the air - otherwise child number three may get the place you are riding and end up having to just run around because they have a flat tire.

6- Make sure the place that you are going is only a short distance away so that when child number four decides she is finished riding - which is just half way down your street - you wont have far to walk the bike.

7- Dont let them take knee pads, elbow pads, and hands guards. You will end up trying to figure a way to carry everything while walking the bike. Just tell them to be tough and that cuts and scratches will heal.

8- If you have a child that freaks out if they bleed- take a band aid. No matter how much  you tell them that they are okay - they will still freak out.

9- Take ALOT of water! Most  of it will end up in a water fight or getting spilled.

10 - Make sure that the tennis shoes  all fit. It is really hard to balance a child on a too big bike that you are pushing along with all the hand, wrist and elow guards, empty water bottles, and helmets. And the whole time as sweat is dripping down your face ,you are being told to go faster because they are hot. That was child number four.

11- Make sure the older kids one and two know the way home so when they get bored they dont have to wait for you and complain.

12- Tell them ahead of time that they are not keeping any bugs or insects they find. Then google  what grasshopper eat so you already know when they ask what to feel their new pet.

13- Dont have unrealistic expectations-  in fact, if you go just expecting complete chaos then you wont be disappointed and it will be a good day!

And yes I made them come out and take a picture with their bikes when we got home since I didnt take my camera along. Are you kidding? That would have been another thing that I would have had to carry. Oh well. Even though I had to drag them out they did have fun. I think.

Raden turns 7

There are no words to say how grateful I am that you are a part of our family. I know you put up with so much being the only boy but I am so glad that Heavenly Father sent you to us. I love how determined and strong willed you are. You have an incredible mind and I am constantly amazed at the things that you think and figure out. We love you and hope you had a great 7th birthday!



So I didn't do a very good job with pictures this time- somehow I cant even find the pictures I took of the cake and candle blowing. Raden wanted to have a couple friends over for a swimming party and had a lot of fun being with " the boys"  Both mine and Jared's parents came and Jared's sister and cousins came too.

He got a lot of star wars and legos and hasnt stopped playing with them - when his cousin left the party his cousin told his sister " I figured something out! The more people you invite to your party the more presents you get!"  Love his and Lexi's face expressions :)

This picture doesnt have anything to do with his birthday and may not mean anything to anyone else but being the only boy in the family he is always where Jared is and is helping out with whatever project he is doing. Here they were putting the new vacuum in the pool and Raden was being Jared's little side kick. I love it.

Memorial Day 2010

We didn't do anything real exciting for memorial day - these are just a couple of pictures to get caught up.


" There were three in the bed and the little one said ... roll over,  roll over"      Don't ask where I ended up sleeping :)

Our washing machine gave out on us so we had to bite the bullet and get a new one. Who would have thought they would like it more than I do? Nothing is more fun than to watch clothes going around and around.  I love how Raden actually got a chair to sit on to watch.

We  also drained our swimming pool and cleaned it real good for the summer before refilling it- the kids thought it was cool that they could get in without getting wet.

More and better updates coming soon ...