milestones, memorials, and makeovers

It's been a busy couple of weeks.

After perfecting a downward dog to forward face-plant locomotion, Reid decided to officially debut a normal crawl over the Memorial Day weekend. And the kid means business! No longer can I plop him down in one location and assume he will be there when I turn around 5 seconds later! All of which makes me grateful for the fact that my house is getting recarpeted next week. I'm even more grateful for the people who bought my parents house and decided not to keep any of the existing carpet in favor of hardwood. So it might be hand-me-down carpet, but practically like new when compared to what is currently in our house. Gross doesn't even begin to describe the state of our carpet. I gave up trying to clean it some time ago, but now that Reid is crawling I'm glad to know that he will have a fresher, cleaner surface to navigate.

Reid also needs a haircut, or a trim to be precise, but I haven't yet been able to bring myself to reach for the scissors. Although we are quite certain that one of his sisters chopped some of his locks a few weeks ago. The culprit has yet to confess.

After a few weeks of teething, Reid finally cut his two front teeth. All I have to say is OUCH! Or rather, OUCH, OUCH, OUCH, OUCH...because we are easily distracted these days, so meal times are more of an on again off again event. Speaking of teeth. How is it that other people's teeth can hurt me so much? Derrick had his first consultation with an orthodontist today. A milestone I knew would one day come but dreaded. The good news is that the situation seems no where near as dire as the dentist assumed it might be. Exactly what to do and when is still up for consideration. And of course, we heard prices from $300 up to $4500 as he gets older and needs real braces. Yuck. Thank goodness for some orthodontia coverage, even if it is just 50/50.

As tradition dictates, we spent the Memorial Day weekend in Richfield making the rounds to visit the graves of loved ones gone before and enjoy the company of those still with us. As always, it was a wonderful time.

This one is for Jon!

Grace reached a milestone of her own this weekend. She jumped in the pool all by herself! Unfortunately, it was after Jon and I had gotten out of the pool and were on our way out the door! I jumped right in after her, panicked a little when it took a few seconds to find her under water, and came out with my cover-up soaking wet and my heart beating a million miles an hour. Her phrase for the weekend became "Me jump in swimming pool...scared momma." She sure did.

By some cruel twist of fate, the stars always seem to align against us on Memorial Day weekend because the carnival is almost always in town. And nothing screams fun to my oldest children more than spending ridiculous amounts of money to risk your life on rides that are probably as old as I am. What made this year even better was that somehow Lindsay and I got talked in to taking Derrick, Abbie and Carter by ourselves while the husbands stayed at the hotel to watch the Nuggets game. Aren't we nice! Anyways, the carnival is my kind of fun. In order to get from one ride to another you must ALWAYS look down as you walk, but only if you wish to avoid piles of vomit. If you must look up, you might catch a glimpse of a teenage boy wearing electric blue skinny jeans but riding them halfway down his rear end. At least this moment can become a teaching opportunity, "Derrick, those pants are for girls and if I ever see you showing your behind in public I'll paddle it, I don't care how old you are!" Although, this sight might be preferable to watching the other teenagers make out while waiting for the ferris wheel to get fixed. We were going to ride the ferris wheel, until I decided that any ride requiring a 45 minute shut down at 8:00 PM on a Saturday night was probably not safe enough to earn the right to amuse my children. So we opted for a second ride on The Sizzler. Twelve dollars for me to take Derrick and Abbie, each time. But they loved it. And I'll admit that I enjoyed riding with them. Although if the carnival happens to miss us next year, that is fine with me!

On our last night, Abbie did makeovers with aunt Kimmy. Aren't they beautiful? Maybe this summer she and I can do each other's hair at night before bed. Who doesn't enjoy having their hair combed? Oh, that's right, my two year old generally hates having her hair combed. You know what else she hates? Ants. Bees. Little flies that decided to make a home around my indoor herb pots, which have now made their home outside. Any speck of anything in her bath water. Wearing shoes that are big enough for her growing feet. Eating her food from a normal bowl/plate. Not being a part of makeover night. Sometimes she takes matters in to her own hands, and sometimes I just give in.




With the summer finally here, I've been trying to get excited about having all my children home during the day. As they get older, I'm hoping this gets easier to do. I love being with Derrick and Abbie, but have to be careful not to let boredom settle upon our house, or we are all miserable. A couple days ago I got Derrick started on The 39 Clues series and am hoping this will be a great activity for him this summer. I think I might even read along with him. It sounds like a great idea, and I've actually discovered several other book ideas for my kids in researching this series. Go here to check it out.

tap, tap...is this thing on?

I think my microphone is broken. I have two days to figure out a way to fix it before school is out and the summer fun commences. Because the one thing I do know is that I will not make it through the next three months being ignored ALL day long. And I'm sure that my troops will quickly tire of the constant asking, asking, pleading, begging, and finally yelling that will ensue if things continue as they have been. This is a normal phase, right? Even the best of kids, which mine are, have a hidden switch that allows them to be two feet in front of you and not hear a word you are saying, right? I tell myself this to feel better.

Now this one, she may not do what I ask her to, but at least she gives me a response when I talk to her! Asking to comb her hair generally results in a "NO", so we drop the issue unless it is a special occasion. Leaving the house in general is not a special occasion, by the way. Besides, even when I do comb her hair, before long it looks like a slightly tamer version of this.



Or I ask her to put her clothes back on, and instead she puts on this.


Did you notice, by the way, that her pajamas are on backwards in the pictures above? And yes, she slept in them that way, because my current mantra is "Don't make the two year old scream." So I ask, is a screaming response better than no response at all?

oops!

In blog hopping this morning I just realized that I totally STOLE the title of my last post from my sister-in-law Lindsay! It happens to be the title of her last post as well. I would change it, but that would involve more effort than I feel like this morning, the least of which is coming up with a new title. So instead, I will offer an apology. Sorry Lindsay! Although, if I'm not mistaken, I would venture to guess that Lindsay could care less about my blatant plagiarism. If her feelings are truly hurt, I offer up an extra alligator (if you like them, unlike me) on Saturday as a peace offering! And yes, I know that the previous sentence will only make sense to about 4 people that read this blog!

playing catch up

So it has been a month and a half since my last post! A glut of things to post has resulted in an inability to post anything at all. Sometimes you just have to let go of chronology and just jump back in. This last weekend we journeyed to Denver for some fun and relaxation, with a little work on the side for Jon. We shopped the outlet mall, attended church at Jon's childhood ward, and spent a day at the Denver Zoo. It was so much fun! Grace was just enchanted with all the animals and we got a great show from several of them.