Remember When...

Joey lost our camera yesterday. Luckily I had downloaded all the pictures, except the ones from his scout camp out, where he lost the camera. Anyway, we've ordered a new one, but unfortunately I couldn't take pics of my cute boy crashed on the rug today. (The home teachers bored him to sleep I guess...) So I'm feeling a bit reminiscent and thought I'd share a few old photos with you all. Oh how they grow!

Tyler used to grab toys with his toys and dangle them in front of his face to play with. He was a funny kiddo even then!

At my sister's graduation in 2006.

October 2006, almost a year old.

November 2006.

Christmas, 2005.

How many times a day do you call your husband?

I call my husband a lot I think...at least 4-5 times a day. When I think of something I need to tell him or ask him, I have to do it then or I will forget. Do you call your hubbies that much? I know I'm probably just weird...

Seriously, so grumpy!

I have the grumps this morning. I'm always amazed at how once you start out grumpy it's really difficult to turn it off! A new moment is always at hand, so theoretically you should always be able to do a little better. You shouldn't have to wait for a new day. But my days tend to have themes. And today it's this: "leave me alone, let me sleep more, give me a fairy godmother to clean my house or at least help me remember all the important things I have to do that I've been putting off! Oh and then after a nap I need the energy to be superwoman. But like that's going to happen!" Or something like that.

So my goal today is despite the shortness I've already displayed with the kids, I'm going to try my darndest to have a great day. Maybe some happy music will help....

Do you find it difficult to turn off the grumps? What do you do to switch things around?

Distracted are we?

No....not me...what would make you think that?

OK, so here I was going to put one of those Getting to Know You surveys I filled out for email. Then it wouldn't let me copy and paste it without it getting all messed up...

So I was going to type it out for you. I started and then decided you probably don't really care THAT much anyway, and I'm really tired...so now I'm going to bed.

My life feels so exhausting right now. Am I ever going to feel rested again?

Oh and I decided I probably ramble too much. That's not a promise to stop...just an observation. Alas, that's what you get with me!

Now we're committed...

As if we don't have enough going on! We've decided to paint! I'm excited. I think it's going to be a big project, but we've actually made some progress...unlike some of the other projects I have on my list. And we've put 5 big fat splotches of paint on my wall, so I guess we're committed! We actually even managed to come to a decision and bought the paint on Saturday. I'm really excited to see how it turns out.

We've also had this photo collage project on the list for a LONG time. Last night we were messing around with different ideas and came up with some fun things. The only problem is the bookshelf we want to put underneath it is from IKEA. It's not available to ship online on and you can't get it at the Draper store...hmm....what to do? Maybe we'll have to drive to California to find it. Now wouldn't that just be the pits!

My Angel

We blessed Maren today. She is three months old on the dot! And she's been the perfect baby. I feel SO incredibly blessed to be her mother. I thought my other kids were good babies....and they were...but Maren is positively angelic! She is now sleeping from about 9 PM to 7 AM every night. Yes....it's true and YES, I'm still nursing her. NO formula supplements or anything! We've been swaddling her in a Kiddopatamous and I think that helps a lot. I think it also helps that I'm on the no dairy diet as well. Her little tummy doesn't hurt all the time like Kelley's and Tyler's probably did! And I think the Lord probably knew that I needed a break on this one ;)

She is just sweet as anything you've ever met. She loves to sit and smile and talk to me, but she's also content to sit in her bouncer while I'm doing lunch or such. I do have a wrap carrier that I can hold her in if she gets too fussy and I've got stuff to do. The only thing I'm struggling a little with is daytime naps. She often won't nap well unless I'm holding her in the carrier. While that has been fine up to this point I eventually want to get her on a good daytime nap schedule. My dilemma is that I don't really want to swaddle her during the day in fear of messing up her nights. But I think she doesn't nap because she's so used to being wrapped up to sleep. So I've tried to swaddle her in a different blanket a little more loosely and that seems to be helping a little.

Our sweet little Mare-bears. This is the same dress we blessed Kelley in. I seriously contemplated cutting off the "doily". I was a little afraid it made her look a bit like Mary Queen of Scotts. But we decided just to leave it on after all. I think it looks a little better now than when we tried it on a month ago.

Cousins Remington and Boston and brother Tyler in their suits. What a handsome crew!

A picture from the other night.

Love this girl. I love it that she always has her hand up to her face. In her ultrasound it was up right next to her cheek too. You can see that pic HERE. Even though she's not doing it here, she will often point her finger up too, just like in the ultrasound.

Just in case you were wondering about the reason we didn't bless her in February as planned...

That morning I bent over to put on my snow boot and tweaked my back. I couldn't move off of the floor for the next three hours that morning. I finally was able to drag myself to the bathroom with my arms, mostly because I had strong motivation to do so. But I couldn't stand up at all until several hours and a blessing later that afternoon. Joey was able to carry me out to the car so we could get to New Harmony for the Superbowl party and by the end of the night I could walk with help. It was the craziest thing I've experienced in a long time. The doctor said it had something to do with pregnancy hormones still hanging around in my body, but those should be gone now. So hopefully no more invalid Kristy!

My Animal Lover

I'm on a roll tonight...so here's another post! Tyler is my little buddy lately. Since Maren was born I've more often had to run errands while Misty stays with the daycare kids. I always take the baby, but usually tried to talk Tyler into coming as well. He's pretty energetic and I figure it will be easier for her if I take him with me. Well lately he wants to come with me everywhere. He's my little buddy. It's a lot of fun.

Anyhow...he's such a cute kid. He's my little animal lover. He's always loved to smother our dog and cat. But he really likes any animals: Grandpa's horses, animals at the zoo, my sister's birds, etc. So now he thinks Kayla is his puppy (of course!) Well for the daycare I decided to get baby chicks for a few weeks. I know...your thinking I'm nuts and yes your probably right. I was going to get ducks also, but we got the puppy and it's all just too much now.

Back to the birds...so he went with me to pick them out. We got one of each color: black, light yellow and a kind of orangish yellow. When we got them home he for some reason just fell in love with the black one. He basically refused to put it down. I asked him why he liked it to much and he just kept telling me it was really cool.

I was worried at first because I thought for sure it was going to die. Tyler wanted to hold it all the time and it wasn't doing that great. That first night it was just kind of standing there while the other birds were running around the box. Anyway, Tyler named it Black-black. The school age kids came home and they decided the other two were Snowball (the light yellow one) and Sunburst. Tyler thought they said SunBURN, so he started calling it that. Everyone thought it was really funny so it stuck.

I hope he survives when we have to take them out to Grandma's house to stay. I guess we can always visit...

Finally here's a last look at my funny man. He doesn't take naps...usually, but once in a while he'll crash. I found him on my bed like this the other day after I'd sent him in there for being a pill...pretty sure he was throwing a fit over the chicks or something. He makes me smile a lot :)

Cinderella in Review - My Darling Diva

So finally getting to posting the Cinderella pics. It turned out to be such a fun experience for all of us. It was really neat to participate is this type of a show. It ran for two nights in the Randall Jones theatre. The kids had their own dressing room with lights and mirrors. I helped backstage during rehearsals and then for one night of the show. Then all the family came to watch her on Saturday night and so I was in the house then.

Kelley kept telling me she was nervous to perform in front of all those people and she would be too embarrassed. After rehearsing in the theatre for a few nights she told me "I want to do eight million more shows! Yeah, that is more like the Kelley I know!

This is the first night. Kelley was SO excited to go out in the lobby and meet with everyone. She was just waiting for people to come talk to her and give her flowers and ask for her autograph. I felt so bad for her because none of her family was there to watch her. Everyone was paying attention to the people they had come to see. She was so expectant and so excited! I tried to explain to her, but she just didn't understand. I finally just grabbed someone to come say hello to her. But I think she really was hoping for flowers like the other little girls and she didn't get any that night.

This isn't the best picture because Joe took it without a flash during the show. I had to post it though because it was so funny. During this scene she is supposed to be flying across the stage. She had already been on once before and had apparently seen her grandparents. But she didn't see us. So in this scene she's looking for us. She has the cutest grin on her face as she ran across the stage. Instead of using flying arms she had them tucked up against her side like when your jogging. When I asked her about it she said she was flying and she wiggled her arms and shoulders to move her wings that way. It made everyone laugh.

Kelley with Cinderella.
Kelley with part of her stash. I sent my sister to get some flowers for her. I figured she get a cute little bouquet of three roses or something. She came back with this. Kelley also got a really gorgeous bouquet from my parents and a silk rose she can keep from Grandma. She felt very special this night. Of COURSE when she went to talk with her little friends about it and told them she got three flowers someone had to pipe up with "well I got FOUR flowers!" Oh give me a break!

Proud parents!
Gorgeous girl!
Kelley and I, post show.

New Family Member

So as some of you might have guessed we have been on the road to puppy parenthood for the last several weeks. This was not my idea! But it was my Valentine's present to my hubby. He's always wanted a yellow lab and we are hoping that she and Koko will be good friends. They already get along really well. It's pretty funny...if Koko is in her dog run and we let Kayla outside first thing she'll run down the sidewalk to find her friend.

We did end up buying a puppy instead of adopting an animal from the shelter. We probably could have lied or found one that fit eventually, but we are not very patient people. So Joey found this little cutie on KSL.com and the rest is history. She is nearly 6 weeks old, which we've since discovered is a little young still to be separated from mamma and her litter. She has a really rough night the first night, but Joey has been playing the perfect puppy papa and she seems to be doing much better lately.

Joe bought a kennel for her so she can sleep inside since she's been inside up to the this point and doesn't have a winter coat. He slept out by the kennel for the last two nights trying to help her adjust. It seems to be helping as she's getting better all the time. We're trying to see if she'll sleep on her own out there tonight. We'll see how that goes. I think Joe's getting a little idea of what it's like to be up several times with a new baby in the middle of the night. But he's been very faithful about taking all the responsibility for her. I hope it goes OK when he goes back to work. He took Friday off because it was NUTS at the daycare and there was no way I could take care of the puppy and the kids. He'll have tomorrow off work because they are doing something with the power at SUU all day. So hopefully by Tuesday she'll be more settled down and not so high maintenance.

And I can't wait until she goes outside. I swore up and down we wouldn't have inside dogs. Now the puppy's in here, so of course we have to let Koko in at least a few times a day so she doesn't get totally jealous. Joey keeps promising this is temporary and really it has to be because we just don't have room for dogs in the house.

We've named her Kayla. We were going to do Kaylee, but with Kristy, Kelley, Katie (Maren) and Koko...plus daycare kiddos (Kiley, Rylee and Kayzley) we figured Kayla might be a little better. My vote was Maggie, but I got shot down. She's not my dog after all.

Oh and while we're on dog stories....we've been trying for at least a month now to figure out how Koko is getting out of her dog run. She's been pretty sneaky and won't get out when she figures anyone is watching. Joey even set up the tomato cages in front of the fence to see if she was jumping over. (He figured she's knock them over). So on Friday he finally set up the video camera and made me promise to watch for her to get out so she didn't end up knocking it over and chewing it up after she got out. And the verdict? She is scaling the fence, which is actually mostly chicken wire). It's pretty funny to watch her climb over this...maybe we'll post the video sometime.

I really want to blog tonight

I feel like I have so much to say! Not necessarily for your enjoyment or entertainment, although it might accomplish that purpose. I just want to get my feelings down on "paper"! I love blogging and refuse to feel guilty about it. It's often the only journaling I get to anymore.

I want to blog about how I keep WISHING this mess would disappear (that is the one that is overtaking my house), but then how I'm insanely grateful for the reasons it is a mess...

I want to blog about my cute babies: The Darling Diva, The Animal Lover and The Angel.

I want to blog about the chicks: Black Black, Snowball and Sunburn and how they got their names.

I want to blog some old stories, just for posterity's sake.

I want to blog about Maren's blessing and how it's actually this weekend. What? Wasn't that last month...ummm...yeah...that's a story I never got to posting.

I want to blog about Cinderella and how great Kelley did and how she cracked us up.

Let's face it, I want to blog so I can pretend I don't have a million other things to do.

But alas, my house is a mess and I have to at least attempt to make a dent in it. Plus my computer is about to die and the hubs has commondeered the main computer. So to all my friends out there...good night!

Explanation

That was baby spit up in the last post by the way. This post explains the problem. I have tried a few different things seeing if I could get away with something that wasn't straight milk. Last week it was cheese. Monday I tried a brownie (OK, and some Andes mints...). So far anything with dairy in it has made Maren go back to the projectile vomiting. Joey bought me some almond milk the other day which is actually quite good so I can at least have cereal. I don't drink it as much as I did regular milk by far, but it's better than nothing. It makes me wonder when I finally get to drink a big ole glass of skim milk again if it will be all that I remember and more...