Mother's Day

Today is doubly special because it's Mother's Day and Katie's birthday. The primary kids sang Little Purple Pansies and I Often Go Walking in sacrament meeting today. I love when they sing! In primary the kids made a book of kisses for their moms. It has a poem and blank pages that they either kissed with lipstick lips or used stamps and stickers. This is what the poem says:

Mommy I Love You
by Nicholas Gordon

Mommy, I love you
For all that you do.
I'll kiss you and hug you
'Cause you love me too
You feed me and need e
To teach you to play.
So smile 'cause I love you
On this Mother's Day.

Mom, this is a book of kisses for you. You can redeem each page of this book for a real kiss. Happy Mother's Day 2010.

Dean bought me flowers and a Dyson hand held vacuum. You may be thinking the flowers were a nice touch but the vacuum? I have actually been wanting one for a very long time and was absolutely thrilled to get it. Thank you Dean, Charles, Eric and Katie for making my Mother's Day so special.

Here's something funny that happened today. I was in the kitchen getting things ready for lunch and Katie was at the table waiting for her food. She kept asking me for different things like carrots with ranch, two slices of apple not just one, a big glass and on and on. As I'm trying to keep up with her Eric comes over to me and says, "Man, I'm glad I'm not a mom!"

Happy Mother's Day to all of you hard working moms out there, especially my own!!!

My Baby Girl Turned Three

Yesterday our family celebrated Katie's 3rd birthday, which is actually today . I really can't believe that she is such a big girl. She has been a sweet handful for the past three years. Who knew that such a little thing could try your patience and tug at your heart strings in so many ways. She was so excited for her birthday (cake). I tried to put it where she wouldn't see it, but she found it. Every time I looked at it she had picked off and eaten a flower from the dress. She wasn't so sure she wanted to cut her princess. Dean's family came to help us celebrate. She put on a little show as she was opening presents. Her brothers gave her a pair of dress up "high" heels. She loved them because they were like my shoes. She was opening a present from her great grandparents and thought the clothes were fantastic until she saw the money that was included. She said, "look at my new dollars". After she was done opening presents she put the heels on and went walking across the family room. She automatically put one hand on her hip as she walked. I promise, there was no modeling or coaching from me. I don't know how she knew to to that. We had a fun celebrating her.

Part of being a preschool teacher is washing the sheets and blankets from nap time.  To get to the laundry room at work we have to go through the boys restroom.  I  was putting the laundry in to wash before I left work for home so I had Katie with me.  I went in and started loading the washer and Katie went to use the bathroom.  I walked out of the laundry room and Katie was sitting on the urinal like it was a toilet. There was a little step stool in front of it so little boys could reach but she thought it was like any other step stool in front of a toilet.  It was a funny sight to see this little girl barely fitting on the urinal, feet dangling, elbows on her knees just doing her business.  I should have snapped a picture with my phone. 

This made me smile

Charles said something about dying to the effect that he isn't too worried about it.  Eric chimed in, "Oh no you don't want to die all you do is sleep and sing the words of God". 

Every Sunday the boys and Dean have a race to see who can change out of their church clothes and hang them up the fastest.  Dean won this week (or so he thinks he did).  Charles was in my room getting dressed after his shower tonight and noticed Dean's tie on the floor from Sunday.  He said to me, "I guess dad didn't win the Sunday race.  He has to come hang that up". 

21 weeks down, 19 to go

I am 21 weeks now and I can say that I am more than half way through my pregnancy .  I went to the doctor yesterday and was able to hear the heartbeat.  Even though this is my fourth pregnancy I still find it amazing that there is something living and growing inside of me.  So far everything has been fantastic.  I'm really excited to have this baby's sex be a surprise.  The other three babies I just had to know what their gender was because I wanted to be prepared. 
This is one time keeping everything like a pack rat has paid off.  There were several times when I would see the boxes and boxes of baby clothes and I wanted to give them away but then I would decide that I needed to keep them for a little longer.  I have plenty of things for a boy or a girl so I feel like I can wait to find out until he or she is born. 
I just started telling my preschool class that I was going to have a baby.  They have been full of questions, which is one reason I have been waiting to tell them.  I knew it was time when I stood up from the lunch table and one little girl said, "Wow, Miss Marcie has a really full tummy!"  Katie thinks if she looks under my shirt she will see the baby.  This morning she lifted my shirt, patted my tummy then gave it a kiss and said, "hi baby". 
When I was pregnant with Katie, Charles was convinced he had a puppy in his tummy.  It was in his tummy for weeks, maybe even months  after I had Katie.  Then one day he said it was out. 
I feel blessed that we are having a new baby in our family.  I'm not sure how you moms with more than three kids do it but I guess I'll soon learn.

Giddy for my griddle

I'm sure this is going to sound silly to most of you reading this post but I have loved every minute of  it.  "It" is the griddle I purchased last week.  A long, long time ago my mom wanted to get us a griddle for christmas.  She was getting one for everyone else and I politely declined.  It must have been before I had children or Eric was too young for pancakes.   For whatever reason I didn't think I would use it.  Now eight years later I'm wondering why on earth I didn't get one sooner.  In the past I made pancakes in a skillet which could only cook one or two at a time and ended up taking forever.  The kids would call dibs on the pancake as I was pooring in the batter so they wouldn't have to wait so long.  Well I found one for half price at King Soopers of all places.  It took me about ten or fifteen minutes to make a mountain of pancakes.  Then I used it to make quesadillas for the kids and I made all three at the same time.  Awesome!! I warmed tortillas for breakfast burritos and cooked the bacon too. I felt so productive. I can't wait to make grilled cheese sandwhiches, all  five at the same time and I can't forget french toast either.  The one downfall is I have no cabinet space to store it.  I guess it can hang out with the bread maching and the food processor in the storage room in the basement.  I'm sure all of you moms out there own a griddle but if you don't you had better go get one soon.

August 19

I had an ultrasound today!  I wasn't positive of the information necessary to calculate my due date so we had been guesstimating when baby #4 would be here.  The good news is that he or she should arrive on August 19!  I was a few weeks off.  When I did the math it was the very end of August.  Dean and I wanted to find out the gender of our other kids but decided that since we have clothes for both boys and girls it would be fun to keep this one a surprise.  The doctor said everything looked good so far.  I just hope and pray it stays that way.