First day of school

Pantera started Third grade this week!

 I caught her trying to get into bed at  6:30 the night before school started. "I'm just so excited, I want to go to bed now!" She was up until 11ish and up when Jess got up for work around 5:30am. He left her a cute note on the mirror in the bathroom, it was really sweet. So she decided to leave a note for the rest of us and asked me to read it to the kids when she was gone. It said "Family" on the front and on the inside it reads "I love you. I have to go to school. Love, Pantera" It cracked me up a lot.

 She came home with a skip in her step still, so not a bad first day. She didn't get the school bully or the prissy princess in her class this year so we were all a little relieved. Third grade already, that is just crazy!!!

Vaseline

Last week Katurah was laying down for a nap. She usually is very vocal when she wakes up, so after a bit I went in to check on her and found her covered in Vaseline. At first she looked like "Uh oh I'm totally busted!" Then she did her signature move and turned on the charm. She must have pushed her bed over to the dresser before I laid her down without me noticing...you sneaky girl!

Doesn't she look well moisturized?

 After that she decided to give Elmo a little bath because he looked filthy.

She is talking a lot more finally. Today she learned to say no. I brought all the kids inside because it was about to rain and she was MAD. She looked at me and with a fiery rage yelled "NO!" Then she just looked at me as if she was going to cry, but held it in and yelled "NO!" again. Why is it cute the first time they do this?-

 Zeke might be over Cori. Yesterday he informed us that he is going to marry a girl in our ward named Audrey. When I asked him why he said in a very no duh kind of tone "She's a girl." Such a romantic.

 Amari is just a constant crack up. She is so excited for baby Seneca to come and loves all things that are little. The other day I had washed some baby washcloths and Amari pulled one out as I was folding them and lets out this super high pitched "AWWWWW!" the-that's so cute-sound then asks "What is this?"

 She picked out a special blanket for Seneca at the store. When we got home she said she was going to put the blanket on her bed because "Baby Seneca is going to sleep with me on my bunk bed." I told her that wasn't going to happen, but she was still trying to sell me "She will not fall off!"

Katurah was bugging her and she told her "Stop it, stop it! You are making me annoy!"

Pantera goes back to school on Monday! Summer sure went by fast. She was a little disappointed with the teacher she got, but perked up quickly and is determined to like her. We were playing catch earlier this week and Pantera kept missing the ball. She told me "Sorry if I miss some, I have a lot on my mind. Have you ever felt like that?" Nope, never.

 

Zeke and Amari were playing ball and Amari accidentally hit Zeke with the ball. Then Zeke accidentally hit Amari with the plastic bat. Pantera commented "That's a funny symbiotic relationship."

36 weeks and feeling very ready...

 This is what goes on in nearly every picture...

Mustache Man

Amari gets to be the princess sometimes when the kids play. Here they set her up with a cushy seat and plenty to eat. I think right after this she turned into a "Honey Badger" and went all crazy.

We were reading in 1 Nephi the other night and it said something about no unclean thing can live with Heavenly Father. She said the prayer that night "Dear Heavenly Father, bless that we will clean up so we can live with you again." I thought I explained it well enough I guess not.

 

She was playing with her cat and had her kind of trapped. Amari was so excited and told me "My cat is purring!" About a second later Bluestar ran away and she follows with "Now she is running."

 Pantera and I went shopping for some back to school outfits today. It is hard to let go and just let them pick stuff themselves. She did get some cute stuff and is super excited to go back, as in countdown on her chalkboard wall excited. She and Jess are out for a bike ride right now, she is finally getting it!!! We bought her a bike at the beginning of the summer, but seeing as there are no sidewalks, barely enough room on the roads for a car, and super steep hills where we live, practice has been hard to come by. Today she is actually riding, way to go Tera!!!

 Katurah gets so excited to see Jess when he gets home from work everyday. I love how she talks his ear off, no one knows quite what she is saying, but she is really happy about it. I think she might be a vegetarian. She absolutely refuses to eat most meat, but could live off of fruits and veggies. I sure do love the age of the picky eater...not.

 Zeke must have had a great lesson in Sunday School, because in the car as we were getting everyone settled he spewed some awesome false doctrine to Amari. "You are never going to live with Heavenly Father, because you stepped on Mom's kindle." What?!? I asked him what he was talking about then he accused her of lying, only he doesn't actually know what lying means so it got pretty intense and confusing. I do think that Amari's eternal salvation is safe for the time being though.

"I don't have a mustache mom!" Who's lying now???

We are now just preparing for school and a baby. I am actually going to pack a hospital bag, probably just jinxed myself so she is WAY late. I really feel at this point she could just fall out and that's really not the most pleasant feeling. Babies are cute, babies are cute, babies are cute...Funny how we forget how bad it really is once we see that sweet little face. 5 more weeks or so.

Zeke's books

If you buy a Zeke a book...

Cleo

Jess and Zeke have been playing the Despicable Me game on the Kindle. I think Zeke is as good as Jess it at it. Naturally Zeke currently loves "Minions" (the little yellow guys from the movie). I cleaned out his room and moved some of the furniture last week. This was really hard for him and he kept telling me "I don't want my room organized!" I asked him "Do you want it to be a mess?" He said "No, I want it the way it was when I was young!" Or please move my dresser back to where it was yesterday. We gained some wall space in the process so I painted a quick Minion on his wall and all was right with his world again.  

I have mentioned this many times before, but Zeke LOVES to read so very much. He memorizes each book and acts them out while he recites the pages. I made the mistake of giving him 5 new books I ordered online at the same time and have been reading them over and over again for the past 3 days. If he can't remember all of the words it bothers him, I will have to remember to space the new books better next time.

 Miss Katurah is just stinkin' cute! She woke up and saw that Jess was home this morning and said "Dada!" then jumped on the bed to tackle/snuggle him. She loves to talk on the phone, both real and play phones. I love when she gets on and says "Hew-whoa" or when she pretends to call me on her hand phone and we talk on our "phones" in the same room. She loves her big sister Amari so much, each morning she greets Amari with a HUGE hug.

 Look at this sneaky little face! It was pizza night and she stole my root beer, such a proud moment for her.

 Amari had a rash in her butt. She made sure to get as much sympathy as possible by telling everyone she could "I have trash in my butt (insert pathetic sigh here)."  A month or so ago Amari got really mad at Pantera and called her a loser. I told her "Pantera is not a loser, Pantera is a winner. As a matter of fact here is a trophy Pantera, and Amari, give Pantera your trophy for calling her a mean name." These trophies are all imaginary, but this sent Amari over the edge. She was weeping and wailing and no one could get her calmed down, because she didn't have an imaginary trophy anymore. After about an hour of this I finally told her to apologize to Pantera and I snuck her a fake trophy, she was very pleased. These trophies have caused so many disputes at our house. Last night I found Zeke crying in his bed because Amari "took my trophies and flushed them down the toilet!" She is such a stinker.

 Since Pantera went on a real roller coaster she seems to have a new daredevil attitude and the need for speed. Downhill on a tricycle...serious business!

Heavenly Father really seems to want her to be especially aware of his care for her. We had another just amazing tender mercy two days ago. While everyone was playing outside and our backdoor was left open Cleo got enough lift the couch to fly out and away. We went to the house that it looked like she flew towards and no one answered. Pantera was FREAKING OUT!!! I have never seen her so upset. We did everything we could think of right away, but we had to wait for Jess to get off of work to start canvasing the neighborhood with the flyers we made. I explained to her that that chances of getting Cleo back were so very slim. We live in a heavily wooded area with tons of birds and bird food around. Plus Cleo doesn't know to be scared of cats, she takes a nap with our cat almost daily, so things really didn't look good for her.

After Pantera calmed down a bit, I had started to make dinner and she took all of her siblings up to her room for a prayer. She came down and said "I told Heavenly Father that I really want her back, but if that is not meant to happen and she does die that He would have a special spot for her in Heaven." And she was calm again. It had been over an hour since she took off when our doorbell rang. Our wonderful next door neighbors Chris and Judy were at the door asking if we had a bird. I guess he was getting ready to leave his house when something told him to stop his car and look behind it. He did and Cleo was in his driveway. He picked her up and took her to another neighbor who's wife has a bunch of birds. The other neighbor said it might be there's so he put her in a cage to wait for his wife to come home. Chris said he had a feeling on his way home that he should stop and ask us and was very surprised when I handed him the flyer with Cleo's picture on it. He ran back up and brought Cleo home for us. I know in the grand scheme of things these are small miracles, but this felt huge to me. Heavenly Father really listens when we talk to him.

Here I am 33 1/2 weeks. Jess keeps telling me he is going to miss how I look prego hence all of the "myspace" pics. If I don't post them here he will never see them again.