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.

Insomnia post

 It's 3am and I am still wide awake. Yay pregnancy insomnia!!! It is definitely better to stay up and organize toys that will only be messed up in the morning, than to sleep...wait a second! I figured why not post today's project...

I wanted some toy storage that the kids could still reach the top of. After searching and searching for plans to build something, I gave up and pieced this together from wood I had in the garage. I got to try out my new table saw, loved it! Please don't enlarge this pic you will find many flaws, you have been warned.

 

I mentioned in my last post about the bookshelf I loved so much. This has been my favorite woodworking project so far, it really is just that great to have. I made another one for Pantera's books and we put it in her closet, so skinny it fits behind all her fluffy dresses and still holds all her books. I'm loving not having piles of books everywhere. Plans from the Ana White website totally recommend this for ANYONE with kids books floating around.

When I am less loopy and better able to form a coherent thought I will post more funny stories from the kiddos, for now wish me sleep! :)

Rainbow rex

Before church last Sunday we had a couple minutes to spare so I asked all 4 kids to sit down and let me take a picture really quick. I think this is the first time they are all looking and no one is crying...like ever! I should probably take advantage of there willingness and get a good sibling shot before the baby comes, then again that requires a lot of effort...hmm.

 We stayed pretty busy this week, the kids all had friends over on different days and I got to do my visiting teaching which is going to see some other kids their ages.

Zeke has been quite hilarious making up wonderful songs, actually changing the words to songs so they make him laugh. During sacrament meeting today he was singing about crocodiles during the hymn. I caught him peeing standing up for the first time yesterday, blog-worthy right? It was so super cute because he was trying to figure it out the day before but he had the "girl seat" down, so I showed him how boys lift that up and sure enough he did it and was feeling super manly afterwards. I don't want to be one of those people who lives through there kids but I always wished (ok totally still do) I could do that, so I guess I was extra proud. Zeke loves to read SO MUCH and the book "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Crab" cracks him up.

 Here's Pantera with her favorite pal Cleo. If you knew Cleo, you would be in awe of Pantera's feat of bravery here. Cleo is kind of a brat to everyone, not really to me ever and usually not to Pantera but she can be a terd when she wants to be. Pantera is currently loving the Animorph book series. She has completed ALL of the Articles of Faith for Primary this year...she is also the second youngest in Senior Primary and only one to pass them all off...just bragging a little:) Awesome job Pantera!!!

Katurah is using more words, Pantera wants me to add that SHE taught her how to say "Hello" and "Me." I still need to look into speech therapy for her, but I will be procrastinating that one until after the baby comes...intake stinks!!! She also loves to read and loves the book "The Mine-O-Saur" she turns the pages and says some gibberish along with the occasional yell of "MINE!" During the Sacrament today she found "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" in the church bag and started reading it out loud...REALLY  LOUD, as in making sheep sounds at the top of her lungs. They must love us at church;)

Amari has been cracking us up as always. A couple of days ago she woke up with her hands really close to her body and walking on her tiptoes. Any paleontologists out there have a guess why??? Yes, that's right, she woke up as a "T-wex!" She was roaring and when I offered her breakfast she informed me "I only eat meat." So I quickly grabbed a sharpie and drew a Apatosaurus on a cereal box. She happily ate her meat and said "(Roar) Do you know what my T-Wex name is?" Of course she has the stereotypical big scary dino name "Rainbow."

 
 Here I am 31 weeks prego. Her name is going to be Seneca Joy. She is constantly moving, such an active baby and even more so if she hears her brother and sisters playing. I stay very busy and have taken up wood working in the past couple of months. This week I made 2 picnic tables, an outdoor chest, and a really awesome bookshelf. I can't tell you how grateful I am everyday that I can still function almost normally without major complications from pregnancy. I take my hat off to those women on bed rest, I really think I would lose my mind. And as of tomorrow morning this will officially be the last pregnancy for us, Jess is taking one for the team. WE. ARE. DONE.

Can I have a Parrot?

My brother Alex and sister Samarah were in town last week. The kids all loved having them around and Alex made Pantera's life complete by taking her to an amusement park. She rode all sorts of huge coasters and even went on this bungee contraption with Alex and Sami! I guess the others in line were pretty much in awe that an 8 year old would do this, I'm really going to have to watch the peer pressure with this kid. That's all she talked about for the rest of the week and her face still lights up if you bring it up.

Cleo playing nurse while Pantera was sick a few weeks ago...

 ZEKE Bluestar our cat has been wetting the bed recently. Zeke woke up on Saturday and he was wet. He informed me, after stripping down naked that "Bluestar came into my bed in the night and peed on my underwear, pants, and shirt. So I need new ones." I hate it when that happens.

We went to Cori's graduation party a few weeks back. Cori is Zeke's much older girlfriend. When we walked in and saw Cori, Zeke wouldn't look at her when he was talking and got really quiet. When I told him he needed to look at her when he talked he started crying...poor guy! So she took him over to look at some pictures and we left soon after. As we walked out of the building he gets this hilarious spring in his step like "yep, nailed it!" quite the ladies man.

 Today Amari came downstairs dressed like this and informed me she was an "agent." She then proceeded to do her version of karate. I was very intimidated, so was the end table that she ran into.

 The other day Papa and I caught her "teaching" Bluestar. She was telling the cat to call her "Ms. Hammond."

My kids love the fruit from our local farmers market...wait so do I!!! The current favorite is pears, we go through those like crazy. We love when Amari asks for one because she says "Can I have a parrot? I'm really hungry!"

 Katurah loves this little camera and goes around the house saying "Cheese!"

 She also loves playing blocks...

 She is ALWAYS happy, look at that sweet little face...

 Except when you don't let her smother your electronics in chocolate chip cookies...

Kitchen

It has been quite a week at our house. Each child has gotten sick youngest to oldest, fever, throw up, and diarrhea for some. Last night Pantera came down with this 36 hour bug and I thought I was going to lose it. After a week of this and few nights of decent sleep my patience I fear is wearing thin. So I thought I would recount a wonderful blessing that happened last year to lift my spirits, plus I've been meaning to post this FOREVER!!!

 

The night before Sandy was supposed to hit, I opened one of my kitchen cupboards to find it full of water. Now I had already been stressed trying to prepare for this huge storm that never made it to us (thank goodness), then to find a disaster in the kitchen was not the happiest surprise. We had hoped to remodel the kitchen the following spring using our tax return money to help the project along, but with the extent of the damage it could not wait. I put in a call to my Dad as soon as I saw the water and he being the awesome superhero type that he is, he already knew what he wanted to do the kitchen. He made a quick layout (seriously, who can just do that?!?) and we put in a HUGE order to Lowe's.

 

That weekend Jess and my Dad ripped out the old kitchen to find a pipe had burst in the wall. I had to take the kids somewhere else because it was so nasty, the menfolk were barely keeping there lunches down. Here is the before:

 First tender mercy was of course this happening after my parents moved near us. My dad does AMAZING work that I can't even imagine what I would pay full price for. Second was paying for it all, I stress so bad about money. I hate big unexpected purchases and get sick to my stomach at even the thought of one, so forking out several thousand dollars for a new kitchen out of the blue was difficult to say the least. Jess' parents came to visit near the completion of the project and his dad happened to mention that a friend had something similar happen and the insurance company paid for it. I had never even thought about that, insurance doesn't actually pay for things right?

I decided to make a call to nationwide that day and they sent someone out shortly thereafter. He looked at the damage, took some measurements, then wrote me a check that covered the ENTIRE kitchen cost! The nationwide guy was probably a bit overwhelmed as I stood and cried in front of him, but I was so shocked and so very grateful. Here is the after pic:

Doesn't even look like the same space does it? I love my new kitchen and love the feelings of gratitude for the Father's in my life that it is a constant reminder of. I am truly blessed, there I think I can go back and face the crabby munchkins now:)

Good morning Doctor!

Miss Katurah woke up with a fever this morning, poor little girl. I hate it when she is sick, but she does let me hold her a little more then usual and at this point I take what I can get. She is babbling a ton still, I think maybe she picked up on the language from some ancient indigenous tribe and when she does finally speak English I will maintain that she is bilingual. She loves to play duck, duck, goose. If anyone is sitting on the floor she will hit them on the head with a "Duh!" Maybe she just loves to hit and has found a way to get away with it...that child is a genius I tell you!

 If Zeke is looking strangely older to you, it may be because he lost his front teeth. The ladies in Kindergarten are going to go nuts over him, so mature. If you look back on my blog long ago, I documented Zeke getting his 4 top front teeth crowned. About 9 months ago one got knocked off while he was goofing around with his siblings. I took him to the dentist right away and was told not to worry about it. I had him in 3 more times since then and kept telling the dentist I really didn't like the way it was looking, the tooth was completely gone! Again he was not worried. He bit into something 2 Sundays ago and said "Oww!" First thing Monday morning I am on the phone with the dentist, sure enough that tooth and another one are infected...GRRRRR!!!!! Onto antibiotics and Dr.Doof says we have to remove 3 of the 4 teeth they crowned and they have to put him under the following Wednesday to do so. I keep going back and forth between being happy it's over and he's not in pain to just plain pissed that he didn't do something to begin with and now my kid has no front teeth for a couple of years. The downfall of where we live, no other options.

I explained what was going to happen to Zeke several times before the procedure. At one point trying to sound upbeat and happy about the whole thing I told him he would "have Pumpkin teeth!" I then heard him explaining to Amari "The Dentist is going to make me sleep, then take out my teeth that hurt and put in Pumpkin teeth!" Ooops!

He was such a trooper about the whole thing this go round. He has been put under 2 other times and is usually a bear when he wakes up. This time he woke up and said "Good morning Doctor!" All the staff was cracking up, they said they have never heard anyone wake up like that before. You are such a brave boy Zekie!

 Amari is currently obsessed with things being dead. We will play with her toy animals and she knocks them ALL down and says "Pretend they are dead." It is a really fun game. It's interesting how they process things that happen through play, our cat caught a baby bunny a couple weeks back and hurt it really bad. I heard the cries of the bunny and took it from the cat, hoping it would be alright. I put it in a popsicle box (the only thing I could find) with a blanket and set it next to Jess and I as we watched our shows for the night. Well Amari gets out of bed and asks for a popsicle, to which I reply "There are no more popsicles, please go to bed." She's a nebby little one and asks to see what's in the box. I said "no." So she just opens the box and is thrilled to see a new pet bunny! Here we go!!! I explain that it is likely going to die and it does the next morning. We bury it in the back yard and Amari helps put the dirt over it. About 5 minutes later Amari asks "Where is my bunny?" "It's dead Amari, you just helped us bury it." "Oh, can I get it?" Then I overhear her telling people at a BBQ that she has a pet bunny...a dead pet bunny.

The other day she said "Mom, my butt hurts." Zeke replies "It's probably just dingleberries Amari."

 Pantera performed "Reflection" from Mulan on Saturday at our ward talent show, she sang amazingly. She still has to wait a few years to do choir in school, I hope she still has the desire when she is old enough. The other day she was eating something and said "I love American comfort food...sometimes." Alright Captain Random. Jess has been teasing her about boys lately so she and I came up with a good plan to get him back. I told her to set up a fake person in his spot of the bed and it will scare him when goes to sleep. She was so excited, but has some work ahead of her if she ever wants to be a serious prankster. She came downstairs after it was all set up and gave me a thumbs up and a wink! Rookie mistake, but it cracked me up! For the record, Dad was TERRIFIED, you nailed it!

 Amari was teaching Zeke how to blow bubbles today.

 "No just a little bit softer." Zeke and gentle don't really go together.

 Finally after about 20 minutes he got it and she was pretty happy for him!

 I finally redid my kitchen table, it was really bad. Before:

 After:

I only kept the legs the rest built myself. Ok, so I couldn't have done it without my Jessiboy, thanks for the help cutie!

No More......

 These days Katurah loves to spend alot of time on her own, sometimes she reads, sometimes she finds a leappad, but she always ends up on Zeke's bed relaxing. This is only funny because his is the only bed in the house that is constantly covered in very hard cars toys, uncomfy is the new comfy. She must be teething again because she has started waking during the night out of nowhere. She is super cute but kind of creepy at 3 am, just when you think she is asleep she will randomly stand straight up in bed and just stare right at you. Her favorite books at this moment are the How does a Dinosaur series and Brown Bear, just like Zeke when he was her age.

 Amari has HUGE news for all the world...please be seated if you aren't all ready as this will knock your socks off and likely throw you off balance in the process putting you at risk for a terrible fall *we are not liable for any bodily injury occurring during the reading of this post* Amari no longer uses a...wait for it...LALA!!! Yes that's right after over 3 years being completely hooked on her pacifier she gave it up cold turkey this past Tuesday. How did she do it? I'm still a little confused myself on that one, but it involved a sticker chart, maybe she will put out a self help video. Two days after she quit she said "Remember when I was a baby and used lalas? Now I am big and cool." She has entered the "Why?" phase that most kids go through. It is really annoying Pantera, which is really making me laugh...payback.

 Zeke is "doing good." At least that's what he will tell you if you were to ask him. He has been playing more with his siblings, but still makes plenty of time for his cars and collectors guides. He loves the game "What time is it Mr. Fox?" And is so fun to play with. I love to drag it out and lick my lips and rub my belly when they get close, he gets so nervous it's hilarious. He came up to me the other day and said "I would like to buy my cars carrying case from Toys for us. I will do many chores, then you will buy it for me." His speech is so cute and mechanical! So taking his suggestion, we started a chore sticker chart for him, how could you say no to that?

 In my last post Pantera was sick and was going to miss her school track and field day. She had a fever through Monday night and the big day was Tuesday. She was so sad, but kept saying "Maybe it will rain and they will have to delay it." I was trying to make sure she wasn't giving herself false hope, as we didn't see any rain in the forecast and told her she needed to be prepared to accept that they will likely be doing the Olympics without her. "I am going to pray that it will rain." Tuesday morning at 8 am I get a phone call that the field day is delayed until Friday due to rain! It poured from 8 am to around the time the bus would drop her off for the day. She was so thrilled and was able to participate on Friday. Pantera, never forget that Heavenly Father loves you and listens to your prayers, even if it is for elementary school track and field day, if it's important to you it's important to Him.

 Summer vacation has already had a few rainy days, so we have been trying to stay busy. One day we made cupcakes. Amari piles the sprinkles on, while Zeke is a minimalist, and Pantera is somewhere in between. They are so great!