Pantera the Rockstar

 This girl has had quite the week!!! She has been practicing a song for a special family night at her school for over a month now. Finally on Wednesday night it was time to get the show on the road. She sang in front of about 80 people and was absolutely AMAZING!!! She had everyone coming up to her afterwards either just dumbfounded that she could sing so well or in tears because she can sing so well.

The next day at school one of the teachers who was at the family night pulled her aside and asked if she would be willing to sing perform her song again in he cafeteria at lunch. Pantera has always just kind of absolutely loved to be in the spotlight so this was like heaven for her. I got a text from one of her friends' moms that said "I heard Pantera got a standing ovation at lunch today!" She came home and told me about the whole thing. She said she signed autographs and had a bunch of fan mail from the third graders. I know this post sounds super braggy, but she is very talented I am so proud that she is brave enough to get up in front of half of her school and work it!!!

On Friday she had the 4th grade spelling bee. Jess went to see her so all our little kiddos wouldn't be a distraction to the spellers. She was so excited when he walked through the door. He is just the opposite of Pantera and hates a lot of attention, well he had the whole gymnasium looking at him because she was waving so hard in his general direction. She and Nick were the last two contestants standing and after going back and forth for quite a few words, she missed the word licorice. But she got second place and a sweet trophy.

"I got to be on stage 3 times this week!" Life doesn't get any better than that for a girl who loves attention.

Amari is 5

 Amari turned 5 on the 8th of April. I have been a lot busy and a big slacker so I am just now getting a post in about it. She was so darn excited for her big day!!! We were counting down for the entire month of march "How many more tomorrows?"

 She really thinks that age and height are directly correlated. She was expecting to be like a foot taller on her birthday morning, and boy howdy she wasn't disappointed! She informed us the night before her big day that "Tomorrow for my birthday I want Dad to give me 55 kisses. And good news, he won't even have to bend over to smooch me!"

 She woke up at 3 am when I was taking the dog our and asked "Am I 5?"

First thing she did was try to reach something on the counter and was thrilled when she could. Then she asked me to measure my feet against her feet. She was thrilled to see how big her feet where next to mine, then next to Seneca's, but when it came time to put them up to Katurah's feet something was wrong. "Why is Katurah's feet the same size as mine? I am 5." Later that day we went up to Jess' work to go out to the fanciest restaurant known to man (Denny's)  for her birthday lunch. She loved the attention from her dad, and was kind enough to let us tag along.

Amari, you are an amazing big girl. You are so funny, so smart, and so super cute. You make me laugh everyday. I love you so much! Happy birthday girlie!

My kids have officially broken me. This year was the first year since having children that I did not go out of my way to buy special Easter outfits. Every year I would get so excited to dress them all up and take a million pictures, and every year they give me attitude and make me sad. So kids you win. Remember this when I am old and you have to change my diapers, that's what you get.

All of my girls have worn this dress for their second Easter...

 

 Miss Seneca has such a funny personality. She is so loud! She is yelling "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" As I am typing, just for fun. She loves to say "on your mark gets set go!" but it comes out "Duh, duh, goo!" then she runs and runs and runs. I don't know how she still has any chub to her, she is constantly on the move. She gives Jess the best greetings when he gets home from work, "Dah!" she always runs and gives him a huge hug then steals his hat.

 Amari definitely had her own sense of fashion. I have to laugh because if Pantera would have tried wearing red boots with a pink dress on Easter, oh no I would not have let that happen. But you learn to pick your battles and quite frankly she felt so super gorgeous. Last night she needed her blanket up on the top bunk and she said "Mom, put my blanket up here stack!" Like a doctor would say, but just the wrong word. I asked, what she thought that meant when the doctor says that and she replied "He just needs to stack everything."

 Katurah is still rather difficult to understand. (Maybe if I was better about showing up to speech therapy:/). The other day we had a lovely tea party at lunch. Amari was being Rapunzel, I was Belle, Seneca was "Just a baby", and Katurah was "Slipping Booty." I came to find out that Slipping Booty is quite the awesome princess. "A mean robot broke my castle!" she exclaimed. Belle asked her what she was going to do. Slipping Booty told her "I am going to fix it with my tools, and my wrench." Belle asked if prince Phillip was going to help her. Slipping Booty quickly stated "No! I fix it myself!" She is a princess after my own heart. Today she asked to wear her "moose boots." I guess this is what she calls her furry winter boots.

 I had to shave Zeke's head because he pulled bunch of hair out of the front while he was sick and made himself a nice bald spot. He has been so very hyper, regular Zeke hyper plus steroids=crazy! He has been inviting the neighbor boy over, which for him is kind of unusual but I will take him wanting to be social. He is still so very obsessed with Skylanders. Sometimes it is hard for him having a one track mind. The other night he came out of his room in tears because "I want to play with my sisters, but skylanders is too cool and it is all I can think about." I feel your pain buddy, my brain gets stuck on things often, it's not fun sometimes, even if you do like the thing you are obsessing over. Today a song came on and he excitedly said "That's my jam!!!"

 Pantera is excited because she may be getting her own room after my dad comes out to visit. And by visit I mean put an addition on our house. She wants it to be music themed, but really wants it to be mostly Taylor Swift. She comes up with the best games to play with her younger siblings....

 I love this game, they were taking turns being fishermen surprised by catching an alligator! So random!!!

Jess is still hot.

Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh FOXY!!!! (Cheesy Wayne's World reference she reminds me of Garth in this pic:)

BAAAA

It has been a rollercoaster of a month! We  I decided we should move to a bigger house. We started that whole process and Jess went out to visit family in Utah. While he was gone I worked my tail off and got all of the projects I have been procrastinating finished so we could put our house on the market. We started looking at houses when he got home and then decided just kidding we aren't going to move after all. There is more to this story, but this is the short and important of it.

 

Zeke has been feeling GREAT!!!! Yay steroids!!!! He has been back to his bubbly, giggly, running and bouncing off the walls self. I missed his sweet personality so much, I dread the next flare. He is getting ready to go back to school on Thursday and is so very pumped to see his friends again. He is going to miss playing Skylanders during naptime everyday. He beat the bad guy "Chaos" and his face was priceless, so proud just grinning from ear to ear. "I wonder if any first graders have beat Chaos?" Because you know he is in kindergarten and that is super impressive.

Pantera got in trouble for not cleaning her room last week. I have to get creative with her punishments so I grounded her from Taylor Swift. No listening, no singing, no even talking about Taylor Swift. This nearly killed her. She is so obsessed and she calls herself a "Swiftie" like 50 times a day. She has all the other kids hooked as well. If Seneca hears "Shake it Off" she comes running and starts dancing like crazy. It could be worse.

 Katurah may have a career as a detective in the future. Her last mystery she solved was one of intense intrigue. You see she has been sometimes interested in toilet training and on this particular day she went into the bathroom, lifted the seat of the toilet and behold the water was BLUE!!!! She yelled for me and was quite upset with her finding. She first blamed Zeke, then Amari, then Pantera, and of course insisted I send them all to time out. When I explained that I was the culprit she did not believe me, how could her own mother do something so foul? Her favorite color is green and I told her that if she peed in the blue water it would turn green. She has yet to dabble in that witchcraft.

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 The kids were all playing "Super hero academy" outside last week. They all chose special powers and had backstories. I was listening to their conversations and Amari told Zeke "Ask me if I use doors." "Do you use doors?" she replied "I don't use doors, it's easier to just rip walls." She is that tough. When Jess was in Utah his niece colored him some pictures and Amari found out about it. She was PISSED. "Why is she taking my spot?" Apparently Amari is the only one allowed to color for Jess and she takes that very seriously. I was making dinner the other night and Amari asked what we were having. When I told her she said "I am not obsessed with that, please make me spaghetti and meatballs."

 Seneca is a MANIAC!!! She is into everything all the time. Today I went to the bathroom, like just a quick pee, and when I came out she was drenched with water, head to toe. What the heck!!!! She found a water bottle and decided to dump it all over herself. Then an hour later Pantera was yelling, I came running and I guess Seneca opened the toilet and jumped in head first! Luckily someone was down there. Now I have to figure out how to keep her out of the toilet while still letting everyone else in! She tells knock knock  jokes all the time. She just says "Bop bop! ghgmgmlskd;lfhllkl, hahahaha!" She is so funny. She has a special sound for when she wants you to wrestle it is the dreaded "BAAA" she says it with a deep raspy voice and when you hear it you know someone is going down!

Pubescent mood swings

Oh my goodness, you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at this sweet face, but this girl has got an ATTITUDE!!! She is either really happy or really mad, no in-between for her and stubborn as all get out. If my parents read this I can just see them laughing and perhaps high fiving each other while shouting "Payback!" She was the spotlight kid in primary today. I interview them and write down their response then read it out loud until the whole primary can guess who I am talking about. Her favorite color is: green, if she could go anywhere on her mission it would be to: Colorado to see her "Papa and her Grandma cuz she is cool". One thing you might not know about her is: "I am a baby and it's cool." She was so proud to stand up in front of everyone and be the center of attention for a bit.

 Seneca no longer uses a high chair, nor does she use a booster seat most nights. This leaves her to move around the table and take food from whomever she chooses. Ok, so it's ALWAYS my food. She will take everything off of my plate and pile it onto hers and if I try to take any back she cries like I am hurting her. Her current favorite word is "Uh-oh" this comes in handy for many things such as: unplugging the vacuum cleaner repeatedly while mom is trying to clean "Uh-oh!" Or maybe throwing a soaking wet wash  clothe out of the bathtub at mom's face "Uh-oh!" Or perhaps dumping a cup of juice on the floor then sliding your belly through it "Uh-oh!" She is just accident prone.

 Amari is such a good helper. She is always willing to lend a hand and loves it if I let her get involved with any project I am doing. She was all dressed up the other day and was looking so beautiful and informed me "I am the Belle of the Bald!" She and Katurah switched beds a week or so ago, and pretty much every night one of them comes to me and asks "Can I have a sleep over?" They love to hang out in bed together and color and laugh, and fight, and stay up too late. I turned 30 this past week and Amari was all about what kind of cake I should have. I have made them some fun ones in the past so she wasn't going to settle for any old cake. "I know mom, we can make you a treadmill cake! So you can remember to exercise." Thanks Amari.


Zeke was officially diagnosed with Crohn's Disease this week. He had to have a colonoscopy and an endoscopy done. The day before he had to fast and he was such a trooper about the whole thing. He didn't complain once, but before bed he said "Mom, I do wish I could have a grilled cheese sandwich." So on our way home from the hospital we stopped and got him his grilled cheese. He has been eating like crazy since they put him on a steroid and I couldn't be happier!!! He has been himself again, and oh how I have missed my sweet little boy. He tends to get upset with himself very easily. If he spills something he gets really frustrated. When he spilled his cereal and was upset I said "Who ya gonna call, Zeke Hammond!" and I handed him the vacuum. He thought it was pretty fun to pretend to be a ghost buster and vacuum up ghosts aka cereal. The next time he spilled he automatically said "Who ya gonna call?" and ran for the vacuum. Here he is getting his ghosts...

I once again don't have any pictures of Pantera, I am a failure as a mother. She has had some pretty killer pubescent mood swings lately. She loves to call me up to her room at night time when she is supposed to go to bed and talk about puberty, I know this is just to get out of going to sleep but I have a hard time not answering her questions when she has them. She is also currently obsessed with wolves and ending aerial hunting, whatever that means. So Jess and I tease her and tell her we are pro wolf hunting and hope they become extinct. This throws her into a tizzy and she leaves us notes with pictures of wolves all over the house saying "What did I ever do to you?" Or "I am beautiful, I am strong, I am wild, but soon I will be dead." DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA.

 Not much new over here at the Hammond house. We are getting into the part of winter that is so very fun, you know the-everyone has been sick for like a month straight and I am so over it-part. I have also become the official house nag. Between making sure Zeke is eating enough and Pantera is doing her homework I feel like that is all I do, give out medicine and nag. Being an adult is so very fun.

 Okay, okay it's not all that bad. Katurah is so stinkin' hilarious with her speech impediment. She was asking Pantera if she could watch her play "Minecrap" on her ipad tonight. She loves to play kitchen with the new little kitchen set I built them. She wears any random hat and magically is the chef. She loves to make smoothies or "lemade" she is quite the cook.

Amari had her hair all planned out before she went to bed the other night. She asked me to make her "bangs up" and she remembered that I agreed to it the next morning. After I did her hair she very sweetly asked "Are you going to do your bangs up today?" I asked if she wanted me to and she very excitedly said "YES!" So we were twins for the day and she was so very proud. She told me that she wants to be just like me when she grows up. So sweet. Katurah can be so sweet or so very crabby, so when she was is a bad mood I asked her "Katurah what is wrong?" Amari inserts "Her bad attitude! That's what's wrong!"  Amari also informed one of the Elders "You don't know ANYTHING Missionary!"

 We watched Big Hero 6 on Tuesday. They all thought I was going to cry at the sad part. I did not. As soon as the movie ended Zeke bolted to his room. I went up to check on him and he was sobbing. He was so sad because of Beymax. He has such a sweet heart.

Mind your business

 

Oh it has been a rough month or so. Zeke has kept me pretty busy with his tummy troubles. He goes for a colonoscopy on the 25th, waiting and watching him be so very miserable until then is so hard. He has missed a lot of school so I started looking into homeschooling. I don't want to homeschool him and he initially said he didn't want to either. Then he told me "Mrs. Winslow told us all to clean up today, so I think I will be homeschooled." We are keeping him in as long as possible, I just get to go pick him up several times a week when he doesn't feel well. He threw up at school and it was so sad "Mom, I threw up on Brandt and my laughing brother Jace." He is such a sweet boy through all that I have to do to him, takes his meds like a champ and even if I have to give him something he really hates he still hugs me afterwards and tells me he loves me. So this has been  my life and where I have been, mostly in the bathroom with my son.

Katurah and Seneca are going through there terrible twos at the same time I think. One of them is always crabby. Katurah is the a blast to play games with though, she loves to play match and lets out the cutest "YESTH" each time she gets a match. She cheats like nobody's business too, but I love to hear her all excited so I don't call her on it. When she is arrested for counting cards at the casino don't blame me.

Seneca has learned to climb up the couch and onto the bay window. All of my kids have loved to sit/dance/jump in the window. I'm sure it is quite the spectacle for any passerby's. Seneca thinks herself quite the dog whisperer. I do think she could give Cesar Milan a run for his money. Her trick is: share everything. Not with your siblings, that would be ridiculous but with the dogs. Toothbrushes, lollipops, ice cream, your dinner, you name it she has shared. She loves her puppies and they really do love her.

Amari is just full of it as usual. She told her Sunday school teacher "Just mind your business." When she was told to sit down during class. When I asked her about it she said "Sorry, it's just she was making me mad. So she needed to mind her business." She and Katurah are the best of pals, they always want me to play with them, but they really play better and more creatively when I am not involved. I hate admitting that. Amari is an amazing little artist. She loves to color and puts so much detail in her work.

Pantera can't go 10 minutes without breaking into song. She does have a very beautiful voice, but I feel like we are living in High School Musical. She is actually singing in my ear as I am typing to annoy me. She put on a pretty awesome half-time performance during the Super Bowl on Sunday. We had some friends over and most of the kids got involved, it was spectacular and no one had any wardrobe malfunctions.