First off, Thomas independently showed me the sign for "key"!!! When I told him I didn't understand, he brought me Ryan's keys that were right next to him. AWESOME! I am thrilled! He has also mimicked the sign for apple (he actually does it the same as "candy" :) ) and yesterday, he also patted me on the back to get my attention. I am just amazed.

The kids and I gleaned potatoes at my friend's farm, and then she let us pick apples off of her trees, too. Patrick and Rebekah especially loved the gleaning. Rebekah not so much the apple picking--she spent the whole time on the trampoline.

We, of course, had baked potatoes for dinner the next night. I told them all to wash some--I thought it would be fun for them to wash the potatoes they had "picked". They all thought that was great. When the potatoes were done and I was taking them out of the oven, 3 of them had little tiny bubbles on them. I wasn't sure what it was, so I washed them again. More bubbles!!! Then I realized that those must have been Rebekah's, and she washed them with dishsoap. At least we knew they were clean!

Hopefully I'll have lots of apple things to bottle this week. It'll be great!

Our little one-year old William is walking now! He's all over the place. He is so cute, just toddling around. And he jabbers. All day long. . .

Thomas has made a lot of progress the last 8 weeks with a new speach therapist. He actually has what might be considered a "vocabulary", but it is a mix of words, signs, and picture exchanges. He is acquiring about 2 words per week. If you are the least bit interested, here are his words.

Vocalization:
dog
quack
boo!
ow!--this is his word that means "I don't like what you're doing"

Signs:
more
dog
duck
horse
plane
helicopter
sock
cheese--this one he used independently yesterday for the first time! Yee haw!

Picture exchange--which we are just starting, and only includes desirable things:
m&m
swedish fish
oreo
mater movie
toy car
book
(he avoids the picture of the diaper :)

So, there is his progress. He'll be three on Saturday, and I can't believe how far he has come in a year and a half. I am really grateful to all of the therapists that have been working so hard with him.

And on the personal side, I now have three daughters wearing bras!!!

Well, ttfn!

Because I know myself so well, I am going to take this opportunity to wish everyone
"Happy Mother's Day!

Here's a small recap of what's going on:

William:

He's now pulling himself up on everything, and I think he'll be taking steps sideways soon.

Thomas:

He has acquired his first words
No! (about a month ago)
Weeeee! (on slides and driving down hills)
and his latest, just a few days ago
EEEEE (his version of please, while making the sign!)

He has resisted signing, and we don't know if it's his ears that have delayed him in speach, or something else. But I am glad he can do something! He takes me by the hand and drags me to wherever the thing is that he wants.

The Big Kids

The big kids are working together to dig a hole to Tibet. It's in the back yard, and is a pretty big hole now. The other day when it was going to rain, they put a sheet over it to protect it. Today they made black and yellow construction/warning signs to go around it, as well as a flag that shows the sky and a big brown blob that hangs off of the bottom (that's the hole, if you haven't figured it out). They say that if they succeed, they will make a name for themselves throughout kiddom. They even tried to use the post hole digger, but they were too little to use it properly. Thomas thinks it's great fun to help them dig (with a spoon), and then to throw the dirt back in.

I hope you've enjoyed this little update!

William is no longer "broken-back fang baby". He was so cute as Fang! He is now "crawling all over the place with 7 teeth" baby. He is so fast! He dragged himself around pretty quickly before, but there is no stopping that kid now!

Catherine had her 9th birthday today. It was a "Polly Pocket" birthday. She counted and she now has 13 PP's, with various outfits and companion animals. She loves playing with them and spends too much time dressing them. She especially loves the new little pool with water slide that she got as a gift today. I must say that I would have really enjoyed a toy like that when I was a kid, as long as none of my boy-friends knew about it.

I had an AVON open house yesterday. Last time I did that, Rebekah keifed the sample lip glosses, and over time, they were all gone because she'd used them all! She also loves nail polish and kept asking if she could have that. This time, I watched her like a hawk. She didn't get any lip gloss, and cried when I told her she couldn't have any more lip balm or body paint, even though "I yoss mine!" When she asked about the nail polish, she answered her own question with, "maybe tomorrow, is dat alright?"

Now that it is spring, we have to be even more careful with Thomas, the escape artist. He's not actually an escape artist, just and opportunity escapist. If there is any kind of door open, he runs for it. And he runs fast! Laughing the whole way down the street. The kids are totally oblivious to him running down the road whether he has clothes on or not. I do let him roam around the back yard, where he usually goes to see the dogs. One of the very few sounds he makes is a dog barking. He stands at the window that looks out to the dogs and barks. It's really quite hilarious. Today we went for a walk, and there was a guy with a dog ahead of us. For the longest time, Thomas just kept barking at that poor dog. I wanted to yell to the guy, "Seriously, it's the only sound he can make!" except that wouldn't be totally true now, since Ryan finally helped him learn how make a sound of, well, a sick cat.

Well, I'm off to bed, since it's entirely too late to be awake.

The Return of the Raisin

Okay, so I totally forgot the most important thing that happened yesterday. At 9:00 pm, Ryan and I were in our room with the door closed. The kids were supposed to be asleep, but I had given Rebekah a bowl of raisins because she was hungry and couldn't go to sleep. We heard crying and knocking on our door. We were trying to ignore her so she would just go away and go to bed. But she wouldn't stop fussing. Her speach isn't really very good, but I kept hearing the word "raisin", and I finally caught the word "nose". So I said, "you have a raisin stuck up your nose?" to which she replied....drumroll please..."yes!" I, of course, couldn't ignore her anymore in the hopes that she would go to bed, so I opened my door and looked up her nose. I couldn't really see anything, but she cried when I touched the outside of her nose up toward her sinuses. Just great! She blew and couldn't get it out, so I tried finding the bulb syringe to no avail. Finally, I had her blow and blow a whole bunch. In the middle of a blow, she stopped and smiled and said "the raisin came out!" Voila! Back to bed, and no more raisins for her! It's hard to believe, but it took 5 kids for any foreign objects to be stuck in an orifice, and we didn't even have to take a trip to the ER. What a great night!

pictures

Here are some more pictures of the kids. The ones of William in his little seat were funny because, as you can tell, he was falling asleep. Speaking of which, I failed to mention that he sits up pretty well by himself.

Ok--so it was using a different scale--I really didn't gain 5 lbs. Thank goodness! However, the part about eating junk was true. I think I'll go back on Weight Watchers. I did go "running" this morning. It was a half-and-half morning--two laps walking, two laps running, for a total of two miles and 25 minutes. I keep thinking that I'm Super Woman, and should be able to jump right back to where I was before I stopped. It's hard to get past that way of thinking, even though I know it's true, and to not be disappointed at the little that I can do. If I can just be consistent, I believe it will be fairly quick and easy to get back into shape so I can start training for my half marathon. But I need to stop being disappointed! Argh!

Last night, Margaret lost a tooth. She's pretty excited. Too bad the Tooth Fairy forgot to come and visit last night. What is it with that woman?

I'm posting some pictures of the kiddos. These include a Valentine's Day party we went to, where William got to try his first sucker. He LOVED it! I was holding him turned away from me, and after a while, he dropped his sucker. It bounced on the floor. When I picked it up, I realized that he had gotten all the way to the center of the Tootsie Pop! (how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? *sing* whatever it is I think I see becomes a tootsie roll to me!

Thomas really enjoyed being inside the tunnel, which was just a rolled up gym mat, and was thrilled when the kids rolled it along the floor with him still inside of it!

Rebekah made pancakes by herself--she poured them on the griddle and flipped them over all by herself. They were, of course, unedible because she didn't cook them long enough, and refused any kind of help from me. But she was proud of herself, and that's what counts, isn't it?

I gained 5 pounds back! Dangint! That's what I get for eating junk food and not exercising...

William got 2 more teeth! All of sudden, about 3 days ago, he got an eyetooth on the top, and last night I noticed that he got another tooth on the bottom. That makes 3 teeth on the bottom, and one vampire tooth on the top. He's sitting here smiling at me with his cute grin, and I can see the vampire tooth. What a cutie! He is so huggable and squeezeeble!

He also has started dragging himself around. He uses his arms, and it reminds me of my brother's gerbil. He broke the poor things back, and so it just dragged itself around by it's front paws. That's what William does. Like a poor little broken back boy.

William got another tooth. So now he's got two toofers on the bottom. He's so cute!

I went running three times this week. A mile, 1 1/4 mile, and who knows how much because I took two kiddos with me to the track and they were very distracting.....So I guess I'm on my way to training for my half-marathon this summer, huh? I gotta get more! My dear friend, Patty, reminded me that when I first started, I would run from one corner of the block to the next, and that was it! So I guess I'm still doing better than that! But it sure gets frustrating. It has been something like a year since I have really been running. I'm planning on running in the Teton Dam Half Marathon in June, with my running pals--they're the ones who ran in it last year the weekend before William was born--I didn't even go to watch them because I was feeling so crummy. Anyway, enough about running!

Let's move on to something exciting! Oh, yeah, running is the most exciting thing I do these days. Unless you count my English class, which I LOVE! It is Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and I have had so much fun reading! I have discovered to my dismay, however, that I am a horrible writer and need a lot more practice writing if I am going to pass this class. I am taking the class from the husband of a friend of mine, and he's excellent at facilitating discussion. I am really enjoying it. Ryan has been reading the books, too, and he's ahead of me!

My mom called me yesterday, and is going to be visiting my grandma this weekend, so I get to go see them both tomorrow! I am so excited. We've all been sick with coughs and colds, so haven't been to see grandma almost all winter. We're still kind of sick, but we'll just have to not breath on her. The kids are excited to see them both.

I keep thinking there is something else, but it has leaked out of my swiss cheese brain, so I will sign off for now, and I'll hope to post if anything else remotely interesting happens at our house. TTFN!

Inauguration

Wow--almost 2 whole months and I haven't blogged!

Well, to start off, little William finally got his first tooth-- on the bottom-- only one. He's also weaned--prior to the tooth, lucky me!

Now, some of you may know that a member of our household voted for Obama for President. The children that decided to "vote" that way, too, were very excited when he was elected (if they were to vote with one of their parents, the other option was The Queen of England, and they didn't think she had much of a chance of winning). They asked me if they could have an inauguration party. Did you have an inauguration party at your house? Well, we did. It went something like this: the night before, Emma begged and begged to make a cake. I made her wait until the morning. I had to go somewhere, but let her make and decorate the cake and told her we would have our "party" when I got home. I was greeted at the door with all of the kids huddled around a chocolate cake, iced with a US flag and the words "President Obama" written on the stripes. They said something to the effect of, "See?" and then they ran into the kitchen with it and cut the thing up. No time for even a picture, they were so quick about it! But there you have it, our inauguration party. GOBAMA!!!!!