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!!!!!

After Thanksgiving, we figured that we hadn't gotten enough of "Family Togetherness". So on Saturday, we had our Christmas Family Party, which was great, and we had our "Family Picture" taken. I can't believe that we all fit in one frame! My husband, Ryan, was the only one not in attendance, hence the reason for my mom holding William. I believe that it will take my folks two months to recover from our little "visit". I wish we could do it more often!

We never can get a good picture of how cute Thomas is, so I asked Ty, who was photographing, to follow him around for a few minutes and see if she could catch a smile. She did it! Isn't he adorable?

I was beginning to wonder how long I could really go before someone asks me, "Why haven't you been posting?" I finally actually got onto the computer for a few free minutes with the intention of blogging, and got sidetracked by following all of my friends links to their blogs. I also haven't read anyone's blogs for about a month! To my surprise, I wasn't the only one who hasn't kept up on their blogging the last little while. Now don't I feel better?

The kids and I went to my mom and dad's for Thanksgiving. Ryan had to work, so we went by ourselves and were able to spend more than just a few days there. It was fun. I always enjoy being with my family, but it gets a little crazy, too. My parents have 23 grandkids, and everyone but us lives really close by. So when I come over, they all come over. Anyone want to babysit next time so we can have some big girl time by ourselves?

We had a yum-yum-yummy Thanksgiving feast. My mom is the best cook ever! I LOVE eating her food! She makes the bestest stuffing, her turkeys are always perfect, and she is just fun to be around. My sisters all made fun pies and rolls, and my sweet cousin-should-have-been-a-sister Mandy brought some delicious sweetened condensed milk treats that were so rich. I only had one piece of pecan pie on Thanksgiving Day (I made up for it by eating the candy from the kids candy-turkey-place-settings), and I drank almost no soda pop while I was there, which is quite a feat in and of itself!

Went Running!

Joy of Joys! I donned my "equipment" and went "running" today! So it was a run/walk, but my toe only hurt a little, and when I got home, I wanted to do it again. It was quite fun, and now I'm tired. Yay!

Tagged

Here are the rules: I have to answer the following questions with one word answers and one word only! Then I must pass it on to seven others.

The questions are as follows:
1. Where is your cell phone? Purse
2. Where is your significant other? same
3. Your hair color? brown
4. Your mother? Marilyn
5. Your father? Dale
6. Your favorite thing? books
7. Your dream last night? depressing
8. Your dream/goal? independant
9. The room you're in? family
10. Your hobby? sewing
11. Your fear? dark
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? marathoning
13. Where were you last night? home
14. What you're not? well-read
15. One of your wish-list items? serger
16. Where you grew up? Orem
17. The last thing you did? nap
18. What are you wearing? undies!
19. Your TV? unconnected
20. Your pet? mutts
21. Your computer? desktop
22.Your mood? laissez-faire
23.Missing someone? mommy
24. Your car? Express
25. Something you're not wearing? clothes!!!!
26. Favorite store? Amazon.com
27. Your summer? HOT
28. Love someone? Ryan
29. Your favorite color? green
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? dreaming

I award the following 7 people with the "I love your blog award" and in so doing tag them to complete the above questions:
Tiffany, Tenille, Emma, Margaret, Catherine, Patrick, and anyone else who might actually read my blog and hasn't already done it--I have no idea who you are!

New Picts of William

My friend Mary took these darling pictures of William the other day. He is so cute! In one of the pictures, you can really see his long eyelashes.

Pictures of Rebekah's Butch Job

Here are some "before" pictures of Rebekah's hair job. I told you that I just couldn't believe it! Well, see for yourself!

Ryan left Thursday afternoon for a thing for work, and I didn't expect him back until this afternoon. I didn't tell the kids anything, and we just went on with our lives. On Friday night as the kids were going to bed, Emma said, "When's papa coming home? He hasn't been home in, like, two days!" Then I went shopping after I put the kids down, and when I got back, Rebekah met me at the door and asked if I had papa. When I told her no, she asked if he was at work, and I told her that he was "camping". It was pretty funny that it took the kids so long to realize that he wasn't here!

Here's Butch!

When my sister was here, she took a few picts because my camera isn't working. I stole these of of her blog.

---Here's Butch--the really short spot is over her left ear.









---Catherine with missing teeth









---William and his chunk-o cousin Ethan

Rebekah's new name is "Butch"

So this weekend has been a doozey! Rebekah BUTCHED her hair on Friday night as I was getting ready for my sister, Melanie, to come visit. I ran to try and get it fixed, but it really can't be fixed. I wish our camera wasn't broken, so you could all see it. She looks like half of her is girl, and half of her is boy. She cut it so close, that the girl who was helping (Clarissa--the same one who helped when she cut her hair a few months ago), said part of it was a #1 guard on the clippers. So it will just have to grow out and look silly for a while. It made me think of my sister's friend. Her daughter did such a job of her hair, that they buzzed it all so it could grow back. Ryan said we should stick her on a corner to beg. Oh, she looks so bad!

Catherine actually finished loosing her two front teeth. She figured out how to speak by putting her tongue on the roof of her mouth, so she doesn't have a lisp.

William is smiling, and he has two dimples-- in spite of what Ryan thinks, he does have dimples! He is the only one of my kids to have dimples. He smiles and coos and is so cute! He also loves the swing, and will sleep in it for quite a while. That also has never happened with any of my other kids. He is 3 1/2 months old now, and he's getting bored just sitting around, not being able to do anything. We will soon begin the "unpleasant times" until he is mobile.

I thought this picture of Thomas was pretty funny. He climbed up on the washing machine to take a nap! Notice the plumber crack :)

I had such a fun time with my little sister Melanie. She made a whirlwind trip to visit grandma and grandpa, and she stayed Friday night and Saturday morning with us. We got up early with the kids, chatted, and went to DI. I love being with my sisters! And her babies are just so cute. Her "littlest" guy is almost 25 lbs at 5 months. He is such a cute chunk-o, and he just smiles his chunky little smile and is so loveable! I could hardly carry him, he is soooo heavy! Melanie's husband, Merlin, came with her. I guess he was bored and had nothing better to do than play silly games with my kids. They just ate it up! Uncle Merlin is so much fun! Emma asked me why "the wizard and his familiar" were visiting. I got the "wizard" part, but she had to explain the rest. Duh! Melanie's nickname is "Mouse", and a familiar is a wizard's animal companion. Therefore, "the wizard and his familiar" are...

My very dear friend MaryRuth had her first baby! YeeHaw! I wish I could visit her in Texas.