Bathtime

Sophie is getting a cough so I thought I would give her a warm bath with the vapor bubbles last night before bed. Once the other kids heard the water and saw the bubbles they all stripped down and jumped in. They are getting a little big to all bath together in such a small bathtub but I think it's so cute how much they love it.




On a side note: We took the kids to Chili's for dinner tonight and when we sat down the server said "are they all yours?" to which I replied in a puzzled voice "yeah" and then he said "wow. they are all so close together." I guess these pictures and bath time show that they are pretty close together.

Girls Night

Since the boys got to go do something fun with dad yesterday I decided to have some fun with the girls too. First we painted fingernails and toenails. Claire LOVES to have her nails done.


Then we went out to eat. Claire picked Spaghetti Factory. The girls were so good. They both ate their food and colored and Sophie didn't throw or drop anything (well some bread and a few noodles...but not her cup or plate or all the silverware for once). I seriously love Sophie's "cheese" face. She is such a crack up.


Then we came home and I put the girls in their jammies, grabs some blankets and turned on a princess movie for them. Since Jasmine is Claire's favorite we decided to watch Alladin.


While the girls were sitting quietly watching their movie I decided to take advantage of the time and fold the laundry. It wasn't a big load so I know I wasn't in there very long but by the time I took the basket back to my room to put the clothes away I noticed Sophie wasn't sitting on the couch anymore and all was quiet. Never a good sign. I thought that she would be in Claire's room pulling all the books and toys off her shelf like she usually is but instead I found her in her top dresser drawer with everything on the floor. She was moving to the next drawer over when I caught her. Thank goodness that dresser weighs a ton so that it didn't fall over on her. I swear that girl can get into trouble so fast. The funny part was her sweet little face when I saw her. She knew she was busted but at the same time I could tell how proud of herself she was.





After the movie was over the girls went to bed like champs. It was such a fun night with my 2 favorite girls.

Let it snow

We had a huge snow storm that lasted about 24 hours total. In the morning everything was covered and white (and look I even shoveled the driveway) and the boys got all bundled up to go to school. They were very excited to make a snowman but the snow was gone by the time Tayson got home from school. You've got to love spring in Utah.

Reminders

Todd told Tayson that if he doesn't get any bad marks at school today he will take him on a train ride (trax) to Salt Lake to see an awesome 3D movie about fish (the new Sea one from the Planet Earth creators). Tayson was so excited that this morning at breakfast he asked me if I would put a fish on one hand and a small train on the other hand to remind him to be good. Then Sophie wanted me to draw on her hand so I put a smiley face on her hand then Luke wanted a heart on his hand to remind him that I loved him and an even bigger heart on the other hand and Claire wanted a geal (girl) on her hand. Not that I usually draw on my kids but this seemed like a good cause. We'll do anything to help Tayson behave at school. There wasn't much time so you can't even really see their hands...but they almost missed the bus so this will have to do.


I really need some art lessons. I suck at small stick figure drawings!

Notes

Lately the boys love to leave us notes. This morning when I got home from running Luke said "mom do you know where paper and a pencil are?" I found him some then he wrote me a note (more like a card because he taped another piece of paper on the front so that you had to open it) asking me if I'd seen his DS. Seems like he could have asked me that instead of about the paper. The note from Tayson was sitting on our dresser when we woke up yesterday and aren't sure when he brought it to us. Classic Tayson.



Luke's Note: have you sen my DS
Tayson's Note: I kant goto sleep From TA YSOn

I think it's so funny that Tayson wrote his name on 2 lines. He never takes the time to do it right. Oh well.

Seriously What Do I Do?

This picture says it all. Luke is doing whatever will make someone happy, Tayson is goofing off, Claire is being held and is grumpy and Sophie is no where to be found.

Each of my kids are so different and I struggle every day to do my best to help them develop and grow and know that they are loved. I want my home to be a safe haven for them. I never want them to worry about who they are or think for 1 second they aren't loved but at the same time I am trying to figure out how to teach them which requires discipline and rules and punishments.

Yesterday Tayson came home from school with 11 (yes 11) bad marks and not 1 good mark on his daily report. We have a rule for good and bad marks that good mean you can stay up longer and bad mean you go to bed earlier. Yesterday he should have gone to bed at 6:20....WHAT? I can't send my kid to bed without dinner and it was Monday so it was FHE which is also very important. Todd and I decided that since he was SO BAD and we think FHE is very important (especially since each week we are learning about and preparing for his baptism). So we had to change the rules slightly and take away friends for today and early bed tonight. Then this morning when we were eating breakfast the following conversation happened.

Todd: Tayson you need to be better at school today. You really are going to have to go to bed as soon as your homework is done and you've eaten dinner if you're bad again.
Tayson: I know I'll try
Todd: If you can't figure out how to be good I'm going to put you on Ritalin
Tayson: What's that?
Me: It's a drug
Todd: It's not drugs it's medicine and you don't like taking medicine do you?
Tayson: No. What does it do?
Me: It takes away your personality
Todd: No it doesn't it slows your brain down so you can behave and not distract others
Tayson: I don't want it I'll try to be good.

Then he said the prayer and it went something like this: "please help to get no minuses and lots of pluses and help my brain slow down on it's own".

It was so funny but also so sincere. I know he doesn't try to be bad in school and that he wants to do the right thing. But for the life of me I can't figure out how to help him. I never want him to feel bad about himself and have low self esteem but at the same time he simply can't act the way he does. I have no idea what to do or if we should just stay the course and eventually he will be able to control his behavior.

Last night Luke and I were in charge of the lesson at FHE and we were reading a few pages out of Tayson's baptism book on faith. I asked Luke to read the first paragraph assuming I would need to help him with most of the words. Nope. He read and read it well he knew "Heavenly Father" and "faith" and every other word except "prophet". He could figure out words so fast knowing the context of what we were talking about. I'm not trying to brag here but seriously I was so impressed. He was pretty much reading at the same level as Tayson. Crazy. After when we were alone (so that I didn't make Tayson feel bad) I told Luke how well he read and how proud I was of him and he said "I love reading mama". I told him I do too and he said "is that why you always lay in bed with a book?" ha ha ha. Yep. If I need a break I love to lay in bed with a good book. It makes me HAPPY! I hope that he has developed the same love for reading.

Claire....what can I say? The girl is all attitude. I told her last night at dinner she had to eat her whole dinner or no cookies for treat that night. She said "I don't care" and I think she meant it. Rather than fight with her I simply said "ok" and then she proceeded to eat her dinner so she could have treats. I'm pretty sure if I would have made a big deal about it she would have not eaten just to prove me wrong. Then later that night she came out of her room completely covered in black marker. She colored all over her arms and legs and got one small dot on her sheet. She was so upset that she couldn't go to be because of her sheets being dirty. She didn't care that her whole body was covered she just couldn't get into bed with that dot on the sheet. Please. I made her go to bed anyway and then spent a long time this morning scrubbing her arms and legs in the bath.

And what more can I say about Sophie other than she is such a silly girl. I love her spicy personality and how lovable and happy she is. I'm sure that she will give me a serious run for my money as she gets older though. She is my wild child with no cares in the world.

I am a pretty lucky gal to have my 4 beautiful and amazing kiddos. I hope that I can do my part in raising them. I'm not sure what kind of a joke it was to give me 4 totally different personalities - one of those things that is just so funny to someone else. Nothing that I learn from one kid passes on to the next. And I fear the next 17 years of all the things I still have to learn.

It starts today

Today is the day I start getting ready for summer. It's time to take charge and get serious about losing those extra pounds that have found a home around my waist since November. It's time to get serious about running so that I can feel good about my races this summer. I've also decided to take it a step further this year. For the last 8 years I've either been prego or losing baby weight. But since I'm not prego right now and I lost my post-Sophie last year I'm going to try to get 5 pounds below my normal goal weight. My goal weight before now has always been my wedding weight but I want to get below that. I think for once I can do it since I'm starting at 4 pounds above my goal weight. I can totally lose 10 pounds....if I work at it.

So here's the plan:

I will be counting my calories and tracking them daily on sparkpeople.com. I have to eat between 1400 - 1700 a day to lose the weight before the end of May. I plan on making sure I have lots of protein packed meals and snacks and eat lots of whole grains.

I am going to drink a minimum of 64 oz. of water a day but my goal is 100 oz.

I want to try this new program I found on Saturday for really burning the fat. I'm a little embarrassed to admit the program I found and the fact that I'm so excited. But the truth is that when I was shopping on Saturday I found a book called "Fit over 40" and it talked about how to get your body back. I'm not 40 yet....I'm only 37 but the book just drew me in and I do feel like at this point I have to fight the fat in a different way than when I was younger. The program is all about building muscle fibers - but not just any of them the "fast twitch" ones. It talks about how those are the ones you lose as you age. So it has this program to build fast twitch muscles 3 times a week. I really want to give it a go and still do my cardio on the other days.

I'll admit I didn't kick start the day how I wanted to. I had a bad night last night - I got 2 different calls from work and had to actually get on my computer to fix some stuff at 12 and 2, then Tayson had a bad dream and came up to sleep on our floor around 3, and then Sophie woke up crying at 4 because she's getting 3 molars. So needless to say, I didn't get up to go running this morning. I have however eaten very healthy so far: oatmeal for breakfast, yogurt and cottage cheese for my mid-morning snack and I've had 32 oz of water so far.

Feel free to check up on me and ask me how things are going so that I'll stay on track.