Boo Activities

We had lots of fun for Halloween. For the church Halloween Party on the 23rd, we went as a Fairytale Family-unicorn, evil queen, Princess and the Pea, Fairy, and Prince Charming. On the 31st, we finally made it to the Pumpkin Patch, had a spooky dinner of mummy dogs and ghost fries, and then trick-or-treated on our street.

Don't you just love babies?

Camilla at almost 4 months--just too cute :) I can't pick her up without giving her a kiss or two, or three. She loves standing, being tickled, held up in the air horizontally, watching any lit computer screen, chewing on her fingers, and being in new places. She has rolled over before but only by accident.

In Need of a Vacation

Surprisingly enough, the title doesn't describe me, it describes Abri. But the reason might surprise you. In September, she informed us: "I want to go to a hotel." Me: "Why is that?" Abri: "Because their beds are so soft and comfy."
Then later in the month, "I really want to go to a hotel. They have soft beds. When can we go to a hotel, Momma?" Then another two weeks later: "Momma, Can we go to Virginia again? I really want to go to a hotel. They have nice beds." I'm pretty sure it's even come up at her suggestion another couple of times since.

The pattern is pretty evident--no talk of pools, or even TV, or just fun vacation activities--it's their beds! So, we're considering getting Abri a new bed. To justify her request, her mattress was 2nd hand when we got it 10 years ago, so its probably time.

You know you have a child-fountain when. . .

• they manage to spit up on clean clothes that haven't even been worn yet



• they spit up inside your shirt



• you haven't even finished cleaning up the first spit up before the 2nd and 3rd spit up comes



• Bibs are useless



• Even the absorbency of a cloth diaper is useless since it's such a small surface area



• you step barefoot in spit up on the floor that you didn't realize was there


• your baby's face is covered in it after spitting up while laying on their tummy


• your kids give you a hug and tell you you smell like spit up

Whoever invented the tooth fairy idea ought to be punished

This is going to be an admission of bad parenting to my seven year old who has lost four teeth since last Sept. We are not, Really not, good at the tooth fairy thing. The first two teeth were normal. We got $2.50 in quarters under her pillow with no incident. (As a side note--how do you decide how much to give them? Do we have to account for inflation? I still think $2.50 was pretty steep, but Todd handled the first one, set a precedent, and now she has got some affluent teeth in my opinion.)

The next two, both of which have happened in the past four weeks, have been disasters. Emma lost the second of her two front teeth within a week of us getting home from the hospital with Cami. She put the tooth under her pillow on the 2nd day after losing it. We forgot to switch it out. She woke up devastated in the morning. We told her the tooth fairy must have been confused since she actually lost the tooth the day before but had forgotten to put it under the pillow the same day. (We thought, whew, we had a lame excuse to cover ourselves, but at least we had some logic to appease her.) 2nd night, we forget again. In the morning: a very distraught girl, again. We tell her to cut the tooth fairy some slack, maybe she's out of her routine. 3rd morning--we finally get it switched, thanks to Todd. It never even crossed my mind that night either.

So, we are quite contrite about messing up Emma's experience with the tooth fairy, when two weeks later she lost her fourth tooth, her 2nd front bottom tooth. I groaned to myself when the tooth came out, hoping we could manage to not botch this time up. Todd remembered that same night to get the 10 coins traded for that affluent tooth. The next morning, Emma woke up, came into our room and this time said, "What!!!??? Car wash tokens?? The tooth fairy left car wash tokens under my pillow?" Todd had bested me at remembering once again, but this time hadn't checked the coins well since 3 of 10 were wrong. Todd gave an answer that those could be used the next time we go to Peter Piper Pizza. She wasn't entirely appeased by that, but let it drop.

Personally, I think she may be harboring deep doubts in the ability of the tooth fairy. I can't blame her. All I can say is whoever came up with the idea had not just had a newborn that was waking them up and distracting them at night.

Cute girls

At the end of May we went to the Temple and took pics on the temple grounds. I especially liked this shot of the three girls together.

Life updates

Thanks to all my friends who posted congratulations on my last post--that was such a pleasure to read comments. :)

Life is good--feel like I'm finding a sort of equilibrium. Sometimes I'm not sure who causes more stress--my almost 2 yr old Kayla or Camilla with the baby demands of being held, fed, etc. Oh wait, that would be Kayla, as images of hair gel, toothpaste, and diaper rash creme spread over various surfaces of my house come to mind. Not to mention her entry into the two stage, or tendencies to take her diaper off when she throws those characteristic tantrums.

Like any two year old she has her charms and cute phrases--"gi go" or Here go, as she hands you things, i.e. pacifiers for Camilla that have fallen on the floor; "Doe know" or Don't know, when you ask her for something she can't locate, with her arms raised in a questioning manner; "Go" to keep you singing when she likes the music.

Abrianna has found her calling of showering Camilla with love. I suspect her frequent requests of "Can I pet Cami, or kiss Cami" are partially motivated by desire to get out of things she's asked to do, i.e. cleaning her room. It's not always so cute, such as when I have to lean down with Cami for the 2nd time in two mins to satisfy her request.

Emma has shown a bit of resentment at her greater responsibilities of keeping an eye on the smaller girls--to be fair, really just Kayla, getting various items from around the house, or picking up after all the girls, not just her own things. She surprised me last week in a spectacular show of maturity. She told me she wanted to help with Mommy chores; she asked me to teach her how to do laundry and make dinner. We covered laundry basics, and both she and Abri are doing better at putting away their own clothes, so that's a plus. We haven't tackled dinner yet. Overall, she fulfills the position of eldest sibling well and I'm really proud of her.