Helping with dishes

The children love to help with the dishes- any house work for that matter. It always takes longer when they help- and a lot more work on my part, but they learn lots and it's a great way to spend time with them and get something done at the same time.

Hyrum climbed right into the dish washer on his own one night while I was doing the dishes. He was so proud of himself.

Picture update

Things have been moving along at a fairly normal pace the past few weeks, so I thought I'd just put up a few recent pictures.The children all like to climb on Timothy or myself at the same time. We sure love them! The mattress you can see in the back ground is the "jumping place." We put it on the floor in the living room and that's where the children can jump and jump without getting into any trouble. (They love to jump - on couches, beds, chairs, etc. - so we had to provide a constructive place to get their need to jump met.)A family in our ward at church were able to get sealed in the temple a few weeks ago, so we decided to take the two hour drive up to the temple to view the sealing and take the children to see the temple. They're not able to go in, but we had some nice youth from our ward watch them outside while we went in. The children loved the temple and are looking forward to going back when we can have them sealed to us forever!
Our sweet boys!

We are waiting on a decision from the judge about Hyurm's legal case - his birth-mother's rights. I guess the judge has 30 days to decide, so we wait. We're are hoping and praying that the birth-mother's right will be terminated and that she doesn't decide to petition the decision. But, we'll see how it all goes.

The children are learning and growing like crazy! We are so proud of them and amazed at how fast time flies. They've already been with us for six months and have grown and changed so much in that amount of time.
Hyrum trying out pasta. He just loves to eat table food, but still enjoys the baby food too. You may not believe this, but Hyrum, who is only 9 months, is trying to talk. He says things all the time that amaze us. He's been saying, "Mom" and "Dada" consistently for about 5 or 6 weeks now. He also says, "All done," "baba" (bottle), "Hyrum," "Beta" (Becka), and "ca-ker" (cracker). And he repeats us when we talk - he's repeated, "I love," "poo-poo," "diaper cover," "thank you," and "bye-bye". He is amazing! He's also doing the army crawl really well now. He can get whereever he wants to go in the house now- except where there are baby gates. :) He's also started pulling himself up to a standing position now too.



Miss Rebekah is learning and growing well too. She's talking like crazy and we can understand most of what she says. She's communicating regularly in two to three word sentences, but she has said a six- or seven-word sentence - I can't remember what it was, though. She runs and walks well without tripping nearly as much as she used to. She's learned how to jump with both of her feet off the ground and loves jumping on the "jumping place" now. Her hair is growing lots too. This picture was taken just after her last hair cut. I'm keeping it short until the hair on the top of her head is as long as the rest. She's just about ready to start growing it out - as long as I can keep up with her curls.

Brigham is at a stage where he isn't learning and growing quite as fast as his younger siblings, but he's still progressing nicely. He notices everything. He likes to play with the other daycare children that come over - especially the 5- and 8-year old because he wants to be like them - but he also likes playing with the two-year olds that come over. He loves church and asks almost everyday if we can go to church on Sunday. He's learning to pray and just today I caught him kneeling down outside saying his own little prayer aloud - it was so cute!

We've had a great six months with these chidlren - and here's to another 16-18 years with them!!

Family Travels

Things have been a bit crazy in our family the past three weeks. The first week we spent a lot of time trying to plan and prepare for our family vacation. The second week we were on our vacation. And the third week we spent trying to unpack and get caught up on laundry and housework. We realized that planning a trip with three little ones takes a lot more work than it did for just the two of us.

On Tuesday morning we loaded the children into our packed van and took a 10 hour drive to get to Timothy's parent's house. The children had never been on a road trip before and fussed a lot, but we managed to make it.

We mostly just played and visited at their house on Wednesday and Thursday. It was sure nice to see Gram-Gram, Grandpa, and Aunt Brindy. Uncle Ben also showed up on Thursday evening. Grandpa and Uncle Ben hadn't met the children before then, so it was nice for them to meet.

Wednesday night we went to see the city fireworks. We were worried that the children would be scared from the loud noises, but they weren't- they loved watching the fireworks, even Hyrum was engrossed in the show.

Friday morning we packed the children in the van again and took off for another long drive to Lava Hot Springs. My family was meeting there for a family reunion. It was great to see my family again, and have them meet some more of their aunts, uncles, and cousins.My family: Brigham, Andrew, Katherine, Rebekah, Timothy, Chase ( hiding behind me), Jessica holding Hyrum, Marjie, Jason, Mom (Konnie), Tasha, Brett, in front of Tasha and Brett is Kaitlyn and Faith.

We rented a tube and life jackets for Brigham and Rebekah and floated down the river. On our first trip we took a spill in one of the rapids, but we managed to keep the children safe and get back on our tube with the help of my sister, Katherine, and her husband, Andrew. Brigham loved riding the river, but Rebekah didn't. Hyrum spent some time with Grandma the first trip we took and with Aunt Katherine the second trip. Timothy and Brigham also went a third time. These pictures are small, but we're in there.

That night we camped together and had a great time. Brigham and Rebekah got to try their first roasted marshmallows and got covered in sticky white stuff. It got really windy before dinner, and after dinner it rained pretty hard. Luckily our tent stayed mostly dry and didn't blow away. This was the children's first time camping too (as far as we know.) They seemed to really enjoy it.

Saturday was the 4th of July and we traveled back to Timothy's parents and celebrated with them. We had a barbecue at Uncle Eric's (Timothy's brother) and Aunt Deserae's house which was nice, then we took the children to the park across the street from their house.

Hyrum enjoying the sand

Sunday we took the children to church with Gram Gram and Grandpa, but they weren't feeling too well and all had runny noses so we didn't want them in the nursery. We took them home after the first hour and got them down for naps. It was a peaceful day as we visited with family.

Monday we started the 10 hour trek back home. (It's only supposed to take 8 1/2 hours, but with children everything takes longer.) We made it back safe with no big incidents for which we are grateful.

Timothy and I learned a lot on this trip as it was our first with our three children. We learned that it pays to be prepared, we learned patience as the children screamed because they were sick of car seats, and we learned a little more about planning things to take longer when accompanied by little ones. It was a good experience for us all, and we hope our family appreciated seeing us, because we sure enjoyed seeing them.

Interesting comments

I get a lot of comments from people whenever I take my children into public. Especially if I take my triple stroller. I guess it just draws attention because they're not very common. Usually I get comments like, "You've got your hands full." or "Wow, are they twins?" (Asking about Brigham and Rebekah.) One lady even insisted that they were twins- no they're not- but she kept saying,"yes, they're twins." Whatever lady- you can think that if you want.

I get comments about the stroller like, "Do you need a license to drive that thing?" or "Whoa, here comes a limo." or "that's a train of a stroller."

A lot of people ask how old they all are. And then they give me funny looks when they find out Brigham and Rebekah are 11 months apart. I just shrug my shoulders.

A few weeks ago I took the children with me to a neighborhood garage sale- about 30 houses in one neighborhood. It was neat to just walk around and get some great deals. There were a lot of people there. One lady stopped me and commented on the children and the stroller and asked how old they were. I told her. Then she put her arm around me and asked in a half whisper, "do you know how you got all of them?" as she pointed at the children. Like I don't know where babies come from! I laughed and said, "Yes, we adopted them!" I can't believe a stranger decided it was her responsibility to teach me how people get babies.

Anybody else get strange comments about their children?

A little bit of everything

Brigham and Rebekah have been potty training for two months now. They're skills go up and down, but they are progressing. They are always so proud of themselves when they stay dry all day. They are doing well for the most part.

Hyrum is trying to talk lately- he says "Mom" and "Dada" and it seems he knows what he is talking about. He is also trying to learn to crawl- he scoots on his tummy and sits on his own. He also scoots over to table and chair legs and shelves and tries to pull himself up on them. We also caught him trying to clean up toys in the living room. He was on his tummy and he had a toy car in his hand and he scooted a little closer to one of the toy bins, and tried to put the car in a few times until he got it in, then he got another toy and did the same thing! We figure that's probably how he sees the toys used the most because the chidlren dump them which only takes a fraction of a second and sometimes they play with them for a few minutes, but we probably spend more time picking up toys everyday than playing with them. So, maybe Hyrum's just doing what he sees us do.

Since Timothy's been done with school, we've been spending time doing things together as a family whenever there aren't daycare children here. We've taken them on bike rides, gone to parks, and yesterday we took them strawberry picking. I think they ate more berries than they put in the bucket. (Not counting the ones they took a bite out of and stuck in.) They also picked a lot of white strawberries- oh, well. That's what we get for taking toddlers to pick strawberries. Hyrum also ended up with a few strawberries in his mouth and has had a lot of runny diapers today- poor baby. I wish I had pictures of them after the strawberry patch. They were all covered in red.


Brigham has also recently figured out a constructive way to play with blocks. He's been figuing out how to build things more and more and is proud of his creations.

Also, one of his favoritve things to do is jump.

Hyrum's been making this funny face and we finally got it on camara.Rebekah's been playing "mommy" constantly. She wants her baby to come everywhere and do everything with her. The other day, at lunch, she insisted her baby sit at the table and then her baby needed her plate, so I got her a plate. Then, her baby needed a sandwich, so I got her a sandwich. Her baby then needed an apple too. It was kinda funny.

Here are a few pictures from one of our park trips.

Timothy's done with School for the summer!!

Hello to all who read this blog.

Sorry it's been a while. Things have been rather busy around here, and I've been trying to come up with something creative to post, but haven't yet.

We are all glad Timothy has a break from school for the summer. We're looking forward to doing a lot together as a family this summer.

Watch for more posts coming soon....

Hyrum's Feast

In the scriptures it says, "Feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do." 2 Ne 32:3

We try to read scriptures with the children every evening before bed. Sometimes they all listen, but most of the time they're running around , except Hyrum doesn't run yet, so he is usually sitting and listening. I think that he has really taken to heart those words, "Feast upon the words of Christ."

One day he ate an entire page out of my Sunday School study guide which is the booklet just to the right of his head. The page is completely gone and must have gone through his digestive system because it is no where to be found. During the same feast he also tried eating the "picture scriptures" as the children call them. Luckily he didn't get very far on that one. His face says it all, "but Mom, I was only doing what the scriptures said, you don't have to take it away!"

Also, we've been teaching the children about prophets. They have learned to recognize the picture of our current prophet, President Monson. Hyrum gets excited when he sees the prophet's picture too. We've sung the song, "Follow the prophet, follow the prophet, follow the prophet he knows the way" Several times for family home evening and just around the house. Hyrum, again, has been paying close attention as we try to teach the toddlers. Only he heard the words a little wrong.
He thought we were singing, "Swallow the prophet, swallow the prophet." This is the second time we've caught him trying to eat the prophet's picture. (Well, he was a few inches off, but his aim will get better with age.)
He was very proud of himself too.

Crazy Friday - plus a little

I have taken on two of my previous child care clients - ones I had before we got our children. Mr. M, as we shall call him here, turned 2 in April. And Miss K, as she will be referred to on the blog, turned 2 in December. It has been nice for the children to have a few extra play mates. They both come part time, but I had both of them here on Friday, plus my three, so I had 5 children 2 years and under. The night before, Hyrum was teething and fussy, therefore I didn't get much sleep and Timothy was gone that day from 6:45am to 3:30pm.

I've had them all here at least two times before and things were a little busy, but manageable. Here is what happened on Friday - I'm lucky we all survived:

Mr. M is in a hair-pulling phase and pulls Rebekah's and Miss K's hair almost every time I turn my head. He also pulls Hyrum's hair if I leave Hyrum to play on the floor. So, I was constantly pulling him away from the group so that he wasn't hurting the children and so that, hopefully, he would learn that he shouldn't pull hair. But, the constant pulling was beginning to drive me crazy.

After making Hyrum a bottle, I went into the living room to sit down to feed him. Three of the children were in the kitchen because they had followed me in there, but they didn't follow me back out like they usually do. So as I was feeding, I kept calling to the children to come play in the living room. At first they weren't responding, but finally Brigham piped up and said, "I'm cleaning first." I told him to come in and play in the living room, but he was insistent that he clean the mess. So, I thought I'd better go see what the mess was. I walk into the kitchen and lo and behold an entire $15 can of formula had been dumped all over the floor. And Brigham was trying to clean it up with a dry wash cloth. I was not too happy about this - it was my last can of formula and it had been nearly full. (I was planning on going shopping that night and getting more.) So, not only did I have a mess, but I also didn't have formula to feed my baby and there was no way I was taking 4 toddlers and a baby to the store to get some. Luckily I found enough to make two bottles in the diaper bag.

Brigham and Mr. M have been in a throwing toy phase also, and they egg each other on. I've been trying to teach them to throw only (soft) balls. Well, Friday as they were throwing things a toy got stuck in the pot of our little palm tree. I think Brigham must have been trying to get the toy when he knocked over the tree and it broke. I was not happy about this. See the small fire hat in the pot ?
Did I mention that all four toddlers are potty training? As you can probably guess, we've been spending a lot a time in the bathroom.

So, after dealing with all of this I finally got lunch on the table, the children ate and I got two of them down for naps while the other two were finishing eating. While I was putting Rebekah down, Brigham and Miss K got into the pasta salad and it ended up all over the floor. What a lovely mess, huh? I hadn't eaten lunch yet because I was too busy feeding Hyrum and keeping up with getting seconds, etc for the four toddlers. So, now my lunch was all over the floor.
Well, luckily they took decent naps that day or I would have been the one pulling hair out.

At 2:15 I have to load all the little ones into the van to go pick up a school-age child from school. Luckily that trip was uneventful. Until we were getting out of the van. Rebekah and Miss K were the last ones out. Miss K was moving slowly trying get down from the big van by herself. Rebekah was behind her and must have been tried of waiting so she pushed Miss K and Miss K fell out of the van scraping her arms and banging her head on the foot step on the way down. I sent her home with a goose-egg on the forehead.

Just after we got in the house I had to change Hyrum's diaper. I was in the middle of changing him when all of a sudden I heard Miss K screaming like her hair was being pulled. I run in to find that Mr. M had dragged Miss K by the hair from the kitchen all the way into the living room and was still pulling when I got in there. He had a fist full of hair. Now, at this point, with all that I had dealt with that day and not having got much sleep the night before, I lost my temper. I yelled at Mr. M for pulling Miss K's hair for the twelfth time that day, and right after she had just been injured falling out of the van. (I felt bad for yelling, but I also felt he deserved it a little, too.) Mr. M got buckled into a booster seat and left in the middle of the kitchen. I put Miss K in Rebekah's crib so that no one could hurt her again while I finished changing Hyrum's diaper. I also gave her an ice pack for her forehead. She was glad to get a break from the others.

At the end of the day I got the children into bed and went grocery shopping, but when I got to the store, I just sat in the parking lot outside for about twenty minutes just enjoying a little peace and quiet after my crazy day.

Now, Saturday was much better than Friday (no daycare-yea!), but we did have an incident that is going to cost our family more money than we'd like to spend. I was trying to load the children into the van and while I was getting the others, Brigham climbed into the front seat and was playing around. When I was ready to get him buckled I said, "Okay Brigham, let's get in your seat, it's time to go home." I then reached into the front to grab him, he dove away from me and his head went right into the windshield of the van. The windshield spider-webbed where his head hit. Amazingly enough, he didn't cry, didn't get a bruise or bump or anything on his head (luckily). But, our windshield is busted. I tried to get a picture of it. Yes, that is from Brigham's head. I just laughed and laughed over this one because he wasn't hurt and it was funny, but we're going to have to try to come up with several hundred dollars to fix this.

Mother's Day as a real Mom- finally!

Well, I'll have to say that I have been waiting for this day to arrive for years and years. The past 8 Mother's Days have been hard- some more than others, but the day usually included tears. I have had my ups and downs in dealing with my delayed blessings, but they have arrived and I was able to have a wonderful Mother's Day although I can't say that it was tear-free because there were a few little tears of joy. Although I have only been a Mother for 3 months now, I have learned a lot and have gained a lot of experience. It seems, in general, that mothers talk about the hardships and skip over the joys of being a mother. So, today I'd like to mention of few of the joys that have come into my life.

Smiling faces when I wake up in the morning
Little collar bones that love to be tickled.
Hearing my babies laugh is the best sound in the world!
It feels good to know that there are little ones relying on me to meet their needs.Watching them help each other and be kind and thoughtful.
I'm amazed at how they learn new words everyday.
Watching them grow and learn.
Seeing their joy when Daddy comes home or walks in the room!
Watching Daddy play and interact with them.
Helping them learn the gospel of Jesus Christ and teaching them to pray.Rejoicing over their successes.
Finding joy in the littlest things they do.
Listening to the funny things they decide to say.

After all the waiting, hoping, and praying- let me just say these little ones were worth the wait, and I would do it all again if I had to.

I hope each of you had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Just a few pictures

Fun in the Sun!
(They got these sun glasses for Easter, and they love them!)

Hyrum decided to begin reading at an early age.

Rebekah is trying to "help" put dishes away.

Brigham has also taken to reading.

Hyrum helping plant the garden

Rebekah and Brigham helping Daddy plant too.

Brigham loves his ice cream!

We were almost ready to have dinner and I had gotten Hyrum's infant cereal ready and gotten him into the high chair, but no bib yet. Rebekah decided she was going to feed him when I turned my back to finish getting dinner on the table.

Apparently he loved his sister feeding him.