Happy Birthday Rebekah!

We officially have three 3 year olds in the house now. Rebekah turned 3 on August 26th. (Brigham is 3 years 11 months, and Marcus is 3 years 4 months)
She said she wanted a purple cake for her birthday, so I decided to make a purple butterfly. For my limited cake decorating experience I think it turned out pretty good.
"Nana and Papa" and their family came over to help her celebrate. All the kids were so excited! They kept asking when we were going to eat the cake and the boys were excited to give Bekah her gifts.

Gram-Gram, thanks for the card you sent... this is the outfit she picked out from your birthday money.

Motherhood:-An-Eternal-Partnership

Motherhood:-An-Eternal-Partnership

This video was very touching and uplifting for me. A must-see for every christian mother.

Yet another catastrophe

2 boys

Playing chase

Bed room door

Slammed in face

Not only face

But also pinky

Smashed -

Blood oozing

Parents worried

Doctor questions

X-rays, stitches

Lots of pain

Fussy Hyrum

:(

Family Picture Day

We got family pictures done today. It's hard to get four little ones to all smile at the same time. Here are a few of the pictures.

Poopy day

Yesterday was a poopy day. Rebekah pooped in her pants during nap time and stuck her hands in it and got it all over herself and her floor and a couple of blankets. That took about 15 minutes to clean up (not counting laundry time).

Then, not more than two hours later Marc pooped in his pants. (Two poop accidents in one day is normal at our house, but these were the two most messy AND in the same day.) So I walked him to bathroom and started cleaning him up. As I was I realized that there had to have been more poop that must have fallen out of his underwear and shorts because his underwear wasn't too messy, but his leg was covered. So, I thought I'd better go find the "fallen poop" after I finish cleaning him up. Anyway, I got him cleaned up and by this time Hyrum was fussing so I sent Marc to his room to get clean clothes and went to check on Hyrum. Well, Hyrum was covered in poop. He had it all over his face- YUCK!- his hands his clothes, his feet and sandals. He had two toy animals in his hands and they were covered in poop, he had managed to smear it all over one half of the couch and it was all over the kitchen floor. By this time I figured I had three options: clean it up crying, clean it up yelling, or clean it up laughing. I decided to laugh- it was much more pleasant than my other two options. I got Hyrum in the bath and confined the other to their bedroom to play until I got things cleaned up. After Hyrum's bath I scrubbed the couch and floor and toys and sandals for probably 30 minutes.

So all in all I spent over an hour cleaning poop yesterday- what fun!
Sorry this a no picture post. I figured I'd spare you that kind of detail. :)

First Day of School

Brigham and Marc got to start preschool this summer and are loving it! They are in a classroom with about 7 teachers and 10 students, plus service providers like speech pathologists and others. So they almost get one on one attention at school in a high quality environment! They sure love it!
They get to ride a "bus" (it's really a big 12 passenger van) and they got to get new back packs and new shirts! They decided on matching shirts. They love every minute of school!

Broken Arm

This may be old news to everyone by now, but I thought I'd put a little about it on here.

Two weeks ago (I know I'm way behind) we were at the park playing with "nana and grandpa" Hyurm's old foster parents. We had my four plus two extras that I was watching. I was helping Hyrum on a spin thing Brigham and Rebekah were running around and Marc was climbing on a stair/ladder thing. I was half watching the others while I helped Hyrum, so I saw Marc begin to climb, but didn't see him fall. Next thing I know "nana" alerted me that he had fallen. I ran over and he was in a heap on the ground. He wasn't screaming or crying. I picked him up, guessing he was fine, and he started fussing and I looked at his arm and it was bent out of shape. I instantly knew he had broken it. We threw all the kids back in the strollers and walked back home. I was getting shaky and my heart was pumping fast- I was trying to decide if I should take him the Urgent Care of the ER. "Nana" stayed with Timothy and the kids while I took Marc, finally deciding on the ER. He was in a lot of pain and my last experience with Urgent Care was SLOW. Luckily the ER got us in right away I walked through the doors and without a word they guided me to the triage room and within about 10 minutes we were in the exam room.
It turns out he broke both bones in his right forearm and luckily he's young enough that they didn't have to do surgery. (Same brake in an adult would have resulted in surgery for placement, pins, and/or plates.) They just put him to sleep and the doctor straightened his arm by physically moving the bones with his hands until they lined up- no incisions! It was very quick. They put a splint on- no cast at first to account for swelling- then he woke up about 2 minutes later.
Two days later I took him into orthopedics to have it checked and they put a cast on. He chose bright orange. He's adapted really fast to only using his left arm, but there's still a lot he can't/won't do with his arm, but it will heal quickly.

Vacation part 2

After visiting my family we went and visited Timothy's family. The kids got to play with their cousins- Fred, Sierra, Robert, Kiera, and Nathaniel. They also got to visit with Gram-Gram, Grandpa, Aunt Brindy, Aunt Cindy, Uncle Dan, Uncle Eric, and Aunt Deserae. They had a good time playing in Gram-Gram's wading pools, and riding bikes with their cousins, but the best of all was playing in Gram-Gram's playhouse.
Gram-Gram turned an old van into a playhouse for the grandchildren. They all seemed to love it! She has a kitchen set and a toy sewing machine and small tools and lots more for the kids to do. They played out in the playhouse a lot.

Brigham fixing the van

Kiera and Brigham

Hyrum at the park

Rebekah sewing

Marc climbing

Thanks everyone for letting four toddlers invade their space for a while! We had a great time visiting all of our family!

Vacation Part 1

We were able to take a 10 day trip to see family. We saw all of Timothy's immediate family and all of mine except for my Dad who lives in Missouri. It was so good to see family and spend time with them.
On our way down to Utah we stopped to visit Aunt Katherine and her new little baby Emma. Emma was in NICU so only I could go see her, but I was glad we did.
Then Aunt Katherine joined us for a picnic in the park before she went back to the hospital to take care of Emma and we drove the rest of the way to Grandma's house.


While in Utah, my mom and Brittany took us to a place that Brittany likes to play called Jumping Jacks. It is a room full of huge blow up jumping places and blow up slides. The kids loved it!




We spent three days at Grandma and Aunt Brittany's house. We got to play with Aunt Brittany,
and her piano,
and baby Mikayla (Aunt Tasha's baby).

While at Grandma's Hyrum learned how to put ice cream buckets on his head and made his hair so sticky- it stuck up for days!
The other kids thought it would be funny to put things on their heads too.


We had a great time visiting Grandma and Aunt Brittany. We also got to visit with Uncle Brett and Aunt Tasha and their baby, Mikayla. We went out to Uncle Jason and Aunt Marji's new house and got to play with cousins Kaitlyn and Faith. while in Utah we also went to my 10 year high school reunion- which was interesting. I wish more of my high school friends had come, but it was fun to visit with those who were there.

Playing in the mud part 2

We've sure had a lot of mud this spring and this time the children really got "into it!" They started out just jumping in it, but then they got out the buckets...

I put Marc and Hyrum down for naps in the middle of the mud play so they didn't get as dirty.
Brigham and Rebekah and one of their friends were soaked and covered with gunk!
I had to run them through the shower and wash their hair and I still didn't get all of the muck out. But, they sure had a good time.

Lions, tigers, and bears oh my!

On Tuesday we woke the children up early and drove to the zoo. They're still trying to wake up in the picture above. We've been trying to make it to the zoo for over a year now and we finally made it.
The kids loved seeing all the animals. They were all fairly well behaved at the zoo because there was just so much to look at.

The favorite animals to see were the monkeys and elephants.

Here are the lions.

We got a lot of crazy comments from people about our large family and our stroller.

I dressed the children alike so that I could keep track of them easier and I also put signs on their backs that said, " If I'm lost please call Mom" and my cell #. Luckily we didn't lose anyone, although, Marc ran off for about 30 seconds I couldn't find him, but he came running right back.
We sure had a great time at the zoo, the children keep asking to go back.

Parenting

Being a mother to four toddlers is hard. Especially when one of the toddlers is a foster child and is dealing with insecurities.

This week I have done a lot of praying, asking for guidance in helping Marc to control his behavior because he has been out of control lately. First I was asking about how to stop the biting because that was getting more and more frequent and Rebekah was starting to bite again too and they were leaving horrible bite marks on everyone. As I was praying about it the other night the inspiration about stopping biting came! It was that Marc is VERY motivated by food, especially sweets. And when he bites someone, I was to offer everyone who was using their teeth the right way some candy. When he asked for some too I was to say -with empathy, “Oh, no, Marc, you didn't use your teeth for food. Brigham used his teeth for food so he gets some. Bekah used her teeth for food...” and so on. I only had to do that three times before the biting stopped. Then, later he almost bit Brigham, but he stopped himself, looked at me and said, “teeth for food”. I applauded him for not biting and gave everyone candy including him so they could use their teeth for food. What a blessing that inspiration was! It's been so nice not to have to deal with biting 4-5 times a day! And all the bite marks are beginning to heal!

Well, with that behavior under control I began to pray about the other problem behaviors. Last night I was thinking about it after the children were in bed and I got the impression to read an early childhood newsletter that was sitting on the counter. So, I did and the first article I read was about a mother who had been dealing with a toddler who had a lot of behavioral issues with her son. She started to spend 10-20 minutes a day just sitting on the floor and letting him choose the activity and just playing- letting the child direct the play. That and a few other things changed the mother's perspective of her child, and the child's behavior began to improve immensely. I thought, I need to do that with all of my children, but especially with Marc. So, we're going to try it this week and see how it goes.

Fire!

This morning I woke up to the smoke alarm going off. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my glasses (of all things.) We rushed the children out the front door and to the mail boxes (our designated meeting spot.) Timothy said he thought the fire was in the oven. He left us outside and went back in to check on things. Sure enough there was a fire in the oven. Here's how we figure it happened.

Timothy and the children had been up for about an hour and were letting me sleep in because I wasn't feeling well. Timothy had made muffins for breakfast and got them into the oven. Then, he went to change Hyrum's diaper. While he was changing him Brigham must have grabbed a measuring cup and an empty box of pepto bismal and opened the oven and tossed them in. Then they caught on fire and set the smoke detector off. (We found white melted plastic and half a burned pepto box in the oven after it cooled down.) Brigham said he threw a measuring cup in there. He also said that he would never do that again. (I hope he keeps his word.)

...

4 toddlers + diarrhea = lots of diapers to wash