He's got Skills.

*Bear in mind this post was written PRE  broken hand.

I am ashamed to admit that I did not look forward to Hyrum starting gymnastics.  I knew this combined with this new school year for MD was going to start me out on the path of the "On the road" Mom. Nothing wrong with that EXCEPT I thought I would rather stay at home and daydream about having a baby.

BUT surprise surprise- I LOVED it!

Probably because I realized as I watched him that Hyrum was doing something I could never do.

There is something remarkable about seeing your children be amazing 

I'm thinking about a future in the Olympics for this kid :)

Hyrum and his "Teacher" Brenda. She was pretty awesome.

Ta DA!

Water break! He was the only child who came prepared with a water bottle (He was determined to have a full backpack like his brother. I had to get creative. He also had a sweat rag and some after practice snacks.)

MD cheering Hyrum on! Well sometimes.

Not bad for never climbing up a rope

The Bubble exercise. I THINK they are working on their leg muscles. Or their abs. Or it definitely could be anything else :)

Choking my kids for a picture. SMILE.

 Hyrums attitude changed on MD's first day of school and he begged to have a school picture taken with me.

I'll have him sign it someday when he is famous

*Its kind of sad looking at this post now that gymnastics is out of the question for awhile. Oh Well.

Broken Bones and some Strawberry Ice cream

It's been a day. 

Well actually it's been a week :)

My little monkey who JUST started gymnastics decided to take a nose dive off of his "little tykes" flinstone like car. Of course it didn't help that he was sword fighting a friend on TOP of that car. (At least that is what he told the doctor-It also could have been because those friends were deliberately pushing the car over) Needless to say when he fell he broke his hand.

Friday we are going to get his blue cast put on. Right before we are going to talk to his gymnastics teacher to see if he can postpone his "training" for another month or two :) Poor poor boy, he has been SO excited about being a gymnast (I even have a blog post about it that I was going to post in a day or two. Still will though it feels a little sad now)

Oh well to make it up I did buy him some ice cream. That seemed to cheer him up. He even became super generous with that ice cream offering to share it with everyone INCLUDING Clark. (Who, by the way, is solidly stuck in my womb) 

Hyrum seems to be fine and is already talking about practicing his flips. I tried to explain how LONG it would be until he could roll around again, but basically he just got that today flips were off limits, but tomorrow is another story.

Why Does His First Day Feel Like my Last Day?

MD started Kindergarten today. 

I don't have much to say except today would be a good day for chocolate.

How do people do this?

Best Friends

One last hurrah at the park before MD starts school! A school Hyrum is NOT going to.

What is Hyrum going to do in his spare time? Who is Michael going to boss around at school? These are some deep questions for my boys :)

These boys have been inseparable since Hyrum turned 1 and have the hardest time doing things without the other one next to him.

MD had some homework to do and I had to make some copies so Hyrum could do it too! The idea of doing that for all of MD's school work sounds way too time consuming.

They should have been born twins so Hyrum doesn't feel like MD just left him behind. 

On a more selfish note-MD kept everyone busy and occupied- I don't really feel like resuming that role.

OK I also am feeling a little weepy. I LOVE having my children playing around me. They drive me nuts, I end up constantly separating them and reminding each boy how much they love each other. They scream and sweat and smell like dirty dogs. MD is always hungry, Hyrum is always running and banging into everything, and Seth is always...Seth. But this pandemonium world spinning craziness is a mess that I can thrive on. I love hearing them always go go go! I LOVE the late night giggles 30 minutes after they have been threatened within an inch of their lives to go to bed RIGHT now! I love the scribbles I find in my journal because the boys (Mostly Seth) got a hold of it and left me some love notes. I love the slobbery kisses each boys gives me as soon as they say their evening prayers and the sticky fingerprints they leave on my bed sheets when they come to tell me they finished their dinner. MD tells me I'm pretty almost daily, Hyrum tells me I am a princess and Seth calls me "HIS bobby!" No one knows how to love me quite the way my boys do. I squeeze each one extra tight these days as we wait so patiently for the little huish caboose to join our family. (Though it seems to be taking forever. My contractions are almost completely gone-Yeah I don't understand it....)

4 boys gets me a lot of sympathy. I feel sympathy for those who don't realize just how awesome my life is. The hard days are really hard, but the good days are just as wonderfully good!

Look at how happy and handsome my boys are-not one bit deprived of any of the good things in life! And seeing them happy makes me realize that motherhood with these boys truly was an inspired decision on the Lords part. Happiness-way to many people give it up for such a cheap imitation. True happiness is seeing the enormous love you feel for your family reflected 4 fold back at you. Tomorrow I might want to check myself into a mental institution but tonight I want to bask in the loveliness that is my life.

Hairy Armpits

36 weeks!

My boys. I love them. And they smell like teenagers. Hyrum asked me if he had hair under his armpits today!  It smells like it, but thank goodness he doesn't yet. He DOES have some hairy arms which he is VERY proud of.

MD wants to have hairy arms too-He doesn't like the idea of being in second place for ANYTHING even for something like hair on your arms. 

I had a talk with MD a few days ago that made him cry. I told him that someday he would grow up and meet a nice girl and move out. What HE got out of it was that some sneaky evil girl was going to come kidnap him in the near future and force him to leave his home-which he tearfully informed me that he did NOT want to do.

I DO love that he wants to live with me forever (When he is 25 I might feel differently :) but I cannot figure out for the life of me how I ALWAYS mange to tell him something supposedly normal and he twists it into something scary. Unless it is strangers. For some reason he thought it would be a nice adventure to meet a stranger and kept asking me if every person who walked by was one.

I can't help but hope that this will be my last picture taken-Hopefully instead in the next week or two you'll see Mr. Clark.
But if not I'll see you at 39 weeks :)

Sunday ramblings

This morning I am tired. You would think that a woman who spends most of her time in bed would be full of energy and ready to go! Today that is not the case. Yesterday as I was sitting down opening the list of books to continue reading I realized that it was once again a Saturday and that once again I would be missing church again the next day.  It was an interesting moment as I reflected on how much I missed taking the Sacrament. Sundays are actually one of the hardest days in our home-even when I am not on bed rest. Going to meetings, wrestling with 3 boys, bribing everyone to keep their mouths shut, fighting with Seth about why he needs to be in nursery while he stubbornly fights about why I should stay there with him makes those three hours one of the most stressful three hours of our week. So when I sat there yesterday and realized I was missing all those moments again and that I actually missed them, I realized bed rest was literally making me loony :)

Some highlights from my week:

Lately the boys have started asking me who I love better: Them or daddy. They do not like my answer :) Actually I tell them that I love them differently. MD HATES thinking that I could love anyone more then him and will argue with his daddy that he (MD) is my favorite. Their daddy on the other hand LOVES to instigate this little fight when MD brings it up and insists that I love him more. After a while MD gets frustrated at his daddy and ends the argument with a statement along the lines of "Mommy loves me more AND I love mommy more then you!" Ouch.  No worries to his daddy though since MD's loyalties change from me just as quickly when he gets mad at me.

Hyrum can make himself throw up any food he eats. It is SO frustrating an annoying. At dinner yesterday we sat down and served Hyrum up, only giving him things we thought he would enjoy. He quickly looked at his plate and informed me that he was not going to eat the yams. I then informed him that he had to just try one bite and if he didn't like it then he didn't have to eat it any more. His dad then jumped in that if Hyrum made himself throw up he was going to bed. Well Hyrum took one bite, forced himself to throw it up and was scooped up by his daddy and sent to bed.  I sat there wondering about how in the world one little boy could be so infuriating and stubborn and then I just stated giggling. MD thought I was crazy. Seth probably thought I was crazy too but I couldn't help myself.

Seth joined me in bed last night. I think he had a nightmare because he came in sobbing with his cheeks completely wet with his tears. I layed him down next to his daddy (Who can sleep though anything) and Seth just started screaming that he wanted his "BOBBY!" I wasn't actually ready for sleep (Pregnancy creates the worst insomnia for me) but I layed down next to him anyway. He scooted as close as he could to me and immediately calmed down and started dozing. It was a hot night and my temp already runs higher with little Clark raising my temp a couple of degrees, but a quote went through my mind as I held my baby:

"You rock a sobbing child without wondering if today’s world is passing you by, because you know you hold tomorrow tightly in your arms." By Neal A. Maxwell

It was a sweet moment.  Then I started thinking of a song my mom  used to sing to us (Jokingly) 

"Go to sleep. Little Creep" 

How is it that two seemingly different statements can be so completely perfect for one little boy?

I have started having the boys come into my room and sit next to me and we "work" on letters. MD's school informed us that the kids need to know how to spell their names (As well as know about 30 sight words, the alphabet, how to count to thirty, their shapes, and be able to write and recognize both uppercase and lower case letters-All before school started) 

I figured I would tackle them writing their names and within a few days MD had it down. I think he really loves the one on one time we spend together each day working on it. He also loves my little incentives (dum dum suckers) 

But I am not really working on the other things.  

I realized MD doesn't learn visually-he learns things from writing them down. I don't know what that is called but it is making me change the way I approach teaching him.

I asked him yesterday at our disastrous dinner what he looked forward to the most about starting school in 2 weeks. He thought about it for a few seconds then informed me he was most excited about his backpack. More specifically "His backpack that he doesn't have to share" 

Hyrum is insanely jealous because he also wants a "Backpack that HE doesn't have to share" 

Lovin my Camera

Thank goodness for a phone to capture the moments that I don't have a camera for! These are from random summer activities that I completely forgot about.

 

Out of curiosity is there a way to get better at Solitaire? I loose WAY more then I win...

My View

Since I can't do to much, most of the pictures I take are from the point of view of my bed. Yep the pictures get old kind of fast and I am desperate for a new background, but for now I will be content with some mediocre pictures. Luckily the subjects of the pictures are not mediocre at all!

I try helping out where I can, which means I try to get the boys dressed on Sundays. This Sunday Michael beat me to it, but he did let me fix their hair.

I also get the pleasure of choosing what Veggie tale movie we are watching:

It's nice to feel useful

33 weeks

No I am not mad.  I just wasn't sure when the camera was going to go off.
I actually got dressed today! Mostly because I had a doctors appointment-I usually can be found in my sweat pants.
Update: Bedrest, well partial.
Unfortunately my body is trying to go into labor early so for the next month I can be found in my room or on my couch. 
I am looking for ideas on how to occupy my time for the next month. I have been reading through all the books I told myself I would read when I had time. Well now I have time. Only problem are these books are not easy readers so after about 2-3 hours I am mentally exhausted.
I have sewed up the things I had set aside for "when I had time"
I do all the laundry but I am still left with huge chunks of time that I fill with Solitaire.

However I did make this:

This took 3 days to glue all the little pearls on.  Not 100% sure how I feel about it, but because it took forever it will hang on our living room wall.

Also going on

Shark teeth:

 

We discovered a few weeks ago that MD's adult teeth were growing behind his baby teeth. As you can see the the teeth are not lined up and were not doing anything to push those babies out. 

We ended up having to go to the dentist to have those front babies pulled. MD took it like a champ. Now he gloats in his brothers face telling them that they still have their Baby teeth. Apparently he thinks he is now a man since he has his adult teeth starting to come in-He also has his adult molars in already (I think that's what it was) 

On a positive note-He is cavity free!

He also drew this picture of our family

It's daddy with a pregnant mommy by his side (look closely to see the baby apparently growing in my chest) then under my hulking body are MD, Hyrum and Seth. Up in the air is the baby girl that MD knows will join our family someday.

Joking aside I am in love with my sons art.  Now his teacher did draw the hair on my head and drew on my face, but everything else was purely MD.