Eight!

Natalie turned the milestone age of eight years old on Friday.  Her birthday was on the first day of summer break this year.  The night before, she was already on the countdown of how many hours were left until we would wake her up singing "Happy Birthday."  On her birthday, we "woke" her up at 6:30 to sing and give her presents.  I asked her later what time she actually woke up.  She sheepishly told me she had been awake since 5:00 and she couldn't help it, and she had been trying to wait patiently for us to come in.

Natalie's birthday was dominated by a specific theme.  My Little Pony, My Little Pony, and more My Little Pony.  There is a new 4th (I think) generation of these ponies.  They look totally different and are geared more towards Natalie's age group than for preschoolers like the ones before. 

Natalie was very excited by the presents she got from her grandparents.  She had been waiting for these particular items for quite some time.

G-ma and G-pa Burgess gave her Princess Cadence and Shining Armor with their wedding castle playset.

G-ma and G-pa Webb gave her a set of four ponies:  Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and their teacher, Miss Cheerilee.  All of these ponies she got from her grandparents she previously had made paper versions of them to play with.

She also got the long awaited Nightmare Moon.  And some more random extras.

She also got a MLP play tent, a Twilight Sparkle chapter book, a CTR ring, and new scriptures.  She was surprised to find her name printed on the scriptures and wondered how we did it.  In hindsight, we probably should have saved the ring and scriptures for a week and given them to her on her baptism day.  They were a bit overshadowed by the excitement of all the new ponies.  She is a little more than obsessed right now...

Playing in her room with all her new (along with the old) toys.  You can also see her new bed.

Natalie spent most of the day playing with her new ponies.  She requested pancakes for breakfast and mac and cheese for lunch.  She also got a large bowl of cottage cheese with her lunch.  She loves cottage cheese and rarely gets it because it's a bit expensive for a snack on a regular basis.  For dinner we all went to Olive Garden.  I also painted her fingernails and toenails with my nice nail polish.

I used a little bit of the batter from her cake to make a few cupcakes so she could have some cake on her actual birthday.  We sang "Happy Birthday" and had cupcakes when we got home from Olive Garden. 

I had to take a picture of Natalie after she fell asleep with all of her ponies lined up in her bed.  I think she said her new birthday ponies took her up to a grand total of 21 of the "normal sized" ponies.  I think she now has just about every one available for purchase at the moment.

On to the birthday party... We had her party the day after her birthday, on Saturday, so that Nate could be here to help out.  Sadly, he got a migraine and wasn't able to do much.  But it ended up being okay because less than half of the girls we invited were able to come--only three to be exact.  Natalie was a bit disappointed, but she was okay.  I think she was mostly sad because her best friend from school didn't come. 

Okay, time out for a second so I can rant a little.  (Skip this paragraph if you don't want to hear it.)  This party made me come to a few realizations.  #1--I kind of want to be done with birthday parties in general.  They are definitely a labor of love for my kids, and I guess that's why I keep doing them.  #2-- We are no longer inviting kids from school or kids from the neighborhood, no matter how much my kids beg.  They never come.  And I have to buy supplies and do all the prep work because they might show up...  The kids from church are the only ones who ever come.  They will now be the only ones invited.  Which leads to... #3-- When there is a lot of prep work involved, I am super limiting the number of kids and will check beforehand to make sure that those kids can come before I do all the prep work.  #4--From this time forth, I will always RSVP to other parties whether we are coming or not.  I guess overall, I just spent too much time on this party, which is my own fault.  So I kind of shared Natalie's disappointment at only having three (there were actually only 2 for the first 45 minutes) kids show up.  But again, my fault--I should have done more checking with people.  Now, all of that said and done... it was actually pretty nice and calm to only have three guests.  :)  Okay, the end.

Each girl got to paint their own ceramic figure.  Natalie had a pony, two girls had princesses and the last girl had a castle.  The girls loved this and spent a lot of time painting their ceramics.  Around the table starting at the front left are: Elnorra Shaffer, Lila Parry, Natalie, Damon, and Story Sanders.

I made pizza dough, and before the painting started, each girl got a ball of dough to make their own pizza.  They painted their ceramics while the pizzas were cooking.  Here they are eating their creations.

 

 

I made each girl a tote bag to take their stuff home in.  Originally, I was going to do this as part of the party activities.  The picture is actually one of those plastic party goodie bags.  There is a method of ironing plastic onto fabric so that it ends up looking like screen printing.  So I was going to let the girls iron the plastic onto the bags.  But to make a long story short, my sample bag proved the process wasn't going to work at the party and needed to be done in advance.  So, something that I intended to be fun and simple ended up being a LOT of work for me.  And I had to make 8 bags so that I would have one for each girl that might be coming.  But, the bags turned out really cute and I think the girls really liked them.  And each bag only cost me about $0.75 to make--well, as long as you don't figure in that whole "time is money" thing.



Ahh, the cake.  All things considered, it turned out alright.  Natalie wanted a Princess Celestia cake.  I found an image to use for a frosting transfer, because I didn't have any idea how else to do the cake.  Then I spent several days before Natalie's birthday making tote bags, buying craft supplies, cleaning the house and getting all the other party stuff ready.  Then it was Natalie's birthday and I only had the afternoon to do the frosting transfer.  There was no part of me that wanted to make it, or was awake enough to do so.  I ran the thought past Nate of just buying a Princess Celestia to put on the cake.  He said sure.  I immediately felt a whole bunch of stress melt away.  Even with this decision, I still utterly and completely ran out of time to make this cake.  I had things under control... the night before the party, I made one layer of the cake and made the frosting.  But I didn't get to the second layer of the cake until the morning of the party.  All of a sudden, it was 30 minutes before the party and the second layer of the cake wasn't even cooled down yet and all of the frosting was still white.  I think I ended up decorating this cake in record time.  Start to finish I think I spent about 15 minutes on it.

 

Happy Birthday to Natalie!  One more week until she gets one more special day--her baptism!

Month of May randomness

We moved Damon out of his broken toddler bed at the beginning of the month.  It apparently wasn't built to withstand being sat on every night by adults saying goodnight-- or little jumping monkeys.  Plus, with everything Damon insists on sleeping with, the bed was getting too small anyway.  So, we got Natalie a new bed so we could take her old one to reunite the bunk beds in the boys' room.  Kelton and Damon were pretty excited about it. 

Arie has enough hair for a ponytail!

Last week, Arie had stomach flu.  I've never had a baby throw up before.  It wasn't fun for anyone.  And it lasted for two and a half days.  Poor sad girl.  And now she's trying to get teeth. 

She's also trying really hard to crawl.  She's been doing this for about a month now.  She is sooo close.  She can move her arms and her legs, just not together.  Funny thing is, she still can't sit.

I made this scripture tote to go with Natalie's new scriptures for her birthday.  I was impressed with how it turned out, especially because I had to come up with the measurements myself.  And it fits perfectly!

So, Arie still can't sit unsupported, but she can do this!  (She has to "tripod" with one of her arms on the ground for support.)  She was playing in the kitchen while I was making dinner two days ago.  She went from her knees to sitting like this, completely by herself.  It was fun to turn around and see her just sitting there.

Yesterday was Natalie's last day of 2nd grade!  We brought popsicles in for her class to celebrate her birthday.  (which is today--birthday post to come...)  Here she is with her teacher, Mrs. Leon. 

Preschool Graduation

Kelton has been going to Mrs. Marcy's Preschool this past year and today was graduation!  He has had a lot of fun going to preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  A common question at out house from Kelton has been, "what day is tomorrow?"  He always wants to know when the next preschool day is coming.  The only reason he is not sad to see it come to an end is that now he gets to move on to kindergarten!

 

 Kelton's class
Top row left to right: Kasen Hill, Jack Fillerup, Parker Johnson, Kelton.
Bottom row left to right: Owen Pittard, Ethan Egbert, Emma Couch.

"Cheaters never....." and so the saying goes

I'm trying to find the time and energy to do a post about our week at Disneyland...

But, in the meantime, Natalie keeps me laughing.

I was trying to get all the kids ready for bed.  It is quite the chore, but I probably don't need to tell most of you that.  Because you already know.  Anyway, in an attempt to get them to get their pajamas on quicker, I added some competition to the mix.  Kelton was being rather good and already had his pajama shorts on and was reaching for his shirt.  So I said, "Oh, it looks like Kelton is going to be the first one ready for bed!"  Natalie then excitedly tried to hurry and beat him.  Desired effect achieved.  Kelton by this point had his pajama shirt over his head, about to pull it down.  Natalie realized that she was about to lose the race, so she stopped putting on her pajamas so that she could reach over and grab Kelton's shirt and yank it back up to buy her more time.  As the referee to this game, I then timed Natalie out from moving for the next 5 seconds telling her that "That's cheating.  You can't do that."  Then Kelton won.

I playfully started to chastise Natalie for cheating.  I said, "hey Natalie, cheaters never....."  She was grumpily finishing getting her pajamas on and didn't really hear me. Or she was ignoring me.  So I got her attention so she could fill in the blank.

"Natalie, cheaters never...what?"

She looked at me with squinty eyes and growled, "Lose."

Oh dear.

I did let her know how the expression really ends...once I was able to stop laughing.

Toys

I put Arie on the floor today and asked Kelton and Damon to get her a few toys.  Over the next couple of minutes, a "few" turned into "all the toys in the basket."  It was really cute.  Those boys love their baby sister.

Damon's 3rd Birthday

Damon turned three years old yesterday!  He's been excited for his birthday for a while. 

We usually wake our kids up singing "Happy Birthday," but we were up late making a cake, wrapping presents, and putting his bike together.  And Damon wakes up at 6:00 or a little before.  We couldn't get up before him.  Natalie and Kelton were good helpers and didn't let Damon go downstairs where his presents were.  At 7:00, Nate and I got up and told Damon to run back to his bed.  He jumped back in and then we sang "Happy Birthday" to him.  Then we went down so he could open his presents.

I have a big roll of Christmas wrapping paper that I don't really like, so we used that, inside out, to wrap his bike.  We thought he would have fun opening that.  We were right.  Here is an action shot of him unwrapping his bike.

Along with the bike, we gave Damon a dinosaur toy and an airplane.  (He has three other airplanes in this set that he got for Christmas and he loves them.)  Grandma and Grandpa Webb gave him a Color Wonder (the markers that only color on special paper) travel set and a package of Color Wonder markers.  We kind of confiscated those, knowing he had other toys to play with, because we want to open that in the car on our drive to California next week.  They also gave Damon one of those singing cards (it was a Chuggington one) and it was a big hit, just like last year.  He's been walking around the house singing along with it today. Grandma and Grandpa Burgess gave Damon a Transformers Bumblebee helmet and a Bumblebee toy that easily converts from robot to car and back.  He had fun all day playing with Bumblebee.  He loves cars, so having one that he could also turn into a robot was really fun.  The helmet was also a nice upgrade from Natalie's old one, which was covered in pink flowers.

For the last few weeks Damon has been telling me things like this:  "My birthday is coming.  And Kelton had a birthday, and he had a Mario party, and his friends came.  And on my birthday, my friends are going to come and I'm going to have a party..."  I can't believe that he remembers all about Kelton's party and that he realizes that he can apply that to his birthday.  The problem is, I was not going to do a birthday party for a bunch of two and three year olds.  I haven't done a party for any of my kids until they have turned five.

So I came up with a solution.  We would have a cake party instead.  So we invited a few of Damon's "friends" and their families to come to the park to sing "Happy Birthday" and have cake with us.  It was fun and Damon felt like he got his party.

Damon's request was for a Backyardigans cake.  His favorite character is Pablo, so that's who he got on his cake.

In the morning, when Kelton saw the partially done cake in the fridge, he came to me and said, "Mom, it looks like there is grass all over Damon's cake."  I had to laugh as I told him is was supposed to look like grass on the cake.  Mission accomplished, I guess.

Damon was excited about his cake.

He told me he was "going to eat it like this!"

At the park.

 

It didn't seem windy, but there was enough of a breeze that we had massive trouble getting the candles lit.  Actually, it never happened and Nate ended up just holding the lighter on them while we sang and then Damon blew them (mostly the lighter) out.  It was a little frustrating because we made everyone wait while Nate went to Safeway to buy the candles and lighter, because we forgot ours at home, and then they didn't even work.  But, later Damon--in telling me about his day--specifically mentioned that he "got to blow the candles out!"  It made him happy, he remembers it as a highlight, so it was worth it.

A few things about Damon...

He is naturally good natured and sweet.  He has a happy personality.  I first realized this when he was only a few weeks old.

That being said, he is also a button pusher.  He is really good at figuring out what exactly will bother you and then he does it.  He even does it to me.

You can't call him little, or use the word little to refer to him at all.  Like if I say, "come here my little boy."  He will reprimand me and say, "I'm not little!  I'm big!"  And don't try to ever tell him that he is too little for something, even if he is.

He has intense, dark brown eyes.  Whether he is upset, or really excited, his eyes have an intensity to them.  I love it.

You can't call him cute.  His reply goes like this:  "I'm not cute.  (insert grouchy face)  I'm handsome."  (insert big smile)

He is too smart for his age.  I don't mean school smart--though he does know his letters and some of the sounds--I mean, aware smart.  He understands things, conversations, implications, what's going on around him... I've had other two/three year olds and they are mostly clueless to what's really going on because they aren't old enough to understand.  Damon understands.  You can't even talk about him in code because he will still know you are talking about him.  He also speaks really well.  Especially over these last six months or so, Nate and I would find ourselves marveling over the fact that he was still only two years old because, cognitively, he seemed more like a 3-4 year old.

He will almost always run to give you a hug, if you ask.  And he always does it with a huge smile on his face.

He is always the first one to be helpful.  If something needs to be cleaned up, he will do it.  If he sees me picking stuff up, he will come over and help without being asked.  Often times when I call for helpers, Damon is my first, and only, responder.

He loves to play with Natalie and Kelton.  He's really good at making Arie laugh.

We love this kid!  Happy Birthday Damon!

Adventures in running

Let me just start right off by making something very clear.  I am not a runner.  I have never liked running.  I've put up with it in order to do other things I love, like play basketball, but I've always thought people who liked just plain running were crazy.  (no offense meant to anyone...)

So, what did I decide to do?  I decided that doing a sprint (mini) triathlon would be a great idea.  Because I like swimming.  And bike riding is fun, right?  Oh yeah, and there is a 5K involved.....hmmm.

Often times great ideas stay as just that--ideas.  Unless you mention them to your husband.  Who then surprises you with an expensive hybrid bike for your birthday back in December.  So I thought, now I really can do this because my biggest excuse just vanished.

I've ridden my bike a few times, but I decided to start with the running.  It seemed the most insurmountable to me so I needed to know that I could do it.  And I have a treadmill so it is the only one of the three that I can do in my house while watching my kids.

So I started running about two months ago on my treadmill.  For the first two or three weeks it went something like this:  Get on treadmill.  Think everything was great, for about a minute and a half.  Realize that I hadn't even gone two laps and I was starting to die.  Begin inadvertently chanting, "runners are crazy" in my head with each stride.  Walk.  Force myself to somehow finish a mile because anything less felt completely pathetic.

Progress felt so slow.  But somewhere along the line I realized that the "runners are crazy" chant had stopped coming to mind every time I started to not feel so great.  And then one magical day, I ran a whole mile without stopping.  Then a mile and a quarter.  Then more recently, on two occasions, two miles without stopping.  I can't always go that far, but I can always go at least a mile and a quarter to a mile and a half without much problem.

During all of this, I got a flyer from Natalie's school about an upcoming fundraiser for the school which included a 5K.  There's no time like the present, so I signed up.  I ran a handful of 5K's on my treadmill prior to the real event.  (Okay, pause here.  Those of you who really run are about to feel really good about yourselves.)  My first 5K clocked in at 40:55.  Terrible time, but I was so proud of myself for completing it.  And not dying.  My time improved each time I ran it.  A few days before my race, I ran my "treadmill 5K" in 36:15.  I walked twice for a total of about 1 lap.  I felt pretty good about my progress.

Race day was last Saturday, April 13th.  I was so nervous that morning.  I don't know why exactly.  I knew I would be able to complete it because there is no rule about not being able to walk or stop or whatever.  But I wanted to do well, and I think I was worried because this 5K was being run out in the real world and not on my treadmill, which kind of helps to move you along.  Running outside on the road is a lot harder.  And it was.  As I was running, I realized that this felt a lot different.  And that it was harder.  I was trying to tell myself to be prepared to receive a pretty slow time.  I just hoped that it wouldn't be worse than the 40:55 I originally ran it in.

I was shocked to cross the finish line coming in at 33:30!  Almost three minutes faster than my best time.  And while not fast, I felt that my time was respectable. 

Oh, random side note:  the brand name of my treadmill is Weslo.  Early on, in my pathetic, exhausted running state--and after staring at that word right in front of me during every run--my brain all of a sudden read it as two separate words: We slo, or the spell checked version: we slow.  I laughed out loud.  Yes, yes treadmill.  We are.  :)

Anyway, here I am before heading out for my 5K.

The school also had a quarter mile "Fun Run" that Natalie ran in.  Here we are after both of our races.

Natalie did well in her run.  She was really wanting to win (wonder where she got that competitiveness from...).  But she ran the whole way and was pretty exhausted when she finished.  She is pretty fast!  Here are a few pictures of her run:

Here are all the kids at the starting line.  Nate said seeing that many little kids packed into such a small area waiting to take off running at full speed at the same time made the lawyer in him cringe.  And sure enough, two little kids tripped/fell/got pushed and ended up in tears with scraped up knees and elbows.  So sad.

Natalie waiting to start.

There she goes!  She's toward the middle of the picture with the black shorts.

She's in the bottom right corner of this one.

Coming in to the finish line.

 

This is unrelated to running, but I wanted to mention it.  We then had a fun rest of the day together as a family.  The school had a carnival following the races.  The kids got balloon animals, their faces painted, popcorn, cotton candy, and played carnival games, including a dunk tank with teachers in it.  Then in the afternoon, we took everyone in to the children's museum which was having a free admission day.  Then we had dinner at In-N-Out.  It was a lot of fun.

 

 

Okay, back on topic.  So, I've learned a few things about running.  (Things I'm sure a trainer could have told me before I even started...)  Breathing is super important.  Well, I guess that's always true, but even more so when trying to run.  Running is about endurance and being in shape, but I think above and beyond that, it is more of a mental mind game.  Seriously.  If you run, you probably know what I mean.  A lot of how well you do all comes down to your mental approach and your ability to keep yourself in the right frame of mind.  As a result, you end up talking to yourself a lot when you run.  So, maybe that proves my point--runners really are crazy.  :)  But seriously, your ability to keep going has a lot to do with whether or not you tell yourself you can.  Sounds so simple...unless you are in the middle of a run.  That's when the mental mind game starts.  You feel like you are fighting with yourself.  It's interesting.  Also, running is a different kind of sport because for about 99% of us, it's not about winning, but rather about beating yourself.  I'm competitive.  My siblings can all attest to the fact that it is somehow hardwired into our genetic code.  So, I really would like to win when I run races, but unfortunately, I could probably train for the rest of forever and never be fast enough.  Because it is not in my genetic code to run a 6 minute mile, mile after mile.  Or even at all.  So it's been interesting learning how to just compete against myself.

 

Oh yeah, and because I can now run a little bit, I obviously think I am superhuman, or something, because I bought one of these:

Because running while pushing an additional 50 or so pounds (Damon and Arie) around is going to be a piece of cake.  Actually, our main purpose in buying this is our upcoming Disneyland trip.  Over 8 years and 4 children, we have only ever bought one stroller.  (not including our $10 cheap-o umbrella one)  And that stroller is kind of falling apart.  So, this was a great price and had awesome customer reviews.  And once Kelton starts school in August, this will give me the option to run outside.  And if I can survive pushing that while running, it might be a great way to train.

 

Did I mention that I actually signed up for my mini triathlon?  Just a few days ago.  So I'm committed.  I have until August 31st to live get ready.  I've now got my running portion underway.  As I keep going with that, I now get to add in biking and swimming.  I read some stuff about how you are actually supposed to bike, for race purposes.  I tried it out the other day, and wow, it's a lot harder than riding around the neighborhood with your friends.  Sometime soon I want to go out and do a course that is the length of the tri (13 miles) to get a baseline time.  I'm a little worried about how long that will take me.  And swimming... did I mention that I don't have a pool close by?  Yeah, training for that portion is going to take some creativity because I will have to drive into Tucson to do it.  And I have four kids.  And one of those does not sleep well at night. 

 

You know, maybe I'm just crazy!  Wish me luck!

Recital

I had a piano recital tonight.  I currently have 8 students.  Natalie is one of those and the poor girl has not had a piano teacher like the rest of them.  I took four weeks off from teaching piano lessons when I had Arie.  With Natalie, that four weeks ended up being seven months.  (Natalie didn't have any lessons for more than a month before Arie was born.)  So, we started back up a few weeks ago.  It is a little frustrating to think about how much further along she could have been, but it is what it is.  Hopefully we can both get back into it.

Anyway, the recital went well.  All of my students did great.  Some of the ones with harder pieces stumbled a bit in places.  It's not that I didn't want them to play it perfectly--because I know they can--but there is something very valuable in figuring out how to keep going under the pressure of performance.  And there is no other way to learn it, other than to have it happen.  I was proud of the way they handled it.

 from left: Natalie, Alexis Egbert, Allie Mawson, Felicity Davidson, Trinda Keele, Raena Mawson, Hailey Thompson.  back: me, Chandler Joost.

Some Pictures

In looking through my pictures from this past month, I noticed that Arie has gotten a lot bigger.  She has changed quite a bit in just one month.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the past few weeks.

And the other day the boys wanted to hold Arie.  So I thought I would get a cute picture of the three of them together.

Okay, let's try again.

 

Um, how about again?

 

Okay, everyone look at mom...

 

No, look at mom...

 

Sigh...

 

Okay, really?

 

REALLY!? 

Lets try something different.  I have a cute picture of Natalie, Kelton and Damon stacked on top of each other.  Apparently, Kelton was not born to be the base of the tower.  His face says it all.

And... I give up.  :)