the 3 kids

The other night after dinner the kids wanted to play outside even though it was freezing cold. Since Paul was not home and the kids were being crazy and it was not bedtime yet I decided to let them go out and burn off some of their energy.  It ended up being really fun, the kids were still crazy but we

had a blast playing outside.  And please ignore the crazy hair and outfits and blurry pictures. 

 

Leila 

 5 years and 9 months old

 

 

Leila loves school so much and I love seeing her learn and grow. She is pretty much reading, she knows a ton of sight words and is pretty good at sounding out most other words. She says her favorite things at school are recess and her special classes (which are art, music, media, guidance and PE). My favorite thing is when she brings home writing, I love reading what is on her mind and seeing her try to figure out how to spell words. 

Leila is still our little bossy pants, she thinks the world just revolves around her and wants to be in control of everything, unfortunately for her Greydon has learned not to give in to her commands.

Leila is a definite worrier, she gets it from me. And she is scared of a lot of things, currently it's fires, police officers and thunder.



 

School has really helped Leila, she is way more independent and willing to do things on her own. She no longer follows me around like a little shadow but will play on her own and she is slowly developing patience. It's really awesome seeing her develop into a big girl that isn't so reliant on me for everything. She is still pretty shy but her teacher told me she raises her hand to make comments, talks with the other kids, and talks with her teacher. I was also shocked to get a note from her music teacher saying Leila sang the song they were learning in front of the entire class all by herself.  I think my jaw hit the floor when I read the note.  I tried to get her to sing it for me but couldn't get it out of her.

 

Leila can now tie her shoes all by herself, thank goodness because the shoes she chooses to wear all the time have laces.

 

 

Leila favorite foods right now are cheeseburgers, quesadillas, apples and oreos.

Her favorite colors are pink, red and purple.

She was on a kick of only wearing skirts and dresses but since the weather change she pretty much wears leggings and jeggings. She is seriously going to freeze this winter, she is just not accustomed to the cold weather.

She loves playing with her brothers and playing make believe.  I love listening to her teach Greydon the stuff she is learning in school.  I miss her while she is gone all day (8 hours every day is a ton) but so happy that she is thriving and becoming such and independent little person.

 

Greydon

Age almost 3

 

Oh where do I even start with this little boy, he is such a character and keeps me laughing all day long.  The other day the TV was on  and Greydon was in the room playing with his toys but wasn't watching it because I think it was the news or something. As the commercial ended I hear Greydon say, "I'm Greydon and I approve this message".  Oh  man I guess the TV is on to much and the election needs to be over. 

 

He is getting so big  and I can't believe he is going to be 3.  He loves Leila and loves to do everything she is doing.   He's pretty jealous that she gets to ride a bus to school every day.  He says he can't wait to go to school. 

Greydon is so curious.  He has questions about anything and everything.  He really likes knowing how things work.  He also loves PBS kids so much.  It's about the only thing he values besides his binky.  So if he is being naughty and I threaten to take away PBS kids he shapes right up. 

He has a very tender heart, if I yell at him he just breaks down in tears.  He's actually pretty good, he's really only naughty when he is bugging Asher or not letting Leila boss him around. 

He loves being outside and is pretty out going, he talks with our neighbors and random people at the store.  He loves fire and police trucks, if we go to the store he sits and drools over all the cars and trucks and begs me to get him one.  He also love super heroes and transformers. 

 

 

He loves technology and is constantly asking for an iPhone or tablet and he knows how to use it.  I think it's funny when he teaches Leila how to work things on the tablet.  The other day Leila asked to play on a math website that her school uses and Greydon had to show  her how to turn on the computer.   

 

He loves pepperoni, ham, any kind of cereal, milk, smoothies, and apples. The other day he said he wanted tacos for dinner and I told him we didn't have stuff for tacos and then went on to name about 5 different meals he could pick from.  He looked at me and said, "mom none of those sound like tacos."

His favorite color is pink and purple ( I blame it on him having an older sister)

He loves to take his nap and some days asks if it's nap time yet, I sure hope he keeps it up.  He also transfers well, so if we are out running errands and he falls asleep I can carry him to his bed and he will stay asleep. 

 

He is starting to be more opinionated but he still just goes with the flow most days.  He repeats a lot of things his sister says.  So he will say he doesn't like certain foods or doesn't want to do something just because he heard Leila say it.  He says his tummy hurts anytime he is scared, bored or doesn't want to do something I've asked him to do. 

I love spending all day everyday with this little guy, he keeps a smile on my face.

 

 

 

Asher

Almost 1 year old

 

 

Oh Asher Dasher is just our little peanut.  He is our tiny guy but so full of personality.  He is always on the move and constantly chattering.  He moves so fast and is all over our house.  He can now successfully go up and down the stairs by himself. 

 

 

 

Asher loves his mama and if I'm around he wants nothing to do with anyone else. But he does get very excited to see daddy when he gets home from work.  He throws his hands up in the air and squeals and walks toward him and stands at his feet until Paul picks him up. 

 

He will pretty much eat anything I give him.  He'll still eat baby food but is enjoying finger foods too.  He loves pears, mandarin oranges, pancakes, waffles, cooked carrots, bananas, macaroni and cheese, pizza,  cereal, and oatmeal. 

 

He is very interested in what his siblings are doing and follows them around the house.  He loves when I open the door to the basement and he can go up and down the stairs as he pleases.  He loves to carry items around with him and then deposit them in a laundry basket, garbage or anything else he can find to hide it.  I'm always finding toys and utensils in random places and he hides my hairbrush all the time. 

 

 

He is not a great sleeper.  He sleeps through the night sometimes.  He has cried it out so many times and will begin to get into a good pattern and then gets sick or starts teething.  He usually takes a good morning nap but his afternoon nap is hit and miss.  When he gets tired he finds a blanket and lays his head on it. 

 

 

He loves to be outside, if a door gets left open he is outside in no time flat.  He gets so mad if I let the older two go outside and not him.  He will stand at the door and just scream. 

He really likes playing with balls, he loves rolling them around or chasing after them when someone throws it. 

 

 

I love seeing his excitement for new things, his arms flap and he jabbers like crazy.  He is just our happy baby! 

 

 

 

 

 

Baking soda and Vinegar

Thanks Erica and Emily for the inspiration for this activity.  My kids thought it was so fun.  Before we started I had Leila come up with some ideas of what she thought would happen.  She said she thought the baking soda would change colors or the baking soda would dissolve.  She thought it was pretty cool that it did change colors and even cooler that it bubbled and fizzed.  Greydon was thoroughly entertained for about 45 minutes. 

 

Salsa making

I've always wanted to make salsa but didn't have a ton of motivation to do so because Paul's mom always supplied us with it.  Well now that we are living hundreds of miles away I decided I better make some.  I've been around when Connie makes the salsa but never really paid attention to the whole process.  Luckily I can just call her up and she gave me the whole run down on what I needed to do.  Paul hit of the farmer's market for me (we were all going to go but I ended up at the urgent care with Greydon for strep throat) and came home with tons of chilies and tomatoes for me. 

Paul roasted the chilies and skinned them for me and then a couple days later I got work making the Salsa. 

Asher enjoying a sweet pepper while I was cooking

So my kitchen was pretty much destroyed while doing this.  And seriously after skinning and  chopping 30lbs of tomatoes plus all the other ingredients I had no desire to clean it up. 

This first batch was a learning experience, the salsa turned out great but I definitely learned a bunch for the next time. 

 

A couple weeks later I decided we needed more Salsa and made another batch.  It went much better, the kitchen stayed so much cleaner, the texture was better and it tasted awesome and slightly more spicy. 

Update

This will be a super random update on us with a whole bunch of random pictures.

 

  Several nights ago we went to the fire department open house, we were there with pretty much every other family living in Ankeny.  But it was still lots of fun and since the fire house is ginormous it really wasn't that crowded. 

 

Trying to get him to look at the camera and smile and hold still is just not possible.  So I'll take holding still and smiling maybe next time he'll look at the camera.

She tried on the fireman's clothes but was not happy about me taking a picture of her. 

I think their favorite part was sitting on this 4 wheeler.  Greydon is crazy about fire trucks, police cars and ambulances but I think he was a tad bit overwhelmed and wanted nothing to do with getting on the trucks or talking with the firemen. 

 

  Greydon is our crazy almost three year old.  He loves rootbeer, we had bought the rootbeer for Paul and I but everytime I turned around he was drinking mine or begging me to open one for him.  Needless to say we won't be buying rootbeer again anytime soon.  Greydon is in love with spiderman, batman, balls, firetrucks, police cars and garbage trucks, oh and PBS kids (seriously if I didn't limit him he could veg out all day watching tv shows).  Greydon is in a major who, what, when, where, why, how stage, he questions everything that goes on around him. He wants to know everyone's name, what things mean, why people do things, and so many more questions.  I love that he is curious but some days it about drives me crazy.  Greydon has by far been my easiest child, he just goes with the flow.  Even though he is beginning to get more opinionated about things he is still really easy going.  My favorite things he says are instead of saying anything or anybody he uses nothing and nobody and if he wants his food cooled down he says, "mom blow on it, cool it up"

 

 

 Asher is turning into a toddler :(  He pretty much prefers walking now, I rarely see him crawling anymore.  He is jabbering all the time and always has so much to say to us.  He is such a mamas boy.  If I'm in the room he wants me to be holding him.  He has 4 teeth right now and is getting two more on top.  He is into everything and especially loves unloading the tuperware cupboard.  He likes to carry around a spoon with him and if anyone takes it away he has quite the scream.  He loves bananas, mandarin oranges, raspberries, applesauce, pumpkin and sweet potatoe.  He is also enjoying us giving him tastes of what we are eating and loves feeding him self. 

 

  One night a couple weeks ago we checked out a walking trail near Saylorville Lake.  The trail also included a fun park for the kids to play at. 

Watching the sunset at the lake. 

  Once a week Leila's friend Madisyn comes home from school with us.  I set up some sorting, counting and pattern making activities with candy corn for the girls to do.  In school they are working on estimating and patterns so I thought this would give them some good practice. 

 Leila has to get up so early to get to school in the morning, I really dislike it especially when I have to shake her awake.  We usually walk to the bus stop just as the sun is coming up and this is a pictured I snapped of the sunrise as we were walking  back home. 

 

  The other night I had planned to do tin foil dinners and of course I get a text at 5:40 from Paul telling me he is going to be late.  The kids were screaming that they were hungry so I knew I couldn't just wait for Paul to get home.  I decided I could just build the fire on my own.  I have never done this without help, well actually I have never done this at all.  I've seen fires built hundreds of time but I've always just let my parents or Paul do it.  So I am extremely impressed with my fire building skills and the tin foil dinners turned out great and we had fun roasting marshmallows. Oh and Paul didn't make it home until after 9, way after I had put the fire out and put the kids to bed. 

  A couple weekends ago we had strep throat come through our home.   Grey woke up with a fever and a sore throat.  Paul was positive it was strep but I still took him to the urgent care, they tested him and the culture came back positive for strep.  Later that afternoon Leila had a fever and a sore throat, so Paul just wrote a prescription for an antibiotic for her.  Asher then started having the same symptoms although it is rare for babies to get strep.  Paul put him on antibiotic and he seemed to recover within a day. 

Playing out a bounce house playground. We went their with our neighbors since it was 2 for 1 and Asher is still young enough to get in for free.  Greydon and Alanna loved playing together and got extremely worn out.  Leila was pretty upset when she found out we went there so I bought a groupon for it and took the kids back last week since Leila was out of school for Columbus Day. 

(picture is out of order but it's from our walk around Saylorville Lake)

  Trying to help Greydon learn his colors.  He has a hard time remembering the color name but if you ask him which are yellow he can pick them out.  It's funny that he can remember the words to a song or saying from any tv show but ask him to name a color and for the life of him he can't remember.  He enjoyed this activity mostly because he got to eat M&M's. 

A picture of our little walker! He's funny because he usually walks with his hands straight up in the air or he is carrying around a spoon. 

Greydon loves smoothies and is always asking for a refill after drinking a full cup of one.  At this moment he was asking if he had smoothie on his tongue.  Haha not just your tongue Grey but all over your face too!

 

Leila has had a rough go of it.  She had a cold and then strep and then a stomach bug.  I think all of that crap really took it out of her.  She had about one week where all she did was sleep, every time I turned around she was asleep and she would sleep through crazy brothers jumping on her and being really noisy plus she would still go right to sleep at night and sleep the whole night through. The doctor's office checked her for a bunch of things and tested her blood but everything came back normal.  Luckily she is now back to her normal self.  She is still loving school and learning so much. 

 

I have also taken Grey to open gym days at Triad Gymnastics.  He LOVES it there and it totally wears him out.  I think his favorite thing is swinging on the rope into the foam pit.  Leila is on the wait list to get into a gymnastics class, hopefully she can get into one soon, I just know she would love it. 

Hanging out with the kids at the bounce house place.

 

We finally got haircuts around here. It had been 5 1/2 months since my last haircut and my hair was driving me absolutely crazy.  Grey and Asher got cuts too, we were lucky to find someone in our ward who cuts hair plus she is very inexpensive. 

We love Halloween around her and have done a bunch of decorating and making Halloween crafts.  Grey is excited to be Spiderman, Asher is going to be a gorilla and Leila want to be a witch.  Leila has a very specific idea for her costume.  We have a witch costume but that was not what she had in mind, so now I am making her an orange and black skirt, plus searching for orange leggings and a black shirt, hopefully we can get it all pulled together. 

 

 It has gotten cold here and we are just not use to it.  I really don't think we are going to survive this winter.  Leila was freezing one morning and literally wore her winter coat around all day plus layed under about 4 blankets.  She is always freezing at school and at recess and I learned that they send them out to recess at 0 degrees or above so unless it drops into the negatives  she will be spending 3 whole recesses outside. I am definitely not prepared, my winter wardrobe is quite lacking. I have like coats and snow gear but not much everyday winter clothes. I'm really going to be missing Henderson when January comes (that was my favorite time of year there).

 

I've been missing Utah and Henderson a lot lately.  I really miss all my friends 

and family.  I'm starting to get pretty bummed about not being with family for the holidays.  I'm really excited to have Christmas at my own home and not have to travel but not seeing family and being involved in all our traditions makes me really sad.  Paul has to work Thanksgiving and the Friday and Saturday afterwards, but I guess I can't complain becasue he has a week off for Christmas.  He also finally scheduled some vacation time so he has some time off the beginning of December, the end of January and beginning of May.  He has been working a lot, he finished trauma surgery in September and is now on general surgery plus being on consults.  He leaves at about 4:30 every morning and then makes it home anywhere from 6-9.  I feel like we have adjusted pretty well to residency, although I know next year will be worse.  Paul works everyday, M-F (he never has a random day off in the middle of the week) and then all the residents  rotate covering the weekends, which usually means he has two weekends off for a total of 4 days off all  month. Plus there are two night float residents that cover the nights for an entire month.   Of course there are days that are hard and I am really sick of this medical education journey but overall I think we are doing well. 

 

I feel like I have been super busy lately between my church calling, school stuff, volunteering, doctor and dentist appointments, trying to keep the house clean and organized, yard taken care of, classes for the kids and just life in general, the days have been jam packed.  I am looking forward to this week because we have very little going on and I feel like I may be able to get some projects done (like maybe plan birthday parties for all the boys in our family).  I have also been doing Insanity, I actually like it and I am just starting my 6th week, only four more to go.  I think I've only missed 4 workouts over the last 5 weeks, which is pretty good since it's a 6 days a week workout program.   

 

Ok so that was my very random update with a whole bunch of random photos, I hope you enjoyed reading what we've been up to