Plunge

We're here! Sorry for the lack of posting this summer. We've been either vacationing or extremely busy. And when we haven't been doing either of those . . . . we've just been lazy or recuperating (however you want to look at it!). Anyway, I will be posting soon on our two recent summer vacations. So check back soon!

Last week, I was reading upstairs about 8:30pm. We had already put Clark and Mallory to bed. Chase gets to stay up a half hour later until Clark falls asleep so they don't stay up giggling. Craig and Chase usually play the Wii or watch a cool Discovery show together. It's their male bonding time. I had heard Chase tell Craig that he had to take a break and go to the bathroom. So Chase was going to the bathroom . . . . takin' care of his business. He had been in there awhile when I hear from upstairs:

Chase: Uh, Dad? I think there's a problem. A bad problem.

My ears were perked and I could hear Craig getting up off the couch to go see what the issue was.

Then I hear:

Craig: Ah, Chase! (And then a chuckle.)

I'm thinking: So is there a problem or is something funny? Craig sounded tense and then he laughed.

Then all I could hear from upstairs was a bunch of fast chatter from Chase, Craig said a few things back, a flushing toilet, the water running in the sink. I couldn't make out their conversation, but I hear Craig tell Chase to go upstairs and tell me what happened.

Chase gets to me and proceeds to tell me. . . . .

Chase: Mom, I was going potty and there was this bug crawling on the floor and he was scary, but I was going potty and I didn't want that bug to get me. So I just grabbed that plunger and I doot doot (hands fisted on top of each other thrusting downwards). And I plunged that bug. Then I picked up the plunger and that bug was still crawling. So I put the plunger back on him and I plunged and I plunged and I plunged that bug. Then I moved it to see if he was moving. And he was moving so I plunged him again and I just ripped up the floor with the plunger. But not the whole floor, just a little bit of the floor like this (he traced a square in the air with his index finger). Sorry Mom, but I got that bug.

Me (trying not to laugh hysterically): So the bug is dead?

Chase: Yeah, he's dead. I just plunged him.

Me (making sure I had the story straight): But you ripped up the floor. . . . with the plunger?

Chase: Yeah, sorry mom, but it was only a little bit of the floor. Not all of it.

Me (still trying not to laugh): That's ok. Daddy can fix. I'm just glad that bug didn't get you.

He kissed me goodnight and went to bed after that.

I went downstairs and Craig and I had a good laugh! What else was a 5-year old boy going to use to kill a bug while dangling his bum over the potty at the same time? I checked out the damage to the bathroom floor. He had just plunged up one tile. Nothing a little glue can't fix :)

If you're thinking about replacing your flooring. . . . . . don't break the bank paying someone to rip up the old flooring for you. A $3 plunger from Target and a little plunging action should do the trick!

I took these pics later. It's something we'll want to remember :)

Ages and Stages

We just got Clark's 18 month pictures taken! I can't believe he's already been a part of our family for a year and a half. I swear the more kids you have the busier you are, the faster life moves. It seems like Clark wasn't a baby for as long as the older two! Since he's our last we are trying to soak up the moments with him. We find ourselves saying, "This is the last time we'll have to go through 'this' stage." Whatever 'this' may be; sleepless nights, making bottles, baby food jars, lugging around a baby carrier, changing crib sheets, cleaning high chairs, etc. We are done with all of those stages! Some stages we are happy to see go and some we will miss. Clark still belly laughs from the gut. It's the sweetest, happiest sound for ears to hear. I hope he doesn't lose that for a long time! We miss the snuggles. It was sad to see those go. Every now and then we get lucky and he'll cuddle up for a few moments on the couch, but for the most part, he's out grown the snuggling. We miss the waddling stage, when they first learn to walk. We will miss seeing the look on our baby's face the first time they figure out how to splash in the bathtub. Yes, Clark still loves to splash, but there's something about the FIRST time they figure out they have the power to truly soak the bathroom floor using just their wee little hands and a downward smacking motion! Some things we haven't missed. We only carry a little tiny diaper bag. We don't miss having to pack half the house and take it with us every where we go. Don't miss sleepless nights. Don't miss the baby carrier. Gosh those things are heavy and awkward to carry!! Don't miss the baby throw up. My boys were the worst! We are looking forward to no more diapers. Clark is already showing signs that he may be an early potty trainer. Let's hope . . . . . we deserve at least one of our children to potty train easily!! We are looking forward to our kids being able to buckle their own seat belts. Chase can do his, but we still have to do Mallory and Clark's. We can't wait for the day to just be able to pile in the car and go! It's interesting how quickly you move through all the stages whether you like them or not!

Clark is learning to adjust in the 2 new stages that he is going through right now. About 2 weeks ago we moved him into a normal bed. After watching him come this close (put your thumb and index finger very close together) to climbing out of his crib we decided to put him in a bed. I know some babies climb out of their cribs and they escape just fine. Some climb out and end up with broken legs and get caught dangling between the bars. We decided to skip possible medical expenses from Clark making a "prison break" and went straight for putting him in a bed. Even if he won't stay in it. We didn't want to risk him hurting himself. He stays in the bed if he's really tired. He's actually great at nap time! But most of the time at night we have to sit by his bedside and tell him to "lay down, it's night night" or he just keeps getting out. We usually have to sit there about 20 minutes or so until he's almost asleep. But he's getting used to it. Slowly, but surely. It's only been 2 weeks. It will take some time. We had forgotten what a long process this can be!! We're up for new ideas if anybody wants to share how you keep your toddler in bed. It's been 2 years since we've done this!

Clark's first week in the nursery class at church was Easter Sunday. He hates it to say the least. When we walk out he SCREAMS!! We have tried telling him "Bye-bye, we'll be back in a little bit to come get you." And we have tried sneaking out. Neither method has worked so far. As tough as the little guy is, he's very clingy! He's always been clingy! We didn't have one single issue with Chase. His first Sunday in the nursery he walked right in like he owned the place and he never looked back. Mallory we only had to stay about the first 10 minutes until she got situated playing then we stepped out. We only had to do that the first 4 or 5 Sundays and she was fine after that. Clark is not showing any signs of being ok with being left. Of course it's only been 2 weeks, we know it will take time for him to adjust. He's also been left with a sitter the least. We moved out here to NJ and we don't get out much so he's not used to being left with anyone on a regular basis. I think that might be part of the problem. We may have brought this on ourselves. Clark really likes men and all the nursery workers are female. So he might be having a hard time with that. Last week they had a man in there helping and Clark actually cried himself to sleep on his shoulder. I felt bad. Clark drooled all over his suit! Hopefully he'll adjust soon! We keep telling ourselves these things just take time and a lot of patience! No more walking the halls with a baby at church. We actually get to go to class. I can't decide whether or not I'm going to miss this stage. Sometimes it makes church seem to last FOREVER when you're just walking the halls with a baby/young toddler who won't let you sit through a class. Sometimes it's nice to socialize and relate to other parents who are also in the hallway with a child the same age. Sometimes it's some good one on one time with you and your baby to just play in the foyer with a few toys. Moving on from this stage is bittersweet. . . . I almost feel like I'm the one growing up.

We also got a picture of all the kids together when we took Clark to get his 18 month pics done. It turned out ok. We have been trying to get a picture of the kids together for awhile, but we can't get Clark to sit still long enough and have them all looking at the camera. (There's a stage to look forward to - when we can all look at the camera and smile without having a wrestling match!) Clark was supposed to be standing in the middle, but started walking away. Chase caught his hand, and at least they're all looking and smiling! I love Chase in this picture. He has his arm around Mallory and he's holding Clark's hand. He just looks like the perfect big brother making sure his younger siblings are taken care of. I love this about Chase!

Our Easter

We had a great Easter this year! It was nothing out of the ordinary. We did the same old things we normally do. Dye eggs, get baskets, hunt for eggs, get dressed up for church, and so on. I'll probably just post a ton of pictures - we got a lot of cute ones this year :) They're all pretty self explanatory, so here we go. We started out by dying eggs on Saturday night. Chase and Mallory really enjoyed themselves. Chase thought it was the coolest thing to put an egg into the bowl of dye by holding it above the bowl and letting it drop in while dye splashed out onto the table and floor. (Typical Chase . . . .the bigger the mess, the more fun he has.) We had to remind him several times that the dye stains and it's not a good thing to make his eggs "sky dive" into the bowl. No beuno!
Here's how Clark felt about sitting at the table to dye eggs:
He had no interest whatsoever. He threw such a big tantrum that he ended up kicking the table and knocking his chair backwards.
He's lucky the desk was behind him to break his fall or he could have ended up with a nasty headache! He also got his first taste of a hard-boiled egg. Here's how he feels about eggs:
Apparently he takes after his Grandpa Alan. He's not an egg man. Clark started gagging and making choking noises. The only thing he liked about eggs was the fact that they resembled balls. He kept pointing at them and saying, "Ball, ball." We gave him one to let him carry around and he threw it. Chase and Mallory also kept giving him their already dyed (dried) eggs. So needless to say, half of our eggs ended up severely cracked which left the Easter bunny with only a few to hide. Made for a very short hunt this year!


A Star Wars Starfighter egg for Chase. As you can see, he was thrilled!

The next morning the kids got up to get their baskets and find their eggs. The Easter bunny always leaves some candy and a couple small toys in their baskets.





The kids looked really sharp for Easter this year! I loved their outfits! Thank you Grandpa Marc and Grandma Treesa!

Chase



Mallory



Clark


And these last pictures were too cute not to post. I love that my boys have a great relationship. It shows in their faces!


We hope everyone had a great Easter!!

Lately. . . .

Life has been quite busy as of late. Do you ever feel like you go, go, go? But then when you sit down at the end of the end of the day and think of all the things you did - you really didn't accomplish much on your list, but yet you never sat down? Craig refers to it as "spinning your wheels". Being incredibly busy, but getting nowhere! Such is life at times :)

Chase is growing like a weed! And he's incredibly smart, but he doesn't want us to know. We recently pulled him out of pre-school because it was outrageously expensive and we felt that they weren't really teaching him the things they claimed to. There were 22 kids in the class and only 2 teachers. It always seemed like the teachers were doing more crowd control than they were teaching. So we pulled him out and I have been working with him at home. When I ask him to sing his ABC's or count to 20 he mixes up all the letters and numbers and says he doesn't know how to do it. Or he can't do it. He doesn't want to cooperate at all on some days! A couple hours later he'll be playing with his toys and I'll just be around, cooking or cleaning or something, and he doesn't think I'm listening. He'll start counting BACKWARDS - perfectly. Or he'll even do simple addition and subtraction with his toys he's playing with. Such as, "Here Mallory, you play with these 2 and I'll play with 3 and then we'll have 5 guys." (Star Wars guys). Or he'll sing the alphabet song and not miss a single letter. He's a really good problem solver and understands how things work. He's got great eye/hand coordination. When we play the Wii with him - there are some games that Craig and I cannot beat him at! He's super smart, but doesn't want anyone to know. So, shhhhhh. We're supposed to think he's clueless. . . . please tell me it's just a phase! And speaking of Star Wars, he has an obsession with the movies and the Clone Wars TV show. All things in life relate to Star Wars. I was dressing him for church this morning - in his black suit and black shoes - and he says, "I'm black, I'm evil!"
Apparently his suit for church now doubles as a Darth Vader costume! He cracks me up! Him and Mallory were playing Star Wars the other day running and chasing each other all over the house. Chase was a Clone Trooper and I'm not sure which character Mallory was pretending to be. But our 5 year old - turned Clone Trooper pro - leapt up onto the couch with Mallory hot on his heels. Just as Mallory stood up on the edge of the couch, the "Clone Trooper" kicks Mallory as hard as he can, and I see her do the most amazing airborne back flip and land in a heap on the floor. She just laid there in shock for a minute and then started screaming! Chase was crushed when I had to break it to him that he isn't a REAL Clone Trooper. He's Chase and it's not ok to kick his sister off the couch. He's fun to watch though. It's nice to see he's passionate about something! He starts kindergarten in the Fall so I am soaking up these last few months that I have with him before he starts his many years of school. I get emotional just thinking about it!

Mallory has become very Jekyll and Hyde-ish almost. She waffles back and forth between wanting to do everything herself and wanting you to do everything for her. When she wants to do it all herself, watch out! Don't cross the line and try to help or you'll hear about it! Our sweet little girl quickly turns into a screaming, tantrum throwing queen! And as far as the other side of her split personality goes. . . . when she wants to do nothing herself she starts making false claims, such as "my legs are broken." Seriously. We never know which daughter is going to crawl out of bed in the morning. Her latest obsession has been earrings. Occasionally we'll all walk the mall together as a family on Saturdays. We just window shop, let the kids play with the toys in the toy store, let them ride once or twice on the little kiddie ride things they have for a few quarters, and then we usually take them to Wendy's for a kid's meal. Nothing too exciting. It just gets us out of the house for a little while. Mallory's favorite store is Claire's. She LOVES looking at all the fun earrings. She always asks if she can have some. We tell her she has to get a hole poked in her ear before she can buy earrings. We tell her it's going to hurt to get the hole and she's probably going to cry. She always puts the earrings back and says, "No thanks." She has done this for months! Well, yesterday we did our little mall walk and she wanted to look at the earrings. She found some frog earrings that she would not put down. We told her she could only get them if she got her ears pierced. We again told her it was going to hurt very badly. But she wanted those frogs! She agreed to get her ears pierced. They had a chair for her to sit in. I kept asking her if she wanted to sit on my lap - because she wasn't allowed to move. I asked her 3 times about sitting on my lap (I was afraid she would freak out and move)and on the third time she got a little mad at me and said, "No Mom, I just want to do it all by myself!"
And she did. They had a teddy bear for her to squeeze. She didn't move. She didn't hardly even cry. She started whimpering a little bit and then 4 or 5 tears fell, but she never full on cried or screamed or even said ouch. She got down from the chair right away and walked straight up to the counter to buy her frog earrings. She was very brave. She started showing her earrings to everyone in the mall. She is loving them! Though she does have to wait 6 weeks before she can put her frogs in.

Clark is growing up way too fast. He's over 17 months now. He's massive to say the least. We weighed him and Mallory last week and both of them weigh 30.0 pounds. They weigh the exact same. There is a 2 year and 3 month age difference. Our boy is a tank! We thought he would lose some weight once he started walking, but so far that hasn't happened. He continues to show no fear in his daily activities. He can now climb up on the kitchen chairs and onto the table. If a little piece of cereal or a grape or any type of food gets left on the table, I find him sitting up there finishing off every one's leftovers that have fallen off their plates! Or in this picture's case, a whole box of cereal was left up there and he was all over that!! I caught him shoveling Captain Crunch in his mouth by the handful! He is Mr. Personality right now. He is a man of MANY facial expressions. You always know what he's thinking and how he's feeling because his face always shows it. He gives the meanest dirty look! He has shocked many a people by scowling and glaring at them for no apparent reason. He's going through the separation anxiety stage. He cries if you walk up the stairs without him. He likes to keep close tabs on us or he gets a little worried that he's been left. So as tough as he thinks he is with the daredevil acts, he's still a softie at heart! His vocabulary is rapidly expanding. He says hi, cat, dog, ball, poop, two, choo-choo, Chase (sounds more like Sase), shoe, eye, dinosaur (sounds more like di-so), etc. He is following simple commands. If we say "Let's go night-night." He walks upstairs and waits by his crib. Or when we tell him it's time to eat he runs to his booster seat. So he's definitely understanding English now! He has attempted to climb up the bars to his crib. He didn't quite make it to the top, but he tries to climb in. Luckily he hasn't climbed out yet. We have been scoping out beds. . . . onto the next stage I guess. Chase was 18 months when we put him in a bed and Mallory was 20. So the time is just about right and there's always the safety issue. We don't need him falling out and breaking something :)

Craig recently finished the Twilight series. I think I get bragging rights for that! My husband has read the most popular book series of the decade written for teenage females! I am still working on finishing the series, I'm finally on Eclipse. He beat me! And yes he liked them a lot! He laughed, he cried, and he said he read them so that he could have something to talk about with me. Because he knew I was excited about them. What a guy, huh? :) We purchased the Twilight DVD yesterday and Craig got to watch it for the first time. He really liked the movie! He cried a couple times. If you know Craig, you know that he cries in most movies. This wasn't a shock to me. He cried in Lord of the Rings, so of course a vampire love story would get the water works going :) He's going to be mad at me for making him sound like a girl! Really he's all male. Let me remind you he did this all for me. My sweet hubby!

I'm just going with the flow. Trying to keep up with the kids and trying to keep the chaos to a minimum. My brother is coming home from his mission in Thailand in just over 8 weeks. We are getting excited for our trip back to AZ to welcome him home! We have missed him! I just got called to be a Primary teacher to 6, 7, and 8 year olds. I haven't been in Primary since we were first married so it's been awhile. They are a good group of kids and they say the funniest things! It had warmed up to the 50's last week and I actually went out in my flip flops! Winter's been fun, but I'm anxious for warmer weather and summer clothes again! That's pretty much our lives in a box right now :)

Just the Parents

I don't hardly ever post anything on Craig and I on this blog. It's our family blog and Craig and I never seem to make it into any of the pictures - or any of the stories that are told. I need to do better about that. We're part of this family too and we should get a little screen time every now and then :) Anyways, in light of this recent realization . . . . .

Craig had a birthday! He turned 29 back on the 8th. He told me he didn't want me to blog about his birthday. But I'm going to anyway. :) His birthday wasn't that great to be honest with you. I think he didn't want me to blog about it because he didn't really care to ever remember it. His birthday fell on a Sunday. Lately our kids have been very well behaved at church and we have actually been able to make it through the whole hour and ten minutes of sacrament meeting without taking them out into the hall. This was NOT the case on Craig's birthday. Mallory decided to have a COMPLETE meltdown. I don't even remember what it was for, but WOW. She was screaming so loud that even after Craig had taken her out into the hall you could still hear her in the chapel! So he took her into a classroom where she continued to scream and cry for the next 30 minutes. Mallory refused to get control of herself! Craig finally pinned her to his chest into a little ball trying to get her to calm down. Mallory was so hysterical she couldn't even speak. Between sobs she was trying to tell Craig that she couldn't breathe. I'm sure most parents have seen this type of cry. . . . . the one where you have to sit there and tell your child to breathe. . . .and you end up blowing in their face to get them to inhale. Clark is VERY attached to Craig right now. So when Craig walked out of the chapel with Mallory at the beginning of her tantrum, Clark started screaming uncontrollably as well. I ended up out in the hall with Clark screaming - not as bad as Mallory. And it wasn't long before Chase realized he was the only one left sitting on the church bench and he joined us out in the hall.
We have church first thing in the morning so this was not a great start to Craig's birthday. He was pretty frazzled after finally dropping Mallory off at Primary. The rest of church went well up until the last 10 minutes. I was holding Clark when he peed through his diaper and clothes and onto my dress. He spent the rest of church without pants on. After church we all got to take a much needed nap. Mallory woke up from her nap first and she came into our bedroom to wake us up. She wanted a piece of candy and I told her she had to go potty first. This caused another complete meltdown. To the point where she lost control of her bladder and peed from our bedside, through our bedroom, into the hallway, into her bedroom, and into her closet. I told her to go to the bathroom. Why she headed for her closet I do not know. So we now had a trail of pee running through most of the upstairs. Lovely, more pee. So Craig gets out the carpet cleaning machine(a great investment!)we have and starts cleaning the upstairs. I got Clark up and took him downstairs to play with Chase. About 15 minutes later Clark blows out his diaper and gets poo on the carpet! I go up to inform Craig that when he's through cleaning the carpets upstairs, a section of the downstairs will need to be cleaned as well. At this point his special day isn't really feeling too special! So he ended up cleaning carpets for an hour and a half while I prepared dinner. I cooked him a roast and potatoes for his birthday. At least that turned out good! He loved it! And the kids ate their dinner in COMPLETE silence. We looked at each other halfway through the meal and asked each other what was going on? Things had been absolutely crazy and now our children seemed to be mute? We welcomed the break from the noise and complimented them on their good behavior at dinner. I was going to bake brownies for Craig's birthday. He didn't want them. I think he was a little crushed about how badly his birthday had gone that he didn't even want dessert. So we just put the kids right back into bed after dinner. It was 7:30 by this time and Craig was ready to call it a day! Craig wanted a memory foam topper for our bed for his birthday. I had ordered it online and it didn't end up arriving until after his birthday. So Craig had a crappy birthday and no presents to open. I felt bad. Our mattress is cheap and isn't the greatest so Craig had been wanting something to help him get a better night's sleep. We've now had it on the bed for a little over a week and WOW!! It's great! We have both been sleeping better and we don't wake up with sore backs and necks anymore. And I hope I don't jinx myself here, but Craig has stopped snoring. I used to wake up 2 and 3 times a night and have to kick him to roll over and stop snoring. Since we have had this lovely mattress topper I have not woken up once to him snoring. Not once! It's a miracle! It has cured his snoring! Anyway, I felt bad that Craig had to spend his birthday dealing with unruly children and cleaning carpets. He didn't want his picture taken on his birthday so I snapped the one above a few days ago and snuck it on here :)It was one for the books. . . . .

As for me, I am now sporting a new hair color. It's been blonde for a long time and Craig has been begging me to go dark for quite awhile. Plus it saves money, so it was a no brainer. It was a shock at first, but I'm starting to get used to it. When I first came home with the dark hair Clark didn't recognize me. I picked him up and he freaked out! You can see how light my hair was in the picture of me and Craig in the sidebar to the right. So here's a couple pictures of the change:

DAREDEVIL

Here is a dear sweet picture of our baby Clark: Cute, huh? I guess he's not technically a baby anymore. He's 15 months. But I still tend to think of him as my baby. At least until I saw him do this yesterday:

When I first turned around to see this little boy standing on top of his Leap Frog learning table I think I sucked in about a gallon of air! How in the world did he get up there? Notice there are no other toys around the table that he used to climb on to get up on top. He merely used himself. And he accomplished this feat with a toy in hand. Notice the train in his left hand. He had to have done this somewhat one-handedly! Not only that, the center of this learning table is raised and the outsides slant downwards toward the ground. Clark is standing on the sloping edges of the table. And he balanced there just fine. Not a single care. Like he's on top of the world. Today I caught him trying to jump from the couch onto this same toy! Who does this kid think he is?

I started thinking about the absence of fear this child has and all the other "feats" he has recently accomplished that have made me catch my breath. I decided to catch a couple of them on video to document his fearless behavior. Clark started walking 2 months ago. And after catching him do this:

for the first time 2 weeks ago . . . . apparently he thinks he already gone pro on the whole walking thing.

No one showed him how to do this. No one taught him to get down the stairs this way. He figured it out all by himself. Does your 15 month old walk down the stairs like a normal person? Granted he is holding onto the stair rail bars, but he's WALKING down the stairs!! I know some 2 year olds who still will not WALK down the stairs. They still scoot down on their bums. Not this kid! And then there's this method:

Mallory would be the one that instigated this approach down the stairs. But Clark wasted no time in figuring out how she does it. He giggles all the way down. I think we have a thrill seeker on our hands. I foresee many visits to the ER with this child. He thinks he's invincible! Chase and Mallory were not nearly as fearless or daring as Clark is at this age. This is all new to me. Not once did Chase or Mallory ever climb out of their crib - or even ATTEMPT to climb out of their crib. I'm predicting Clark to be a different story. Not only do I think he will attempt it, I think he will succeed. At the rate he's going anyway . . . . with the whole "I like to participate in dangerous activities that freak my mother out" campaign he's running. These are JUST three of the fearless instances that have happened around here lately from our little Clark. The inspiration for Clark's name was Clark Kent . . . . . .Superman. At this point I think we named him after the wrong superhero. We should have named him Matt - after Matt Murdock. You know . . . .the Daredevil. . . .


*Disclaimer: Lest you judge too quickly and make a bad mother out of me . . . .I do watch my "daredevil" son as best I can. There are times when my back is turned for a few moments such as while cooking dinner, changing a load of laundry, helping one of my other two children use the bathroom, or heaven forbid I have to use the restroom myself, etc., etc. Clark seems to have a sixth sense about when my back is turned for those few moments. It is at these times that he decides to pull his freakish, seemingly pre-meditated stunts. I love my child and positively re-direct him toward safer methods of play when I catch him participating in unsafe activities. Including maneuvering the stairs in a safe manner.

We've Got Spirit. . . .

Yes we do! We've got spirit how 'bout you?


GOOOOOOOOOO CARDINALS!!!