A big brother with his little sister.

I noticed that I don't have a lot of pictures of Maes and Mikah...the truth is, I'm trying to take more pictures period.

But it seems like she is more interested in her own world of school and fake colored hair. She showed Mikah her baby doll today and then worked on her home work.
She is an amazing big sister that helps get diapers and will hold Mikah very well for me.
She can hold Mikah and eat a whole bowl of frozen berries. Such a multi tasker (she'll make a great Mom one day).

Jake on the other hand is in LOVE with his sister. He loves to hold her (until she gets to heavy- and then I have to be on guard so he does not plop her down too hard).
He wants to hold her all of the time it seems..sometimes his attention span is longer, like this morning.
He held her and said she was a "cutie" (he says that almost every time she is in his arms).
Then while I was in the bath he sang her some made up songs.
He also likes to sing "itsy bitsy spider" to her.
Such a sweetheart... until things don't go his way!

This is where things start getting hard for me.
He loves Mikah and wants to hold her constantly... and touch her, and play with her. (he even had a blanket over her head as they were playing "hide and seek". )
But he does not want to wash his hands, does not want others to hold her and does not want to wait.

Here he is in one of his pouting sessions.
He has his big gun. He was being so difficult for some reason or another, and I'm sure it was past his bed time. I bribed him with it- saying he could sleep with it if he would just do what I asked (cannot remember what I asked of him, but it was important at that time).
As of now the gun has been taken away until Halloween (it is part of his costume) as is his little gun and various sticks.

I had a very busy Monday and today I don't have much going today on so I vowed to deep clean the bathrooms. They have been getting Clorox wipe downs every few days, but it has been about 2 weeks sense their last deep clean. They are done, and now I need to put them back together.
In the mean time, sweet Maes has taken a nap and Jake has gotten out a lot of toys and messes (more for me to do on this "non busy" day).

He has been pushing around the remnants of his "a" (not A as in the letter, but the "a" sound as in "ant") in a stroller. It is now just dried pieces of blue clay, but I am not allowed to throw it away. I also cannot throw away issues of the wall street journal that we still get delivered. If he finds one in the trash he transfers them to a berry box where he has been storing them. They are "his".

I've got a little worrier on my hands. It comes from me. I worry.
He worries about balloons not being secured so they don't float away, or in to a fan if indoors.
He worried about the pool toys being left in the pool.
He worried about his little snake toy being left at school and his sippie (both we had to retrieve the next morning after dropping Maes off at the bus.)
He might outgrow it, or he might turn into his mother.
I wish I did not worry so much.

First day of School!

Today is the first day of school. I took the morning off work so that Nate and I could take the kids to school. I am now in an empty house catching up on the blog while I procrastinate cleaning the kitchen, moping and vaccuming, folding laundry and sorting papers. However, sans kids- i bet I can get it all done in about an hour!

We started out a little rocky as I enrolled her in our neighborhood school not knowing if they would have a half day program. She went to an orientation there in the spring, but during the summer I found out that they only had full day so I found another school. However, I kept getting info from the first school and it was confusing. Especially when I would relay info to Maes and then have to retract it!
She was full of mixed emotions!
Her new school has a strict dress code- in fact, the pants she wore today are too short! We got some running shoes for her because she cannot wear open toe shoes and she lives in flip flops. These shoes are for running the turkey trot in Novemeber and she is pretty happy about it. (thanks grandma anderson for getting the shoes!)Here we are waiting for the bus. At first she was excited but then told me that she did not like yellow busses, only rainbow busses. By this morning she was anxious to get out the door! I hope it lasts!

She is so little. I could hardly see her curls through the bus window when she got on! I think nate and I were so nervous for her, but she did great! Jake really wanted to ride the bus too!

We drove Jake to his Montessori toddler program. I will be teaching a weekly art class for them and he gets to attend their program while I am at work. I choose to just have him attend half day and then go with the sitter the other half of the day with Maes. He loves his school but had a hard time letting me leave. I think he will get over it soon. His school seems so fun!


After the drop off we headed to Maesyn's school to make sure she got off the bus ok. She was still doing great! We walked her to her classroom and showed her the play ground where she could play until school started. She is very friendly and started talking to some bigger girls. I think she thinks that she is big because she plays a lot with her older cousins. I hope the big girls will give her the time of day and not ignore her. I think she will not have a hard time making friends.
Here she is with her class heading in. I cannot wait to hear how she did!

Up date:
"It was amazing". But they talked a lot about the rules and it was "BORING" . She only remembers the one about raising your hand.
On the second day she had PE. She loves her Gym Teacher!
She also has some girls in her class that don't listen.
Her teacher said that she loves being an example for other kids.
She is so big!

trying for a "normal" bedtime...

Tonight I dropped something off at a friends house just before 8pm and their kids were already in bed. They try to get them in bed by 7. I know this is normal for a lot of people, but normal for our family has been 10ish.
It seems that the entire time we've had kids that Nate did not get home until quite late and I would either let the kids stay up so that they would actually get to see him one time that day, or let them fall asleep with me in my bed with no routine whatsoever.
The only advantage of this was that my kids would sleep in until pretty late..sometimes until 9am!
Maesyn will start Kindergarten next week and we NEED to have her get up early and eat breakfast and get ready for the day. This necessitates an earlier bed time. So our goal tonight was 9pm. I know, still sort of late, but slowly we will get them in bed by 8pm and possibly earlier. This will give her plenty of time to sleep and not have a hard time getting up early. It will also give Nate and I some time to hang out, now that he gets home at a fairly normal hour.
So how is it going?
It is just after 9:30.
Maesyn is asleep in bed (Jake's bed because she is afraid of the top bunk)
Jake is in and out of our room with excuses.
I'm hungry
I need food
My bed is too SWEATY
yeah.
he is 2 and already working it, but I just witnessed a yawn.

I like to make charts....

I'm a huge list maker and I grew up with charts, so naturally I was excited to make charts for my kids and hoped that they would be excited to use them.

Here are some of my first charts. They are the kids morning and evening chores. The basics: Eat breakfast (a chore around here), bathe, brush your teeth, say your prayers... a simple hope to get into good habits. They are a little bent out of shape because more than once Jake was bent out of shape because he had to do some of his chores.
Here is my latest chore chart... it is a little wrinkled in the corner due to a laminator mishap, but it hangs on the laundry room freezer and perfection is not necessary (well, until it bothers me too much and I reprint and laminate it! )
As a Kindergartner she can earn an allowance if she does all of the "everyday" chores each day. (there is a spot to mark each day of the week that she completes her chores) as well as her "Saturday chores". She can choose her 3 chores for each category and Velcro them to the boxes, they will change each week. She HATES some of her Saturday chores (wiping down light switches and door knobs!).
Before this chart she had a little table that she could mark with an X every time she did a little something for me, or felt like she wanted to earn money. We would add up the X's on the chart and she would get a dime for each one at the end of the month. She still has that option and will do chores for me, but neglect to mark the boxes. She may change her mind though in the future. Initially her main motivator was to pay her tithing, but now she wants to earn money to buy things like this:
She recently reminded me to put her wallet in my diaper bag so that if she sees a silly trinket at walmart that she HAS to have...then she can get it.
For now we are letting her spend her money, after she pays her tithing... soon we will require her to save some it for special occasions...then for big things. A college education is not cheap you know!

Some stuff about Maesyn

Maesyn's favorite color is: " EVERY COLOR IN THE RAINBOW, even black, white and brown."
She misses pre school.
She loves to sing songs from Brother Bear, Annie, Oliver and Mama Mia- she will belt them out wherever.
Maesyn wishes she were having another brother. Maybe she likes to be teased! Hopefully Micah will tease her as much as any brother and she will be happy with a little sister.

after yet another summer of swimming lessons

Maesyn wants to take a few more lessons this summer in "Sarah's Pool" but just have free time. I think she wants to show off her moves!
The kids made tons of progress this year. We just did 4 weeks of 2 days per week lessons and practiced a lot.
I really want them to be strong swimmers.
Last year Maesyn was a pretty good swimmer, jumping off the diving board and swimming in the deep end.
This year she is doing more dives and flips off the board, improving her strokes and picking up stuff from the bottom of the pool (something she told me earlier this summer that she would NEVER do!)
Last year Jake was just getting started.
Today he was able to swim across the width of the pool on his own. He insisted on doing it with his head out of the water most of the way, and that made him go slower, but he is always proud of himself when he does it.
He also picks stuff up from the bottom of the pool with help and jumps off the diving board with his noodle.
Next year I think they will both be quite proficient by the end of the summer and we will have a new one to teach!
It is so amazing to watch them learn new things!

Mexican Vacation 2009

After all of the drama of our car trouble (which is still not over) I have settled down enough to post about our vacation.
Every year we go to Kino Bay Mexico. I think Nate's family has been going for about 15 years now and this is our 7th together. Even with our kids, that keep us very busy, this is the most relaxing vacation we take.
Granted it is very hot in Mexico in July, the water is quite warm and we swim and play a lot.
This is where we stay on the beach. There are 4 condos, and our group used the 3 on the end.. How else do you accommodate 20+ people?
Naturally Nate and Jake took some opportunities to fish. They did not catch anything. They were given some tips on some good fishing places but it was just too hot to sit and fish. It is just as much fun if you don't even catch anything.

Jake is fishing in his underwear. He was very busy potty training this trip. I think that his boxer briefs are so dang cute!!!!
It has been a tradition for a few years to bury the kids and give them fish tails. I was not sure that we would do it this year, it seemed like there were a lot of bugs- I called them sand fleas because they jumped and would bite you- but the tradition carried on. The year they were on their tummies.
I also make "sand Jakeis" and "sand Maesyns." We also make sand castles the whole week long. Jake made sure to take all of the shells of of "himself" before we went in for the night and Maesyn was upset that a large crab had a hole near her head and was wandering around "her" the next morning.

Because I have not read a book just for me in about 10 years I decided to take 2 books on the trip. After this summer's experience I have concluded that it is best to read the cover and some of the reviews before diving into a book.
My first book was "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. A friend told me about it a while back and I thought it sounded interesting. I loved a few nonfiction books I'd read on survival situations. ("Into Thin Air", and "Into The Wild")- however, had I read the reviews I would have been reminded, and prepared for the graphic, carnal nature of the story. I could not put the book down and I think Nate and I both read it in 2 days. I think I was eager for something good to happen so I could not stop reading until it did, or until the book ended. I guess that made it a good book. I was not disappointed with the end and thought about it for days.
The other book was "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." I'm not a very literary person, and after I was finished Nate kept asking me why the caged bird sings. I still don't know. I also love books that talk about rising above difficult circumstances, I've enjoyed reading "Man's Search for Meaning." "The Hiding Place", "Hansi" (Not a well known book- but about the Holocaust), and "The Color Purple." They are enlightening and inspiring. However, I did not like reading about the assault on the young girl. (Nobody does). I think that it was a bit more difficult because I now have children of my own. I think that "The Road" was difficult too because of that reason.

The kids would watch movies and play house when it was too hot to go out. Kourtney, Nate's youngest sister, would indulge them. Jake was the dog. (Nate always wanted to be the Monkey when he played house with his sisters).
We also went to visit the street vendors on our way to the tide pools and at the pier in old Kino. We have a friend named Francisco that does Iron Wood carvings and gives us a good deal. Jake bought 3 dolphins. A mommy, daddy and baby. Maes bought 2 as well as jewelry and a little swivel head turtle. The kids earned their own money this year by practicing swimming. Maesyn can earn extra money by doing chores too. I figured that I spend money on trinkets when we travel, so why not make them work for it. Granted swimming practice is an easy thing to do, but they are sometimes reluctant. They earned 10 dollars for this trip and can earn 10 more for the next. (easiest money they ever made).
Maesyn also got together with her aunt and her friends and made jewelry. Another Mexico tradition that my family will be involved in via Maesyn, as I don't wear jewelry.







In addition to our time on the beach in front of our condo and reading books, we also went to explore the near by tide pools. The kids loved finding little snails on the rocks and tiny little crabs, some just the size of your thumbnail. Nate would also bring them hermit crabs that he would find snorkeling.
Nate and Jake were both stung by Portuguese Man 0 War. Some days there were a lot of them washed up with the tide. They are not very big. We would walk around and pop them (with our shoes on) but this turned out to be a bad idea, as one stuck to one of Maesyn's flip flops and it's tentacles rubbed against her opposite leg, and they still had some sting to them. I'm pretty sure I sat on one at one pint while we were building castles as part of my bum started to sting pretty bad!
All in all we had a great and relaxing (although eventful) trip. We are glad to be home and resting up for our trip to San Diego. We look forward to no car trouble and cooler weather on our trip as we prepare for the new school year.

The End.

MBA graduation

We have been married for nearly 7 years, and Nate has been a full time student that entire time. He has even taken classes each and every summer. What do you get out of that? An associates degree, a Bachelors Degree, a Masters of Health Sector Management and an MBA. He did not walk for the first 3 degrees, but we really wanted him to celebrate this MBA, it is major accomplishment.

We were only planning on going to the MBA part of the graduation on Saturday, but when we heard that the President was going to speak at the ASU graduation we decided to take Maesyn.
Now, Maesyn is not much for politics. She is only 4 and that is fine. She does not know about issues such as the economy and its dismal state, nor about immigration or abortion. I am not cloistering my little girl, I just want to preserve her innocents and that bliss that comes with being ignorant of these things. SHE IS 4! I am saddened when I hear little ones discussing some of these issues. I prefer she have conversations about webkins, swimming and "shaking her bum cheeks."
She does not know who we voted for. We might have told her, but I'm sure she has forgotten by now. She went with me to vote and watched the election on TV. After Obama was elected she asked when she would get to see him. I explained that it would probably be never. When she would see him on TV she would recognize him as the President. We have respect for the office and try to remember to pray for our president (that is all we can do now right?) in our prayers.
Sooooo. When the opportunity arouse for us to give Maesyn the chance to see a Living and Acting President of the United States of America.. we jumped at it. After all, we just had to get the tickets (easy), stand in the heat for a while (not too bad, even for this pregnant lady) and then eat expensive stadium food as we waited in the shade for the sun to set.
Here is the girl taking advantage of the opportunity of a life time!
We had great seats and could see the snipers.
We watched the cars drive into the stadium. Who knows who is in this one.

We waited through the speeches as Maesyn got so bored and restless. Obama began to speak and I thought after Maesyn saw him that we could just walk out. She would have liked that as she had been sitting a while. But we listened to his whole speech, which was not bad and then flooded out of there with about 1/4 of the other guests. (maybe less).
We rode the new light rail back to our car and headed home.

Maeyn's take on the evening:
"He is so boring and does not talk about kid stuff."

THEN.......
On Saturday May 16th we had the MBA Graduation. We took Jake along. He dropped a bag of Cheeze its onto the sound people. They probably hated it. The guest speaker was really brief and kinda' lame, but it was great for the kids that were again bored and restless- even though they had food (now gone) and markers and crayons and walks with Grandpa Anderson, and Lap sittings with Grandma and Grandma Garner.
After we went to lunch for Mexican (I probably threw it up later)...and celebrated the weight off of his shoulders.

NEXT....
Find a better paying job or hope for a raise from his current employer. He loves his current job.
AND....I've already begun making calls about our student loan payments.
It cost a pretty penny to add MHSM and MBA behind your name!

Toad in our yard.

So, we had a toad in our yard for a while. Maesyn loved him (or her) and gave it a tour of our house and held it and loved it. Jake said he would hold it "next time". It peed on Maes a few times.

In contrast. I had a small wart on my foot. I did not want to do anything about it, it might hurt and then effect my running addiction..So I let it go. Sometimes they just go away on their own. Bu then another one sprouted. No big deal. Then one night I saw about 20 small dots on my feet. A "colony" as Nate described it.
So off to the dermatologist and then back with some compound w and instructions. The bottom of my feet are pretty eaten up from the acid.
One night when saying prayers my feet were near Maes.
"Ew, disgusting, get your yucky toad feet away from me!"

The things kids say....

"Pizza Gum"=piece of gum, hot gum only (jake)
"Next Day"= tomorrow (maesyn)

The sprinklers came on the other day as we were leaving. Jake took the opportunity to run through them and then pointed out that he was wet when we got in the car.
"Well, whose fault is that?" I asked Jake.
"The waters."
obviously!

Father and Child......

When we were fishing up in Greer it reminded me of when we visited my Grandparents on their Mission in Missouri. When Nate showed his co workers some of the photos they could not believe how green it was. They were convinced that Nate had altered the photos some how. Although both photos are cute, can you believe the difference in color. These were taken 3 years apart, both in the month of April, one in Missouri and one in AZ.

favorite picture

This is one of my favorite pictures of Nate and Maesyn. She is about 6 months old and Nate is singing to her-obviously. (on our messy un made bed- I have developed this new compulsion of making our beds every morning... not a bad thing..)
I was cleaning up one of Jake's messes from this after noon and found this in an old photo album with family pictures that we used to take to church when Maes was super small. Although this was less than 4 and a half years ago, we look so much younger... kids will do that to ya... also being 30 does it to you.

Giraffes

A few weeks ago our Neighborhood had a garage sale. We did not have anything to sell but our neighbor suggested that Maesyn sell Cinnamon rolls again. So we set up our station. Maesyn and Jake had their little chairs and they sat ready. Our neighbor offered some stuffed animal to Maesyn and Jake. I had to tell her "No" because we arready have a tote and 2 baskets full. She insisted and we ended up with a small bag of suffed animals. (ase well as 2 sun hats a back pack a little purse and some mini ballet shoes stuffed with potporui- she did this while during Nate's watch- she knew I would say "NO" again- we have too much stuff-junk-). At any rate... At one point during the morning Jake lost his new giraffe and Maesyn made this poster.
Unfortunalty I wrote a phone number on it.
She is so good at Giraffes that I have been asking her to draw more and more.

More of Maesyn's Fab Artwork!!

Maesyn was sitting in her little rocking chair while Jake and I watched a movie. She was busy drawing this wonderful picture. She was so excited about the flowers that she drew. She said they look like the ones that we have. She also told me that the last one is a leaf flower. I suggested that she color it so that Dad could hang it in his office. She went right to work. Notice how each petal is a differnt color?
Then Jake brought all of the crayons into the living room and dumped them on the floor so his doggie could sit in the box.
I love her artwork. I need to make a scrapbook of JUST MAESYN's ART. I'm sure I'll have one of all of my kids work.

growing up, having babies, and orange chicken.

Although Nate and I protest, Maesyn is growing up. Sometimes I just watch her carrying on or interacting with others and I can see that she is becoming this independent kid..a big kid. And she totally hangs with the 6 and 9 year old girls that I have in my clay class.
When holding (thankfully she sometimes likes to be held and requests snuggles!) her the other day I asked her why she had to grow up. She said she needed to grow up so she could get married and have a baby. She is really into getting married and having babies. She does not know who she wants to marry at this point (which is OK- she is only 4) but she does want to get married in the temple and have babies once she is married.
She also asked me a while back what I ate in the hospital when I had her. I could not really remember. The food in the hospital was not that great. She asked me to bring her orange chicken when she has a baby. (funny, because I did not care for any Chinese- or Asian food when I was pregnant with her). Orange Chicken is a current favorite. We will see in 20 or so years if the request still stands.

Throwing up and Barfing.

Warning.... may contain graphic material.

So, Maesyn and Jakie both had tummy aches last night and they both began throwing up... it seemed that there were points that as soon as one kid and their stinky mess was cleaned up the other would start.
At their current ages Maesyn and Jakie are very different at throwing up. Jakie will quietly throw up and just want to be held, even while throwing up. I have held his vomit in my hands to keep it from getting on the furniture or I have allowed him to throw up on my shoulder while he holds tight to me.(I have no idea why this does not gross me out). We then have to force him to rinse his mouth and then he will snuggle off to sleep (after we hose him off if needed).

Maes on the other hand is not so pleasant- as if barfing is pleasant. I think she is more like me, and does not like to be helped when she is uncomfortable. Although, if she needs assistance it is me that she calls on. She will do her business while yelling the whole time. And then insist on sleeping in her own room away from people. (I won't let her though. I have a fear of my children choking on their own vomit.)

I can honestly say that throw up is not a problem with me when it comes to parenting. At least my own kids. I remember having to clean up after my younger brother when I was a pre teen and dreading the day when I had to do this with my own kids.
I don't know how well Nate handles the pungent messes. However, last night I realized that in all of our barfing episodes that Nate has never had the opportunity to strip the soiled seat cushions off of our couches and prepare them for the wash. So I graciously gave him the chance. He did a pretty good job and also cleaned up the floors. Thank goodness we have wood floors- no carpet (in the barf zones). I did notice him dry heaving though- so I don't think i'll ask him to do it again.
All in all we are having a lazy dasie afternoon of movie watching, bread making and laundry doing. I don't think I get to get the hair cut I scheduled and Maesyn was OK with staying home from her beloved pre-school. I introduced her to JUNIE B JONES. And now she is ready for PBS kids on the computer.