Trying again

Back in the day when Daniel and I only had 2 kids, we did kid dates once a month. Daniel would head out with one kid, and I would head out with the other. The next month we would switch. Daniel and Kylie started a little tradition of getting a new shirt each time they went out. Toast and his daddy would usually get some "dang quesadillas" at Serranos. But whatever the date was, we felt it important to spend that one on one time focusing on that kid. Then James joined the family. We tried to keep up with our little tradition, but we had to juggle around the one on one a little differently. Since we moved down here, and since having Ben, we have completely dropped the ball. So last week we decided that we needed to get back on track. Juggling this between 4 kids is a little more tricky. We figured each kid will have a "date month" and during their month, they get a date with daddy, and another with me.

Yesterday Kylie and I had our little date. We went to get pedicures-(hence the picture of our feet), followed by some olive garden. We ordered take-out and took it to a nearby park. Kylie gets the kids pasta, chicken, and broccoli meal, and they had the chicken and the broccoli but no pasta. What a thing to miss. But we had a great time together. Kylie and her daddy are going to go on their date this afternoon, and next month will be Tys turn. The following month will be James, and then Ben. And then back to Kylie. The kids are really excited to start this up again. Daniel and I are too.

Discovery

This morning I was upstairs putting the laundry away, and James comes running up the stairs and says, "Bennie gots A's! Bennie gots A's!" I didnt know what he meant but the excitement in his voice told me I should find out. So we went downstairs and found Ben playing in a dozen smashed up eggs. He immediately started laughing when he saw me and the horrified look on my face. He was having the time of his life. Gotta love the age of discovery huh?

Sunday Entertainment

I got the kiddies new church clothes for Easter, but we went to Mesa for Daniels brothers baby blessing, and I didnt pack them, therefore they didnt get dressed up for Easter. So yesterday I was getting them dressed for church in their new clothes and Daniel just had to take pictures cuz we thought they were just so dang charming. Kylie unfortunately didnt want to wear her new dress, so we just got pictures of the boys.

After church James and Toast were fighting and James wacked Ty pretty hard. Ty starts scream-crying and I am trying to calm him down, and he goes off saying he hates James. I tried explaining to him that James is 2 and doest really understand that when he hits it hurts, he just knows it gets your attention. Ty responds, "He was trying to kill me!" And I thought Kylie was the dramatic one.

At dinner, Ty and Ky were trying to spell out the entire conversation. IE-"M-o-m-m-y-c-a-n-y-o-u-g-e-t-m-e-a-d-r-i-n-k-p-l-e-a-s-e-" Ty is learning to spell and read and he is doing great, but his sister was obviously having no problems and he needed to show her up, so he says "m-o-m-m-y-l-i-k-e-s-k-i-s-s-i-n-g-d-a-d-d-y. Which led those two into the "first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage" song. Which lead them into a conversation about marriage. A little while ago, Ty was in love with his little friend named Allison, but sadly she moved away. But when he thinks about marriage he will sometimes still bring up this little plan of his to marry Allison. Now Ty has 2 aunts named Allison, and Kylie was for some reason thinking about them when Ty started talking about his old flame. The confusion between the two of them was pretty comical. Kylie says "you cant marry Allison, she is too old for you. Besides she is already married." Toast was shocked. How could his Allison already be married. Wasnt she after all suppose to wait for him to go on his mission first. Sheesh. And Kylie is sitting there thinking Ty is some weird sicko for wanting to marry an older woman who is not only a married woman but indeed his cousins mother. They figured it out after not too long, but boy was that some good entertainment.

Virus, Birds and Adventures

I dont know if this post will post as my computer has a virus which Daniel has been trying to get rid of, but this one is a doozy, making anything that should take me 30 minutes to do turn into an all day project, such as blogging- but as I need to keep a record of things I will make an attempt anyway.

I have been feeling like a failure as a mother the past week. Some of it is just silly, like James’s sudden interest in fingernail polish and makeup. If I don’t paint his nails-(of course he is insistent that I paint them BRIGHT pink) he will do it himself. And then the makeup- he keeps climbing up on the counter in the master bathroom and gets into my make-up and then smears it all over his arms and face and its starting to scare me a little cuz I really don’t want this kid to start dressing in drag now nor anytime in the future. I get this little voice in my head saying-he is 2 and a half so its not a big deal, but then I get another voice that’s like in 15 years if he becomes confused with his gender, his shrink will of course blame the mother and trace it back to his 2 and a half year old self. This is when I think I am not cut out to be a mom. But really- its just silliness. Don’t most 2 year old boys play with their mothers make-up?-(please someone tell me their boys play with make-up!!!)

But the not so silly parts are really freaking me out. My Toast is throwing me for a loop here. We have had several birds building nests in the rafters of our patio. Daniel went out there 2 weeks ago and started to spray them down, but stopped when one of the nests already had baby birds inside. Well the baby birds have grown a little each day and have lots of feathers and were even chirping. Then one fell. I am not sure if he was trying to fly or what but he fell and the kids came running in to tell me. So we went out there and I told them not to touch the baby bird- just let him hang out in his little spot, until daddy gets home from work. Then daddy will put him back up in the nest. They were all infatuated with the bird, but gave it its space. Skip ahead a few hours. The older 3 were outside playing, Bennie was playing with toys and I was reading blogs. Kylie comes running inside and tells me Tyler killed the baby bird. Shocked and confused I ran out there. First I had Kylie show me where the baby bird was, to really see if it was dead. It was and it was a gruesome sight to behold. So then I went to find Ty. He was, of course, hiding, and when I found him, the first words out of his mouth were, “Kylie did it! It was Kylie!” Right. I was really really disturbed and confused, and so I asked him why, but he didn’t answer me, and I didn’t know how to handle the situation, so I put him in time out and called my mom. I told her how I felt my son was evil and how I didn’t know what to do. She reassured me that he isn’t evil. She also suggested that I make him bury the baby bird. So after I vented, and she calmed me down, I went out to talk to my little boy. I again asked him why, but he didn’t have a reason. Anyway we talked for probably 15 minutes. Talked about how it was wrong to kill. We talked about Heavenly Father and Jesus, and how they created the animals and birds and even us, and that even though he made a mistake Heavenly Father still loves him. Anyway he felt awful, and I was actually glad to see that he had remorse cuz I really was a little worried this kid was of the devil or something- but then he went and apologized to the momma bird, then I made him bury the smashed carcass of that little bird, and then we went and prayed to apologize to Heavenly Father. His prayer was very sweet. And then I really did try to show an increased amount of love towards my boy. But I am still really disturbed that he actually killed the baby bird. I don’t know where he even came up with that awful idea. So I feel like an awful mother cuz we obviously missed teaching him the primary lesson #13 "I am thankful for birds"

So after that awful day, I really needed to shake that memory away by creating a new one. So I talked with Daniel, and he figured if he worked super late one night, we could take off the next day after some meetings he had. So thats what we did. We decided to go exploring the mountainous regions outside San Diego to try to find our perfect locale for our future cabin. While we searched, we still didnt find the right area, but we did find one very awesome park that had nobody else around. It was fabulous.

I really like little road trips. One the way to and fro its just so nice to have that time to talk with Daniel. I really really like that guy.

Friday night we had a movie night with some friends. Daniel set up his projector in their garage, and they had set up some couches, and camp chairs, and we brought our camping mats, and blankets, and with a few treat bags & popcorn, it was quite the night.

Then on Saturday and Sunday we enjoyed conference. I was a tad homesick in the fact that we were here as opposed to being in UT with all my siblings and parents, but maybe one day I can convince my honey that driving 14 hours each way for 2 days really would be worth it. (Can you see Daniels eye-roll/shaking of the head look?- its very similar to the one Kylie is portraying in the picture above)