ketchup

Take a blog break and blogger goes and changes the format all around. I like to stick with what i know. oh well.

so Daniel came home early today and took the 4 oldest to a movie so I could take a nap as Ive been hit by some dang bug and feel like death, but just as i was gonna close my eyes my littlest decided he had enough of a nap, so I figure I can feed him with one arm/hand, and type with the other and can play catch up as fast as i can.

 

So biggest change since my last post ..my sweet Tommy-boy made it into the world. there were some crazy things going on during the past several months with my own health (bunch of tests, procedures, specialists, drugs trying to deal with all the unusual symptoms i was having, which they eventually just grouped into my "severe anemia"- and the worst part was having an anaphalactic shock reaction to the iron IV- not cool!), so I was extremely scared when I went into labor, but in my heart I know my Father in Heaven blessed me with my own miracle, and everything was perfectly miraculously amazingly fine. The scale that weighed my Tommy was off, as he weighed in at 7lbs 6 oz  then 24 hours later weighed in at 5 lbs 10 oz. His pediatrician figured he weighed 5"12, so he is my littlest of them all. He is a sweet little guy, who is now smiling for anyone and everyone who talks to him. Joshy absolutely adores him and gives him "loves" a hundred times a day. It is so so sweet. Tommy is like Joshy was in regards to sleeping..he has his nights and days mixed up. But I am just so in love with my little guy. Everyday is overwhelming with the responsibilities I face, but I do recognize the tender mercies given each and every day, and even though some days I am ready to run away, I do love these babies of mine, and i am so thankful to my loving Father in Heaven who has blessed me with this guy and with the other 5 kiddos as well.

Joshy turned 1 in May. He is just growing up too fast. We got him off bottles before Tommy was born, but when he sees Tommy chonking down, he throws these adorable little fits(and i really do think they are adorable cuz he goes into this fake cry and when he sees me laugh he starts to smile, but then quickly catches himself and fake cries again..so dang funny) and as soon as I put the bottle down to burp my littlest, Joshy snatches that thing so fast and runs away to do some bottle chonking of his own. Silly goose. He LOVES being outside, and runs to the door anytime he hears someone open it just to get out there. This past week he has figured out how to open the door himself. yikes. He is quite the little busy body, especially at church. we are in the "doing laps around the church during Sunday school" phase with him. And during the week, he tries to keep up with all the big kids. When they are running around, jumping off the couches and love sacs and yelling, Josh is right there behind them trying to do the same things. He has a sweet little heart, just like Bennie, and anytime someone gets hurt or is sad, Joshy goes right up and gives them Loves by laying his head on them. Oh how i love that.

Bennie has taught himself to read. he is my genius child. He turned 4 back in March and the kid reads. And while I did some letter recognition and letter sounds with him  back when he was 2, i haven't done much in the past 2 years. yet the kid sees a sign as we are driving around town and reads it to me. This summer I have printed up a bunch of worksheets for the kids to keep their minds from turning to mush and to keep the "I'm bored!" phrase at bay somewhat, and in his and Jamesys workbooks I have a bunch of lists of sight words and figured Id help them memorize a set of 8 sight words a week during this summer break, and my funny James just hates doing it with me and I struggle to get through the 8 words with him, yet Bennie has gone through every single list without me even telling him what they are. The kid is just brilliant. He has such a tender heart and says the sweetest things, and I think, Oh I need to write that down, but never do and now that i am actually blogging and I'm trying to recall some of the things he has said, I'm drawing a blank. But man, i just love that kid.

James graduated from his preschool and is going to be starting Kindergarten. He and I have been struggling lately. The boy is so so sweet most of the time, but if he doesn't get his way, or someone makes him mad, then we all have to watch out because there is a serious demonic side to this kid. And the worst thing about it is, I have NO CLUE as to how to discipline him when he gets all crazy. The kid is stronger and tougher and faster than me. no joke. and he refuses to sit in a time out- anywhere I put him, he just get up and runs away and like I said, he is faster than i am. And he always says such mean things like, "you're the worst mom in the whole entire universe!" or the "i hate this family!" or "I'm never going to do what you say ever!" or "you've never loved me, even when i was a baby, you hated me!"- now I get that the kid wants attention, but I don't want to encourage the getting attention by bad behavior, so I try to give him attention at times when he is being my helper, but funny thing is, he seems annoyed when i do so then. So i don't know what to do with him. We've tried the privileges being revoked, but that hasn't worked out too well. I praise the kid and give him hugs when he is being good, trying to encourage that more. and when he is being all good and sweet, I talk to him about what we can do when he gets mad, and he gives me great answers, ie I'll say "James, instead of hitting Ben if you're mad at him, what can we do that can help you get your frustrations out in a healthy way?"- (and yes I do talk to him like that)-- and he will say "i can go pull weeds." or "i can go jump on the tramp." and i totally encourage that- so when he starts getting all rilled up, I try to remind him by saying, " you're obviously getting upset and angry, so why don't you go jump on the trampoline until you feel like you're not so mad anymore." and he responds by saying, "that is stupid. you're stupid. I'm never going to do what you say cuz everything you say is stupid."- and yes this is really how it goes with this boy, and i really don't know what to do. so he and i are in a frustrated state with each other a couple times a day when he gets all crazy on me. But the sweet side of this boy is very very sweet. He is so cute with both Joshy and Tommy. He sings to them when they are sad, he loves holding Tommy and getting him to smile, and he plays so sweetly with Joshy. I love it. and the kid is so brave and so strong and when he isn't in one of his moods, he is the best little helper ever. and i seriously love listening to him and Ben when they are playing their "games"- cuz they invent the most creative hilarious stories and fight the bad guys together and it is comedic gold i tell you.

Toast is feeling all friendless lately. He had 2 friends in the ward/neighborhood/grade move out a little while ago, but has his "best friend" whom he says is his only friend as the other 2 boys in his primary class who are in the neighborhood and same school are in the grade above him at school and therefore "don't like" him(it breaks my heart that he thinks that.) but now his "best friend" is moving out of the neighborhood and that moves him out of the ward as well, so my little Ty has been telling me lately that he has no friends anymore. Poor dude. I keep praying that some awesome LDS family moves into the neighborhood that has a son Ty's age and that he can have a good friend again, but so far that hasn't happened. Ty has no desire to do any kind of sport, except Karate, but for the life of me I cant find a Karate class for him. We've called a couple of places, but one shut down, and the other wasn't really karate and it wasn't really for kids anyway. so I'm feeling bad cuz the one thing he is interested in, I cant seem to get worked out for him to learn. And i totally want him to start piano, but we cant find any piano teachers either.  Blasted all. Toast  loves scouts though. He has been having so much fun passing off different things and I love to see him so excited about it. When I drop him off on Wednesdays i honestly cant stop smiling as i watch him run into the church as fast as he can.  He has been really awesome at helping me out since Tommy has joined our family. If Kylie is busy taking care of Josh or Tommy while I'm trying to make dinner, I can usually count on Tyler to start picking up the toys for me, and that is no small job with the messes that get made around here.

Kylie got her ears pierced on a whim a few weeks ago. I was gonna make her wait until she was 12, for no other reason than that's the age I got mine pierced, but I jokingly told her we were gonna go do it, when I just needed to run to another store that night, but she thought i was serious and so we went. I thought she would chicken out cuz she was really quite terrified about it, but she went through with it. She is excited to start collecting different holiday earrings, and has pinned different earring organizers to hold all of her future earrings. I sometimes forget my Kylie is only 9, as I count on her to do so much to help out, and she does such a good job and doesn't complain about it.... much. I don't know what i would do without her. I totally need to get her back in piano lessons as she has such a knack for it, but alas, we haven't found a teacher this past school year. She wants to take some art classes, and some sewing classes, so i am hoping that i can find some for her this next year and get her developing her talents again.

Daniel is busy as always. He is currently trying to find an assistant, but the 2 different people we thought were gonna work out great, have failed to do so. Hopefully he'll find the right person for the job soon. Daniel has been fixing our garden up some more, and got the drip system going into it, and also made 2 more boxes for us. once we get on the other end of the heat wave, we will plant again and apply some different tricks we've heard about and hopefully have a more plentiful garden this year. Daniels next project is to put some kind of paving stones in between the garden beds cuz i am not liking all the dirt as it is a magnet for our boys and it gets tracked in onto my floors which i am trying hard like a bugger to keep clean. ha. Daniel and my dad got our fire pit and  a little garden wall all set up when my mom and dad came down to help after Tommy was born. We have loved it, and hopefully we can find the right patio furniture to set up out there and maybe next year get a splash pad set up in the back yard as well. I have to say, I would seriously be lost without my Daniel. He has been my everything and really has just taken care of me and our little family, especially with all the crummy pregnancy stuff. He has been so busy at work, yet I have never had to question his priorities and he has made so many sacrifices just to make sure I was ok. Because my iron was so low, every morning getting out of bed was seriously such a fight as my body just didn't have any energy to do what i needed it to do. I would get up and almost black out every single morning just walking from the bedroom to the kitchen to start making breakfast for the kids and get Ky & Ty's lunches made, and get them ready and off to school. Daniel likes to get into the office as early as possible so he can get a jump start on the day and have a little block of time before he starts getting bombarded with different distractions, but since he knew i felt like death every morning, he jumped right in, helped me get the kids fed and ready and on my weeks to drive the kids to school, he would take them, and on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays he would take James to preschool as well. Now as busy as he is, and going in later than he could have, it would  make sense that he would be working late to finish up what he needs every day, but again, knowing i was feeling so lousy ,he tried his hardest to be home by  6:30 every night to help me get he kids ready and into bed. and in addition, since I was considered "high risk" with that pregnancy, I had lots and lots of dr appointments, and Daniel was so wonderfully available to rearrange his schedule to take care of the boys over and over again. And not only that, but through all my fears and worries, Daniel was right there to let me vent, let me cry, and was there to encourage me through it all. Oh how blessed I am. I have such a great guy to share my life with. Oh I love him. so freaking much.

So just for records sake, in order to keep the summer break one in which i don't pull my already falling out hair out, i have planned this summer down like this, M-F each morning, the kids have assigned chores to help keep the house maintained in some kind of order. After which they have to complete a certain number of worksheets in their workbooks. And if they do it all, each afternoon we have some kind of activity planned. Last week we had a craft day (pony bead suncatchers), had a water fight day, had a baking day (cookies cut into their various choices of different shapes), had a water pinata/ water balloon fight day, a game day, and had a getting ready for father days craft day. This week for craft day we did hot rocks, and today Daniel took the oldest 4 to the movies. tomorrow is another baking day, Thursday we will head to the splash park, and Friday we will do a library run/make forts& storytime day. and in addition to getting to do the activity if they do all their work, they get a dollar a day, and hopefully they will be learning some life lessons in all of this. And truth be told, so far so good. Hopefully it will continue to go according to plan.

 and now I am done, so hopefully I can figure out how to edit and post in this new format.