Still alive!

I knew it had been a while since I had posted last but I didn't realize just how long! Sorry about that! So here is a quick update (no pics because they are on my computer and I am doing this from JR's).

Kayla is all done with school. She now gets to move on to 8th grade. She is switching schools for 2 reasons. The first being that her old school closed it's doors for good on May 28th. The district has been shrinking since the 70's and had to take some drastic measures over the next few years to clean it up a bit. Her school was in an old building with A/C in only 1 room (the computer room for obvious reasons) and they felt other facilities were in better condition so hers was one to go! The other reason for her switch is because she decided she wanted to be in the IB program which is housed in one of the other middle schools within our district. This is a challenging program compared to the one she was in these last couple of years but she says she is up for it!

Eli is done with school too. Fortunately his school was one that was spared as they were cutting several elementary schools. They will actually be taking on most of the students from one of the schools that closed on May 22nd. He is now a 4th grader! Holy cow time flies! He is very glad it is summer because it means he gets to spend most of his time outside. He didn't get to do soccer this year because we totally missed the deadline...and then some...on signing him up. So he is waiting until fall to do that. Which he seemed fine with so maybe he was already ready for a break!

Emma is still a 2 yr old through and through. She can go from sweet to typical terrible two at the drop of a hat! Her favorite thing to do lately is play with her brother. She can't seem to get enough of him. Even though she fights with him alot! :) Even tonight, she was invited to spend the night with Nana and then backed out at the last minute because she wanted to see Eli. The other thing she likes to do is play outside. She has made friends with the little girl next door and always asks for her. Trouble is, the girl lives with her dad so she isn't always with her mom and Emma just doesn't understand that!

Hailey is huge! The last time she was weighed she was 25 lbs! Not fun to carry around for long periods let me tell you. She finally started crawling about 3 weeks ago and is now already pulling herself to a stand. She will get brave and cruise along a piece of furniture on occasion but that doesn't happen often. Tonight she was standing up holding onto me and would let go for several seconds and just stand there. I think she thought she was pretty cool because she kept doing it over and over. So I suppose it won't be long before she is walking too! Yikes! She can say mama, dada, Elijah (which sounds kind of like e-da-da). She will try to say Emma but it usually comes out mama and we are trying to teach her to say lala for Kayla. She waves goodbye and will clap her hands when you say "yay Hailey". She is starting to get cuddly. She will lay her head on my chest and I hug her and say "Oh sweet Hailey, I love you" and rock her back and forth. She says some gibberish after I do that and I think it's her version of "I love you". It's too cute! I love this time when you get to watch them develop a personality. She is a happy go lucky baby (most of the time) and will give you the cheesiest grin! I will have to try to get it on camera at some point because it makes me laugh every time.

Anyways, that's all I can think of at this point. I'm quite sure there is lots more....it may or may not make it onto here! We will see! At some point I will try to get some pictures on here too! :)

Happy Easter!

We had a pretty low key Easter this year. Of course the fact that it was snowing all day long was part of the blame there since we couldn't even head to Nana's house for a bit. We colored eggs in the morning, had dinner later and then did the egg hunt. Emma woke up at 7 and begged and begged to be able to check out her Easter basket. It's fun to watch the kids when they start really getting the concept of things like the Easter bunny and Santa Clause! And even though it was snowing outside she insisted on wearing the tank top and shorts the Easter bunny put in her basket!

Easter egg hunting in our house isn't like other egg hunts. We have to keep it fair so we "hide" the eggs for Emma in almost plain view and we have the kids take turns each looking for an egg. It was driving Eli crazy to see the eggs for Emma! But the first one she found she said "yes!" like she had just scored big time! Too cute!

This is what happens when your 2 yr old doesn't get a nap....she beats up the poor innocent bunny cake that Nana made! This picture really doesn't do it justice but you can at least see the whisker's are a little off and one eyeball is missing! She took a nap after this.....

Where's Hailey?!

First of all, she has finally started saying Nana and mama! Of course she said Nana first though! Which made Nana happy! So we started taking this little video trying to get her to say mama and Nana on it. She ended up playing her version of peek-a-boo though. It is too darn cute to not share with everyone! She has been playing this game with us for months where we could cover her with her blanket or whatever else we had and say "where's Hailey?" and she would pull it down so she could see us. It has now evolved into her pulling her chubby hand up to her face and usually only gets it as high as her mouth. But she will sometimes get it up to cover one eye while she peeks at you with the other. The when she pulls it down we say "there she is!" and she gets excited to do it all over again.

This is my first attempt at doing a video on the blog so hopefully I do it right!

Oh yeah and pay no attention to Emma yelling at the dog at the end of the video! :)

1st zoo trip of the year

My friend Jessica M and I decided to get together and go to the zoo on Sunday with her mom and aunt. We had unusually nice weather all last week. The weekend was supposed to be cooler but not so cold you couldn't go outside. Typically, the zoo is a bit cooler because it is on a mountain (hence the name Cheyenne Mountain Zoo) but that so was not the case on Sunday! It was a cloudy day and cool in the morning but by lunchtime the sun was shining and the temps were rising. It got hot enough that I took Hailey's pants off and let her hang out in the stroller with just her shirt and diaper on. And I had to push her sleeves up! Of course, Kayla and I left with sunburned shoulders and faces. Oops!

We had 4 adults and 9 kids with us on this trip. The kids ages were from 13 yrs old all the way down to 8 months old. Oldest and youngest being mine. Hmm I had never realized that before. Anyways, we had a great time and managed to not lose a single kid! Our a single strand of hair! :)

The boys - Sam 3 yrs old, Zander 5 yrs old, Christian 9 yrs old, Eli 9 yrs old

The girls - Hailey 8 mo old, Kayla 13 yrs old, Emma 2 yrs old, Allorah 1-1/2 yrs old and Gabby 10 yrs old

And all of us together. Her and I have been friends since we were Kayla's age!

Emma with Sam and Zander. They are both holding her hands! I think I am in trouble....

The kids on the big chair

This picture is funny. If you notice, most of the kids are all looking off in the side...this is in the petting zoo area and they have loose chickens in there. One was near us and coming up to our legs...the kids were all watching to make sure it didn't come to the chair!

Jessica and I

Jessica and her mom Kim - boy don't they look alike?!

Poor teething baby

My poor Hailey is working on getting one of her top teeth. She already has 2 on the bottom. Seems like it has taken forever for her to get one on the top! This is the first tooth from all of my kids that has caused this kind of trouble! You can see a little blister on her gums where the tooth will be. Not soon enough for Hailey...but it will come! I have heard of this happening with other kids. In fact, I have a friend who's son would get a rather large, painful blister before his tooth would come in each time! All I have to say right now is thank God for teething tablets! Add a couple of those to her bottle at night and she can sleep peacefully for a few hours.

Happy 13th Birthday Kayla!

Man. I cannot believe it. I know I say this every year but it's true. Time really does fly. When they are babies, you don't necessarily realize just how little time you get to "have" your kids. 18 yrs is nothing compared to the average life span! And really, they start breaking away from you when they hit middle school at 11 or so yrs old. And naturally, Kayla is still working on that process. Since she is the first born she kind of gets the short end of the stick when it comes to certain freedoms. Which is fine by me! Because while she is breaking away, JR and I have to learn to let go little bits at a time. And boy is that hard sometimes! At the same time, it is fun watching her grow both physically but emotionally and mentally as well. She is officially taller than me by 1 inch! No surprise really but I surely didn't want to admit it at first! She is such a smart girl and is a good kid too. Of course she has the attitude but that is to be expected! Not always excused, but expected for sure! I know I dished out my fair share of 'tude to my parents when I was that age! I love that she is still open with me and willing to share stuff with me. And I will hold on to that for as long as she is comfortable talking to me. I hope that never ends but I do have to be realistic!

We celebrated her birthday with the grandparents on Wed the 11th. My mom is taking cake decorating classes so we had her make the cake. Kayla requested an i-pod cake. And of course Nana did an awesome job!

Darlin and Emma

Grandpa and Grandma (my dad and step-mom)

Nana, Hailey, Kayla, grandpa and Eli and my little brother Chris in the background

Kayla's cook i-pod cake. Nana even put the little ear buds on the side!

Blowing out her candles. She had the plan to have a 1 and a 3 candle for her cake so that I could use the 1 for Hailey's bday and the 3 for Emma's!

On her actual birthday (the 12th) we took her out to dinner. Her request was IHOP and there was no changing her mind! She gave herself away that it was her birthday though because she was wearing a bow from a present around her neck. So they came and sang to her and gave the kids this huge hot fudge sundae. Earlier in the day I picked her up from school and took her out to lunch. Then after dinner we came home and she opened her presents. Between her grandparents and us she ended up with $85! Of course she spent it all today when we went shopping.

Her and her friends always joke that they are nerds since they are in the gifted and talented program. Isn't this shirt fitting for that?!

I gave her the option to either have a birthday party with her friends this weekend or go to the Fall Out Boys concert coming up in April. She chose the concert! And is super excited about it since that is her favorite band.

Look Where I Found Her!

Earlier this week when I went into the girls' room to wake them up I noticed Emma's bed was empty. At first it freaked me out because that was where she should be, obviously! I went back to my room to check that she wasn't in there and I just missed her. Nope. I checked closer in her bed. Nope. I checked Eli's bed. Nope. The last place I figured she may have gone was to Kayla's room to her bed. On my way to Kayla's room....

Here is where I found her!

She had grabbed both of her pillows (yep she sleeps like that every night!) and went to the couch! When I woke her up and asked her what she was doing out there her response was "because I was hangin' out"! Not sure who she thought she was going to hang out with in the early morning hours but she must have gotten bored!

Updates on the family

Long time no blog! It's been longer than I realized since I had posted anything on here. Sorry about that! :) I don't seem to have much computer time at night these days. Anyways, here are some random updates for you.

Kayla made the honor roll at school this semester. We went to the awards ceremony at her school a few weeks ago to see her get it. She also just had her science fair last week. Her project was pretty cool. She would have the person sit at her desk and give them a sheet of various math problems, and while you were doing that she was also playing different songs and telling you the name of the song. Afterwards, you had to name the songs in order. Basically it was testing multi-tasking. And guess who did better?! The younger ones! The adults didn't do so well at that!


Elijah has been working at mastering his Lego Star Wars game on his DS. :) He hasn't had a whole lot of exciting things going on. Our main focus with him right now is organization and mastering his routine. He is an extremely smart kid, just lacks what he needs to help him along!

Emma is...well what can I say....Emma. She is deep in the throes of being 2 for sure! The things that come of that girls mouth sometimes either causes our jaw to drop on the floor or we double over in laughter. Like, for instance, when she told Kayla and I that boogers don't taste good, food tastes good! Very wise little girl. :) She went through a short period of time while she was sick getting out of bed every night several times a night until she would finally crash out. Thankfully that was short lived! She is doing great potty training. We still put her in a diaper at night and sometimes at nap time too. She also has to be in a diaper if we are going to be in public doing anything that will distract her. She tends to forget to go potty and she has a fear of big toilets. So we are working on that part with her!

Hailey has come leaps and bounds over the last month. She can now roll over front to back and back to front. She had mastered back to front long before the other direction. Which is strange because going front to back is way easier! She can sit up on her own for quite some time before she topples over. She babbles a lot now too. Her first "word" already was dada. Of course! And I swear it has sounded like she said Elijah and Kayla at some point too! We recently started feeding her baby food again. Oh and she had her very first ear infection last month...not fun! Her weight is...drum roll please...22 lbs! My mom had her at the UPS store recently and the lady behind the counter didn't believe she really weighed that much. So she put her on the scale there and sure enough that was her weight!

Welcome to the world Aiden James!

My step-brother and his wife had their 2nd baby on the 1st. Yep a New Years baby! And the first one for their county (it's a smaller area) of the year! He weighed 6lbs 7oz and was 19" long.

He is quite the handsome boy isn't he?! And you gotta love the hat!

Happy 9th Birthday Elijah!

Holy cow...I cannot believe he is already 9 yrs old! How did that happen?! Time flies when raising kids. It seems like just yesterday I was changing his diapers. Oh wait, that must have been Hailey. :)

We celebrated as a family at home by cooking Eli cheeseburgers. The kid ate a double cheeseburger...it was huge! Then he got to open his presents and we had ice cream cake to end the night. Yummy!

He got a couple DS games (the ones we got him for Christmas were too hard), a new Nerf gun with an extra set of "bullets" for his big Nerf and some money. One of the games he got is Transformers and the kid is breezing through it. He is quite funny with it because he talks to us about the game as though we will understand all the lingo. He also got Mario Kart and I think we all like playing that one!

(I have no idea what I did to this post so sorry for the funky layout!)

And now she's rollin

Hailey finally did it! She rolled all the way over - back to front - today. Several times even! The first time she did it I was sitting there watching her but it took me a minute to realize what she had just done. She hasn't gone the other direction yet so she can't quite get all over the living room like that. But I do think she is getting a kick out of doing it now.

The funny thing is that I don't think I was truly ready for movement from her. That signifies a whole new stage....mobility. It was nice to have her somewhat stationary (she could wiggle her way all over the place on her back) so that I could lay her in the middle of the living room and not have to worry about her getting into anything. This is just one step closer to trouble! And I tell you, I am terrified of the terror her and Emma are going to create! :)

2008 in review meme style

I am not going to write some riveting year in review post here because, quite honestly, a big part of my year was a blur. Spending 3 months in bed kind of made those 3 months run together. Then I had a baby and suffered from lack of sleep and learning how to make sure 4 kids live through the day every day. So I really feel like my year was consumed with pregnancy, baby and kids! I am looking forward to clearing my head and focusing on other things this year!

I stole this meme from Mandajuice in place of a regular post.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
had an epidural, was put on semi-bed rest, had most of the summer off of work

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't believe in resolutions....if you want to change something just do it! Don't wait for the new year to do it. I do however have a goal for the next 6 months to clear out our storage area and get rid of EVERYTHING we don't need or use.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Besides me....my friend Justine had her 3rd baby (and my step-brother's wife just had their 2nd baby but that was the 1st so it is for 2009)

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My step-dad's mother - Grandma Betty

5. What countries did you visit?
This one.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Money! my pre-pregnancy body (I will settle for pre-Hailey at this point!)

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Jan 6th - Eli's 8th bday, March 12 - Kayla's 12th bday, Sept 25th - Emma's 2nd bday, June 24th - the day we got the van because of June 27th - the day Hailey was born and July 1st - the day my sister and brother-in-law got here for their visit

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Definitely the birth of Hailey. Finding a good home for Chica. Getting Emma potty trained with the help of Nana.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I'm still too ashamed of it to mention it here....

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
If you can consider pregnancy and low amniotic fluid and illness then sure! Oh I had some horrible sinus thing going on in June too.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Boy...didn't do a lot of buying of anything with the exception of the van and that was a have to not necessarily a want to

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Kayla, Eli and Emma for how well they all adjusted to my bed rest and to bringing yet another human into this house!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I was very disappointed in one of my coworkers in the months leading up to the election for sure! Other than that I would have to say Eli's teacher at the beginning of the year...thankfully she is no longer his teacher!

14. Where did most of your money go?
Uhhh gas? bills....food.....diapers. Like I said before, there was nothing fun going on with our wallets this year since we knew I wouldn't get paid for my maternity leave.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Finally getting to meet Hailey

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
This is probably rather cliche but it would probably be All Summer Long by Kid Rock

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? happier for sure
b) thinner or fatter? I'm going to have to go with fatter on this one unfortunately
c) richer or poorer? This is always a hard time of year for us but we are poorer due to having half the income for the summer....still trying to come out of that slump!

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I feel like I did everything I had wanted to do this year actually. I guess maybe making a trip or two to Boulder would have been nice since I didn't go at all this year.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Even though it wasn't an option I wish I wasn't in bed so much!

20. How did you spend Christmas?
At home with just JR, the kids and I and then dinner at Nana's with more family

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
With Hailey for the first time and with JR, Kayla, Eli and Emma over and over again

22. What was your favorite TV program?
I gotta admit I really loved Swingtown! And of course the requisite Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and Big Brother

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nope can't say that I HATE anyone....

24. What was the best book you read?
I would say Rockabye by Rebecca Woolf and Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen were tied for me. Twilight is up there close too!

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Didn't necessarily discover any new artists but I did help Kayla order songs off of itunes for the first time ever!

26. What did you want and get?
A vehicle to fit my family. To give birth to a healthy baby. New teacher for Eli. Kayla to do track again. Emma to be potty trained. To enjoy my maternity leave and do lots of stuff with the kids.

27. What did you want and not get?
Well besides money.....I honestly can't think of anything! I know there were lots of things but nothing so big that it stands out in my mind.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
The only two movies I even remember seeing was Baby Mama and Twilight....not sure which one I would say was a favorite!

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Went to dinner with the family and I turned 31.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Is this answer getting old yet? Money! And sleep would fall right in there with that one (and the lack of sleep is more from Emma than Hailey)!

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Uh yeah I don't really consider maternity wear fashion...and my post maternity wear of whatever fits wear it isn't doing so hot either!

32. What kept you sane?
Hands down having a helpful husband when it comes to the kids. And of course my mom and my friends Jess, Sue and Lew!

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Hmmmm not sure that I fancied anyone in particular!

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Besides the election as a whole - I am a democrat and work with mostly republicans, some being more outspoken than they needed to be and chose to bring the issues up with me instead of their fellow republicans! These bailout issues really bother me....

35. Who did you miss?
The main person I missed was my friend Lew while I was on maternity leave!

36. Who was the best new person you met?
Hailey of course!

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
That I am that 1 in 100 women whose birth control pill doesn't work for! :)

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Cryyyyybabayyyyyyyy - Janis Joplin.....