Courtney "Sleeping"

Here is a little video of Courtney pretending to sleep. She thinks she is REALLY funny! I love how she snores...

I don't know what to call this post...

I haven't posted in a while, I'm not sure why. We had an ultrasound of the new baby and it was another girl. Not that we won't love her... but I'm pretty sure I was hoping for a boy. I am sure having 4 girls will be great. (Never mind that EVERYONE I know that is pregnant are having boys, seriously not one other girl out of about 10 people. I guess she will have her pick of boys when she is older!) I might be a little jealous and sad that I can't give my hubby a boy. I think I was more sad because I knew this was going to be my last child. We are done, which is a good feeling boy or girl! :) And it is easier for the whole clothes, room sharing, bathroom things. And my girls love eachother so much, that it will be nice to have another one to love. The funny thing is that A and W both wanted a brother. C of course doesn't even realize that there is a baby in mommy's tummy. I tried to tell her, but she doesn't get it. On a brighter note the baby is kicking and turning like crazy! The older girls felt her move for the first time the other night and that was great! A baby is an amazing wonderful thing! It was so fun to watch W's eyes light up and hear her giggle everytime the little one moved. A was just as great, she would say "I can't wait to meet her! I can't wait until she is old enough for me to say, I've seen your brain!" (she came to the ultrasound and thought that was really cool) Oh I had a funny thing happen. I was asleep and had a dream that there was this huge earthquake that seemed like it was going on forever. I finally woke up and the baby must have been doing jumping jacks in there, my stomach was dancing around like crazy! It is so good to know that so far so good a healthy baby girl. I do make them really cute... so I can't complain there. ;) Really I can't complain at all. D is a great dad to the girls. This next story will be appreciated by his family, he came home from work the other day and the girls all went and tackle/hugged him. He had A on one leg W on the other and was holding C. He walked/drug his feet to the carpet, then laid down. They laid and snuggled for a minute then A got a devilish look in her eye and said she would be right back. She came back and whispered something to W who got the same look and giggled. Then they got C and told D that they would be right back. They all came back with spray bottles of perfumes and lotions. He got up so fast, ran up the stairs yelling "NO, I have young mens tonight!" All three chased him up the stairs giggling. Then he comes bounding back down the stairs and shuts himself in our room. The girls are not too far behind and saying "Daddy" in really high pitched girly voices. They finally gave up after chasing him around for about 10 min. Another one that made me smile was one night for FHE the girls wanted to do makeup for the activity. After a little bit I had to go put C to bed. I came back down to find D painting W's nails. It was sooo cute! He is a good guy. I know he wanted a boy to, but I think he took it better than I did this time!

Totally unrelated thought. Yesterday the girls D and I went and played outside. We had the goats out and the chickens and D and A were playing catch, W was in the sandbox and C was splashing in puddles. I looked at them all and thought this is how life is supposed to be. I am happy and can't wait to have my last child join us! It is weird how life seems almost complete. Once this new little wonderful person comes I think it will.

A is great. She has been really into cooking lately. She has and easy bake oven and makes all sorts of creations and is having a blast doing that. She likes to make soup from a can like tomato or cream of mushroom and add different spices to see how they taste. I think her favorite is Oregano. Her schooling is giving me a bit of a headache, they are talking about closing the gifted program. I'm not quite sure what to do with her if that happens.

W is a little sweetie pie. Sure she drives me crazy, but she really doesn't mean to. She had a joy school lesson the other day on warm fuzzies and cold pricklies. She has been trying really hard since to make sure she gives me warm fuzzies! So cute. She also has been saying, "Mom would you take a hug and a kiss?" And I say of course I'll take those! She is getting exited from Special Ed Pre-school which is HUGE! She is just doing so well. No more speech either! They want to keep her as a peer model. To show the other kids what's up! ;) I think that is great since there is nothing wrong with her cognitive skills. In fact her teacher says she is too smart for her own good sometimes. Which I agree with! :)

C is a riot. She is almost always happy and laughing. She is the first one to give D a hug when he gets home, she LOVES babies (this actually makes me a little nervous!) She has become quite the helper. She loves to clean up messes, wipe the table, help put dishes away and push the wet clothes into the drier. Her speech wasn't improving as fast as the speech therapist would have liked so she moved into a 2 day a week 90 min class instead of 1 a week 60 min class. What does this mean for me? Well it means Tues are crazy! At 8:30 I drive for 8 min to drop off A at the bus, then I wait for the kids I watch to go to school. Then at 9:00 I drop W off at Joy school (about 10 min away) and then come home (about 15 min home) then head off to C's class at 11:00 (takes about 20 min from my house) then I have to go pick W up from Joy school at 12:00 to have her back at the school (about 10 min) for her Special ed Pre-school, only to turn right back around and pick C up from her speech at 1:00! Then I get to go home and put C down for a little nap before I have to go back to the school at 4:00 to get A off the bus! So that is fun... C gets soooo tired of getting in and out of the carseat by the end of the day that she has a meltdown. But it will all be worth it when she is doing as well as W!

I will post some pics of our goings on later!

Whitney's 5th Birthday party!

This is a picture of Whitney on her real birthday Jan. 5 It was her "golden" birthday. She turned 5 on the 5th. Notice her red sparkley shoes! Yay!

Here she is opening some presents.

Opening some more, I love 5 year old parties, the kids are so excited to give their presents to the birthday girl (or boy) that you have to tell them to sit down at least 100 times... :)

It was a little crazy but a lot of fun! We had two tables full of kids here is one we have Courtney, Halli, Arin, Tyler, Dylan, Anna and Peyton.

Here is the second table, we have Aubrey, Jonathon, Madison, Lehua, Kawailani, Gywn, Abby, and Whitney! 15 kids! I think they all had fun!

Here's the birthday girl blowing out the candles, Dan gets trick ones every year, it was no exception this year. He never seems to get tired of them...

Here's the cake, she wanted a unicorn cake, so I got creative and this is what I came up with.

Wasn't it cute! She loved it! All in all the party went well. We did pass the unicorn, decorated their hats, had a clue hunt, ate cake and opened presents. What kid wouldn't have had fun?

Oh and you may have noticed on the 5th her hair was long and today the 10th it is a cute little bob. She really wanted short hair so as part of her B-day I took her to get her hair cut, I didn't even do it. She got a pro! :)

one more snow picture

My little goofballs made snow hats, thought you might like to see them! Whitney said hers was too heavy and took it off right after the picture. Aubrey wore hers for about 10 minutes. They are so silly.

New years

Ok you would think that with as many posts as I have done I would learn that they load backwards! The ones you add last go first. So when trying to do things in order it always ends up backwards, so if you want to see this in the CORRECT order go down and work your way up! :)

The little chef's and their mochi.

close up of the finished (well before cooking) mochi

Whit loved that her hands were bright pink!

In the bowl ready to be made into balls, Dan and I just did boring ol' white.

Here's Aubrey doing the same thing as Whitney. Aubrey chose blue and Whitney chose red. Next time we do this we will use less food coloring, they came out really bright!

Here's Whit forming a mochi ball





We couldn't find plain mochi anywhere, and since this is part of our tradition for New years we went online and found some simple recipes. Courtney really wanted to help so above is her mochi.

Christmas

Ok, I realize I am a bit late posting these Christmas pics, but better late than never right?

Little Messy Missy lived up to her name eating every chocolate in sight, she got it all over her pajamas, (or pajamies as Whitney calls them) and on the couch! Santa didn't forget her just cuz she is the smallest. She got that rocking horse, new socks, pajamies, books, candy and littlest pet shop stuff.

Aubrey got the sewing machine she was wanting, and some clothes, littlest pet shop, snow pants, books, webkinz cards, bella sara cards and candy. Not too shabby!

Whitney got a leapster 2, socks (which she was actually really happy about!) webkinz cards, bella sara cards, candy and clothes. She also had a pair of red sparkley shoes that fell off the sleigh and she had to wait for Santa to bring them back for her. They finally came on January 3rd. She was so happy and has rarely taken them off!

The girls decorated the tree this year. Here is the finished product.

Whitney would hang them all in the same spot!

Aubrey moved around a bit, but could only reach so high, and would ask for help. All in all it was a great Christmas. My kids were happy with there gifts and excited to give to eachother and us as well. I was expecting some tears with Whitney not getting the shoes, but nope she took it like a champ!

For those of you who don't know the story of the shoes here it is... (warning children who know Santa is REAL should not read the following!)

We saw Santa and the only thing she asked him for was Sparkley red shoes. I was then on a mission to find them. I went to five different stores, NONE had the shoes. I found pink ones and asked Whit if they would be good. She said no, I asked Santa for red. He will bring me red. I said well what if he runs out of red sparkles red is a very popular Christmas color, and she just looked at me like I was crazy. So I went online and ordered them on Dec.12 They were supposed to get here the 18th. Well the 22nd came and still no shoes. We had a terrible snow storm and UPS couldn't deliver them. I was so sad! I really wanted to give them to her, there is a guy in our ward who delivers for UPS, he couldn't get them for us either. They were on a truck with 5,000 other packages that was stuck in Bremerton. Anyway long story short they didn't make it. The thing that made it so heartbreaking is that when we went to get the girls in the morning Dan asked if they were excited and Whit said YES! He said Why? and she said FOR MY SPARKLEY RED SHOES! We both died a little inside. It was sooo sad! But like I said she knew they were coming and was ok with it no tears or anything! I couldn't believe it!

More from my Whit Whit

After giving her a lecture about how she needs to sit down and eat her food. She has a hard time focusing on her plate. She says, "Mom, when you talk I get bored" Glad to know I'm getting through! :)


She came up to me the other day and out of the blue said " Mom Santa has slaves." I said "excuse me?" And she looked slightly confused and said, "they help him make toys." I said "Oh you mean elves." And she looked slightly embarrassed and said "yes, elves, Mom what is a slave?" That was a longer discussion.