Yee-haw!

Well, the cats out of the bag. As many of you have heard/read/gathered, we're moving (yet again) and this time to the lovely state of Texas! If any of you are keeping track, we are now 4 for 4 with our kids. Each child has been born in a different state. Tae was born in Utah, Aliya Idaho, Blake Arizona and now Squirt Texas. Not only have they been born in different states, our oldest three have each lived in three different homes by the time they turn 2. I'm hoping #4 has a calmer toddlerhood!

Tony has changed companies and we will be relocating to Houston. He'll start the end of June and we'll be heading out shortly there after. Tony and I just returned from a house hunting trip and I HOPE (we'll see how our offers are received) we are successful! There were a lot of homes to chose from in a bunch of different areas.  Moving from our sluggish Arizona market we were surprised to see that homes are going for their asking price. Hopefully we've selected some good areas. Once we know anything definite, I'll be sure to update ya'all (see, I'm getting the hang of speaking Texan).

When we only had Taeya I remember only buying the 100% fruit juice Popsicles. Now that I've got 3 frickin' kids, the cheaper, the better! Thank you Costco for the HUGE box of Otter Pops. Its only May and already we've gone through half. 

Gotta love an Otter Pop tongue! 
The first couple times he'd start out sucking on the right end but would end up sucking on the wrong end. Poor kid couldn't understand why he wasn't getting any of that nutritious high fructose corn syrup!

Aliya's Easter-egg hunt!

In April, Aliya's preschool had an Easter party at a local park. Each kid was supposed to bring 10 eggs filled with treats. Aliya was so excited to 'hunt for eggs'.  I showed up a bit late (it was one of those crappy preggo mornings) and most Moms had already hid their eggs. Poor Aliya, all I did was toss them around in different areas. Some Moms were getting all creative hiding eggs behind rocks and in trees. Nope, not Aliyas mom. They were in the middle of the path!

The kids were all playing on a nearby play ground. Once everyone was ready Miss Neva had the kids line up in a line of boys and girls.

Girls: Anavey, Kate, Emme, Jaya & Aliya

Boys: Nathan, Joshua, Cole, Crue & Corbin

Then off they went in search of their eggs. Aliya (at the front of the line) obviously wasn't waiting for the other girls!

Aliya was excited by her loot (even if her Mom is a crappy egg hider)! Blake became quite the swiper. He loved picking up random eggs trying to get the candy out before I'd catch him. Luckily I got to him most of the time but there were a few casualties!

Sticky situation

Yum! What a mess! I have no idea what on earth the kid was doing (it looks like she had just woke up but nope, this is the middle of the day) but this gum was ground in there! I wanted to scare her and tell her we'd have to cut out a huge chunk of her hair but I was nice and didnt. Whipped out some peanut butter and had it gone in no time! Aliya smelled like a PB&J for the rest of the day but she was gum free!

T-baller!

This spring Taeya participated in t-ball and LOVED it. I am a big believer in letting my girls do anything THEY want to do. Yea, I'd like to push them in certain directions but if there is something they'd like to try out, I am all for it. She wanted to play t-ball and did great at it. We'll see how baseball goes next!

Tae also had one of the best coaches around: her Daddy! Tony was so good to take Tae to all her practices and help out so the main coach asked Tony if he could be an assistant coach. I cant say he loved it (there were quite a few little stinkers on her team) but I know he loved getting to spend time with her!

It was fun to watch the two of them interact at something new. She did surprisingly well taking advice from her Dad. It seems like most kids listen better to strangers than to their parents but she did great!

Thanks for a fun season you two!

Bunny madness!

A few years ago one of our friends made us this DARLING Easter bunny. For some reason I got into my head that I could re-create it! So a couple days before Easter I was on a mission to made a few cake bunnies. The girls each made a list and my 'few' became eight. Wow! Uh, okay, sure I can make eight cakes. I agreed and off we went to find the ingredients. I searched high and low to find those stupid, hot pink 'Sno-balls' that are made by the same people who do Twinkies/Ding dongs -- ya know, the nutritious company. No one had them (that I could find). So we forged ahead and made some relatively cute bunnies - minus their cute, puffy bums. The girls had a blast which is all that matters. 

Tae is quite the perfectionist. She would pick who got which bunny according to the families likes/dislikes. I love that at almost seven she recognizes the amount of work that goes into this stuff!

Aliya, was a little less perfection-based. She just had fun and enjoyed the process. These two kids couldn't be more different yet they are each so stinking fun and good!

This is the lovely preggers picture. Yep, I am dressed horribly, I am covered in frosting and this is how I delivered the bunnies. Luckily I didn't have to get out at too many houses. I think this is one tradition I am going to try to forget. I doubt the girls will forget it but I'm trying to!

Easter morning

Flaky Mom strikes again! So Easter morning comes and bright and early the kids were out of bed. Aliya was the first one up (which never happens). She came running into our room "Mom, the Easter bunny came. He left me treats by my bed". Now, it wasn't even 7 a.m. at this point (even worse, the church behind our house did a sunrise service so I had been listening to some pretty awful singing for 30 minutes or so -- it probably wasn't bad at all but I don't tend to be too happy about much in the morning). I have a stern 'no-talking-before-7' policy at my house. Poor Aliya doesn't know how to tell time so I told her "yep, he did but its too early, go back to bed". Unfortunately she was quite loud when she energetically rushed into my room and woke up Blake along the way. We decided we may as well wake up Tae too and start the day! I had all the kids go into our room with Tony while I grabbed the video camera and digital camera. Tony and I gathered at the bottom of the stairs to snap pictures as the kids came meandering down. I got this picture: 

Then my camera died. Of course! But wait, I remembered I had my back up junky one in my purse. Went to grab that and found that it too had a dead battery. LOVELY! Here is a brief idea of the type of pictures you missed out on:

Our Easter bunny likes to leave a trail of candy leading to the kids Easter baskets. The girls did a great job following his trail until they came to a  section that Blake had gotten too first. I've told you before that he's our scavenger and sure enough, he found candy on the floor and assumed it was manna from heaven. Little dude had eaten their jelly bean trail right up! I got a kick out of it, the girls, not so much!

Eventually, they found the other section of the trail and found their Easter baskets. The girls were excited to see they got a scooter for Easter. Poor Blakers only got a copy of Pinocchio. Soon enough he'll be getting all the fun, big-boy toys!

Also, you wont get to see a picture of the kids in their Easter clothes. With 9:00 Church and getting everyone ready, taking a picture was the last thing on my mind. Then after Church, I was so ready for a nap, it didn't happen. Who knows, maybe I'll grab a random picture of them one Sunday and say its their Easter clothes! But they looked cute, I promise!

Whoops!

Don't you hate it when you forget to download pictures? We've got two cameras: our nice one and our old one I keep in my purse. If its anything major I always take the nice one. Well, I forgot to bring the big camera to Aliya's preschool Valentine party but had the old backup in my purse. Problem was I forgot about these pictures until now! Whoops!

Aliya was so excited to hand out her Valentines. She would pick who got what treat and tell me which name to write on which card. It was really quite precious to see all her excitement over a little pack of sweet-tarts!

She was so excited when it was finally her turn to fill each kids Valentine box with her treats. I love that the little things still get her so happy. She is a jewel and we are lucky to have her. Love you Aliya-loo!

Ladies man

We had some friends, the Pingree's, over for dinner the other night. Since we were both 'Weekday Widows' while Tony was doing his work in Vegas, we'd get together each Wednesday for dinner. Our kids are almost all the same ages and play surprisingly well together.  This Wednesday night, their daughter attacked poor Blake. He didn't seem to mind too much!

Way to go Blakers! And with an older woman too! BTW - Addison is 2 and Blake is 16 months. Jen and I are okay with this! We at least like the future in-laws!

Its a . . .

What do you think? As if these faces don't tell all. Three thought it would be one thing and Aliya thought the other. Needless to say, its a . . .

BOY! Yep, we are now officially a house divided. We are split right down the middle. Who'd have thought I'd have two girls AND two boys. I always thought I'd be the mom to girls but nope! Needless to say we are thrilled and even more excited that everything appears to be perfect. Don't worry about Aliya, once she gets to see the kid, she'll be a little mother hen all over again!

Taking all three kiddos to the Dr provided to be a rather eventful experience. I had rather grand ideas about it in my head. Yep, they all got smashed to smithereens! I pulled Tae out of school early then we were to meet Tony at the Drs (I kindly asked that he try to be early since I'd be fighting three kids in the waiting room -- he said he'd try to be there as early as possible but was in a meeting so who knew when he'd get out. I should have known right there that it was a bad sign). 

Being an ever prepared Mom (insert a 'psh, yea right') I had brought the girls their travel backpacks filled with new, fun and exciting things so they would be entertained for the eternal wait. I even came prepared for Blake (and that never happens, poor kid). Well, we got there, I checked in and they immediately took us back. What, no 30 minute wait? Also, no hubby!

Back in the little room I all but drop my drawers trying to get ready for the ultrasound while holding a squirming 16 month old. I have the girls each sit on a chair (having been threatened with their lives) and Blake is sitting on my chest. Yep, heavy elephant sitting on my chest. The first five minutes were not too bad. He was so entertained by the man that he didn't notice much else going on. After a bit, he noticed Mom had some funny jelly on her belly. He proceeded to lovingly rub it in (it was actually quite cute). The guy said it was no big deal, it didnt affect any of his measurements. After a couple minutes Blake thought it was hilarious to smack my belly, making the goobery jelly go flying (not too cute). FINALLY after having a moose on my chest for 15 minutes, my knight in shinning armor arrived.

It was the most thorough ultrasound I've ever had. We could see the kid swallow, blink and who knows what else. He was quite modest at first but after a few quick jiggles, he finally changed position and spread his legs WIDE open for a great little whacker shot (we actually have it on a CD, when Tony gets home I'll probably add it to this post. This poor kid is going to hate us when he gets older. Oh well, that'll probably happen anyway!) The guy did his measurements for almost 30 minutes then the Dr did another 10 minutes. The kids were all but swinging from the ultrasound machine by this time. We escaped with no major catastrophe and the knowledge that the teams are equal at our house! Wahoo!