Cam

Cameron

 - likes to whack people to get their attention.  Pretty funny when he does it to Carter or Bob...not so funny when he does it to kids his own age. 

 - lays down on the ground with his face in his hands and his bum in the air if he's sad/in trouble.

 - has a very expressive face.  I can usually tell exactly what he's thinking with just a glance at his beautiful blue eyes.

 - loves to be chased.  Especially around the parked cars in our driveway where all of our neighbors can see me "run" after him.  

 - picks around the meat on his plate, no matter how much I try to mix it in.  This is probably why he was anemic for about 6 months.

 - brings me the remote, then plops down in front of the TV to watch Super Why or Backyardigans.  

-  loves music.  He dances around when there's music on TV, but when I put music on my computer he knows it's time to clean up and starts piling toys into any box/bin he can find. 

 - has an excited giggle when I get his bottle/sippy.  He did the same thing when I was about to nurse him, and I'm so glad that I still get to hear the giggle.  It's so cute!  Yes, I know he's too old for bottles.  He takes a sippy, I'm just slowly weening myself from the hour of "me-time" that I get when he's laying around slurping his bottle. 

- has always been kind of a noisy breather.  I could usually hear his little intake/outtake of air before he even entered the room.  Turns out he had a chronic sinus infection that caused it, but it was cute until we discovered that!

- always grabs a piece of food really quick before I take him out of his chair, no matter how long he's been sitting there staring at it. 

Cameron's Dictionary -
uh-oh - I just dropped something on purpose so that I can watch you struggle to bend over and pick it up.   And yes, I am going to drop it again if you're stupid enough to give it back to me. 

ahm/Ma-Ma - me!

Daddy - Randall (duh)

no, no, no - this should have been his first word along with uh-uh-uh because that's what he hears the most.

bah-bah - bottle, sippy...anything that he wants at the moment, but usually edible items.  For some reason he always says this in his most angelic, high-pitched voice. 

hee hee hee - said with crinkle nose and squinty eyes either when he's being mischievous or when he thinks someone is messing around with him. 

go-go - Let's go! 

ow - unfortunately he says this quite frequently.  My last two kids can be a little clumsy at times (pretty much whenever they're awake, and even sometimes when they're not.)

uh go? -  Where did it go?  (said with upturned hand and lifted shoulders)

Random

I've decided to write another post full of pointless random facts about me for all you poor fools that follow my blog to read.  Here they are -

I hate the words flesh, foggy, and moist.  I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones that come to mind right now. 

I never do yard work.  My dislike of dirt, coupled with my fear of bugs keeps me away from it entirely.  I do love me some fresh veggies however, so I have been known to throw a few plants in the ground in the spring time (with heavy duty gloves on).  I don't weed it however, so only the strongest plants survive. 

I love the number 7.  I often find myself twisting the girls hair ties 7 times,  taking 7 swallows of water, brushing my teeth for 77 seconds, etc.  Weird, I know.  When I was in 1st grade my math teacher had a bunch of cartoon numbers posted on her wall.  The 7 was a princess, the 8 was the prince, and the 5 was the villain with a long curly mustache.   I've loved 7 ever since.  It doesn't hurt that there are 7 letters in all three of my names, my shoe and ring size is 7, I was born in the 7th month, and my mom was 27 when she had me.  I'm also going to have 7 kids.  Just kidding! 

I love variety puzzles.  I haven't had time to do them much lately, but I think the reason I love them is because they remind me a little bit of school.  I occasionally feel like my brain isn't fully being utilized by chasing kids, cleaning, and cooking all day.  I somehow feel more intellectually exercised when I'm doing pointless word games and crosswords. 

The outer rim of one of my ears is fat and the other is skinny.  It's almost like when I was made, too much cartilage went to one ear, leaving the other a little short.  Mine aren't quite as freakish as Tara's, but still worth mentioning.

I always want what I can't have.  Currently it's a house to decorate.  During the 6 years we lived in our house I didn't do a darn thing decoratively aside from painting and hanging up the latest pictures of my kids.  Now that we live with my in-laws I'm suddenly addicted to HGTV and can't wait to get back into our house so that I can put wainscoting, chair rails, and wood trim everywhere! 

I'm easily bored/distracted.  I blame my kids for not hearing sacrament meeting, but really I just don't focus well in the first place.

I hate when you're watching a TV show and they show you a five minute clip of what's coming up after the commercial.  Say...maybe I'll just watch that exact segment in 3 minutes, eh?  An even more grievous offense is when someone else has the remote and they don't fast-forward past that crap. 

As you can probably tell from that last statement, patience is not my strong suit.  I don't have any.  You'd think that having 4 kids (1 that takes 4 1/2 minutes to walk from the car to the house) would have helped me with this issue, but alas I'm just as grumpy as ever when someone has the audacity to make me wait. 

I hate when people touch my ears.  Aside from harming my family, a wet willie is pretty much the most heinous thing a person can do to me. Fortunately, now that I'm out of high-school and have my husband pretty well-trained, it's not something I've had to endure in recent years.  (Although I may be in trouble if said husband actually decides to read the family blog and sees that I called him "well-trained."  The chances of this are not great, however.)

I love laying in my husband's armpit.  It sounds disgusting, I know...but it's really comfortable!  It totally makes my hair smell like Old Spice,  but it's definitely worth it.

Schoooools out for summer!

I'm a little late posting (been a little busy taking care of a post-surgery child), but we had a very eventful end of the school year that I need to blog about. Carter had some fun dress-up days like -

Crazy Hair Day  He got teased a little for having "girl hair" (obviously the kids are a little to young to remember the mullet days), but what's a mom supposed to do for crazy hair day when their kid's hair is 1/4" long and they're not allowed to use color sprays? 

Wacky Outfit Day

Lydia GRADUATED from preschool! 

They all looked so adorable in their green gowns and home-made caps! 

Lydia hugging her AMAZING teacher Mrs. Cheryl

Ellie, Karley, and Lydia 

Ellie has cerebral palsey, and Karley has spina bifida like Lydia.  Aren't they SO adorable?  Lydia made lots of friends in her class, and I'm hoping that some of them will be in her Kindergarten class next year. 

The kids had tons of fun at school this year, but I'm SO happy to have them home with me (and not have to go to the school 3 times a day to drop them off/pick them up!)

Carter's Surgery

Carter had his tonsils and adenoids removed and ear tubes placed today.  He's had tubes before, but this was obviously a bit more involved.  Everything went well aside from him puking twice at the center and once in the car (oh, and me blacking out and almost puking myself...but we won't go into that.)  We're finally home and he's happy in his little home-made bed in front of the TV watching Hook.  He's decided that all he wants to eat is whipped cream, but didn't complain when I mixed some yogurt and mashed up bananas into it.  I keep trying to get him to drink his tiger's blood slushee, but he's not interested.  Hopefully he'll start drinking more as the night goes on, but for now I guess I'll just keep his cool whip bowl filled.

 This was taken 2 minutes after he puked all over the waiting room floor.  It was pretty nice of him to attempt a smile (even though it's a small one!)  I wish I would have remembered to take a picture of him in his little Looney Tunes hospital nightgown. 

Apparently he thought losing his tonsils and adenoids wasn't enough for one day, because about 2 hours after we got home...he pulled out a tooth!  What a day! 

Bye-Bye Terrible Two's!

My little Meleah Susannie has finally turned 3!  The terrible two's are over!  No more getting up in the morning to find toothpaste all over the place and my electric toothbrush missing (NEVER to be found again!) No more high-pitched screams, freak-outs, and tantrums!  No more hitting, hair-pulling, or pinching! I'm so excited!  Ü

We celebrated with my family while we were in Vegas for Ryan's baptism and Dylan's baby blessing.  Meleah requested a Snow White cake.  I didn't have a Pampered Chef batter bowl in Vegas, so I had to improvise.  Let me just say...it's MUCH easier with the batter bowl! 

We also threw together a little gathering on her actual Birthday.  She had tons of fun at both parties, and scored a new dress, twin BFC barbies, a doll, a princess bike, and a snow white Barbie.  After watching all her siblings and Dad have Birthdays in the last few months she was ecstatic that it was FINALLY her turn! 

Birthday Menu

Breakfast - "Oatmeal with strawberries"

Lunch - "Squiggley noodles, Dora yogurt, and blackberries"  - She even decided to put the blackberries into her top ramen and peas.  Gross.

Dinner - "um...cheese...bread...and pink!"  I translated this to mean spaghetti and garlic BREAD, topped with parmesan CHEESE and served on a PINK plate.  I also made cinnamon bundt cake for dessert.

FAVORITES:

Color:  "pink"
Show:  "uh...Dora"
Movie:  "uh...Salice and Wonderland"
Food: "uh...jelly"
Book:  "uh..Salice and Wonderland coloring one."
Princess:  "uh...Cinderella"
Toy:  "uh...Snow White"
Animal:  "uh...kitty cat"

Funny Phrases:

"Ac-tu-ly"

"s'okay I have it Camran's ba-ba I so irsty?"- I have to keep a close eye on Cameron's bottle or she'll sneak away with it, curl up in bed with a pillow and down the entire thing.  She always makes sure to cover up the bottle with a blanket so I won't know that she's drinking it.  She doesn't really like to be a big girl, and is always asking me to call her "a little baby."  

"s'okay I can take out my hair pretty?" - every now and then she asks this, but usually she just rips them out whenever she feels like it.  Most of the time it's when I put her down for a nap, because she still likes to twirl her hair when she's falling asleep. 

"umm (tongue click)..."

"I not your cutie pie, I your sweet angel!"

"I want to crap (crack) some eggs!"

"That's isgusting.  I love it!"

"Not on  purple!  It was an askident!"

"I need a get outta here!" - This is usually said at bed time/nap time.  

"You cry me Mom!" - I hear this one about 10 times a day (any time I have the audacity to make her cry).  I usually respond "no, you cry me"  to which she replies "no, you cry me..." and it continues in a very childish manner until I give up. 


It's actually really weird to me that Meleah is just now turning 3.  She's always been so independent and wise beyond her years.  She totally takes charge when she's playing with other kids, and LOVES to be a big helper.  As a matter of fact, if I make the grave mistake of asking someone else to do something for me, she throws a royal fit.

Lately, her favorite thing to do is "play pretend" with Lydia and her cousins.  They pretend to be "mommy, grandma, teacher, baby, kitty, puppy, older kid..."  I can't tell you how many times I've gone in after hearing them call "Mommy!" only to find that they weren't talking to me..."Meleah's the Mommy!"  It's so fun to see her little imagination at work (unless it involves scissors, makeup, permanent markers, or any other potentially damaging item/substance.)  I love to watch her run and get toys for Lydia, or carefully lay out a blanket for Cameron to sit on for their "picnic".

Meleah always does everything full-force.  Walking is apparently for wimps.  She either runs, skips or hops whenever she needs to get from one place to another.  I also wouldn't recommend starting up a friendly wrestle match with her because she will take. you. down.  (Cameron knows this from experience.)

Even though I complain about Meleah's willful personality on occasion, I can't imagine how boring our family would be without her.  Yes, she's very determined and likes to get her own way, but she is also very sweet and considerate of others.  We're so blessed to have her in our family.

On a side note...this guy also had a Birthday this month.

We're blessed to have him in our family too!  (Isn't he SO dreamy?!)

Really?!

Is my calendar broken?  It is May 24th today, is it not?  This Vegas girl has seen enough of all this cold white stuff!  Super excited to help out with field day tomorrow...

The good news is, my kids slept in until 8:30 because it was so dark and dreary outside.  Can't beat that!  

Field Trips!

It's field trip time!

  Lydia and Carter had lots of fun visiting the fire station with their classes.  

The fireman showed us his "key to every house and car in the area."  Ü

 Lydia has loved going to preschool and we couldn't have asked for better teachers than Miss Cheryl, Miss Rhonda, and Miss Gonzalez

I told Carter this better be the only time he's ever in the back of an ambulance!

 Lydia was supposed to go see the farm animals at Thanksgiving Point, but due to freezing temperatures and snow (at the end of April) we went to the Dinosaur museum instead.  She loved the bus ride, but as soon as we walked into the dimly lit star area she totally freaked out.  I was not surprised because she had a similar reaction when we went to Pirate Island for a birthday party a few weeks earlier.  We ended up spending most of our time at the souvenier shop and the restaurant. After lunch we went through the back door to get to the sand area, and she had a great time.  Her favorite part was brushing away sand to find "dinosaur bones!"  Since then she is constantly begging me to take her back to see the dinosaurs, and also Pirate Island for that matter.  We'll see...