E. is getting baptized next month, so yesterday we took some pictures in her pretty, white dress. This one is my favorite.

I.'s first haircut

I has really beautiful, blonde, curly hair, so I was determined not to be one of thos moms who lets her son go around looking like a girl cause she can't bear to cut the curls. Yesterday N. commented that I. needed a haircut, so I decided it was time. I just trimmed off the whispy ends, but with it combed nicely, he certainly looks more like a little boy instead of a baby (or a girl). I'm sure that people will still think he's the girl and T. is the boy unless they are dressed very gender specifically becasue T. still has very little hair. It's thick. Just really, really short.

outdoor fun

I'm sitting outside typing this on my laptop while the kids play with the neighbors. I'm not sure I should confess to allowing that on a Sunday evening, but there it is. F. is inside reading, of course. What else would she be doing? But E. and A. and the twins are having a great time. I love, love, love this time of year here in Texas. It's warm tonight, but with a cool breeze, and it's just so peaceful out here after a hectic day at church. I'm working in nursery now, which is great for I. and T., but exhausting for me.

Wednesday we had a huge rainstorm, which led to some fun on Thursday. But I guess the story really begins about a month ago when our septic service company came to empy our septic tank--and their truck ended up stuck in the mud in our backyard. After the guy spent a while spinning wheels, rocking back and forth, etc., he ended up having to call a tow truck. Needless to say, we had a couple of big holes in our back yard. After the rain, we had two little swimming pools in our back yard. Two very muddy little swimming pools. I'm sure you can imagine what happens next...I. and T. are let out to play on Thursday and end up completely saturated in mud, mud and more mud. By the time I had gotten them cleaned up, I thought I would go crazy, but the whole thing was really funny...once. Hopefully never again. Anyway, after I bathed them, I put their clothes and E. and A.'s clothes into the laundry room sink to soak. I turned on the water and went to check on the kids. And forgot about the water. When I remembered it, the water was just beginning to creep under the laundry room door, so it could have been much worse. And hey, at least the laundry room floor is very clean now. :) And my darling husband used the tiller yesterday to turn the two swimming pools into a new garden plot. Now I just need to get some plants. Those of you in Utah can now be jealous that I'm ready to plant my garden already. :)

I'm sure everyone is waiting with baited breath to hear if "helpful day" happened again. The answer is no because we all (including Mommy) forgot about it. But when I remembered in the evening and mentioned it, E was all for having helpful day be a different day this week. Yeah! Maybe my bathrooms will get cleaned after all. :) I have spent my extra time the last two days sewing three night caps for F and E and the other girl in their dance class for the recital. They turned out really cute. When we get the rest of the costume, I'll take some pictures and post them. I was pretty worried because I didn't have a pattern and was just winging it, so I am glad to have it done.

T. and I. have been enjoying the great weather here lately. They are so much happier when they get to go outside. We had a huge rainstorm this evening though, so tomorrow may be to muddy to let them out. I. said "shoe" very clearly a few days ago, which made me happy because he chatters a lot, but I don't understand much. When I do understand something, it's always something that makes me think, "no way did he just say 'I want that.'" I think he tries to say T's name, too, but it's a little hard to tell. T. has reached the point where she tries to copy almost anything we say to her.

who are they and what did they do with my children?

All of a sudden today E. and A. were in the most helpful mood. They declared it "helpful day" and cleaned two bathrooms (actually begged to do it), took out all the garbages, helped me clean the pantry and helped with I. and T. I was in total shock. If I had asked them to do those things, I can only imagine the whining, but since they decided to do it, it was fun. According to them, every Tuesday will now be helpful day. I'm interested to see how next Tuesday goes. Pardon my skepticism. :)

some days twins are the cutest

This morning I. and T. were being soooo sweet together. They both enjoy playing ring around the rosies, but in the past, it required a person between each of them because they would never hold hands together. Or they would just individually twirl around if no one wanted to make a circle with them. Today they figured out holding hands together so that it was just the two of them circling around while the rest of us sang for them. It certainly got my day off to a good start. :)

Later, of course, came the not so cute part of twins when they were playing outside and I ended up circling around the house over and over trying to keep track of them. T. had decided she wanted to go to the far side of the house from where everyone else was so she could eat some dirt in secret. I ran around to find her and by the time I got back to the driveway where the older girls were, I. had wandered off. Repeat the process. Back to find T. had wandered off. Oh well, I got my walk in for the day. :)

Another attempt to keep up with this blg

After learning a little more, I am feeling more comfortable with the question of privacy and blogging, so I am going to give this another go. Even if no one is interested enough in my rather boring life, it will make a good way of journaling for me. That's another thing I'm really, really bad at. :)

In the next couple of days, I plan to add some new pictures. In the meantime, here's a bit about what's going on with the Little Women:

F. is really great, but she's hitting the pre-puberty days, and I'm not looking forward to the full-fledged hormones that are on the horizon. Sometimes it seems like she goes around with a chip on her shoulder about everything, and then other times she reverts to her usual cheerful, helpful self. I think I just need a little more sleep before I really have to face her teenage years. Hopefully the twins will be allowing me that soon.

E. has finally hit something in math that she didn't understand instantly: multiple digit multiplication. Since she's only 7, I figure she can take a break and come back to it later. She'll be getting baptized this year. It feels like a long time since F. was baptized, but I'm not sure I'm ready for my second baby to be that grown up.

A. has hit a really great phase lately where she just wants to help and learn all the time. I'm really enjoying it while it lasts. :) She has been trying to learn to read more and is making fairly good progress despite my inconsistency in working with her.

T. has started doing anything she knows is cute and looking around to see if we notice her being cute. She has a strong sense of the order of things and is the first to fold her arms whenever she knows it's prayer time. That includes having prayers for every snack some days. "Do you want some goldfish crackers?" She folds her arms to pray over them. It's pretty funny sometimes.

I. is little Mr. Adventure. I will probably be insane soon just from trying to keep him from climbing on something that will kill him if he falls. And, of course, whatever he does, T. wants to do, too. Things she would never think of herself are incredibly fun when I. does them. They seem to view the entire world as their personal jungle gym. :)

Ok, I haven't written here for a long, long time, but I recently received an email from a friend saying she misses my blog posts, so I am inspired to begin again. I have some conflicted feelings because it seems a little scary to put too much info out on the internet, but if I just write for family and friends, I feel like no one reads it. My family is slowly getting used to using the internet. I think my parents actually got a cable modem recently--only because my brother insisted when he came home from his mission for the LDS church.

So, the twins are walking now. They're totally into everything, and it is so much harder to keep up with two than one. I am grateful daily that I have older kids around to help. T is really cute and enjoys music a lot. Whenever we are watching anything and the theme music comes on, she starts dancing (mostly just bouncing up and down). Today when we watched General Conference, she was dancing to the Tabernacle Choir. :) I is definitely all boy. He likes throwing a big ball around and is always eager to go outside. It's getting hard to sneak through any door without having him follow me cause he's so dang fast. He also recently discovered how to open all the lever door handles in our house. (What's up with those anyway? They are so much easier for little kids to open than regular door handles.) More baby proofing was happening this week.

The big sisters are all doing great. F continues to love reading. She and E recently started piano lessons and are enjoying that--mostly. Some days they are less than thrilled to practice, but it's going well overall. E is developing a really fun sense of humor. A is cute with a short hair cut this fall. A couple of months ago, she chopped the left side of her hair off--on a Sunday morning! Thankfully, a friend who cuts hair came and fixed it up for me before church. Anyway, it's slowly growing out, but it's still kinda short. It looks a lot like Tinkerbell, so that's what she's going to be for Halloween. This would be her Kindergarten year, so she's doing a bit of schoolwork each day with her big sisters. It's pretty cute, but I honestly can't imagine her going off to school. She still likes to check in with Mommy when she's busy playing.

I is crying, so time for this Mommy to run.

Happy birthday

Ok, typing has reached an all-new level of hard since I learned to pull up and start hitting keys while I'm on the lap-top. I have no really good excuse for not posting on this blog other than that and the usual busy-mom syndrome.

We have another birthday party going this weekend, and I am, as usual, recalling what it was like having A a few years ago. I can't believe that she is five and ready to start doing "real school work." She can already read a little bit just from playing games with her sisters. She has her letter sounds down, so we just need to work on sounding out. Addition is a fun game to her, so math is also well under control. She likes to go around saying, "four plus four is eight." I'll say, "Are you sure? Maybe it's seven." "Nooooo, it's eight, silly!" she'll say. The actual equation varies, but her tone of "I'm so smart" doesn't.

This time last year I was on bedrest and feeling pretty bad that I couldn't do more for her. I'm so grateful to be up and about and even more grateful for my sweet babies. They were worth every bit of bedrest. A would agree with me, too.

innocence and examples

Today at church, I took I. into the foyer during Sacrament meeting--seems like he always gets cranky right then. Anyway, we were sitting on the couch there and on the wall behind the couch was a picture depicting the Sermon on the Mount. He kept looking at the picture and smiling and cooing at it. I would say something about it being a picture of Jesus and he'd look at me and look at another nearby picture of Jesus and then look back to the Sermon picture and smile. Times like that always make me wonder whether babies can remember heaven and being in the presence of the Savior. I realize that I. was probably attracted by the pretty colors of the pictures, but to moment was still valuable to me as a reminder that he and T. were so recently with Heavenly Father and that they are still so innocent.

Other good Mommy moments recently: T. can get herself from laying down to sitting now. Her first tooth is breaking through, too. She is smiling more than she used to. I used to have a hard time getting her to smile--now just strangers have a hard time. At Costco the other day, she was bursting into tears every time a stranger stopped us, even though she was in the sling!

Every night we read from The Book of Mormon as a family with each person reading a verse. For a long time, F and E would sit and read with us, but A would wander off and play by herself. Just recently she's started wanting to "read" with us (this means that one of the adults tells her what to say for her verse). I learned a couple of things here: one is that my kids really value this time spent together as a family. They may not understand much of what we read yet, but they like it that we are all together. I think that's why A. started joining us. But I also learned something about teaching by example instead of coersion. If I had tried to make A. sit through scriptures before she was ready, she would have simply been a disruption to everyone else, and I think that she would still be fighting it now. Instead, the rest of the family set the example of what to do, and now she does it because she wants to. I think I need to apply this lesson to more areas of my teaching with the kids. If I do what I'm supposed to, they will follow--eventually, anyway.

personality test

Those of you who know me in real life will know that this fits me pretty well. I liked this quiz cause you can mark all the things that apply to you. I always hate trying to choose between two things that both seem to fit, depending on the situation.

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have medium extroversion. You're not the life of the party, but you do show up for the party. Sometimes you are full of energy and open to new social experiences. But you also need to hibernate and enjoy your "down time." Conscientiousness: You have high conscientiousness. Intelligent and reliable, you tend to succeed in life. Most things in your life are organized and planned well. But you borderline on being a total perfectionist. Agreeableness: You have medium agreeableness. You're generally a friendly and trusting person. But you also have a healthy dose of cynicism. You get along well with others, as long as they play fair. Neuroticism: You have high neuroticism. It's easy for you to feel shaken, worried, or depressed. You often worry, and your worries prevent you from living life fully. You tend to be emotionally reactive and moody. Your either flying very high or feeling very low. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is medium. You are generally broad minded when it come to new things. But if something crosses a moral line, there's no way you'll approve of it. You are suspicious of anything too wacky, though you do still consider creativity a virtue.

The Five Factor Personality Test

Today was the first of our new co-op. It is largely for fun and for the social aspect of things, so we decided to do some things that we don't often do at home because they make such a mess: cooking, sewing and art. The kids all had a great time and learned a few things and the moms got to talk to each other some, which is a great bonus, so I think it was a success. Hope the rest run as smoothly as this one.

We went straight from co-op to the babies' nine month check up. I is over 19 lbs now, but T is a mere 17 lbs 14 oz. She looks bigger a lot of the time, so I was surprised. They are the same length, so he really is bigger. Anyway, the had a finger prick test for anemia today which did not go so well, especially for T. The nurse seemed to have no idea how to get her to bleed onto the little test thing and then when two nurses working together finally got the drop of blood in the right place,they realized that the little machine wasn't set right. T was pretty upset by the end of it. I's went a little better, but his numbers were just a little low. Apparently not enough to worry about though.

This evening was a mother/daughter activity for the 8-11 year old girls at church. We played volleyball. This was the first time I've played since high school PE. I usually avoid sports like the plague--mainly cause I stink at most of them. I had to do this for F though cause she would not have participated if I hadn't. I had T with me (I stayed with Daddy. It's the divide and conquer method.), so I got out of playing to take care of her part way through. :)

Today marked E's official 7th birthday. Since we had done most of our celebrating last weekend with her party, today was just for family stuff. I had convinced the kids that we should delay the Easter Bunny until today so that there would be something fun for E's birthday. (The kids DH teaches at church were pretty impressed that we had an in with the Easter Bunny and could get him to come on the day of our choice.) Anyway, we did that this morning. They got some fun clay stuff that they played with. We met DH for lunch at a pizza buffet. E didn't get to choose dinner cause the dinner I was supposed to make for a neighbor got put off till today, so I had it all planned out. E had dance, and while she was gone I helped F make a present for her. F is getting pretty good at doing some simple sewing projects and even finished up on her own while I went to pick E up.

Today is also the twins' 9 month birthday. They'll have their check up on Thursday, so I'm interested to see what they weigh. I think I may be out car seat shopping soon. They are so chubby. I love it that way though. I love never having to worry that my babies aren't growing fast enough. It is not uncommon for docs to worry about twins, even though they may stay small for several years. Anyway, I have no doubt that I and T have been gaining weight cause they're outgrowing clothes and they have huge fat rolls on their thighs.

Tomorrow is a calm day--finally. I plan to get some math done and have the girls start some newspaper articles for volume 2 of their newspaper. They did a good job with the last one. It turned out cute and the grandmas seemed to enjoy getting a copy. Also, F got some magnets in her Easter basket and has been learning about the poles and how they attract/repel. We want to look up exactly what makes a magnet work, so that may be on tomorrow's schedule. I need to get ready for Thursday's co-op where I will be teaching cooking. My kids are really excited about that. The first lesson is a very simple recipe just to teach measuring, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Aaargh! Today was a bad mommy day at our house. I try so hard to be patient, but after so many nights of poor sleep last week when I was sick along with such a busy weekend, I really lost it this morning. I may have mentioned before that the one thing I really have in common with Marmee from Little Women is an ongoing struggle to control my temper. My girls are, overall, really wonderful, helpful kids, but they have a definite problem getting through their morning routine in time to do anything else before lunch. Since that's prime school time, this is a problem. They do dawdle over breakfast, getting dressed, etc, but it's the cleaning up their toys and making the beds upstairs that gets to be the real problem.

Today they were playing instead of cleaning, as usual. I called them down to talk about the problem calmly, explaining that I simply cannot clean up after five kids by myself and that I cannot go up there and help them because I need to take care of the twins. I sent them back up with a 15 minute time limit to get done. After about that long, I could hear them playing again and that's when I lost it. I started screaming at them and went up to start throwing toys away. The babies were crying cause I scared them. The girls were crying because I was screaming and because I was going to throw toys away. I gave them one more chance, and they cried the whole time they cleaned.

When they came down, we all folded laundry together while I talked to them. "Did you learn anything today," I asked.

Silence.

"I learned something."

More silence.

"I learned that if I want you to do something, I should scream and throw toys away. Is that what you wanted me to learn?"

"That's the opposite of what I want you to learn," says E. "I never want you to do that."

Ok, so the rest of the day I feel guilty like crazy, but the fact is, I don't quite know what to do about this. They have too many toys, but they are emotionally attached to everything and I can't get them to give things up. I put things in the attic, and that helps, but I can't keep every toy they own. I used to do a rotation, but I can't keep up with something like that right now. I need things to be simple and easy. I realize it would work better if I went up and worked with them, but I have two nine month olds to take care of as well, and every minute that they are both asleep I spend doing other household tasks. Is it really too much to expect three kids ages 9, 7 and 4 to pick up their own toys and make their own beds without someone hanging over them? I don't think so! I really should just make them get rid of things, but I have trouble following through when they cry about it.

Well, time to let go of today's load of mommy guilt and try to get some sleep. Maybe tomorrow will bring some inspiration to the situation. If not...well, life will go on and this too shall pass and all those great cliches that never make me feel any better.

Not much homeschooling happened here last week thanks to I not feeling well. He was up in the night a lot, leading to an extra sleep deprived Mommy. We had a fun time with our homeschool group on Friday at the park and we met with three other families to plan a coop that will start this week. I'm really excited about it and so are the girls.

Friday night was E's birthday party. All the kids seemed to have a great time, so I guess it was a winner. Her real birthday is still coming up, so we still have fun things to look forward to this week.

Tomorrow includes a lesson in service as we are taking dinner to a neighbor who just had a baby. I really enjoy being able to teach my kids to be kind and helpful as well as teaching them reading and math. It's one of the best advantages of homeschooling.

Below are some pictures we took today of all the kids in their Easter clothes before church. I may be biased, but these are some of the cutest kids ever!

These three are such great friends. Aren't they lucky they're sisters, too?

A loves the camera almost as much as I. So cute!

E is silly (she wanted me to say that), but she's so cute. I always think she looks like a Norman Rockwell picture. Soon she'll have those two front teeth back and she won't look like such a little girl anymore.

F is getting to be such a beautiful little woman.

T never likes to smile for the camera, but she's so cute anyway!