bugaboo

My little girl is an artist! She took this picture of herself and told me how great the picture turned out. She also drew these pictures:

And I wrote down her name on a different piece of paper and coached her into writing her own name:

She turned 4 in April. I love my baby bugaboo!

costco and chores

I caught Elias sucking his thumb today.... so I covered his hand with a sock and popped the pacifier back in. Dont want another one. Isaiah still sucks his thumb and Im worried about the cost of braces!

Yesterday I was busy. Got to sleep at 2am because I couldnt sleep. Kept tossing and turning. Woke up at 7:40 to get Julian ready for and to school. Got home and washed the dishes, washed all the laundry and vacuumed. Then I took a nap. It was a super wierd nap. I had a hard time falling asleep. Then Nick came in and sat down on the bed and told me that it was time to wake up and asked if I got enough sleep and I told him that I had had a hard time falling asleep so it wasnt very restful. Then I woke up with Nick next to me, he said, "The baby is hungry and its time to wake up, did you get enough sleep?" Whoa.

After Nick left to work I picked up Julian and Sareny and took Sareny home then the kids and I went to Costco for gas and then to do some shopping. I stocked up on canned chicken because we live off of it, and a case of refried beans and Mr Yoshida sauce. The funny thing about Costco was when I went to park I spotted a new Camaro so decided to park next to it. It was taking up two spaces so the owner obviously knew how awesome their car is. Julian and Carmen kept asking why I dont just go buy one for dad because he likes them so I tried to explain to them financial stuff but I was just wasting all our time, they are 6 and 4. Julian posed in front of the car for a picture then we went in. When we came back out to the van we loaded up and as I was about to pull out of the parking spot I saw the owner of the car approaching. It was a little old lady! She proceeded to shove a jumbo pack of Charmin Ultra into the tiny trunk and got in the car. Wow, I hope when I am a little old lady I can drive a fancy sports car then everyone will think Im cool. Or at least thats what I will tell myself as they chuckle that I am a little old lady driving a fast car.

When we got home and I unloaded the kids and the groceries I decided to mow the lawn. The hard part about doing any chore is where to put Elias or finding a window of time when he's asleep. Because he is now rolling over and over and over I cant just leave him on a blanket on the floor anymore because he always finds his way onto the carpet. Solution: I strapped him in his carseat after feeding him, gave him a toy and a pacifier and sat him in Carmen's room facing the open window so I could check on him from outside. To keep him content I even turned on the TV. ICarly was on. Carmen and Isaiah LOVE that show but they werent inside with Elias, they went outside with me. The grass was pretty long since we had gone on vacation recently and we have a push mower so it took me some time and effort but Carmen and Isaiah were good. They played in the water the whole time! Next we went into the garage, opened it up and I washed the van while they played with even more water in their Easter buckets in the garage. They had a blast and Elias slept the whole time. When we got inside I changed the kids and it was 8:30 and we hadnt had dinner. I didnt want them to have to wait until 9 to eat so I made the quickest thing I could think of: eggs! They love eggs! After scriptures and prayer they were off to bed and asleep almost immediately. To make the day even better Nick got home before I went to bed so I got to stay up and talk with him as I hadnt been able to have a good chat with him without the kids all week! Now, the whole week itself was pretty busy but I dont want to write about Wednesday. It was grocery shopping day which included a trip to Walmart and Fry's with all four kids which included an Isaiah who hadnt had a nap. I am SO ready for Saturday!

culture passes!

From our local Desert Sage Library I fought my way to two of the coolest culture passes out there. We got tickets to the Arizona Science Center and the Arizona Museum for Youth. Funny thing, Ive only gone to get culture passes two times. The first time there were no Science Center passes so I grabbed a Museum for Youth pass. We went there on my birthday. The next time I went Nick was on his vacation and the next day we were to leave for Utah so we were wondering what we were going to do that day so I got up and said, "we are going to go to the Arizona Science Center and Im going to get us a culture pass at the library today" and I did! I got there bright and early and fought my way to the pass, almost being bumped over by a large woman who kept pushing her way in front of me. Good times!

Arizona Science Center, Phoenix, Arizona Carian = Carmen + Julian
Lego castle

Carmen and the lego house

Carmen on the bed of nails

Arizona Museum for Youth, Mesa, Arizona

Blacklight room

Play house

Making pipe cleaner people

Dollhouse

Julian on tv in the TV room

Monsters exhibits

August Vacation

So this is what we did in August! We went to UTAH! We went to visit my sister Rebecca and her husband Justin and their new precious little (big) baby Emily. While we were there we stayed the first night with Becca and Justin in the living room of their one bedroom house. The rest of the stay we stayed in the basement of my sister Sarah's cousin in laws, with my sister Sarah, Mark, Jessica, Melissa and my mom. We spent good time together. We went to the Provo Mall, Bridal Veil Falls, Sundance, Salt Lake City and Temple Square, and to Nicks delight, the Timpanogos Harley Davidson. Isaiah and his cousin Jonathan

Sundance

Nick and the kids at bridal veil falls


Conference CenterNick, Isaiah, Jesus and in the Americas.

On the roof of the conference center overlooking the Salt Lake Temple.

My dad came and met up with us in Utah as well and on Sunday we were going to have Elias blessed in Beccas ward but because of the time zone difference we had the hardest time getting to church on time and we were late so after sacrament meeting the bishop pulled us aside and let us have him blessed in his office with just him and all the family. It was wonderful! Nick blessed Elias along side my dad and my sister's bishop.

On the way home we went to Las Vegas for a night. Our hotel room at Circus Circus costed us $35 and it came with free buffet meal tickets for the kids so that night we visited the adventuredome, saw all the rides and games, and went to the buffet. In the morning we had donuts and muffins for breakfast, Nick took the kids to swim (very briefly as the pool apparently was cold), then after we got ready and checked out we drove down the strip (the kids thought that a lot of the hotels were temples). Then we parked at MGM and visited the M&M world and saw the 3-D m&m movie and saw the Coca Cola Bear next door. It was a good trip and we had fun!

Oh yeah, and the kids won a baby spongebob from a crane game with only $3 and they played one of those games where you throw ping pong balls into floating glass bowls and won Isaiah nothing other than a pair of fuzzy dice....

Another busy week

Busy week wore me out. Last Thursday the 23rd I had Hillari babysit my kids while I did some shopping. In return I babysat for her on Friday but the Harry Potter movie was a little long and she worried about me having 7 kids on my own for so long so I enlisted the help of Ginger. So on Friday the kids and I picked her up and we hung out at our house with Hillari's kids. On Saturday I decorated Julian's birthday cake and cupcakes and Nick's mom flew in for the party. We had his party at Peter Piper Pizza because in this heat and us having our living room/kitchen upstairs, there was no way that spending money at PPP was going to be more than our electric bill just from cooling off 15 kids in my hot house. I apologize to everyone who wasnt invited, we wish we could just have a huge party for the whole ward and all our family and friends we have but we dont quite have the funds for that, or the space. Peter Piper reserved us a whole table row and it was filled with kids and the adults had to sit in booths. I wish they had taken me seriously and actually planned for the number I reserved the party for. The kids had a blast and Julian got lots of awesome presents. After we got home Julian and Carmen played and played with the toys. After some rest Nick and I went out to dinner at McGraths for my birthday since he was going to have to work on my birthday day. We wanted to see a movie but nothing good was playing. Then we did some shopping at Walmart and headed home. On Sunday we went only to Sacrament meeting and long enough for Carmen to give the Article of Faith in Primary then we took off and headed to Nick's aunt's house. When we got home the kids were exhausted and we put them to bed. Monday after Nick left to work Nick's mom and the kids and I headed to the Chandler Fashion to spend Julian's birthday money at the Lego store. He came away with three new lego sets. We went to Claires and grandma bought her wedge heel pink sandals and rainbow sun glasses. She even bought me a couple shirts at Sears. We hung out at the mall and took our time. Tuesday, my real birthday, yes, its close to Julians, 6 years ago on my birthday I was in a hospital room :S anyways, on my birthday we went to the Arizona Museum for Youth in Mesa thanks to the Culture Pass (would have done Culture Passes a lot sooner had I known the library sometimes opens at 11am!) and then to Chili's for lunch. The kids were awful. They were jumping all over the place, the baby was hungry, I didnt have a blanket with me so I had to go into the bathroom to feed him and at the same time Carmen had to pee. When I got back my molten chocolate lava cake was waiting for me and after two bites the plate got pushed from where it was in front of me over to the kids across the table, my spoon was still in my hand in the air and my cake was gone and the kids demolished the whole thing in a matter of seconds. Did I want to eat the mushed up mushy mess after that? nope.
After we took Nick to work and we got home I got ready and I met up with Alayna and Alecia at Native New Yorker. Alayna doesnt like wings. Wierd! haha! Thanks guys for coming with me. I had a lot of fun and we talked and vented and talked and laughed. I had lots of fun.
On Wednesday Nicks mom flew home.
The rest of the week Nick took the van to work because his Corvette's AC doesnt cool him off very well. So the kids and I have been at home, with the AC turned up to 83 or 84 watching Nickelodeon. Today I made homemade flour tortillas!
And that was my week. I wil post pictures soon. I was just too lazy to hunt them down right now, they're still on my memory card.