The beginning of the end

We are trying to wrap things up here in Provo and it's hard.

 I'm going to miss these guys a lot.  Every Wednesday for years my little army of mothers has gotten together to sit and chat and support each other.  This picture only shows the hardcore few who show up every week, but between the 5 or 6 regulars- each one has either just had a baby or is expecting.  With good eyes you can see 2 new borns hidden in the quilt.

 Alex wrapped up the year of Preschool last week and it was bitter sweet.  We have LOVED Mrs. Thibault to death, she truly did teach the happiest preschool on earth!

 But with school ending it does open the door for more play dates with friends, at least until our move!  Alex and Lizzy have been best friends all year and it's so nice to have a play mate just your age live right across the street.

 Alex now LOVES riding her bike.  I still can't believe she has mastered 2 wheels (2 weeks ago I never would have thought it possible).  She is so confident and proud of herself on that bike.  It makes me so happy to see these two riding down the street, I never thought I would see the day that I was the one running to keep up with them!

 And that's just what Quinn and I do.  Her in the stroller, loving the bumpy ride and the sunshine while I holler at Alex to watch out for cars, and Heidi to watch out for mailboxes.

 Instead of packing or sewing Quinn's blessing dress last week, I got sidetracked and made Alex a ball-gown out of one of my old dresses.  We found the gloves on our date to 'The Quilted Bear' and she has worn the outfit almost nonstop since.  I'll admit I'm a bit jealous.

 Thursday all the girls (minus Quinn) had dentist appointments.  Tyler took the day off to help me wrangle kids and afterwards we went to both BYU and UVU to get t-shirts and stickers for the car.  It was fun showing the family our schools and showing off a bit.

 Tyler was bent on making it the greatest day ever, so he had the kids help him wash the car.  Something I'm pretty sure was purely for Alex and Heidi's entertainment.

 Quinn and I were present, but not at all helpful.  Quinn scowls a lot which makes us all laugh as we try to imagine what she could be thinking.  We love her so.

 Alex is nothing but a little mother these days to both Quinn AND Heidi.  She is learning to read and loves to color and draw.  Heidi loves to play 'Diego' and I can't keep up with her sass and hilariousness, sometimes she says things that should make me ground her for life, but I can't help but hide my smile and laugh instead.

 Saturday we joined the family on the traditional Memorial Day cemetery visits.  I wanted a picture of us in our shirts.  All the girls are wearing BYU and Tyler sports his UVU shirt with pride.

 We have found family pictures to be a challenge these days.

 I love the cemetery visits because the girls take such care to pick up each pot of flowers that had tipped over and put it right.  They run around sweeping the headstones off and exploring the grounds.

 Grandpa is always kind to take a turn following them around and then show them the flags and special graves.

 We mostly come to support Grandma Jake and visit Grandpa Jakes grave.

 See if you can spot the girls.  I'll miss not being here next year and I hope that it's a tradition we can keep up wherever we are.

 Uncle Devin was of course super Uncle, and carried the girls to and fro when they begged.

 And Heidi did her fair share of teasing Grandma.

 After the cemetery, Tyler spent the afternoon helping a friend move an airplane from the airport into his garage.  Random?!  Then we went up to Salt Lake to cross a few things off our Utah bucket list.

 Alex and heidi have been talking about milking a cow for ages and I heard there was a historic farm (Wheeler Historic Farm) in SLC that let you do just that!  So off we went.

 It was a beautiful place with a huge park and animals you could wander around and see all for free.

 Quinn woke up hungry just as it was time to watch the cow milking demonstration, but Tyler used his magical powers to calm her down just long enough.

 Since Tyler had the baby, and I was helping the kids milk, we have no pictures.  But it was really fun! And Alex immediately turned to me and said "I changed my mind, I want to be a farmer when I grow up!"  Heidi concurred.

 After a dinner of our favorite Chick-fil-a (or maybe just my favorite) we traveled to dip our toes in the Great Salt Lake!

 The smell was terrible, but the bugs weren't as bad as I'd remembered.  The kids had a blast.

 The kids have a blast anywhere there is water and rocks.  We visited Grandpa's metal shop and they were throwing rocks into the acid tank while my back was turned (mother of the year).

 Here you see the closest thing we get to a family picture when no one is around to snap one for us.

 I'll admit the day didn't go quite as planned but our family has become pretty awesome since Quinn arrived and we all dealt with it like troopers.  Tyler has gotten pretty good at holding everything together- not an easy task on a day when ALL of his girls were brought to tears at least once.

 He's quite the catch.

 I'm looking forward to our move and to the excitement and changes it will bring.  After a day like this I'm also looking forward to the 9 day road trip to Pittsburgh- it will either kill us all or we will emerge as super heros, able to conquer anything.

 Heidi told me today that "I just want to move to Pittsburgh now."  I guess I've done a pretty good job convincing them of the greatness that awaits, I just have to stop myself from thinking about all we are leaving behind.

 I've decided that it's going to be an adventure.  A long adventure and a huge learning experience.

 There are so many things I can't wait to do and see.  Not just in Pittsburgh, but in my life.  It's sometimes hard to remember to enjoy the moment and the season.

I'll leave you with this parting shot.  I took it in hopes the millions of tiny flying bugs would be visible.  When Heidi reached the car, her feet were swollen with tiny bug bites and she was fairly upset.  But we sang and danced our way home in the car and immediately crashed into our beds.

Mother's Day

Long ago I learned that if I truly wanted a good picture of my children, I needed to take them to a professional.  As much as I love taking pictures, my children won't pose for me, and getting them to look at the camera all at the same time counts as a victory.

But for Mother's day I still tried.

 It was one of those, "Let's just take some pictures real quick!" that turned into, tears, trying to trim bangs, calling the neighbor to rescue me after I'd butchers the bangs, more tears, and ultimately defeat.

 On top of it all I've been meaning to make Quinn's blessing dress!  The plan is to use my Mom's wedding dress, But Alex LOVES playing in so much, I can't take the scissors to it!  With each day that passes it gets harder and harder.  My one consolation is that there is so much fabric, I can still make the dress and then alter the original for dress up perhaps.

 So while I was thinking of that, I figured I'd try to get a picture of all the girls with the dress before I potentially destroyed it.

 Heidi wasn't having it.  She wouldn't wear it, she wouldn't lay on it, or sit on it or look at it.  This was our compromise.

 But even when she's grumpy- this girl has beautiful eyes.

 I'm trying hard not to make all these posts "Tyler is the most amazing man in the world" posts, but he is, and they are.  He can get Quinn to burp and quiet down when I have failed.  He can get the kids in bed and asleep with smiles still on their faces, and he constantly blows me away with his general awesomeness.

This is how Heidi spent the afternoon riding her bike.  At one point she was also wearing Tyler's clear work glasses.  It was awesome.

 Saturday Tyler woke up, took Alex to get her Kindergarten physical, ran some errands, came home and cleaned the carpet, watched ALL the girls so I could go clothes shopping (necessary, but not fun when you are in that lovely 'inbetween' sizes part of post pregnancy where you just can't wear your winter maternity clothes anymore, but don't fit into your normal size summer clothes.)  While I was gone he took the girls on a bike ride and got Alex so confident in her balancing abilities that when we all got home, we put her pedals back on her bike and she rode!!!!

 This was huge.  A week ago she bawled the entire family walk around the block because she was so afraid of tipping over with her training wheels ON!  So we took the pedals and the training wheels off and let her spend the week learning how to balance!  Well it worked!  We put the pedals back on and with no help or instruction she just got on and rode!!!

 She told and showed the neighbors, and called 3 or 4 people on the phone to brag, it was the greatest Mother's day gift ever to see the confidence and pride shine out of that little face.  It's amazing.  I don't know if it was because of the confidence boost, but on Sunday she went up and sang with the primary kids for Mother's day (our first successful time without tears ever!!!) and then she said the opening prayer in Primary!!!  This has been a year and a half in the making, another huge victory for Alex and our whole family.

Before I had kids, when I saw mother's who had dressed their girls identically, I would roll my eyes.  But now I take every opportunity to make them match, and I'm sure we get lots of eye rolls. But whatever, I LOVE IT!

 As if that wasn't all enough, Tyler pampered me the whole day.  Breakfast in bed, Quinn slept 8 hours and then went back to sleep! The older kids all slept in until 9, so I got quality time with Tyler, prepared my lesson for church AND got to do my hair and get ready for Sunday without kids underfoot!  The girls LET me do their hair with no whining and ALL wore the dresses I'd picked out for them.  Sacrament was great, the talks were wonderful and the kids (except Quinn) behaved.  Then someone pulled the fire alarm, so that was eventful.
  After church the kids colored me pictures and Tyler made special jello jigglers for us.  We all played together and Kara and Devin came over and helped pull off a FANTASTIC dinner and desert!  Then Devin let the girls abuse him for a few hours, and there was sitting and chatting and somehow Tyler even got Alex to apologies after throwing a fit!  She came upstairs and said with a smile on her face, "Mommy, I was frustrated, I'm sorry for overreacting."  I was blown away.
    So I'm pretty sure that this Mother's Day will never be topped.  It was pretty much perfect from start to finish, as was the entire weekend actually, again.
    So happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful women out there that 'mothered' me and my children.  Especially you Grandma's and Aunts that shower my girls with your love.  Thanks for the great examples you are, for the advice, love and compassion.  We couldn't do it without you!

Heidi's 3rd Birthday

3 years ago Heidi came to our family 2 days late just like her sister.  I remember it seemed to take her forever to smile, and for those first months she seemed so serious.  With our goofy and friendly Alex had been from such an early age, I figured we now had a serious child.  Oh I was so wrong.

This is Heidi's camera smile.  I do not like it. 
Friday morning I woke up with a fever and an infection, not how I had hoped to spend my silliest child's 3rd birthday.  I should have spent the day in bed, but Heidi had been asking for a month "Is my birthday tomorrow?!!!"  I couldn't let her down!  Luckily Tyler had taken the day off work and got to spend another weekend as super Dad! 

She ate her favorite cereal for breakfast and then opened her presents (all yellow, her favorite color.)  There were books and dresses, musical instruments and an ant farm.  I'd also found some of those stacking cups you get for babies, she loves those and I'd been looking for 3 years so I finally got them!

I'll let you imagine what the house sounded like that morning.  All the pictures are thanks to Tyler, I really was a fuddy duddy the entire weekend.  After presents and playing around for a bit, we piled in the car and went to The Gym, a gymnastics gym that lets kids come for free play once a week.  The kids loved it, especially since they had Dad to run with and toss them around.  After the gym was Carls Jr. for the play place and then home for some outside play and then a movie so Mom could nap and Dad could have a break!

Whenever I asked Heidi what she wanted for her birthday she would say " A yellow cake with works and candles and vanilla ice cream!"  We had hotdogs for dinner (her favorite) and then the cake!  This was not the kind of cake I had envisioned making, but Heidi is all about making her own choices and wanted JUST a yellow cake with those worms.  She decorated it herself and after blowing out the candles, just at the worms.  The cake is still sitting, uncut on the counter.  Everyone else enjoyed a cupcake while Alex and Heidi gorged on wormy goodness.

It was a small party because everyone else in the family was out of town except Grandma and Grandpa.  It was nice to have them there, pulling all the extra weight as i lay in the lazyboy with a fever of 103, trying to sound enthusiastic as I sang Happy Birthday.  My heart was breaking for Heidi until I realized that her day was spend doing all her favorite things- and had I felt well enough I probably would have ruined that by making her do what I thought she would like to do.

Saturday i woke up feeling much better and we found that the Birthday Goblins had arrived!  Tyler started this fantastic tradition with Alex's birthday and the girls go nuts over it.  The birthday gobblins leave envelopes with picture clues for the birthday child to find.  The kid must then figure out where we have to go to find the next clue!  We stopped by Grandma Jake's for a visit and Heidi loved it, she adores her Great Grandma.

After Grandma's, the clue took us to Krispy Kreme, Heidi's favorite place on earth.  We then got some silly putty from the toy store, a few bedtime books from the used bookstore and then stopped by Cafe Rio to grab lunch (because birthday's are special for the Mom's too.)  While I was inside getting our food, Quinn had a blow out in the carseat.  I came back with the food to discover Tyler holding a naked baby with a smile on his face.  The girls informed me of the details and I was just so impressed to find the problem resolved AND a smile on Tyler's face.

Next stop was the park, Quinn's first time, where Tyler got roped into pushing the girls on the swings for an eternity while I ate my wonderful salad and watched.

Quinn was wonderful as usual.

Heidi sang a song on the way to the car, and when i finally caught up I could hear the words, "Daddy is a sourpuss, Daddy is a sourpuss."  I laughed and told Tyler who asked, "Then what is mommy?"  Heidi responded "A slowpoke."  You can see from the picture that she has us pinned.

We still arn't sleeping a lot here. I took a picture of you sleeping Tyler and posted it on the internet.  Please don't ever do that to me!

Alex asked why I never do her hair cute.  I laughed and reminded her that she never lets me!  So we both have been making more of an effort.

As Quinn slept in the swing and I snuck to the computer to blog, this is what my big girls were doing, I love how they play animals together for hours on end.