Laughter is the best medicine

By some miracle both boys were napping at the same time yesterday.  We had nowhere to be and I was craving some chocolate!  I saw a recipe that seemed simple and doable in the time I had...chocolate cake with dream frosting.  Yummy it looked good.  The batter prep went great.  I poured it into the two cake pans and stepped outside for a minute to help Cambrie with a scavenger hunt had she prepared for us.  When I came back in I thought I smelled something burning.  A little batter spilled over the edge, no big deal right?  Well, unfortunately when I opened the oven to check I caused the cakes to sink..sad days, but still tasty!  While the cakes finished baking I prepared the dream frosting and chocolate icing.  Yum!  I was so excited to put it all together.  The boys were still sleeping and I thought this was going to be the best afternoon ever!  Well, the sinking cakes proved to be more of a problem than I initially realized.  I sliced each one in half to create the multiple layers and soon realized that this was not going to go according to plan.  The dream frosting oozed, the cake layers slipped, and I felt like Fauna from Sleeping Beauty.  Just stay up!

  

I thought, "Hey, I still have the icing layer, maybe it will help hold everything together."  Ha!  What a joke!  By this time I was laughing and laughing hard.  The cake was an oozing mess and there was nothing I could do to keep it upright.  I took a picture to send to Jeremy at work because I was cracking up.  It was just so bad!

  

Don't worry, I still had one more layer of dream frosting.  I slopped it on and ended up on the ground laughing so hard I had tears running down my face.  Cambrie came into the kitchen wondering why her mom had lost her mind, then she saw the cake and understood.  The cake was not just falling one direction anymore, it was falling off in chunks on every side.  Frosting was pouring off the plate and there was no way to save it.  I still wanted to eat it so I did the only thing I could think of, I threw it upside down into a bowl and decided to call it trifle.  It was delicious!   #pinterestfail

Pierced and happy

Surprise!  My girls are growing up.  We decided to have the girls' ears pierced today.  Both girls have been asking for over a year and we finally decided, "Why not?"  So while I didn't think they would get them pierced the same day, they did, and I think it will be great that they have each other for support.  Because they will be the first to tell you that it hurt!  You might be able to tell from McKenzie's face, but she alternated between crying from the pain and smiling because she was so happy.  It is so strange to see earrings in their ears but they are really happy about their choice.  

McKenzie chose pink flowers.  

And Cambrie chose teal stones.  She is counting down the days until she can buy some turtle earrings.

A Night in Oz

McKenzie was so excited that she was able to go to the Daddy Daughter this year.  The theme was the Wizard of Oz.  I had no idea what type of dresses the girls should wear to go with the theme, so they just chose whatever they wanted.  Cambrie decided to wear her new dress, and McKenzie wanted to go all out in glam.  She chose her fanciest dress, tiara, and high heels.  

After they left I laughed to myself at the state of their bedroom and bathroom.  The rooms were a mess-clothes, brushes, shoes, hair spray, and unworn jewelry everywhere.  That scene will be repeated at every dance from now to eternity.  At the dance the girls were too embarrassed to dance with Jeremy the whole time.  They thought he danced like a crazy person, but that didn't stop them from slyly copying his dance moves.  They spent a lot of time running around with their friends.  The songs they knew they would sing along to, but apparently they don't know a lot of the more popular songs.  I'm okay with that.  They were some of the last to leave so they each brought home one of the Emerald City balloons used to decorate the gym.  I love seeing them come home full of smiles after a night of fun with their dad.

Life According to Me

When people ask, "How is it having four kids?"  I don't lie.  I don't even sugarcoat it.  It's hard and it's kicking my bum.  I don't know if it is simply because I have a newborn in the house and they are their own challenge on their own.  I don't know if it's because I'm sleep deprived.  I don't know if it's because I have a two-year-old in the house.  I don't know if it's because I have hours of the girls' activities to take care of.  Or if it is simply because four is a lot, but it's probably a combination of it all.  Things are slipping through the cracks and while I try to tell myself most things aren't important, it's still frustrating.  Most things get done about half-way if they're started at all.  The laundry may be washed but not folded.  About half the dishes get put away in the dishwasher.  Half the beds are made each morning.  The girls are dressed, but the boys often don't change clothes until noon if at all.  I'm not making it to the grocery store, much less making real meals.  By some miracle I was able to mop and vacuum in the last two days and was feeling pretty proud of myself for it.  

I don't like not being able to accomplish things.  I don't like feeling out of control or defeated, but that's how I feel.  Even though I am really trying to cherish every moment with a new baby in the house, and relish in the silly things that Kelton does, I would love to feel in control at the same time.  It doesn't help that I feel defeated by myself in addition to my home.  This may sound vain, but I want my body back.  I feel chubby and flubby and am tired of trying on six different shirts every day to try to find one that makes me feel "less fat."  Yes, I am grateful that I am healthy and that there were no complications during birth.  Yes, I am grateful for the compliments I receive saying that I "don't look like I just had a baby."  But unfortunately neither one of those things changes the fact that I am not the same size as I was before.  I know it's only been six weeks, but the fact of the matter is that I'm not a patient person.  I wish I had journaled after my other kids so I knew how long it would take before I felt truly attractive again.  I don't remember but I have a feeling it went faster with them...I don't know.  It's frustrating.  

I hope that in a couple of months I'll have my legs under me again.  I hope that we've settled into a routine and I don't feel so overwhelmed by everything I have to do.  I hope that I'm able to find time to exercise enough to feel good about myself again.  Because right now, life with four kids is tough.

Life According to the girls

So the girls don't feel forgotten, I want to include some of their funnier moments caught on camera.  I was supervising bedtime while nursing Daxton.  The girls were giggling in their room which is pretty normal, but even I started giggling when they came into my room looking like a push-me-pull-you.  Can you tell what their legs are doing?  It took me a moment too.  They even tried sleeping that night like that and eating breakfast tethered together the next morning.

Another night, which I was nursing Daxton and confined to the couch, I watched as they pulled out all of their stuffed animals for a square dance.  They spent a lot of time making sure each animal had an appropriate partner.  

Then just a couple night ago as I was nursing Daxton again, (sense a theme?) I witnessed a lollipop eating contest.  It looked intense but the funny thing is that I actually don't even know who won!

Life According to Kelton

This kid has taken being a big brother in stride.  He loves his little bro, and I think he really loves the fact that he has more independence than before.  He chooses to use that time to watch as many movies as he can before I catch him.  

When I'm really not watching, he likes to climb up the pantry shelf to eat out of the five-pound bag of chocolate chips, and make a royal mess of the entire house.  Most of the messes he makes are his toy cars, so I can't say that it's a mess more than a result of him playing.  He loves his backpack and it's often completely full of his toy cars.  One day while I was making dinner I caught him carrying around his backpack with his cute little under-bum showing.  I'm sorry bud if you don't approve but I just had to take this picture.
  

Not surprisingly there are times that he calls for some attention.  He jabbers on and on, and I only know what he's saying about half the time.  As Ali commented, it's like playing a game of Mad Gab with your toddler full time.  He does say some cute things however, like "didge you" for "thank you," and his prayers go something like this: "Didge you day.  Amen!"  When I can't interpret what he's saying or he wants more attention than I'm giving him, that's when I get to make dinner with him sitting on my foot.  

When Jeremy is home he tries to spend a little extra time with him, and they bond while eating pancakes together.  

And while my mom was here, she helped him feel a little extra love too.  He thought helping Grandma with the drill was the coolest thing ever! 

Of course, running around, playing with a new brother, and going to all of his sisters' gymnastics and soccer practices wears him out sometimes and he catches some zzz's whenever he can.  

Life According to Daxton

Life for Daxton at this point is pretty simple, at least for him.  The rest of us are still adjusting to this sweet new baby in our house.  Daxton likes to sleep...

When he's awake I keep trying to snag pictures of the cute faces he makes... 

 His sisters and brother really like to spend time with him as much as possible, it doesn't matter if he's sleeping or not.  They love him a lot and often fight over who gets to hold him next.  

Me too...  

While the kids are gone at school Daxton helps me with laundry.  Which is super helpful since he has increased my weekly laundry to be done by two full loads!  

He spent some time with a cold and that was pretty miserable for all of us.  After a particularly rough night we turned my bathroom into a steam room to help out the poor kid.  Nothing is worse than a sick baby.  

Luckily his cold didn't last long and he's back to normal, which means sometimes I can capture an "almost smile,"  like these ones in the bath tub.

I asked Jeremy one day if we were spoiling Dax with all of the love that kid gets, and he said I could spoil this baby as much as I wanted.  I never thought I'd say it, but I think I will, at least for awhile.  I never want to let this kid go, so he gets to cuddle all night with me :)  Love this kid!

Playing with Baby Dax

The options are limited when the kids want to play with their newborn baby brother.  This was the game they played today....  

I laughed because McKenzie played a similar game with Kelton when he was a baby.

While in Logan

In a moment of emotional instability, I made the crazy quick decision to load up all four of my kids in the car and drive to Utah to see my sister.  We both have new babies.  We are both exhausted.  We both have poop stories, spit-up stories, screaming stories, and happy baby stories to share.  I really was looking forward to just hanging out with our babies, doing absolutely nothing but talking and enjoying being together.  Emotional unstable moments like those are why I wished we lived close enough to do that without an eight hour drive to conquer.  So while we did sit and talk a lot, we also did other things like go skiing, go on walks, let our dad hold the babies, send my kids out to play with Grandma & Grandpa, and entertain visitors.  It was a quick weekend, but I'm just glad my kids were troopers and put up with the long drive just to make mommy happy.

My Dad built a jump for the kids in his side yard and the kids tubed down the hill, and skiied down the hill.  They thought the jump was awesome and frankly so did I!

My Dad holding Emma and Daxton

Playing dress-ups with Uncle D

Even Stockton came to play

A pensive bear perched high on a branch.

The best snow (buddies) on Earth

Beaver is the perfect ski resort to teach my kids how to ski when I have a baby in tow.  The lodge is super accessible so trips in to nurse, eat lunch, or swap instructors is slick.  I couldn't pass up the chance for my girls to go skiing with Grandma for the day, so I talked my sister into coming too and we made a day of it.  I didn't think I would be the one out skiing.  I thought that I'd be inside with the Daxton as my mom came and went with my girls.  Maybe it wasn't very fair of us but Camille and I left two sleeping babies, and one happy toddler with my mom while we took Cambrie and McKenzie out to Little Beav.  I was really proud of my girls for doing so well.  I'm excited to watch them continuing to improve because that means one day they can go find the fun stuff with me!  The whole day was a crazy carousel of switching moms as three of us took turns in the lodge with the non-skiiers.  At the beginning of the day both babies started crying at the same time and Kelton took off running towards the ski hill.  My mom did not have enough arms or legs to deal with all that chaos so a kind lady who was waiting for her boys, Joyce, stepped in to help.  She stayed with us the whole day just holding babies and changing diapers.  I don't think we could have survived the day without her.  Around 3:30 I took Kelton outside to ride on the magic carpet.  He didn't have skiis so I just held him as I skiied down.  After two runs he saw the ski lift and wanted to ride on that.  So we hopped on and I held him down the whole run.  He had fun but really just wanted to ride the ski lift as many times as I would let him.  We had time for two runs before they closed the resort, and that boy wanted more.  Next year we'll get him a set of skiis too so he can join the fun.

Camille and me with Emma and Daxton.  Love this pic!  (We're pretty awesome ladies)

If one day of skiing was fun, what about two days of skiing?!  My dad was able to go with the girls on Saturday to another local resort named Cherry Peak.  I've never been there before but apparently it's great for little quick ski trips, and it's only a 20 minute drive from my parents' house.  I stayed home with the boys this time and the girls went with Grandma and Grandpa.  It was another warm and glorious day above the inversion and everyone had so much fun.  I absolutely love seeing my mom and dad ski with my kids.  I think it's neat to see my family out on the mountain like that.  All I can say is that I hope there are a lot more trips like this in the future.

Cambrie going off a jump.  She would hunt for those specifically because she liked going off of the so much.

Happy McKenzie on the lift.

My dad and McKenzie.  They were playing follow the leader with McKenzie leading this time.  Apparently McKenzie was going too fast to be stuck behind!

And here's follow the leader with my dad in front, then McKenzie and Cambrie taking up the rear.

Three happy skiiers.

Two Great-Grandmas

While visiting my family each of my grandmas was able to meet Daxton for the first time.  I can't believe how lucky I am that both of my grandmas can meet all my babies.  

Here is Grandma Stratford with Daxton and Emma.  

And here is Grandma Johnson with Daxton.  Daxton's middle name is Gail, after my Grandpa Johnson, so I was really happy for her to meet him.

Jeremy's 34th

Happy birthday Jeremy!  Somewhere in between parent-teacher conferences, gymnastics, activity days, and trips to the airport we managed to find time to celebrate Jeremy's birthday!  The girls chose wild socks for him to wear to work.  

I bought him some more training gear for his Ironman: a new swim suit and bike protector.  

And Cambrie took it upon herself to photograph the day with her iPod.   

Jeremy's cake was simply decorated this year, but I just couldn't resist giving him a little extra pre-race anticipation.  He gets butterflies every time he thinks about his upcoming races.  The girls helped him blow out his candles.  The game was to see if you could blow out only one at a time.  Tricky game!

I just think he keeps getting more and more handsome with each birthday, don't you think?