Hide and seek...

Tyler, Jesse, Ethan, Addi and Tracen are playing hide and seek.  It's quite funny.

Addi's turn went something like this. "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,13,15,18,19,13,18,19,32,33,35 ready or not here I come!"

After watching a few of them count Tracen ran over to the corner where they had been counting and yelled "uh-1, uh-1, uh-1"

I was telling Tracen to hide so we wedged himself between the couch and ottoman, with the whole top of his body sticking out and stuck his head down in the crack so he couldn't see anyone! lol he's so funny.

Ethan was looking for Jesse and found him, then turned around to walk away.  Addi looked over and saw Jesse and said "Ethan I found him there he is!"  She was so proud of herself.  Ethan says "Good job Addi"

So far I've had to tell Tyler and Jesse to chill out it's only hide and go seek, so the younger kids are definitely more fun!

While you were sleeping

While you were sleeping I was working....while I was sleeping Tracen had some fun.  It's always an interesting day when Josh is at work and I'm trying to stay semi awake on the couch while Tracen does what he does.  I'm not exactly sure what that was today but there are some highlights I remember that I thought I should write down so that I can laugh about it.

• I had no idea that Tracen knew how to use the water dispenser in the fridge.  He does though and after getting his fill of water he brought me a very full and very cold cup of water.  It was very sweet of him until he dumped it on my head/shoulders. Then I locked the dispenser.
• He ate most of the rest of the loaf of bread...I have no idea how much that was.
• He played with his train
• He played with his Mcqueen and his race track.
• He asked for cookies and candy....as far as I know he didn't get any.
• He kissed me, and then his monkey kissed me.
• He had no less than three stinky diapers.
• He cuddled with me on the couch and fell off several times.  Our couches aren't super deep anyway, but between him getting bigger and my large sized belly, he just doesn't fit like he used to!

After all that I got up at 11 and made him lunch, put him down for his nap at 11:30 (which he wasn't thrilled about) and I got to sleep until 2:00.  We've always just figured it out and made it work, but now I'm getting a little nervous for when we're doing this with another baby.  I guess how much I get to close my eyes will depend on how nice Tracen is to our baby!

Hiking in Zion

This past weekend we went with the Guymons hiking in Zion.  We had so much fun!  We were stopped in Springdale on the way in and Kurt and Crystal drove by, so they joined us.  We were so glad they did, because they kept up with the big kids on the way back and they ended up going a different direction than we did!

We hiked Emerald pools.  Josh was asking me if I'd be able to hike it, I said yes...I mean how hard is a 3 mile hike that we did with our kids when Jesse was like 4?  Ya, I was out of breath and my legs were sore the next day.  I know I'm carrying around like 20 extra pounds but really?  I'm way more out of shape than I thought.  I was totally out of breath at points ha ha.  But it was so fun. 

Tracen rode in the backpack and thought it was a great way to travel.  Josh tried to get him out at one of the pools so that he could run around for a minute and he screamed and refused to get out and was pulling the straps back on.  It was hilarious.  Addy did awesome too...I can't believe she hiked that whole time!

We didn't see a lot of the older boys.  They were always ahead of us.

I was really comforted when I was informed that it was ok if I went into labor on the trail because Dan had a can of bug spray and Kurt had a roll of duct tape.  Guess they thought that would be sufficient!  But we made it back all in one piece!

Kids at the waterfall minus Tracen

Tracen says this is the way to ride

Isn't he cute?

The boys posed for one picture...it took a few tries though!

Right after this picture Addy gave Ty a little boost on the bottom.  It was hilarious.  Guess she thought he needed a little help up.  They're on the left

Taking a little rest

See Kurt and Crystal were there:

Afterward we had ourselves a little picnic at the Sprindale Elementary school.  The kids played on the playground and flew a kit.  Tracen LOVED the slide and went over and over.  He's a little daredevil.  He went on his back, belly and knees.  He also basically jumped off this platform and hung from some bars and giggled until we rescued him.  

Addy told Josh to take a picture of her.  She told him he could put it on his blog and show his mom, so we had to put in on here!  Shes so funny

Sliding is the best!

And one on his belly:

And I have a really great picture of Dan, but I think I better wait and give it to Megan and she can post that one.  He loves her more than me I'm sure and would maybe forgive her someday!  Megan I need your email address and I'll send it to you!

We had tons of fun!  Thanks guys for going with us!

Updates

I hadn't updated on the kids for awhile, so just for my own personal journaling purposes here's some blurbs on each of the kids

Tyler

Tyler just got done playing basketball and LOVED playing.  He had a lot of fun and was sad when the season was over.  He usually was able to make a basket during each game and even made 3 or 4 during one game.  I thought that was pretty good for his first season. 

Ty's really been into building things with his legos lately.  He got a couple different sets for Christmas.  He and Jesse also has a have a big bucket of legos and he just makes things up...usually airplanes

Ty continues to be a great student.  Whenever I see his teacher at the grocery store he tells me what a good kid he is.  I appreciate that he is good at school and church for other people.  He's really compassionate too and feels bad when things happen to other people. 

Ty loves scouts and going to his activities.  He's always wanting to earn some belt loop or patch or something.  He keeps on reading too and loves that.  All year long he kept raising his AR reading goal at school.  After awhile they quit raising it and he's almost reached 100% of his goal and school's not out until May.

Ty's a good babysitter too.  He helps me a lot with Tracen.  He's not always patient with him, but he does help me a lot.

I love you Ty!

Jesse

Jesse's entered the world of reading!  Not that he couldn't or didn't before.  He's always been a good reader and would do his minimum reading without us getting after him, but he's discovered Magic Treehouse books and he loves them!  He had 200 minutes on his reading slip last week and he got all of those on his own, without me asking him to read.  It's fun for me to see him snuggled up on the couch reading chapter books.  He'll look up and say "mom! I'm already on chapter 4!" 

Jesse continues to maintain his skinny little butt.  The kid goes through jeans like you would not believe and I continue to buy him the same exact size over and over.  He can wear the knees out of a pair of new school jeans in a month or so.  I only have like 2-3 pair for school at a time, because really who can afford more?  He has a large supply of play jeans though.  Tuesday he came home with a hole in his last pair of school wranglers and he's got one pair of non-wranglers.  The fact that he doesn't have a pair of wranglers for school is very distressing too.  

Jesse can't wait until he's 8 and can be baptized and start scouts.  He's so excited about starting scouts he can hardly contain himself.  In fact, he's insisted that he get a pinewood derby car this year, so Josh is building two.  He also loves being outside like Tracen.  Out of the two he's far more patient with Tracen as well.  But he also isn't as good about getting his chores done.

Jesse just got done playing basketball and he loved it.  He would come home from practice and tell us how good he felt after running.  He played hard and always had a great attitude.  It was one of the few sports that he hasn't been sick of playing by the end of the season.

I really enjoy having Jesse around.  He's usually always so happy and cheerful.

Tracen

Tracen is a crazy active little boy!  He really is a lot of fun.
His favorite stuff right now is cream (Ice cream) buhlaa buhlaa's (banana) kookees (cookies) and uhsigh (outside).  He's been going stir crazy and loves any minute that we let him outside.  Hopefully it warms up soon.  He screams when we bring him back in.

He loves the baby and points to it in my belly and kisses him, we hope he loves him just as much when he shows up.  He also gives the rest of us really great kisses as well.  Every night he folds his arms for prayers and then goes around and gives each of us a big hug and a kiss.  He is awesome about going to bed.  Most nights he reaches for his bed to get in.  As long as he's got some water, a blankie and a piddoe (pillow) he's good to go.

He loves taking baths too.  He splashes and plays and never wants to get out.  He absolutely LOVES the jets.  He likes being big with the big boys and doing whatever they do.  And he loves putting on all of our shoes.

He gets sad when I leave but he always waves goodbye to me when I go to work.  Mom and Dad are interchangeable words these days, he used to know the difference but he's regressed.  The other day in the car he was yelling "Da!" in the car I was ignoring it because I figured he was just talking, but he was trying to get my attention.  I've also heard him call Josh mom a few times.

He loves cows, horses and kitties.  If you can get him to tell you what a horse says he says der, der ,der, der (Ok imagine hooves clopping and syncopate it a little, you'll get the idea).  By the way donkeys say haw-hee not the other way around.

He's at that super fun age and we love him!  He has started throwing a few tantrums as well, but we'll keep him anyway!

Baby 4

The baby is doing good and growing faster than he should....like normal.  We are at 29 weeks on Saturday.  BHe's measuring big, which is normal for me....hopefully that means he shows up a little early like normal.  He still doesn't have a name, but we are working on it.  We've gotten a few suggestions, some we like, some not so much :)  I continue to get comments on his behalf regarding his size. Here are the latest few:
Volunteer at work: "How many weeks are you?"
Me: "26"
Volunteer: "wow, my wife looked like that at 38 weeks"
Me: "thank you"

Patient: "when are you due?"
Me: "June 5th"
Patient: "wow you just stick right out there don't you!"
Me: "yes I do"

We appreciate the comments :)

yellow

I got a phone call at work tonight.  It came from the phone number of the phone we leave at home so I figured one of the boys was calling to tell on Josh about something he'd done.  Ty's on the line and he tells me "Tracen made yellow in the toilet!"  (if you need explanation....going pee is "making yellow" at our house because Tracen is fascinated with it.)  This is all very exciting for everyone lol.  It's funny what we all get excited about when you're the youngest kid and you have older siblings.  And no, I'm still not going to potty train him!

11 years!

We had our 11th anniversary on Saturday.  Can you believe it?  We must be getting old!  It was a very exciting and eventful day.  Around 7:30 we woke up and as I was still trying to become coherent Josh say's "hey isn't it our anniversary?"  I said "Oh ya, it is"  He said "Happy Anniversary"  And then he got up and got ready for work.  I was super tired so I laid around all morning, and then when I put Tracen down for his nap I took one too.  The boys were good and let me sleep.  Lets see....and then it snowed, and then I got ready for work.  Then we went to Grandpa and Grandma Neilson's house, where Josh showed up approximately 30 seconds before I left for work.  We said Hi and I determined whether or not he had a car seat for Tracen.  I came to work and had my share of pretty sick people at midnight it was all over...except that I didn't get home until 8:30 a.m.  where Josh was getting ready for work and I said hi and went to bed.  As far as what Josh did for our anniversary I know it included his first crossfit workout where he puked and then the few minute I saw him as mentioned above. 

I know we're beyond exciting.

As exciting as it is though, Happy Anniversary Josh!  I love ya.

Disneyland and California Adventure

For Christmas my mom and dad gave us a trip to Disneyland and last week we took it!  We drove down on Sunday.  Between stopping at my parents, for bathroom breaks and lunch and then driving an average of 40 mph between vegas and Anaheim it took us 11.5 hours.  WAY too long.  But once we got there the fun began!

We spent the first day at Disneyland and the second day at California Adventure.  The first week of March is a great time to go I've decided because the longest we waited in line was 30 minutes.  Half the time fast pass wasn't even open because the lines were too short.  Me and Tracen hung out a lot since we're allowed to go on the same rides, except they thought I shouldn't go on the bumper cars and he could....I went anyway (I've been down bumpier dirt roads pregnant before)  My mom and Millie came with us too.  Tracen did a lot of crying....every time the ride ended he would cry and say "RIDE!" "AGAIN!"  Luckily for us we basically walked on to all the rides in the bugs life section over and over again. Josh even took him on the roller coaster in Toon Town.  He was crying when he got off and I thought it had scared him but Josh said he was just mad because the ride was over!

The rest of the big kids went on the big rides with Josh and my dad and Larry.  We were occasionally joined by Brynn or Jesse or Jake depending on scare factor or height issues but for the most part they all rode the big rides.

After California Adventure closed Tuesday we headed back over to Disneyland for the parade and some shopping.  The parade was really cool.  Before the parade started some people had bubble guns and were shooting bubbles everywhere.  Tracen (and all the other little kids in the park) absolutely loved it.  He ran around squealing and trying to catch bubbles.  The parade is definitely worth going to.

Tracen on the roller coaster

 

Meeting Mickey

 

Waving hi to everyone (we were making a big scene for him)
 

  

An example of "RIDE! AGAIN!"

Catching a train out of here
We had to visit Lighting and Mater of course.  "Tars" and "Tachow" are his favorite.  Luckily there was 1 kid in line in front of us

 

We had tons of fun on our trip.  Thanks mom and dad!

Quote of the Day

This sounds like someone who knows....

Ty, from the back seat on the way home from California (another post on that later)  "Don't rub your eyes after sticking your hand in this bag.....it burns."