A day I thought would never come...

And I'm not talking about having the baby. Although, there are days that seem to drag for that as well. But, our kids have always been early birds. Like 6:45, 7am they are up and not even two seconds after getting up, they are asking for cereal. Yes, even Jake. He'll give us his own rendition of the word cereal accompanied by the sign, just in case we get confused. So regardless of what time we went to bed the night before, we are SOL if we wanted to sleep in. Well, this morning, Tyson and I were both laying in bed, not asleep, but certainly not wanting to be up for the day. Our door was open so we were able to hear what was going thinking it was only a matter of seconds that we were going to be jumped on to start our daily routine. Well, Tanner, being our responsible six-year-old, decided that it was his job this morning to get everyone their bowl, pour their choice of cereal and get the milk on it so they could begin eating. He even went as far as to come in our room and ask Tyson if he could choose who got to say the blessing on the food. He called on Jake to say the prayer and proceeded to say one word at a time so Jake could copy what he was saying.

When we did get up, which wasn't long after, they even had some raspberries washed and split between the three of them. It was cute, and nice to see that my kids can take care of things for a few minutes. But with Tanner that comes as no surprise. If he's not here while I'm teaching piano, his absence is definitely noticed. Tyler can't survive without him because apparently she doesn't know how to do anything. Tanner just keeps things in line downstairs while I do teach. I know this will be nice, especially since I'm going to be busy with the baby here in the next few days. Thanks Tanner!!

Our night time activities

This is how we get our kids settled down for bedtime. Ha! Ha! And I wonder why it takes so long for them to go to sleep. Actually, I don't wonder, I know. But what am I supposed to do when the kids love their dad so much and they only get at the most two hours a day with him because of when he gets home from work and when they go to bed. So I guess there should be some nights I shouldn't be so uptight about sticking to our actual bed time. They have fun with him and that's what matters. Jake likes having his picture taken and knows when the camera is out. If you turn up your volume and listen closely, you can hear him saying cheese as they are running across the floor. Even if Jake is in the other room, if he hears the chime from the camera being turned on, he'll start saying cheese.

Neglectful Mother

OK, so looking at all of my posts, it looks like I favor Jake. I really don't. He's just the only one to still interact with me, so I get more photo ops with him. Plus, he gets into so much trouble its hard not to take pictures of what he's doing. Case in point, one day he came out wearing Tanner's cowboy boots and completely naked. Diaper and all. Looking back at the picture taken as he's walking away, you just can't help but laugh.

Tanner and Tyler are self entertaining and the only time they really need me is at meal time. I know I should be better at not just taking pictures of them, but posting them as well. I actually have never been one to stand behind or in front of a camera, so most of my photo ops are gone by the time I remember to get the camera. I promise I'll get better. Anyway, here are a few pictures of Tyler's graduation and of Tanner, just so no one thinks I favor any one child. :)

Just to explain the ones that might need explaining. Tanner is holding a wooden spoon that Tyson was telling him to stand with, looking as though I had broken it by spanking him with it. It was burned in the dishwasher and when I hit it on the counter, it broke easily because it was already weakened. No, I did not hit my child with it.

The one with Tyson, Tanner and Tyler, is them cooking in the kitchen. Tanner and Tyler had gone up to Tyson's work with him and learned how to cook a yogurt parfait, so now they are professionals in the kitchen and I think were cooking breakfast or something.

The third one is Tyler with her preschool diploma for graduation. She was very excited, despite not feeling well through the whole thing.

Look who's two!!

So today was Jake's second birthday! I can't believe he's already two! In my family it was tradition to wake the birthday person up singing "Happy Birthday", but the kids have learned that if they don't bother us on Sunday morning, we're more likely to let them watch t.v. So, Jake was awake before us, but I don't think he would have cared either way. I think by the end of the day he was finally starting to understand that this day was different than any other day. He liked the fact that we sang "Happy Birthday" and had him blow out the candles. I wish I would have gotten video of that, because it was really cute.

Anyway, getting him to look at the camera long enough for a good picture is not a small task, so this is the best I got. I did get some video, but I guess I stopped the camera before we got to the good part. He did get an Elmo stuffed animal that he loves! So that is the video that I have on here. If you listen closely, you can hear him say Elmo. It sounds more like memo.

Happy Birthday Jake!!

Careful what you say!!

Jake is to the point now where he can cause some major stress for me if I don't watch what I say and how I say it. Case in point. He has now started telling us when he's poopy. Not everytime will he be poopy, but I think that its him recognizing that he's not too comfortable in that area, be it wet or stinky. So I'll tell him to go get a diaper and I'll change him. He usually comes back with a diaper then goes and lays down and I change him. Well, I guess he thought he'd help me out a bit this morning when he told me he was poopy. I told him to go get a diaper, and not even five seconds later, he comes back with a diaper in hand, but no diaper on his bumb. Oh GREAT!! and yes, he was poopy. Fortunantly for me, I think it was done after he'd gone to bed last night so it wasn't bad to clean up. But my goodness! Watch what you say. If the kid even hears a word that sounds like bath, he has his clothes of in two seconds flat. Poopy or not! I think he likes to be naked! :)
Sorry to those of you with weak stomachs if this post bothered you. Most people that read this have kids and can sympathize with me. :)

The finished product

Well, we can't come up with a name for the baby, but at least he'll have his own blanket. Just for anyone interested in seeing what his blanket looks like. It only took me a million trips to the fabric store to find just the right fabric, however, once I did find it, everything fell into place. Even the corners, which are usually a pain in the butt to do, turned out without any problems. YEAH!! Anyway, I like the blanket, and it passes Tyson's approval, so if you don't like it...tough luck! :)

Jakes Elmo Shirt

Okay, so Tyson found this shirt while we were out tonight and we had to get it for Jake. Elmo is currently Jakes favorite. He'll even sing the la la la la, la la la la, elmo's world. Anyway, he's into undressing himself lately, but I have a feeling this shirt won't be coming off anytime soon, and if it does, it won't be coming off without a fight!

New haircut

This is a huge thing for me, the fact that I not only cut six inches off my hair, but have an entirely different look as well. Its been almost 15 years since I've had any indication of bangs, and just about that long since my hair was shorter than a few inches below my shoulders. Anyway, I guess that's what makes this post worthy. The bangs will definantly take some getting used to. Try to see past the yucky face in the picture though. :) I hate pictures!!

Baby #4, Boy #3

Okay, so everyone knows I'm having a boy, but I'm still trying to get the hang of posting pictures to the blog. So here is our ultrasound. And we still have no name.

Hanging out

The kids favorite pastime is hanging upside down from the couch. Jake feels he's just as big as the other kids, and gets frustrated when he can't reach the ground without his legs falling down, so we have to add a pillow to his head. This was taken just before his legs flopped over.

Our update

I'm still unsure of how to manage this whole blog thing, and since I don't even know how to access this myself, I know at this moment, there is no one even reading these posts, but in case I ever figure out how to share my blog site, I guess I'll post.

Nothing real huge has happened. Tanner will be starting his last week of being a kindergartener tomorrow. I told him that as we were putting them to bed tonight and he started fake crying. I'm not sure how he feels about it really, but I think he's excited to be able to show Tyler the ranks of Kindergarten. He keeps talking about taking her to her class room and all the things she'll do in Mrs. Morgans class. That's Tanner's teacher this year, and will be Tyler's teacher next year. Tanner did ask me the other day, when my water breaks, how will they take a bath at home. I don't think he understands the whole concept of the birthing process, but really, should he? A six year old asking that isn't as bad as an 18 year old not understanding the phrase "When my milk comes in." Thinking the UPS man was supposed to deliver something before I could start breast feeding Tanner. That would have been Cymony. :)

Tyler is done with dance, but that doesn't keep her from dancing. I wish I knew my way around these blogs better so I could post the video that I took the other day. She wants so badly to take gymnastics, but I can't feel good about taking her out of dance because it comes so naturally to her. We'll see what happens. Tyson says to sign her up for gymnastics during the summer. I told him I'm not so sure I want to be dragging four kids, not to mention a brand new baby to gymnastics all summer long. We'll see what happens. She had her birthday three weeks ago and my goodness, five has just not been her happiest year so far. I think I've seen her happy for maybe two hours total since turning five. Aparently Tanner and Jake are our favorite kids and we don't like her. She told me tonight, she wouldn't be so sassy if we weren't so mean. I told her we wouldn't be so mean if she wasn't so sassy. Whatever!!

Jake is just Jake. I think he's beginning to not like the fact that he can't get comfortable while sitting on my lap. He'll get situated, then try and lay his head down on my chest and realize that doesn't feel so nice to have to fold over my huge stomach. He loves Elmo right now. The only pajamas he'll wear are his elmo pajamas. He woke up at 4am this morning wanting to come into bed with us. I wasn't going to have that. I was actually having a second night in a row of good, deep sleep and bringing him into bed, I was afraid would ruin it. Well, I took him back to his bed and told him I needed to lock the gate, because he got out of bed. So I did and after two minutes of him crying, he very happily started repeating dad? Mom? after a few minutes of this, he went back to sleep, but Tyson and I were laying in bed just laughing because he was so happy and it just sounded really cute. I guess its something you have to be there for.

Tyson had to sit in and take phone calls today for the Primary Childrens Telethon. After watching for two hours, I finally gave in a told the kids we could call and make a donation. So we did. Tanner wanted to donate a dollar, but to make it a little bigger, I told him we'd give five dollars. We didn't get to talk to Tyson, but I told the guy that Tyson, their dad was also taking phone calls and that was part of the reason we called as well. So he told me he'd tell him we called. Well, maybe five minutes later, one of the announcers goes up to Tyson with the microphone and starts talking to him telling the viewers and conversing with Tyson that his two kids had broke into their piggy banks to donate. Then asked how old they were, pretty much had a nice little conversation. Carli and Chase were up here watching with us, and Carli and I just sat and laughed. After the newscaster was done speaking with him, you could tell he was going to kill me. Not really, but it was funny to see his reaction, that I'm sure no one else watching caught onto, but knowing his facial expressions it was just funny to watch.

Well, that's about it for now. No baby yet, not that I really want to have him yet, because I know he wouldn't be ready for the world yet. I'm definantly not comfortable anymore. I just feel REALLY huge right now. Although Tyson says he thinks I'm smaller with this one than any of my other kids. I don't feel so small though. Oh well. Hopefully these next five weeks go rather quickly. That would be really nice.