Slight heart-attack

Last night I was giving Mallory a bath when Jared started yelling hysterically. I had left Sophie with him on the couch. In my mind, for some reason, I immediately thought something was wrong with her. I honestly had an image of her having a seizure or something. So what was he freaking out about? I thought my boys were in the shower, but they had come out, in just their underwear, to ask Jared something. For some reason, Conner's little manhood was sticking up out of his underwear (pretty sure he didn't know it) and I don't know if it was the cold air, or he just needed to go really bad, but he peed. And it went shooting up into the air, hitting the couch, the rug, a couch pillow and the ottoman. I run out of the bathroom, Conner has a look of shock on his face, so does Jared and Ashton. All the sudden, I felt weak in the knees and I was shaking and I felt like I was going to pass-out, my heart was racing so fast! I just stood there, staring for a second taking the situation in. Jared said, "Hello?! What is wrong with you, you are acting like it's not a big deal! He just peed everywhere!" I said, "Compared to what I thought was going on, it's not a big deal. You scared the crap out of me! I feel like I'm going to pass out." Jared noticed how pale I was and told me to sit down. "Great, " he says, "if something bad ever happens you're going to be a lot of help."

Spring cleaning....a little early

We found out today that if you give Conner & Mallory a soapy wet rag, they will get to work! This was this morning after breakfast, about 8:00. I decided to start wiping down the cupboards, and they thought it looked like fun. Soon I got Kelsey, Emma & Ashton helping out too. We got all the walls, doors, cupboards, baseboards, and shutters washed in the house. Spring cleaning a little early, but it was great!

Frosty Morning

It was really foggy around here last night, and when I looked outside this morning all the trees & bushes were covered in the frozen mist. I asked Jared to go out with his camera since it's nicer than mine and get some pictures before the sun melted it away.

Puzzles & Working from home

Conner & Mallory in all their puzzle glory. How many puzzles can they fit on the table? At least this time they weren't on the floor, where they usually put puzzles together.

I was making lunch & Jared was busy working, but stopped to help Conner & Mal get the edges of the puzzle hooked together. One of the many benefits of working from home. He stopped for only a few minutes, but it's moments like this that make me smile. It's the middle of the day, we are all still in pj's, and he gets to stop and spend just a couple minutes with his kids. It's great and we know how blessed we are to have such a great job and great people to work for! He's not home all the time, he is out to meetings and his properties a lot, quite a bit the last 4 weeks especially. But we get more time together than we ever have before and I love it.

4 weeks old

Sophie is 4 weeks old! They change so fast, and we have been trying to be better about taking pictures.

When Jared and I are in the office working, she gets to recline in her carseat and join in on the "fun".

Conner is so sweet to her! I wish he'd be just as sweet to Mallory, but no such luck. He's probably kissed her more than I have, and when she cries after her bath he's always right in her face singing her a song.

Look at that face! Look at those cheeks! Just before this picture she had pooped up the front of her pj's. I was at the school & Jared called...
"Are you on your way home?"
Lucky for him (and Sophie) I was.

Christmas 2009

Christmas Eve dinner! We do our big meal on Christmas Eve, so we don't have to do much cooking on Christmas, but we have plenty of yummy leftovers. We always have an open invitation to Uncle Tyler. Jared made a delicious turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cheesy broccoli, pasta salad, rolls, and a couple different pies! It was soooo good. After dinner the kids open their first gift...Christmas pj's. Then we watch "Santa Claus: The Movie" (old xmas movie Jared LOVES....with Dudley Moore and John Lithgow) and have egg nogg (diluted with milk!). The kids are usually in bed by ten. This year we had NO WRAPPING to do on Christmas Eve....yay! We told the kids they weren't allowed out of their rooms until 7, and they had to make their beds before they came out.

The picture above and below are of Kelsey & Emma opening their cellphones....yes, cellphones. I am one of those parents. Kelsey got one last year, and as you can tell from the picture, she didn't think she'd be getting a new phone this year, but boy was she excited! Why wouldn't she be, it was pink!! And it had flowers!
In this day and age, I LOVE that my girls have phones. Kelsey is old enough to tend (not Sophie, of course) so it's nice when Jared and I are out that she and I can text each other. She also had her first slumber party a few weeks ago and was able to text me all night, even at 2AM to let me know she was still up. Emma, on the other hand, had asked Santa for a phone. I was a little hesitant, but we got a great deal, so we did it.

Ashton with his "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" turbo tank...this was high on the list for Santa.

Oh, these two little ones are SO easy to shop for! Conner & Mallory got plenty of new coloring books, markers, crayons and puzzles. Mallory also got new Barbies, Cabbage Patch baby twins, and My Little Pony stuff. Conner increased his collection of "Star Wars: Galactic Heroes" toys with two new ships and new characters.

We started to loose Jared by 8:30, but he snapped out of it.

If you look closely at the picture below, you can see Mallory has a tear on her cheek. My 3 older kids had purchased gifts for everyone at their school's "Santa's Workshop". Ashton bought Conner a fake spider. I HATE spiders and some of my kids have inherited that (or have seen me freak out so now they freak out). Jared and I got worried when he was opening it because Kelsey (who helped wrap it) kept saying, "Don't be scared, ok? It's not real". Conner didn't freak out, but I wish I had video of Mallory when she saw it. She wouldn't leave Jared's lap the rest of the morning. We ended up throwing it away the next day after Conner realized it was fun to terrorize his sister.

Another fun story this Christmas: Jared found some great recipes for breakfast, that he put together the night before and then we baked it in the morning. One of them bubbled over and the oven started to fill with smoke. When Jared opened the door to slide a cookie sheet under it, it set off our smoke alarm, which is wired to our security system. LOUD beeping filled the house, Jared silenced it & the security company called to ask if they needed to send the fire dept. Ooops!
We hope you all had a great Christmas like we did! With a new baby, it was a great excuse to stay home and have visitors come to us. We got to visit with both of our parents, two of Jared's aunts, and have brothers, sisters and cousins come visit. We love this time of year!

More Sophie

Looking through my photos of her so far, and knowing how she looks today...her color is a lot better. She had her check-up yesterday and everything looks good, though her pediatrician thinks she may have fractured her clavicle during delivery. Her left shoulder got stuck under my pubic bone, and when her head came out her right shoulder came with it, which shouldn't really happen. My doctor had the NICU nurses come down and check her, and they said she seemed fine. But after we came home Jared & I both noticed that she didn't move her left arm much, and it seemed to hurt her when we moved it. So, we have to take her for an xray, but it will fix itself.
The kids love her, but they are driving us crazy. I think it's a combination of having a new baby in the house, christmas, christmas vacation and sugar. Conner & Mallory are the hardest. Today Mal kept taking toys from Conner & even Ashton, then she'd run around the house so they couldn't get it. I got after her and I said (mostly to myself), "I don't even know who you are...." But she heard me and with the saddest look on her face said, "I'm Mallory". I felt so bad....but seriously...what happened to my kids?! I'm ready for school to start....