January-April

Well the last few months have been pretty busy. I started working as a tax support agent, which really just means I give people directions to use the website. Yes it only was from January to April, but man it sure was an adjustment. I didn't get the best shifts. Honestly most were awful times for our family, but I think I'll still give it a shot next year. I'll just be more specific about having at least some in the morning so we can get on with our day. I've loved being at home with these amazing kids, even on hard days. I wouldn't have it any other way. I expected homeschooling to be a challenge, but never guessed at how amazing it would be for the family and how fast. We get to study exactly what the kids are interested in at the time, whether that's Rhode Island, shark poop, or bouncy eggs.

Spencer continues to be busy with the LDS motion picture studio. January was especially crazy because most of their projects were for Rootstech. Now it's a bit slower and we get to see him quite a bit more. Again this is exactly why I homeschool because then on a day when he can take off we can spend the day together as a family.

Lizzie absolutely loved being in Peter Pan! She is slightly obsessed with being in plays, but thankfully balances it with other activities too. She's also my little scientist. She's constantly trying to figure out how something works or mixing up her own experiment. She's also the little mama of our new puppy Grizzly. Lizzie will take care of her day or night. She even makes up games for picking up the poop, telling the boys it's like an Easter egg hunt. She's such a great little helper.

Daniel just finished preschool and is doing Tball with Lizzie and his cousins Berklee and Stockton. Neither of them are huge on it, but they're good sports about it. Daniel mostly just wants to do gymnastics. He's asking every day when he gets to go do gymnastics again. He's already reading and has been for a while, I want to say since Octoberish? He desperately wants a big ramp for riding his bike with. If I let him he'd spend the entire day on his bike. He's so loving, constantly wants to give and get hugs and kisses. Lately he's also quite obsessed with who he's going to marry in the temple. The other night I told him how I'd miss him when he grows up and goes on a mission. His response was so simple I love it. "Well mom, but I will come back. I'll just be gone for a little bit and then I'll come back."

Logan is still a handful, but he sure is trying to listen and make better choices. No more items are getting flushed down, but now the toilets are always clogged because he is sure he can do everything himself. That means he uses an entire roll of toilet paper if need be. Lately he's crazy impulsive, will push or hit anything just cause. Then he'll say he hates everything, this includes literally everything. Our saying is wait 5 minutes and he won't hate it anymore. I love teasing him when he's in a mood and listing a bunch of things just to hear him say ridiculous things like "I hate the ground!".  He's got such an expressive face. He knows just how to crack me up. He's also pretty close to riding a bike without training wheels. Unfortunately his crazy control scares me as he zips around by our house.

Charlotte keeps just getting crazy big to me. She still doesn't say much, but does get mama, more, nana (banana), and dada. She would live outside if I let her. Unfortunately she thinks the road is a magical place and of course heads straight for it when we go out. She's still obsessed with beans and has to eat everything with her hands. By now the other three loved having utensils, but not her. She wants to double hand it and shovel it in. This means she gets a lot of baths! She has mostly stopped playing in the toilet, but boy have we found her in there several times in the last few months.

 The one time out of the entire winter we had enough snow for sledding. The kids LOVE sledding! Well, maybe not Logan as much. ;)

 Snuggling my Little Miss Mae

 Daniel made a hot dog macaroni man with his lunch. He kept it for days! Then Logan ate it, bleh!

 We've done a bunch of crafts and projects. They loved this Valentine sewing project!

 This girl could play peekaboo all day long.

 Yeah like I said he's always looking for a way to be silly and make me laugh.

 Our new favorite activity, yoga with Cosmic Kids!

 Easter baskets all sewn and ready. The kids love being army dudes with it on their heads or turtles with it on their backs.

 Charlotte had tubes in her ears and was such a trooper! Her ears still had infection fluid from a long time ago so I'm glad she's finally good now!

 This pic makes my heart melt. He loves to say his prayers out in the living room like this.

 She loves to give me her cheesy grin.

 The cutest little pixie ever! We loved seeing her in Peter Pan!

 General conference Sunday morning with Kyra, Emma, and Allie. These kids were so quiet and completely focused on their activities, Legos and pin art!

We've had two birthdays since the last post. Charlotte turned 1 in January and this is Logan's actual birthday. We did his party earlier with family, but wanted to still do something special on his day. Hence the cheese pizza and chocolate train cake, his favorites! Like I said he loves to make faces. :)

A Day in the Life With Four Crazies

Ok so that title should probably be six crazies. Let's face it, Spence and I are as crazy as the kids. Today was interesting to say the least. I can't say it was far different from other days, but I figure I should write it down so I can laugh about it later. Logan being potty trained in theory was a good idea. Does he have the control? Yep! Can he pull his own pants off if he needs to? Absolutely! Does he think the toilet is awesome? Definitely! The problem comes with his newfound control and all the awesomeness that is the bathroom. Picture baby Plucky saying "I want to flush it again!" and you'd be on the right track for Logan. He's constantly flushing a new thing down the toilet just to see if it can. We've lost nearly every toothbrush to the toilet as well as keys and earrings. Thankfully the keys turned out to be baby toy keys and not the real ones. Whew! Aside from flushing he has to try every imaginable position to go potty. I often hear him hollering from the bathroom, "I going backwards Mommy!" Yep he thinks the potty is pretty much amazing. Of course at night time he thinks his door is impenetrable so rather than go to the bathroom, he's decided the heater duct makes for a good toilet. Hey at least he removed the vent first, right? Today he decided to throw wet toilet paper at the walls. Now this isn't completely unusual, however today he got it wet not with the sink water, but with the wonderful water he had just sullied up. He was in there for maybe two minutes, which was apparently 1 minute and 50 sec too long. Needless to say I made him help wash the walls of his artwork.

A proud nerd mom moment for me came when Lizzie informed me "the Doctor sent you a message". Yes she is referring to THE doctor. She thinks Dr. Who is hilarious and has added his character to regular play time. She spent the day explaining to Daniel all about the Doctor (that's how she says it) and now he's just as excited too. So now the two of them are not just in love with Comic-con, all things Hobbit/LOTR, and superheroes, but they've added the good Doctor to the list.

Now for the epic fail moment. While I was preparing dinner I was opening a can of peas (hey at least it's a vegetable). I then went to set the the can opener down on the counter. To preface what happened Charlotte had been screaming for some attention. I had finally got her happy enough for me to open this can of peas and she was now sitting to the side of me on the ground. Somehow the can opener slipped out of my hand. Everything went into slow motion. The can opener slowly started falling as I look over to see where Charlotte is. She's safe. Everything looks good, but then the can opener bounces off one of her birthday balloons. I thought no way would it possibly bounce exactly right. Oh I shouldn't have wondered. That can opener bounced perfectly on the balloon hitting Charlotte right on the forehead with the sharp metal piece down. Seriously! Of all the odds, I mean it's the smallest part on the can opener and yet it nails her. Yep she screamed for a good long time. Thankfully, everything has turned out ok and she's back to her chipper self, but in the future beware of can openers!

Normally at dinner time my kids are great about what's served. Even when I'm serving something different or new they immediately start competing over who likes the food best. That was not to be tonight apparently. Lizzie and I loved the food, which really was amazing. Spence even ate a good amount when he got home. Logan on the other hand was not impressed. As soon as we finished the blessing he chimed in with "I not eating mud mom!" So while I thought I had served a yummy meatloaf (which it was!) Logan figured his mom made mud pie for dinner. Hmm maybe an April Fool's dinner in the future?

An Amazing December

We've had such a great December! It started out with Spence flying out to California and South Carolina for work. While that normally is not the most fun for us, he did have good paychecks which is rare for December. His work is basically closed starting on the 23rd until after New Year's so paying the bills is always iffy. Thanks to his work trips we'll be just fine. :) We started a new tradition this year with Kindness Elves. Each day the elves write a note to the kids about the kind things they noticed them doing. Then they usually gave a kind idea or activity for us to do. Some of the things we did were taking cookies to a neighbor, writing letters to family, giving compliments to each other, and donating toys, books, food, and stuffed animals. Yes the kids were still super excited about Christmas and presents, but they were also super focused on being kind. I loved that by having the Kindness Elves come I was reminded of simple things I can do to be kind like just smiling at someone or letting someone go before me in the grocery store line. Lizzie started noticing when other people were being kind to us as well. It really did snowball into everything. When Spence got home he spent the next couple weeks getting a family video edited. We were still able to squeeze in some of our favorite Christmas activities. We made/decorated gingerbread and sugar cookies. The kids built two gingerbread houses and a gingerbread train (Logan of course). We saw the lights in Spanish Fork and Thanksgiving Point. We haven't made it to Temple Square yet since Spence was busy, but that should be this next week. We made some holiday crafts with cousins. Crafts are always a highlight in this house. Then every night we sang to a video of "Could I Hold the Baby". I taught it to the primary to sing for Christmas. At the end of the day it always brought the spirit into the home. Daniel often talked about how he wished the Second Coming was going to happen on Christmas this year so Jesus could come down and hold him. He's also wishing he could go back to the first Christmas and hold baby Jesus. I think this song really helped us here and the kids in the primary to put Christmas in the right perspective. There's one line that says "And I'll remember that Christmas toys, are not as dear as girls and boys". I'm so grateful for the amazing spirit we've had in our home this December. Not only was it probably the most spiritual/kind/giving December Spence and I have had, but it was also so much fun! On our first Christmas in this house with Lizzie as a baby, we both talked about how fun it would be in a few years when we've got a bunch of kids that all get excited about Christmas. This was totally that year! Lizzie, Daniel, and Logan have been crazy excited all month. Even Charlotte, who shouldn't really be into it yet, was trying to open every gift I wrapped. We slept over with the Scanlons on the 23rd. We had an amazing prime rib dinner cooked by Brandon. Mmm I'm drooling just thinking about it right now! Daniel couldn't wait until morning so he snuck out to sleep under a table by the tree. Lizzie and Kyra made a blizzard of snowflakes. In fact I'm not sure there's anymore paper left in the house. We opened presents in the morning, had juevos rancheros for breakfast, and played with cousins. It was so fun and relaxing. Then we headed home to host Christmas Eve dinner for the Jacksons with our traditional fishes and loaves dinner. I always love hearing Spence teach the kids about the miracles of Jesus. We had an interesting nativity where the sheep and shepherd played tag. The innkeepers had strange accents. The songs were all super slow, hmm or maybe we're just super fast. At one point the shepherd and wise men even stole baby Jesus from Joseph and Mary. It was definitely not dull. Before everyone headed off to bed Spence read The Night Before Christmas and Santa Mouse. I told the kids they could choose any song to sing in the morning to wake us up. I figured they'd still stick with Jingle Bells or Rudolph, nope Thomas the train started our Christmas Day. The whole morning was so relaxed and fun. We headed up to the Jackson's for a Christmas turkey lunch and opening presents from cousins and grandparents. Then we spent the next three wonderful days sledding, playing games, hot wheels, legos, reading books, and watching movies. One of my favorite moments, out of many, was with Lizzie on Christmas day. Lizzie realized Santa brought her some things she didn't ask for, but absolutely loves. She then told me "Santa knows what we want even when we don't know kind of like how Heavenly Father knows what we need most even if we don't...love." I had to sit down and just hold her for a while. I'd say we did something right, but I'm pretty sure she was sent here to teach us, not the other way around. Here are some pics from December.

Decorating the Christmas tree

Donating stuffed animals to Project Teddy Bear

Daniel "flying" in superhero dance class

Charlotte outside enjoying the awesome warm weather we had through most of December. Seriously, we wore short sleeves, shorts, and no shoes a good amount of the time.

Daniel started reading at the beginning of December! He sounds words out like a champ and desperately wants to read bigger books already.

Daniel insisted I take pic of his big bum.

Lizzie learning how to spin wool into yarn

Making gingerbread houses

Annual corn syrup painting

Spence and I after our free Allstate Hobbit date! Thanks to Dad for watching the kids!

Charlotte gets terrorized every day by the kitchen chairs. They clearly are out to get her!

Decorating sugar cookies with cousins

 Seeing Santa at Deseret Book

 Sporting their new hats from their Scanlon cousins - Daniel wears his R2D2 hat just about all day.

Logan opening presents

Charlotte playing with her presents

 Lizzie and Daniel loving their pillow pets from Christmas

 Yay for a white Christmas! We woke up to a good 8 in! The kids wanted to show how deep it was.

Sledding fun! Lizzie and Daniel were having a blast, which is a first for our "I hate the cold" Daniel.

Lizzie falling in the snow. She kept saying she just wanted to lay there all day. She seriously loves the snow!

Random Ramblings About Our Life

I've realized how much I love being able to look back and read what I wrote, as a journal of sorts. Regardless of whether I get pictures on here or not I want to get my thoughts and memories down. Lately Logan has been crazy cute about things. When I do a sideways plank, with my arms stretched out he says I'm "doing Jesus exercises". He's so focused on making sure everybody is taken care of. There was on German pancake left and I, knowing the kids would want it, was leaving it alone. Logan saw my empty plate, "You need more German pancakes mom?" He wouldn't take no for answer and put it on my plate, then told me how to prepare it with syrup. He's constantly doing this, well at least at home. He wants to hear all about my day. I love having conversations with him. He's all about "I do it myself!" At the same time he's also hyper sensitive. Like tonight when Spence told him he didn't get a fruit snack because it's bedtime, he ran crying to his bed. His bed is always his safe haven. If he thinks he's been wronged, you'll find him in there until he feels everything is right with the world again. Charlotte has been getting ear infections constantly. Since our kids rarely, if ever, run a fever we just have to guess when she's waking us up more at night then she probably has one (so far 3 in last month and a half). She's pretty close to walking. She growls like a monster/alien constantly. She's constantly into everything, more than any of the other kids at this age. It's funny because she hasn't even had a birthday or anything to figure out presents, but every time I try to wrap a present she's sure to tear it apart. So until a couple days before Christmas the presents will remain hidden. She puts everything in her mouth. Stickers are especially funny because they stick to the roof of her mouth and she can't figure out how to get them out. She especially loves when Daddy gets home each day. Whenever we have to FaceTime him on a trip she gets crazy excited and then mad when she can't grab him through the phone. Lizzie is doing amazing with homeschooling. She's basically through first grade curriculum. This includes even the parts that she has struggled with like money and time. It's so fun to watch shows with her. She gets so much of the foreshadowing that even I miss sometimes. She's crazy good at inferencing and I love being able to teach her. Every day I get to watch how her mind works and I love it! Daniel is taking off with learning! He started in August recognizing maybe about half of the letters, but none of the sounds. He just started reading his first books on his own this week! He also started writing his own notes/letters as well. I expected to come in and see a beautiful picture he drew for Daddy. While I did see an awesome picture right underneath it I saw that he had written a note telling Daddy he loved him. Daniel has a crazy imagination. He's constantly making up stories of how something happened or what monster came after him. One of these days we should do a story like Kidhistory does using Daniel's stories. He cracks me up with all his funny quirks. Right now he hopes the second coming could happen on Christmas so Jesus could hold him. Spencer's been busy with work since August going on at least two weeks of trips basically each month. Then when he gets back he's got to do all the graphic work so we make the most of any time we get with him. He's been blessed to work with some awesome people on great projects. I've just been busy with the kids, planning field trips, doing holiday things, cleaning the house. To help pay off the car faster I've started a job from home where I just answer support questions for a tax company. So far it's pretty easy. Let's see just a recap of our holidays so far. Halloween was awesome with nearly all of the Jackson cousins here. Lizzie really took off with the older kids. In fact she was the only one at the end who wanted to just keep going. She didn't really care about how much candy she had, just about running from door to door and trick or treating. It was so fun to share her excitement. The boys loved it too, but sure didn't last long. Lizzie was Merida, Daniel was Tigger, Logan was Thomas the Train, and Charlotte was a pumpkin. As always leading up to Halloween we did a bunch of fun crafts, activities, and movies. For Thanksgiving we went to both families again. It was fun baking pies with my sister Tamrah that morning. She was so patient and great at teaching the kids how to crack eggs. Spence and I would love having Thanksgiving dinner like four times a year at least. We seriously love all the food that comes with the holiday as well as being able to spend time with family. For Christmas so far we've been more low-key while Spence was on a trip. We've started a new tradition with Kindness Elves. It has been awesome! No our house isn't perfect, but it helps to remind me of simple acts of kindness we can do as well as teaches the kids. They were so excited to donate some of their stuffed animals to kids who have been abused. It's been so fun to see them make each other's bed and help each other with different things.

Solution to my frustration and comic-con field trip

Like most parents there are times when I tend to get frustrated and lose my patience with the kids. For me those times are usually bed time and loading up in the car. They inevitably choose these times to tell me about everything and anything in the world rather than what I asked thus trying my patience. I have finally found a way to help everyone though. Counting to 5 wasn't working in these instances. I had the idea to give them the time of a song so I told them they needed to be in the car and buckled by the time I finished Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. For whatever reason this song idea works so much better for them. No yelling or coercing on my part. I typically choose primary songs, mainly because it gets me in the right frame of mind. Rather than give in to frustration and yelling, I take a step back and sing one verse of a primary song. By the time I'm done the kids are listening and I've given myself some time to calm down.

One of my favorite things about homeschool (ok I know there are a lot) is that I can do field trips with the kids whenever I decide and give them real world experiences. Our first field trip this year was to comic-con. Spence was speaking on a panel about adapting books to film and it was great to let the kids be a part of his work day. Spence was nervous because of the crowds, but I assured him I'd keep Logan in my arms and the kids holding hands. No mishaps whatsoever. We had a blast! The kids were so excited to see all the booths, characters, and activities. Smaug at the WETA booth and the awesome Lego group were huge hits with the kids as well as Elsa singing in the Kid-con section. Lizzie had a tea party with Cinderella. Daniel played with swords and of course had to join Lizzie for the tea party. After watching the Cinderella play in June I'm pretty sure he has a crush on Cinderella. Logan loved all things Star Wars, that is until R2D2 started making noises. Then he had second thoughts. I warned the kids that if they saw something they wanted to look at they couldn't run off. They had to pull on my hand (since it's loud) and let me know. Well on our way to the WETA section I felt a huge yank on my whole harm. Apparently Daniel got his first sight of old/vintage comic books. We headed over to the booth and Lizzie and I watched as Daniel pored over comic after comic. He had this look of reverential awe as he touched each one. There were a couple of people who would treat Daniel, Logan, and Lizzie like their characters. The boys were both Batman and Lizzie was Elsa. One person in particular totally made their day asking for a picture with the beautiful Queen Elsa and the brave Batman. As I was getting ready to leave Lizzie kept begging to stay, but Spence had panels to visit so we trekked back to the car. By the time we got there all the kids just wanted to go back. Since then they've asked multiple times when they get to go back where the people dress up. Spencer's panel went great and the book trailer looked awesome. I'll post a link when it goes live on the internet. I made a huge haul at the ABC booth. We got a Once Upon a Time journal, Castle poster, The Flash poster, multiple tattoos, and a Once Upon a Time bookmark. So many cool things, but so little time. I could have easily spent every day there and not get bored. Pretty sure the kids could have too. Hopefully Spence gets to do a panel every year, which looks quite possible, so we can all get in free.

6 months

Thought it would be fun to put up pics of the four kids all at 6 months.

Our Summer

**This is not a complete post, but it kept getting me bogged down trying to recap our whole summer last year. Just know we had a fun one, but here's some of it!

Well this will be a long post since I've finally got around to documenting our summer.  The first major event of the summer was my marathon. I did the Utah Valley Marathon on June 8. Training with three kids was definitely an interesting experience. There were many times I would be pushing all three in the jogging stroller. When I finally had days without the kids, the running seemed so easy compared to pushing all that extra weight. The marathon was insane. I was prepared for it to be since it was my first, but it's interesting how your emotional and physical feed off each other. As soon as my body started to tell my brain it was done the emotional side kicked in. The last few miles when I'd see a stop light I'd start crying and hope the light was the right color by the time I got there since I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to stop and start again. Luckily there were police officers that took care of that regardless of the color of the light. Leading up to the marathon I'd been having problems with my knee so I wasn't focused on any specific time. I just wanted to finish so I completed my goal. That day was definitely painful, but I recovered really well. By the third day after it I was completely fine and back at exercising. The funny thing is the most painful part in the days after was actually my sunburn. I was so focused on my eating that I spaced sunblock. Big mistake! The sunburn hurt way worse than the soreness in my muscles. Needless to say, I won't be forgetting sunblock again. I'm just glad my training paid off with my muscle recovery. The last week of my training I was in for a surprise though. The Monday before I was doing a short 3 mile run without kids so it should have been easy. Instead after one mile I couldn't force my feet to move faster than a walk. I couldn't figure out why I was so exhausted. Sure while I had been training I was exhausted most of the time, always taking a nap when the kids did in the afternoon, but I figured that was just because of how many miles I was doing a week. The exhaustion had never set in during the runs before. I was always fine during the runs. For some reason this strange run prompted me to take a pregnancy test and sure enough I had been pregnant through most of my training. At the time of the marathon I was 9 weeks along. This definitely made more sense of my tiredness every day. Now I can say I've run a marathon while pregnant. Not many people can say that, right?
After the marathon Spence and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary. We've never spent a night away from kids, or a day for that matter. We've only rarely had them babysat, usually for the length of a movie. Our parents were gracious enough to take the kids for the day/night so we could have a day to ourselves. We headed up to the Olympic Park in Park City. It was such a blast to do things we had never tried before or rarely done. We did the bobsled, adventure courses (which were way scarier than I thought they'd be), ziplines, the Alpine slide, watched regular and aerial ski jumpers, and a drop tower you jump off. Later we went out to eat and saw World War Z which we both loved. Though we didn't get to sleep in at the hotel because we needed to get to my Grandma Jackson's funeral, it was still nice to just relax and not be up with kids all night long. I think the part Spence and I enjoyed the most was driving in the car by ourselves. It was so great to have conversations with each other and actually be able to listen. Daniel doesn't typically let us talk to each other. He usually yells for one of us to stop talking so he can talk. "Daddy stop talking! I want to talk to Mommy!" is heard often in our car.