Our Pumpkin Tradition

Our family has not carved a pumpkin in years. Does that sound sad?  Its not-no one here is shedding a tear!  Because we have a super fun tradition when it comes to pumpkins in our family and everyone loves it!  Plus, it saves a pumpkin from getting all gross and decomposed-looking. See, in our family, we like to play with pumpkin pegs.

Kind of like Mr. Potato Head with pumpkins.  The kids love picking out the various features of their pumpkins' faces; they love designing a second face on the opposite side as well!  It ends up being a silly activity and one I immensely enjoy doing with them. 

Sara was old enough to do one this year.  She picked out her pieces and I sliped them in for her.  While I was helping the other kids, Sara decided to switch around her pieces multiple times.  My favorite transition was when she found all the matching eyes and put them in as many of the holes as she could! We were cracking up! 

Jordan was being a silly goose and was trying to see if the pegs would fit on his face.  That didn't work so well! 

 Of course, the three older kids thought these pumpkin faces were better matches for their bodies than their regular heads......that would make an interesting family picture! 

Overall, it was a fantastic evening with the kids, topped off with brownies and milk....we were joined by the 4 newest members of our family, who will sit proudly at the table until Halloween day! 

Random Updates

Just a few random updates from everyone:




I had Karianna's conference with her teacher this past week; it went great and her report card looks fantastic (I knew it would, but its always nice to be confirmed!). She's doing enrichment reading groups with her teacher since she is on the high end of reading, and her teacher increased her AR goal this quarter to 35 books/tests. She logged in 163 wpm on her last fluency test, so I am glad her teacher is matching instruction to her level. Karianna's goal for this quarter is to work on problem solving skills-using higher order thinking skills to answer questions about reading and math problems. This is something that I think is so beneficial for kids and it really has to be taught-not innate for everyone!

I also had JD's conference with his teacher this past week; it also went great and his report card looks terrific (I new it would, but its always nice to be confirmed). Hmmm, feels like deja vu! :) I actually do not care for how JD's teacher marks her grades. She is one of those teachers who believes you should never have 4's until the end of the year. So when I looked at JD"s report card and saw all 3s, I was like, what???????? She explained and it was fine, but I definitely now know as a teacher that I won't ever subscribe to that line of thinking because as a parent, its odd to think, "so you are telling me he has mastered all 1st quarter material, but he's not at a 4?" Anyhow, she mentioned over and over again how well behaved JD is and how much he loves to learn-this much is true, he really does love to learn! His reading and writing skills are exploding right now, which is amazing to see; I do wish his teacher would push him more based on his level, but I can easily do that at home. His teacher did mention he seemed to forget some things in the area of geometry-new kinder standards dictate they need to know /2D/3D shapes and their real life counter parts. She said he forgot hexagon and sphere. When I got home, I asked JD what they both were. He said, "A hexagon has 6 sides, like this!" He ran and got the fuse bead pegboard he has been doing for the last few days-sure enough, a hexagon. He then said, "A sphere is like a circle, it goes round and round and round...its like a marble!" So, um, teacher-he actually does know it. :) But oh well, its very plausible he forgot them on the day she tested.

This has been a hard week for me with parent teacher conferences-most days this week were 10-12 hour days in between teaching, conferences, the kids' conferences, doctor appointments, etc. It definitely led to some bodily ailments with this pregnancy-my hips killed every night! I am glad things will go back to normal this week!

Jordan had a weird incident on his preschool bus in which the afternoon driver yelled at him for taking his seat belt off before the bus came to a complete stop. I agree that he needs to keep his seat belt on, but for a kid who has only rode with a seatbelt twice in his entire life, I do NOT agree with yelling at him because he doesn't know all the rules of seat belts yet. I was actually very frustrated by this becasue Jordan seemed utterly scared after the yelling incident-he was crying, wouldnt' talk about preschool or the bus afterwards, and was clinging to Jared. He had a new bus driver the next day who did fantastic so I put off my call to transportation to complain-but if that other bus driver shows up, they will be hearing from me. Otherwise, preschool is going wonderfully for Jordan and he loves it!

Jared officially got his contract for his new job this week! We felt so utterly blessed when we saw it was more than we were expecting and with the much less expensive benefits, we are just feeling very blessed, especially with the timing of it all. He seems so relieved-it has been a goal of his for a long time to make it so that I don't have to work. I am glad I am able to help our family with a profession that I love, but I see the worry has left his eyes and his face, and I am so glad the Lord has chosen to bless our family in such a manner.

I'm sure there's more updates I could do, but we'll leave it there for now!

Very Fashionable Eyes!

 Karianna got her eyeglasses! 

She went to a pediatric opthamologist over spring break.  She had been saying the board in her classroom was a bit fuzzy and that her eyes were itchy/watery a lot.  I took her in and sure enough, we found out she is slightly near-sighted; not terrible, but enough to need corrective measures.  Karianna got fitted for glasses right there in the office (thank goodness for insurance that covers it!)  and we picked them up just a few days ago.  As soon as Karianna put them on, I couldn't help but exlaim at how cute she looked!  Her glasses look like they were made for her-like, why hasn't she ben wearing glasses her whole life?????  She loves them as well, and she immediately started saying how much better things looked.  She will only need to wear them in the classroom or at church, movies, things were she needs to see far away.  As such, we had to establish some very clear glasses rules-keep them in your backpack during PE, recess, etc, don't let others try them on, put the on the counter when you get home, etc.  So far, she is doing great and loving how special it is to have glasses! 

Jordan and Preschool!

Jordan started preschool this week! 

We officially signed his IEP for speech therapy back in early October and he started at EMECEC this week.  I really wish I could have been there to see him off for his first day, but I will be home for a doctor's appointment next week, so I'll get to see him onto the bus at that point.  Yes, I said bus!  Jordan is all grown up as a 3 year old apparently because he rides a bus to preschool!  Jared and I really don't like buses, which is why we have always transported our kids to school ourselves.  But we felt okay with this situation: the bus picks up and drops off right in front of our house, there is an aide who sits on the bus wtih Jordan, and his teacher meets him right when the bus gets to school to take him into the classroom.  Plus-the bus has seatbelts.  All in all, he thinks he is cool to go on a bus, and his siblings are jealous, so its a win-win.  ;) 

Jordan's teacher is Mrs. Smith and I already like her a lot because she sent home a bunch of papers detailing what happens in the calssroom after the first day of school.  Their schedule is extremely consistent with thematic units, snacktime, group time, art time, etc.  I love how much exposure Jordan will get through this and that doesn't even include his speech therapy.  He will see his speech therapist on Fridays (he goes Tues, Thurs, and Fri) for the entire 2 1/2 hours and we are super excited he will get those services-hopefully we can resolve his speech difficulties in the next year and a half before kinder starts.  If not, no big deal, but if we can get it done now, great!

Overall, it has been a great transition, and Jordan loves seeing his friends every day!  I am hoping the experience stays positive and presents a good transtion to schooling in general.

A Much Anticipated Blessing!

I am so very happy to say that today, at approximately 1:10 pm, Jared called me at school, in the middle of math (I'm shocked it rang through) to tell me that he was officially offered a job!  It was hard to maintain my professional composure and I had to turn my back on my students in order to stifle my excitement!  Jared had been interviewing with this company for the past few weeks, had done the background/reference check and we had been waiting for just about a week to hear back on whether or not he was selected.  The stress was lifted this afternoon as Jared was offered a position that he immediately accepted.  We have been waiting ofr this day for several weeks....months...years...I've lost count honestly.  Regardless, the Lord has truly blessed our family in so many amazing ways, and there was never any need to doubt anything about the direction our family has headed-it has all been a part of the plan and for that, we re so very grateful.

Beginning on October 31st-in a mere 12 days-Jared will start working as an academic advisor at Walden University, which is the same college from which I obtained my masters degree.  He'll be working at the Tempe campus, about 20 minute from our house, on a 9-6 shift, which will finally allow him both mornings and evenings with the family....its been a long time since we were all together for those two time periods.  He will be on salaray, which is such a nice additive for me in terms of stability.  His income is more than mine, which is again a nice perk.  His starting salary is actually 3 thousand or so more than what they quoted him-again, another facet of the blessing.  Benefits will thankfully be a ton cheaper than mine, which means he will be making that much more than me!  He loves the feel of this company/college, and given the positive nature of my experience doing my masters program with Walden, he already has a high opinion of how they run things.  He does have to be employed with them for a full month before benefits will begin, so we are super grateful he is starting on Oct 31st rather than a few days into November! 

Of course, with Jared starting work in just a few weeks, it means that we will need help with childcare.  Again, the Lord has blessed us drastically in this area.  As soon as we told our good friends the Kochs that Jared had gotten the job, Rachael immediately volunteered to help with childcare as much as we needed.  When we told my mom about the job she immediately gave input on what days she would be able to help out as well.  Jared's sister had told us a few weeks ago she could watch them on Fridays since it was her day off!  Al in all, we felt so blessed to know our kids would be in good hands while both Jared and I worked.  So Jordan and Sara will be with the Kochs on Monday and Tuesday, my Mom on Wednesday and Thursday, and Aubrey (at our house) on Friday.  Jared will be able to take JD and Karianna to school before dropping the other kids off to childcare and then heading to work himself (I'll go back to having very early mornings at Guerrero as necessary).  Each daycare person will monitor Jordan getting on and off his preschool bus, and they'll walk out to meet JD and Karianna at the bus stop-yes, they will begin riding the bus!  I will leave right after school from now on and plan on getting home right around 3:30 to relieve the sitters.  We truly recognize the sacrifice this is for those helping out and we are so grateful.

So where does this leave us long term? Well, we will only need childcare for 7 weeks, which is when I'll be off work for maternity leave.  At that point, I will be home with the kids all the way through spring break.  Before Jared got this job, I was planning to go back to work for the last 10 weeks of school.  However, the greatest part of this job is it has opened the doorway for me to come back home sooner-in other words, just not go back after maternity leave.  It would mean breaking my contract midyear, which I don't necessarily like the thought of, but which might be the best option for our family.  To be totally honest, we are pretty much planning on sailing in that boat.  It has become apparent to us lately that I need to be at home with my kids.  I am so blessed to have a job I love, and I have been very comfortable and at peace with being the main income provider for the last few years.  But we have to recognize how the spirit is orchestrating events to allow me to come home; we feel this is what is happening at this time.  It has also been Jared's goal, his most stressful one at that, to make it possible for me to be home with the kids.  It has been very hard for him to watch me stress out about work, the financial burden is places on me, and the time I have lost from the kids during the day.  He knows I am okay with everything, and he knows his time with the children has been extremely valuable.  But there is a reason he has applied like crazy for the last 3 years at every company under the sun-he wanted me to be able to come home.  For Jared, this has been an overwhelming blessing and he, in particular is so grateful for what it means for our family.

At this point, we are protecting my job security and insurance during my maternity leave and still "planning" on my returning to work.  Realistically speaking, we need to do so just in case something doesn't work out with Jared's job and I do, in fact, need to return to work.  You never know what will happen.  We also doubt Jared's insurance will cover my pregnancy only 21 days after it is activated.....thus, we need to ensure I am still employed until we settle those hosptial bills, which we are assuming will be around February.  At that point though, I will most likely resign and let my long term sub finish out the year (or the likes).  This is a hard choice for me, as I don't want any negative association with Mesa Public Schools, but our family comes first and I have to listen to the spirit in this case.  We still have a lot of prayers to offer up on this end, but we will be making contingency plans for both possible avenues.

The kids are super excited about this change for our family. They have been praying for Daddy's new job for weeks and they have all commented on what they like about the possibility of me coming home:  I can watch JD on the monkey bars, I can pick Karianna up from school, and I can just plain old be there with Jordan.  There are so many things that excite me about staying home, but that would fill up way too many virtual blog pages, so I will refrain from listing them.  Overall, we are extremely excited and grateful for this blessing.  The next 7 weeks will be difficult, but it will work thanks to our family and friends supporting our family.  I am working on enjoying my last quarter of working with my 3rd graders-I plan to enjoy every minute of it, especially now that I feel the stress lifting. The prospects are wonderful and I love my fabulous husband to pieces.  His love and care for me and my well-being exceeds anything I have ever seen and felt. 

Loving my family, loving my husband, loving the Lord!

She Loves Barney

Sara does not care about TV at all.  She has never seen the benefit, apparently, in sitting an watching something when she could be running around the house at top speed or playing with things that are supposed to be off limits.  However, she does indeed love all of our old Barney videos.  It is pretty much the only thing she will watch.  I think it is because she gets to pop up every few minutes to dance and sing along with a Barney song.  Her favorite is the Baby Bop Hop!  The other day, she literally planted herself down on the ground RIGHT in front of the TV and didn't move for several minutes.  It will ruin her eyesight, but it was to cute!

Sara's Lautenschlager Birthday

Since we haven't been able to give Sara a party as of yet, the Lautenschlager's offered to host the first one with Jared's side of the family!  It was so wonderful to hang out with everyone, and cute as pie to see Sara opening a few presents-she wasn't interested in it last year or course, so I was tickled to see her hesitating about ripping paper, since she's not generally allowed to do that at home!  The Lautenschlagers gave her a perfect present:  2 huge, soft dolls, which Sara LOVES!  Even Karianna covets them a bit, and that's when you know its a really cool present!

 Now, if the dolls weren't cool enough, the cake....well, the cake took the cake!  It was ginormous!  I have seen these things in Costco before and just though, that must be the best tasting chocolate cake in the world.  Well, it is.  :)  It is triple layered inside with rich, creamy chocolate frosting in between each layer.  SOOO good!  I think I ate half a sliver, got overwhelmed and could barely finish the rest of it! The kids ate it a bit faster, but that was normal!  Sara did a great job blowing out her candles and got good and messy eating her cake and a scoop of ice cream.  She loves singing happy birthday, so she gave herself her own rendition of it.  She looked kind of surprised when everyone said "Happy Birthday Dear Sara"!

 Sara also got this big girl backpack, which was the perfect size for her two big babies.  This backpack will actually become Jordan and Sara's daycare backpack, but Sara sure loves wandering around with it!  Its about as big as she is!  You can't tell, but in true Sara form, she has her hair all done, shoes on, but she isn't wearing any clothes-only a diaper.  :)

One of my favorite parts of Sara being two is if you ask her how old she is, she will immediately say "don't know".  Ask her again, and she'll say "1" with this mischivious smile on her face.  Ask her a third time, and she'll immediately say "2".  Adorable little girl-Happy Birthday!

Random Splash Pad Pics

On our way home from Prescott, we did stop off at the splash pad at Anthem park to play a bit. The kids had a blast climbing up the huge climbing structure, including Sara (though she wasn't a fan of the net bridges, she kept falling through them).  For the first time ever, Karianna and JD went down the tallest slides-and they are super tall!  Usually that can be a bit daunting because the slides are so steep, you run the risk of hitting your head on the side if you aren't careful.  However, JD and Karianna did great on them-squealing the entire way down!  Jordan was a little monkey on all the features and Sara was just screeching as she ran through the entire playground-a true sign that she is loving her surroundings.

We actually weren't planning to do the splash pad, but who can resist once you got all hot and sweaty?  Apparently Sara can, as soon as the splash pad came to life she ran away screaming.....but everyone else got pretty darn soaked and I wasn't really prepared with a change of clothes.  Luckily, we still had a swimming towel in the car, and I had at least a change of shirts for the boys (they were still in their funeral/church) clothes. They used the emergency underwear I have kept in the car for the last year-it has never been worn.  :) Karianna didn't get wet enough to really need a change of clothes, so the run through the water ended up being very doable!  It was also the only way we really did anything for Sara's birthday!!!  Don't worry Sara-we are celebrating with a big halloween party on the 29th, hang in there until then!

Sara's Birth Story

My other post about Sara just went way too long, so I figured I'd put her birth story in a separate post and get some birth pictures in here at some point. 

 Sara was officially due on October 19th, but we had scheduled for her to be induced on October 12th.  Although we had been through the induction routine with Jordan, Scottsdale Shea did it differently.  Once they had an available room in LDR, they would call us and we would come down.  Well, silly me, I really expected to be called sometime in the morning on the 12th....morning came and went, afternoon came and went, and evening came and went....before we knew it, we were at night time and I was super frustrated.  I had called the nurses at the hospital a bazillion times and although I was next on the list for several hours, they never seemed to quite get down to my name. 

Finally, right before 10ish, we got the call to come on in.  We called family to come stay with the other kids and we checked in at Scottsdale Shea  about an hour later. I became slightly more frustrated as they insisted on triaging me before actually admitting me...but thankfully it didn't take long to get contractions going with Pitocin and they checked me into a much more comfortable room.  Though it was the middle of the night, I wasn't able to rest too well because of the contractions...once I had my water broken (by a doc with very short fingers-ow!), I got my epidural and just worked on relaxing while my body transitioned.  I remember taking a good nap while aware of the pressure, just none of the pain.  I had to ask for my epidural levels to be raised once since it felt like it was wearing off faster than I wanted.  It was also the only time I felt like it was pooling slightly to one side.  After only a few hours, the nurses checked me and found I was fully dilated and ready to push!  It took one push-and only 6 counts of it-for Sara's head to pop out.  The entire process was very relaxing and fulfilling for me, as I was able to feel exactly where to push but still focus on Sara without worrying about the pain.  Just perfect for me. 

Once Sara was out, she was immediately placed on my belly, something I loved about this hospital.  The nurses moved around me and Sara to do their work while I just worked on bonding.  Jared was the official camera man, and I remember having him hold her for the first time-I love those first few moments of daddy-daughter bonding, it is a beautiful thing.  Sara was wonderfully healthy, I tore very little, and recovery was much quicker than with any of my other births.  For the first time, I kept Sara in my room with me every second of our 2 day hospital stay.  She slept in bed with me, I took oodles of pictures when I was awake, she literally never left my side.  We brought her home bright and early a few days later, and I remember the other kids being excited, but completely bleary eyed because our arrival woke them up.  :)  Wonderful day to bring Sara Grace home, and we have loved every minute with her since.

Happy 2nd birthday Sara!

Sara Grace is 2222222222!

Well, she is really just 2.  :) But I am excited for her regardless-Happy Birthday Baby!  And I need to stop calling you baby, I know!  Total habit, which won't go away for 9 more weeks, I promise!  Sara's birthday was unique in that we spent it at a funeral....as such, we didn't really do much for her today.  We are planning a wonderful, Halloween-y cousins party on the 29th, at which point we'll celebrate Sara with cousins, games, treats, and a few presents.  For now, I have to give my traditional "Here's what I love about Sara" post, as well as her birth story as I remember it.  So as previously noted (and only a few short phrases ago), here's what we love about Sara!

• Sara is a rough and tumble tomboy of a girl. She is constantly running around, climbing things, getting dirty, and plain old getting into trouble (it usually involves getting herself and other things/people dirty).  She is never wanting in the bruise department.  She hates having "owies" of any sort-if you try to look at it, wash it out, or cover it with a bandaid, she'll run away or cover it up with her clothes.  Such a contradiction though-lets just stop getting bruises!  Regardless, I love her energy and I love that she can keep up with the big boys of the house (Jared included).\
• Sara is a girly girl.  Best of both worlds!  She loves dresses, shoes, necklaces, flowers in her hair, getting dressed up, getting dressed down, and then getting dressed up again.  She loves putting on vaseline and carying around purses, or putting multiple babies in shopping carts and pushing them around the house.  She's just so funny in this sense because as much as she loves this stuff, she can be the complete opposite:  hair in her face, dressed in a diaper because she has ripped off her clothes, covered in marker and caking her fingernails with dirt.  Oh Sara-so multi-faceted.
• Sara is extremely strong-willed.  That is my kind way of saying she can be a stinker.  She knows exactly what she wants and likes, and if things go contrary to her preferences, she has no fear about letting you know.  I am happy to say this has gone from high pitched screams and fits to MOSTLY silent defiance, but it is still something she is working on.  I have a love/hate relationship with this character trait.  I am glad Sara is independent and has that strong will about her; I do not want to sqaush that.  At the same time, it gives us lots of opportunities to work on appropriate attitudes and reactions.  :)

• Sara likes taking her clothes off whenever she wants.
• Sara HATES baths.
• Sara loves any type of food and is not picky whatsoever.
• Sara gives the best dirty looks.  Today during the funeral, half the time she had a squinty expression on her face that said, "There is no way in this world you will ever get me to do that-don't even try it or you will face my wrath". 
• Sara loves to help.  She is great at loading/unloading the dishwasher, cleaning up her shoe basket, wiping the table with a lysol wipe, and she tries so hard to sweep!
• Sara loves nursery, which is great.
• Sara loves brushing her teeth.
• Sara hates putting on lotion.
• Sara loves her siblings-she copies every single thing they do.
• Sara talks all the time-lots of words and adding more 2-3 word phrases all the time.  She parrots everything.  In the car ride home from Prescott today, we were watching Barbie and the Princess Charm School.  At one point, the characters were dialoguing in short phrases and Sara was repeating everything they were saying.
• Sara likes this game, and I like her intonation at the end:  Sara, say Mama!  [Mama!] Say Dada! [Dada!]  Say Poo Poo!  [Poo Poo?!?!?  HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAA]
• Sara loves to color.  Unfortuneately, that includes on walls.  Our first kid to ever do it.
• Sar is oficially over her baby case of kidney reflux.  Her doctor verified that we do not even have to do a repeat VCUG, thank goodness!  She has been off meds for about 8 months now anyway, and has had no issues, so I was glad a doctor finally verified that.
• Though I forgot the actual numbers, Sara is in the 75% for weight, and the 90% for height.  Jared was uber excited to hear that last statistic as he is now planning on her being 5'11" when she grows up. Either way, she's growing fast!

I could go on and on about Sara, as you can probably tell, so I'll stop the list for now.  All in all, we LOVE Sara-she is such a light in our life and full of energy! Most days I wish I could have her energy and I look forward to all the things her 3rd year of life holds for her!  She is moving into a big girl bed this weekend and she is starting potty training within the next 6 months-turning into such a big girl that we adore!

We love you Sara Gracee

Baby Update

I don't think I've given a baby James update for a while, so a few updates pregnancy/baby wise:

• I am proud to say I passed my 1 hour glucose test!  Yea!  That has never happened out of 5 pregnancies, and for that I am super grateful-I hate that glucola drink! My levels were at 123, which again, has never happened.
• Although my iron levels were in the normal range, they were right on the brink of falling below normal, which very much explains my tendancy to get dizzy.  So while its not a worry, I need to increase my iron intake a bit.
• James is measuring right on schedule at 30 weeks, and is approximately 3 pounds right now.
• James is my most active baby by far-almost to the point of being a bit irksome (notice I said ALMOST, I still love the feel of baby moving in utero!) .  He gets hiccups every day now-he has them as I am typing. 
• James is still head down-has been for a while now.  I feel that I've gotten pretty good at determing which body part is which as he moves around-I'm fairly certain I could tell if he decided to flip now.
• I'm pretty much at the point in pregnancy (at least I feel like it!) where I feel like I"ve filled up all the space my body can easily offer without stretching too much.  That's the plus I guess of having a long torso.  It does mean, though, that I am starting to feel the major stretch.  I have round ligament pain a lot right now-no fun, but a definite sign that the end is approaching.
• Now that I have my long term sub all set up, I am planning to take off the 19th and 20th (to prep for my 21st due date.  That will give me a nice long weekend to try to go into labor and to stop worrying about all things school related.  I will do parent teacher conferences with only those students that might be in danger of retention or are having any other school related problems; those will happen the week before I take time off, maybe even 2 weeks before depending on how many there are and how my body is progressing. I am also starting this week making sure my reading/math unit folders are organized and basically prepped so my sub can just pull out the folder and have all the resources ready for weekly units.  Should make things pretty darn easy!  Or at leat that's my hope.
• I reorganized Sara's room today to prepare for her big bed transition, but also for James' transition into her room several months down the road.  Now that one side of her drawers are cleared out, I will probably start putting the first 3 months of boy clothes in those drawers (at least those that survived Joran's pyloricstenosis vomit).  Feeling like I am just barely starting to prep for an actual newborn to enter the house. :)
• I am excited to actually have a baby shower!  Weird right?  5th baby and I get a shower!  The staff at Guerrero throw a shower for your first baby while employed at Guerrero, it just also happens to be my 5th.  I already let them know we are pretty much covered except for diapers and if anyone else wants, gift cards will be the best bet.  I just feel special regardless of getting anything!

And that's about it for baby news!  I am glad all the bladder infection stuff is over and although I get pretty tired pretty easily, I am pretty good about staying active and staying normal-getting things done on a good timeline, keeping up with my job and the kids, etc.  Overall, I am sure the next 10 weeks will go super fast!  I have to add Christmas prep to my to do list sometime soon-that will really kick things in gear!

Warning: Nakedness!

Sara is in a phase where she loves to take off her clothes.  She just does.  We always wake her up and find her naked.  We frequently find she has shed her clothes and attempted to put new ones on (not always hers).  In this particular episode, she had taken off her clothes and had picked one of Jordan's shirts to wear instead.  However, she got kind of mixed up when she was putting it on, as you can tell.  My favorite part of this picture?  She looks like she has ripped abs!

It happened.

We nearly made it to 2 years without Sara figuring out how to climb out of her pack and play.  A miracle, really, given how she climbs onto everything known to man.  But it happened and now nothing is safe.  Time for me to officially toddler proof her room and switch her into her big girl bed.  It will get done over fall break-cross your fingers it goes well, especially for my most ambitious, active toddler!

Please ignore the mess that is her room-it has been in transition for a while.  In this particular incident, Sara climbed out of her bed, but she went the wrong way and managed to get herself stuck in between the wall and the pack and play. She was screaming bloody murder, poor girl!

Jared's Costume

Jared became Kariana's muse last night.  She wanted to play dress up and lucky Jared-he happened to be the only one not grading papers!  Congraultions, you've won a free costume, hair design, and lasting photograph!

The Presidential Speech

President Obama gave his annual education speech to the children of America today.  In MPS, we are asked to have all kids watch it (parents are given an opt-out policy).  I watched it with my 3rd graders-they paid attention for maybe the first 5-6 minutes, just because they probably thought it was cool to see the President talking to them. After that though, they got distracted, went back to their writing project they had been working on....I didn't do much to redirect them honestly, it really was not aimed for children, maybe high schoolers at best. 

Karianna came home from school reporting that she too had watched the address.  We asked her what she thought of it, and she said, "I really don't know...I didn't understand much of it and I got pretty bored.  I just wrote numbers-I got to 760."  Jared and I kind of laughed that off, not really believing it.  However, Karianna then pulled out 3 sheets of paper....each of which were covered with numbers from and back.  She did indeed get to 760. 

I support America as much as the next person, but I had to laugh at this one!

The Sunday Story: Twin Blessings

 We traveled down to Sahuarita this weekend to attend the twin's baby blessings-Suzie and Mark's twin girls, that is, Brenna and Shanna! They have grown so much since I saw them over Labor Day weekend!  They looked adorable in ther white dresses, and despite how many people were there, I still got to hold plenty of babies!  I'm not sure how our family ended up in the middle of this picture, but oh well!  Pretty soon it will be James' turn for his baby blessing! So excited!

UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.....

.....I am so not condoning this, but I couldn't help but laugh.  Karianna just asked Jordan, "Why is your underwear on backwards?"  Jordan responded, in a very teenager-ish voice, "None of your beeswax!"  Where did he hear that?

If you are still stuck on the part where Jordan's underwear is on backwards....that's just how it goes sometimes.  There are a few things I just don't care about as much, as long as they get done: putting shoes on, and putting underthings on.  If the kids can get them done without having to ask an adult to help them, then great....I can overlook something minor like backwards orientations.  You might not agree.  Sometimes you have to compensate when you have 4+ kids.  Take what you can get.

Disclaimer:  I realize this does not work with everything and I do correct my kids when I see it....sometimes.  :)