Girls Vs. Boys

As Ashley has gotten older I've noticed small differences between girls and boys. Well, besides the rather obvious ones.  But here are some I've had to laugh at.

If Steve and I kiss when the boys are around,  the automatic reaction is 'EW GROSS!!!' and they cover their eyes.  On Sunday Ashley was going to show me a picture she colored at nursery.  Steve told her "you need to wait, I'm going to kiss Mommy"(he was joking).  What does she do? She backed up so she could watch...

Boys watch the movies and quote all the funny or gross parts of a show.  Ashley watched Little Mermaid the other day. She would let me know what was happening throughout the movie. After it got done, she came running in "Mommy! She got her voice back and then they got MARRIED!!!" She was giddy. And when she's happy those little eyes sparkle!

The boys are very much in love with their new little sister. They fight over who gets to hold her but are just as happy walking away and going about their business.  Every night Ashley prays that Heidi will get big and grow teeth and eat big food and learn to walk. She wants her little sister to play with her!

I have loved my boys and girls and have enjoyed watching them grow up into their own little people. It just makes me more excited to see who these little people will grow to be!!

A Rather Telling Story...

Jakob was supposed to read a story on different points of view - or something to that effect.  The day he was writing went along like any others.  And this is the story he came up with (it was typewritten and this is the exact spelling and font sizes he used...):

_________________________________________

Mommy sense we got home from school can I have some
 banana balls?  No.  Monkey I already told you that.
 But why not? I’m really hungry! No.

Can I play the wii?  No! Please can I?
Stop asking for things!!! But I’m bored.

Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

can I play on the computer ? No! How about now?

No! Please? Stop asking!

__________________________________

Now I must say, I don't say no NEARLY that often but to an 8 year old apparently this is how his day goes.  And to justify myself I DID let him have the "banana balls" which were actually cheese balls. I might have said no to the other things. ;)

Some Updates and Our Little Heidi

We haven't posted since we got the entertainment center (except for the vote for us thing that didn't work right...) so here is the last 3 months in review(quickly) before we move on to what everyone wants to see - our cute little girl!

December passed in a blur. We  were home or the store where we had some great business. It was fun having everyone come in for the first time to see our store.

Christmas was FUN!!! We enjoyed our time in Idaho with siblings and cousins.  Steve and I got to go to the temple the next morning and enjoyed some yummy Thai food while we were in Twin Falls. YUMMY.

For New Years we went to a party at our neighbor's house and had a blast.  We played games and ate lots of good food.  They let all the kids bang on pans at midnight and it was lots of fun!

In January we were busy getting things ready for an author signing.   We got to have Brandon Sanderson come to our store.  We had our store packed to capacity!! It was amazing.  He is my favorite author so just having him there was great. The publicity for our store was great. :) We were even in the newspaper a few days before!!  We sold out of some of his books and its fun to tell people the ones we still have were signed. He's planning to come back and we can't wait!!

In February we started getting ready for the next event. We had 7 authors come in and sign their books. It was fun. While we didn't have as many people show up, it was still an awesome turn out and it was fun to meet all the authors!

Valentine's Day was nice. We went to Cafe El Lago and had a yummy dinner.   We'd also gone to a church dinner/ dance a couple weeks before. They did an AMAZING job with it!!

Oh I missed another thing. I was called for the Women's coach for basketball. 23 women signed up. 12 - 14 show up every time.  How do I make that many women feel they had fair play and make sure we have fun? Good question.  But I tried my hardest.  We lost some, won a couple, had a battle or two but its been fun.

So on we move to the main event.  Anyone that's been around me for the last oh, 9 months, you know how much I was looking forward to this little girl!!

March 1st I got the call at 5:15 to go into the hospital. I called my sister and she came over to stay with the kids.  Jakob was at his friend's house for the night (which he loved but said he didn't fall asleep until 2 AM).  We got to the hospital at 6:20 but got set up with pitocin at 7:35.

They slowly moved the pitocin up every half hour and it didn't get hard until probably around 10 or 11.  By that time I wasn't having fun anymore.  Steve was entertaining me with shows on YouTube and asking me questions about orders for the store.  I finally gave in and got the epidural.

It took FOREVER to have it kick in. At about 12:00, I was at 4 and then jumped to a 4 1/2 in 15 minutes.  The epidural finally kicked in just as they said I was ready to have the baby. It took more time to track down the doctor than it did for me to go from a 4 to a 10!!  1 1/2 pushes later, Heidi was born.

I thought she looked like Ethan at first but then noticed Ashley's chin.  Now I think she just looks like herself...  Everything went SO well and I felt better after this delivery than any of my other 5!!  It was great from beginning to end (except for the whole epidural not working at first).

So Adelheid (Heidi) Pearl Weist was born at 1:14(Steve guessed 1:38) PM.  She was 7 lb 4 oz and 18 1/2 inches long. She's my smallest and has been a joy.  My kids love her. Ethan even says her name and loves to touch - which means Mom has to be right by her!!

So here are pictures of my little girl!

Love Your Local Business

I planned on having something much more exciting for my next blog(I don't even have Christmas on here!!) but I decided this is pretty cool itself.

Intuit that does Turbo Tax, etc has a contest for local businesses where people can comment and vote on the businesses they love. Then they give out grants to the winners.

I just wanted to give anyone the opportunity to vote for us if you love us. If not, I guess that's fine too. :)  Just click on the ad, type in the name of our store and the city(Eagle Mountain, UT) and vote.

Thanks!  Next post will be exciting. I promise!

Ok, so I learned that that link doesn't work... so try this one instead:

http://lovealocalbusiness.intuit.com/?business_id=f0c47c6b91350463081b4da6dce570bc&vtid=email_conf_sbo

Merry Christmas to Us!!

Here's an update to our entertainment center dilemma.  We were going to look at Knights Furniture because we have gotten great deals there before but decided to check elsewhere first.  One of our friends mentioned freecycle.org which I hadn't even thought of!  They didn't have anything but it made me think to check KSL.com classifieds. Right there as the first post there was a GORGEOUS entertainment center. It was everything I'd wanted and it was only $150!!! I thought for sure it had to be gone but decided to call them in case - after taking a picture of the picture and texting it to Steve to see what he thought.

We called and it was available!! I was ecstatic.  Steve borrowed our pickup we're sharing from my sister and went to Riverton to pick it up. I was stranded at the store for an extra hour but I didn't care because we got a GREAT deal!!!

So here is our Christmas present to ourselves.  Woohoo!!!

Jakob's Story

Jakob had to write  story for school.  He had to come up with a disguise for a turkey this is what he came up with (with his spelling):

Once upon a time Morris foun out that he was about to get killed! So he thout of a way to get away from them. Finaly he thout that he could steel a football players jersy. So that is just what he did.

So a few days later he found out that ther was a football game that thanskgiveing.  So that thanksgiving he went to the game and something was weird. Nobody was trying to kill him for diner. Everybody like him. They were calling him things like Max Hall. So Morris decided to change his name to Max Hall. When the game started Max Hall was all over the place! he had made 50 touchdowns in the 1/4! "he's on fire"! said the anouncer. "that is a new record for Max Hall.! Wait He set a world record!", said the other anouncer. But then he got 100 touchdowns in the 2/4. So Max Hall decided that he liked being a football player so he stayed one.

The End.

Hmmm... a little football anyone? Jakob decided he loves football recently. I'm not sure I'm ready for him to play football but the kid's got an arm like you wouldn't believe so I guess I may have to deal with it!! Meanwhile I'll just enjoy his imagination!!!

What We Want For Christmas

Steve and I have debated for a few years about an entertainment center.  Ours was okay so we never felt the need to get a new one... Until tonight!  We needed to move it over a little so we could fit the exercise bike next to it so we could put the tree where we wanted it.  Well, it decided to take matters into its own hands and let us know what we wanted/needed for Christmas.  It slid and fell and broke!  The amazing thing was that the tv stayed on and none of the speakers fell off.  I'm just thankful that the kids were out of the way! They all watched it fall. I felt like we were on America's Funniest Home Videos as we watched it fall!!  So now its time to decide what kind. :)

Here are a couple of pictures.  The first was a few months ago. Nice boxes of books, eh? So glad to have them out of our house in the store!!!  The next was right after it fell and the last is from the side where you can see the lovely broken particle board underneath.

 

Silly Boy

So Ethan decided to be big today. Steve had to be gone for church today so I was there with all five kids and had to teach Relief Society!! I tried to figure out what to do with Ethan and remembered he was only a week away from going to nursery. I decided to see if it was okay for him to go and they said we could try. I walked in and set him down - and he never looked back!! He went from the fridge to the toys and back several times and didn't look my way once! I backed toward the door and he didn't budge. He glanced at me for a split second but otherwise ignored me. So out I went. I peeked a few times before going to Relief Society and then went to teach - and hoped he would be fine!!

I rushed out of the room after the lesson was over to get Ethan. Did he cry during nursery? They told me the first time he cried was when I came to get him because he finally realized I was gone!! Now if only he'll do that for the rest of his nursery time.... Wish us luck!

Now to explain the picture below. If you ignore the mess behind him (that's my next stop for cleaning), you'll notice he's screaming holding an iron. Don't worry, it wasn't plugged in - since that happens rarely at our house. ;) But he sure wanted to take it out of the office and fought with the cord that was stuck for a good three minutes before we could get it from him. That scream was bad enough - it was even worse when Steve managed to get it away. My silly boy. :)

A Day of Firsts

Saturday we had a busy day doing errands. But there was something I KNEW we needed to do that night before bedtime. Andy's hair was just getting way too long so I decided it was haircut day. Ashley was a little bummed she wasn't part of it. So while Steve went and stained the countertop at the store, I gave them all haircuts. Ethan got his first real haircut! Man, he did NOT like the buzzer!! He screamed, trying to climb over my leg so he could get away from it. But off went all the cute little curly locks and out came my not-so-little boy!! I wish I could have gotten a picture Steve's reaction. He wasn't very happy that I got rid of Ethan's curls. Here area few of the cute before and afters. I saved the curls but sadly the before didn't get much of them!

The next big thing we had that day was that Andy showed us he is really a shark! He was showing me something in his mouth and I made him open wider. I was quite surprised to find TWO teeth coming in back behind his front bottom teeth!! One was barely loose and the other wasn't at all. Then there was the sequin we found stuck between the two teeth but that's a different story. Anyway, here's a picture. It doesn't show up great but if you look hard you'll see the teeth coming in! One is still barely loose and if you wiggle it, it bumps into the one behind it... So I think we'll be off to the dentist. The funny thing is, I had kept reading blogs about different kids having their first tooth out and wondered when Andy's first would fall out. He had had one that was loose for a long time(although its actually not anymore!). Then I go and find out he has TWO growing in! I guess he decided to do it the unconventional way!

Halloween

I LOVE Halloween. Its my favorite to decorate for and I'm excited to get out my sewing stuff and sew costumes - even if they also stress me out. :) But they always turn out better than I'd hoped which is great.

The first pictures are the decorating of the pumpkins - and I realized I have pictures of the finished products! Ashley painted her ENTIRE pumpkin so we had to wait a couple hours for it to completely dry before we could take it outside. They all had a blast. I gave Ethan a marker for his. :)

Steve was Scottish holding Ethan who was Squirt from Finding Nemo. The picture is a little dark but hopefully you can see his cuteness. Andy was Spiderman. Ashley was the red Fairy(Rosetta?) from Tinker Bell. That was one costume I fought with but LOVE the turn out! So does Ashley since she wears it all the time - I did get to wash it yesterday. :) Gavin was Diego and he was PERFECT for it. He loved being Diego and was surprised he didn't care that his blue shirt was an inside out shirt because usually he doesn't like that!! Oh and I was a Gothic Pregnant Mommy. Like my nose and lip ring? My kids didn't!! They were happy when I took them off. Jakob was a knight. His costume was a pain - which is funny since I thought it would be easy!! Doesn't work when the neck somehow gets sewn together!! It was fine when it was inside out, but as soon as I turned it the right way it was sewn together. So I plucked it all apart and did it MY way and it turned out awesome! If I do say so myself. :)