Officiallly a Minivan Mom!

We took the plunge and bought a Kia Sedona this morning. We test drove it on Saturday and everything seemed great, so we went in today and finalized things. Both older kids were in school, so we could concentrate on what we were signing. I must say, it feels very big while I am driving it, even though it is still smaller than most of the SUV's on the road.

The kids were very excited when they saw it, they are already arguing about who gets to sit on which side. One side has one more cup holder than the other causing a bit of contention. I may have to work out some sort of schedule if they keep it up. We are already looking forward to roadtrips with all the extra space! And now I will be more soccer mom at soccer practice than ever!

Goals!

Lately, I have been really evaluating and looking at things I want to do and accomplish. I have a list of projects that need to be finished and I need somewhere to be a bit accountable for them. So here goes....

I have a tendency to start things and not finish, or buy things for projects that don't get started. So I was looking around my sewing room and feeling a bit claustrophobic. It is the room you first see when you enter the house, so I would really like to streamline things in there a bit. So I got out all my part way finished projects and lined them up. I am giving myself three months to finish them all.

Thus far, I have finished a skirt for Bella that I started last fall, it still fits, yay! And I finished my freshcut charm quilt. I feel pretty good about those considering I have to sneak sewing time in while Sophie is asleep or in the few minutes she plays in the exersaucer.

After the three months is up, or before if I get everything completed, I will start on the stuff I have bought to do projects but just haven't started yet. I plan on saving knitting and handwork stuff for when the kids are at their various sport practices and evenings while watching TV. My overall hope and goal is to consolidate all projects and materials into my one large white cabinet. Rid myself of projects I no longer am interested in and cut down on the stuff that has been sitting there for years. That means I need to clear out the small white cabinet and the plastic drawer bins. As well there are three other bins of fabric that need to be projected. My cheese at the end of the maze is a nice comfy chair for the corner to make the room homey and more comfy. I will try and post pics as I finish up things. And I will try and get in a few tutorials for my friend Crystal!

Things Sophie likes to do

Sophie would really really like to drink out of a cup. She watches us like hawkes at the dinner table and really wants to see what it is all about. I am really in no rush so far as food goes for her, so she is outta luck. I still need to acquire a high chair, pump enough milk to mix with cereal, and make a few more bibs. Then she will get the all important intro to food. If she follows in her brother or sisters footsteps, she will not think baby food is all it's cracked up to be and request to eat what the rest of us are eating, thankyouverymuch!

Sophie has also learned the trick of sitting up for a while by herself. She finds this to be delightful and a bit frightening all at the same time. She will perch like this until she is tired, then she will curl/roll onto her side. Gotta work those abs....

She has also learned that she should smile at the camera! What a ham! I will pull the camera out and she will look in awe for a moment, then smile. I take the camera away, she stops smiling, put it back, she smiles.

Also this week her bottom two teeth have broken through, so she hasn't been feeling very well. She keeps running her tongue over her gums and looking really concerned-like what are those very sharp things stuck in my mouth! She is over a month younger than Jack and Bella were when they got their first teeth, so I am at a bit of a loss on how to help her best. She really doesn't like her teethers, not to chew on at least, and she hasn't got any experience with regular food, so chewing on other stuff isn't really an option. I tried to get her to chew on a cool wet washcloth, but she looked at me like I was crazy for putting such a thing in her mouth. I will just have to wait it out.

Peep! and Patches

When my mom came in October, she brought this fabulous, soft, yellow fleece so I could make Bella a jacket. It took me a while to find a good coordinate for the lining, but when I saw these dots, I knew I had a winner. There were bits of yellow fluff all over me, my sewing machine, and the carpet. But the end result is great! She does look a bit like a marshmallow peep, and it brightens up the day to see such happy colors.

In my sewing adventures of the past week, I decided to patch some of Jack's jeans. He gets holes in all the knees so quickly and I am not really fond of patching them, but I seem to be spending a small fortune on new jeans for him, so I piled everything up and dove in. I took a pair of jeans that was already too small, and had holes in the knees and cut off the back of the leg. I cut patches from this and patched all the jeans he can still wear. When he came home, he was excited to see a pile of jeans ready to go. I sneakily put the cutter pair on the top and made him try them on. He couldn't figure out how he had managed to tear his jeans so badly and not notice......crazy kid.

Since we have had sooo much snow, I have been sending the kids out to play whenever they show interest. This particular day they spent about three hours building a fort, making snow angels, and piling up snowballs. I saw the fort in progress and thought to myself- I will get a great picture of that when it is finished. They had been filling up buckets and making snowblocks out of the snow for walls. Well, I went to take a picture and the had destroyed the fort! I am trying to get them to build it again. Anyway, after all that time, they loved coming in for cocoa.

Sophie had her four month check up this past Monday. She weighs 14 lbs 15 ozs-so basically 15 lbs. She is 25.5 inches long. This may sound big, but she is by far my smallest baby. She also has started rolling whenever she wants, so she is spendin a lot more time on the floor than ever before. I was safe for a few weeks while she only rolled front to back, but now that she can do back to belly, I am in trouble. The doc said she looked great and come back in a few months. She did get some shots, which is always sad, but she does okay overall. She gives me that "How could you betray me!" look for a minute then moves on.

Frustrating!

Well, over the past week I have tried to upload a video to blogger of Sophie laughing and each time I do it, my computer freezes and I lose the whole post. Then last week something went wonky with Windows and it decided to reload itself. So now there are too many things to fix before I can really delve into the ins and outs of uploading video.

Sophie was four months old this past Saturday. She is growing sooo fast. She is really beginning to be interested in everything around her. She is really starting to have people preferences as well. She likes everyone as long as I am around. She doesn't like her food to get too far away.

We went to the opthamalogist for Jack this past Friday. His eyes are doing good and holding steady. The doc said without the glasses they would deteriorate, so keep up with him wearing them. He is usually pretty good about it, but about three weeks ago his glassed broke beyond repair and he has been going without. We got two pairs picked out for him and need to venture out into the major snowstorm to pick them up today.

Bella is taking it upon herself to uphold the family tradition of knocking out a front tooth at age 4. I was changing the sheets on Jacks bed and they decided to play roll down the mattress. Well, of course she slammed into the wood part of the bed and bloodied her lip and loosened her front tooth. So I guess technically it isn't out yet. I am trying to give it a few days to see if it will firm up and stay until it is ready to come out on it's own. Jack was climbing onto a trampoline and slipped and knocked his front tooth out when he was 4. Nate's big sister was walking by him while he was playing on the floor and kicked his front tooth out when he was 4. My dad had something similar happen to him when he was 4. Now I am totally grateful all these have been baby teeth. And I pray none of them will go my route and have a biking accident at 17 which results in a very expensive titanium implant. Nevertheless, I plan on fitting Sophie with a mouth guard as soon as teeth appear....

Port-a-Potty

I completely forgot to mention the port-a-potty at Christmas. Above is a picture of it sitting in my mom's driveway. Yep-you read that right, in her driveway. You may ask-is her house under construction? No, no it's not. She suffers from one bathroom syndrome. An unfortunate condition of many homes built pre-1990. In years past this has been quite and issue. It seemed a potty training child was always pounding on the otherwise occupied water closet, unnerving the person inside. Regular adults don't seemed primed to always go to the bathroom with company. I myself am rarely alone in the bathroom, I think it was around 2001 the last time I didn't have to entertain someone, teach them to use the potty, or yell at them to leave me alone through the door.

This year my mom provided room and board for 10 people, and decided we must have an alternative to pounding on the door. Knowing complete home renovations take more than a few weeks, the rental of the port-a-potty was the chosen solution. Other possible solutions that lost out were pounding on the neighbors door, or teaching all boys what it means to be a true outdoorsman. All said and done, it was a hoot, of course all the little kids had to use it. Thankfully it was very very clean, and even had a heater inside. I sooo want to know what her neighbors thought! I guess the port-a-potty company failed to pick it up promptly, so they had it in the neighborhood for a few weeks. I must say, it did fit in nicely between the bushes. And it served it's purpose saving people from rather uncomfortable encounters.....

Happy New Year!

I just noticed it has been over two weeks since I wrote an entry. I am sure it is due to the craziness of the holidays along with the week in Oregon. I managed to get through it all with just one minor breakdown. I always want to have everything packed and organized the day before we leave along with all of us in bed by 8. Well, when I realized that was not going to happen, I had a bit of a panic attack. But all was well and we made it to Oregon and back safely and sanely.

The kids had a great Christmas. I think they got everything they wanted/needed/ever dreamed of. Sophie traveled like a dream. She only was fussy when she was hungry or had a messy diaper. I was really pleased and astonished with how well she did. Jack and Bella were good as always, they are used to the long car trips and know we will get wherever we are going eventually. We played car baseball, and I won. Jack made up the game and I think he slanted it in my favor. Every red car was a single, green, blue and white got you out. Emergency vehicles were home runs. There were a few others, but I don't recall them all right now. Bottom line, I beat Nate 82-18.

My brother brought his girlfriend and her kids this year. All the kids had a ball and got along swimmingly. Her youngest happens to be named Jack, so we had 7 year old Jack and 3 year old Jack. He didn't really want to be called little Jack, so we will have to figure out something else. They gave Isabella a makeup kit for Christmas and she proceeded to paint my fingernails and toenails. She did a decent job for a four year old, and she got quite a kick out of being able to put glitter all over my face.

Jack got scrabble from his great aunt and uncle, and a dictionary from one of the grandmas and I think he was entertained by those for hours. I love that he can go from playing Star Wars to spelling out ordeal in scrabble and have the same amount of fun doing each. He always inspires me to enjoy what is going on and love whatever I am doing.

We went out to dinner for Nate and my grandma's birthday. Nate got some money toward a bike and a few other fun things. We are going to try and go biking this summer all together, so he needs one and we will have to get a trailer for Sophie.

Then we headed back to Utah for New Years. We stayed up mainly because Sophie was still awake, I know we are party poopers, but well rested most of the time. Today we went on a cleaning/unpacking blitz, as Nate's fam came over for pizza and games. It feels good to have the house mostly clean. I really need to organize the girls room, but we are overall good. I can't believe it is 2008, we spent the evening going over goals for the year and getting ready to jump back into our regular schedules. We were so blessed in 2007, if this year is even half as good, we will be lucky kids.