The weeks before school started were kind of how I expected the whole summer to go.  All the things I had planned for the summer had ended, and they were just bored.  I was ready for them to start school, and so were they!

 

Here, Preston realized he could reach the water button, and kept pushing it.  Each time it would splash him in the face, then I'd hear him gasp because it was so cold.  Then a pause, then he'd laugh and do it again.



After being in California for a month by herself, my mom decided to move back to Utah.  We were all really excited.  She listed her house, and had a lot of interest in it.  She sold it a few weeks later, and found a place to rent here.

 

So she just started packing up, and got everything ready to move.  Matt went out the weekend of Aug. 24, with Carl and Greg, and packed everything into a U-haul and brought it out here.  It's been so much nicer having my mom here.  She also seems a lot happier!

 

Sometimes, for my sake,  I feel like I have to write down an entire day, just so I can look back and see why I felt like raising kids was so hard.
Yesterday was a normal to hard day. But mostly just long! Yesterday was Monday, and Matt was gone all weekend helping my mom move back out here to Utah.  So, the weekend was anything but rejuvenating!  I put Preston to bed late hoping that he would sleep in, and I could start out the week on a good note!
5:30- Averi and Piper cheerfully come in our room and ask if they can watch a show.  I told them it was the middle of the night, and to just go back to bed. I know they went upstairs.
6:20- Preston woke up, just talking.  I was so tired, and just pretended like I didn't hear him, hoping he'd fall back to sleep.  Of course he didn't. So I made him a bottle, and 3 min later he was down there talking.
6:40-Averi, Piper and Asher are all upstairs screaming, and fighting.
7:00- I give up, and get Asher ready for school, and send him on his way.
7:30- Clean, get the kids showered and ready for dance.
9:00- I put Preston down for a nap and started a workout DVD (Insanity)  The girls loved it, and "worked out" with me.  It was really cute.
10:00- Cleaned, did laundry, and showered.
11:00- Brought the girls to their first dance class. The girls absolutely loved it!
11:30- I came home to load the dishwasher and put dinner in the crock pot.  Matt came home for lunch around then.  I mentioned to him the the A/C was acting weird, then left to pick up the girls.
12:30- We came home to Matt, frustrated and sweaty, everywhere in the A/C unit was frozen, and since it had been off for a few hours, it was now dripping everywhere. From here we did lunch, I moved the crock pot outside, and played with the kids.
1:30- The girls went down for a nap, and Asher came home from school.  I did a hair cut, and the A/C guy came.  It was too hot for Averi to sleep, so she played outside with Asher.  Then I put Preston down again, and worked on the website for a little bit.
3:00- I left for a dentist appointment.
4:30- I got home and went outside to look at dinner, and realized that when I plugged the crock pot back in I didn't pick a setting, so it was just keeping the food warm.  I went and got a frozen dinner from the freezer and started heating the house up even more.
5:00- Went to the bank
6:00-Dinner, and FHE.  Matt had gone up to Salt Lake and grabbed a huge A/C unit from his work.  It cooled the living room 1 degree per hour.  So at midnight the living room was down to 80 degrees.
At about 7 when we were about to put Asher to bed he came out of the bathroom and said that when he was outside playing a mover (some neighbors are moving in and they had a huge moving comp. do it) that was a big Polynesian guy with a goatee (he used his hands to describe what a goatee was) asked him if he could take Asher somewhere to talk in private.
I was dying inside when he told me this, and I asked him what he said.  Asher goes, "I could tell he wasn't a good guy, so I said no.  Because, if I talked to him in private, he'd take me into the bathroom, do bad stuff and shoot a hole in my back."
I was so proud of him for trusting his own instincts, and knowing when people are being weird, for lack of a better word.  A few weeks ago we talked about "bad" people, and what types of things are red flags, and stuff.  It was about a 2 hour conversation, but he absorbed everything we talked about, thank goodness!
7:30- Asher and Averi went to bed, and Matt left to go help my mom move more stuff.  I put Preston down around 8, and Piper just wanted to be right by me.  She just laid on my for like an hour, and complained that I was hot.  Asher still kept coming out of his room, he was too hot.  So I made a bed for him in the basement, and he fell asleep there.
9:00 I put Piper down and sat down to watch a show and eat a bowl of ice cream.  (I still had 300 calories left over from the day)
10:00- Matt got home, we talked, my mom got home, we all talked.  Then went to bed.
11:00- We were just about asleep when I heard a blood curdling scream from upstairs.  I ran up there, and Averi was on her hands and knees, leaning over the floor with a bloody nose.  There was blood EVERYWHERE!  Matt, of course, gets the carpet, I get the kid and bedding. (we've been through so many late night horrible disasters like this, that we don't even say a word the entire time. We know our duties, and just clean as fast as we can so we can get to bed, and never speak of it again.)
12:00-We finally fell asleep.
1am- Preston's up.  I put the bottle back in his mouth because it was half full, then went back to bed.
1:20-Preston's up. I had him sleeping in shorts, but thought he might be cold, so put his pajamas on.
1:50- Preston's up.  Made him a bottle, and he finally stayed asleep.  I realized I left the crock pot on outside. I worried about it for a while, but decided I was too tired to get up and do anything about it.
6:30- Every one's up for the day, to do it all again!

Piper's so sweet and cute.  She's by far my snuggliest kid!  She would like to part of me, some days she asks me to hold her all day long.  It's like she just needs that.  I really try to snuggle with her as much as I can.  I love it, but she sometimes wants to snuggle, just because another kid needs something right then. 

She's my best sleeper too.  I still put the girls down everyday for naps.  Piper always sleeps!  She asks for naps, and take a 2-3 hour nap everyday.  Sometimes when I lay them down I hear Averi running around in her room.  She'll get up and lock herself in her room, then when Piper wakes up 2 hours later she'll start banging on her door and tell me she woke up.  I don't care that Averi doesn't sleep, but I think Averi likes that alone time.  She doesn't ever come down, unless someone comes over. 

Averi's personality is just getting so cute!  At night before she goes to bed she always wants to sing a song to me.  She always makes it up as she goes, and as soon as she's through she quickly asks if I like it.  It's about the cutest thing.

Also, every time she says did, she says it twice.  Like, "Mom, what did did you do?"  After hearing it so much, it sounded normal to me while I was just typing it.

I've said it before, but I love how these girls play together, especially when it's just the two of them.  They make up names for each other, or whoever their character is, then they just do their own thing.  Usually for a long time. Today they were pretending, and Piper was "Mom", and Averi was Che-dada.  So Piper kept calling Che-dada, and Averi goes, "I'm not Che-dada, I'm Che-da-che. So Piper calls her that.  Then Averi goes, "I'm Che-da-cha, that's Melissa." So Piper calls her that.  Then Averi goes, "I'm Che-da-Melissa".  Instantly, Piper goes, "Che-da-Melissa are you ready to put your baby to sleep?"  I love how when they pretend they agree with each other on everything.  They never get frustrated, and they always act like the other persons ideas are perfect. 

The kids playing in my shoes.

Not the best picture, but I really don't have/post many pictures of myself.

I love that face!  He's such a happy kid!  He's teething right now, and not so happy. But he's usually happy to have the other kids smother him, and squish him.  They (Piper) are so rough with him, and he just gets so excited every time he sees them.  I don't get it! He loves the stairs, and goes up and down them all day long.  He was my easiest as far as stairs go.  He was super scared of them, and wouldn't get close to them.  Then learned how, was still cautious, now he's comfortable on them, and goes up and down all the time. 

Asher has always loved snow boots! He'll wear those things year round if I'd let him. (I obviously let him and he does)

Asher's first day of 1st grade.  He tries so hard to make a normal face when he's getting his picture taken. His teacher is Ms. Oliekan, she's so nice!  I was so nervous, and worried about what teacher he'd get, and how his behavior would be.  It wasn't the best in Kindergarten, and even worse when he changed schools.  I worked with him so much this summer, and between that, and him growing up, and sleeping better, he's been so good!

He told me a little story the other day about how he told her something, and she called him Mr. smarty pants, because he was so smart.  He loved that!  She has a reward program, where he can earn tokens, then each Friday he can get a toy or something with them.  So he's really good, so he can earn tokens.  I'm just really proud of him, and really happy with her.  She's perfect!

When Matt was out taking pictures of Asher you would think that the girls were going to school too.  They were so excited, they were jumping around while he was getting out the door.  I can't even think about what it'll be like when they go.  It's making me teary eyed just thinking about it!

I love her! She's just a good girl.  She listens, is silly, and loves me, and everyone else in the family so much! Every time I give her a treat or anything she always wants 2, one for her, and one for her friends.  When we got in the car yesterday, she grabbed some change from the center console, and told me she needed it for her friends.  So she and Piper were talking about how many friends they had. This is what I heard when she was naming them. She goes, "My friends names are, Cheila, Cheilie, Sheila, Sheilie, and Cheila, and Cheilie.  Mom! I have a lot of friends huh!?"  All of her imaginary friends are really good friends to her.  Cheila is the one I hear about on a daily basis.  And yes, that's how she spells it. :)

I love her too!  I think she would like for me to take pictures of her, then chase her around outside all day, then of course tickle and snuggle with her once I catch her. I should do that sometime.

The day Asher left for school I had gotten up early and worked out, then Asher left for the bus at 7:30, so by 9, the house was clean, and Preston was asleep.  So I made play dough for the girls.  They loved it.  They were really cute, and it was actually a really good recipe.  I'll definitely make that one again.  It was baking soda, cornstarch and water.

I took the girls down to this little dance store in American Fork and got them a little dance outfit for their new dance class that I signed them up for. As soon as they put on their clothes they instantly turned into "princess ballerina's".  They couldn't have been happier.  And they loved their class.

Averi dancing.

They just made up their own songs, and danced to them for a long time!

You can see how serious they are about being ballerinas.

 

Every time I open the dishwasher up, this little guy comes running.  He actually just started walking last weekend, so he actually comes toddling.  He's a cute little walker, he's so stalky, and it's a lot of work to walk!

The other morning I decided I wasn't going to yell at the kids anymore.  So instead of yelling at them I had to talk calmly, but give more consequences if they didn't listen to me when I talked quietly.  So Asher ended up having to unload the dishwasher, and was 20 min. late for school.  In fact, he'll be unloading it when he wakes up tomorrow morning too! 

 

Asher has been so unbelievably good this week. He has been really sweet to "the sisters" (that what he calls them, I love it).  I've been a lot more firm, but without emotion, and he's given me 1,000 hugs.  I think it's working out well for both of us.

Also, Asher is reading so well! I have him read one verse of the scriptures every day, and since he's been doing that he just started reading really well!

All the kids are doing really well right now. I'm so proud of all of them, I hope they all grow up knowing how much I love them, and how they are my number one priority in everything I do.  Matt too, but I spend so much more time with them.

Matt's been really busy with his work at Sunbelt, and he's always got stuff in the evenings.  He helps neighbors a lot with stuff, and a lot of time working on the yard, or projects around the house.  We have so many that we're in the middle of right now.  I thought we'd be faster taking care of all the things we wanted to change when we moved in, but you can get used to things quickly.

I've been working, in the salon downstairs a lot, and trying to get our HCG website going.  That has been a huge pain, but I think we're getting closer.  I've been having fun making my own stuff too lately.  I made my own yogurt, laundry detergent, dish washing detergent (that wasn't the best stuff), freezer meals, and bread.  I'm sure there are some other things, but nothing comes to mind.