mish-mash

this post is all over the place. I want to remember so many fun things! We are getting ready for christmas in a few days - the kids have worked hard around the house to earn money to buy each other presents this year and are really excited about their gifts.

We had 2 lovely Christmas recitals for my piano students - I never got any pictures of Cadie - or Cadie and Libby playing their duet which i would have loved, but I got this cute photo of 5 of my sweet little girls enjoying treats after playing so beautifully.

We have done the usual christmas stuff this year:

gingerbread house (thanks to a sweet friend of mine) christmas lights drive, decorating the tree (which gets re-done almost every day - they LOVE taking the ornaments off, playing with them and then putting them back on - usually with a few creative additions - I have found everything from hair elastics to toilet paper rolls adorning our tree) carolling, nativity play and christmas movies. We have also been enjoying too many sweets this year!

I took pictures of the kids on produce day because I have given up on making dinner on those days - the kids are so excited to see all the fresh fruit and vegetables in the bin I can't resist saying "go nuts" - here they are devouring raw zucchini, tomatoes, grapes and apples. Yummy dinner...

Funny things - we had our christmas program in church and corey wasn't attending that day so the kids had to sit with another family while I played the piano - I came back after the program to overhear a young woman telling Cadie "It's time for nursery. Shall we?" (offering her hand to go) Cadie replied haughtily: "My name is NOT Shallwe, it's Cadie." Another not so funny experience that Libby will one day kill me for putting on here - after baths most nights my kids get hyper. I give them baths as part of their bedtime routine to help calm them down and relax before bed. I should give up. Bath time is their favourite part of the day. I can't remember how it started but they play this silly game with each other after they get out of the tub - I wrap them in a towel and they immediately plop on the floor all curled up under the towel - the next kid out of the tub of course jumps onto the towel covered lump and sings "my boogie, my boogie, my boogie woogie woogie" (or if you're david - just the tune with random syllables) while bouncing on top of the poor lump. For some reason they love it - even the lumpy child. They even take turns! Anyway, a few nights ago Cadie was the lump and Libby was the singer/bouncer/boogie person. I was wrestling David out of the tub when I overheard Libby laughingly telling Cadie she's going to toot on her. Cadie does the anticipated shriek and wriggle which only eggs Libby on so she's holding down a laughing Cadie in order to toot on her when the laughter turns to dead silence - I turn around and Libby has accidentally POOPED on my floor. I was so not happy. I'm sure some day I'll laugh. She thought it was a toot. Turned out to be a poop. Some days I don't know why I get up in the morning! :)

straight to bed!

Well, for a few years now I have been acutely aware that my "task-oriented" tendencies need to be tempered for me to become a better mom. And I have been trying my very best to be more "relationship-oriented." I realized today I still have a long way to go! Every monday I try to clean the house - I find if I can get it all done then the rest of the week I can relax and focus more on building relationships rather than all of the little tasks that pile up that I have such a hard time NOT doing. So I bribed Libby today - I told her I would do her chores for her if she took care of David and Cadie for me so I could go into work mode and just get stuff done. She happily accepted. (she loves being the boss of cadie and david) So shortly after lunch I sent them upstairs to play while I mopped and vacuumed. I was pleasantly surprised at the occasional happy sound from the kids playing so well together upstairs when I went to clean my bathroom. Libby had stripped Cadie and David, bathed them (including shampooing their hair - there were remnants in Cadie's) gotten clean PJ's and books out for them, and was telling them she would read TWO bedtime stories to them for having such good behaviour. Haha, it's always a struggle for me to get them to bed but my five year old managed to do a great job of it - at one o'clock in the afternoon none-the-less! I went with it and let them stay in their PJ's for the rest of the day - despite strange looks from my piano students. We even had breakfast food for dinner!

Honest Cadie

We had a great time in Lethbridge this weekend - even though this is what I woke up to:

As Cadie was crawling into bed with us she shoved me aside and casually mentioned that she likes Daddy better than me. I gave her my saddest look and she conceded: "Oh don't worry Mommy, I'm sure Libby will like you."

broken or destroyed

So I want to make a list of everything Liberty has broken in the last month or so:

3 bottles of shampoo (on David's head or down the drain)

the curtain rod (playing superman)

her new school shoes (crayons)

laptop keys (?)

ipod dock ( extremely energetic freeze dance)

2 separate dents in new floor (both times bringing in large rocks from outside)

and the list goes on (selective memory loss) but her lack of remorse is very concerning. I talked with Corey about ways to get her to understand what she is doing as new things are destroyed daily around here. I like to use behaviour related consequences as time outs don't

usually work with her. I thought and thought and finally came up with a plan: I would give David and Cadie some money to buy a toy at the dollar store right

in front of her and tell them they earned this privilege for having good behaviour and taking good care of their things. She of course wouldn't get a new toy. And would have to watch them get one. Corey thought this was cruel and his exact words were: "she's going to resent you for the rest of your life." Nevertheless, I pushed forward with my plan, hoping to get through to her. Here's what happened: I gave the other two their loonies and talked to her in the dollar store, fully anticipating tears and a tantrum. Instead, she got a surprised look on her face and exclaimed: "Oh! I can't wait to see what David and Cadie buy! This is so exciting!" And you'd think by now I'd know not to leave her alone like ever, but I was actually so surprised to come downstairs after a diaper change to find this:

(what else are blue markers for anyway?)

So I decided to forgo all plans of housework I had for the rest of the day and we just played. And it was sooo wonderful. We turned a duvet cover into a dinosaur cave - all of us crawled in through the zipper and realized it was the perfect place to eat and

sleep and hide from the bigger dinosaurs. That somehow morphed into "beauty parlour" and I almost walked out the door for the evening session of stake conference looking like this!

And my bathroom that was going to get cleaned today ended up looking like this:

But my wise mother in law once told me that when she looks back, she wished she had spent less time cleaning and more time enjoying her kids when they were little, so I'm trying my best to learn from her wisdom!

Vehicles

So we need to teach our children about vehicles. Apparently they are pretty clueless. There was a Lambourgini (which I don't even know how to spell) parked in our church parking lot. It stood out. Corey made a few comments about the nice Lambourgini. On our way back to our van after church Libby realized the fancy car was missing and thus commented: "Oh, the Zucchini's gone..." A few minutes later Cadie and I were heading to a baby blessing and she saw a motorbike. She commented from the back seat that it was an old lady driving the motorbike. (didn't look like it to me but oh well) she continues to elaborate on the fact that this poor old lady was by herself - where was her family? She must be so lonely, etc. A few minutes later on a different road we pass by another motorcycle - this one had 2 riders on it. She heaves a huge sigh of relief - "Oh there's the rest of her family" (obviously) "BUT THEY"RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!! Turn around Mommy, we have to help her!"

Bacon

Mmm, well those of you who know me well, might have heard about my bacon - it's a sort of wiggle/dance/tantrum thing that I do when I am frustrated. I can't remember how it started but it really does help to relieve the tension by doing a bacon instead of getting mad. I never realized until today that the majority of my bacon's have been on my husband - my kids witnessed their first bacon today and when Corey remarked "oh, Mommy's bringing out the bacon" Cadie's eyes got big and she did her own little dance - only her's was a dance of excitement as she thought we were going to eat bacon. Libby and Cadie were both in tears when they had to go to bed without any bacon. Besides the lack of bacon, we have had a wonderful few months since my last post! We went swimming to the wave pool today - Libby and Cadie are little fish - swimming in and over and under all the waves! But when asked what the highlight of the day was, it was the candy apples - my first attempt - they were delicious but difficult to eat. Another highlight - we just finished reading the online kid's version of the book of mormon - the kids and I read from it every night and we have set a goal to read it on all 4 reading difficulty levels (we only completed level 1). Cadie started taking piano lessons this september. I was hesitant to start her at only 3 yrs. old but she was so enthusiastic after watching countless lessons and her sister practice, I couldn't refuse. So glad we started! She's amazing me everyday as she begs to play the next song in the book - in only a few weeks she's played every song in the first book and my level B book was lent out and she wanted to play more so I let her play out of Libby's book and she just loved it! Libby is enjoying Kindergarten again this year - and we are all happy with our decision to have her repeat kindergarten - even though she is so advanced academically it is so nice to see how well she is behaving and all the new friends she is playing with. David is also well - we rarely call him David anymore - mostly just "Buh" as that is pretty much all he says. He still spazzes regularly but when he's happy he is so much fun to be with! Our last highlight - Corey finally finishes his degree in a few more days! We can't wait!

party time with the varty party

David's birthday cake with Libby and my new niece, Frankie!

The pincher creek candy parade - Cadie managed to get that whole bag filled to the brim without leaving her chair once - she batted her eyelashes and parade people would walk over to put the candy in her bag - and her darling sister Libby ran out to get the rest of the candy and split it between her bag and Cadie's - the best older sister in the world!!

My other sweet niece, Ayla! Isn't she gorgeous?

David forgot he was grumpy for almost an hour at the hotel pool!

Daredevil Stratton jumping into the pool (so many times!)

So we went on a trip with the Varty's. So much fun! We got cheap ride tickets and cheap hotel- and Aaron took it a step further and got us cheap lunch from the free continental breakfast! Loved it! So here's my incident of the trip - there's always one when I'm around... only this time, I didn't even do or say anything wrong! So we got hotel rooms across from each other at the hotel so once we put the kids to bed we could sit out in the hallway and play cards. I guess I may have gotten a little carried away. I was pretty excited about the chance to sit in the hall and play cards in my pajamas. So I brought out the gear - chairs, table, food etc. from the hotel room so we could be comfortable. It was dang cold in that hallway so I also had to bring the comforter off the bed. Corey and I were thus decked out in the hallway waiting for Skye and Aaron's kids to fall asleep when the next door neighbours came home from the pool. First it was the 2 little boys- maybe 6 and 8? The 8 yr old proceeded to pull down his swim trunks and gave us a frontal nudity dance. And the 6 yr old told corey "I like your wife." exact quote. And that's not even all - they open their door and out runs a rat-dog. Seriously! It was hideous. Who has a rat-dog in their hotel room? But the rest of the trip was pure fun - the pool was awesome - oh wait, I forgot Libby almost drown, but the good part of that was that she also almost learned how to swim. I was worried she wouldn't go in the water ever again so I made her jump in with me and she was able to swim back to the edge and jump again and again and again with water wings on. Cadie was my little dare devil - as usual - she went on this crazy tube waterslide with me even though she was so tiny she kept falling through the hole in the middle of the tube! I had to hold her up with one arm and one leg - which meant I was holding onto my tube with my bum! Last time we took her watersliding Aaron forgot to catch her at the bottom (as she kept enthusiastically throwing herself down on her tummy) and she was under for a few seconds before he fished her out with his pinky. She came up sputtering and coughed out the words "again! again!"

So my previous post should have been David's birthday. I'm such a good mom. My 3rd little lump just gets squashed into the fun and doesn't often get the recognition he deserves! He's 2! And he can't talk! Thats not true. He can say "mom" "more" "mine" and "mo." (no) He likes M words. and he can say Dat. (dad) But he's usually mad at Dat- as it takes him a good while to wake up - like all the way up - he's grumpy for the first hour or so every morning and after naps. And that's usually when Corey is around so Dat is often said in a not so nice scream. Then he shuts his eyes in an attempt to not have to look at Dat offending him with his presence. But we love our little David and can't wait for him to grow out of his grumpy phase - because when he's not grumpy he's the sweetest thing in the whole world!!