And the Winner is....

My house has been the cleanest it has ever been this last week. Aaron was inspired to create a new cleaning "game." Each of us started the week with 100 pennies. As the days went by, if I found something that someone did not put away, and I put it away, the I got to take one of their pennies. It took us a good week of deep cleaning, hanging pictures on my walls, and getting rid of our piles laying around, but we finally did it and the game started last Monday. The kids loved the game, and really got into it. The mornings used to be the hardest part of keeping their rooms clean. They were always in a hurry to get to school. But this week, they jumped out of bed, made their beds and then looked to see what they could find of someone else's. I got to where I was afraid to put anything down. Once I was in the middle of changing out the garbages and Samuel comes over, "I caught mom!" I had to ask him what he did. He said I hadn't put the garbage can away. I told him I was in the middle of the job and can't do it yet. This game has definitely made a change in my behavior!


After a week of hard work, and good policing skills Aaron and I counted the pennies. We will let the kids count next time, but we had to make sure that neither Aaron or I won this first time. The winner for the week was Samuel with 135 pennies, and that was without fudging the results! He beat me by 1 penny! Since Samuel won, he got a small heart shaped box of chocolates left over from Valentine's Day!! The rest of us got mini kit kat bars for playing...there had to be some kind of reward for playing right?! I have enough snacks for keeping this game up for 12 weeks, so hopefully we'll have some good habits down by then. My house wasn't ever disgustingly dirty...at least I didn't think so. It was just lived in. But oh, how much I loved this week!!! Maybe we'll finally get a house of order!

Sarah

Sarah turned 7 months old yesterday, and for a late birthday present she got her first tooth today! It's been almost there for the last few weeks, but it finally broke through sometime between last night and this morning!!! She has been a wonderful teether. The only difference was that she'd wake up a little more in the night. Sarah sits up, rolls (when she wants to), and loves to eat baby food. If she sees us at the table, and she's not there too, she lets us know that she is feeling left out. She is a very happy easy going baby, and very patient with her sometimes too loving siblings. Sometimes she probably feels like a doll because everyone wants to hold her and help get her dressed.

I don't like Vegetables

Samuel unloaded the dishwasher this morning, and as he was putting bowls away, he saw Sarah's baby food up on the shelf. Samuel likes to look through them and choose what Sarah should eat. So he asked me if I could feed her the mixed vegetables at dinner, and I thought that sounded like a good idea. While I'm cooking dinner, I ask Samuel to get me the mixed vegetables. As I'm feeding her, Calista and I have this conversation:

C: "Why are you feeding her vegetables? I don't like vegetables!"
M: "Well our bodies need vegetables."
C: "Why do they need vegetables?"
M: "The vegetables make our bodies healthy and strong."
C: "Well, I don't like vegetables."
M: "You used to like vegetables. All babies seem to like them until they get sugar. If we didn't eat sugar, then our bodies would like vegetables because our bodies can get sugar from the vegetables."
C: "Well, why don't we just eat sugar then!"

Isn't she so smart!! If our body is looking for sugars, why not get the ones that taste good!

LUCKY #9

Aaron and I celebrated our 9th Anniversary last Wednesday, February 16th!! Aaron actually took the full week off of work. We spent the first part of the week at home doing projects around the house since the kids had school. We took off Wednesday afternoon and dropped Samuel, Jacque, Calista and Ellen off at my mom and dad's house, and then Aaron, Sarah and I went on to Boise. We got to stay in Boise until Saturday and then go back home. It was a fun vacation and the kids were excited to see us when we got back. On Sunday, Aaron had me count the number of phone calls he had on his "week off" and there were at least 40 listed. That doesn't count the times when he called someone twice in a row. Even though he had to answer his phone, we still were able to have a fun week, and if felt like we had a vacation!

Ellen's our Valentine!

Ellen's birthday cake...simple and yummy! All she wanted was a sucker cake, so that's what we did!

Ellen got an abc book!

Jacque gave this monkey to Ellen. She won it as a prize from school. They get "R" cards (our mascot is a rocket) for doing really good things at school. The other day, Jacque was saying how much she wished that her name would be drawn out of the "R" card drawing because she hadn't been chosen for a long time. Well it was just the next day or so later that she was chosen and she picked this monkey out for Ellen! I can't believe that she would use her turn to bless a sister! Jacque is an awesome sister!!

Mrs. Potato Head!! Going shopping for Ellen was pretty easy because she came with me! I noticed at Nursery that she liked the potato head, so we looked for one at the store. Walmart had a Mrs. and a Mr. Potato Head, but Ellen chose the Mrs. Potato Head.

But the best thing she got was her very own scooter!! This was another thing we got at the store together, and she has been so patient waiting for he birthday to arrive. She never asked to play with it. She always said, "On my birthday, I get to ride my own scooter!" I hid it under my sewing table, trying to keep it out of sight, but then I decided to sew some pjs. Ellen came in the room and after a little bit she said, "Mom...can I peak?" I said, "Nope. Don't peak!" So she turns her head and looks out of the side of her eye! The scooter didn't wrap well, so I just carried it out to the room and put it with her presents. When she came out, she must not have seen it, because when I told her to get her scooter, she went running to the sewing closet!

Ellen turned 3 years old today!! We are so happy to have Ellen as part of our family. Ellen is such a happy girl and has a great sense of humor! She is very easy to get along with and is starting to show some independence. Ellen loves to play with barbies, babies, the new doll house, princess shoes and dresses, wear necklaces, and get her fingernails and toenails painted. In other words, she loves being a little girl!! Ellen is learning her abc's and how to do puzzles. She also loves to be read to and she loves to color! A while ago I found that she'd colored her arms and legs with markers, and I told her that she was too little to use markers. Well a month ago Ellen comes up to me and says, "Mom, I'm a big girl, huh mom?!" "Yes, you are." (Thinking she's referring to her abilities to use the toilet now.) "Mom, I'm getting bigger! I can use markers now, huh?!" She caught me by surprise on that one, but I decided to give her a try and she does just fine now!

I hope everyone has a Happy Valentine's Day!!

The Doll House

Here's the doll house that Calista got for her birthday!! The girls absolutely love it!! Now we just need to find a place to put it!

What's for dinner!

I think some of Samuel's more used phrases are, "Mom, I'm hungry!" "Mom what can I eat?" "Mom, what's for dinner?" Samuel is always hungry and he's a tall skinny boy. Well I played a game with him the other night. I was in the kitchen making dinner and he comes in and asks me,

S: "Mom, what's for dinner?"
M: "Porcupines."
He pauses and says, "Really?!!"
M: "Yep."
S: "Are they good?"
M: "Well Grandma Kerns always made them, so ask Daddy."
Samuel's not quite sure what to do here. He has a rule to live by right now: Daddy teases me all the time. I know it's true if mom says it too. But here's mom saying that she's making porcupines for dinner. Do I believe her or not? So he says, "Dad..."
D: "Yes Samuel?"
S: Slight pause, "When you eat porcupines, do they poke you?"
(Aaron's been working on the computer, and is oblivious to anything going on in the kitchen.)
D: "Only if you eat the quills." He left it at that, not thinking anything more about it.
Samuel thinks about it some more and comes back into the kitchen. Calista's in the kitchen watching me make them by now. Samuel watches me make it too and asks again if we're really eating porcupines. At some point in here Ellen starts wondering what porcupines are, so Samuel runs over and grabs a book and shows her a picture of a porcupine!! When Samuel comes back to the kitchen I tell him, yes, I'm making porcupines, but it's really just meatballs with rice mixed in them. Grandma Kerns calls them oven porcupines!

Calista's cake

Here's a picture of Calista's cake. We started off the morning with the idea of making a barbie cake, because Calista wanted the barbie to play with afterwards. But by the time we went to Walmart and started looking down the isles, Calista decided she would be happier with a little Rapunzle doll and then getting this set of candles to go on the cake. I figured that was a good buy since we could reuse them. Then she picked out skittles for the candies. When it came time to decorate the cake, we were a little rushed, so it didn't turn out too special. It was yummy though. We actually got to eat cake and ice cream before dinner because we invited people over for FHE and dinner wasn't ready yet. I was actually surprised that the kids ate dinner afterwards. I made chicken enchiladas for Calista's bday dinner, and everyone but Ellen ate seconds. Ellen doesn't like enchiladas very much, and especially not after eating cake and ice cream!

I just tried to take a picture of the awesome doll house that Calista got from the Waites, but my camera decided the batteries were dead and someone's sleeping in my room where the extra batteries are. So, I guess you'll all have to wait another day!!