Randomness...again

1. Dinosaur Chicken now contains Pterodactyls.

2. Jimmy Neutron is the most hilarious cartoon ever.

3. Caillou is the dumbest.

4. It's almost my birthday (6 more days) and Dave just took the kids out to find a present. Aria LIVES for birthdays and secrets. So Dave was reminding her that whatever she picks out is a secret and not to tell me because when something is a secret you don't tell anybody. Her response, "No, when you have a secret you just tell the people that want to know the secret, but not anybody else." Guess I better not ask her what the secret is.

5. Speaking of secrets. The other day Nathan asked Aria if she would do something and she said no. He said why and as she walked away she said "just cause!" Then she looked at me and said (very excitedly) "Mom, I finally get to know the secret of 'cause'!" It never occured to me before that if I say "just because" she was dying to know the real reason which is apparently called "the secret of cause".

6. Gabe is entering the funny word pronunciation stage of toddlerhood. Some of my favorites

stwawbeenana - strawberry
dum - tongue
ween - swing

and when he says no it's always "Nooooooo, no. Noooooooo no, no, no." Said to the rythm of KT Tunstall in black horse and the cherry tree.

7. At my neice's baptism, all the kids got up to sing "I belong to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" from the primary song book. I started to play the piano and Aria hissed "what song are we singing?" I told her and she said "ok". The kids started to sing and I heard her say (loudly) "I don't know this song!" She stood there for the remainder and as we walked back to our seats she said (loudly again) "I didn't sing a single.word." The next day at the wedding she got up in front of everyone and sang every word to Regina Spektor's fidelity. Since then we've been listening to primary songs every night before bed. lol.

Happy Birthday, Nathan!

I can't believe I'm about to post this picture. It's not pretty. And as a preface, I had pre-eclampsia so I was literally swollen from head to toe. Anyway...this was me (on the right - Aria didn't recognize me just now. lol) a little over 6 years ago. My friend that's with me had her little boy exactly 1 week before I had mine.



I was induced with cervadil in the evening of June 21st due to the pre-eclampsia. At 11:30-ish PM the doctor came in and broke my water (I was dilated to a 3). Suddenly everything started happening much faster. The nurses were a pain in the butt and kept blowing off my insistance that I was progressing quickly. I kept asking one of them to check me and she would say not to worry, that I'd likely still be in labor 12 hours from then and did I want an epidural? Finally, shortly after 1 AM I convinced her to check me after swearing that I felt the urge to push. She kinda rolled her eyes and checked only to be shocked that I knew what I was talking about and went into high gear gathering the stuff and calling the Dr. Nathan was born after just a few pushes at 1:30 AM on June 22. He wasn't breathing at first, but he recovered quickly and I had my firstborn! Beyond a little jaundice, he was perfect!

Here he is at 2 weeks old.



And as he grew....







And today! He is now 6 years old! It's hard to believe it's been 6 years already.





He had a fun party. We went to a local indoor water park and the kids just played their little hearts out. It was perfect. I didn't have to do too terribly much in the planning/organizing department and the kids had a blast. He even got the cake he wanted. Sort-of. He wanted a Mario cake. We looked online for some ideas and he had his heart set on this one.



He said if I couldn't make that, then he supposed he could settle for this.



Right. This is what he got. (thanks to an online friend who had a hard-to-find Mario toy and my mad cake decorating skillz...or lack thereof)



Fortunately, he was pleased. lol.

Happy Birthday, Nathan!

Start 'em young

I don't care if my kids stay up late as long as they're in bed with a book. I even give Gabe a book to look at every time I lay him down. I went to check on him the other night and found this. Isn't it sweet?

My little ballerina

Since I was complaining about my 4 yr old last week, thought I'd post this. She's supposed to be doing a sit-up without using her hands to help, while keeping her legs straight.

She has a hard time with that, lol.



This is Miss Kate. The best dance teacher/babysitter ever.





Some things Aria has learned. (sorry if I butcher the spelling on these)

Plie


Saute


Arabesque


and Vogue.