Snow day

Barry had a rare few hours of free time, so we decided to make the most of it by playing out in the snow. They recently plowed our parking lot so we had a good 8 ft. tall sledding hill, right outside the building.

Grayson just loved sledding.

                                          Jaye just like ruling the top of the mountain.

                             Laycee was completely content to sit and eat her snowball.
                                                           ...The whole time.

I love this picture. The kids versus Daddy, snowball fight.

Grayson found a new spot he thought was perfect to have a snowball fight, and he kept begging everyone to come play with him. And naturally, his five seconds of patience ended and he started pouting because "no one wanted to play with him."  I told Barry Grayson would freak out if he ran over with a snowball in hand. So Barry ran over... and our son sure did freak out. Grayson moved just in time to get pelted in the face with the snow weapon, and cut his lip. Barry felt so bad.

Despite the bloody battle... it was nice to spend some time as a family.

Phone Home!

Isn't this the most Alien-looking critter you've ever seen?

       The sonogram technician assured my those two huge black pits were NOT my baby's eyes. Phew!

But, it was exciting to see the little heartbeat on my little E.T. It finally feels like I'm not just pointlessly sick! There is purpose in the puke!

Barf.

    This past week at my house... no fun. Laycee got a stomach bug (just like the ENTIRE town of Rexburg seems to be getting at the moment). Laycee only wanted to be held for the entire day, so Mommy got to ignore the other children by pumping them full of movies, and sweat all day, cuddling a burning-fever. I'm glad I can stay home with my children and take care of them, but seriously. NOT a fun week at the Ricks house.

    Here is a summary of the two days of Laycee's extreme sickness. And I promise, each of these photos was taken at a different time. I didn't move for two days.

 Now on this last one, she actually fell asleep on the floor. What a nice break for Mommy! 

She got up once, and disappeared. I went to go look for her, and found her curled up on the bathroom rug, whimpering. So sad!

Turning it off

      Our family has been trying something new. No t.v. on Sundays. For about three months we have fought with the children, and explained over and over and over and over again why we are trying to keep the boob tube off for the day.

    And every Sunday, I see my kids weep, and wail, and gnash their teeth... and tell me they don't like Sundays. But then we spend the day coloring as a family, reading books, playing games, and having the best quality time out of the whole week. And it makes the arguing and the tears sooooooo worth it in my book!

   

I am blessed. (not sarcasm)

     I've been really struggling for the past few weeks. We found out a few days before Christmas that I was expecting baby number four, and the following day I was hit by morning sickness. Hard. And I'm exhausted. And I'm taking care of three constantly moving living creatures. I know this was our choice to go through this again, but I was sort of hoping that being the fourth time around and all... it'd be a little easier. (Please... stifle your laughter)

    A lot of my prayers have been answered lately though. On a night I had no plans for dinner and was desperately trying to find the motivation to move off the couch and pour the kids a bowl of cereal, there was a knock at the door. A lady in my ward had just thought to bring over a hot meal, worried that I had already made dinner.

LIFE SAVER!!!!

  Two friends of mine have picked up my kids so I could have a break. In which I spent the entire time wallowing on the couch and napping.

LIFE SAVERS!!!!

   And then today... I was frantically and pitifully trying to get my house clean for a Young Women Presidency meeting. Elbow deep in dishes, I felt the stress tears coming, I was waaaay more behind than I thought I'd be. When I received a text.

   My friend, Melody, text me saying her husband was home to watch the kids, and she was coming over to clean my house.

LIFE SAVER!!!!! Together we got my house presentable for the meeting, and the cleanest it's been in weeks.

It felt so amazing to actually have a clean house today.

    And then my daughter dropped her sticky fruit cup on my freshly mopped floor. Spilled sticky lemonade on the table. Dumped out a bag of cool ranch nacho chips on my vacuumed carpet. Ran into the wall and cried forever. Pooped in the tub. And then peed on the carpet.

So thank you, Melody, for returning my sanity... right before I lost it again.

He can't handle the tooth

My son was casually eating an apple at the table when all of the sudden he started frantically saying, "My tooth! My tooth!" He ran over to me so I could examine the issue, and I could see his tooth had moved, significantly. Before I could explain this was normal (I was hoping this was normal), he wiggled his tooth with his tongue. And then exploded.

It scared him.

(Don't judge me for taking a picture in his moment of utter terror... but I had to send it to my husband who was missing the whole ordeal!)

After he calmed down a bit, I jumped online and read to him about loosing teeth, explaining that it was completely normal. After considering it for a while, he thought it was pretty cool that he was going to be like Ethan from primary. So it turned out to be fun. He kept wiggling his tooth all day, and when Doctor Dad came home, he popped it right out for him.

Grayson was so excited to call Mema and B-pa to tell them he "broke" his tooth. He was even more excited to be introduced to the Tooth Fairy. So naturally, my little artist had to draw her a picture.

He was so worried about whether to draw a boy or girl fairy, and what color the fairy is.

My little boy is getting not so little now.

Maybe that's why we're having another one. :)

Viva...

    Apparently, my three-year-old daughter is amazing. Or just really, really lucky. Just three posts ago, I described how Jaye won a Wii bowling tournament at the public library. Well the little rascal has struck again! I received a call from our local Maverick Gas Station saying that Jaye was the winner of their coloring contest and we needed to come pick up her prize.

     After I heard the news, I excitedly announced it to the family. Jaye was beaming. But tears started brimming in Grayson's eyes as he said, "that's not fair". He ran to his room so I went in to console him. I told him how both Daddy and I worked really hard to carve pumpkins for a local contest, but only Mommy won. And although Daddy was bummed, he was still happy for me.

    Grayson thought about it for a while and said, "but Jaye's picture was really silly. And mine was really... really awesome." I didn't know what else to say, so I just told him that we need to be happy for members of our family when they do good things, and then we let him sulk for a while.

    The next day we went and claimed Jaye's prize- a $5 gift card to Maverick. Along with the card, the gas station worker handed both kids a sheet for their new Christmas coloring contest. Great. More competition.  Grayson is determined to color the single most amazing snowman you have ever seen. And I wish him luck.

But really, if I gambled... I'd take Jaye to Vegas! She is a little lucky duck!

So on to Grayson's story. Jaye picked a Disney Princess book about their dresses from the library. (Such a shallow message for young girls, but that's a discussion for another day.) The book describes each princess deciding which dress to wear for her date with the prince, and the last page asks:

After Jaye gave her answer, I jokingly asked Grayson... "So, which dress is your favorite?"

He just looked at me with his eyebrows scrunched together and said, "None of them. They all look like they want to marry me."

    I laughed so hard.