. . . Cause I'm too busy living my life to take time to write about it, that's Why! (Or, at least, that's what I tell myself.) Now, for those of you who would like the details, I'll expound on what's kept us so busy over the past few weeks:
*Primary - Aye Carumba! It is killing me! It's not just doing the sharing times - that I can handle. It's the fact that they are releasing the members of my presidency one by one as they move away, with no one new to replace them. I am about to go out of town for 3 Sundays, leaving my two secretaries in charge (yes, I have two secretaries, one is about to have a baby and move, the other was called 2 weeks ago to begin training), and I have no idea what I'll be coming back to. It still remains to be seen whether they will call a new Primary President when I have my baby. It's just kinda stressing me out!
*Taking Naps - Yeah, I know, that doesn't sound too busy, but they take up a good couple hours of my day that I really could use being productive in other ways. I'm moving slower now that I'm in my third trimester of pregnancy and I'm just not able to get as much done as I used to.
*Doctor's appointments - between my OB appointments, Aly's braces, and various skin rashes and warts, we are constantly going to some kind of appointment. (Maybe that was TMI - sorry!)
*Babysitting! - I have been reaping the benefits of others watching my kids so that Chris and I could go out, so now it has been my turn to watch other's kids. Counting the kids I watched overnight for their parent's anniversary, I have probably spent over 100 hours babysitting this past month. It was totally worth it for my chance to get out, I just think I'm ready to only worry about my own kids for awhile. I ended up taking 7 kids to the park one day by myself - everybody we passed on the way was looking at me like I was crazy . . . I think by the end, I was a little crazy.
*The Kids! - Of course, this is probably the number one thing that keeps me busy, along with the day to day grind of keeping a household up and running. We just finished our first week of summer vacation and - Man! - it was so nice not to have to deal with homework for awhile. But we have been busy in plenty of other ways. The girls have been busy doing jobs to earn money for our upcoming Lake Powell trip, reading to earn their free book through Borders summer reading program, attending swimming lessons, getting haircuts, going on Daddy Daughter Dates, school shopping since the kids will be hanging out in Utah until school starts again, and playing hard with all their friends.
And now for the individual scoop on each of the girls. We'll start with Aly. Her picture was supposed to be below, but it parked itself at the top and I can't move it, so oh la.
*Aly finished off a great 2nd Grade year. She enjoyed her teacher so much that she has been going over to the school this past week to help her teacher clean out her classroom. She of course has been go, go, go nonstop running around with friends outside and if she isn't doing something every single minute she is "so bored". Luckily she has found a few ways to entertain herself and her sisters. Today after church she was having each of them tie their blankets to their arms and legs and play "flying bats" by "flying" (jumping) onto the couch. She has also started timing herself on how long it takes her to get into her PJ's while only using her feet (She's down to 3 minutes and 10 second). Sad, but true, that is something I would do when I was little (pretend I was blind, didn't have arms, etc. and try to do things without).
*Kate of course, remains our little clown that always keeps us guessing. She was so proud of this picture she drew of Cinderella; she'd show it to everyone who came to the house for like a week (even the maintenance guy who was changing our air filter). Of course the grocery store saga continues. Kate has recently discovered what "scary" means and is always talking about how everything is "scary." So anyway, we're in the grocery store and Kate suddenly starts freaking out yelling, "Mom, look! There's a scary pirate guy in the store! He's scaring me!" There was some guy wearing a bandanna on his head about a 100 feet away, although I'm pretty sure he heard her. Kate was also declared an art genius to me by a man eavesdropping in the produce aisle when Kate told me that the scrapes on one of those round, seedless watermelons looked like a man's face. It could be true though, because later on she spilled some ice cream on the table, looked at it and said, "Look! It's me!"
The other day I found Kate sticking an empty toilet paper roll to her ear, then she said to me, "Listen mom, you can hear the ocean!"
Kate has become selective in her hearing as of late and is often not very good at following through with what I've asked her to do unless I start counting. (She has also taken it upon herself to start bossing around her sisters, and Chris, and counting to them to try and get them to do what she wants them to do). So the other day, I'm like, "Kate, you better start moving. 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . " at which point Kate yells, "Blast off!" Nice. She doesn't take any crap from her dad when he's trying to mess with her either. He was pinching her bum and bugging her and so she said, "Dad, if you pinch my bum then you can't come to my birthday party." Kate's got me at my wits end with her and her chewing habits. She has suddenly become a picky eater, which is ludicrous because she continues to put everything and anything non-edible into her mouth. I had to get her to eat her carrots and broccoli the other day by telling her that her stomach was a swimming pool, the carrots were a family, and the broccoli were the trees so that the family wouldn't get sunburned while swimming. The other day while we were eating salad Kate said, "I don't like leaves (meaning the lettuce). Leaves need to go outside and blow away." I'm like, "how can you refuse to eat pancakes and grill cheese sandwiches, yet you have chewed the skin off your fingers and toes until they're bloody, you like to suck on loose change, Lego's, Polly pocket clothing, rocks, etc. and just the other day I had to stop you from gnawing on the edge of our wooden computer desk, which you ended up getting splinters from in your mouth?" I mean SERIOUSLY?!?! Hmm . . . isn't there some guy who is in the Guinness Book of World Records for eating a whole airplane over a couple of years or something? I should start tracking everything that Kate eats. I'm sure she'd have him beat.
And finally for Kate, I walked into her room where she was playing one day and started trying to tidy up a little bit when she complained to me, "Hey! You messed up my mess!" And that, my friends, is the world as Kate sees it.
*Lise is now our proud Kindergarten graduate. She absolutely LOVED kindergarten, especially her teacher, who is fortunately moving up to 1st Grade next year and bringing all of her students along with her into her class. Lise is soooo excited. She had a busy last few weeks at school with a field day and celebrating her birthday with her class with ice cream sundae's. I also found out the reason why all of Analise's pants had holes in the knees was because she'd been pretending to be this little boy's puppy/guard dog at recess and pulling off all the girls that would tackle him. Nice.
Analise continues with her love for art and is always making stuff to decorate her own room. She made this sign to explain the rules once you go to bed. Translation: Do not go out unless you need to go potty or get something. Words to live by, I'm telling ya. She also made her own decorations for her birthday slumber party this past weekend. She invited four friends and they painted each other's nails, decorated cupcakes, ate pizza, and watched movies. They all had a ton of fun, but as we had a couple incidents with getting people to sleep and what-not, Chris and I realized that we probably had a slumber party a little too early. Maybe 10 or 11 would be a good age to start those. :) Lise is so funny too, because when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she told me, "a zebra coloring book." I was like, "Uh, there wouldn't be anything to color." Silly, silly girl.
