Where have I been?

Wow, I have been so busy, tired, stressed out lately that I haven't posted in a long time. I have been a single mom for about a month now. Kevan is living with his sister right now in SJ. The kids go to visit him every Friday night and return on Saturday. It's nice to have a little break. I have increased my hours to 20 a week. I average about 4 hours a day. My sister L watches my kids and she gets paid from he state gov. It's nice to not have that added expense, it would eat up my whole paycheck!

Navek has been off-track for 2 weeks now, but looks forward being back in school. He had an awesome season in soccer. He is such a fast runner, and loves scoring ( he averaged about 3 goals a game!) He still has the best imagination, and is so creative. I had a parent teacher conference and his teacher said that she always looks forward to seeing his work, cause it's so awesome.

Yzabelle loves going to pre-school. She gets to ride the bus, which is also very exciting. It picks her up at our house and drops her off and Lindsey's house. Very convenient for me! She is talking more and more, her teacher said that she is opening up more to her and the other teachers. Maybe she will start talking to the kids! She loves to draw and just be cute!

Emerald wishes so much that she could go to school. She has a new interest in taking care of her dolls. She loves to collect things. When we get ready to go somewhere she goes into her room and tries to carry as much as she can get in her hands. She thinks that she must bring all of it in the car with us. She is so funny.

Little Tristyn is really movin and groovin'. About a month ago he really started to get around the house my doing this really cool body flop-worm crawl. He is really fast. When he is more patient with himself he does do a little crawling. Last week he thought that it would be cool to pull himself up on furniture. What a smart little boy. He likes the feeling of being tall I guess. He is such a good baby. He loves to play in the girls room and chew and slobber on all of their toys. he pulls himself up on their bed, and the little kitchen and the bookshelf in their room. I hope that he is not walking anytime soon. He likes to eat...what baby doesn't! He is my only baby that has ever like rice cereal, of course I mix it with applesauce but he pounds that stuff down. He is always flopping too. He flaps his arms sooo much, I think that he thinks if he does it enough he will eventually fly. He is sooooo happy. He is always smiling and just being cute!

Being by myself is hard, but I am happy. We will see what is in the future for Kevan and myself. Only the Lord knows!!

Yzabelle turns 5!!!

Yzabelle's birthday was last week. I have been meaning to write about her and all of her progress...this is probably a good time. Holy cow I can't believe that she is 5!!

She has grown and learned so much over this past year. I am so proud of her. I get frustrated with her sometimes because she is so stubborn, but then i realize that she needs to be stubborn to help her with her disability.

She is a very sweet considerate little girl. She is never shy and never hesitates to give kisses...I love that. She loves to snuggle and hug and be held. I think that's her idea of a good time. She is very gentle with Tristyn (at least most of the time). Her and Emerald play so cute together. Usually Belle is the baby and Emerald is the mom...does that really surprise you??

Her favorite thing in the world are the Disney princesses. Anything that has to do with Cinderella, Belle, Ariel or any of them catches her attention. I'm sure that she thinks that she is one of them.

She loves to sing. She knows all of the words to "Teach Me to Walk in the Light" and we sing it every night before we go to bed. She actually sings with me...it's so great. Her favorite movies are "Mary Poppins" and "The Sound of Music" That movie is like almost 3 hours long and she will actually sit there and watch the whole thing...She knows a lot of the songs to The sound of music...she calls it "hills." This is major progress for her. She can remember the words and then tries to say them. Even if she can't get all of the words she still know the tune to the song. Sometimes I will sing the songs with her and stop at a certain point and she will fill in the missing word. What a smart girl. She makes up song too. Sometimes when Tristyn is crying she will go up and in her cute little singing voice say "Uh hill(ww)s a lolly day!" We don't know exactly what she is saying, but it's cute anyway!! She knows primary songs, but doesn't sing at church. I think that she knows more than we think she does.

She started her 3rd year of preschool this year. I have been trying to work with her on her colors, and shapes. I think that she knows most of her colors, I'm not too sure about the shapes.

She is talking so much more than she was last year. She can put 3-4 words together in a sentence, but a lot of the filler words are "uh". I totally speak "Yzabelle" though so I get what she is saying mostly! I am hoping that she will branch out and start to talk to other people. I think that most of time she speaks very clearly, but she is really shy and quiet in front of other people.

She is so willing to try new things. Last year she wouldn't go near the trampoline. This year it was one of her favorite things to do outside. She can jump really high and it is a good exercises because it puts pressure on both of her legs. And oh man...you should see that girl swing... This is another thing that just amazes the crap out of me. She actually holds on to the swing with both hands and pumps her feet. She goes soooo high! It is really a great thing because she has to hold on with both hands, and I know that she has to hold on really tight in order to go so high. She has really improved strength in her right hand (the one she doesn't use as much)

She also can (FINALLY) get herself dressed. She is so funny when she does it too. Her clothes are either in-side-out, or backwards, or both. But she doesn't care. Have you ever tried to put on your clothes with one hand? I am so glad that she can finally do this. She hardly ever asks for help either. Last year she used to stay in her room for 1/2 hour just trying to put on underwear. She would scream and cry because it was so hard for her, and she would get soo mad at me if I tried to help her. I eventually learned that she really did just want to do it herself. Totally determined and some junk!!

She loves to color, draw and paint. Last year she would just scribble. This year she has turned scribbling into circles and little pictures. She says that she is drawing people. They have fat little bodies and really long arms. She tries to draw eyes, and noses too. I love seeing her pictures.

She is so happy and she loves to laugh...totally just like in Mary Poppins!!

I am so impressed with her. I don't know how she does what she does. For those of you who keep wondering what I'm talking about...she has been labeled "developmentally delayed" She suffered a stroke right before I delivered her. She has right sided weakness. The doctors told me that she may never walk or talk. She totally proved them wrong. I am so proud of all her accomplishments. She is so wonderful and sweet, and so stinkin' beautiful!!

I wish that I had better pictures, but my camera is broken!

Give mamma a little kiss!!

it's been a while

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything. Well, it seems by my comment section that no one but my sister and my friend read my blog anyway!

I have had a hard month. Time is going by so fast for me and so much is happening with my kids. I feel bad that I don't write down their every move and note their every word! I have been so tired at night so I just go to sleep instead of staying up late on the computer.

Some of the blogs that I read are annoying to me. It seems like no one has any problems or trials. Why don't people ever write about those kind of things. Life is all wonderful and perfect according to their posts. Wow what a positive happy mood I'm in!

Choo Choo

This past weekend we were able to spend some time with Kev's parents. On Saturday we went to this train place in Kaysville called S&S railroad. There is a guy that has devoted his life to trains. He had built a bunch of tracks around his property and would give his kids rides when they were younger. It turned into sucha popular place for their friends that they expanded and opened it up to the public. Here is us on the train

This is the smaller train. It goes for a 10 minute train ride around his place. There is some cute stuff for the kids to see on the ride such as: pony's, kittens, we went through tunnels, and over bridges, and around the whole park area. It was really fun for the kids!

We had a bunch of fun. Here are the kids just playin around in the park area. Cute cute cute!!

Sacrifice

I was in YW yesterday and learned something very interesting ...the definition of the word sacrifice. Ready? Okay...it is "giving up something good for something better." I repeated that in my head about a dozen times to try to fully understand it.

Then I got to thinking about how much a mother sacrifices for her family. I feel like my life is extremely difficult sometimes. I feel like I have been through a lot and have experienced many things that most people won't have to in this life. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, but it is true. Anyways, sacrifice. Giving up something good for something better. Wow, that makes so much sense. I feel like I give up "good" things like my body (5 kids in 6 years Yikes!), my time, my social life, sometimes my talents. What better things are there than this? Is it good to give up so much?

Well, after pondering for a while I decided that my kids are "something better" I would much rather hear and witness everyday cuteness from certain little people then work out at the gym for 4 hours in hopes for a better body! I would much rather have a "better" conversation with Navek then with somebody at work. My kids are so precious. They are so unique and different, but they belong me here on this earth.

I still probably don't FULLY understand sacrifice, but I will take it one day at a time. To think that Jesus gave up his good life here on earth for an even better one in eternity. How amazing to think of all that he went through. He did it for us because he loves us.

Lately I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed. It is so challenging having 4 kids so close in age. I know that we are supposed to live for the future and be prepared and stuff like that. But with all that I have on my plate it is all I can do to make it one day at a time for right now. I made it through today with out any life threatening situations so yay for me and some junk!!

A bit too honest!

Yesterday there was a neighbor over playing with Navek. Emerald kept hitting him with this pool floaty thing. I kept asking her to stop but she didn't. She can have a bit of an attitude sometimes! I finally took the float away from her and put it up high where she couldn't reach it. She kept asking for it back...so finally I asked her if she was going to be nice and she said "no", then I asked her if she was going to hit Coby again and she said "yes". Silly goose! Then she couldn't understand why I wouldn't give it back to her! At least she is honest with her intentions!

Weekend

We had a fun time with the B family this weekend! We had a "family reunion" and the only reason why I put it in quotes is because it was a reunion of Kevan's great-grandfather. Weird and some junk. There was this guy with the last name of Parker and he had 2 wives...combined they had 15 kids...can you imagine!!?? Each of those children had between 8 to 13 kids. What a great genealogy tree. Anyway...it was at the "This is the Place Park" in Salt Lake. Totally fun. We went and met some of the family that was there for the luncheon. We visited with some distant family that we never new existed. It was cool. Kevan's mom and dad were there along with his sister and her 3 kids. We went around the park and saw attractions there. The kids really enjoyed it.

We thought that it would be fun to make a weekend trip out of it so we went over to J's house (kevan's sister)and spent the night. It was fun to visit with family. We went to church with them the next day, then came home and had lunch and took naps..of course!! Then we had a yummy dinner, packed up and went home. It was just an overnighter, but sometimes that's what you need!! Just to get away and be somewhere else. The kids had fun playing while the grownups enjoyed chatting.

K & J (Kevan's mom and Dad) had been going through pictures at there house in C...I mean boxes and boxes of pictures!! They've spent the last few weeks scanning pictures into the computer (with the help of their s-i-l in Oregon who came down to help) It has been a lot of work for them, but soon we will all have copies of all their pictures. K put the pictures on a little slide show type thing on his computer and we were able to see pictures of all the B kids when they were younger!! It was a lot of fun to see!

I would post pictures but my camera wasn't working...