Well, It's Official

We are trying to move.

We've sent the older girls off to Grandma's house in California, and Amy, my sister, is coming every day to watch the younger girls so that we can get the house ready to sell.

It's actually going a lot faster thank I thought it would.  What I thought would take us at least a week has only taken about two days.

But seriously, the worst part about leaving is all the people we will be leaving.  I never thought I'd say this, but I seriously LOVE Spanish Fork.  Two weeks ago we had absolutely NO intention of leaving, (SERIOUSLY, we just bought a brand new AC & Heater and just finished putting our garden in) and now all of the sudden we have our house up for sale.  We've told a few people, and every time, I just feel sick to my stomach.  So if you think I'm avoiding you I'm not...okay maybe I am, but it's not the reason you think, it's because I don't want to burst out in tears in front of you.  Leaving people is the worst!!!!

So....COME WITH US!  Seriously, let's just buy a huge plot of land up right  by where Bart works  and we can all build our houses there.  It'll be great.  Come on...that's realistic isn't it?...Isn't it?!?

Sigh.  I guess I better stop slacking, and get back to work.  I have a date with a bunch of these:

Learning to Eat

During the past few visits to our pediatrician, she has asked us if the babies were able to feed themselves with a spoon.  Visions danced through my head of the twins sitting in their high chairs, dirty spoon and bowl forgotten on the ground, as they they squeal with glee and splash in puddles of babyfood on their high chair trays.  I always emphatically answered, "No!" 

No, I do not sit and spoon feed my children every meal.  I do NOT have time for that.  Mostly I give them finger foods and if the food isn't traditionally finger food, I figure out a way to make it work.

But yesterday, I decided we were going to have oatmeal. To be honest with you, I thought the twins wouldn't like it (they didn't like it last time I gave it to them!), and I would end up giving them dry cereal with a cup of milk.  Much to my surprise, they LOVED it, and kept asking for more.  I sat down and spoon fed them for the first time in months. 

When the older girls asked for oatmeal again today I knew giving the babies dry cereal would not fly.  So I finally broke down and let them have their own bowl and spoon

They didn't do bad considering it was their first try.  The crazy thing was, Lilly (my clean eater) was FILTHY when she was done, and Maya, who is seriously the messiest eater I've EVER seen was actually pretty clean.  It was so unexpected that Addison even suggested that maybe they had swapped bodies...and for a moment, I considered the possibility.

That bib is just the tip of the iceberg. I had to completely take her PJs off before I got her down from the high chair so she wouldn't get oatmeal all over my house.

 

And this was as bad as it got for Maya.

Normally there's food on her pants, all over her arms, in her hair, UNDER her bib.  Seriously, I don't know how this kid gets food in all the places she normally does.  But this time, just a little bit on the bib and face and that was it.  It almost took, me just as long to clean her as it did Lilly because I was searching for the food I knew must be there that wasn't.

And then, as I was almost done cleaning her off I had to run to squelch a fight brewing in the other room. She wasn't particularly happy I stepped away before getting her down, but she entertained herself.

"Hmmm... I'll just take this off for mom..."

"and put it on the ground..."

"Wait, now that's on the ground and I don't have anything to play with...."

"Mom! Stop taking pictures and get me down."

Don't worry, Lilly to the rescue.

Lilly is one funny little girl.  Maya's great at playing by herself.  She'll find a toy and be content playing with it for quite a wile.

Lilly, on the other hand, only wants to be held.  The only time she doesn't want to be held is if she sees Maya's playing with something.  Then she wants to get down so that she can take away whatever it is that Maya's playing with.

UNLESS Maya's in her high chair.  Then it is Lilly's personal mission to bring Maya EVERY SINGLE TOY in our house. 

It's sweet, but rather annoying if Maya's not done eating.  If I don't keep a close watch, all of the sudden half of our toys are on Maya's tray covered in spaghetti sauce.  Ahhh, the adventures of having twins.

Summer Reading Program

So our local library has a summer reading program for kids.  Technically since Addison hasn't gone to kindergarten yet she should have been in the pre-reader program, but when I found out the prize for doing all eight weeks of the regular reader program was a free pass to the swimming pool, I told them Addison could read and they let her do the regular reading program instead.  :)

She's been great at keeping up with the program.  She even reminds me that she hasn't done her reading yet when I forget.

A nice little side effect of the program is that Hannah LOVES to sit next to Addison and listen to her read.

It's not an uncommon occurrence for me to walk into the family room to see them snuggled up on the couch reading.

And frankly, I LOVE it!

Before I know it, she's going to be adding subtracting, multiplying, and dividing!

 

Oh wait, that's right. She already does that too!  She really is my little smarty! 
 

The Way I View - Motherhood

The theme this month for our "The Way I View" blog circle is Motherhood.

I hand very grandiose plans for my pictures this month.  They were going to be tender, loving, happy, wonderful.  Yeah, you all were going to cry...and then motherhood happened.  Things got busy, kids were crazy, schedules were full, the house was dirty, etc.

I originally wanted the pictures done by Mother's Day, then I figured it'd be fine if they were done the week after Mother's Day, then as long as they were done before our Moab trip, then I knew I'd have more time this week to get them done, and lo and behold, tonight as I'm putting the older girls down for bed I realize, "Oh my gosh, it's the last day of the month and I haven't done the motherhood pictures."  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the way I view motherhood. Te he he.

I thought about copping out and just pulling together some pictures I got this month of my kids doing the crazy things that I absolutely love about them, but then I thought, "NO! If I don't get pictures of me with my kids now, when will I do it next?!?"  So I grabbed my camera, tripod and shutter release and took them upstairs to get some pictures with my older girls before all the evening light disappeared.  This was the result:

Oh how I wish life could be about blankies and barbies forever.

So there you go, that's the way I view motherhood.  Mostly improvised, not quite perfect, rough around the edges, but a whole lot of fun.

I've included links to my other "The Way I View..." posts in the footer down below if you want to check them all out. Now go check out Candice's post about motherhood.