Thanksgiving

I know this is a little late, but I still need to get this posted. It seems like I get around to things a week after I think I'll have time to get it done.
This year I had all these high hopes of doing cute things with the kids for Thanksgiving and doing activities that would teach them the importance of being grateful. I wanted to do something for Family Home Evening the Monday before Thanksgiving, but Ryan ended up buying me a new suburban (a post on that next) that day. Then Tuesday was too busy, so late Wednesday night before we put the kids to bed we did our Thankful Turkey. Although it was kinda a last minute hodge-podge thing, I really feel and felt very grateful for many things. Some of these things ended up on our turkey, like a good job, my wonderful husband, temples, the Gospel, family ect- but I felt there was so much more than that. I do feel especially grateful that Ryan has a good job. At times it feels like the money is super tight and how are we gonna make it with 4 kids, but it all seems to work out in the end. We always have enough for what we need. Especially at this time where so many are struggling or don't even have a job, we are so blessed to have what we have. I am grateful that I have a husband who works so hard for our family, and I know that what we have is a result of his hard work.
I am really grateful for my kids. At times they drive me nuts, but they are teaching me so much about what life is about. They bring out the best and the worst in me and help me to see my faults and how to make them better.
I am truly grateful for my life and all that the Lord has given me.

One Month

Can't believe it's been one month already. He is starting to sleep better at night ( one 5 hour stretch!) and I am starting to feel like maybe I can handle life. Maybe.

Sunday November 4th

Kids Are Cute

Recently Kate and Clark have been all into writing things and learning how to spell and sound stuff out, so naturally I get notes for different things ALL the time. They are constantly drawing us pictures and giving us gifts of their art. And while I would love to keep them all, I just can't. With all the papers and crafts that come home from school, I would have a mountain of papers if I kept it all. But a few days ago Clark gave me a note that I just had to keep. 

It says, "Mom and Dad, when I grow up I will still love you."

Clark is such a sweet loving boy. He is always telling us how much he loves us and even prays that we will know how much he loves us. He writes me "love" notes all the time and for some reason this one stuck with me and I felt like I needed to keep it. He is such an example of unconditional love. I can get mad and yell and be a terrible Mom and just minutes later he'll ask for a hug and tell me he loves me. I learn from him how important it is to show and vocalize love for each other. That wasn't very common in my house growing up- so this is something I am learning to do myself. 

How grateful I am for such great kids who teach me more than I teach them. 

Halloween

Halloween Day with everyone in their "Halloween outfits".
Kate and Clark were not allowed to dress up for school. 

Halloween is usually a pretty big deal for me. In years passed I have prided myself on making the kids' costumes match, but this year I just did not have the mental or physical energy to try. I let the kids decide what they wanted to be ( not that I didn't let them have a say in years passed, it was more like, "Hey wouldn't it be cool if you were....... for Halloween this year?") and bought the costumes way back in September. I knew that with a newborn baby and Kate and Clarks birthday the week before, I wouldn't even have the time to go look for costumes.

Bumblebee from Transformers

I found matching 'fairy' costume for Kate and Charly.

Charly devouring a cupcake at my Mom's Halloween party

They got to dress up in their costumes for my Mom's Halloween party the Friday before Halloween and then Halloween night, we Trick-or-Treated in Ryan's Mom's neighborhood. Ryan's good friend, Chris, came into town and wanted to take his kids around the ol neighborhood- so I guess I can take back that huge bag of candy I bought from Costco- seeing as we didn't hand out anything at our house this year.

A few years ago we started the "Pumpkin Fairy" to help us get rid of all the candy after Halloween- as my kids don't need that much sugar and I get sick of having their Trick or Treat buckets hanging around till New Years. The way it works is the kids get to have a few days to gorge themselves on candy and then the night that the Pumpkin Fairy comes, they put their buckets outside their door and during the night the Pumpkin Fairy trades all their candy for some kind of prize. This year Kate got the new Tinkerbell movie and Clark got a remote control car. I usually don't do such big prizes- it's usually a movie from the $5 bucket at Walmart- but again - with no energy I just sent Ryan to the store and told him to get what they wanted.
I did head to Walmart the day after Halloween and scored on 50% off costumes, and am happy to report that the kids will be matching next year!

Kate and Clark turn 6!

It hardly seems possible that it's been 6 years since Kate and Clark were born. I must admit I don't remember much from that day, or even the first 6 months of their lives. (it was all I could do to survive) But I am so grateful to be their Mom. They really are such sweet, loving kids, and I'm lucky to have them.

Ryan and I joke that kids are like pancakes, and you always burn the first one - or in our case, the first two! I'm glad they have each other to get through our "learning curve" of parenting. 

Clark is becoming quite the little helper to Ryan. He is always there to help Ryan with his Saturday projects- complete with lots of trips to Home Depot and of course Circle K to get sodas. He loves kindergarten and making new friends. He likes having a little brother and already loves to tease little sister Charly. He loves to play- especially with friends. It's all about having boys to play with.( He says he gets tired of playing with girls- aka- Kate) He got to play on a T-ball team this spring and is currently on a soccer team.

Kate is every definition of girl. Loves to wear makeup, paint her fingernails, wear skirts and just look cute. She is a big help to me, and plays very well with little sister Charly. She too loves kindergarten and her teacher Mrs. Miller. She even got a little teary eyed telling me that Mrs. Miller was going to be gone for two days and she was going to have a substitute. She is a peacemaker. She will always do what it takes to make everyone happy. She is in her 3rd year of dance and started tap this year too. 

We celebrated their birthday by letting them choose the restaurant for dinner- and they chose Olive Garden. They both love the little personal pizzas. We were so full after dinner, we didn't even stop for dessert! Grandma and Grandpa came over to give them presents and watch them open presents from Ryan and I. Kate got Squinkies (She's been begging for them for awhile) a bike and helmet, a new coloring book, new shoes and a crayon caddy I made for her. Clark got a spiderman helicopter, IronMan action figure, new bike and helmet, coloring book and crayon caddy. 

Since I just had a baby, we didn't throw them a birthday party, but celebrated their birthday with my family at my Mom's Halloween party last Saturday. 

We are lucky to have these two great kids in our family. They have brought much joy into our life over the last six years. It's fun to see them grow up, and see their little personalities come out.  I hope they don't grow up too fast and quit wanting us around. We love you Kate and Clark!

Pumpkin Splash

I can't remember how long ago, Ryan and I started a 'star chart' with Kate and Clark as a way of tracking bad behavior and rewarding good behavior. They have a certain amount of stars, and they loose them for being mean, talking back, hitting ect., and they earn them back with either good behavior or extra chores. The incentive is that every Saturday they get to do something special with Ryan. Sometimes its big things like going to a movie, on a lunch date or a special event, or it can be small like just going to Sonic for an ice cream cone.
Yesterday, the 'special thing' was the Pumpkin Splash at Brimhall Pool, and because Ryan has been Mr. Mom for the last 2 weeks, I gave him a break and took the kids myself.
I need to take a minute and say something about how incredible Ryan has been since I had baby Jay. He has taken all three kids to Clarks soccer games for 3 Saturdays in a row, taken them all to church by himself and the first week I was home, he stayed home from work and did EVERYTHING. Laundry, dishes, chores, diapers, baths, made breakfast and lunch, took the kids to do fun things and took care of me on top of it all! This last week he had to go back to work and has still been a big help to me when he gets home, even after a 12 hour or more day. He really is amazing and I'm lucky to have him.

So here are some of the fun things the kids got to do at the pool yesterday: pick out a pumpkin out of the pool, play carnival games, decorate their pumpkin, get their face painted and best of all- swim in October!

Sweet Baby Jay

After a year sabbatical from Blogger, I decided it is time to start documenting life again. I guess I got overwhelmed with trying to post every thing in our life, and just let it go. Now I am sad that there have been so many good things happen in our life that I have pictures for, but no journal to go along with it. I have felt for sometime that I need to jump back on the bandwagon and keep up on my blog, for no other reason than just to have a family history. Since there is no way that I can go back and blog about all the things that have happened in the past year, I'm just gonna start fresh with our latest and greatest news- which is the birth of my 'sweet baby Jay'.

I was scheduled to deliver baby Jay on Monday October 10th via C-section. All of my babies have been born C-section, as they have all been breach. Thursday October 4th, about 3am I started having contractions 10 minutes apart. Now, I had never gone into labor, having scheduled all of my C-sections, so I was quite unsure what to do when I started having contractions. I told Ryan to go to work and that I'd call him if they got closer together. When he got to work he told his boss what was going on and was told to just go home. With Ryan back home for the day, we got the kids to school and went to WalMart to do my last minute grocery shopping. The contractions continued to be about 8-10 minutes apart the whole day until about 3pm, when they moved to about 5 minutes apart. I called Dr. Beck to see what to do and he told me to wait until they were under 5 minutes apart and a minute in length. Ryan wanted me to go to the hospital then, but I had been planning on going to this huge consignment sale and didn't want to miss this great shopping opportunity, and didn't want to go to the hospital just yet. We picked up the kids from school and met up with my Mom, who took me to the consignment sale. There were a few things I needed for baby, but really I just wanted to go and look to see what I could find. I am a bargain/thrift shopper at heart and love finding cheap stuff. So I did end up getting the things I needed and a few things for the other kids, including a bike for Clark for his upcoming birthday. While there my contractions were 3 minutes apart and a minute long, so I knew we needed to get out of there. My mom was a little more concerned than I was- as I really didn't know how fast I would progress- and was worried we'd get to the hospital in time. Ryan was at Clarks soccer practice with all the kids and the plan was to meet him at home and then he and I would go to the hospital. My wise Mother insisted that she take me to the hospital right then, and while I thought she was overreacting, I'm glad now that she did. As soon as we got to the hospital and I was admitted the contractions got increasingly more painful and I was somewhat shocked as to how bad it hurt. The nurses checked me and I was already dilated to a 5 and ready to go. As the nurses and staff frantically tried to get me ready for my C-section, my contractions got closer together and more and more painful. They had to try 3 times to get the IV in, and with a C-section they have to have a few viles of your blood on hand, and tried 2 more times to get my blood. By this time Ryan is at the hospital and absolutely livid that the nurses are poking me so much. I'm pretty sure it was just the pressure of trying to poke me between contractions that made it difficult for the nurses, as my veins are as big as the Mississippi River.

They finally get everything they need, I signed my life away to get the spinal anestiseia, Dr. Beck showed up and they wheeled me back to the OR. I was thrilled to get to the OR so they could do the spinal and the pain would stop. Then at 7:48pm, Baby Jay was born. 7lbs 7oz and 21 inches long. The first thing everyone said when they pulled him out was, "Look at all that hair!" He has the most hair of any of my babies and by far the darkest.

I have to give a special thanks to Dr. Beck for coming in that night to do the C- Section. He was not on call that night and was out to dinner to meet his daughters' fiance's parents for the first time. He originally turned down the page, but after his daughter told him to go- he came in for me. He joked that he'd rather deliver a baby than sit around and talk about wedding plans! I'm just so glad he came in that night for me- what a blessing.
Now it wasn't until Saturday that we decided on a name. We had it narrowed down, but couldn't quite decide. The final decision was Jay Roger Johnson. Jay is actually Ryan's first name (although he never went by Jay)  and Roger is my Dad's first name. Ryan kinda wanted to call him J. R., but we've only ever called him Jay. Maybe as he gets older JR will become his nickname.





The other kids absolutely love him- especially Charly. She loves to be around him, it's just teaching her not to touch his face and to be soft that is the hard part. He really has been a good baby so far, although last night he was up every 2 hours to eat, but that is to be expected, right? I'm just glad he is here and I'm not pregnant anymore!