Motherhood

I'm feeling like a little bit of a failure tonight. I finally figured out why Parker was being so weird about the whole school thing, he finally told me that he gets nervous because he can't "do his letters." I feel so bad. We have worked on his letters and we read every night, but he still has a hard time recognizing letters (especially the ones not in his name!) He can spell his name but is having a really tough time writing it and he gets frustrated so quickly when I try to sit down and practice with him that now I don't know what to do. They are working on the letter M this week and so we worked on his homework tonight and he does great coloring in all the pictures that start with M but when it comes time to write it, unless he's really focusing, it's a mess. And if I try to help at all or correct at all he just puts his face in his hand and says "aahhhhhh I just can't do this" I am looking ahead to what I am thinking may be a long kindergarten year.... and I can't even think about after that. I feel bad because I don't want him to be frusterated and I feel like I let him down or maybe we didn't work on it enough, then I think - he's just a barely 5 year old boy and it will come with time....anybody wanna back me up on this?

Also I found these pictures I took of the kids at the park a couple of weeks ago... makes me think of the future... they were driving the jeep at the park....scary right?

Brin in the drivers seat....


I don't know what frightens me most, Brin driving or Kaden hanging halfway out of the car!

The world is right again.

So things are slowly getting back to normal. Parker is a real Kindergarten loving kid and yesterday I was dancing to some music in the family room with the kids and he threw his head back and was laughing and said "mom you're funny." So I took a deep breath and thought, even if I do embarrass him beyond belief the older he gets, at least I'll always be funny. That's enough for me! Kaden is BESIDE himself with how unfair life is and has taken up quite the career in whining, so we are relishing that. Brin is her usual sassy self and is experimenting with pushing the whiner around now that she doesn't have Parker watching her every move. I am trying to get my house in order and things ready to go for my one cruise that is coming up in 2 weeks! I can't believe it. Anyways, thats the update!

wow

Apparently once you start Kindergarten your mother becomes the most ANNOYING person in the entire universe. Here is how things went yesterday after I picked up Parker from school:

Me: "Hi bud how did it go did you have so much fun?" (waiting for the gush of info that I thought would obviously come rushing out of his mouth)
Parker: yep
Me: what did you do
Parker: just stuff
Me: tell me about your day did you love it?
Parker: it was fine.

Later that day his cousin Halle called and asked to speak to parker
Me: Parker the phone is for you it's Halle
Parker: oh thanks - "Hey Halle ... Yep I went to school...I did good
(I can hear her asking him something)

Parker looks back at me in the kitchen out of the corner of his eye and then takes the phone and walks down the hall to his room and closes the door! HELLO! What all of the sudden he's 20?
I followed down the hall and listened and I hear this:
Parker: "yeah I was just a weensy bit nervous ... like you know what I mean?" (what???)
since when does he say "you know what I mean?"

After he gets off the phone with Halle I go back to making dinner and he is watching PBS and I ask him:
Me: "so what did you talk to Halle about?"
Parker (not even looking up from the TV "just school stuff - it wasn't anything about you."

Need I say more? Apparently I have become the epitome of uncool....
Then this morning I decided we needed to have a chat about him being a little more respectful of his dear ol' mother and he put his face down on his bed and said
"mom, this is not working for me."

WOW... this is all I can say WOW.
the end.

A weensy bit nervous.

So today was Parker boy's first day of Kindergarten! The PM kind of course. He was so excited he could hardly stand it. After breakfast he was ready to go except we still had 5 hours until it was time...yikes. Danny gave him a blessing before he left for work and Parker was soooooo blasted cute. I asked him if he was excited and he said..."yeah" and then he came over to me and told me in my ear that he was "just a weensy bit nervous". He got all dressed right down to his "uncle Dustin" shoes and put on his batman back pack and off we went. His teacher is very nice and I think she will be great for Parker. I went to leave and he looked a really weensy bit nervous for just a second but he was doing great by the time I rounded the doorway! Great job Parker! Talk about deja vu' Parker's Kindergarten classroom is the exact same classroom I was in for my first day at Broadview also - QUITE a few years ago! too weird.

Happy Birthday Princess

Brinlee turned 2 on Aug 17th! I cannot believe that my baby is 2! She is so much fun and is LOVING playing with her babies and pushing them around in her new doll stroller. She keeps us laughing and singing as she loves to sing You are my sunshine and itsy bitsy spider - over and over and over again! We love you Brin.

my Favorite Photography web site.

This lady has AMAZING abilities to capture emotion, her name is Erin Drallos. The reason why I love her work so much is because she started a foundation consisting of multiple highly talented photographers all over the country called http://www.acpcg.org (the American child photographers charity guild) they go to photograph families with children who are sick or terminally ill. You have to check out her portfolio - bring the Kleenex - some of the shots are of parents holding the newborn they have just lost or a child that just "got it's wings" I cry everytime. But her work is inspiring and I love reading about good people using their talents to do great things for others. Her site is now listed under my fav photography sites on the right. I have been following her work for over a year now and I just kept forgetting to blog about it. You gotta check it out. http://www.footprintsphotography.com/index2.php

back yard cont.

So here are some more lovelies from our back yard endeavor. The boys worked so hard, and it was so blasted hot. We dropped 10 trees and had only 1 fatality...my bedroom window! I figure with as close as those trees were to the house and fence line( I don't even know if I would have been able to get another company to try it) that's just the cost of doing business! We had to chop off half of the deck to get one of the stumps out! Kyle liked that part. They seem to enjoy sawing and hacking things apart - especially when they are connected to MY house not THEIRS! They did awesome.


Here is a tuckered out Dustin at the end of day 1


Back yard after finishing the first round!



Thank heavens I have connections to people who own excavators...I don't want to think of how much it would cost...



The only mishap - alas, we were planning on replacing all of the windows anyhow so ...not such a big deal.


Dustin's bottom way up in the top of the tree.


Kyle sawing my deck to shreds.


And Dustin tearing it away from the house.

My Brother

This is my brother Dustin. No he's not in special ed. And he doesn't usually dress like this - but he was doing me a HUGE favor! He and his two sidekicks Lyle, and Brandon came over to the house today and took down 10 huge trees from our back yard. We have had these trees in the middle of the yard and no lawn since we moved in of course and I have been wanting a nice lawn and area for the kids to play forever. They worked all day in the heat to take the trees out and I just hope they know how much I appreciate it because it will make my life so much better when the kids can play in the back yard! Thank you Thank you Thank you - we owe you! I couldn't believe how well it went off because we don't have a huge back yard and so these trees were dangerously close to not only our fence but also our house! They did an AMAZING job. Thanks again guys - and we love ya Dust.


Dustin before taking down the first tree.

oh yeah baby!



Dustin is on the left, and Brandon (who I will always think of as a monkey from now on - he climbs trees faster than anyone I've ever seen) is on the right.

the garden

Oh our little garden! We finally decided to get a garden going this year and I took these pictures last week of our tiny tomatoes! We are pretty pumped about having this actually work - we even had a salad the other night with lettuce from our one garden! yay!

guitar

So I am sorry but my heart melts when my Husband plays the guitar, and now - after much begging from Parker, he is teaching him. It is the cutest thing and it is also wonderful because Parker doesn't usually have much of an attention span with anything for any length of time. He will play guitar with Dad for hours. I love it. I told Danny that he was too young and that we should wait, but now that I have watched, I can tell Parker loves it and hey - if it means quiet peace...I'm on board! I think we will be getting him a child's practice guitar that will actually fit him.

Breaking Dawn

So I just have to throw this in...I did of course go to the midnight party to get my one book and it was so fun with my two partners in crime Amanda and Sarah (who will henceforth and forever be referred to as Edna.) Anyways we got home around 12:30am on Saturday and I started reading and I finished it sunday evening! It is AMAZING. Total surprise and that is what I liked best. There is no way you could see any of it coming. Awesome. Even my Husband is into it (who was making fun of me when I first started reading twilight.) He is almost done with the third book and can't wait to start breaking dawn. I am so glad that I am happy, I was a little worried that I would be hating it or something but it is fantastic! My all time favorite books ever.

borderline obsessive

okay so I'm sorry but pretty much I am teetering on the edge on obsession here. I have read the twilight series...THREE times now! This last week I read them so that I could brush up before sat at midnight when I will be standing in line with all of the other crazies to buy Breaking Dawn, much to my Husbands embarrassment. I don't even care, I'm totally hooked and I will be on pins and needles all week waiting to find out what happens. Tell me I'm not the only one.

Halen Gola

So I'm sorry but I just had to post this because I don't want to forget and I sorta use this as a journal. When I was younger I used to live with my Aunt Tammie during the summers and work and help her and Uncle Loren with their twins. The kiddos had this imaginary friend they called stewman dinkston - oh yes! And I was just thinking the other day that none of my kids have ever had one - at least not that they have mentioned, until tonight! Parker was taking something to the trash for me and he was talking outside and I asked him what he was doing and he said "oh I was just talking to my back yard friends" So of course I looked back there because we don't know the people who live behind us and Parker talks to everyone but there was nobody there and he said "my pretend friends" and I said "Oh what are their names?" ..." Halen Gola" .... Priceless.

parker's mom tag.

1. What is something mom always says to you? whatever

I don't recall saying this a ton but...ok

2. What makes mom happy? when she talks on the phone and I'm quiet. (good call)

3. What makes mom sad? When she talks on the phone and she's upset. (a whole lot of phone talking going on here)
apparently I'm upset because he was not quiet.

4. How does mom make you laugh? when she tickles me.

5. What was mom like as a child? she liked to go to the park.

6. How old is your mom? he asked me if I was 2 !

7. How tall is your mom? big - thanks bud.
(he just told me he likes this answering stuff.)

8. What is her favorite thing to do? clean the garage. and then relax and just enjoy the sun!

9. What does your mom do when you're not around? picks me up at school.

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? having a baby.
I almost just wet my pants.

11. What is your mom really good at? eating.
and now I"m crying.

12. What is your mom not very good at? playing golf.

13. What does your mom do for her job? works at the dental office.

14. What is your mom's favorite food? apples and tacos ( I really don't like apples.)

15. What makes you proud of your mom? for packing to go camping.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? a man.

17. What do you and your mom do together? cleaning up

18. How are you and your mom the same? our heads are the same size.
(ps it's like pulling teeth to get him to finish this.)

19. How are you and your mom different? smaller and biggest.
(and the hits just keep on comin')

20. How do you know your mom loves you? we give kisses.

Thickens...

This is what we were talking about at dinner tonight. It made us all laugh because Kaden loves "thicken".

Dirty Bird

This little girl is going to kill me! seriously! First of all she has more hair than I know what to do with and let's just be honest here I am not the best at the whole "cute girl hair" thing in the first place. But I try...daily. So we got her all ready today and of course within a few hours of getting dressed and hair done I hear them outside and Parker is hysterical - never a good sign when it comes to Brinlee... She was out playing in the dirt with kaden and decided it would be fun to throw the dirt... on herself. Parker was on the ground laughing...me, not so much. I took pictures and then threw her in the tub and after two scrub downs - she still has sand and dirt in her hair, nice.


I don't know if you can see but there is some serious dirt in those parts!

a face only I could love!

Happy Birthday to Parker boy.

I remember the day Parker was born like it was yesterday! I was on cloud nine. I didn't even sleep after delivery I just wanted to hold him and stare at him. He has been such a blessing to us and although we are getting into the sassy stage we still love his guts! I felt so bad about all of the yucky stuff that happened on his actual birthday that I was excited to celebrate on the 4th. We went over to Mom and Dads and had a BBQ with Family and set off some fireworks and of course watched Parker open his showering of gifts from his Grandparents, aunts/uncles/and cousins. He really made out like a bandit with power tools and everything! He had a blast and it was good to get outside and enjoy the day. Happy Birthday Bud we love you.

sad news.

So we have had a pretty rough week but I thought I would post this just so that I don't have to explain fifty million times. I went to my doc for my first ultrasound on monday and she couldn't see the baby - so she said maybe we are just off on dates so she had me have my blood drawn to check my levels. They were good which would explain why I was still so sick and feeling very pregnant still. But she said that with numbers that high we should be able to see a fetal heartbeat. She had them run again on wed just to make sure and they hadn't gone up enough and so wed night late I had to go in for a D&C. Needless to say we are pretty sad but I have to say that I truly have the best husband in the world and an amazing support system of friends and family and I am doing very good. Anyways, I am not sure how you handle telling people this stuff but I figured I would need to explain.

are you gonna cry?

Today my oldest son parker said to me " Mom do you have a baby in your tummy?" to which I said " yep" to which he said " are you gonna go to the dotr (parker speak) and get it out?" I then replied "not for a long time." And then he finished up with "Mom are you gonna cry cuz your blood is coming out like that lady on TV?" . . . HELLO! WHAT? and then I remembered that the other day when he woke up from his "quiet time" I had been watching my one favorite show what not to wear and had moved on to laundry and forgotten about the tv which was then playing a lovely little episode of a baby story! yikes!

workouts and green peppers!

So today was a funny day. I was looking through the on demand menu under exercise tv for some yoga stuff and found this cardio dance number and Parker really wanted to try it! What a little hip shaker he is! Then at dinner I had tried a new recipe and it had green peppers in it which I chopped up very very fine because I knew I would hear about it otherwise - But kaden still had a problem with them! I just thought his "I don't like this" face was too funny to keep secret! Having some tech issues with posting two video clips. I'll post the Kaden green pepper video on the next one.

yes it's true!

So I thought I should probably explain...Yes we are having a baby, it's still early I'm 5 weeks now. But we are very excited and of course a little nervous! FOUR! And as for the Halloween costumes, it's all my kids wear now because they have discovered "dress up" and right now, in june, while it's raining cats and dogs outside...I'm at the "whatever makes them happy" point!

You'll never guess...

Oh man.

So I busted my bursa! Thats right. I wasn't even doing anything cool either. We had a tournament last sat and I was reaching for a throw and I fell and just destroyed my knee! It actually hurt really bad but it's doing much better now and the swelling has gone way down. Never a dull moment! Oh yeah and we have discovered that Brinlee is a princess...who knew?

don't mess

I just thought she looked so tough in this picture that I had to post it. This little firecracker is a handful and a half! She is also the funniest thing ever. We love you Brin.

what a croc!

Okay, Can I just say that whomever (that's right) Whomever invented these delightful pieces of footwear had me in mind the entire time! I LOVE THEM. Kaden had a pair last year and he refused to wear anything else so this year I decided to get a pair for the whole brood and let me just say - they are fab! I don't care that instyle says they are hideous and a major fashion faux pas (I know I am totally pulling out the big guns here folks!) They rock. The kids can put them on BY THEMSELVES in seconds and they are roomy so they don't get blisters. they pretty much match everything and I just heart them to death!

childrens museum

Ahoy! We took the kids to the children's museum of skagit county the other day and they had a blast- salmon fishing and grocery shopping, and they really loved turning the lights out and then watching their shadow appear on the wall! But the best part for Danny and I by far was on the ride home we were listening to the 80's music station on xm and this song came on that we hadn't heard in forever so of course we had to really rock out! "get out of my dreams....get into my car" with a little of me in the background (get in the back seat baby) And the kids were totally embarrassed! I couldn't believe it I looked back and the photos below are what I saw. We had to high 5 this being the first time we have publicly embarrassed out children. First of many I'm sure! awesome.


I'm a sailor ... I sail. AHOY!


captain Kaden...yikes.

Danny amazes us all with his ability to find spots to rest.

my children...aspiring truck drivers

this is soooo embarrassing.

say it aint so!

So miss Brinlee has decided that she can do the whole potty training thing so we are going to give it our best shot! I am really really really hoping that it's true that girls are easier than boys because other wise we are going to have a rough summer! She is pretty funny though and likes to have her cell phone and hair brush with her while sitting on the pot - hey to each her own right? I had her in just a top so that I could tell when she needed to go or if she started going. I have never seen someone so comfortable with their bum hanging out from under their tank top! She walked around like she owned the joint!

So proud of herself!

She's a pro!

ow my legs...

So basically I thoroughly apologize for being such a lame blogger these last few weeks, things as always are a little nuts. I think it comes down to overscheduling. Danny is working a lot these days and then I work on days that he's home and I am also playing softball (which has been a total blast) But I did a dumb thing and started excersizing way to heavily, running and such without working up to it and now I am having major shin splint issues. I go back to the doc next week and hopefully I don't have fractures. At my last visit I was told to stay off of my legs for 4 weeks and so I have been taking it easy but they just aren't getting better and it hurts all of the time. Maybe it's just that I am getting old! So I am out on the bench for another week and I won't get to play in our tournament tomorrow but I am going to be the best book keeper/ cheerleader you have ever seen! GO K9's ( c'mon our sponsor is a dentist what do you expect!)

3..2..1..BLAST OFF!

Do you ever wish you could join your kids in their Bissell rocket ship (those have extra power don't you know) and enjoy a little backyardagains?

The wutzy wutzy spider

I am sorry but this cracks me up. All three of my kids are very different of course but one of the ways that is the funniest to me right now is in the one itsy bitsy spider song! Brinlee LOVES it right now and so we sing it multiple times throughout the day. They all sing it differently and I just had to put the videos on here because I think it's funny. Parker sings the wutzy wutzy spider...we've tried correcting him....it's best to just let it be. Kaden sings the itsy itsy spider but then he gets stuck in a round and the song never ends-it just keeps going back to "down came the rain" and last but not least, Brinlee just walks up to us and makes the spider with her fingers and says SPIDER in her best gibberish of course! So without further ado... the vocal stylings of the Weibling children! Please excuse the enraged outburst at the end, a girl can only take so much brother if you know what I mean!