Andi's Growing Up

Andi turned 5 on the 26th. I can't believe that she's five years old already. When did that happen? I can't believe how much she's grown. Looking at Soni it's hard to remember Andi being that little. Now she's this kid who is able to express herself really well and helps out around the house and can write. I'll need to buy myself a shotgun before too long.

She didn't have the best birthday. Christmas night she had a fever and started throwing up, and she didn't feel well at all on her birthday. She complained about her throat hurting and couldn't eat hardly at all. She had a pediatrician appointment the next day and it turns out she had blisters on her throat, which would explain why is was so sore. We had planned on going to a movie and getting pizza on her birthday, but we ended up having to put that off until later. She got a bike and a scooter, but she couldn't ride them because it was raining. I felt bad for her because she had a pretty pathetic birthday.

She has a pretty good memory, so she'll probably be bringing this up for years. "Remember when I turned five and I was sick and it was raining. That was sad. You should let me have a pony to make up for that."

Father Daughter Campout

Our ward had a father daughter camp out on Friday night. Andi and I went with Jared and Tess. It was pretty fun. Andi was a good sport about it and had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures.

Andi liked out tent.

She liked the inflatable mattress too, until it deflated.

We brought her bike with us. She liked going downhill.

This is one of her friends that she saw there, Allie Cox.

Another friend of hers, McKenzie. Andi liked wearing the glow stick from the night before, even though it was daylight and the stick had stopped glowing.

And of course Tess was there too.

I gave her that bag of Halloween candy to eat on the way home. For some reason she didn't want to eat her lunch.

Woo hoo for camping!

The remaining pictures were taken by Andi while I was packing up the tent and stuff.


That's McKenzie's dad Chris helping me get the gigantic tent into the teenie tiny bag.

There's our van.

There's our van again. She took seven pictures of our van.

There's a fingerprint and someone not ready for a picture.

Jared hauling his tent to the van.

That's me doing something manly.

I think she was fascinated by the barbeque because she took five pictures of it.

Pictures

When I was putting that sliding photo thing on the side of the blog, I noticed that we really haven't taken a lot of pictures of our kids lately. So, to rectify that, I took some pictures over the past couple of weeks. And now you get to look at them.

Hey, homey.

Peyton in his Halloween shirt that says "Will Scare For Food". It even glows in the dark.

Dylan's Halloween shirt says "Monster In Training".

You can probably read all of Andi's shirt. She likes it because it says the word "Princess" on it.

Our kids are cute. I'm not biased or anything.

We got Andi this shirt a few weeks ago. She likes it because it says the word "Princess" on it.

As an added bonus, it came with this cool nail.

Peyton was pretty tired after going to the doctor for a checkup today. I found him passed out on Sadie.

Ahhhh, furry warm pillow.

Kids in China

Sometimes I will say stuff to the kids that is really stupid and made up. Like the other night, the kids were saying something about the bad guy being up on the roof and he was going to come down and hurt them. I told them "There's no bad guy on the roof, the bad guy lives in Canada." One time I mentioned something about my boss, and Dylan asked me if he was mad and was going to spank me. I sarcastically said yes. Somehow the sarcasm was lost on the kids, so now they'll periodically ask me if I got a spanking at work.

I think I got that from my Grandpa Luthi. I remember one time as a kid I saw some skunks walking around in his field. I went in the house to tell everybody what I had seen. Grandpa told me to go grab them by the tail, because then they can't spray you. Being the smart kid that I was, I went outside to try to find the skunks. My mom came outside and told me that it really wasn't a good idea.

Anyway, today we were sitting on the couch just talking about whatever. Somehow we got on the subject of how there are a lot of people that we don't know. Andi said "We don't know the kids in China." True statement. Then she said "Kids in China don't have green plates. They only have white plates. Poor kids in China."

After she said that, I remembered one evening at dinner time trying to stop the fighting over who got the green plate and who got the less cool white plate. I probably gave the white plate to Andi, and to console her I probably said something along the lines of "Well, at least you can get the green plate sometimes. Ya know, you're lucky, because kids in China don't have green plates at all. They only have white plates. And they have to eat their food with two little sticks."

I'm surprised she even remembered that, because I sure didn't. I really need to watch what I say around the kids.

"We all live in a yellow house"

Recently at our house the kids have discovered a new passion. Cameron started it by playing CDs that had not been played for some time. He must have started doing it on Saturday mornings while I'm sleeping, because one day while Cameron was at work, Andi kept telling me she wanted to listen to the "We all live in a yellow house" song. I kept thinking it was something from Joy School, so I looked through those discs, and got nothin'. She got really irritated with me when I told her that I had no idea what she was talking about. Probably a week later, she told me she wanted to listen to the "Booties". Again, I had no idea what she was talking about. Finally I woke up one Saturday early enough to learn what she was talking about. There were Cameron and the kids in the living room dancing around to "We all live in a yellow submarine" by the Beatles. Suddenly everything made sense. It has since been claimed as a favorite song by Andi, and she and Dylan agree (which doesn't happen very often) that they love the "Booties". Hey, a classic is a classic, even amongst preschoolers!

Going "Camping"

We bought a play tent for the kids the other weekend. They finally cleaned up their rooms, so they were able to set it up on Saturday. They really like it, and Andi and Dylan "slept" in it Saturday night. Sunday they tipped it over and said it was a rocket ship. I actually took some pictures, so I thought I'd put them up here.

Andi's Birthday Wish

Lately Andi has been asking for something different for her birthday every day of the week. Monday she asked for a Barbie. Tuesday she asked for a stuffed puppy. Today she asked for a bike. I haven't been keeping track of everything she wants, so today when she made her request I told her to remind me of what it was she wanted.

She said "I want a kitchen thing that makes food and it says stuff and batteries not included. Remember what the girl said on TV, 'batteries not included'".

I think that kid is watching too much TV.

Video Time

I've been trying to load some video from the camcorder to the computer, but the two of them aren't communicating with each other. If I'm lucky, I'm able to get 20 seconds of video at a time. I was able to piece this together. Enjoy.

OK, it stopped working for some reason. I uploaded it again, so hopefully it will work now. If not, we'll just move on.

Andi's Dress

Here are some pictures of Andi in her new dress.

The girls (Tess, Andi, and Ella) all enjoyed their new dresses.

I feel pretty...

She's starting to try too hard to smile during pictures. I did that from third grade until I turned 20.

Dylan didn't get a new dress. He actually wore clothes that were a size too small.

"....girls are best."

Today is the day! The wait is over, and we finally get to find out what the sex of the new baby is. Now, before you get too excited, it's only about quarter to 10 and my appointment isn't until 2:00, so this post is not to inform you all what we know. I found this to be quite humorous, so I thought I would share. Don't worry, the next post will probably contain the much anticipated verdict.
All throughout my pregnancy, any time Cameron and I asked Andi if she wanted a brother or a sister, she would say sister. We purposely didn't tell her that "mommy's pregnant" means that a new baby is coming, because we didn't want to answer all kinds of uncomfortable questions about how the baby got there, and especially the incessant whining about when the baby is coming (are we there yet?). But, based on conversations she has overheard, she got the message, and now knows that there is a new baby coming. So much so, that one afternoon I was over at Aubrey's, and she (Aubrey) exclaimed that she "wasn't having any more kids!" I agreed that I wasn't either, and Andi got really defensive. She started saying "No mommy! What about my baby sister coming?" That led to me asking if she would be happy if we had one more baby, and then our family could be complete. She told me that no, in fact she wanted 2 baby sisters! (Good luck convincing daddy of that, young lady!)
Anyway, here's the story I wanted to share before I went on a rambling streak....
Last night after dinner, Cameron was out mowing the lawn, and I was clearing off the table. Andi was in there keeping me company, so I started talking to her about the new baby. She said "you mean my baby sister?" I said, well, we don't know if it's a sister for sure, but daddy and I will find out tomorrow. (Andi) "TOMORROW!?"
Me: Yes. Tomorrow daddy and I are going to go to the doctor and we are going to look at the baby on a tv screen, and make sure it's healthy, and then the doctor will tell us if it's a brother or a sister."
Andi: "It's a sister."
Me: "Well, we'll find out tomorrow."
Andi: "You're going to the hopsital? I want to come too, and see my baby sister!"
Me: "No, this is just for grown ups. You're going to go to Noah's house and play, and we'll come get you when we're done. Besides, we don't know it's a sister. We will get whatever Heavenly Father wants us to have."
Andi: "He wants us to have a sister."
Me: "Well, that would be nice, but if he wants us to have a brother, we'll love him too."
Andi: (gettting quite irritated by this point) "But Jesus Christ thinks girls are best and so he wants me to have a sister!"
After that, I gave up. She was right about what Peyton was, so maybe she knows something we don't. Needless to say, if they find male genitalia today, Cameron's the one that gets to tell Andi.
I guess I also forgot to mention that she had gotten confused about seeing the baby, and getting the baby. Later on last night, she kept saying that she couldn't wait to hold her baby sister, and she started packing her bag to go stay at the Crookstons while we went to get the baby. Man, December is so far away for a 4 year old.

Kid Quotes

Here are some memorable things the kids have said in the past few days.

Andi:
I think M&Ms would make my throat all better.
*cough* Daddy, can I go outside and ride *cough* my bike? I'm all better now *cough*.
I'm tired of Dylan breaking all my stuff.

Dylan:
Daddy, your belly is much bigger. Why is our belly so big?
Peyton is not my brother. I want Noah to be my brother.
I pooped in my hero underpants. Time for Cars pullups.

The other day, I was trying to explain to Dylan how to put on his big boy underpants. I told him that the little pocket thing goes in the front. So he gets the underpants on, and immediately sticks his hand in his "pocket" and wouldn't take it out. I should really think before I speak.

4th of July Extravaganza

It's been raining a wee bit here in Texas for the past month or two. The city postponed the fireworks show because of rain. To provide some source of pyrotechnic entertainment for the night, Jared and I went to a fireworks warehouse to get something we could light on fire. We spent a grand total of approximately $16.72. Some people were buying cart loads of stuff and racking up two or three hundred dollars worth of stuff. I guess their money was burning a hole in their pocket. Anyway, here are some pictures from the first annual Crookston / Carter fireworks extravaganza.

The crowd could hardly contain their excitement.

Oooooooooh. Ahhhhhhh. Sadly, that's about as good as it got.

Andi was into the sparklers.

You can almost feel the excitement.

Peyton observed the flames and carnage from a safe distance.

As you can see, we have no pictures of Dylan with a sparkler. I tried to give him one, but he ran away from me and after that he avoided me like I was trying to hand him the plague on a stick.

After the fireworks were over and the kids were in bed, the adults stayed up and watched "Better Off Dead". That's some good watching. Overall it was a pretty fun night. Hopefully we'll get to see some bigger fireworks on Saturday. Of course, we're only at about day 23 of the 40 days and 40 nights of rain, so it might not happen.

4 going on 15...apparently.

It has been way too long since I have posted a funny story of something my kids did. I blame it on the pregnancy that has made me lose my sense of humor, but I guess I got it back. Here's a little story 'bout a girl named Andi I thought you might enjoy.

On Sunday, Andi wore her pretty new blue dress that she got for my brother's wedding. (I think you can see a picture of it in an earlier post.) Anyway, it has a belt that ties in the back, that is not held securely in place by anything. It had come untied, and Peyton, being the curious fella that he is, decided to see what would happen if he pulled on it. Well, of course it came off the dress, and fell to the floor. Andi was livid! She looked at Peyton, and said "look what you did! You RUINED it!" I thought this was funny enough, but then she turns to me, puts her hands on her hips, and says: "Maaaawm (long drawn out mom)deal with your son!" I was laughing too hard at how grown up she sounded to worry about disciplining her about her tone. I have no idea where she could have heard that phrase before:) Oh, wait. I suppose she could have heard me say it to Cameron...once.

Pictures

Ok, so I lied about not taking any pictures when we were gone. I did take a few pictures at the Salt Lake Temple while we were waiting the hour and a half for the bride and groom to come out. There aren't may, but here you go.

Hangin' out in the shade

Knock knock

The peaceful sounds of summer?

For the last few weeks we have had some of the most beautiful weather here in Texas. That is, with the exception of the Tornado warnings we had a week and a half ago, but for the most part, it has been really nice. So much so, that we have been trying to avoid turning on the AC by leaving our windows open, using our ceiling fans, etc. anything that will help the nice breeze circulate through the house. Last night,for some reason, Andi had a terrible time falling asleep. First, she came to our room asking for "water with cold ice" (as opposed to water with warm ice?) Cameron got it for both kids, and carried them back to bed. Next, Andi came down telling us that she could hear a chicken "bawking" out her bedroom window. She seemed pretty freaked out, so Cameron took her back to bed, and realized that she had been talking about the crickets outside. He asked if she wanted him to shut their window, but she wanted it open. Probably a half an hour later, Andi was back downstairs saying that she could hear the blinds hitting Sadie's kennel in the kitchen. Again, Cameron took her to bed (yeah, I don't do the up and down thing as well as he does, so he does most of the footwork at night.) and asked if he should shut her window. Again, she said no, and we thought that would be the end of it. By this time, Dylan had woken up from the chaos Andi had caused, so it was his turn to come downstairs. He was just crying, and as Cameron was on his way up the stairs yet again, to take Dylan to bed this time, I could hear Andi yell something. I couldn't make it out, but she sounded really irritated. When Cameron made it to their room, I guess he found a scene something like this: Andi curled into a ball in the corner of her bed, yelling "I can't take it! It's bugging me!" Turns out that the peaceful sound of the crickets chirping was making her nuts, and making it nearly impossible for her to fall asleep. Needless to say, Cameron closed their bedroom window, and we didn't hear a peep the rest of the night. I guess we're not raising a future camper!

Should've named her Alex!

I woke up this morning, and it was a typical Tuesday morning. I got up, got Andi all ready for Joy School, packed her lunch, then got the boys dressed. Aubrey came to pick Andi up to take her to Joy School, and I then put Peyton down for a nap, and got Dylan settled down watching "the Backyardigans". I was going over my big "to do" list in my head as I took a shower, and got ready for my day. I was going to clean all 3 bathrooms, I was going to vaccuum my bedroom, Oh the things I had planned! (You really have to be a stay at home mom to appreciate my excitement, I think.) After I was dressed, and had thrown in a load of laundry, I checked the answering machine. Turns out, Joy School had been cancelled at the very last minute due to illness, so Aubrey and the 4 kids she was tote-ing would make a quick stop and would be on their way back home. "Oh well", I thought, "I'll still be able to get some stuff done while Peyton is napping." Then, ANDI GOT HOME (DAH DAH DUM). From the very instant she walked in the door, she was in a bad mood! Now, I know you've all heard the expression: "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." But in our house we have a variation of that saying: "If a female ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." (I know my high school english teacher is cringing somewhere right now!) To make a long story short, Everything was a melodrama. "Dylan's hitting me" "I'm STARVING TO DEATH." "Sadie's licking me." And on and on, and on. Around 2:00, the kids and I walked over to the Crookston house for some much needed R&R (for the moms more than the kids, or so we thought...) Unfortunately the kids decided they weren't going to let us off that easy. The boys (Dylan and Noah) were loud (even more than usual, it seemed), and the girls both decided to let their inner divas shine. It's hard enough dealing with all 6 kids when only one is acting crazy, or... shall we say, "sensitive", but today it was a madhouse. At one point I called Andi over to me to discuss how we don't hit our brother even if we're defending our friend, and she was nearly hysterical. She was crying so hard that she had trouble catching her breath. Once she calmed down enough to talk, she exclaimed: "I'm having a very bad day!" and continued to cry. Her day only got worse when she got punished for her bad behavior by not getting a treat, and having to go to bed early, and every time she felt a sense of injustice, she would mention that she was having a very bad day. I told her some days are like that...


Go ahead, you know you want to... EVEN IN AUSTRALIA!

(Just in case some of you haven't read the books in the Alexander series, that line is from my absolute favorite Children's book, entitled: Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good very bad day.)

Joy School is Paying Off

Tonight Andi was coloring in her new princess coloring book. She got really excited, and told me that she knew how to write her name. I expected to look over and she some scribbled lines, which is what she had been doing until now. This is what she wrote in her book:

The "d" needs a little work, but she sure did write her own name. She did it on a few pages because she was so excited that she could do it.

First she's drawing people, now she's writing. My little girl is growing up. Holy cow I feel old.

Easter Eggs

The kids dyed Easter Eggs last night. It was pretty fun. We even took pictures since it was Peyton's first go at it.

Dylan was showing me what he drew on his egg with the clear crayon. You can't see it in this picture, but he drew a rendition of The Starry Night.

Peyton's egg never made it to the dye.

Andi did a pretty good job of putting the eggs in the dye. She used the pink dye the most.

You can feel the excitement!

The finished product. They didn't turn out too bad.

Art Imitates Life

Andi was doing some drawing tonight. I kind of taught her how to draw people since up to now her drawings have been mostly scribbles. She picked up on it pretty quick, and was drawing people like crazy. She drew this picture below, and gave quite the descriptive explanation of what is going on in it.



1. These two beautiful ladies are Aubrey and Sam. What are they doing? They're out spending money, of course.

2. The two handsome gentlemen depicted here are Jared and Cam. Andi said that they are playing with daddy's rocket ship. Jared broke daddy's rocket ship. But that's ok because . . .

3. This is Jared and Cam playing with a new rocket ship that Sam and Aubrey got when they were out spending money.

The other blurbs I think are failed attempts of drawing someone.

On a totally unrelated subject, Sam and I were listening to some songs on our computer while the kids were in here drawing and being obnoxious. Were we listening to Top 40 music, country music, or anything normal? Of course not. Our play list went as follows:

Growing Pains Theme
Perfect Strangers Theme
Full House
Who's the Boss?
Transformers
Gummi Bears
G.I. Joe
He-Man
My Little Pony
Mr. Rogers
Silver Spoons
Three's Company
Step By Step
Tail Spin
Duck Tales
Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers
Happy Days
Greatest American Hero

How cool are we? Not very? Dang. Yeah, back when Napster was still going we spent a night or two downloading theme songs. It comes in handy some nights when you just want to sit around and be nostalgic and dorky.

I think if there's ever a TV theme song that will far outlive the show it was tied to, it will be the theme to Greatest American Hero. How many people remember the TV show? Compare that to the number of people that remember the theme song. Plus the theme song was immortalized by an answering machine message that George Costanza made in a Seinfeld episode. If you need some help remembering the lyrics, here's the chorus:

"Believe it or not,
I'm walking on air.
I never thought I could feel so free.
Flying away on a wing and a prayer.
Who could it be?
Believe it or not it's just me."

Hey, maybe I watch too much TV.

Proof Positive...DYLAN DID IT!

This morning I was feeling tired, so I did my best to ignore the children and catch a few more winks. (Someday I'll learn, hopefully not the hard way, not to do that) Anyway, when I woke up and went upstairs to turn on the "kid's shows" Andi got really excited about showing me her room "ALL CLEAN!" I went in, and it did look very nice, no toys were scattered on the floor, and Dylan's bed had been "made" to the best of a 4 year old's ability. I was impressed enough with that, but then she surprised me by saying: "Here mom, I show you the mess Dylan made...I took a picture of it." Sure enough, she turned on her camera, and she had taken this picture of the mess:

That would have been funny enough, but when we downloaded the pictures to the computer to post this story, we discovered that she had also taken an "after" picture...


I don't know where she got the idea, but I think she's figured out that her camera isn't just for fun and games...it's also a way to catch your brothers red handed, and possibly use it as blackmail in the future. I kinda like having a spy, just as long as none of those pictures ever incriminate me!