Holidays

Well things haven't really slowed down much, but we keep trucking on!  November wasn't too exciting.  We had another concert with the Idaho Falls Symphony, Asher and David had school, and David had his end of the trimester concert that I took the kids to!  I was really excited that Asher and David had the entire week off for Thanksgiving.  We took advantage of that time to get some chores done around the house, like splitting all the wood from the apple trees we cut down.  David was very sore after 2 days of chopping that wood, but it makes me feel good that we have a secondary heat source if our power goes out in below zero temperatures.  

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun!  My sister reserved a church building for us to have dinner at so we had lots of room to spread out.  My mom rented a giant inflatable bounce house/slide and we set it up in the gym so before and after dinner all the kids had a lot of fun playing on that!  The day after Thanksgiving was my mom's birthday and so my parents and 4 out of 5 of us siblings all went to lunch together.  It was very weird because it was an all adult dinner.  I don't remember the last time I went out with adults besides David to have lunch!  Later that night I took my kids to my moms house and we had a movie and birthday party for my mom.  It was a lot of fun and a great break!

December has been pretty good so far, minus everyone getting sick.  Well, besides me.  I always manage to avoid the sickness which means I get to take care of everyone else.  David always asks me why I don't get sick and I tell him it's because of my amazing willpower. ;)  So all this week there have been lots of fevers, chills, congestion, coughs, and lots of people falling asleep in random places because they are too tired to move.  I think they're all slowly getting over it, though, so hopefully we can have an illness-free Christmas!  

I just wanted to add another section of "things I want to remember" because there are lots of things I just don't want to forget:

• Ava's favorite phrase she says all the time is "A pah de toe".  I have no idea what it means, she says it in any and all circumstances, and she has been saying it really since she started talking.  What has made me laugh lately is that when Ava says this, Mia will respond with "Oh, nice!"
• Speaking of things Mia says...she really hates when I brush her hair.  Or wash her hair.  Or basically touch her head.  She has a very sensitive scalp.  Sometimes when I am brushing or washing her hair she'll yell out "Please, help me!"  That always makes me feel like a super good mom.
• I recently went to Asher's Parent-Teacher Conference.  His teachers always tell me about the funny things he does in class and I'm always so relieved to hear that he is nice and helpful at school, even when I'm not there to help remind him.  His teacher said that she likes to have students come up to the whiteboard to help point at the words they're reading and she always laughs when Asher does it because he'll copy her mannerisms and say things like "I'm not going to call on you if you're not raising your hand!"  She says he's always very nice to the other kids and is a great reader!  She says he's almost at a 2nd grade reading level.  I like that at least one of my kids is a bookworm just like me.
• Mia can be a difficult toddler sometimes.  When she gets upset she has a hard time telling me what she wants and gets furious if I don't guess right.  So sometimes she can be a little bit of a trial.  But when Ava gets mad all I have to do is chase her around the house a little and she will be giggling and laughing her head off!  I will be so sad if she loses her belly laugh and starts getting all serious because she is one of the most joyful people I know!
• Mia loves containers.  She will find little things around the house and fill any basket, bucket, or box she can find!  Every once in awhile I have to go through the house and empty all her containers out because things like remotes and headphones will go missing.
  

And now for picture time!

We were watching a movie in Asher's room while David was teaching lessons.  This is how Mia wanted to watch.  Both her and Ava love to play in this and pretend to take naps.

Asher was reading them books one day after school.  He seriously is an amazing big brother.  Most of the time. ;)

I like her cute little face.

We got rid of the cribs!  Ok, not got rid of because I'm not sure if we're done having kids and if we do have more I'm still terrified it's going to be twins again.  But we broke out the twin size beds and squished them into the girls room! 

They really like their beds.  I only had one bed rail when we first put them up so we just pushed the beds together.  This led to Asher getting very jealous that he was the only one who didn't GET to share a room and had to sleep all by himself.  I told him lots of kids wanted their own rooms, but I don't think that helped much.

Thanksgiving!  Ava loved "helping" do the puzzle with David.

She also loved going down the slide with Asher!  Slides are by far her favorite thing.  I love that she loves slides.  Asher's favorite was always the swings and that meant me standing there pushing him on a swing for an hour every time we went to the park.  The slide is much less work for me. ;)

First real snow!  We got a pretty good amount and Asher really wanted to build a snowman, but the snow wasn't right for snowman making.  But we all went out and played in it anyways!

Asher pulling the girls around our yard on the sled.

If I only had Ava, moving beds would've been so easy because she is my best sleeper.  But Mia likes to stay up late so I had to cut out naps for both of them after we switched beds because there is no way Ava would go down and take a nap while Mia got to stay up.  So for awhile Ava would find a nice spot on our hard floor and settle down to take a power nap. She has adjusted now and rarely falls asleep during the day and now they go to bed at 6:45 instead of 7:30 which makes me feel like my evenings are much freer!

It snowed on Thanksgiving and when Asher saw it he shouted out "It's like the earth knows it's almost Christmas!"  He loves Christmas and can hardly wait!

Ava is asleep on her bed so nice.  Mia is asleep upside down because she had spent the last hour kicking at the wall with her feet.  This was when I decided we really did need to cut out naps so there was a chance she'd fall asleep at a reasonable hour.

We had a sick day.  Mia and David took a recuperative nap together while we watched a movie.

Asher got a flyer from school that the local food bank was putting on a Christmas thing where you could see live reindeer and Santa and they would accept food donations.  It was a fun family outing!  David had taken Mia inside a store, but Asher and Ava got to see the Grinch and Max!

The kids were all super excited to see some reindeer!

And they loved Santa!  Well, Mia didn't love it, but once I asked her if she wanted to sit by Ava she was fine and sat right down.  It was a very cute setup and maybe next year I'll get to have them all look at the camera at the same time!

Every other year the Idaho Falls Symphony brings in a professional ballet company to do the Nutcracker.  Neither of us played in it (which was actually really nice).  They do one night performance and one shortened matinee performance for local schools.  A couple days before the performance I got an email from the symphony office saying one of the schools couldn't come and they had a whole bunch of extra seats we could use!  I decided since it was free and wouldn't last more than an hour I would try taking my girls.  I'm so glad I did because they LOVED it!  Ava sat on my lap and hardly blinked her eyes because she was so engrossed in it.  Mia was so excited and kept yelling out things that were happening on stage "It's a mouse!" "She has pretty dress!" It was fun having some girl time!

Things I Want To Remember

To balance out how stressed out the last post made me feel, I just wanted to write down a few funny/quirky things my kids do that make me smile. ;)  This blog has always been about writing down things to remember for the future, and these are things that I definitely don't want to forget!

Asher was telling me about a dream he had last night, how Mia "clambered" on to his bed.  He is always using vocabulary a little above his age (and usually in the right context!) and it makes me smile every time!  I think he picked that particular word up from the book "Room on the Broom".

When Mia wants to take my seat or if I'm standing where she wants to play, she'll tap my leg and say " 'Scusey  Mama" and then when I move "Thank you Mama".  She can be so polite when she wants to! She'll also say it to Millie or Ava if she thinks they're in her way.

Usually when Ava leaves a room, she'll look back at me and wave and say "Bye!  Yuv you!"  I accidentally trained her to do that because that's what I always say to her when she starts walking away from me.  I'm not sorry about that.

One night when David was heading out to the gas station to get some pops, he asked Asher if he wanted a treat.  But if he did, he'd have to go with David to the store.  Asher said "No, I'm fine with my life the way it is!"  It gave me a chuckle.

Mia is my worst sleeper.  But she's usually really cute about it so it's hard to get mad.  I can always tell when she's not sleeping because she talks to herself very loudly in her crib.  And tries to talk to Ava.  "Sissy....where are you?"  That's one that makes me lol every time! 

Ava loves Millie and will always go up to her and say "Millie good girl".  I usually say that to Millie and it is funny when she says it too!  She has also figured out where Millie's dog cookies are and will give Millie as many as she can until I stop her.

Both girls have a trouble with volume control.  They love to yell out "Mom!" and "Daddy!" no matter where we are.  Everyone in church knows where we sit.  We went to David's high school concert last night and in between movements of one of the pieces he could hear "Mom!" from on stage.  He whispered to his students "That's my kid...."  But usually when they yell out like that it is out of excitement and happiness!

That's all I can think of right now.  I'm going to try to be better about documenting these things because I would be sad if I forgot them!  So expect more of these in the future!

Fall Busy-ness

I had a teacher in high school tell us that as a teenager, you feel like you are the most tired you could ever be.  Then you get to college and you think that THIS is the most tired you could be.  And then you get a full time job.  And then you have kids.  And then you get old.  And you just get more and more tired until you die.  I have thought about that a lot the past could of months!  David and I have been trying very hard to make it so that we can get out of debt and in a more financially secure place.  Every time we get close to that we have to move, or David breaks his back, or we have twins, or we have to buy a new engine for our car.  But we are really hoping nothing big will happen this time! (knock on wood...)  

David and I have a total of 6 jobs between the two of us. David works for the school district, teaches private cello lessons, and teaches lessons at BYU-Idaho.  I recently got a new job tutoring English to Chinese kids (Something I feel weird talking about for some reason, probably because it feels like the cliche' Mormon mom job.  But it lets me make a little money and stay home with the kids!)  We both play with the Idaho Falls Symphony.  

I'm going to give a sample of our daily schedule, which will actually change a little starting tomorrow.  Normally I teach every morning from 6-7am, but since we had Daylight Saving Time and China doesn't observe that it will now be from 5-6am. I will have to get up at 4:30, teach from 5-6, then go back to bed until I have to get up with the kids.

5:30- Abby gets up

6-7:00 - Abby tutors

7:30 - David gets up

8:00 - David goes to work

8:40 - Abby takes all kids to bus stop, Asher goes to school

8:40-1:30 - Abby, Mia, and Ava have girl time!  I actually really like this time of day.  They are usually in the best mood now and we play and clean and hang out.  Sometimes David comes home between schools (he teaches at 3 different schools) and the girls really like that.

1:30 - Mia and Ava nap.  Mom gets lunch (yay!) and does chores I can't do while the girls are awake.  Lately that has been trying to clean up our backyard.  We cut down 3 apples trees a month ago and are still cleaning it up.  It has been a TON of work.

3:15 - Asher gets off the bus.

3:45 - Abby wakes the girls up (so they'll actually sleep at night) 

*At this point one of two things happens. On Monday, Wednesday, Friday David immediately comes home and teaches 3 lessons for his private studio.  On Tuesday, Thursday he immediately drives to Rexburg to teach 2 lessons at BYU-Idaho*

4:15 - 6:30 David teaches lessons, Abby tries to keep the kids relatively quiet on the days David teaches at home.

*On weeks we have rehearsals with the Idaho Falls Symphony, David doesn't teach as many lessons, but we have rehearsal/concert Tues-Saturday nights.  The kids are ok having a babysitter every night, but by the end of the week they get much more emotional. Rehearsals go from 7-9:30, concerts from 7:30-9:30.*

7:30 - Ava and Mia go to bed.

8:00 - Asher goes to bed.

8:45 - Abby takes Millie on a walk to get out of the house and try to regain some of her sanity.

9:30 - Abby and David watch a movie.  David falls asleep after 20 minutes, after which Abby gets things ready for her lesson in the morning.

10:30-11:00 - Abby makes David go to sleep.

On Saturdays David teaches 5 more lessons and I spend the day cleaning.  Sunday we go to church.  After church I am the ward choir director and David is one of the financial clerks.  On days David has to help count tithing, I get to take the kids to choir with me.  It's super fun when it's nap time and Ava wants to be held the whole time I'm trying to direct the music.  

So our life is exhausting.  I average about 6 hours of sleep at night.  But hopefully this is a temporary thing.  We are both very tired all of the time, but still try to do family things and not have our kids feel like they're abandoned! We both aren't doing the concert in December with the Symphony and David has started canceling his lessons on weeks we have concerts with them.  So let's all pray that we make it through this and can still enjoy some time together!

Now some fun pictures that I like to look at!

Ava thought this was so fun!  She hopped on the back of the tricycle while Mia was on it.  Ava got very upset when Mia left and kept trying to lure her back over.

Randomly one morning, I did an art project with Asher.  I had just finished a lesson, Asher had just woken up, and everyone else was still sleeping.  We replicated an art project he had done in school.

A trip to the pumpkin patch!  We went with my brother and his family.  David had to teach lessons and couldn't make it.  It was very cold, but very fun!

Asher had so much fun riding the pony!

My and my girls.

The corn pit is always fun!

Asher really misses having Sorren come over every day (I used to watch him after Kindergarten) so they really enjoyed spending time together!

Asher really loves his sisters.  He takes great care of them and loves hanging out with them.  Most of the time. ;)

Trying on their Minnie Mouse ears!

This picture made me laugh!  She gets attached to the most random things.  She loves those earmuffs and every time she saw the pumpkins she would sit down on them and start giggling.

I like her.

Ava loves hats!  She is always stealing mine and Asher's hats.

Her hair is finally long enough for a super cute little ponytail!  (I always call them piggies.  My dad asked why I call them that when I only put one in instead of two pigtails, and I just think it's cuter to call it that!)

Ava also loves yogurt!  And it is always a huge mess when I feed the girls yogurt.

Ninja and two Minnie's!

While David was in Rexburg teaching lessons I took the kids to our ward trunk-or-treat and the school district thing.  Once David got home we bundled the kids up and braved the 20 degree weather and took the kids door-to-door!  We were only out there about 30 minutes, but they all had a lot of fun!

Asher Turns 6!

*There is another post about our summer activities below!*

 

This little boy turned 6!  He had been asking me since March (David's birthday) when his birthday was going to be.  He would tell me "Mom, ask google how many days till my birthday!" So I would google how many days and he would be super disappointed because it would be like 95 days.  So he was super excited when we got down to just a few days!  He was even more excited when we had his family birthday party a few days early because we would be camping on his real birthday!  Here are some thing about my awesome little boy:

•  Asher loves his family!  He always wants us to do things together and play with his sisters and want me to play games with him and to do all the boy things with David.
• He is doing great in school.  He loves math and is pretty good at reading.  I was worried about him being so young for his grade, but it hasn't hindered him at all!
• Very skinny and very tall for his age.  His yearly appointment is in a couple days and I expect him to be his usual 50th percentile for weight and 95th percentile for height. 
• Loves Pokemon, Minecraft, and Sonic.  I used to think all the kids that played Pokemon in middle school were super nerdy, but now I know a bunch of names of Pokemon, have seen the new movie, know the theme song, and play Pokemon Go every night when I take Millie on a walk all because of Asher.
• He is a rule follower.  He is very concerned with following the rules (most of the time).  He gets very upset when he sees other kids breaking rules that I have for him so we have had many talks about not being able to control what other people do, just what we do.  It is good thing because he always washes his hands after going to the bathroom and brushes his teeth before bed, but it's bad because when I want to cheat at the rules (like not save treats for the girls or David) Asher always makes me feel bad!
• He can run hot and cold with his emotions.  He's always been like this so it's something we've been working on.  He gets frustrated really easily but also gets crazy and happy.  He's getting a lot better!  Starting all day school has been hard and a bit of a setback, but I think he's getting more used to it. When he gets home he's just very drained and has a harder time controlling his emotions, but it's getting better! 
• Is such a good helper at home.  Most of the time.  He loves to help with the girls.  He wants to help put their shoes and jackets on and buckle them into their carseats.  He'll even sometimes help brush their teeth!  He is so good with them and sometimes talks about the kids he's going to have when he's an adult.  
• Such a mama's boy.  Always has been and probably always will be!  I'm a little nervous he's going to try to live with me forever...but it's fun having my little sidekick around!

Asher really is a good kid and we're lucky to have him.  Happy birthday Asher!

July and August

I feel like this summer went by so fast!  We did manage to squeeze in a lot of things and have lots of fun!  This post is mainly pictures of everything we've been doing.

My girls LOVE babies and it was so nice of both my sisters to each have one!  Ava especially spent a lot of time this summer in this position - laying on the floor admiring a baby.

My sisters husband has tried so hard to get my girls to come to him!  My girls take awhile to warm up to people so it was a big task.  But he finally got Mia to the point where she would let him hold her!  I was very impressed.

I have spent a lot of time this summer trying to figure out how to take care of this girls hair.  It was a bit of a learning curve but I'm slowly figuring it out!  The thing I've learned most is that curly hair on a toddler looks good for about 20 minutes before they start throwing blankets on their heads or rolling on the ground and it goes back to being an afro.  I took this picture right after I did her hair in the morning to prove it does look nice at least once during the day!

My mom made all these dresses!  We had to get a picture of them together!

After the girls got off Asher jumped on the couch and said "My turn!"

I left the room for 3 minutes. They can be very mischievous sometimes!

We spent a lot of time at the library this summer doing the summer reading program.  Asher is such a good brother and spent much of this trip playing with the girls!

This is my life.  All the time.  If I ever sit down I always have children plop down on top of me.  But it's ok because they're cute. ;)

She's such a girly girl!

They do this all the time!  They love to hug and cuddle with each other.

Hammock in our backyard!

She's quirky and I love it!

My brother (who lives in Florida) and his family came to visit!  His wife, Keny, is amazing.  I told David that I forgot that she's a better mom to my kids than I am because she's always getting them snacks and toys and taking care of them.  Here she is giving Mia a manicure on our girls night!

T-ball again this summer!  There were a lot of problems with the league he was in that they sent an email out saying it would be better next year. But I think this was our last time with t-ball for Asher.  He didn't really like it and I'd rather he do things he loves like swimming or soccer. But he finished out the season and didn't quit which is really all I wanted him to learn!

Swimming at Grandma's house.  We learned this summer that Ava is a little fish and could spend all of her days in the pool.

Again, she's quirky and I love it!  She loves hats and will wear hats even to the library.  In the summer.  In 90+ degree heat.

Asher did have a birthday but I'm going to make another post about that next!  We went on our annual Mitchell Family camping trip!  We went to Downata, ID again this year.  It's kind of nice because it's right next to a swimming pool so we don't really get bored because we spend half the day swimming!  This trip went better than the last 2 years.  Last year we had moved into our house less than a week before so my kids were all very unsettled and running on no sleep before we even got to camp.  We only stayed one night.  The year before my girls were only 3 months old and I was exclusively nursing them so I spent all my time nursing.  The girls actually did really well that year!  But it's just hard to do a lot of the camping stuff when you have babies that young.  So this year was fun because the girls were both walking, when we went swimming they could swim on their own with the puddle jumpers, and they didn't need to have someone holding them 24/7!  They even slept pretty well in the tent, although that first night was definitely play night and they both had David and I laughing pretty good!  We all had fun during the trip and am looking forward to next year!

They're buds. ;)

Ava was very tired!  Grandma is the best person to sleep on.

Don't mind how gross we all look...This was on the last day!

Grandma's hammock is always so much fun!

There were always multiple kids in there!

Like really!

They kept dragging chairs all over camp and have these little conferences.  It was super cute.

Asher had his birthday at camp!  He didn't mind though.  He had been looking forward to this camping trip all year long, swimming is one of his favorite activities, and he got to play with his cousins all day!

My baby is 6!

I like these three.

Hammock again.

Grandma brought a painting activity for the kids and these girls loved it!

Playing Go Fish wish a bunch of 4-6 year olds.

He's cute.

The only other picture David would let me take of him.

Mia spent her days just wandering around camp.  I like her.

Having another conference.

David's brother blessed his baby the day before school started, so we made a quick trip to Utah to see them!  It was fun seeing them again (I haven't seen them since Thanksgiving).  They have a very cute little baby boy and my kids were all super excited to see Grandma and Grandpa Clay!  Ava especially loved having them here.  She sat on their laps all through church and kept waving at Grandma all through the luncheon. 

David holding little Eli.

Grandma with Eli!

Asher started 1st grade!  I used to think that people my age who had kids in elementary school seemed so much older than me.  And now I'm there!  He was a little sad because his two good friends that are in our ward and that were both in his Kindergarten class are in the other 1st grade class.  But we had met his teacher at Back to School Night and she was so nice and I think that helped Asher get more excited for school.  He was also super excited to use his lunchbox Uncle Brian gave him (like 2 years ago) and to eat lunch at the school.  It has been kind of a hard week with him transitioning to all day school.  I can tell when he gets home that he's just mentally drained and it takes him awhile after he gets home before his mood levels out.  But it's getting better and he really loves class!  And he's finding friends in his class that he eats lunch with and plays with at recess so I think that's helping too.  He's a great kid who loves learning and I hope he's always this excited about school!

1st day of school picture!

This shows his personality.

Yes I was one of those mom's in the courtyard waiting with my kid before his teacher took him inside.  And I'm not ashamed of it!  There were about 50 parents of 1st graders, a few of 2nd graders, but I guess by 3rd grade you figure your kid has it down because I didn't seen hardly any parents from 3rd-6th grade!  Oh well.  I was so glad to see Asher walk into school smiling and not one bit nervous.  He didn't even look back at me!  He's made so much progress and it really makes me proud!