She sounds too much like me

I can't get over how much Jane sounds like I do. There's nothing like hearing yourself through a 3 year old's mouth.
Today, she was upstairs playing 'house' with all her animals.

Jane: Mommy, these are all my kids and I have 2 babies and lots of kids and you're the grandma mama and I'm the baby mama and can you watch my kids so that I can go on a date with my husband?

I'll have to be more careful about asking Grandma to watch the kids for us when she around! Love you Mom!

Jane Stringham dances for no man!

Tonight was Jane's dance recital. Leslie, Cameron and Ben even came to watch her. We had to walk from forever away and it took a REALLY long time with the most exhausted babies in the world before they got to her group and we were all wondering if it was really going to be worth it. Well, it totally was. Apparently, she wasn't in much of a mood to dance.

We just had our little camera with us and it ran out of batteries. The rest of the dance was pretty much the same, with Jane forgetting to walk off stage at the end.

When I picked her up afterwards, she was complaining that she was freezing and that her tummy hurt. She wouldn't even eat her licorice rope that I got her. When we got her home, she had a fever. I felt really bad for not taking her seriously. After a little medication and a rootbeer float, she's doing much better.

I took some photos of her yesterday before her dress rehearsal. What a cheese ball.

I also got a photo of Jane and her friend from our ward before the show.



We were so proud of her for hanging in there even when she wasn't feeling good. I love my tiny dancer!

Happy anniversary to me!

After much debate, Brent and I finally agreed that today, May 28th, is our anniversary. We both thought that it might be the 25th, but then realized that we were thinking of Jane's birthday. We really need to get better at this kind of stuff!

So it's a whole 6 years and 2.5 kids later. Funny to think about what I was thinking and doing that morning. I had no idea what I was in for and no one in the world ever could have warned me. It's all for the best though, because had I known, I certainly wouldn't have gone through with it. I doubt Brent would have either. Thank goodness that we had faith enough in our Heavenly Father to just do what we believed was the right thing. It certainly hasn't been an easy 6 years or always a fun 6 years. I finally see, though, that as crazy as Brent can make me, I don't think there's a person in the world that could motivate me more to be a better person and I love him for it.



Happy anniversary to us! It's been worth every moment and I know that the best is yet to come.

We have a name

If you'll notice, on my little pregnancy counter (which comes in VERY handy for when I forget my due date), we've named our little fetus. His name will very likely be Charles Barron Stringham. Brent got to pick his name since I don't really know that we'll have any more boys and I wanted him to be able to love his son's name. I have tried to warn him that we are following in Pride and Prejudice tradition by naming him Charles (for those of you not as obsessed with the story as I am, Charles is Mr. Bingley's first name. For those of you that don't know who the heck Mr. Bingley is, you really should read Pride and Prejudice. It's a very good book, I promise). So we'll have all characters from the book as our children's names, but it doesn't really bother me. We really didn't mean to do it that way, seriously, it just worked out that we've got a Jane and Lizzy and Brent wanted Charles. He says that he doesn't care and as long as I don't try to name any kid Darcy, we should be good. No worries there.
Anyway, it aint over until I sign the birth certificate, but I think we are fairly settled. Charlie is a little over half way here and his big sister is VERY excited for him to come. One of them at least. Poor Lizzy has no idea what she's in for. Won't this be an interesting fall for us.

Turning out to be a pretty good weekend...

Today is a good day. Tonight, we signed papers for an offer on the Forest Ridge house. It had started to get a bit stressful for me. Yesterday, I about had a breakdown over it. Ok, I DID have a breakdown over it. We had received a couple of other offers that, in my opinion, were pretty insulting. I know that it's a buyers market and all, but when you have a hormonal pregnant woman who has spent 5 years, a lot of blood, sweat and tears (literally), all her extra time, energy, creativity and pretty much every spare dime to make it exactly the way she wanted it, only to leave it against her will, you REALLY don't want to anger her by offering tens of thousands of dollars under what she thinks the place is worth. Not a pretty sight. Good thing I didn't have to deal with any of those people face to face. We are very pleased with the offer that we signed tonight and we're hoping the it will go through and we won't have to start over again.

Friday morning we met up at the mall with my friend, Emily and her adorable girls. I stole this photo that she took of Jane and her daughter, Cait, playing in Dinoland. I'd just send you to her blog to check it out, but it's a private club for members. I kinda like it that way, I feel all exclusive.



We had a ton of fun. Jane and Cait are only 1 day apart in age and Jane can't get enough of her new friend. We got delicious lemonade (a couple times) from Hot Dog on a Stick and Jane got a corndog that Ben polished off. I tried to get a photo of him eating it on my phone, but I'm not savvy enough to know how to get it on my computer. Instead, here's a photo of Ben from earlier this week trying to eat an entire pizza crust. The corndog one is very similar. Just replace the pizza crust with a corndog, replace Brent with a stroller and instead of being inside our house, we were at the mall. It was great.



Before Ben got his shot at it, I tried to get Lizzy to eat some corndog. Emily did get a photo of Lizzy's disinterest



Ah, what cute photos, Emily! I love my blue eyed girls.

We got to go on a date on Friday to see Indiana Jones. My review? Meh. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't great either. It was fun to get out of the house and play without the girls. Our babysitter watched Ben too so that Leslie and Cameron could come and pay for our tickets and snacks with their formidable collection of gift cards. Movie theater popcorn, yum-o.

Other than that, the Stringhams are living a pretty boring and ordinary life. I took a couple of photos of Jane this morning since the sun was so kind as to shine for us. The color on one looks kinda funky. I'm not sure what I did to it.





Oh how I love the swing set, let me count the ways. I can't possibly give enough praise to the swing set. So we've still got one more day with Daddy at home, but so far, it's turning about to be a pretty good weekend.

Swumming

I can't, for the life of me, get Jane to pronounce swimming correctly. I go over it again and again with her, but every time it comes out 'swumming' and she always wants to go swumming. Yesterday, I was suckered into getting a swimming pool for her at Target. It isn't actually a real swimming pool because we knew that the babies would want to play in it, so it's more of splash play thingy. It proved to be quite entertaining for all of the kids though and I hope that we'll be able to get some good use out of it this summer.






Look at the close up of her cute little Jane face. She was so happy.

The thing required a LOT of blowing up and poor Leslie did most of it. I didn't last all that long before I thought I was going to pass out, so she took the hit. So notice that everything that's blown up is full of Leslie's own air.

The kids were scared of it until we turned the water pressure down a little,



then Ben really got into it.



It took Lizzy-one-shoe a while to realize there was such fun to be had. I think she spent most of her afternoon eating sand.



Anyway, it was just right for our hot day yesterday. Leslie brought over Ben's swimming suit today so that they could play without looking like poor babies. Tomorrow I can just send them out in the cold rain if they'd like to play in water. Gotta love Utah weather.

Our eventful Sunday

I've had such an eventful day, I thought I'd blog about it.
My day really started more like last night when we were getting ready for bed. We were invited to dinner at Emily and Justin's house last night (which was way fun and really yummy, thanks again!) so we didn't get home and get the girls into bed until later and they both fell right asleep. Unfortunately, Lizzy had a really rough night and kept us up until like 3:00 in the morning before she gave up crying. I'm not sure what it was. During the course of the night, she got a clean diaper, lotion and medicine for her skin, IB Profin, a new bottle, she was cuddled, rocked, sung to and finally I gave in and dosed her up with every children's medicine we had in the house all at the same time.
Needless to say, I woke up very tired this morning (I need a LOT of sleep, so 3:00 - 8:00 will not cut it for me) I debated whether or not I should try going to church because I was feeling so crummy and decided last minute to go. I had to hurry and make myself presentable and we had to get Lizzy up from her much needed nap and get her dressed to. We were running late and forgot stuff for the kids and had to go back home again.



Here's a photo of Jane looking not unlike Michael Jackson with her one glove. She was feeling particularly fancy today, So I took some photos of her.

By the time we got there, we barely made it for the sacrament. I felt good about making the effort though, at least we were there. Little did we know that Lizzy had another trick up her baby sleeve. The little cutie up and puked all over us. It was fabulous. We hadn't been there 10 minutes and she throws up. So then we are frantically trying to clean up the kids and the floor and ourselves right during the talks. Thankfully, we were sitting in the gym because we were late, which made it a lot easier to clean.
So, long story a tad bit shorter, I ended up just turning around and coming home with Lizzy. I must admit that it was kinda nice because she went right back to sleep once she was home and I was able to turn on Pride and Prejudice and fall asleep in front of it until Brent and Jane got home.

In other news, I made dinner for my family. I've used my stove before, but I haven't actually made anything requiring ingredients that had to be mixed together. I even took a photo of it to commemorate the occasion of us eating at the folding table. It looks pretty sad. We need to sell our other house so that I can go get my dining table.



Jane was taking photos today and I am posting this charming one of myself in my painting pants and Hello Kitty children's nightgown for a couple of reasons. For one, you can kinda see the new hardware that Leslie and I put on the cabinets. For another, you can see how pregnant I'm looking half way through.



You may note that I have a fancy Wolf range/oven in my new house. Too bad I don't like it. It cooks nice, but it's TOO industrial and doesn't allow the kind of flexibility that I need as a mom that does most of her cooking for small children. It takes forever to warm up the oven and the knobs are all in the front where the babies can mess with them. They don't have locks on them and it's all gas and I'm just waiting for the day that they fill my house with fumes and force us to evacuate. That or just burn the place down. I'm thinking about replacing it, much it to Brent's outrage. Fancy shmancy and NOT worth it.

Anywho... Throw in visits from Brent's parents, Leslie and Cameron, my friends Sheri and Brooklyn, a nice evening mosey through the neighborhood and about 20 popsicles, and there you have my Sunday. It had drama, surprise, exhaustion, laughter, a few tears, good friends, family, food, and a nice long nap. I tell you, I'm living the good life.

Rub a dub dub...

...two babies in a moses basket. Brent's mom gave this cute basket to me when Lizzy was born. She didn't really use it much because it was immediately usurped by Jane. Finally, I decided to just save it for the next baby and packed it away where Jane couldn't find it. Well, it emerged during the move and Jane has once again brought it front and center into the living room. Today, both of the babies thought it looked fun and climbed in together. It's a lot cuter when the babies play in it, so I took some pictures.

Getting in it was easy. Getting out? Not so much.

It made me laugh...

Have any of you received the email with all these pictures? I don't know if I'm the last person to see them, but I was amused and thought I'd share a few of my fave photos with everyone (just in case I'm not the last person to see them).

What Celebrities Would Look Like if they Moved to Utah

Ashlee Simpson in Vernal



Cameron Diaz in Ephraim




J Lo and Marc Anthony in Ogden



Sarah Jessica Parker in Kamas



Pam Anderson in Kanab



The Beckhams in Bluffdale



And my personal fave...

Sharon Stone in Bountiful



Ah photoshop. How did we ever function without you? There are plenty more, these are just a couple of the particularly amusing ones.
So when you're having an ugly day, think about how good we would all look if we lived in Hollywood. Pretty Dang good, I think.

Heaven help me

Today, I got the girls up and got them bathed and dressed (so basically I'm feeling pretty good about my day even if I do nothing else until I go to bed). Jane comes down stairs with her wet hair and sees Lizzy all dressed and says:

Jane: Mommy, Lizzy is too cute.
Me: What?
Jane: Lizzy! She's too cute!
Me: And are you not thinking that you look as cute?
Jane: Yes, Lizzy is cuter than me and I don't like it.
Me: Do you want me to do your hair so that you are feeling cute too?
Jane: Yes because I don't want Lizzy to be cuter than me.

A couple minutes later, Lizzy starts smiling and talking to Jane and the following conversation takes place...

Jane: Stop it Lizzy! Go away!
Me: Why would you say that, Jane?
Jane: Because she's cuter than me and I don't like it and I don't want her looking at me because I'm not as cute.

So we went into how there will always be people in the world who are cuter than us and he Heavenly Father doesn't care how cute we are because it's how we treat people that really makes the difference and on and on. I thought that I had gotten through to her until I tried to get a photo of her and she would let me because she "didn't want anyone to see that she had a runny nose" Heaven help me.
If this is any indication of the world I have ahead of me, it is going to be a long, painful childhood. I'm really not into the sibling rivalry, so I'll have to beat it out of her somehow.

On another note, at the grand old age of 13 months, Lizzy has finally cut a tooth! It's about time silly girl.

She's been trying to whistle this morning, it IS pretty cute, much to Jane's dismay.

Skeletor Baby

So, we had a successful ultrasound this morning, meaning that we were able to find out the gender. So for all of you that are eagerly waiting the results, it's a boy!

Baby boy wasn't turning his head to get one of those cute profile shots, so we had to make do with a skeletor baby photo.



vs.



See the resemblance?
Can you tell that this it's a shot of the face? See the creepy eye sockets and jaw and everything?
Anyway, there wasn't anything unusual that showed up on the ultrasound and he's on for his dates, so we can't really ask for anything more than that.

If I had any energy today, I'd go out and buy some boy clothes, but Jane has been sick again and he was up so much in the night that I'm too exhausted to leave the couch. I guess perhaps it will just have to wait. Either that or hit up Crazy 8. I might just do that. Everyone keeps asking me if I'm excited about having a boy, but honestly, it doesn't really do much for me today. I mean, I was anticipating that it would be a boy anyway, so I'm not surprised or anything. The week that I found out I was pregnant, I bought a new boy car seat cover for my aging infant carrier, so at least I won't have to put that to waste :)

what's it gunna be? what's it gunna be?

A week from today, we have our big ultrasound. (If you run into Brent, remind him that it's on Monday and NOT Tuesday. He keeps thinking it's on Tuesday and I told him that if he wasn't there, he didn't get to know the gender)... So I thought I'd post a little poll so that we (all 4 of us) can all guess what gender this baby will be. Vote early! Vote often! Vote your heart out!

Living in Chaos

Hello from the new house! Thanks to the awesome members of our ward and family, we got so much moved on Saturday. We left some furniture to stage the house and didn't get all the closets and drawers emptied out, but definitely got the bulk of our belongings around the corner to the new house. Yesterday was Sunday and we spent most of the day being tired, going to church and hanging out at my mom's house in an attempt to ignore the task that awaited at home. Today, I finally got to work. I spent my day unpacking and running up and down the stairs a million times until my legs hurt and I was so exhausted that I was useless. Mom and Leslie came over and really picked up the slack for me. They went over to the other house and made sure that it was all clean and they packed up the rest of the kitchen then brought it all over here, unpacked it all, and cleaned the kitchen up. I'm not sure how I can possibly thank them. Brent's mom also came over and helped me clean up here then she went over to help my mom and Leslie as well. Talk about a great family! Anyway, in case any of you have forgotten what it feels like to move, I thought I'd share the joy...

Jane found this tiny, crappy old vacuum in the move and immediately adopted it. It's just her size.



Breakfast was a little hard with no where to sit or eat. We've done most of our eating outside today. At least it was a beautiful day!



No, that's not painter's tape along the baseboards. The moldings are blue, which is really clashing with new, NOT sea foam green, carpet. We are pleased as punch about our new carpet upstairs, its nice and neutral and brown to cover all the messes that our kids make. Hooray for the new carpet!



Brent got our bed set up "really quick" last night. He generally thinks he can do anything "really quick" (he's a glass is half full kinda guy) It ended up taking us at least an hour right when we were exhausted and ready for bed. At least we don't have to worry about that tonight.



My blurry, trashed kitchen.
So basically, all our rooms are either empty or a wreck. We'll dig out of it. The kitchen is looking a ton better tonight, as I mentioned before. I'll be happy when I can get through all the boxes and then it will be Leslie and Cameron's turn to move. John and Danielle will likely be following close behind, I just hope you're not planning any more moves Mom, are you? Does the office count? I'm sure that before too long, I'll be able to whip out my trusty paint decks and start Laura-fying the house, but right now, it seems a ways off.

Running from my obligations

Apparently I REALLY don't want to have to move...

As previously covered in the blog, Brent and I took off to California when we should have been home getting our house ready to go on the market. I didn't even care. I was so happy to be gone.

Well we got everything looking all pretty and now this Saturday is the big moving day. I had my scrapaway weekend planned for months and thought I'd just have to let it go because I was too busy packing and getting ready to move. Any logical and reasonable woman would realize that it's far more important to get your house ready to move than go on a crafting retreat, but I am not a reasonable woman. So today I am leaving my house and my 2 children with Brent and my parents (who I'm sure all have plenty of better things to do than watch my kids) so that I can go craft. I'm only going for one day instead of two, but even still, I should probably be here. I seem to be in a very fragile state right now though and I can't take more than a little of this moving stuff at a time. I think that everyone will be happier if I get a short break that will prevent me from going into full on freak out mode on Saturday.

On another note, almost a week after we listed the house, we had a couple families come through last night. It was good that they wanted to come, but we were displaced for quite a while when Brent and his very helpful brother in law were planning on working on a project we have to finish. We finally got a fancy tour of the house up and a new photo with no snow, which I think makes it look a lot more appealing to people. Let's hope that something comes of it and there are more lookers this weekend!

The new, improved photo. Doesn't it look nice?