Caught up through January!

Hopefully we'll start on February soon before it's over!

Dallas's Art!

Any one who knows Dallas knows that he LOVES to draw! He is well known in his classes at school for his drawing! This is one of his latest drawings that his teacher had them do. He always goes above and beyond everyone else... according to his teacher! She actually "bought" this one off of him for their school "bucks". He is quite proud! And so are we!!!

It wouldn't load without flipping 2 of them sideways... sorry!

These 2 have the doors closed....

This one is with the doors open.

Little Swimmers!

I PROMISE! I will NOT make this a habit to post pictures of our toilet on the blog! But this is the infamous collection of toys that Cohen gathered to let swim. There were close to 15 things from SEVERAL different rooms of the house! He had worked on this for quite some time. All that time I thought he was being good and kept coming in the toy room while we were dejunking it.... he was dejunking in his own way!

Some of the things you can't see were game pieces, head bands, hair clips, other pieces of paper, and a few doll house furniture pieces. Luckily he hasn't figured out how to "flush"!

Micailey is 9!!!!

The girlies making their bracelets....

Opening presents. Notice Brin.... she insisted that she be in on the Crazy Day too! She got herself dressed COMPLETELY by herself! She loved it too!

Blowing out the candles on her massively big cake! She wanted it to be like the one on her cake plates... so we did! 3 Layers later it was so tall that you had to slice off a SLIVER and that was still too much! But it was YUMMY!

Happy Birthday Micailey!

Crazy Day at School!

Wow! I don't know if I was this bold as a child! But they were SO EXCITED to go to school like this... so what ever! Crazy Day also landed on Micailey's birthday so you will notice some similarities in her birthday pic's... she wouldn't even change for her party!

Cohen turned 2!

Happy Birthday to Cohen! He LOVES cars! So this was the obvious choice of birthday themes! He was so excited! It's fun when they start picking up on things like birthdays and holidays!

It took him a while to figure out how to blow the candles out!

It did not take that long on the other hand to figure out that he REALLY likes cake, but not icecream that much!

Jordan's 1st SOUR experience!

After all this, he still asked for more so I guess he liked it! :)

M.I.A.

Wow! Where has the time gone! I never even got around to doing a birthday post for Cohen or Micailey who both had a birthday 2 weeks ago! I'll try to post some pics of those soon.

Last week Rich spent the week in Florida, which means, YES! I spent the week alone in Utah! That was an adventure! I'm not a newbie to a traveling husband, but usually things go a little smoother in my favor than they did this time! EVERY SINGLE DAY something went wrong! He left Sunday before anyone was awake and didn't get home until Friday afternoon. Sunday I opted to save as much sanity as possible and skip church with 7 kiddos and just do a "spiritual pep talk" on my own. I don't know which would have been easier in the long run! One of the 7 had a very hard time listening, obeying, and not teasing! We'll just leave it at chaos that evening. Then at some point during the night Brin came in to my bed and at 2 a.m. and gave a cough/choke sound which wakes any mother up out of a dead sleep! I spent the next 30 minutes to an hour bathing her, changing my sheets, and getting her and Macie back to sleep. The next day, we tried having a FHE lesson with a renewed hope of making it through with promises of cooperation from the previously mentioned menace. I even put the 2 boys to bed to help things hopefully go smoother, but sad to report, still had a struggle making it through a little lesson.

Shortly after putting the boys to bed, while putting the others to bed, I heard Jordan whimpering in his room. I opened the door to tell him to be quiet so he didn't wake up Cohen, and upon entering could smell the reason for his whimpering! After cleaning up his accident, bathing him, and changing his sheets, I finished putting the others to bed.

Tuesday, I put Cohen down for a nap and 30 minutes later I could still hear him jabbering. When I opened the door to tell him to stop talking, I noticed a diaper on the floor by his bed that I knew had not been there before! As I checked in to the situation, I found a buck naked Cohen in his bed who had peed.... without that said diaper on! SOOO, we got to clean him up now and his bed... why not! WE had about done everyone else's beds by that point!

By Wednesday I'd about had it! When the kids got home, we were doing our chores and I was helping in Dallas and Brins room and the little kids were being entertained by toys and in and out of the room. All seemed okay till Jordan ran in from my room and said "Mom! Someone put toys in your toilet!" WHAT!?!? Yep! Upon peering in to my toilet, Cohen had happily went from room to room gathering up miscellaneous objects from each room and returning to throw them in my toilet! He had quite the collection! From what he had gathered, he had made about 6 trips to different rooms/closets to make his collection complete! I don't know if I am going to survive him! The other previously mentioned child was also still having a hard day... would not do homework or chores - cut their finger while disobeying on a can lid that I had opened just minutes before. Woke up the sleeping baby with her whaling. Dinner had just began to boil and need attention along with 2 screaming children now. We made it through though. After dinner, Mackenzie, Brinley, Jordan, & Cohen all ran in to the front room to practice a play and they wanted to surprise me with. I was instructed to remain in the kitchen till the came to get me. So I did, cleaning up the dinner. A few minutes later they had perfected their play and were ready for their audience! Half way to the destination, my nose was telling me that someone was in need of a diaper! As I rounded the corner, I found the said diaper in need being changed with no changee attached! He was found half way up the stairs, once again....BUCK NAKED!!! Now that..... made me mad! He got to have a bath and go straight to bed... No questions asked! We DO NOT DO THAT at my house! We then proceeded with the play and had an actually fun night!

Thursday, nothing note worthy happened... luckily! Other than I never sat down and the phone rang off the hook! I had my sister here for the day and a sis-in-law came over that evening to watch a movie and have jello popcorn. By the time we went to bed the house was a disaster! But I didn't care cause the next day was FRIDAY! Did I mention that Rich came home on FRIDAY! Wahoo!!! I was COMPLETELY DONE by this time! I had such high hopes of what I could do and accomplish while he was gone and I spent the whole week merely trying to stay a float!

I am completely convinced that Heavenly Father designed families with 2 parents for several reasons!!! I do not know how single moms and parents with traveling or military husbands can do it for such long periods of time! But, after some much needed sleep and tlc, I am doing much better! I may even try to upload some pictures of events that have occurred in January when I get a chance! So sorry that I have been missing in action for a while! I'm still here... just trying to survive!