Happy 5th Birthday Bright!

I know people say it all the time, but it's crazy how fast kids grow up. I can't believe she's 5!!! She's a KID!
Here are some things about Bright as a 4 year old:
Favorite Color: Light turquoise and Bright pink
Favorite Foods: quesadillas, peanut butter sandwiches, blueberries. She'll say candy, but she's really not that much of a sweet tooth. She's like her daddy where she can have 1 piece and be satisfied. Not like her mamma!
Favorite Movies: Toy Story, Despicable Me, Megamind, Tangled, The Grinch
Favorite Thing to Play: Barbies, her swing in the playroom, games with mommy
Things about her: She entertains herself so well! She doesn't watch a ton of TV and instead just makes up games and scenarios and just plays all the time. She's starting to try to rope Deacon into her pretend world now.
- She goes from calm to MAD in 1 second flat. She has got a major temper and does not put up with crap from anyone!... This is bad because she needs to learn how to take instruction from adults and she has a really hard time being told what to do by anyone.
- She's really creative and really unique! She can be in her own little world a lot... kinda spacey like me!
- From everything I've read, she's a lot more like a 2nd child than a 1st child.
- She hates wearing jeans! She prefers sweats or leggings and skirts. And when I force her to wear jeans she'll insist on wearing a skirt over the jeans! She usually dresses herself, which at this point I just allow and sometimes she comes up with these great outfits and sometimes it's a disaster! It's like my own private Project Runway.
I didn't want to do a big party for her this year because she's had some major discipline problems, so I let her bring one friend to Chuck E. Cheese, her friend Westley from across the street, who I don't think we got any pictures of! LOL
After the party she was being a big ungrateful and entitled, so we took 2 of her presents that she opened at Chuck E. Cheese to the women and children's shelter. I was hoping she could meet a child there to give it to, but they were all gone, so we just left it there and got a short tour of the shelter. I hope it sunk in a little bit...
Then, I wanted to make her a cake for the first time EVER, but it seemed like such a waste to have a whole cake to ourselves, so I invited some neighbors and friends over to share the cake. It was overall a really great day!

Heavy Heavy Hangover thy poor lome.

Christmas In Pictures

For Christmas this year we went to my parent's cabin in Island Park. It was rough cause we all wanted to go to utah but there was no where we could all stay together in Utah, so Tami, Heather and I and our families went to I.P. Once we got there, it was awesome. However, in Rexburg, grocery shopping, I lost my will to live temporarily and only regained it once things were unpacked in the cabin. We did learn that without our mom, even three adult women are helpless! Christmas Eve fondue didn't quite happen because Heather forgot her pot and I forgot a piece to my electrical cord.... and it just didn't go quite as smoothly as it goes when mom is there, even though she did provide everything to make it happen. Here are the pics:
Norrah and Bright in their christmas Eve PJ's from Nana. They weren't quite BFF's this trip though. It was strange, they just kind of stayed away from eachother, which was fine because I didn't have to deal with the DRAMA! Instead she was obsessed with Cannon who she cries about on a weekly basis because she wants to be "married with him."

He's so sweet to be patient with her being all over him all the time.

The Loot from Santa.

Bright got her "makeup" that she

wanted. The only other thing she wanted was a "My way Toothbrush and toothpaste" that you can decorate with stickers. This is what happens when you only have PBS and no cable, you don't see a lot of commercials. So when she saw the My Way toothpaste, she was instantly hooked. That's what she's hugging in the next picture.

Car shoes

Aaron was WAY more into this car track than anyone else! Deacon really loves it too though. I thought he would love the BBall hoop more, but he loves the cars. They run on batteries and last a whole half hour before dying.

Deacon opened Buzz Light Year first from us, and then pretty much was not interested in opening anything else. In fact, Bright didn't open all her presents in the morning either. There were so many people and presents to get through, she's not that patient! They were all open by the end of the day though.

Aaron got all the kids into the Car Track.

A bit of snow!

Swimming at the club house. I love Deacon in this picture. Aaron always gets "crazy eyes" when trying to get kids to smile for pictures. It's like the crazy mouth women get when applying mascara. It just can't be helped.

It's a GIRL!

So excited to blog-nounce that I'm having a girl! (And since that's the second time I've used the word blog-nounce, I'm officially declaring it a word that I made up.) Our ultrasound tech was named Tea-tow... like Tea-towel, without the l's. I wish I had a pic, but the only electronic things they gave us were video files. Did you know that the most outside hits for my blog come from people searching for pictures of boy ultrasounds? Back from when I posted Deacon's explicit ultrasound. (He had a proud papa.)
Now since this blog is all about the dirty truth. I think it's about time I talked about some things that happen to you when you're pregnant that no one tells you.
- The spreading of the hips/buttocks. This may only happen the second and third time around but my behind is SO pregnant. Now I'm not claiming that this has nothing to do with the two frozen chimichangas I'm currently ingesting. The horrible part about morning sickness is that you get REALLY sick if you don't eat like on the hour, every hour. And a carrot stick just isn't going to cut it! Some people throw it all up, so it doesn't matter. I, however, highly medicate myself with Zofran so I don't throw up all day, so it all migrates to the booty. But it's not good booty like Kim Kardashian.
- The gigantic NOSE- I firmly believe that Heavenly Father gave me "pregnancy goggles" the first time around so I wouldn't notice how absolutely horrendous I looked. I don't think I could have shown up for work and been on live TV every day if I had full clarity about the size of my nose. But after seeing pictures, I can no longer deny that my nose is like a pop up thing on a turkey and it tells me when the baby is fully cooked and ready to come out! (I really should go through my other computer files and post a really embarassing picture.)
- The crying: OK they do show that on things like movies where the woman is crazy emotional. But holy cow, I'm really going through that this time.
- The burps: I was going to say "the gas" but suddenly I got too lady-like and didn't want to embarrass my mom. For me, I burp ALL the time and it's so gross. Aaron loves it.

On other notes: Brighton has become my caffeine police. When we were going through In Vitro I told her I couldn't have any pop because of the caffeine and now EVERY time I get a drink she asks if it has caffeine. And if, for some reason, I decide not to lie, she says "Mom, do you want to have a dead baby?" I told her I drank so much caffeine when I was pregnant with her, maybe it causes a sassy attitude and I SHOULD probably stop.

Names we're considering:
Lucy
Piper
Oaklee
Stella
Blythe (Which, how awesome is this- includes the initials or first 2 letters of me, my mom and my 3 sisters.)
Hadley
Rozlyn
Marlee
Penny
It will probably end up being something not even on this list yet. This concludes my pregnancy post.

Halloween 2011 and subsequent bedtime woes

Are you super impressed by my timeliness of getting Halloween pictures posted? It's partly cause I'm still a little embarrassed about my last post and don't want it to be front and center anymore! Also cause Aaron gave me a hard time. :)

First Brighton. This child- bless her heart- has to put her own spin on everything! She is SUCH a non-conformist. She's the girl who always has to wear a skirt over her jeans (when she's forced to wear jeans, which she HATES.) Or she'll have to wear 2 headbands, etc. So instead of just being an adorable Minnie Mouse... she was "movie star Minnie Mouse" for Trunk or Treat but then she didn't want to be Minnie Mouse for Trick or Treat. She wanted to be a Panda Bear, which sorry- but I can't whip out a Panda Bear costume in a day. So I found my wedding veil and she was "Bride Minnie Mouse" which satisfied her.

And of course she had to have a Mickey Mouse to marry! Deacon was so excited when I put him in his costume. I don't know how he knew that meant something sugary was to follow, but he immediately started running back and forth as if he was already on a sugar high. He's getting into the "posing" phase of toddler-hood. He wants to do everything like Brighton, and if we say smile he closes his eyes and does a cheesy grin. SO cute.

Also- don't you wish that gnarly cat was real?

More pics:

So every year I say I'm not going to dress up and then I just can't help myself! I went to D.I. trying to find a rockin' 1960's maternity dress... like a sailor dress with a big bow over the belly. But alas, I couldn't find one. But I found this 70's dress, which was cool. So I decided to stuff my belly and be a 1970's pregnant prom queen. I knew it was risque, especially at a function where my ward would be but this man, who TOTALLY reminds me of my dad thought it was hilarious. So even though my real dad disapproved, Denny thought it was okay which made me feel better. His wife mentioned how I was the prom queen the next day in Sunday School and I'm pretty sure she didn't realize that I was trying to be funny with the whole pregnant thing. (Which is probably a good thing!)

NOW to the subsequent bedtime woes: Pregnancy and Aaron's late hours have made me a terrible mother when it comes to bedtime. (and meal time, and bath time, and play time) I'm great at TV time. I gotta give myself kudos somewhere! Anyway bedtime has been getting later and later and for the last 2 nights my kids have gone to bed at 11 pm! That's later than Aaron and I usually go to bed! Last night I spent 5 hours putting together an Ikea dresser and then Aaron and I re-arranged the whole room in order to fit in the dresser and then realized the only way it worked was exactly the way it was and put most of it back. Then we're trying to just let Deacon cry in his crib for a few minutes and next thing I know I hear footsteps and he's out of his crib! Do any other parents get slightly creeped out when this happens the first time? You hear small footprints and all I can think is "Please be Deacon, Please be Deacon! Don't be a zombie baby!" (Zombie babies are by far the creepiest Halloween decoration.)

Then again this morning he crawls right out of his crib. He's 19 months today! It just seems a little early! Crafty little bugger.

Finally, a breakthrough!

Well, I figured out how to make Brighton into the sweetest, most helpful, loving girl in America. All I have to do is yell "S**T BALLS!" at the top of my lungs and lock myself in my bathroom for a half hour, whilst sobbing.
I should back up. It's just been one of those weeks. First off, remember how I'm pregnant? Second- it's been raining all week. Third- Aaron has worked until 8 or 9 EVERY night this week and I'm a horrible single mom. So the day was going fine. In the morning I did the quarterly changing of the kids closets where I put away all the clothes that are too small and get out all the next season's clothes that I've been stocking up on during sales. Feelin' good about my bad self. Then during Brighton's dance class I took Deacon with me to the dollar store to buy some umbrellas. My patience went down to 80% cause Deacon wanted this basketball and every time I gave it to him he did what any 18 month old boy would do. He threw it. Then some old lady told me I was stupid for continuing to give him the ball. She was right- but still! Then since I was out of the house and wearing a bra I decided to run to Old Navy to replace some tights I bought for Bright that got a hole the first time she wore them. Now- Brighton is obsessed with mannequins. All of them. She calls them her "family". So when she sees all the adorable mannequins at Old Navy she has a hay day giving them all hugs and talking to them. Everyone around her finds it adorable but it's just gotten really old for me! And yesterday since I was just going to grab the tights I decided to let Deacon walk with me. Big mistake. After trying to get Brighton away from "her family" and trying to chase Deacon around the entire store, we were quite the spectacle. At the end I was literally yelling at Brighton to "stay with me!" and trying to hold Deacon as he was trying to wiggle away and pay... patience level down to 50%... chances of someone in Old Navy calling CPS also 50%. (PS- this pic was not from yesterday. It's like a year old.)
We get home and those two trips took it out of me! So I make ramen noodles with egg for the kids and canned soup for me. We're in that phase where Deacon wants to do everything himself and eating is quite the chore. I'm trying to let him feed himself because honestly feeding babies is the worst- but he slaps his hand down in the bowl and the noodles go FLYING all over the place which he finds delightful. Then I ask Bright to put her bowl in the sink and she tries to throw it! So again... soupy eggs all over my cupboards and rugs. Patience level 30%.
Now comes the regular fights between the kids, and injuries. Brighton hits her head in the playroom and Deacon steps on a thumb tack and it goes ALL the way inside his foot. Deacon grinds a banana into the carpet and as I bend over to scrub it out my pajamas split down the middle. Great for the old self esteem. Patience level 15%.
Then as I finally sit down to try to watch Thursday shows Deacon gets a cup of water that I foolishly left on the shelf and dumps it all over me. Patience level 0% and thus the CURSE word comes flying out of my mouth and I retreat to my bathroom for a good sob.
When I came out- Brighton started cleaning her messes, giving me loves, putting on her pajamas, brushing her teeth, helping her brother, I've never seen her so good in my life! So if yelling S**T BALLS gets that kind of result, I might turn into a real potty mouth!

Drum roll....

Since I recently learned that a person besides my mom reads my blog... and since this is documentation for future generations (or giant ants that invade the planet but know how to read) I shall blog-nounce that I'm successfully knocked up! Yay! But seriously- we're probably the luckiest infertile couple on the planet and I feel bad for ever whining. For people with.003% chance of conceiving naturally it's just so awesome that we're going to have 3 kids! 3!

I'm almost 14 weeks now and do feel like blar but I just said I shouldn't whine... but that's haaarrrdd! Ok this next bit isn't a whine-fest it's just a sad story.

The WEEKEND of FLAKE plague!
SOOOO- we had a trip planned for labor day to go to the Flake ranch to see Aaron's whole family. Aaron's parents are going on a mission so this was our last chance to see them before they head to the outer-regions of the earth (Istonia?) for two years and our chance to see the rest of his family that we only get to see like once a year. So we were supposed to fly out Thursday at 1:19 p.m. Wednesday I got a call from pre-school that Brighton had thrown up all over herself. So I went and got her and she ended up being really sick all day.. That night at about 7:00 p.m. it felt like more than just baby-sick and I ended up with the stomach flu ALL night and thought I was going to DIE. Honestly- I know I over-share on this blog but no one should have to know what went on behind those doors.

So the next day I was still SO sick. Like the sickest I've ever been in my 32 years and Aaron was trying to convince me to try to fly to Az. I had just resigned myself to the fact that I couldn't and they would have to go without me when I hear barfing from the other room and now Aaron is sick! So we spent the day like Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine from Willy Wonka. The next day we were both better and the airline said there were 3 seats on the flight to Arizona but since 2 of our tickets were from credit card miles we had to go to the airport and fly standby. So we threw things in suitcases and ran to the airport only to find that there were only 2 seats. We all went through the gate and in the end Aaron and the kids were able to get on the plane and I had to stay behind.

Normally a weekend to myself would have been awesome but I was so excited to see everyone and relax at the ranch that I was just devastated. I held in my tears like a brave warrior on my way to the car and then bawled the whole way home. Sadness, right? So I spent the weekend disinfecting my entire house from the plague and shopped a little and ate out by myself and saw two movies by myself. I do have friends but all of them were either camping or also sick. :( Probably my fault. Sorry.

So that's the story I wanted to tell. We've had a good summer though. We really didn't do much this summer, mostly because of the reproductive business and my morning sickness and Aaron being super busy. We did go to Lagoon with my family which was REALLY fun and I didn't feel too sick that day, but felt horrible the next day trying to travel home. From that I realized that sushi isn't the best road trip food.

If you can't say something nice....

...you shouldn't blog at 11:12 p.m. But I'm gonna. And you can't stop me. This is going to be a total whine-fest. But maybe I'll say something nice first- I got a piano! Hip hip Hooray! Now I need to get a book of Elton John's greatest hits and Ben Folds Five and start playing something besides hymns!

I was quite literally on my way to bed just now...taking my pills and doing the other thing I have to do before bed which I won't mention because I know the meaning of the word propriety (Watch What's Up Doc if you haven't. My favorite movie ever!) and I just felt like blogging my woes to the www. Maybe this is bad luck. eh.

I just have a sense of impending doom! I got some embryos put in my lady parts and I'm just waiting to see if they'll go from cells to fetus and I'm a nervous wreck and my body feels like it's falling apart! Last time I just KNEW it would work. There wasn't a doubt in me. This time- well it all started when they told me I had 4 embryos left and they'd have to thaw all 4 in the hopes of getting two goodies. Turns out only one thawed well. The other one had like a 2% survival rating but I had the Dr. put it in me anyway since she was down there and all. So we have a 22% chance of conceiving which just sounds impending doomish. (Yes, I used to be a journalist. No, I didn't use words like doomish and lady parts back then.) And now we have no embryos left and I want 27 babies! I wonder if I could have babies easily if 3 would sound like an okay number, but now that I can't I want 46. I want so many that they make a new reality show after me.

I had to lay down for 2 and a half days, but the Dr. said it takes 3 or 4 days to implant, so I pretty much laid or sat for 4 days and now my neck is sooo stiff I can't even check my blind spot! It hurts like mad and I can't take anything for it. On top of that I have to get these 2 inch long needles stuck in my butt every day and it looks like a bruised pin cushion and is sooo sore! The progesterone is making me SOOO dizzy and it's 170 degrees outside and I can't go to the gym so I went to the mall yesterday and spent (bleep -censored in case Aaron reads this) dollars! I'd like to bear my testimony- I know retail therapy is true.

I do have wonderful friends though who helped watch my kids and brought me food while on bed rest. That's a happy part. :)

Aaron says I exaggerate.

Oh and the picture at the top is Eggbryo the Embryo. He's my lucky mascot made from a real hardboiled egg, potato head arms and T-rex legs. My friends Jake and Abbie made that for me. :) haha.