A Song is a Song

Recently I've been thinking of songs. Between a post by a friend and my dad, I have been thinking a lot about what songs remind me of my kids.

I've always felt that life should have a sound track. And unconsciously or semi-consciously I assign songs to different situations in my life. I can't tell you how many times that I've been listening to the radio and a song comes on that makes me think of an old friend or a bad break up.

I also have certain songs that remind me of my kids.

1.) Elijah

There are a few songs that make me think of Elijah, but there are two that make me think of my little baby Elijah. And so you know, Elijah was a very active and curious little boy. I had trouble keeping up. I'm really grateful he was my first! But the songs are....

Responsibility - MXPX

but most especially....

In Too Deep - Sum 41

I most definitely felt/feel overwhelmed as a parent. Espeically a new parent. And those songs summed up how I felt sometimes.


2.) Ally

Just to show how eclectic my tastes are, I will share this this you. All of my children are gorgeous, and Ally was no exception. But Ally doesn't have my coloring. I've honestly been asked if she was adopted. But she was a beautiful baby. And she is still beautiful. When the kids were younger, I used to make videos of pictures for the year. And the songs I used her first year will forever make me think of her. They are:

"Baby Face" and
"Beautiful Baby" - Bobby Darrin

These songs suit her perfectly.

3.) Lauren

We have nicknames for our kids. Elijah is Sunshine, Ally is Starshine, Eden is Stardust and Lauren is Starlight.

Around the time we had her, Muse came out with "Starlight" and now that song always makes me think of her. And that has been her song up until this point.

My dad changed that recently for me. He told me that Abba's - "Thank you for the music" is about Lauren. And to explain by let me say that Lauren still isn't up to her age in speaking. It's is getting great and wonderful, but not quite there.

But she has always been very musical. The lines "my mother told me a could dance before I could walk"...and "sing before I could talk" really applies to Lauren. She is really like that. She can sing words in song that she can't say in speech. In fact, at her preschool she was awarded as "Miss Song."

Listen to the song HERE.

4.) Eden

I don't have a song for Eden yet.

"In a gadda da vida" by Iron Butterfly doesn't seem to quite fit.

Being Loved

My it's great having my girls. And they do seem to love me.
My favorite part of this picture is Eden's little hand touching my cheek. She is at the stage where she likes me to be within sight and touch at all times.

And I mean at all times.

Hold Your Horses Kari

This one falls under Hair Fail.

I wanted to see if Eden had enough hair to make a pony tail yet.
Since it looks like a mistake and not like a pony tail...I'd say no.

I looked at her dark thick baby hair and got ahead of myself.

Time to wait a few more months.

Late Easter

By the time Easter rolled around this year, I was kind of done. It has thrown my whole year off now. I can't believe it is almost June. Easter was only a month ago!

We kind of threw everything together at that last minute. You would think that the extra time would have worked in our favor. But no. It didn't.

So late Saturday night we were dying Easter Eggs. You can tell it's late because the girls have had their hair washed for church the next day.
I think Lauren is plotting to take over the colors Elijah is using. Speaking of Elijah using the colors, I'm not sure how he dyed his shoulder. It's one of life's great mysteries.

Of course the next morning the Easter Bunny had left some treats.
Elijah had asked the night before if he could sleep on the couch.

Why? I asked.

"So I can catch the Easter Bunny." he explained. (Although I think he was really just trying to torture me.)

"NO!" was my answer.

When he asked why he got the Kari Evil Eye. I've patented it. It didn't help though because half the kids got it genetically.

And of course it wouldn't be Easter without Easter dresses. This year was rife with drama. I could not find three perfect dresses to save my life.

We ended up with these numbers:
Ally didn't want a dress with ANY TULLE. Seeing how the ballerina skirt thing is REALLY, REALLY popular, that was harder than you would think. I finally found these with my sister at The Gap. We happened to walk in on a Buy 2 Get 1 Free deal. Something else good to add to my list about having THREE daughters.

You can't see it here, but I also got Elijah some brown shoes. I showed them to him and he told me he hated them instantly. I showed him that "LOOK! They have no laces. " And seriously his next sentence was, "These are my favorite shoes and this is my favorite outfit for church." Sure enough, he wears this one every Sunday. I'm so glad we bought him a suit. Maybe he'll make his mommy happy and brush off the dust periodically.

I know I'm a month late, but HOPPY EASTER! (pun intended)

Not Enough Nine

As Elijah gets older, I notice some changes. Gone are the days of baby stuff. He is not a small child anymore. He is a kid now and it is so different. When it first happened I was sad. I loved my baby Elijah, but as this year progressed, I realized I loved my big kid Elijah too.

And I get to tell you why.

Elijah has developed into his own person. I'm not going to say the temper tantrums are completely gone (for heaven sakes, I've seen adults who have them) but they are starting to disappear. And it is a pleasure. (Now if only some of my other children would take note.)

Elijah has made friends this year. This is major for us. I'm so happy and so is he.

Much to my surprise, he doesn't want to be known as the best reader or the smartest kid in class.

He wants to be the class clown.

And I have to say that he has developed his own sense of humor. And it's starting to genuinely make me laugh.

This year he made a goal to make 10 new friends for his New Years Resolution. I think he's up to two. (This is new friends. It doesn't count the ones he'd already made.)

He also LOVES being a Bear. He loves his new Bear leaders and asks to go to Scouts. (Yes this is new. He was fighting me at the end of Wolves.)

But let me tell you what Elijah is...

He is:

Smart
Driven
Funny
Messy
Friendly
Clever
Kind
Sensitive
Caring
Inquisitive
Passionate

We had some major debates about what to get him this year. And we decided to get him something he hadn't asked for. We wanted to get him a Nintendo DS. (Little did we know how many options there were available. Between the DS, DS Lite, DSi and 3DS, we ended up with a DS Lite. Because it doesn't hook into the internet, it is compatible with Gameboy Advance games and most of all, we could afford a used one.)

We explained to him that we only got him one present. (Truthfully we didn't even buy games for the thing.) While disappointed at the thought of one present, he was thrilled beyond belief when he actually SAW WHAT IT WAS.

His faith in our parenting was restored.And here he is...exuding faith in his parents again. (ie. He is excited.)

We had also promised him a pretty extensive party this year. He felt a bit cheated last year when he had to make due with....a family party. (gasp) And all he got was a baptism and a big dinner. (Seriously, I thought it was enough, but I guess he was expecting something a little more. Like something involving friends.)

So he gets a friend party and I started shopping around for a place to have it. Because with our front room torn up I did NOT want 8 nine-year-old boys running around a construction zone.

He initially requested a party at Nickel City. Which I poopooed because he had just done it with a friend. And I proceeded to do a cost comparison of every boy related activity in the valley. I looked for over a month and made spread sheets to see what was the best value for the money (the making spread sheets part may or may not be a little exaggerated.) And of course I picked....Nickel City. It ended up being the place where we got the best value for what was offered.

And here is my advertizement for Nickel City. Eight boys having fun.

And the boys:
Noah (whom I think is burping), Sundance, Blake and Elijah. Please just ignore me, I'm a blur because I'm trying to escape the picture. But I was too slow.
And Kyler, Bryson, Alex and Bentley.

The party included 2 slices of pizza per kid, Soda, the plates and napkins. All I had to bring was a cake. (Or rather cupcakes.)
The party also included a Laser Tag Game. The boys are plotting the demise of the girls they fought against.
And here are the scores. Girls are red, boys are blue.

My favorite story was when Matt and I were watching the scoring. We were trying to guess who was shooting. We were extremely interested in Percival who was always ahead in scoring. We knew Elijah fired a lot and wasn't so accurate. We figured he was Galahad. You can't see it so well, but Excalibur has an accuracy of 1.92%. We were dying by the end of the game to know who was who.

I won't tell you who Excalibur was, but we were right about Elijah. And Percival? That was Noah. I told his mom he needs to look into a career in sharp shooting. That is some natural talent.
Elijah got to spin the wheel for tickets. This is in addition to the ones he won and the 100 they gave him. And he won 1000 tickets. We are now the proud parents of a kid with an air soft gun (which is out of bullets) and a laser pen (which is broken).

All in all, it was a great party. All the boys had a ton of fun. :) I'm glad we did it.

Give Me More Four!

When I taught preschool I noticed something that happened at four. It was the beginning of a great new thing. My small child starts to become a kid at this age. They START to become more resonable, they understand more and they can be punished. They just start getting it.

I have to admit, I was wondering what would happen with Lauren, as delayed as she has been. But I'm pleased to report that I think she is doing great. It feels like a switch has gone off all of a sudden. I don't know if it's the special education preschool, the treatment for her bacteria or just because she is four, but she is getting things suddenly.

Last month Lauren had her birthday. We threw presents at her and for the first time we gave her a party. With friends.

She loved it.

Before we get ahead of ourselves let me describe Lauren.

Lauren is:
Sweet
Bossy
Order-oriented
Dramatic
Weepy
Fun
Musical
Clever
Fashionable
A Diva
Clueless
Smart

Ah I love that little girl. This year has to have been the hardest I've ever had as a mother. This winter was relentless for me. She saw more doctors than I thought possible. But things have settled down and I can actually see all my efforts paying off. I am excited to see what the future will bring for her. I feel privileged to have the chance.

Lauren's main passion this year has been Tinkerbell. For a while even calling her "My Tinkerbell" when she saw her anywhere. She even got to meet Tinkerbell at Disneyland. At bedtime (when she should be sleeping) she dresses up as Tinkerbell. She also plays with the dolls and watches the movies. That kid LIKES Tinkerbell. My favorite story was when my Aunt got her a HUGE Tinkerbell balloon. It was very real to her. She spoke to it, played with it but tragedy hit when she tried to go to sleep with it. Tinkerbell did not want to stay does and after some wrestling, the balloon Tinkerbell popped!

Lauren was completely potty training this year. It may have taken the ENTIRE year, but she did it and we are beyond proud. We are pleased that this was accomplished before her birthday (because we were really worried that it would be when she was four she was done potty training). But she did it. Due to some major cleverness (over doing it on the grape juice ) on her parents part, she overcame her fear of the toilet and "let her rip" so to speak with only minor freaking out. We are so pleased.

Since Lauren likes Tinkerbell so much, the same Aunt that provided the Tinkerbell balloon, got her Tinkerbell party supplies. Thank you Aunt Emmie! She even got a Tinkerbell pull-string pinata. So we invited six of her friends.

We started with the pinata. I had the perfect plan. I figured the activity would take up about 20-30 minutes. Which is good because it was the only activity I had planned and I had a whole hour to fill.


So I lined up the kids and started with Lauren. And she got the right string on her first try!! (This I found aggravating, let me tell you.)


Not one to let little things get me down we moved on to the cake. After forgetting it last year, I made sure to make a big deal about it this year.

Lastly the presents which Lauren loved getting. For the first time we have Polly Pockets in out house, which all the girls have enjoyed.

We also got Lauren a wagon. Because she didn't know what one was. But she loves it and I love not having to carry Eden everywhere!