Trust

I guess I was spoiled while living on post at Ft. Riley, but we had gotten into the habit of never locking our car or our house when we were gone. Maybe it wasn't the smartest thing, but I felt that I could trust everyone there to leave my stuff well enough alone. Not here! Last Friday night Steve was at his campout and I was here with the girls. I always lock the house when I'm here alone, but left the van as it was. Next day... our nice GPS was gone. They left the charger and everything, which was odd, but the unit was gone. I am so frustrated. I don't like to suspect my neighbors or every person that walks by now, but I do find myself wondering who will rip me off next? Very lame. Still have to fill out a police report on it, too. If anyone comes across a GPS that shows our family at the start-up screen, let me know ;-) That reminds me... I'd better go lock the van.

Oh- and drivers here are terrible! I guess I never noticed because I moved from here to Utah where they're worse. But Kansas drivers are kind- almost to a fault. You can sit at 4-way stops for 5 minutes while everyone tells each other to go first. Here you have to watch out. Most are aggressive and they don't stop at crosswalks- even when I'm walking with all 4 kids in tow. Never thought I'd miss anything about Kansas besides the people :)

Swim Lessons

This year I decided to enroll Ellie in swim lessons. A lady here in town teaches them out of her personal pool (what a great way to pay for a pool!). It's actually the son that teaches the little kids. It is only 2 weeks- 8 lessons total. I've never put Ellie in anything "extra" before, so it was interesting to see the different kids and Moms that were there. There's the sweet, quiet mom. Then there's the athletic mom with her son in goggles and two little kids in goggles watching from the sidelines. The mom that gets there late every day. And of course the mom that lets her kid do whatever she wants and is walked all over. The first week was quite interesting. Poor Ellie just didn't understand what she was supposed to do. And no matter how much I encouraged her to dunk her head or put her whole face in the water to blow those bubbles, she wouldn't do it. I'm not the kind of mom that has to have her kid be #1 at everything. Every child has their own strengths and moves at different speeds. But I'll admit I was convinced swimming was not for Ellie as the other four kids in her class were doing better. Well, this week I'm feeling better about it. She is still not totally getting it, but she's at least enjoying herself now and enjoys dunking. And the other kids were enrolled last year in the same class and are just barely ahead of her. There is hope :-)

Starved Rock

One of the adventures we undertook while Troy and family were here was a trip up to Utica, IL to visit Starved Rock State Park. I don't think I have ever been there before and it was a beautiful area. Steve had to be down at school, so I took the kids myself. We had quite the group- 2 grandparents, 3 parents, and 9 kids ranging 4 mos (Ryan and Matthew are just 3 weeks apart) to 8 years. We had a great picnic then began our hike. We started with Starved Rock. The story of how the area got its name is quite tragic:

Starved Rock State Park derives its name from a Native American legend of injustice and retribution. In the 1760s, Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa tribe upriver from here, was slain by an Illiniwek while attending a tribal council in southern Illinois. According to the legend, during one of the battles that subsequently occurred to avenge his killing, a band of Illiniwek, under attack by a band of Potawatomi (allies of the Ottawa), sought refuge atop a 125-foot sandstone butte. The Ottawa and Potawatomi surrounded the bluff and held their ground until the hapless Illiniwek died of starvation- giving rise to the name “Starved Rock.”

The kids did awesome. We were out hiking about 2 1/2 hours. Ryan and Matthew were in front carriers, Troy took turns with Sarah, Amelia and Katie in the backpack carrier and the rest hiked the whole way. Katie ended up falling asleep in it and slept through the end of the hike. But the thing that was too funny was my girls. I promise- they play outside all the time and I even let them get dirty if they want to. You'd never know it. Katie and Sarah freaked out with every little bug (or black speck that could be a bug) that they encountered. And we're in Illinois- there are lots of bugs. As we were hiking along Mom and I were trying to encourage Katie to keep going and enjoy herself. Her response? "But it's so dirty!" Then I saw a caterpillar fall out of a tree. It was a cute one, reminiscent of the chubby green caterpillar in "Bugs Life". I had Sarah come take a look. She leaned over, took a nice long look at it... and commenced in one rather quick move of her foot... to squish the poor thing. Ah yes- my nature-loving children.

quick summary

I know it has been forever since I wrote, but I haven't even looked at pictures on the camera and am not quite sure where to start. So I guess I'll say that we had a great vacation with the Tolmans, we're moved into the house, almost all the boxes are unpacked and gone, and it's really starting to feel like home. Ryan is getting bigger by the minute and is almost out of his 3-6 month clothes (he's 4 months old today!) He giggles, grunts, and smiles lots. He is still a terrible sleeper (no more than 4 hours at a time at night) but that is not unusual for my kids, so it's not a huge deal. We get to spend time with my sister, Cynthia and her family and my brother Troy and his family in the next week, which we're really looking forward to. The ward is great and both of us already have callings. Steve is the assistant 11-year old scout guy and I teach that class for Primary. I hear they're a rough group of kids, so we'll see how it goes this Sunday. Any suggestions on what to do with 3 11-year old boys? :) I will try my best and get pics up soon!

Treats

So, Sarah occasionally will use the potty and then of course get a treat afterwards. One time we cheered and clapped and asked if she was going to get a treat for going in the potty. She of course gave a resounding "Yeah!".
Then Katie added... "I get a treat TOO, I watched!"

New Home

Here is a link to a self-made virtual tour our new home in Mahomet, IL. It is a little town outside of Champaign where the U of Illinois is. It is our first purchase so that is pretty exciting. We took some pictures while going through for a final inspection, we'll move in next week: http://tinyurl.com/pwj4fh

Safe

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto. :)

Just wanted to let everyone know we made it safely to Illinois last night. It was a couple stressful days of packing and loading out, but our AWESOME friends helped out with babysitting and food and I can't begin to explain just how grateful I am for that. I am truly going to miss everyone in Kansas. The kids traveled great and we got in at 10 last night. We're all very tired, but glad to be here with Mom and Dad.

Failed

Well, the experiment was a complete failure. That night Ryan refused the bottle so that answered that question. And I found out the offending food: my oh so yummy golden oreos. Yes, that one last treat that I thought I could eat turned against me. But ever since I took those out of my diet he's been awesome. I love my happy baby.

On a sad note, Steve just took Sarah to the ER to have her leg checked out. She looks like she's had a bad reaction to her shots she had over a week ago. Hopefully it's nothing. I'll let ya know.

Experiment

We are conducting an experiment around here. For the next day or so Ryan will be on formula to see if it clears up his allergies/colic. I don't like doing this, but I don't like seeing him in pain, either. His face has been really bad the last few days with bumps and the rash has spread all over his body and he's not been a happy camper. I almost hope it fails so nursing is the only option. Then again it would sure be nice to eat regular food again. He was pretty upset about the bottle at first tonight. We'll see how he does in the middle of the night.

Ryan

It's probably about time we got an updated photo of my handsome little guy where he's actually smiling. This was taken today. I may be a little biased, but I think he's just so cute!

House and Orders

So, we've been back from Illinois for over a week now and I haven't said anything about how the trip went. So I'll give a very fast recap. I had spoken with Elizabeth Tandy and Dad talked with a teacher down in Champaign and it was decided that the school system in Mahomet was significanly better than in Champaign. As this will be the first year Ellie goes to school, this was a huge deal for me. That's how we decided to only look in Mahomet.

We drove to Mom and Dad's on Monday and were down in Mahomet Monday morning bright and early to start looking at houses. I had been doing some serious research online and had found about 10 houses to look at that I thought we would like. We started at 9:30 and went until I believe about 6:30 that evening. We found one house we LOVED. It was perfectly arranged, had 5 bedrooms, the colors were great, the kitchen was awesome, the price just right. BUT... it was right on the highway and oh so loud. I thought I could deal with that until we went back the next day and stood in the back yard for a few minutes and yelled at each other to have a conversation. Yeah, not going to work. What a huge bummer! We looked at a couple other houses, but nothing that we thought was worth the money. We looked into rentals, but there was just nothing there in Mahomet. Thursday was our last day to look, so I found another list of about 5 homes and off we went again. This time we found a home that we thought would work for us. Certainly not our dream home, but this needs to be something we can enjoy for 2 years and then move on. And this house will do it. It's 4-bedroom, 2 1/2 bath. There is tons of living space and the bedrooms are sufficiently sized. We'll probably stick all the girls in one room and Ryan in another. We'll need the 4th bedroom for storage, as there isn't a whole lot there. We put in an offer and then a counter-offer and finally the deal was set. We close on May 18th and will hopefully move in that week. (Carrie and Lance are arriving the 22nd, so we're getting kicked out anyway... hehe) I will get pictures posted as soon as we can get some of our own. It's just nice to have a place to live!

Then we've been fighting the good fight to get these orders in order to actually move to Illinois. Steve has gotten the run-around for the past month. He would be told they would fast-track his paperwork then call back a couple days later and they not only hadn't done anything, but couldn't remember who he was. Yeah... frustrating. But-he finally got his RFO (request for orders) today. He just went in to work to get the actual orders and then to arrange for transportation to come and get our household goods. We had hoped to be out by Monday, but it looks like it will probably be the 30th. Things are finally moving along! Whew!

There's more going on, but I'll have to talk about that on another post. My children are tired of me sitting in front of the computer. :-D

Manna

Numbers 11: 6- But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.

I am starting to feel this way. Steve made a comment last night that rang so true... I am beginning to understand why the Israelites complained about eating manna for 40 years.

Here is my diet. And this is pretty much what I eat every single day.
Breakfast: bagel and water or milk
lunch: turkey sandwich and wheat thins (sometimes a banana, but I'm not sure if it's really allowed yet)
dinner: salad with cheese on top (my family gets real meals) most croutons have onion or garlic

here's my latest list of what's not allowed. And it grows almost daily...
oranges, to include orange juice. This also means any kind of citrus fruits
strawberries (which includes jellies and yogurts)
chocolate and caramel
onion
garlic
nuts, to include cashews, almonds, walnuts and peanut butter
corn, to include popcorn and any cereals or chips made with corn
pretzels, apparently- he has a terrible reaction today or else the graham crackers
tomatoes in all their varieties
parmesan cheese
beans, broccoli, cucumbers
eggs

yeah- not a whole lot left to eat. Pretty much everything I cook has either onion or garlic in it. I am starting to lost my patience for this diet. I want to nurse Ryan- it's a wonderful thing to do and very beneficial, but there are days when I wonder if it's worth it. I sometimes feel like I'm not healthy because there is no variety in my diet!

I just hope this isn't a sign for how he'll be when he gets older. And I really hope he grows out of this soon!! Yes, I am feeling sorry for myself :)

Here comes the Bride

The last Junie B. Jones book I read to the girls had to do with a wedding. At the end of the book it mentioned that the dad was singing the bride's song. So I just had to teach this to Ellie and Katie...

Here comes the bride,
All dressed in white.
Where is the groom?
He's in the dressing room.
Why is he there?
He lost his underwear.

They have been singing that song nonstop the last couple days and just crack up at the end of it every single time. Even Sarah cracks up- though I don't thinks he knows why :) Steve questioned why I would teach them such a silly song, but really-it's humor they can understand. And I like to hear them doing something together and laughing together. It makes me a happy mom.

Happy Easter

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter Day!

I just had to show off my handiwork again. I sewed the dresses and Ryan's tie :-) I'm all about coordination, after all!

Oh My!

Every night, for the past week or so, Ellie has said the same thing in her prayers. It has me a tad bit concerned...

"Please bless Mommy to have twin boys and then take a break."