A good idea?

Eleanor stayed after school yesterday for her first cheerleading/Tumbling class. She is our born cheerleader. She is loud, energetic, and has cheering spirit. Matt frowns on cheering, but with Eleanor, he cannot deny the fact that it is in her blood.

When Eleanor saw me, Zoe, Emily, and Noah walk into the gym during her class, she shouted at the top of her lungs, "MOMMY, ZOE, EMILY!" She wasn't expecting to see us until after her class, so she said we tricked her and I think she was a little embarrassed that we were watching her. Her class was doing forward somersaults when we got there and then they did cartwheels. Eleanor has been practicing cartwheels with Zoe and Emily lately, so she was one of a few in her class who got the hand-hand, foot-foot action down.

When we got home, Eleanor wanted to continue doing gymnastics...as we were getting ready for dinner and Family Home Evening. She also started shouting the cheer that she must have learned at the beginning of her class. She shouted it over and over and over again. This is when Matt and I looked at each other and wondered if cheerleading class was such a great idea.

Branch President vs. Long Afternoon with Family

It was so nice this morning having Matt here to help get the kids ready and to ride to church together as a family. I highly recommend having both parents at home on Sunday morning to get the kids ready for church! We didn't rush this morning and we were at church early enough to visit with people and get the seat we wanted. We had our primary program today. The kids did a great job! I breathed a sigh of relief at the end...no dramatic performances from Eleanor, yay! I loved having Matt sit with us and having him take Kate out of the chapel a couple of times when she got cranky, instead of me doing it. :-) We've had a long afternoon since we only had Sacrament meeting due to the rainy weather. Matt got a taste of our whiny, cranky younger children who desperately needed a nap, but wouldn't take one. Being the Branch President was looking better to him today!

Excited to visit the Dentist!

Zach had his first dentist appointment today to have his teeth cleaned. He wanted to have a turn right after he saw me get my teeth cleaned last week, but he didn't have an appointment that day, so he had to wait until today. His appointment was at 10:30 this morning, so all morning he asked if it was time to leave yet. He was so excited! The time finally came to leave and he had a meltdown because he couldn't find his little blue flashlight. He carried his shoe box to the car and was just devastated that he didn't have his flashlight to carry around in the box. At this point we were running late, so I wasn't sympathetic. I got the kids in the car and headed to Brewer (about 30 minutes away). As Zach was having a tantrum, I wondered if he was going to settle down before his appointment. I was relieved when he stopped crying about halfway there. He hesitated only for a moment when the hygienist came out to get him and he asked if I would go with him. I encouraged him to go by himself and he did! He was very cooperative and happy throughout the cleaning. There is a hint of a cavity forming in a back tooth, so I need to help him brush more. I gave up helping him awhile ago because he was so determined to brush his teeth himself. Hopefully, he'll be more willing now to let me help since the hygienist and dentist encouraged him to.

Kate had fun grabbing all of Patty's (one of the hygienist who wasn't there today) stuffed animals that were in her room. Kate enjoyed brushing their teeth with a giant toothbrush and then tried to brush her own teeth with it...fun, fun!

Zach had a great first trip to the dentist, so we went to the park before coming home. We didn't let the fact that I didn't bring any shoes for Kate stop us.

P.S. 3 months until Christmas!

FHE FieldTrip...on Tuesday

The fun is about to begin!

First adventure...the corn maze, which was shaped like a tractor this year.
We found the "Hall of Fame" first.

Then we found stations 2-5, and then went back to station 1, which was near the "Hall of Fame". Then we found the exit. We got our exercise in for the day!



We did it!

Here is Kate at the age of 19 months refusing to be seen with her family as we take the above picture.

We wore them out.


The free ice cream got them moving again.



The goats and llamas are a big hit here with the kids. Watch out for those goats, though! One goat ate half of Zach's ticket and another goat tried eating Emily's hair.
Eleanor wanted to buy a bunny, so I told her we'll get one when we're out of debt...hopefully she'll forget by then.

A few more things

I forgot to mention who our new Branch President is for those of you who used to be in our branch, but have since moved on...*sniff, sniff*. It's Peter Dauk. I think he's going to do a great job. When I asked his daughter, Morgan how it felt to now be the Branch President's daughter, she replied with a huge smile, "I think it's exciting!" They are a great family and they have many blessings awaiting them through President Dauk's calling.

I received this e-mail from Eleanor's teacher today.

"Hi Joey...Eleanor is great! I am enjoying her tremendously! She has such wonderful facial expressions! She comes to school every morning with a smile on her face and makes an effort to see me to let me know she's here...it's adorable.

We are still working on getting used to schedules and school routines. Just when we start to settle in, there is a change. So, sometimes that is difficult for some, but Eleanor is adjusting well and going with the flow.

I have a cute story...We have a set of twins in our school. On Friday Eleanor noticed them for the first time. With an expressive face, she says, "Mrs. Pelletier, they look like twins!" I answered, "Yes they are!" Again with the facial thing going, she says, "Wow I never saw twins in real life before...only in the movies!!" It was adorable!"

It sounds like Eleanor is still her fun, entertaining self at school. :-) I guess she hasn't noticed the identical twins that are at church???

Awesome

That is my word for this weekend, awesome! It was so much fun and so uplifting. The ride to Time Out For Women and back went fast (for a 7 hour trip there and 5 1/2 hours back) and smoothly. Noah did great. He slept a lot in the car and was happy after he was fed and we were back on the road.I drove my mom's car and we managed to find the hotel and event center without much trouble. I thought it was funny Saturday after driving around a bit trying to get to the road that the event center's parking garage was on and then finally finding it that Patti announced, "Look at that, we drove right to it!" I think she was practicing her split second compliments before she even knew about them!
We met up with my Aunt Tonia and her friend, Jody at the event and we saw many sisters from our stake. Friday night as Michael McLean performed, he changed part of his program as he acted upon the Spirit. He felt the need to sing a certain song about moms. Saturday as Patti & I talked with a sister that we recognized from our stake, she told us that the song that Michael McLean was inspired to sing was for her. She went to talk with Michael McLean Friday night after the program to tell him that the song was for her and when it was her turn to talk with him, she felt the Spirit wash over her. He felt the Spirit, too and they had a nice talk. What a neat experience!

My favorite presenter, Mary Ellen Edmunds spoke first on Saturday. I loved how the presenters mingled with the crowd and humored their fans by signing autographs and posing for picture after picture after picture.

Mary Ellen Edmunds gives great hugs!

Patti is a huge fan of Kenneth Cope. I hadn't heard any of his music before the event. He quickly became one of my favorite presenters.

Kris, Merrilee Boyack also became one of my favorite presenters. She could be a stand-up comedian!

At one point on Saturday, it was announced that some women in the audience had submitted a name of someone else in the audience who were living a joyful life. When this was announced, I had a funny feeling that my name was going to be included in the list, and sure enough Mary Ellen Edmunds read my name. Patti had submitted my name. She told me during the lunch break that she wrote about my sacrifice to be a stay at home to 6 kids as we live in a 2 bedroom house. It was very sweet of her to nominate me and to write a sweet letter about me. :-)

The other awesome thing about this weekend is Matt getting released as Branch President today. Now having said that, there is also a sadness in me that will miss the blessings that we have received as Matt has served in this calling. It was nice though seeing him after church hanging out in the hall with nothing to do. I was able to go in the mother's room to feed Noah while Matt kept an eye on the other kids. We also left for home at the same time. Matt has been called to the High Council, so he'll come to church with us 2 Sundays out of the month and then travel to other wards and branches the other 2 Sundays. We've talked about him taking some of the kids with him when he travels and they are excited about that. Hopefully, we'll get to travel as a family from time to time, too.

Okay, I've been working on this post all day. I've got to go now. Noah is quite upset and Eleanor is demanding that I cover her up in bed...again.

Road Trip

My Mom, our friend Patti, Baby Noah, & I are off to Springfield, Massachusetts tomorrow to attend "Time Out For Women". We have all been anxious this week for tomorrow to come! We'll leave tomorrow morning and get back Saturday night. I'll be back in touch when I'm out of time out. :-)

P.S. I tried boiling Zoe's mouth guard a few minutes ago and a different burner went up in flames. I think oil from Matt's Fry Bread experiment is still on/in the burner. I'm becoming a pro here at putting out burner fires! It's probably a good thing that I'll be away from the stove for a few days.

Fire alarm works

While I was at the dentist yesterday, Matt attempted to make Indian Fry Bread. Things went well...until it exploded all over the kitchen, away from Matt & the kids thank goodness. So when I started to boil water for macaroni and cheese today on the same burner, the burner went up in flames. Scary. I had a second of panic as Zach shouted, "fire!" and then I put it out with baking powder. I debated whether to use baking powder, which I had in my hand, or baking soda, then figured it didn't matter. I'm glad I was right. Lessons learned...keep baking soda where I can see it on the shelf and our fire alarm battery is still good. Now I need to go clean our stove top.

Update

Thank you for your kind comments about the new blog look. I was killing time on the computer Saturday afternoon while holding Noah, so I decided to mess around with the blog. I plan on changing the look more often now that I know how, so you have been warned. :-)

We practiced for our Primary program in the chapel on Sunday. The kids were wild! It was mostly Eleanor's class, and Eleanor was no exception. One of her last acts was getting down from the podium and then doing a somersault to her chair. Nice.

Yesterday, I put away all the clothes that my friends have given to the kids over the past few weeks. This is quite a chore since most kids have an entire dresser and a closet to put their clothes in. My kids have one DRAWER each in the dresser and closet space. I can't use the entire closet rods because in one of the closets the shelf is falling down causing the shelf and the rod to be too close together to fit a hanger on the rod, and in the other closet four shoe bags and a hanging clothes bag take up half a rod. I have to get creative, so I emptied the overstuffed toy box and put most of Kate's clothes in it. Now I need to put up a shelf to put some of our books on and empty out the stackable bins that have books in them right now and put the toys in the bins. That's my goal for today. I also need to put something on the toy box, so Kate won't keep opening it and tossing her clothes onto the floor.

Emily & I had dentists appointments yesterday afternoon. Matt came home to watch the kids, but only ended up with Eleanor & Kate. I brought Zach with me, so he could watch and prepare for his first appointment which is next week, and I brought Zoe to take of Noah. Zoe was a huge help. She was quite annoyed with Noah, though because he spit up all over her.

Noah is too quickly outgrowing the newborn stage. He wants to roll over. We put him on his back and he ends up on his side. He also is getting squirmy when I change his diaper. He digs his heels in and scoots himself backward. You are too young Noah to be doing these things!

I have talked with my sister everyday since Friday. :-)

Matt and I have started watching some new shows. I love that we can watch episodes on the networks' websites! Last week we got hooked on "America's Toughest Jobs" and last night we watched "Wipeout", which we thought was very fuuny, and we watched "I Survived a Japanese Game Show". This is my least favorite show, but now that we've watched the first episode, I'll have to watch the rest to see who wins.

End of the Year Resolution

I set a new goal yesterday to talk with my sister, Donna everyday on the phone. That may not seem like a big deal, but for 2 people who don't talk a lot and hate to talk on the phone, it is a big deal. She lives in North Carolina with her family. The last few years we have let our relationship drift apart and it's time to pull us back together. It has been a long time since I have had a close friend that I have talked with everyday and I have been craving a friendship like that again. My sister is the perfect candidate. We may not see each other often, but by talking with each other everyday, we will get to know each other better. I am giddy about the fact that I now have our conversations to look forward to and I already feel less lonely. I am so happy that I acted on my desire to make the phone call yesterday and that I committed to calling my sister everyday. We are already connecting. Yesterday, I found out that her new husband, Doug's birthday is a few days after Matt's and they are both 44. This morning as I was watching Emily's soccer practice, we bonded as soccer moms. She was getting ready to take her daughter, Aly to her soccer game. After we hung up, it was fun to receive a call from Donna asking me about the hurricane in Texas. I was rushing out the door as Matt was getting on the internet to get an update, so I didn't have any news for her, but I'm glad she thought of me to ask. Zoe watched some videos this morning of the hurricane and her update for Donna was, "Texas is blowing." Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone who is being affected by Hurricane Ike.

P.S. Zoe had a soccer game this morning. Her team lost, but they all got a lot of playing time in and they had fun playing.

Weigh-In

I was nervous to weigh myself this morning because of all the yummy food I ate last weekend, but I've been keeping track of points since Monday and I lost another pound! I am at 141.6. I welcome this weight today, but when I step onto the scale next Friday, this number won't be good enough. And so the pattern will continue until I reach my goal weight of 121.

TGIF!

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True or False?

Eleanor has always been one to make up stories about things going on in her life. So when she comes home from school, I have to decide if what she is telling me is the truth or made up. She insists that she can't bring treats to school for her snack, which I don't think is true, but I go along with her because I prefer she eat healthy food anyway. I sent a brownie in one day because our food selection was limited, but she brought it back home insisting she couldn't eat it at snack time, so she shared crackers with another girl. I wonder if her teacher said something, which I doubt, or if Eleanor just decided that the crackers looked better than her brownie...which I find hard to believe. I've been meaning to e-mail her teacher to see how Eleanor is doing and to set the record straight on the snack situation.

Eleanor ate a yogurt yesterday for her snack and when she got home, she tried to sneak another one out of the fridge to eat. I limit the kids to one yogurt a day because they would eat them all in one day if they could. When I told Eleanor she had a yogurt at snack time she replied, "Well, my teacher said I couldn't have the yogurt, so she threw it away." Liar! I knew that was false and Eleanor knew it, too.

Night Out

My mom and I went to the dollar theater last night and saw "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2". It was very good. I have yet to read this series, which is probably good because the books are always better than the movies. Noah ate and slept through the movie. It will be a sad day when he gets too big to sleep through a movie and too little to stay home with a sitter...although he will drink from a bottle. I don't think my mom is ready to take care of 6 kids yet, though.

I talked with Zoe's soccer coach today and she did try to get in touch with me Saturday morning. It's a bummer that Zoe missed her game, but I feel better about the fact that the coach did try to get in touch with me to let me know that the game was being played inside at a different time.

Family Fun

Why do babies sense productivity? Noah was content to sit on my chair UNTIL I sat down to blog. Anyway, here are more pictures and updates of what we did this past weekend. Here is the last picture of the boat ride.


We piled the kids in the car Saturday morning and headed for Zoe's soccer game, only to find out that the games were being played inside because of rain (I didn't see any rain, but maybe that was just me), so Zoe's team was already playing and we didn't bring Zoe's sneakers because usually they play outside and wear cleats. So we went home and I stewed for awhile about the fact that nobody bothered to call us and tell us that Zoe's game was being played inside and that there was a time change... because obviously I didn't catch on...since it wasn't raining.

We went to Bar Harbor with Matt's family.





My sweet mom watched all the kids Saturday night, so we could enjoy an adult only (with the exception of Noah) dinner at Bugaboo Creek. We had a great time. Whenever Matt and I eat at Bugaboo Creek together, we think of his family because it has become a tradition to eat there when they visit.
Kerri was kind and bought Noah a blessing outfit after dinner since I dropped the ball and didn't get him the traditional white blessing outfit, and I wasn't sure what he was going to wear. He looked very handsome in the shirt and pants that Kerri bought and the vest I already had.

Noah received a very nice blessing from Matt. It was nice that Don, Terri, and Molly came to the blessing. Kerri taught Eleanor's class, which was very sweet of her. She also helped us out in Primary as we practiced for our program. After church, we went outside for family pictures. It turned out to be a beautiful day after having a night of rain. This picture of all of us together is pretty near perfect.

Here is our new family picture. It came out really well, too.



It was weird to see Jon and Kerri with only 2 kids for their family picture instead of 5. We missed seeing you, Ashley, Jacob, and Aimee!

We went over to my parents' home after church. We visited and snacked while we waited for Matt. My kids watched a movie while they waited for Sarah and Sam to arrive and then the girls played Barbies with Sarah. It was pretty peaceful having the kids play on the porch while the adults talked in the house.
Jon FINALLY got to hold Noah...
...but not for long.
Not only was it Noah's blessing day, but it was Matt's 44th birthday! It was fun having his family here to celebrate with us.

The cake had a few minor issues, but it was YUMMY!
Sarah had fun doing my girls' hair. Doesn't Kate just look so adorable? I put the elastic in this morning and Kate kept it in for quite awhile before she asked me to take it out.

Noah had his 2 month check-up today. He weighs 13.7 pounds and he is 23 1/2 inches long. He is healthy and growing. After getting 5 shots, he was a bit cranky this afternoon, but that was expected.

Matt watched Zach and Kate while I took Noah to his appointment, which was nice. Matt's family came over before Matt headed back to work to say goodbye. They are in the air flying back to Utah as I write. Their visit was too short! The cousins were reluctant to say goodbye to each other last night. There is talk of Zoe and Emily going to Utah next summer, but shhh, don't tell them because that's all I'll hear about for the next 10 months!

One final picture. Kate reading to Zach. Very sweet, and talented as she read with her binky in her mouth! One of these days I need to hide her binky during the day. She is very attached to it, though.

Odds and Ends

I've been meaning to write since Thursday evening. I've either been too tired or too busy to sit down at the computer. First of all, I forgot to include this cute quote from Eleanor in my last post. Noah has been spitting up a lot lately and once again he spit up all over me and I annoyingly said, "Noah!" then Eleanor piped up and said, "Mommy, don't be mad at him, he's new!"

I've been keeping track of my weight every Friday since I had Noah. I started out at 164 and I am now down to 142.6. Yay! I am halfway to my goal weight. I started counting weight watcher points again about a month ago.

Matt's parents, and his brother, Jon and Jon's wife Kerri, and their two kids, Sarah and Sam flew in from Utah Thursday evening. Their plane got in after 7pm, so we put the kids to bed and told them that whoever was awake when they came over to visit could come out and visit, too. Zoe ended up being the only kid awake, besides Noah, when they arrived. Zoe was so excited to see Sarah!

Here is Janet getting to hold Noah for the first time.


We went to lunch at Kravings yesterday before picking up Zoe, Emily, and Eleanor from school. The food was really good, but the service was slow and Matt and I had to leave before I finished my lunch. It would have been the perfect lunch, sitting outside on a beautiful day, enjoying family, if we didn't have to be at the school at a certain time.
Zach was a little nervous at first to be around Matt's family, but it didn't take him long to feel comfortable with them.



Kate warmed up to Uncle Jon pretty quick and decided to take a nap during lunch.

After we picked up the girls from school, we all went for a boat ride on Don's boat. Noah didn't like his life jacket, but he soon fell asleep and slept during the entire ride! Eleanor was in a silly mood and would not sit still for long for a picture.





Did you notice Sam peeking out of the cubby?

We stopped at Fort Point State Park to walk around. Kate was more interested in the apple Matt picked off the tree for her then this bell. She kept saying, "apple!" and showing it to us.


My camera battery just died. Stay tuned for more pictures. We didn't do anything in the evening because of poor planning on my part, but we'll get together again today.

Making Progress

Well, my mood hasn't improved much, but I did have a productive day yesterday. We even made it to story time. I finally made Emily's bed and I worked on getting the clothes that were out in piles put away, which meant putting off Kate's nap until I was done. When I finally finished and came out into the living room to put her into her crib for a nap, I found her like this.

I guess she got tired of waiting for me.

I took these cute pictures of Noah yesterday. I was trying to capture his adorable pout.

Then I got a scowl.

And a smile. :-)


I dropped Zoe off at soccer practice last night and then took the kids to the park. Kate can now get up to the slides by herself and she goes down all the slides. The faster, the better as far as she is concerned! Emily made a friend at the park, Nicole, who taught Emily how to climb on top of the equipment. Emily is very athletic and she was so impressed with herself that she could climb around like a monkey. Both Emily and Zoe can climb up and over the climbing wall at the park. Even Zach can climb to the top and then climb back down. It was nice to sit on the bench and watch them all play.

Before going to bed last night, I filled out all the school papers and they are on their way to school right now with the girls. I'm glad those are done and off my to-do list.