Halloween

So...we survived another Halloween.  And this was a very pleasant one, with no crying or fighting and wonderful weather. Kyla, who had lost Trick or Treating due to more stealing and lying, even got the opportunity to earn it back by doing lots of jobs for me and didn't complain about it (more on that story later). Kimmy came over to help the kid get ready.

Kyla's vampire poses were cracking me up

Posing with Wyatt, Gwen and Millie

And for comparisons sake...here are my three Hamburglars. 

Carter 2011

Damon 2003

McKay 2012

That Time the Suckers went Missing

Before I tell you this story, I have to give a bit of background information. Lately, Kyla has been a little mischievous. Which is a nice way of saying that she has been sneaking things and lying about them. She and her BFF, Gwen, got into the fingernail polish in my closet for the 1,000th time (the very DAY we had talked about not going into parents' bedrooms) recently.

She snuck a package of Starburst, ate them, and left the trash all over her closet floor.

She came home from school with a jacket I had never seen before, and she told me that her friend had given it to her, "because she had a copy of it."  Later that afternoon, her teacher called and said there had been a mix-up with jackets, and there was a little girl quite upset when she couldn't find hers. Kyla finally confessed that she had taken the jacket (which was identical to the one her friend, Olivia, has) and put it in her backpack as she was leaving school. We had a BIG discussion about stealing, and I went with her the next day so she could apologize.

I told her the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and I thought we were making some headway with the sneakiness and the lying.

Okay, now for the story. The kids had given Jeff some candy for his birthday. And because there is no safe hiding place anywhere in this house, Jeff put the candy in one of his clothes drawers, where it safely remained for days. But on Wednesday morning, he noticed that a bag of Tootsie Pops had disappeared. We gathered the kids together and asked them about it. Of course, no one knew ANYTHING about it.

And, of course, we instantly suspected Kyla. I mean, she is the girl who cried wolf. How could we believe that she was telling the truth about taking candy? So after dismissing the other four, we started grilling her. She held fast, promising she had nothing to do with it. We made her sit on the floor in our room to think about it. And then things started to get a bit weird.

She changed her story, and told us that she HAD seen the bag of suckers, but she hadn't taken it. She had seen Carter carrying it around downstairs. But she couldn't remember where she had seen him. And frankly, we didn't believe her. Carter would have had to have some help to get the bag open, and he is not capable of doing that himself, nor is he afraid to ask ME for help. So we told her to keep thinking.

She then told me, through her tears, that she had taken the suckers and had them downstairs in the bathroom, but she didn't know where they were. So we went down and searched the bathroom. There were no suckers anywhere. She then said she thought she had put them in one of the drawers. No such luck.

Jeff and I repeatedly told her that she wasn't in trouble, but we just wanted to know the truth! What had happened to that bag of suckers? It wasn't as though it would be hard to miss! So, I told her I was going to take the boys to the library and she could stay home with Jeff, unless she just came clean and told us what really happened.

And then she changed her story again. She told me now that she had been hiding her purse in one of Jeff's drawers and forgot which one. So when she was looking for it, she found the suckers. She said she couldn't get them open, and didn't want to get into trouble, so she had hidden them under the bed. And so we went to look, certain the mystery was solved. Except it wasn't, because the suckers weren't there either.

By this time, Jeff and I were both coming to the conclusion that she really didn't know what had happened to the suckers, and that she hadn't been the one to take them. It was like an episode of Dateline, where the criminal confesses to a crime that they just couldn't have committed, but are coerced into admitting that they did.

I confronted her again, asking her if she had taken the suckers. This time she said no. And she had no explanation for why she had been telling us stories all morning, saying that she had.

None of the kids have confessed to this point, and I really don't know what to believe. It's laughable, really. Especially since the next morning, the suckers were back in Jeff's drawer. Hmmm. Interesting. Maybe they were there all along?

Fall Break Overload!

Usually, we go to Moab for Fall Break with the Trapnell clan. But this year, not everyone could make it (I'm not sure anyone could make it), so we decided to take a trip to ABQ (Albuquerque, for those of you not knowing the New Mexico lingo) to visit Jeff's brother, Russ, and his family. Jeff's parents went too, although with just two of them, they could fly without paying a small fortune.

Here are all the pics, sorry that some are out of order. 

It took us just under nine hours to get down there. We stopped in Monticello for gas, but didn't stop again until we were about an hour away, when McKay got carsick and threw up. We stopped again for Carter to do his peeps, and then AGAIN when Carter got carsick and threw up. That last hour was a little rough! But we made it, with the quail in tow.

We went at a good time (the balloon fiesta), but we weren't sure we'd actually be able to see the balloons launched, as there was some pretty strong wind. This was Thursday night, when we basically got a feel for the atmosphere without seeing any balloons. Still fun to be out of the car and with our family!

We stopped at this Mormon Battalion monument on the way to our hike at Tent Rocks. This was supposed to be everyone acting like soldiers. Some are clearly better suited to the military than others. I'm kind of thinking Kyla with her baby doll would be sent home.

Some from the actual hike, which we took the quail on. She thought she was being released into her home habitat and refused to follow us, insisting on exploring the dirt and rocks. Jeff had to carry her almost the whole way, and we got a LOT of comments from the 40,000 fellow hikers who were there at Tent Rocks that day.

HUGE buffalo we saw along the road

The main event, the Balloon Fiesta. There were over 600 balloons, and we got up at 4 am to see them. We got to the fields by about 5:30 and had time to kill in the freezing early morning hours before the sun came up and the balloons started launching. It wasn't a lot of fun. But it was worth it once things got going. 

After MUCH whining and crying, McKay and Carter both fell back asleep. They were much happier once we woke them up to see the balloons. How rude, to wake them up at 4:00 am!

The girls after the hike 

A Mexican bakery Russ took us too with awesome pastries.

The oldest church in Albuquerque, built in 1706. Old Town.

Kyla with baby Emma, who wasn't photographed much with all the cousins. Proof she exists. 

Grandpa was so sweet to read stories to all the kids 

A couple more from our hike

We had a great time, and can't wait to go back! Well, we can wait to do the drive again, that wasn't our favorite, but we all agreed that it was worth it! We miss our cousins!

McKay 1.5

Eighteen months old. You know what that means: nursery! McKay has gone once and did just fine. It probably helps that Carter is in there with him. But I am really looking forward to church now. Especially once we switch to 9:00 in January. We might actually become active again, haha.

McKay is such a fun little boy. He absolutely knows what he wants ("no" is one of his favorite words), and absolutely LOVES his brothers and sisters (especially Allie. He's always asking for her).

Some things I want to remember about McKay at this age:

1. He is a fairly good communicator. He says a lot more words at this age than either Damon or Carter did, and puts a few together into short sentences, including "Carter mean"

2. He loves girl toys. He is constantly wandering around the house with a couple of Barbies in this hands, so I was sent to Toys R Us to get some "boy toys." He likes the action figures, too, but still would prefer the Barbies. 

3. He wants to do everything that Carter does, including sitting at the table with us (instead of in his high chair) and feeding himself. That is a huge stinking mess, but sometimes I give in and let him have a little independence.

4. Everything he does is hilarious. At least to the other kids. He makes faces, puts on hats and glasses, sings "ever ever ever ever," and cracks everyone up. Ah, to be the youngest.

5. He's into EVERYTHING. He washes his hair in the toilet, constantly pulls all the cups out of the drawer, pulls all the towels off the racks, pulls clothes out of the drawer...he finds anything that can make a mess.

6. He is a happy boy. He is so delighted with life and gives me great smiles. He also is a lover. He hugs strangers, as well as people he loves. 

7. He is one year behind Carter as far as clothes go, so he's just going into 2T stuff. It makes it very easy to transfer clothes, without having to store anything. Somehow, though, he seems not to have any shoes. I guess Carter was a little hard on them, or they are lost in the black hole that takes everything.

8. He LOVES to eat and still will eat just about anything I give him. This is so nice, and I am dreading the day he (and Carter too) become picky. 

9. Mostly, he is good to go with the flow of the family. He's not too demanding, and is always sad when he is excluded from activities with the other kids. He is really coming into a fun age where he understands so much (even if he can't communicate it all). 

McKay is a great addition to our family. Carter loves having someone always by his side, and I love watching the relationship develop between our two littlest boys. Here's to many more years of BFF!

September Funnies

(You can clearly see that school has started, and that I am surrounded mostly by the little kids, as they are heavily featured this month).

Kyla was wearing a skirt with shorts underneath (also known as a skort), and when she discovered this, she exclaimed, "Hey! It's actually a squirt!"

Carter has been unknowingly donating his clothes to McKay for the last year and a half, but is starting to catch on. I was putting some of Carter's old shoes on McKay, and when Carter started crying, I told him they were too small and they would be McKay's now. Carter said, "It's not fair what he gets." Haha, so it begins.

McKay was wearing a pair of footsie jammies that had a hole in the toe. Kyla noticed it and said, "His thumb toe is showing!"

We were at pack meeting and it was determined that the adults would decide whether or not the kids were well behaved. Carter looked at me and asked, "Where's the dolts?"

Kyla was standing next to the oven, which was quite warm, and said, "I'm so hot, babies are about to start bursting out!" (This one still perplexes me. And then makes me laugh)

We were in the car and it became apparent that someone had ripped one, when Damon asked who it was. Kyla answered automatically, "Damon, you smelt it, you dealt it."

I was putting a bib on McKay one afternoon at lunchtime when Carter told me, "I don't need a big."

After a soccer game, we were all hungry, and I asked the kids, "What should we have for dinner?"  McKay raised his hand and said, "ME!"

Carter told me one morning, after some cartoons, "Odie's on my team. Garfield too."

Kyla was tattling on one of her siblings and said, "They said the E word. Idiot."

Sunday morning as we were getting ready for church, Carter was wiping his face with a baby wipe. Allie came and told me, "I want to take this purse to church." And Carter chimed in, "I want to take this wipe to church."

Therapy Complete

Allie had her last session of Play Therapy two weeks ago. She has been doing so much better with her anxiety, that her counselor and I both thought she would be okay without any more sessions. She did have one night where she started to get out of control (that hasn't happened in months), but once she decided she was ready to listen to me, it wasn't hard to get her calmed down again. 

A couple of things we'll need to remember: she isn't supposed to watch anything scary (movies, the news, etc), as those tend to lead her imagination on a dangerous path (her panic attack she had was after watching a movie with a panther in it); she also isn't supposed to look at magazines designed for women. She has shown that she takes everything in, without knowing how to process things, and nothing good can come of her looking at those magazines. 

Also, we have to reinforce the fact that she isn't "cured." I know that, obviously, having dealt with my own anxiety in the past. You're never cured, you just understand how to manage and deal with it better. Allie sometimes hides that fact that something scares her, probably because she thinks she shouldn't be scared anymore, because she is finished with therapy. But we have let her know that it's OKAY and NORMAL to be scared. Now she just knows better how she's going to handle it. 

For her last session, she got to go get ice cream, and she picked this tub of mint chocolate chip. She wanted to eat it all herself, but that's a lot of ice cream. And she's a sweet girl, so she shared some with her siblings (and gave the rest to Damon when he offered her a dollar).

She is in the play room there, where she loved spending time. Play therapy is fascinating to me. I would love to learn more about it and actually watch it in action. It blows my mind that children can deal with difficult issues (far more serious than Allie's) and heal through play. Fascinating!

Here she is with her counselor, Kate. We are very grateful for her expertise and love in guiding Allie through these rough months. And I'll keep her number close in case we need it again...

PT

"Life is busy," said every mom everywhere. Well, it is. In addition to three soccer players, we also have three kids in tumbling. Which means that I often have to think of creative ways to have dinner ready (or packed to take with us) two or three times a week. 

Besides soccer and tumbling, we have been doing other things as well. Damon is still doing piano (and will until he gets into high school if I have any say in the matter. I wholeheartedly ascribe to the theory that music lessons aren't optional. They are a part of your education. I am under no illusion that my children will be concert musicians, but I am determined that they are at least able to read music). He hardly ever complains about it, but he has one serious flaw. He would rather play by ear than actually read the music. And so, often, he tells me he doesn't know the notes, especially if he has to change position in the song. But he's progressing. And that's really all that matters to me. I loved when I found Carter listening in one night.

The main thing that has been happening around here is potty-training (I mentioned that a while back). If you ask me, which no one did, I would tell you that potty-training is probably my least favorite thing about being a mom. It is stressful, and brings out the worst in both the potty trainee and the potty trainer. I would recommend avoiding it for as long as possible. 

Still, though, you come to my blog for tips on raising children, so I will give you my potty training tips. 

1. Wait until the child is ready to do it by them self.

That's pretty much it. Even then, it's still a lengthy process that you would rather not participate in, but you have no choice. Kindergartners need to be able to wear underwear, not diapers, to school. So we're forced into it. 

Damon was easy to potty train (we waited until he was three to even try, as he had a fear of....well, everything. But toilets were high on the list). Allie was probably the hardest to potty train. And it wasn't that I tried to potty train her too soon (I don't think), because she was going on her own, but she just had the tiniest bladder (still does) and little bladder control. So, needless to say, she had a lot of accidents. Kyla wasn't too bad. Easier than Allie, but harder than Damon. But no one matches Carter.

I fully expected to wait until Carter turned three to even attempt anything. But this little independent soul had other plans.

He had been "practicing" going on the potty for a couple of months. Basically, I would ask if he wanted to sit on the toilet, he'd say yes, sit there for a couple seconds without doing anything, and then claim he was done. Then I'd put a diaper back on him. Really, I felt like it was just good exposure to the toilet (good potty experiences) and didn't push anything. 

After a while, he started initiating it. He would take his diaper off and go sit on the potty (straddle style, the way I showed him) and started actually going. Of course we had big celebrations (he got to blow out a candle--by far the most motivating thing I have found in potty-training), and it snowballed from there. He started going again and again, all on his own.

After three days of staying dry all day, and taking off his diaper to do his peeps and poops on the potty, I broke down and bought him undies. And it has been (mostly) smooth sailing ever since. Unfortunately for all of us, he got diarrhea a couple days into his underwear, and had a rough couple of days. But after we got through that, he has had VERY few accidents in his undies. He even stays dry most nights (although he likes to wear a Mickey Mouse diaper to bed under his undies, and since I'd rather not have to deal with wet sheets in the middle of the night--even though that's only happened twice--I let him). Seriously, it's been the best potty training experience I could imagine.

That's not to say we haven't had to clean up plenty of poop. There were times the poop made it on the toilet seat, but not quite in the bowl. Or when the poop made it on the floor next to the toilet. And a couple of times the poop made it on the carpet. Delightful. But never again in his undies. Don't you just love little bums in underwear? I do. His buns look even cuter in the boxer briefs, but of course he doesn't ever choose those. 

Independent little boy that he is, he wants to wear his swimsuit every day. EVERY. DAY. And he has gotten particular about cutting out the tags in all his clothes. He even went so far as to insist that McKay wear his swimsuit and that I cut the tags out. I politely declined, as McKay doesn't mind leaving the tags in.

He also loves Thomas the train (see his hand). He asked me, "Can I take a bath with Thomas?" I laughed, told him yes, and then told myself, "I hope that I never hear him ask me that when he's a teenager."

Music Vid

Summer is my favorite season. I love the sun, I love swimming, I love days that stretch out for hours. But I must admit, having all five kids home ALL DAY LONG was hard. And this was probably the first year that summer wasn't really all that fun for me.

Because of my two surgeries, I couldn't go in the water much at all, so we didn't get to swim as much as we would have liked. McKay is a crazy man around water, and I have to pull him out at least 5 times every time we go, so I couldn't just sit on the side and watch the kids play either. And while we had activities that took up some of our time, there were a lot of days (afternoons in particular, when the boys were sleeping) that we were all home.

I tried to enforce an hour of reading/math/other mind-expanding activity every afternoon, but we weren't always successful in accomplishing that. Instead, we were very good at making lots of messes. I felt like I was following Carter around and cleaning up his messes, while four more were being made all around me. Every single day I thought I might lose my mind, and wondered if my house would ever STAY clean again. It really got on my nerves.

I felt like I was swimming upstream, but making very little headway. And poor Jeff got the worst of it one day when he told me that we needed to make more salsa because our garden was overflowing. But, see, I couldn't even keep up with everything else that needed to be done, and I just couldn't possibly even THINK about the mounds of tomatoes and peppers that were accumulating on the counter. And I snapped at him, which he didn't deserve, quickly venting all my frustrations with the never-ending summer that seemed so far beyond me. Sweet husband that he is, he made the salsa himself (and if you know how much time Jeff spends in the kitchen, you'll know that is a BIG deal).

Now that we are back in the fall routine, things have settled down. I have three hours in the afternoon when the older kids are in school and the little boys are confined to their rooms to relax, decompress and do some things that I want to do. Isn't that amazing? I sure think so. Hopefully next summer will be better. McKay will be older and hopefully easier to watch at the pool. And I won't be having any surgeries (heaven help us), so that I'll be able to take the kids swimming a lot more. That's the plan anyway.

Lest you think all our days were bad, that is not the case. We did have a lot of fun, too. We were inspired during the Olympics to make our own music video to "Call Me Maybe." Not profesh by any means, but I'm glad we have this to remember this crazy time of our lives.

August Laughs

Kyla, while watching the Olympics: "That guy looks like my boyfriend."

Damon, also while watching the Olympics, and hearing about the female athlete who was forced to undergo gender testing to determine she was, in fact, a woman: "Can't they just look and see?"

McKay learned to do a "surprised face", by making his mouth into an O. One day at a soccer game, I was talking to another mom about how close my boys are in age. I told her it was a surprise. McKay, who was in my arms, looked at me and gave me his "surprised face."

Kyla, helping with lunch one day: "McKay wants more cotton cheese."

Damon, very upset: "McKay rubbed his toothbrush on his bum!"

Carter, walking around without a shirt on: "Do you see my nipples?"

Allie, at breakfast one morning, took some nuts Kyla had put out for Jeff. "I got dad's nut!" Just as she said this, Damon and Jeff shared a look and burst into laughter. Soon, everyone was laughing, but only 3 of us knew why.

Carter, who has spent the last week potty-training, found the flap in his underwear. One particular pair weren't holding everything in and he told me, "My private is out! Put it back in!"