Welcome Baby Giles!

I just got a text message that my sweet friends, Becky and Garrett (see below post), had their baby girl!!! She's two weeks early! No other info as of now...stay tuned and I'll update this message when I have more. I'm so excited for them...first time momma and daddy! Congratulations you two!!!!!!

ABC"s of Me...Again :)

I've been tagged again to do the ABC's of me...so go to this post. It's amazing how quickly some of the answers change.  I'd now make these changes:

D- Day of choice: Sunday, for all the spiritual upliftment I get to help me through the next week.

E- Essential Items: Wipes to clean the kids hands, Sunglasses, Excedrin, Young-Living Oils

H- Hometown: San Luis Obispo, CA; Orem, UT; Nashville (round about or near by), TN

K- Kids: Yes, Kaleb 9, Tyler 7 1/2, Derek 6, and Logan 3 1/2

T- Tag 4 people: Let's see, Krissy, Becky, Sarah, and Tracie never did their ABC post, so I re-tag them! :)

And the one difference in facts that goes with the letter was:

V- Vacation: Hawaii, France (Europe), Tahiti

The rest is all the same. 

A few things about me...It's amazing what one summer can do to you! I think the stress of everything that has gone on is catching up to me.  The one thing I do have to say is that stairs in a house are a very good thing for someone who is trying to get off a few pounds.  I'm starting to get back down to my comfortable area in weight.  It's the laundry I have to do day in and day out...the washer and dryer are downstairs and all bedrooms are upstairs. Yikes.
Also included is a picture of all the charts we've put together for the boys to remember our rules and rewards and consequences for breaking and/or keeping those rules.
The Strike is something just recently added.  They get a strike when a tantrum (rolling eyes, stomping, slamming doors, mimicking, yelling back) occur when they are told to do something (or stop doing something). Once they have 3 strikes in 1 day they lose all priviledges for the rest of the day...TV, computer, playing with friends, video games, etc.  It's not often that they have 3 strikes in one day, but it has happened.  There are times we adjust the loss of items to longer than 1 day, depending on when the infraction occurred and how bad it was.  This is something I learned from our own little town paper in a parenting advice column.  It's something the Psychologist recommended doing, since it worked for him.  It's helped a lot, and the boys like to see no strikes at the end of the day (as do we).  With 4 boys in the house the craziness is enough to send a person over the edge.  These rules help keep a bit more order to our crazy lives! 

Becky's Baby Shower

Today is my very good friend's baby shower. Originally, Krissy and I were supposed to throw one for her. My sadness is sooooo overwhelming that I don't get to be there in San Luis for her shower today! So, for you Becky, I tell you congratulations and I really missed being there with you today (and everyone else that was there, too). I hope you had a fabulous time and were able to celebrate joyfully this wonderful day!! Little flutter will be here soon!!! :) :) :) I love you, Becky!

And to Krissy who had to throw Becky's shower without me...I missed being able to plan and have fun doing that with you! Way to go for getting it done! I'm sure it was absolutely wonderful!!!! Missed you guys!

Logan...what a character!

So, quickly...we were all in the van today running a few errands. The kids really wanted the movie on, and I told them no. They were saying that they could just watch it while I still listened to my music. Logan then says, "Well, we could put on our mustaches." Kaleb then a little confused corrected him with, "Do you mean ear phones?" Logan, "Oh, ya, ear phones!" Had to document that one!

Kids say the darndest things!

Logan, yesterday, as I was paying attention to something else trying to get ready to leave for Walmart says, "Mom, can I bring my oy oy?" Hello? What the heck is an "Oy Oy"? I turn around and look to see what he is talking about. Many of you may have figured this out by now...no??? A Yo-Yo! I laughed so hard, it was so cute, and he had no idea why I was laughing. It's like when we were in SLO and Gramma became "Emma" (which is an endereing term for her still today). Logan will also look at me and with all seriousness say, "Mom, I am a blue minja, cause blue minja's are nice." Sometimes it changes to an orange "ninja". There was a short time where he said he was going to have blue hair, because he was a blue minja. Another thing about Logan...if one of his brother's gets a hold of our camera...he tends to come up with some of the funniest poses. Like this one:
Or even this one:

How crazy is my kid? These were taken before me moved. I think I've kept the camera out of their hands for the most part since we arrived here. He did break our camera at one point in January while taking pictures of Garen and himself like these:
Here's a few other pictures the boys have taken through the years:

My kids crack me up. Ya know what? I'm really glad I've given them control of the camera at times (of course most of those times I didn't know I was giving them control until after the fact). Some of the greatest pictures have come from those times! Can I just say...my kids are hilarious! It's nice to see pictures of them being who they really are, to help me remember how much fun they have, and we have, together.

A day at the Carousel in the Mall/1st Day of School

My friend Julie invited Logan and me to go to the Cool Springs Mall where they have an indoor Carousel.  So, we decided to go.  Who can refuse a chance to get out of the house and to go to an indoor mall where it's airconditioned! I remembered to take my camera, too!
The kids had a blast.  We'll have to take all four boys and all of the Gates family there some time. The best thing was getting lunch in the food court right after that.  I was finally able to have a blizzard from Dairy Queen.  Ahhhh!  Nothing like them!

I've finally gotten the pictures put together from the first day of school, too.  Given it was the 11th of August...a bit late is better than never, right?

Ok, so I threw in a few other pictures.  We've also got Logan sacked out due to waking up at 6am (bleh) to get the boys ready and off to school, Mater kickin it on his new pillow/bed, and a view from the house between rain storms.