Spring is Sprung!

It's been forever since I posted anything on here. We have been good but busy. In March we moved to Herriman to live in our old farmhouse. The house is over 100 years old. It is complete with an old cellar and and cute white porch. We have a half an acre fenced in and the boys love it. Every day they get to go out and have adventures. We are surrounded by farms and have cows and horses in the fields next to us. It is great and we are loving it. Now I am just trying to convince Stephen to help me plant a garden. For some reason he thinks that planting a garden will turn him into a slave!

The kids are getting so big! Grant is finishing up first grade and is such a good reader! His favorite books to read are non fiction. He loves learning about animals, tornadoes, and anything else where he can learn something new. He wrote a poem for school last week about vampires. It said- "I see blood, I smell blood, I hear blood, I feel angry, I taste blood." It was pretty disturbing until he told me it was about vampires! He continues to be too smart for his own good. You can almost see the wheels turining in his head when he is thinking of something. His eyes get big and you can tell he is processing!

Theron is a big ball of love. He is almost always happy and loves giving his brothers hugs and kisses. Although, they are not such fans of receiving his hugs and kisses so it usually causes fights. But he has great intentions! Last week we took him to a candy factory with his old preschool friends. He was so excited to see them and talked about it all week. He is actually pretty sick right now. He has croup and a high fever. But even being sick he is still really sweet. He is seeming so much older in the last couple of weeks.

Lincon is learning how to talk. Most of it I still don't understand, but he says it with so much convicion that I just know he means something. This morning he came up to me and said "Mom!" (He always says that really loud. I think he worries I won't hear him if he doesn't yell it!) "Acha boobee" and then he walked over to the TV, turned it on, and started grabing for the DVD's. So I put 2 and 2 together and realized that the translation of "acha boobee" is "watch a movie. " Lincon thinks life is wasted if he is not outside, playing with trains or eating. He is almost as big as Theron and likes to exert his presence. He loves Grant and calls him Guy. He'll walk around the house yelling "Guy Guy" trying to find Grant while he is at school. He loves to tackle Guy and give him hugs. And Lincon is the only one who can get hugs from Guy on a regular basis. The rest of us would have to tackle him down first.

Stephen and I are doing great. Stephen is working for the Post Office and really likes it there. He is one of the fastes Keyers and the only people faster than him have worked there for 10 years or more. He is a freaky fast typer. He also just finished his worst season of Fantasy Basket Ball. He just had too much going on at the begining of the season. By the time he had a chance to work on his team it was not salvagable. We haven't gotten a chance to play any tennis yet this spring and I know we are both a little ansy to get out! But he is keeping in shape with his daily WWF wrestling matches with the boys. Doing battles with Dad is a favorite past time in our house. Grant is in charge of strategy. All of his plans involve sending in Theron as the distraction and then coming in and throwing some cheap shots and getting back out before the retaliation occurs.

I am loving the fresh air and space out here! It is so nice to have space for the kids. It is a little far to get anywhere, but it is worth it. I am going to Dallas next week for the Inner Circle Weekend for Mary Kay. The Inner Circle National Sales directors get together to do a weekend training event. They are the top people in all of Mary Kay and they each get to bring 5 of their directors with them. I am so excited to get all of that training from the best of the best! I have been staying up way too late to read! It seems like it is the only chance I get to read, but I have read some really good books lately.

Here are some books I have read in the past year.

1. Great Expectations

2. Oliver Twist

3. All of the Twilight books twice

4. All of the Harry Potter books

5. Anne of Green Gables

6. Anne of Avonlea

7. Anne of the Island

8. Anne of Windy Poplar

9. All of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books (okay so that one is embarassing, but it is true)

10. Pride and Predjudice

I think there were some others, but I can't think of them right now. If anyone has some suggestions I am open to it because I am just now deciding what to read next.

Our little Cuties!

September

I can hardly believe that we are getting close to October. Every time I see the Halloween stuff in the store it hits me how fast time is flying! We have had an exciting last month at our house. Not exciting in big events, but lots of little things that add up.

Grant started 1st grade and is 1 month into the school year. So far it has been a mixed experience. He likes his teacher, his school, has friends in his class, and is learning a lot. Those are the positives. He is not so keen on being gone all day. He keeps trying to convince me that he doesn't need to go to school. He also has been HIGHLY emotional since school started. The mixture of emotion and leaning has produced some funny conversations though. Here are a couple of examples.

Grant: "Mom, being sick feels very glum."

Grant: "I have a new student in my class."
Me: "That's cool, is he nice?"
Grant: "Well he's really talented!"
Me: "What does that mean?"
Grant: "He can tie his shoes without even seeming to pay attention. Well maybe he is, but it doesn't even seem like it."

Grant:"I am never going to school again! I refuse to learn anything else in my whole life!" (Said through angry screams with clenched fists because he dropped a piece of bread on the floor)

So it has been an interesting transition. I am praying for him that he will be able to adjust and that his emotion development will catch up with his academic development. He usually does great Sunday through Wednesday. But Thursday through Saturday are a bit beastly!

Theron started preschool and wishes he could spend every minute of his life there. We are doing a trade. So there are 5 kids in the group and we take turns teaching ever 5 weeks. He waits for preschool all week long and talks about it the rest of the week. I think he is just so excited to have something to do and more friends. He is such a social boy it makes me laugh! He likes to shake his booty at the other kids and try to make them laugh. I believe it was Bonnie who taught him about shaking your booty, so she can take credit for that one. He also does it in church just in case you were wondering!

Lincon is cutting all 4 I-teeth so he is a bit of a beast lately. He also started walking about a month ago and he is all over the place. Now that he is mobile he is exerting his presence in the family dynamics. He lets his brothers know when he is not happy about something by brute force and high pitched screams. We are working on both of those. We have had to add "I'm sorry" to his repertoire of baby signs. Yesterday I cut both of the older boys hair, but I couldn't bring myself to cut Lincon's. Primarily because he is so wiggly and I needed Stephen there as a back up. But also because I love his thick blonde mop!

Stephen started a new job as a manager at the SLC corporate offices of Verizon Wireless. We are really excited about the company. They have amazing benefits, lots of room for growth, and will pay for Stephen to go back to school. We feel like this has been a huge blessing. Other than that, he is looking forward to fantasy basketball season, enjoying BYU's strong team, and spending a ridiculous amount of time playing warbook online!

As for me, I am doing great. I managed to have all 3 kids get the stomach flu without me getting it. That was very exciting! I also feel like I am finally getting the hang of balancing family, our house, and my business. I still do not even pretend to enjoy keeping house, but at least I am getting more functional about it. I have also started excercising! Before you spend too much time being impressed, I should probably qualifiy that I excercised 4 days last week and it felt great. But I also realize that the key to being in shape is to excercise EVERY week. So this next one will be critical. Send me those good exercising vibes!

So that is our update. Here's hoping it saves this time!

Amy

Second times a charm

So I tried to post to my blog once and for some reason it didn't work out. So I gave up on blogging! Well, I am going to give it another try. I'll cross my fingers . . .

Can You Even Believe It?

I finally Started a Blog! So far it isn't as hard as I thought it would be. I make no guarantees of how often I will update it. But I figure since I have all of these cute little boys I should probably show them off. Wish me luck as I enter into the moder world of blogging. Who invented that word by the way?