TWINS FOR SALE!

Another episode of While Jeremy's Away!

People always talk about how their kids get into stuff, and I always think how lucky I am I haven't had these problems. I always say how Logan has so much energy and gives me a run for my money. He is now my favorite compared to Haylie and Hannah. So here is the add:

Adorable, sweet twins for sale, innovative, clever, mischievous, love to dance, will smile for food. They know how to dress themselves and open the refrigerator, they will get cereal on the table before you wake up. Earlier risers. Very fashionable. Willing to trade for housekeeping and cooking (except when I need to cook away my frustrations).

Here is the story that is prompting this add. Note it is my fault, well actually it is the fault of this dang computer, I wish I could just chuck it but alas it is my lifeline, and ultimately my fault. UGH! A few of my friends are in the process of moving and selling their homes. I am getting a little stir crazy so I was highly distracted looking at homes we could never afford in locations we could never live. I have this lovely baby monitor so I can hear what is going on in the back of the house. I hear the girls chatting and playing and think nothing of it, I am tired of fighting with them to take a nap. All of the sudden Miranda comes around the corner and says Haylie has black stuff on her face, but didn't get it from Miranda's room. I think great they got into my scrapbooking stuff again. I WISH! Here are pictures of Haylie and Hannah.

Of course Hannah is at fault when asking both of them but when you ask her alone "Haylie did it!" Miranda never got into my make-up, and Logan hasn't either. I guess the moral of this is that two minds are more mischievous than one. The twins are here to teach me I have been too hard on Logan, he is a saint!

Logan I am sorry for all the grief I have given you. Thank you for being a good kid and using quiet time wisely. You score BIG as my favorite child of the day!

I am a wimp.

Monday night I stayed up kind of late. It is usually not easy to go to sleep without your significant other close by. So I went to sleep around midnight. At about 1:30am I heard noise coming form Logan and the twin's room like someone playing with toys. I got up and turned on the bathroom light. and then heard little feet pattering. When I opened the door I saw Hannah climbing back into bed. I thought to myself "She is not feeling well, hopefully Lauren doesn't wake up, now I have to lay down with her for a while..." lots of thoughts for a quick period of time. So I lay down next to her and feel her for head, no fever. Then I ask her if she is feeling OK. No response. I took a good look and she was so OUT! I am not sure if she was sleep walking but it was a little disturbing. So I went back to bed and fell asleep. Then at 2:30am I woke up to another sound of metal being hit, kind of a tin-y sound. I got up again and everyone was sleeping peacefully, except Miranda who is falling into her Daddy's footprints and snores with the best of them! I got back into bed and and was really disturbed. Lauren started making noise so I though I would nurse her while I was awake. I heard another noise. I was starting to panic thinking about how was I going to get rid of whatever was making this noise. Then I saw the light...Logan has this metal tin on his bead filled with his prize possessions. He must have rolled over and hit it, making the tin-y sound. As you can tell I am a wimp and shouldn't be left home alone in charge of 5 little ones who have to protect me!

Toothless

Wouldn't you know crisis would ensue as soon as Jeremy left. Miranda has had 2 loose teeth for a while. The ones to the right and left of her bottom middle teeth, which have already fallen out and have grown back. Anyways we have discovered her top two middle teeth are loose too...back to my story. so Jeremy left on Sunday and I will we gone until tomorrow (I can't wait to see you honey!). On Monday Miranda came to me and showed me her tooth was supper loose, like hanging on by a thin root. She was able to bend it to a 90 degree angle and it was bleeding a little bit. For some reason I freak when my children are bleeding from something other than a skinned knee and fat lip. Jeremy has been the one to tie dental floss around the tooth and pull it out. So I told Miranda in a calm and rational voice "go work on it some more." Then I called Jeremy and left a panicked message he said it started something like this "Hi Jer we have a crisis..." I would like to think I didn't use the word crisis over something so lame, but I wasn't really in my right mind. He started to worry then heard it wasn't really a crisis. He told me I shouldn't use a word like that while he is not here to verify. So my calm cool collected Miranda comes back about 10 minutes later laughing with her bottom jaw poking forward trying to say "Mommy I lost my tooth." It was very cute. So I was saved again. The tooth fairy left her a whole dollar. She was thrilled and I had to let her know that the tooth fairy must think teeth are more valuable now then when I was a kid we only got quarters for our tooth.

She is TWO months!

Lauren was two months old on Tuesday. I took her for her check up and she is doing great. She got two shots and this oral vaccination for Roto Virus (I think that is what is was called). She didn't like the medicine and she really didn't like the shots. She did well and is growing wonderfully. She weighs 12 pounds 11.2 ounces, and is 24 1/4" long. So she gained 2lbs and 6.2 ounces from birth and has grown 2 1/2" in two months. I keep telling people she was supposed to be triplets with Haylie and Hannah but Heavenly Father knew that would do me in, so Lauren is just trying to catch up with them as quickly as possible. She is cute as pie "tootie pie" as Haylie always calls her. It isn't the best picture but the bed head cracks me up. Bed head or not she's a doll!

Barbershop

We played barbershop yesterday. Jeremy needed to get his haircut before his two week "business" trip. He is gone to CUNA school for the last summer, WA-HOO! Logan in the meantime needed a haircut really badly, we don't like long hair Logan, he is too adventurous for me. So we try to keep his hair short before his personality changes. Miranda has been begging to get her hair cut SHORT for some. We have finally relented. Here is a before and after shot of her. I tried to get her to not smile and be depressed for the before shot but this was the best she could do.

Snores

Last night we wnated to do a camp out and smores. I chickened out on the camp out but we decided to make s'mores. Logan was very excited and kept askeing when we were going to make "SNORES." Everytime Logan said it Jeremy would pretend to snore. Logan didn't get it at first then we explained it was S'mores not sNores. He laughed but continued to call it snores and Jeremy continued to snore on que. It was lots of fun. We also took the lazy way out and instead of a fire out side we used our gas sotve which is very simple. Thanks Jami for the idea! Here are a few pictures. Haylie and Hannah were already asleep plus it didn't seem like a good idea to let them put something in a flame!

I got some good pictures of Lauren so I had to add them. She is such a content little baby at only 8 weeks new.

Summer Fun!

It is hard to find things to do during the summer that don't break the bank. Last Thursday I decided to have the kids help me wash the car. They did an excellent job. Considering it had been close to a year since it's last bath I would say they did a perfect job. Here is a picture of us washing the car.

They did such a good it took a little elbow grease but they had the muscle to handle it.

The real reason I wanted to wash the car was to add another stick girl to our family. Our rear window is now complete with the seven Jacobs!

Finally Bragging Rights!

This is a post I am most proud to write! Jeremy is the king of spooking people and very hard to get back, ask his female co-workers. I finally got him. It was fabulous. Anyways Jeremy came home from lunch the windows were all opened and the fresh air blowing in but there was no car in the driveway. He called me on the cell phone which I answered happily. This is how the conversation went:
Jer: "Where are you?"
Me: "Home."
Jer: "Where's the car?"
Me: "Here."
Jer: "I am here, The car isn't here."
Me: "The car IS here."
Jer: "I am standing in the driveway there is no car."
He then comes barreling in the door ready to call the police for our stolen car. I start laughing. He continues to point at the driveway and says "the car is NOT here, April this isn't funny."

Insistently I say "Yes it IS, it is in the garage, come look."

He was so mad at me. It took him a good 15 minutes to calm down before he could eat lunch. I know it was cruel to carry on but He pretended to throw a spider on me and enjoys making me jump. His co-workers ask me if I know how to get him and unfortunately I have no idea. This seemed to work and it wasn't intentional.

So here is the back story: Before we had Lauren we decided we needed to clean out the garage so I could park in it. It was 95% cleaned up. A few weeks ago we finally got a new garage door opener. On Wednesday I had a bit of pent up emotions to deal with so I decided to do what was left in the garage, basically just push aside what was left in the middle. I put the car in the garage. It has thrown off a few people, but I am excited to be able to park in a contained area. Now I don't have to worry when I open the door if this is the one time one of the kids will run in the street.

Thank you Jeremy for cleaning the garage and taking care of one of my million demands. I love you.

My sweet Lauren

It is hard to come up with things to say about the kids to keep you interested or familiar with each of their personalities. Well Lauren's personality is the least influenced by me since she is still so new. 7 weeks and 5 days new to be exact. She is a sweet little girl. I was having an emotionally rough day (any cure for hormones?) I was having a hard time finding a reason to smile bless Jeremy's hear for trying. I looked down at Lauren and she gives me the biggest grin and starts cooing at me. She is the best example of unconditional love...or is it because I feed her...no it's definitely unconditional!Another thing is she sucks her thumb. I have never had a thumb sucker before. It makes me nervous. I enjoy the pacifier because I can throw it away, and I am not really in to child mutilation. So the pacifier is the better choice. Anyways it is so funny watching her move her hand across her face as she attempts to land her thumb in her mouth. Amazingly enough, when she wants to she succeeds. One praise to the thumb I can never forget to pack it. I can tell she is going to be a smart one. She will also always have a back up. I tell you I love this girl, and that is not because she looks just like me!

My Handsome Beggar

I think I have mentioned this habit before from our trip to Utah when Logan was "begging" Grandpa Alan for money. Well he got scolded for it and no longer begs for money. It has turned into a potentially far worse habit. He has metal detectors for eyes.

I was beginning to think we had a wonderfully behaved son when ever we went some where. He would hold on to the stroller as he has been scared into obedience to do. What I didn't realize is he was absent-mindedly holding on as he scours the ground for anything that may resemble lost change! He will be peacefully walking then stop and spread out his arms as if protecting everyone from eminent danger and yell "Money." That in and of itself is embarrassing enough as he leaves the side of the stroller where his other FOUR siblings are. Usually the money happens to be next to an occupied cash register where unsuspecting patrons are purchasing their goods. He will climb or reach between their feet to grab a penny. In fact I think he has gotten a few people to move out of his way. Jeremy and I are seriously thinking about taking him to the beach and renting him out for those of you who are interested in buried treasure. This boy can find it.

We think if we send him out for an hour a day we may be able to pay cash for our next home in no time! What are the child labor laws for that???

Busy, busy, busy

This past week has been a little busy, but not very productive. I have to say I have been exhausted. I usually revel in quiet time and brag to my friends how all the kids are asleep for about 2 hours of the day. Well with new baby comes new routines. As posted before the little girls (I need to stop saying "the twins...any suggestions?) are now in a big bed. They will not go to sleep unless I lay with them. You might say great the three of you can lay down together. Oh no! Lauren knows as soon as I fall asleep because she will wake up. In the meantime Haylie and Hannah need me to lay ON them so they can not move in order for them to fall asleep. As soon as they hear Lauren cry they are very concerned on the outside. On the inside they are thrilled because Mommy will have to leave to tend the baby. So I think well I will sit in here and nurse Lauren and watch the girls until they sleep. They have also learned while I am nursing I can't do much else as far a keeping them still or enforcing rules. So I might as well say good bye to quiet time as I knew it. I do have to say that Miranda will sit in her room for two hours reading, Logan will sit quietly on his bed and fall asleep after about an hour. The girls will at least stay in their bed, for the most part, when I am not in the room. The only problem is they wrestle with each other and talk non-stop. That brings me to a separate topic, I have 5 chatter boxes. Lauren just coos and it is cute but I look into my crystal ball and see very noisy car trips or none at all!

Back on subject, I have been exhausted, a little overwhelmed. frustrated that they won't all sleep on my schedule...starting to feel numb about what I am not accomplishing. So tonight I was sitting looking at the new Stampin' up Catalog (my therapy) and watching The Legend of Johnny Lingo with the family (I can still muti-task when I benefit from it ;-P). As soon as it was over and the music and credits started playing all four kids jumped up to dance and laugh. Jeremy even started dancing with the kids. I couldn't help it tears came to my eyes and the thought of how lucky I am to have this atmosphere in my home. It was like a scene from a movie where life is momentarily perfect without a care in the world. It was FABULOUS! I am so grateful to have a home where so much laughter and togetherness is abundant. I am thankful for my children who can frustrate me to no end, but still love me and give me hugs and kisses every night or run to me when they get hurt. For a husband who spoils me, even though the bathrooms are rarely cleaned, I never do laundry and he is lucky when dinner is cooked when he gets home. I think the subject of my blog was a little off but goes with my theme Busy...or Not?