Photo a Day: Somewhere You Went

Monday afternoon was HOT. I don't know if I've ever said that about an Idaho spring before. So I called Pete and suggested we get some KFC and have a picnic at the park for Family Home Evening.

But Monday evening was a little windy, and started to get overcast quickly. We stuck with our plan and got some food and went to the park. After eating, my kids just played and played and played. It got windier, and colder, and even rained on us a bit. But my kids didn't seem to mind. They continued to play in the dirt/mud, slid down the slides and got wet butts, and ran up and down the steep hill in that park.

Not pictured: Brock, because he and Pete left to get some ice cream. Which we still haven't eaten. For some reason I always forget about having ice cream in our freezer.

Photo a Day: 1 p.m.

Today at 1 p.m. was like most of my days at 1 p.m.

Ivy was still eating lunch. Sometimes my kids take 2 seconds eating lunch; sometimes it's more like 2 hours.

I was getting sleepy, because that's what my body does at that time.

And Troy was doing homework, namely, reading to me.

Troy is really good about working on his homework after kindergarten. I am soooo glad that I decided to have him in morning kindergarten this year. He's a morning person anyway. But because he's home for a couple of hours before the other two get home, I can spend some one-on-one time with him, helping him through some of his homework packet that he gets each week. (Some he can do on his own, some he needs help with.)

Lately he's also been getting little books from school as well. He reads each one three times, and we rate how he did with it (was it easy, just right, or hard). He's done pretty well with those, too. Although one of the books today had the word "why" right after the word "happy". I always feel like a traitor having to explain all the exceptions to the English language to my little budding readers, like how one word ending in -y says a hard "E", while the other word ending in -y says a hard "I". What's up with that? So he kept saying "wheee" instead of "why" the first couple of times.

I think it will be so weird when he's in school all day next fall. And then my 1 p.m. will consist of only this one and me:

She's sad because, heaven forbid, I made her sit and finish her lunch that she had been working on for over an hour.

Photo a Day: Feet

Here's my Ivy, in my Ugg boots. A button had fallen off of one of them forever ago, and Monday I was feeling all ambitious and sewed the button back on, along with a few other small mending/sewing projects.

Ivy fished out the matching boot from my closet, and said, "Look Mom! I'm Puss in Boots!" But then she got all embarrassed when I went to take her picture.

Photo a Day: Something you Found

I'm kind of cheating today on my photo a day thingy, because I'm feeling "blech" - achy and tired. I'm REALLY hoping that this doesn't turn into what my husband just got over. *sigh*

Anyway, for "something you found", I'm going with pics of the kids doing the Easter egg hunt that my mom does every year. Which is totally awesome, because she stuffs 'em and hides 'em, and because she does such a great job I don't have to do a hunt of my own.

Jake, the spazzy picture poser, just like his mom

sweet sweet Brock

Troy the excited hunter

Ivy, happy with just a few eggs

Photo a Day: Green/Hair/Funny

Okay, I need to preface this with telling you that I think that what we did was funny. Probably this was more dorky than funny, but I'm a dork, so there you go.

My cute little nephew loves a lot of girl things, like painted nails, My Little Pony, etc. Part of the girl things he loves includes long hair. Here he is, in the middle of my two kids:

Which, I must point out, he's Ivy's age, but I think he's taller than Troy. My sister makes really tall kids. (Also, Jakob in the background is a spaz and a half.)

Anyway, Micah doesn't have long hair. In fact, he has short, platinum blond hair that's so, so cute. So to make up for it, he wears "hair" around, which ends up being an old T-shirt. Lately it's been a green tank top that I think belongs to his older brother.

So Micah's "hair" got left at my house. We decided to take ransom pictures of the hair for my sister for our Family Home Evening. You know, instead of having an actual lesson about love and kindness or something. So here we are, modeling the "hair".

Jakob's spazzy model face:

I was going for a picture that was more like the shirt had its hands up, but this is what we got instead:

Again, I was going for a beard for Pete, but it was too small. So it's like a bank robber instead:

I just realized that none of my ideas turned out as planned. I have vision, but not execution. I was going for three-headed monster, but again they didn't all fit quite right:

 I can wear little boy clothes!

 A skirt for Ivy:

 And a kangaroo diaper:

We sent these pictures to my sister, along with a ransom note about bringing us Black Dutch Fudge for its safe return, but then we ended up going over there and taking it to them right afterwards.

We would make crappy kidnappers.

Photo a Day: Something You Wore/Red

This is me and Ivy. This Idaho spring has been a lot warmer than usual, and fairly mild. A couple of weeks ago as spring break was starting, it was nice enough and warm enough for my sister and me to take our kids to the park, and only have jackets! My kids ran, and ran, and ran, for about 2 hours.

So for now Ivy and I have matching jackets. The other day she said, "Mom! We both have REDS!" Hers is a hand-me-down from one of her brothers. Mine is a hand-me-down from my grandma. We both love our red jackets.

Photo a Day: Bedside

Sideways on her bed:

This is totally weird, because when I first got up and peeked in Ivy's room, she was under the covers and lying the right way. I took this picture about 20 minutes later, yet she was (and is) still asleep. Hm.

And this was Jakob's bed last night, apparently:

We've been passing this awesome fever thing around, that lasts for about 4 days. Troy had it before spring break, Brock had it for the last 4 days (I sent him to school today because he wasn't feverish - hopefully he's doing okay), and Jakob started in on it yesterday.

I asked him this morning when he came upstairs why he was asleep in the bathroom. He said, "I wanted to be close to the toilet just in case I had to barf." Poor kid. Which, he totally barfed right after getting medicine. Nice.

One of these days we'll be all better.

Ramble, Ramble, Back to School, Ramble, Ramble

Well, now that school is back in session, I'm almost back into the swing of things...almost.  Here's the rundown on how things have gone thus far:

Jakob

On back to school night, we took Jakob’s school supplies to his class and got a chance to meet his teacher.  She seems really nice.  There’s a girl in his class that he’s buddies with.  She is just a little doll and a half.  She came up to him and said, “Hey, Jakob! Are we going to play at recess?"  Jakob, with a shy little smile, replied, "Yes." She said, "What are we going to play? ....Zombies?!?!?"  And Jake got a huge grin on his face and said, "You KNOW it!"  It was just so cute.  I'm glad he has some friends in his class.

I think he’s doing...okay so far.  He wants to be able to do everything right the very first time he tries something, and if he can’t then he gets frustrated.  We talked about it, and I told him that if he already knew everything, there would be no reason for him to go to school at all.  He really is a smartie pants, though.  He hasn’t had homework so far, which has been nice (for me).

Brock

I got to meet Brock’s teacher the week before school started.  She called parents and had them come in individually with the student and school supplies.  She’s a thinker, that one.  She is also very much on top of things-she didn’t miss a beat in asking me if I could come in to help in the classroom.  I told her I would try-my only hiccup is how Ivy is doing when she is with me.  Sometimes, when I’ve gone to help at the school, Ivy has been great-she just sits there quietly and plays.  Other times, she’s wanting to run up and down the halls.  So we’ll see how this year goes.

The first day of school, Brock lost his lunch box.  I swear it went to the Phantom Zone for a while, and this is why: he forgot to put his lunch box in his room’s basket.  At the end of the day he realized that, and so they went to the lunchroom and found his box, and sent him on his way with it on the bus.  But then his box was exactly like a girl’s box that rides the same bus, only she’s in 3rd grade, and somehow he had her box.  So he came home and was in tears because he lost the box.  We went to the school, to his classroom, to the lunchroom, and called the bus, all to no avail.  The next day, voila!-the lunch box appeared…in Jakob’s class’s basket.  Hm.  Very random.  But we got it back.

Brock loves school.  His homework has taken the most time so far, because he wants to color everything meticulously.  Grr.  I’m like, just scribble, child!  But he is a SUPER artist, and wants everything to look right, so I have to hold my tongue.  He’s getting better and better at reading, but still wants to guess at words.  If I stop him, though, and point at the word that he guessed, he’ll read it the right way.  I think he’s just trying to go fast or something.

Troy

Troy is just so cute.  He’s a dawdler, so I worried about him being on time in the morning to catch the bus.  But he’s done great so far.  The first day of school we were walking in to the front doors with a bunch of bigger kids.  Troy’s eyes got wider and wider.  But once we got to the classroom I think he was okay.  There are a few kids in his class that he knows from church, so I think that helps.  And he plays with his neighbor friend at recess that’s in the other kindergarten class.

This week for homework we had the Mom Scrapbook Project, as I like to call it.  Each of my kids has had this: it’s a packet that asks questions about your child, like their favorite color, a cool trip they have been on, what they are scared of, etc.  (Incidentally, Troy said his favorite trip was “when we went to Wyoming”.  He doesn’t say when we went to Lexi’s wedding, but that’s the only time we’ve been in Wyoming.  So random.)  So you answer the questions, and then you have to find things to show the answers, like pictures, and stickers, and dye cuts, and on and on.  When I did it with Jakob, I think I put a lot more time and effort into doing lots of different…mediums?  Like, stickers, and yarn, and I had him color a whole bunch.  This year, I did almost all pictures, because it’s just that much easier.  We got a few stickers, too, but that’s about it.  Oh, and I had Troy draw a couple of pictures.

Troy is just so eager to learn - he wants to know everything, and how things work.  He’s constantly asking about what words start with what letters, that kind of thing.  The other day he asked Pete to explain how waterfalls work, and ate up every word.

Ivy

I thought about trying to do a little group school thing for Ivy this year.  And then I remembered how much I hated doing the neighborhood preschool for Troy when he was three, so I quickly changed my mind.  So far, she mostly just wants to play with toys while “da brudders” (translation: “the brothers”, which is what she collectively calls Jakob, Brock, and Troy) are at school.  Sometimes she wants to be with me, so she’s at my mercy-she helped me do laundry, and put away dishes, that kind of thing.

Twice a week my mom and I are walking - outside right now while it’s still nice, and then we’ll start mall walking when it gets cold.  So Ivy rides in a stroller with a blanket over her.  She thinks it’s the best thing ever.  Which takes us to…

Nat

Have I been productive? Yes.  Am I busy? YES.  But do I have down time?  Yes. 

During the summer we slept in, and kind of took our time doing things during the day.  It’s amazing how much more one can get done when one gets up and gets moving.  After I get the boys out the door, I’ve been exercising for the first time in YEARS, either walking with my mom like I mentioned, or doing yoga.  I bought this DVD of 20 minute yoga, and so far I really like it.  The dude on it talks about how people go to bed too late, and then get up with a huge to-do list and rush through the day.  His philosophy is to go to bed earlier, and then start the day right with down time, to set the mood for your whole day and get you in a peaceful mindset.

My other morning routine is reading my scriptures.  This has been a wonderful way to start my day.  We read together as a family at night, but it’s just one page.  Reading on my own has been hit and miss, but now it’s part of what I do, and it’s been great.  It does the same thing as the yoga - it gets me in a peaceful mindset to start off my day.

Another great thing about school is the lunches.  I came up with a rotation of sorts for school lunches that I send with the kids.  It’s not fancy, but it helps break up the monotony of a PB&J every day.  I’ve been trying to include healthier sides, like carrots and celery, or little fruit cups.  So, when Troy gets home, I make the same lunch for him, me, and Ivy that I did for the other two.  So I’ve been eating a little better as well.  The other day I was like, Ooooh, celery!  I don’t normally chop up celery for my own eating, but since I had already cut a bunch of sticks it was easy to grab and eat.

After school, I teach piano.  I have 14 students this year.  Every year, before I start teaching, I get really nervous - about if I’m teaching well, if I’ll have enough time to get everything done, that kind of thing.  Last week was my first week, and it went really great.  Well, at least it went great for me – I hope it’s the same story when my students get home.  I really love teaching, and all my students are awesome.

And then at night, of course, I clean at my dad’s office.  Luckily, I’ve been doing that for a couple of months, so that’s really second nature now.  I’m glad things have been adding on little by little or week by week so I didn’t get inundated all at once.

So, weekdays, doing okay.  Weekends, however, are a different ball game, especially Saturdays.  On Saturday, I just want to sleep in, and relax.  But what I NEED to do is grocery shopping, and cleaning at my dad’s, and cleaning my own house with my kids.  I wish my kids were old enough that I could just set them to it, but I know we’d end up at the hospital with bleach in a kid’s eye or something.  So I help them out, which takes longer than if I were to just do it, but they need to learn at some point. 

This last Saturday we were cleaning after dinner and clear up till bedtime, but at least it got done.  So that’s something I need to think about.  I could try fitting one chore into every day of the week (like Monday is dusting day, Tuesday is windexing day, something like that), but I don’t know if that would be better or worse than what I have going on now.  My other thought, and I REALLY need to do this, is go grocery shopping on a different day other than Saturday.  It would be less crowded on a different day, that’s for sure.

Well, I think this post is long enough now, so I’ll be off.  But don’t worry-I’ll be back to ramble another day!

The Short Version

I think I am the President of the Procrastinator's Club.  Of course, I wouldn't know, because procrastinators would just put off having their meetings, wouldn't they?

Anyway, I've been gone WWWWAAAAAYYYYYY too long from my blog.  And so much has happened!  But I'm afraid if I try to do super detailed posts of everything, then I won't get around to doing any posting at all, because I'll just fall further behind.  So, I'm going to do the highlights, and you can fill in the details in your mind.  I trust you to make up awesome things.

So, without further ado...

Pete had his birthday.  He got a computer mouse, and then some drawings done by the kiddos.  It was very chill.

I started a chore chart for my kids. Jakob had been doing bathrooms with me for forever, and the other kids didn't have any chores.  I revamped it, and now we have a rotation of several chores.  My kids have been really great about doing chores-eager, even.

I have to supervise them, but for the most part they do pretty well.  A couple of weeks ago Troy was on dusting, and I didn't know that he was trying to do it by himself.  Needless to say, I had to scrape off oodles of dust stuff off of my dresser.  But he tried, and I guess that's what counts.

I also got a laundry basket for each of my kids, and now they fold their own clothes.  I have to help Ivy a lot, but they do well folding their own clothes.  I'm not quite ready to have them try and run the washing machine by themselves, but it's helped me a lot to divvy out their clothes for them.

Brock lost his two top teeth in the last little bit.  I love the toothless smile.

We spent mother's day with my parents.  It was really fun.  My mom is a spaz.  She's so cute!

My cute friend Sara got some free tickets to a show called "Handsome Little Devils", so she invited me and our other friend Anna to go. The actors do a lot of juggling tricks-that kind of thing.  It was really impressive. And I got pulled up on the stage!  The actor next to me had me hold some roses out in front of me, and he whipped the tops of them off while balancing on a ladder!  It was really cool.

We had an Easter egg hunt at my parents' house, in the 400 mile-an-hour wind.  Idaho "spring" is very, very windy.

Ivy had her third birthday.  For some reason, I always space on the candles for cakes.  Also for some reason, I had a brand new "1" candle, but that's it-no others.  Awesome.  So that's how we ended up with two matches as the other candles.

She got some clothes, and some hair things, a Tinkerbell doll, and the movie Bambie.

I was outside on a Saturday, and Troy ran out to be with me.  His hands were in his jacket.  He tripped, and fell flat on his face on the driveway.  I saw the whole thing and couldn't do anything to stop it.  So very sad.

A few days later, Troy graduated from preschool.  He loved preschool, but he is so ready to go to kindergarten in the fall.

And speaking of graduations, Brock graduated from kindergarten.  Their program was really cute, and I thought I would cry a lot, but I didn't.

(Okay, so here is where I tried to insert a video of Jakob's piano songs, but it wouldn't load.  Good job, blogger!  So, maybe someday I'll get it to load, but until then, just pretend that you can watch that video here.)

I had my piano recital.  I've been teaching Jakob this year as well.  He did an awesome job!  He was all, "My legs were shaking a lot!"  And I don't know why he decided to stand while playing, but whatever.  He did great, as did my other students.  I played as well, and did pretty good, but botched the end of my last song.  Oh well, though.  It's not the first time I've messed up a performance, nor will it be the last, I'm sure.

Also, I look like Beaker when I play the piano: my eyes are really wide, and my mouth turns down at the corners.  It's neat.

Right after school got out, I got sick, for a week!  It was way super awesome.  I love being sick.

We took a quick jaunt to Utah for Pete's mission reunion.  I was a little bored but I think Pete enjoyed seeing some of the people from his mission.  We hung out with family, and went to Thanksgiving point, to the dinosaur museum there.  I had no idea why Ivy is crying in the above picture.

They have a digging spot at the museum, where you can uncover "bones".  All my kids enjoyed that part.

All of my boys have individually told me that they want to either study or dig up dinosaur bones.

We ate at Benihana on the way back home.  The kids' menus folded up into hats.  Troy zonked out with his hat still on.

And, this last Sunday, Ivy decided to take some scissors to her own hair.  The pile of hair she chopped off is in her hands in this pic.

She did a very thorough job on both sides of her head.  It was very mullet-esque.  It's kind of hard to see in the pictures of it.  Needless to say, we needed to get it fixed up.  I figured a cute little pixie hair cut would work.  And, of course, all this happened before I got her 3-year-old picture taken.  Because I've been really on top of things lately.  (Pres. of the Procrastinator's Club, remember?)

Here it is, all fixed up.  Pete thinks it's kind of boy-ish, but I think if I keep a barrette in it then it will be feminine enough.

Well, that pretty much catches us up to speed.  Sorry it's not heavy on the details, but I just wanted to get 'er done, you know?  So that maybe, someday, I can step down as the President of the Procrastinator's Club.  You know, when I get around to it.

Thought-filled Thursday: Training Day Part 4-the Final Chapter

I didn't know I had so much to say about poop.  But here we are again, reading about my last potty training adventure with my only girl.

Sadly (fortunately?), I don't have a picture of Ivy potty training.  Because once again, it went so fast.  The reason I have a picture of Tinkerbell was Ivy got to have a Tinkerbell sticker if she went poop in the toilet.  And she loves Tinkerbell.

Let me start from the beginning.  I got an awesome book from my friend Chelsey, who used it while training her triplets.  She said it worked like a charm.  It's called Potty Training in Three Days, or something like that.  You're supposed to train your child when he/she is 22 months old, which would have been super awesome.  But that time came and went for me, and I had just trained Troy, so I was ready for a break, and I didn't feel like Ivy was ready to train.

However, she started doing the same thing Troy had done, and sat on the little toilet before bath time, and went pee almost every time.  So that was good.  That meant she knew how to let go when she wanted.  She did that for a few months, at least.

I tried to start taking her in the mornings during the summer, but she would just sit on the toilet and cry and whine.  She was so miserable, so I gave up on that one after just a couple of days.

Then she started showing more signs, like wanting to sit on the toilet, and going and getting a diaper when hers was wet.  One day in September or October, I asked her if she wanted to go pee in the toilet all the time, and wear big girl undies, and she said yes and seemed super excited.  So one morning I had her go pee and we put the big girl undies on her.  A half hour later, she had peed in them, but didn't tell me or even react to it.  So we cleaned it up, and put new undies on her.  Which she peed in them about an hour later.

After I cleaned her up, I asked if she wanted to wear big girl undies still or if she wanted a diaper, and she tearfully asked for the diaper.  She wasn't quite ready, and neither was I.  And I really do think that the mom has to be ready as well as the child, because the mom has to deal with cleaning the accidents and helping that child run to the bathroom and all that jazz.

For the next couple of months, I could tell that Ivy was becoming very aware of her diaper and its contents.  She would poop and get this really squirmy uncomfortable look on her face and ask to be changed immediately.  She would even bring me a diaper after peeing.  She's always been a great talker, so I knew that we would be able to communicate about going potty, which is also a great help.  Not necessary, but nice.

I knew we'd have a week off of school and all our activities between Christmas and New Year's, so I decided that that would be our potty training time.  I made a little sticker chart for her, and we started the Monday after Christmas.  She had little rainbow stickers for peeing, and Tinkerbell for pooping. 

It's sad that I can't think of any crazy mishaps that happened on our first day, but maybe that's because we really didn't have any.  I know she's had accidents, but really, we worked on it that week and that's about all it took.  She would have good days with no accidents, and then days with four accidents.  But overall, she did really well, and started taking herself to the bathroom by the end of the week.

I think it helped while we were potty training to have both me and Pete around.  Because when I had to run an errand, Pete could be home with her, and vice versa.  For the first few days, we would ask her almost nonstop if she had to go pee or poop.  I'm sure she got sick of hearing us ask, but then I think it helped to keep the subject in the forefront of her mind.  Also, it helped that we didn't have to drive to preschool, or gym, or wherever else, and I didn't have piano lessons.  We could concentrate on her instead of being pulled in 50 directions.

I do remember when we started back into our daily grind, we drove Troy to preschool.  I dropped him off, and got back to the car, and Ivy was scream-crying.  I asked her what was wrong, and she cried, "I go PEEEE!!!"  I was like, oh great, she just had an accident in the car.  I felt her bum, though, and she was dry.  So I asked, "Ivy, do you need to go pee?"  And she was all "YEEEEEESSSSS!!!"  So I took her out of the car and asked Troy's preschool teacher if we could use the bathroom.  She held it all the way in to the house, which was awesome, and then went pee there.

Also, I didn't think that aiming for girls was a big deal.  They just sit, right?  Wrong.  Well, wrong for Ivy, anyway.  Because when she sat straight up, the pee would go in the gap between the seat and the bowl, and get all over the back of her pants, or the floor.  So then I had to work on having her bum hang down lower into the bowl, and lean her clear forward.  And now that's kind of how she sits by herself, which is nice.

Another time, like a Saturday night, I noticed the bathroom door was shut, and the light was on (this is after the kids were in bed).  I opened the door to smell that really yummy smell.  There were some undies in the sink, with poop in them, and the toilet was filled with toilet paper and kleenex, so much so that they were sitting in there dry.  So poor little Ivy was trying to take care of her poop all by herself, and tried cleaning it up and stuff, and had apparently run out of toilet paper-hence the kleenex.  The next day I told her that kleenex is for noses and toilet paper is for bums, and if she runs out of toilet paper to come get me and I can get her more.

And...that's about it.  I think she had an accident on Saturday, but before that it had been...who knows how long since the last one.

So hopefully my potty training stories were interesting, or helpful, or...something.  If not, at least I have them written down.  Because you can never type too much about this subject, apparently.

Because Ivy Needed a Post

So, I totally had a way awesome, clever title for this post, and it was all clever in my brain, and then when I went to type it out, it just kind of...plopped out, instead of flowing out.  But, as we say, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit!  Onward...

This little girl of mine is getting so big!

She's my barefoot baby. Ivy is always going outside without shoes on.  She loves to suck on blankets, just like Brock did. She loves to be where the boys are, doing what they're doing.  But she's very girly, all at the same time.  She loves it when I do her hair and demands that I hairspray it when we're done.

(the perfect "girly" shot!)

When she says yes, it sounds like "nyeo".  Which is awesome, because it sounds like no.  So for a while, after she would answer a question for me, I would ask, "Yes? or No?"  And she would reply with "Yes or no."  Super helpful, eh?

She is so very determined to do things her own way.  My mom took me and my kids to the zoo, and we were all absolutely melting into the sidewalks.  And Ivy just had to push the stroller the whole time.  She even tried to push it with Troy riding in it.

She and Troy love to go with me and Brock to the bus stop, that's only two doors away.  While waiting, Ivy found a rock, that she dubbed "Baby Rock".  But because she can't say her k sound, she would say "bee-bee raw!"  It's still around here, somewhere...

Love my Ivy-Lou-Who!

The Lou is Two!

Ivy's 2nd birthday was last week. And, officially, my baby is no longer a baby. *sniff*

My sister and her family and my parents all came over for the festivities. We had dinner (yummy Monte Cristo sandwiches), and then Ivy opened her gifts. She had snuck outside for a little bit, and didn't want to come back in. So I picked her up, and she started crying. As soon as she saw the presents out for her, though, she immediately stopped the tears and started squealing happy squeals. A lot of happy squeals.

She got two babies (one that goes potty), Snow White the movie, sunglasses, a fairy costume, a baby stroller, and some clothes. My boys absolutely hate getting clothes. But my girly girl squealed at every item, and took it around to every person in the room to show them, in case they had missed her very cute new outfit.

We brought the cake out to her with the candles lit. We sang to her, then tried to tell her to blow out the candles. And she reached out and grabbed one instead, putting it out with her fingers. I don't think it burned her; she just seemed surprised is all.

For all the testosterone we have in our house, Ivy balances it out with all her estrogen. She is a GIRLY GIRL, all the way. (Although she can say "zombies" and laughs at her own burps.) She's talking more and more, which I love. She's very into shoes and babies. Ivy knows when she has a "stee buh" (stinky bum). (But...ugh, I'm just not quite ready to take the leap. Getting there, but not quite ready. Diapers have been a constant in my life for almost 7 years.) Ivy loves to color, just like her brothers. She also loves to pretend to read. Ivy sucks on the fringe of her fleece blanket, just like Brock did. She checks for gunk in between her toes, just like all her brothers did at that age. (Is that just my kids?) She tries to be the boss of her brothers, and half the time succeeds in getting her way with them. Ivy sleeps with her bum in the air, loves fruit snacks, and has her dad wrapped around her little finger. Ivy is independent-she wants to give herself a bath, like her brothers do. She loves cleaning things-give her a rag, and she'll have whatever surface spotless in no time. She's a sweet sweet thing, and I'm so glad she's mine.

And I pray that the sweetness stays, and that the Terrible Twos avoid our house.

A slide show: