we're on day 6 of 10

So "Day 6" of Rob's 10-day work trip to Costa Rica is coming to a close. If I've never mentioned how thankful I am that I am not doing this "parenthood thing" by myself, then let me do so now. I can't imagine being a single parent. The kids and I miss Rob so much!

Things are going pretty well, I'm just really tired by the end of every day (and in the morning and the afternoon...).

A couple of highlights from the last few days:

• Burke, Hewitt and I started tennis lessons on Saturday. I had hired two babysitters (one to stay with younger kids at home and one to hang out with older kids at the park during my lesson), but one of them got sick. The boys did fine at the park (sans helper) watching my lesson although it was a little stressful and distracting for me. Burke was bothered that he wasn't able to play a "real game" but they enjoyed the lesson and we were going to go practice today but it was rainy... I woke up on Sunday morning very sore even though I've been running 3-4 times a week and doing some weights. I've missed that "good sore" feeling. It makes me feel like I'm getting somewhere.
• We were a few minutes late for 9:00AM church even though I spent HOURS in preparation and planning to get us there on time. There just isn't much you can do about a five year old that REFUSES to put on church socks and shoes... Anyway the rest of Sunday went fairly well. As usual, Liv was so cooperative and played on the floor right next to me while I taught my lesson (although I did forget to give the girls the handouts I had spent an hour making on Saturday. Oh well).
• Our home teachers (a father and son) had us over for dinner tonight and to share FHE with their family. Also, my friend Brooke (our new R.S. pres.) called from the store today to see if I needed anything and then delivered two gallons of milk to my door. Rob and I are so fortunate to find such great people everywhere we live. What a blessing!
• There have been a couple of nights when Rob has been able to tell the kids stories at bedtime (the adventures of Kirk, Truit, Josh and Biv...) by using our speaker phone. I literally put the phone in the boys' room and then go downstairs and clean up the dishes, etc. while he talks to the boys for about 15 minutes and it's almost like he is there with them. So nice and it feels like a mini-break!
• Tosh is getting more "flowery" with his speech and it cracks me up. For example he'll say, "Throw the ball to me, me, me! I am the best player in the world!" Or tonight he said, "I just love that dog so, so much." (talking about our home teacher's dog).
• I'm staring to rate my night's sleep (whether it is good or bad) by whether I wake up alone in bed rather than how many times I am up. There have been a couple of times when I wake up at 5:00AM with someone (Hewitt or Tosh) in bed next to me (one time they were both there) and I don't remember them coming in my room. Then they keep me awake with their tossing, by sticking their legs in my back, and Tosh asking for milk over and over. I have trained myself only to hear Liv during the night and I miss Rob getting up to put the boys back in bed...

Speaking of bed, I want to go to there.

eight months

"Livvy Lou" is 8 months old this week! She is mastering the pincher grasp to be able to feed herself Cheerios and seems to love them. She is clapping a lot, saying "mamama" and is starting to dance (bounce her head up and down) to music. She's got a bit of a runny nose this week, but she's still happy and sweet as ever. Here are some pics:

the nutshell

I'm certain I'm not the only one feeling like there is too much to do and too little time to do it this week. I'm a little late in posting this week as I usually do this on Sundays but here goes.

Rob had another busy week, but not quite as bad as last week. He is in the process of training a woman, named Carolina, to take over his current job. She is visiting from Costa Rica and we invited her over for dinner on Thursday evening. (Rob goes to Costa Rica in January for 10 days to continue the training... I'm trying not to stress about this already, but am. You may remember how horrible things were for me the last time Rob left the country. At least I'm not pregnant this year, right?). So anyway, Carolina is lovely. She speaks near perfect English (very slight accent), is very sweet, and gorgeous to boot. Well, Mr. Charming (aka Tosh) was right by her side the entire evening. He sang her songs, kissed her arm at random, smiled and laughed at everything said, and basically tried to get her attention by showing off all night. I just had to take a photo of them together because it was really quite funny.

Tosh is becoming more independent as well as self-reliant. Rob and I walked in the family room yesterday after church to find that Tosh had gotten a yogurt out of the fridge, grabbed a spoon, opened the yogurt, turned on the TV, and ate the entire thing without so much as a drop on his clothes or any mess to speak of. We were lucky to grab the camera just in time:

I gave Tosh a little trim today. I only cut an inch or so off his hair so it is still plenty curly. He is quite reasonable and cooperative about this sort of thing which is so nice (unlike his older brothers who aren't so reasonable when it comes to haircuts and nail trimming...). After Tosh saw the first short curls fall to the ground he said, "Not my CURLS!" For those of you that have seen "Shrek," it reminded me of the Gingerbread Man saying, "Not my BUTTONS!" And no, Tosh has never seen that movie...

I didn't take one photo of Liv this week. Isn't that a shock! My camera battery is near dead and I've been so busy. She looked all fancy for church yesterday as she wore tulle for the first time (baby shower gift). Her new trick of the week is saying, "ma ma ma ma..." All of my boys made the "da da" sound first. She also eats green beans which none of boys liked. She is once again back to sleeping through the night and we're on a very nice daily nap/feeding schedule. She is awesome. Can't say it enough. Love that girl!

Hewitt is doing great. I've decided that 5 is an awesome age. He has been so mellow and there are many times when I think he is going to get upset about something and he just doesn't. It's been so nice. He is becoming a great defender. If he feels that anyone in the family is being mistreated or is upset for some reason, he comes to the rescue and sticks up for them.

Tonight for Family night we talked about gratitude. I told the true story about how my Dad's house burned down when he was away at scout camp as a boy and how my grandparents were basically left with nothing. I also told the story that I heard many, many times growing up about how my Grandma Dunning owned two dresses. One that she wore to church, and one for every other day of the week. The point of the lesson was to help our kids (especially our oldest child) realize HOW MUCH we have and to show more gratitude for our many blessings. Hewitt was quite concerned as I told the story (asking lots of questions about what started the fire, etc.) and was having a hard time understanding that I was talking about my Dad as a child. At one point he said, "So Grandpa's house burned down and that's why they moved to Texas?" He was so sweet and concerned and I'm glad he didn't get upset or embarrassed when Burke and I couldn't help but laugh at his comment. Hewitt is such a tenderhearted sweetie.

Burke is out of school and it is throwing me off of my schedule a bit. He was really helpful trying to get the boys to do some chores with him today and loved my challenge tonight of only "expressing thanks" in our prayers instead of asking for things. He is looking forward to seeing Aunt Sue and Uncle Zach this week for Christmas and all of his "Dunning" cousins next week for New Years!

I am busy trying to get everything pulled together for Christmas. It is finally "Fall" here as the leaves are just now changing color and falling....into our pool! (the pretty trees that I like so much in my backyard are creating quite a mess) Besides leaves, our yard is full of weeds and I'm sort of missing the break from yard work that "winter" brings. We also discovered several dirt piles in our yard: gophers! That's a new one for us.

That about sums up the week. Have a Merry Christmas! We love and miss you!

special edition

I got Tosh singing on video today and thought you would enjoy it too. The very end really cracks me up. I think he was thinking of "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" and that's why he got confused/frustrated...



Cutie pie!

new tricks and treats

Liv is seven months old! She actually sat up for the first time on the 10th (see photo in green jammies). She was so happy and proud of herself! At the beginning of the week she was still sitting pretty slanted, but has already straightened out a ton and can sit for several minutes without falling over now. She is also moving around the floor like crazy and is tucking her legs up under herself like she is going to crawl soon. I'm hoping to at least have another month or two of her NOT crawling. Tosh was crawling by 8-9 months and walking by 10, so we'll see how Liv develops. Liv has suddenly been waking more at night too. Is it growing pains? Teeth? "Where is my Mom" anxiety? Who knows. I'm just hoping the long stretches return and counting my blessing that she's been such a great sleeper up to this point.

This week seemed so busy and I feel exhausted so I might not write as much as I would normally. Rob has been busier than I ever remember with work. He worked past 1 AM on Wednesday, did not come from work until midnight on Thursday (we were supposed to have the missionaries over for dinner on Thursday so I gave them "take out" chili and cornbread since Rob wasn't here). He also worked Friday night, Saturday night, was at a Stake choir thing tonight and has a work thing tomorrow evening that he still has tons of work to do to get ready for... His boss told Rob to take me out to dinner (up to $150) to make up for the long hours. Most of you know how frugal Rob and I are. I just can't imagine spending $150 on dinner for the two of us. Rob and I were thinking of going somewhere nice and then when leaving get a bunch of take-out to eat at home to maximize the money (the bill is going to be expensed, not cash). Our new thought today was to go somewhere where we can buy a gift card first thing so that we can get a few dinners out of it at different times. Are we pathetic or what?

This week's funnies:

Tosh has two Bears. We keep one hidden in case the other goes missing. The other day he found his "other" Bear, got so excited and said, "Two Bears!?! That never happens!"

Tosh likes speaking loudly and doesn't really appreciate when I try to get him to whisper or when I whisper to him. Even if he senses that I'm trying to talk quietly he will say, "No Mom, Say it loud!"

The Primary children sang "Away in a Manger" in Sacrament meeting today. My boys love this song and we have sung it at home a lot this month. Tosh, watched the children singing, "Asleep, asleep..." and yelled, "Wake up!!!" The people behind us and I were laughing so hard I actually cried.

This sweet boy, loud?




Hewitt returned to our bench after singing with the Primary kids and said, "I don't like choir practice." (Hmmm, not sure where he's heard that before...).


Hewitt was holding Liv yesterday and said, "I love real zero-olds!"


More photos of our favorite "zero-old" (and real) baby doll:

sunday "stampler"

I don't have much to say tonight; it was a pretty low-key week. The boys had their last soccer games yesterday and it was in the 30's outside which felt really quite cold. The upstairs in our house gets colder than our downstairs...I'm guessing we must have bad insulation or something. On Friday it was 62 degrees upstairs (it felt freezing) and I had Liv dressed in like 4 layers. Rob caved (he was here working from home) and ended up turning on the heat for the first time.

Anyway, I think I'll just note a couple of funny things from the week...

On Friday, Tosh and I were playing in our toy room and I used our stuffed "Mater" truck to lean against so I could nurse Liv. Tosh saw that I had Mater and asked me if he could play with it. I explained to him that I needed to use it for a few minutes so I could feed the baby. Tosh left the room and came back with a large pillow from my bed so he could trade me. I thought that he was pretty clever as I didn't ask him to do that, nor did I use the word pillow.

I've mentioned previously that Tosh says "be-tuzz" (because) all of the time now. His new thing to ask is, "be-why?" I don't know why he has tacked a "be" in front of "why," but it is funny and sounds really cute.

Tosh has never really eaten bread and has refused it since he first tried it as a baby. Today was the second time he has even tried the Sacrament bread and after tasting said, "Yum! I like it." He then leaned over the back of the bench, watched the cute 17-year-old girl sitting behind us take the bread and then LOUDLY asked her, "Do you like it?"

After moving here we got a membership to Sam's Club instead of Costco because it is quite close to our house. The kids love going there with Rob so they can walk around eating samples of all the food. I totally crack up watching Rob and the three Mini-Robs all "yumming" over sausages, cheeses, desserts, etc. The funny thing about this is that Hewitt calls it "stamples" instead of "samples." I laugh every time. "Are we going to go get stamples today?!" Do you understand the title of this post now?

I just heard Hewitt say, "out of bounce" instead of "out of bounds." This also made me laugh and when I pointed it out to Rob he said, "That's what I thought it was when I was a kid!"

And finally, here are a couple of photos of Tosh in pair of Rob's old glasses (the lenses are out).

Tosh in 15 years?:

post turkey recap

This week flew by. Probably because there were so many things going on and tons of things we didn't have time to get to.

Rob's birthday was fairly mellow. Rob had gone out to eat for a work lunch on Wednesday so he was absolutely stuffed and didn't really want to eat dinner that night. We had gone out to eat last weekend for his "birthday dinner" and since we were having such a big dinner on Thursday, we kept it simple and grabbed a pizza. We also had Rob's favorite chocolate cake for dessert. Burke and Hewitt spent a lot of time writing a book (with illustrations) for Rob's gift. It was about two kids (Kirk and Truit) that were celebrating their Dad's birthday. They also wanted to make Rob coupon books so we did one from each of the kids. My present to Rob was an electric guitar that he's been playing for a few weeks now... I wore my pink "Fender" t-shirt on Wednesday just so Rob wouldn't forget about his already opened gift.

We were thinking we were going to have our "first turkey" alone this Thanksgiving, but while I was visiting with some women from the ward at the park last week, someone mentioned they were going to be alone too. The second she said that, I "channeled" my mother and blurted out, "Why don't you join us?" It was funny because just the night before I was telling Rob that I wasn't going to invite anyone since this was my first time doing this "big production" meal and I was worried about it not turning out great... Anyway, they are a nice family (they have one 4-year-old son) and so it actually made it great that it wasn't a lot of other people to cook for, yet seemed to make the "work" more worthwhile. I had them bring a fruit salad and rolls. She also brought a frozen cranberry dish that was sort of like a sherbet. Burke LOVED it and told Rob, "It's like my new favorite food." Our turkey was really, really good. Very tender and moist. Everything else was great too. It seemed much easier than I expected, but I guess I make mashed potatoes and gravy enough that it didn't seem that different. I did chocolate mousse pie for dessert and we ended up serving Rob's birthday cake as well. I didn't do pumpkin pie or sweet potato pie because I was trying to keep it simple. I really missed them though so we'll add those in at Christmas. I didn't have a centerpiece for the table so I went outside and cut some hot pink and orange flowers. It seemed a little odd to be able to cut flowers for Thanksgiving but I thought it looked nice; festive and simple.

We spent Friday and Saturday doing things around the house and running some small errands. We played at the park on Friday afternoon and the boys got "too hot" playing soccer with Rob. It was a little warmer this week than it has been (upper 70's instead of low 70's). I put the Christmas tree up during the BYU/Utah game yesterday and having the Christmas stuff up does help me get into the season. I complained to Rob that my forearms were getting all scratched up and then I realized that I'm not used to putting up the tree in short sleeves. I have a goal to finish our stockings by Christmas. I've been waiting to do it until our four kids are all here.

Other notes: Liv is starting to bounce when she is happy. It's like she figured out how to do it in her exersaucer so now she does it while she is playing on the floor, nursing, etc. She is getting really funny and also does a "panting" noise when she is excited. I'm so interested in how her personality will develop. She eats three meals a day now and is starting to eat veggies and fruit as well as cereal.

Tosh calls himself "Toshie-Losh" a lot of the time now. If I call him Tosh Robert, he will say, "I not Tosh Robert, I Toshie-Losh." Rob's nephew Jake called Tosh that this summer and wrote "Tosh-a-Losh" on Tosh's paper cup... I don't know how Tosh remembered that, but he says it a lot now. We've also discovered that he knows how to add (single digits). He is always surprising us and making us laugh for one reason or another.

Hewitt figured out how to do front flips on our trampoline and taught Burke how. They land on their backs/bum for now, but I'm guessing that Hewitt will be landing on his feet soon. I think he would do really well in a tumbling class. His legs are so strong. He will hop on one foot on the tramp forever. Have you tried that? It's tough. His black eye is now very yellow so it's almost healed.

Burke enjoyed watching football with Rob yesterday. I think that he understands the rules better than me now (all the different penalties drive me crazy!). He is also very interested in learning Christmas songs. He pulled out the hymn book and our big book of Christmas songs and wants us to sing them all the time. He is so shy to sing in front of anyone else (he won't even sing in the primary program), so I hope he gets over that soon because he has a nice voice.

It was great to talk to both sets of missionary parents on Skype this week. Rob's name is "mulberryrob" if anyone else is interested in chatting...if for no other reason, you should call to talk to Hewitt. He is really funny on the phone. He got talking to my parents about Lego Star Wars and asked them if they have it. When they said no, he said, "Maybe Santa will bring it to you if Grandma has a baby!"

I had a moment yesterday (while I was pulling out the Christmas decorations), when I felt an overwhelming feeling of gratitude, love and happiness. I have so much to be thankful for and am blessed to have such a great life and family. Just thought I would share that.

Anyway, here are a few photos from the week. I even got some of ALL of my sweeties. It's actually much harder than it seems: