The dream

I had a very vivid dream last night. I had my baby- in the hospital and not sure why. My baby girl was big, with chubby, rosy cheeks, and a head full of 1 inch long, thick brown hair. Caitlyn was there (the only family member there) and I told her the baby looked just like her when she was a baby. We named her Alexandra Rhianna. Not sure where my subconscious found that!

Growing up

Eric lost his first tooth on Thursday. He came to show me in the morning. He just had his birthday! He's also reading books without being prodded. He's also been getting out the cursive letter cards and writing words in cursive. When did he learn to write beautifully and spell words?
Benjamin is mister self sufficient. He has been getting into the fridge for a while now, but he just learned how to open rubbermaid containers. One day he ate fudge and lunchmeat for breakfast. Tonight I put him to bed with the crib side up, went to the kitchen to wash dishes and there he was, bouncing on the chair! None of my kids have ever been able to climb out of the crib until about age 5 when they weren't supposed to be in it anyway! Ben's also the kid who learned to climb over the baby gate at 18 months... No wonder the kid doesn't talk. Why should he? He can do everything himself.
I'm nearly finished with the baby blessing dress. Just 4 rows on the bottom and then the sleeve edgings. I got out a crochet book because Caitlyn's been learning. There are a bunch of beautiful baby blankets, booties, bonnets, and sweaters that I now want to make! Not that a June/July baby would need any of that, but they were all so cute and adorable. Eric wants me to make him geometric shape people. They look easy. I might manage to spend a day making one for him and then going back to baby projects.

Eric's Birthday

We Celebrated Eric's birthday on Friday. I had an appointment in SLC which took some time- especially since it was lunch time, so we had to stop for lunch and that took forever. He wanted to finish reading "The Hobbit", so we read lots and did. We searched the internet for a space ship cake and couldn't find one he liked, so he settled for a mountain cake with trains around it. He picked lemon cake and in the future I will remember not to offer that choice. It was moist and had crumbly issues. I made green colored orange flavored frosting. It was a tasty cake. He also finished reading his 25th book this month, so we had pizza. The Book It coupons have been lost, so I let him pick his pizza. He picked a stuffed pizza from Papa Murohy's. Papa Murphy's is economical and tastes great, but it is burdensome to have to cook our own pizzas one at a time, Dinner was very late. He opened his presents: Thomas tub toy, two old Berenstain Bears books, a dice game, and a velvet train art with glitter glue as well as some money from relatives. Then we watched "The Hobbit". Caitlyn complained about the differences between the book and the movie. I hear a new Hobbit should be coming out. I am curious to know if it is appropriate for children to watch. Next day Eric got up early to read "The Bike Lesson". He thinks the book is hilarious. It is pretty neat because being a perfectionist he has maintained that he can't read. In the past few months he has only read beginner phonics books and only to get his pizza reward. He doesn't just read books for his own enjoyment- he'd ask me to read them, but he's read The Bike Lesson 3 times already by himself. He also asked early in the morning when he could take a bath. Then spent an hour in the tub with Thomas an Bulstrode. He's also got his picture half colored. We've played hi game several times too. I think he enjoyed his birthday.

Car seat puzzle solved

Radian car seats do not fit in the third row of a sienna except with latch and there is only one spot on the passenger's side. So, here's the temporary solution:
Middle row: Karen rear-facing Avenue, Baby Rear-facing Tribute, Caitlyn Vivo
Third row:
Ben Rear-facing Boulevard, Eric Forward facing Marathon, and Emily in a booster that fits.

Peace of mind:) That's just two seats for a grand total of $400-$500. I will go play with seats next week. Maybe I can get that down to only one new seat. I played with the seats today. In the back row I can get Rear-facing tribute, Forward facing scenera, and turbobooster. The issue with that situation is 1. Karen has to go forward facing, which would be okay at 4.5 years of age, I'd just rather go to 5 since she's so tiny and she can. 2. The tribute and the scenera are the seats that will fit a newborn, so it still leaves me to buy a new seat, but I could buy a less expensive one. I just don't really like that option. I like fancy shmancy seats better.

News!

It has been awhile again... The great news is that we found and bought our new to us sienna! It is great to drive it around and such. I'm just now worrying about how to get 6 car seats to fit. I've measured the back seat and figured car seat math problems. I've even looked to the future and predicted who would sit in what in which way. I've decided I'll worry about 4 years from now in 3.5 years. Hopefully the multimac will be out by then and solve all of my problems. Actually, I am now wishing it would be out in a month or two because it would solve all the car seat problems now. According to the math one Sunshine Kids' radian rear-facing in the back, middle seat will make it all fit. The problem is that noe in the car seat geek world seems to have ever even attempted to install the radian rear-facing in that position and radians are well known for being finicky seats that are incompatible for various vehicles in various spots in various positions. I need to just get out, find a radian, and see if it will work.

Other great news is that we sold the aerostar. Although, that bench space was great... I'm glad to have a nice vehicle now though.

Benjamin celebrated his 2nd birthday. He just loved opening gifts. He's not too wild about any of them anymore, though. He'd rather play with packing peanuts, toothpaste, and munch all day. Aaron also celebrated a birthday. He's still wild about his Ocarina of Time, however. He plays and plays. Well, when he is free anyway. His latest project is to build yet another computer for another relative.

We've just been hanging about, cleaning house lately. The kids are up to 2 digit math and think it is fun. Today we did addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Eric is the most enthusiastic about these math problems too. Its crazy that if he were in school he'd be sitting with a bunch of kids learning to count to 100.

Baby stuff

Today was the big Ultrasound. All the kids came. I took them to Burger King before hand. (I couldn't find McDonald's.) I got them the kids' meals which is very unusual. They had a blast with their new toys. Caitlyn was very intruigued by the ultrasound and baby stuff, but none of the other kids cared. We are having a girl with the official due date in mid-June. (Read: baby will be born late June or early July.) Caitlyn has a name all picked out- Eden. We will see. Now I have to finish crocheting the baby blessing dress I started when pregnant with Ben and it gives me new reason to fix up the storage room- I can find and sort all the girlie clothes. I just love cute little pinks and purples.

I guess it's been a while (again)

The computer has not been set up and fixed yet, but Aaron got me the other computer so I can access the internet and print stuff off the internet. He found out the 4 memory cards were not compatible with each other, so he sent them back to the company, which gave us 4 new memory cards. I think Aaron has been running tests and such with the computer. He is in no hurry to restore me to all my great stuff. I cannot upload pictures until I get that computer back.

We had a great Christmas. Then my parents came. They bought us a new dining room table and chairs. We're very grateful. We can now fit our whole family around the table and have room for company when they come.

The kids returned to swimming lessons. The first three were in the day as usual, but they only did level one stuff, so I got the kids transferred to evening lessons. The time is a pain, but at least the kids are getting appropriate lessons. Eric is on the verge of swimming. Emily swims. Caitlyn swims well and is learning new strokes of breaststroke and butterfly. Karen is in level 1 since she's taken the class four times already. She's teeny and very immature, but she has the skills for level one.

Benjamin has become the disagreeable toddler. He doesn't want to take naps, go to bed, change diapers, or put on his pants. He is a good boy, though. The other day I got fed up with him kicking me, so I gave him his pants, told him to put them on, and left. He stayed and attempted to put on his pants. After awhile he was willing to have me put them on. Well, time for bed!