Three Girls

How could it be that we have three girls - only three and a half years apart and they are all so different. I remember in college discussing nature versus nurture and kind of having an attitude of "who cares" but, now that I have these three I am really interested.

I noticed from a very early age that I was not going to be able to treat Sara the same way that I treat Hanna. The parenting techniques I used on Hanna didn't work and I had to keep trying different options.

Hanna is king and caring, organized, compassionate, tender, etc.... Her first word was "mess" and she loves everything in their place. She thinks life should always be fair and she treats everyone fairly.

Sara is fun, spunky, messy, the class clown and a ball of fire. She requires more parenting and pushes her limits. One minute I am so mad at her that I want to scream and the next I am laughing.

Allie is a true princess at heart. She worries about having a bow in her hair that matches her outfit and the perfect shoes. She is always content and blends in to any situation. She has always been happy and makes the best of everything.

So, in the case of my three girls, nature has won and I will do my best to nurture their 3 different personalities into outstanding adults who are all individual and all contribute to society in a variety of ways.

Some visiting my blog may know my friend John Marriott. He went to High school with me and college and was my partner on Acclamation. Last week he was diagnosed with Leukemia. For the past several weeks John had been experiencing excruciating headaches lasting for about 5 minutes… and coming a few times each hour. It was recently determined that he would need a blood test to see if that could help the doctors determine what was causing his headaches. During that series of tests (on March 27th) is when they discovered his rare form of leukemia. By March 31st it had gotten so painful that he was admitted to the Cancer Center at Dixie Regional Medical Center until he was stable enough to be transported to the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the U in Salt Lake City… and where he will now remain for the next 30-45 days. John started his first round of Chemo, and is optimistic that by catching the disease early and employing aggressive chemo and possible radiation treatments he will have great success and beat this. His pain has been tremendous, and although his white count is going up, he feels as if his bones are expanding inside his body. ..although he’s on all sorts of pain medication. It was determined with 100% surety that he has “APL Leukemia” which is less common, but in most cases more treatable. I just wanted to put this one post for those who don't already know, if you would like me to forward information as I receive it please leave me a comment with your email address. Please keep him in your thought and prayers. There is a site set up for him giving updates on his condition at http://johnmarriott.bravehost.com

Future Rock Star?

I have to write this funny conversation that took place between Carter and Allie last night.

Allie - Carter, when you grow up you should be a truck driver
Carter - No, when I grow up I'm going to play the guitar
Allie - Oh, yeah you should be a guitar player
Carter - No, I won't be a guitar player, I will be Hanna Montana (for those of you who don't know Hanna Montana is a teen pop star - female- on the Disney channel)

I love the terrible two's. One minute I want to pull my hair out and the next he has me laughing. The other day Carter was over at my sister-in-laws house and she asked him what his favorite kind of sandwich was. He kept saying Apologize and she didn't understand. She finally figured out that he was talking about his favorite song, not his favorite sandwich. "Its too late to apologize" is his favorite song, not twinkle little star or itsy, bitsy spider. Its a pop song by -one republic- that is on the radio all the time.

Easter

We spent a night down in Zion with the whole Melling family. It was a blast. Swimming, a great sandbox, the river, lots of cousins, and of couse riding down the grassy hill in the Tonka dumptrucks.

Easter morning looking for eggs



Back down in Zion (I don't always get my pictures in order) The huge family Easter egg hunt. (Even the 20 year old grandkids love to participate).



A fun game - Human Foosball - you need lots of people to play so it works great for our family

Sara was the only one who wanted to go down as many times as Carter and she wanted to go as fast as possible.


Swimming with the cousins


Exhausted after a long, hard day

Hanna got hit by a confetti egg. (Ok, lets be honest - she cracked it on her own head) 8 is such a fun age.

We needed to walk home from Grandma's house and these two were cold and didn't have a coat so we made a big coat work and they laughed the whole way, until we got home and I tried to take a picture.

Carter's favorite thing is riding the tractor. It doesn't matter if he is riding with Grandpa or Dad, just so he is on the tractor.

Hanna and Sara are only 17 months apart and the second pregnancy and the first year of having two so small were really hard. But, now comes the silver lining of that cloud. They are best friends (most of the time) and they have so much fun together.

Sara was blessed with 21 baby teeth and when she was little she would tell people, "I have an extra tooth, but we don't know which one it is." It was pretty obvious which one was extra since one was all snaggly and out of place. Her extra tooth is loose now and I am sad to see it go, but anxious to see if she will have an extra adult tooth as well.

Allie is our little "Goldilocks". She has georgeous blond, curly hair. When she wakes up in the morning it is huge and unruly, but it is easy to brush out and easy to fix. The hair is fitting for the princess she is.

ST PATRICK'S DAY
We started out the day by choosing green to wear. Hanna and Allie chose green, green and more green while Carter chose his P.J.'s and Sara chose green socks.

Breakfast was Green German pancakes!


The kids made Leprechaun catchers with Grandma Karen and we set them out but didn't catch a Leprechaun only some gold coins and a note saying "better luck next year"

Milestones

We have hit a huge milestone as a family this week. First we brought home a twin bed and transfered Carter out of his crib. My girls have all had to move out of the crib right on their 2nd birthday because the new baby was ready to take over. I have said that I was going to leave Carter in it until he goes to kindergarten, but I didn't realize that he would learn how to climb out and make the crib pointless. The transition was smooth other than the "scary" dreams he is having and we keep having to go into his room at night to get the spiders, big dogs, scary guys, and sharks out.





But the biggest change is that we started potty training him on Monday. I have heard that boys were hard and waited until he was getting closer to 3 even though my girls have been trained right around 2. After he went in the potty the first time he hasn't gotten his "undies" wet. The first 2 days have been great and I am so proud of him. After 8 years of having babies in diapers, we are done. I can't believe that we are at this point. How could you not love this face? Adorable!

We are so blessed to have 3 sets of grandparents! This is our Grandma Karen who has a date with our kids every Friday night so that we can have a date. Date night has been a huge blessing in our lives. I wouldn't be able to have fun if I was worried about my kids, but they are always pushing us out the door because they are so excited to play with grandma.


Decorating cookies - What a mess!
The kids love this and I love them being happy and having fun, but I hate the mess it makes. They decided they were going to "sprinkle their cookies to death". Notice Allie's blue lips in the background, she had a bite of her sprinkles, I mean cookie.

Child Abuse?

Carter is a rough, tough kid. He always has some kind of goose-egg on his head from a crash, fall, etc... Last Saturday my mother-in-law took the kids hiking down at red cliffs and they had a great time. They came home with red sand everywhere! Carter had a little fall and when ever anyone asks him what happened to his head he says, "I fell down on a big rock." Last Thursday I was reading with my kids at school and my Aunt Grace (who works at the school)came walking by. Carter and I usually pass her in the hall when we are there and he never says a word to her even though she talks to him. Last week she came walking up and he said "mom look, there is your aunt Grace!" I said yeah and was amazed that he was going to notice her. She started talking to him and then said, "Carter, what happened to your head, did your mom hit you with a big stick?" and Carter said, "no, her hand." ..........He tells eveyone that he fell on a big rock, but because of the way she asked, he accused me of child abuse. We all laughed, I kept saying, "I wasn't even there when he got hurt, I promise."

Our new family pass-time is playing a game on the XBox called Rock band. Allie plays the part of an adoring fan. She loves posing for pictures and in every one she is a princess.

Carter loves to be the drummer.

Hanna is usually the singer, but does well on the guitar also.

Sara is usually the drummer, but being a good sport and letting Carter have a turn.

Carter got a new tie for Christmas and even let dad comb his hair for church so I had to get some pictures.


The kids had a 2 week long Christmas break with ugly weather and kids wanting to play in the snow, but it wasn't great snow, and it was so cold. So... the first day back to school we wake up to beautiful snow and a warm sunny day. Carter and Allie enjoyed it and then Hanna and Sara played for a little while after school. The timing was not great in my oppinion. I would have loved this storm a week earlier. Carter and Allie were having so much fun and I ran in the house to take a picture, only to come back out to them eating the snow. Oh well, just avoid the yellow spots!

Christmas

We had a great Christmas! All the kids are happy! Mom and Dad are happy!