More Conversations in the Car

Allie: "Mom, when I get older, I am going to live next to Grandma so that you can come visit her when she is old and come take care of me when I have my babies." Me: "That's a good idea. You can live wherever you want, so I think that sounds like a nice plan."
Allie: "I think I will have a girl baby first."
Me: "Oh really? What will you name her?"
Allie: "Flower. I really like flowers and I think that would be a pretty name." Me: "Sounds good to me."
Allie: "Then her nick name could be Flower Power."

We have had many conversations since this one about her future children. She would also like a girl named Diamond Power, because they are so sparkly and pretty... She cracks me up.

A letter to the boy child...

Dear Nathan, When you do this all day...

It's easier to do this all night...

Maybe you could figure out how to switch things up a bit. I sure do love you though.

It makes doing dishes at midnight more fun when I can turn around and see you gazing at me.

I don't mind staying up late. That is when I am most productive. Lets just make a deal that you go to sleep when I do...and stay asleep. How does that sound? :)

p.s. You could also figure out a way to pee so that it doesn't come out of your diaper and soak everything within a 6 inch radius....that would be nice.

Love,

Mom

The new bike

We had the opportunity to get a really good deal on a new bike for Jake. We knew that the time was coming fast when he would need a bigger bike because at the end of the summer, Jake was always riding at the end of the pack of boys. His wheels were a lot smaller and he had to work harder just to keep up. So we knew that the time was coming, we just worried that the kids always get everything they could ever want or need, and it all comes so easily to them. Mike and I remember working hours and hours to earn the money to buy the things we wanted. Yes, our parents were always able to get us things we needed, but it did us good to work for some of the things we wanted.

Our kids are still young, but it seems like they are spoiled rotten.

Anyway, we debated about what to do with the bike. We bought it and let it sit in the garage for a while. It was a tool to get Jake to do his chores and obey. When the weather turned warm for a few days, it was hard to refuse the boy's pleadings. We let him take the bike out for a spin. We talked about responsibility and taking care of it. He was good to park it back in the garage and had a lot of fun riding it.



Lucky boy!


It's a good thing Allie is still happy with this...

We have big plans for summer bike rides. It will be nice to go up and down the canyon and have him keep up with Carson.

I have this little newborn gown that I love. I love gowns on newborns in general because it is easy to get to the poopy diapers, and I love that their sharp nails are covered. But I love this gown in particular. All of my kids have worn it. I was really sad to discover that I didn't have any pictures of Jake in this gown, but I have pictures of the other three. I'll add a picture of Jake in another gown that Allie and Nathan have both worn too, so it is still fun. Anyway, here are all my kids within a few days of their births.

Jake

Allie


Sam

Nate

Fresh from the bath. Oh, I love this boy.

Allie has had fun playing dress up with him. I don't know that he loves it, but she does.

When you have this much fashion sense yourself, why not try and inflict it on your baby brother?

Cinderella

Cinderella went home yesterday.

I sat in a chair and stared at this...

I stared and stared while she swept, mopped, did the dishes, folded laundry, cleaned the showers, cleaned the toilets, vacuumed, read to the kids, cooked, on and on. She was incredible. I guess she wasn't really Cinderella because I appreciated her work instead of sitting there demanding more. She is an amazing mom and I love that she can come up here and help me when I need her.

Thanks for the help mom. I love you!

We're home!

I was missing Jake and Allie so we packed up and got out of the hospital as soon as we could. Nathan loves the binky. This is the face he makes when it gets taken away.

The kids were so excited to welcome him home. Jake was away at school when we first got there, so Allie got to give Nathan one on one attention. I think this baby is going to be loved more than any other kid around.

Allie was thrilled by any hiccup or movement, and wanted to hold him every chance she got.

I think it's cute, but I hope the novelty will wear off so he can have a break.

It took a lot of hands to give him his first bath. We had a sprinkling incident and it reminded us all that little parts must be covered at all times. We were wishing for the video camera because it would have been great for America's Funniest Videos. I have rarely seen such an impressive arch. He repeated the performance at the pediatrician's office today and added a touch of yellow poop to the mix. Wow. At least things work!

After they were all clean from their baths, I couldn't resist a little piggie shot. We even put Sam's glass foot in there to make the little Schwabby feet complete.

We love our little Nathan Joe!

I just realized that I never posted anything yesterday. Nathan was able to break out of the NICU in the morning and we spent the whole day together. He is really sweet and sleeps a lot. I love all the little sounds he makes and I love feeling his warm little body next to mine. He is doing all the things he should be able to do at 2 days old. He can eat and poop, sleep and pee. What a good boy:)
Last night was a little rough because he thought it was time to get attention and I thought it was time to sleep. Now he is back to snoozing when I think it's time for attention.
We feel very blessed and are grateful for the opportunity to be parents to such sweet little spirits.
I still haven't felt too settled on his name, but I haven't felt settled on any name. I like the name a lot, so I guess eventually it will sink in and feel natural.
Nathan Joe Schwab. He's a keeper!

Pictures

Sorry it's only two. I thought we had taken lots, but most of them were of him in the OR when he was gooey and not so cute. Then the others are just plain sad because he is hooked up to stuff. So here he is...

I don't know why I hesitate to write his name down. I guess I just don't feel 100% settled with it. So, I guess we reserve the right to change it.

For now, he is Nathan Joe. Joe is Mike's dad and he was able to come and meet the boy today. Pretty fun.

Anyway, he is still in the NICU and I am still here feeling like a huge part of me is missing (not just the belly that I had when I came in here.) I wish I could walk down there on my own because it's a pain to have the nurses come in and unhook everything and set me up for the walk down the hall to the elevator. I feel like when I come back to my room, I should stay here for at least an hour to let them feel like all the effort was worth it.

Nathan (I think...it still just sounds so foreign) is a good eater and a really good sleeper. I have only seen his eyes once while he was getting his bath. Oh what a cute boy he is.

The kids are sad that they can't come and visit. They have a ban on all kids under 14 until the flu/rsv season is over. We took video and pictures and that will have to do for now.
When he was first born, it looked like he only had hair on the back half of his head. It was dark, so the baldness was totally noticeable. I was pretty worried about that, but now I can see that he just has lighter, thinner hair in the front. He won't look as odd as I thought:)

So there it is! Tomorrow I'll post some better pictures. Thanks for checking in on us!

Another cute boy child!

Baby number 4 is here! He is really cute. He has lots and lots of brown hair. I will post pictures as soon as I get to my camera bag for the cord to download them.
He had low blood sugar when he was born and they had to stick him in the NICU, so he is down there chilling under a heat lamp while I sit here alone. Pretty lame, but I'm glad they are taking care of him and glad it isn't anything more serious.
The kids aren't allowed to come see him so they are pretty bummed about that, but we'll be home soon enough.
I'm so glad he is here safely and so grateful for modern medicine. We are blessed.
Like I said, I will post pictures as soon as someone gets in here to hand me my camera bag. C-sections tend to make little things like a bag across the room seem like a big thing:)

Whose kid is this?

I'm sure we've had this conversation before, but if not, I'll let you know that I hate heat. I guess I don't hate heat. I'm sure if we didn't have a heater, I'd be bummed, but I do hate hot air blowing on me. Mike and I have had a furnace fight for our entire marriage. He cranks the heat up and I turn it off. He knows how to get me out of bed in the morning...all he has to do is turn the heater on to 70 and I will be up in a flash and mad.
He works downstairs and thinks it's colder than a well digger's butt in the Klondike down there, so I bought him a space heater for Christmas one year. I did it with the hope that he would quit super heating the upstairs in order to make his office warmer. It does seem to lesson the heat battle.
I open the door to his office some mornings to a wave of heat that rivals the sauna at the rec center.
Being pregnant hasn't helped the heat situation at all. I try to keep the thermostat at the lowest possible temperature and I have to guard it all day. On the days that Mike is home working, he'll do what I call the "heat and run". He comes upstairs without my knowledge, turns up the heat, then quickly escapes to his sauna. Then I get mad thinking that things sure have gotten hot in here and find that he foiled me again.
The kids are in on it too. I'm sure if they were tall enough, they would mess with the thermostat too. But instead, they tattle on Mike when they see him turning up the heat.
He is the one in charge of turning it up in the morning. One week when he was out of town, I didn't even think to turn it back on after the night. We went about our business in the morning and had the girls over for preschool. When we sat down for the snack, one of the girls was shivering and said "teacher, can I go get my coat. It's cold in here." I walked over to the thermostat and discovered that it was 62 degrees. I was toasty warm, but the girls were freezing :)

So what's the point of all this? Today I told Jake to go brush his teeth and found him doing this...




I guess he likes to sit where the heat is blowing out in the morning. Seriously? I can't imagine doing that by choice.

Reading

I was always a reader. I remember hiding under my bed covers reading with a flashlight (I probably just did that because it sounded like a fun thing to do.)
I was pretty nerdy about reading. I was giddy about getting a new set of books for Christmas and spent many days re-arranging the books on the book shelf in color order one week, alphabetical order the next, subject matter, etc. My favorite order was color coordination, so it usually stayed that way.
I loved Trixie Beldon books because they were my mom's favorite books when she was younger and I owned her old copies along with a pile of new ones. I loved that people would suggest that I was just like my mom when she was younger, always with her nose in a book.
Mike laughs when he hears me tell stories about my love of reading. He can't believe that I would choose to stay in during recess if the book was at such a good part that I couldn't put it down. He can't imagine that the perfect Saturday activity for anyone would be to stay in bed all day reading a book.
And he doesn't even really know the real reader in me! Since I discovered audio books, I haven't physically read many books at all. I can't trust myself to read. If I get into a book, the kids are neglected, the dishes go undone, and the laundry can stack to the roof. With audio books, I can walk around listening and still get things done.
He has seen a few instances when I lock myself in a room and read all day. Harry Potter book release days, for example. When book 7 came out, I remember him opening the door on me at dinner time to see if I had any plans to feed the family. I was at the part where Harry was walking into the forest surrounded by his dead loved ones, so I was sobbing uncontrollably. Mike's words trailed off and he closed the door to fend for himself :) He has also woken at 3 or 4 in the morning and cussed me for staying up reading with the light on.
He doesn't really get it.

When Jake was a baby, I read to him every day even before he could hold his own head up to look at the pages. Same with Allie. I wanted them to be readers. The statistics all say that if you are read to, you will love to read. I don't know about that though because Mike's mom read to her kids and Mike and his brother Brian have probably read 10 books between them as adults. They didn't inherit the love.
Which brings me to the point of this post...
I know my kids love books because they are constantly bringing me books to read to them throughout the day. They have a pile to read each night. They even like to listen to audio books at night as they fall asleep. I know all this, but I still had that fear that they wouldn't like to read on their own. What if all they end up reading their whole lives are picture books?
So, that is why this brought me so much joy...

Jake has these little books from school that he is supposed to read each night for two weeks. Then after the teacher checks them off, he gets to keep them in his own collection. He keeps them in a little box and until now, hasn't shown much interest in them. But now that he can read better on his own, he decided to pull them all out and read them. When he caught me listening to him, he said "I like to read these because I know every word on every page and I don't have to ask you to help!"

I love it! He was in his bed reading on a Saturday night instead of begging to play the wii or watch tv. He was reading of his own free will! Can you see why I was so excited?

I don't need him to be as nerdy as I was about reading, but I would love to be able to discuss real books with him one day. I can't wait to introduce him to Harry Potter. And if there comes a day when he is reading book 7 and fighting the tears as Harry walks into the forest...I'll let him finish the book instead of nagging him to do his chores instead. I promise.

***After I wrote this post, Jake came to find me and said "Mom! I am having a brain storm". (Remember the post about idioms? That was one we talked about).

Then he said "I have been reading so much that my mind is so full of words. It's like a big storm in there!"***

The gumball machine

I have mentioned before that I love candy. That love didn't start recently. I have always loved candy.
I can't remember how old I was when I started the candy store in my house, but I was old enough to ride my bike to the store to replenish my supplies every once in a while. I don't even remember why I started up the store, but I did, and it was somewhat successful.
Do you remember Cry Babies? They were those super sour gum ball things that would burn a hole in your tongue if you ate too many. Those were really popular among the kids in my neighborhood and I had a good stock of them in the store. For 5 cents, you could impress all your friends with how long you could stand to keep it in your mouth.
I went to Macey's and stocked up on treats that I sold for a few cents more in my store. The best sellers were Air Heads to the kids my little sister and brother's age, Tangy Taffy and little Charleston Chews to the kids my age, and the Cry Babies and jaw breakers to the kids just older than me.
I loved seeing the money pile up and the independence of going to the store to replenish my supplies. It was a fun little store to have.
Why am I writing about this now? One of the things in the candy shop was a gum ball machine. I don't know where it originally came from, but it was old then and even older now. It takes pennies and even though it wasn't a big money maker in the store, I always loved it.
My mom has had it out for the grandkids to use, but at Christmas there was an incident that involved chewed up gum and my mom's leather couches...needless to say, the gumball machine needed a new home.
It came to me.


Isn't it cool?

It needed a tune up because all the parts weren't lining up, but I got it figured out and it is up and running at our house. The kids get a kick out of it and it buys me all sorts of cheap chores.
One of these days, I'll help the kids open a candy store in our house and help give our neighbor the dentist some business. I can't be the only one paying him!

Money misconceptions

Jake has wanted a Nintendo DS since Christmas. He thought of it on Christmas Eve and I had to try to convince him that Santa doesn't always bring everything that you want and he was going to have to earn the money for that one.
Since then, he hasn't really forgotten it. Which is surprising for my kids. They usually want something but when it is out of sight, it is also out of mind.
Anyway, Jake and I have had lots of money conversations since then. He thinks he can trade in his dollar store earnings from the warm fuzzy jar to buy a DS. I told him he was going to need to fill up the warm fuzzy jar 100 times to earn enough. That's something he just can't comprehend.
He looks through my wallet and asks how many of each bill he will need to buy a DS and he seems to be getting that concept.
At school there is a thing called the Treasure Box and they get to pick out a prize for every 10 days that they read in reading groups. He came home super excited one day telling me that he was about to earn enough money to buy his DS. The countdown was on to the day they could pick out a treasure because I guess there was a hundred dollar bill in there. I told him daily that it was just pretend money because no one would leave a hundred dollars in the box for a kid to earn. He didn't believe me, and was disappointed when he learned the truth.
Sometimes we go weeks without talking about the DS, but then it crops up again. He'll bring in his mission piggy bank and ask me how much money I think is in there, or try to take the change out of my pockets and add it to his stash.
He even told me he wants to start selling bread on the corner with Allie. We were making bread at the time and I guess he thought it might be a lucrative business.
It's all a learning opportunity for him, and a chance for me to explain things a hundred different ways.
Anyway, all this lead to today's conversation. He picked up my Cricut Gypsy and asked me where I got the money for it. I told him it was my Christmas gift and he asked where I bought it. I told him that it was on the internet. I also told him that it cost as much as his DS would, so maybe he should put it down.
He said " Well, how do you pay for it when you buy it on the computer?"
Me: "By using a credit card."
Jake: (smiling) "Oh! It's a good thing you didn't have to use real money!"
Me: "A credit card is real money. You just have to pay for it through the bank".
What followed was yet another conversation about money and I'm afraid that it isn't really sinking in for him. It is hard for some grown ups to realize that the money they spend on a credit card is real money, so I can imagine that it is hard for the mind of a 6 year old.
My parents were so good in helping me to understand the concept of money. I hope I can raise these kids to value things and to work hard for what they want. Sometimes they still seem so young for all of it. I think Jake is finally getting to the age where he can understand that we have to work for the things we want. So, it might be a long time until he can earn that DS, but I really don't want to just buy it for him. He has enough stuff as it is.

A Happy Birthday wish to Heidi...

Remember this?

It's just around the corner!

I told you the girl likes snowmen...

This was first thing in the morning when I told her the snow conditions might be good for a snowman. She wouldn't get dressed, or wait for me to come out with her...

"Look mom!"

"I made them clothes!"

Never has a roll of toilet paper bought a better hour!

If you give a guy a paintbrush...

If you give a guy a paintbrush,
he's going to want you to paint with him.
When he starts to paint the trim,
He'll see that the doors need paint too.

When the doors look good enough,
he's going to want to move on to the trim upstairs.
Painting upstairs will remind him that the uneven lines on the ceiling have always driven him crazy,
So he'll want to paint that too.
Some of the paint will spill out of the can and you'll have to help him clean it up.

When you are nine months pregnant,
bending over to paint trim will leave you out of breath.
So, you'll sit on the floor to do it.
But then you won't be able to get up.
So, you'll scoot on your bum over to the next place to paint.
But scooting on the floor will remind you that things need to be swept,
so you'll get out the broom and dust pan and sweep over to the kitchen.
But suddenly all you can see is the dirt and filth that cover the cupboards,
so you'll want to clean those too.

Pretty soon you'll realize that the kids are hungry and you have been painting for hours,
so you clean up the mess and go out to dinner.
When you come home, you'll see that you missed a few spots,
So you give the guy a paintbrush...

Mike decided it was time to finish the downstairs bathroom. It is the only thing left in the house to finish and since we are expecting the baby in a few weeks, he decided now would be the perfect time.

Generally when Mike starts a project, I get sucked in. So, even though I refused to help paint, I couldn't help joining in when it came time to do the trim. I had to laugh because of what the simple act of opening a can of paint, to touch up the trim, ended up being.

I can't complain about the beautiful, fresh white coat of paint on all the doors upstairs. I also love that the scuffs on the baseboards are now painted away too. So it was a day of uncomfortable bending, but it was worth it.

Next week the bathroom will be done and the whole house will feel old and dingy compared to it.

***Another side story. A few years ago we decided to get to work on this bathroom. We tiled it and had a plumber come in and get the shower area ready to go. One night while I was at a young woman activity, the kids decided to fill the drain with rocks. Mike heard the noise, but couldn't imagine them doing anything worse than filling up dump trucks with rocks, so he let the chaos continue...needless to say, it was quite a project to fix.***

P.S. Allie is once again dressed in her favorite dress up outfit. Perfect for helping around construction.

Oh...the feet...

I think one of the more annoying things about the end of pregnancy for me is all the swelling. I hate not being able to put shoes on that fit just a few hours ago. But even that doesn't really compare to the feeling of not being able to properly bend at the ankle. I took off my socks tonight to discover these indentions. Isn't that gross? This wasn't even a really swollen day!

Feet in general are just gross, but when they get looking like this, it's enough to make you lose your appetite. How do you like the nail polish that refuses to come off my big toe? (To be fair, I haven't even tried to get it off yet.) How's that for gross? Thanks dad for the attractive feet :)

Allie's new look

We thought the movie Tangled was a cute show, but I think it is doing some of us mothers a dis-service. Long hair like Rapunzel is easier said than done. "Tangles" don't just easily come out, and even if you wanted it to, it doesn't grow to be so pretty and healthy looking.
Mike has been asking me to cut Allie's hair for months now. She cries when we brush it and cries when we wash it, and cries when she gets gum stuck in it (it happens more than you would think). Her hair breaks easily and it has been looking straggly for a while now. We have been trying to talk her into a cut, but it hasn't been easy. Then when her friend Lily got a cute new bob, it opened the door to the possibility.
Mike didn't waste any time. He made her an appointment with our friend Syndee, and now she has a new look!

She loves it. I love it, but most importantly Mike loves it. I think it's funny that he has always had such an opinion on her hair.

We haven't tried styling it yet, but I think it's going to be a cute look even without it.

So...there she is!

***I have several posts that are scheduled to come out over the next few weeks (if you haven't noticed, I just do huge batches and set them to post every few days). Anyway, Allie's hair will be long in the pictures because they are old pictures. Just thought I'd let you know... :) ***

The kid can come any time now...

It seems like there was one delay after another in getting this baby's squares blankie done. First, I had a fabric fiasco that resulted in an expensive lesson learned about online fabric purchases...
I had bought the fabric with my mom down in Orem, and realized too late that I didn't have enough of some of the patterns. By the time I figured that out, I found out they didn't carry them in the Logan store. They did have them online, but you can't buy the fabric in less than 1 yard increments. So now I have fabric coming out of my ears.
After that, I just couldn't get motivated to do it.
I finally got things moving enough to cut the squares (with much help from my little friends).
At first I was really resenting the fact that I had little helpers. I couldn't do it fast enough for my liking, and I was constantly worried that someone was going to lose a finger. Jake did end up spilling blood, but luckily it was just a flesh wound.
After a little while though, I decided not to worry about getting it done in a timely matter. They were learning and having fun and I needed to relax. So I got the camera out and got this...

Those little fingers will never be this size again. I watched as each of them struggled to make little pillows with the fabric and batting and I loved it. Jake was meticulous. He wanted each one perfect, and Allie just wanted to get the job done. So funny how personalities develop and how I can see traits from Mike and me in each of them. (Mike can sometimes be the "just get the job done" type guy :)

These pictures are from a few different days of cutting, then I was done with that part...so the project continued to sit. I was having lots of false labor and worrying that I would really go into labor without the blanket being done. Yet, it still sat unfinished.

Then, I finally got the motivation I needed. We got the sewing under way and I got more "help" from the kids. This time it was in the form of laying out the pattern meticulously by Jake and playing hopscotch on the pattern by Allie. He got frustrated, but eventually joined Allie in the fun.

I did finally get the blanket done.

Jake loves it. Allie thinks it's just fine (as she runs off to do something else). I caught Jake snuggling up in it tonight and he had a suggestion... "what if I share my squares blankie with the baby, and he shares his with me?" The suggestion was followed up with comments that the baby's blanket was "so fluffy and comfy", and "what if the baby doesn't like green, but I like it so much". I could tell that the cogs in his brain were working out a way to make this new blanket his own. I suggested that when we get some time we'll make him another blanket that hasn't lost it's fluff. (we do have plenty of fabric after all:)