School Sum Up

This is more of a "grandparent" sort of entry and I really mean that so you might want to consider skipping it...a quick sum up of our first week of school.
Joshua - in the first 5 days of school Joshua received 3 letters home telling us what respectful, hard worker he was (this, of course, is wonderful but Josh does have a tendency to let it go to his head). His standardized tests scores came this week and he is considered Advanced in every subject. This is not a big surprise although I think he has some personal weaknesses they definitely aren't in school so far ;)
Hyrum - his reading improved over summer but he is still struggling with speech related delays :) Both his teacher and student-teacher said he was the sweetest, most kind student they had in the class and proclaimed him a delight to teach (HA...we'll give this a few more weeks). Joshua's 3rd grade teacher is now working with the 2nd graders and also went on about how polite and generous both boys are.
Math - managed to get lost once but I went into the school and found him. He had gone to the wrong place instead of coming out to be picked up. He was a little nervous and proclaimed that his "teacher had left him," not that he had gone the wrong way :) He is delighted that he got to get a library book and homework. He wants to be just like Josh and Hy.
Seth - has spent the last few mornings playing with all the toys he is usually forbidden by his brothers to play with.

On a side note...Holly, Josh's 3rd grade teacher, has always scared me. She even scares John. She is direct and intimidating and scary but after a year with Josh and now working with Hy, she apparently loves us. Last night she came up and gave me a big hug and told me how excited she was that we were having another boy. My due date is her birthday and she was sad we couldn't name it after her but when I told her our top name right now she got tears in her eyes and said that her great-grandfather, grandfather, father, brother and nephew had all been named that. She said if we use that name then she will feel like a little part of her is with us. Hmmm...no pressure. I just wish I could describe how frightened I used to be of her :) Life is funny...

Yesterday when I was picking up Math from school my neighbor and I met a woman who also had 4 boys!! I was so excited because that meant there was someone else at the school who had almost as many kids as me. I didn't think that was possible here. Anyway, afterwards I was talking to my neighbor and telling her how I thought that lady was crazy for having four kids 7 and under (her oldest was 7). I was like..."her house must be crazy and she must be so busy and why would you ever want to do that." Then my friend looked at me and said, "You had 4 boys who were 6 and under and now you are going to have 5 who are 9 and under." That is when it hit me that I am crazy :) It sounds so insane when you think about other people who have 5 kids. There are so many things in life like that. You look at other people and think how on earth can they do that or how can they handle that challenge and then you find yourself right in the middle of something very similar. It is that feeling when you think to yourself, "How did I get here? Wasn't I just in college like yesterday?" HA...funny...
Related to this topic, sort of...Boulder is crazy. If you saw the descriptions for the prenatal classes and how the hospitals work here you would think to yourself, "I am glad I live in a nice conservative place like Austin, TX." Life is relative...what if the poor Amish had to move to Salt Lake. They would probably think they landed in one of the most liberal towns in America. :)

School Started...

School started yesterday for J and Hy. Josh is in 4th and Hy is in 2nd grade. Even though they both complained about going back to school they were really happy when it finally came time to go. Hyrum was so excited yesterday when he got home to be back in school. Math was also excited to go to Kinder today. It is only half day here in Colorado. He was nervous before we went to the meet your teacher night but after that he's been fine. He didn't even want me to go with him to the bus stop but I told him I was going to go the first day at least.
On Monday they can go alone ;)

Waiting for the bus...Hy has no front teeth ;)

It was a little cold but J didn't want a jacket.

Math's first bus ride...

Racing...

I know this is a little slow but John has been running with some friends lately. They are real runners so John has had a fun/challenging time keeping pace. Awhile back the Univ of Colorado had an open track meet. John ran the 4 x 400 with 3 other guys for fun.

Sometimes you just get old...

Sometimes you just get older and then you mix it with pregnancy and it becomes lethal.

I am so tired I paid all our tithing for the next little while because when I went to pay tithing this time, filling out the slip and envelope seemed too tedious to do again soon. I don't have the energy to fill out a tithing slip every month...

One of my favorite websites is bankrate.com. I think my young women would readily agree that that makes me old (and dorky)...

Skin care/makeup products actually make a huge difference in the appearance of my skin. In your mid-20's you just need sunscreen, cleansing and the occasional moisture. Now I realize why there are SO MANY products on the market. Us old people need them...

Also, I don't have the energy to say the other things I was going to say about getting old because I am getting to old to have energy ;)

Argh...the BCS...

Just a decent article in SI about what BYU and others are going to need to do to bust into the BCS in the next few years. No need to read if do not care for college football (I realize Eldon you have probably already read it :) Notice that 3 of the 5 teams it is directed at are in the MWC. Let's hope Heaps and the others can start making a dent next year....

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/andy_staples/07/31/non-bcs/index.html

The Name Game

Lately, talking about names is one of the few joys life has afforded me. I think this is because I really like most names. I was talking with a family that was only here for summer and she wants to name her next baby Atticus for a boy or Kestrel for a girl. I liked them but she said she's met with a LOT of resistance (her baby is due in Sept). My SIL named her boy Fielding and I really loved that name when she picked it. It is so fun. My friend just named her little girl Liesel and I adore it. The point is I am not critical when it comes to names, I like them all. Therefore I find it funny that I have ended up with all Bible/Gospel names.
We never had a goal of naming all our children with Hebrew names. In fact, it wasn't until Math that I even realized that most of the names we liked were more traditional. Once we named Math I did think that we would probably have to stick with the trend on the 4th child. I guess most of us just have some kind of natural tendency towards certain things. My other SIL has 3 boys that all have Celtic names although I have never heard her mention thinking about Celtic origins. I think she just must naturally be drawn to them (that and the double letters).
Our naming process also was never decided but just naturally came about by our personalities. This is how the process goes. John doesn't even start to care till we find out it is a boy. Then he vetoes every name I suggest (including Joshua, Hyrum, Matthew and Seth). After he vetoes literally every name the conversation concludes with his insane suggestions like Melchizedek and Mohonrimoriancomer which he claims are the names he is seriously considering. This happens about once a month because I am not up the challenge more often. I spend the next 4 months thinking to myself and deciding what names I like best. Then we get down to the last 2-3 weeks and John starts to get all concerned. I give him a list of about 10-15 names I like and he is not allowed to removed my top 3 but can add any names he wants. He spends hours looking at names on the internet one night and gets rid of most of my list. The next day we are usually down to about 5 names and then we just wait till the baby is born :) John rarely adds to the list.
For Josh our top names were Josh, Sam and Bryce. For Hy our names were Hy and Henry and Max (I wanted Max but John wouldn't go for it) . For Math our names were Heber, Henry and Sam. Math was not at the top of the list but we had talked about it and it was in top 5. When he came out even thought it wasn't what we thought we knew it was the name for him. For Seth we liked Jeremiah and Henry but really the weeks leading up to Seth's birth were so crazy that we didn't narrow anything down. We had some others but we didn't really have one that we liked at all. In fact, John got his appendix out 5 days before he was born so we went to the hospital totally frazzled and with no name (first time that has happened) He was by far the hardest to name and we just never felt like we had the right name until we called him Seth and then I knew! So where are we now? Jeremiah will remain on the list for sure. Lately I have been liking Peter and James and Nathan and Samuel. I think we have to go with a Bible/Church name this time but if I like another name better I won't let that stop me! I like Dallan even though John has a brother named that.

It is just fun to think about. I don't really use to many baby name sites but over the years these are my favorite. We found namevoyager with Hyrum and trust me it was really primitive back then. It didn't have any of the extra stuff it has now.
http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager
And who wouldn't like the Utah Baby Namer. Some of these names are so hilarious. I love Jordon River, Ziona, Tabernacle, and Iron Rod. There are so many good ones especially all the ones that start with "La"
http://wesclark.com/ubn/

Risk Takers

When you look at the votes between boy and girl you realize that we know a lot of "risk takers." The votes for a girl were almost double that of a boy. Smart money would have been to go with the boy but then miracles do happen. The girl that did the ultrasound said that she saw the gender early but didn't tell us her suspicions because she wasn't 100% sure and didn't want to make a mistake in our case :) During the ultrasound the baby did 2 complete flips (which should give you a clue) and never held still enough for her to get a good head reading. However, amid all the flips we were able to find out what we are having. I hope y'all invested more conservatively in the stock market than you did in our voting poll or else you don't have any money left now. Welcome to our basketball team...all 5 of them.
AAAAAHHHH...could life be anymore crazy :)
Tonia (aka Ishmael) looks like we are still on for the second coming. Wow...this is a lot of missions to worry about but at least technically we don't have any weddings to worry about. I pulled out all the baby clothes (0-12 months) that I was able to save from Texas. I saved everything that could be used again and it amounts to 1 newborn outfit, 2 three month outfits and 2 six month outfits. Even though I can't get too much at least I will be able to get new things which I haven't done since Hy and Josh plus I have a whole half year to to fill completely. A shopping I will go...a little something to look forward to since I won't be pink shopping. Stay away from white, that is my motto for my family.I guess I don't have anyone to share a bathroom with yet :) The only real variable in this is...is it possible that this little boy could look any different from the others??? Also name suggestions are being accepted as we have dismissed most boy names already...

Hello Random Post

I got my first pedicure ever today. Ahhh...wonderful. I wish I could go all the time but I am hoping that I can at least get one more before the end of this pregnancy. Budget constraints might not allow for it but we'll see :) I have my ultrasound soon and I am very nervous because they gave me a choice between doing it about 2 weeks ago or doing it next week and a little voice inside my head said I should do it later because it is easier to see developmental problems. I am concerned this means that they are going to find a problem (oh pregnancy is always stressful but it will probably be just fine). I feel like it is a boy and John is pretty sure it is a girl. So far I have been right 4 times and John has been right three times. He thought Math would be a girl. You can vote on the side if you want and then feel superior when you guessed it correct. Wouldn't it be nice if I could fix up little surprises for everyone who guessed right...not going to happen but maybe I should just buy the baby a new outfit for every right vote. Of course, I have no baby boy clothes left because they are ALL worn out and absolutely no girl clothes so the baby will have a lot of new stuff no matter what it is. I still have tons of blankets though ;) Mmmmm...the restaurants outside my window smell soooo good. I wish they would come feed me for really cheap. I wonder if I should try and wear heavy clothes to my appointment on Mon so the doctor will think I have gained weight. Private blogs are hard for me to remember to read. They don't pop up on google reader so I forget occasionally. I need an attitude adjustment on life or perhaps just anti-depressants :) The next Harry Potter movie isn't going to be out until Nov 2010...even LOTR released every year. I need the weather to cool off because even though it is only around 80-85 degrees I am still hot. How did I live through 3 Texas summer pregnancies? Love to all you sweet ladies in Texas pregnant right now. Some of the days next week are only suppose to be in the 60's so that should be better. I made a Texas sheet cake the other day out of desperation for anything that sounded good. It was very delicious but took all the energy I had. I only managed to get down one piece but everyone else has been happy eating it. Maybe I'll go have some now.

Blogging slow down

It seems like summer is a natural blogging slow down. Vacation, sharing the computer more, some of us are pregnant...so here is a quick update....

HAPPY
I am half way done today!
I only have about 3-4 more weeks till perfect weather returns and the leaves start changing.
I was informed that an ingredient was just another name for MSG (MSG has lots of names). I was very depressed because it is in EVERYTHING so I finally looked it up and found out that it actually isn't MSG and it isn't even really bad for you. Whew...my heart was very worried.
Seth: (while leaning back off my sister's lap) Look, I upside down. (After sitting back up) Now I upside up.
Hy: I want you to have 10,000 babies.
Me: What? Who is going to feed all those babies? Are you going to hold 10,000 bottles?
Hy: Okay, let's just have one and you feed it.

DREAD/SAD
I am only half way done today.
There is no one to feed me what I want to eat.
Getting the boys ready for school
I am already feeling uncomfortable and I am just going to get bigger
BYU vs. OU game
Lack of sleep
Lack of a desire to continue to live
Feed me!
Lab results

Do you smell fear...

So I have a lot of things that are depressing me right now. Pregnancy, the never ending money crunch, the credit crunch not lightening in time to buy a house, the over all economy, serious lack of sufficient retirement savings, lack of sleep, lack of good food, interest rates rising, the government in general, etc...you get the idea...
These are all stressful but what do I really dread the most (besides pregnancy)? What has hung a little black rain cloud over all of my spring and summer? It's the BYU vs. OU game.

How can anyone be happy knowing that in two months we could be watching a horrific blue blood bath? I know that OU along with Bradford are way overrated but that still doesn't change the fact that they are a good team and us not so much. We have a good history of upsets against amazing teams but this year I haven't been able to summon any faith. I've tried to dream beautiful dreams of the future based on the amazing recruiting success of this year but the future is clouded with the present looming OU. I dislike OU, ever since the 80's and their stupid sooner wagon. Dislike, dislike, dislike them (John says I can't say hate) which is why I make such an excellent Texas fan.
What if Texas loses to OU also? This could be the worst football season ever... That game could send me into early labor. What if that little dork Bradford gets the Heisman again? This could be SOOOOOOOOOO bad!
People, don't let your happiness depend on college football!! Escape while there is still time.