42 Big Ones

Monday was Bruce's bIrThDaY!

I was so proud of myself because I made plans WEEKS in advance,

 but didn't tell anybody.

I announced on Bruce's birthday morning that we were ALL going to a surprise somewhere that night at 5pm SHARP. The kids were mIsErAbLe in suspense. ha ha. Emma said, 

"WHY did you tell us in the morning, I am not going to be able to stand it ALL day?!"

That night I kept announcing things like:

"if you aren't dressed nice, you aren't coming".....  "Get your dancing shoes on".....  "You better look as good as I do".... Dallin even pulled together a button down shirt and tie (tied in his fanciest tie knot)... Logan wore his sweet-striped sweater... we did the little girls hair in up-do's... and left with Sophie in heels 3 sizes too big....

1st Stop:

FUDDRUCKERS (birthday boys favorite)

with a sUrPrIsE guest... GRANDPA!

Poor Grandpa realized very quickly that he chose poorly in his seat location.... next to Sophie. She kept climbing behind the table, touching him and Ashlin with her messy hands, crying for different food choices, etc... you know, standard 3 year old stuff.

 After dinner... 2nd SURPRISE Stop:
-DUTTONS FAMILY THEATRE-

The family still had no idea where we were going... so when we drove towards Apache Junction, AZ... everyone was like, wha?? ha ha. And when we drove up to the theatre on east Main St, the kids could clearly see that most of the attendees were old people. They were pretty sure I took them somewhere that was going to be LAME and boring...
(to tell you the truth I was a little worried too)

 But guess what? It was NOT lame or boring.
The entire family loved this show. The Duttons are a family of 7 grown children and their spouses & children that put on the most amazingly talented music/comedy/variety show.

Check out this quick peek... 

I am not exaggerating in any way when I say every one of us loved it so much. Bruce said he laughed so hard he was almost crying. I did cry, because one part was so moving. The kids ALL OF THEM begged to go again next month. We were just extremely impressed.

Everyone's eyes were glued especially when the little kids performed.

During the show Lily begged me a million times to put her in violin lessons.

The Duttons have a larger theatre in Branson, Missouri where they perform most of the year. They just come here from Dec-March. Because all of the performers are family and so talented, we left and...

Ashlin said, "MOM- we can do that too. You just need to have 1 more child, then teach us all how to do that stuff!"
ha ha ha.

Then I said, "I can never again feel succesful as a mother" ha ha.

 Well worth the money, such a fun night out as a family.
HOORAY for a successful surprise!

 {and here's to Lily's cute up-do}
WE LOVE YOU BRUCE...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Potty Training

WARNING: This is NOT an "I have 6 kids, 

therefore know how to do this" post...

Just to document how this has gone...

I decided that friday was the day, together Sophie and I threw away all her pull-ups. We went to the store and bought: licorice, mini slim jims and mini popsicles for her treats when she went pee in the potty.

I was hopeful. She was not. Even though I offered her candy, toys, stickers, hugs, etc...

Sophie is 3 and a half. My first 3 kids I started potty training while they were 2. It was a miserable, accidents for a year, type experience. So with Logan and Lily I decided to wait until they were 3. MAGIC. It was so easy, they picked up on it so quick, that I thought waiting until they were older was the answer. Then along came Sophie. UGH!!!

We were in the process of building a house, selling a house and moving when she turned 3, so I decided to wait. We have tried a few times to potty train her since December, but she SCREAMED and cried and kicked and did not want to wear panties. She cried on the floor,
"I want to wear diapers!"

So I had decided to wait until she wanted to. But now that she will be 4 in July, and its embarrassing to have her still in diapers... I decided it was time wether she wanted to or not.

Here is how it went:

Thursday night she asked if she could wear panties, and I said "YES!! But girls who wear panties have to go pee in the potty." And then she cried and changed her mind.

Friday morning I woke her up at 8am, and we threw all the pull-ups away. And told her she gets to wear panties, at which point she started crying (loud screaming tears crying). I put the panties on her anyway. She cried straight until 9:30am. One and a half hours.

Since she hadn't peed in the potty yet, at 9 (still crying) I carried her to the toilet and said (I was honestly so patient through all of this) "you need to sit on the potty until your pee comes out". Because in the past she would sit on the potty however long, not pee, then get up and pee in her panties, I decided we just needed to sit there until it happened. The first 30 minutes she cried and I had to hold her there. I got some books and started reading to her, while she cried. She finally stopped crying and we read books for an hour.... still no pee. By now I started crying. I kept texting Bruce grumpy texts about how easy it is to be a dad and not have to potty train. Sorry, but I was so tired of hearing crying screaming and sitting by the toilet. 

At 11:05am, still sitting on the potty... Sophie started grumping and kind of telling me she didn't want to go pee in the potty and didn't want to sit on the toilet.... and in the middle of her complaining she started peeing... IN THE POTTY! She looked shocked, looked down at what was happening, so surprised... and I started clapping and yelling, "YEAH!!!! Sophie you did it!!!!"... and she looked at me and said, "NO!" She was still so mad at me, and didn't want me to cheer, even though she did it.

So I gave her candy, then we went to the store and she picked out whatever treat she wanted to bring home for when she peed in the toilet.  She finally warmed up to the idea...

Now its sunday, I stayed home from church to keep potty training... but it is still not going well. BLEK!!!

I can tell that she can't control it yet, or on demand pee. Because we will still sit on the potty for 30 minutes waiting... and nothing happens. Then she pees in her panties. We have cheered and set timers, given treats for rewards, watched YOUTUBE potty training cartoons, and tried every 45 minutes or so. Sometimes she does it, sometimes not. Its about 50/50 accidents and in the potty.

It is so exhausting. I am so done having kids. I cannot do this again.
I am so warn out of cleaning up pee!! 

The first night we started, she had an accident right before bedtime at 7:30pm... right after we had tried. I was so exhausted, she went to her room without panties on and I just left her there. I came in 10 minutes later to get her dressed and read to her in bed...

to find she had crawled in bed and went to sleep on her own without any pants on still, poor thing.

Then I realized that this is wearing her out too. :(

Potty Training is so exhausting.

Presidents Day

So I was laying on the couch at 11:00am playing Pictionary with Lily. (she drew on the white board, while I guessed) Although I loved giving her the one on one attention,  I was thinking we were all being pretty lazy for a beautiful day off. 

I said, "Lets go on a hike!" And so we did. I called my sister Carrie and we left in 30 minutes. I didn't even feed my kids lunch. We just got some apples and a bag of granola bars.

Check out how long Sophie's legs look below... ha ha.

She is probably too big to be in a carrier. But it was the Wind Caves hike at Usery Pass, a little too hard for her to do. So the deal to Dallin was this, "If you carry her up, I will carry her down"

And look at this, with only 30 minutes warning, 

the Brady's still joined us.

 We made it to the top! 

The weather was a beautiful 70 degrees.

Baby Trace!!! 

(AKA T-Rex)

That Lily was so stinking cute. She was worried about being able to do the hike... then the whole time she kept saying, "this hike is so fun with all the curves and turns and rocks". The ugly truth is, at the end when it was the steepest, I couldn't even keep up with her. 

She was as fast as her older brothers.

Planes

Bruce is back from Florida, yeah!

Friday night I was watching cute little Blakely and Tys (age 3 and 4)... and brought them and Sophie with me to pick up Bruce from the airport. (I kept texting him that I was coming to get him with a really cute welcoming committee).... then unfortunately they lost his luggage, so he was not ready to hop in the car like planned.

So I took the kiddos to the top of the parking garage to watch the planes take off. And it was so super cool!! We didn't even want to leave when Bruce called me and said he found his luggage.

Oh those 2 cute crazy haired girlies.

Conversation I heard in the car:

Sophie- "I love you Blakely, you are my best friend, right?"

Blakely- "You just said you didn't love me"

ha ha, oh the mood swings of girls.

I had to get a picture of Bruce, who when we found him on the side of the road, was waiting for us with his Mickey ears on... ha ha.

And PS- I officially watched 4 different peoples kids that day. From 7:30am until 10pm that night straight I had other peoples kids at my house. And I was in such a good mood. Isn't that a miracle? ha ha. I think I enjoy watching other peoples kids on occasion so that I don't feel guilty going all day without cleaning my house.

Spartan Race

A while ago the Statens (they are famous on my blog) invited our boys to do the Spartan Race with their boys this month. Unfortunately it was the week Bruce and I were in Florida... BUT those awesome ♥Statens♥ came and got our boys and brought them for us (while their girls played at our house with our girls). 

The older boys did the adult race, and the younger boys did the Jr Race.

Christine got some awesome pictures of this cool obstacle race. 

 "Jr Spartan race" that the younger boys did:

Logan is not making it look fun ↑ to run muddy and wet... 

he said it was freezing!

But he finished.

Griffin ↑ got 3rd place out of his age in the race, 

way to go!

 And Zack's friend below got 10th place in the adult race, out of the thousands... wow! 

Dallin talked about the 4.7 mile race forever with me, telling me about each obstacle (carrying big sand bags, rolling through mud under barbed wire, jumping walls, climbing walls, throwing spears, getting sprayed with water, etc...) and how cool it was. 

He definitely wants to do it again next year. But this time he says he is going to train for it... Logan and Dallin both got in the top half of their race times, which without any training, we thought was pretty good!

THANK YOU CHRISTINE & NEIL!!