My gymnastic team finally took a FIRST team trophy!! They did so great at the gym meet last weekend in Spokane. Most of the girls got their highest scores of the year. I hope this spirit carrys over to this weekend as the girls go to their Sectionals meet. If they score a 32 they move to state. Good Luck Team!! So the next pictures are of two adult competitors for AIM Gymnastics. Jamie (a friend and mom of one of my gymnasts) and I competed in our first ever adult competition. We took either first or second on all the events in the 30's and over category!! It was actually a little nerveracking, but fun in the end. I got first all-around which made my gymnasts envious over my tiny trophy! HA, HA. I hope I made Hanna proud with my pointed toes!! Next year we decided we are going to practice more than just 20 minutes the night before.....

Baby "Paiswee" (as Alizah would say) is finally here at our house. Hanna is such a proud cousin. She actually gets to stand up when holding her. Yes, mom holds her breath. Korbi is more laid back then I would have thought. She lets all the kids touch her hair and hold her. Paisley looks the cutest when she shows up at our house in clothes that my girls wore. Its fun to see their outfits and think about when they were that small! Just yesterday, I gave Korbi garbadge bags of Piper's 12-18 months clothes. It's hard to let them go after 3 girls, but what am I to do with them? At least, like I said I get to still see them. Korbi always dresses Paisley so cute with a matching bow. I also remember when my girls just sat there while I put bows in their hair. Now they run and hide under the bed when they see the comb! Actually poor Piper never got many bows, her being the third on the list. I guess I need to start doing hair from the youngest to oldest instead. We love having a girl cousin, but poor Beck has to put up with another girl......

Here is Alizah and her fire hat. This is her newest thing. At any point during the day she'll tell us the "cover your eyes and roll, and roll, and roll" story. Just last night she wanted to make sure that Piper knew how to cover her eyes and roll! She also remembers from the fireman talk at school that if a dog is in the house, you don't go back, "you let em' burn"! No, that's not what the fireman said, but that's what Alizah got! She loves her escuela....Some cute things she's said in the past month are that her belly button, "sucks" (meaning it sucks in). "It sucks, it sucks, look it sucks" she's telling all the other kids. Maestra Korbi had to figure out what she was saying. She also tells me when I forget to "drowned" the water. (drain the water from the bathtub). Does anyone remember the leewlo (leotard) phase? Well technically we are still in it, but now we've added the red sweatsuit phase. Heaven forbid if I don't get it washed fast enough. Notice in the picture, she's wearing the red shirt to the suit, but the pants were dirty....sad day!!
Piper's picture is showing her "shoe, shoes" . She is obsessed with shoes and has been for some time. This day we've started the "do my self" stage. So now we are seen with them on the wrong feet or even wearing our sisters shoes. As anyone who knows me I pick my battles and most of the time I don't pick any battles at all!! Piper's second haircut to fix her mullet that is growing in the back is on thursday. This should be interesting. Her hair is growing faster than Alizah's! Does anyone notice that this post is actually less than 12 hours since my last? I actually organized my pictures in folders on the computer (Yes, this took me most of the day on Mon) so it's easier to post pics. Yeah for us, it probably won't happen again until next spring break!

The first picture is of Hanna and her student of the month award with her first grade class. Hanna is a great student who tries so hard to do what her teacher asks! It was great timing too because the kids got called up to the office right after celebrating her birthday in her class. So the next picture is of her "Scientist labcoat and safety goggles" that she got for her birthday, so we can say a big THANK-YOU to everyone who is supporting this budding scientist go to her science camp. The next two pictures are of Hanna's Cleopatra party. We had a fun friend party with an archeological dig to find gold things, a treasure/present hunt which the kids had to read the Egyptian code to read the clues, and of course we ate the pyramid cake. This pyramid cake took me all morning and three tries to make it acceptable. It was a big day, but the 5 time birthday celebration is finally over!! Now we are on to the rest of our Spring Break. Hopefully mom can get some cleaning done and it will be warm enough for the kids to get some outside playing time on their bikes. We are currently getting enough viewings of "Boom chicka wow, wow" in (a.k.a.... Alvin and the Chipmunks) to last us a lifetime!! I guess it's better than the Max & Ruby kick we were on for the past few months!

Question of the day....WHO STEALS A SEVEN YEAR OLD'S BIRTHDAY CAKE??? So the story goes, we were RUNNING to the hosptial to make it to the birth of Paisley, so we put Hanna's ice cream cake outside under the car (it was night/cold/the only choice I had) and made it to hear the screaming as I was running down the hall (no epidural for Korbi), then rounded the corner and saw Paisley..Anyway which I'll give more details later-back to the cake. After we got back to the car Hanna's birthday cake was no longer there! It was 10:00 at night and the cake was gone. So Hanna had to open her presents from her family without a cake. Remember the goodness that I told of Hanna? Well her response to the absence of the cake was, "Well I guess Dairy Queen was out of cakes, and somebody else needed it." We've really had enough cake in Idaho so the missing cake wasn't really the issue. I tried to use it as a teaching moment and say remember how you feel right now when someone has taken something of yours-so don't ever take something that doesn't belong to you. So I guess in the end i hope some other little Hanna who is turning seven enjoyed our birthday cake!! So back to the Paisley story. I knew the screams belonged to Korbi when I heard them. I just didn't know she was going to try the birth without drugs, so the piercing loudness of them surprised me. Paisley is a little bruised, but beautiful! I thought right away she looks like Beck. She is smaller-only 7 lbs. 4 ozs. which again surprised me! Korbi did great though. She was wonder woman and seemed in really good spirits. Beck got to see his sister and blew her and his mom kisses the whole time. We will go see them today. Hopefully my children will be well enough to hold their cousin soon!

So I said yesterday I would add more birthday photos, but this little incident this morning takes precedent! This picture shows my two beautiful, sweet wonderful girls in a battle of the will. They both have to take anitbiotics. So Piper got held down and gargled hers, and Alizah said she would take her own to my bribe of a visit to the fire truck (which is her newest thing), a present at Hanna's birthday and a swig of Mountain Dew at 8:30 this morning. Well, we tried to presuade for 1/2 hour. She ran and hid under the bed and claimed I couldn't get her under there because I was too big to fit, and she cried and pleaded not to take it. So I tried my best to hold her down. Well, I don't know what I'm doing at the gym every morning at 6:00 a.m., but it is not making me strong enough to hold down a four year old! She kicked and pulled my hair and put Britni (my sister's fights when we were little) to shame!! The medicine was in a syringe and got shot clear across the room, up the wall, in dad's shoes, and in the key rack, plus all over Alizah and in her hair. It took me 10 minutes to clean it up and another 1/2 hour to bathe and wash kids. She continued to gag herself until she threw up the tiny taste she got of it from her lips touching the syringe. Now do I let her go see the fire truck????? This is all we've talked about for a month. This to me is a lesson in what to bribe kids with because a strong willed child such as Alizah will not do anything she doesn't want to do and no matter what I bribe will not help. SO off we go to see the fire truck......

New question for anyone reading.... HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU THINK IT TAKES SOMEONE SAYING "PUSH THE BUTTON" TO MAKE A TWO YEAR OLD ACTUALLY PUSH THE BUTTON???? So the story that goes with this one again happened with Piper. Poor Piper, the things she has to do to get attention!! So as in my previous blog, we've been trying to get home for three days and couldn't make it. Here's one more of the reasons why. I'm running to the pickup, putting Piper in (the pickup has been running to keep warm because of the freezing cold Idaho weather), and turn around to pick something up. Piper hit the button and locked me out. So for the next forty-five minutes I say "Push the button, please push the button, where's the button, push the button for mommy, PUSH THE BUTTON, go get the button, etc., etc., you get the idea. Piper was probably enjoying watching me jump up and down in the freezing cold screaming excitedly everytime she got even near the button!! She finally had climbed in the back seat and happened to push the right button and in I go to find her sweating in the heat and at this point crying with the green snot (that I previously mentioned)running past her chin. Oh what a memory for me!! So we make it home today to run into Hanna's classroom do the birthday celebration, run to the doctor for anitbiotics, and run to work to teach gymnastics. It's 10:00 at night and I'm glad to be home and hopefully we are on the uphill of our winter colds battle. As sick as everyone was we sure enjoyed seeing family with the three new babies that were added into the family! We just pray we did not get anyone sick! I guess if we did, you can payback us if you come visit!! I'll add some more birthday pictures soon.....