Tomboy

Abby has let me know that she's a tomboy, but still a girly girl. She goes through phases where she plays different sports, usually at Jake's begging. She can be found playing football on the tramp, kicking the soccer ball, shooting hoops outside or playing catch. There are the days where she tells me she's the goalie during recess soccer, but then the very next day walking the playground with her friend, Faith (I can picture it perfectly). It's been fun over the years watching Jake and Abby be such great friends and watching as Abby humors Jake and plays everything with him, while he humors her and goes just easy enough on her to get her back the next time.

On that note, this is the game of basketball I came home to last night...

Uh, I think that would be a flagrant foul

"What do you mean flagrant? I was just going after the ball!"

Don't move that back foot or you'll get called for travelling.

Defense is so underrated sometimes. How did you let him past you?

Over the back. I hope you practiced your freethrows.

Isn't that the cutest tomboy you've ever seen?

One more Brag Post

Another shout out to Jake:

1. He went to the district pinewood derby and took Second place in the Webelos division for the Old Capitol District. Now he wants to go on to state, but I think I'm gonna have to nix that one

2. He had his third quarter awards assembly today. He made Honor Roll and also was awarded the Student of the Quarter award.

Quite an honor if you ask me.

Way to go Jake!

Many Thanks

I feel so grateful right now. I have been so blessed with so many great people around, near and far to help me out. So here is a shout out with a huge THANK YOU!

1. Drew and Cyndi took 2 days off from working at the temple to come stay with my kids while I was in the hospital. Not only did they run my home, Cyndi made about 10 loaves of bread, cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, pizza dough... for my family. She also showed me her tricks to making yummy bread. They got the kids where they needed to be, did the girls' hair way better than I do it, brought them down to the hospital each day... I knew I didn't have to worry while I was at the hospital.

2. My wonderful ward who brought in meals with enough food to feed the Marine Corps. We're still eating leftovers.

3. Mom, Dad, Matt, Dyan and her kids for making the journey up to PV to see us last Sunday. My kids love getting out of town visitors.

4. Julie and Loren, Joe and Cassie, Dyan and Ryan, and Mom and Dad for taking my kids this week. It has been wonderful getting to relax and rest with Claire. I know you all probably had better ways to spend your spring break, but I know my kids had a ball and we appreciate it with all our hearts. I never worried about them, though it was strangely quiet around here. After having Jake, being a first time mom seemed so hard. Then as I had each additional kid, I thought, "Man if I could go back to having one kid - those days were so easy!" Well this week, I kinda felt like I got to go back and have just one kid to worry over. Claire slept on me, we napped together, we stayed awake at night (not too happy about that one) and we bonded.

5. Cheramie who shared my aches, pains and worries throughout my pregnancy. BTW - I'm so glad she delivered such a beautiful, healthy baby girl this week!

6. My kids who have adored Claire and have kept the arguing over her to a minimum. One day, I dozed on the couch to wake up to a team effort of Jake, Abby and Hannah changing Claire's diaper. It didn't last long because she started to poop and pee and they all scattered. It was pretty funny. But Hannah has since changed her a few times mostly on her own.

7. Jeremy who is the proudest daddy ever. He has taken such great care of me and the family. He gets up with us during the night, swaddles Claire like a champ, finds her paci for her when she loses it at 3:00 am.... He doesn't let me over do things. He even surprised me with a box of Cadbury Eggs last week.

8. My Heavenly Father who has blessed me beyond measure.

More Claire

I love watching little Claire sleep. She smiles all the time in her sleep showing off her cute dimples with her eyes fluttering open and shut. I love it when they are so free that they can sleep with their arms in the "I Surrender" pose. I don't think I could ever do that. So here are few pictures of Claire sleeping, her favorite daytime past time, and certainly not her favorite nighttime activity.

Here are a few pictures of her awake:

Jake in March

Jake had a big first week in March as you can probably see from this picture.

1. He took second place overall in the ward Pinewood Derby. He wanted his car to be an iphone. It looked pretty awesome. Jeremy decided since it was going to be his last ever pinewood derby car ever to make, that they'd go all out. I'm not going to say who put the most time into the car, we'll just say it was a team effort.

2. Jake finally got a pair of rec specs. He got a new pair of glasses at the end of December and within the first month, they were bent from getting hit in the face with a soccer ball, a basketball, a soccer ball again, and basketball again... You get the picture. His face and glasses were getting trashed daily!

3. Finally, and most exciting, his basketball team, the Wildcats, won the YMCA tournament. The were so fun to watch. The team they beat, bless their sweet hearts, were pretty darn good and as Jeremy called them, Hitler's war Machine. They had complete matching uniforms, they were mostly tall thin, blonde hair, blue eyes, they looked well oiled. Then there was Jake's team, scraggly looking - had a girl on their team, the most disinterested kid in the whole league, the over weight kids, the goofy kid with tourettes... It reminded me of when the Sandlot kids played that one team where Ham says, "You play ball like a girl," then it's on. Anyway, they played their little hearts out and won very dramatically by one point. At one point we thought we had won the game by 2 points. The celebration had begun, the trophies were brought out, but then they were called off the floor to finish the last 2 seconds with the other team shooting 1 and 1 free throws (they had credited a last second foul to the wrong team). But in the end, our awesome team won! Jake was amazing to watch. He as a mean crossover and can burn anyone down the court. I already kinda miss going to his games, but bring on baseball!

Hannah Lost her first tooth

Hannah lost her first tooth today. We noticed her baby teeth were pushing out kinda funny, and wouldn't you know it, she had permanent teeth growing in behind her bottom baby teeth. It didn't take long for her to wiggle her first tooth out, and I'm sure the second is going to be close behind.

She was so excited, she started calling people she knew - Jeremy, her Grandmas and Dyan, but I finally made her stop.

Way to go Hannah, quite a milestone!

Hannah's Homework

I know this is a lot of posts lately, but I'm making up for future dry spells in my blogging...

I felt like I needed to document this for some reason. Here is a picture of Hannah's homework packet that she received on Monday. It was doodled all over on Monday and each day she added a little more to the inside pages. I look at the messiness of it and want to laugh and cry all at the same time, while calling her teacher apologizing.

Annie's Request

Today we were getting ready to venture out - big shopping day to Fry's to get cookies because Abby volunteered to bring them to activity days today - What was she thinking?

Anyway, Annie asked me to curl her hair so the boys would think she was hot.

Wait! What?!

I told her she was just a cute little 4 year old and she says, "Cute is the same thing as hot, Mom."

Then as I was curling her hair, she commenced to sing, "I'm sexy and I know it." Like on that M&M's commercial.

This is the exact reason I don't want my kids to grow up. I already don't know how to handle things like this. Imagine when she's a real teenager, not just a 4 year old acting like one.

P.S.

Still on the Big Bird thing, I know I should get over it, but...

Last night we asked all our kids if they knew who big bird was. Abby was a little foggy, Hannah was a big no and Jake says, "Oh, the big yellow duck?" At least he recognized him, right?

Big Bird

Today we took Claire to her first appt. It went great and she's one ounce away from her birth weight. Anyway, we were in the newborn room. It was decorated in Sesame Street stuff. Huge cutouts on the walls of Bert and Ernie and one of Big Bird.

Annie looks at Big Bird and tells Jeremy something about the Chicken. What chicken? he asks. "The one on the wall right there" she says.

Wow, Annie (and I'm sure all my kids for that matter) doesn't know who Big Bird is! I feel a little like a parenting failure right now. Because I can assure you she knows all the Dora characters, the Phineas and Ferb characters, all the Good Luck Charlie characters as well as the rest of those Disney pre-teens. But Big Bird, NO WAY. It's a chicken.

I guess when you think about it, what kind of bird is Big Bird supposed to be anyway? Maybe he is a chicken.

hmmmm....

Claire is Born

February 28, 2012 at 7:52 a.m., Emma Claire Platt joined our family. She's perfect and we all love her with all our hearts.

Here are her stats:

weight: 7 lbs. 13 oz

height: 20 1/4 inches long

doctor: Dr. Melinda Martin

place: YRMC - Prescott Valley

The kids have been so excited for her arrival and lucky for them, the morning she was born it was snowy so the kids got their first and probably only delayed start day of the year. They didn't need to go to school until 10:30, so they were able to come down right away in the morning before school to meet their little sister. They were so excited and still are. They fight (mostly lovingly) over who gets to hold her and whose turn it is next to hold her. They all wake up a little early to come to my room to be the first to hold Claire. And they're all old enough that they can actually hold her without my stressing too much.

Anyway, back to Claire - she's so precious. She has dimples that melt me, but like all my other kids, she's not a showoff for the camera, so I don't have a good pic of her dimples. She is a hearty eater and has the hiccups all the time - kinda sad.

So here are a bunch of pictures her in no particular order because it would take all my energy today to do so...

On the scale

Getting ready to leave the hospital

Four sisters, For each other, Forever

Ahhh, there's one of her dimples

Proud, doting Daddy

Perfect little feet

Claire with her ever so gorgeous mom (at one point after being in the bed all day long, I finally got up and went to the bathroom to clean up and got a look at my hair - man oh man was it beautiful. The ponytail was right on top of my head and big!)

The whole family - all 7 of us

The girls checking out their new little sister.

My five amazing kids.