Lost Tooth

About mid-June my little Jonas man lost his first tooth! He had been working on his wiggly tooth for quite a while and he finally let Jeff pull it.

He was so excited for the Toothfairy to come, and was a very disappointed little boy when he woke up the next morning and had nothing.  There was a miscommunication between Mr. and Mrs. Toothfairy, with each thinking that the other was going to leave Jonas a surprise.  He sure was a happy guy the next day when he found a nice letter about how the Toothfairy had gotten lost in the storm (it was rainy that night) and she wasn't able to make it.

About two weeks ago he lost his second bottom tooth. It was very loose, and just barely hanging on, but he refused to let Jeff pull it.  One day it just happened to fall out and he has no idea when or where it happened! In fact I was the one to ask him where his tooth had gone, and then he realized it was out.  I'm guessing it happened when he was sleeping, although we never were able to find it in his bed.

A Lego Star Wars Party

Since Jonas turned 5 this year, he had his first "friends" birthday party.  We planned it for the first part of June, since his birthday was Memorial Day weekend and we figured everyone would be out of town.  He chose the theme of Lego Star Wars.

The kids enjoyed lightsaber training (using lightsabers to keep a bunch of balloons from touching the ground), rescuing Han Solo from carbonite (I froze Lego Han Solo in ice and they had to chip him out), battling Storm Troopers (they had to shoot paper Storm Troopers with Nerf guns), using the Force to build a starship (I gave them a box of random Legos and told them they had 10 minutes to create a star ship). 

We ended the party with cake, presents, and watching Lego Star Wars the Empire Strikes Out.

Every one also got to pose with our Luke Skywalker stand up.

It was a great, short, simple and sweet party.  The only thing that would have made it better was if Jeff hadn't had to work that Saturday.  It was kind of crazy to juggle my four boys plus five more!

J is Five

My baby man is five. FIVE.  It's always a hard age to wrap my mind around because it marks a turning point from them being a small child to entering middle childhood. I am so happy with the wonderful little boy Jonas is becoming.  He is such a sweetie and has the most hilarious personality. He seriously keeps Jeff and I rolling in laughter.

As I mentioned, my boys are into Star Wars right now.  Jonas has been wanting a certain Star Wars Lego and as he opened it the first words out of his mouth were, "Mason you can have my R2-D2!"  (Jonas already has an R2-D2 and knew that Mason had wanted one too.) His selflessness totally amazed me.  I think the following pictures say it all. So glad I had the camera to capture it!

 After presents we dug into this yummy Obi Wan Kenobi cake that my SIL, Kris made.  Jonas loved it because Obi Wan is his favorite Star Wars character.

Happy Birthday Jonas, we sure do love you!

Jonas' Preschool Graduation

Today our little Jonas man graduated from Little Sprouts Preschool.  I am still in awe at how quickly the years have flown and our little baby is now an almost 5 year old.   We snapped a few pictures before graduation.  One with the flower that he took to his teacher, Miss Angie.

Love that nose crinkle!

And our traditional last day of school "I did it!" photo.

 The program was short and sweet. The children led us in the Pledge of Allegiance, sang some songs about the concepts they had learned that year, and then had their graduation ceremony.

Getting his diploma!

One last photo with Miss Angie!

  As you can tell Jonas was one of only two boys in the class.  After graduation, I had almost all of the girls' mothers come up to me and tell me that their daughter had a crush on Jonas. In fact two of the girls had told their parents he was their "partner boyfriend".  What can I say, the kid is a cutie.

Jonas and his classmates.

Baseball

This year the three older boys are playing baseball.  Don't they look so cute in their jerseys?

Carson is playing on the kids pitch team and has a great coach this year.

Jonas and Mason are playing on the 3&4 year old "Itty Bitty Ball" team. It was so cute watching them warm up for their game last week. I really love that they are so close in age.  It's made it nice because we only have to juggle two games instead of three.  Last week Carson's game was at the same time as the little boys' game so Jeff and I hopped back and forth between the two games. It's kind of crazy  because Carson's games are an hour and a half long and the little boys' games last maybe an hour.  So Jonas and Mason watched the first part of Carson's game, then came back just as it was ending.

Star Wars

 A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

 You knew it was coming, right?  With so many boys in our house, I'm actually quite surprised that they hadn't discovered Star Wars before now.  It all started back in February after we bought our iMac. Since my iTunes account was hacked twice last year (and money stolen off our debit card...twice), I bought iTunes gift cards so we could purchase some programs through the App store.  We had a few dollars left over and decided to let the boys download Angry Birds Star Wars. Pretty soon they were asking if they could watch the movies and I was pleasantly surprised to find out they were rated PG. 

So on a snowy February day, and on our way home from a Jr. Jazz game, I stopped by my friend's house and picked up all six movies.  Even though I really regulate my boys' TV time, the plan was to let them watch the movies while Jeff and I painted our bedroom as part of our bedroom re-style. After all, it was a snowy, icky Saturday, and I needed them distracted so I could get my project done. As it turns out I was the one distracted and ended up watching most of the first two movies with my boys. Over the next week or so we watched all six movies (in order).  This is the first time that I'd ever done that and the saga made so much more sense to me. When it came time to return the movies, my boys cried...and cried. They went two whole weeks without Star Wars before I texted my friend and asked if we could borrow her movies again. She was so kind and let us borrow them for a whole month.  Seriously, how awesome is that?

Mason became obsessed with Darth Vader.  Obsessed.  He made a mask out of a milk box and walked around the house saying, "Luke, I am your father." One day my sweet sister in law, Kris, showed up at our house with a Darth Vader costume!  It was one of her boys old Halloween costumes and she thought Mason would love it.  Cue evil Empire music now....dun, dun, dun, da, da, dun, da, da, dun...

 Pretty soon, Darth Vader, was everywhere I looked...taking a nap on my couch, in my bed, on the patio, playing outside...he even tried to go to the store with me.

Since my boys were making Light Sabers with anything they could find, we soon invested in some "real" Light Sabers.

And the epic battles began...

I have to share a proud mom moment with you.  One day Carson came home from school very sad.  I asked him what was wrong and he told me that all of his friends at school had Star Wars Legos and he didn't.  At first my mind turned to the old "you need to be happy with what you have...wanting things makes you sad...don't covet..." train of thought, but before I said anything something stopped me.  I looked at him and said, "Well, you can be sad about it, or you can do something about it.  If you want those Legos, you will find a way to get them. What do you think you could do to get them?" At first we talked about him doing chores to earn the money.  He decided that it would take him a long time to earn the money because Mom doesn't pay well (I like to make him actually work for a dollar not just have it handed to him!).  There is a Facebook page for our community where you can post items to sell and we've had quite a bit of luck selling things on it. I asked him if he had any old toys he would want to sell.  He went to the basement and picked out four toys he hardly played with.  I snapped a picture of them on my phone, uploaded it to FB, and within 10 minutes all four toys had sold and he had the money he needed for his Star Wars Legos.  It was a great lesson for both of us.  Carson and I talked about how we need to look for solutions instead of whining about our misfortunes. We also talked about how if we really want something, and we put forth the effort to work for it, that Heavenly Father will bless us. I often think of how that day could have went.  I would have told him not to whine about it and that he had a lot of other Legos, and he still would have been sad that he didn't have his Star Wars Legos.  It would have caused contention in our house.  I'm thankful that I was able to listen to the Spirit and teach him.  He sure has been crazy about those Legos, and I'm happy that there are four less toys in my basement!

Halloween Festivities

Another Halloween has come and gone.  This Halloween I took the boys around the neighborhood, while Jeff stayed home and handed out candy.  At the time, Jeff was working the night shift and when it came time for him to go to work, we were still out Trick or Treating, so he had to come looking for us to give us the keys to the house.  I had met up with one of my good friends, and we decided to take the kids to a different part of the subdivision since not many people were home on the streets by us.  Here are my four little spooks, just before we left. We walked around the neighborhood for about an hour and a half, until Porter had had enough and cried until we got him home.

(Sorry for the blurry pictures, most of them are from my phone.)

In early October, Jeff's friend, Finn, invited us over to his house to pick pumpkins.  He lives in American Fork, and has a huge garden.  (All Fall, Jeff kept coming home from work with tomatoes, peppers, and zuchinni from Finn's garden.)  The kids had a blast and Finn's wife, Michelle, and I hit it off well. We stayed much too late talking and letting the kids play. I can definitely see us hanging out with them more in the future.

Jeff and I joke that Carson looks like a proud Papa in this photo. We got a few of these Hubbard squash for decoration.  You can see Finn in the background.

Finn and Michelle also gave us these corn stalks to decorate with . 

The boys had fun trying on masks in Walmart.

The week before Halloween, we took the boys over to Thanksgiving Point to the Barnyard Boo.

They got their faces painted.

 Carson and Mason were brave and held the snake and tarantula.  Jonas is more like me and had no desire to hold such things!

Then we hosted our annual Halloween Party.  I made these Owl Cupcakes for one of the desserts. Cake decorating is NOT my thing, so I was happy to find something so easy to make and that looked halfway decent.

Some of our attendees.

Then it was finally time to carve those pumpkins.

On Halloween, we went to Carson's school for the Costume Parade.  I only managed to snap this blurry picture.

When we left Carson's school, the boys begged me to take them to Neptune Park.  Since it was such a gorgeous day, I agreed, and we spent 45 minutes soaking up the sun. It was a great way to get the boys out of the house so Daddy could sleep!

Jonas' Birthday...and a Long Story

 Jonas' birthday was May 26 and he turned 4 years old!  (I brought my DSLR camera, but unfortunately forgot the SD card, so thank heavens my iPhone takes somewhat decent pictures or I would have no record of his special day!)  For his "dinosaur birthday" as he called it, he got a dinosaur cake, a giant dinosaur from Aunt Alese and Uncle Shane, a bag full of dinosaurs from Grandpa and Grandma Birch, a dinosaur piggy bank and dinosaur Legos from Grandma and Grandpa Larsen, and a dinosaur puzzle from Grandpa Butler. And perhaps his favorite present: a dinosaur apron that Grandma Larsen made him and spatulas to go with it! Jonas loves to help me bake and was so excited that he now had an apron his size and with dinosaurs on it. He wears it almost everyday now and is always asking me if its time to make bread or cookies.

He spent his actual birthday in Rexburg celebrating with Jeff's side of the family.  He had fun playing with cousins and opening presents.  He also spent a day celebrating with Grandma and Grandpa Larsen and another day celebrating with Grandpa Butler.  By the time we left I think we all were done with birthday parties!

At Grandpa Birch's house...

Putting together a dinosaur puzzle at Grandpa Butler's house.

Playing on Grandpa Butler's new trike in his shop.  The boys absolutely loved it!

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures at Grandma Larsen's house, but here is a picture of the boys playing in the water table she bought Jonas.  This picture was taken less than an hour after we got back from Idaho.  After everything was unloaded from the van, the boys talked Jeff into putting it together so they could play with it.

I don't think I've mentioned it on here, but around the time Porter was born, Jonas was having some issues going to the bathroom.  Like peeing every ten minutes.  And no, I am not kidding.  One day I wrote down everytime he went and the longest he could hold it was 20 minutes.  His problems started right before Christmas.  I remember being out shopping and he had to pee when we went into the store, when we left the store, and as soon as we got out to the van he had to pee again.  It was crazy! He was worse than I was at nine months pregnant! The problem was somewhat overlooked in the rush of the holiday season and then the birth of Porter. 

When Porter was a few weeks old, I had finally had enough of it, and took Jonas to the doctor.  I was a little freaked out that he had diabetes, but both his urine and blood tests came back normal.  They did an x-ray and told me that he was constipated and it was putting pressure on his bladder and causing him to pee all of the time.  So we did a two week routine of ex-lax and miralax to flush him out.  It seemed to work a little bit... now he was peeing every half hour to 45 minutes.  Better, but I still knew something was wrong.  I took him in again and they did another x-ray and said he still wasn't all the way cleaned out.  So again we tried to get him flushed out.

  It was now March and he started complaining of really bad stomach pains.  Like laying on the floor screaming. "Mommy help me!" pains.  Then he started throwing up.  After about four days, I took him to the doctor and they couldn't figure out what was wrong. They did another x-ray and he was cleaned out. The doctor thouroughly looked him over and told me that he couldn't rule out appendicitis, but he didn't think he had it.  I went home from that appointment, and listened to Jonas scream all evening and all through the night that his tummy hurt.  I called back to the doctor's office in the morning and the nurse talked to the doctor.  He told me to take Jonas straight to the ER at Primary Children's because there was a good chance it was appendicitis.  There was my little boy, curled up in a ball on my living room floor, pale, and screaming, "Mommy, please make it stop!" And he was still having problems peeing all the time.  I was so frustrated that this problem had gone on this long and my little boy still had no relief.  In the end, we spent the day at Primary's, got no answers, and were told to go home and wait it out.  In a follow up appointment with our Ped, he finally determined that Jonas had an over active bladder, and put him on medicine to control it.  It worked wonders! He finally was regulated and his stomach pains went away.  He's been off the medicine for two months now and is still using the bathroom normally.  We are praying that his bladder has been "re-set" (as the doctor phrased it) and he'll have no further problems.