Crazy Crazy!

Alright I am back! The laptop has been down for the count so blogging has been a little hard and then my energy level has been pretty much on low the last couple months! But the laptop is back so that makes me happy! Anyway update on us-Abby is registered for 1 grade and for her Ballet class so she is a happy camper. She is very excited for school to start-so am I cuz then I wont have to hear her ask everyday when school is starting! Dylan is sad that he cant go to school yet-but I have some preschool activities planned for him so that should make him happy! We are trying to get Lacey potty trained before the baby comes. She is doing pretty good so hopefully we will be able to get a few weeks diaper free! That would be awesome!! I am dying to redo the kids's rooms but Bryan keeps trying to hold me off! I know it seems like I am always redoing the kids rooms but really they haven't been completely finished and then we decide to rearrange what kids is in what room so what was going on the walls doesn't fit who is in the room!!! We are actually switching kids around again. Abby and Dylan will share the bunk beds in a room and Lacey will be in a room by herself. It is the only solution to deal with Lacey! She is such a stinker-she has a hard time going to sleep if anyone else is in the room and that keeps Abby and Dylan up because she will walk over anyone on the floor or throw pillows or poke someone-we have had all 3 sleeping in the same room because the girls room had the air unit in the window. So anyway Abby and Dylan will fall asleep quickly if Lacey isn't there and Lacey by herself falls asleep fast-so that is why the switch so we will see how that goes!! Anyway everything else is on the good side of things-we have a list of things we need to for the baby-which is just about everything! All the baby boy clothes I have from Dylan are summer so those wont work! And our infant carrier we have used for the others expired this year!! So the list goes on but I am waiting till school starts to worry about all that! Anyway off to put Lacey down for a nap that she wont take!!

Can You Say "Excited"?!!!

Well I am officially announcing the coming arrival of one more Stoker baby!! Baby number 4 is one its way! I am 21 weeks and we found out today that it is a boy!! Wahooo!!! I am very excited that it is not a girl-that may sound mean and I love my 2 girls but they are very intense about ohhhh everything! Now we will have 2 of each and as Abby said as she danced around the room after we told her it was a boy "It's equal! It's equal! It's equal!!!" She was very happy that we would have the same number of boys and girls in the family!! The pic is blurry but will just have to do for now!!

Dancing Fun!

Abby had her Spring Recital on Saturday. I volunteered to be one of the class mom's to help with all the girls. Now you might be wondering why I did that when I should be sitting in the audience to watch with all the other parents-well I did it for a couple of reasons-first they needed people and didn't have any volunteers for her class and night-second she wanted to stay for the finale and I knew that if she was going to stay that long she wouldn't want to be with someone she didn't know and third it was one less ticket we had to buy! and fourth it saved Bryan from having to sit through 3 hours of dances when Abby's was 7th of the night!! He was a happy boy!

Anyway Abby was excited that I was going to be with her the whole time and that I would be able to watch her dance from backstage. She did awesome and had a great time!

The video of her dancing is from the Rehearsal night-they don't allow recording or taking picture on the actual performance night which is too bad for you guys because Abby spends most of this dance watching the other girls as she dances and on the actual performance she looked straight ahead like she was supposed to! I was so proud of her!

Bill and Jenny were able to come and they brought her flower-which she was soooo excited for, she had been talking all day about hoping someone brought her some flowers!

Abby's last day of Kindergarten!

Abby wanted to do something for her teacher since it was the last day of school so we made a candy gram! I totally love these! We bought a bunch of candy and used them to write a little note. I wrote it out on the poster board to make sure we could get it all on there and Abby decorated all of the empty space.

Then this morning I helped her take it to school. Her teacher loved it! It was fun to see Abby give it to her. She loves Mrs. McCulloh!-she was just the kind of teacher Abby needed to get her in the groove of going to school. She also has Abby so excited about 1st grade! All I hear about is "when I am in 1st grade..., I am doing 1st grade coloring..., when does 1st grade start?". They were able to go to the classroom they will be in next year and meet their teacher. When I asked her about her teacher for next year she said "Mrs. Wall is my teacher! I wanted Mrs. Wall to be my teacher! She came into gym one time and she had on a really cool shirt!". Leave it to a girl to want a teacher because of what she is wearing!

She also got a list of Scholastic Summer Challenge book list and is excited to read her way through it and is ready to go to the library and get started! She is hilarious!

For those who are interested the candy gram said

"Dear Mrs. McCulloh,

You started the year with a bunch of RUNTS but are ending it with a bunch of

STAR(s)BURST(ing) with the (sour punch straws) PUNCH of knowlege you gave! We had MOUNDS of SNICKERS in class when we learned about WHATCHAMACALLIT?! We might have made some WHOPPERS and sort have fallen to PIECES but ....DOTS.... you were there with hugs and the supply of those were GOOD & PLENTY! You are an awesome teacher and the REISON that for me the MILKYWAY is the limit! So this summer TAKE 5 and go on a shopping SPREE on 5th AVE.- You deserve it!!!

So on more EXTRA big thank you!

Love, Abby"

Happy Birthday Dylan!

This is a couple days late but I can't find my discs of pictures so I had to spend some time looking then gave up and had to figure out how to share files between computers! And I did it! So that was really exciting!!

Anyway Dylan is 4!! I can't even believe it! These are a couple of my favorite pics of him just after he was born. He was reall jaundiced even though he was a big baby so he got to wear a belly blanket for a couple weeks! Wasn't he so cute!!

A lot of people dont believe me when I say that despite being amost 10 pounds he was really skinny so this pic is for all of you! He is in a 3 month outfit.

See I told you! It took him a while to get some meat on those bones!

He is really excited for his Transformer party on Sunday so I will have pics of that. We have some fun stuff planned! He has been living and breathing Transformers for the last little bit and wants to watch the movie pretty much everyday. He is one silly boy!

We made it!!

The end is here!! Lacey was able to get her cast off for good yesterday! Can you tell how excited I am! Lacey did really good when they cut this one off and once it was done she pulled her blanket over her leg just like she did last time. I don't know what kind of powers that blanket has but apparently it does something! Once we got the news that she was good to go I put her shoe on and stood her up-she held her foot up and tried to sit down. She wouldn't walk or do anything on her foot. So when we went to pick up Dylan I got her out of the car and stood her on the ground, held her hand and made her walk. And she did of course-but it was a little diffucult. She kept a death grip on my hand-it was sad but also funny to watch her try to refind her center of balance after walking with her cast for 2 and a half weeks!

In the afternoon we went outside and she spent about 25 mins in the sand box-she has been missing the sand box! And then the momment that I have been waiting for----BATH TIME!! Once Lacey got in the tub she just laughed and laughed she was so happy! and I was happy because she was clean! A sponge bath in the kitchen sink for 5 and a half weeks for a 2 year old just does not cut it!!! (I know this picture makes her look a little wierd but with her wiggling all around and the picture coming from my phone not much I can do!)

Abby's Spring Program

Abby had her Spring Program at school today. She has been so excited! She did great! Thier theme was "American All"- the narration was they were doing an internet search of the word "American" and it talked about all the people who came from other countries and that we are all Americans. So the songs they sang were from all around the world. Abby had a great time. Here are a couple clips. I tried to pick ones that you could understand most of the words, sometimes it wasnt that easy!!

Sorry this one is a little bumpy but Lacey was trying to climb all over me! Abby specifially asked me to get this song-she likes at the end when they all bow thier heads-she thought that was cool!

Happy Birthday Abigail!!

Abby is 6! She has been so excited about her birthday! She has been talking about what kind of party she wants for about the last 8 months. Since then it has been Fancy Nancy. So we planned a Fancy Nancy themed party-luckily I hadnt botten anything yet because last monday she changed her mind and wanted a Pinkalicious party. She loves loves loves pink and loves the book Pinkalicious! So we scraped the Fancy Nancy plans and went on to the Pink!

Everything was pink! Streamers, balloons, tablecloth, plates, silverware, napkins, pink cupcakes (the girl in Pinkalicious turns pink by eating too many pink cupcakes) with pink frosting and pink sprinkles! She got lots of pink presents, including her own copy of the Pinkalicious book! (You might think it wierd that she didn't already have a copy but last year my mom took her to the book store to buy it for her for her birthday and she decided to get Purpleicious because she hadnt read that one yet!)

Here she is with one of her fav presents-her pink hula-hoop! And man she can hula!!

Lacey's New Cast

Well Lacey got her new cast yesterday! I was a little worried about how she would handle it when they had to cut her cast off-but she did awesome! She was upset of course but didn't completely freak out. Once it was off she immediately covered her leg with her blanket like it had some special protection powers or something-it was kinda funny! She wouldn't even let me look at her leg or touch it. Every time I would try to pull the blanket back she would say "No! Stop it! Don't touch!" as she pulled her blanket back over it. She barely let the Doctor look and touch her leg! the funny thing was as much as she didn't want anyone touching it as soon as the guys came in to put on the new cast and he pulled out the sock thing they put on first she held her leg out for him and didn't put up any fuss at all! She just sat there totally fine and didn't make a sound! Before the doctor came in I showed her the paper with all the cast colors and asked her which one she wanted-she picked purple as you can tell! I asked her twice just to make sure and she picked purple both times!

So now she has her little shoe so she can walk-but will she? Nope! She wont but any weight on it, she wouldn't even crawl! It is almost like she needs to figure out how to do things all over again-since she wont use her leg at all, not even her knee-it is pretty funny to watch her try to get up on a chair or the couch! I finally got her to crawl this morning but mostly she just scoots on her bum. I knew it would take her a little while before she would walk on it so we will keep you posted!

How Lacey entertains herself

Since mobility is an issue for Lacey and she doesn't really have the patience to crawl or scoot around this is what she does-

Lacey's Exciting Day!

Well it all began on Sunday afternoon. Lacey and Abby were dancing around to some music in their room while we were moving the kids bedrooms around. One second everyone was happy, the next Lacey was crying on the floor saying her foot hurt. So we just figured that she had sprained her ankle. There wasn't anything in their room to jump off of since we were moving stuff around so I don't even know what really happened. She cried for a while and we gave her some Motrin and put a little wrap on it, but she wouldn't but any pressure on it at all, she wouldn't even crawl around! She wanted to be carried all around.

Monday morning she was the same, still said it hurt and still would not put any pressure on it. So I called my Dad who give excellent advise on just about everything! He said keep an eye on her and call the doctor and see what they say. So I ended up calling mostly just to see "how long is too long to wait to take her in", the lady went to ask a nurse, got back on the phone and asked it I could bring her in later that morning. So to the doctor we went.

The doctor felt her foot and ankle and moved her foot around and only once did Lacey flinch. She never said a word or made a sound! The only time she cried was when he stood her up to see if she would walk, which of course she didn't. He was like "well if she was really hurt she wouldn't be letting me poke and push on her like that but we will take some x-rays just in case.

So now we are back in the room after x-rays which she didn't enjoy at all and we waited for the doctor to come in. The door opens and the doctors stands there for like 3 seconds with this look of astonishment on his face and is silent! I was like "what?" He said "she broke her tibia!" I asked where at and as he turns to leave the room he says "I'll get the x-ray, I just can't believe it!" I was really funny!

Then he says that she will be in a cast for 6 weeks and I was like "oh great-this will be fun!". So then we were off the the Orthopedic place to get her cast. She was awesome!! When we got there she was all smiles and talking and all the nurses were like "She doesn't seem like a little girl with a broken leg!" What can I say, I have weird kids.

So then the Pediatric Orthopedic guy comes in and says "All right we need to keep her leg immobilized so she will be in a cast from her toes to the top of her thigh for 2 weeks then come back and we will put on that goes to her knee for 4 weeks" I was like "oh my gosh!! there goes your Easter egg hunt Lacey!"

She sat on my lap the whole time they put her purple cast on with one of her famous scowls on her cute little face and was completely silent! She didn't utter one sound! She was awesome and they were all amazed at how good she did.

So now she want everyone to sign it, its pretty cute. And we painted her toes so now they look cute sticking out of her cast.

She is doing really well. She can get down off of anything, but only get up onto the couch, everything else is too high for her. She has tried crawling but since we don't have carpet in the living room her cast slips all over the place and she doesn't get very far! So most of the time she scoots on her butt, even then she mostly is scooting over to someone for them to pick her up. Here is her new position while we are shopping!

It will be a long two weeks!!

Music in my dreams!

I was peacefully dreaming early this morning, I don't remember what I was dreaming about but I remember all of sudden I realized music started playing in the background! It was real quiet like in a movie. So then I was wondering where the music was coming from! That was when I started to wake up and realized it was coming from the tv!! Bryan uses the tv as an alarm clock and has the timer set to turn on in the morning-last night I fell asleep watching Real World (I know I know but it can be pretty funny!). So anyway they play music videos in the morning apparently-I was just lucky that it was a nice mellow clean song that was playing! It kind of scares me to think of what would have happened in my dream if the song had been different!! It also makes you wonders what else influences your dreams at night!

Catching Up!

We finally got a new power cord thing for the laptop so now I can update the blog. I have been putting off because the cord we had wasn't charging the battery and you had to have it positioned a certain way or it would turn off! Totally annoying and not easy to work with! So now with pictures loaded up here we go! Lacey found the flour container while Bryan was cooking dinner and I was on my way home with Abby from her dance class! She was not happy to have her fun put to an end!

(if laceys shirt looks a little wierd its because it was edited a little because she was shirtless)

Here is Dylan proudly displaying his letter puzzle that he did all by himself. He is really good at it when he isn't peeling the pictures of the top of the puzzle pieces! What is it with boys and taking things apart?! Abby bought herself a "life size" barbie puzzle with some Christmas money-she was so excited! Lacey was awesome doing her breathing treatments-she would hold it by herself, we just had to keep an eye on her to make sure she kept it in her mouth!

One saturday a couple weeks ago we were watching some kids of a friend of mine while they went to the temple, I was cleaning and went into my room and found everyone squeezed on to the bed watching cartoons! Lacey was up there too but she doesn't sit still for too long and apparently taking a picture put her way past her limit!

Poor Bryan!

This is Lacey pretty much all day. She talks and talks and talks. In the beginning of the video when she is all scowling she was mad that I was watching her through the camera and not looking directly at her! she is so funny!

Super Slacker!

o.k. well I thought I should put something up since it has been a while. We have been partly busy and partly lazy. Life has just been crazy with my kids, the 2 boys I babysit and then we started watching our neighbors' little girl after school. But these last 2 weeks we have been dealing with sick kids. Not fun! Abby, Lacey, Bryan and I all got an 8 hour flu bug all on different days of course. Dylan and Lacey both had really bad ear infections and respiratory crap so they were both on breathing treatments-Dylan twice a day and Lacey every 4 hours. Lacey pretty much stopped eating and drinking because her ears were bothering her because she refused to take the antibiotic-so that has been stressful-but after a week and a half of that-her second trip to the doctor and a different antibiotic she was finally eating today. Abby was off and on with a fever every couple days, not having one long enough to have to take her in but just long and often enough to make it annoying! Everyone seems to be doing pretty good now so that is good. I can finally catch up on all the things that I needed and wanted to do but couldn't because I was sleep deprived after sitting up with Dylan 3 nights in a row. I am so ready for winter to be done!!! On a fun note, last Saturday I had a girls game night and it was a total blast!! Lots and lots of laughing going on and needed by everyone I think! I didn't get home till 11:30-it had been a long time since I was even up that late not to mention out some where! And tonight is the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics!! wahooo!!!!!! I absolutely love the Olympics! It is on pretty much all day at our house, I am so excited! 2 conversations with Abby- A-hey mom I want some of that Me-no way abby is moms and i am not sharing this time! A-why? I want some Me-Because I am the mom and when you are the mom you have have a goody all to yourself too A-When I'm the mom I can have whatever I want? Me-yep! That is one of the fun things of being a mom! A-oh o.k. (big smile) A-Mom are we to the store yet? Me-almost just a couple more minutes A-you live to far from the store-when I am a mom I will live close to the store-you can come see me mom. Me-o.k. I think I will do that thanks! A-but then I will live far from Mc Donalds so I will come visit you!

Lacey's Naps

I went to check on Lacey one afternoon while she was taking a nap and this is what I found. Who knows what goes on in her little 2 year old mind!

Snow Much Fun!!

We got a couple more inches of snow yesturday and since it was relativly warm (right around 30 degrees) we went out to play! The kids had a blast! We made a pile of snowballs and had them ready for when Bryan got home from work and when he came into the backyard Abby and Dylan both hit them with one and ran back for more. They threw those and came back for more and Bryan was like "how many do you have made?!!" It was pretty funny! The har part was getting them all back inside-there were lots of tears and bribing going on so I cant really say who was the winner, the parents for stopping the crying and whining or the kids getting som candy!

Christmas Fun!

Well I have to start out by saying that I am super slacker mom and didn't get any pictures of Christmas this year. I know I am horrible!! The kids had blast of course! Santa brought books this year. To some of you that might sound boring or sad but my kids LOVE LOVE LOVE books. One of the things that was first on Abby's list was Fancy Nancy Christmas book and guess what Santa brought?!! Abby was hilarious!! I don't think that anyone has ever seen a kid so excited to get a book before!! she was screaming and shouting and dancing around! We read it everyday and she sleeps with it! She has also decided that she wants to be Fancy Nancy for Halloween. Dylan has 2 favs among his toys, a shark hot wheel track thing and a clear toolbox to hold all his cars. He carries both everywhere! It is pretty funny. Lacey of course got some Tinkerbell things-her current over-obsession. When she was unwrapping some of the little figures I was like "Wow Lace what did you get?!!" she replied "It's mine". She is totally a 2 year old! My mother-in-law got me Twilight Scene-it! When I saw what it was I was like "Bryan is going to be so mad at you!!!" Bryan was like "oh man!". He knows he is going to have to play it with me! Bryan's fun thing this year was a remote control helicopter which took a couple tries to get the hang of it. The kids like to watch him fly it but I am not sure how they feel about diving for cover when it hit something and spirals out of control! So Christmas was all around good at our house and we are looking forward to ringing in the New Year with so good friends!

Merry Christmas!!

I think this has become a yearly thing now! Then kids love it and want to watch it all the time but as for me it gets a little old after awhile I mean for real how many times can you really watch it?!!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Holiday Danc'n!

Here is Abby at her Holiday Recital. I felt kinda bad for her because she really wants long hair and for the recital all the girls had to have thier hair up in a ponytail with the red scrunchie and everyone has these long ponytail and poor Abby just had this poof of curls sitting on the top of her head! She did really well considering the last rehearsal was canceled because of all the snow we had. I only wish she would look straight ahead instead she keeps looking at the girl next to her, I mean she knows the dance!! I asked her about that and she said " well she knows it better than me so I was just making sure". We only stayed for her dance and not for the finale this year because my kids a Santa issues and he was making an appearance at the finale, plus after last year I wasn't taking any chances!! Also 2 posts down are some clips of Abby's Christmas concert at school. I started the post and then was having trouble with the videos loading so it took a while to finish it so anyway she had a great time at both and did a very good job and is super adorable if I do say so myself!!

Bummer!

Look at this nastiness!!! We got way too much snow at one time, about 8 inches. It was all wet heavy stuff with a nice layer of slush under it so after you shoveled it iced over. Very nice huh?! Abby got 2 days off of school. I got 2 days of craziness. I have been couped up with 5 kids with all this snow and I am dying to get out of the house!! After I get Abby from school we are totally headed for the store! I need a break from my house! I feel that snow is only good for Christmas before that and after I really have no need for it. It looks pretty but I really dont like it. We couldnt even go play in the snow because it was way way too cold, like wind chill in the negatives cold. So not cool!!! All I can really say is that I was super glad that I didnt have to deliver papers in it!!

Sing Loud!!

Abby had a little Christmas Concert at school on last Monday. They had an in-school performance espsecially for grandparents so I went to that since none of her grandparents were able to make it and then the whole fam went to the evening show. She was so excited and I have to say that I was too because after listening to the songs for the last month I was glad to see how they all went together!! She even got to play the triangle in one of the songs-she didn't tell us that so it was a fun suprise!

She couldnt find us befor ethe concert started so she kept looking through out the whole thing so that is why sometimes she looks mad!

I tried to get a clip of each of her songs-the one I love isnt loading up of course so once I can get it to work I will post it! The videos are a little shaky well alot shaky actually but I was holding Lacey and she doesn't stay very still!! So sorry about that and Mom just close your eyes and listen and then you might not get sick!!! hahahaha!!!

Happy December!

Well Happy December everyone!! I have been a little m.i.a. lately, I have bronchitis again and it has really been kicking my butt!! This round has lasted 3 weeks and counting. Totally not cool. But at least my energy is up so I can actually get some stuff done like get all the Christmas decor up. That has been nice! I know this pic is blurry but they are all smiling so nicely!! It is hard to get a pic of Dylan where he is smiling a good smile-here is the in-focus pic for comparrison! You choose! lol!!

I usually make the girl's Christmas dresses but being sick this year and with the horrible boys I babysit I just didnt have the time or the energy to do it so I found them some super cute ones at Target! If you know me then you know that everything has to match and coordinate well while I was out shopping I ran into a matching problem. Noone has girl dresses that cooridinate with the boy sunday stuff! They were completly different shades or just different colors altogether!! It drove me nuts!! So I just had to suck it up and deal with it this year-but I wasnt happy about it!

We celebrate St. Nicholaus Day at our house. It is a tradition my family picked up when I was little and living in Germany and something I have carried with in my own little family. The kids totally love it! They were way excited to put out thier shoes and to see what they got in the morning. I kept asking them if they were good enough for a toy or if they thought they were going to get sticks. Abby and Dylan both assured me that they were good enough for toys!!

I guess they were good enough for a littel something fun.....this time!!