Milee

There are a number of posts that I want to write and a number that I need to write...and instead I decided that I haven't posted anything about Milee in a long long time, so...you get Milee pictures...Lots of 'em. Oh, and on a side note for me to remember Milee has started to roll over from her back to her belly. She's been mobile for a while now, which I find funny since she couldn't roll over or crawl, but she can spin and scoot on her back like there's no tomorrow. So, in no particular order...pictures of my smiley Milee (although I have yet to get a picture of her really really smiling...trust me, cutest thing ever, and all you have to do is look at her and she just lights up and gives you the biggest grin ever! Love it! Can't seem to get a picture of it...sigh)

Shopping with the girls.
Blessing day
Keeping warm at the ranch
Thumb sucker (cracks me up...love it)
Just a random shot
Not so sure about Caden holding her, but he's thrilled, right?
And sort of a smile to end with...a wet drooley one!

Family Home Evening

Dan had the greatest idea for FHE today. It was so fun I'd thought I'd share it with you. It was kind of spur of the moment so the spiritual side could use some tweaking. We played church battleship! Dan hastily made a board for our two teams (girls against boys). We have the church pictures and Dan would let the kids pick one, and then we'd tell the story of the picture and ask the kids questions. After they answered right or we were satisfied they were learning something, we let them pick where they thought the other teams ships were. Caden and Kember really got into this. I think it was the most fun we've had for FHE in a long long time. I'm going to try to make and laminate some game boards and use dry erase markers so we can reuse everything. Caden is actually making his own game board right now. He just informed me that the boys have to win.

After our game I made everyone go to the store with me. It was a definite success. I got two bottles of Soft Scrub Total for .19 cents. Awesome huh? I was pretty excited. Dan just laughed at me, but he thinks it's pretty cool too.

Join the masses

Well, Dan and I did it. We joined a gym. Dan's been talking about it for a long time, and I've been meaning to get him a membership for birthday's or Christmases or whatever but they are just so expensive and I have doubts as to our commitment and since most gyms require commitment and booku bucks, I haven't done anything about it. But this new gym came to town and it was pretty cheap and you don't have to pay to cancel. Awesome. When I was up visiting my family for my dad's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!) I told them that we'd joined. My dad asked if I wanted to go to his gym with him the next day. Sure, why not. Whew...It was definitely eye opening for me....my 63 year old father ran me to the ground. That man is a machine! I was huffing and puffing and he's just going along patiently at my pace. It was fun to go with him though, and it helped that I knew a little more of what to expect. Did you know you clean off a machine after you use it? Don't laugh...I'm sure it was obvious to most people, but we didn't clean off the machines in college when we worked out. Anyway, because of going with my Dad, I learned that it's the thing to do.
Dan and I can't go at the same time to the gym because there isn't child care there (and I'm not sure if I would use it if there was). Plus, Dan likes to work out in the morning. Not being a morning person, this isn't a good option for me. Unless 9 am counts as working out in the morning :) So, Dan goes before work and I go after dinner. I went for the first time tonight. Other than being lonely it was pretty fun...well as much fun as working out can be. Hopefully we will stick with this and get in shape. I'm still waiting for baby #4 fat to disappear. Here's hoping.

Documentation

Big day in the Johnson household tonight. No, not really, but I feel like I should document this. Seriously, this doesn't need to be read, it's only for documentation sake.
So, it had been a long day. I had taken all four kids to the store (2 of them...and the library) and it took a long time, but they were really really helpful. They helped put the groceries away and everything (this has nothing to do with the story, but aren't they cute kids?). Anyway, I promised them that they could watch a movie after dinner for being so helpful, and during all the chaos of putting the groceries away Cole said he needed to poop. Huh. Weird comment, but going with the flow I asked him if he wanted to poop on the potty. I take him in the bathroom and sit him on the toilet and he freaks out (doesn't want to fall in, you know). So I get out the little potty and he tries that....but that doesn't last long at all. Probably because I just told him to sit there until he finished his sucker (don't judge me, I know its gross). After dinner the kids were getting pj's on and Cole told me that he needed to poop again. I asked if he wanted to sit on the potty again, and he said yes and off he went. I went to go start the movie, but Cole stopped me because he couldn't get his diaper off. I helped with that and started the movie. Cole gets really excited and tells me he pooped. Honestly, I didn't believe him. I thought he pooped in his diaper, but nope...he really pooped in the toilet all by himself, and I do mean all by himself. So we get excited, show him the rest of everything, and he is sooooo proud of himself. Dan asked me after when I started potty training. I laughed and said I hadn't. I'm not expecting this to last, and I'm not potty training, but I just thought I'd document this and say...not bad for a two and a half year old. Not bad at all.

Cole Funnies

Occasionally it occurs to me that Cole doesn't know the basics. Don't get me wrong, he's one smart cookie (sometimes too smart for his own good...well, my own sanity anyway), but I sometimes assume that because his older brother and sister know something, he does to. Today I thought we should make sure that he did have the basics down. So we pointed to different body parts and asked "What's this?" You know, things like chin, neck, ears, etc. I finally got to elbows and said, "What are these?" Very promptly he replied, "Bumps!" Well, yes...they are that. I laughed a bit and we moved on. We got to fingers and asked the same question. "What are these?" "NUMBERS!" He was very sure, and very excited about that one. As near as I can figure out, he said numbers because he watches the older kids all the time, and that is how Kember does he math homework, and Caden counts different things. Or even if I ask Cole, "How many are there?" He uses his fingers to point and count. So, sure.... they can be numbers.

These are just random, but they made me smile.Unfortunately, he looks like this a lot. Not the smile, that's isn't unfortunate at all...I love it, but the messy face. It's a near constant thing. Even right after I wipe his face off it somehow gets dirty again five minutes later. I'm not sure if he found something else to munch on or what, but it's dirty again.


Did I mention that when he is happy he does a skippy/hoppy thing when he walks? He also sings the cutest version of Jingle Bells I've ever heard. I was trying to figure out how to transcribe it, but couldn't. You'll just have to trust me...or ask him to sing it for you. However, "Bob the Builder" is probably his favorite song of all time (I have no idea what Kember's is, but Caden's is I Am A Child of God). I think it's funny that this is his favorite song since we've only ever watched good ol' Bob maybe three times from movies we've check out from the library. But multiple times during the day you can hear Cole loudly singing, "Bob the builder...Can we fix it? Yes we can! I think so!" and yes, the "I think so" is the cutest part of the song. Today he and Caden got out their tools and went around the house "fixing" everything. Cole came up to me and told me that I was broken so he had to fix me. He got out his ratchet and went to work. Then he went to fix the baby. Somewhere along the way his tools got transformed into his guns so he can "shoot the monsters". Really not sure where that comes from. I'm assuming it's just a boy thing?

This has nothing to do with Cole, but thought I'd bring it up anyway. Kember has taught herself how to ride a two wheel bike. I helped her one afternoon for maybe twenty minutes and today she's riding around the neighborhood. I think it's really funny that one-she taught herself, and two- the bike she can do it on is way to small for her. I had Dan take the training wheels off her bike that fits her, but she can't/won't do it on that one. Ah well.. Maybe she just likes her knees up to her ears. But really, don't you think it would be easier with a bigger bike? Whatever. Did I also mention that she basically taught herself to tie her shoes too? I showed her how to do it once (yep, that's all...once) and ever since then she loves to tie the bows on dresses, her brothers shoes, etc. She is just a little sponge, and super quick if she wants to learn something. If she doesn't...boy is she like her mommy...it will not happen. :)I have another post in mind for Caden, but I want pictures to go with it, so it will have to wait. Don't worry though, he isn't forgotten. He's my sweetheart.

The Year of the Rabbit

I hope you are all enjoying this year of the Rabbit. Dan and I thought it would be fun to celebrate the Chinese New Year on the 3rd of this month. These are the invites I sent out (with stuff blacked out...of course)
It was a lot of fun. Dan made coconut shrimp (which I don't know if it was good or not because I didn't eat any) and I made orange chicken. Dan also made fried rice.
Here are some of our friends that came. The ones I got a picture of anyway. Like my little lanterns in the background? A little cheesy, but there you have it. We ate with chopsticks, wore red and/or gold for luck and opened our fortune cookies that I had fun making. They didn't work out so well, but they were fun to try to make. Then we went downstairs and as a joke I suggested we play Dance Dance Revolution. And that is what we ended up playing. It was really funny to watch everyone play it. Dan and I discovered that according to our astrology we aren 't compatible. I'm a boar and I'm not really compatible with many other types.
It was a lot of fun, and I hope we make a tradition of celebrating the Chinese New Year every year. Maybe next time it would be more authentic, but for this time it was a lot of fun. Any excuse to party, eh?

Remember when? Good times...good times.

So the other day I was listening to the RS Broadcast from back in September (It was really good by the way). I loved Sis. Thompson talk on Visiting Teaching...because, let's face it...I'm not a great Visiting Teacher, but I yearn to be. I think if it is done right it is a powerful program. I just have yet to do it right. Case in point: I called one of my girls to see if we could visit her. She paused for just a second and said, "Um, I live in Vernal now." OK...sure didn't see that one coming. Ya, completely missed it. She went on to say that she didn't want to bother me with helping with the move because I had just had a baby (which I had had a month prior...so not recently). I found it extremely ironic that she was trying to make me feel better for being such a bad VTer. But that wasn't the point of this blog. I also really liked Pres. Monson's talk about not judging people. But again, not the point of this blog (although you should really listen/read the talks if you haven't yet, or can't remember them...they are good). My favorite part about listening to these again (and yes, it is the point of this blog) is that I remembered I was there. We had a girls weekend with my mom and sisters/in law. It was awesome! It was so good that even though it was months and months and months ago....I'm going to post pictures because they make me happy. I don't know why I didn't blog about this sooner. Oh, wait yes I do, but we won't go into that because that isn't the point of this post. So...onward and upward.

The weekend started out at Andrea's house. There we all made friends with Mr. Mantis. He was especially friendly to mom, as he climbed up her leg. He wasn't very friendly with Andrea, but seeing as how she stepped on him (on accident) you really can't blame him. He posed very nicely for Rorie to get some random shots of him, and well, I stayed away because he's a bug, and well...that says it all.

We drove to Salt Lake and went to the movie Sorcerer's Apprentice. I seriously love this movie, and it was fun to watch it with my mom. She has ways of showing her true enjoyment of movies. Then we went to The Training Table to eat.

I was less than impressed, but again, with good company who really cares, right? Food is food and that's about all that can be said of ours.
Then the real fun began. I convinced everyone that we needed to stop at Shopko and buy fake eyelashes because we were going to practice putting on "Bedroom eyes". Hehehe...it probably wouldn't have been so fun/funny, but let's look at who is trying to do makeup...oh, that's right the Linford girls. So it was pretty funny.

Here is Andrea giving a sultry look in her PJ's. She looks great right? Look close at her eyelashes.
Here's Rorie modeling it up. Seriously, she has the look.Me, not so much....but I'm happy about it :)

Fake eyelashes are not for the faint of heart. However, they are really fun to do, and if done correctly they do look really good to. We also tried to do smokey eyes with eyeshadow, but...that didn't work. It just looked like eye shadow. But hot sexy eyeshadow because of super long eyelashes.
Well, as sexy as you can get being as pregnant as I was and in pajamas.See....how awesome is that, and I doubt we put them on right. My mom looks good, eh?Then, since it was so late we decided to practice hair flipping. It's a good skill to learn. Mom has it down. I didn't post pictures of me doing it because I do not have it down.

The next day was more serious, but fun as well. We walked around downtown Salt Lake (well, I waddled and everyone waited for me) and took in some sites.

The Church History Museum is always great to visit.I'm trying to lift the golden plates...they are heavy. I'm not strong. Laughter ensued.My mom is awesome. What 57 year old do you know that does tricks down the escalator? See, awesome.
We met up with Michelle after the museum and went to lunch at Olive Garden. Much much better than The Training Table (however over priced it may be).
We had some free museum passes and we chose to go to this one. I can't remember what it was called, but it was up by the U of U and was a war museum.
Then we went back to the hotel and got ready for conference. We were going to walk to the Conference Center, but we'd never make it on time with me waddling. So, half of us got dropped off, and the other (faster cause I wasn't with them) half parked and walked back.
It was a great session.
More night time silliness. Really, my mom's the best.This is the next morning. Rorie had to make it back to church (pressures of being Primary President you know) so the two of us left and my mom and Andrea went to Music and the Spoken Word.

It was a lot of fun. I truly love hanging out with these wonderful girls. I can't wait to do it again.

Oh, and just in case you are wondering, Dan liked the eyelashes.