our california adventure

well, i'm finally making a record of our trip down to california to watch the callister kids. i'll try to keep it fairly brief or i'll never get it finished.

spencer, benny, and i flew down on thursday, 24 may 2007. this is a little story within our story. originally spencer was going to fly down a day later because he was in the middle of spring classes. about a week before the trip he was looking for a place to retake the mcat and the only place that worked timing-wise out of most (if not all) of the western states was in redlands, ca - about 30 minutes from bethany and nate's in fontana - on friday, 25 may 2007 at 8:30a. this was a major blessing for us. we changed spencer's flight to the same as mine and we had a fairly uneventful trip - if you don't consider benny falling asleep in my arms on the plane a major event!

it was nice to have the time to spend with bethany before they left on saturday morning. bethany is usually the one i call when i have questions about kids, pregnancy, meals, etc., so it was nice to have some overlapping time.

i got quite acquainted with some of the freeways down there driving back and forth twice to get spencer to and from the mcat. after the test spencer felt really good about how it went. we've since gotten the score and it turned out to be what we were hoping for. we really feel so blessed with how everything has been going in our lives.

saturday morning bethany and nate left for hawaii. this was the start of spencer's and my having 5 kids (and expecting a 6th! although we didn't know at the time).

spencer was there through the long memorial day weekend. sunday we had quite the experience at church, but we managed to get through it. on memorial day spencer grilled some hamburgers and chicken and we made some ice cream (ben & jerry's mint chip). i must say that it was really nice to have spencer there with me through the weekend with all the kids home all day. tuesday afternoon the major challenge started...

on tuesday amanda and tanner had school, so spencer was able to get all of his stuff ready for his trip back while i watched naomi, chris, and benny. when amanda and tanner got home we were all set to go to the airport so we went straight there. we were just at the exit for the airport when spencer realized that we hadn't brought the laptop... so, we turned around to go get it. we were listening to "joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat" in the car, which the kids love, so they did really well in the car (i got these cute pictures). our timing wasn't too bad on our second trip to the airport and spencer made it on the plane just fine. i am so grateful that spencer had a mwth schedule for spring term because he was able to stay through the whole long weekend while all of the kids were at home all day.

the rest of the week went really well. we got a good schedule going, and by the end of the week i learned that i should have loosened up for everybody's sake. we did have a lot of movie time, which was good for everyone - we even watched the sing-along version of "high school musical" twice!

i learned a lot in my week as a mother of 5. one of the most important things i learned is that i need to relax a whole lot more about things. it's not worth taking every single thing so seriously. kids are kids and it's important to let them be kids - to a certain extent! i hope benny and his siblings benefit from the things i've learned.

some other pictures from our trip...

well, i'm not sure how to get these pictures to look quite right in this format, but here goes...

the picture on the left naomi is holding benny with chris on the left.
on the right is amanda feeding benny (which she was very willing to do!) again, chris on the left.

naomi at the counter coloring.

chris and benny in the kitchen.

amanda and naomi each wanted to try out the camera...

naomi's picture (her finger was in front of the flash).



amanda's picture (you can tell i never really did my hair while i was there...).

bath day for benny!

it really was a great trip and i'm really glad i was able to help bethany and nate enjoy a good time in hawaii! i think i'm finally ready to admit that i would do it again.

ps. in case you didn't catch it, we're pregnant! baby two is due 6 february 2008.

our adventure

we had a great opportunity to watch clark and susy's (spencer's brother and sister-in-law) kids for two days and two nights (sun night, mar 18, through tues, mar 20). before sunday night i had a few waves of fear come over me that made me wonder if i could pull it off. it was quite the adventure. monday morning spencer left at 7a (right after rylee and kamryn woke up) and didn't get back until after all the kids were asleep (due to a test review he had that night). we had a great time, but talk about baptism by fire!

i have a new-found respect for mothers of multiple children (and i can't forget mothers of twins - benny and cannon are only 4 1/2 months apart). you are all amazing for what you do and what you have done.
i'm looking forward to watching bethany and nate's kids in the next couple of months (that will be completely alone!) and clark and susy's kids again in august (that time for about 1 1/2 weeks).

benny is getting more and more interested in solid foods. he was enjoying a biter biscuit (thanks, again, courtnie!) that he got all over himself!

kamryn was having a good time with our activity. we made a clay-like turtle and fish that can be turned into magnets.

rylee and kamryn.

it was hard to get a good picture of cannon because he kept getting closer and closer to the camera. he's so smiley!

benny loved plaing in the exersaucer. he had a great time standing and bouncing up and down. it really wore him out, and he took a great nap that afternoon, and he slept really well that night.

benny is still trying to figure out what to do on the grass.


cannon has it all figured out...


i just love this picture of kamryn.

the last week

unfortunately, we missed the byu/utah game last weekend. we weren't planning on going, but it ended up not being on any station that we get. we ended up listening to it online while we watched "the little mermaid." we were babysitting iris (dominic and jen's daughter).
it was a fun game to listen to, we just wish we could have seen it.

benny and iris playing with eden's phone after the game.

bundled up to go outside. we should probably do something about his hair, oh, well.


this morning we were practicing benny's standing and walking.

he has started letting go and falling toward me. he can't wait to walk.

doing wonderfully sitting up on his own. sporting his cougar-wear (thanks bubbe and papa!).

go cougs!