Sader Babers

Here's my sweet Sadie. She is getting to be so big. I can't believe she's almost a second grader and will be baptized next year. She hasn't really been around that long, has she?

I worry about this one. She's so smart and so enthusiastic about all sorts of things. I can't really keep up with her and I'm always wondering if I say 'no' too much and don't give her the time and attention that she needs. Plus she gets dumped on a lot  as the oldest and I expect a lot from her. I just hope we can get on the right path now so that we don't fight like crazy when she's a teenager.

 Sadie adores her baby sister. She always wants to take care of her (get her out of bed, buckle in her carseat, get her dressed) and tries to match her clothes as often as possible. I think she's been a bit jealous of how much Charlotte likes Madoc. I keep telling her that it's because Madoc treats her like a kid and Sadie treats her like a baby. So recently Sadie has been playing with her more like Madoc does and they've been having lots of fun together.

                                     
 Sadie excelled in 1st grade. Only three days left! She's a very proficient reader and is the top reader in her class. She tested out of 2nd grade sight words at the beginning of the year and I think they just stopped testing for that. One little girl finally moved up into Sadie's reading group but Sadie still reads too fast for her to keep up. This weekend she was re-reading Little House on the Prairie for the billionth time. She also loves American Girl books and Magic Tree House. She is also very interested in space and aquatic animals. She wrote a very extensive report on leatherback sea turtles, complete with shoebox diorama. I kept trying to get her stop once we met all of the requirements but she insisted that she keep going and do every last extra thing that she possibly could. When she finally gave her oral report several weeks later her teacher said she did great. She remembered all sorts of interesting facts, didn't need her notes, and was VERY animated. We have struggled figuring out where to put her for next year. The school is making lots of changes and we want the very best class for her. Skipping grades was mentioned again but we just don't want to do that. We finally settled on a 2nd/3rd multi-age classroom with one of the most experienced teachers at the school. She should be able to move on at her own pace and have more control over her own learning. The only thing we're worried about is her getting stressed out with the pressure to finish everything. She's SUPER meticulous and pretty slow. She and her teacher worked out a system so that Sadie starts getting ready to go home 5 or 10 minutes before everyone else so that she can be ready on time. And if there's a one page rainbow poem to write in 15 minutes, she's going to want to do a three page poem (which will take her an hour) because she knows she can. Her teacher has been great this year about letting Sadie change the assignments so that they are more challenging for her. I hope 2nd grade goes as well!

 

Here she is helping with dinner with the CTR Hero to show the Primary. She really likes church and just got a new set of scriptures. She only had a Book of Mormon and she was really frustrated by not having a Bible to read all of the scriptures in class.

UPDATE: School's out now! Yippee! And her class for 2nd grade has changed again! She's now in a regular 2nd grade with one of the fabulous 2nd grade teachers. Lots of her friends will be in there too. We're just having the hardest time finding a good fit for her. But her report card was perfect except for one minor flaw. An S- in 'Completes assignments on time.' That girl is just slow! And we found that she's performing on the level of a 4th grader in some areas.

This is getting long so quick wrap up... Sadie loves crafts and art of all kinds, reading, riding her bike/scooter, observing nature, and playing on the computer. She and Madoc play great games of pretend together but she doesn't really play with toys anymore. She loves making lists and has a very extensive one for summer activities and reading subjects. She can be very helpful and responsible when she wants to be but sometimes her help causes more stress to me than she realizes. But overall she is just so smart and grown-up that I can hardly believe it. She's not much of a little girl anymore.

My Chubber-Floober-Flubber Face

Next up is Madoc. As I was looking through the pictures from the last several months I realized that most of the pictures of Madoc were self-portraits or taken by Sadie. So these pictures aren't great but they are typical of real life around here.

Madoc is my buddy. He is not a mama's boy but he definitely likes his mama. I love when he wakes up from naps because he comes straight to me to cuddle and give me love. 

He is starting kindergarten in the fall. I'm interested to see how that turns out. He and Sadie are so different and I've no idea what to expect from him. He is very smart but has very little interest in learning to read. Sadie could read before kindergarten. I've asked him if he wanted to learn to read like Sadie and he said no. He's still very interested in looking at books and being read to. And his interest has increased a little bit of late. He loves math though because it's useful. Today he was telling me all sorts of addition problems as he requested how many pieces of waffle he wanted.

Here  you can see Madoc's blankie and bear. He needs bear, hippo, Eddie and Spunky (both dogs), and his blankie to go to bed. He also thinks they need to go with him in the car everywhere. We've often been late for carpool in the morning because "I forgot Eddie!" You can also see him with Charlotte. I already mentioned that they are the best of friends. Just tonight he was crying on the stairs about something like not being able to take off his shoes and Charlotte came up to him and tried tickling him to fix it.

 Currently Madoc really enjoys playing outside, riding bikes and scooters, computer games, movies, playing imaginary games that are very boyish, growling, yelling, jumping, running, climbing the furniture, and generally causing mayhem. He likes playing with Sadie but they're either playing really well together or else fighting like cats and dogs. There is no middle ground with those two. And he really likes space and the ocean. He'll look at books on these over and over. A member of our bishopric (who is a high school science teacher) was over for dinner the other night and quizzing him on fish and ocean creatures and Madoc knew a LOT.

Madoc likes to talk about what he's going to be when he grows up. He's got a lot of plans and he generally divides everything up by when he's a daddy and when he's a grandpa. For awhile he was an engineer like Dad and a fireman like Grandpa. But lately the occupations topping the list have been: Boy Scout, stick collector (for building fires), paleontologist, ornithologist, and astronaut.

And now for a few random things about Madoc:

He is very particular about clothes. He currently only has one pair of shorts that he really likes to wear and he would only wear jeans all winter long. Once his favorites are all dirty he has a fit and getting dressed is very painful.

Neil will tease the kids about not liking things they love. He might get out the ice cream and announce, "Oh, but Madoc doesn't like ice cream so I'll eat his." To which Madoc responds, "No, it's Sadie that doesn't like ice cream!"

He used to be pretty shy but that's all over. He'll talk to anybody. We often have old people (there are LOTS of OLD people here) stop to admire Charlotte and Madoc will tell them all about everything they never wanted to know about his birthday or camping or starting kindergarten...

Madoc's sense of fair is really skewed. Basically it means that things aren't going the way he wants them to, fair or not. And he's very vocal about it. This was evidenced in abundance this last weekend as he proceeded to complain that it wasn't fair that Sadie got to go to Wal-Mart or watch a movie or anything else really despite the fact that he spent the whole weekend camping with his dad. It's always his turn (even when it isn't) and Sadie gets everything and his life is just miserable even if he did get ice cream and play computer games that day. And slightly somewhat related is his inability to regulate his emotions or self-control or put anything in perspective. He's really good at throwing tantrums and everything is my fault (or Dad's if he happens to be home).
I love listening to him pray. They are so random and yet so sincere that Heavenly Father must like his much more than mine. Unless prompted to say otherwise, everything starts with "please bless." Please bless that I really liked my dinner tonight. And please bless that Sadie was mean to me and I hit her and got in trouble. And please bless I won't have to make my bed anymore...
So that's Madoc. He's a handful and all-boy and really tests my patience but he's also one of the sweetest kids around.

My Little Tootsie Pop

Time for some updates. We'll start at the bottom with our little Charlotte. She is sweet and smart and too cute and spoiled rotten. 

It's amazing how different all of your kids can be. Since Charlotte started walking early at the ripe old age of 9 months, she had figured out how to move chairs and climb up to the counters when my other two were just figuring out walking. She's been so adept at moving around for so long that it's hard to keep up with her. And it's so funny to see such a tiny thing walking around. It's hard to believe she really is 17 months old.

Charlotte loves to find things to sit on. Anything that can be turned into a seat will be sat on. And it's funny to watch because she usually turns around and slowly backs up to it. On Sunday it was Neil's church bag. Today I was kneeling down and someone commented that she was trying to back up behind me and sit on my feet. Whenever I'm in the bathroom she has to come in too and sit on the step stool. And there she stays with a big grin on her face, swinging her little feet.

I joke with Neil that there is no way anyone could accuse our children of being the mailman's because they are all like him and nothing like me. But there is finally something! Charlotte has a sweet tooth just like her mother. No one is allowed to eat a cookie and not share. If you ask her if she wants some candies (jelly beans, M&Ms, chocolate chips) she will run for the pantry and try to open the door. Often she's trying to open the pantry and whining for someone to let her in. If I get the ice cream out she dances around my feet crying while I'm scooping and then when she sees me head for the couch with a bowl she runs after me, giggling in delight. It's just so funny.

This is Charlotte's idea of helping with the groceries. She steals the sour cream and runs into the living room with it. She did put away a whole bag of potatoes into the bin for me the other afternoon. She really likes putting things in buckets. She also likes pushing around her corn popper, knocking down block towers, pushing babies in shopping carts and strollers, and playing kitchen. And anything her brother and sister happen to be doing.

Charlotte really loves her blanket, just like Madoc does. She also loves her bottle. She will drink water from a cup and milk from a bottle. I refused to give her a bottle for almost two weeks and still she wouldn't drink milk from a cup. I finally gave in and let her keep the bottle because she's just too tiny not to drink milk.

Charlotte adores her brother. I think he was her first favorite person. They are three and a half years apart but they get along great. He's good at helping her and protecting her but he doesn't treat her like a baby or a plaything. They love to chase/hide from each other and there is always plenty of laughter. If Madoc is upset, she's always right beside him trying to make it better. I don't know what she'll do when he starts kindergarten this fall.

I have no pictures of them together for this post, but her new favorite person is her daddy. This is the first one of our bunch that has preferred Neil to me. Neil says it's because he's the one that gets up with her at 4 or 5 am for her bottle. That's fine with me! When I get her up in the morning the first thing we do is go find Daddy. She know to check the bed and the bathroom. If he's already left for work she gets really confused and keeps looking for him. She is very insistent that he pick her up as soon as he gets home from work and will keep smacking his legs until he does.

 More evidence of her sweet tooth. She's really good at getting what she wants.

One of the many funny things about Charlotte is that she doesn't talk. She can. She just doesn't. She'll learn a new word and try it out for awhile and then just stop. "Boo" lasted for a week or so; "hi" only for a day. Mama and Dada she uses on a daily basis but still not as often as it would be useful. I got her to say 'up' for awhile when she wanted to be held but now she refuses. She used to wave and say 'bye-bye' right after Neil would close the door but she won't do that anymore either. I don't think Neil ever did hear her say that one. I'm pretty sure she says 'Mah' for Madoc. And this week she says 'go.' The kids will yell, "On your mark, get set!" And three seconds later Charlotte chimes in with "Ga-oh!" Her refusal to use words that we all know she can say is infuriating and yet funny at the same time.

                                               
Here she is helping me clean out the closet and inventorying our food storage. We have to be very careful of leaving writing utensils around. She loves to color and draw. One afternoon she sat at the art table and colored with me for 45 minutes. The only problem is she doesn't discriminate about what she colors on - paper, the table, the wall, my new curtains... I have been very impressed with her abilities though. She even holds the pencil correctly.
So that's Charlotte. She is so much younger than everyone else that she is indulged way too much. The big kids let her get away with a lot and she knows how to act sweet to get what she wants. We just love her to pieces.

Christmas Goodies

 I love that my husband makes apple pie. I eat a lot of apple pie now. Here's the Christmas creation.

My mom bought the kids a gingerbread train kit but we were too sick to make it at her house. We brought it back home and made it together.

 The kids had fun and we didn't have too much mess.

Christmas Morning 2011

Christmas was pretty low key. Lots of sick kiddies and laying around the house. Not much to tell but here are the pictures.

 Charlotte with her yucky nose

Some Christmas Fun and Not so Fun

We did some fun things once we got to Indiana. Some family friends from church always dress up as Santa and Mrs. Claus and open up there home for visitors. We went there right after getting to my parents' house (we were very tired). The kids got a stocking filled with treats, a small toy, and oodles of candy. The basement was very pretty and festive. The kids loved it.

We also celebrated my brother's birthday a few days late. He was gracious enough to wait until we got there to go out for dinner.

I had big plans to do all sorts of fun Christmas things at my parents. I wanted to do lots of baking and make homemade noodles and plan a huge Christmas dinner. All our home Christmas plans were ruined by getting the stomach flu so I was determined to have fun in Indiana. Then the kids and I got the flu. Boo. We had fevers and sore throats and the whole thing. So instead of baking and having lots of Christmas cheer we laid on my parents new couch and slept and watched Christmas movies and played Skyrama on the laptops. By the end of it several of my siblings and maybe my mom? had it too. So not fun.

Oh, and the worst part about getting sick was Sadie. She's always terrible about being sick. Madoc takes it in stride and makes the best of it, doing exactly what I tell him to do to feel better. Sadie just becomes a giant cranky monster and refuses liquids and medicine. She was the first one with fever and had to be forced to take Tylenol. We were all sleeping in my parent's room, the kids on twin mattresses on the floor and Charlotte in a play pen. Sadie would half wake up a dozen times a night crying and having a fit. I was sick but I'd have to drag myself out of bed to settle her down so she didn't wake the baby up and I could go back to sleep. We didn't have a real  night's sleep for DAYS! What a stinker.

But we still opened our family gift exchange presents on Christmas Eve. Here are the kids opening theirs.

Charlotte got a Leapfrog house from Aunt Abby. It lives in her room and she likes getting it out sometimes.

Madoc's Star Wars action figures from Grandma

And Sadie's Pillow Pet from Grandpa. She sleeps with it every night now.

Christmas Vacation Finally Begins!

Also on our road trip to Indiana we stopped in Lafayette to have breakfast and visit with Neil's sister Sheri and her family. She fed us some yummy french toast breakfast casserole. Then we had another Christmas! We had their family for Christmas this year so they opened their presents and Sheri had a few little things for my kids too. 

While we sat around visiting and playing with Dallin's and Connor's new toys, Neil fell asleep on the floor. We're not great company after driving for two nights straight. Sadie and Madoc showed Dallin what fun it is to climb on Neil while he's sleeping.

 And finally we made it to Grandma and Grandpa's house! Charlotte had a good time finding things to sit in.

And here's all three big boys trying to figure out how to install a new dishwasher.

Christmas Road Trip

Because our family all lives far away, we have become quite adept at long distance road trips. Driving through the night is the way to go (even if it is painful to all the grown ups) because it drastically reduces the amount of stops and baby crying. Also, if you have to drive through the night, you better plan on stopping when the kids wake up. So to drive to Indiana which requires two nights of driving, we plan to arrive the first morning somewhere fun and the second morning at Grandma's house. Everyone's happier that way.

For Christmas we wanted to try out a new place to stop. We timed our departure so that we would arrive in Oklahoma City at breakfast time. We always find a nice sit-down breakfast place ahead of time and this time I think it was Cracker Barrel. Then we headed to the Science Museum. 

This was definitely a good idea! The museum wasn't the biggest one we've been to (St. Louis Science Center is bigger) but it was a really good size with more than we could do in a morning.This was really nice because last time we stopped at a children's museum in Texas that was nice and clean but teeny tiny. There wasn't enough to do.

One area had a giant tree house with ladders and stairs and slides and catapults and I don't know what else. Charlotte and I played with blocks while the big kids (Neil included) ran around.

We lost Madoc once at the tree house and couldn't find him for awhile. It turned out that he had wandered into the next room that had lots of hands on science activities.

Charlotte really liked the magnetic gears. She climbed all the way into the box.

We first say a live science show that was really fun. Then we walked around and saw lots of old airplanes and trains and bicycles. I think it was a whole history of travel exhibit. We also went through a space exhibit and some other stuff. Oh, and at the very end as we were leaving we found a room full of gymnastics equipment. We let the kids run off the last bit of energy running and jumping and rolling in there before we headed to lunch and back on the road. It was really a fun stop for everyone.

Christmas at Home 2011

We always travel for Christmas so we have our own little Christmas morning before we leave. There are just too many presents to pack up otherwise. Due to our busy schedule and half of us being sick, we had to forgo some of our regular Christmas traditions, the main one being the homemade doughnuts that Neil always makes us. The kids were happy to just have new presents.

 I gave Neil new slippers. Here he compares the old with the new. I think it was an improvement.

 I made Madoc some felt car mats for all of his cars and trucks and airplanes.

 Sadie is no longer playing with toys very often and so she gets grown-up presents. We got this necklace for her from the Vintage Pearl. She wears it every single day and we're already on the third chain as she keeps breaking them.

 I just thought this was funny. I've no idea what he was doing. But it shows the new marble run he got for Christmas. It was a big hit and gets played with a lot (until I take all of the marbles away because they won't keep them picked up and I find Charlotte's mouth full of them).

 The new big girl bike. She had really outgrown her first one. Neil taught her how to ride in just a day or two.

 Neil's new favorite shirt - Wookie the Chew with Chrisolo Robin and AT-ore

 And a picture of me to show I got presents too.

 Charlotte required lots of help with unwrapping. She's still not very good at it. But she liked lounging on Neil's lap to investigate her stocking.