A Window into a 6 year old's Brain

Our family was swimming at my parent's house yesterday and Jaxon says out of the blue,

"Dad, why don't you bring your money home? I know you make thousands and thousands of money, so why do you keep it all at work? If you brought it home, we could be RICH!"

Mark and I looked at each other and tried not to laugh.

Upon further questioning, Jaxon disclosed that he wanted to be rich so he could buy things.

"What kind of things would you buy?" I asked.

"You know, like a bird or something." He said.

Guess Who's Baby Hungry?

Yep, it's Jaxon.
He loves babies, SOOOOO much.

He waited two hours for Ella to wake up while we were at my mom's today. She didn't, so he didn't get to feed her a bottle (the photo was from last week). While he was disappointed, I was proud of him for not throwing a fit.

He said, "Mom, I want to see baby Ella everyday and every night. I love her so much."

When I asked him if he was ready for a baby sister, he said, "Yes!"

But, I told him that his little brothers were NOT ready for a baby sister. So, he tried to ask them himself and change their minds.

Good luck with that!

How many kids can you fit in a shower?

After playing in the sprinklers yesterday, my kids and my friend Danielle's kids piled in the shower (most wore their bathing suits).

It was a little crowded with five kids in that tiny shower.

Finn climbed out and then they came up with a little shower song.

I thought it was pretty funny so here it is.

Announcing Baby Ella

My sister Tacy was due on June 2nd, so imagine my surprise when she didn't go into labor until Friday night.

I got a call at 2:30 AM that she had checked into the hospital and I was told to bring my camera.

On my way to the hospital I heard the song, "It just some time, little girl you're in the middle of the ride, everything will be alright, everything will be just fine." I started to tear up, imagining the next few hours of childbirth awaiting Tacy, as well as her future with Ella.

Cami and I arrived at the hospital at 3 AM, after my parents and two of Tacy's friends, Esther and Michelle.

All six of us helped support Tacy through the wee hours of the morning, laboring without drugs through intense contractions.

At 7 AM, Tacy's midwife, Janice came and told Tacy she was dilated to 9 cm and then she broke Tacy's water. She promised 30 min to delivery. But it wasn't that easy.

At 7:30 Tacy started pushing in earnest, and although she tried many different positions, the baby's head wouldn't pass behind the pubic bone. She was pretty well stuck.

Thus, the pushing went on and on with Tacy yelling, "Get her out!" and "I can't do this anymore." She was in some kind of intense pain I'll never understand since I've had epidurals with all three of my babies.

I do remember the exhaustion. And boy was Tacy exhausted.

Finally, on Saturday June 13th at 9:34 AM Ella Jane came into the world. They put her right on Tacy's chest and we were all in tears because we were overcome with the miracle of this little girl.

Even right now, as I'm writing this, Jaxon's looking at the photo saying, "Boy mom, Tacy sure looks happy."

Yes, honey. She does.



Here are more photos at my webalbum.

Rough and Tumble Boys

So, if you can't tell by the new masthead and side photos of the boys:

THEY ALL HAVE MOHAWKS.

It was my sisters' and mother's idea.

But, I think they look pretty cute.
Here are some more photos from our shoot.

Scenes from a Marriage: Yesterday

Actual phone call yesterday:

Me: Honey, I've got some good news and some bad news.

Mark: Bad news first.

Me: A photo radar speeding ticket from Tempe came in the mail today.

Mark (interrupting): It was me, on my way back from the Salsa Challenge Wrap Up party. It was after we switched cars, I was driving your van.

Me (stupefied): Um, no. That was the good news, it was me in the van on my way to the same party. There's a photo.

(Then I flip through the mail more carefully and discover Mark's photo on ANOTHER SPEEDING TICKET FROM THE SAME DAY, ON THE SAME ROAD, IN THE SAME CAR.)

Me and Mark in unison: Oh, dear.

Mohawk and Swim Meet

On Friday, I gave Jaxon a MOHAWK.

He likes it because he thinks it looks like a dinosaur's spine.

And now he cares a lot about his hair.

"Mom! Finn just messed up my mohawk!"


"Mom, I want to make my hair into a mohawk!"

The plan is to keep this style for a few days or weeks, then shave it all off into a buzz.

I tried to do surfer hair with Jaxon, but it always looked ratty, and instead of looking like a surfer dude, he mostly looked like a homeless child.
























Yesterday Jaxon had his first swim meet. He did the back stroke pretty well, only he kept turning around to see if he was done. He placed 5th of 6.

Then he did the butterfly and raced against his friend, Ethan. Jaxon kept looking up and giving Ethan a thumbs up through the race. And then because he doesn't exactly know how to do the butterfly (he just mostly swam under water), he won first place, coming in a fraction of a second behind Ethan (who has great form in the butterfly).















But, it was FREESTYLE race that made the event EXCITING. (see video below, esp last 20 seconds)

It's hard to see from the video, but Jaxon starts off the race with goggle problems. Then, he starts to realize that he's behind and decides to give up because he's not winning. He goes totally non-responsive, eyes closed, floating in the water.
The crowd is yelling and getting nervous and then some random man DIVES in to SAVE my tantrum-throwing child.
When they climb out, the crowd CHEERS, and I can't figure out why.

It was crazy. I even forgot I was still filming and thought, "Oh, I probably ought to turn off the camera."
As I walked over to get Jaxon someone asked me what happened and I said, "That's just his personality."

I took Jaxon aside to talk to him and he yells at me,

"I QUIT!"

Whoever said that boys aren't as much drama as girls has never met my children.

Now You See It . . .

When I first discovered the macro setting on my camera, I set to work photographing my wedding ring.

I love my ring. I've never seen one quite like it, Mark choose it for me and gave it to me for our engagement.


The first photo is from last July, the second is from April when I was trying to figure out of the macro setting was working on the camera.

The last photo is from yesterday.

Our morning was crazy, swimming at Val Vista Lakes Clubhouse while Jaxon did swim team. Then we changed in the locker room and headed to the gym. After the gym, I showered and got ready then piled the kids in the car and headed to Finley's 18 month
checkup.

We drove by a jeweler and I instinctively glanced down at my ring and the center diamond was missing. I got that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Where did I lose it? At the gym? The pool? At home, in the car? Yesterday?

I had no idea.

So, I called Mark and he was disappointed, too. I called the gym and told them to look for it, but it's sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack.


I don't expect to find it, but I'm really, really sad it's gone.

As I looked more closely at the prongs, only 2 of them were in great shape. I'm pretty amazed it held on this long.

I wish I had taken it in for maintenance more often, but I always thought of that as frivolous, so it would look shinier.

Now I know better.
Mark says for our tenth anniversary next year, maybe I can get a new ring.

Sounds good to me.

Until then, don't be surprised to see a "replacement" bling on my finger.
Or, a tattoo. No, wait, that's Mark's idea.

Embarassing Peronal Confession #6

I have GRAY HAIR.

No, I am not joking with you. It's not just one or two. In fact, near my temples I have a little sprinkling of white hairs that my friend Amy NOTICED yesterday.

It's possible that I've had these for a while, but since I've gone back to a darker hair color they're finally noticeable.

Still, I am only 29 years old.

I'm not ready for gray hairs.