too many chwildwen

Cumorah has said to me on several occasions (imagine whiny three year old now), "Mom, I just wish you didn't have so many chwildwen.  You just have too many chwildwen."

This usually occurs when I am unable to help her right away because I am attending to someone else, or when one of those little someone else's is somehow cramping her style, I suppose you could say.

So today she says this as I'm trying to feed them all lunch.  Just to be clear, meal times are not much fun for mothers of multiple small children.  You work really hard to get them all food and answer all their calls for more of something, or a napkin, or water (I always forget that) or whatever and then you sit down to eat your food and they're all done and need to be cleaned up and so you get back up and start cleaning up the baby and sending the others to wash up in the bathroom calling out a million times, "Don't touch anything!!!!" hoping that there won't be too many food smears along the way, and then you have to wipe up the floor so that the baby doesn't crawl through all the food he just threw down and by that time somebody wants help with something totally unrelated to mealtime......

So when Cumorah got that familiar pouty scowl on her face and told me that I have too many chwildwen while I was wiping the baby's hands off and not attending to her, I quicly snapped back, "You're right.  I do have too many children.  So I think I'll get rid of you, Cumorah, because you're the one who's whiny, and fussy and generally making life not very fun.  So, yep, I think that's a good idea, I'll just get rid of you.  Then I won't have so many children."  She looked a little worried for a second, and then she smiled really big and started giggling.  She thought that was a pretty funny joke.

spooky houses

We made (and ate) our traditional haunted houses last Sunday.  It's all about the chocolate graham crackers.  And the ghost peeps.  I helped with the basic construction while getting design input from the girls.  They decorated.  Rivers face?  Well, when I asked her not to eat the frosting off of her knife, she said, "But there's just too much."  Apparently it's better to eat the excess frosting instead of merely scrape some back into your frosting bowl.  When she asked me to clean her up when she was all done, she was leaning back in her seat and looked as if she were going to puke and then fall off her chair. 

"No, Grandpa!  You can't eat it."

And here is a picture of the monsters inhabiting our cookbook shelf.  Toilet paper and paper towel tubes, paint, hot glue, googly eyes, sparkly warm fuzzies, and a sharpee.  The monsters were not my origial idea.  I found the idea on the internet...somewhere...

Cumorah woke up one morning with "Mommy, I want to do a project."  as her first words.  Fortunately for the both of us, I had one ready for her.  I don't do many organized projects like this.  Sometimes, I think I should do more, because my girls both LOVE to color and cut and glue and paint.  Give them a pen and a notepad, they'll be entertained for hours. (I mean a pen and a notepad each.  Just one for the both of them.....that doesn't go well for just about anything around here.)

squirrels

Grandmommy called us this morning to tell us that the storm that passed through during the weekend had knocked all of the walnuts out of the trees and that we should go gather them. So we did. Cumorah was concerned about the squirrels at my first mention of the walnuts. "But the walnuts are for the squirrels to eat, if we take them they won't have any to eat." After I assured them that there were plenty for both the squirrels and ourselves, the girls were very excited to bring their buckets down to the walnut trees and start filling them up. Sidon sampled all sorts of tasty rocks, twigs, dirt piles from the gophers, and walnut shells. He got into filling (and emptying) the buckets when he was lucky enough to get close to one. Then he spent some time climbing the steep hillside by the trees, fussing and sliding down the rocks until he finally decided to settle by the trunk of a tree and do some more sampling of inedibles. The girls were troopers and stayed focused for longer than I expected. We filled my five gallon bucket and both the girls' smaller buckets and we were nowhere near finished gathering. That's a lot of walnuts. It will keep Great Grandpa busy for quite awhile with his fancy nutcracker. Cumorah and I went back out with Sam and Amy while the babies were napping and gathered some more. We brought some back to our house to try the whole process out ourselves. I have a batch in the oven baking at a low temperature to kill the bugs before we crack them open right now. Normally I am not a walnut fan, I prefer pecans. But these walnuts are so yummy, they are not bitter at all. The girls have now added walnut trees to their looooooooooong list of specifications for our new house when we move away.

special sunday

These are pictures I took with my phone that we sent to Brian on Sunday after church to try to help him feel better about not being there with us. It was a special Sunday, Cumorah participated in her first ever primary program. Poor Brian. I told him there will be many more primary programs for this family. Those are scary monster faces. At one point they came running into the kitchen to scare me with them, at Grandpa's prompting of course. He's always good at teaching them useful things.




The primary program is when all the children approximately 3-11 give a presentation during our sacrament meeting (our family worship meeting, I guess you could say). A lot of people say it is their favorite Sunday of the year. I have to agree, it is always, always cute. The children have various speaking parts having to do with the year's theme and things they have been learning about it in primary. They also sing a lot of songs. It is so sweet to be preached to by innocent children. But that is not the only reason everyone loves the primary program, there is always that kid who breaths loudly in the microphone just to hear himself (my nephew) or the little ones who make funny faces or stare at everyone when they're supposed to be singing or who wave and say "hi, mom". You know, kid kind of stuff to chuckle at. Yes, the primary program never disappoints.

This year's theme was I Know My Savior Lives. Cumorah had her part memorized: Jesus said, 'If ye love me, keep my commandments.' (John14:15) However, when her turn came, she had a classic Cumorah moment. She scowled and looked down at me because I happened to be the one who was in charge of the whole thing and who was sitting on the floor next to the podium to prompt those who needed prompting. She absolutely refused to say her part, said she was tired, and fell in my lap. I said her part. She is the youngest kid in primary, the only one who's still three. But really I don't think that was why she didn't say her part. Fortunately, she had another part and before that part came, she sat on her teacher's lap who told her that Rivers really wanted to hear her talk. Cumorah was pretty excited about that apparently. She looked down on the congregation and found Rivers sitting with Grandpa Taylor. When her next turn came she was smiley and spoke loud and clear. Silly girl. I'm really glad she did because she had just about every grandparent and great grandparent she has attending to see her. (Thanks for coming down Gma and Gpa Taylor and Nannie and Great Gma)

It was my first time to be in charge of the Primary Program. I'm glad it's over.

The best part was the very end when all of the children came and testified of Christ one after the other with music playing in the background. I asked the parents to talk with their children and ask them about what they know about Jesus Christ, how they feel about him, etc. They emailed me what their children said and that became their part at the end of the program. It was very sweet.

Pearl, my niece, said, "I know that when you make mistakes you can repent. I know when I am baptized I will be pure and clean, like when I was a baby. I know that Jesus loves me and that He suffered for my sins. I want to be responsible and obedient so Jesus will be proud of me. I know my family can be together forever and that when I die I'll meet my brother Robbie."

Cumorah said, "Jesus loves us and we have to obey Him. He gives us our home and made the world. I love Jesus."

Can you tell we talk a lot about being obedient at our house? That's only because there is a lot of disobedience going on.:)

And Sam finished off the whole program with one of my personal favorites, "I know Jesus loves me because at the end of every Veggie Tale show Bob and Larry say, 'God made you special and He loves you very much.'” (along with a lot of good microphone breathing)

i love to see the temple

Brian had a break in his shifts a couple weeks ago while rotating in Oklahoma, so he came home for three whole days! It was very nice. We went camping. We're crazy. But crazy people have a lot of fun, right? On the way to my childhood camping ground in the redwoods south of San Francisco, we stopped at the Oakland temple. I. love. this. temple. Of course, Brian and I were married there, but it's not just that. It's also all the other times I've visited this temple. It was our temple before the Sacramento temple was built. Don't get me wrong, I love the Sacramento temple, too. It's much nicer to drive 20 minutes than 2 1/2 hours, and I did get a tour of the not-quite-finished temple during which I climbed inside of the spire all the way to the top. But the Oakland temple will always be very special to me. Isn't it pretty?

It was fun to show our children where we were married. They enjoyed the visitor center that is there as well. It was a beautiful afternoon.







They ran.























They ran some more.















And then they ran some more.






















Sidon and I didn't run so much, but we were very supportive of those who were running.



















































The family picture. All three of our children have some sort of weird smirk going on. But they're all looking in the general direction of the camera, Rivers isn't doing some sort of terrible torture trick to her brother and it's relatively in focus. Therefore, it is a very good family picture, smirks and all.












































This picture cracks me up because if that was a real dog, this picture would be of the girls standing behind me clutching to my pant legs, whimpering and wailing away. They just adore animals when they're obviously inanimate.

break my heart

I was nursing Sidon in the kids' closet, I mean bedroom, before putting him in bed. The girls were in their beds, Rivers on the floor and Cumorah near the ceiling on the third story of their triple decker toddler bunk bed. Rivers was looking at Bread and Jam for Frances when she noticed that Frances looked awfully sad in a picture.

"Mommy why is she sad in the picture?"

"I don't know, honey."

After a very long pause she said, "I think her Daddy is away. That's why she is sad."


I cannot count the number of times I have heard little comments like this from my babies this year. It breaks my heart. It breaks Brian's heart. But we're all alright.

I don't know how military families do it. I was already grateful for their sacrifices for our country, but now, I'm just in awe.

parties

Last night as I was listening to Cumorah's personal prayer (she still wants me to help her but often says them on her own), she thanked her Father in heaven for the parties, the one for the grown ups and the one for the chwildwen.

They were fun parties. Lots of yummy food was had at both parties. The grown-up party consisted of a large group of women of all ages enjoying one another's company immensely. Thanks to all you ladies who came, I had a blast. Thanks to my mom for hosting it. And thanks to my Iowa friends who first introduced me to the idea of a favorite things party. I miss you.

The kid party consisted of Uncle Jared, four young children (and a baby) eating pumpkin cookies, banana cupcakes, and popcorn while watching The Crimson Pirate and Good Eats. Awesome. When I walked next door to pick up my girls and put them to bed at much too late of an hour, I found Uncle Jared sprawled out on the couch nearly drooling with little Rivers using him as an armchair. The children looked as if their brains had been most thoroughly fried. Rivers told me very animatedly about all the pirates that 'fell off'. Sorry, I can't specify, I've never seen The Crimson Pirate myself, but Jared says there's a good half hour that consists of the main character jumping around pushing all the pirates off the ship, or something like that. Thanks Jared for putting on such an awesome party for my baby girls.

And the after-party party back at my mom's with all four Hulbert sisters together (and Mom)...those are the good times. I laughed so hard I cried. It was a good stress reliever.

the hazards

of having two older sisters.

Sometimes you have to sleep with pinkish bedding.
Sometimes you have to drink from Disney fairies sippy cups.
And sometimes....





Really, I had nothing to do with this. I am only guilty of getting the camera to record this moment forever in the family archives. Cumorah found the dress in Grandmommy's dress up drawers and when it proved to be too small for her, she logically thought of someone whom the dress would fit on. She then put the dress on that particular someone. I advised her that little boys do NOT wear princess dresses. Apparently, she didn't really care. Fortunately for Sidon, cousin Maya is in town and has been subjected to the baby Cinderella treatment instead of himself.

Brian's boy

This is for Brian, who was home for a few weeks....but now he's in OOOOOOOOOklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain. Or was that where the tornados frolic in the trailer park? Not sure.

Anyway, I thought he'd like to see his man child in action. He pushes his sisters' chairs around a lot. He loves it and goes all over but inevitably gets stuck somewhere and fusses until I come and turn him around. He also loves to cook in the kid kitchen and is quite good at nuking stuff in the microwave as well as emptying all of the pots and dishes onto the floor.