Timothy-18 Months

18 months... It is just a little hard to believe that my little baby is actually 18 months old. He is growing so much. He talks like crazy. Climbs like a pro. And has already been moved up to a twin bed. How in the world has this happened!?!? 

At the doctor today he did great. Got 2 shots and was a champ. He is growing and staying right along his growth curve that he has always been on. He is healthy and growing well. 

Aside from the doctor appt. he is doing great. He is nearly always happy. He wakes up everyday at 6am most days and very cutely calls momma while knocking on the door. He likes to play ball and play with his cars and little people. He loves dogs and loves feeding them. He exudes happiness in all he does. I have rarely seen a child so happy so much of the time. Yes I'm bragging. I have been spoiled with this guy. He is a momma's boy most of the time, unless his dad gets him out of bed. He loves his siblings and wants to always be with them. He eats just about anything. He naps nearly 3 hours a day. I am so glad that Timothy is a part of our family and couldn't imagine it without him. 

Happy 18 months Timothy!  Keep growing, learning and making us all smile. Love you little man! 

My Felicity

This is my Fel-lump... My Felicity... My most spirited, strong-willed child, whom I love and adore! I wanted to take a minute and make sure you all know how much she means to me. 

Today when Felicity came home from school she helped me a lot. I was battling some of my pain from skipping my anti-inflammatories for my pleurisy and needed a few minutes to let my meds kick in. Felicity sweetly helped Collin stay happy, she watched Timothy while I went in my room for a few minutes. Then she took Collin in his room and they read The Butter Battle Book by Dr Seuss together. She set a timer so they would know if they read their whole 20 minutes. Then she helped him get onto the computer to play some games. 

I realized today that I haven't bragged enough about my fel-lump. She really is an amazing little girl and I am so pleased to call her my daughter. 

Felicity you bring so much joy into my life and I love you more a then I could ever say. Though we have out hurdles to cross we will do it together teaching each other new things as we jump! You are amazing my girl. Love you! 

Timothy at 15 months

I caught this picture yesterday while he was watching the snow.
It really captured who Timothy is.

 My sweet little guy Timothy turned 15 months yesterday.  It is hard to believe how quickly he is growing up.  Today we took him in for his 15 month check up.  He is weighing in at 22 pounds even and 31.75 inches long.  His weight landed him right at the 39th percentile, which is pretty dead on for what he has been all along.  His height dropped him at the 69th percentile which was a drop down from the 85th he has been at in the past.  Clearly he has some growing to do to catch himself up.  But I am sure he will hit that growth spurt pretty quickly.

He has changed so much over the past 15 months, even just in the past 3 months. He has started walking, though he still seems to prefer dropping down and crawling super fast.  He is a climber.  This is a first for us.  None of our others have ever really cared to climb.  They were happy right at their level. But Timothy things climbing takes him to a whole new world, which lets be honest, it does!  He climbs onto the couch, chairs, tables, the piano, beds, bunk bed ladder, really if it is above him he is going to figure out how to get onto it.  It makes for an adventure and never leaving him alone...ever...at all...

He has started trying to talk a lot.  He says the typical mom and dad, but also likes to throw out random other words, like: more, dog, jaicie, bye bye, and many others, but most of the others don't sound anything like the word he is trying to say...but you can tell that it is a different item.  Jaicie is a cute one though, it sounds nothing like Jaicie, but when he sees her come into the room he yells for her and makes the same group of sounds every time. It is kind of a precious little thing.  He loves his big sisters and big brother.  They are 3 of his 5 favorite people! :)

He has taken to screaming lately.  If he doesn't get his way he screams at the top of his lungs.  It is one of the worst sounds my ears could hear.  Its awful.  I hate it but I haven't figured out how to combat it yet.  Hopefully I will figure that out soon.

But Timothy really is quite a light in our home.  And I am so glad to have him as part of our family.  Really how could you not love that cute little face! :)

And because everyone needs a good reason to laugh in life...here is one of my favorite sounds out of Timothy's mouth.

And just for good measure, here is a video of one of Timothy's recent fits he threw because Justin walked past him and didn't pick him up.

Awesome

I hate the kids are mean to each other.  I hate the kids were mean to me when I was growing up. But even more I hate the kids are mean to my kids.  

Jaicie loves school. She loves Science and Math. She thinks the world is an amazing place and sees the best in everyone around her. She loves homework and getting to do research. She loves to read and write and even has a poem being published from the National Library of Poetry contest. She's awesome!

And kids make fun of her for that.  She is picked on and teased and has had a lot of discouraging times. But when she saw a girl at school crying because others were making fun of her today, she sat down next to hear and said this: "You just have to tell them I believe in my Awesomeness. If don't think I am awesome, that is your problem and you have to deal with it."

It is quite possible it will bring more teasing, but she doesn't care anymore.  And I am happy about that.  

Because the world is cruel and if we let every thing that people say or do to or about us defeat us then we are letting them win.  Lets stand up for our Individual Awesomeness and be WHOEVER we want to be. And when someone thinks less of you than awesome... just tell them: 

then, walk away and let them figure out how to deal with it.  Because the world is full of people who are out to defeat you.  Why do we let them win!  

So go forth and BELIEVE IN YOUR AWESOMENESS!

Love her and the example she is to her siblings.

Parenting with Meekness and Humility

This morning I awoke to one child yelling at another...again... It is often the same child yelling at the same child day after day. This child is a very tender spirit. This child has a heart big enough to fill a room. He/She has determination like no child I have known. He/She also has a temper like few I have ever known.

I have long thought that I inherited the worst aspects of my parents tempers... And I say that with a heart full of love for both my parents.  I have a great respect for both of them, and the way they controlled their tempers so often...especially with me as a child.  My dad, if I remember correctly, would get angry really quick, you'd get in trouble and then it would be over.  My mom was more the type to be upset about something, let it stew inside for a LONG while and then get really mad and stay that way for a while.  I have a tendency to be a bit of both.  I get angry really fast and little things and then stay angry over them for a while...far too long.  I don't let it stew and then get mad like mom, but I also don't let it go like dad.  I tested my parents tempers often.  I fought with my brothers often... EXTREMELY OFTEN.  I was not an easy child in any way shape or form.

So I know very well where this child gets their temper from.  And I also know how difficult it is to learn to manage. He/She has a long road of learning ahead.  I am still trying to learn how to control it...unfortunately, my children are learning their temper controls from me... And I realize how bad that is and how much it needs to change.

Anyway, back to bickering children.  This child of mine has very strong feelings towards this sibling.  I will say completely honestly that there are times when I fear this child hates his/her sibling.  That worries me and this morning, I realized that I needed help helping this child to love their sibling. To treat their sibling with respect and kindness.  It isn't an easy task to teach, and I have clearly not been doing it will on my own.  So this morning, I sent Justin a message that said: "Can you ponder on things we can do to change teh relationship (child a) has with (child b). (Child a) is so mean to (child b)."  Then I got down on my knees and asked in prayer for help in teaching child A the things that i clearly have not done.  I prayed for help in teaching child a to control tempers, show love. But I also prayed for help in bettering myself as a parent so I can be a better example for child a.

This morning after my prayer was a much different morning than I usually have.  While the kids were their usual selves, I wasn't.  I kept a calm tone with them, I walked into Child A's room and just asked if I could give him/her a hug. And give a big long hug that was needed.  I didn't yell at the kids all morning.  I calmly (or at least more calmly) reminded them to get shoes and socks on. I kept my cool and stayed much calmer (most of the time).  While I didn't have a perfect morning, it was better.

Then I got in the car because I had an errand to run.  I decided that I wanted to listen to some music from my phone.  So I plugged it in and as I was about to touch the music app, I thought how nice it would be to listen to one of the conference talks from our church general conference last month. So I opened up the LDS Gospel App, opened up the conference talks and opened up a talk, one I didn't remember hearing during conference (which was common since I was in a house with 8 kids). I started the talk and was so deeply humbled by the obvious answers to my prayers, in such a quick succession.  The talk I listed to was entitled: Be Meek and Lowly of Heart by Elder Ulisses Soares.  This talk had a lot of gems in it that really stood out to me.  Here are just a few:

1. "Being meek does not mean weakness, but it does mean behaving with goodness and kindness, showing strength, serenity, healthy self-worth, and self-control."

 2. "We are blessed to be born with the seed of meekness in our hearts. We need to understand that it is not possible to grow and develop that seed in the twinkling of an eye but rather through the process of time. Christ asks us to “take up [our] cross daily,” meaning that it must be a constant focus and desire.

President Lorenzo Snow, the fifth prophet of our dispensation, taught, “It is our duty to try to be perfect, … to improve each day, and look upon our course last week and do things better this week; do things better today than we did them yesterday.” So the first step to becoming meek is to improve day by day. Each day we need to try to be better than the previous as we move forward through this process.

President Snow added:

“We have our little follies and our weaknesses; we should try to overcome them as fast as possible, and … should [instill] this feeling in the hearts of our children … that they may learn to [behave] properly before Him under all circumstances.

“If the husband can live with his wife one day without quarrelling or without treating anyone unkindly or without grieving the Spirit of God … ; he is so far perfect. Then let him try to be the same the next day. But supposing he should fail in this his next day’s attempt, that is no reason why he should not succeed in doing so the third day.”

 3.  "At these moments and in other difficult situations, we must learn to control our temper and convey our feelings with patience and gentle persuasion. This is most important within our homes and within our relationships with our eternal companions. During the 31 years I’ve been married to my sweetheart, she has often given me gentle reminders of this as we have faced life’s unsettling challenges."

4. "By controlling our reactions, being calm and temperate, and avoiding contention, we will begin to qualify for the gift of meekness."

And this one may be my favorite:

5."Christ faced extreme physical and spiritual suffering, giving us the opportunity to change our spiritual character and become meek like Him.

"I bear my witness that Jesus Christ is our Savior. I testify to you that, thanks to His love, it is possible to change. It is possible to leave our weaknesses behind. It is possible to reject the evil influences in our lives, control our anger, become meek, and develop the attributes of our Savior. He showed us the way. He gave us the perfect example and commanded each one of us to become as He is. His invitation to us is to follow Him, follow His example, and become like Him"

There are a lot of obstacles that we face as parents.  Only one of them is the obstacle of learning how to do the job the best way we can.  But as Elder Soares stated, it is possible to change.  One of my MANY, MANY weaknesses is controlling my temper and it is something that I have been working hard to leave behind.  Meekness and Humility are the gifts I want to qualify to be blessed with.  I have often questioned what meekness is.   And this talk seems to do a good job at teaching me.  I only hope that now I can take all of the things I learned today to heart.

We often learn from others...and I would like to learn from you.  What are your best tips and tricks for controlling your tempers and staying calm in the face of angers and frustrations? Especially when those angers and frustrations come from your children who you want to teach the same thing too.

**incidentally, there are reasons I am not identifying which child I am talking about.  I am sure you can relate, but I have had incidents where my children were told of discussions that I had had with other adults and they were very hurt by the fact that I had discussed it with others.  I see no reason why anyone needs to know which child is which, but the scenario itself is evident of what happened for me this morning and I feel like it conveys my hopes much better than without it. I love my children, all of them, which all of my heart and am so proud of them each and every day. And I hope that this does not in anyway make you feel like that is not the case. They are amazing human beings that I cannot wait to see how the world is blessed by them in the future.

John 5:30: "I can of mine own self do nothing"

A Year in the Life of Timothy Paul Clayton

Yesterday was a fun day.  It was nothing spectacular, but it was wonderful. Celebrating Timothy's first birthday was an all day affair, literally, the kids only slept when I put him in a car seat... I woke up to a very happy baby boy. Unfortunately, Justin woke up much earlier, and was off to work...on call... all weekend! :( It was a sad thing that dad didn't get to spend the whole day with all of us,but he did get a little break and got to come home.

We started off making breakfast and birthday cakes...a LOT of birthday cakes. I made a smash cake for him and then a bunch of large cupcakes...and then with the leftover cake batter I made a small 9 inch really thin "cookie cake." (obviously not a cookie, but thin like a cookie cake!) For breakfast we had chocolate/Butterscotch pancakes, a scrambled egg for Timothy and Milk.

After the cakes were all baked, cooled and out of their pans, we made a run to the store for some wrapping paper.  Timothy fell asleep in the car of course!  We also made a stop at Carter's to buy some of their PJ's that were 50% off.

When we got home, we played and had lunch. We tried some ravioli...note for the future, timothy doesn't like mini ravioli's... we will skip it next time.  Also, I frosted and decorated all of the cakes and had fun doing it. Afterwards we were lucky to be able to go down and catch Justin between surgeries and had a nice little visit with him.

Then we were overjoyed to get a phone call an hour or so later to say he was on hi way home and hopefully had a little bit of a break.  He made it home while +Kelly Bentley and her son Casen were here dropping up a little present for Timothy and so we had them join us for some cake.  It was a blast!

Cake wore us all out, but we did eventually have to had some dinner... I threw together some pork chops and sauerkaraut and a spinach salad and we had a nice little dinner.

At bedtime I was all too ready to put Timothy down.  I love my boy, but not having a nap free day was tough for this mommy!  We discovered however, that Timothy loves his big brother...and only wants to sleep in his bed if his brother is there  to sleep too.  Good to know for bed time, day time will mean a cut back to one nap...as it has to wait until he is SUPER duper tired!  His schedule is changing quickly and I am not ready for that.  It is kind of crazy to think that I have a one year old. And kind wild to think of all the changes that will come for him in the next year.  Excited and dreading them all at the same time!  I am happy to say though, that despite the early standing up and cruising, he is NOT walking yet...close to it, but not there yet.  But there are a lot of things he IS doing.  He says: Dada, momma, dog, nana (banana), and today he even threw out DONE when he was mad at me.  He has said a few other things, but they all get jumbled together in the same sound and even though he is obviously speaking of something else, the sound is much the same.  He does love his dog though and thankfully, Pugsley loves him and is very sweet.
 
Timothy Paul is a sweet sweet boy and I wouldn't have him any other way.  Thanks to everyone who has made the past year wonderful for Timothy.  We love you all! I really am excited to see what the next year has in store for us.  Just Can't Wait!

And here is the First Year book that I just finished for Timothy.  I have to add his dr visit stats tomorrow, but other than that and re-reading the captions, I think it is already to go. What do you think? And before you praise me on how impressive it is that I have it finished already (I am sure that was first on your mind :)  ) I just got the other kids books done about a year and a half ago.  Jaicie is 10... I did Timothy's month by month (okay so 7 months, then another 4 months than the rest of it today) It was easier to do it all at once then trying to catch up later! :) Enjoy!

Click here to view this photo book larger

it's here... the first day...

School started today... I am still not sure how ready I am for it.  I have very mixed emotions. I am ready for summer to be over, but I am not ready to give up the extra helping hands of my kids.  Grabbing me diapers, getting TImothy out of bed, emptying the dishwasher, (okay that one will still be left to them). It has been a crazy summer.  Lots of frustrations and also lots of good times. But through it all, the kids were almost always super helpful!  It is going to be a whole new world of me doing it all on my own again... :\

It will be good.  All in all, the kids are overjoyed to be at school. And i did shed a tear or two. Here's the break down!

Jaicie started 5th Grade today with Mrs. Strong.  She is excited about all the boys in her class. Matthew, Pierce and Mitchell she knows are in her class.  We will see who else she is happy about after school today.  She picked her LOL t-shirt to wear today, because it 'really speaks her personality.' and if you know Jaicie at all, she is absolutely right.  The jeans were a bit of a mis-purchase. We picked up skinny jeans unintentionally. She hates skinny jeans (and I don't like them much either) but she looks really cute.  Gosh her shoes are dirty, and you probably hadn't noticed that yet and now you did! Oh well.  We didn't buy new shoes this year...I am the mom who makes my kids wear the shoes they got in May last year to the new school year, even if they are filthy.  Jaicie is really excited about this year though.  She really wants to  be on the Dolphin Safety squad. We will see if that happens or not.  Upcoming this year: Jaicie is getting published in a book of poetry, she 'graduates' 5th grade after this year and she grows up too much...but that happens every day. Hope you have a great day Jaicie. I love you!

Felicity started 3rd grade today with Mrs. Riser.  She is ecstatic, but really worried that she will forget her teacher or which classroom to go to.  Jaicie promised to walk her to class and make sure she got there okay.  Felicity is excited about learning more multiplication and learning handwriting better.  She picked her 'Smile' t-shirt, because it makes her happy and it is what she wants to make every body do.  She is really excited to begin a new year and can't wait for all the new things.  This is going to be a good year for Felicity.  She is ready! UPcoming this year: Felicity will hopefully master hadnwriting, memorize all her multiplication tables and learn to enjoy reading.  It will be a great year for her and I can't wait to see all the changes she will make this year!  I love you Felcity and I hope your day is as awesome as you wanted it to be!

Collin started Kindergarten today with Mrs. Stanley.  He was overjoyed at the idea of going to his sisters school and that is was now his school too.  He loves the idea of school.  This morning though, he told me that "I'm scared for new new friends today. Kaleb won't be there and I want him there." Kaleb is his friend from church and school last year.  He was in his class and they had a great year and became great friends.  He was really scared to go to school today and now have him there.  Kaleb went to Frontier this year (the new elementary school).  We got to school though and found out his friend Gabbie from last year is in his class, and he is really excited about that.  I think he was ready for school once we got there. He Found his name on his cubby. He Put his lunch box away, and he grabbed a book and sat down to read.  He is so super excited about school and I was so excited to take him there.  Its going to be a new world with him gone at school all day long, but I know how excited he is for the new changes.  Upcoming this year: Collin should get a little better grasp on reading, he will be gone all day M-F from 8:30 to 4:00, and he's growing up to fast!  Collin you are a joy to have around and I miss you already! I love you little guy!

Timothy had a lot of fun taking the kids to school today.  We walked them there, took Collin to his class and then we went and enjoyed the Boo-hoo Yahoo breakfast in the library.  We had some donuts and juice and shed a couple tears.  All Timothy of course, why would I shed tears.. :) Then on the way home he crashed!All the excitement of the day wore him out.  He is excited for the time for just the two of us and I am sure he will celebrate and/or miss them later today when he wakes up.  Upcoming for Timothy: Timothy turns 1 THIS Saturday.  I can hardly believe it that a year ago I was still pregnant and in pain... now he is almost here.. Its hard to believe.  Also, we will be doing a smash cake photo shoot, and having a family party and he will start walking, talking and who knows what else.  He is all boy and an adventure to have around.  Its gonna be a great year for him.

Really it is going to be a great year for all of us.  I think I am ready for this.  Now, I should make better use of my time with Timothy sleeping and do some of the sink full of dishes I have...or maybe just put my feet up and relax!  :)  I am not sure which debate will win out.  Hope you all have a great day and I hope your first days went well.  I know ours did...hopefully our second days will go just as great! :)

Already running of with friends.

Road Trip Games

In less than 3 weeks, Justin and I are taking the kids on a week long trip to visit family in Colorado!  It is an 11 hour drive, plus the allotment of time for gas, potty breaks, eating, etc.  We are choosing to leave at night, right after Justin gets off, in hopes that the kids will sleep most of the way, and that we will get there and have some time to spend with one of their cousins, before she leaves for the week! We are really excited.  I have started putting together some game ideas for the kids, to keep them occupied, because we know they won't sleep that well in the car... This one is the first one I have put together.  I know there were lots on line, but I wanted something a little different...

It is Battleship. My girls LOVE playin battleship.  they have one with military and aliens or something like that.  The ships are different for both, but I didn't go that far!  I am going to take the printed pages, laminate them and put them in separate file folders.  They will each have a dry erase marker and will have instructions on the back to remind them how to play and a cover picture.  So i will print each page, with 2 copies of the instructions and 2 copies of the cover image.

Please feel free to use these. It should be fun for the girls.  They really enjoy playing games together and hopefully, this will help them pass the time!

You can download the PDF for the file here.

 The file was adapted from MomsMinivan. I loved the idea, but wanted things a little bit different.  She did a great job with the instructions though.  So thanks to Laurel from Mom's Minivan for the idea!  I am also going to be putting together some other ideas in the next couple weeks!

8 months and counting!

See that cute boy over there...He turned 8 months yesterday. He is growing up SO fast. I am not ready to let go of my baby boy yet!  Here is a little about my 8month old little man!

He army crawls all over the place.  He almost looks like an inch worm they way he moves.  Maybe the inch worm crawl would be a better name.  He gets himself up on his knees at times, but usually his shoulders are on the floor at those points. He hasn't quite mustered up the power to get on his hands and knees, but that doesn't stop him in any way.  He is getting everything on the floor and I am constantly jumping around trying to pull something I missed off the floor.  He instantly crawls over to the dogs toys (GROSS!) and tries to bite them.  (Now to teach pugsley not to leave his toys out) If you set him down on the floor in front of you on his back within about 20 seconds he has rolled over and crawled completely across the floor to get something.

He loves playing with his sisters and brothers. And thinks the noises they make to make him laugh are the greatest things in the world.  His laughs are one of my favorite sounds (okay one of my FOUR favorite sounds, each of the kids laughs are some of my favorites) but there is something about a baby's laugh that just makes me smile! 

He currently has 2 teeth, but is trying hard to push a couple more teeth out.  His bottom teeth are in and his top teeth are coming.

He can sit up fine, but he'd prefer to kiss his toes. He will sit completely straight up if there is something to get his attention, but if not, he kisses, or sucks on his toes. It is pretty cute!

He LOVES his bath. He things sitting up and playing with the water is awesome.As this picture is evidence of- he stares at the water. Then he will lean in and stick his head in the water (WHAT??? I won't even do that - I hate water on my face) Then he sits back and laughs, and then does it all over again!  When he is laying down in the water he just laughs and giggles.  He loves water.  The other day he rolled over and started kicking his legs in the water and splashing and having a blast.  I think he will love the summer and swimming...once he gets past the cold water!

He also loves food.  Up until now we had been doing 2 feedings of solids a day and the others feedings were formula.  As of today, that has to change!  Today we are starting a Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Dinner and bedtime bottle schedule.  Bottles just aren't enough food for him...ever!  And he doesn't want just a bottle.  He would much rather sit in his high chair and eat puffs and mum mums by himself then let me feed him a bottle.  But he eats SO WELL.  He will eat anything. And doesn't care what it is.  He loves fruit and oatmeal together and veggies and rice cereal. But he no longer has to have them mixed together. 

He thinks being outside in the wind is the best thing ever.  He laughs when the wind blows in his face, as long as it isn't cold wind. (which is mostly what we have had lately). He loves being outside in general. I should take more advantage of the fact and get outside with him more often!

He is a champion sleeper!  He sleeps from 8 to about 6:30 or 7 every day. But doesn't get fussy when he wakes up in the morning, so hangs out in his bed til about 7:15. Then between 8:30 and 9 he usually goes down for a nap til about 10:30 or 11. Then he naps again about 1 for an hour or two. Then after the kids are all home, he usually sleeps for about an hour around 4:00. He sleeps like Jaicie slept as a baby, but doesn't sleep as long over night. 

We have taken away his pacifier!  We are those horrible parents that can't stand waking up in the middle of the night because baby wants a paci...not for food, not for blankies, just to suck on a pacifier.  Despite the fact that he could get it into his mouth on his own, he woke up crying and cried for a while because the paci usually fell out of his bed with all his sleeping movements. I couldn't do it anymore so we have taken it away and he is a pro at sleeping without it now.  He still wants it sometimes, but he is getting better at it!

I think I have covered all his accomplishments right now. Which is good, since I have virtually written a whole book here.  And just cuz its so cute. here is a fun video of my baby boy!