Just another Manic Monday

I finally printed 2008's blog book and it has inspired me to get back to blogging. As I drove around today, I thought I should document what a "day in the life of" is for me right now. I know it will be too soon that the kids will be gone and all I do in a day is go to work, or read, work around the house, go shopping, etc (that sounds really nice;)).

-Awoke to the alarm clock at 6:15

-Read the scriptures

-Ran 4.8 miles

-Made breakfast and lunches, kissed Danny and Carter good-bye (it is always so nice when Danny can take him to school)

-Cleaned the kitchen

-Used Amber's carpet cleaner to clean the floor in Claire's room that she urninated on recently (that's a whole different post), cleaned the rugs and sectional

-Put Will down for a nap, showered and got dressed

-Went to leave and found a dead battery in the van

-Called Shonda who was watching my kids so I could volunteer in Carter's class

-Went to the neighbors for help and called Shonda again so she could come jump the van and pick up my kids (thanks again!)

-Got van started, kids left, volunteered in Carter's class

-Picked up kids, got gas

-Came home, made lunch, got box in mail of slipcovers, threw slipcovers on the recently purchased DI couch and loveseat ($90!)

-Picked up Carter from school

-Came home, April & Wes (who happened to be off work sick today) came over to watch all the kids so I could go to the orthodontist

-Got my braces off!

My orthodontist and I in my "after" picture

-Came home and got to relax and visit with April and Wes while kids played

-Made dinner and cookies for work potluck tomorrow

-Ate dinner

-Had family night--a lesson on the warmth the Spirit brings (evidenced by a warm towel) versus no spirit (sandpaper in the freezer) [an idea I got from this book I just finished reading] and activity of planting our spring garden and trimming some overgrown palms

-Baths for kiddos

-Bedtime routine (milk, brush teeth, scripture story, prayer, more stories in bed)

-Sing the Hallelujah Chorus

-Clean the kitchen again

-Ordered a laptop power cord for a greater ease of future blog posts

-Decompress with my sweet hubby

-Blog post

-soon enough--bed!

It is a manic life with little ones but it is oh, so worth it. There are four people who I get up each morning willing to endure mania for and I am so grateful they are mine!!

Pictures from Easter Sunday

I also have to add how grateful I felt today for my husband's great job with excellent benefits as braces are not cheap but I am so glad I was able to get them!

I heart DT:)

Quick Update

We've moved! We still have our little house on Blaine which is now being leased to some friends of our neighbors who live next door (right next to the church there) and have moved into a home about 15 min. away in Riverside in an area called Orangecrest . It's right next to the elementary and middle schools and a five minute walk away from a large park and library branch. The home was built in 1991 and is good shape but needs new paint in many areas. We painted the family room and are going to tackle the downstairs guest room/office. Painting always seems like it's going to be easier than it ends up being...or is that just us? We're also taking our time unboxing everything so we can organize it properly. It's very nice to have more storage space!

Carter loves his new school (Tomas Rivera), Claire is still going to FUMPS pre-school on Brockton which is helping with the transition and Will, well, Will's learning and growing at an amazing rate. Right now he loves to say "Uh oh!" and "Hi!" to everyone in earshot, especially strangers at the store. He garnishes a lot of attention with his bright blond hair, porcelain skin and blue eyes.

I am excited to get back to work since there's so much to do, especially since my colleague Nazle is now off on maternity leave which leaves me with ALL the secondary schools's ELA departments.

Sarah is Sarah, aka super mom. She doesn't set out to be super mom, she just embodies the role naturally. Up and exercising before I crawl out of bed, working per diem at Kaiser hospital in South Fontana and spending every other minute nurturing the kids and running the household, a full-time job that I got to help out with a lot more this week and, as usual, taught me a whole new level of respect for what parents do who stay at home. Yes, Carter is a sharp little reader and we owe a lot of that to Mrs. Camarillo at Hyatt, but Sarah has been so dedicated to reading and homework time and it's already paying off.

We already miss being so close to all of our friends and neighbors in the university heights area and miss Hyatt (Mrs. Camarillo) but we know we'll adjust to this area soon and feel blessed to have some more room. Now if my commute just hadn't grown by 15 minutes! :)

Carter D. Todd is Six!

Carter's birthday started out with pancakes and smoothies for breakfast before school. My favorite thing about our birthday breakfast tradition is the look of joy on the face of the child whose birthday it is not when they give the birthday child a gift. Teaching children to be generous and unselfish can be difficult but these little moments add up in a lifetime. This picture shows my point.

We got Carter a lamp for his bed to read at night and he has used it every night since!

William covered in breakfast.

Carter decided he wanted to go ice skating for his birthday. This year we decided he could invite a few friends to join him. He chose his good friend, Sam and his "best cousin," Ryan. Here are the three of them elated for ice skating:

(Sam's sister and Claire's good friend, Lucy, is just as excited in the background)

Before we could ice skate, though, we had pizza and this cute cake.

I asked my mom to help with the cake because I knew I wouldn't have time to make one myself and she went to a lady in her ward who made this ice skating cake which, I might add, was delicious!

And, there were presents to open as well.

Carter insisted on inviting Monique, a very special young woman who occasionally helps out our family, to his party. Daniel and I have a few hour overlap when I work and Monique watches the kids. She is such a sweetheart and we are sad she is leaving to WA next month but excited for her (thankfully, she has a younger sister who can take over for her:) )

With Lucy and Sam

Cute cousins, who both look so, so sweet in the picture! Ryan is wearing a helmet for ice skating, BTW:)

Ella and Carter with Claire and Lucy getting in on the photo as well!

Carter with Nana. Boppy was busy during the party but took Carter out for a birthday lunch earlier in the day and gave him his first set of golf clubs. They are so cute and we are excited for him to try them out.

Grandma and Papa got Carter his first pair of roller skates and he has been a roller skating maniac since then! Well, he doesn't really skate...but he rolls a little.

The boys took the ice with super trooper Daniel. I give him props, I would have definitely fallen especially trying to help the boys! They all hit the ice more times than we could count, but there were no tears. These are some tough boys!

I really didn't get any great shots of Carter, but he had a great time. He thought he was going to be able to go out there and skate with no problem. Instead, he fell a million times and refused help as much as possible. By the end, he literally crawled off the ice! He loved it though, and wants to do it again. Ryan and Sam both started off a bit more timid than Carter but ended up skating well by the end!

We are so grateful for friends and family who join us on the journey of raising this sweet boy, Carter. Here's six of his greatest attributes:

--he is SMART!

--he is CURIOUS!

--he is THOUGHTFUL!

--he is KIND!

--he is HELPFUL!

--he is CUTE!

Melissa & Jeremy with Noah in hand Maddie in tummy:)

Uncle Eric & Aunt Sydnee

Kollin & Asher--such cute boys

We love him and are so blessed to have him as our oldest child. Thank you to all of our family and friends who are not pictured here (Julians, Alemans, Brobergs, Ottosens, etc.) who made his birthday special. So, despite the weather, thanks to everyone who came and helped us make Carter's day special.

My son the artist

Carter's newest hobby is collecting trash as he walks to the car after school and turning it in to art. We did have it on the living room wall but he moved it to his room today. I decided we better document it for posterity's sake! For his explanation, go here.

Big Bear in July

We decided this year to start an official tradition. We wanted to go camping somewhere we could easily return to every year, just our family, no matter what our plans with our extended family are. We went to Big Bear first in 2006, but our trip was cut short due to an ectopic pregnancy and emergency surgery for me! We returned in 2008 when we stayed outside of Big Bear but spent the day on the Alpine Slide and in town. We took Carter to the Moonridge Zoo on our first trip to Big Bear and then returned there in 2009. With our history there, we decided to camp for two nights and have Big Bear be "our" spot.

We are so glad we did! I'll be first to admit that camping with a baby is very tiring, but it was very worth it. The first day we arrived, set up camp, went for a bike ride with the trailer that we forgot a piece to for the third time, cooked and ate foil dinners I made at home and had a campfire. I think my children's favorite part of camping is the campfire. That night we also had a Team Todd talent show complete with karate and joke telling from Carter, dancing from Claire, cheerleading from me and masterful storytelling from Danny. Danny used his phone to find some kid-friend scary stories to tell as well. Unfortunately, the story he read was pretty poorly written and Carter was scared of people in the forest after that;)

I love William's "Elvis smile" as I call it (it looks like one lip turns up).

Claire excited about nature!

Making s'mores!

Carter enjoying his s'more in the bike trailer/seat.

Perfection--with dark chocolate Hershey's--yum!

The next morning we ate breakfast and then went fishing.

We then spent some time at the Big Bear Discovery Center and went for a very small hike. We are breaking the kids in slowly. It was pretty hot, too.

Inside the Discovery Center.

Outside.

We decided this will be the place we can take a picture every year and watch the kids, especially, change over time.

Just because he's cute!

After lunch, we took the kids to a public swim beach. They were too little to go out very far and kept getting cold anyway. The crazy thing that happened while I was in the bathroom was that a tornado (small one obviously) came through and picked up a ton of people's stuff and broke our new umbrella! I heard everyone screaming when I was in the restroom and came out to see lifeguards taking boats out to try and retrieve things that had been dumped in the water!

We then went to the Village to get ice cream and walk around.

That evening, both Danny and I went on our own bike rides since the trailer wasn't functioning (we forgot the piece that goes on the bike!). The campground is on the north side of the lake and the bike trail is right by it. It was very beautiful and peaceful to go riding there. We had another campfire that night and went to bed a little earlier. The next morning we got up, packed and headed home fairly quickly. We were all pretty exhausted.

Our little campsite

We will never forget the Chinese couple staying between us and the bathrooms who watched our children go by a million times a day and brought us purple yams to eat our second night there--they were delicious! Also, Claire zooming around on the scooter and our decision to say calm and happy no matter what happens, including sleeping on the ground because of a hole in the air mattress, not catching any fish, thinking we lost the keys to the bike lock so getting it cut off and then finding the keys, numerous meltdowns, nursing all night long to keep William quiet, etc. Being together and working through problems together truly does bring us closer!

Many Firsts at the Todd Pad

Today is little Claire's first day of preschool. She did fabulously at drop-off, ran right to the play house she is familiar with and wouldn't budge for a kiss good-bye so we settled with blowing kisses. William is asleep and my chores are (half) done. I am hoping this is the first of many more blog posts what with 5 whole hours a week with just one child. (Claire goes to school from 9 am -12 pm Tues/Thurs but Carter gets out at 11 pm on Thursdays).

Outside the Bouncing Bunny classroom

Our little Beary girl, we only had a slight meltdown when choosing her first day outfit. This girl is par-tic-u-lar. I have no idea where she gets it from!;)

Carter started kindergarten 3 weeks ago and is doing very well. We like his teacher but he has 37 students in his class. His report from the first day was, "Mrs. C yells a lot and there are these little teeny kids who just cry and cry. They cried the whole time!" He is learning a LOT and a new teacher should be hired within the next week or so and the class size will do down to 25. I have awesome friends and we organized a swap with our younger children so I can go in and work in the classroom on Wednesday mornings. I really enjoy being there, watching Carter and getting to know his classmates. Last week I got an invite to play Xbox at Arturo's house and to go swimming at Pamela's, so yes, I feel pretty cool!:)

All ready for the first day!
We know, this backpack is huge, but it WILL last until he is an upper grader:)

Danny went in late so we could go together

Sitting at his desk
This is right as we are about to leave, his eyes got a little watery and I will admit, so did mine! I left my baby with wolves (or so it felt).

On Carter's first day of school, William cut his first tooth! He now has two on the bottom and although he slept through the night five nights in a row last week, I think a new tooth must be surfacing because he is FUSSY!

William
Happy boy William

On that same day (Aug. 23rd) William wore the duckie outfit for the first time. This is significant because all of our children have worn it and I love the way they have all looked in it. Anyone see a resemblance?

Carter

Claire

Other news of note: I will be running my first Rangar Relay in October. Although I just finished saying I want to reserve my away time from the kids for BYU Women's Conference in May, then the opportunity to run the race came up and since Amber is turning 30 that same weekend we are doing it together as a "coming of age" adventure.

Daniel continues to work hard for his money and we are grateful for a good job with all the cuts recently, especially in education. He also works hard being super dad and husband and we are all appreciative of all he does!

Now, look forward to some exciting posts: Recap of Summer and Things we are Enjoying. And, maybe you'll get to see photos with me in them, braces and all! I am off to pick up Claire. This is going to be great year!