Last Sunday we went out to Peter's parents for dinner (as usual) and we got the kids all ready to go and then remembered how freezing cold the car was going to be. So Peter went out and started it so it'd start warming up and then came back in and we stalled the kids without turning them loose on Grandma's house again by reading books. I just loved the sight of all four of my kids and my sweet husband snuggled up reading together! This is one of my favorite things ever!
Then on Monday we went down to Seven Peaks Ice Arena in Provo for some ice skating. The kids have LOVED it when we've gone in the past, and we realized we hadn't been at all this winter! So we went down. We weren't able to stay very long because we've been trying really hard to get the kids to bed on time. Anyway, here are a few cute pictures. Tyler was WAY too busy to stand still long enough for me to get a picture.
I'd like you to notice that Emily is wearing striped cotton pants and purple tweed boots with a white long sleeve shirt on and a blue satin Sunday dress (actually worn for Uncle Sterling's Wedding!) OVER her clothes! She is quite the fashion expert and is QUITE insistent that she wear her creative outfits at all times and in all places!
Nathan and his "Super cheese" that grace every picture of him these days!
Here are a few more pictures of Emily's creative outfits! This one has a dress up top mixed in with her favorite tights! They have stripes and polka dots and hearts on them in every color of the rainbow. She insists that they match EVERYTHING because she can find every color in them!
This is VERY typical! She loves her purple tweed boots that I actually got on clearance for $2 when Maddie was little. They have definitely gotten their fair share of wear and tear! And she wears a swimming suit ALL THE TIME! She also changes at least 5 times a day. I'm going to catch her on camera one of these days in each of her different outfits. Just because it'd be hilarious to document her creativity!
On Friday we gave the girls haircuts. Really it was supposed to be a trim (Maddie's was) but Emily did a nice drastic jerk of the head mid snip and as a result we "trimmed" about 4 inches off. I think it's super cute, but Peter was actually REALLY upset about it! I knew he liked long hair but I didn't know that he'd be so upset that I cut Emily's hair without consulting him about the length first! I love that my husband cares about things like that! He was so excited when the girls hair was long enough to pull into a ponytail!
Here's Emily and her friend Paige from Preschool (and Primary) while they were playing dress up the other day.
On Saturday we woke up and decided that we HAD to get some things done. Our guest bathroom has been unusable for about a month. It was constantly getting clogged and it overflowed once sending toilet water all over the bathroom and into the entry AND down into the basement through the floor vent onto the Treadmill and Christmas Decorations that were still waiting to be put back into the storage. Well we had a plumber out and he did what he could but when he told us that if we wanted him to fix it he'd have to spend a few more hours and it'd cost QUITE a bit more, we decided to call Jessica's dad who is a plumber and see if it was something he'd be able to walk us through on our own! Well, Peter was sick for all of December and when he started finally feeling better he was playing catch up and didn't have a minute of free time. So we decided Saturday that it HAD to be done! Our kids are now scared to flush toilets and have had to be retrained that we MUST flush after using the bathroom! Anyway! Peter fixed the toilet while I did laundry and dishes and encouraged the kids to clean the toy room and their bedrooms. We ended up taking the toilet off and trying to fix it and found something (probably a toy) jammed so tightly inside that we couldn't get it loose no matter what we did. So Peter went out and bought a new toilet and installed it. WHEW! Finally! We have a working toilet now!
Well, we still had more to do! Last week Emily found some of my little Nativity's in their boxes and molded Styrofoam and decided to make it SNOW in the basement. I'm bummed now that I didn't get a picture but it was SUCH a nightmare that I didn't think it funny enough at the time to document! She broke it up until it was all little individual balls that were about 2 cms wide! Grrr!! I left it down there for several days because I was too frustrated and overwhelmed at the thought of cleaning it up that I couldn't even get started. Well, the kids would go down to play and came up COVERED in Styrofoam and it got tracked upstairs and it was stuck in their hair and stuck to the walls and EVERYWHERE! And there was A LOT of it! Well we sent the kids down to clean up all of their toys and then Peter and I set to work down their to "de-foam" the place. It seriously took us about 3 hours to get it all up! And one of our Vacuum Cleaners sustained major injury during the task and has yet to recover! Well in the meantime, all four kids were upstairs terrorising the rest of the house! Emily and Maddie decided that Nathan really wanted to play dress up with them and he was happy to play along!
When we came up, an entire Kleenex box had been emptied all over the downstairs and so was an entire box of Fishy crackers (smashed into the floor - tile AND carpet) and there was food all over the place, books, toys, crayons, paper and mess EVERYWHERE! Grrrr!!! Well, Peter left to go to his soccer game and I tried for about an hour to get the kids to clean up their mess with no success! They responded with whining and complaining and comments about being treated like slaves (my mouth gaped open) and I dug deep into my "Patience Reserve" that I try to keep well stocked for situations such as this and instead found this:
So, I tried to be rational and calm and explain that we were all a part of our family and we all have a responsibility to take care of our home. We all have to work together to make it a nice place to be. I got a few rather rude and "loud" responses from a certain child (who shall remain nameless) and a chorus of whining and crying and protesting from the others and in a moment of extreme frustration I felt that last drop of patience evaporate and I sent all four of them to their rooms with the threat that if they even thought about coming out they wouldn't get dinner and they'd stay in their room until it was time to go to church the next day! It was an intense afternoon/evening! I cleaned everything up and calmed down a little bit. But still had several arguments shouted down at me while I cleaned. I had the girls cleaning their rooms and Tyler clearing off the stairs (where unfortunately things from downstairs that need to go upstairs accumulate into heaps sometimes) and the upstairs landing where their laundry baskets had all been emptied by Nathan onto the floor. Anyway! In the end, we got the house all clean and de-foamed and all four children were allowed to eat dinner. It's a good thing the next day was Sunday and we were all able to stock up on our "Patience Reserve" as well as get our fill of the spirit, which I'm sad to admit was absent from our home for most of Saturday evening.
Sunday was a great day! Peter had 6am meetings and I was able to get myself completely ready and the kids fed and bathed and most of them dressed and got started on doing hair before Peter came home to help with the finishing touches and we got to church on time without any tantrums or grumps of any sort! The kids were relatively calm during Sacrament Meeting and everyone went to their classes without complaint! We came home and made Banana Bread and took naps and watched old home videos. Emily and Maddie found the original Little Mermaid costume that we got for Maddie this last Halloween. It got lost not long after we bought it and a few days before Halloween we finally decided to replace it! Well it was a little too small for Maddie when we bought it so it fits Emily perfectly and now they BOTH have mermaid costumes!
The day was spent in costume and drawing picture after picture of mermaids, including a family portrait by Emily with each of us sporting mermaid fins! We did some fun home video on my new camera and played "unstoppable" (a favorite game from the original Ehat's childhood) and wrestled and read books. Then we read scriptures and got the kids to bed on time.
Well that was a little "realistic" look into the day in the life of the Ehat family. Things get crazy the house gets messy, it gets really loud, but in the end we laugh and play and enjoy being together. Even Saturday night as Peter and I went to bed we talked about the crazy day we'd had and confessed that amidst it all, we loved them so much and were both so happy. We love our life and we wouldn't change a thing about it.
Then on Monday we went down to Seven Peaks Ice Arena in Provo for some ice skating. The kids have LOVED it when we've gone in the past, and we realized we hadn't been at all this winter! So we went down. We weren't able to stay very long because we've been trying really hard to get the kids to bed on time. Anyway, here are a few cute pictures. Tyler was WAY too busy to stand still long enough for me to get a picture.
I'd like you to notice that Emily is wearing striped cotton pants and purple tweed boots with a white long sleeve shirt on and a blue satin Sunday dress (actually worn for Uncle Sterling's Wedding!) OVER her clothes! She is quite the fashion expert and is QUITE insistent that she wear her creative outfits at all times and in all places!
Nathan and his "Super cheese" that grace every picture of him these days!
Here are a few more pictures of Emily's creative outfits! This one has a dress up top mixed in with her favorite tights! They have stripes and polka dots and hearts on them in every color of the rainbow. She insists that they match EVERYTHING because she can find every color in them!
This is VERY typical! She loves her purple tweed boots that I actually got on clearance for $2 when Maddie was little. They have definitely gotten their fair share of wear and tear! And she wears a swimming suit ALL THE TIME! She also changes at least 5 times a day. I'm going to catch her on camera one of these days in each of her different outfits. Just because it'd be hilarious to document her creativity!
On Friday we gave the girls haircuts. Really it was supposed to be a trim (Maddie's was) but Emily did a nice drastic jerk of the head mid snip and as a result we "trimmed" about 4 inches off. I think it's super cute, but Peter was actually REALLY upset about it! I knew he liked long hair but I didn't know that he'd be so upset that I cut Emily's hair without consulting him about the length first! I love that my husband cares about things like that! He was so excited when the girls hair was long enough to pull into a ponytail!
Here's Emily and her friend Paige from Preschool (and Primary) while they were playing dress up the other day.
On Saturday we woke up and decided that we HAD to get some things done. Our guest bathroom has been unusable for about a month. It was constantly getting clogged and it overflowed once sending toilet water all over the bathroom and into the entry AND down into the basement through the floor vent onto the Treadmill and Christmas Decorations that were still waiting to be put back into the storage. Well we had a plumber out and he did what he could but when he told us that if we wanted him to fix it he'd have to spend a few more hours and it'd cost QUITE a bit more, we decided to call Jessica's dad who is a plumber and see if it was something he'd be able to walk us through on our own! Well, Peter was sick for all of December and when he started finally feeling better he was playing catch up and didn't have a minute of free time. So we decided Saturday that it HAD to be done! Our kids are now scared to flush toilets and have had to be retrained that we MUST flush after using the bathroom! Anyway! Peter fixed the toilet while I did laundry and dishes and encouraged the kids to clean the toy room and their bedrooms. We ended up taking the toilet off and trying to fix it and found something (probably a toy) jammed so tightly inside that we couldn't get it loose no matter what we did. So Peter went out and bought a new toilet and installed it. WHEW! Finally! We have a working toilet now!Well, we still had more to do! Last week Emily found some of my little Nativity's in their boxes and molded Styrofoam and decided to make it SNOW in the basement. I'm bummed now that I didn't get a picture but it was SUCH a nightmare that I didn't think it funny enough at the time to document! She broke it up until it was all little individual balls that were about 2 cms wide! Grrr!! I left it down there for several days because I was too frustrated and overwhelmed at the thought of cleaning it up that I couldn't even get started. Well, the kids would go down to play and came up COVERED in Styrofoam and it got tracked upstairs and it was stuck in their hair and stuck to the walls and EVERYWHERE! And there was A LOT of it! Well we sent the kids down to clean up all of their toys and then Peter and I set to work down their to "de-foam" the place. It seriously took us about 3 hours to get it all up! And one of our Vacuum Cleaners sustained major injury during the task and has yet to recover! Well in the meantime, all four kids were upstairs terrorising the rest of the house! Emily and Maddie decided that Nathan really wanted to play dress up with them and he was happy to play along!
When we came up, an entire Kleenex box had been emptied all over the downstairs and so was an entire box of Fishy crackers (smashed into the floor - tile AND carpet) and there was food all over the place, books, toys, crayons, paper and mess EVERYWHERE! Grrrr!!! Well, Peter left to go to his soccer game and I tried for about an hour to get the kids to clean up their mess with no success! They responded with whining and complaining and comments about being treated like slaves (my mouth gaped open) and I dug deep into my "Patience Reserve" that I try to keep well stocked for situations such as this and instead found this:
So, I tried to be rational and calm and explain that we were all a part of our family and we all have a responsibility to take care of our home. We all have to work together to make it a nice place to be. I got a few rather rude and "loud" responses from a certain child (who shall remain nameless) and a chorus of whining and crying and protesting from the others and in a moment of extreme frustration I felt that last drop of patience evaporate and I sent all four of them to their rooms with the threat that if they even thought about coming out they wouldn't get dinner and they'd stay in their room until it was time to go to church the next day! It was an intense afternoon/evening! I cleaned everything up and calmed down a little bit. But still had several arguments shouted down at me while I cleaned. I had the girls cleaning their rooms and Tyler clearing off the stairs (where unfortunately things from downstairs that need to go upstairs accumulate into heaps sometimes) and the upstairs landing where their laundry baskets had all been emptied by Nathan onto the floor. Anyway! In the end, we got the house all clean and de-foamed and all four children were allowed to eat dinner. It's a good thing the next day was Sunday and we were all able to stock up on our "Patience Reserve" as well as get our fill of the spirit, which I'm sad to admit was absent from our home for most of Saturday evening.Sunday was a great day! Peter had 6am meetings and I was able to get myself completely ready and the kids fed and bathed and most of them dressed and got started on doing hair before Peter came home to help with the finishing touches and we got to church on time without any tantrums or grumps of any sort! The kids were relatively calm during Sacrament Meeting and everyone went to their classes without complaint! We came home and made Banana Bread and took naps and watched old home videos. Emily and Maddie found the original Little Mermaid costume that we got for Maddie this last Halloween. It got lost not long after we bought it and a few days before Halloween we finally decided to replace it! Well it was a little too small for Maddie when we bought it so it fits Emily perfectly and now they BOTH have mermaid costumes!
The day was spent in costume and drawing picture after picture of mermaids, including a family portrait by Emily with each of us sporting mermaid fins! We did some fun home video on my new camera and played "unstoppable" (a favorite game from the original Ehat's childhood) and wrestled and read books. Then we read scriptures and got the kids to bed on time.Well that was a little "realistic" look into the day in the life of the Ehat family. Things get crazy the house gets messy, it gets really loud, but in the end we laugh and play and enjoy being together. Even Saturday night as Peter and I went to bed we talked about the crazy day we'd had and confessed that amidst it all, we loved them so much and were both so happy. We love our life and we wouldn't change a thing about it.
2 comments:
I am just so glad that I'm not the only one whos cupboard runs out of patience. With 4 kids I am working on teaching them that we all have to pull some weight around the house, mommy can't do it all!
Hear, hear, on the "not the only one" thing! It is always nice to have a peak into someone else's moments of no patience! Thanks for sharing a "realistic" look into your life! I must admit that quite a few stories you have posted previously have made me think that I want to have teaching momemts with my children like you do. So, don't think in any way this post changes our opinion of you as a mother, it just makes me feel better about my weeknesses as a mother! Thanks!
Also, yippee of feeling your baby move for the first time! Love that feeling!
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