Superman

I have the flu.  

Its not fun folks. I think I might die.

Hopefully not, but just in case I do, I thought I would write a quick post about Superman.

What does Superman do when his little wifey gets the flu?  He gets up early and prepares all four of the hooligans for church by himself, and then takes them to church all by himself. Now, in case you are not familier with our religion, we go to church for three hours every Sunday.  Yep, its true. (We even enjoy it). Anyhow, I am worried that my Hubs might not survive on his own with four children. (I would most likely come home crying if the tables were turned).
 He is such a brave man.  I love him.  

This is not unusual about the Hubs.  He does this stuff often.  I am one lucky gal I tell ya.  When I was a teenager I used to pray for a wonderful husband and a man that would make my children feel as happy and content with life as my dad always made me feel.  I am happy to report that my prayers have been answered ten-fold. (Heavenly Father never forgets our prayers, even if they are from a long time ago :-)

I am laying here kid free (with a bucket next to me..just in case) and my mind keeps wandering to all the reasons I love my Superman....I thought I would share a few:


~ He laughs at my jokes (we all know he is faking it, but that is why I love him)
~ He sneaks back to get me an extra sample at Costco if it is something I really like (even when he gets the "stink eye" from the sample ladies)
~ He takes care of the bills and such
~ He is so loving and tender with our children
~ He works two jobs so that I can stay at home with our children
~ He cries each time one our children enter the world

~ He is becoming an accountant (even though he hates jobs where he has to sit in an office all day)  just because he knows it will benefit his family
~ He had no money for Mother's Day so he spent hours helping the kids write love notes to me and then put them a mason jar so that I would have something special (there were a few love notes from him in the there too...he he)
 ~ He doesn't get mad when one of the kids stays up to spend time with him, even though he is tired from working all day and night
~ He still plays church basketball with the young bucks
~ He has a very strong testimony of Jesus Christ
~ He continually tries to be a better person
~ He took all four of his kids to church so that his wife could rest at home.....I know I already mentioned that, but isn't it AWESOME?!?!?

Things I love.....

 Little Boys that fall asleep while reading scriptures....

Older siblings teaching our baby to walk....

 Super Hero Girl with messy hair.....

Super Hero Boys in Tigger costumes....

Darling, chubby baby that unloads my pantry 50 times a day.....

The art of "paper airplane making".....

(The new hobby around our house, I think we have every single paper airplane making book checked out from the library right now. I love it)

Folded Laundry...

Why mothers don't wear make-up part 2

Part 1 found here.

#1 I woke up to the sound of Sarah throwing up all over my kitchen floor. It was lovely. Last nights dinner. #2 Luke asked for a granola bar...apparently Jimmy didn't open it properly, so crying and a huge fit ensued. I tried and apparently I opened it wrong too. Needless to say we wasted two granola bars. #3 Kenna decided that since Luke was having a tantrum, she should have one too. #4 I clean up the throw up and bleach the kitchen floor so that Luke could have a very sanitary spot to pee. #5 Bleach floor again. #6 Decide I want to take a shower (because at this point I smell like throw up and bleach)...but certain little people decide that a fist fight sounds like a lot more fun than mommy showering. #7 Kenna poops herself and gets to bathe before me. #8 Get Kenna out of the bath and discover that Luke found the mustard from the fridge. #9 Bathe Luke #10 I attempt to have the boys clean their room....I end up cleaning 98% of it myself. #11 the children all beg me to take them outside...I oblige. #12 Seth crashes his scooter and insists that he is dyeing. So we come back home. #13 Reinforcments arrive in the form of the Hubs and invites me to shower with him. I oblige. (Get your mind out of the gutter, we like to conserve water around here).

Updates on the family :-)

Things are great here in the Evans home.  We are enjoying our summer and getting outdoors as much as we can. One thing about Utah is that summers are gorgeous!  And there are so many family-friendly things to do. 
I will give you an update on everyone, since we have been outdoors so much and our little blog has gotten a bit ignored....

Seth- Seth has been loving being home for the summer.  He is still in love with soccer and plays everyday with his friends.  He is trying to earn a new soccer ball by reading to Mom for 20 min everyday. Without Daddy being home much, he is always helping me around the house and being such a great older brother to the little ones.  He is signed up for a soccer league here in town, which starts at the end of the summer, so he is looking forward to that :)

Sarah- Sarah is so excited to start school this fall.  She talks about it ALL the time, and she is so excited because we have already started buying her back to school things.  Her dance starts up again in two weeks, so she is thrilled about that.  We just redecorated her room, so she is enjoying finally having a "girl" room.  She has shared with Seth most of her life, so now that she shares with Kenna, we can make it as girly as we want :)

Luke- Luke is such a big boy! He just learned to ride his bike...so he practices that EVERY day!  We had a bike parade at church, so we encouraged him to learn to ride it so that he could participate in the parade and he did!  We are so proud of him! He also got potty trained in 3 days!  Now he is so excited because he can wear his super hero underwear everywhere we go!

Kenna- Kenna is as cute as ever. She stands up on her own and can take 2-3 steps without assistance.  She sleeps through the night now, so she is a LOT happier during her waking hours (she was waking up 3-6 times a night to nurse).  She loves her brothers and sister SO much!  She especially loves waking up Luke from his naps.  She starts giggling as soon as we start walking down the hall to wake him up.  She cries everytime Daddy leaves for work.  And she goes crazy if she sees anyone with ice cream, and she won't stop yelling until they give her a bite :)

Melissa- Well, Luke got potty trained the same week Kenna stopped nursing and slept through the night, so I am obviously GOOD!  I am working on re-doing an old dresser we have, so that is a fun project that keeps me busy right now :)

Jimmy- Jimmy found out that he got accepted to the Masters of Accounting at BYU, so he is very happy and looking forward to starting that in the fall.  Meanwhile, he is working two jobs so that we can save up money so that he won't have to work during the school year, and I can keep staying home with the kiddos.  We miss him, but we appreciate his sacrifice for us :)

Nosy Neighbor

 Since we live in an apartment, there is often a lot going on outside our window during naptime. After I put Kenna down each day, I usually hear the blinds rustling in her room a few min later.....

 I go in and find this...She is trying to peek through them to see what is going on outside!

 "What? You wanted me to go to sleep?"

After going in a laying her back down 200 times, she finally falls asleep :-)  

Oh, how I love this little girl.

A year from heaven....

Congrats to my amazing, smart, wonderful Hubby! He was accepted to the BYU Masters of Accounting program! First of all, let me explain a few things.....the accounting program at BYU is the top rated accounting program in the US. This means two things: a. It is super hard to get in, and b. it is an extremely tough program. They really put you through the ringer, and so keeping your grades up is difficult and exhausting. But, somehow my Jimmy managed to do it despite the fact that he had to work full time providing for a family of six. I am one proud wife!!! I really don't understand how he managed to do it during our family's year from hell, let alone do it well enough to be accepted to the Masters program. I have been pondering this a lot lately, which leads me to my random train of thought...... This year our family has really had a tough go....not as tough as some, but tough none the less. Here is our year in a nutshell....... It started of with us rushing our Sarah to the urgent care because we thought she had tumors in her throat...(it turns out they were just her tonsils that had swollen so large that they were threatening to cut off her airway, so she had to have emergency surgery to get them removed).... Next I gave birth to our "surprise" baby. She of course is a huge blessing, but it took me a long time to come to grips with the fact the I was pregnant again without planning on having a baby. (anyone who has ever had an "oops" pregnancy can relate....it was SO hard to wrap my brain around).... When our sweet surprise was a week old, Daddy started the accounting program at BYU....which meant mommy was alone with four children six and under ALL the time.... When she was six weeks old, I got so sick with my gallbladder that I could hardly function as a mom/wife, then ended up having emergency surgery to get it removed, which meant I was laid up for way too long (have you ever seen a house with a sick mom? NOT a pretty site).... Then when she was two months old we found out that she would need to have the top of her skull removed due to a birth defect, which meant a hospital stay and lots of follow up treatments.... Then, as if things were not hard enough, Jimmy lost his job.... Then I caught our kitchen on fire (yes, I was JUST boiling water. Don't make fun, it could happen to anyone:-) Writing this down it doesn't seem so bad to me, but going through it was TOUGH! But you know what? I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. I have never felt closer to our Savior, never had such a strong bond with my husband, or appreciated my children so much. This past year has left me so grateful for what I have. I am learning that it doesn't matter what you may or may not have in life...if you have your family and the Gospel of Jesus Christ you have it all. My husband and I joke that we have had the year from hell, but when we look back we can see that it was really a year from heaven. With trials sent our way to help strengthen us as a family. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father that gives us just enough to help us grow and a Wonderful Savior who steps in and takes over when we can't take any more. "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

My Sweet Kenna Girl.....

 ~Kenna crawling~

Well, I was hoping that my next post would be filled with pictures of a cute itty bitty blond girl adorned with super cute hair bows made by Aunt Nikki.  But, sadly....we still have the helmet.  We went to the plastic surgeon's office with high hopes that the helmet would be coming off (so much so that we accidentally left the car running in the parking garage of the hospital the ENTIRE time we were there! No, I am NOT joking....true story).  Anyway, we will save the car-running-unlocked-in-the-parking-garage-story for next time :-)

Since Kenna's skull is almost completely grown back, we thought for sure the helmet therapy would be over. The Dr. told us that her head looked good, but he is afraid if we take the helmet off too early her forehead will protrude out again. Boo! I almost started crying when he told us that (I know that I am silly, most people have much worse problems than kids with helmets). After a few min of talking with my sweet, wise husband, I felt better.  He reminded me that we chose to have the less invasive surgery knowing she would need the helmet for a whole year.  So, I have come to terms with it and have stopped feeling sorry for myself.

We did have good news also.  The Dr still doesn't think Kenna has any developmental delays, so that is wonderful!  She has not had any seizures (the most common side effect of craniosynostosis), and she is hitting all her milestones on time.  50% of kids with this birth defect have delayed reading and spelling skills, so will have to wait and see on that one. 

On a funny side note, she does have 8 teeth with one more cutting through.  This wouldn't be so weird except for the fact that we just learned that children with this birth defect usually grow extra teeth!  Our babies are usually just getting their first tooth around 9 months old, so having 8 teeth at 8 months old is a little worrisome.  They say getting extra teeth really isn't that big of a deal, they just pull out the ones that the babies don't need.  Weird.  Hopefully she is just an early teether and not a "grow too many teeth" kind of girl!

She is starting to pull up on stuff....which usually means walking is not too far off.  I LOVE it when my babies start walking.  Much less gross than crawling on dirty floors and having gross dirty hands all the time!