Binkies

I love Binkies! They have saved my life many times. When you have 5 children fairly close together, it is very nice to have something that can sooth a child besides yourself. I loved the idea of them and that you could take them away a lot easier than thumbs and fingers so much, I actually worked with my children so that they would like them. This was easier with some of them then others, but it worked and all my children took the binkie and I have no thumb or finger suckers. I don't know if the binkie was the sole source of this, but I will give them the credit. Another good thing that came out of binkies for me, was that my kids took them as their only source of soothing and I don't have the toy or stuff animal thing going on. I do think it is really cute when children have here favorite toy or blankie, but that, like anything else can go overboard. Two of my nieces have an attachment, and they get so gross and dirty, but they won't have any other item. One has grown out of needed hers all the time, but still keeps them (she is 8), the other one is still completely addicted and a thumb sucker and she is going on 5. So for me, over all the binkies have been a blessing for me and because I normally break my kids around the year mark, that hasn't been too difficult either. UNTIL NOW!!! Knightin was the child who got to go through living with family, a move, and getting a new baby sister all during the time that we should have been breaking him of the binkie. Life was too stressful and I couldn't do it. He is now 2 1/2 and we did try to break him of it closer to 2, which we were pretty sure wouldn't work since sister still had them, so we went down to just during the night for both of them. Pretty good solution, even though they were still all getting lost and some nights it was very stressful trying to find 4, since both my kids needed one to suck on and one to hold. I really had no problem with them having the comfort at home, and now I didn't have to carry them with me where ever I go, YEAH!!! Then Knightin started doing this UGLY thing. when ever he would drop his binkie in the middle of the night and couldn't find it, he would start crying. You can probably imagine that this happened often, and I was getting very tired. So, I finally had enough and 4 nights ago now, I took all the binkies away, and both kids got to go cold turkey. TJ is doing amazing, she isn't the sweet, perfect angel that she was, when putting her to bed, but all she does is cry for a few minutes then is asleep for the night. Knightin the first through the third nights, went to bed without a peep, but then would cry during the night at some point. The worst being for almost 1 1/2 hours, yes a very long time. Before anyone thinks, "how could she do that" well I couldn't, I went in there tried to sooth him, laid next to him, sang to him, then gave up, because he just scream the whole time that he wanted his binkie. So I left, went back to my bed and covered my head with my pillow ( by the way, if anyone is wondering the rest of my family including TJ slept through the whole thing, amazing). The next two nights it got better, but during the days he has been a bear. Then today he through a tantrum going to take his nap and going to bed, things he hasn't done the other nights(so does that mean he will sleep through the night, I hope so.) I know it will get better, but man I wish I had, had the strength to break him before TJ was born. And a huge wonderful side to all is, I don't have to buy another binkie ever again, OH HAPPY DAYS!!!!!
2 milestone passed and done forever (the other being no more bottles) many, many more to go!

Let's Reflect

So, as I just recently blogged, life has been a little crazy at the McAllister house. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on why I love my babies, and why I love being a mom. I was going through my pictures and decided to post a few of the cute ones of Knightin and TJ. I think you have probably seen most of them, but they are cute and I wanted to be able to look back at this blog at a future date, and be reminded how cute and sweet they were. Plus on bad day, which of course I never have, this will be good to look at.

AHHHHHH! I feel great now, I love my kids!

Now, I'm ready to face the world and my craft closet/computer room that these two sweet angles just destroyed!

Yes, those are many, many, many, many feathers, and pipe cleaners, and what you don't see are lots of tubs of play dough, luckily not mashed into the floor(Becky I was thinking about you, when I saw all the play dough out). The sad thing about the whole thing, is that it is all my fault, because I forgot to put the lock on the door. How dumb can I be? I think I need a little less confusion in my life right now. Having many little kids around makes you lose your mind and common sense.

I am so glad for my 5 beautiful, cute and amazing kids and the memories that we have together, and because of that I can deal with yogurt all over, destroyed offices, flooded bathrooms, broken jars, make-up lessons on the younger brothers, hair-cuts not done by me or the professionals, screaming, yelling, punching, biting, tantrums(yes, by the kids too), dirty diapers, snotty noses, never having a clean shirt on, loads and loads of laundry, finger prints on everything, many a late night holding sick or scared kids, Dumpig a whole tray of sacrament bread on the floor (we were the first pew and yes this did happen, just last Sunday), and all those other crazy things that we deal with as parents.

Here is to kids and our good and some bad memories. I wouldn't have it any other way!!!!

Paying the price for a Vacation Away

Most parents probably know or have experience the after effect on their children after being on vacation. Their schedules are thrown off, and it usually takes several days after returning to get things back to normal. For little kids,toddlers and infants, and in my case has meant a little extra whinniness and clinginess. So, after Todd and I got home I was mentally prepared to deal with this and not get as much done as I would like. As if on schedule, the moment Grandpa and Grandma Jim left TJ became a bear. She was either in my arms or at my legs crying. Those few moments throughout the day that she got distracted or was napping were heaven. Knightin wasn't to bad and was back to normal after a couple of days. TJ however decided to go right into a sinus infection cold thing and has only gotten worse. Then to top it off, as if things weren't already a little stressful in the house, my sister and I had already agreed to take care of our 3 nieces for 2 weeks while my brother and his wife got the opportunity to go to Germany with his work paying for the whole trip, (Cool for them). They get here the Saturday after we get home, and Ari the baby, just a couple of months younger then TJ is also sick. So when it is my turn to watch all of them, I have twins and both are ill and neither one is use to have to share mommy when they don't feel good. Last night when I had them for 2 hours, both babies were crying almost the whole time. My nerves were shot already, before they even get here because I have had a straight week of crying and clinging. I was in tears for awhile after they finally left. This morning I have them again, and Ari comes in messy and crying, and of course with 8 kids in my little house under the age of 9, the noise level sky rocketed. Ari need to be changed & feed, TJ need to be changed and Knightin is pulling out baby wipes and throwing them everywhere. After Ari was changed I moved on to TJ and then to grab a quick bite, before I feed Ari. During this time Knightin decided to be sweet and give Ari her yogurt, in which she chose to decorate my living room with. It was every where, it is amazing how far a small thing of yogurt can go. Although I felt like screaming, pulling my hair out and locking the kids in rooms, I controlled myself and quietly cleaned Ari up and put her nicely into the playroom with the kids, then moved on to cleaning the walls, floors, and couch in the living room, crying the whole time but not once yelling or losing my cool, ( This is a big accomplishment for me). I'm still a wreck, and I have a baby at my feet right now, but during the cleaning my sweet Taylar who is very sensitive to this kind of stuff, came up to me gave me a hug and asked me if there was anything that she could do to help me. That's what I needed and now I think I might be able to get through the rest of the day. Only a week and a half left to go, I can do this, I think!

Here is to fun and relaxing vacations!!!!

Thank You Baby Einsteins, for the moments of calmness!

"Hair today, Gone tomorrow!"

When we cut Taylar's hair a few months ago, she wanted it much shorter. I, loving the fact that I could do fun things with her hair and not ready to give that up, convinced her that we should only go to her shoulders. I was very selfish, and felt guilty afterwards. I hate people telling me what I have to do, and so soon after told her that the next time haircuts happened she could get it cut however she wanted. When she came home from getting her haircut last night, she was so happy, she was very giddy, smiling, laughing, and wouldn't stop playing with her new hair. Here are some pictures of her new DO!

She is looking more grow up all the time!

Pictures Galore

A lot has happened in these last 10 days, so a lot of pictures have been taken, because of this I will be doing a few little slide shows. I hope they are enjoyable and you can experience a little of the fun that we have had during this past week. The first slide show is of our Halloween party that we had on Nov. 1st. This was a combination of a Halloween party, Kelten's Birthday party, Louise's birthday party, a baby shower for Louise, a cousin get together and it also happened to be Jonathan and Elizabeth's 1st Anniversary what troopers they were to show up. I don't usually throw birthday parties for my kids because they choose to have a date with Todd and I. We go out to eat where ever they want and go shopping and spend the money that we would have spent on the party plus money from aunts and grandparents. They usually score bigger this way and it always ends up being a fun day. So since I don't do this party thing normally, I tried to go all out and make this a fun party. I did Halloween food, including vertebrates, spider deviled eggs, mummy heads, wormy apple pie, werewolf droppings, bat wings with Frankenstein blood to dip it in, smoking drink with hands floating in it and a spider and pumpkin cakes. Yummmmmmmy. The house was decorated with spider webs and a huge spider, and everyone got to dress up. We also had games, and there were a ton of gifts to open. It was a fun night, and I love having the family over when ever we can. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELTEN and LOUSIE we love you guys.

The next slide show will be of mine and Todd's get away to St. George. We have been married 10 years as of August and haven't gotten away without the kids. We really wanted to, but it just doesn't ever seem to happen. Well, my wonderful In-Laws came from CA. to stay with our kids so that we could get away for a whole week. How wonderful is that!! We didn't have a ton of money to go on a cruise, to Europe, or South America like we would like to some day, but there are a ton of things to do here in UT, so St. George became are destination. We actually stand in Hurricane, and went different places from there. While there we did a session at the St. George Temple, saw Brigham Young's home, the Jacob Hamblin Home, the Tabernacle, the old Jail, and many other old historical sites there as well as seeing the BYU Young Ambassadors perform at the Tuacahn Outdoor Theater. We spent 2 days in Gorgeous Zions Canyon, and one day doing a eight hour hike in Kolob Canyon to see the arch ( that hike about killed me, boy do I need to get in better shape). We loved being together, talking, holding hand, snuggling, and all the the other things we don't always get to do, with life and 5 kids. It was amazing and again want to thank my Father and Mother-in-law for coming to UT and making this possible for Todd and I.

I hope you don't get bored of the slide show, but I tried to pick only some of the best ones and I think there is only about a quarter shown of what we actually took.

The last slide show is a few pictures of the kids and things that they did with Grandpa and Grandma Jim.

P.S. If you click on the right corner of the slide show(it has a Picasa icon) , click on the album, then you can watch them bigger and see the captions, so that you know what you are looking at.

Jib Jabbing

Thanks to Heidi and Becky for showing us JibJab. Todd thought it was so much fun that we had to try to get the whole family involved. You will notice that TJ is not there, we ran out of the free ones to try. It was fun to do, hope you all enjoy.

Disco Fever, Todd has it bad!!

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My star in the making!

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My Hip Hopping Boys

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Jackie & Dizzy

Jackie and Dizzy, you may wonder what those names are all about, well let me tell you. Since Kelten started school pretty much, we have heard about his best friend Dizzy. Curious name, is what we thought at first, but soon found out this was a nickname given to her. (her real name is Jessica). We also found out that Kelten's nickname was Jackie, neither of the kids can tell us how they came up with the names. We hear stories all the time from other kids and room mom's that help that Kelten is so cute with Dizzy, that he protects her, hugs her, talks to her and whispers to her. They are connected. Then when we went to parent teacher conference today we found out that they each had a little interview with the teacher and one of the questions that was asked was, "Who are your friends"? Kelten was the only boy who only named girls, and that the one thing Kelten struggles with is talking during class, and guess who he talks too? The girls, mostly Dizzy. I guess I have a little ladies man on my hands, teenage years could be interesting?!?

I Finally met Dizzy's mom the other night and we both had the same idea of blogging about this cute relationship that our children have, and since Dizzy invited Jackie over for a Halloween party last night, Becky was able to get some pictures of the 2 together.

This first and second pictures are of Dizzy(Jessica), which you never know, could be my future daughter-in-law. I think Kelten has pretty good taste.

These next few are of the 2 together at the halloween party. Kids are so cute!

I had to put in these 2 conversations that Becky had with our children. The first is from last night between Dizzy's mom Becky and Kelten. She had just asked him if he wanted to be called Jackie or Kelten, he replied Jackie was fine. The 2nd conversation was with Becky and Jessica much earlier.

Me: So, calling you Jackie is okay with you?

Jackie: Yeah, I have two nicknames.

Me: Really? What are they?

Jackie: Telly-monster, and Jackie, Dizzy made up Jackie

Me: Yeah I heard she gave you that one.

Jackie: I gave her two nicknames too, sometimes I call her Flower, and sometimes I call her Dizzy, (long pause)...and sometimes I call her cute.

Me: (My mom and I exchanged surprised smiles)Oh yeah?

Jackie: and she calls me handsome. (little twinkle in his eye and a giant grin)

Jessie: Mom, I made a new friend, his name is Jackie

Me: Really? That's great

Jessie: Well, his name is really Kelton, but I call him Jackie

Me: Oh, why?

Jessie: Just because, I call him Jackie, and he calls me Dizzy

Me:(raised eyebrows) Uh, ok

Jessie: We are in Love

Me: REALLY? How do you know you are in love?

Jessie: Because he is nice to me, so we just started being in love.

Me: Oh crap, I'm in trouble!

Jack-O-Lanterns

Tonight was pumpkin carving night. The kids love this time of year, and it wasn't as messy as normal, because Todd had the pumpkins all cleaned out, pretty much before the kids got out of school. The kids are getting more creative every year, and it is fun to see what they come up with.

Ki's own creation (he tells us it's his self portrait, how do you all think he did?), Taylar's from a pattern, mom's with the help of dad's drawing.

Kelten's own creation, Dad's own creation (of course), Kelten's second creation.



Taylar's own creation

Mom's with a pattern (I cheat)

Ki's second creation

Todd doesn't get enough slurpee's, so he made a slurpee pumpkin, but it doesn't quite cut it as the real thing!

Halloween Carnival!

Tonight was the Elementary's Halloween Carnival, which may I add is the first of 4 times they will be dressing up this week, plus they already did once last week for the chuch carnival, crazy!!I couldn't get the 2 little kids to stand still for a group shot so this is what you get. The Carnival turned out to be very fun for the older kids. I brought my double stroller thinking that I was being a smart mom, but nooooo, Knightin and TJ would have nothing to do with it. Knightin wanted to be doing everything with the big kids(who would blamehim) and Tj was just plain tired, and trying to hold TJ while letting Knightin play the games doesn't cut it. Lucky for me my sister was there and saved the day by taking Knightin with them. He got passed around by his many cousins and sister as they went down the inflatable slides over and over and over again. He was in Heaven and I had peace. Tj and I found a place to hang out at, and she had fun having my undivided attention. Next year should be better with another year on the kids, but I will still pray for Todd having the day off. It always works out that he is working on these kind of days, but he is off Halloween day this year, which hasn't happened for I think 4 years, and those of you who know Todd, knows that he hates missing these things.Taylar was a Scarecrow this year, we have about 5 of these costumes in different sizes. One year when my 5 oldest Nieces and Nephews were little(they are all in high school or out now) they wore these costumes. She has been a scarecrow before, but likes the costume and being practical told me "mom, the 2 other costumes will fit me next year so I will wear this one, because I don't think it will fit next year!" OK then, a scarecrow it is. She was a little sad this evening though because a few times she was mistaken for a boy. Crazy people!!!

Ki, was going to be Zorro, and many of you may think that is still what it looks like that he is, but he is very proud of the fact that he is not, and so I'm going to ask if any of you can figure out who he is really being?

Kelten is my little pirate, he has been this before, but loves the costume and wanted to be it again. I don't think he has another year with it, we bought it 3 years ago and I think it is fitting him a little to well.

Knightin was going to be a scarecrow, because that was the only costume that we had that fit him, even though he hated having it on, since it was still a little big for him(he wore it for the church carnival and complained the whole time). Today when we were getting everyone ready he was playing with Ki's hat and cape and was all happy and excited, and he looked cute, so I found a black t-shirt and sweatpants and WA LA we have a mini Zorro! The hat soon after we got there lost its novelty.

We saw this costume and immediately Todd and I both decided this was the costume for TJ(well, I guess not immediately, there was a really cute turtle too). Very Girly and we thought she would make an amazingly cute Fluffy flower, I think we were right. Well, as far as we are concerned we were right. She loves her slippers, she was walking around with them on, 30 minute before we got her ready, all smiles. We got many "Oh look at that little flower, and those cheeks!" I think that fact that she is now waddling/toddling around really good, made it even that much more cute. Baby toddling is so dang cute!!!

I am so in love with this little girl, she is always making us laugh.

I would bet she already knows how cute she is, you can see it in her face. We will probably be sorry later!