Recent Happenings at the Morrills' House

I suppose I could blog without posting pictures, but who wants that? That reminds me, Miriam, you should've posted pics of the bum! Oh, and I have such a short memory lately, I forget anything that I don't take pictures of. I guess I just need to blog more often, but most of the time I get to myself is because my boys are on the computer (any of the 3 of them). Sigh.


So last week I told the boys they could play on the Wii as soon as the basement was clean. We'd already done most of it earlier so they had room to play Hulabaloo, so I figured it'd be easy. It was 6:20, so they had 40 min of possible Wii time before the bedtime routine begins. And guess what? I took this picture around 6:55! This was how big the mess was, and they couldn't get their act together and clean it, even when it meant getting to play on the Wii! SILLY BOYS!
(oh, and Dan, maybe you should cover that lovely hole in the wall?)

Katy was having a particularly destructive morning. She pulled out her pigtails, spit up on her pants, and got into everything! She pulled things out of the dishwasher to help motivate me to empty it, then climbed in! SILLY GIRL!

I think Katy might be getting more teeth, cause she refused to sleep yesterday! She wouldn't go to sleep at 11 like I thought she would (& should). She didn't fall asleep on the way to preschool. She finally fell asleep in her carseat between Lowe's & Walmart (like a 1 min drive), and slept in the carrier most of the time at Walmart.

So since she only slept for about 10-15 min, I figured she'd fall asleep again shortly. We even went to the farm after preschool for a little while, then drove about 20 min home, and she FINALLY fell asleep about 1 minute away from home. I didn't want to put her in her crib at that point since it was around 5:00 and I didn't want her to sleep too long, so I set her down in the living room. And there she stayed for about half an hour. And somehow that combined total of 45 min of nap made her stay up until 10, when she's been going down between 7:30 and 8! But, I am happy to announce, she slept 8.5 consecutive hours last night! I guess it was worth it!

Look at my artistic little guy! We've had this book for a while, but they've never done more than just color on the top part. Today Rynan drew the bus!

And Katy...isn't she beautiful? I don't know if it's just being her mama, but I just think she's the prettiest little thing! And I have so much fun with my little girly. I hadn't been putting bracelets on her since it was winter and they were hidden under her long sleeves, and I finally remembered a couple days ago. And I've been enjoying making bows & doing her pretty little hair. And now that it's warming up I get to put her in cute little dresses! So much fun!

Yay for warm weather!

The extended winter we had seems to have ended! Hooray! I took the kids to the park last week, and I finally allowed them to play in the dirt. Eagle Mountain finally dug another well (after the couple we have broke last summer!), creating these huge mountains of dirt (probably 6 feet tall or so). The boys, being boys (heck, just being kids - I'm sure I'd have loved them at that age!), constantly ask to play on them. This time I finally said yes, since it was almost bath time anyways. They had lots of fun!



Katy didn't get to play in the dirt, but she still had fun at the playground! She climbed up the stairs to the slide all by herself!

Home again

After another long day of driving, we are back home. My mom came with me this time, and thank goodness, cause Katy Goo was quite a handful! Especially at the end again. I guess about 12-13 hours is her max, then she just loses it! This time she started having a really hard time right around Salt Lake, right when everybody is soooo ready to be home. Not nice!

And I just have to ask, are 10 month olds allowed to have tantrums? I think Katy just threw a couple! First because I took the boys' foam darts away from her (she'd bite them with her two tiny teeth!), then because I took the camera away from her. I'm not sure what makes something a tantrum instead of just being upset, but I'm pretty sure that was it. She was crying and screaming like something really bad had happened to her. I guess as far as she is concerned, it did!

Holy cow, as I was typing that, she came over and bit me on the arm! I have two tiny teeth marks on my arm! Silly girl!

Fun with Grandpa!

I have one more set of pics from Washington to post, and they're all of my kids playing with Grandpa. My dad is such a fun Grandpa!
Dog pile!


Grandpa took Katy up into the treehouse! So of course the boys went up too!


And everybody had to go down the slide to get down!

Coolest Video EVAR

OK, this is a video done by a guy. Its a composite of 1000 races through a new racing game. Its way cooler than that description sounds. Promise.

Weeee...Funnnn..

So...it is so much fun sanding mud for drywall. SO much fun in fact, I see the draw in paying alot of money to make other people do it!

Work = Die to Death

Tax season = over...happy are we. Angry richies will leave me alone now. end.

Fun at Grandma & Grandpa's House!

I found a cord to upload my pictures, so I don't have to wait until I get home to post them! Yay!
Grandma got Katy a new swimming suit, since the one she used last summer is NOT going to cut it. This trip is the first time she liked going in the hot tub!
All my cute kids, getting impatient because Mommy wants to take pictures before going in the hot tub!
I LOVE THIS BABY! These are her first pigtails, aren't they sweet?
Another photo op, jumping on the trampoline. Katy thought it was fun as long as I was holding her, but putting her down made her nervous. The boys always love jumping!
Burn all that energy!
Wear yourself out!
Adorable? Why yes, you are!

Fun at the Pacific Science Center!

My mom took us to the Pacific Science Center yesterday, and we had a great time! Even little Goo Face had some fun! I made the pictures small because there are so many, hopefully you can see them well enough!
My "special" children...
One of our favorite parts is always the butterfly house...except David, who was actually literally afraid of the butterflies. My five year old cringes when a butterfly flies by. Nice.
Ryan liked the butterflies...
...and the butterflies like Ryan!
David & Ryan with Grandma, and Grandma's butterfly friend, who finally had to be coaxed off after hanging out with us for quite a while!
One of the boys (can't remember which) is scheduled to learn about butterflies next week at preschool...but it can't possibly beat this!
Well, nobody but me smiled, but here we are together!
My big Katy, playing with Ryan! The buttons made sounds when you pushed them, and all 3 of my kids loved it!

What I should have done...

So I just got back from taking the kids to Story Time at the Covington Library (near my parents' house), and I'm really frustrated/embarassed, and everyone I would normally spill it to is busy, so here it goes. It was a really cute thing, called Pajamarama. The kids wore their jammies & brought their Loveys, and the librarian read 3 stories & did a couple songs. My kids were all a little more talkative/noisey/active than the other kids there, but I'm pretty used to that at this point. Then it ended, and it occured to me that I'd have much better luck at finding good books on ADHD than I did at our library (which is itty itty bitty)...

What I should have done was take the wild children home & come back later without them. Instead, I told the boys to pick out a couple books & look at them while I went to go look for a Mommy book. I walked across the library (and was astounded at what a real library looks like after 3.5 years of living in Eagle Mountain, where the library is easily <1000 sq ft, and it's grown since we moved in!). I found the section where the ADHD books were, and grabbed 8, which was only about half of them (Our library had like 5, several of which are more than a decade old). It took me maybe 5 minutes, mostly because I had to either struggle to keep Katy in my arms or she would pull books off the shelf. At one point she started crying, I think because I took my phone from her, and about 20 teenagers turned to stare at me.

So then I started walking towards the children's section, to find the librarian helping David & Ryan look for me! I had heard children yelling "Mommy," but ignored it for some reason. I was just hoping it wasn't my children. I don't know why I would even bother hoping that the nautiness was coming from anyone else's kids. They couldn't spend 5 minutes looking at books! They were actually YELLING for me across the LIBRARY!!!!! Then I had to figure out the self check out thing while Katy kept trying to crawl for the shelves & pull books off. I tried to have David get her, but that would make her cry. Argh! And when I was ready for the boys' books, they were finally sitting at the computers in the children's section, and wouldn't come! Why couldn't you have stayed quietly over there when I told you to?!? I had call to them, causing more loudness from our family! The four of us probably made more noise in the library in the hour we were there than anybody else all day! SO FRUSTRATING!


And while I've been typing this, David spilled a whole bunch of milk on the carpet. And I can't figure out how to fill the tank on my parents' carpet cleaner, so the milk is soaking in. And Katy bonked her head a million times while trying unrelentingly to get the keyboard & mouse. And Ryan had a time out for hitting David. And David's Lovey got taken away because he was using it to hit Ryan. And Ryan hugged me, then bonked his head on my chin on the way up, making me bite my tongue really hard (it bled!). And when I yelled that it hurt, it scared Katy, so she started crying and wouldn't stop. Why do people want kids? More importantly, why do I want another one (not right now, but sometime)? They are so frustrating!

We survived!

After spending 15 hours on the road yesterday (including 5 stops), we made it to my parents' house! The boys were very good, Katy was...mostly good. Our first stop was only about 3 hours in, because Katy started asking for milk using sign language. She's still so new at sign, I want to reinforce her doing it, so I stopped as soon as I could once she started asking for milk. Our second & fourth stops were for gas and food (once I got down to 8 miles remaining!) Our third stop was just cause Katy was fussing (that was the one where Ryan decided he needed to poo in the men's restroom at the rest stop, and I ended up having to go in there to wipe him!). And fifth was meeting up with my parents in Ellensburg. They were on their way home from visiting Miriam & Garrett, and we timed it perfectly so we got to have ice cream together. I guess I hadn't told Ryan that we were meeting them, and boy was he surprised to see Grandma when he came down the slide!

Then Katy decided she had HAD it, and was pretty tired on top of that, so she started screaming unrelentingly. At that point it was just Katy, my mom, & me in my car. So my mom & I ended up going Katy a personal concert of Primary songs, which would soothe her as long as we were singing. I had to think of the next song before we finished, cause pausing would make her scream some more! Finally she fell asleep, and we made it home!

Sweet little Ryan was so excited when he found out we were spending the night at Grandma & Grandpa's house. I'm not sure what he expected, but he was surprised. Then this morning he said "Is today the day we're going home?" I told him we were staying until Saturday, so six days, and he is very excited! The boys LOVE it here! Grandma & Grandpa have a trampoline, hot tub, a couple swing sets, a big yard, lots of animals, and a play room full of the toys I grew up with. We're going to have a fun week!

One more thought...

Oh, and the kids & I (and Aunt Nadine) are driving to Washington tomorrow to visit my parents. Should be exciting! You never know how a road trip is going to be with little ones. We're doing the unthinkable and turning Kathryn's car seat around a month & a half early so she can watch movies and be handed things easier. I'm 99% sure she's well over the 20 pounds (now that I write that I'd better make sure!), and she's so close to the age. Anyhow, I'm actually posting this hoping for any advice or tricks any of you have for me! This won't be anywhere near as bad as our tour of the west coast last fall, but it's still a long day for 3 little ones. Anyone?

Oh, and any Washington friends that want to get together, we'll be in town for one week! Get in touch soon!

Katy wants to be just like Mommy!

So yesterday after I finished my Pilates I left my band on the floor, and caught this picture a few minutes later!

The Three Degress of Messiness

Being a SAHM with 3 under 6, I spend an awful lot of my time cleaning. Which has led to me thinking about messes. And here is my new philosophy.

There are three degrees of messes. The level of the mess is related to how necessary the mess is, and therefore how frustrating it is to have to spend time on it.

Category 1 - Human Messes
Some messes are necessary as a course of life. They are the messes that I would have to clean with any 5 people living here, even if they were all adults. They include things like laundry, dishes, vacuuming, etc. They still aren't fun to do, but not frustrating.

Category 2 - Kid Messes
These are the messes that the kids make just because they don't have much life experience yet. For example, clearing a cereal bowl sometimes ends up with milk on the floor because they don't know how important it is to keep the bowl level as they walk. The bathroom door knob frequently has to be cleaned because they wipe their grubby hands on it on the way to wash them. And even the section of dirty wall around 3-4 feet high falls into this category. It's actually kind of cute, now that I'm writing it down. The boys are so little, it doesn't occur to them that wiping dirty hands on the carpet doesn't get rid of the mess, and actually makes it harder to get rid of than just washing hands. I guess how frustrated I get by these messes depends on my mood & the carelessness of the mess maker (if I believe they should know better). If they are really stupid, they might even move into the next category...

Category 3 - Unnecessary messes
These are the most frustrating of all messes! These are the stupid messes that I should not have to deal with! They usually aren't malicious, but very unthinking. And in order to be in this category I think they have to be intentional, or very, very stupid. Ryan's hand prints on the mirror over the kitchen table (when he shouldn't have been climbing on the table in the first place). An entire drawer of clean clothes ending up in the dirty clothes hamper because they dumped them on the floor while searching for the clothes they wanted, then put them in the dirty clothes hamper instead of just putting them away (why would it be harder?). Or today, I got out of the shower to see my beautiful shiny fridge covered in sticky hand prints! I assumed it was Ryan just having fun making more hand prints, but it turns out David decided it would help him climb the fridge. What? Don't climb the fridge! And certainly don't put nasty hand prints (what did he put his hands in? I'm fairly certain he put something on his hands on purpose!) all over one of the few places in the house that is ready for my departure tomorrow!

My special helper, Kathryn

I've been collecting pictures of Katy "helping" for a little while, and I think it's time to share them with the world. Katy likes to assist me in everything I do!
Here she is helping me clean out the refrigerator.
And here she is helping to fold laundry!
She doesn't seem to understand that emptying the dishwasher does not require climbing into the dishwasher (and she's actually kinda freaked out in this picture, but I had to take it before saving her!).
And I have so much fun with making bows, Katy thinks she'll give it a try!
Again helping empty the dishwasher, this time with more success.
Katy likes to unroll some toilet paper, then start shredding it into little pieces, which usually end up in her mouth. The boys were all about quantity - unroll as much paper as fast as possible. Katy is definitely about quality - make as big of a mess as possible. Fun fun!

In addition to these pictures, Katy also likes to help me teach David's piano lesson and type on the computer. And she loves it when I do pilates, and has a grand old time climbing on me, snapping my band, or even providing extra resistance when I'm doing sit-up like moves! Oh, and I've also had her follow me into the bathroom to help me get some toilet paper (unlike in the picture, when she's in there alone). I think I can handle that alone, Goo Face!

Children should not play with my camera!

Silly, silly boys! Every now and then I turn on the camera to find some pictures on it that I did not take. There are always a bunch of random pics of the wall and stuff like that. But this time, the perpetrator wasn't even trying to hide his identity! Although, to be honest, I'm not really 100% sure which child this is! I'm thinking Ryan, but it's kind of hard to tell!


I love this picture they took of Katy's duck for some reason. And look, there's a child on the duck, and it's Ryan! So maybe Ryan was only the photographed, not the photographer in the first one or two. They were definitely working together!
So later I went to take some pictures of my kids, and they kept coming out a little blurry. My eyes are frequently not as clear at night, so I just attributed it to that. Later Dan realized that the grubby ones had gotten the lens dirty! Ewwww!

Katy's accident 8/14/2007

Dan reminded me that not everyone knows exactly what happened last August, so here it is.

I took the three children to get their pictures taken together & separately. David went first, then Ryan, while I was nursing Katy. Then it was Katy's turn, and I was going to do the three of them together last. So Katy was getting her pictures taken, down on the floor in an infant poser (like a cross between a boppy and an infant seat), and I was kneeling to the side of her. And the boys were being boys, running around a bit. I told them a couple times to just go stand over on the side, but how fun is that? So David went in the prop closet (of course, it's where all the toys are!), which had the door off its hinges and just resting over the opening. I told him to get out, and in the course of him trying to get out he knocked the door over. It hit my hand on the way down, and at first I thought it had missed Katy. Then she scrunched up her little legs and started to wail! My first thought was "Oh man, now I'm not going to get a good picture!" I tried to calm her down, and she just wouldn't stop crying. 20 minutes later I finally got her to nurse a bit and stop crying. She immediately went to sleep and wouldn't rouse. She had taken a nice long nap immediately before coming (and on the car ride over), so she shouldn't have been tired. That's when I finally got the clue that something was really wrong!

I was planning on taking her to her doctor, but on the way out decided to head to the ER. We were at Provo Towne Center, so I drove to UVRMC. I walked into a crowded ER waiting room, but as soon as I told the lady what happened, she took me right in. We went back and got a CT Scan of her head. Katy was crying a lot most of this whole time, btw. Then we waited for the results, and Dan made it down there from work. Dan happened to walk out of the bathroom with Ryan right when the doctor was looking at the scan. So he saw the fracture in her skull and the bleeding both on top of & under her skull. When that happens, their protocol is to Life Flight them up to Primary Children's Hospital. So that's what they did!

So she had to have a neck brace on until the Neurosurgeon could verify that she didn't have any neck damage. And she had to have an IV. They tried and tried, both arms, and several places on her head, and finally got it placed. Poor little one! It was at this point that I grabbed the camera out of the diaper bag. Dan thought it was weird that I wanted pictures of my poor little baby, but now we're glad to have them.

See those guys pushing the stretcher? My baby is on it!
And off she goes. All 4 of us were pretty upset by that, and Aunt Nadine too (she & Uncle Scott helped out with the boys while Dan went up to give Katy a blessing). At that point, the farthest her little body had ever been from mine was the distance between our house and the dentist. And suddenly she was an hour away. Oh yeah, there isn't room in there for anyone but the paramedics, so I had to drive up. That was a long drive!
I finally made it there to hold my sweet angel. She was worn out from all that crying!

Look how little she is! Something that bad shouldn't happen to someone so little!
Poor little thing with cords coming out all over the place!


Three days later you can see the bruise covering that whole side of her head.

We ended up being discharged the following afternoon. I guess if there are going to be major problems they usually become apparent during the first 24 hours. We still don't know for sure if she's "okay." They gave me a paper that says she could have problems that don't become apparent until she starts school, so we have a long ways until we're totally out of the woods. All we can do now is make sure she meets her milestones, which she is doing a great job of. But she is a lot clingier than my other kids (I've only left her with anyone other than Daddy once, and she cried the whole time)...is that from the accident? She still insists on joining us in our bed at some point every night...is that from the accident? And I'm sure I'm more indulgent with things like that (not leaving her and letting her sleep in our bed) because I don't know if she IS traumatized or something!