Dean's Been Tagged!

While I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do here (thanks for NOT explaining Kori!), I'll do my best to fill people in on our littlest monkey.

• Dean was the biggest child, weighing 8 lbs 14 oz. He only beat Patrick by about 8 oz, but I was still SUPER uncomfortable!
• His name didn't come from anywhere but our heads, although after we named him, we realized that his first name is the same as Doane's uncle's middle name, and Doane's best (and most irritating) friend from high school's middle name.
• Dean's middle name is Jaxon. I wanted that to be his first name, but Doane won on that battle. Doane like the idea of a little DJ better than a little JD. JD sounded too yee-haw for him.
• Like Tayvin, Dean didn't walk until very late. It was around 18 or 19 months before he took his first steps. We weren't too concerned, as his doctor wasn't. We figured he would do it when he was ready. We were just surprised that he didn't want to get up and chase after his older brothers!
• Dean is the caboose of our family, so he will always be our little baby. I can't physically have another child, and I don't think I could mentally cope with another child, either!
• Dean is very inquisitive and smart, and wants to be "just like Jacob" when he grows up.
• Dean loves to play with his brothers, and help his dad build things.
• That's about all there is to Dean. He's the last one at home, and won't be joining the ranks of school-bound children until next year, or later, if I decide to hold him back. We just have to see how he is doing at that time, and if we feel like he's ready to go to school or not.

Since I have now completed this task, I will now tag Ellie Mounts and Seth Mardis.

Way too much makeup!

Here are more pictures from our Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat play. We had a fabulous photographer, Janelle Vernon, and she took THOUSANDS of pictures. She had these three developed for us, and she made an awesome disk, with the pictures she took put to music, showing the play chronologically with the pictures. It is really neat!

Anywho, here is my Butler, trying to abscond with a wife....

And here is my Butler, excited about all the hot young dancers behind him....

And here are the 9 wives/slaves/Egyptian statues/calypso dancers....

Thanks for Encouragement

I've been thinking lately about my posts on progress with Weight Watchers. I just feel it's necessary to clarify something about them.

I do not post my progress to brag about myself, or show off, or anything like that. I post my progress because then I feel accountable to everyone who reads and comments about it. When I look at the comments posted, it encourages me to continue to work hard on my weight loss, because people care about me, and want to succeed. I don't actually like sharing how much I've lost, because I have so MUCH to lose, and it's embarrassing that I've let myself get this big.

But I just wanted to say "THANK YOU" to those who comment with words of encouragement and congratulations. It helps me each week to be mindful of what I eat (even if I sometimes ignore what I should be doing).

So I will continue to post my progress (more good than bad, though), and continue to benefit from the support of my commenters. Thanks!

Starving Pays Off!!

Just a quick update on my progress. I went in to my meeting tonight, thinking it would be another .2 lb loss or something, and stepped on the scale to discover I had accomplished at 13.2 lb overall loss. Imagine my surprise and pleasure that I lost more than .2 lbs this week! I had to call Doane as soon as I left the meeting to let him know (he is helping his friend get his house put together more, so he wasn't going to be home to share the good news with in person). Yippee for me!

On a sad note, I just missed my one friend that goes on Thursdays nights, and my other two friends don't go on Thursday nights with me. Bummer!

Babysitting Adventures

I am helping out a friend for a while, because she's up in Spokane with her baby. I am watching her two other daughters a couple of days a week, and I just love the girls! It's like having daughters by proxy, or something like that. Anywho (one of my new favorite words to use, because I was watching Samantha Who? Monday night, and she kept saying it, and it was funny), these two girls are such fun to have, and they have so much energy! Meliah is a bottomless pit of constant hunger, but her cute chubby cheeks are too hard to resist!

My middle child, Patrick, is a fan of all girls (unfortunately for me, his interest in them bloomed WAY to early for my tastes), and he especially likes a couple in our neighborhood. Maiclinn is one of them, but they are behaving today, and just sitting together watching Leroy and Stitch. But I couldn't resist taking a picture of them, sitting on the couch all cute, with a blanket on their laps (and yes, Patrick's hands are on TOP of the blanket - I checked to make sure).

A couple of days ago, Doane had built another "fort" for the boys, with their big Mega Blocks. However, there isn't much room in there, especially when a couple bigger kids crawl in. So Meliah was sad that there wasn't room for her, when Patrick, Maiclinn, and Dean were in it. Feeling bad for her, I dug in the closet for our Bob the Builder tractor tent, and set it up for her. Then her and Dean abandoned the fort, and started playing in the tent. Meliah finally went to sleep, but I left it up for them to play later. It is a pretty cool thing, even though I'm thinking about selling it at a yard sale this summer.

As cute as she is, little Meliah can fight tooth and nail about going down for a nap. And dummy me, I forgot her nap time today, and by the time I remembered, she was REALLY cranky and whiny. But I got her to lay down by reading her Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb and talking to her for a bit. She fell asleep, and she's so adorable sleeping, too! Don't you agree?

Finished Painting!

I just adore Doane! He is so talented, and it's a good thing he's a good painter, so he could make my mess look better! I love the way the walls turned out...but what do you think?

Painter for Hire?

After today, I might officially throw in the towel as far as painting goes. It seems like every time I paint, I do a horrible job at it, and Doane has to "swoop in" for a rescue paint. But at least I try, and I really like this color. Poor Doane, though, has his work cut out for him, cutting in the edges and painting over some bad spots....

So anyone want to hire me to paint their house? I won't charge much......

This is our entryway. I think that once it's done, the bluish gray color will look really good with my patriotic stuff!

If you look closely, you'll see all the work Doane has ahead of him, because I think I missed a few spots....

I'm not sure if I want it in the living room or not, but I thought I'd try it out.

In case you're wondering why I didn't go up the wall in here, we hope to one day have a chair rail, so we don't need to go all the way up the wall.

New Driveway

So, after a year of complaining and submitting work orders, our builder finally came and tore up (part) of our driveway. Unfortunately, I didn't get on the ball and take pictures of them tearing UP the driveway, which was more entertaining than watching them pour it, but oh well.

This is the workers doing the pouring, and the boys watching the big machine.

Then we have the finished product, plus a bonus sidewalk they added because it took them so long to get to it. Pretty cool!

Of course I had to do the whole prints in the sidewalk thing, because it was too funny! I even managed to get our dog in on it!

It pays to be so obnoxious and sticking to your guns! I mean, we paid a lot of money for this house, and to have a broken driveway before we even moved in? Give me a break! (Or in this case, several.....)

Karate Mama

A while ago I posted an "about me" kind of thing, where you answer questions about yourself. One of the fill-in-the-blank things was to tell something that most people don't know. So of course, I had to post that I used to teach karate. Shortly after my post, I got an email from Korbi, asking if I wanted to teach at the gymnastics place. I was like "WHAT?" But now I'm kind of getting excited about it, and my boys are absolutely ecstatic! Jacob is just salivating at the thought of his mom teaching him in another sport. (Apparently he really loved it when I coached his soccer team in Utah.)
Anywho, it's nothing definite yet, but it's still something to get excited over. I know, I know, I shouldn't jump the gun, but I hope it works out for everyone, and we can all have a good time!
Right now, though, I have to head off to bed, and dream up something cool to make for Bunko tomorrow. Any thoughts? And if you're reading this, you're all invited to come play Bunko with us. It's a great time! Just give me a jingle!