My 3 Kids

Here it is, the post you've all been waiting for. And it will take me hours to upload the pictures -- and there are tons of pictures because I haven't had time to blog because I've been taking care of munchkins and taking so many pictures!!! And it doesn't help that my computer is 6 years old and REALLY slow . . . so it takes extra long for the buggers to load.

Anyways, about the kids . . . Christian is 6 and Christina is 2. Their dad is Christopher and their mom is Crystal. Lots of Chrises!!! They told us to plan on us having them for about 3-6 months. It looks like the dad will get these kids if he can get rid of his psycho girlfriend -- but if not we don't know how the whole thing will play out. So we just plan for whatever and have fun along the way. We have played a lot, swam alot (thanks for letting us borrow your pool, mom!), played teeball alot, and spent a LOT of time on bedtimes. My friend teresa blogged about how hard it was moving her two kids in the same room and getting them to sleep. All I can say is AMEN SISTA! Ellie and Stina are in separate twin beds in Ellie's room. And they take turns being the monster at bedtime and taking over an hour to go down -- how thoughtful of them. Just when I'm about to lose my mind they give it a push over the edge :-) . It doesn't help that with 3 kids needing baths, teethbrushings, books, songs, prayers, and cuddles that it does take about 2 hours from start to finish. I seriously do NOT know what I'm going to do when Darik's season starts and he's working over 60 hours a week again. Christian will go NUTS because he practically waits on pins and needles for D to get home at 415 and then he confiscates him to go do guy stuff -- like catch, baseball on the Wii, and whatever guy stuff darik has to do (yardwork, etc) - Bubba tags along.

Ellie is adjusting better than I thought she would. She does have some times where she has a really hard time sharing -- but she's overall really sweet. I think the hardest part is that she has kind of regressed and wants to be held like a baby alot. I try to humor her to a point - cuz this has got to be really hard on her. In her little mind brothers and sisters just come and go and she doesn't know for how long or why. I do know she likes having friends around. After Hailey and Stina left 3 weeks ago she would wake up and ask where her "sister-friends" were. Almost every day. I know she missed them. And I know she likes having these two around to play with, too -- especially Bubba (the nickname his 3 sisters have for him) in the big pool. We are really sad the pool's going back to nana's tomorrow :-( Anyways she did have a really hard time at church - but that might be because we had my 3 nieces with me as well (yeah, a total of 6 kids under 10 in sacrament meeting, I deserve a medal!). I think she's ok sharing us with 2 other kids . . . but sharing us with 5 other kids was too much for her.

Oh what else . . . my friend April called it -- my biggest increase of housework -- laundry! And not just because there's more clothes and more kids . . . but because the little munchkins make more and bigger messes requiring tons of loads of towels! Huh, who'woudda thought? Dishes are crazy now as well -- especially since we have such hard water no matter what detergent or rinse additive we try the dishes come out dirtier than when we put them in. We are doing all of our dishes by hand . . . sigh . . . We got a quote for a water softener but we're just doing one thing at a time -- waiting for the AC to finish being paid off. Oh and it doesn't help that we're next shopping for a van. We'll probably sell the car to pay for it. We've test driven a few and it is SO much easier to get 3 kids in and out of a car. I'm getting used to parking (lots of 9 point turns for me there) but I'm getting better. I actually like it alot. So we're planning to get more serious about that when we get back from our vacation on July 6. So yeah.