Works for me!

While my 3 kids are in the next room vegging out from all throwing up this morning, I thought I would post some things that work for me. Ya know, some tricks of the trade I've learned.

Remember when we went through Sugar Detox and didn't eat sweets for a week? Turned out to be a good thing for our family. So now we have treats on Sundays and Mondays and no sweets during the rest of the week. There are exceptions for treats at school or special occasions, but for the most part, we are sweet-free. It's not too bad actually! We now have popcorn at night after dinner, and the kids love it.

And my new favorite jeans! Now that I'm 24 weeks, these are so comfortable that I wear them every day except laundry day. Seriously. The "Secret Fit" panel is like a giant spandex band that goes all the way around, with no tight elastic at the top. My mom-in-law found them at Kohl's and I have worn them all the time since Christmas!

And these are something else I wear almost every day... support socks (for the lovely vericose veins popping up on my legs) and $5 crock shoes from Wally World (=Wal-Mart). I was wearing red crocks every day until I found these normal-looking shoes. I just don't want to bend over anymore to put on shoes. Sometimes I wear them around the house when my feet hurt.

I put a gallon-sized ziploc bag into my diaper bag for miscellaneous trash and wrappers. That thing really gets used during church... and makes a great place to stash a nasty diaper when we're out.

And my new favorite place! DinnerMarket makes fresh meals that they then freeze and deliver to your house. It works out to be $11 per dinner for us. With the time I've put in for accounting and taxes lately (not to mention the kids), it's so nice to pull a dinner out of the freezer when we need it.

Sledding!

***First a note to all Spaghetti Factory lovers: Tomorrow is the last day of their 40th Anniversary celebration, which includes 40% off many of their entrees. Their adult meals are about $5 and kids meals are around $2 and all meals include ice-cream.
Anyway, back to sledding. We had a favorite spot up on the mountain by Cedar Hills, but this year they had it all blocked off. Well, I guess it did go over a tiny part of the golf course... so we ended up at a city park in Lindon.

It was pretty fun. The hills were not too big and the kids even played on the swing set while we were there. Someone had been thoughtful enough to build a jump half way down the hill... about 10 feet in front of a big pole. Let's think things through, people! But Sunshine still managed to get some great air off that jump! Thunder tried to find another steep spot on the hill, and just about cracked his head open to protect Sunshine when they both flew off the sled together.

Cloudburst decided that she wanted to do the monkey bars, even though it was about 15 degrees outside. She tried a few times, cried and got really upset and I told her it was OK to wait until summer! But she had it in her head that she MUST DO THE MONKEYBARS. So she tucked her hands inside her coat to warm them up, took a big breath and scooted across every last bar as fast as she could. I thought she was crazy, but was proud of her for sticking with it!

"Happy Inauguration Day"

We've been talking a lot lately about the President of the United States and how it changes every four years. We practiced saying the word "inauguration" and the kids all recognize President Obama. In fact, they think his name is fun to say. I volunteer at Cloudburst's kindergarten class on Tuesdays (thanks Bethany for helping with Tornado!) and the entire school watched President Obama take the Oath of Office. Pretty neat, considering her school is called the Lincoln Academy. What a marvelous celebration of American democracy.


Today Sunshine walked into preschool and told his teacher "Happy Inauguration Day!" She asked him if he knew what that meant, and he said Barack Obama is the new president. Then she asked what he will do now that he's president. "Make us pay taxes."

Super Reader!

Cloudburst has found a new love. I've seen her with this love at 10:30 at night, in the car, on the couch, in bed, at the store, in the kitchen and on the floor.
She loves reading! She has really taken off with reading in the last few months. Her kindergarten teacher just did assessments and said she was "embarrassed" that she hadn't moved Cloudburst up on her reading level. She put her in the 2nd grade level Take Home Reader books and said she may finish ALL the take home readers that they have for elementary school by the end of the year. So that day we drove to the library and picked out a chapter book called "Junie B. Jones." This is a whole series of books, and the first one is called "The Stupid Smelly Bus." So a concerned Cloudburst said she would whisper one of those words. :-) She is also enrolled in a dance class and will resume gymnastics this week. I figure I need to get her a few more hair bows or something. After all she is surrounded by boys!

These are the boys, playing while Cloudburst is reading on the other couch. Sunshine has been really interested in history lately, asking all about Columbus, President Lincoln and the pilgrims. Those are the stories we tell when we are all in the car on the way to kindergarten. Lately he says he wants to be a baseball player and a doctor when he grows up. That's fine with us! And Tornado has entered the "why" phase of life. He is having real conversations now, and answering questions with real answers. He learning a ton of words and is a big jokester! He'll come in the room and just make a funny face or noise to get everyone to laugh.

Here is Thunder working on a rocket that Sunshine got for Christmas. It was quite the project to get it together, but flew so high and so far that we lost it! He is staying busy in the Bishopric at church and of course at work. He still gets up early every morning to exercise, which I cheer on from the comfort of bed.
And this is me with a new haircut! I got it cut at a friend's house (Marissa Armstrong) and she did great! I've been working on the books for work, and that has been consuming a lot of time. Quarterly taxes are coming up! I've been exercising three times a week and so far my hips have been pretty good. I am now 5 months pregnant and feeling pretty good. Then again, I was at a choir recording for a Jenny Phillips CD, and the producer asked me if I had a few weeks left before I deliver... hmmmmmm. No, 4 months buddy! My cousin Tera said we Ashdown ladies are all blessed with big pregnant bellies. In the scheme of things, not too big a price to pay for these cute little guys we get to take care of.

Little Fish

Snow? Ice? Wind? Blizzards? Slippery roads? Bone-chilling temperatures? Let's go swimming!

No, we were not recently on a flight leaving JFK. With the arrival of #4 approaching soon (well, not THAT soon, I guess... I still have 18 weeks left), I decided that it would be better to do swimming lessons now than wait for summer.
Poor Tornado had to spend most days watching while the bigger kids got to swim, but on the last day I put him in a life jacket and let him play in the shallow section (I watched from the side). Cloudburst and Sunshine also got to play at the end of their lesson. Nothing like a little chlorinated water to add some sunshine to a cold day!

DETOX

During Christmas we had an abundance of treats, candy, sugar, pies, cheesecakes and sweets.... Mmmm doesn't that just sound fabulous? In fact, the kids would wake up in the morning and ask for treats! And wouldn't quit asking until bedtime! And half the time they would find the stash on their own anyway! Great right?

No, no! We are trying to eat healthier now! This week we are ridding ourselves of our addiction to sugar. Really! We have gone since Saturday with no sugary treats at all. And we are eating a ton of fruit. The kids are doing alright. But this is torture for me! I'm prego, I should be able to eat whatever I want! Give me a cookie!

Actually, this is good for me (grrrrrrr). I am usually over the blood sugar limit on my glucose test during pregnancy, so the Doctor will probably restrict my sugar in a few weeks any way. And I must say, fruit is simply delicious. But we have a pack of Rolo's in the pantry that always stares at me when I go in there. I really should get rid of those....

Happy New Year, Baby!

We rang in the new year last night with a family sleep over and having our friends Ryan and Julie M. over today. The kids each have a pull-out couch that they hauled into our room along with blankets and pillows. Then we watched a cartoon Spider-Man marathon until the ball dropped! Well, at least the East coast one... I'm not that crazy! Dad was the first to fall asleep, a side effect of getting in to work early to get out early, and the last crazy one going strong at 11:30? Yes, 2 year-old Tornado. "Turn on Batman mama!" He thinks all superheroes are called Batman. I turned out the lights and he kept climbing on the other kids, coming over to my side of the bed and asking for "more Batman." So he ended up in bed. Ah boys.

Speaking of boys.......

It's a boy!
We took Cloudburst and Sunshine with us to the ultrasound. They both did great. Cloudburst was a bit upset that she's not getting a sister, until the words magically appeared on the screen "I love my sister!" The baby said "Hi" to Sunshine too and they were both amazed that the baby can already "speak English." Thanks to a great ultrasound tech!