Are you ready for some football....

Ahhhh...isn't this the cutest little football you've ever seen? Totally, right! This is our little Reagan supporting his brothers at their football games this fall. The boys have finally finished their football season. They played, well...they played and Ethan did a bit of twirling too. LOL. I got this cute hat from Etsy and Reagan has almost outgrown it already. He is going to be wearing it again this Halloween and will be Daddy's football and of course, Dad will be sporting the BSU jersey. The kids are busy, thus keeping me busy, but I try my best to do some girly things along the way. Well, now I have a screaming child in the background, so my post will have to end now, but hope you enjoy the pic.

School

 

Boys on 1st 2nd day of school

I have been so excited to have school start again and the boys, well, they didn't actually get excited until it really was the 1st day of school. It was more work this year to get all the necessities needed and thanks to Dad's help, we managed to be ready. The boys were up bright and early and we were all ready to go with 20 minutes until the bus arrived and when the boys actually have time, I let them watch some morning cartoons while they wait. Little did I know the bus was going to be 10 minutes early and I wouldn't have time to snap that 1st day of school photo. Luckily, I managed to see the it rounding the corner or we would have missed it completely. The poor kids had to run the whole way to the bus stop. Bad mommy! 

When they arrived home, I was quite confused because Ethan came by himself and Caden was nowhere in sight. Ethan walked in the door and said, "I missed you, Mommy" and just about burst into tears. Oh, melt my heart! After a confusing discussion and Caden arriving home 5 minutes later, I found out there had been some bullying on the bus and Ethan had been scratched on the hand by another boy. Caden had begged the bus driver to let them out at his friend's house for a band aid (because he didn't want to listen to him scream any more) and they let them out (WHAT!). So our neighbor drove Ethan to our house and Caden opted to walk home. Seriously I wasn't too pleased with the whole situation (I can be somewhat paranoid). I was quite heartbroken that Ethan had experienced this. I wish I could be there to protect my kids all the time. Kids can be so mean sometimes (and so can we adults), but that is just a part of growing up. Unfortunately, we have to learn how to deal with these things. After some hugs and kisses, things were better, and we talked about their day. I was happy to learn that that they both had a good time and E even managed to eat some of his lunch. So the next day we were up early again and this time I drove them to school to ensure I would get some 2nd day of school pics instead of the back of their heels running after the bus. :)

Good Morning, Sunshine

Our little Reagan is 5 weeks today and Sam and I say that it feels like it has been forever. Usually people say it has gone by so fast and while these past few weeks have somewhat flown by-our feeling of lack of sleep has not. :) Reagan was up bright and early this morning and I decided to take a picture of his morning hair do. He has such crazy hair. I'm just not really sure what to do with it but let it do it's own thing. Reagan is such a noisy baby; he grunts and does this (what I think is adorable) billy goat noise.  He reminds me of Caden when he was little in that respect.

I have to admit that the adjustment has been difficult. I have heard the 3rd is the hardest, well I have to say it is the 4th for me. Really, I think that probably depends more on the child. Reagan prefers to be held...ALL the time. Then you add in caring for 3 other boys and things become chaos. I really try to keep up, but right now crayon is on the windows and pencil on the wall, my laundry bin is overflowing, and we really watch our step in the baby/craft/computer room, but hey, at least I managed to clean the bathrooms. My hubby has been wonderfully understanding as most days he comes home to a not so clean house, noisy children, and dinner unprepared, and still manages to greet me nicely. So it has been hard not doing the things I think I'm responsible for and the things I want and would love to do. I'm not blogging about this because I want a pity session. My life is good and I am blessed with so many simple things, but I have felt like no one really understands what I'm going through (even though I  know better) and then I received a wonderful letter from my mother-in-law and a phone call the other day from my own mom. Here were two women in my life who let me know they loved me, were thinking of me, and just said things that affirmed to me that they understood. Sometimes we just need to be reminded. So my hope is that perhaps when you read this post that you will send a note or pick up the phone to call someone who you have been thinking of and remind them.

Boy # 4

We added another little boy to our family on Monday. We named him Reagan Michael. Mom and baby are trying their best to get some rest so we will post more on our new guy later on.

Butterfly Mobile

So a few months back I found some cute butterfly mobiles on Etsy and thought to myself, "I can make that". I decided to give it a try and cut some butterflies using my Cricut out of vellum and some sparkly white paper. I also picked up some crystal beads to add. I went to work not having any plan, meaning I just starting stringing them randomly with no measurements or how many to even make. A few nights into this and I began to think I would be adding this to my growing  pile of unfinished projects. I was also worried that it wouldn't turn out as it was just looking like a gigantic butterfly mess. So this last week, I decided I had better give this one more lasting effort and finish the dang thing. Amazingly, I did just that and it looks better than I expected. I would hope to have a plan if I did this again, but highly doubt it will be attempted. Here is my FINISHED project and just in time as I have only 5 more days until my due date. I certainly won't be putting this even close to little hands to grab and choke on, but for now it makes a cute hanging decoration in baby's room.

Krupp Scout Hollow

At the beginning of June, we took our den to Krupp Scout Hollow for day camp. The weather was just perfect (we were concerned about rain), and the groups were just the right size. This is the second year I have attended day camp and Caden's first year. They had some really great activities for the scouts and our den chose to do archery (this or the bb guns). Our theme was super heroes and each station did a great job of working the character connections with each superhero, such as Faith for Zorro and Courage for Superman.This photo below is all the arriving scouts playing capture the flag. The first year I went, I was so worried about losing a boy in the conglomeration but I have relaxed a bit since then. The boys did capture the leaders' flag a few times this year.

 These photos below are an obstacle course that each scout did on their own. We walked through it once and I was impressed with the set up. The scouts worked hard to get through this activity.

 

 

These photos show the scouts learning about different animal tracks. They stamped a bunch of the animal tracks on paper, which is more of a bears requirement to fulfill I believe, but they still enjoyed it.

 

Next we hiked our way to the archery grounds and the scouts were pumping with excitement here. With that being said they still managed to be still and listen closely to the leader explaining the rules of archery and how to hold the bow and release the arrow. They each got to shoot one with a leader and the rest on their own. Caden hit the target on his first try by himself. I was impressed as we leaders got to shoot also and it really isn't that easy. Ever since then, Caden has been practicing his archery skills, thanks to Grandpa Grover having some bow and arrows lying around at his place.

 At this station the scouts made leather bracelets that they engraved designs, names, or whatever they wanted into them. I thought this was a great hands on activity and it was nice that the scouts had something to take home to share with their families.

 

We then enjoyed our homemade picnic lunches and the scouts played some fun activities and visited the store (can't remember what they call it, but full of fun items for boys to purchase). I followed some of our group to the parachute and that was just fun to watch them playing in. I might have joined in if I hadn't been so pregnant.

 

We finished up the remainder of our day with other fun activities and closing ceremonies. By the time 2:30 pm rolled around, I was ready to get home and rest, but I was glad for the opportunity to see my son enjoy his first day camp and hopeful he doesn't get tired of me always being there, at least for a while.

Our wolf den at the end of day camp (of course my son is not smiling)!

Update

Life at the Grover household is going well. School has been out for almost 3 weeks now and the boys are enjoying it so far even though the weather hasn't been so great. We will get one nice hot day and then a week of rain and wind. I am enjoying some days of actually sleeping in. The oldest boys are up early, but turn on the TV in the morning and Will has been sleeping in occasionally. It is absolute bliss on those mornings when I might get to sleep in until 7:30 or 8:00 especially now that sleep is becoming more difficult for me these days. I think pregnancy sometimes prepares you for the little newborn. I see that our pregnancy ticker has us down to 47 more days. WOW! We are so not prepared. I have purchased a box of newborn diapers and white onesies, but that is the extent of our preparedness. Not knowing the sex of the baby does have its disadvantages...but the decision was made and at least I'm sticking to it. Sam insists it is a girl, at least to me, but he insisted we were having a girl with our first and you can see how that turned out. :)

Speaking of Sam, he has now finished his master's degree. I believe it took 3 years to finish the task. I am so very proud of him. What an accomplishment! He is happy to be done and not spending his weekends on homework. Good timing, too, as life is about to become even busier for us.

Here are some photos of our Will keeping busy himself. He is into everything and goes everywhere now and is just as clever as the rest of the boys at finding ways to get what he wants.

The Trampoline

I have always been against having a trampoline despite the fact that my family had one growing up. I blame it on watching too many episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos. I am just terrified that my kids will get seriously injured on one. So when Sam asked me yet again this year about getting a tramp for the boys, even I was surprised when the word yes came from my mouth. I am not sure why I did; perhaps because I am pregnant, or perhaps I didn't want to hear it anymore, or perhaps, after so many stitches, I have realized my kids will get hurt one way or another. ALL the boys were so excited when the trampoline arrived.

The wind was so chilling this day but the boys were so excited that they all worked to get it together. Getting those springs hooked were the worst part. It got to the point were I couldn't even pull them hard enough to get them hooked in. I'm not really sure how Sam managed it.

We did get the netting, but we let the boys jump a bit before attaching the rest. William even enjoyed it. He would walk on and immediately call for Caden and Caden would jump with him. I was shocked to see him loving it. Will is much braver now and likes to jump on his own even when the other two are jumping about. He is a tough kid. I have to admit that the tramp has even become one of my favorite toys. No, I haven't been jumping on the tramp (bad idea when your this pregnant). But the boys love it and can entertain themselves for a while, which is just heaven for me, and I really LOVE seeing them have so much enjoyment from it.

So Many Projects....

We are trying to make room for the new baby that will soon be here and that means moving my craft room to well...I don't really know yet, but in the process I have been trying to finish up some projects that I have stashed away. I have finished piecing two quilt tops together that are now ready to be quilted. This is the most recent one that I have done.

I actually won this Moda fabric from the Quilt Shoppe that was in Rigby and have finally gotten around to using it. I am a beginning quilter so I purchased a book of quilt patterns that uses jelly rolls, and totally ignoring the part that said this pattern was for advanced quilters, I picked this star pattern. I mean really how hard could it be? Yeah...okay. I cannot tell you how many times I was using my seam ripper on this. With a baby on the way and so many other projects to do, I finally gave up on perfection and just sewed on despite the flaws. I think it is still cute. Speaking of cute, here are some pictures of my little helper who likes to take out the pins for me.

Will does a good job taking out those pins and even putting them away, but you have to keep up with him! I learned my lesson when I tediously pinned two large pieces together and then left it to run some other errands only to find that all of my somewhat perfectly placed pins had been removed! Oh well, I still adore him. So now I have packed up all my sewing supplies and fabric and placed it in the basement storage. I now move on to catch up on my scrapbooking. That will be a challenge.

Baby 4 Ultrasound Pictures

THE BOTTOM OF BABY'S FEET AND POSSIBLE HAND IN THERE TOO.

BABY IS GRABBING FOOT WITH HAND. MY FAVORITE!

SIDE VIEW OF BABY

So I know that it has been a while since my ultrasound, but I thought I would post some photos from that appointment. I did a horrible job on the scan of those photos, so sorry about that. The baby is healthy as can be and the sex is unknown, at least by me. Sam could know by a wink wink from the ultrasound tech, but if he did, I never saw it and he is not letting on to me that he knows. The baby is 25 weeks now and is doing so very well. I would say that this is the most active baby I've had before birth and being able to feel that movement is one of my favorite things about pregnancy. It is always thrilling for me even at 5 in the morning. Prego Mom here is doing great. I finally bought some maternity clothes today, which I really dislike doing, although I will say that maternity clothes have really improved since my first. I just don't like to spend money on something I'm going to wear for just a little while. We have a stash of maternity clothes that has made the rounds with the sisters, but alas, my sister Jen is pregnant right now. I was hoping to wait it out until then (she is due May 1), but it is just not happening. Hey, 25 weeks isn't bad. I just can't hang out in PJ bottoms all the time.

Dinner Time Conversations

This is just a funny thing that happened at our dinner table a while ago...


Caden, our 8 year old, said this, "Mom, I know a bad word that we shouldn't say."

"Umm...really," I say, holding my breath.
"Yeah, my friend at school told me what it is and it is a baaad word," he replies.
At this point, Sam and I are looking at each other with wonder on our faces at what possible word he could have learned of. "Okay," I say, "Why don't you tell me what the word is and I will let you know if that is a word we shouldn't use."
Shaking his head in disbelief that I would ask such a thing, Caden replies, "Oh no Mom, I'm not going to say it. I know it is a bad word. I'm not going to say it".
"It's okay, honey. Just tell me what it is".
Now my son is just squirming in his chair and grinning from ear to ear, still in disbelief that I want him to say this word. "No way, Mom. I'm not going to say it, but I know how to spell it."
"Okay, spell it for me".
"A-S-S".
"You mean ASS," my 6 year old blurts out in his loud, squeaky voice.
Sam and I again look at each other, first relieved at discovering which "naughty word" Caden had learned of, and second bursting into laughter at Ethan's comment. You see it was all very innocent of Ethan. He is sounding out his letters to build words, so it wasn't that he knew what it was, he just put them to together and came up with the right word. Now Sam is just laughing. I am trying to hold it together. Caden is shocked and starts pointing to his brother saying, "Oh Ethan, you just said a bad word".
So I start to go into lecture mode and tell the boys what the actually meaning is and that it can have a different meaning if someone uses it for a different purpose like name calling, blah, blah, blah.

Usually our dinner time conversations consist of the 2 eldest boys trying to talk over each other or stating how yucky their dinner is and Sam and I "coaxing" (yeah, right) them to eat and Will is always in the background happy as can be wanting something more that we haven't already put on his plate, but every once in a while we learn something new or have a good laugh over what the boys are saying.

Great to be eight!

Yes, I know my son's birthday was way back in December, but I thought I would write about it anyways because turning 8 seems to be such a fun age to be!

A great thing about turning 8 is being baptized. These are photos of Caden the day after his baptism because apparently I wasn't well prepared that day, but he is still just as handsome and silly the day after. He is holding his new set of scriptures and scripture bag up proudly that the Grover Grandparents purchased for him. (Thank you!) So very proud he chose to be baptized and hope he will follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost in his life.

Another thing about turning 8 is becoming a cub scout! Caden jumped right into scouts with his 1st pinewood derby. He was sure that car was going to be the fastest and well....it wasn't, more like one of the slowest. Ha ha! He, and Dad, handled the heartache well though (not usually one of his strengths) and had a great time anyways. He is excited to be a cub scout and have these activities with his friends, but maybe not so much his mom (I am one of his leaders). This age seems to be a fun one so far although he seems to think he knows it all already...

Here are some other fun photos this winter. Here is our sweet "Willibear" as we call him waiting at the school to pick up big brother, Ethan. I almost can't stand that cheesy smile of his; just makes my heart melt and my lips widen.

 Caden and Ethan in the snow covering the porch steps in Island Park. It was so deep and beyond a workout to actually walk to the front door from the road. Try doing that pregnant and carrying a toddler. I stopped many times along the way. :)

 Here is Sam trying to shovel the snow off the roof. He worked until it was dark and was so exhausted and frozen (so were we inside).

William eating the snow, of course!

Another shot of the boys playing in the snow. Yep, it was that deep and those lightweights don't even sink to the bottom!

Here in the valley, most of the snow has left us for now. I am eagerly awaiting spring to make its appearance and can already see the daffodils I planted last fall poking their green tops from the ground. I am excited. Yes, it is the little things for me. I know this summer will be a busy one for our family and Sam has already tried to talk me out of planting a garden this year, but it almost feels wrong not to. I'm not sure if I will be able to keep up with the plants and lawn this year as I am sure my round, pregnant self will be running after Will who gets faster and more clever every day. But that thought still doesn't keep me from wanting to plant and eat some fresh peas from the garden. I just might have to convince all those boys (and man) to help. :)

Family

Ever since William was born I have been wanting to get family pictures done. Well it took us almost 2 years to let go of all the excuses and get it done. Tara Miller from Urban Photo took these for us and can I say that my boys have never been naughtier...okay maybe not quite that bad, but I am surprised that we actually had pictures where we were smiling. William was crying from the start, Caden had just gotten home from school and was bursting with energy, and Ethan was refusing to smile. Really, I thought all the pictures were going to be awful. Luckily there were a few in there that were actually cute. My boys are just looking adorable, so adorable that I can look at these pics and forget how they were behaving that day. I love that there are photos of just Sam and I because that rarely happens, I love William "cheesing" it, Caden is beyond photogenic, and I love the photo of Ethan on the tracks. He was so in the moment running and choo-chooing.

We got these pictures at the beginning of November and little did we know it, but we were expecting another little one. Fast forward to the middle of December and we were shocked to learn of it. Now it is January and I think we have gotten over the shock. I say shock because Sam had a vasectomy (without getting his special test later) over a year ago after our 3rd child, and yes, the child is his, so I say. Ha ha! (I have welcomed him to have that test done because once it is he will forever be hearing me say, I told you so!) I had an ultrasound a few weeks ago and found that baby is due July 24. I am so excited. Really a wonderful gift as I thought my pregnancy days were over and despite the exhaustion and sickness, I am overjoyed with the thought that I get to experience this again...but also sometimes petrified that I will be a mother of four. As for Sam, well he needs more time adjusting to all this. Our boys seem excited by a new sibling and surprisingly, they both want another brother. Ethan even says that he will hold the baby this time. I asked him why he didn't last time and he replied that he was afraid the baby would wake up and cry.Aahhh.