Phoebe's First Talk

Last Sunday was Phoebe's very first talk in church. She was very excited to speak on I will Follow God's Plan. Here she is wating in he big chairs upfront to go up to the podium and speak.

She only had to give 1-2 lines on the topic so we practiced saying our talk over & over.  I went up with her to help refreash her memory & she did really very good!  Listen for yourself. 

February's Date Night

Last year Daily Deals ran a special for LaCaille's (a rally posh French restaurant)  The deal was $35 for an $80 gift certificate.  Cory & I decided to buy it because we both knew it would be the only way we would ever be able to afford eating there.  We choose to go out to dine with some friends  (Stephanie & Shawn Petterson) in Feb because it a romantic restaurant and that is the month of love. 

When we arrived we discovered it is valet parking only, luckily it only cost $3 because that was the amount of cash both Cory and I had on us between the two of us. We then got our coats checked, another restaurant first for me& were seated. When first seated they ask if you would like sparkling or bottled water, we of course were just fine with tap.  Then you get the hors-d' ouevres only menus.  We then returned those asking for the entrée menus, which made me feel a little low class.  When the bread and butter were brought out the butter was actually shaped like roses.

The entrées were all very spendy so after initial sticker shock we ordered our food. Cory ordered the duck and I the rib. We both loved our salads, mine was the wilted spinach and the crab avocado & grapefruit. As for our meals mine was good, but 1/3 of it was fat & Cory LOVED his meal. After the entrées they brought the dessert menus. Most everything sounded delicious on the menu, but it all cost $16 apiece, so instead we just took our check and all went to dessert at Baskin Robbins.

This was a fun experience, something you should try, but we probably will not be returning here again unless there is someone out there wanted to pay for us to enjoy ourselves.

The Artistic Era Begins

Lately Phoebe has entered into a new phase, her artistic era, which has been a little troublesome for the rest of us Fergy family members.  On day one of the era Phoebs got a hold of a ballpoint pen and colored herself and brother.

On the second day of her artistic era Phoebe got a hold of a Crayola Marker and in a short amount of time managed to color on all the walls upstairs, many furniture surfaces & her siblings. When I discovered the happenings, Phoebe was in the process of attempting to clean off her siblings, however she grabbed the spray and wash and not the water spray bottle.

After that I assigned  her duties to the cleaning off of walls while I took care of the cleaning off of wee children.

Unfortunately, Phoebe thought cleaning off the walls was fun and not a punishment, so I had to assign timeout time as well.  As for the children the damage was already done and I just didn't know it yet.  Cami had gotten some of the spray and wash in her eye and for nearly 2 days she was blinded, while we repeatedly had to flush out her eyes.

After many talks about how naughty coloring on the walls is and the dangers of getting step stools to reach into mommy's things, we have taken the temptations of all pens/markers and put them in high hidden spaces away from our wee Picasso and placed all chemicals even a little bit further out of reach.

I'm a Big Kid Now

I have been putting off the change from cribs to toddler bed for the twins, but after an indecent with the bottom cream being smeared all over Cami I decided it was time for the change. I later discovered Cami smeared the diaper cream all over herself, but still it didn't change the fact that I've become too pregnant to be able to reach Cami's crib mattress to change her greasy sheets.

The twins haven't adjusted to the change as easily as Phoebe did.  I think the fact that they always have a playmate around helps to prohibit their sleeping.  They instead play with each other for hours instead of sleeping, which makes for two VERY cranky babies which was the case in the picture below, both are just sitting on the floor screaming their guts out after not napping for the 3-4 hrs that should have been nap time.

 

We have now had to resort to one child sleeping in a potable crib for naps while the other tries to sleep in their bed.  Cami prefers the crib, but I think it is more for the fact she can then reach in her drawers and pull out clothes rather than the crib being better for her sleeping.

It has been a couple weeks now and naps are still a struggle, but I am happy to say nighttime is not a problem; both twiners choose to sleep in the middle of the floor next to one another.

PPP&P Party

Our family has had a rough winter thus far concerning sicknesses. About every 2 weeks one or all of us picks up a new ailment to share with the rest of the family. Always being out of commission has been rough on our family being couped up all the time so in a mini celebration I planned a Pizza, Pop, Pj & Picnic Party (PPP&  P Party). We pulled out a new movie for the family from our hidden stash, Sword & the Stone & ate our favorite Totino's Pizzas. It was such a fun night together as a family that Daddy has requested that we do this from now on 1-2x a month with our family. Growing up Cory always remembered Friday night were always a party for his family & so Fridays will be a PPP&P Party once-twice a  month in our Fergy Family.

Happy Love Day '11

Every year for Valentine's Day we set up candy trails form everyones bedrooms to their gifts & this year was no exception.

Phoebe was the first to emerge out of her room at 6am.  She was way excited to finally get the candy gummy hearts that she had picked out from the store a couple days earlier.  Phoebe followed her trail only to find she didn't approve of what books went to what person so she switched them all around for us. 

Cami and Josh were up only minutes after Phoebe and they were excited to see their animal cookie trails & books.

For breakfast I made "heart" pink pancakes, however, Phoebe insisted they were bunnies.

For lunch Cory and I went out together as always. This year we went to Applebee's because thanks to my brother for Christmas we had a gift card to use. After lunch things got a bit crazy for Cory and I which included looking at a model home and even putting earnest money down for one, but to only cancel it the next day. We still love the home, but the timing just isn't right for us...maybe next year. After all of our house craziness we discided to postpone our Valentine's  Day evening plans for the family until the next night.

V-DAY PT 2:

I had fixed a fancy dinner for us to eat on Monday, but we weren't hungry so I reheated it all and on Tuesday we enjoyed our fancy Valentine's dinner as a family; Phoebe was especially thrilled about the Martenelli's we drank. For our FHE lesson we talked about loving our family and how we all can show love for one another.  It surprisingly was one of our most successful lessons to date.  

For our treat I made pink pudding, however as I beat it more and it sat up it turned orange...oh well, it was still fancy enough for us and everyone LOVED it.

V-Day Countdown 2011

Once again Cory and I did our V-day countdown, a little something we started last year that makes the holiday a bit more fun.  This year I changed out some of the events we didn't enjoy doing so much last year and found fun new activities, such as making our own malt shop.

Another new activity was to take a photo for each other that shows your love and exchange them. Cory was cute and creative with love mice that live in the kiddos play kitchen.

I, of course, always tend to chose projects that are too ambitious and turn out to be a bit disastrous. I had the idea that each kid would hold a sign with a word and I would take the picture and then Photoshop together for one cute pic.  Simple right... wrong here is a taste of how the photo shoot went.

To compound the problem I quickly remembered then too I am out of practice with Photoshop and that is a hard program to use for the unskilled so I tried one last time to get a cute photo of all the kids at once, but after another failed cute photo-

This was Cory's final V-day picture:

Oh well, the pictures are a bit humorous to look back at now and next year I will take a note from my creative husband and keep it simple and cute.  

One successful valentine I made for Cory this year was this candy gram. In case you can't see it all too well it's a shovel in PB M&Ms and a card that reads I really dig you. I was happy with how cute/delicious it turned out!

Where Are My Babies?

For the past couple of weeks I have struggled with giving in to the fact my babies are growing up and time is running out before Sophie Marie joins us. I know I need to take one wall of their cribs off so they can adjust to normal beds, before being thrown into the mix of having bunk beds and Phoebe joining their room next month, but then I come in and see Cami jumping up and down and andacting so cute so I will lift her out and  once again I want to shy away from doing the inevitable bed changes.

The twins are so eager to begin doing all the things that they see Phoebe do that Cami often believes she needs to sit at/on the table to eat her meals instead of her highchair.

Where  are my babies? I don't know... all I seem to find these days are these three toddlers, who all weigh, play and act out the same.

 Side note: Yesterday morning at the breakfast table I asked Phoebe, "What do you want to do today?" and she answered. "I would like to want to know the scriptures are true."  I am not quite sure what to do with that, but unfortunately we were never able to find out because she spent most of the day in timeout. At the end of the day I had to ask, " Phoebe why can't you mind at all today?" to which she replied, "because minding makes me sad." Oh kids, how can they be so frustrating and make you want to lash out violently one second and then laugh the next.

Today I am trying a new approach... the spray bottle, it worked for our animals growing up & then again for Cami and her insensate need to play in the trash can so today maybe it will work for non minders and naughty boys who climb on tables and sit on computers alike. 

Grandma's Cookie Party Fun

Every year at Valentines Grandma Fergy has a cookie party for all the grandkids. There they decorate to their hearts content cookies and cupcakes with candies and sprinkles. This year was the craziest "fun" yet with the 6 older kids super excited to decorate treats and then the 5 babes just ready to eat and get messy.

Phoebe is a cautious child  when it comes to decorating. She doesn't add much to her cookies, in fact the only reason this heart got as much as it did is because I added to it. On another note Phoebe is my MOST frustrating picture taker EVER she doesn't understand looking at the camera for a picture, so you either get a far distant look to only heaven knows where or you get after much yelling to look at the camera and hold your cookie up, cookie face girl.UGHHHH!

By know it is a widely known fact Phoebe is a non eater.  She only tends eat when she is in a social situation, which is why she took ONE bite of her beloved cookie. The rest of the cookie came home with us and has been given many times as a dessert, but she only ever eats a bit of it at a time...the cookie finally got so hard we had to toss out the rest of it & yes 2 wks later thoes cupcakes of her still have not been eaten. 

Though the twins are normally big eaters they just didn't understand the whole cookie thing so they mainly sat there and held their coolie and waved around their spoon of frosting until their cousins eventually stole what was left of their trays.

Cousin Zach got really into the decorating, but he would only use the manly color green to adorn his creations.

He had made such a widespread disaster with his sprinkles that he felt he could only begin to clean up the mess by wetting his hands continually and licking them up, unfortunately this gave Phoebe an idea of what to do with pink sprinkles. 

After all was said and done the twins maintained their nearly perfectly clean staus compared to the rest of the babes.  I think they would have been more into it if they were both teething at the time.

Until all the yummy fun again next year including another baby in the mix,  this picture of brother will have to tide us over.