The Lybbert Family

Pinkalicious!

2011-02-10T10:25:00.000-08:00

In Izabella's kinder class they occasionally do a themed color day. They are supposed to wear the special color of the day, they have special themed color activities, and they have a themed color tasting party in the afternoon.

Iz has been waiting since the beginning of the year with great anticipation for pink day since pink is her absolute favorite color.

We recently bought the book Pinkalicious which is about a girl who eats too many pink cupcakes and ends up turning completely pink.

As soon as Iz finished reading the book she wanted nothing more to become pinkaliscous herself.

So being the uber cool mom that I am last night we bought some temporary hair dye. All that ended up happening is that it stained my hands and her scalp and gave her a little pink tinge. Oh well, at least we tried.

We gathered up all of her pink dress up clothes and pink makeup in attempt to copy the book as well as we could.

This is the result:

I wonder what the other kids will think of her today at school =)

Here's a quick clip of her. Just look how excited she is...

Say Cheese!

2011-01-21T22:14:00.001-08:00

I've decided to document an ordinary day as opposed to waiting for the extraordinary. Not every day is absolutely nuts in our house -just most days =)

Tonight I just snapped a few pics of everyone enjoying our pizza night.

Just look at all that tomato stainage!

Lucie is mistakenly under the assumption that the body absorbs nutrients through the skin, not the digestive track. Just look at how much yogurt and pizza she smeared all over to make her nice relaxing facial mask.

Lately Lucie automatically says cheese every time she sees the camera just like one of those trained chimpanzees.

It just melts my heart.

Take a look at this little video clip to see how much of a ham everyone is... well everyone that is except Tygh.

My Award Winnin' Daughter

2011-01-10T21:56:00.000-08:00

Izabella loves taking pictures with my camera. So much in fact, that I gave her my old one so she would stop messing around with mine.

When we heard that her school PTA was hosting a contest that included a photography division Iz enthusiastically requested that she participate.

The theme for the contest was "Together We Can." I asked Iz to pay attention to what groups of people do together that they couldn't do on their own.

Her response was "together we can.... apple pie filling." Isn't it so like a Kindergartner to take it so literally?!

She took a bunch of pictures of the neighbors and us picking apples from their orchard, us goofing around, canning apple pie filling, the finished product, and a few pics of us pigging out. I haven't downloaded the pics to this computer, but here's a link to walgreens photo where you can see the pics.

We took all of the pics and made a cute little collage poster that Izabella selected. It was really cute.

A few days ago I got an email message from our school's PTA President that Izabella won the first place award for Primary Photography Division! I think she was the only Kindergartner who entered, but hey winning is winning =)

She was so proud of her little self when they called her name at the little award ceremony. They mispronounced our last name, and she gladly corrected them. There were several people that made little aw cute comments when they saw how tiny she was compared to the high schoolers that won the awards right before her.

I didn't think that she would brave enough to go by herself across the podium, but she did great.

They were kind enough to give her a nice certificate, a ribbon, and a neat gift certificate to craft warehouse.

Now her photo collage is moving on from the regional contest to the state competition. Wish us luck!

If she doesn't get any further at least we had fun and I got some yummy apple pie filling out of it all.

From Infant to Toddler

2010-12-23T11:09:00.000-08:00

So my sweet baby Lucie Jane turned one last month. If I were an organized Mom, I would have posted pics from her little party and shared her accomplishment (yes making it to her first birthday considering our family is an accomplishment) in a timely matter.

On the right, you can see a pic of what she looked like after she ate her cake. She didn't hesitate for a second to try this new found miracle food of a giant slice of cake.

We had our neighbors over and the Goveias over and I think she just loved watching all the big kids play. I should have taken more pictures to share with all you birthday party absentees.

But alas, I'm always behind these days. So you'll just have to settle for a quick little video clip of her latest game. We call it the Uh Oh, Go Game. She likes to drop things, and say "Uh Oh" until we realize what she's done. When we pick up the object she says "go" and then we toss it back to her.

The cutest part of the clip is that she is showing off a little bit of her baby words. She is my little talker. So far we've recognized when she says dog, cat, ball, mama, dad, tank qu (thank you), done, up, uh oh, go, and bye.

Lucie started walking a little before she turned one. She just thinks that she is one of the big kids now. If she's not right in there with all the action of the older kids, I can usually find her playing quietly with their toys in their rooms.

Lucie's favorite toy is one that I bought for her with the money that my her Great Gandpa sent us. I usually just have Lucie play with hand-me-down toys from the other kids and I don't buy her things that are just hers.

Thank you for looking out for our little Lucie and sending her such a great present Granpappy and Sylvia!

I bought her this little kitchen set and she just loves it. I think she especially loves the fact that it is just her own. The bigger kids can only play with it if she lets them.

I just love the little girl she is turning into. Her personality is definitely her own, but it reeks of that Lybbert Family Flavor. She's a determined and fun loving little bundle of joy and I'm so glad she's a part of our family.

Happy Birthday Lucie Jane!

It's a miracle no one is dead after the Lybberts sled

2010-11-29T19:00:00.000-08:00

It has become a tradition for me to hurdle Spencer down a hill on a sled against his will and then share the video clip with you all.

Here's this years gem:

Today my neighbor entrusted me with her daughter Mary and she's the one that you see sliding on to the pavement at the end of the clip.

Our favorite place to go sledding is at the church where the kids have preschool. There is a fenced in playground with the perfect hill.

Izabella is the legs that you see in the air as she bites it. She ended up doing a backwards somersault. I was worried that she was going to suffer from me cutting out gymnastics from her busy schedule, but she's still got all the skills needed to continue to succeed.

We've had snow for over a week now so we've had lots of chances to go sledding. Even little Lucie is being thrown into the mix. (If you're wondering what Tygh is doing in the pic, he's just imitating the face Lucie makes when she has to wear her snowsuit.)

After hating the snow due to growing up on the Western side of the state, I think I'm starting to enjoy the winter and I'm accepting the snow. I am not to the point of liking it, but at least it provides good entertainment for me as a parent.

At the end of my amusement-at-my-children's-expense experience they are rewarded with a cup of warm hot cocoa.

I was told by the lady that the hot chocolate was 99.9% caffeine free, but take a look at Spencer's face and let me know what you think.

Clogged Claude

2010-11-18T10:30:00.001-08:00

Last month my brother called in order to inform me that my Dad had a heart attack and he was in the hospital.

It completely took me by surprise. My Dad eats healthier than I do and he avoids most red meat altogether, he doesn't have any family history of heart problems, and the guy rides his bike 10 miles a day to and from work.

When I got a hold of my Mom (which took an eternity) she explained that Dad had just experienced some chest pain and the doctors said he just experienced a minor heart attack.

A minor heart attack?! That's like declaring minor bankruptcy or winning a minor Olympic event. My brother and I were absolutely panicked, but Mom assured us that it was OK. The Doctors decided to keep Dad for observation overnight and they scheduled an angiogram for the morning.

Dad's angiogram surprised us all. It showed that Dad had at least seven blocked vessels in his heart. At that point every thing was set in motion for Dad to get a quintuple bipass surgery.

Tygh had planned on going hunting with his buddy Scott, but he dropped everything in order to take our little family down so I could be with my Dad right before his surgery.

Izabella and Spencer asked a lot of questions and they were quite concerned about their Pappi. Izabella wanted to know "who had been mean to Pappi and broke his heart." I often tell the kids that they are breaking my heart when they don't listen or use harsh language. I guess I'm going to need to amend that saying.

Iz also put together that my Dad's name is Claude and his heart was clogged. She and I both thought that was pretty funny.

Spencer was worried that it was junk food that broke Pappi's heart and for a day or so, he cried when ever a doughnut or candy was offered to him. He's just my little sensitive guy.

When I finally saw Dad in the hospital it was all so surreal. Dad didn't look like himself, but he didn't look like someone with a major blockage in several of his main vessels. He still kept his terrible sense of humor about him and he kept the nursing staff amused.

My Dad was one of the "healthier" guys scheduled for an open heart surgery so we went through days of him being scheduled and rescheduled for surgery.

Finally the big day came. For nine hours Dad was in surgery. They stopped his heart and rearranged his veins and arteries. It was absolutely amazing.

Two days after his surgery, Dad was up and walking the hallways of the cardiac intensive care unit. Since all of the patients are asked to walk for rehab and there really isn't much to look at, naturally you can't help but compare patients. I caught my Dad several times muttering under his breath about how slow the other guys were walking and how the pace was "barely above a shuffle." Dad made it his goal to "blow away the competition" each time he did his laps around the unit. The thing that cracked me up was that Dad was at least 20 years younger than the other patients -so I don't think they were very fast striders to begin with.

Dad amazed me with how strong he was at fighting off his pain by being focused on his rehab. My Dad almost fainted when I was born and can't stand the thought of blood, but he did just fine with all of the IVs, tubing, and scars that covered his body. He kept his sense of humor and he was able to keep a positive attitude about his situation.

This Thanksgiving, I am even more thankful than ever for family.

I'm astounded that Tygh was able to watch the kids for several weekends so I could travel down to help with Dad. If you've ever read my older blog entries, you'd see that usually the kids get into major trouble when Tygh is watching them. This time was different, everyone was on their best behavior.

I wasn't able to be around for Halloween, (see the pic on the right to see where Lucie and I were for trick or treating). Tygh braved the ward trunk or treat all on his own and he put together the kids' costumes in my absence. What a great Dad he is.

I'm so grateful that they caught Dad's heart attack early and that we have such amazing medical technology available these days. Dad is now out of the hospital and recovering at home in Vancouver.

I'm grateful that my Mom was so strong and she is just so good for Dad. My brothers were so supportive during this family crisis. It was great to see how well we were all able to rally around my parents and it brought us closer together.

So as I scarfed down my turkey and pumpkin pie yesterday, I thought about how amazing the gift of time with your family is.

Good, Better, Best?

2010-10-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

So tonight for Family Home Evening I tried to teach the kids about Elder Oaks' conference talk from back in 2007 called Good, Better Best.

I've been overworked, exhausted and fed up with things lately and I've been trying to weed out good things and focus on keeping the better things that I fill up my day with.

Since Izabella is now at school for 7 hours of her day, I feel like the time I have to spend with her is really too precious to be spent watching TV. I decided to bribe the kids with rewards each day they are TV free. At first it was a little hard trying to figure out how to get a long and what we could all do besides zoning in front of the tube, but it is getting to be really fun.

I didn't want the kids to think I said no more TV or movies because it is bad, I just wanted them to know that there are better things they can do.

I baked 3 different sized cookies for a little object lesson. First I gave them a small oatmeal cookie, that they were really grateful to have and we talked about how it was "thumbs up good." Then I brought out a little bigger cookie and we talked about how it was a better cookie. The kids decided to illustrate this by saying it was better by 2 thumbs up.

Then I busted out the mother of all cookies that illustrated what best is like. They gave that the action of 2 thumbs way up.

As they were eating their cookies I slowly led them through more examples of good better and best in their daily lives. Like going to church: good, getting there on time: better, getting there on time and not fighting with each other in order to get there on time: best. Watching TV: good, playing with toys:better, playing a learning game together:best.

After a few of my examples Izabella wanted to provide her own.

She excitedly started with a thumbs up, "Following Jesus is good."

Then two thumbs up, "Listening to Mom and Dad is better." So she just ranked my my word above deity. Not bad, but I was wondering about what was coming next.

Then she enthusiastically put her hands above her head and declared, "Opening Christmas presents is BEST!"

Well at least she got the idea sort of?

Family Portrait

2010-10-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

It all started when Spencer wanted to put a gift tag on a present he picked out for Tygh. Since he can't write yet, he decided to draw a picture of himself and his daddy.

I was especially proud of my little man, since I've never seen him draw any people in his pictures yet.

Izabella was slightly insulted since she too was there when the gift was purchased, so she added herself to the picture.

Then she decided to go a step further, and draw her own family portrait.

At first I thought the picture was darling. I just loved my cute skirt and all the happy faces... but then I did a quick head count of the children in the picture.

Pictured at the left you can see a happy faced Tygh and I. Then from the right you can see according to Izabella, "Me, Spencer, my baby brother who isn't here yet, the baby girl in your tummy soon, and Lucie."

Tygh and I originally thought about having 5 kids, but that was before we hit the 3rd child mark. I am not ready for #4 yet, and the thought of a #5 just plain scares me.

Hand Washing Is Optional?

2010-09-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

Spencer is starting to get down this whole potty training thing.

He woke up from his nap yesterday, took off his diaper, used the bathroom, and put on underwear all by himself with out any prompting.

I was in the middle of high five-ing him and praising him when Izabella asked him in a stern tone, "Spencer, did you remember to wash your hands?"

To which Spencer solemnly replied, "Izabella, it's a choice."

Wait a minute, it's optional for boys to wash their hands?!

While at BYU, I worked on a custodial staff for a semester. I frequently had to refill the soap in the soap dispenser in the women's bathroom, but not once did I have to add soap to the men's room dispenser. Go figure.

Oh and since Lucie doesn't talk yet, I can't throw in any cute quotes from her, but here is a great pic for your viewing pleasure. (Just look at how she gives her thumbs up of approval to the quote.)

I did not spray paint the message on the sidewalk. I merely placed Lucie next to it and took a pic when I saw it.

I'm not sure what the original author intended (I think it's for breast cancer awareness), but I do know that Lucie loves nursing.

Kickin' the Addiction

2010-09-06T22:11:00.000-07:00

Since Tygh has been fasting for 24 hours with out food each month with out me for the past 5 plus years (I've been preggers of nursing for that long), I decided to find my own way of fasting.

In my mind, I think part of fasting is conquering something that you just don't think you can go without. For the past few months I fast from one fast Sunday until the next by giving up something that could be considered a kind of addiction.

This isn't a gospel principle, this is just an Aimee thing. I try and pick a gospel principle to study alongside what ever it is I'm giving up, so it's not just about self discipline.

July I gave up ice cream.

Did you ever stop and think how much the 4th of July and other Summer activities revolve around ice cream? There is a lot. Trust me.

Tygh helped me out each night by eating 2 Schwann's ice cream cones in front of me. He'd say that the first one was his as he ate it, and then he'd eat a second and tell me that he mine for me.

August I gave up soda. Again, hot weather in Yakima is all about soda.

Tygh has been nagging me about how much time I spend on Facebook and he's been asking me to give it up as a monthly fast since I started.

I pulled out my calendar and calculated that September is the month that has two fast Sundays because of General Conference in October. So I am going to give this a try.

A lot of the time I spend on FB is reading my friends updates, looking at their links, and reading comments. So I figure blogging doesn't count and this will be my crutch until September 26th (not that I'm counting down).

Wish me luck!

I wanted to share this funny little quick story with you. Last week Spencer pretty much was an honorary Kindergartner. He tagged along with Izabella for the first half hour or so at school each day. He really seemed to like the opening circle time that they had. On the walk home, it wasn't uncommon to hear him reciting the poems they learned or singing the songs he heard at school.

Thursday the kids made little puppets and acted out Jack and Jill while Mrs. Sauer read the poem to the kids. Spencer decided to take the poem one step further and act it out at home.

I was downstairs when I heard Spencer go into the backyard to get something and then I heard him go to the bathroom.

Shortly after he went to the bathroom, I heard him calling to me for help. Since Spencer is potty training, I thought little of this event.

When I got into the bathroom, I discovered that he was filling a bucket with water. He had got it stuck on the faucet and he wanted me to carry it to the top of the basement stairs. I did as he requested, but I was really puzzled.

He tried to clarify and he explained, "Mom, I'm Jack. I need this."

I'm pretty slow and I didn't get what he was talking about. He then walked down the stairs and repeated, "Mom, I'm Jack."

Izabella got it at this point. "Yeah, and I'm Jill." I then realized that I was holding a pail of water at the top of the "hill."

That boy sure can make me laugh the way he thinks! He asked me to get the camera and then the kids acted out the poem and watched and re watched their video clip for over a half an hour.

The things we Lybberts do for entertainment.

School of De-Stink-tion

2010-08-31T22:45:00.000-07:00

Just imagine how I felt when I realized that we lived within the boundaries of the best neighborhood schools in Yakima. A few years ago they won the coveted school of distinction award.

I was thrilled. I just knew there was hope for my energetic destroying angel. She was going to learn so much and grow to be smart at this higher institution for learning.

Then I saw this sign in front of the school on the first day of class:

It's good to not only know that Coke sponsors our school, but that we understand the power of apostrophes at Nob Hill Elementary, School of De-stink-tion.

A Royal Proclaimation

2010-08-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

To all ye faithful townspeople out there, let it be known that:

Queen Izabella the Eldest of the Lybbert Clan has reached the royal age of 5!

The local festivities included a cupcake party at Kindergarten (and yes Spencer is doing exactly what you think he's doing). Queen Izabella was especially delighted in how she received a birthday crown from the Royal Teacher.

And Her Royal Majesty also had a splendid Birthday Playgroup with many of her other Royal Companions in attendance.

On Sunday, the actual day of her birth, she was serenaded by the townspeople at church and received a token gift of a special birthday pencil. Her Royal Majesty was also sure to announce her actual birthday to every living soul she passed in the hallways.

Then as the evening progressed she heard from many Kings and Queens in faraway lands who also sent their magnificent birthday wishes. (Thanks everyone for the phone calls, they meant a lot to her).

Cheap Entertainment

2010-08-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

This week Izabella started her Kindergarten Academy. Just the kindergartners at her elementary school attend for 3 hours so they can get used to the routine of things before the rest of the kids start attending.

Thanks to the lazy nature of summer vacation my kids are not used to waking up at 7:30 am and getting ready to get out the door. If it wasn't for the fact that we have a great group of neighborhood friends to walk with, I doubt we'd ever make it on time.

Here's a pic of the gang walking to school together:

The younger two kids have been lacking entertainment now that Izzie has been gone for a few hours each day.

Spencer regularly requests to watch tv to which he knows "mommy says no movies!"

Today I told him I had something better to watch, the laundry! Thank goodness for front loader washing machines and dryers.

Spencer helped me move the laundry and push the buttons. Lucie just think that the dryer is hilarious. I think it took up at least an hour of this mornings time.

Here's a clip of them watching the riveting entertainment:

Who knows what I'll come up with to keep them busy tomorrow.... Maybe we can do the dishes together?

Thank Goodness For Those Little Promptings

2010-08-14T14:57:00.000-07:00

Tygh parked our car in a weird spot in our driveway because he had just a little random prompting to park in a different spot. I actually was a little mad that we had to walk so much further to unload our gang and get inside the house.

An hour after we all went inside, we heard a loud CRASH! A huge branch from the top of our walnut tree came crashing down right in our driveway where we usually park.

Here's a video clip of the branch sitting in our driveway after it fell:

Here's our kids with the giant branch sharing their appreciation.

It's little things like this experience that show me how much the Lord really does look out for us.

My Almost Kindergartner

2010-07-30T22:37:00.000-07:00

August 16th my oldest child is going to be our little test pilot and test out the Yakima Public School system on behalf of the family. Poor Yakima schools they have no idea of what's coming their way.

Izabella often has a talent for surprising me with her abilities. Recently she learned to "listen after you pray."

I am as you know, one of the most organized moms on the planet. (total sarcasm by the way.) I am forever losing things and then running late to go somewhere since I've lost a crucial item for our trip.

The other day I couldn't find my backpack diaper bag that also had my car keys on it. We were already running 10 minutes late and I had been looking for it for a half an hour. I was downright ticked off at everything when my little angel suggested that we say a prayer.

Since I was in no mood to say it, I asked Izabella if she would offer the prayer and she cheerfully did. After the prayer I sat still for a moment. When Iz asked what I was doing, I explained to her that I was listening and that's what you should do when you ask a question in a prayer.

When I invited her to listen, she told me that the backpack was upstairs in Spencer's room. My thought was that it was in the hallway.

I went upstairs and low and behold, there was the backpack in the doorway of Spencer's room.

Then the other day my keys were missing from the hook that I keep them on (when they are not attached to the diaper bag.) Again I was mad that I couldn't find them when my little sometimes innocent daughter suggested that we should say a prayer.

We had barely finished saying the prayer when Izzie popped up from her knees and went back to playing. I was kind of disappointed that she didn't stop and listen afterwards.

When I reminded her she said she already got her answer during the prayer and she prayed that "Daddy would come home soon." I gave her an inquisitive look so she went on to explain further. "Daddy has the keys and he'll give them to us when he gets home." Then she resumed playing.

Sure enough, 10 minutes later Tygh got home from work and sheepishly admitted that he had accidentally grabbed both sets of keys in the morning and he came home as soon as he remembered that I needed to go somewhere.

It's official. Izabella is a little stinker.

Why can't I get answers to prayers that easily?

Now just so you don't think that she's some perfect little spiritual child, I want to share another story that happened this week.

I was washing Lucie in the bathtub when Izabella came upstairs and told me that she had a "earring aid like Jacob."

Now her cousin Jacob does wear hearing aids, but not like this. One of her pearl necklaces had come apart into little beads. Apparently she was playing with the beads pretending that they were little stud earrings when she decided to shove one into her ear canal.

When I peered into her ear, I could barely see a little bit of shiny pearl peeking out from deep down.

Did I mention we've got terrible health insurance? Well we do.

It covers all well child visits and immunizations, but other than that we've got a $2,500 deductible. I frantically got online and looked up what procedures they would do at the doctor's office to remove the bead.

I started to add up in my head how much it would cost, which only motivated me to try and fix her problem at home. This web page said that they would probably do a saline rinse and apply suction with a vacuum tool. So I grabbed a bottle of saline spray that I had on hand and used my big ol' mouth to create some suction.

After about a half an hour of watching the bead travel further and further to the surface, the little bugger made it's way out. We kept it as a souvenir of yet another Lybbert life lesson learned.

I just hope her Kindergarten teacher will be able to handle my little destroying angel.

Christmas in July

2010-07-15T20:52:00.000-07:00

Our good friends the Goveias introduced us to their yearly tradition of going up to the snow in the mountains and sledding in the month of July.

I was really grumpy about going, because a family trip to snow in July entails finding snow gear for the kids, Tygh and myself not to mention finding appropriate snow wear for Lucie in the baby bins. But it was so worth it because the drive to the Snoqualmie National Forrest was absolutely beautiful.

Once we got there it was absolutely magical to be on a snowy hill in July.

Brian and Scott skied down and the rest of us sledded. Here's a clip of Tygh going down like a madman.

I wish I could have taken out my camera more often to show the kids sledding, but I kind of had my hands full. Lucie went down a few times and squealed with delight the whole way down. Spencer did his usual go down a few times and then sit at the top of the hill pouting. Izabella was an absolute monkey and scrambled up the hill almost as fast as she went down.

When we all got too cold and tired of sledding Scott surprised us all with a tale about powder monkeys and how they often bury food in the snow. He asked the kids if they could smell something fruity, and then he invited them to dig around. To my surprise they all came up with 3 whole watermelons (Scott had driven up in the morning and buried them).

It was so much fun eating ice cold watermelon. We didn't have a knife so we cut them up with a snow shovel. It was so yummy.

Here's some pics of happy Goveias chowing down. Thank you so much for sharing your annual tradition with us!
On the way out of the parking lot Izabella excitedly pointed out a divet in the snow where she exclaimed that's the cave where the powder monkeys live. I can't wait to do it again next year.

No Garbage Trucks at the Table!

2010-06-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

Every Tuesday is a big day around our house. Around 10 am or so, Spencer camps out by our front window. Why? Because it is garbage day!

When the garbage truck is close enough Spencer runs to the front door and yells for me to open it. As soon as he's on the front steps he does his ritual of first waving, until the garbage truck man waves back and then Spencer gives him a thumbs up. And to complete their hand signal exchange, Spencer gives him the horn signal and the ultra-cool garbage guy blows his horn.

For the past 9 months, Izabella was usually in school so she missed this. Today was hilarious because the kids retrieved their lawn chairs from the garage and we all camped out with our front row seats to witness the event.

Last month, we went to Dozer Days with my Dad (I still need to add those pics on a blog) and it only fueled his little obsession. They let the kids operate construction equipment and one of Spencer's favorite things was the dumping the garbage can. Check it out:

Tonight at the dinner table Izabella and Spencer kept making mechanical noises each time they picked up their cup and fork.

When I asked Spence what he was doing he responded that he had a robot arm. Izabella further clarified that they were garbage trucks lifting up the garbage cans.

So does that mean my cooking is garbage?

And just so Lucie isn't under represented, here is a pic of her showing off how big she is getting. Right now she takes great pride in her ability to sit all by herself.
Just look at how long her hair is getting! (The other two were baldies compared to that mop).

If you look really closely you can also see those razor sharp teeth protruding on the bottom. (I know this first hand because the kid refuses to take a bottle.)

How Firefighters Potty Train

2010-05-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

Out of pure frustration over Spencer's lack of interest in potty training I have resorted to desperate measures.

Today I decided strip him from the waist down and gave him instructions to "put out the fire in the bushes with his fire hose."

My fireman reports that all of the bushes have been adequately extinguished. Sounds like the backyard is better off and I don't have to change another wet diaper this morning.

I'm sure I will regret this later, but today I'm too worn out to think of a different strategy.

My First and Hopefully Last, Run In With The Law

2010-05-27T21:40:00.000-07:00

A few Tuesdays ago, I had a training conference for Izabella's (and soon to be Spencer's) school in Portland. Since Tygh couldn't get the time off, I figured I would just take the kids with me to my parents and take advantage of my free babysitting service. Dozer Days also fell on the Saturday before so we ended up making an extended trip. (Dozer Days were the best and I promise to post some pics later).

Now I need to get down to the real story behind this blog entry... At age 30 for the first time in my life, I got pulled over.

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I was returning home from my parents at 10:30 at night when I saw a set of flashing lights behind me while I was climbing Satus Pass. I knew I wasn't speeding because I set the cruise control for the actual speed limit (I hate going fast in the dark on the mountain pass). So I figured I wasn't in too big of trouble.

My heart still started to pound as I pulled off to the side of the road. Lucie started to wake as soon as the minivan slowed in order to remind me that she needed her late night feeding. By the time the deputy made it to my window she was screaming.

I nervously admitted that this was my first time being pulled over. He told me that I had a burnt out headlight that was all. I told him I hadn't noticed because I was driving from Portland and I just assumed it was darker because I wasn't in the city. I am such a ditz!

He kindly then asked me for my license which I could find quickly, but then he wanted my license and registration. Seeing how I've never had to find them under pressure with a crying baby right behind me, I fumbled through the glove box. He asked me if the car belonged to me and my husband and he was about to call that good (I think just Lucie crying made him feel bad enough) when I found the green registration paper which he took back to his car.

I needed to nurse Lucie, but I wasn't sure if I could move to the back seat with out telling him first -so I walked back to his car to tell him I'd be in the backseat nursing my baby. When I left the car, it woke up Izabella so by the time I got back in the car I had two screaming girls.

Izabella will tell you that Tygh's job is to get kids out of jail so I think in her mind she saw the flashing lights and just assumed I was being hauled off.

I was able to calm Izabella down by the time the deputy made it back to my car. He opened up my door in order to talk to me. Now there is nothing like nursing a baby to make some men uncomfortable really fast and this deputy fell into that category. He didn't dare look back until I told him that I was done and I held up Lucie for him to see. I asked him if he could explain to my 4 year old that we weren't really in trouble and he was just trying to keep us safe.

He explained to Izabella that he was just stopping us to let us know that we had a headlight out and he was worried that a we might hit a deer. I told him that we were safe this year because their Daddy hadn't shot any of Bambi's friends so we were on the good list this year. He chuckled and then Iz started to cry for fear that the deer were going to start ramming our car. (She was really tired and hysterical).

When Izabella started to cry, to his astonishment he noticed Spencer sleeping in the car seat in the back. "3 kids!" Yup. Izabella dutifully did her usual introductions of everyone and their ages while Lucie got in a good loud burp.... followed by a huge poop. To which, the deputy's eyes got really wide =)

The deputy told me that we were safer being pulled over on Satus than anywhere in Portland and to feel free to take my time getting back on the road. He then quickly set the paperwork on my seat and got back in his car and drove off.

When I finished changing Lucie and calming down Izabella, I hopped back in my seat. When I put the paperwork back in the glove box I noticed that the insurance card I handed him had been expired for 5 months! (We have a more current one somewhere in that messy glove box).

That poor deputy, I'm sure he hasn't run across such a domestically comical pullover like ours ever.

Oh and Spencer who is now into police men as well as firefighters, slept through the whole ordeal.

So if you don't want to get drilled when you get pulled over, have a few crying kids, use the words nursing and blowout, and you'll be on your way before you know it!

The Wedding Wild Card

2010-05-12T15:08:00.000-07:00

No wedding is going to go completely smooth. There will always be some kinks and things you could have done with out. At my brother Christopher's wedding in Boise, my little Spencer was the bringer of chaos.Usually he is better behaved than his sister and a really mellow little guy, but not on this day.

First of all he was assigned the honor of being the ring bearer (or ring burrow as Izabella referred to him). Izabella is now an experienced flower girl so we weren't as worried about her, but Spencer is so shy we thought he might not make it down the aisle. You can see us waiting nervously with the kids before their big performance.

He looked absolutely darling in his little suit, but somehow in the major undertaking that is packing for three kids, Spencer's shoes were left in Yakima. He was however, a cute little shoeless ring burrow.
(Oh and Izabella's dress was perfect thanks to my friend Danielle who not only hemmed and took in the dress for Iz, but she also made her a jacket and a matching white purse from my leftover wedding dress fabric.)
We kept emphasizing to him "Don't drop the pillow." His job was to carefully deliever it to his Uncle Andrew standing at the front of the chapel. Well he and Izabella were soooooo adorable. And Spencer did a great job delicately carring the ring bearer pillow except for one problem... half way down the aisle, the rings fell off the pillow and onto the floor. Spencer didn't flinch, he just kept on going to finish his assigned duty of not dropping the pillow. My brother had quite a confused look on his face when he tried to figure out what he should do with the ringless pillow.

During the lengthy Methodist ceremony, Spencer decided that he would be "sacrament quiet." For those of you who are not Mormon, the first hour of our Sunday service is held with all the families together. Seeing how everyone has a gazillion kids, as you can imagine, it's not very quiet.

Unfortunately my kids were the only ones at the meeting and the chapel had stone floors. Every blasted noise just carried. I honestly don't know much of what was said during the ceremony, but my brother assures me that he did get married.

On the right is a picture of my kids during the reception. It is amazing how much more people let them get away with when they are dressed up so elegantly.
Spencer had a marvelous time bouncing from one grown up to the next and he seemed to enjoy the attention. He especially liked looking like all the grownup men in his little suit.

During the family picture, he surprised us all and leeped from Tygh's arms to choke my Dad.

As the reception was winding down, I decided that it was time to change the kids out what Izabella called their "fancy clothes" and into play clothes. I started with Izabella since her dress was a little difficult to play in and I left Spencer with Tygh.

When she was finished changing her clothes, she discovered the giant three way floor length mirror and requested to stay a while so she could talk to her self and prance around for a little bit. Think about where she was coming from she was just a super princess in front of everyone and she now thought she was pretty hot stuff.

As I was walking from the dressing room to the reception area, the fire alarm went off. I jokingly told my relatives around me that "I sure hope that wasn't one of my kids!" I thought if it was, it most likely would be my little princess who was left alone momentarily.

I was a little worried how Izzie would react to the loud noise and flashing lights, but going to preschool sure pays off. She knew exactly what to do. She calmly left the room, looked for some grownups, and exited the building.

I found Izabella just about the same time that I ran into my boys. Tygh had a kind of guiltly look on his face. He reported that Spencer's last words were "Dad, I got it!"

Apperently Spencer was climbing on Tygh's lap as he sat in a chair that sat under the fire alarm. Spencer decided that all buttons and levers need to be tested and he gave it a good yank.

Well I am glad to report that the Boise fire department is in tip top shape. Even if they are called and informed that it is a false alarm, they still come to make sure everything really is OK. They also requested to speak personally with the perpetrator to ensure it wouldn't happen again.

As you can see from my very unflattering body posture, I was NOT happy. Spencer was actually near tears as the fireman spoke with him. He knew as soon as it happened that he was in huge trouble and this only confirmed it.

The firefighters felt a little sorry for such a sad boy so they then took him out to the truck, showed him around a little and gave both of our kids lollipops.
I think Spencer has learned his lesson (and I'm not talking about the one that if you pull the lever the firemen come and give you candy.)
I'm sure you can now tell why Spencer was truely the wild card of the wedding.

Hopefully Christopher and Morgan don't feel that we threw off their plans for the perfect wedding too badly. I will throw in this funny picture to remind them of the good times with our kids.
Congratulations on your marriage you guys and welcome to our crazy crew Morgan!

Cloning

2010-05-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

I recently took pictures of the kids together for their Grandmas. When I looked at their pictures I realized that we have come very close here at Lybbert Labs at perfecting the cloning process.
Tygh likes to joke with the kids that if they mess up, he'll just get rid of them and make another one that looks just like them. Looking at all their little heads next to each other just shows me that their might be something to that.
Just look at the similarities in these baby pictures:

This is Izabella at 6 months

This is Spencer at 6 months
and last but not least,
Lucie
The biggest difference with Lucie is her long, brown hair. In this pic Spencer objectively put a "hunter hat" on Lucie so you could see the resemblance between each of these lovely Lybbert babies.

No More Road Trips!

2010-04-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

No more road trips. Last weekend we drove to Boise. I will blog about the whole trip later (believe me it was action packed) but this will have to do for now.

When we were about 1 hour away from home, the kids totally melted down. Spencer started to scream about wanting his seat belt off and Iz and Lucie just joined in with yelling. It only got worse the closer we got to home.

Here is a video clip from right after they just started to pitch a fit:

If you were me, would you want to take this crew on a road trip?

Quick Pics

2010-04-16T15:30:00.001-07:00

I have resolved to start posting more pics and not worry about the LONG (but I'm sure entertaining) stories that go with them. Three kids is kickin' my tail -so ya get whatcha get people!

This pic is of Tygh and I at the Columbia River Temple on our 6th anniversary. Since we've been married we have made it a tradition to make sure we go back on April 10th to remember that fateful day when we started our forever family.

This one shows how great Izabella's creative problem solving skills are. She wanted to go play in the back yard, but she didn't have any socks. She discovered that plastic bags also keep your feet clean from puppy poop!

I have no comment on the weird face she's making.

We thought Lucie was going to be a mellow child, but she's proving to have some serious spunk in her. Thankfully, she absolutely loves her jumper, and she's completely content with getting out her wiggles with out me needing to always hold her.

Tygh is off turkey hunting right now and since he's been gone, Spencer has dressed in camo every day. I think he hopes that if he's dressed appropriately, he'll get to go.

He also went and got a spare camo hat and put it on Lucie. He declared that they were duck hunters, and I was a duck. In the picture you can see that I am about to get shot with his finger gun.

That's it for now! Hopefully I can stick with my goal to post a quick pic every now and again!

Where's the Fire??

2010-04-13T20:40:00.001-07:00

My baby boy/hunter/dinosaur/fireman is turning 3 on the 19th. We celebrated his birthday last week (because you can't schedule anything during open turkey season if you want Tygh to come).
Spencer decided that he wanted more than anything else to go visit the fire station. If you have seen Spencer around town lately, you'd know that the outfit he is wearing in the above picture is not considered a costume, it is every day wear for my boy.
Since the fire fighters don't usually cater to parties, (I guess they're too busy fighting fires and serving the public? It's a terrible excuse I know.) we planned on going to a park after to eat cake and ice cream.
At first Spencer was shy and he let Izzie take the lead, but the firemen were so cool to him that he soon warmed up. They made a special test announcement from dispatch that announced "Happy 3rd Birthday Spencer!" He also got the VIP treatment and he was offered a special ride on his pampered tour.

In the past, when I've toured fire stations you usually only see the garage and the training room. Not this tour, it was the full meal deal. They showed us the kitchen, workout room, and even the sleeping quarters. The fire fighters even displayed what they were going to make for dinner all fancy in honor of the tour. For some reason that resonated with Spencer and he has asked to help in the kitchen more since "Firemen have to cook Mom!"
Of course one of the ultimate highlights was when Spencer got to drive the fire truck. They let him turn on the lights and honk the horn. (Which made his poor friend Vincent cry.)
They were so sweet to Spencer and they let him sit up there as long as he wanted to. Usually on field trips they just rush the kids through, but they were so amazing.

Right after that part of the tour Miss Lucie decided to blow out of her diaper so I missed a bunch. From what I hear the kids really liked seeing the 'bunker gear.' My Dad said he enjoyed seeing the SCBA since he's a scuba diver.

After they checked out the gear, the firefighters made sure each kid got their own helmet and they let them play on the parade vehicle.

It ended up being so cold and windy that we decided to bag the idea of going to the park and we ended up going to our nearby church building. We opened up the gym, threw out some balls and let them go crazy.

For dessert, I tried something new and I baked cupcakes into the bottom half of ice cream cones and put ice cream on top. It was perfect for the age group and it made for very little clean up!

It was such a great birthday party! Thanks everyone who came. And a special thank you to my mom for taking these pictures. If this long blog didn't satisfy your appetite, she posted even more from the party on her web page.

Our Lovely Little Lucie

2010-04-12T11:43:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine is trying to build a portfolio, so she volunteered to take some pics of Lucie. She took over 100 pics and these are some of my favorites.

Lucie is in that super cute snugly stage. She's not always the most smiley kiddo, but she doesn't talk back or run away. I guess I'll just have to keep her.

Oh and please note, the ridiculously large bow is all my fault. I get a kick out of putting them on her. I especially love how no one asks me if she's a boy or girl when she has one on.

She's definitely got that Lybbert kid profile that we seem to duplicate so well!

The dress that she is wearing in these next 2 pics was a special delivery Easter dress from Tygh's Grandma Rosemary. It is really darling. It's too bad you can't really see it in these pics.

This face just makes me laugh. It reminds us all of Spencer's signature expression.

This pic just shows her sweet little disposition. I am so thankful I was sent a mellow little girl for baby #3.

I guess Heavenly Father does know us each personally after all.

That's it for now of our lovely little Lucie!

2010-03-24T21:43:00.001-07:00

Gospel truth #37; God will not give you any more than you can handle.

Then why oh why did he give me these kids?!

Miraculously they are all still alive after the events of this week and it's only Wednesday.

Monday Tygh rented a stump grinder to take care of the 4 massive eyesores in our back yard. He decided to let the kids watch him out the kitchen window and he placed them on the counter.

I was downstairs with Lucie when I came upstairs to find them excitedly watching Tygh from their perch. I also found a huge mess from where they had dumped out all of Lybbee's dog treats and then tried to clean them off with water from the sink. Izzie quickly reported that it was Spencer that had done it and she was now cooking Lybbee's treats to fix it.

As I was cleaning up the mess, I kept thinking about how much that stump grinder smelled like something was burning.... then it hit me, it wasn't Tygh that was making the smell. The kids dumped a bunch of the wet treats into the toaster to dry them off.

I frantically carried the now smoking toaster outside, turned it upside down and dumped the blackened and smokey treats on the ground. Lybbee didn't seem to mind and she quickly scarfed down the crisped beggin' strips.

I scornfully explained to the kids that they should never put anything in the toaster and that they could have gotten burned or started a fire. My message was completely lost on Spencer who got so excited about the mention of a house fire because that meant the "firemen come to my house!"

The kid is completely obsessed with all things firefighter to the point that he has chosen to take a tour of the fire station for his birthday party. Hopefully he doesn't attempt to start any more fires in order to see his heroes.

And then tonight at dinner Spencer had a near death experience. Izabella was annoyingly being too wiggly and could not stop bugging her brother. For some reason decided to kick the chair out from under him.

The problem was not only that she abused the poor guy, but that he was holding his glass cup of milk when he fell. The glass shattered and he fell directly on top of it. Somehow the huge shards of glass not only did puncture him, but it didn't even leave a scratch.

It seriously was a miracle. Someone is looking out for these kids.

Keep Your Hands to Yourself!

2010-02-20T14:53:00.000-08:00

I am a complete chicken when it comes to trimming my baby's fingernails.

As a result, my kids often look like they were attacked by a banshee of sorts.

Izabella was particularly worried about a scratch under Lucie's eye so she went and got a band-aid for her.

I took a picture of the two girls and when I saw how cute they both looked, I decided to take the band-aid off.Perhaps I should have kept my hands to myself.

A Real Eastern Washington Education

2010-01-29T16:41:00.001-08:00

Tygh came home Wednesday from hunting with 2 dead duckies. The kids were about to head to bed so all the pics show them in their pjs. Tygh requested that I gather his brood and then he proceeded to proudly show the kids his latest kill. They eagerly helped him dissect the ducks up while I just held the camera between me and the whole event.

(Sorry the clip turned out so yellow and the weird noise you hear in the background is Lybbee lapping her water.)

Last year Izabella was quite shocked at the fact that the ducks were deceased. This year she matter of factly told me that the duck would not feel any pain from Daddy's knife because, "They're dead mom." Spencer was totally aware of the fact that his Daddy shot those innocent ducks down from the sky.

Izabella even wanted to help this year. Here she is plucking off the feathers.

Spencer was anxious to eat the ducks as soon as Tygh cut the breasts off them. He actually wanted to eat them raw, but we persuaded him to wait until they were cooked. In the end, Spencer ate almost two out of the four breasts by himself. His daddy was proud of him and his desire to eat what you kill.

Let's just say I never received such an education growing up in suburban western Washington.

I surrender!

2010-01-21T23:31:00.001-08:00

This time it was Spencer's turn for a disaster. I'm telling you, it is only a matter of time before child protective services show up.

What you see all over his hands, face, sheets, cars, and everything with in his arm's reach is lotion. I forgot to put it back in the nifty child proof cabinet. (I got a MUCH better lock, but it just doesn't keep things safe if they aren't in there.)

Where was I when this happened? In the front room maybe 10 feet away talking with my friend while our daughters played together in Izzie's room.

This mess was easy to clean thanks to our hand held shower head and front load washer. I sure do love technology!

While You Were Sleeping... The Sequel

2009-12-27T22:51:00.000-08:00

Most sequels are just not as good as the original. Most of them present a tired theme the second time around that just isn't as cute or as funny. This blog entry is not an exception.

Again, Tygh was watching Izabella while Lucie and I took a nap. This time I woke up and I could hear Izabella playing in the bathroom upstairs. Tygh reported that she had already come down once with makeup on her face.

Why didn't he go and put a stop to what she was doing? I don't know. To his credit when he saw her she had only drawn on her face with mascara and eyeliner reporting that she had "a spider on her face." When I went upstairs, I saw a trail of paper towels leading from the front door to the bathroom. (Izabella later explained that is was a "princess rug.")

The bathroom door was barricaded shut from the inside. (Which is not a good sign.) This is the video clip I took of the incident:

What you can't tell very clearly from the video clip is that she trashed ALL of my makeup, dumped liquid foundation in her hair, and used the nail trimming scissors to cut her eyebrows. I have no idea what was going on in her 4 year old brain. But how could I, I don't even know what is going through her father's brain some times.

Now before you get too judgemental of my parenting abilities, I did take preventative measures after the original incident. I put a child proof lock on the cabinet where I keep the hair and make-up supplies.

Apparently my scrawny daughter possesses superhuman strength and she was able to pull apart the child proof lock. When I looked at the cabinet this is what I saw:All I have to say is, blast you First Years child safety product makers for lulling me into a false sense of security!

While You Were Sleeping

2009-12-17T21:22:00.000-08:00

This morning I took all three kids to Izabella's preschool Christmas party by myself. Tygh was going to come and help when he got done with work, but he only made it for the last 10 minutes.

It was really fun to watch the kids in the annual program and everyone enjoyed the craft tables, but it was really hard to watch two kids running around like crazy while I nursed and took care of Lucie. Needless to say I was a little exhausted after it was done and I was ready for a nap.

My dear sweet hubby offered to watch Izabella, who doesn't take a nap, while the kids and I took a much needed snooze.

I was awakened 2 hours later by Tygh and Izabella sharing what the latest beauty experiment in our house had been. Tygh assured me that he had already documented it with the camera. (Good thinking sweetie.)

Apparently while I was sleeping, Tygh let Izabella watch GI Joe with him (Right there I already object) but she got bored with it and headed upstairs to "use the bathroom."

Above the toilet I keep food coloring in order to dye the kids' bath various colors to motivate them to bathe. Izabella somehow scaled the toilet and accessed the cabinet and got down the bin that has all the hair care products and the food coloring. Then she proceeded to combine hair products in a crazy fashion and topped it all off with red and green food coloring in honor of Christmas day.

Did you know that food coloring stains hair, clothes and skin?

Well, at least I got in a good nap.

Artificial Snow Machine For Sale

2009-12-13T22:58:00.000-08:00

This goes out to all you kids at heart that were disappointed with the snow yield from the much talked about storm we just had.

If you still would like to turn your yard into a winter wonderland I have just the thing for you. Take a look at the results in our back yard from our artificial snow machine.

All you need to add is 2 Costco dog beds valued at $20 each and sit back, relax and give our artificial snow machine some unsupervised back yard time.

Yes folks, this machine only cost us $700, but for you, I'll part with it for a fraction of the price. (Just don't tell Tygh I sold his dog).

Izabella, Psychic Extraordinaire

2009-11-25T14:08:00.000-08:00

If I learned one thing from Izabella lately, it is to listen to what crazy things she says. Pretty much everything that happened during Lucie's birth that I didn't anticipate, Izzie told me it would happen. I'm telling you, my 4 year old is a stinkin' psychic.

First of all we didn't know the gender. Izabella always insisted that the baby growing in my tummy was a girl. Her correct prediction doesn't automatically qualify her for psychic status seeing how I threw up copious amounts frequently. Once when she was really concerned that I was sick, I explained to her that if the baby was a girl, I would throw up a lot. Often when I thought I was alone in my miserable state in the bathroom, I would hear cheers from the hallway outside from Izabella exclaiming that it was a girl.

A few days before Lucie was born Tygh picked up one of Izabella's baby dolls and held it up to my tummy upside down to show the kids how the baby in Mommy's tummy was in the vertex position. Izabella told Tygh that he was wrong and turned the doll right side up. We knew that the baby had been head down for a few weeks according to ultrasounds and doctors exams that I received. We tried to correct Izzie, but she stuck to her statement that the baby had its head up.

The day I was induced I had an amnio that once again confirmed that the baby was in the vertex position. 16 hours into the induction my water broke on its own. I quickly got an epidural since I generally progress from a 4 to ready to push in less than an hour. This labor was no exception and I progressed really quickly. The nurses continued to examine me and after a little over an hour passed they called in the doctor.

Dr. Harvey gleefully came in to get ready for the birth. Her smile quickly faded when she examined me. Sometime after my water broke and becoming fully dilated, the baby had flipped and now was head up. Apparently Since the baby was a footling breech, a vaginal delivery was ruled too risky.

A few weeks before Lucie was born, Izabella started to tell me that the doctors were going to cut my tummy and lift out the baby. Then they would put the lid back on and glue it down. No one ever talked to Izabella about c-section so we don't know where she came up with this idea.

For the longest time she has known that the extra hole on girls is where the baby comes out. I'm sorry if this is too graphic for ya, but she asked what the hole was for one evening in the tub and that's the answer I came up with. She knew that she and Spencer came out my hole (again, sorry if this is too explicit), but she continued to insist that the baby would come out after they cut my tummy. Honestly, I don't know why it perturbed me so much, but I fought this issue with her continually before Lucie was born. I even turned off the tv in disgust in my hospital room when the program showed a c-section seeing how I thought that this baby was going to be born the same way as the previous two. What can I say, Izabella got a lot of her stubbornness from me!

To top it all off Izabella reached true seer status by predicting the weather the day that we brought Lucie home. Way back in May we told the kids that we were expecting a baby. The best explanation for the anticipated delivery date was that the baby would come in the winter. Izabella equated this with snow and every time it looked like it might snow, she announced it was getting close to have the baby come home.

I was going to come home the second day after Lucie was born, but last minute I decided that I didn't feel well enough so I stayed in the hospital one more night. Guess what we saw when Tygh and I looked out the window Sunday morning...

We took this picture after it had melted quite a bit, but you get the idea.

Yesterday as we were talking about how we now have 5 people in our family, Izabella got a troubled look on her face. She told me that "Someone is missing. I have one more little brother and he isn't here yet."

One of the scripture passages in the Book of Mormon says that "children do have words given unto them many times which doth confound the wise and the learned." Who knows where she came up with her ideas, but I for one am amazed.

Now before you get a lotto ticket, there were several things that Izabella did say that didn't come true. For the longest time she told me that I was going to have twins, one boy and one girl. She also told her teacher at school that we were going to have a family Christmas dinner and then the baby would just come out and join us all. If only it were that easy!

Here's a picture that I took today of my two little girls snuggling together. What I think is so funny is the color contrast between their skin and clothes. Lucie is dressed in all white and Izzie chose an all black outfit.

Our Newly Formed Family of 5

2009-11-23T18:33:00.000-08:00

Here's our first unofficial family picture since Miss Lucie Jane joined our crew. My mom took a picture of me taking a picture of Tygh, Spencer and Lucie and the result is that you have all 5 of us in 1 shot.

Due to the hospital's no child under 14 visitor policy, yesterday was the first time that the kids got to meet their new sibling.

Izabella loves to hold her and tells us that she plans on teaching her everything she knows. Last night Lucie and I slept in Izabella's bed. Izzie fell asleep snuggling Lucie. They both looked like they were in heaven.
Spencer pronounces Lucie's name so cute. He can't really say his L's very well and he's got a little bit of a lisp. So Lucie comes out sounding more like Ru-thee. It just melts my heart.

I'll write about Lucie's birth story later, but let me sum it up for you in two words: It stunk. We ended up doing an emergency c-section and as a result I'm on bed rest for 6 more weeks. If there are a few things I do well in life, it seems like bed rest is one that I'm definitely trying to perfect.

Life on Bed Rest

2009-11-11T19:04:00.000-08:00

For the past two and a half weeks or so my life has been quite different. I got diagnosed with pre-eclampsia when I was only 33 and a half weeks pregnant. This is a little scary, but it's nothing new since I had it with my past two pregnancies.

Usually things progress really quickly and I just get induced. This time luckily my symptoms have reduced and the progression has really slowed down if I follow my doctors orders of strict bed rest.

Blech. This next picture sums up how my daily life has been going. I usually sport some fancy fashion combo of a t-shirt and pajama bottoms as I lay on the couch all day. I break up the monotony by barking orders at either my children, husband, or mother who has come to help.

My kids are adjusting quite well as these pictures show and I am completely relaxed and at ease with our current predicament.

Oh and the house looks great too.

Thankfully I will be 37 weeks pregnant next Wednesday and they are planning to induce me then. Then the real fun begins.

The girl who knows too much and the boy who knows too little

2009-10-25T22:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was talking with Tygh when Izabella came waltzing upstairs and handed me a cup with liquid in it and nonchalantly stated, "Here ya go."

Tygh and I exchanged puzzled looks so she felt the need to explain.

"I'm playing Doctor's office. You know like you do when they check on the baby. I have a baby in my tummy too and I'm at the Doctors."

It then occurred to me that the amber colored liquid in the cup I was now holding was warm. This was not apple juice. It was a urine sample that she had just oh so casually handed me.

You see Izabellla, for some reason loves to accompany me on every OB visit that she can. At the beginning of every visit it is the same routine; they first weigh you in and then you are directed to go to the bathroom and bring out your sample. The bathroom is just a room without a stall in it and I never thought much about bringing Izzie in with me.

We had a little talk about when she is playing pretend doctor's office it is appropriate to do a pretend pee in the cup. I think she responded with something like. "Ohhhh. Ok Mom. No problem." She just didn't understand why I didn't want to bring her pretend game up to the next level.

She has proven over and over to be just a little sponge. Who knows what she'll do next!

Spencer on the other hand really is clueless about what is going on with me and how he is about to get dethroned. Izabella loves guessing about the gender of the baby and she likes to gather public opinion on the subject. Spencer's answer to her repeated question is always the same.

Izabella: "Spencer do you think mommy has a baby girl or a baby boy in her tummy?"

Spencer: "No. Not baby. Dinosaur."

Yup, that boy is in for a treat when he gets dethroned. Despite me pulling out my pregnancy books and repeatedly showing him pictures of pregnant ladies with fetuses, he still holds firm to his answer. He will tell me that the drawings are of mommys with babies in their tummies, but I am different.

Just think... what if he is right? A dinosaur is way cooler to a 2 year old boy than any silly baby brother or sister. But still, I am not giving birth to a triceratops or stegosaurus unless it comes out in egg form first.

The Secret to Avoiding the Flu Bug

2009-10-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

As of right now, everyone in our family is completely knocked out with a flu bug... except for Izabella.

(But seriously, if you were germs, would you mess with this kid?)

While Tygh, Spencer, and I lay groaning and coughing in our bed, she jumps on the end of the bed and tells us how she needs some non-sick friends to play with because she's bored of watching movies all day while all we do is sleep. Life for Izabella must be like she's in one of those zombie movies the way she's the only one with a scrap of energy.

I read an article in this month's Parenting Magazine that had the most extensive list of things you could do to keep your family safe from the flu. (It basically told you to walk around with a can of Lysol in your hands and sanitize everything including the air your kids even thought about breathing.) Friday when Spencer and I were feeling are absolute worse, Izabella came up with a solution on how she was going to avoid getting sick too that was not on the list that Parenting came up with.

Izabella was basically on autopilot seeing how all Spencer and I could do was lay in bed. She went to the kitchen and got herself a muffin and milk for breakfast. When she was done, she took her leftovers and placed them on a pretty plate in the middle of the kitchen floor and excitedly went and got me to show me how brilliant she was. She declared that the germs would now leave her alone and she was going to be safe because they'd be too busy to get her.

I couldn't quite understand her until I remembered that at her school, teacher Annette talked to her about where germs like to live. Annette showed the kids that germs like to live on dirty hands, in the toilet and on food that wasn't properly refrigerated or preserved. The purpose of the whole chat was to teach the kids to wash their hands thoroughly and take care of leftovers, but that's not what my Izzie got out of it.

In her little unique perspective that only a 4 year old can have, she figured if you give the germs something they'd rather have like a tasty muffin, why would they even bother with an icky little girl?

As far as hand washing goes, she placed a Mr. Yuck sticker on the sink and declared that the germs liked it there and had taken over so she no longer can wash her hands.

I tried several of my own methods to avoid getting sick like washing my hands so often that they're cracked and bleeding and I got a flu shot, but so far Izabella's strategy has trumped all.

So if you're afraid of getting sick this flu season, might I suggest leaving a pretty plate on the middle of the kitchen floor as an offering to the germ gods.

Never a dull moment

2009-10-04T17:44:00.000-07:00

Even though I am completely out of energy these days and I would love to just hibernate for the winter, my kids find a way to make life interesting enough to motivate me to keep going.

I lost my temper with Izabella last Monday on the way to gymnastics class. She was taking forever and a day to get ready and we were running late. She insisted on bringing one of her dollies with her and she had to make sure that her dolly was seat belted firmly into the middle seat before she could hop into her car seat.

Finally I snapped, "Just get into your car seat, darn it!"

She set her jaw, furrowed her brow and yelled back, "I'm not darn it! I'm Izabella!"

Well that did it. I laughed so hard that it completely dissipated my little temper tantrum.

We recently went to a safety fair where the kids had a chance to play in a real cop car. Izabella climbed all over that thing and loved pushing all the buttons for the lights and the siren. Spencer on the other hand, only wanted to play in the back seat. (I hope this is not a foreshadowing of things to come ahead.)

Eventually he insisted that both of the back doors be shut and that he be locked in the back. Izabella looked at me and said, "Uh Oh. We'd better call Daddy." She then turned to the police officer to explain, "My Daddy's job is to get kids out of jail."

I decided if we wanted to stay in the officer's good graces, I had best not explain what she meant (She also will tell you that Daddy fights with the bad police officers all day at work.) We quickly thanked the officer and went to tour the firetruck.

Spencer came up with this totally elaborate pretend game the other day where we were pirates and we were trying to get to our ship. He had me climb all around the couch and under the furniture to get to the ship. Once we made it to our destination (which was the coffee table), he jumped up on top and declared himself the captain and he set me to work and his deckhand. When I didn't comply he showed me he had a sword and he knew how to use it. This little 2 year old has such an imagination!

Tygh recently took a week off of work to go hunting and prove how tough he was. In honor of his life quest, he grew a beard. When he went back to work, he trimmed it into a goatee. Spencer and I absolutely loved it. (Tygh and Izzie did not like it). Spencer completely wants to be just like his daddy when he grows up, so he requested that he be able to have facial hair too.

To my dismay, the naysayers won, and Tygh shaved the whole thing off. I caught Spencer rubbing a rock all over his face that same day. When I asked him what he was doing, he informed me that he was "shaving too."

Lybbee is growing like crazy and is turning into a loveable and crazy family member. She lays down in Izabella's bed for quiet time and I've realized that the two of them are the same length from head to toe. She is growing so fast!

I was taking a picture of Spencer the other day when Lybbee came sprinting into the room and ran in between Spencer and the camera. You can see how the wind is blowing back her ears and Spencer's face as he braces for the impact. And yes, Spencer is wearing Tygh's tie and shoes and he was headed to work.Crazy dog. She fits right in with the rest of us.

2009-09-20T20:14:00.001-07:00

If you were to look in our freezer at any given time, I guarantee that you would find at least one item from Schwan's. Seeing how I have taken up coupon clipping and saving money on groceries there is no way I would spend the extra moolah to get the home delivered frozen goods.

Our neighborhood Schwan's man Andy knows this. I have told him repeatedly that I am done purchasing their delicious but over priced goods. But Andy also knows that my husband is a sucker for the nostalgic frozen treats that he peddles. It seems like Tygh is always purchasing some ice cream treat and then whatever other items our Schwan's man manages to talk him into.

Since Andy knows that I always say no thanks to him, he has taken to only knocking on our door when he sees that Tygh's rig is in the driveway.

If he is having a slow day , and he sees the red truck out front, he'll come pay Tygh a visit (and it doesn't even matter if it isn't our scheduled delivery day or not). Andy has even been known to spot Tygh in town on his way home from work and follow him to the house and ask Tygh what he'd like to order. He is always so friendly and chatty with Tygh that he always buys something from the guy.

My Mom visited us this week and witnessed this all first hand. It was Wednesday (our normal delivery day is Tuesday but Tygh was out hunting and had missed him) and Tygh came happily bounding down the stairs and said, "Hey Aim, my best friend is here. Can I borrow your wallet?"

Mom was surprised when I quickly replied "Oh great Andy the Schwan's man is here."

So even though I am slightly annoyed with how much of my budget is being blown by Tygh's impulse purchases, I have to admit that I do admire his salesmanship skills.

This one goes out to you Andy, our friendly neighborhood Schwan's man.

A Little Ice Cream Goes A Long Way

2009-09-11T00:07:00.000-07:00

For Labor Day weekend, we went to Saint Marie's, Idaho to visit Grandma Norma and Papa Jim at the Round Tuit Ranch. I will hopefully get around to blogging about the rest of the fun filled weekend at some point, but I just thought this photo progression was just too funny.

These next two pics are of my kids after they've had a hard day riding carnival rides and enjoying the festivities with Grandma and Papa. It sure is hard being a kid.
A reasonable parent would bring their children home for a nap, but Daddy had a different idea. He decided he would save the day and he bought two huge ice cream cones for us all to enjoy...

Look how much they saved for me. The little dears!

Looks like Spencer is finding his second wind
Then in true natural consequence fashion,
Tygh had to deal with two completely crazy kids after wards.
(I was too busy documenting our wonderful parenting methods).

Birthweek

2009-09-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

It seems like the word birthday is a misnomer since it usually seems more like it is a birthweek celebration.

On the 22nd my mostly angel girl turned 4. (In case you're wondering she's just joking in the picture on the left).

First on Thursday Iz celebrated with the seniors at the respite care that we volunteer at each week. They surprised her with a pink doughnut with 4 candles on top. It was really sweet of them.

Then on Friday, she had a really cute informal birthday playgroup with her friends from school at the park. It was a hot day, but the kids didn't seem to mind. They played like crazy while the parents huddled under the shaded picnic area. Everyone brought their own sack lunch and we provided cupcakes and Popsicles. Everything was planned out by Izabella and it turned out to be my low key kind of shin dig. I neglected to take my camera out at all the Kodak moments, so this is the best pic I took.
That night I took her to a special girls only performance of Disney's Beauty and the Beast Musical that a local performance troop put on. She was so adorable at the play.

She was the only small kid in the audience, but she was surprisingly well behaved. It didn't hurt that it was a performance of her favorite movie right now, but she was spell bound by the whole thing.

She did say a few random critical comments to me during the performance that were too loud, like "Mom, the Beast doesn't have long enough claws" and "Belle needs to wear sleeves. That's not modest." Since she was the only kid around, people just looked at her and grinned.

At intermission I announced to her that it was time for a potty break. She did not want to leave her seat because she was afraid that we would miss the rest of the show and she declared that she did not have to use the bathroom. She then asked me if I had to use the potty very loudly. When I told her that I did, she felt it her duty to inform everyone, "Oh, My Mommy has to use the potty. We have to go to the bathroom now." Once we arrived at the restroom she waited outside the stall and asked my if I wiped my bummy when I flushed the toilet. It was a really embarrassing role reversal experience for me.

Saturday my parents came into town and we celebrated her birthday (and my Mom's b-day too) with cake and ice cream and another trip to the park where she got to try out riding her first Princess bike complete with matching accessories. (Thanks Mom and Dad!)
We asked Izabella how old Nanna was going to be she informed us that she was turning 100. When she was corrected that it was only 51, she replied "close enough." My mom asked Izzie if she would share her birthday cake and let my mom put her candles on it too, Izzie's eyes got really big with horror and she declared "We're gonna need a bigger cake. That's a LOT of candles." As you can see from the pic, it was a crowded birthday cake, but it all fit just fine.

Here's a pic of the two birthweek girls.

If that wasn't enough celebrating, Sunday we visited our family friends the Goveias and had cake again. Spencer didn't seem to mind eating so much cake in one week. One of his favorite games right now is to sing someone the happy birthday song, blow out the candles, and then eat the pretend cake complete with comments like, "Mmmm. Strawberry and chocolate cake. I love cake."

The funny part of all the celebrating was that a majority of it came before her actual birthday. So now each time Izabella sees someone who was at any of her parties she makes sure that she tells them that now she is really 4 years old.

I honestly am exhausted from all the big hubbub and I am grateful that birthweek only comes once a year.

Who is watching these kids anyway?

2009-08-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

Since I obviously lack the ability to responsibly take care of my kids and the household chores, my kids have decided to step it up a notch and take care of things themselves.

Spencer has taken on the job of feeding our fish...

Oh and yes the Roman helmet and sword is one of his usual everyday get-ups.

Izabella has decided to no longer wait for me to change her sheets on her bed since she can just make a bed in any old place.

She made this bed in the space between the couch and the wall on the living room.

She included her baby dolls in her bed since she was "a good mommy and a good mommy snuggles her kids in bed." Notice that I am not in that bed since I had refused to snuggle her for her nap.

Seeing how you never know when the next good meal will be served, the kids have developed the survival skill of making and eating mud pies and mud cookies.
If you click on the picture to enlarge it you can see just how much dirt is in between his teeth. I'll give you a hint, he never looks that happy after the meal I serve.

Izabella has decided to take on the job of making sure Spencer is always safe while he plays. Hey if you can't have adult supervision, big sister supervision a pretty good consolation prize. All day long I overhear her bossing Spencer and Lybbee around telling them to be careful and warning them of potential dangers.

Here she is making sure that Spencer does not crack his head open on our living room floor as he rides his little motorcycle around the house. (Oh she's in her gymnastics uniform in case you're wondering what she's wearing. Since she can get herself dressed she got her self ready for the day. Spencer who can't quite do it all on his own yet is still in his jammies).

I guess there always is the danger of the poor kid snapping his neck under the weight of the helmet, but he sure does look cute.

I can't help it, I've got to brag

2009-08-07T13:59:00.000-07:00

I've decided to pass on the humble pie and I just have to brag about a few things.

First of all, I just had a late night grocery shopping trip that left me on an absolute high. Since Tygh did not give me the enthusiastic congratulations on my coupon clipping triumph, I'm turning to you.

I first did my weekly trip to Wal*Mart where I did so much price matching that I exceeded the amount allowed and the cashier had to call a manager to key in their code to approve my purchase.

I would hate to be the person behind me in line, but I consider it a badge of honor when a manager has to be called in to approve my price matching. I don't think I can go through a check out line with out at least a supervisor being called in, but this was only my second time that a manager had to be called in.

Then I headed over to Albertson's to take advantage of their double coupons and use $10 in Albertson't cash I had accrued.

I ended up buying 3 boxes of Frosted Flakes, 5 boxes of Nutrigrain Bars, and 5 boxes of Pop Tarts for... are you ready for this??

A whopping $1.36!
According to the receipt, between their sales and coupons I saved $45.61!

The cashier looked at me like I was absolutely nuts when I got excited, but honestly what is a stay at home mom supposed to do for kicks? I let my hubby be the pro hunter and I am the pro gatherer.

Both of the kids just finished up the Yakima Youth Track season and as a former track star wanna be, I could not be prouder.

Izabella's form vastly improved from last year (although her mouth goes faster than her legs do the whole time she's at practice or competing). Here's an action pic from this year:

Izabella is the girl in the green shirt and pink shorts with a HUGE grin on her face

She still lacks any sort of competitive drive and she thinks that the purpose of running is to be seen by the people in the grandstands.

Spencer on the other hand is quite the serious sam when it comes to participating in track. He furrows his brows and puts all of his little 2 year old heart into it. I thought that maybe he would be too young, but it was his idea to try it and he loved it.

He was so funny when he ran the hurdles. He would run right up to them and knock them over with his hands and then daintily step over them.

Here's a rare pic of him smiling just after he finished a race and got a ribbon.
Do you see how proud this kid is?

His favorite event was the softball throw. Maybe I'll get my super thrower after all!

Lybee's latest development is that the kids have decided to train her to be a circus dog. She climbs up their little playground and with their coaxing, she slides down the slide.

Izabella called her a zucchini which is a reference to a Curious George episode where he joins a circus group called the Amazing Zucchinis. (Just in case you were wondering what the heck she was talking about.)

Tygh is building and remodeling our house and yard like a pro. His latest accomplishments are building a gorgeous fence and building a closet for the downstairs bedroom.

Well that's enough Lybbert family bragging for now!

Kids steal energy out of preggo mom

2009-07-28T22:09:00.000-07:00

We Lybberts have been busy lately... and when I say "we" what I really mean is the kids.

There is something about this crazy heat wave combined with my pregnancy that has just zapped all my energy. The weirdest thing about that is somehow it has the complete opposite effect on my kids. Being cooped up with a mom who doesn't play with you as much, leaves toddlers with no alternative than to find new ways to entertain themselves.

Here's some of the results:

For some reason Spencer felt compelled to strip off his clothes and cover himself in mud five minutes before we had to leave for somewhere

I swear I only heard one squirt come from my shaving cream before I ran into the bathroom to find this innocent picture

I was upstairs doing the dishes when Izabella came upstairs and reported that Spencer had scaled a bookshelf downstairs to get his paint that was stored high on a window sill. He reportedly was a "really funny mess Mom. Take a picture." I guess by this point, they know I am just going to click a picture and laugh it off. I guess that's not much of a deterrent.

Tygh has done his best to pick up the slack I've left in the structured parental entertainment category.

One of his farm boy solutions, put them to work.

Here's Spencer digging holes for the new fence.

My solution is to take them to places where they will be entertained by other people. We took the kids to a street festival in Seattle where Spencer was able to eat a pile of curly fries as big as his head and end up looking like this with complete adult supervision:

Don't you see the obvious difference in his level of messiness? I sure don't.

Izabella's highlight of the festival was cheating death on this big blow up slide. Each time she made it to the bottom of the slide, she would run to get back in line to do it again.

We were lucky enough to have my brother Jonathan come visit with my two nephews. All the kids are piled on the couch and what are they all laughing at you ask... My insane brother of course.
I had to include this picture because it really shows the Nichols' family curse. Just look at those satellite dish shaped ears that all of those kids have! (You can really see it well if you click on the pic and zoom in on it.)The moral of the story is that I think I have finally learned my lesson and I promise that I will try everything in my power to not be pregnant another summer ever again.

Boats, Trains, and Automobiles

2009-07-16T16:49:00.000-07:00

We figured that our family is so crazily entertaining, that it was time to take this show on the road.

In the last little bit we have gone on trips via ferry boat, Amtrak, and the luxurious car.

In June we went via car to the far away (not really) town of Moses Lake for Tygh's cousin's Brie's wedding. Izabella got to be a flower girl with her 2nd cousin Jordyn who Izzie absolutely adores. They ran around like crazy

At the end of June the kids and I took the train from oh so scenic Wishram, WA to Vancouver, WA where my parent live. The ride was early in the morning so I was hoping that the kids would sleep, but the journey proved to be way too exiting to warrant any shut eye.

The overall highlight of the trip was when Izabella hit the attendant alarm button in the tiny bathroom. She had just found out that you hit a round button to flush the potty on the train and wondered what the other round button did. Not only did the alarm sound in the bathroom and in the car that the toilet was on, but on the adjacent cars as well. Yup that sure was entertaining.

We stayed at my parents for a week while Tygh worked on remodeling the house. One of things that we love to do while we're in Portland is visit the Children's Museum there. It just is so cool. Spencer enjoyed being a "builder" and Izzie enjoyed being a crazy dentist who put my head in an alligator chair and cleaned my teeth with a giant tooth brush.

After a week of visiting stores and fun places that Yakima doesn't have (which isn't hard to compete with), we took a road trip with my parents up to the San Juan Islands for the 4th of July. The highlight of this leg of our journey was not sitting in the back seat of my parents van with the kids while my parents fought, but the ferry boat ride that you have to take in order to get to the island.

Izabella loved going to the cafe and ordering special overpriced ferry boat cuisine, and Spencer especially dug the pretend steering wheel so he could be a captain too.

Once we made it to Lopez Island we camped at my grandpa's house and enjoyed the annual 4th of July Festivities that only a small island can offer. The annual Independence day parade is just downright crazy. (oh and you should note that my camera was out of batteries on the 4th so these next few pics are ones my mom took).

Check out this picture of "mother earth" from the hippie float on the parade.
Spencer's favorite part of the day was the fireworks. It is so funny to get a glimpse of what is going on in that little kid's head now that he is starting to talk more. He was a constant narrative the entire time the show went on. He described what they looked like ranging from "ooh pretty tree" to " it's mess mom" or "Pappi's hair." Every once in a while he would announce that one of the fireworks looked like a frog. I have no idea which ones he was talking about, because I randomly started asking him if each one look like a frog and he would incredulously tell me no as if I was the craziest person on earth.

Each time there was a pause in the blasts, I would ask him if it was done, and he would tell me, "No. More." -except for the time that it actually over and he said "done." Which actually was amazing, because it didn't seem like a natural end to me and I really thought there would be more!

The amazing trooper of the trip was Lybbee. She didn't startle once during the fireworks (thanks to all her gundog training), and she didn't have any accidents in the car. She is growing at an amazing rate and despite major house training issues, she is turning out to be such a beloved member of our family.

Here's a recent pic of her sleeping for you to compare with the one in the last post

Lybbee Lybbert

2009-06-25T22:28:00.001-07:00

Before I got married, I dreamed of naming a little baby girl Libby after a super cool roommate I had in college. After I got married and gained the last name Lybbert, I realized that Libby Lybbert would sound kind of dopey so Tygh promised me I could name our first dog Lybbee. 5 years later, she's here and she fits right in with our crazy, action packed family.

This is Lybbee after she crashed from playing so hard with the kids in the back yard.
She was one little tuckered out pup.

Izabella was worried about Lybbee losing her sisters and brother when she came to live with us yesterday, so she vowed to try and fill her lost litter mates spot and declared that she would become Lybbee's new sister. In order to look the part, Izabella has taken to wearing black velvet. She is so obsessed with this new family addition that she turned down story time at the library today because Lybbee couldn't go and said "She needs me Mom. She's lonely."

I think this pic just turned out so sweet. Lybbee just quietly follows Izzie all around the yard and the house and last night she snuggled up with the kids in their bed -so who knows maybe she will accept us as her new family.

Spencer gave Lybbee a tour of the backyard yesterday that made me chuckle. He brought her around to all of his favorite digging spots and pointed with a very serious face declaring helpful labels like, "Dirt. Rocks. Trucks." They love to play together in our little pool in the backyard and they have no trouble getting completely muddy together.

Here is Spencer with his little drinking buddy.
Just look how nasty that water is!

It seems like one of the first things Lybbee does when she gets in the back yard is start to chomp on rocks. On our way to Costco today, Spencer started gagging on something while he was in his car seat. To our surprise he spit out quite a large rock that no one knew he had -my guess is that his drinking buddy Lybbee knew all about it.

I wasn't prepared for a lot of aspects of being a dog owner including the amount of enthusiasm my kids have towards this bundle of fur. Izabella who is a notoriously late sleeper woke up at 6 am to go take Lybbee outside and play. It was then that she came up with Lybbee's theme song that she has been singing over and over ALL DAY LONG.

Economy Inspired Fun

2009-06-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

Since the economy is a little tight and we're in the middle of a lot of expensive remodeling projects, we've decided to put the kids to work to earn us some moolah and we're cutting corners where ever we can.

This last weekend our neighbors had a garage sale. Izabella loves going with me to "all the sales at people's houses" as she puts it -so we decided to join in.

Since we didn't have that much to sell, Izabella announced that she would like to have a 'store' of her own. So we went to Costco and loaded up on various refreshments to sell to the yard-sale-goers.

Here was her own personally decorated little menu:
When a potential customer approached her store she would perk right up and ignore all of my prompts to say "How can I help you?" and she would launch into her Izzie style sales pitch.

"What do you want!? (Which was said in a kind of in a demanding tone of voice). Are you hungry or thirsty? We've got muffins and cookies.... or soda or water." She would announce the rest of her spiel in her little sing song customer service tone of voice.

And if people were brave enough to ask her more she would launch into the type of cookies, muffins, or soda she had. She was really great about promptly digging into the cooler or box to find the appropriate selection that the customer had requested.

Then she would turn to me and ask how much it cost. The easiest system we came up with is to tell her the amount in dollars (which we referred to as paper) or the number of coins (which she called circles). So if it was a $1.25 the exchange rate in Izzie currency would be one paper and one big silver circle.

When she collected the money she stashed it quickly into her pink princess purse. I forgot that she had put the earnings into the purse and I let her carry it around while she was playing for two days before I counted up the cash and I think it was something like $34! I am now a full supporter of child labor. Maybe we could take her little business on tour and pay off our student debt!

What did Spencer do while all this was going on? Well he ate a lot of the merchandise to sell from Iz's shop and he amused himself by playing with the stuff in our neighbor's yard sale. He absolutely fell in love with the motorcycle helmets that were in the sale. They also threw in a cute little toy motorcycle and they swiftly moved to his favorite person list.

It was so funny to watch him walk around in it since he looked just like a bobble head. The funniest thing he did all day was struggle to get into Izabella's store. He wasn't exactly sure of the size of his new head and he repeatedly got stuck in the doorway hitting his helmet over and over again on the door frame.

He refused to take the helmet off and by the time I did, he had a little sweaty head with helmet hair. He threw a 1st class tantrum that buttered up the neighbors and they gave it to him for free. Now he routinely walks around the house pretending to be on a motorcycle with his authentic riding gear.

Cost of the helmet: Free
Entertainment value: Priceless

The other crazy thing that I've done to save a little money is I won't buy Spencer the more expensive diapers with the cool designs that he wants. Instead of relied on a Sharpie and my artistic talents (or lack thereof).

This original Lybbert Loincloth sports a Cars style vehicle, a wicked tyrannosaurs Rex, and a family favorite, the local garbage truck.
I think Spencer is quite proud of me, but at the same time I think he doubts my sanity. You'll notice that he days later after the garage sale, is still clutching the toy motorcycle that the neighbors gave him close to his heart.
And to sign off on this blog, here is Spencer demonstrating just how much he loves the garbage truck.

Waiting on #3

2009-06-09T14:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever waited so long for something that it just seemed like it was never going to happen? And then once it did happen, you looked back and realized that it really didn't take that long and you felt a little silly for stressing out?

It seems like every time my kids enter a nasty stage I never think they'll grow out of it. But after quite some time, Izabella is completely pacifier free and Spencer doesn't bite his friends (his family is still lucky enough to get a nip now and then).

We seem to have this family tradition of going off of birth control when the youngest child turns 9 months old. The way I figure it is at least that way I won't have two kids with me during the last two hours of church since the older baby will be old enough to be in the nursery at church. Izabella and Spencer are almost 20 months apart so we figured it wouldn't take long to get Lybbert kiddo #3...

Wrong! 3 months, then 6 months, then a year pasted by. It seemed like pretty much every blasted friend I have on the link bar on the right hand side was able to get pregnant. Some of them even conceived and busted out a kid before I could even get pregnant! After what seemed like forever (which I think worked out to be 16 months or so) I finally got those long awaited double pink lines on the test.

What was the secret to breaking our fertility stall out you ask? I scheduled an appointment to go discuss fertility treatment options with my doctor and two days before my appointment we discovered that I was pregnant. (Which was very convientent because if you cancel your appointment too late you still have to pay your copay).

I guess at this point I'm at the beginning of the 2nd trimester. I really haven't been great at spreading the news since Izabella has been doing most of the announcing. When I was only 9 weeks along I got an ultrasound. As soon as we showed the pic to Izzie, it became hers. She proudly toted it with her to preschool the next day and told everyone about her baby sister in mommy's tummy. (We have no idea of the sex, she's just decided she already has a brother so now she needs a sister). She tells random checkout cashiers and complete strangers about the baby that is growing, growing, growing inside Mommy that is going to come out at Christmas and be her best present ever. The worst part of it, is that sometimes people still don't understand what she is saying, so then I have to translate it for them.

We babysat the Carlson's baby girl Mirian a while ago and Izabella had a blast "practicing" for her new baby. She held her for an hour, sang to her, danced for her and got a ton of smiles out of the baby. Izabella was thrilled when she discovered pajamas in Mirian's diaper bag because she assumed that it meant that the baby would spend the night. When Izzie woke up from her nap to discover that Emily had picked up her daughter, Izabella was heart broken. She explained that Christmas is just too long to wait when we could just borrow as sister right now.

Just look at the grin on Izabella's face!

We have decided to not find out the gender of the baby this time and let it be a surprise. We let Izzie be a surprise, but decided to peek at Spencer and we've concluded it much more fun to be surprised. If you ask me for a guess, I would say it's a boy since I'm only currently throwing up every other day or so.

My due date is December 9th, but I think the baby will come closer to November. (I think I sound like the women in the old fashioned pioneer books that say their baby's due date in terms of seasons, like the baby will come some time in the winter).

Towards the end of my previous pregnancies I got preclampsia and I had to be induced. The doctor said it's pretty much a sure thing that it will happen again. Spencer had to come 5 weeks early, but we're already starting treatments to help prevent that scary scenario again.

Now here comes the biggest confession of all, after crying and feeling sorry for myself and offering the most desperate prayers to have another baby, I'm not that excited to be pregnant. Tygh jokingly referred to me as a baby mill the other day and I guess that's how I feel. The novelty and wondering of the miracle of pregnancy is totally gone.

With Izabella I could tell you just what was developing each week. With Spencer I could at least tell you what week I was in my pregnancy. This time around I am resorting to measuring the child's age in trimesters.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to have another little crazy kid runnin' around, I just don't dig being pregnant. I hate being a zit faced, puking, chubby, moody momma.

But just like the time spent waiting to get pregnant, this too shall pass. I'm sure I'll feel guilty for complaining about all of this come December.

Our Trip to C-Owl

2009-05-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

Saturday Tygh's cousin Andrew had his wedding reception in Seattle. We decided that since we were already headed there for the evening, why not go for the day?

So if you know us well, you would know our plans to leave in the morning were not realistic. We left the house somewhere around 11:30 am or so. Since we didn't have that much time we decided to limit our time to just West Seattle where I used to work.

First we proved how cool we were by finding the Husky Deli just by memory (which proved to be a interesting experience). Next time we go to Seattle, I think we will try and forgo the trying to prove how we're still locals and take a map. The Husky deli has THE BEST sandwiches on homemade bread and it has this crazy Norwegian theme to the decor. I used to eat lunch there while I was working and it brought back some old memories. Izabella and Spencer's favorite part of the trip was watching the sandwich makers cut up the meat and cheese.

With sandwiches in hand, we then headed to Lincoln Park. I love this place! It's huge and it has forest, beach and a little bit of everything. Spencer was ecstatic about all the ferry boats that sailed by. The kids loved walking on the pathway right along the beach, but the smooth asphalt path was no match for the pull to explore the rocky beach.

After we were all explored out, we loaded back in the car and headed to North Bend for the wedding reception. (On a side note, Izabella was very disappointed that we didn't visit downtown Seattle because in her mind that is what C-Owl is).

When we got to Tygh's cousin Mandy and Nathan's house, the kids thought they had died and gone to heaven. There was tons of second generation Lybbert cousins there to play with, they have a huge playroom filled with toys, there is a huge back yard with a stream and playground and there was tons of food to eat.

Here's the kids enjoying there own buffet dinner on the deck in kid sized patio furnitureIzabella's favorite thing to do was walk over this log over the top of the stream over and over again. The water is like 2 inches deep, but it still made my heart stop each time she did it.The second favorite activity was scaling the boulder next to the stream. (Notice that Iz is in the company of all the boy cousins and she is kind of the ring leader.)It proved to be too long of a party for this little guy and he pooped out before it was over in Aunt Rachelle's arms. Spencer slept on her for at least an hour. It was so nice to get a break from holding my heavy human heater for once. Thanks Rachelle!

By the end of the party I think we all felt like Spencer felt. After the drive home we all gratefully climbed into our beds. My kids still talk about this trip a week later. I think it is going to be a hard one to top!

Life continues at a normal pace.. by our standards at least

2009-05-11T15:20:00.000-07:00

Life at the Lybbert house is carrying on as normal.... although what we consider as normal is not anyone else's standard of normal.

For example here's Izabella quietly reading the paper...
What's so abnormal about that?
Check out her ballerina-everyday-wear dress and her glass slippers on top of the couch.

In this picture Izabella is gleefully playing with her two cousins at a recent wedding reception. What's Spencer doing you ask?
Well he's using a doorstop as a gun and shooting at the girls.
Thank you Daddy Tygh for letting him watch James Bond!

In this video clip you will see a normal dinner for us. Check out Izabella gagging on spaghetti while she eats her dinner with a giant fork. Oh, and both kids are dressed in their swimsuits. Do we have a pool? Nope. They just decided to go with a themed dress day.

Boy Turns Two and Becomes A Dinosaur

2009-04-26T15:54:00.000-07:00

My little baby boy is no longer.

Not only is he a two year old tot now, but he is also a dinosaur.

Last Sunday Spencer celebrated his second birthday in style. We had cake and ice cream with the Goveia family and he got a few presents Sunday morning.

Regrettably I let him pick out his outfit, so it's not the cutest, but if you know Spence at all you can see how he's changed over the past year.

He's gone from Franken-baby...
To a cell phone eating lion...
To a kid who wasn't hesitant to get his hands (or whole body) in the dirt.He blended in during Izabella's school field trips as just another one of the kids,
and he started insisting on his own combinations of what was considered fashionable to by his own standards (and no one else's).From Drive-By Attacking Dragon,

To Party Pooper,
To Papi's pint sized Pal,

To inspiring tattoo artist. His body is his canvas.
The conversation that brought on this one went something like this, "Spencer go get your jammies on." And this is what the kid walked out of his room. We named this combo the YMCA firefighter.

Friday we took the kids to the coolest show Walking with Dinosaurs at the Sundome. I originally bought the tickets anticipating that it would be more for Izabella since she loved her dinosaur unit at preschool and I just hoped that Spencer could sit still for the hour and a half show.

Izabella was running a fever and had a nasty cough the day of the show but she had been counting down for the entire month crossing off days on her calendar -so there was no stopping her from going. We sat in our own little section up front so hopefully we didn't infect too many people.

The cool part about being up front is that these Brachiosauruses were 72 feet long and their heads reached the top of the arena and we really got to experience just how big they really were.

Spencer was completely engrossed in the entire show and loved to growl back and imitate the dinos in action.

I took this video clip just showing how cute he was during the show while the Torosaurus was fighting off another dino. It was pretty dark, so it's a really dark clip, but his hand motions and facial expressions are hilarious!

Since the show, he has continued his dinosaur enthusiasm to include all things dino. He demands to only wear clothes with dinosaurs on them (which made getting ready for church a little hard today) and he is in character for most of the day. When we went out to eat at Sonic after the show, he jumped up on our table and started tearing through the fries and ferociously eating them.

Saturday morning he climbed up into my bed and started growling a higher pitch growl and head butting me. After a second or two of confusion I remembered in the show what the baby T-Rex sounded like and how it nuzzled his mommy t-rex in order to show affection. What a nut! I love that boy!

There wasn't any flash photography allowed, so this shot is pretty shaky -but you can see Mama and Baby snuggling in this pic.

Who knew the show would have such an impact on my little guy? I have absolutely no idea what he will be like after we go see the Wiggles in July!

5 Years Down, Only Eternity Left to Go

2009-04-13T22:19:00.000-07:00

Last week Tygh and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. Boy time sure has flown by and stood still all at the same time -if that makes any sense. It seems like only yesterday that we were still dating and I was anguishing over every time he had to go home for the night, but at the same time I can't remember life before we were two old married fuddy duddies and I anguish every time he leaves for work.

Tygh is the only person that I feel like I can be my true vulnerable self around. He knows when I am hurting physically when I can hide it well from most people, and he still loves me even when I mess up. He does such a great job at helping out and taking care of the kids. He sacrifices a lot for us, because if the kids and I were not around this crazy guy would probably be a hermit living off the land off the grid or some happy farmer just sittin' on his tractor. But he's not. He goes to a less than perfect job to help out gang bangers so he can put some food on the table so I can stay at home and play with the kids all day. (Yes dear, that's ALL I do all day).

To celebrate our anniversary, each year we go to the temple to remember the special promises we made between each other and Heavenly Father. This year we couldn't make it to the Portland temple where we were married, but we went to the closer Columbia River temple instead. The endowment session was full so we did sealings instead (you LDS people will know what I'm gabbing about).

There was something magical about kneeling across an alter from the person I love the most helping other people who have passed on get the same thing that we enjoy. Imagine having to wait until you die to be sealed forever to your sweetie.... What in the world did I do right that I could find Tygh so early and enjoy so much time with him now on earth? I love that he is mine and I am his FOREVER and that our little destroying angels our sealed to us for eternity.

Now don't get me wrong, it's not all lovey dovey and my kids are perfect, but it sure is nice to know that there is more out there and I get to include the ones I love in that special plan (even though they drive me nuts).

I love you Tygh. Five years down, only eternity left to go!

So that is enough mushy stuff and I'll try and wait until next April 10th to get all yucky again.

Here is what I find to be a funny video clip of Tygh and I outside the temple. I didn't know the camera was on movie setting when I tried to take our picture. You can hear Tygh say, "Just look like you love me." Oh like that's so hard to do.

Two Head-Strong Children Can Be A Problem

2009-04-08T21:50:00.000-07:00

How hard can it be to keep track of only one small child? If you're me and seriously up for nomination as the world's worst caretaker, pretty easy.

Tuesday mornings after we ride the bike to school and drop of Izabella, Spencer and I just hang out at home until it's time to go pick her up.

It was such beautiful weather when we got home that I first took Spencer out to fetch the garbage can from the front yard, and then I let him play in the backyard.

I was so careful to lecture Spencer on our strict hand holding policy in the front yard while we got the can, but I kind of forgot something important. The blood supply for my brain must have been in my legs from the uphill ride home because I apparently forgot to latch the gate in the back yard all the way.

I started working on some things in the basement and I kept an ear out for his activities. I heard him scrounging in the kitchen, getting toys from his room, and playing on the back porch. After a while I just let my guard down since he was just up to the usual Spencer stuff of playing with dirt and tractors.

I want to say it wasn't very long (but who knows how long it really was that is for Child Protective Services to determine) I realized that I couldn't hear him any more. After calling his name and getting no response (he's usually really good about that) I headed upstairs to look for him.

As soon as I reached the top of the basement stairs I saw that the back gate was wide open. At this point I am now screaming his name with no response. I was frantically looking on the side of the house and the neighbors' back yard when I saw a car on our busy street in front of our house suddenly slowing down. That was the most sickening feeling in the world (which was augmented by the flashback of watching a dog get hit and killed by a car right in front of our house last summer.)

I was running full speed and screaming at the top of my lungs towards the street when I spotted him just past the neighbor's property line walking down the sidewalk carrying a box of cheerios. He was completely oblivious to my panicked screams as I tackled him and scooped him in my arms. He just gave me this look of "What's the big deal mom? I had it all under control."

The passengers in the car that slowed down got out of their car and approached me. It was two elderly ladies that saw my little boy just heading down the sidewalk all on his own and they thought something wasn't right. Who doesn't normally see an almost 2 year old toddling down the street dressed in his shoes and coat and armed with snacks just heading out to take on the world? Thank goodness for parents that never stop being parents (unlike me). I was an absolute mess and shaking from the adrenaline and they were nice enough to not reprimand me at all.

All the while Spencer kept looking at me strangely and occasionally munched a cheerio or two from his box. I carried Spencer back to our back porch, tightly latched the gate, and collapsed on the back stairs and proceeded to sob. Spencer went back to playing and even ventured back over to me to give me a comforting hug.

I took this pic of him in the front yard later after I calmed down in order to document the event.
Who wouldn't think this kid was capable of taking care of himself?

Let me reassure you the kid is hardly out of my line of sight these days. When we went to Costco later that day I strapped Spencer so tightly into the shopping cart that he was starting to complain. When I took him out of the shopping cart I held him with a death grip. Tygh reminded me that he didn't have any magical powers to disappear he just figured out how to push the gate open if it wasn't latched.

In other big news, after trying just about every method I could think of and failed, Izabella decided on her own that she was done with pacifiers. Over time she has progressed from a casual pacifier sucker to a full on junkie. Hardly any of her friends know that she still uses regularly every night (she strictly does it in the confines of her own home), but it still is a major issue with her.

Here is a classified picture last September of her openly using while she ate desserts and watched a movie. (Her Dad was the one watching her.)

During circle time at school one of her friends raised her hand and randomly shared with the class that she was going to get rid of all her binkies and then her mom was going to let her pierce her ears. I was not planning on letting my girl pierce her ears until much later in life, but if this is what will motivate her to kick the habit, it's now up for discussion. Izabella came home from school, rounded up 7 secretly stashed pacifiers, allowed me to cut them up, and then she threw them in the trash.

Here's a video clip of Izzie walking through our normally trashed house and throwing her cut up pacifiers away.

Last night was the first night pacifier free and it wasn't pretty. She went to bed with a strong attitude of remaining clean from her addiction, but at 2 am she woke up screaming to take a hit off the ol' paci. My favorite thing she screamed was "Mom, I NEED a pacifier! Let's go to the store right now and get a new one!!" After an hour or so she fell back asleep but no one got a very good nights rest yesterday.

From what I hear, the first day of kicking the habit can be the worst. I'll keep you updated on the uphill battle.

Giving Up Blogging For Lent?

2009-03-26T18:14:00.000-07:00

So this year for Lent, I decided to give up blogging....

OK- That's not the truth. Although I do admire the religious friends of mine that are giving up something in preparation for Easter, I'm LDS and we don't really do that. We just give up luscious food and water for 24 hours once a month. So I didn't really give up blogging for Lent, I just haven't had the time to sit down at my computer.

It seems like I've only have a 13.5 hour day and it's just hard to find time for hobbies. Since my health has declined lately, I've been sleeping an average of 10.5 hours a day... Isn't that disgusting?! I have a doctor's appointment coming up next month and I pray that we can find out what in the world is wrong with me.... physically that is. We already have established that I'm crazy so the mental evaluation is unnecessary.

Hmmmm... what do you think the cause of my insanity is?
(I'm not sure if you can tell or not, but my cheek is wet in the pic b/c Izzie decided to lick me right before the pic was taken).

Today my hubby took the kids out for a drive so I could have some time to myself. So here is my attempt at a quick update.

Tygh is really hitting his stride at work. He complains all the time about having to break in new prosecutors and he gets frustrated having to explain the law to the newbies. (Which is funny considering almost a year and a half ago he had no clue what he was doing and he never thought he would start to get things down.)

His latest remodeling project is refinishing the basement and making a master bedroom for us down stairs so the kiddos can have their own separate rooms upstairs. My mom is going to come at the end of the month and he has decided to let that be a deadline for him when we should move downstairs.

He also has been taking advantage of our warm spring weather and he's hacking down the jungle that is our yard. This week he transplanted four rose bushes and trimmed them.

Izabella yelled at Tygh at first for digging up her plants, but when he explained that he was making a flower garden she couldn't contain her excitement and she immediately wanted to be a "helpful" assistant to her amazing Daddy.

Check out this Izabella original gardening outfit

This past week we had an open house at Izabella's preschool and I realized just how far our little diva has come. At the beginning of the year I didn't think that there was anyway that this little girl would be able to sit still and listen at 3 different circle times a day and she would never be able to stick to the 3 ba-zillion rules -But she has fortunately proved me wrong. She is doing so well and it is also starting to reflect on how she does at home, at other play groups, and at church. I seriously owe her teacher big time because I didn't recognize the angel in her destroying angel facade.

Spencer is amazing me everyday with new words. Hmmm.. today his little linguistic gem was while I was attempting to dress him... "No pants Mom!" Isn't he brilliant? He can now backtalk in full sentences now!

Currently his biggest passion is firetrucks and firefighters thanks to a preschool field trip to the fire station last week. Did you know a vacuum cleaner attachment doubles as a fire hose? His distinct siren noise has progressed from the gentle woo woo that is once was to now include the full range of horn and siren sounds that he experienced on our field trip. I was on the phone the other day with my mom and I didn't even notice Spencer's siren until my Mom asked what in the world was going on and I informed her Izabella's dollhouse was on fire AGAIN and Spencer's wooden firetruck was on route.

His other thing that is so quirky is that he is fascinated with the potty. He does fairly well at dispensing his #2 in the potty and he can wee on command if he so desires. The funniest thing about his potty habits is that he picked up on his Dad's behavior and he now heads to the bathroom with reading material.
My latest fads are coupon clipping and working using the Wii Fit. I promised Tygh's cousin I'll devote an entire blog to my insane money saving system soon -so that'll give you something to look forward to.

Hopefully I won't put off blogging for such a long time again.

Here for your viewing enjoyment is a little video clip of Tygh goofing around with the kids while they wait for Nana and Papi to come to our house. As you can see, they are perfectly calm knowing that they are about to be Grandmatized.

The Faith of A Child

2009-01-27T22:22:00.000-08:00

I would like to believe that I provide my children with plenty of faith building experiences.

How do I do this you ask? Simple. I keep a very messy house and disorganized life so I am constantly losing things. In order to obtain a little help in finding things so we can get out the door only fifteen minutes after we should have arrived somewhere, I kneel down with the kids and offer a desperate prayer to find what it is I'm looking for.

Two weeks ago Tygh and I were going to go somewhere together and drop off the kids at a babysitters. This was going to be great. Freedom from the kiddos! Just when I was dressed up and ready to head out the door, I went to grab my keys from where I thought they were, but they were gone. I looked frantically for a while and finally gave up on my search. Since the car seats were locked in my car, I sent Tygh off on his own. Oh and last time I lost my keys a year ago, it cost $250 to replace our Honda key.

I found myself bawling like a baby sitting on the couch with a kid on either side of me trying to comfort their emotional wreck of a mother. Spencer kept giving me soggy kisses and Izabella hugged me tightly while uttering reassuring statements. I asked the kids to say a prayer with me to find the keys.

Honestly, I was so distressed and frieked out that I felt like my prayer was just floating out there on air. I still couldn't find my keys an hour later and I was really upset with my self for not being "good enough" to receive an answer. Izabella kept patting my back and reassured me "It's K Mom. We find the keys."

When I was tucking my kids into bed I knelt down at Izabella's bedside and helped her say her prayers and I just got the calmest feeling of reassurance. (When you've been frantic for an hour or so it is such a contrast!) I really felt that Heavenly Father had heard my prayer all along, but I was too self asorbed to hear the answer.

I felt prompted to go look again on the bookshelf for my keys (which is where I thought they were to begin with) and there they were. They had fallen behind some books and I just didn't look thorough enough for them.

When I ran into the kids' room to show them my find, Izabella lept out from under the covers and literally jumped for joy on her bed all the time shouting, "The keys! I know you find your keys! Heavenly Father helps you! He loves us!" Spencer joined in on the excitement and hopped up and down in his crib. He enthusiastically folded his arms when it was time to say a thank you prayer. Their innocent faith is so inspiring.

And yesterday when I was about to leave for a grocery store trip, I realized my purse was missing. I searched all over the house and realized that I hadn't seen it since Sunday at church. I was really frieked out because we are the first ward to meet in the building so there would have been lots of people through the building. I know that everyone there would be church goers and good people, but I still worried b/c I had some cash in the outer pocket and my cell phone and credit cards were in it.

Since I didn't have a license to drive Tygh and the kids loaded up in the van to go search the church. (Tygh also is the executive secretary so he has keys to the building and all the closets).

On the way to the church I asked if I could offer a prayer. I started the prayer off with thanking Heavenly Father for a few things when a voice forcefully interrupted from the back. "Purse Mom. You forgot the purse!" Apparently I took to long to get to the fact that I needed help finding my purse. I quickly ammended the demanded details and a approving AMEN came from the back seat.

We first checked the library for my purse, but it wasn't there. We next went to the YW room where I taught my lesson and there it was sitting on a table. This time I was the excited one since I was so relieved. When I enthusiastically told the kids that my prayers were answered they just gave me this look as to say "Duh Mom. Prayer works."

There is a scripture in the Book of Mormon that reminds me of how much work I have to do:

Mosiah 3: 19

For the natural man is an to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

So who is here to teach who? I know our prayers are heard and answered, but I yearn to have as much simple faith as my children do. Boy I still have a ways to go!

Just Because They're Quiet, Doesn't Mean They're Sleeping

2009-01-21T15:09:00.000-08:00

It is not unusual to hear noises like this coming from the kids room after they've been put to bed:

Since Izabella and Spencer have too much fun goofing off at night, they are now put in separate rooms at bedtime. Spencer has absolutely no problem conking out in 2.5 seconds. Izabella on the other hand can sit quietly in bed and read books for hours and then fall asleep(she's just like her Daddy).

So when Izabella went to read in our room and it was very quiet for a long time, I just assumed that she had fallen asleep.

Hard Learned Parenting Rule #372: Never assume that if your child is quiet they are for sure asleep

Tygh and I were sitting in the living room when she proudly emerged reeking of Sharpie. She had carefully laid out TP on our bed and one by one, colored in each of her finger and toenails, and then gave herself tattoos on the backs of her hands and the top of her feet... Lovely.

Since my house suffers from the Book of Mormon curse (You know where they couldn't lay anything down b/c it would be missing the next day) I couldn't find my camera to document the full effect of her new look.

I did find the camera later today and I was able to get a little explanation for her art. As far as the body art goes, Izzie told me she drew black bats all over. Yesterday the color at school was black and she claims that her Nanna told her a nighttime story with bats in it. Thank goodness she didn't decide to add a mural to her artwork as well!

Last week I had my first pedicure and I got little flowers painted on my toes. Izabella wanted to look pretty too, so she "painted" nails too. She put the TP down since that's what I do so I don't drip polish on the floor when I paint my nails.

It really is funny how much little kids watch every little thing you do and how they try to imitate you.

Last week we went to my cousin Kyle's wedding reception in Moses Lake and Izzie had to dress exactly like me. Thank goodness it was a large wedding party so we just looked like we matched to fit in. Izabella said she was the little mommy and I was the big mommy.

Here is a picture of Spencer from the same reception.

So they don't often dress alike in public, but at home Spencer LOVES to dress up just like Tygh.

Spencer often sports hunting camo like his Daddy and loves to wear Tygh's hat, shoes, and belt.
If only they could stay this small a little longer... well at least for cute picture purposes!

Sledding Deja vu

2009-01-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

This blog is dedicated to Tygh's hunting buddy and

our family friend Scott Goveia who recently turned 50.

Whenever the subject of my blog comes up, he loves to reference the blog entry where I showed a clip of baby Spencer being hurled by himself on a sled towards our street.

Thanks for not reporting me to the child protection agency and Happy 50th big guy.

What a winter we're having! My parents got hit up with freezing rain in Vancouver and my FIL and cousins got buried in 6 feet of snow in Spokane. The winter here has actually been quite mild and it has ended up being perfect weather for playing in the snow.

Last week despite crying children and a grouchy husband, I decided that we were going to go sledding and we were going to enjoy it, GOSH DARN IT! (See last year's blog to see this pattern behavior of mine). Tygh ended up staying home and I loaded up two screaming kids in the 4 wheel truck.

After discussing with the kids where we should go, at Izzie's insistence we ended up going to her pre-school to sled. There is a completely fenced hill with a playground where she has recess and it was perfect! All of the other sledding hills are too crowded or steep, but we had this one all to ourselves.

At first Spencer was just content to sit at the top of the hill and watch Izzie go nuts. She needed my help at the beginning, but soon she was riding down on the sled by herself and running up the hill with the sled when she reached the bottom. She was so happy with herself!

Deciding that Spencer had to share in the excitement, I forced him to go down the hill by himself too. What ended up happening was complete Deja Vu from last years sledding clip.

So this year I didn't send a defenseless baby towards the street... I hurled a defenseless toddler towards a sharp branch. I do promise that after this clip I did take him down the hill with me several times and he did start enjoying it.

Even though Spencer kept yelling "gen!" (Again), I knew it was time to go home and put the kids down for their nap when they starting doing this between sled runs.Spencer passed out on a chair in the front room as I was trying to get his snow gear off.Both kids slept like rocks that night.

We Lybberts certainly know how to play hard!

Low Stress Holidays =The Best Christmas Yet

2008-12-30T12:53:00.000-08:00

DISCLAIMER: My mom wasn't able to come visit us since the weather was so horrible, so this post has A LOT of videos clips for her to see.

This last Christmas I think has been one of my best ones yet. This year we decided to keep things low key.

Christmas Eve we still drove up to Moses Lake for a big family dinner, but this time instead of staying for Christmas Day, we came home. Although we love hanging out with Rick and Sandi, 5 little ones 3 and under is a recipe for a mad house!

Spencer loved playing with all of the cool Christmas decorations and toys Sandi has at their house. lIzabella was especially excited to see her cousin Jordyn. She made me play a make believe game over and over where I was instructed, "You Jordyn. I Izabella. Come on. Let's play Jordyn!" I guess practice makes perfect because they seemed to get along together better than ever before. Here is a little clip to show off the pandemonium that is 4 out of 5 kiddos in one room together.

We really hoped that our kids would sleep in Christmas morning, but Spencer discovered the presents on a 6:30 am run to the kitchen in search of chocolate milk. He made a complete U-Turn heading straight for the tree and ferociously started ripping open presents. Izabella tackled him to stop the criminal behavior and they both appealed to Tygh to start the unwrapping immediately. Both kids made a great haul with Spencer getting a whole fleet of vehicles from relatives and 2 giant dump trucks, and Izabella got 2 delux baby doll kits.

The absolute highlight for me was Izabella's present to Tygh. I asked Izabella for a month to think really hard about what she wanted to get her Daddy for Christmas. No matter how much I tried to persude her, she wanted to get Tygh new socks.

We went to the store and she studied the men's sock section carefully before picking out cushy athletic socks. How boring! I attempted to get her to pick out fun business or Christmas design socks, but she was very specific that she wanted the exact package that she selected. Christmas Eve Izabella was giggling about how Daddy would love her present right before she fell asleep. I advised Tygh to ham it up when he got his present from her since she was so excited about this. Here's another clip for your enjoyment:

Tygh actually does love the socks that Izabella got him. He loves to point out that I: 1. Wouldn't buy him socks that expensive and 2. I don't pay attention to what he actually needs for Christmas and my daughter is more observant than I am.

I made some super yummy overnight french toast Christmas Eve. So while the kids were opening up presents I just popped it out of the oven and when we were done...voila! No stress Christmas brunch.

The best part about having Christmas at home is that when my kids started on their Christmas high (as exhibited in this video clip.) The house was completely trashed, and my kids were bouncing off the walls, but I didn't have to worry about them messing up some one's house or breaking any thing that wasn't ours.

My favorite part about this video clip is how the kids just got a ton of new toys and what are they playing with... a clothes hanger!

When it came time for the kids to crash, it was so nice to let them sleep in their own beds... Well sort of. Izabella finally crashed in my room on the wood floor between the wall and my dresser, but at least it was in our own house.

The Pressure is Just Too Great!

2008-12-23T21:34:00.000-08:00

In a blog a while back I mentioned that I met Sara Bristol one of our small town's celebrities who edits our local Mommy magazine.

Well she saw my blog and asked me if I would be interested in writing up a little ditty for her magazine. I wracked my brain and wrote up a little article and emailed it to her. A short while later my article was published in Playdate Magazine.

When I opened up the magazine I was shocked. I thought it would be a small paragraph tucked away in the back, but it was a dazzling 3 page color layout. They looked though my past blogs and pulled out quotes and old pictures. Tygh was thrilled that his favorite pic of the 3 armed baby not only made the article, but the table of contents as well. Here is a link to the article minus the pics, the text they added on the sides of the page, and the super cool graphics.

As a result, I've become a fraction of the small town celebrity that Sara is (I think I've moved up to wanna-be-small-town-celebrity). People from chuch and Izabella's school have told me that they've read my article and some people have even checked out my little blog.

Great! So now I've got to dazzle even more people into thinking that I'm clever on not completely crazy. I am experiencing the sophomore slump as they say in the biz. Don't worry I'm not going to let the fame go to my head and I'm not going to engage in a drug induced spending binge and you won't see my story on VH1's Behind the Blog. I'm going to keep it real, but in the mean time, I'm scared to death to write another blog.

Tygh advised me to "just write about our normal family life like always." He even suggested a story from yesterday to tell you about. So here goes nothing:

We have somehow created this almost nightly routine with our kids that involves all loading up in Tygh's 4 wheel drive truck and going for a drive to check out the neighborhood Christmas lights. To top off the night's trip we end by doing doughnuts in the church parking lot. That is Spencer's favorite part for sure.

I guess the tradition started way back from when Tygh and I first dated. We used to drive around and look at lights and give each house a rating 1 to 10 and determine how good it looked. As our marriage has gone on, we have decided to keep up our little family tradition. Izabella and Spencer aren't so good with numbers yet so they give their opinion in the form of a loud shriek of excitement from Spencer or a defamation of Grinch (pronounced "Ginch") from Izabella.

As we were driving around last night Izabella kept requesting to find more houses with deer. I thought it was really cute that she was so specific in her request, so we scoured all of Yakima looking for more deer.

Each time we passed a house with a deer in front, a little sound came from the back seat. After this happened a few times I asked Izabella, "Oh, sweetie, are you taking the deer's picture?" To which she responded, "No Mom. I shoot the deer with my gun." I turned around and she showed me her pretend little gun and she shot of a round of pretend ammo to demonstrate its effectiveness.

I asked her if maybe she missed when she shot and she replied, "No. I got 'em. I help Daddy." Whoa! The tree hugger in me didn't know how to respond.

You should have seen the grin on my mighty hunter husband's face. He couldn't have been prouder. He then proceeded to educate her on a hunter's safety course. As Tygh would approach a house with possible deer he would if she should shoot or not shoot. Izabella waited until she could clearly make out a deer each time before she answered.

Tygh is already looking at to buy Iz one of the pink .22 rifles that they sell at Wal*Mart for her Christmas present.

Then she can be like the little girl in the pic...

Don't worry Mom, I'm just kidding. He'll wait unit at least next Christmas when she's 4.

Ok, it won't be next Christmas either if I have anything to do with it. Honestly I never knew I'd have so many cultural differences with a Western Washington wife and an Eastern Washington husband!

Making Holiday Memories

2008-12-08T20:35:00.000-08:00

I really love this time of year... sort of. I love all the holiday traditions and seeing family, but I absolutely despise the little monsters that take the place of my two angel children. (As documented in these two photos of them decorating the Christmas tree this year). Between Thanksgiving and New Years we will visit; St. Marie's Idaho, Seattle, Spokane, the Tri-Cities, and Moses Lake. After a big helping of all 6 of their grandparents there is nothing left to do but wait it out as my kids go through sugar detox and de-grandmatization. My new found mantra this year is going to be simplify, simplify, simplify. We'll see how successful I am at keeping things around the house low key.

When you bring two people together in a marriage, they bring a whole barrage of different holiday traditions to the table. The holiday tradition that is starting with Tygh's family after Thanksgiving is not to go and shop on black Friday, but to exercise our rights and go shoot guns. Besides, the biggest store in Saint Marie's is an Ace Hardware, so goin' shootin' is much more fun. I felt extremely fortunate to finally have my chance to handle the Obaminator. (The picture on the right is Tygh teaching his nephew how to handle the semi-automatic shotgun).

I grew up with the Christmas ships on the Columbia River so my favorite thing about Christmas is the light parades. When Izabella was just a tiny little baby we stumbled across the little light parade that our town of 2,000 people sponsored and I was hooked. It doesn't matter what age a kid you are, there just something magical about watching a parade in the dark.

Here is a very dark video clip of Izabella, Spencer and Gavin flipping out about how cool the parade is. (Here's usual disclaimer: My video clips are only entertaining to me and their grandparents, so don't be disappointed when you are bored out of your mind watching it).

This year I went overboard and I dragged my kids to two light parades; the Sunnyside Lighted Farm Implemen t Parade and the Yakima Holiday light parade. Next year, I'm going to simplify and only go to the Yakima parade. It is friendlier, they give out better candy, and there is a choir performance and a tree lighting ceremony afterwards.

Here are some pics from our parade adventures:

Here is my two wanna-be farmer boys waiting for the Implement Parade to start.

Here is Gavin photogenically admiring the parade

Here's my kids not-so-photogenically-but-really-intensely watching the parade

I just love this pic.

Why is it my favorite pic? Just look how Izabella is so bundled up that only her nose and above is showing. I think it is so funny that Spencer is pitching a fit. Not because it's cute when he has a tantrum, but the reason for his fit was that I turned the stroller away from the tractors to take the picture.
That boy sure loves tractors.

Ahhhh... you gotta love those Holiday memories.

The World Through the Eyes of a Toddler

2008-11-25T21:26:00.000-08:00

Life is far from boring with two toddlers around. It is incredible what they are entertained and amazed by.

Yesterday the kids came with Tygh to watch my volleyball team play. Were the kids amazed by my awesome skills? Nope. They were completely mesmerized by the sink at the gym that squirted water in all different directions (It was just like the one in the picture).

It really is amazing how different things are when I look at them through the eyes of my children. Izabella loves to grab my camera and take pictures, and although the pics are usually blurry because she's moving too much, I love to get a glimpse of what life is like being her.

She took these first two pics while we were eating lunch at home.

I just love the way that Spencer is grinning at her and the lower perspective of the room.

When she see's this pic, she loves to proudly proclaim, "That's my Daddy Tygh!" (She makes it sound like she has another Dad when she calls him that).

She took this pic of Spencer and I by the Portland temple.
Not too bad a pic for a 3 year old.

As a parent of toddlers, you never just drive anywhere or do anything with out pointing out all the new and exciting things that your kids love.

For example, I never realized how many trucks were out there until it became Spencer's thing. I found myself almost crashing the car this morning on the way to preschool just trying to point out the neighborhood garbage truck to Spencer. I have to add that I totally dig our garbage truck guy because he always honks his horns and waves to the kids. Spencer with out fail will yell, (gasp) "Wow! Gar-ege Tuck!" It's just too cute.

Izabella's favorite thing to find today was the letter "I". One of her friends/crushes in her preschool class today drew the letter "I" outside on the sidewalk during recess in honor of Izzie. For some reason it just all of a sudden clicked that was the first letter in her name (even though we have been pointing it out to her since the beginning of September). She worked her self into a frenzy writing the letter I over and over again and proudly proclaiming that it was her letter. Everywhere we went today, she pointed out the letter "I" even in the most unlikely places...

This afternoon while Tygh was watching the kids for me, Izabella walked excitedly out of the bathroom with her pants around her ankles, yelling "Daddy, Daddy! Come see!" He was then escorted to the toilet where she proudly pointed at her lovely log of poop and informed Tygh, "Look Dad, it's an I! It's my name!" It's good to see that our well spent pre-school tuition money is not just being flushed down the toilet.

Getting Ready for The Obama-Nation

2008-11-20T17:57:00.001-08:00

Way back in September or so, Tygh started freaking out about what would happen to his hobby of hunting Bambi and other innocent forest creatures if Obama won the election. The NRA put out a pamphlet about how the world was going to hell in a hand basket if McCain didn't win the election. It stated something like he was the most anti-gun candidate EVER and he will steal all your guns.

I don't really buy into all the big boy campfire stories about how we will lose all our rights, but I do believe that the taxation on hunting and guns will go way up. Even if the taxation doesn't go up right away, the gun dealers will be able to significantly raise their prices since the demand for weapons has risen to due to the current gun run. So the penny pincher in me won, and I promised Tygh that he could buy a new gun if Obama won the election.

My hubby proved to have an excellent memory despite his current record of forgetting to do all the house chores over the past month and Saturday he came home with a new semi-automatic Beretta Shotgun which he lovingly named "The Obaminator." (He tried to get the name inscribed on the gun at the gun store, but the guy who could do it was out.) He looked like a giddy little boy Christmas morning after he opened his presents. Since he fit the preceding description so well, I announced to him that this will count as his Christmas present and I will not be buying him a new GPS for Christmas. He was so thrilled about his "dream gun" that he didn't even care. He gladly cleaned up the entire backyard, kitchen and set up a kitty condo for our cat.

In other news I have sold my soul to the Wal*Mart devil. Tygh and I have always agreed that as soon as we can afford to have values, we will stop shopping at Wal*Mart in protest of their ethic values. This last week I discovered something that has enticed me to become a loyal shopper of Wally World... They will price match ANY printed grocery ad. One of the moms at Izzie's preschool told me about this. She sits down each week with all the newspaper grocery ads and a notebook. She writes the prices down of the items that she would buy from each store and then she goes shopping and simply informs the cashier the price that the item is advertised for and they just honor the price.

I was really skeptical and thought this was too good to be true, but I sat down and made a detailed list and categorized according to store and the type of food and included the page number and price of each item. Surprisingly Wal*Mart's everyday prices beat several of the advertised prices that the stores ran in newspaper.

It really made me wonder about my shopping habits. I have been frequenting stores based on their newspaper ads thinking I was getting a great deal, but not only was the sale prices higher than Wally World, but so were the other items that I buy each week.

The hardest part of my penny pinching adventure was lining up the grocery items to price match and finding the correct price quickly. It was painfully slow for me (I think something like 3 different people changed lines after they saw how slow I was), but the cashier was really quick. She had already read the circular and she had her own copy too, so she didn't even ask me to show her where the ads were. This week, I've decided to write the prices and description of the item on a sheet of blank address labels and stick them directly on each item.

Gas prices may have dropped to under $2.00 (Tygh filled up at Costco today for $1.91), but the unsure times have sure motivated our family to make some changes and prepare for the future. I really don't think things will go to heck with our new president, but hey, it doesn't hurt to be ready.

Here is a little video clip for you enjoyment: Spencer's latest thing is reading books about trucks. (It is really entertaining to me, but I'm sure it will bore you to pieces).

A Real Education

2008-11-05T21:50:00.000-08:00

Growing up, my parents were against guns to the point that we couldn't even have squirt guns. My brother Jonathan often fought this rule by biting a square piece of cheese into the shape of a gun (he's such a rebel).

So you can imagine how I'm struggling with the fact that my husband is an avid hunter and how to speak with the kids about his hobby. (Oh and on a side note -I made the mistake of promising Tygh he could buy a new gun if Obama won).

Izabella is fascinated with Daddy's hobby and often lines up her stuffed animals and shoots them with her Cabella's pop gun. She gets excited when Tygh is hunting and she can tell you what he's hunting for: bear, deer, duck or frog. (We don't know why she added frogs to the list). She asks Tygh to bring home his kills so she can touch them. I don't think she quite grasped that the animals wouldn't be like the live ones she imagined.

The day that Tygh brought home two ducks was an educational day in our household.

Here's a video clip showing Izabella's initial reaction towards the ducks.

After she realized that the ducks were dead, she went on to explain to me that the ducks were dead because "Daddy shot them with his gun. See there's holes from the gun." (She then went on to point out the wounds from the bullet holes.)

In an ideal hunter's dream marriage the husband arrives home after a hunt and will toss the kill in the sink so the little wifie can clean and cook the thing. Not me, I'm too grossed out by the whole process -so Tygh cleans and cooks every beastie that he brings home. I sware Tygh is showing Izabella how to clean animals in hopes that she will either become an avid hunter herself, or she will become that dream wife.

She faithfully stood by Tygh's side for the entire ordeal and held a cup of water to dump on the birds when Tygh requested.

I'm not saying that she didn't get grossed out, but she was a good little helper for the whole ordeal.

In other educational news, Spencer is my little one so fascinated with everything with wheels. "TRUCK!" Is his favorite word. His other love in life is making messes.

On Nov. 4th, Voting Day, one of the radio stations here in town sponsored a Pumpkin Vote at the fire station. They rented a cherry picker and the way that you "cast" your vote was to toss a pumpkin on the Presidential Candidate's sign of your choice. Spencer got to operate the cherry picker while I was hoisted up 25 feet in the air. After we got our fill of pumpkin carnage, the DJ's gave us some free patriotic red white and blue cookies for participating. We stopped by the fire station before we left and the fire fighters gave us a quick tour of the trucks. Spencer was still shouting excitedly about the "FIE TUCKS!" from the back seat as we drove away.

That night Izabella's prayer went something like this, "Heavy Father, Thank you for the boat pumpkin mess, the cookies, and the fire trucks. I like boating. I want to do it again! Amen." Spencer also added his little amen, "MEN!" to the darling prayer.

I'm so glad I got to teach my children about the joys of doing their patriotic duty on Voting Day.

An untimely death

2008-10-17T22:44:00.000-07:00

I am very ticked to announce the untimely death of a family member... our computer. Tygh keeps forgetting to bring his laptop home from work. So until next week when I can journey to tax-free Oregon, I am going to have really limited internet access.

The kids are starting to grow up so fast. Izabella is getting pretty close to becoming declared potty trained. Boy has that been entertaining. The first week she was potty training, I kept telling her it was really nice to have clean and dry panties. That backfired. After a few times of not making it to the potty in time, she decided to just drop her drawers and go where ever she was at the time in a nice squatting position to avoid getting her panties dirty. I think the neighbor's dogs inspired her to frequently pee on the grass by the fence. She had several accidents in the house including my room, on top of the kitchen table (don't ask), the front room rug, and the sippy cup drawer. Each time she had enough time to stip off all her clothes from her pants down to her shoes, but not enough time to make it to the potty. One time unbeknownst to me she number two-ed in the playhouse. Spencer came out of the playhouse screaming and waving his hands trying to get something off of them. He ran up to me and started rubbing it all over me when I caught a whiff. I asked Izzie what was going on, and she proudly declared that she pooped in the house in the sand and she told Spencer not to touch it but he didn't listen. I looked in the house and sure enough there was a little dookie with a set of finger prints across it. Lovely. Showers for everyone!

Spencer is working on weaning and learning to sleep through the night. Last night I nursed him before bed at 9 pm and he didn't nurse again until 7 am. Freedom! Izabella keeps asking me to grow her another baby brother in my tummy. I told her that I can't make another baby until Spencer stops nursing. That was a mistake. She started yelling at Spencer the next time she caught him nursing about how he had to stop because WE NEED A BABY! Crazy kid.

Tygh is currently gone in search of a deer for the second weekend in a row. I don't think he'll get anything, but I hope he does so he won't be gone next weekend too. Izabella prayed that Daddy would bring home a deer so she could touch it. We'll see if that worked.

Baby Boy Discovered with Three Arms... Parents Wonder, Will This Help Him Clean Up His Toys Faster?

2008-10-04T21:43:00.000-07:00

One of the arms laying across his chest is actually Izabella's but it totally looks like Spencer has 3 arms!

Say What??

2008-09-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

It is about time that I devote a blog entry to my 2nd child. Poor forgotten Spencer.

So this morning we were eating breakfast in our dining room when Spencer looked out the window, pointed, and stated as a matter of fact, "garaash tuc." (Translation: Garbage truck). No one had told him that it was indeed garbage day and that the truck would be arriving. Now those of you who have kids who are verbal Einsteins this may not seem that big of a deal, but to the linguistically delayed Lybberts this was huge. Heck Izzie just started saying garbage truck clearly in the last few months and she's 3!

When I called Tygh at work to share the breaking news story, he commented that Spence gets all his smarts from his Daddy. Thanks sweetie... Yes everything amazing that our son does is due to your genes and not mine. Tygh is particularly proud that Spencer writes and eats left handed just like his Daddy -he's a perfect little "mini me." For some reason there seems to be a high percentage of lefties in law and med school. Now the part of the story that Tygh always leaves out when he is bragging is that originally Spencer was right handed. Coincidentally the week that Spencer switched to being a leftie was right after an unfortunate incident where he was pushed down the stairs by his older sister. He ended up with a black eye, a huge goose egg, and he became left handed. The question I have now is who dropped Tygh on his head when he was a baby?

2008-09-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

So my family knows just how awesome I am, but I'm not sure if you do... so here is a little series of funny stories that happened yesterday just to prove my complete awesomeness.

Yesterday while I was at the library at the checkout counter my two feral children decided to run completely crazy and free. Izabella decided to duck into the men's bathroom and yell at the top of her lungs, "Hello, is anyone in there doing anything?" This was completely augmented by the lack of any ambient noise since it was the library. (I must add as a side note that we are in the middle of potty training -hence the fascination with using the bathroom). Who in the world lets their kids run free in such a solemn place?.. me.

After the library, we went to the store where I trapped both of the feral children in a shopping cart basket. Since Izabella let her free spirit be captured, she showed Spencer the delicate art of cart surfing. If you are not familiar with cart surfing, it is practiced by grabbing out at whatever you can get a hold of while your parent is distracted and either throw it into the cart or use stationary objects to propel the cart in different directions. Spencer decided to try out his skills while we were in the parking lot full of cars. I was in the van strapping Izabella into her car seat when I saw Spencer still in the cart through the rear window slowly accelerating along the length of the car down a hill towards other parked cars. I managed to reach him before he struck any vehicles, but not before he let out a big woo hoo!

Tygh and I were talking at dinner yesterday when I demonstrated just how cool I really am. Our conversation went something like this. Tygh: "So you changed your support. Why did you decide to change your support from this morning?" At this point I looked down at my chest and noticed just how saggy my nursing-mom-of-two-children-bust line was. After a sigh I said, "Oh Tygh. This is the same bra I wore this morning. They always look like this now." To which Tygh tilted his head with confusion and then busted out laughing. He was asking about what caused me to change my support on an issue. I just thought he was being polite and not saying bra. Yup. I am completely awesome.

Her Highness Reaches 3

2008-08-27T21:21:00.000-07:00

WARNING! WARNING! I just want to get the word out that Mom took a serious trip down memory lane on this blog. She wrote all about my stinkin' older sister and she didn't even write once about me! I guess that's what I get for being the second, forgotten child.

Last weekend our still tiny girl turned 3 years old. We had the coolest, laid back party with 14 of her church friends in our backyard. The kids played in the water and just had a great time going nuts with all the cupcakes and ice cream cones they could stomach. I'll post pics from the event on my digital scrapbook

In honor of her highness I've decided to do a little photo and video clip montage showing how she's grown through the years.

Here she is right after she was born.

She was so alert about an hour after she was born. She wanted to be held she wanted to make sure we all paid attention to her. We knew we were in for quite a ride when she was kicked out of the nursery in the hospital since she was screaming so loud she disturbed the other babies.

Here's the first video clip I could find of her. This was taken while we were still living in our tiny student housing apartment at the U of O. We didn't own a television at the time. So this was as entertaining as our lives got.

Here's a picture from my Grandpa's wedding just after Stink turned 1.

This is about when we realized that she was going to be such a princess. She loved dressing up and loved anything that sparkled. Her personality was so outgoing that you couldn't help but be smitten by this little girl with such a big presence.

Here's a clip of her and Tygh Daddy Daughter Dancing.

Here's a picture from her Second Birthday.We had to re-light the candles a bazillion times since she kept wanting to hear "her song" and re-blow the candles over and over. It was fun to see her start to grasp the fun part of the event.

Here's a clip of Princess Izzie and her horse

Here's a pic of my favorite girl now at age 3.She dresses herself (I wanted to give her proper credit for the lovely outfit), changes her pull-up herself (potty training is a bit behind), and she can speak in fairly large sentences. Here is a video clip of when I walked into the kitchen last week to find her washing the dishes by herself.

OK that's enough trippin'! Happy Third Birthday Izabella!

Backyard Shenanigans

2008-08-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

The kids do such crazy things in our backyard. I think it may have to do with the fact that the backyard is fully fenced so I often let them play by themselves while I am in the kitchen. Each day I allow the kids to have a Popsicle. The rules around this routine is that they can only have it outside and they are only allowed one. Gavin usually finishes his first followed by Izabella. Spencer takes a bit longer so his remaining Popsicle is often under attack by the older kids who still want just a lick more. The other day I had to get after the older kids for trying to suck on Spencer's prized frozen treat (I knew they were doing this because of Spencer's loud protesting screams) and explained that Spencer just didn't want to share. Five minutes later I find Spencer against the fence line with the Great Dane puppy Willy next door sharing. He would take a lick and then pass the Popsicle through the fence and let Willy take a big ol' doggy lick and then Spencer would patiently take his turn again. I guess I should have told the kids that Spencer just didn't want to share with other humans.

The other day I walked out to check on Spencer's protesting screams to find this:Spencer completely looked like Pigpen from Charlie Brown.

I guess that makes Izabella just like Lucy since she is a bossy older sister who is always picking on her little bro.

I know that you are innocent until proven guilty, but take a look at this video clip and you decide how Spencer got so dirty.

Reunion Recovery

2008-08-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

Summertime means picnics, swimming, no school, and reunions. Oh and it means these guys too:

I grew up applying the term "cousin" to family members who were directly related to my Grandparents. Tygh grew up as a Lybbert where basically the whole town of Moses Lake can be considered his "cousin."

have their huge shindig, and every 10 years my high school has a reunion. This year all 3 events fell in the same weekend! We couldn't decide which one to go to, so I went to 2 and Every year Tygh's mom family has their family reunion in August, every other year the LybbertsTygh went to all 3. Friday we went to Klickitat for Norma's family reunion, Saturday we went to a picnic for my high school reunion in Vancouver, and Sunday I took the kids to church while Tygh headed to Republic for his Lybbert family reunion. Last weekend I made up for missing the Lybbert reunion and we went to Seattle to meet with several of Tygh's cousins. All of it was very fun, but boy I am tired. I've decided to lay low and I'm going to start a Reunion Recovery Program.

Since I'm still taking it easy, I will add more pics later to our digital scrapbook. For now, you'll just have to get by on these...

The new playground built by Uncle Don..

was enjoyed by young...and old alike.

My high school reunion picnic ended up just being a girl event, but it was fun to remember the good old days.
Who liked high school boys any way?

The Brave Little Trackster

2008-08-01T08:06:00.001-07:00

Most moms push their darling daughters into dance class or gymnastics, but no, not I. Since I was a big time trackster back in the day, (I was a thrower on BYU's track team) and my career is now over, I decided it was time to live vicariously through my own offspring.

When I read about the 3 week long Yakima Youth Track Program in the paper I called the woman in charge to make sure that it was Ok for such a young kid to participate. Izabella would need me to accompany her the whole practice, but she would be placed in the 4 and under division. I wasn't sure how Izzie would like it, but the pushy track mom in me was determined to see it through.

I wasn't sure what to expect at the hour long practice sessions on Mondays and Tuesdays and the meets on Wednesday. Let me tell you, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life. On the practice days, they had the kids do a warm up jog together and do a group stretch (the pic is of her doing a stretch) and then they rotated events every 15 minutes or so. The 4 and under group practiced the 50 meter dash, the 50 meter hurdles, the softball throw, and the long jump. On meet days each kid got a name tag that said their name and age. They competed by age and gender and they actually kept track of their times and distances. Every kid who participated got a ribbon and holy cow, we've got a stack of green participant ribbons at home now.

The hurdles for the 4 and under division are just these tiny little things that they put in the lanes and each kid had their own way of dealing with them. Since they place the hurdles in every other lane on the track, it isn't that uncommon to see kids just decide to run straight through the open lane instead of tackling the miniature obstacles. Other kids will routinely turn around and set up any hurdle that they may have knocked over before they continue the race. The first practice Izabella was scared of the hurdles, so I ran with her and carried her over each hurdle. At the first meet, Izabella was eager at the starting line and when the whistle bell she was off like a shot... all the way to the first hurdle where she stood with her arms up in the air waiting for someone to help her over the hurdle that was inconveniently in her path. I was waiting at the finish line so my friend ran to the rescue and lifted her over every blasted hurdle. I tried to take a video clip, but I was laughing I didn't keep the camera steady and the clip really only has value in the audio. By the last week of track, my kid was tackling hurdles like a true pro. Most of the time she stepped to the side of the hurdle with her lead leg, but her trail leg cleared the hurdle smoothly.

Earlier this year, I volunteer coached at our local high school in town. It was a blast! I often brought my kids along with me if Tygh was still at work. As a result, they were immersed in the culture of it all. At one particular track meet while we were watching the discus I noticed that Izabella was more interested in the running events. I asked her if she wanted to be a thrower when she grew up and she replied that she would rather be a runner. My heart was crushed! What is a thrower mom to do? Izzie proved that she was going to stick to her guns and she refused to participate in the softball throw. She had no problem watching me coach the older kids and she would practice throwing with me in the back yard at home, but when it was meet time, she obstinately refused. Hmm.. I wonder where she gets her stubborn side from?

One of the events that had me in stitches was the long jump, or as Izzie called it "the run and jump." Izabella would run down the runway full speed only to come to a complete stop at the end where she would scrunch her forehead in concentration and jump off both feet into the sand. When she landed she would proudly smile and wave to her fans. What a ham. Here is a clip of her doing the run and jump in a meet. Not quite as entertaining, but it still makes me smile. (The green thing in her left hand is another participant ribbon that she refused to part with).

The final event that my little trackster participated in was the the 50 meter dash. I think this was her favorite event, no obstacles, no jumping, just all out running. I often saw Izabella practicing her starts with Spencer and the little boy I babysit, Gavin, in the back yard. She would officially announce ready, set, and then whistle. The first few times the boys looked at her confused about the whistling, but she explained in her bossy tone that whistle means GO! Well maybe if she isn't an athlete she'll at least be a coach. I would like to say that her time improved over the 3 weeks, but she had the slowest time yet in the last meet. They had left the blocks down from the big kids race just prior, so she insisted on doing a block start. She also insisted on running the entire race holding her baby doll. I overheard other parents laughing about the doll. Well even if we don't win, we're always entertaining.

What did Spencer do this whole time??

He was pretty ticked that he didn't get to participate. He tried to run on the track as much as he could and so he spent a majority of his time strapped in the stroller. He did enjoy playing in the sand in the long jump pit and he liked throwing the ball. (Thank goodness I still might raise a champion thrower yet.) Most of the time he was just bored and he had to provide his own entertainment.

The woes of being the 2nd child!

It's just a box

2008-07-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

So we are neck deep in the middle of our move. Our children have become neglected feral children and the answer to, "Do you know where blank is?" is "It's in a box!" Life is currently chaotic at best.

Just now I was in the bathroom cleaning and Izabella brought a box and asked me what it was. After taking a quick look at it, I realized it contained contraceptive jelly. Hmmmm. How do you answer that? The natural hippy in me took over and I decided to explain to Izabella what it was used for. "Well honey, Mommy and Daddy use that to help stop babies." My small two year old gave me a look of complete satisfaction. I had given her a significant explanation. Just as I was patting myself on the back for being such an open and honest parent. Izabella picked up the the box, raised it over her head and whacked Spencer with it while declaring, "No Baby. Stop!" It was then that I decided to tell her next time that it was just a box instead of giving an explanation.