The Rich family has an announcement to make...

The Rich family is proud to announce that we are now, officially a family of 6!

About 6 weeks ago I found out that we were expecting a new baby. I know I didn't tell many people, but we were waiting just to be sure......

And here he is. My new baby Cooper! Isn't he a doll!

He's a sweet, mild tempered boy. He spent his first night with us last night, and I must say, its almost exactly the same as having a newborn. One good thing about this baby is that he is pretty much potty trained. He whines when he has to go out. He's only 6 weeks old right now and still adjusting from the plane ride down from Idaho, and missing his mama and sister. But we are giving him lots of love!

Teething, fighting, cleaning, pulling weeds... I love weekends!

I thought it was time to toss everyone a line. I don't know if I've ever brought this up.... but, the main fight in my marriage (besides my spending) is my yard!! Personally, I don't think its my job. I clean the inside, and the man cleans the outside. I think that's how its been since the beginning. It says in the scriptures "God made man to do yard work" (not in those words, but you get the point) Men cleaning the inside is just like giving a 4 year old windex to clean the windows. You end up with something that looks a little better, but only the bottom half is done and you still end up doing it anyway (can you tell I'm a little T.O.'d this morning or what?!?!) Don't get me wrong, I've made attempts. I've mowed the lawn and tried to weed whack but its just not the same.

random question for those who have grass... do you ever pull a chair up to the window to watch your husband mow the lawn??? If so, isn't it so entertaining!! All the stuff they run over and you can see their mouths moving and know under their breath they are saying "retchin' fetchin" and other complaints about you being so bossy. That is entertainment at its best!

Anyway, we did yard work on Saturday for 3 hours and this is how it looks! (keep in mind it still looks like crap to those with nice yards, but this is strait beautiful from what I've had to look at the last few months!

Now don't go tattling to him. I'm not saying he's lazy, because he really isn't, he's busy. He just doesn't have it "on the top of his priority list"

(sarcasm) In other news, its spring break and I'm looking forward to being my children's sole entertainment. YAY... It will be a fun week of arguing, mess making, eating every 15 minutes and pee on the floor because our puppy will be here on Tuesday. I still don't have a name. I've changed my mind since the last time. If you have any ideas leave them for me please!

Oh and fun things to look forward to.

Our playgroup is having a boutique and all the mommies in it are supposed to make something to bring to sell. I'm making aprons that I sort of just made on a whim for Christmas presents last year. They are so darn cute, I just have to find the time to make one for myself. Here is one I made for Maddi. I make children and adults and they are so much fun!! If you want to come to the boutique, its going to be Thursday, March 26th at 10:30 at the Towne Meadows park.

These are some of the fabrics that I'm using for the aprons that are going to the boutique. The bottom fabric is the apron and the top fabric is the pocket.

Besides Nolan, this is my main source of stress...

When these suckers poke through my life will be back to normal.

Madison the Spy and other things

Today was just a typical Sunday. I'm not sure how much I'm liking the 11:30 church because of nap time and all of that... but it sure does make for less fighting. I don't know about anyone else, but I can totally understand the title of the song "Sunday, bloody Sunday" That song was made for my house. I know Sunday is supposed to be a spiritual day, but come on! We are shacked up all day and the kids run crazy, I'm tired, Judd is gone for meetings all day and for some reason the house is always a disaster! But 11:30 church kind of cuts our day in half so the fighting has become less and less.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I was looking on Amazon and found the movie "Harriet the spy" I loved that movie! I had to get it because its right up Madison's alley. So on Saturday night we had a family movie night and watched it. It was still as cute as I remembered and the kids absolutely loved it. However.... I didn't realize that this movie would give certain kids bad ideas about spying on their parents. Don't worry, its not like that, yet... but I catch her hiding around the corner peeking at me all the time. folding laundry, doing dishes, talking to myself, she's spying and writing about it in her notebook. Tonight I was cleaning the kitchen after dinner and I knew they were spying on me. I just would talk and say funny things and I could hear them snickering. Now that Coulson is in his walker they have no chance of hiding. He walks around after them and makes these noises. We call them his "underwater whale noises", because he seriously sounds like some marine mammal. Well he was giving away their position so I thought it a great opportunity to grab my camera and jump around the corner and surprise them.

Hopefully this spy business gets old quickly. Who knows what they might over hear or...see

In other news... we've been putting our kids to bed every day at about 7. Lately Nolan has had a hard time falling asleep at night, so I thought it would be a good idea to change his nap into a quiet time instead. so I gave him the rules "stay in here for 1 hour, you can't come out, and if you get bored or tired, lay down." Well I went in my room for my quiet time to read and I ended up falling asleep. He came into my room to wake me up and that was fine. He lasted about 45 minutes in quiet time. not too bad. Well I was throwing something away in the bathroom and noticed blue stuff all over the toilet seat. Hmm. that's strange. Then I turn around to see that Nolan squirted out the whole tube of brand new toothpaste into the sink. I'm just trying to imagine his thought process, but all I can come up with is... male. I made him clean it up. Maybe next time he'll think twice, if its possible for a male brain to do so.

Where do they get off thinking that money grows on trees???

This was my conversation with Madison on the way to the library...

"Can we get happy meals for dinner?"

"no, I just went grocery shopping and there is plenty of food to eat at home"

"I don't want the food at home! I like happy meals"

"I don't have any money"

"Yes you do"

"How would you know? have you been going through my purse again?!?!"

"No, but all you have to do is give them that blue card in your wallet"

NOW... excuse me while I vent!!

Every day I talk to women who have teenagers and are stressed over how much money they cost. There are women who haven't bought themselves anything in years because their kids have to shop at Hollister (that horrible store that I hate)
These are kids that walk around in $200 jeans and Juicy purses. The kids that have high tech cell phones spend all of their time texting. (Has anyone noticed how anti-social kids are lately? They avoid conversation with everyone through their texting) Kids with new cars while there parents drive junkers. What in the world has happened to parents these days?? Why are they so slow to teach kids the value of money?? Why can't they tell their kids "NO!"
Its scary to think that kids can just take that "blue card" and swipe it and money magically appears. You think our society is in debt now... I'm more scared to see it in 10 years. Everywhere you turn there are people going under, not because of job loss, but because they were out buying things they really couldn't afford in the first place, all for the sake of looking cool, or feeling better about themselves. Well here is a news flash, if you don't feel good about your self in the first place, that new car sure isn't going to do it for you. You'll only feel worse because now you will be depressed over that car payment too. Another problem is, people are so impatient. Who saves for anything anymore? They think because they have a credit card they can just go out and buy a new TV. That teaches them no value or responsibility. Everything that I've saved up to buy, I've appreciated more because of it.
So... I guess my dilemma is, how do you teach kids how to be responsible with money? How do you teach them that it is better to save for something rather than finance it? We are counselled over and over to avoid debt unless it is an absolute necessity. To save for a rainy day. I don't know how to get it through my kids heads.
I don't believe in paying for little chores around the house because I think it is a responsibility everyone has to take care their home.
What does everyone do to teach their kids about saving and value?

Top Ten Reasons why I might go Crazy!

10.Nolan crying
9. Kids that leave a trail of mess right after I've cleaned up
8. Cooking dinner for an hour every day just to throw it away because kids won't eat it
7. Nolan whining
6. Judd makes these weird loud noises, too annoying to even describe
5. coughs that don't ever go away, EVER
4. Kids that wake up at 6 a.m. no matter what time they go to bed
3. Nolan throwing fits
2. Female hormones
and the number on reason is....
Nolan in general

On a brighter side...

Top 10 things that make me laugh

10. Nolan crying
9. Coulson in his walker (he wanders all over the house looking for me)
8. Madison's fashion sense
7. Judd's fashion sense (camo and longhorns)
6. No matter how hard I try, my kids always look like hillbilly's
5. When my kids taunt each other (right now Madison is trying to get Nolan to come out side and play with her and he really doesn't want to, so she is out there acting like she is having the best time of her life... oh wait, now they are fighting)
4. How they make up 2 seconds later (now they are coloring together... wait, nope, fighting again)
3. the weird birds that fly into my window and knock themselves unconscious. I know, I'm strange, but seriously, at least twice a day. It is pretty funny.
2. Judd's singing and dancing. I never laugh at his face because I try not to humor him too much. I always leave the room to crack up. He really seriously thinks that he could win American idol. He hates that show, but still, he swears he would win. I'm going to secretly record him and post it some time. Hilarious!
and the #1 reason
The things my kids say. Sitting back listening to them have conversations with each other, or even spying when they are playing alone. Madison plays with her toys like she is a narrator. This is what she will say "brown horse, why are you so sad, said the big, black haired girl horse"
or Nolan singing. He acts shy, but that kid sings all day long. I have to act like I'm ignoring him or he'll stop, but the songs are cute.

so there you have it. For all the bad, there is good. Going crazy is just a part of motherhood.


Trip to Ikea
This morning I decided to take the kids to Ikea. It sounded like a good idea, until I got there. They were having this sale on some dresser so there were like 10,000 people there. I dropped Madi and Nolan off at the kids area to play and wandered around in peace and quiet. Then I get my page from the kid place... like 15 minutes later. I went to see what was wrong. The lady said that they just wanted to leave because they were hungry. Little tirds. So we went up to eat and they were serving FREE breakfast. Yay! While we were eating and waiting in the huge line, to my utter amazement, my kids were being angels! no running, fighting, whining, nothing. We got our food and ate and there were kids throwing fits all around, but my kids stayed quiet and ate their food all gone! We continued shopping and they didn't even ask me to buy them everything. Oh my gosh, they were great!! On the way home I told them just how I felt

"Kids, you were so good in there! I am so proud of you, there were kids being naughty all over the place and you guys just made me so happy. I love you!!"

Madison "will you give us some money?"

Geez why can't they just be good for free!?

Stay in school

There may not be any statistics on this, but I thought it posed a great argument....

Me "Madison, you need to go and get dressed for school"

Madi "I don't want to go to school any more!"

Me "you have to go to school. How else are you going to get smart?"

Madi "I don't need to be smart"

Me "yes you do, that's why Heavenly Father let us come to earth, so that we can learn lots of things"

Madi "I still don't want to go to school"

Mom "well, people who don't go to school go to jail"

Madi "Uncle Craig is in jail"

Me "that's becuase he didn't go to school" (he really didn't. this was kind of funny)

Madi "I'd better go get dressed"

Shhh.....

With months of being pet-less, we've finally taken the plunge. Judd's aunt called us with news of a new litter of Black labs. She breeds them and they are beautiful. She's saving us the biggest, spunkiest male. I'm pretty excited. We aren't going to tell the kids though because we don't get to bring him home for like 3 months and I don't want to hear about it every day. So I need your help. We are trying to pick a name for it and Judd wants the weirdest names ever, so I need everyone to cast a vote. (keep in mind, he's going to be a big, black male)

My Picks

1.Zeke

2.Brutus

3.Gus

4. Zeus

Update: My new favorite

5. Roscoe

Judd's picks

1. Festus

2. Clive

3. Bosifus (boseefus)

4. Trip

5. Bubba

In other goings on.... I've noticed I haven't posted for a while. Nothing's really been happening. Judd just returned from a trip to Idaho. He was there for Grandpa Jardine's funeral. I was happy he was able to go. However.... the second he leaves all of the kids get sick. Nolan was up coughing all night and keeping everyone else up so he came and slept with me, and kept me up all night. The baby wasn't feeling good, so he was up all night. While he was gone I had...

sing it

5 hours of sleep,

4 nights alone,

3 sick kids,

2 trips to grandma's

and a visit to the emergency room.

It was the greatest weekend of my life, not.

I did, amongst all the chaos, fit in a trip to the temple. That calmed me down a bit.

Oh, and we got some more family pics.

Sweet moments when they think no one is watching...

Last night when I was feeding the baby Nolan came and asked me to scratch his back. I didn't have a free hand at the time so I told him to wait until I was done. He then went into the living room where Madison was sitting on the couch reading a book. He asked her so sweetly "sissy, will you scratch my back?" She said sure and I decided that I would put the baby down and spy on them. It was so cute. She sat there scratching his back and he had his "serious back scratch face" on. She did it for a while and then he asked her for a back massage. It was pretty funny. She was a good sport, until she started tickling him and it broke out into a wrestling match. Ah, they really do love each other.

After many weeks of Madison having a loose tooth, it finally came out! Judd has been bugging her forever to let him pull it out. She would scream and cover her mouth and hide. On Saturday Judd and I went out on a date and Makenna and Gene were babysitting. She let Gene tie floss around her tooth but then she lost her nerve and decided she wanted to take the floss off. When she went to take it off her tooth basically fell out of her mouth. She says it was pretty funny. Then comes the best part: Playing tooth fairy. Except we couldn't find the tooth anywhere under the pillow! We searched forever but couldn't find it. So we left a dollar and hoped that she would forget about the tooth. Well, the first thing she says when she wakes up in the morning "Guess what?!?! The tooth fairy left me a dollar and she didn't even take my tooth! Maybe I can put it under my pillow and she'll give my another dollar tonight!" She's a thinker, that one. She's been playing with that tooth and even wants to take it to school. She put it back under her pillow (or so she thought) and hoped the tooth fairy would come again. Later that day she went in looking for it and it was gone. We told her the tooth fairy is out of money and snuck in to get it while she wasn't looking. (Judd actually found it on the desk) so at least we're not out another dollar. Now she looks like a little blond hillbilly. Judd calls her picket fence. It almost looks like she has one tooth in the middle of her mouth.

By the way, this is how she looks when she wakes up. Serious case of bed head!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

To the best papa and dad in the whole world!!!

WE LOVE YOU!

OH BABY!

I got the sweetest pictures of my littlest man yesterday. He's so handsome!

Quality Time

We had a really fun weekend! I probably haven't mentioned that I am a very cool wife yet (but I am) For Christmas I got Judd this really awesome Handheld GPS that is also a walkie talkie and can hook up to the computer and download maps and tells the weather forecast, its one of the greatest inventions of all time (besides microwaves and baby swings) It has given us many chances to have some fun family outings. We have been going geochaching a lot, and for those of you who aren't geeks and don't know what that is, I'll break it down for you.

There are these groups of geeky people (sorry if I'm offending someone, but admit it...) who place objects in inconspicuous places and then get the coordinates for that object. They then go and put the coordinates on their website so other people can go and look for them. So we've been searching for these things all over the place. On Saturday we went down to the Riparian Preserve looking around and found a few. One was a treasure box hidden under a bush down by the water (some of these things are really hard to find) It had a bunch of little items in it because when you find it you are supposed to leave something behind and write your name and date on a paper. People thought that we were crazy digging through trees at the park, but what can I say, we are pretty weird. The kids had a blast and I highly recommend it as a family activity, unless you are too cool.

Sunday we were all sick with colds and coughs and decided that we weren't going to go to church. It was such a nice day out, and such a shame that we were stuck inside all day that we lived on the edge a little bit and took everyone up to four peaks for the day. We shot Judd's gun and had a picnic and a hike. It was so nice out.

Coulson was such a good sport. He just chilled out in the stroller while we were shooting. Luckily it was only a 22, so it wasn't loud.

Don't worry, we've not fallen away. Monday night we had FHE on keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. We apologized to the kids and hopefully they are not going to beg us to miss every week now! You should have saw them when we said we weren't going, you would think I told them they won a million dollars. Madison is already giving me trouble about going. Last week I didn't get to go because Nolan was sick then too, so Madison started coughing on purpose hoping I would think she was sick. That girl's has some ideas, let me tell you!

In other news, Lets talk Cardinals. I am not an NFL fan. I am not a pro sports fan of any kind. They get paid too much money and are all a bunch of punks and whine about not making enough money. I can't find it in me to jump on the band wagon. Judd especially can't stand them and all he hears at work is CARDINALS CARDINALS CARDINALS. He is pretty annoyed. I was going through the baby's clothes this week and found a Cardinals onsie. I'm going to dress him in it and see what Judd says when he gets home. HAHA. No offense to my Cardinal loving Friends out there. Larry Fitzgerald does have a nice tush. I will watch just for that reason ;)

Nolan's Birthday

We had Nolan's birthday party this past Saturday. I always try to convince myself that I will take it easy and just do a casual party that doesn't take a lot of work. At least that's how it started out. Then I found all of these cute ideas on web sites and I couldn't resist. I wanted to do sack races, but I couldn't find sacks so sweet Wendy gave me some material and I was able to sew all of the sacs. They turned out really great. Thanks Wendy! The kids had so much fun, except Madison, who couldn't quite figure out how to hop inside of the sack, and just sat on the ground and pouted. We played kickball. That was probably my favorite part. The kids all lined up to kick and the adults were in the infield. Every time a kid would kick we would catch the ball and throw it at them before they could reach first base. They would all crash to the ground and oh my gosh, it was so funny!! I don't know what's so funny about hitting someone with a kickball, but it was hilarious. Sorry again to all of the moms who's kids I injured while playing. Then for the rest of the time the kids just ran around and played on the playground. I made these fun cupcakes that took up most of my party preparation time. They are supposed to look like frogs, but they kind of look like, well I don't even know what they look like, but they were cute. All in all it was a fun morning, and all of the kids took a nap afterward, even me :) This is Nolan and his really cool Batman bike. He was so excited! Don't mind all the crap in the background. That's Judd's weight room/tool shed/storage unit/garage/what ever else we need it to be. Hey, at least my car fits in there!

WARNING: don't look down if you are easily grossed out by a severely messy face.

Coulson had his first experience with one of those teething cookies. (his first little tooth came in last week) He loved it for about 10 minutes and then he would just drop it on the floor and stare at it. That was one of the messiest things I've ever had to clean up. It was a big sticky slobberfest. I think I'll take Marianne's idea and give him a carrot next time.

My Husband: the hard worker

This is a shout out to my man. I've mentioned before how he is so wonderful and does my laundry for me and also lets me get away with buying senseless things now and then (as long as he is properly distracted) and he also bakes. But this is not about all of the wonderful things he does at home, no, this is about the wonderful things he does at his job.

Arrives at work 15 minutes early every day (I think its just to get away from home before the storm hits...)

Gets chased and sometimes bitten by dogs, mostly small ones but the occasional one will be big and he gives it a good "kick to the dome" is how he phrases it.

Gets to see countless numbers of people breaking the law

Nasty toothless ladies hit on him

One time while he was working an order some guy started going to the bathroom on the ground right next to him.

He has been almost jumped several times, threatened with weapons. He has had his stuff stolen. He definitely deals with an interesting lot.

One time on the way to work his car broke down. He was so worried that he would be late that he ran to work. He is very dedicated, like I said.

I am grateful for a wonderful man that gets up and works a hard, honest days work to support his family. I've never once heard him complain in the morning that he doesn't want to go. I'm so glad its him and not me that supports our family.

I'm going to be honest here. I could never keep a job. I don't ever want to go and I would always call in sick. One time I even told my boss that I had been bitten by a scorpion, another time my house caught on fire. Seriously, I was that person at work. I'm so glad I can stay home now!! Thank you to my wonderful husband!! I love you!

Resolutions

Happy New Year!!! I can't believe its 2009! I remember watching some futuristic movies when I was little and the year was supposed to be 2010. They had flying cars and everyone lived in these weird little bubbles. I can't imagine that happening within the next year. Oh wait, with our new president who knows. Maybe we will all go and live on the moon or something.

Judd and I went over our resolutions together last night. There are so many so I've decided to write them down.

My biggest being... to give up sugar and white flour. This is a hard one for me. I have done it in the past though so I think I can totally do it again. The past week I've been doing this grapefruit diet. Where I eat a grapefruit before every meal. Its been awesome. I've lost like 9 lbs in a week!! Its great because all the grapefruit helps you to feel full longer and helps you not have cravings.

Another one was to say "I'm sorry" more. I've said it probably twice since we've been married. Well, really I'm never wrong, so technically I don't have to say sorry, but I'm going to do it just to be nice.

Then my favorite one is to laugh everyday.

Also, I want to enjoy my kids more. I was at the Dr. with the baby a few weeks ago and there was this little girl there in the waiting room with her mom and grandma. She was probably around 4 and very curious. She was trying to talk to her mom and grandma and they just had the meanest looks on their face. She would say "Ooooh Grandma look at this!" and the grandma with her hateful look would say, "Don't touch that, or what do you think you're doing?"

I felt so bad for that little girl. She didn't seem to notice, probably because she sees them looking at her like that all the time. But I couldn't help but thinking how it must feel for a little child to try to express themselves to the people they love most in the world and get a scowl in return. How would I feel if I was scowled at and talked down to all day? Poor little thing. So I guess I'm going to try and be more accepting of my kids, even when they are naughty. That's going to be a hard one.

IN OTHER NEWS!!

Texas is coming to Glendale to play in the Fiesta Bowl!!! Here are the kids representing!!

Kids say the darndest things

Lately the kids have been hilarious.

Nolan~ "I need to do my homework so I can go to college"

Madison~ "Nolan William Rich!! Get over here right now mister or mother will put you in time out, won't you mother?!!"

Nolan ~"How does Coulson turn his head if he doesn't have a neck?"
Judd ~ "he has a neck son, he's just wearing a collar"

Madison~ "I know that man is not Santa. He's just some old guy wearing a suit pretending to be Santa. Besides I don't need a Santa. I know you and dad put the presents under the tree anyway." (don't worry, as of Christmas morning she still believes)

Mom~ "Nolan, pick up your toys or I'm going to throw them away"
Nolan~ "Okay, throw them away then"

Madison~ "Why do we have to have that for dinner?!?! Someday when I'm like 37 and I have to cook for my kids I will only make stuff that tastes good, like cookies and cake and cereal. I'll wear my strawberry shortcake apron. It will be awesome"

Madison~ "Can our next baby have dark skin?"

For Christmas Madison brought home this little cookbook that they made in her class. They asked all the kindergartners to choose their favorite recipe, tell the ingredients and how to prepare it. As I looked through it I saw one little boy had chosen pizza and told to make the dough and put on toppings. Another did spaghetti and gave instructions to boil water and heat the sauce. Then when I reached Madison's page I couldn't help but crack up laughing. This is what hers says word for word

Blueberry Waffles:
Take them out of the freezer. Cook them in the toaster. Put them on a plate and put the syrup on them. Put blueberries on top.

I swear I cook. At least it wasn't as bad as this kid:
Cereal.
Pour cereal and milk in a bowl. Eat it with a spoon.

I love kindergarten!!!