Warners in living color! Behold!

Hello world! Life has been busy of late. Holidays are the best. And the busiest. We took a nice long vacation to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving, and that was fun. I should probably blog about it. Maybe I will soon. It was a lot of fun and we did a lot of fun things, including eating, sleeping, playing, swimming, not sleeping, walking, and stuff. But that's for another time. First, for another overdue post I've been promising you: pictures! I have  an amazingly talented cousin who does photography, and she took some for us at a park in Draper. I love them. We haven't really ever taken professional family pictures, so this was fun for us, and I don't know why it took us so long. Only six years and three kids. Oh well. I will now share the wealth with you. Those who have seen these pictures on facebook may feel free to twiddle their thumbs and whistle. I was afraid it wold be really cold, but it was actually pretty nice. Madeline got a splinter and got grumpy, and Spencer fell on his face several times during the day in an attempt to look beat up and bloodied, but other than that, all went well and we now have pictures for posterity. You are welcome, posterity. Please enjoy my artful arrangement of the photos. I spent many minutes making them beautiful and geometric and perfect, insofar as my computer allowed me, and then many more minutes putting them wherever because I can't figure out how to make blogger bend to my will. Sigh. But seriously. Check out these exquisite looking people.

Welp. That's us. I sure love this family. They're pretty good-looking and fun to hang out with. Many thanks to Emilee for making us look good. And perhaps there shall be future tales of vacation and stuff we've been doing. Maybe. If my kids quit waking up in the middle of the night. That's all folks.

Now she's almost 3!

 It's been crazy here for the last month. I kind of feel like that's just going to be how it is for the next twenty years. So we do what we can. But we can and must take a break to honor our most recent little milestone achiever:

Kimberly is 2! This has been a long time coming. Mostly because when Spencer was born, Jessie and I started telling people she was "almost 2" when they asked because it made them seem farther apart. But that was nine months ago. We are deceitful liars. This girl keeps us on our toes. And this picture pretty much sums up how life is around here. Awesome. So a little about Kimberly, because she is the star of the show. I would include more pictures, but they're all on Jessie's iphone. Lameness. So pretend there are more awesome images. (Speaking of which, family pictures coming soon, thanks to my extremely awesome cousin!) Anyway. Kimberly. In a bullet list. Because I love me a good bulleted list.

• Kimberly continues to be a medical marvel. I don't know her exact stats, because we haven't been in for an appointment yet, but she's still tall and skinny. And prone to getting sick. We just finished a bout of stomach flu last week. On the bright side, the doctors think they are brilliant geniuses who know why. On the not so bright side, they think it's because she's "sensitive" (not allergic) to, you know, everything, including most dairy and grains, and they want us to cut all these things out of her diet for three months. That's a post for another time. But if anyone out there is a whiz at gluten free cooking, I will hire you to feed Kimber for three months. Remember, we pay in chocolate chip cookies. Which are not gluten or dairy free.
• Kimberly loves to sit and do. This includes mostly books and puzzles. The girl is insanely good at puzzles. She sits and does them all day. As long as they're the kind with a border so she can get started by herself, she can do 24 piece puzzles on her own. She's probably a prodigy. If world peace can be solved with jigsaw puzzles, she's a shoo-in for a Nobel Prize. It's fun to watch her too, because she talks to you while she does them. It goes something like this: "Where does it go? Where does this go? Right there, right? Right? Turn it around! Turn it around! I got it! I'm so smart?"
• She has pretty mad verbal skills too. I don't like to brag, but she's probably going to get tapped to narrate documentaries or something. She repeats everything anyone says, and she and Madeline have awesome conversations/arguments/philosophical debates. Like most kids, it's kind of hard to understand her unless you hang with her all day, but she talks in mostly complete sentences and has a great vocabulary. My favorites: "Help me?", "I'm so funny!", "It's okay Spenceroo, no no Spenceroo!", and "Madeline! Are you coming?"
• She loves baby dolls. A lot. First thing she does in nursery is locate one, and then she's usually okay to stay. She also loves yogurt. (Which she is "sensitive" to, of course.) She wants it everyday for lunch and starts asking about 10:30. She likes to have stories read to her and she loves the "Pie Pad" and gets rather testy if you take it away. "Hey! I playing that! Give it back to me!"
• She throws killer tantrums. She has this sort of Jekyll/Hyde complex. When she's feeling compliant, she is by far the sweetest, most helpful, most obedient of our children. When she's feeling like testing your patience, it's kicking and screaming on the ground, earsplitting levels of noise, and endless supplies of stubborness. More often than not you'll find her watching television with us a half hour after the other kids fell asleep because we gave up and surrendered to save the other children from the screaming. Major diva in the making.
• She loves BYU. She recognizes the logo and will start cheering for them if she sees a football. Like I said, prodigy. Also, picture:

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So, you know, that's a little bit about Kimberly. There's probably more, but I could spend all day talking about her and I should probably browse facebook I mean fold laundry now. But we sure love our Kimber. She entertains Madeline, takes care of Spencer, charms her father, does the dishes, and generally runs the household in her own subtle, devious way. She's pretty cute too. We're glad we can finally say she's two and not be lying, and glad we've got her to keep the family in line. Love you Kimberly! (See, being second isn't so bad.)

The Warner girls, explored.

Do not adjust your television sets. I know, we're back online and it's been less than a week since our last conversation. But I felt inspired. Or bored. Or something. First things first, I know you're dying to know- Kimberly is now the proud possessor of ear tubes! And what good looking ear tubes they are. I think. I can't really even see them. She bounced back so fast that Jessie was skeptical that they did anything to her except knock her out. But my insurance claims they did something that cost a lot of money, so I have faith.

Speaking of the munchkins, they are the subject of my inspiration today. Spencer's sudden transformation into a man of substance has often led me to ponder which of the sisters imparted their dastardly or angelic tendencies to him. And yes, I know he got all his DNA from Jessie and I. But we are great believers in nurture around here, having heard too many of my phrases parroted from Madeline, and Madeline's turn of phrase in Kimberly's mouth. It has also led me to ponder in great, deep, philosophical sessions, what an amazement it is that two children could be so alike and yet so different. Spencer, alas, will have to wait to be the subject of my deep thoughts until he has shown more personality than smiling, crying, and stubbornness. But I thought you all must be as deeply interested as I am in my daughters, so let's play compare and contrast! Mostly contrast. But here's a brief rundown of the ways they are similar:

• Looks, obviously. They've gotten more different as they got older, but still similar enough that strangers have no trouble telling they're related, and every time we put Kimberly in an old outfit of Madeline's, it's deja vu all over again. And their baby pictures frequently get confused even by their dear father, who is not as obsessed with when we got certain clothing as I am.
• They definitely have similar mannerisms and habits. The way they talk, the way they play. There's that nurture thing.
• They both have an intense passion for pink and baby dolls and books. Many shared interests. Time will tell if that's just Madeline being bossy.

There's other similarities, but they're not as fun to talk about as their differences. Sometimes I get so thrown by Kimberly because I'm used to dealing with Madeline and forget she's her own person until she reminds me. 

• First, the biggest difference: their temperament.  Madeline is drama queen extraordinaire  Exceedingly and irrevocably happy until she's in the pit of despair. No in between. Every difference of opinion is a fight with her. Every timeout an ordeal. Not so with Kimberly. She's definitely been known to throw tantrums, but she's also often remarkably unruffled. She doesn't care about punishments or thinks they're funny. Where Madeline rages and reacts, she'll often observe or go off and do her own thing. A lot more patience, or apathy, depending on what spin you want to put on it.
• Madeline is a total extrovert. She must play with friends or perish. She talks to random people at church or out shopping, and if no one else is around, she requires me as an audience. The worst thing in the world for her is being alone. Kimberly is shy. She takes a while to warm up to people and doesn't like strangers. She's good at playing by herself and would rather sit with me than run and play.
• Madeline is robustly healthy. I think she's had two sick visits to the doctor her whole life. But when she is sick, you know it. She's a terrible patient. (See drama queen above.) Kimberly has been in to the doctor more times than I can remember for ear infections. She's had tubes and stitches and hand foot and mouth and throws up ten times more often than Madeline. But it's hard to tell when she's sick, unless she's puking all over your shoes or something. She might be a little crankier, or a little more tired, but mostly she just keeps going and playing and doesn't complain much. Nice and easy to take care of, but hard to tell if she needs medicine.
• Madeline has trouble concentrating on one thing. She bounces from thing to thing and never wants to pause or stop, and gets bored fast. Kimberly can spend half an hour reading one book or doing a puzzle. She gets absorbed. This is fun at places like the aquarium, when Madeline is racing from tank to tank and Kimberly wants to spend half an hour looking at one fish. One exception to this rule: they both would spend all day on the ipad if I let them. Dang technology.

So, that's their little world in a nutshell. It's fun realizing all my parental tricks and strategies, which have been pretty much trashed on Madeline anyway, won't work on Kimber, so we're back to square one. And now that Spencer is all into free agency and controlling his own destiny and junk like that, I'm pretty convinced he's going to do his own thing too, and so this parenting gig will always be an experiment. Good thing are test subjects are pretty cute. 

Back street's back, alright!

Wow. You know it's been too long when Jessie realizes you haven't blogged in a while. I have officially become one of those bloggers. How to catch up? Unfortunately, you'll never get back those months of potential wittiness and endless entertainment, and I understand you lament the loss of my riveting world. But maybe it's time for a quick recap of important life events I happen to remember and anything else I think you need to know. Followed by repentance and a renewal of my efforts to be an awesome blogger. Which will probably end up a lot like my attempts to be a responsible library patron who returns books on time and doesn't incur fines. Welp. What we've been up to:

• Ear infections. A lot of ear infections. This is at the top of my mind because Kimberly has officially exceeded maximum ear infection danger zone red, which is the arbitrary point at which we get sick of watching our kid scream and suffer, and instead opt to traumatize her in hopes of a better tomorrow. So she's getting ear tubes next week. My mother paranoia knows no bounds. So I'm spending the weekend letting her do whatever she wants and driving Jessie nuts with over planning for the big day. Awesome. She's also getting her adnoids pruned. Hopefully this will put an end to our days of antibiotics and all night parties.
• Crawling. All of us. Spencer has joined the ranks of the mobile. And we're all so impressed we get in on the action whenever we can. The girls enjoy stealing his binky and putting it across the room to test his mad skills. 
• Oh. Our ward split. So Jessie has been doing that. Whatever that is. 
• We enjoyed conference. Madeline enjoys drawing many pictures of the temple, which curiously resembles a normal house with giant multicolored persons on top with funny horns. Kimberly enjoys drawing small lines and circles and insisting each small mark is the prophet, temple, scriptures, or Jesus. Spencer enjoys eating paper.
• Madeline started preschool. Goodness, I almost forgot, because it's been a while since she started. She loves it excessively. She goes next door, so I kick her out of the house and watch her run away in my pajamas. I'm in my pajamas, she's not in my pajamas. In case you were confused. She loves her backpack. She loves her friends. She loves her letters and her millions of art projects. She loves snacks and playtime and singing and basically everything ever. I love going shopping and running errands with one less kid. Win/win all around.
• Jessie and I ran away to Park City and abandoned our children. We went down the Alpine Slide, did some shopping, watched some football, saw our first ever 3D movie (at the dollar theater! Live it up!) and slept in. The perfect weekend. The kids painted their nails and ate treats and went to the park and didn't even miss us. Well, Spencer missed us a little. That's why he's my favorite. (NOTE TO FUTURE ADULT CHILDREN READING: THIS IS A JOKE. I LOVE YOU ALL EQUALLY. YOU ARE ALL MY FAVORITE. ANY THERAPY YOU MAY REQUIRE IS NOT MY FAULT.)
• We're all psyched up because my little brother is coming home from his mission. We made a paper chain, because we are super chain makers and any excuse to cut paper is golden. Madeline is all ready to fly to Chile and pick him up. She is even learning to talk in a Spanish accent. Also, you can bet after conference Madeline is all ready for her mission at nineteen. As long as they send her to Argentina or Chile. And let her bring her baby doll.

Well, that's it. Probably more, but I don't want to exert my brain and remember. Just assume we've been completing many covert missions for the CIA and working hard on our new fashion reality show. We love you all, our many and devoted fans. Thanks for hanging around. We shall reward you with Warner for President bumper stickers for your vehicles. 

In which delusional sick people review major international competition.

Hey sports fans. Like always, just wanted to let you know we're alive. Barely, but you know. This poor blog is dying, I think. I should let it edie a peaceful death, but instead I will resurrect the poor thing every month or two and drag out its pitiful existence. So. Summer. It's a doozy. We've been busy, I think. I couldn't tell you for sure because my brain is a little fuzzy. We're all a little germy just now. Naturally, Spencer and Madeline are only moderately goopy and hacking, while Kimberly is taking the brunt of it. She's on her second round of antibiotics this month and fourth ear infection of the summer. Poor kid. Oh, and she likes to wake up all night because she's in pain. I've never understood how a sick mom is supposed to sleep off a bug when the kids are sick too. One of those mysteries of the universe.

But hey. The good news is, we've been having fun too, in between infections. We went to Logan a few times to attend a baby blessing and a sealing. Very special and awesome. And we canceled life for two weeks to watch the Olympics, because we are hard core. I should have been blogging my opinions on the Olympics every night, because I am the supreme expert on sporting events and you were all dying for my last word on the subject. Sorry to be sick and stuff. I can make it up to you right now, in Cami's awesome Olympic recap. In short:

Michael Phelps is amazing and ridiculous. Lochte I could do without. Seems like a poser to me. (is that still a word? Did I use it correctly?) Gymnastics rules drive me nuts. I don't understand their tiebreakers and randomness and nation quotas and stuff. Gabby Douglas is also on my cool list, and the world can shut up about her hair, because it looks better than mine does and I'm not doing flips and stuff. Usain Bolt is on my bad list. Ridiculously talented and fast and a legend, and yet incredibly, I think his opinion of himself is still overinflated. That's ego. Missy Franklin: Good. Old Bulgarian guy on still rings: awesome. Mikayla Maroney memes: overdone. Water polo: hard core. Chinese diving: absolutely a failure, because let's face it, seven golds in eight events is not enough. Pregnant shooters: way cool.  Opening Ceremony: failure which could have been redeemed if the Queen had actually jumped from a plane, but alas. I don't watch team sports like basketball and soccer, because there are cooler things going on. Like archery and speed walking.

So, hope at gives you your fix. If we can quit growing bacteria in Kimberly's ears, we might get around to writing novels again, or running for president or something. In the meantime we have to get ready for fall and preschool and other Big things. Because that's all we do. Big important things.

Goodnight, moon. Good morning, Kimberly.

So I think it's been a while since I complained about not getting enough sleep, so it's probably about time. You know you missed it. The culprit of the hour is everyone's favorite munchkin: Kimberly "The Escapee" Warner! Don't get me wrong. The other two contribute, of course. We would not want to rob them of their glory. Spencer has reverted back to a four AM feeding, which isn't too bad except he'd been sleeping twelve hours so he had lulled me into a false sense of security. And Madeline, naturally, has random bouts of yelling where she will wake up every five minutes screaming from nightmares. But Kimberly, oh Kimberly. Part of the problem is that she has been sick a lot. She had two ear infections back to back, and then this week she kept waking up for an hour or two every night puking for some random reason. But even when she's not sick, she's giving us a run for our money. She figured out a few months ago that her toddler bed has no bars, and she can exit the premises anytime she wants to. This results in her visiting us a lot at night, and me occasionally freaking out when I can't find her in the morning because she has fallen asleep under my bed, or some such random uncomfortable place. Although usually that's not a problem, because she'll wake up before six and come roust us for our morning judo lessons. Also, her ability to escape means she doesn't ever want to go down for naps or bedtime unless you close the door and entrap her. Except naturally, her roommate can't sleep unless the door is open at exactly an 83 degree angle. This caused several weeks of bedtime pain and anguish until we got wise and spaced their bedtimes. But really, Kimberly can find a way to turn any perfectly good sleeping schedule into an all night party. I'm thinking of trying sedatives. For me, not her. She'd probably gain immunity and wake up every hour anyway. Last night she slept on the floor next to our bed because we got tired of trying to take her back to her room every five minutes. We put up a gate on her door to fulfill Madeline's need to see out, but then she just stands kicking the gate and talking loudly until you come get her. If anyone has a broken alarm clock, we're renting her out from 9pm-8am, M-Sat, holidays included, excluding Christmas and Columbus Day. 5 cents an hour, and we'll pay you in pennies. Did I mention she also wakes babies and other children? Usually by sitting on them. A girl of many talents. I really feel bad hoarding her gifts.

A short hello

Hello sports fans. Just checking in. Summer time is keeping us busy. I know you are surprised. But really, it's been a little crazy. In case you don't believe me, in the past few weeks we: -went to visit our new cousin in Logan -blew out two tires on a rock on the way to Logan -experienced our first towing adventure -went to our first splash pad -went to Idaho Falls on vacation -drove through a bunch of bears -went to a family reunion -returned home to no air conditioning -fixed the air conditioning ...and other stuff, probably. My brain has not been still working capacity for some time, so I can't remember anything before last week. Oh well. What can you do? I'll go make up some stuff and write it in my journal and in twenty years I'll never know he difference. Hmm. I was going somewhere with this post. Probably somewhere very deep and philosophical and amazing and Nobel prize worthy. Now we'll never know. I think instead I'll just let you all know that Soencer now has two teeth and it's making me pretty depressed. I don't like babies growing up. And that's about all I have to say today. Don't melt.

There are no words

 So I don't really have a lot to say today. My silver tongue fails me. Blame it on some unruly children and long days. But hey, it's Wednesday, and let's face it, you're clamoring for some attention. If this is untrue, keep it to yourselves. So I hereby give to you an exceptionally rare treat: Photos sans commentary. For your visual viewing pleasure only. Silencio with the smart aleck remarks. Enjoy. And don't say I don't ever do anything for you.

Choose your own blog adventure.

So. Busy week. Busy busy busy. I could try to catch up on all the goings on over here, or I could not. Because let's face it, I would never have the stamina for catchup posts. That arena belongs to more dedicated folks than I. So let's play, Cami writes mini-blog-posts and blows your mind in three sentences or less. Go.

Blog #1- In which I run to Logan for the afternoon
My sister-in-law is having a baby, so baby shower, treats, cuteness! Driving to Logan with my mom and debating how one actually pronounces Mantua! Cranky sick babies who sleep through the whole thing!

Blog #2- In which Madeline pretends to be a pro athlete
Madeline started soccer, because our neighborhood organized a league. She is considerably more psyched about her pink soccer shoes and shorts than actually kicking the ball. She is pretty much terrified of the opposing team.

Blog #3- In which we attend a wedding
Jessie's brother got married, and we all rejoiced and ate food. Madeline wore her wedding shoes and Spencer pooped in his tuxedo. Successful night.

Blog #4- In which there is a lot of poop.
That pretty much covers it, you don't want to know more.

Blog #5- In which Jessie and Cami go to a movie theater
The third time this year, which is some kind of record for us. We saw Avengers and missed the final scene because they cheated and put in two bonus scenes. Spencer came with and loved it so much he pooped.

Blog #6- In which we camp in our backyard
We setup our tent and enjoyed nature, hot dogs, and watching Muppets on our laptop, because we're not into nature that much. We all even slept for part of the night. And now we are ready to camp for real, if someone makes us.

Blog #7- In which we shoplift at yard sales
We supported our neighborhood yard sale by giving the children nickels and setting them loose. We came home with a swing, a plastic car, a small chair, a few princesses, some cookies, a onesie, and some other junk we didn't need. Mission accomplished.

Blog #8- In which Jessie's father is venerable
Jessie's dad turned 80, which is apparently quite the accompishment- go Dad! They threw a party and we were all proud. Eighty is the new 63.

Blog #9- In which Kimberly is a human petry dish
Kimberly and I missed the amazing birthday party because she has a ruptured ear drum and hand, foot, and mouth. This is as awesome a combination as it sounds, and involves a lot of crying and very little sleep.

There you go. Like a whole month of posts condensed into the cliff's notes version for your convenience. We're just trying to recover from being awesome and sick and busy and awesome. Try not to be jealous.

Holidays and so forth.

Aren't you ridiculously sad that you only hear from me once a week? If only Jessie was gone every night instead of just Wednesday. Sad day. Things here are going swimmingly. We had a great Memorial Day and took the girls down to check out City Creek. They got McDonalds, ice cream, new shoes, and played in the fancy fountain, so they gave the place a pretty good review. That will comfort the builders, I know, who were waiting for the okay from my kids to consider their work done. We also visited some graves, which was nice, although I'd forgotten how tiny cemetery roads are. We ended up hiking in with the stroller, which made me grateful we have one that can contain three children. Best Mother's Day gift ever. Jessie was so thoughtful when he said okay and let me order it. (In a girlie color, even. He is a saint.) All together, everything a holiday should be. And today was everything the day after a holiday should be-that is, lazy. To recover from the holiday.

Also new since our last report: I have a new calling. Before you place your guess, let me give you these stimulating and obscure clues: 1) The relief society president is my next door neighbor. 2) The relief society president is my visiting teacher. 3) Jessie got to know my calling before I did. (That may or may not be relevant, but I felt like that was a little unfair.) Back to the facts: Yes, my calling is in the relief society! How did you know? I am the new Visiting Teaching Coordinator in my ward. This should be comforting to my mother, who worries that I don't "get" relief society. Think of it as special training for the relief society challenged, Mom! I'm actually really excited about it. A lot of it is on the computer recording stuff. Is it nerdy that I'm kind of excited to do some work that is more brain work than repetitive cleaning work? It'll be good for me. Let me know if you have any tips for me on how to coordinate. I'm still working on coordinating schedules. And outfits. And other coordinating things.

I am a young mother. Or so they tell me.

   So I have some kids. A few of them. Not a ton. I know a lot of women with a ton of children, all a year apart, whom they dress in homemade designer clothing and feed homegrown jam and read to five hours a day. I am not one of those women. But I feel like I can safely say that we're in the throes of what some might call "young motherhood", and thoughts on the subject have been percolating in my brain. (You see how I used the word percolating there? That was totally gratuitous. Just to remind myself I know some big words. One of those young motherhood things, probably.) Sometimes young motherhood is awesome. Take today. When it took my daughter four hours to pick up a dozen toys. Reminded me of the time my mother wouldn't let us come out of our closet until we cleaned it. We were in there all day. Mom brought us dinosaur macaroni and cheese to eat in the closet. Best day of my young life. I wonder now if my mother was relieved to have us so happily contained. Probably. Smart lady.

   Today I went to a relief society meeting. That was a smart move, because Jessie sits with the bishop Wednesday nights, so we got to bring all the kids, and they love field trips. Madeline terrorized the nursery. Spencer terrorized Daddy's lap. And Kimberly spent three minutes in nursery, thirty minutes in the hall climbing all over the stroller with dad, thirty minutes in the relief society meeting driving trucks on seats and flipping the lights, and five minutes stealing pudding from the treat table. I got her down the hall by confiscating her pudding and using it as bait to lure her. She cried the whole way and people looked at us funny. I gave them my "young motherhood is glamorous and I know you are jealous" look, which is a great look for me. It should not be confused with the "I feel like a circus freak show and probably should not be in charge of multiple small children" look, which is what it looks like on most other women, but not me, because I'm cool like that. Then I dragged several small children out the door crying loudly for their father. Home to their beds where they thanked me profusely for getting them to bed at a decent hour and feeding them vegetables and washing their laundry.

   Sometimes we are a circus when we walk out the door. Sometimes we're loud and unruly. Sometimes I feel like dishing out a round of spankings or hiding in the closet and eating macaroni and cheese. Sometimes when there's a lot of kicking and screaming and the kids are kicking and screaming even louder than me, I think to myself, "Wow! This is making me really passionate about having lots more babies! 500 of them!" Young motherhood rocks. But seriously. It does rock. Because sometimes a pudding faced kid is the last straw, and sometimes they are the perfect photo op.

In honor of Mother's Day...the kids.

Welcome back to the mad house. The kids alternate between running me ragged and making life amazing, so we're staying busy enough. In honor of Mother's Day, which was appropriately celebrated with extra sleep and treats, let us indulge the mother in me and check in on the little munchkins and their latest award winning escapades.

Spencer is three months today, although we didn't have any cake, so I'll probably convince him to stay two months for a while to compensate. At the risk of totally screwing myself, I will admit that he is a dream. He sleeps anywhere from 8-11 hours a night, usually more on the 10-11 hour end, and therefore is my favorite child. He's getting more vocal about not being alone and responds to attention by hyperventilating. Clearly he needs to be adored by the public, and you'll see him on some reality television very soon. He is also laughing a lot, which is quite the drug high for my mama brain, so I spend a lot of time acting like a loon to get my fix. Madeline enjoys it too, but Spencer tends to clam up when she grabs his face and demands he laugh. I don't know why.

Kimberly has taken another one of those inexplicable leaps forward where she wakes up ten years older and I don't know how it happened. She weathered her second ear infection last week and takes her medicine with enthusiasm. She enjoys waking up at six in the morning and climbing into bed with Mom and Dad in order to make sure we don't sleep through our alarm, because she is thoughtful. Mostly she talks to Jessie and kicks me, which shows you how much gratitude I get for giving her life. Kimberly also enjoys sneaking suckers and Warheads out of the pantry, although the joke was on her with the Warheads. Hee hee. She talks a lot, mostly to Daddy on her play phone, and pretty much just spends all day hanging on the outskirts of the chaos picking up whatever food, treats and toys she can scavenge. She loves the new stroller I got for Mother's Day and spends a lot of time begging to sit in it. Happy Mother's Day to Kimberly.

Madeline continues to be the most interactive, the funnest, and the most exasperating of our children. Hazards of the firstborn. She has memorized the first two Articles of Faith and likes to bear her testimony in church. She is convinced one of the men in our ward is President Monson, but amazingly, this does little to convince her to be reverent in sacrament meeting. She pretty much spends all day either playing with friends outside, or with nose pressed up against the windows begging to be outside with her friends. I think she has a more active social life than I did in high school. Although that may not be saying much. Madeline loves to throw tantrums and whine, and then tell Dad how good she was all day. She has about 389 best friends. You are probably one of them. Congratulations. She spends a lot of time pretending, which is adorable, unless she is pretending to listen. She also spends a lot of time loudly referring to people as "that old man" or "that old lady", whether they look 20 or 90. They are always uniformly flattered and amused. She also likes to ask loudly about the baby in people's tummies, which also makes us a lot of friends.

Jessie was good to me for Mother's Day, and as I mentioned, I got to sleep in several times, try out my new stroller, go out for dinner, and hear how impressed Jessie was that I don't turn into a homicidal maniac listening to all the whining and crying all day every day. So nice to be appreciated for my accomplishments. Good weekend with my little family, living motherhood in all its bittersweet and wonderful glory. Hope you all enjoyed it too.

Keeping it REAL.

So we were awesome this week. We attended our first ever Real Salt Lake game. Well, really our first soccer game ever. Transformative, I tell you. I am contemplating becoming a soccer fan. Contemplating. It's that or quidditch. Because I kind of felt like Harry Potter should be swooping in on a broomstick to take the ball with sll the red and gold. Not to mention the lion mascot. But soccer is awesome too. I am now a soccer expert. I know everything about everything. See, you kick the ball into the other teams net. And sometimes this pesky ref steps in and makes up rules about offsides and fouls and stuff. If these rules help our team, they are good rules. If they help the other team, they are dumb rules and the ref is a biased scumbag. If you're mean you get a yellow card. (They don't actually give it to you, they just hold it in the air. If they actually gave it to you I would collect them and show people how awesomely bad I was on the soccer field.) If you're really, really mean, you get a red card and you can't play with the other kids any more. See, I catch on quickly. Anyway, it was a great game. Because we won. At the last second. Which is intense and awesome and the other team sat down and cried because of our clear superiority. Not even kidding. Mostly Jessie and I enjoyed googling rules and heckling the diehard fans who kept standing up in excitement whenever the ball got near the other goal. You would suppose that since Jessie served a mission in South America, he would come home with a deep and abiding love and knowledge of the game, but you would suppose wrong. He doesn't know anything. Don't tell him I told you because he has a reputation to maintain with the menfolk. Point of the story: you should go see a soccer game. Feel the adrenaline. Sing the Cougar fight song. Or the Real fight song, whichever.

You'll always be two years older than me, sucker!

 Ha! Insert pathetic excuses for inability to blog here. Moving on, it's time, a week late, to honor our venerable patriarch on the anniversary of the commencement of his life journey. This year I thought I'd share with you, in honor of his 28th, the many roles of Jessie Warner. In no particular order:

 

A husband to a wife who gets a little crazy. The patience of that man...is not quite equal to Job. But close. Really close. He could be Job's second in a duel.

 A father to some rambunctious children. Who love him more than me. Stinkpot. But really, who can blame them? Look at that face. Also he bribes them with candy and entertainment.

An able businessman and marketing rockstar. Or so he tells me. Okay, other people tell him and then he tells me. But seriously folks, the finest working mind of our generation.

Our mode of transportation. So we got him his very own identification so the police don't impound him if we leave him parked illegally outside the library.

 Food and drink taster extraordinaire. A most discriminating palate. He makes sure we don't eat crummy food. Because that would be embarrassing.

 Class clown. His job is too make sure we never take ourselves to seriously, and to cheer us up when we run out of fruit snacks and ice cream. He is relentless in this duty.

 Horsey whenever the situation may require. Such as when our van breaks down and we need to get to the county store. Or when the girls need to practice roping and shoeing.

 Our victor and champion in all circumstances. Always fighting for the little people. Since we're all littler than him, that's handy for us.

 The scariest monster you'll ever meet, consuming and tickling small children in a single bound. Except when you catch the monster crying in a corner because no one likes him. But if you assure him he is your best friend ever and sit in his lap and feed him a cookie, he usually feels better and might go back to eating you or your sister.

 Shepard to our little flock, although he is more accomplished with chocolate and timeouts than crooks and fences. Also the sheep have him wrapped around their finger and more often lead him around. But he's the leader in spirit or something like that.

Strong man for all difficult situations, good for opening a can, chasing a spider, or carrying car seats and sleepy children. And he doesn't even have to work out.

I just added a picture of him in a tux because I can. And because he makes it look good.

So you see, we would be quite lost without our brave leader, and we're pretty glad he decided to be ringmaster of this little circus. Happy birthday Senor Warner, and may the odds be ever in your favor! :-)

A birthday shoutout: The princess

So it's about time I got on here again. I'm starting to wonder how people find time to blog with three children. Well, not time so much as motivation and brain power. I find my world renowned wit and addicting writing skills are easily banished after a day tending to the elementary needs of three little munchkins, not to mention helping them to self-actualization and other higher functions. I know you all weep for my infrequent intrusions into your life, but never fear. I seem to be getting slightly better at getting these done with multiple dependents, so maybe in about twenty years I'll have figured out how to blog, too.

Anyhow. Moving on to exciting things. We actually got around to taking semi nice and professional (aka, our neighbor with our camera in the backyard) pictures on Easter, with everyone in clean Sunday clothes, so gear up for one of our infamous and popular picture extravaganzas, coming soon! But first, it's time for that time honored tradition of honoring Warner birthdays in the internet world. This time our VIP is this little imp, only not so little now:


Our little firstborn is four years old now, and she couldn't be more thrilled. She likes to remind me that she's big, and they're so many things she can do, like go to Minnesota unaccompanied and drive race cars at Daytona. Oh, and get dressed by herself.


Apparently we go to rock concerts on a regular basis. But seriously. We're pretty happy with this girl. When she's not being a diva and keeping me at the end of my rope, she's being adorable and grown up and hysterical. She lives in her own special world, where Easter is important because Jesus was born from an egg and babies get birth marks from the markers they play with in utero. She loves to help cook, or in other words, sample and stir every dish I make. And she's a great big sister; when she's not smothering or sitting on her siblings, she's making them giggle and smile and fetching diapers.
She had a great birthday full of macaroni and cheese, friends, way too many presents, pizza, puzzles, candy, and yes, tears, because it wouldn't be a day with Madeline without a little drama. Perfect day. We're addicted to our little teenager, her smile, her ability to make us laugh, and her sensitive spirit. Our little princess keeps us on our toes and we wouldn't trade her for the world. Although we do rent her out on weekends for your entertainment. Also she scrubs walls.

Happy birthday Madeline! Remember: 4, not 16. Thanks.