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.

We should all eat ice cream.

Well, we've been staying busy. I know you're glad to hear it. Basically we like to do nothing for long spurts of time, and then do a lot of exciting things, and then nothing. We'll hit the highlights of the last few weeks for you, and let you imagine all the amazing things that happened in between.

We took Spencer in for his first doctor's appointment, and the girls loved it because neither of them had to get shots. Spencer didn't like getting his foot poked and milked for blood, but I aided and abetted the nurse anyway. Spencer gained a pound and an inch and a half since birth as of that appointment, so I expect now he's somewhere around a hundred pounds and five feet tall or something like that. He's sleeping a little better now and will give me one four or five hour stretch at night, for which I am grateful. And ironically, Daylight Savings has been my hero this week, tricking me into going to bed at the new earlier time while keeping the girls asleep later, so we all get more sleep. Score.

We've had our fair share of chaos lately. Chief of which was Kimberly jumping out of a high chair and splitting open her chin. As this took place at Grandma's, I stayed with the baby and Madeline so I could feed Spencer and Grandma and Daddy got the unpleasant duty of holding Kimberly down while she was tortured with five stitches. It breaks my heart just thinking about it, so I'm glad I wasn't there, but the mom in me feels guilty that I missed the first major injury any of my kids has sustained. My mere presence should have made everything all better. But we're all alive and Kimberly is bouncing back as children are wont to do. Madeline got to go to the doctor after five days of driving us nuts with her bathroom behavior, the specifics of which I won't get into for your sake and mine. Apparently she was just constipated and we are fairly sure that this, too, shall pass (ha! See what I did there? Bathroom humor. I'm awesome.) And I may have had a nervous breakdown this week from lack of sleep, but my mother graciously stepped in and took my children for 24 hours, and after a day of sleeping and a haircut, that crisis too was averted. Good times.

Other than that, we're just trying to keep up with life. We've commenced filling out our March Madness brackets, and we're all dressed in BYU paraphernalia in honor of our team tonight. Hooray for play in games that allow us to be part of the tournament despite our poor showing lately. Spencer and Madeline are all done with their brackets, but Kimberly is proving indecisive, so we're still working on that. And of course Jessie and I are still pouring over our options. Myself more than Jessie probably. Hope you all have caught the spirit. or we maybe can't be friends anymore. Happy March!

The Warners in individual glory.

And we're back. Sorry for the spotty news coverage. It's just we have three kids around here nowadays and stuff. It's not to hurricane level chaos, but it's definitely a little more challenging than the move to two. So we've been mostly sleeping and cleaning and feeding children and trying to make sure they all get checked on once a day instead of chronicling this special time in our lives. But today is the day we rectify the situation, and since it may be leap day again before we update again, this may be a long one. Hold on to your hats.

Let's start with the baby, because let's face it- babies are natural stars. Spencer has moved in and become firmly entrenched as man of the house. Sorry Jessie. He's fairly alert for a newborn, although he still mostly sleeps. Which is good, because when he's awake all he wants to do is eat. And eat. And eat. And he doesn't spit it all up like the girls did, so I have no idea where he stores it. Never fear though, he still creates as much laundry as the girls. He just pees on everything instead. He's a decent sleeper and fairly tolerant of being poked and prodded. And this completes his inventory of talents. We overlook the excessive night awakening and soiling of blankets and clothing because he is soft and cuddly and smells nice, and this covers a multitude of sins.

Kimberly has adjusted fairly well to being ousted as the baby. She loves Spencer and is in heaven when she gets to hold him or sit next to him. Unfortunately, she has no concept of the word gentle and likes to pound his head, shake his bouncer, and try to drag him around the house. She has also recently learned the word no, which makes it harder to temper this behavior. But she does it all in such an adorable manner that the local authorities are usually inclined to let her off with a warning. I got to spend some time with just her today while a neighbor corralled Madeline, and realized she never gets any one on one time since she's the only regular napper of our three urchins and has to share the spotlight in her waking hours. So we're working on remedying that oversight. She occasionally gets one on one time at 6 AM when she's the only one up, but I don't really count that as quality since my eyes are usually half closed and my brain is more than half shut down. She's learning to say all of the family's names and pretty much any other word you ask her to repeat, and other than that, she follows Madeline around all day mimicking her every move.

Speaking of our firstborn, she's still a handful and probably will be her entire life. She loves to hold the baby too, and although she can be trusted not to poke out his eyes or pull his hair, she occasionally tries to carry him around or bury him in a blanket cave. Madeline likes to hang out with Kimberly or her horde of imaginary friends, chief of which is "Monster", "Birdie", "Cat", and "Dog". They ride on her head to church, must be buckled in the car to go to the store, hide in her coat pockets, and frequently get chastised for being irreverent in family home evening. Madeline enjoys eating blueberry muffins, doing the same puzzles repeatedly, making up and being told stories about herself, and long walks on the beach.

Jessie is, to be frank, sick. Literally, not figuratively. We've all been passing around coughs and colds and he's the latest victim, so the poor fellow has been a little under the weather. But he continues to trudge to work every day and impress people, sit outside the bishop's office a lot, and maim himself playing basketball a couple of times a week.

I'm here, and alive, and figuring out this triple mothering business. The trick, I've discovered, is getting enough sleep, which is ridiculously easy with a newborn. Other than that, you just make sure everyone eats at least three times a day and has clothes that are clean, if not matching. Bonus points for getting everyone's hair done, vacuuming once in a while, and doing puzzles. Cake. I could do this with my eyes closed. And frequently do.

So, that's us for now. We're a bundle of excitement. If you like to sit around and chill a lot. Which we do.

The Boy You've All Been Waiting For

As promised, I am here to unveil the new addition, because I love you. Introducing:

Our little bundle of fun, Spencer Matthew Warner. Vital stats, so you can be in the know with celebrity gossip: 8 pounds, 3 ounces, born at 3:24 AM on February 16, 2012. 2/16/12. A plaindrome, incidentally, because Spencer is cool like that. We like him already. Except he's a punk. Normally I do not write birth stories, but I want to have a written narrative someday to embarrass Spencer in front of his girlfriends. We will attempt to keep things PG for the kids. But if words like epidural, dilate and adorable scare you, skip to the pictures at the end of the good-looking people I hang out with.

We could go into a lot of unnecessary detail of labor, but here's the gist: I had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday at which I was dilated to a 2. After the appointment, I had irregular contractions that came and went all day, which didn't alarm me because I've been contracting for three weeks with no birth story to show for it. So I ignored it. After we went to bed, the contractions kept going, so eventually I got up to time them. At which point they stopped completely, so I went back to bed. Twenty minutes later, I started getting contractions every two minutes, followed by a huge amount of bleeding, which caused me to freak out and wake up Jessie and demand we head to the hospital immediately. Because they know what to do with panicking hormonal women at the hospital. On the way to hospital, I all of a sudden started having extremely painful contractions extremely close together, and finally started to contemplate the theory that I was in labor. Upon arrival at the hospital, the nurses seemed remarkably less concerned about the bleeding than I was, and much more concerned about the fact that I was dilated to a 6. This seemed ridiculous to me, because obviously I had only been in labor about half an hour and there was no way I was that far along. But an hour and a half later, when Spencer was born, I was still trying to convince myself we were in labor. Talk about fast. I'm still a little shell shocked.

But, it's true, we're now a family of five. The girls were thrilled to wake up and discover their brother had decided to grace us with his presence. Madeline was especially thrilled to come see him, although she was worried about the hole in my stomach and was anxious to bring tape to fix it. She wanted to hold Spencer the whole time she was here, and alternated between calling him Spencer and Ali Baba. Kimberly really surprised me. She was neither jealous nor indifferent. She got really excited and said "Baby! Baby!" and even held him for a minute, looking very serious and grownup as she did so. Then she crawled into the bottom of a hospital cart and spilled my water cup. Jessie has been great. He's getting used to talking boy talk instead of girl talk. Spencer may get called a princess a few times before we're all on the same page.

Anyway, we're all adjusting and trying to get some sleep after a crazy night. We love our little guy, who thus far is pretty quiet and sleepy. I'll leave you with some pictures of the star of the day. Enjoy. Ooh and aww to your heart's content. Feel free to covet such an awesomely studly baby.

Did you miss me?

I'm back. You can exhale. There is still no baby around here. I know that if I leave you all alone for too long you'll start suspecting things and going crazy with curiosity and your whole lives become meaningless because you're on baby watch with absolutely nothing else to think about, and I hate to do that to you. (Or is that just me?) Anyway, rest assured that we would never leave you out of the loop for that long. Aside from family, friends, and other people we know, my virtual community is absolutely my top priority when dessiminating information. And let's not kid ourselves, there will be pictures and announcements all over Facebook within about 48.3 minutes of birth. So fear not.

But let's all step back and wander to other topics for a moment, celebrating the estrogen in our little family. My other kids have somehow managed to survive baby watch thus far with minimal damage to their self esteem and physical motor skills. In fact, today we took Kimberly to the doctor for a checkup and the doctor pronounced her fit for jury duty. She's really, really, really tall. Like 99th percentile. Doc said if she keeps up above the ninetieth percentile til age two, she's going to be a tall person. Poor Kimberly is going to curse her genetics when she's looking for guys over six feet to date and they're all making out with the five foot two girls. C'est la vie. She's also still skinny despite consuming more than me at most meals. So maybe that'll be a consolation prize in her teenage years. She's getting pretty talkative and just a little bit sassy like someone else we know (cough, cough, Madeline, cough) but she's still so dratted cute we can't bring ourselves to get rid of her.

Speaking of Madeline, she's a little person these days instead of a toddler, and it keeps freaking me out. She loves Primary and her friends, and is very into having boyfriends. I don't know why. Maybe it's the in thing among three year olds right now. She quit taking naps and instead likes to do puzzles while I'm passed out on the couch. She nods knowingly when I am thus reclined and says things like "You have a headache Mom?" or "You can play on the floor and bend over when Ali Baba comes. Ali Baba is taking longer." She's eager to hold her brother, but in the meantime is practicing her mothering skills on Kimberly, mostly by bossing her around, trying to send her to timeout, or trying to brush her hair or send her to bed. She has to have everything just so, and often gets a hysterical need to clean at bedtime or when it's time to walk out the door. She also manages to keep us enamored with her though, usually by saying I love you unprompted at opportune times that conveniently change our minds about sending her to boarding school.

Oh. And I guess I may have mentioned this in passing, but ye faithful will probably already know that Jessie has a new job now. He now works for a company called Lendio, which is fun to listen to Madeline say over and over. Attask was good to us, but it was time to move on, and now Jessie can go get into trouble elsewhere and wreak havoc upon unsuspecting victims.

So that's the lowdown on us. I'd update you all on me, but you know how that's going. Let's just leave it at: nine months pregnant. Hope you are all having a grand February. Please don't take my blogging silence personally. Top secret and sensitive information and undercover missions and all that. You understand.