Same old Lang Syne

We'll, it's that time of year again. Wherein I attempt to better myself as a human being and reflect and reminisce and look ahead and prioritize and ruminate and assess and strategize and grammaticize. Probably I should resolve to write on my blog more often. But that would take the fun out of life. I told Jessie I have a great plan this year. We spent the day organizing our house. So my New Tear's Resolution is to organize my house. Boom. Halfway there, and I can relax until 2015. Sometimes I amaze myself with my good ideas. But I do need to come up with some amazing resolve to share with you folks because Tradition! tradition! So.

Nope. Feeling no motivation. Which gives me an idea. Instead of figuring out what I should accomplish this year, let's list the things I already accomplished this year. Because let's face it, I've been pretty rad. Prolifically productive, really. And let's make a numbered list. Because I love numbered lists.

1. I made a baby. A pretty cute baby. Honestly, this took most my efforts this year and maybe took precedence over everything else. But it was worth it, because I grew a happy smily cuddly human being and that makes me giddy.

2. I kept alive three additional human beings, and they are reasonably clean and well educated and can walk and talk and identify various cartoon characters. And they occasionally say please and thank you and I love you. And they don't smell like a dumpster. Amazing work there.

3. I completed seven years of marriage, and my husband claims he still loves me, and I even made dinner for him a few times and let him go to football games and stuff because I basically rock.

4. I got a little bit crafty. I helped my kids do things involving glue and paint, I even made my own ugly Christmas sweater and utilized a glue gun. It's not origami, but you should be impressed.

5. I organized some stuff. Problem solved and planned and made some corners of my house useable, and dare I say, pretty. I may have acquired a small obsession with the organization department at Walmart.

There was some other stuff I did, but I don't want to nauseate you with my coolness and make you all jealous and stuff. All in all, it's been a pretty good year, and one with a lot of changes for us, so we're inking next year we'll just do nothing. Like Veggie Tale pirates. Here's hoping you had an awesome year and were super cool and enjoyed your life. Happy New Year everybody!

Here's to the little guys.

Hey all. What's up? I figured it was about time to let you all in on the recent ongoings over here. Having four children has definitely been an experience, but we're starting to get into a routine or something. So I thought I'd give you a little rundown of some (non-comprehensive) highlights for each of the family. Here goes.

Youngest to oldest, shall we?

Here's the man of the hour. Ethan is definitely his own person, but also many things about him remind me of the other kids. He sure looks mightily like his brother. He is very loved around here, and keeping his siblings off of him is pretty much a full time job. He is mostly very chill and sleeps very good at night, although he has some fussy spells we think are because he's not a fan of dairy.He has just started smiling, which is a lot of fun, and Jessie even had him laughing a bit. Probably because Jessie is so funny looking. Ethan enjoys bouncing, eating, napping and being held.

This pretty much sums up Spencer. Cute as heck and trouble to the core. He enjoys picking out his own clothes and taking off his clothes. He falls down a lot, so he pretty much always has bruises, scrapes, bloody noses, or something. One particularly nasty fall left half his face bruised and his lip swollen up like a platypus. We're constantly in terror of concussions and falls. He loves his brother to a fault. He is always in everything. He dumps out cereal daily, gets out pans, spills water, plays in the bathroom, steals keys, and is generally a menace to society. (And he's not even 25 yet). But his laugh is ridiculously cute and when he cuddles it's amazing.

Kimber continues to be the most adorable thing on the planet, who happens to moonlight as the Hulk. She just had her third birthday and is still tickled to be 3. She is still verbally gifted, and pays close attention to everything, often asking questions I have no idea how to answer. Be careful what you say around this one. She loves big words, drawing, ponies, dancing, and being contrary. Reverse psychology works wonders on her. She is obsessed with Cinderella and likes to help me cook. She is a sensitive soul, and probably my only child who prefers me to Daddy (jury's still out on Ethan.)

Madeline is my guinea pig, by virtue of being first to do everything. She started kindergarten and LOVES it. She loves recess, the bus, her teacher, homework, reading, her classmates, her backpack, treats, holidays, and everything else about school. She is getting older and more responsible, and loves to help with the baby. She still loves socializing and begs for friends as soon as she gets home from school. She still does drama better than anybody I know, and we often have some attitude adjustments. But she's also a good girl who rarely violates a rule if it's been impressed upon her. She loves songs and little ditties, spelling, months of the year, Sprout, and her siblings.

Jessie is, in a word, busy. Being Elder's Quorum president takes a good chunk of his time, as does increased responsibility at work. Here we see him supporting Noshavember. I think we can all agree the man looks mighty fine with a beard. But it was scratchy, so it's gone now. He's been great about picking up the slack around here when I get overwhelmed. We took a little anniversary trip without the kids (except Ethan, the little mooch), and it was great to remember that I like this guy quite a bit and we used to be young and fun. He is only a little maimed from playing football this Thanksgiving, and he enjoys being the coolest Dad in the world and making me smoothies.

No picture of me. Because my computer is about to die. But trust me, I'm the one writing this, and I'm still alive. They took me out of visiting teaching because someone told them I don't get relief society and now I'm a webelos leader, so lots of fun new adventures there. I spend most of my time nursing, doing laundry, trying to sleep, or trying to control my children.

So that's us lately. The Warner's are super duper exciting. Thanks for stopping by. See you at the next circus reunion.

Ethan goes to the Zoo

Hey, sports fans. You thought this was dead, didn't you? Surprise! Of course, there is only one thing that could drag this blog out of retirement. We had to chronicle the expansion of the crew.

Introducing Ethan Jessie Warner. He was born September 16, 2013 at 7:39 pm, weighing in at 8 pounds 5 ounces, three weeks ahead of schedule. We think he's pretty cute.

So, how this all happened. Birth story! Except not too detailed so none of you get all traumatized. I was expecting to go to 40 weeks, because hey, I always do. But Ethan apparently wanted to be his own man, because starting Sunday morning, I started having fairly frequent contractions. This was either due to a yoga ball, really spicy sausage, a long walk, or just because he was big and he was ready. Or none of the above. Your guess is as good as mine. I seriously thought we would be at the hospital by Sunday night, but then the contractions just stopped. I figured he was just going to give me three weeks of false labor like Spencer did and went to bed. Then I woke up at 2 am with more contractions. They didn't stop when you do all the things you're supposed to do to try and stop contractions, so off to the hospital we merrily went. Where they told me I was dilated the exact same amount I had been at my last doctor's appointment, which is to say, not much. They speculated I just had an infection that was irritating and causing contractions. I was contracting enough, though, they decided to keep me for a while for observation. At this point the contractions were getting really painful and I was ready to cry thinking they might send me home to deal with them for three more weeks. So I was praying pretty hard that something would change. And lo and behold, in two more hours, I had dilated from a 1 to a 4, probably through sheer force of will. Or not. So they decided to admit me and get me some drugs, which was the best news of my life. When they gave me an epidural, I got a little loopy with happiness. It might have been the low blood pressure, but I felt super relaxed and awesome. 

Well, it was pretty lucky I dilated enough to get admitted, because as soon as I got the epidural, I stopped progressing pretty much all day. After Spencer's quick labor, I felt pretty confident things would go fast, but it was so slow. Longer than Madeline's labor by quite a bit. The nurse was pretty funny, because she was bound and determined to be there for the birth. But slow and steady we went, and the epidural started to kind of selectively wear off, so I was starting to get pretty uncomfortable again. By about six thirty Jessie and I had despaired of having a baby before midnight. But then they decided to do this thing where they lay you in weird positions to try and speed things up, and that must have done the trick,  because all of a sudden I was puking and ready to push. I knew this because unlike with the other children, the epidural was basically not working on half my body and I kind of wanted to die, and I was trying to tell Jessie I couldn't stop the baby from coming out but I was puking too hard to tell him. He knew the puking meant we were close though, so they were getting everything ready. The doctor arrived about thirty seconds before Ethan's head popped out, because let me tell you, when you're puking your guts out it's kind of impossible to stop having a baby. And thus Ethan entered the world with great to do while I was the most miserable I've ever been in my life. But once I got to hold Ethan, everything was good. And I was pretty surprised at how big he was. 

So. Enough story. We all know you want pictures. Sorry, they are mostly off of my phone or stolen from my mother.

Here he is, like most Cougar fans, looking a little uncomfortable at our inability to convert.

Random picture of the other rugrats, who love Ethan so so much, and love throwing tantrums too. Reentry has been a bit rough for Kimberly especially. Spencer hated me at the hospital and has been blissfully happy since we came home. Madeline has been extra emotional.

Ethan in his monkey hat the kids picked out for him.

Happy to be a big sister again. Because now she can ride in the back of the van with Madeline. These are the important things in life.

All the kiddos together for the first time. Spencer would not relinquish my water cup, even for the paparazzi. 

Well, there you go. Hope you enjoyed this update from the World of Warner. 

Hey.

Hey! So. Summer. Kicking our trash pretty much. Time for catch up. Speed blog style.

-We went camping. That was a mistake. The kids loved it. I think I died but I'm not sure because I probably repressed the memory.

-We attended a family reunion. Jessie played about twenty sports and died. The children were sleep deprived for several days and then all passed out together after too much swimming, treats, and sun. Madeline lost her second tooth and had a mental breakdown.

-Kimberly has been potty training. It has either been slowly but wildly successful or we've wasted six months of our life. She wears underwear now but who knows if that's a good idea.

-Spencer falls down a lot. Come to think of it, pretty much all my children run into things a lot. Grace is not in high supply here. But I pretty much have to check Spencer for concussions ten times a day, because his fixation with climbing and destruction is probably going to be his ultimate demise.

-I am getting really fat. I'm officially past the whole second trimester happy place. I'm already getting a lot of "When is that baby coming again?" and "How long do you have left?", which is really what you want to hear with a whole trimester left. Also, we have no idea what to name our child. He will probably be known as Surf if we fail to come up with something.

-Madeline started soccer. We've only made it to two games. She enjoyed the first and thought she scored every time she touched the ball. She hated the second game and only wanted to sit and drink water. Maybe tennis or chess next time.

There's probably more. But we're a little frazzled by temper tantrums and children who don't like sleeping, so we're probably going to go hide in a bunker now. Hope you're having a good summer. Stay cool.

A small recap of, you know, life.

Happy May. Life has been shockingly busy of late. We took our little jaunt to Costa Rica, and it was amazing. I can't get into it right now though, because I need to upload pictures to do it justice. Or rather steal pictures from Jessie's coworker, who actually took good ones. Anyway, between that and everyone getting sick once we got back, we've had our hands full. But hey, in the midst of all the chaos, we took a little side trip to the doctor and found out some exciting news about our future progeny. Wait for it...okay, you probably already know. We're having another little boy! Spencer is beside himself. About many other things, not about this, because he still hasn't figured out he's getting displaced. But the girls are pretty excited. Madeline complained for about thirty seconds because she was set on a sister and then started making up a song and dance celebrating the occasion. Kimberly was cool with it but really wants to name the little guy Spencer. Because two Spencers are better than one.

Jessie and I are pretty excited we're going to have two little pairs of matching munchkins. Jessie's only disappointed because he blew his perfect record predicting gender. Me, I'm still perfect at 0-4, so I'm obviously superior. Jessie likes that I now talk about the boys' room and the girls' room. I'm just glad I'll be able to ship off half the crew for Father and Son camp-outs. Yeehaw.

Well, that's about the news. There's probably more, but I'm a bit worn out from building a boy and dealing with irrational two year olds. (Seriously. Kimberly is this close to being set loose in the wilds of Africa where she belongs. We do not support independent thinking here anymore. Only swift and terrible dictatorship.) So we'll let you all get back to your important summer plans. Over and out.

Gestation Update

Hey folks. How's the peanut gallery? Life here continues to roll on. I thought since we have a zillion other things going on, the most important thing to tell you all about is how I'm getting fat.

Here's our progress at week 17. Forgive the awesome aesthetics of the photo. The wet hair, the messy room, the dirty mirror. I was going to get gussied up in my ball gown and lounge in the garden, but we don't want to lose the glamour of a fourth pregnancy here. This is living. 

On the positive side, the nausea is gone, so life is worth living again. That's probably all the physical detail you want and I'm willing to share, because let's face it, pregnancy ailments are everyone's favorite topic. But lest I disappoint you, we can still discuss my favorite pregnancy symptom: how I'm slowly turning into a crazy person. Seriously, the hormones are kicking my trash. I tried to explain it to Jessie once, but I probably didn't convey very well how my emotional state has turned into a bad YA novel. Like every emotion I've ever had in my life is just swarming around at 300 percent capacity in my subconscious and breaking out to terrorize the local villagers every once in a while. Irritability and tears being the most fun. Jessie likes to make fun of me when I cry at stupid commercials or cartoons. Except the joke's on him, because I cry at everything when he's not looking. Don't worry, I'm not about to have a nervous breakdown or anything. It just looks that way on the outside. But really, we're having a dandy old time.

In other baby related news, only two weeks until we find out what this little one is. We're excited about that. We don't really care if it's a boy or a girl, and I go back and forth on which I'm pulling for based on which kid is being cuter/naughtier in the moment. I'd tell you what I think it is, but since I'm always wrong, this would be bad for my street cred. Jessie thinks it's a girl. (I don't care about his street cred.) Feel free to place bets and you know, feel superior if you're right. 

And, that's all the news we have on new offspring. Thanks for staying tuned.

Forever Young

So I am not as cool as I thought I am. We happened to miss an important date a few days ago, and obviously I love Madeline more than Jessie since I got her birthday post done early. But Jessie is a big boy who ties his own shoes and everything, and furthermore he's legally stuck with me, so I'm sure he'll recover. So...Jessie had a birthday! Old geezer. I admit, I have been terrible taking pictures with the camera this year, so we don't have as many pictures of the stud as would be advised. But fortunately, we had someone better with a camera get some shots, so we will forever be reposting those. So smart of us.

See how handsomely and casually he leans upon the post? A genius in leaning. So it would be fun to lie to you about his age, but Jessie would probably catch that and get mad at me. So I'll just tell you he turned a prime number. That's right! 37! You guys are so smart. (If he tells you it's only 29 he's clearly going senile.) Since next year is a big deal, 38 being a big number and all, I keep teasing Jessie that's he's on the brink of senior citizenship. In honor of his advancing years, let's list all the ways Jessie is getting old.

• Instead of lounging around all day at the beach or working at McDonalds, he got a respectable 8-5 job where he does computer stuff all day and cares what his boss thinks and occasionally wears slacks. Boring, right? I mean, I hear rumors they play ping pong all day and throw watermelons off of buildings and stuff. But senior citizens do weird stuff like that too.
• Whenever he participates in sports he comes home with injuries. Sprained ankles, jammed fingers, almost broken noses, strained muscles. Clearly his body is falling apart after years of overuse.
• He got his dream car a couple months ago after convincing me he needed it to commute and stuff. His dream car is a Hyundai Sonata. An old people car if I ever saw one. He tried to get the turbo engine to make it seem cooler, but I was worried about the effect on his blood pressure and nixed that idea for his health.
• He has 3 1/2 children. No explanation needed here. Only old fogies have lots of children.
• He spends most nights watching television on the couch with a pregnant woman. Every night I beg him to take me clubbing or to a midnight movie or a big concert, but he always claims he's so exhuasted after a day with the children and cooking and cleaning and he has a headache and man, gestating a baby is so much work, would I just leave him the heck alone so he can recuperate! Oh wait. That might be someone else. But the point is Jessie is old.

I could go on, but let's not embarrass the old boy. He's got some avid fans around here even if he is elderly, and he's pretty much everyone's favorite. You should see the mobs when he gets home from work. Jessie is pretty awesome, and let's be honest, he makes the world go round here at the Warner household, and pretty much holds everything together with his coolness. We love him a lot. Happy 29th, I mean 37th, birthday Mr. Warner! Here's to a good year ahead.