I should be doing school work but...

I know I should be doing school work right now, but it seems I haven't had any time (or motivation) to update my blog (or anything else). This is probably boring to most of you, but I want to have it for me and my family... So, here goes a short update starting from the youngest on up:

Steffan is saying small words like: mama, dada, ball, apple, all done, byoon (balloon), bahhh (which he says for everything else he wants). *update from when I even wrote that is that he is saying just about everything you tell him too now. He started into nursery at church this last week and did awesome. I'm sure it helped that Tate is also in nursery still until the end of the year. The teacher said that Tate kept saying, "This is MY Steffie" to everyone. Tate doesn't get to be the big, protective brother often since Teagan always plays that role. Steffan is strong willed like Teagan, but is much more affectionate than Teag. He has a temper like the "Green" family (Love you all though Green's) but smiles most all of the time. He is a smart little chappie too. He knows that I will linger longer when putting him down for bed if he lays down on my shoulder. I am a sucker for that, so he knows to do that on que when we walk into his room for bed time. He is now RUNNING all over the place and his favorite thing to do is pull EVERYTHING out of anything that has "stuff". Toilet paper, bags of anything full of stuff, laundry, drawers, cupboards, you name it. He also loves to try and be so helpful by throwing everything in the trash (including diaper rash cream, plates, bowls, toys, movies...) Steffan is really starting to like cars and trains now and has some weird fetish of playing with pens and markers. He doesn't know how to take the tops off (yet), so he just walks around carrying them everywhere he goes. Steffan is VERY particular just like Teagan is and wants it the way he wants it (sigh). He wants to have the same blanket every time, eat perfect looking food and wants to do everything himself now. He has also really liked wearing hats and wants to wear them all the time. He walks around the house with hats hanging in his face all the time because they are too big. My other two kids didn't want a hat on their head at all. Stef is really liking dancing all of sudden. It's so dang cute to watch him dance!

Tate has reached the high point of Terrible 2's and is entering the Thrashing Three's, as I call it. I think 3 is MUCH worse than 2... because they can talk better/communicate, they have gained much more opinions and exercise the right to argue everything you say. Tate has become VERY destructive of everything just because he can. His potty trained has gone backwards a bit. He has been doing good with #2 in the potty, but not so great with #1. After the newness wore off, I guess it seemed like too much work. I was getting MUCH to angry with him not going in the potty and put diapers back on. (Trust me, it was better for all of humanity for me to do that with how mad I was getting.) It hasn't stopped him from #2 in the potty, so hopefully #1 in the potty is not too far behind. And despite Teagan's constant nagging at Tate, Tate wants nothing more than to do everything that Teagan is doing, eating, playing with, liking, etc. I always try to let Tate have the floor when asking questions or opinions on what HE would like to do, but Teagan always cuts him off or over powers everything and Tate just goes along with it. Teagan is a show "stealer" for him, poor kid. On a different note, Tate LOVES animals and is loving Peppa Pig right now AND he never gets sick of us reading books together. He absolutely LOVES reading books and he remembers all of the stories and tells them back to me sometimes when we re-read things. He loves doing, doing, doing and being outside (which makes for a long, cold winter). He always calls our back yard, "back side" - - - "Mom can we go back side now?". I don't know what we are going to do now that Fall is here and it's getting colder soon. I'm dreading being in doors more. Tate is also talking so much. He can speak in as big of sentences as Teagan, if not better. He is quite the friendly little chatter box and talks to everyone around him, just like his daddy. I think poor Tate always feels left out because Teagan has a stronger personality to demand attention and Steffan naturally gets attention because he is the baby. . . Tate doesn't actually realize how many people are drawn to his fun and cute little personality, and he is so much better at being 'content' than the other two, so I think he always feels slighted. We are trying to devise a better way to helping him not feel like this. It would be good to get him into his own class like "swimming" or something like that. The other day we had a "special mommy & Tate day" which he loved. He didn't even know what to do with all of the decisions resting on his shoulders. He kept telling me he loved me, so I thought that was positive and hope he felt special. We went to the Cockington Green Gardens with our annual pass because he loves to ride the train there and eat lunch. He made two wishes in the wishing pond with two coins. His first wish was that he could play with his Chuggington train track set (which was at home waiting for him) and the second wish was that Daddy could have been there. But Daddy was at home with Tea and Stef having a special day with them. I have a cute video of Tate doing Gangnam Style to the song of "Book of Mormon" style. He likes that one better and doesn't want to listen to the original version. lol I need to upload it.

Teagan on the other hand seems to have gotten a lot easier now that he is growing up a bit more. It's like he turned into a teenager overnight though. He is so "cunning". There is no better word for him. He is a problem solver that "WORKS" the system every time. I always know that if he is being too nice, then it's because he doesn't like it (whatever it may be) or want "it" or something is wrong with whatever he is being "So nice" to share or give to someone else. He has learned to make things "sound" attractive to Tate if he is trying to talk Tate in to doing something that he shouldn't do. And he loves to torture and pick on Tate EVERY moment of the day. It truly drives me insane! On a good note, Teagan gave his first talk in Primary at church the other day on the Atonement. I was like, "Huh? Isn't that a large topic for a 4 year old?" He did alright. We practiced before hand, but he had his hands in his mouth the whole time because he got nervous and wasn't talking very loud and then 1/2 way through it he just stopped and said to me, I don't want to do this anymore mom. I made him finish it though. I will say he did good for his first time. I don't think he knew what to expect. Teagan goes through phases of things he likes. For awhile it was Angry Birds on the Ipad and watching Angry Bird YouTube videos. Then he came in the room when I was watching the end of the Avengers and he got really into Iron Man. In general he is really loving super heroes of any kind right now... all the way from Iron Man to Spider Man to Buzz Light Year. He was really into dinosaurs when we were talking about dinosaurs for pre-school and I showed him and Tate all the scary parts of Jurassic Park 3 on the last day we learned about dinosaurs. Ha ha. I wish I had a picture of Tate's face. He literally dropped his mouth open and put his hands over his mouth and yelled, "Oh No! They're getting him!" Then he told me he didn't like it but wanted to watch the whole thing. (Hey, it's not as bad as what I watched when I was little. lol) Teagan is SUCH a smart kid. I can't believe the stuff he learns. Last night we had a family home evening about how living a Christ centered life brings peace and Teagan paid attention to every word and answered all of the questions correctly. He told me that by making good choices we invite the Holy Spirit to be in our home and when we are angry or make bad choices then the Holy Ghost won't protect us from the monster's in his room. ha ha... Not quite how it works, but I was impressed with his perception of what he is learning. As for his crazy food requirements (aka "pickiness") I've made a few things from Jessica Seinfeld's recipe book to conceal vegetables in food... but, it's still hard to get him to even try it. Even good stuff he won't try. It's soooo frustrating. My saving grace is a juicer we bought last November and have been juicing ever since 1-2x a day. Our boys, and especially Teagan WILL drink that, which is the only thing that makes me feel good about all of the stuff he won't eat. I give them turns into making up what we put in it. They know it has to be made of more veges but can have fruit too. Our usual daily drink consists of an orange, an apple, a lime, lots of carrots and celery and occasionally we will try something else in it (like beets or spinach, etc).

The kids here recently had a 2 week holiday from school, so I decided to take a break with everyone else here. It was much needed and enjoyed. I've decided to cut down on school from 5 days a week to 3 days a week. I think we are all getting burned out doing it every single day. I'm still covering all the info but doing it in 3 longer days instead. It's working out better that way because then I have 2 days a week to do other activities. The days I do pre-school I'm too tired to do anything else and the boys (and me) were really missing out on having play groups or going to them. I couldn't do both in the same day. I started photography school and have been SUPER behind. It seems the best time for me to do it is at night and it requires more brain power to retain the info than I have at that time. I'm going to have to start getting up early (which I'm so NOT a morning person). I'm very busy in my church calling as the 1st Counselor in the Relief Society. I'm over all the activities which makes it a bit busier. We have presidency meetings 2x a month, go on visits 1-2x/month to members in the RS and then our activities, plus our own visiting teaching, etc. Jeremy is in the presidency in the Young Men... so that means presidency meetings for him, mutual each Tuesday and occasional weekend outings. Plus he has his home teaching to do as well. So each day of the week except Friday and Saturday is usually filled with something for church. I'm not complaining because our blessings FAR outweigh what we put in but it can be hectic. I made a promise to give back for all those that helped us so much when we moved here and plan on doing exactly that! Even though photo school is going a bit slow for me, the photography itself is not. It has been exciting to see things picking up. I got to shoot two weddings in February, one in April, two in May and one in June. There's much to learn still but am learning a lot! I think I'm liking the "couples/wedding" avenue and am working on my new website and official company name (which will change) for when I graduate from photog school. Keep watching for updates!

Jeremy has been feeling a LOT better. Thank you to all our family that fasted and prayed and put him on the prayer role at the temple. We truly felt it! Jeremy went to a gastro specialist and has a gazillion tests done and found that he has some major gut issues (duh), which means that he really needs to cut back on stress and watch what he eats, watch what he eats, watch what he eats... Jeremy and Teagan are a bit the same when it comes to eating so this will be a challenge for Jeremy. Jeremy likes his sugar and soda and gum. Why would gum be on the list you ask? Because Jeremy EATS the gum one after the other... like he swallows it whole and eats a pack at a time. Gross habit eh? I'm just thankful that we are good at juicing and everyone will drink it. It makes a HUGE difference for our family. My mouth dropped open the other day when Jeremy ran to the store and came home with LETTUCE, TOMATO and WHOLE GRAIN BREAD--- WITH seeds!!! AND, he ate it! Who is this husband of mine?! I have to admit, he eats a million times better/differently than when we arrived in Oz. I will take it! Now if someone can just get me to eat less. :) As for Jeremy's job, he just finished up another short contract at the Australian Bureau of Statistics and is awaiting his next assignment. I think he will be busy this year being sent to lots of places and might even get sent to New Zealand for a month sometime this year. We are hoping to go over with him for a couple of weeks of that if it happens. Jeremy is also very busy doing service for people all the time it seems (yard work, computer work, giving rides, etc). I'm proud of him. I'm proud that our boys can go with him often and be there to see that this is what life is about and hope they carry that on when they get older.

Jeremy and I celebrated our five year anniversary this weekend. What did we do to celebrate? We did yard work. ha ha. Yay! lol We were going to go out but felt bad that we knew our sitters were really busy with family in town and didn't realize that til the day before, so we will go out another time to celebrate.  My amazing Aussie Mum took me out for a girl's day with a beautiful bouquet of flowers to spruce up the home and then over to an awesome restaurant, mall time, pedicures and gift cards for massage and movie with babysitting for the boys! Amazing!!! So, we will probably go out for massage and a movie when we can get away. It SOUNDS like a dream! :)

And... if you're still reading, then you can feel glad that I don't have anything else to say. :)