Pete the Cat

It was a cold Conference weekend when our family all loaded up in our van and got ready to head to grandma and grandpa Hirtle's house. We were all bucked in the van and sitting in the driveway when we started to hear some meowing. At first I thought it was Joel but he assured me that he did not meow. He turned off the engine and we both got out and looked under the van. Nothing was there. The older kids all got out and we made everyone stand back while Joel lifted up the hood of our van. There sitting on top of the engine was a cute little tabby cat that was looking all cute and scared. Joel used the sleeve of his coat and picked the thing up and it just cuddled right up in his arms. The kids were all jumping up and down for joy because they were convinced that we now had a cat. We assured them the cat must belong to someone so after everyone pet the cat a little bit we left him on his way and went to our destination. It was several hours later that we returned and the kids were all super anxious to make sure that the cat had made his way home. We searched and heard meowing coming from our suburban. We lifted the hood and there was our little cat friend. He was still cold and scared and more than happy to snuggle with Joel. Joel took a few kids and they walked around the neighborhood to see if the cat belonged to any of our neighbors. That cat literally followed the kids all the way down the street and was happy to follow them right into our house. No one claimend the cat. We hated to leave it out to get back under the hood of our cars all night so we let him sleep in our garage. 

The next morning the cat was up bright and early and was eager to play with the kids. Brynlee made a makeshift toy for the cat and it followed her around and had a blast playing. It was super gentle and never tried to bite or scratch anyone. The kids were really hoping we could keep him. I went ahead and took pictures of the cat and posted them online. Right away someone messaged me and said the cat belonged to them and that they would pick the cat up as soon as they were done with work. (At first I thought the cat was a girl.) Brynlee was home from school that day so we had fun playing with the cat, fed him some tuna, and got ready for him to go back to his home. A few hours after the first message I got another message from someone saying they thought the cat was theirs. The first lady responded that no, she was pretty sure the cat belonged to her and said she would be happy to have the microchip checked to make sure. Annalyn's best friend had moved away that weekend and Anna was dreading going to school that day so I was worried she would be devastated to say goodbye to the cat. Luckily the cat was still there when she got home from school so she snuggled with him and got ready to bid him farewell. We ate dinner and I kept waiting for the message from this lady that was coming to get her cat and it never came. I rechecked my message board and she had said, "I got my cat back. Thanks everyone!" I responded back with, what do you mean you got your cat back? Isn't this your cat? I decided the cat must belong to this other person so I messaged them and got a response an hour later saying that they found their cat. It was at that point that I called my mom and had her bring me some cat litter and food to make it through the night.  

I took the cat into the vet the next day and there was no microchip. The vet said the cat was probably around five months old and looked like a girl but he said sometimes your couldn't really tell until they were six months. I did some research later that week and decided that out cat definitely looked more like a boy. At first Brynlee really wanted to name the cat Pepper but after we found out it was most likely a boy we changed the name to Pete. Annalyn was pretty upset about the cat really being a boy and told me she didn't want him anymore because boys were stinky. She got over that though and likes him now. We call him "Pete the Cat," after the books. Brynlee posted found cat signs all around the neighborhood but so far no one else has said the cat was theirs. We did have someone come and look at him but they said the cat didn't belong to them. He has been here for almost a month now and the kids have had a blast playing with him. Miriam loves him and pulls on his tail and tries to carry him all over the house and the cat just puts up with it. He really is a pretty great cat. He was already litter box trained. He loves to spend the day playing with the kids and sleeping in the barbie house. The kids are loving having a pet. I still worry that he might belong to someone else. Our kids would be pretty sad to have to lose him now. He has quickly fit right into our home. I never wanted a pet but my kids sure did. I kind of think he might have just been a little gift from Heavenly Father to cheer up my kids and to help Annalyn get over the hard month this was for her. It gave her something happy to look forward to. It seems like Pete needed us and my kids needed him. Honestly I thought Joel would never let the kids get an inside pet but he really likes that cat. The cat bonded with him from the beginning and Joel never once even questioned if the cat would stay. For now Pete is safe and warm in our house and my kids are having fun with him.

Miriam 14 Months!

I was going to do a thirteen month update on little Miriam since I did one for all of my other girls but I waited too long and now she is fourteen months. At this point everything has all mixed together and I can't remember what happened when so I am just going to do a fourteen month update for her. She is definitely growing up and turning more and more into a little toddler every day. I will do my best to write down some of the fun things that she is doing lately. 

This girl has been super busy lately. She is now running all over the place and getting into whatever she can find. Her favorite past times lately are to empty all of the plastic bags out of the box, take out all of the dishrags and plastic containers, and she loves to play in the oatmeal and cereal every time one of her sisters leaves the pantry door open. If there is any water outside she likes to go and sit in it. She loves to climb in whatever basket or container she can find. She likes to climb in my dryer while I am trying to put clothes in there, and she loves to climb in the dishwasher while I try to unload it.   

Miriam had another bottom tooth pop up right after she turned one and then a little over a month after that she had a top side one pop through. Today she has a total of four teeth. Two on the top and two on the bottom but instead of getting her top middle teeth, she got her lateral incisors. It makes her look like a little vampire but she is the cutest vampire we ever have seen. None of her teeth really touch so she still has to just use her gums to eat. It hasn't seemed to slow her down very much. She loves to eat and can eat almost all foods. She likes corn on the cob and can clean that cob pretty well. She loves fruit and knows what candy is and hates to be left out if we don't give some to her. We keep giving her utensils but she has no real use for them yet. She sits in her high chair for her meals and loves to trow her food down when she is done eating.  

Miriam is saying a few more words and can sign, "all done." She says, "no" really well and usually she makes her mouth into this cute little O shape. She can say "Uh Oh," "Ow," "mom," "Ke" = kitty, "what," "meow," "dad," and "hi." When we try to get her to say other words she usually just grins at us with her great big grin and says nothing. Every once in a while she will repeat other words but she prefers to just use her charm and good looks to get her what she needs. I can tell that she understands almost everything I say but she usually ignores most of my requests for help. She does not enjoy getting her diaper changed so when I ask her to get me a diaper, she runs the opposite direction. 

We have had a cat at our house the last few weeks and Miriam is obsessed with him. She hauls him all around the house, drags him by the tail, and loves to play with him. She looks for him all the time and likes to pat him and give him loves. I can't imagine that the cat likes all that attention but he doesn't complain and most of the time he doesn't even run away or hide from her. 

     In the last two months Miriam had to watch all of her sisters go off to school, except for Summer. Miriam and Summer play together a lot these days. Summer is teaching Miriam all of her trouble making ways and they have a lot of fun playing with each other. We went to the Farmstead and Miriam loved playing in the corn pit. We went to the park several times and we went on several trips to the grocery store. Miriam hates being buckled in the cart these days so she is getting harder and harder to take to the store. She keeps trying to escape out of her buckle and out of the cart. She was babysat by her grandmas several times and did great. She didn't cry when we left at all. She got to watch a lot of soccer games. She is pretty easy going about going with the family and watching what everyone else is doing.


Miriam is still not a huge fan of shoes and has gotten pretty good at taking her shoes and socks off. She likes to play outside and she likes stroller rides still. She loves to try to go and run in the road whenever we go in the front yard to play. She likes swings and is not scared of other people. She is fearless in groups and just does what she wants to do. At music time at the library she loves to get the instruments and hates when we have to put them away. She does pretty well on the stairs these days and will usually go down them slowly on her bum.

     Miriam still takes two naps most days. Her morning naps is usually at 9 and lasts for almost two hours. Her afternoon nap is around 1 or 2 and is only about an hour long. She sleeps in her bed all through the night which is something I am so glad we got her to do. She sleeps so much better now. She was waking up at least once or twice a night and would not go back to sleep unless I nursed her. I was not really nursing her much during the day but she did not want to give up that nightly drink. She was not happy about ending the daytime nursing either so I pulled out the bottle and she was okay with that. One night in desperation I had Joel go and get her in the middle of the night and he just threw a bottle in her crib and she went right to sleep and hasn't woken up in the night since. Thank Goodness. It has been a blessing for both of us that she is sleeping better. 

I sure am enjoying getting to watch this little girl grow. Her personality is really starting to shine through. She is usually such a happy baby. She does like her bottle and she can be mischievous but for the most part she is just cute and sweet. We love you little Miri!

September 2019

We started off the month of September with a Labor day celebration and barbeque. The kids all had a lot of fun playing with bubbles in the backyard. 

Joel and I did those self reliance classes every Sunday in September starting at 4:30. The class is around one and a half hours long and ends with homemade ice cream thanks to our lovely hosts. It has been kind of fun and good for us to reevaluate the ways we spend our money. Neither Joel or I are crazy spenders but we realized several things we can do better. We made a budget at the end of the month and are excited to make some better choices with our money. It has also helped us to put the Lord first in our lives. While we were gone my grandma and Joel's mom were amazing and took turns watching our girls. They all enjoyed the time hanging out with the family while we were away. 

Now that Sundays were busy, we decided to spend all of our Saturdays this month doing soccer. We decided to use the same league we used last time which is nice because then they only have two practices on a weeknight and then they have five games on a Saturday. This time Kyla played so we had three kids on three different teams. I got to coach Kyla's team. She was super excited about her mom being her coach and it was lots of fun for me. We had a pretty great little team and Kyla was a pretty decent player. She listened, tried her best, and worked hard. Annalyn and Brynlee had all of their games at the exact same time so Joel and I spent the next hour after watching Kyla's game tag teaming so that we could take turns watching part of both of Bryn and Anna's games. They both had really good teams this year. Brynlee had a boy on her team that was amazing. It took her a while but by the end of the season she became a pretty good little player. Annalyn had a really big team so she was constantly coming home upset because she didn't get enough time to play. She only got to play for three-five minutes and then she had to sit out. Despite that she still had fun and is also a good little soccer player. 

The girls had school and Brynlee and Kyla had homework everyday after school. Brynlee had speech every Monday and she went to activity days. They all had picture day and Summer and Miriam and I went and cheered on Kyla and Annalyn at their school Jog a thon. They both ran lots of laps and Summer ran with them for a few of them. 

While the older girls were at school I spent my days hanging out with Summer and Miriam. It required a lot of cleaning up messes. We went to the library on Thursdays. Summer is old enough to go to the art class and she loves it. She feels so grown up and after that first class she asked if she could go back every day until next Thursday. Elowyn usually comes to music and storytime with us and Summer participates and is getting good at sitting for all of the stories. Now I spend my time at the library chasing Miriam. She loves the music class and is super fast to get whatever instrument they put out. She is not intimidated at all by all the other kids. She just charges right in there. She will also go and stand by every other person in that room and she gets mad when I make her put her instruments away. 

I also kept busy this month with gardening stuff. We helped grandma do corn, tomato sauce, and salsa. We picked golden raspberries and grapes at grandma Hirtle's house and did up a bunch of grape juice. I went to parenting class one day this week and I went to book group once as well. 

I took all of my girls in to the dentist and the oldest four all had check-ups. Their computer wasn't working that day. They thought maybe Annalyn had a cavity but they never called me back later that week so I am guessing it wasn't bad enough that they have to fix it. Everyone did great and they were good and cooperative for the dentist.

We got to help Alesha's baby Kyren celebrate his first birthday. It was a fun night with family and friends. Miriam got right in there and helped Kyren enjoy his birthday cake. 

My dad came to watch the girls play soccer one day and brought Jakobee and Remi with him so that he could take them fishing later that day. We ended up going out to lunch at McDonalds and then we got to go fishing with them. We went to a little pond around where my dad works and it was loaded with fish. Kyla caught the first fish right away on her first cast. She was jumping for joy. Everyone caught a fish by the end of the day. Most of the fish they caught were catfish with only a few trout that were caught by a few of the kids. One of the catfish cut Annalyn and after that most of the kids were scared of them. Brynlee would barely get in a picture with a fish and Remi refused to take a picture with her fish at all. Even Jakobee was squeamish about touching his fish. It was a super fun day! We love spending time with grandpa and we had fun catching some fish. To complete the fun of the day we took our van through an automatic car wash. We don't do that often and it was a magical end to a super magically fun day.

 Joel bought a bunch of wood and started to make new bunk beds for the girls. The three older girls all got to sing with the church choir and did great. We went to stake conference another week. The kids were mostly pretty good but Summer made several trips to the bathroom. Joel worked on Jake's house several times, Brynlee and Annalyn both went to birthday parties for some of their friends. The girls had fun riding bikes. Kyla attempted to ride her bike without training wheels and did pretty well but still needs more practice before she will be totally ready to ditch her training wheels. Annalyn also got a new bike because our next door neighbors gave it to her as they were moving to a new house. It was too small for their daughter. We went to the park and played a few times. Summer came with me to help in the library at church one Wednesday and we had a good time together. The girls had some friends over, the girls got into lots of messes, and we had fun together. Time just keeps moving and we are doing our best to enjoy life.