im not always layed back, dude!

The Ryersons are confused!!!

yes i mean all of us...

Shane has no idea what he wants to be when he grows up... still!! I wish i could tell him but hes just the kind of person to do the opposite of what i tell him unless i didnt mean it, then he does it.

i want to tell him to stick it out and get his math phd, but i know hes gonna be bored and hate it and end up failing out. i want to tell him to go for the engineering program, but i dont want to stay here in student housing that we can hardly afford! i want to tell him to apply in another state somewhere far far away, but i dont know how long i can last without my family or close friends. i have never been able to make a friend as good as the ones i did when i was a kid.

im going straight out of my mind with elijah! ELIJAH, the sweetest cutest most adorable little guy on earth! ever since our trip to hawaii he has been nothing but terrible! well not entirely of course. but heres the thing, my kids get spoiled to heck when gramma takes them for a few days or more, thats why i didnt want my mom to take them away when the baby was born, but of course she did anyway. and it actually wasnt as bad as i thought it would be so i let her take them for a week when we left for our free hawaii trip, which i will write about next!

when we came back elijah would not go to bed on time like he used to, he used to be the BEST sleeper ever! seriously! it would be like nine at night and we already gave him bath brushed teeth and read stories so we would pick him up and say night night its time for bed and he may squirm a little if he didnt feel like sleeping but almost always would just lay back and lift up his arms to get ready for the blankey to fall on him, then he would snuggle into his bed and close his eyes. it usually took at most 2 minutes!!!!

now, well now it takes at least 20!!!! its driving me nuts!!! he doesnt want to go to bed so i let him stay up a little later to run around a wear himself down, when that doesnt work i use force and stick him in bed the exact same way i used to but now he can climb out and keeps doing it, i cant rock him because hes still got enough energy to squirm out of my arms. arrrg!

but tonight was better, everytime he got out of bed i put him back in and told him it was bedtime, then he got up once more and asked for a bottle of milk. so i gave it to him against my better judgment and he stayed in bed! im not doing that every night so his teeth can rot out!!!

ugg, and on top of that he wont eat anything i give him! he says no to the sandwiches and no to the cereal and no to the bananas!!! bananas were his FAVORITE!!! im so sad...

he says, "nandy! keecoos!!" which means candy and cookies of course. and i ask him if he wants milk or juice (which is still pretty full of sugar) and he says, "NO! Hot...ko-ko!" which is his way of saying "hot coco" of course.... geez sugar-a-holic!! oh yeah, he gets in the fridge and pulls out everything he can, like eggs. he loves eggs, but if they arent boiled they make a mess, and if they are boiled they make a mess!!! ugg... poor willow is getting neglected and the house is getting beat up because im either scolding or entertaining elijah or nursing willow!

yikes, then theres nephi. poor kid being the oldest and whatnot. every time i turn around hes turned on some sort of electronics device. i let him play for a few minutes but when i finally ran down the list of banned electronics for the day he complains about going to visit friends!!!!

i want to see this friend i want to see that friend!

why cant you play with your siblings?

i dont want to!!

play with your brother so he will stop making messes please!!

its boring!!

play with him or clean your room, you choose.

elijah, lets go play with blocks!

*sigh*

and at school is another story. i love his new teacher, shes totally awesome and really down to earth and way positive about life!! shes easy to talk to and very thoughtful and kind.

he had been doing pretty good with his peers and not getting referrals from the yard lady. but once in a while he will get one for shoving or bumping or doing something clumsy with his body. he says he didnt do it but we have explained time and time again that just because you didnt do it intentionally doesnt mean you didnt do it at all. saying that would be lying. but he just doesnt get it! also im not so sure it wasnt intentional. also he gets in trouble ont he bus quite often, but the thing is, those kids on the bus suck! they are always being mean to nephi for no reason and nephi doesnt take crap from anybody so he ends up getting himself in trouble. now i like that nephi defends himself, but im scared of him getting hurt or hurting someone else. i dont know exactly how to handle that.

advice on any of this would be quite helpful

and emmalily, shes a sweet little angel... if you are a a grown up. if you are a four year old girl, shes down right a plain little jerk!!! for some unknown reason she can not for the life of her play with more than two girls at a time and gets really mean if youre a third little girl trying to play with her clique. this sickens me because i was quite the opposite as a child. i would play with tons of kids whether i knew them or not and i always thought the more the merrier!! i really do not understand why she needs to have her small clique and on top of that she needs to be the one in charge, the controller of this tiny group, like in mean girls!?!?! it has nothing to do with liking the kids, nothing what so ever. it has to do with being able to control everything they are doing at that moment and being able to control the people she is playing with.... i need to find a way to turn this in to a positive thing!! she would make a brilliant class president or even a US president someday, but i need to make sure it doesnt go down a nasty unforgiving road first.

as for willow, well shes just a baby! i love her and everything seems pretty good. aside from the fact that her sleep schedule is totally off cause of hawaii, but its getting fixed slowly.

i mean, things arent really too bad. i just needed to vent some frustration and this totally helped.

Willow Faye

Willow is getting so big and gorgeous!

Here are a few pics of her lately

Four Children

As im sure most of you noticed by now, Shane and I now have four children together.

Some people would ask me, "Are you insane?!" I noticed that those people usually dont have kids. The ones that do have kids often ask, "So how many more are you planning to have?" I know its usually just a joke, but Im thinking, "Um yeah right, I'm retiring my uterus."
I sometimes feel bad when I think this because I always knew that Shane wanted like ten kids. But he also knew that I didnt want to be pregnant more than four times. Since we didn't have triplets and twins, its just not happening that way.

Also, we can't exactly fit more than four kids in student housing without breaking some kind of rules! We're still on the wait list for a three bedroom as it is!! Even though 860 sq ft for 6 people is totally LAME, it will be better once there are two seperate "rooms'" for the boys and girls. Then mom and dad get their space back and once Willow stops breastfeeding everything will be back to normal. And by "everything" I mean my horomones (aka attitude, patience, overall mood) which will end up being better for everyone.

Seriously, as if childrearing wasn't already physically hard enough, you add the emotional stress from adjusting to a new baby and then chemical imbalances from the overload of horomones during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Then add the fact that someone forgot to mention that "pregnancy brain" lasts a lot longer than just pregnancy! Oh yeah, and im hungrier now more than ever!!

Ill be so relieved if I can make it the whole year.

Life comes at you fast, especially when you have children.

One of my biggest fears (Im sure a lot of people also fear this) is that I won't be a good parent. I want to be perfect so that my kids will try to be even better than that. But, we all know that nobody is perfect, ever. I want to be a better example for them, i want them to succeed in life. to be good people and live a good life, helping others, showing love and being a good example in general. The problem is that ive noticed that the older one gets the less perfect, the less innocent, the less generous, the less loving, the more bitter and hateful they get.
I know this because as it has happened to you, its happened to me. i saw the world so differently as a child.

Birth Story

My mom came over on Tuesday July 7 to go to the beach with us and hang out before the baby came. We took her to Corona Del Mar, because we usually take her to Balboa but this time we wanted to go somewhere closer. Even though it was a Tuesday afternoon it was still full of people!
So we got the kids all dressed and ready to go, everyone was in their suits and ready for some wave action! Yes, even pregnant me and hubby too.
It was fun and relaxing to go to the beach. We all tried out the boogie boards, except Elijah because he was so not into the ocean on this particular day. I got out there in the ocean with Shane and caught a good wave on the board, even with my belly I was still able to ride the board to shore! It was awkward, but fun! I was balancing on my elbows to prevent my belly from hitting the board or the ground. Then after I was at the shore with my mom, we watched Shane catch a huge one. he was coming right for us! And for some reason, instead of running away like I may have normally done, I stood there and opened my legs creating a archway for him to go through! I was a little afraid he would clip my ankles while attempting to make a clean glide through, but not afraid enough to move. And he did it! Boy I wish we had that on video. It would have looked hilarious! Sorry that had little or nothing to do with the birth, it was just awesome.
After we were all tuckered out and hungry, we left the beach with extra shovels and a satisfied exhaustion.
Then we got ice cream at Thriftys on the way back home. And to top off the fun, they had a two scoop special for 99 cents!!!
When we got home we cleaned up Elijah's mystery foot injury that had showed up out of nowhere on the fourth of July. Then had our home teacher come by and help Shane give him a blessing. Since they were already there doing blessings I figured why not do a blessing for my labor and delivery to go safely.
Before my mom left she gave me a pedicure, something i had been meaning to go get but was hesitant because of the cost. After i convinced her to put glitter pink on top of black nail polish, because old lady soft pink just isn't my style and it had to be pink because I was having a girl, she said good night to the kids and took my laundry home to do for me! That was really nice since the next day was my due date and I was so not feeling the laundry thing. She said she would bring it back when I went into labor, assuming of course that labor would start within the next two days.
My friend was joking that would start labor at 3 in the morning the next day. We both wished that would really happen, but on Wednesday July 8, I woke up around 9am and didn't feel any closer to labor. :-(
The poor kids have been getting up by themselves for the last couple of weeks because i had been so tired lately with obvious causes. So this morning since we were out of cereal i decided to make them pancakes, because i was feeling much better, slightly more energetic and they deserved a treat.
Nephi was helping me in the kitchen while the others were playing in the living room. Shane had to go teach his class this morning from 9 to 11 and my friend staying with us went out for a run, so we were on our own for the time being.
its funny, there were a few things i wanted to do this morning but when i woke up i forgot about them.
So we finished the batter, had the stove on and i was about to poor the pancakes when my first contraction hit. It was different from before, i knew it was real but it was a little less intense than my last two labor contractions. So i looked at Nephi and told him that mommy was going to have the baby today, and yes i can still make the pancakes. And so i finished making the pancakes while I called Shane, It was already 11am so he had just finished class when I called him. He came running home! I made a birth plan online while I was waiting for contractions to get harder and frequent enough to have to go to the hospital. We got everything ready, when my friend returned we told her what was happening, she got the kids ready to go to the park and play so they will have something to do while waiting for baby sister to come! We called our moms and dads, then by the time we left it was around noon. Shane joked about going to get a burger before hitting the hospital, because that is what my dad actually did on the way to the hospital when my parents had me!! Of course since my last three labors were less than four hours long and i had so far been laboring for an hour and a half i had refused to let him do that, although we both knew he was half joking.
Shane was on the 73 headed North when he asked me which way to go after that. I looked at him and was in shock, "I have never driven to the hospital this way!" i had always just gone up PCH, although i knew that a closer entrance was off Newport blvd, and i remembered that the 55 S turned into Newport. So that's what i told him, then he remembered too because i know he had driven away from the hospital that way before.
So of course there was really bad traffic getting off the 55 merging into Newport, there ALWAYS is and I straight forgot! But i wasn't too worried, because the contractions were not hard enough to push out a baby yet.
On the way there my mother-in-law called asking for directions to the hospital. i didn't know why she needed them yet or why she was calling me while i was in labor, because Shane and i had agreed that the birth would be more relaxing if we didn't have anyone in the room that wasn't legally obliged to be there. So then Shane let me know that he never actually told her she was not invited to the birth. She missed our first child's birth because she had left the room and when she came back they were not allowing anyone else in because i was about to deliver. i of course had no clue what was going on at the time, but Shane said she was very very hurt by it and he couldn't hurt her more by telling her not to come, so i figured as long as she was quiet and respectful (which she was) why not let her be there this time. Of course i knew my mother would be very upset about this because she wanted to be there very badly, but she was there for the births of our first two and she has five more kids that haven't had children yet, so she has plenty of chances to be at more births.
We got to the hospital and went up to the labor and delivery floor to check in. We had to wait because the place was full! Luckily we didn't have to wait too long... for a room.
Now the real waiting has begun. How much longer will it take for this labor to progress? holy crap, its been two hours. That's already longer than my last labor. OMG, its now almost 3pm. That's four hours, this is officially my longest labor! Its definitely progressing, ouch. How much longer is this torture going to last? I'm really regretting not picking up some burgers now. "Shane, get me some food!!"
"The nurse said you cant eat before you give birth!"
"I don't care!!"
He didn't get me food, but he went downstairs with his mom to get her something to eat. He said he was going to wait to eat so we can be hungry together. He can be so sweet and romantic sometimes. But i was still hungry. OW, I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE!! Each half hour is stretching slowly, every time I have a contraction it feels like time speeds up in between! They aren't regulating, but they are consistently getting harder and more painful. The nurse comes in when a big one hits.
"Shes transitioning now." She says ever so sweetly.
Oh, I can tell. Then next contraction comes and I can feel my body pushing the baby down into attack position. As the nurse is leaving I'm thinking, where is she going? This baby is coming now.
"shanethebabyscomin" I mumble through clenched teeth. I'm trying to remember my breathing, its easier to relax when Shane is stroking my hair and holding me. Another contraction hits and I'm screaming it now,
"SHES COMING!!!!"
"Mom, get the nurse!"
Shane starts laughing as his mother attempts to open the door but it somehow unable to. She yells at the door as she struggles to open it, finally success! I have another contraction as the nurse and doctor run in with the equipment and begin to set up. Shes crowning, I didn't need the nurse to tell me that this time. This time i new what my body was doing, I could feel it. Shes coming and the doctor was still setting up whatever it was. I wasn't going to wait for him so i just pushed her out with the next contraction.
What a feeling!! The water popped and she came out, nice and slow compared to EmmaLilys birth. I could feel every inch of her body as it left mine. Then I felt everything else gush out, and RELIEF swept through my body and filled every inch of what used to be there. As I held my wrinkly, soft, warm, pink baby girl in my arms for the first time, I was overwhelmed with happiness.

Summer is around the corner!

Husband and Wife!

Children that are already born!

New Baby!

I CANT WAIT UNTIL SUMMER BREAK!!!

Why?

1. Nephi is out of school!
2. Shane is out of school!
3. we get to go camping one last time with only three kids!
4. Fathers Day!
5. Baby shower party!
6. Birth of baby #4!
7. Beach days!
8. Relaxing...
   

Updates

So i know there really isnt all that much to update on but i just thought it would be a good idea anyway!

shane has to study constantly for his qualifying exams that hes going to be taking in about a month... ugg. well he doesnt really study constantly, but its more than i need him to! his birthday is tomorrow, and we conveniently "ran out of money" for the rest of the month! although it may be his was of making sure i dont spend anything... we also coincidentally ran out of minutes on our phones as well. suspicious? or horrible at budgeting? you be the judge.

i am still pregnant for what seems like the last two years. although im only about 7 months along, due july 10th! getting excited and a little bit sad, sad that i usually enjoy pregnancy but this one has been H-E- double hockey sticks. i mean its not like it was a cake walk with the others but its really making them seem like they were!! i swear i had almost zero discomfort with nephi. emmalilys was a little worse, only sciatic nerves being pinched once in a while and i couldnt eat meat for some reason. elijahs was the one where i gained the most weight and my sciatica got worse. with this one i am actually gaining the least amount so far (knock on wood) but im having sciatic nerve attacks (or whatever people call them) every single day, and if i walk too much my legs throb in pain and i cant move my hips without them also throbbing in pain. oh yeah and i have to chase a 15 month old everywhere i go!

nephi had a special program at school he was in all decked out in his scout uniform, and his open house today! it was great! ive got some pics but its so hard to upload them on here, if you want to see them they are most likely going to be on my facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=201303044&ref=profile (hopefully that link works!)
besides all that fun stuff, his teacher wants to talk to me about his "behavior" she makes it sound like my kid is the only kid in the history of children to ever have misbehaved at school. i swear that woman needs that stick pulled straight out of her! chill out and loosen up a bit.

emmalily is getting more and more anxious for her "baby princess" to come! shes so excited about having a sister! i love it. she needed a sister so bad. she is also in diar need of a preschool!! and the thing that sucks is we cant afford ANYTHING and here in irvine that normally isnt going to fly. we will keep searching though, its near crucial at this baby #4 point in my life that emmalily has someplace she can go to wind down and get away from crazy babies and mommies for a couple of hours a week, poor thing. she needs to be in a learning environment as well, especially if she is going to get ready for kindergarten next year.

elijah is so cute and so smart and growing so much everyday!! he looks and acts like such a big boy! hes running everywhere! he LOVES shoes, and cats, and music! needs soooo much attention. hes saying so many words now. i think hes up to at least ten by today! he repeats us all the time in his own little baby language, i love it! he is getting better and better at communicating what he wants and needs, elijah gave shane a fresh diaper when he pooped in the one he was wearing! i think he knows hes gonna have baby sister, or he acts like he knows whats going on, i know it hasnt quite sunk in yet but hes definitely got a clue. i cant wait to see how he acts with his baby sissy, he loves babies soo much. hes always trying to hug and kiss and feed other babies at church and playgroup! he also loves his bedtime routine! after dinner he plays a little and then ill say, "bath?" and he says,"BAP!" and runs straight for the bathroom and tugs on his diaper! then after he plays in the water for five minutes he likes to trick me by standing up and holding his arms up and then when i bring the towel over to him he shrinks back down into the tub really fast and busts up laughing!! its soo adorable i cant help but laugh myself! then we put jammies on and read a quick story and i bring him into the bedroom, the light has to be off or it wont work out, i kiss him good night and say, "night night, baby" and sometimes he blows me a kiss sometimes not, but he always lays down in my arms and i put him in his crib and put the blanket on him and he lifts his arms up so they can be on top of the blanket and he immediately shuts his eyes. its the best in the world. i swear i live for his bedtime routine.

and finally the fetus! shes doing great! perfectly healthy, on the bigger side as usual but im not worried, all my kids measured bigger at first, thats what they do! i get big really fast and then grow pretty slowly after the huge pop out growth spurt that happens around the fifth month!! which isnt so bad actually. shes moving a LOT. i can see her little legs swish from side to side in my belly! its so fun to watch as long as she isnt jabbing me real hard. which she has been doing way more than the others did! but i love it, it means shes healthy!

well i better go off to bed! im exhausted!!! as usual...

April showers bring May flowers...

Its May now!
My life is dragging on slowly but surely and we are still on that rocky road of Springtime fun...

I still have a few things to do for Scouts, even though the parents in scouts are acting like all i really need to do is be a face and they just decide amongst themselves what to do. Blue andGold dinner, already taken care of, but not by me!

Nephis birthday was a blast! Sorry if you missed it! There were a handful of kids, but it was nice because its way less chaotic that way. It was a video game themed party so I put together some fun Nintendo games and decorated the cake to look like a Nintendo DS!! Everything didnt turn out exactly how it was supposed to but Nephi loved it and thats what matters!
here are some of my favorite pics:

Egg Hunt

The video wouldnt upload, i will try again later! :(

Elijah immediately began consumption before brother and sister could get their hands on his stash!EmmaLily won again, for the Least amount of eggs found in her age group!

EmmaLilys 4th Birthday!

Elijahs First Birthday

~~After we had a small family party with cake and everything, we went to Balboa Island and walked around the pier and beach while Shane and the kids plaed at the Arcade. Then we had sushi before going on the carosel and the took the farie back to our car. it was pretty fun!~~

Fine, Jackie Im updating my blog!!

Hi everyone!
it has been over a year now since my last blog!!
my life has been crazy ever since i found out that we were moving to Irvine!
let me give you a little preview of the craziness, then you will understand why it is a requirement for me to be more laid back than the average Joe!

may 2007 shane found out that we were moving to irvine to go to uci, about a week later i found out i was pregnant even though we had been using protection, SURPRISE!
july 2007 we made the move from goleta santa barbara, where i had a moving party for people to come help us move and no one showed up- except for my two good friends sarah and dagnne (thanks guys!) then shane left with nephi in the truck around dinner time to stay at my parents house overnight before going t our new verano place apartment. i stayed behind with my brother and sister and two year old emmalily to clean my apartment. my siblings left around midnight, i was up cleaning until 3am and had to be out of there that night, only i had no where to sleep because the ucsb student housing kicked us out a day before we had our uci apartment! so we were literally homeless for a whole day. dont ask me why i hate ucsb student housing.
august 2007 nephi starts kindergarten! registration was such a disaster. i went there with most of my info i just needed to print a few things out and the website where you preregister said that i could take a password to the registration office but when i got there the lady at the front was giving me a real hard time and basically telling me the opposite of what the website told me to do. two weeks later i saw that same woman in relief society! how ironic.
september 2007nephi starts kindergarten a day late because of the registration problems! yay! and the teacher wastes no time in letting me know how much of a behavior problem my son has, *sigh* the rest of the school year is gonna be a blast of excitement...
december 2007 so i throw myself a birthday party near the 1st of december, to get to know some of the neighbors, since im new to the hood still. it was fun, people showed up and we had a great time chatting and making friends! that night im so stressed out and shane is not helping me clean up and just goes to bed. meanwhile i cant clean up and get the kids to sleep on my own, its past midnight and emmalily still wont go to sleep. totally fed up, i walked out the door and drove to my parents house in LA. the next day i have to go to my friends baby shower (in LA) so i get up and get ready to go. then my mom insists on driving me because my car is crapping out. so of course im late getting there, then i have to get a ride home because my mom didnt want to stay. so i try to go home, back to the OC, that night. but since my mom took the car to get looked at she wont let me drive it since the stupid mechanic told her to get it fixed before it goes on the freeway again, obviously he would because hes trying to get business! uggg. so ive got no car, my sister comes to pick me up with the car she is borrowing from my moms friend who lives out of the state. since that is the only car now, it is my responsibility to drive my sister to work and back if i want to be able to use it to pick up my son from kindergarten!! it is now december 4th, the night before my birthday, shane is late coming home from school and i start contracting pretty regularly. it starts while im making dinner around 6pm. im scared because my pregnancies are not usually risky ones. shane gets home at midnight and im still contracting. so he takes me to the hospital and they say im going into early labor, which is weird for me. but when i thought about it i realized i had been under a lot of stress that week. so i wasnt too surprised. they gave me meds to stop it and sent me home!
the next day is my birthday, my moms to surprise me, which is really nice! but then shane texts me about having to stay all day and night because of finals!! then my sister texts me and tells me she is taking me to the Spice Girls reunion concert in LA that night!! so off we go... then we get back around two or so in the morning, i walk in the house a step on the kitten, poor thing, i almost twist my ankle as i fall on my but. Shane is sleeping on the couch, and im trying to get him up to get the kids out of the car. he had sprained his ankle so he couldnt get the sleeping kids out of the car!!! i was so upset i started crying. my sister went and got them! ugg, what else happened that week, i believe it was only wednesday... i know the car i was using did die a couple of times.
january 2008 my baby is due on the 27th, the doc says he will come closer to the 23rd, which sounded normal to me since my other kids were born one month (nephi) then four days(emmalily) early. yeah, no baby this month.
february 2008 so im complaining to my friend that i hadnt had the baby yet and my mom and sisters didnt throw me a shower or anything, so she says to invite all my friends over to my house and she will throw the shower for me! i thought, hey it couldnt hurt! it just so happened that the day she wanted to throw the shower for me was february 3rd, superbowl sunday. since it was sunday i didnt think many people would show up, and i was right but its okay! so the shower ended when the only guest that came went home! anyways, my mom and siblings were still here and i was putting baby stuff away around 7pm while my siblings and hubby watched the end of the superbowl. at approx 730 it hit me like a bolt of lightning. i went into labor just as i put away the last of the baby stuff! that day at church i had asked my home teachers to come by around 8pm to give me a blessing! since i didnt want to leave right away i was sitting in the living room laboring around 830 when they showed up and gave me a blessing! shane was rubbing my back and soothing me when he said, "just let me know when you want to go to the hospital" then when my next contraction came i had the strongest feeling that we should go. so we get to the hospital around 9pm and elijah is born around 950 or so! 10 days late and a two hour labor, cant win 'em all. good thing i didnt lose 'em all either!

so kindergarten goes fine for Nephi. EmmaLily reverts back to toddler stages. cant potty in the toilet and always wants to act like a "baby". yay. i get the baby blues, yet again. and life goes on a little nuts during the spring with birthdays and what not.

summertime comes with playgroup at the pool and beach days, Nephi keeps busy with kung foo classes. ends up hating them and quits. it was a scam anyway, stupid fake karate jerks!

then fall comes again with a new school year and a new teacher and a new set of problems... i will explain in a later post.... first grade.
Nephi joins cub scouts and i stupidly volunteer to be the den leader!
then all that crazy crap with prop 8 and the election. need i say more?
then once that is over and done with, not to mention while shane is going through midterms, i find out i am PREGNANT ALREADY!! fourth and final baby! we dont plan on telling anyone until after christmas, however.

anyways, before i knew it it was 2009 and now my belly is huge and i have a 1 yr old to hold still! as well as a 4 yr old to find a preschool for, and my son is almost 7, just one short year away from baptism! and on his way to earning his first complete year of cub scouts. the beginnings of yet a long stretch....

to be continued...