The Mortensen Family

This is Wyatt's version of The Jonas Brothers.

Emma has been dying to have a tea party with Daddy so Friday night we decided to let her run the show and we'd have a tea party. She had a great time telling everyone what to do. We made special cupcakes for the occasion. She told the boys that they had to wear ties and shoes. Somehow they all decided to be cowboys. She was Sleeping Beauty and I was Mary.

My kids are in this phase that I don't like right now. I will call it the wild and crazy phase. Carson thinks he's old enough to just do anything he wants by himself. For example, filling up the bubble machine himself and wasting half of the bubbles, or going in the kitchen and getting his own snack any time he wants. These are not bad things but it turns out to break and waste a lot of things. One child doing it would be ok, but I have three! They are also very loud all the time. They love to fight and wrestle, most of the time they are having fun. But they just seem so loud and wild. And worst of all, their ears are broken. No one ever listens to me. Ever. I am so embarrassed going anywhere because I'm that mom who has no control over her kids. When will this phase end? Please end soon.

We were invited to spend a couple of days with the Taylor's at their beachhouse. It was overcast and a little chilly, but that didn't stop us from having fun! The kids loved playing in the water and the playground. They had a "blast" squirting each other with the water blasters. They even loved watching The Sandlot. I must say I had the best time of all because I got to chat it up with Chan!

I love them. I remember growing up and getting strawberries from the stand and my mom telling me I couldn't eat them until we got home and washed them (I always snuck a few anyway). Then standing over the sink and washing them, eating them, and throwing the stem in the sink. I think I'd eat a whole basket this way. It was always a standard dessert to have strawberry shortcake. Mom would make it out of Bisquick and she'd smush the strawberries, but leave a bowl of them cut up for me because I didn't like them squished. And in the morning I would heat up the shortcake in the microwave, put whip cream on it and have it for breakfast. I never even knew you could buy strawberries from the grocery store until I went to BYU. Even then I refused to buy them from the grocery store. It wasn't until I got married that I learned you could put sugar on store bought strawberries and then they would come close to the flavor I was used to. Now, I resort to buying them at Costco. But I still look forward to strawberries when I go to my mom's house, fresh from the stand.

All of my kids are blankie children. (I know it has nothing to do with me having a blankie until high school...or after!) They all started out with beautiful crocheted blankets that Grandma Paula made them. When they got too small and ratty, we put them away and bought new blankies. They each love their blankies and sleep with them every night. Many times when I can't find Emma, she is in on her bed rubbing her "favorite corner" of her blankie. She'll tell me that she just needs to rest for a few minutes.