Malia's Story

I'm finally feeling like things are getting back to normal. We are getting into our routine. Thank heavens! Everyone who told me that having four kids is the same as having three obviously doesn't remember what it was like to go from three kids to four! It certainly isn't as easy as they made it seem like it would be. However, it does seem to be getting more manageable as I figure out Malia's routines and her personality. She is such a sweet baby. Simon, Nolan and Bella absolutely LOVE her.

Bella probably "loves" her a little too much. She won't leave Malia alone. Any opportunity Bella gets, she has to go give Malia kisses and loves. The other day I was in the office on the computer and Bella came marching in holding Malia with a huge smile on her face. She proudly said "I holding Balia mom!". . . Yikes! She always wants to hold Malia. It drives me crazy! Nolan wasn't too thrilled with her at first. He didn't want anything to do with her at the hospital. I had to bribe him to take a picture with him holding Malia. He is liking her more and more. He loves to look at her tiny fingers and toes. He says that he is tickling her. You can see the fascination in his eyes when he is looking at her. It's so cute. Simon has always loved her. He likes to hold her and "pet" her (that's rubbing her head).
Here are a few more pictures from the hospital. . .

And here is Malia when we came home from the hospital. She is so darn cute! :)


Ben's dad was able to come out here on the 29th, so he got to see Malia at the hospital. It was such a blessing to have him here. He was an incredible help with the kids. The poor guy, I'm not sure that's what he signed up for. He stayed with the kids, so Ben could stay with me. It was wonderful. Ben's mom came on Wednesday the 31st. They both stayed until Sunday. It was so much fun having them here. I know the kids would agree with me. I'm not sure how or why this happened, but I didn't take many pictures of them while they were here. Stupid. We do have this one. . .the only one. . .

My parents came here on April 7. that was another blessing. It was so nice to have both sets of parents here to help and play with the kids. Luckily, my mom had her camera with her so I have more pictures of our time with them. This picture was taken at the zoo. . .
We were also able to bless Malia while my parents were here. We decided to bless her a little earlier than we normally would have so that my dad could stand in the circle. I was glad that we could have some family here. I wish we could have had everyone here, but I guess that's what we get for living so far away! Here are some pictures of Malia in her blessing dress:

The pink blanket that Malia is on was made by her Tia (Ben's sister Angela). Don't you think it's so pretty? It's her first time crocheting something! Way to go Angela!
Well, I think that catches me up on Malia. I took her to the doctor for her two week visit and she weighed 9 lbs. 10 oz.! She certainly eats often enough to warrant that kind of weight gain. We sure do enjoy having her around. . .even if she is eating all of the time. :)

Malia Karen Bliss

This picture was taken with the camera on my phone, so it's not that great, sorry! I'll post more pictures soon. . .better pictures. :) Anyway, here is our sweet angel!

Malia Karen Bliss
March 29, 2010
5:47 PM
7 lbs. 4 oz.
19.5 inches

Nolan's Poor Pets

When I was putting the boys to bed last night, I noticed that there was water all over the top of their dresser. They each have a fish bowl with a beta fish. This was our conversation. . .

Me: "Why is there water all over the dresser? You can't keep moving your fish bowls around or your fish are going to die. . .(I look in Nolan's fish bowl) Nolan, your fish is dead again." (yes, that is his second dead fish. . .)

Simon: "That's because he likes to pick his fish up to play with him."

Me: "Nolan, you can't pick your fish up out of the water. Fish have to stay in the water or they can't breathe."

Nolan: "That's okay. I'll go get a new fish."

Me: "We aren't getting you another fish if you can't learn how to take care of them, and you don't have any money to buy a new fish."

Simon: "My fish isn't dead mom."

Nolan: "That's because you don't love your fish and you don't like to play with him."

. . .Poor fishy.

Blogging Blah's

I haven't been much of a blogger lately. I am finding that there are a lot of things I'd like to get done before we have another baby, and when I'm not doing anything. . .I want to be doing just that, nothing. :) Blogging seems to get put on the back burner quite often. I'm not going to promise that I'll be better. . .because I know I won't. But I will give you a quick little update on what has been going on at the Bliss residence.

It has been the coldest Winter North Carolina has seen in 30 years! Ugh. We leave Utah to get away from the cold and snow. . .and this is what we get! It has been sooooo cold here. We also had a "huge" snow storm that closed down dang near everything. It was expected to snow on a Friday afternoon. . .so naturally, since they THOUGHT it might snow, they cancelled all of the church activities that the ward had planned for the weekend. It did end up snowing on Friday. . .this is a picture of our house after the unimaginable amount of snow. . .haha!
You can still see the grass! The kids loved playing in the snow. They only lasted for 30 minutes or so, because it was so dang cold.

They ended up canceling church on Sunday because of how far most people had to drive. School was canceled on Monday, and they had a delayed start on Tuesday due to the weather "situation." It all seemed a little extreme coming from a Utahn. To their credit. . .the roads were like ice. We could have gone ice skating in our driveway if we had the right equipment. :) They also don't have the snow plows and salt trucks etc. to deal with it all. I also don't think people know how to drive in the snow or on ice around here. But still, it was a little strange. I had never even heard of church being canceled.

We have a brand new church building too! We have gone from a 30 minute drive to church down to an 8 minute drive! Hallelujah! Sundays are still pretty long days around here, but it's a little more bearable with the church so much closer. It is still kind of strange to go to church every week. It is the exact same building as the new one we were in before we moved here. Our bishop even has the same office as our Utah bishop had. I keep thinking I should see people from our old ward when I walk in. I am disappointed every time though. It makes me sad.

The kids are growing like weeds, as I'm sure you can tell by the pictures of them on the sidebar. They sure are cute little stinkers!

Simon is doing amazing in school. He is super smart, loves to read and do math (got that from his dad). He is at the top of his class and loving it.

Nolan has been an angel lately. He is the funniest kid. I just love talking to him and hearing all of the funny things that he comes up with. He is thrilled to pieces to be going to preschool next year. It makes me sad to think that he is getting so big. We are working on getting him to stop sucking his fingers. So far, nothing is working.

Isabella is doing amazing at potty training. I consider her D-O-N-E done! She doesn't have to be reminded anymore, and she goes all by herself! The only diapers we use are the ones that she wears during naps and at night! Hooray for Bella! Hooray for me!!

Malia is still kicking away. I am being induced a little early to make sure there is a baby here when Ben's mom comes. So, I have about two weeks left! Hooray for me again! It seems odd to think that we will have four kids soon. I've been yelled at by a number of people because they haven't seen my big fat belly. . .so here you go. It's not the greatest picture in the world, but it will have to do. . .now stop whining!
I imagine my next post will be pictures of a sweet baby Malia! Maybe sometime soon I will get around to posting pictures of the rest of the rooms in our house that I've finished too. All in good time. :)

Dora the Angel Explorer!

I love Dora. Other than her incredibly annoying, almost unbearable voice, she's an angel. First of all, she's a great babysitter when I need to get something done and don't want Bella's little helping hands. Bella will sit on the couch with a pillow and a blanket and not move if Dora is on. She'd sit there all day if I let her (it's awfully tempting sometimes). But most importantly, she is the reason Bella wants to wear "Dola Panies." And, since we don't pee on Dora panties we are on day two of potty training with only one accident, which was my fault. Thank heaven for Dora!

Wouldn't it be nice if Bella was out of diapers before Malia comes?? Here's hoping!

Back to Normal

The end of December went by so fast! We had a great Christmas (for the most part). The best part was that Ben's Mom, Dad and Collin came to visit us! It was great to have them here. The kids loved playing with Collin and Bella didn't leave Grandpa alone for two seconds!
Ben and Trent went hunting and shot a deer, something they haven't done for a couple of years (shooting a deer that is). We went to see Princess and the Frog. Loved that movie...didn't love taking Bella to the theater. I also got to play Pinochle!! I love that game. It's one thing I miss quite a bit. Jeri Lynn helped me make another turkey dinner. We did it the same way I did for Thanksgiving. It turned out great! I'm definitely going to make my turkeys that way from now on. If you ask Collin our "Thanksgiving dinner" was his favorite part of the trip. I take that as quite the compliment, considering Collin is a bit of a picky eater. We went to Bass Pro Shops to see Santa, and we also spent a day at the Hall's farm.
One sad thing was that Collin was sick for the first part of his vacation. At one point he said
"Why do I have to be sick on the best day of my life?"
Trent also got sick. . .then I got sick. . .then Jeri Lynn got sick, then it was time to go home. :(
We were very sad when they had to leave. Bella woke up the next morning and wandered around the house calling for Grandpa. She started crying when I told her that Grandpa had to go home. She kept saying "No Grandpa go home, no plane, no airport" It was very cute, but also sad. Having them here was a great distraction from the sadness that I would have when I'd think about missing all of the holiday festivities in Utah. The other distraction was that on Christmas Eve Ben had to take me to the urgent care. That was fun. I was very sick, and not getting better. Come to find out I tested positive for strain A flu. They said it's likely I had the Swine flu, but they don't even test to see if it's Swine flu or not anymore. It's the same treatment either way. The reason it hit me so hard is because I'm pregnant. They told me a few different things I could take to help with the symptoms, but basically they said, suffer through it. That was fun too.
Ben got sick on Christmas so we sat around, like stumps, and let the kids play with their toys. They made an absolute mess of the house, but we didn't really care. We couldn't move. :)
It was actually pretty sad. I barely got any pictures of the kids on Christmas. We did let them open one gift on Christmas Eve. It was their new pajamas. I also made them take a picture in front of the tree. They are pretty cute kids!
Other than being sick, we really did have a great Christmas. We enjoyed getting Christmas cards from so many people, my mom sent me a care package a few weeks before with Cinnamon bears (I think it was a five or ten lb. bag from sam's club. . .and it's gone. . .I didn't really share either) and Arctic Circle's fry sauce (Yay!) among other things, and Ben also got me a Cricut!!

So, now that everything is calming down, everyone is feeling better (lucky for us none of the kids got the flu!), Simon is back in school, Ben is back to work, and the house is clean once again, everything is feeling a little less chaotic. Sigh. :) Only three more months until it all becomes chaos again and baby Malia comes! I can't wait!

Pop Goes the Birdie

Remember how Nolan's green bird died a little while ago? And we got him a new bird, which he has no clue was a different bird? I went to go change the birds water and food and it was dead. Yes, dead. I mean, really? What are the chances?

I decided that I needed to just tell Nolan that his bird died, and that we would go exchange it for a new one (Lucky for us it died before we had it for 14 days). I didn't really want to have that conversation with him. I was worried that he would be sad and crying and I'd have to explain death to a four year old. Here is our conversation. . .

Me: "Nolan, come here for a minute. I need to talk to you about something."
Nolan: "What do you need to talk to me about mom?"
Me: "Well, last night when I went to change your birdies food and water, I saw that Sprite had died."
Nolan: "Oh." (pause pause pause) "Well, why did he die?"
Me: "Well our pets and all of the animals are just like people. Everyone will die sometime, your birdie just died last night."
Nolan: "Oh." (pause pause pause) "Sooooo, how did he die?"

. . .At this point, I was suspicious of the other bird killing the last two birds. I didn't share this with him though. :) . . .

Me: "I don't know how it died Sweet Heart."
(pause pause pause)
Nolan: "I know how it died."
Me: "You do?"
Nolan: "Yeah, it sang too much."
Me: "It sang too much?"
Nolan: "Yeah, ya know? Like the bird on Shrek. It sang too much and it just popped. I think my birdie sang to much and popped.
Me: "You could be right." (What do you say to that?!?)

To me, that was hilarious. We went to get the replacement bird and when we came back home and started putting it in the cage. Nolan noticed some of the last birds feathers on the floor and on the cage by the table. He says "See mom, I think those are the birdies feathers from when he popped."

Who knew a conversation about your kids pet dying could go so well?

Come to find out, the blue bird, Nimbus, had been keeping Sprite II from getting any food. Now we have two food dishes and two water dishes in their cage so we don't have another bird die.

Turkeys, Birds, and Babies

I made my very first turkey this year! Aside from a minor (or maybe not so minor) break down, where I was sobbing to my mother. . .all went well!

We had quite a few people invite us over for Thanksgiving dinner, but Ben and I wanted to have our own dinner with just our little family. So, of course, I had to pick a somewhat complicated turkey recipe. I googled "the best turkey recipe" and Emeril's brined herb roasted recipe was at the top. I looked at the reviews and every single person who gave a review gave it five stars.

I had to put the turkey in the brine the day before Thanksgiving, to give it enough time to soak. Now, keep in mind that I haven't ever cooked a turkey. . .I haven't even watched anyone do it. It's always cooked when I get to the party! I opened the turkey to wash it off before putting it in the brine, and it didn't look right. There was a thing sticking out of it. A thing that I had never seen before, and that made the turkey look different from any cooked turkey I've ever seen. So, I called my mom to ask her about it, and during the conversation I had a little break down. I didn't really want to make the turkey at that moment, and I wanted to be in Utah for Thanksgiving. She calmed me down a little bit and told me to leave the turkey how it was and whatever it was that was sticking out of the turkey wouldn't hurt it. So I should just put it in my brine and let Ben help me with it when I got it ready to cook. And that's what I did (after calling Ben and crying to him and him calling his mom and telling her about it, and his mom calling me on skype to see the turkey. . .it was fun. . .). Anyway, this is my turkey in the brine.
The next day when I took it out, I showed Ben my deformed turkey and he told me it was the neck. They just hadn't cut it off like they usually do. Ben cut it off for me and it looked normal. :)

Here is my turkey all cooked. It turned out sooooo yummy! I would definitely recommend this recipe. Also a picture of our yummy dinner.


I never realized how much work it is to cook everything, and then clean it all up. There has always been multiple people sharing the work. It was still kind of fun to have our own dinner and start some new family traditions! I'm going to make this turkey again when Ben's mom and dad and Collin come (in 11 days)!
I also made the yummiest banana cream pie from scratch! My first pie ever! That was super yummy too!
In other news, one of Nolan's birds died. We have no clue how. Nolan hasn't even had them for three weeks! I told Ben he has to go buy him another one. Nolan would be so sad if he knew his birdie died. He just loves them. . .I'm going to have to think up a reason why the bird isn't in it's cage. . .hmm? I'm hoping it's okay to lie to your kids in this type of situation. . .because that's what I'm going to do. :)

And last but not least, and certainly the most important news is that I had my ultrasound and we found out that we are having a girl! Her name is going to Malia. . .I just can't think of a middle name that goes well with it. Any ideas? This is a picture of a picture. . .sorry it's not that great.

Nolan is Four!

Our sweet Nolan turned four on Tuesday! We love our little Nolan so much. He is tons of fun to be around and makes Ben and I laugh and smile every day. He's also so very cute!
I kind of felt bad this year. Nolan thought that we were going to have a party where everyone he knows would come over and we would all sing happy birthday and he would get to open presents, "Like Simon and Bella got to do." Unfortunately that wasn't really possible. So, I tried to make his birthday a very very fun day for him.
First, Ben was helping clean the Columbia, SC temple, so Nolan, Bella and I tagged along. It takes about an hour and a half to get there. . .which is kind of a long trip, but while we were there, we walked around the temple (which is an incredibly small temple), visited Nephi's books across the street, and we went on a search for a McDonald's. We had to drive two and a half miles to get to one, but that's what Nolan wanted to do, so we did it! We spent a good amount of time playing on the play place and eating smoothies. They even gave Nolan a little book and pencil because it was his birthday.When we got home from the temple, Nolan and I baked his cake, he opened his presents that everyone sent to him, and then we went to dinner at Showmars. Nolan informed the waitress that it was his birthday, and she brought him a milkshake. He was thrilled!
Most of the presents were cards with money in them. Nolan has been wanting fish for a long time. . ."the kind that come to our house and that you don't eat." So, Ben and I thought it would be a fun birthday present if his family sent Nolan money instead of toys. Then he could use all the money to buy some fish. When we told Nolan our idea he was stoked! He could hardly wait until after dinner. My mom also got him some bakugan ball thingies that he loves. He wouldn't leave me alone until I opened them, and then was mad when I told him he couldn't take them to dinner. . .We went to the pet store and Nolan started picking out the fish that he wanted. Then Ben said "Nolan would you rather have a snake?" Um...no. No snakes. Mom nixed that idea. However, it did get the idea in Nolan's head that he could have a pet other than fish. He looked at dwarf hamsters and lizards but ended up with two birds. Lucky for us, birds are a lot less work than fish, so it worked out.
He got one green and yellow bird which he named Sprite, and one blue bird that he named Nimbus (Ben's mom thought of that one). He loves his little birds. He even helps change the water and give them their food. He watches them and talks to them, and they even talk back!I always thought birds were a mess, but they really aren't. They are actually pretty fun to have. They have to stay in the cage for the first week, to get used to their new home. We are also supposed to talk to them as much as possible so that they can get used to our voices. Next week, we will be able to let them out and hop around. Ben and I both learned how to clip their wings so they can't fly away. Nolan is excited to let them out. I'm kind of excited too. They really are cute little birds.
When we got home, we talked to Ben's parents and my mom on Skype, then had cake and superhero popsicles.
Aside from not having everyone over to celebrate with him, I think Nolan had a fun day. Happy Birthday sweet boy! We sure do love you. :)

My Buddy And Me

We have always called Simon "Buddy." I'm not sure where it started, but he's always been Buddy. Not anymore. Today I called him Buddy (like always) and he told me "The name's Simon."
I'm sad that he grew out of that. . .he's not my Buddy anymore. :(