Amen to that

Truth

Honor

Virtue

Self-control

Honest work

Education

purpose

Life

"The home is the first and most effective place for children to learn the lessons of life: truth, honor, virtue, self-control; the value of education, honest work, and the purpose and privilege of life. Nothing can take the place of home in rearing and teaching children, and no other success can compensate for failure in the home."

David O. McKay                                           

Funny Eli

Out on the swings tonight, I expressed to the kids how swings seem to increasingly bring me nausea.

Me: "Wow, I used to be able to swing no problem when I was young, but now just watching you guys makes me queasy!  I guess I'm getting old."

Eli thought about that for a minute.

Eli: "So...does that mean we'll be getting a new mom soon?"

Hahaha, nope, sorry kiddo!  You and I are in it for life and, thankfully, much beyond that. :-)

Night Shift

Our schedule has been a little crazy lately as Jaron's been doing 14 hour night shifts.  It's strange to have him leave for the hospital at the same time he usually gets home.  It's made our evenings a little strange.  I've been on a short break between classes so the kids and I have been getting creative with our evening time. 

One night we got inspired by this blog and made some light sabers out of pool noodles I'd gotten at a garage sale last fall.  We drew star wars troopers faces (the bad guys?) out of milk jugs, stuck glow sticks in them, and had a "war" in the dark.  Yeah, uh, I never thought to get pictures of that.  But the kids had fun with these noodle-light-sabers for days.

 

Jaron even made time to play with them for a while after his 22 hour end-of-the-week shift one day (I know it's a bad picture but it's the only one I got!).  22 hours!!!  Jaron and I are different in a lot of ways but one thing we do have in common is that we both like to sleep.  We both seem to function well on about 9 hours a night.  I don't know how he's functioning on the short, scattered hours of sleep he's lately been snatching whenever and wherever he can.

 Another thing that's been going on at our house a lot lately is coloring.  The boys are coloring like mad men.  They also love to do mazes and we print them off of this site.

 And, at the risk of revealing just how obsessed I am, here is one more photo of the Amaryllis, this time in full bloom.  Be-a-u-tiful!!  It's starting to die now, but fortunately it has the potential to bloom every 2-3 months!

One Day of Winter

We finally got ONE day of real winter.  We woke up one morning and there was TWO whole inches of snow on the ground!  I held the kids in the house while Alden was in school but as soon as he got home, we had some friends over for a sledding good time!

 For the first little while, the snow was nice and light and fluffy.  But as the afternoon wore on, it began to just barely melt and turned into that perfect snowman-making snow.

 Thank you to the Bieberly family for enjoying the snow with us!

 The next morning, Eli was dying to go out again so as soon as we dropped Alden off, we got dressed up and headed out again.  The snow was ice-crusted from the night and we flew down our little hill, past the side of the house, and all the way into the front yard!  It was great fun.  Too bad the snow was almost gone by the time Alden got home from school at lunchtime!

Love from Gracen

The other day, Gracen and I were coming down the stairs and this was our conversation:

Gracen: "Mom my friend."
Me: "What?  Did you say I'm your friend?!"
Gracen: "BEST friends."

Man, oh, man.  She's said to me "best friends" a few times since that while we snuggle.  I'm not sure where she got the term "best" friends and I'm not entirely sure what she understands it to mean since toddlers can't really understand "good, better, and best," but you got it, kiddo!  And don't forget it, even (especially?!) when you're sixteen!!

My Amaryllis

After Christmas, I saw this amaryllis growing kit on clearance at Target and I couldn't resist.  I've never grown anything in my life and I'm so proud of myself!

 

 Okay, okay, all I did was add water and it grew wonderfully fast and beautifully.
The kids have enjoyed being able to literally watch it grow overnight.

 It's ridiculous how much these gorgeous blossoms make me happy.  Best $3 I ever spent!

I have to add in here what Eli said to me.  He was really excited about Valentine's Day the next day...until I told him that Santa would actually not be coming on Valentine's Day. :-D

Life

Yesterday I whipped out the video camera to catch Gracen climbing onto the arm of the chair and declaring "I biggest, I strongest!" before jumping down to the cushion on the floor.  After I got done taping, I rewound the tape awhile and came across a video from exactly one year ago.  I was astounded at how much the kids have changed in one year!!  So this post is to capture what life is like for us right now, sans pictures.

 Jaron is in the middle of his OBGYN rotation and he's surprised by how much he likes it, especially the surgery part of if.  He likes it enough to add it to the "possible things I want to be when I grow up list."  There are a few other things on that list; fortunately we have a few more months, and a few more rotations, before that list needs to be whittled down.  I love that he loves rotations.  It has been so nice to have Jaron home around dinner time almost every night.  We haven't had that in a really long time in our family!  Starting Wednesday, though, Jaron will do 2 weeks of overnight rotations where he leaves at 5:00 pm and doesn't get home until 8:00 the next morning.  It's going to be an interesting rest of the month!  We'll see how much he likes OBGYN after a stint on the night-shift!

Alden is still liking kindergarten, although not with the gusto he had at the beginning of the year.  I think his homework load every night is crushing him.  Yes, that's a KINDERGARTEN HOMEWORK load (seems like an oxymoron, doesn't it?).  He reads a book each night (that ain't the easy "Dick and Jane" readers that I remember!) and each book comes with three worksheets to complete.  This week, the worksheets addressed concepts like "adjectives" and "the main story idea."  I don't really understand the reading push in kindergarten.  I can see that all this homework has definitely made Alden into a better reader than I ever thought possible in kindergarten BUT to what end?  Will the gains he's making now have any lasting effect on his reading or comprehension abilities in the long run?  I'm not sure they will and so I resent the school's pushing kids beyond developmentally appropriate expectations.  Alden dreads homework and he's only 5!  I sometimes ask myself why I make him do the homework if I don't agree with it. I guess I've decided that Alden is capable of it - he's willing to persevere through 30 minutes of homework and he gets the satisfaction of having done a "tough thing" at the end of it.  So, as much as I may complain, it does seem to be an overall beneficial thing for Alden's personality.  At the beginning of the year, Alden really wanted to be an all-day student like most of his classmates but now he tells me he is glad he gets to be with our family in the afternoons instead.  Music to my ears! :-)

Eli is starting to get excited for attending school in the future.  He participates in a preschool group that some of the moms from church put on.  We rotate teaching and having preschool at our houses each week.  Eli absolutely loves going and has just started expressing an interest in learning  how to write and sound out letters.  Eli is very easily discouraged, though.  If he isn't able to master something right away, he completely falls apart.  This is partly his age, and partly his personality.  Eli loves to make people laugh and loves to be goofy.  He's a social kid who loves to have friends over.  It's so nice to live where we live, with so many friends within 100 yards of our door.  We seem to have friends over to play almost every single day.  Eli's best friend is Levi, who comes to play about once a week while his mom is in school.

Gracen is a dynamo.  She's not quite 2 1/2 but I'm pretty certain she considers herself to be as old as her brothers.  It isn't very often that she can't keep up with them.  She has begun speaking in full sentences, sometimes with clearly defined words, and sometimes with a word at the beginning, a long stint of gibberish in the middle, and a word or two at the end.  Gracie loves her baby dolls most of all.  She spends most of her time playing with babies, play food, or a cloth dress-up doll set we were given.  Gracen is so quick to laugh out loud at everything, which is a trait she's had since she was a baby.

I am on a 2-week break between classes at the moment.  My next class is Biopsychology and, frankly, I'm terrified of it.  The subject matter and the text seem intense and my apprehension wasn't helped when my professor e-mailed me a "welcome," stating that he has high expectations ("which shouldn't be a problem at this level of education") and will grade accordingly.  AACK!  Yeah, a friendly hello to you too!  As I've said before, I have a love-hate relationship with school.  Sometimes I dread it and hate the time I have to devote to it and how it eats up my time for hobbies.  But I also love that I am expanding my knowledge in an area that I'm interested in.  I can feel my brain being stretched by new concepts and ways of thinking.  I love being exposed to new things like that.  And I love that I'm accomplishing something worthwhile that will have lasting benefits throughout my life.  After this class, I'll be half-way to my degree!

Lately, I've also made it a priority to exercise 5 days a week.  I don't do anything intense, just a moderate cardio work-out on most days.  I think that exercise and reading scriptures daily are two things that have a synergistic effect on my life.  I know that both of those habits have benefits, but can't fully explain how doing those two things make my life so much better overall! 

We used some Christmas money from my mom to splurge on a three-month membership to a swimming pool and exercise facility in our area.  We've been taking advantage of it a lot and so far the kids haven't tired of almost daily runs to the swimming pool.  It's important to me that my kids are comfortable in water.  Eli has mastered "the noodle" in the parts of the pool where he can't touch.  Gracen seems to be absolutely fearless of the water, and often finds she's gotten herself "too deep."  It seems that Alden can doggy-paddle a little further each week.  All the kids are now to the point that they are completely comfortable with water on their heads and in their faces.  I really, really love the water and swimming lengths has a therapeutic effect to me.  Between the pool and a sister like Genny, I may never need paid therapy in my life. :-)

And that, my friends, is us at the moment!

An Afternoon of Firemen

Last week the fire department answered a call to our neighbor's house.  Nothing too serious, just a pot left on the stove too long that made a fair amount of smoke.  The call was answered by two firetrucks and four policemen who all pulled up at about the same time, lights flashing and sirens wailing.  It may not have been too fun for the neighbor, but it sure was an afternoon of excitement for us!

 The firemen went way beyond the call of duty.  They gave Eli a hat and a badge, then let him try on their gear.

 Eli decided he's going to have to grow a bit before he can be a fireman so that he's able to lug around all that heavy stuff.

 We finally coaxed Alden out of the house - I was surprised that he was so much less enthused than Eli was.  Eli wouldn't come back inside until the last firetruck pulled away.  Even then, he spent the rest of the afternoon outside "playing fireman." 

The next day, we called the fire department's dispatcher to find out which station had answered the call to our neighborhood and when they'd be back on duty.  We took them some plates of cookies to thank them for going above and beyond the call of duty.  While we were there, they let us tour the fire station and let the boys climb into the fire trucks.  And I, of course, forgot my camera! :-(

As we left the fire station armed with stickers, coloring books, and other goodies, both boys determined they will definitely be firemen for Halloween, Eli will probably have a fireman birthday party, and Eli will most likely be a fireman when he grows up!