Good Morning!

Ah....what a great morning.

Small successes are what make my days doable. Last night Richard and I were in bed before 10, which is something we've been trying to do for a few weeks now. We're getting old, which makes it easier, because our bodies are done functioning after about 9:30. The bad news is I took a 2 hr nap yesterday, so I couldn't fall asleep until after 11. At any rate, we were both up before 6:30 which means I showered AND did my hair AND ate breakfast all before the kids got up! THAT is a good morning, in my book. Now I'm not stressed, and I'll be able to get a lot done while Reuben takes his morning nap.

I discovered this morning that I am Reuben's morning coffee. He grumbles incoherently with his eyes closed, trying to get to the side of the bed where I feed him, until I do so and then he finally wakes up. I just laughed this morning. I picked him up and he leaned waaaaay over, pointing with his head where he wanted to go. He cracks me up. I swear he's ready to be older than he is. He seems to get frustrated when his body can't figure out how to do what he wants it to. But he is now creeping quite well and getting better at pulling himself up to standing. He's also been sick for a while, though, and that gets sad. He's to the mucus clearing stage, which means he'll cough A LOT and when that doesn't work he ends up throwing up :( He's started falling in love with different people, which is fun. When he sees my mom or Aja, Beau, and Eli he actually reaches for them now, which is great for me because he's been incredibly clingy for the past 3 months or so. I sure love that boy.

After getting Reuben dressed, we walked into the living room to find that Rachel's light was on. I knocked on her door and she hissed at me. She's been hissing lately, it's goofy. I knocked again and she said "Come in!" so I did. She was sitting in one of her toy boxes with her Kermit hat on, and when she saw me she jumped up and yelled "I'm poopy!!" which is perfect because we might start potty training this week. While I changed her diaper she asked me about what I was wearing, and I told her it was my boom box shirt. She said "You wear that shirt with a sweater?", which I certainly was. Then she had me switch packages of wipes, because the other one was "squishy". She saw a heart on the wipe package and began telling me about the heart chocolates she ate for Valentine's Day and how they were all gone. Then she changed the subject to that of purple granola cereal, which she ran upstairs to find. She just came back down dragging a bag of cereal, explaining that the purple granola cereal is all gone but she needs a bowl and a spoon. Oh man, I love my kids :)

Listing Memories

When I was in college I had a post-it stuck to the wall by my bed. Each night as I climbed into bed to read my scriptures, I would write on the post-it words that would remind me of funny things that had happened that day. Then later, during the summer or whenever I had time away from school to write in my journal, I would pull out the list and write out the stories. I've noticed lately that I haven't had time to sprint to the computer whenever my kids do something I want to remember, so I've been trying the post-it technique for the past couple weeks. I don't do it every day, and I'm sure I'm still missing tons of great stories, but it's a start :) So here are some stories from lately.

29 January 2012
We spent this weekend in Logan. Richard's brother Ben went through the temple in preparation to serve his mission, and we spent a wonderful morning with him at the temple while our kids wreaked havoc at Danny and Marilyn's house. Later that afternoon, EVERYONE came over and we had a yummy meal and good company and spent the evening playing games and watching movies. The entire time Richard was on a roll spouting off ridiculous jokes. He just kept GOING and I punched him every time. I wish I could remember some of them, but man I love my husband :)

Before our trip, I put an app on our iPod for Rachel that helps her learn letters. She loves it, and she is constantly coming up to me asking if she can play the "star one" because the icon has a star on it. At one point during our stay in Logan she asked for it, and I let her play for a few minutes. Her cousin Sara came in and showed a great interest in what she was doing. These two are a year apart, and for most of their lives have had a hard time getting along, but they seemed to hit a magic spot this weekend and suddenly became best friends. Sara asked nicely if she could play the letter game, and Rachel handed her the iPod. They took turns like that, each one doing one part of the game, for a good 20 minutes. It was one of the sweetest things I've seen lately. They spent the rest of the day playing together, and whenever Rachel got sad about something (which often happens when we're on a trip and she misses her nap time) Sara would come find her and ask if she wanted to go play barbies or watch a show with her. It's fun to be a mom and see my kids making friends.

Marilyn's kids sure love her. It's so fun to watch them trying to be with her all the time, and it's neat to see how lovingly she treats them. Right now she's still nursing her youngest, and he is SUPER clingy. He always wants her to hold him, and now that he can walk that means he's constantly running up to her and hugging her legs, begging to be picked up. Well, when we get together there's usually a lot of women in the kitchen preparing food or feeding babies, and this was the case this weekend. So when Ammon came running in to find his mommy to pick him up, he ended up just grabbing the first legs he saw, which were mine. I looked down and said "Hey, buddy!" He looked up, gave me a weird look, then ran across the room to find his real mommy. Funny kid :)

Sometimes adults stay up way too late and eat way too much eclair cake, and then lots of stupid things become really funny at 10:30 pm. I was browsing facebook while Richard set up the game we were going to play and came across this awesome picture and could not stop laughing:


My poor sweet Rachel really has a hard time when we get together with family. She's finally to the age where she can play with the other kids, but she's still young enough and so tiny that they don't always want to play with her. She also gets cranky in the evening if she doesn't get her nap, so everything is a big deal and she ends up crying over little offenses. I heard her downstairs crying and went to see what I could do to help her feel better. I don't remember what the problem was, but while we were down there we found some Hulk hands Jake got for Christmas a few years ago. I picked them up along with my daughter and we went upstairs to play with them where I could see her. She put the hands on and started knocking people over, and she loved it. It made me so happy to see her having fun after such a rough day :)

My boy is needy. This is not a secret. He doesn't always do well when we travel, so nights are usually hard. Sometimes naptimes are equally hard. This was one of those trips. We spent the morning at the temple, which meant leaving him with a sitter, and he did better than expected but still wouldn't let me put him down once we got back. When it was time for his afternoon nap he actually went down okay, but he was sleeping in Emilee's room and she didn't know that. So she went in to grab something and he woke up. I figured he was up for the day, but he was so groggy and grumpy that I thought I'd try putting him back down. Didn't work. So I figured I'd just hold him for a while and see how he would do. Well...he fell asleep! In a crowded, noisy living room filled with kids, babies, and a movie playing. I ended up falling asleep with him on my chest, which we haven't done since he was brand new. It was a lovely afternoon :)

One more funny story and then I think I'll wrap up for the night. We left for the temple a little later than expected, and it ended up being a day that everyone in Cache Valley was there. We parked on the street and then scurried up the hill to the entrance. Danny was coming from the parking lot and started running when he saw us. This made his pants hike up, and we could see that he was doing the sneaky white socks move. Richard commented on it, and Danny lifted his pants even higher so we could see the entirety of both socks.

Sometimes after I write down these memories it seems like they were only funny to me. But you know what? It's my blog, so if they aren't funny to you, you don't have to read them :)

So...good night!