My Kids Are Awesome

I don't write as often as I should. This is not a surprise. But last night was so epic that I had to share a few stories about my incredibly entertaining children, who apparently have a promising career ahead of them in waiting on people.

Last night Richard and I hosted his department's Christmas party. We had about 15 people, mostly those he worked with and a few spouses/family members/friends. Everyone brought so many goodies it kind of hurts my eyes to look at. The best treat, however, was the Jelly Bellies.

As you may know, my daughter has a fondness for older men. When we have guests over, she will usually pick a target and sit on his lap and spend the entire evening with him. Her first target was Greg, Richard's predecessor at The Home Depot. She asked him some questions to get to know him, and then started bringing him Jelly Bellies. She asked what his favorite color was, and would run in the kitchen to find a jelly bean in that color to bring to him.

After a while of this she realized there were other people in the room. She went back to the kitchen, returning with a huge handful of Jelly Bellies. She then walked around the room asking each person what their favorite color was and giving them a jelly bean in that color. She had to make multiple trips because her hands are small.

After a few rounds of passing out jelly beans I guess she got hungry herself. I fixed her up a little bowl of goodies and she enjoyed that for about two minutes. Then her next idea was born.

We were all sitting in a circle, chatting away, when here comes Rachel with a bowl of food. She walked up to the person next to me and handed her the bowl, then left. We discussed the event for a minute, trying to decide if she meant for the guest to take the entire bowl or just a handful out of it. Before we reached a conclusion, Rachel was back, with a bowl of goodies for the next person in the circle. It was filled with a different variety than the first bowl. She then proceeded to bring an individualized bowl of snacks to every person in the circle, with one exception.

Apparently as she was handing out Jelly Bellies, Kevin declined her offering on one round. The next round when she came around, she gave him a dirty look and skipped him, without offering anything. So when it came time to pass around the bowls of goodies, she again skipped Kevin. She came back later with a bowl for him, though.

At this point in the evening I guess Rachel had had enough of Greg, and moved on to befriend Chad. She sat in the chair right next to him and asked what kind of goodies he wanted. She ran into the kitchen to get him some treats, but when she came back someone else was sitting next to Chad. She whined for a few minutes until accommodations were made so she could continue sitting next to her new friend.

After a few people headed home, we broke out The Game of Things to be played in partners. We had an odd number of people, so there was one group of three. Rachel joined this group (since Chad was in it), making it four. She sat next to Chad with a DVD wrapped in tissue paper and a pen, and asked him what his name letters are. He carefully spelled his name for her as she wrote it out on the tissue paper. He then helped her write the names of the people around her, and she called over to me to find out what her name letters are.

The bottom line is, the party was a blast. Our kids stayed up way too late, ate way too many jelly beans, spilled way too many cups of cocoa, and won the hearts of all Richard's coworkers. I just love them.

Happy Birthday to Rachie Roo!

We've kind of inadvertently started a random tradition in our family...birthdays are not 1 day long, they last the entire month. Sometimes you just can't fit everything you want to do into one day, and that's just fine :) Rachel turned 3 yesterday, but we've already had 3 celebrations and are planning a fourth.

On Sunday we had dinner and cake with my family. The cake is another story...

Richard and I decided to go to the temple on Saturday, and we planned to hit up Cold Stone and Allen's on our way back to get an ice cream cake and groceries for that night (grill party with the Drews) and for Sunday's dinner. We left the house just after two, making it in time for the 2:40 session. Or that's what we thought, anyway. I went my usual route from the locker to the name station, only to find that there was a huge long line stretching in the opposite direction. So that slowed me up just enough to where I almost didn't make it in time for that session. But it didn't even matter...apparently a ward had taken that entire session's capacity, so we waited for the session at 3. This would normally be fine, but I was nervous about Reuben wanting to be nursed around 5 and I wasn't sure we'd make it back by then. I calmed down and told myself that I was doing what I should be, and God would take care of Reuben :) Which was good, because there were more hurdles, as it turned out. While I was in the name line, I talked to a couple of sister missionaries, and found out that they were headed to Japan on Monday. They said their entire district came to the temple one last time before they headed out. Pretty cool. So when we got into the room for the session, I saw about 10-20 Japanese boys and my heart just melted. They all had their headsets on, listening to the session in Japanese, and we actually had to pause the session twice because some of them forgot some key parts and had to have them done over again. So that slowed us up a little bit too. Another event played into our lateness, that being that for some reason the sisters had left gaps when filling in the seats, and the sweet old officiator lady started filling them in with ME. So I was in seat number 2. The men's side didn't have this problem, so Richard was in the 4th or 5th row back, behind all the cute little Japanese boys. So when it came time to move into the Celestial Room, I was the second one in. I sat near the men's entrance and waited for Richard. Usually the men come in in a pretty steady stream, about one every minute or so. These guys came in one every five minutes. As it turns out, the Japanese elders didn't speak any English, and believe it or not there were not any temple workers who spoke Japanese. So getting them through took a lot longer than normal. But then Richard finally made it, and it was wonderful. I love being in the Celestial Room with my husband more than just about anything in the world. We had to cut our time short, however, as it was already 5:20 and we had our errands to run. I called Aja once we got out of the temple and found everything to be hunky dory at home, so I just quit worrying and we went about our errands. I was a little worried that Cold Stone wouldn't have the cake we were looking for, and we'd have to stop at Baskin Robbins and possibly Wal-mart to find what we wanted, but Cold Stone had the perfect cake, and it wasn't as terribly expensive as we were expecting. So off we went to home, and the rest of the evening was fantastic.

So back to Sunday. We made burgers and fries for Rachel's birthday dinner, figuring she loves fries and we had all these burgers waiting to be grilled. We also made a fruit salad, and I sliced and plated a lovely dish of tomatoes. That's what ended up in front of Rachel, and that's about all she ate for dinner lol. I love that she loves tomatoes :) After dinner we brought out the cake with candles and everything, and she knew exactly what to do. Then my parents brought in the gift they had bought for her, a tricycle with a purple helmet, and we went outside to play with that for a while until we all froze. So that was birthday celebration number 1.

On her birthday I tried to explain things to her and get her excited, but there wasn't much we could do that day because the car was in the shop and I wouldn't be able to get it because I worked that afternoon. Mornings tend to be our out-and-about time. But I tried to get her excited about being three, and we were planning to give her our gift that evening. Trying to make the day special for her turned out to be really difficult because she was soooooo naughty! I wanted to spoil her all day long, but she was so rotten that she ended up being punished most of the day. Whatever. You can't choose the day your kids behave, right? Anyway we had a yummy dinner that night as well, and then I suggested we have ice cream for dessert. Then we gave Rachel her gift from us, an easel with a white board on one side and a chalk board (which we found out doesn't work) on the other. She LOVES it. Unfortunately she drew all over her arms today with the marker and lost her privileges for a while, but she'll have another chance to enjoy it later.

So today was her real birthday celebration. The car was finished while I was working on Monday, so I planned to go for a run in the morning with the kids to pick it up and then we'd just go straight to the mall from there. It's exactly two miles from our house to the car shop, so I weaved a little to make it three. I was nervous that I wouldn't make it the whole way, because my legs had become weak sauce over the winter, but I did it! And as a bonus, Reuben slept the whole way. The poor guy has been sick, and he took about 5 naps today. I think he'll finally feel better in the morning. So we got to the car and loaded up to go to the mall. The first thing we did when we got there was head over to the train stop, but the train was out, so we played on the playground for a few minutes until it arrived. Then Rachel got to ride on the "chugga choo choo train" and she loved it. She's been obsessed with trains for a couple weeks, and since I couldn't find her a purple one like she wanted, I figured going for a ride in one would be the next best thing. Reuben liked it too :)

After the train ride we went upstairs for some lunch, and Rachel requested we get pizza. Their kids meals are huge, but she ate almost the entire slice and enjoyed her juice. She kept saying "This is a really yummy lunch!" which made me happy :) I wanted to take the kids back to the play area, but we were nearing nap time and hadn't finished our festivities of the day yet, so we we took off. I then took her to a hair salon and she had her first ever hair cut. She looks so cute! Her hair has been kind of difficult to manage lately, not only because of the scissors incident 6 months ago but because it's never EVER been cut, so she still has her stringy baby hairs and everything is different lengths. Well, not anymore. She also has a small amount of bangs, but those will grow out soon enough. She really enjoyed it. And after that I got her an ice cream cone at DQ and wow, I don't think she was expecting anything that fantastic.

I know she's only 3, but I hope this day was fun for her. I hope she remembers it for a while, and I hope she felt special. We'll be heading up to Logan this weekend to have celebration number 4 with Richard's family, and that will be extra fun for her because she'll get to see her cousins.

I sure love my girl :)

Playing Like a Child

I've never been a huge fan of snow games. I hate snowball fights, I've never been downhill skiing, and I'm usually the last person to suggest we go sledding. In addition to that, I think we as adults, and parents especially, can sometimes tend to rush on to the next activity, the next item on the to-do list, and don't always stop to enjoy the moment. Kids are good at that - enjoying everything as it's happening. Your kid will never be the first one to say "You know, I'm done. Let's go back inside." I'm always the one telling Rachel "Ok, one more time then we're going in." It's not really that we're in a rush to go anywhere or do anything, I've just had my fun. I've become a person who only has to try things one time. If we go sledding, I'm happy to go down one time and then hold the baby so everyone else can have fun. If we go snow-mobiling, I'm happy to make one lap around the field and then sit on the sidelines while everyone else takes their turn. I don't need another turn, and I don't really want one.

Rachel has been begging me for weeks to go sledding. I've been glad for the excuse of no snow to not go. I kept telling her "We'll go as soon as there's snow." So the first day we had two inches she started begging again. I started getting sad to tell her that there wasn't enough to go sledding, and I began hoping that it would snow for a few days and stick so she could go play in it. I even started trying to figure out a schedule where I'd be able to take her out while Reuben slept, or while someone else was home to hold him so we could go out and play.

On Thursday, it snowed. A lot! I was so excited. I haven't been so excited about snow for years, especially not to play in it, but I was excited that Rachel would be able to. On Friday, Richard mentioned that he wanted to come home early so he could take Rachel sledding over at the neighbor's house. That made me so happy, and I was excited for the fun time they would have. Well, that didn't end up happening, but it was already a plan in my mind. It didn't work out for Friday, since I had errands to run in the morning and work in the afternoon, but I made it a plan for Saturday.

The second I got off work in the morning, I started bundling kids up to go play outside. I made sure we were all snug and warm, myself the most. I'm always the first to get cold, and I wanted to make sure Rachel could have as much fun as possible. I moby-ed Reuben to my front and got all our gloves on, and out we went. I showed Rachel where we would make a path up the hill, and where we would sled down. I figured I could go down with her one time, then she could go by herself after that. So I and my infant lumbered onto the sled, and Rachel sat in front of us. We went down the first time and I thought, gee that was fun. But I'm done now. That's all I needed.

I carried the sled to the top of the hill and Rachel got on and went down by herself about a million times. It was fun to walk down the hill and get the sled to the top while she climbed up herself, but I started to get that itch to be done. I wasn't cold, I wasn't tired, and Rachel was having a blast, but I didn't need to do it again. But Rachel did. Every time she got to the bottom of the hill she would turn around and I would say "Look how far you went!" and she'd repeat it, then say "Let's do it again!" How can you argue with that? So I kept climbing down the hill to bring the sled back to the top.

As I walked, I watched my tiny daughter and saw how much fun she was having. I realized how cooped up she'd been all winter, and how much she has always loved being outside. I remembered that she had spent a fair amount of time in front of the TV that morning, and knew she'd want to watch something after her nap. And I knew that no one would be hungry for at least another hour. So I decided to let my little girl have her fun, and determined to stay out much longer.

After a few more times of watching Rachel zoom down the hill, making the trail a little longer each time, I realized something I didn't expect: I wanted to go down again. I saw how much fun Rachel was having, and I wanted to have that much fun too. Even though I had 18 lbs of Reuben strapped to my front, big bulky gloves, and no snow boots, I wanted to play in the snow. So I stooped down to sit on the sled and Rachel climbed on in front of me. We zoomed down the hill, even farther than she had gone, then all tumbled off to climb up the hill again. It was so fun! We went down together again and again and again, and each trip up the hill I could see and feel Rachel's excitement, and it mingled with my own.

Sometimes adults need to play like a child, to remember that life was meant to be enjoyed, not endured. Our lives are busy, and there's always so much more to get done. But it's not all going to happen today, is it? So why not take some time out to zoom down a hill for an hour.

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!

New phrases from Miss Smartypants

I love my daughter and the things she says :) New this week:

I don't know! (when asked what a picture is)
Breakstast
Mom, I'm poopy please! (as I'm changing her and asking why she didn't tell me she was poopy)
Mommy, what's wrong? (as I'm rubbing my tired eyes)
Yeah, that's funny!
Mom, you spat? (after I brushed my teeth. I don't think I've said the word spat ever in her earshot)
Mom, I picked my nose!
Where IS everybody?
Daddy, I need breakstast. I want granola cereal. It's not all gone, mommy buyed some at the store!
Mom, I need to work (translation: I want to play on the computer)

Funny stories from today:
Richard dropped Rachel off in nursery, where she immediately stole a toy from Emmalyn. Richard told her she needed to ask Emmalyn for the toy instead of just taking it. Meanwhile, Emmalyn had moved on to another activity and had forgotten the stolen toy. So for a while we had Rachel chasing Emmalyn around saying "Nemmyn! I have toy? Nemmyn! I have toy?" while Emmalyn ignored her.
After church I was pulled aside by an RS sister to talk about a possibly tutoring gig (yay!), and Richard needed to go find a Bishopric member to talk about a Temple recommend. He got stopped by someone else, and in the confusion and all the people Rachel kind of disappeared. Richard leaned over to tell me his plans, and to ask where Rachel went. I kind of pointed, and he said "I'll find her." After we met up later, he told me she had been determined to get to the cultural hall, and feeling incredibly comfortable in her surroundings just started squeezing between people, pushing them apart with her tiny hands saying "Skooz me! Skooz me!"

What I love about my kids

Rachel
She says "hi" to EVERYONE
She loves to learn
She actually likes vegetables
She is routined to the point that I told her for two days in a row she could have a chocolate after she took a nap that now she thinks that is an everyday thing
She comes up with the awesomest games
She loves to dance
She loves to sing
She will play by herself with her toys in her room for four hours uninterrupted, and when we go to get her she has created a WORLD in there
She gives the best hugs
She tells me EVERYTHING
She learns quickly, and remembers for a long time
Her laugh
Her smile
Her pretty little face
Her cute little hands
Her HUGE belly
Her long hair
How she has to take off her clothes and put on her jammies before she can take a nap
How she says "I got it got it got it" when she wants to do something herself
How she knows the role of each person in the house. Mommy says no, daddy gives her candy, Grandma lets her play "birds", Aja does everything Rachel tells her to, Camary paints her toes...
How she obeys certain rules
How much she loves her brother
The stories she tells
The songs she loves to sing
The names she gives to movies and books, like "The penguin one (Happy Feet)" and "The butterfly one (Fern Gulley)"
The way she brushes her teeth
The way she climbs into the car
The way she says "Love you!" on her way out of the room

Reuben
His bright, beautiful blue eyes
His soft, fuzzy hair
His tiny soft hands
His smooth pink belly :)
His little boy laugh
His high-pitched squeal
His cute little teeth
His happy sounds
How solid and strong he is
How he's already trying to walk and hasn't yet learned to roll over from his back to his tummy, not to mention crawling
How he lights up, smiles, and starts flapping his arms when he sees me
How he sticks out his tongue when he smiles
How happy he is in the tub
How he loves to smile
How he knows what to do when I pat his mouth so he'll make "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba" noises
How well he eats at mealtime
How incredibly distractedly he nurses
How much he loves Rachel and is entertained by her
The way he holds on so tight and snuggles me
The way he leans over to look around me while I'm holding him
The way he puts his feet together when he's on his back
The way he snuggles when I rock him to sleep
The way he smells
The way he loves to stand up rather than sit
The way he pats my face while he nurses
The way he balls up his hands when he's STARVING
The sounds he makes when he's soooo tired but doesn't quite want to go to sleep yet
The smile he gives right after he's done eating
How happy he is with the simplest of toys
How he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth (including Brussels sprouts, as it turns out)
How he loves being warm