New Glasses

Luke just got some totally sweet new glasses.  He loves them.

He's come a long way since that first little pair...

(and at this point he'd already been wearing glasses for about 9 months)!

Fun Weekend

I am such a bad blogger lately and an even worse picture taker.  I used to snap shots of my kids continually and now I rarely break the camera out.  Part of it is that I hate taking pictures indoors with bad light and a flash but that's not the best excuse.  We didn't have big plans for the long weekend (it wasn't even long for Jer), but we did have lots of fun anyway and everyone got along so well.  It's always nice to remember when your kids are being sweet and thankful and having fun!

We watched a lot of basketball this weekend.  Luke loves it, Seth is in it for the treats, and Ian can now be managed in bleachers.  Last year we went to almost every home MC game to see Troy play but haven't gone to any this year.  Luke went to one with a friend.  We finally hit the last one Friday night, and they won!  We doubled our fun by using Mandy and Craig's tickets (thanks!) to take the whole fam to the Aggie game Saturday night.  They did not win...not by a long shot, but it was still fun.  Jer and Luke also mixed in a day of skiing on Saturday.

This weekend we finally got some snow and it kind of looks like winter out there.  It has been such a strange winter with freakishly warm temps and virtually no snow!  We have hardly had opportunities to even break the snow clothes out at home.  Well, this weekend's storm finally put some snow on the ground.  We don't have the feet we usually have but at least there are now inches out there!  The kids enjoyed their day off of school today.  Luke ended up going sledding with a friend, and the little boys (notice how I throw Seth into either category--sorry middle child) and I made a snowman.  We also made a trip to a massive book sale, and the kids made a haul for dirt cheap.  I'm so glad my kids all love books.  I can't even keep my bookworm Luke in books, but this should last a few weeks.  He's already educated me about the Titanic which was the topic of a book he chose and read on the way home.  He's been making us laugh (including himself) all night because for some reason he cannot say that word right--he keeps saying Titantic.

Ian seemed convinced our snow man would soon be talking and walking like in the Frosty movie.  I really put a lot of effort into composing these shots so that I could be sure to get both the rain gutter and some mud in the background.

Cute boys!

Just What the Doctor Ordered

My last post was a bit on the negative side, and I decided I needed to do something about my attitude.  Jer and I have been discussing the fact that we are adding to our family and our kids really need some individual attention from each of us.  We spend lots of time together as a family and have daily moments with each kid, but we are really trying to set aside time and adjust our schedules to have a monthly activity with the older boys one-on-one.  Jer took each boy skiing just with him and Luke lucked out with an Aggie game as well in January.  I took February and had such a fun time spending some individual time with my big boys.  These pictures are from my cell phone and terrible but here's what we did...

 Luke and I went roller blading.  He has never been on any kind of roller skates/blades before.  When we got there for some reason he wanted to do the old school roller skates.  Although it was totally taking me back I tried to convince him that the blades would be more fun.  He didn't listen.  After being a total zoo for about 10 minutes and doing several sweet rock star splits he decided to take my advice.  After we switched to the blades he got the hang of it and had tons of fun.  I have honestly never roller bladed before either, but I liked it too.  We ended the night with a game of air hockey.  He just kept telling me how fun it was, and it was so great to just hang out and have fun with him.  Whenever I spend time with him alone like that I'm always amazed at how mature and grown up he's getting.  We are both looking forward to our next one-on-one.

Seth's original idea was bowling but after Luke and I did roller blading he wanted to do that.  I held him off for this month but maybe we'll give it a try next time.  Seth and I had lunch and hit the lanes and had such a fun time.  I am an awful bowler and so is Seth.  Our scores were one point different.  In my defense, he used the gutters and I didn't!

These activities were a refueling for me and were such a good reminder of what great, fun boys I have.  They were both so grateful and excited to get to go and do something fun just with me.  Love you!

Mental Snapshots

I haven't exactly been a blogger extraordinaire so far this year, but I do need to document some things.  My kids have nearly driven me crazy with their arguing lately...with each other...in response to my requests for them to do their chores, homework, etc. but on the other hand there have been a lot of good moments too, and I need to remember those.  In fact, after a particularly trying evening with Luke several days ago I told Jer I needed to go in and lay with him for a minute...just observe him in his sweet, sleepy state and remind myself about all of his wonderful qualities.  I did and it helped my state of mind a lot.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that my kids are just that...kids!  They are not going to be sweet, compliant angels all of the time.  They have minds and wills of their own, and it's not my job to bend or even break them down to what I see fit but instead to recognize and emphasize their God given good qualities and strengths and implement fair consequences for bad behavior.  I am so a work in progress.  With all that said there isn't anything that crazy going on around here.  It's just family life.  Parenting is hard and sometimes I feel like a slow learner!

Before I went on that big tangent I actually meant to blog about a fun night our family spent at The Beav.  We headed up a few weeks ago for an evening of night skiing with our ward.  I hadn't really intended to get Ian on skis but once we got there it was either chase the wild man around the lodge all night or get him out.  We decided to let him ski, and it ended up being a really fun night for the whole family.

I had a kid by the ticket office take a really cute picture of our whole family (rarity) including Ian on the tiniest skis, but before I could load it onto the computer one of my children, who shall remain nameless, was messing around with the camera and deleted it.  I was sad and then I got over it.

So here are a few mental pictures of a fun family night:
**Jer and I setting a new record for time spent getting kids into ski gear.
**Ian telling me and anyone else who would listen how it was "so fun to skateboard" all night.
**Ian wearing skis that were about 12 inches long.  The smallest ones I've ever seen.
**Luke stopping to wait and helping Seth up crash after crash.
**Seth getting off track and piling it up before we even made it from the patrol building over to the lift due to his missing edgy wedgy.  This was followed by Luke attempting to pull Seth (who now weighs more than him) back onto his feet and get him back into his skis.  This was then followed by me carrying/skate skiing with Seth until we were back on track and finding myself out of breath before we even got started.
**Riding the "big chair" up the hill with my boys on a freezing cold night.
**Watching Luke go off the jumps on the side of Little Beav, followed by Seth's version, followed by Ian's request to go off some "yittle jumps too."
**The healthy quad workout I got out snowplowing with Ian "skiing" between my legs.

We all made some good memories of Ian's first time on the slopes, and I'm going to recall these mental images next time I'm about to blow!

Big Potty Trained Boy!

We just hit a major milestone at our house.  No one is wearing diapers!  (Okay, Ian is technically still wearing diapers at night, but he's had a few dry ones and I could care less about that right now.)  For the last 7.5 years I have been changing diapers in one form or another, and I'm going to enjoy this break even though it's going to be short.

Poor Ian had a really rough week last week.  He had a fever and felt lousy all week, but it was just a virus. He was really down and out and just walked around the house with his blanky asking to be held, saying "I hurt," waking up all the time, and asking for "messicine"--all very un-Ianlike behaviors.  The Saturday before that we decided to start with the potty.  He's been going on and off for months, but he got big boy undies for Christmas, so we put him in them.  The result was accidents all day!

Monday when he was sick I was just going to give it a rest until he felt better, but he did not want anything to do with his diapers.  He wanted the underwear.  Amazingly he started holding it!  I could not get the kid to go.  I decided to push on with training, and we spent some sad times on the potty.  He was holding it for hours anyway, so I figured he had to go.  He loved the undies, but not the potty.  I've learned a lot after doing this three times and managed to stay incredibly patient.  After a few days we went without accidents and haven't had one since Sunday when he peed on the carpet before church.  Yep, just stood there and peed through his clothes.

Training Ian has brought back a lot of mommy guilt about Luke's training days (Seth was a breeze).  In my defense Luke was incredibly obstinate, difficult, infuriating...but I was no gem either.  I felt so much pressure to get him trained and kind of felt like a failure that it went on for months with non stop accidents.  I was not a very nice mom and if I knew then what I know now (and wasn't just a mean sleep deprived mom) I would have done things different.  I kind of feel bad for the oldest kid sometimes.  Most of my "mommy dearest" moments and major regrets have been at Luke's expense.  It's sad that I am trying out my parenting on him and then in hindsight I am learning how to be more patient, calm, understanding....yikes.  I've asked for forgiveness for some of my worst moments, but sometimes it's hardest to forgive yourself.

Anyway back to the present, potty training has been a family affair around here.  Luke and Seth have been so cute and excited for Ian.  On Monday when they were out of school all four of us were squashed in the half bath while they gave a play-by-play of Ian's bodily functions and cheered each one.  Afterwards it was "potty dance," high fives, and bumps all around.  Go Ian!

Boys Being Boys

 Seth got "real tools" for Christmas and has been having so much fun.  Jer worked on the framing in the basement a lot over the holidays and Seth was down there helping out a lot.  They are "real" including a saw and several other sharp things.  We are supervising him, and he is doing great.  He is so interested in how things are made and building things.  Ian has been joining in with the toy tools we've had forever.  Don't worry that those blue "safety glasses" don't actually have anything in them--they are purely for high fashion!

Last Sunday night we had one sad little Steelers fan at our house.  Luke was the lone voice cheering for the Steelers and couldn't believe it when they lost.  Luke agreed he would cheer the Broncos on in their next game because they are his second favorite team but his condition was to wear his Steelers stuff.  After Luke and Jer got back from skiing Saturday the boys suited up (complete with soccer cleats), and we watched the Patriots thump the Broncos.  Not much to cheer about.  I have to admit I have become kind of a football fan this year.  I like Tim Tebow, and he's actually a professional athlete I would want my kids to admire!  In other sporting news I gave Jer and Luke tickets to an Aggie basketball game for Christmas.  Luke was dressed in his Aggie duds and pacing the floor waiting for Jer to get home from work.  They had a blast.  Maybe one of these days we'll get season tickets...when we stop doing really expensive things like adopting and finishing the basement!

Exciting Stuff

Well, some things are just so big and exciting they need their own blog.  Check it out....

Click here for... Exciting Stuff