Doing Those Things They Do

This summer Alden, Thobe, Hyrum, and I have had a lot of fun. We've been working hard to establish a summer routine. The kids have done a nice job with it for the most part. They get up and get dressed and clean their rooms. Then we eat breakfast. Alden then clears off the table and puts everything in the dishwasher, and Thobe wipes off the table. Then they help me with my weekly household chore, and then we do learning time. Alden's teacher sent home a packet of worksheets that he does on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, while Thobe reads to me. On Tuesday and Thursday, we read, write stories, or plan some type of creative project. I've also tried to plan trips to the park or library or the free movie. On days that it doesn't rain, we practice basketball or baseball in the yard, pick strawberries from our strawberry patch, or just play outside. Last week in church, Michael found a yucky, obtrusive, gigantic tick on Thobe's head to prove that he's done his fair share of playing outside. Despite the tick, I love Ohio this time of year. Everything is so green and beautiful, and the weather has been fantastic!!!! We haven't had too many mosquitos yet, which has also been nice.

Alden has been been my right hand man. I really do love having him home everyday. I probably ask too much of him, but almost everytime I ask him to help me, he says, "But, of course," and then runs and does the thing that I ask him. Our extremely intelligent friend Becca Renfroe told us about making video games a bi-weekly event. This has been an incredible thing for Alden. His favorite thing in the world is to play Lego Star Wars on our Wii, but he never asks to play on any day but Wednesday and Saturday. He also knows that in order to play, he needs to have his chores done and the basement clean. He's been so good with not pestering us about playing and being content to only play twice a week, although he talks a ton about Star Wars. The other day he had a friend over, and I heard them talking. Alden told his friend he had a secret that he would tell his friend as long as he didn't tell anyone else. Very interested, his friend leaned in to hear the secret. Alden whispered intently into his friend's ear, "I have the Force." It made me laugh. He's also enjoys playing baseball. He's got an incredible coach named Sunny. She does such a great job with Alden, and we've seen some definite improvements. I think I mentioned before that Alden's favorite part about baseball is running. When Sunny wants to punish the team for not trying, she makes them run. That is Alden's favorite part. He's very fast and always finishes in the top three of his team. At his last game, he did a great job in the outfield with backing up the basemen that he was behind and batting as well. We were really happy for him. We always tell him that we don't care if he's good or bad at something but that we do care that he tries and puts forth his best effort. I must admit that I was so happy with his efforts at his last game.

Thobe is also having a nice summer. I think he especially enjoys playing with Alden. They are such good friends! He misses school. Everyday for the first week after school was over, he'd say, "I have school today, right Mom?" He was often disappointed when I'd say no. He is doing a great job with reading and learning and loves to write stories, all of which are about the Wolverines playing one of his favorite teams. The story line is always very similar, but it's fun to hear him tell the story of how the Wolverines were winning, but then the [insert Buckeyes, Cougars, or Rockets] started scoring a lot of touchdowns and came back to win the trophy. He's such a tender boy that he often tells that his team will share the trophy with the Wolverines. He also enjoys playing with all his fake friends. His favorite fake friends are named Alden and Melissa (Alden has green hair by the way). This morning before church he told us he was feeling a little sick and that his fake friend named Alden was a little sick too. Alden just heard his name and adamently told him that he was not sick. "I know," Thobe answered, "My fake friend named Alden is a little sick." You never know what those fake friends are up to. We also recently signed Thobe up for t-ball. He loves it! He is very proud to tell people that he plays for the Rangers and that their color is blue. He certainly is one of the most distracted Rangers, but he's still very cute. He also has a great coach that is very patient with him.


Hyrum has loved every minute of having his brothers home. He loves to do whatever it is that they do. Hyrum is definitely an A personality. He knows what he wants and works very hard to get it. He is especially bad at taking things away from Thobe. Michael and I have been working with Thobe to take things back from Hyrum (I never thought I would try to teach my son to steal something back from his brother, but Hyrum is very assertive and Thobe is not). Hyrum still likes to climb. When my dad was here he put up some fiberglass or plastic stuff in front of our banister, so that Hyrum wouldn't be able to squeeze is small body through the pillars and fall to his death. This worked really well, although the other day, the little monkey climbed up the plastic and looked way over the top of our banister down onto the hard wood floor beneath calling for Alden. Despite this scary experience, I do feel more confident every day that he might just survive to age 3. He now comes and gets me when his ball rolls into the street, whereas before he'd go get it himself and then spend time dribbling the ball there. He also is more sure footed as well, which makes me less worried when I find that he's climbed onto something high. My favorite thing about Hyrum right now is that he talks like crazy. He says the cutest, funniest things. He knows he's funny too, which makes it even more cute. He loves getting hugs, and whenever we hug him, he says, "I love you." He's saying a ton of things in English and Spanish. Like Alden and Thobe he often mixes the two. The other day when we were furniture shopping, Hyrum found the bunk beds and was very angry when we wouldn't let him climb all over them. He demanded to Michael, "I want bunk cama!" He also loves animals. Yesterday we took him to the pet store. When it was time to go, I told him to say goodbye to all the animals. He went around to every tank and every animal and said goodbye. My favorite was when he got to the cockateal and said, "Goodbye, Chicken." He also loves our neighbor's cat named Jake. Jake scratched or bit Hyrum the other day and left quite a mark, but it doesn't matter to Hyrum. He still chases the poor cat all around. Hyrum will often look at his scratch and say, "I bite Jake. Ouch Jake." He's so much fun.

Anyway, I've had a lot of fun so far with the kids. I hope that when the baby is born, we can continue to do all we've done so far this summer. We're all very excited for the arrival of Baby Tickle.