Four White Walls

When we got to our new house, I must admit that I didn't have an immediate connection with it. For the first few months of living in Michigan, I was a bit overwhelmed. Most of the walls were white, and the with the exception of the kitchen, all the walls that weren't white I hated. I am not sure if I just missed my old house (I loved our house in Lima--I really felt and still do that it was sacred to our family--it was one of the gifts God gave to us when he opened the windows of heaven upon our family and gave us more than we had ever hoped to receive), or if the way the house was decorated just made me feel kind of yucky.

Graciously, John and Alicia Christiansen came and visited and helped me paint the lime green dining room a nice neutral tan color and the pinkish piano room a deep red. Interestingly, that made the house feel a lot more like my own house--we began to connect. Michael and my bedroom was a cool blue color. While blue, even a light blue, is one of my favorite colors, it did not work in my bedroom. While Michael was in Tennessee on a business trip, I took the left over paint from the rooms downstairs, and painted one red wall and the three remaining walls the tan color. It really added to the room, and it matched our bedspread, which probably was part of the reason that the blue looked so horrible. Again, our new house seemed more like our house, and while my old house will always hold a special place in my heart, I felt less attached to it.

About a month ago, I also decided to paint Alden and Thobe's room and Hyrum and Jacob's room. We had decided on a Star War's theme for the older boys' room and a sports' theme for the younger boys. I had so much fun doing this. The boys loved their rooms. My first attempt at the Star Wars room ended up being a purplish gray. When Michael saw it, he refused to let it stay that way. He told me that we would have to change it. Alden and Thobe told him they liked it and that they should get the final say because it is their room. Michael had no problem over ruling that. Later that day, I went and bought a bluish gray that was even better than I could have imagined. It was so much fun transforming that room into something better than the four white walls afforded us. Of course we also added a border and a clone fat head, along with Thobe's baldy and baldy mirror. It will be even better when we install a clone wars ceiling fan and bedding, but for right now, we love it! I also think Hyrum and Jacob's room turned out great too.

All of this has got me thinking about life in general. Really in each state of our lives, we meet up with four white walls. Sometimes we arrive in a situation that is not ideal or that is not what we wanted it to be. In all honesty, there have been several times in the past few months when I have wished for my old life in Lima. However, I've been given four white walls that I can make to become what I want them to be and hopefully what God wants them to be. So much of life is just making our situations the best we can make them. We really are the master of our own happiness. I hope that I can always live my life today and make it be the best that it can be.

The Winning Ticket

Jacob is always into doing whatever his brothers are doing. He loves copying them and following them around the house. He is a bit of tease with them as well, but I think for the most part, everyone enjoys having Jacob shadow them around the house.

Jacob and Hyrum have a very interesting relationship. They are the best of friends, but they are also very competitive with each other. If Hyrum says he's tired, Jacob says, "No, I'm tired." There are many arguments over simply who is going to say what and who gets which toys. I always find myself shaking my head when it comes to prayer time, and the two boys start arguing about who is going to say the prayer. Many Pentacostal-like prayers are offered at our house where we have two boys offering different prayers at the same time.

So this competive edge that exists in our house, especially between Hyrum and Jacob, sets the stage for my post. Just last weekend, I finally got through the last remaining boxes in our garage. In the box, I found one of the bags that I used to take to church that was equipped with items that I might need to keep Jacob quiet. One of those items was a green sippy cup that I bought and threw in there and then never used. I threw the cup out of the bag and left it on the countertop. The next day, Jacob discovered the cup and excitedly brought it to me to put something in it for him to drink. I unscrewed the lid, handed him the cup, and told him I would put water in it as soon as I finished folding that load of laundry (if I don't fold the laundry immediately, it doesn't get done for many days). Jacob took the cup and started to walk away. Before leaving the laundry room, Jacob stopped dead in his tracks. He carefully lifted the lid of the cup and pulled out the instructions to care for the cup. A shreak of pleasure erupted from his little body.

"Look at that, Mom! Look at that!" he exclaimed. "I won! I won!"

Who would have thought that simple care instructions for a sippy cup could make someone's day that much better?

A Quick Catch-Up

It has been way too long since I last typed on my blog. I have a lot of excuses, and I wish I could say that I have been writing a lot in my journal to off set the lack of record keeping that I have done for my family. Unfortunately, I cannot. I feel sad that so much of the last two years of my life and my children's life will likely be forgotten. I can only try to do better. To capture some of the craziness, I will highlight a few of our family's recent adventures over the past year.

Since I last wrote, our life has gone crazy! We were very content with our life in Lima; we loved it. We certainly had a challenge here and there, but life was predictable and wonderful. In May (almost of year ago--good grief) I rode with our good friends, Ron and Ronda Tucker to stake conference in Perrysburg, Ohio. I remember Ronda distinctly asking me, "So do you think you'll be in Lima for a long time?" I told her that we love Lima and would be happy to stay for a very long time, but that our philosophy has always been that we would willingly go wherever it was that Heavenly Father wanted us to go. I guess God heard me and decided to try us and see if that truly was our philosophy. The next week, Michael had two different people contact him about new job possibilities. He basically told them that he was happy with his current situation, but with a little coaxing, they both convinced him to interview with their companies. By the end of May, Michael had two very tempting job offers. One was in Auburn Hills, Michigan, for a parts supplier of Fiat and the other was in Tulsa, Oklahoma working with on of his best friends from business school. Both offers were very attractive, and they were both a huge career move for Michael. After a lot of praying and deliberating, we decided that staying close to family would be the best thing for our family, and that God wanted us to go to Michigan, so we began getting our house ready to sell and looking for a new house to buy. The worst part was telling our friends that we were leaving. We had made so many wonderful friends in Lima; it broke our hearts to tell them goodbye.

Needless to say, our summer was a blur. We did make it out to Utah for a visit, while Michael was trained for his new job in Italy. The rest of the time we packed, cleaned, and searched for a new house. It was completely crazy!

The boys started school in Michigan on September 4th, which was also the day that the movers met me at our new house. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. I still feel disorganized with school stuff. Hopefully next year will be better :).

I felt like most of the fall was spent in and out of doctor's offices. The school nurse thought Thobe might be having absence seizures, so in addition to making two house payments, I think we also paid the house payments of several doctors each month. We saw a neurologist, a urologist, several psychologists and pediatricians, and he had an MRI. It was determined that Thobe has ADHD (something that we already knew that he had). The good news was that Michael and I realized that Thobe would be best served by simply taking no medication and have worked with the school to come up with ways to help Thobe be successful. He is a wonderful, bright boy! We just need him to learn to do his worksheets and writing assignments at school. I think we're on the right track though.

We went to Utah for Christmas and had a great time. We were even able to see my sister Amy get married to Jeremy Black, one of her very best friends from her childhood.

Over the past year, we have had a lot of fun watching BYU sports and have even traveled to places where they have played out in this area of the country (is Mississippi considered this area of the country?). We got rid of our satellite when we moved and have loved not paying an expensive Direct TV bill each month and being creative with how Michael can still watch sports, and the kids can still watch their favorite shows. It's been great!

We also have enjoyed the blessing of making new friends, especially the Johnson family. I really feel like God has answered our prayers by blessing us with them. I remember before we moved, I prayed that our kids would be blessed with good friends that would be a good example to them and that they could be an example to. We have experienced them being good examples to each other on many different occasions already. The Johnsons have four kids that are the same ages as our kids, and they share same interests. The similarities that they have with our family are a little spooky to be honest (Ryan and Michael are both Buckeye and Cougar fans, Alisha and I are 10 days a part and are both moms--need I say more?, Alden and Corwin both love dinosaurs and Star Wars, Thobe and Broderick both love Army and playing games, Hyrum and Elise are both easy going and love to just play, and Griffin and Jacob are probably the best friends of all--they are both mischievous and are always overjoyed to see each other). They have been a great blessing to our family.

We really loved having a spring break this year. The boys got 10 days off of school, so we went down to Oklahoma to meet Aunt Emily and Davin and James and visit Aunt Amy and the boys' new Uncle Jeremy. We had such a great trip! We stopped and saw Bob Gibson and his family in Kansas on our way home, and then also stopped in Nauvoo for a few hours. We had such a great time!

Of course, I am neglecting all the cute things the boys said and did. That is the sad part to me. They are all growing like weeds. I'm so proud of the choices they are making and the people they are becoming. I really am proud to be the mom of four wonderful boys. What a great blessing they are to me!

For a video and picture summary of 2011, you can watch that at http://vimeo.com/33864516