Periods and Exclamation Points

The past month has been quite an adventure for our family. All our school details will come in a subsequent post, but Thobe and I have been doing homeschool this year, which has allowed me to spend a lot of time with my sweet boy and has really allowed me to see how amazing he is.

Because we are always together, Thobe gets to go a lot of places with me. We have Jacob with us most of the time too, which has been really fun to watch them play together as well. The other day, I went visiting teaching. I was telling the people I was visiting with how I sometimes feel like I have two families. I have Alden and Thobe who are calm and easy going and really obedient. Then I have Hyrum and Jacob who, well...., aren't. I explained how they push me more than the older two ever did and have so much energy. If they decide that they do not want to be obedient, they aren't. Sitting through church, though easier than it used to be, is still difficult, and they often get into things that they should not get into. I also noted to my friends how even though Hyrum and Jacob are hard sometimes, they are also extremely loving and sweet. I said, "I guess, Hyrum and Jacob just put an exclamation point at the end of everything they do."

My friends smiled and made a passing comment or two. Thobe then piped in, "Yeah, Alden and I...we just put a period at the end of everything."

I really couldn't have said it better myself.

"Mom, You Are My Brother"

Jacob loves his brothers. He misses them when they are away from him and mimics everything they do. He adores them. The word "brother" means more than another boy born to the same parents to Jacob, but it also means a very close friend.

This more distinct definition first became apparant to me when we went out to Utah. Michael bought the boys an insane amount of Superfriends videos for the boys to watch in the car. They seriously watched at least 15 hours worth of Superfriends videos on long voyage--I should make a post about our super fun trip in late July early August. Anyway, when we got in the van to drive up to Michael's sister's house in Northern Utah from Southern Utah, Jacob yelled, "I want to watch Superman and Brudders." Michael and I got a laugh out of that and thought it was sweet that he considers his brothers to be friends.

Just the other day, we went to Costco. We were waiting for our friends to do something at the customer service desk. Jacob was sitting in the cart and reached out and hugged my arm tight to his body. In the snuggliest, sweetest, sincerest voice, he whispered, "Mom, you are my brudder. I wub you."

He is my sweet brudder too. I sure love that little guy.

Thobe's Baptism and Our Family Visit

June has been a wonderful month for our family. At the beginning of June, my sister Kristi and her family came to visit us. We have had such a wonderful time with them. I have loved being able to spend so much time with my sister and her family, and our kids have relished every minute that they've spent together. She has some pretty incredible kids. I love them all so much!

On June 14th, Alden and Thobe finished school. They were happy to be done, and I was too. I feel bad that I never was able to get fully organized with school this year. I hope that next year will be better.

The week the boys finished school, Michael went to Mexico City on business, and the next week, Alden went to basketball camp in Toledo and spent the week with Grandpa and Abuelita. He was sad to leave his cousins but had a great time with his grandparents. While he was gone, the rest of my family arrived. Laura and Israel and their new baby Learsia came to our house on Tuesday. I was so excited to meet my newest niece. She is so adorable! My brother-in-law, Doug, my brother John, his wife Lindsay, and their two kids, Joseph and Kaili, arrived on Wednesday, and that evening my mom and sister Diane arrived with Diane and Doug's kids, Davin, James, Bridger, Joshua, and Airika. They drove here and were happy to be done with the car. We were happy for them to be here. Early the next morning, my dad and sister Emily arrived on a red-eye flight. When Alden got home from basketball camp, everyone started chanting his name. He felt like a happy superstar who was completely surrounded with the love of his family. On Thursday afternoon, my sister Amy and her husband Jeremy arrived from Oklahoma. It was so wonderful having everyone there.

Prior to everyone's arrival, we bought a play structure on Craigslist and paid someone to put it together for us. In the process he broke his thumb and was unable to complete the job. Fortunately, John and Doug were here, and with the help of my dad, Israel and Jeremy, they replaced some bad wood and rebuilt us an awesome playstructure. The kids had such a wonderful time playing on that thing.

On Sunday, we went to Toledo for Thobe's baptism. We scheduled it in Toledo with the hope that Michael's great grandmother would be able to come. Unfortunately, she fell and broke her hip earlier that week, so she wasn't able to be there. We had so many people that were there though. We loved seeing so many people that are dear to us and appreciated everyone's efforts to be there.

Thobe's baptism was wonderful. I am so proud of my sweet boy. I love him so much. I created a video for him. The link is as follows:

Thobe's baptism video

After the baptism, Amy and Jeremy drove home, and little by little, everyone else left. The boys loved having all their cousins with them to go to their cub scout day camp.

When most of my family was gone, Michelle and Eric came and stayed with us for a few days. We had so much fun with them too.

How grateful I am for family! I love them all so very much!!!! Thank you everyone for coming and being with us. We love you!

Happy Birthday for Alden and Thobe!

May is a crazy month for our family. Not only are we gearing up for the last few weeks of school, but Alden and Thobe both have a birthday. They had great birthdays this year.

Alden turned a whopping 10 years old. I can't believe I have a boy who is 10! On his birthday, we did a birthday treasure hunt in the morning before school, Michael took him and Thobe to Burger King for breakfast and met him for lunch at school with a Subway pizza. That night we met Warren and Chris in Monroe, Michigan to celebrate Alden and his abuelita's birthdays. We had such a great time. On Saturday, Alden had a Ninjago birthday party complete with a crazy obstacle course designed by Alden and Michael. They had such a great time!

Thobe's birthday was equally as exciting. Thobe turned 8 years old. I can't believe that he is that old. He's so excited about getting baptized and being older. We also did a treasure hunt for him before he left for school, and he also went out to breakfast with Michael and Alden, and had a Subway pizza delivered to him by his Papi. That evening we took Thobe's best friend Broderick Johnson with us to the Rain Forest Cafe for dinner and then went to Jeepers for an evening of roller coasters, bumper cars, and other fun rides. He had such a great day. He was especially excited about the eagle cake that I made him.

A Top Ten List

On April 25, 2012, we closed on our house in Lima.  I was fortunate to have the opportunity to walk by myself through my dear house one last time and say goodbye.  It was quite an emotional experience for me.  I heard the faint whisper happy boys playing in the basement, the patter of little bare feet playfully running around the circle, and little voices singing Primary songs in various places in the house.  I felt the love of my family and some of our most treasured friends that we made during the four years that we lived in Lima.  When I walked in the kitchen, I could still see the towels that Michael used to clean up the "rain" that Hyrum had made by throwing out buckets of water from the upstairs' bathtub.  When I walked in the boys' room, I heard Thobe's sweet two year old voice exclaim, "My Buckeye Room!"  The memories were palpable, as I walked through the house where I truly felt God had opened the windows of heaven upon us and gave us more blessings than we had room enough to receive.  I can honestly say that while I am very relieved not to have two houses, deep in my heart, I wished that we could some day go back to Lima and live in that same house.

When we first moved to Lima, I listed the top ten reasons that one should visit Lima, Ohio. While most of them were silly reasons, I want to end this chapter of my life by writing another top ten list--the top ten things I will miss about my old house. Keep in mind that this is simply the ten things that I will miss about my house--I could probably list 100 things that I would miss about Lima, certainly with our sweet friends that we made there being at the top of my list.

#1: Our Strawberry Patch. When we first moved to our house, the ground in the front of the house was covered with ivy. I worked so hard to pull it all up and off of the house (when I was working on this project, Alden came out and said, "Mom, why do we have Naomi growing all over our house--Alden has a cousin named Ivy who has a sister named Naomi). After all the ivy was gone, I wanted something else there, so we planted two strawberry plants. They grew and grew and grew. We loved going outside and picking a bunch of strawberries to add to our cereal.

#2: The clematis on my mailbox. While this picture was taken before it bloomed, every year in May, the clematis around my mailbox would explode with beautiful, purple flowers. I loved driving up to my driveway and seeing the beauty of it. I will definitely miss that!

#3: Our big open basement/TV room/toy room. I loved our basement. It had a ton of space and room to roam around. It also had a nice computer desk and built in cabintry. Our family spent countless hours downstairs entertaining, playing, and talking. I am very excited to have a finished basement at our new house.

#4: Our magic closet lights. In the coat closets in the entry way and also in our kitchen pantry, we had magic lights. When you opened the door, the light came on; when you closed it, it turned off. I loved that I never had to fumble for the light when I was cooking or putting groceries away. It went on and off automatically.

#5: The laundry shoot. Perhaps the thing I miss the most about my old house is the laundry shoot. I never had to worry about hampers or piles of dirty clothes in the bedrooms. All my dirty laundry was stored in the wall. Whenever we had dirty clothes upstairs, we just dropped them down the laundry shoot that went straight to the laundry room. I never had to carry a pile of dirty clothes downstairs. I did often wish for a lift of some sort that would allow me to pull my clean clothes upstairs.

#6: My new stove and double oven. While I will admit that I like my current gas range and built into the wall double ovens slightly better, I loved my double oven and range that I bought the November before we moved. If I ever by another range, I will buy one just like this.

#7:  My backyard deck. I loved being able to plant flowers and vegetables that I would hang on the deck in various places. I loved our apple trees and the trelace that we were going to use to plant grapes or kiwis. It was such a great backyard.

#8: Our simple swing set. I will so miss seeing the kids play out back for hours on our swingset. There were four swings for our four boys. I loved it when all four of them would be back there swinging having a wonderful time together. We should probably get a swingset here.

#9: Our big wooded backyard. I loved having a woods in our backyard. I loved seeing it bloom in the spring and watching the leaves fall in autumn. The kids never played in the forest, but it was a beautiful, peaceful thing to watch while eating breakfast or making dinner. I will miss that.

#10: Thobe's (and Alden's) Buckeye room. While I didn't know the first thing about Ohio State before I met Michael, that room particular room will forever remind me of being the thing that was the final selling point on the house. When two year old Thobe said, "Ahh, my Buckeye room," we knew we had to buy the house that we were already sold on.

The Tortise and the Hare

Thobe is an amazing kid. He is always saying and doing things that catch me off guard. From the time he's been very young, he has made some very interesting, humorous, and mature connections. For example when he was 5 years old, we were in the grocery store. He read a magazine that was featuring someone from The Biggest Loser. He read the words "Biggest Loser" aloud, and then laughed and said, "Hey, Mom, did you ever hear of the smallest winner?

The past two days have been no exception to Thobe's ability to play on words and make quick calculations. This morning when I woke the boys up, Alden bolted out of bed, as usual, and Thobe slowly stirred and moaned that to indicate that he wasn't interested in getting out of bed, also as usual. I persisted, racking my brain for some motivation to get him moving. I said, "Hey, Thobe, you only have 20 days left of school. Get up and enjoy one of your last days of school." He tiredly looked at me from the corner of his nearly closed eye and tiredly mumbled, "We have 180 days of school, so this must mean that today is my 160th day. Is that right, Mom?" I was impressed.

Last night, he made a comment that both shocked and amused Michael and me. Earlier that day, we we were driving through our friends' neighborhood and saw a turtle walking down the middle of the road. We stopped in the middle of the road and made sure all the kids saw the turtle. We all gave our appropriate Oooos and ahhhs, the boys told us some fact they knew about turtles that I didn't know (they are really into animals right now, especially dinosaurs), and then we drove on. Later that evening we were driving home. A rabbit ran out in front of us, and Michael said, "Don't let me run over you, Little Bunny." The boys all strained their necks to try and see the rabbit. Alden said he saw it, and then Thobe said, "I saw the tortise, but I didn't see the hare." He then giggled, and Michael and I laughed out loud. I would have never thought to say something like that, but he did. That's what he does. He's growing up so fast!

False Accusations

In my pre-kid life, I never knew that being a mom would be so full of surprises. I didn't imagine that having grimy little hands grab my ears and hair as a goopey yogurt face slopped a messy kiss on my lips could bring me so much joy. I never imagined that a small fever in a little body would keep me up all night with worry. I didn't know that hearing a kid use the bathroom without any prompting would feel me with pure elation, nor did I ever imagine that I would consider myself a broken record on a daily basis. Motherhood is certainly full of surprises. You would think after a decade of being a mom that I would no longer be caught off guard with the things my kids say or do, but this week I was especially humored and surprised by the accusations of Jacob and Alden.

In our house, we love fresh fruit. A particular favorite of mine, Thobe and Jacob are blueberries. I think everyone likes them a lot, but to Jacob, Thobe, and I blueberries are like manna from heaven. When I saw a pint of blueberries at Kroger this week, I was torn. I really wanted some blueberries, but at $3.98 a pint, I was not all that hipped on buying them. My taste buds won out, and I put a pint in the cart. Because of the other blueberry lovers that live in my house, I carefully hid the costly blueberries in the fridge. I knew as soon as they were opened that they would be gone. The day arrived when I pulled them out of the fridge and sprinkled a few on my cereal. Jacob caught me in the act and said, "Oooo, stwaberries! I wike stwaberries." Reluctantly, I sat him up on the bar and let him eat some.

After eating nearly the entire pint, he got down and started to play. I noticed that there might be enough for my cereal the next morning, and quietly put them in the fridge. Several minutes later, Jacob climbed up to the bar and said, "Where are my stwaberries? Where are they?" I asked him what he needed and told him that we don't have any strawberries. He narrowed his sparkly blue eyes and said, "You stole my stwaberries, Mommy. Give me back my stwaberries!" Poor little Jacob has a thief for a mommy.

Alden's accusation made me laugh equally as hard. Our entire neighborhood (and perhaps township) turned on their sprinklers this week; consequently, we have had little to no water pressure. I talked to my neighbor and discovered that we simply need to change our filters and our water pressure would improve. Last night I tried to figure out how to do it, but couldn't so I went upstairs. I soon realized that my kids needed baths before bed, so I told them to go and get in the bathtub. I heard a bunch of commotion, and then the kids came running down stairs. "Mom," they yelled, "We have no water." I had forgotten to turn the water back on when I was trying to change the filter. Trying to solve the problem with all the wisdom of a ten year old, Alden came downstairs and said in a hushed town, "Mom, when is the last time you payed the water bill?" I don't know how he was aware of this, but he did know his stuff. I assured him that I had paid the bill, and he was relieved.