February 2018 Kiddos

Taking a break from loading wood

Oh, the cuteness!! When Ezra was 6-7 months old, we tried feeding him. He wanted nothing to do with it. However, when we game him food he could eat himself he started eating like a champ! He is quite possibly my best eater ever...so long as he can feed himself.

I bought the entire family (except Ruthie and Ezra) tickets to go see the Chinese Acrobats perform. I even got a babysitter for the littles! Stephen picked Maggie up, but was so exhausted after a long day at work that I ended up leaving him with the babies and taking Maggie with us! Sammy also invited his best buddy, Sebastian. An awful picture, but a fun evening!

"Take my picture, Mom!"

He still doesn't get that there is a dot on his forehead. The kids have been trying since he was 4 months old...

The tradition of giving Dad a heart attack on Valentine's Day continues! The kids also put hearts and candy on most of the other management professors' doors, making them the darlings of the day. 

Trevor has the best tooth-losing story of all: he lost a tooth by getting smacked in the face with a snow shovel!

In the snow-shovel-wielding person's defense, the tooth was barely hanging on. Sammy accidentally stepped on the show shovel (they were out playing in the snow) and the handle flipped up and whacked Trevor in the mouth. The tooth, sadly, was lost in the snow.

Trevor made a poster for our 4-H club's carnival booth

Lincoln did, too. Our theme was Decades: the Future. One of the club members made a catapult, and we catapulted rubber duckies into a rocket ship.

And then there were 2 gone! His second tooth was also barely hanging on, so he had me tie floss onto it and a door and slam the door. It was great fun!

Stephen, Mason, Ezra and I went to the temple. Stephen needed an answer as to whether or not we should move to Washington. We'll be moving this summer sometime.

Ezra started taking steps! He's not walking, just taking random steps every now and then.

Ruba-a-dub-dub, three babes in a tub

We all love our new wood stove

Ruthie is a nurturer, and she's better with throw up than Stephen!

May visitors

Living in Laramie has its perks--one of them being that we are on the way to many places, so we get lots of passing-through visitors. We are also a destination to visit--who would have thought little ol' Laramie had so much to offer?

My Aunt Lisa and Uncle Ned stopped by for a couple of days. They are serious birders, so walking around the property was very enlightening--I never knew we had so many different types of birds!

Aunt Lisa meeting her namesake, Aunt Lisa III (Aunt Lisa II was one of our original 6 chickens back in MN). The kids love to say that "Aunt Lisa lays green eggs."

Uncle Cookie reading to the little boys--they could have had him reading all day! They snuggled right up to him like he was their long-lost best buddy.

Next to visit was Papa!! The first gift of Papa was a .22 rifle. Sadly, we didn't get to shoot it with him while he was here...and I still need to set up a target and table on the hill.

Ruthie took right to Dad, and they were best buds the whole time he was here. She loves my hair--always curling it around her fingers while nursing or snuggling. She loved Dad's beard in the same way, and I think there is a sense of security in his big hands. Whatever it is, she just loves him!

While Dad was here he and Stephen (and various children) started work on the duck house, fixed up the pig pen (ooh, ooh! I helped with this one!) and worked on the tractor. Because what's a vacation without a little bit of work? Dad took a work-ation...

Dad took each of the kids on a "Papa date"--I think every date involved a visit to Rocket Fizz (a candy and soda pop store). They also went out for lunch and dinner, shopped at the thrift store, went to a movie and the Ivinson Mansion...they all had so much fun together. And of course they read books.

Our penultimate Papa date was a family visit to the Territorial Prison. When I saw this sign, I just had to get a picture! I think Mom would've gotten a kick out of it, too. :)

For my Papa date Dad, Elise, Mason and I went to a conceal & carry gun class and then had pizza. I'd love to be more comfortable shooting my gun, but alas, that requires more time than I currently have. We were all sad to see him go. Maybe we'll get Thanksgiving together again this November (and we can go to the shooting range)!

How I love to find my kids...

 

Oregon trip part 2, Grammy's house 11/2014

As soon as Mom decided to stop doing chemo and was given the "six months...or less" to live verdict we had a family Skype call and very quickly decided that we were all going to get to Corvallis around Thanksgiving and rent a house at the Coast and have our final reunion with Mom. Everything fell into place - a place to stay, no tests (Scotty & Jeff are in med school), cheap(ish) flights...we were just meant to be together.

One of the absolute best moments of our Oregon trip was being in the temple together - Dad was sick, but Mom, Stephen, all my brothers and their wives were able to do sealings together and then go visit the Celestial Room and sit and talk and cry. That was the one thing Mom always wanted: to be in the temple with all her children and their spouses. 

I don't quite know how to express my feelings about it without possibly sounding like "oh, we're so great", but we were all there. After all the challenges and difficulties, we were all there together. And to be reminded that one day, not too soon, we'll all be together again. It was a very joyful, teary time.

We did some singing around the piano - another of Mom's favorite things in the whole world!

The kids had so much fun with aunts & uncles & grandparents and cousins!

Most everyone arrived on Thanksgiving Day, then to the temple on Friday, the Civil War game (OSU vs UO) on Saturday, little Kate Carol's blessing on Sunday and then off to the Coast!

Faith - or - More of the Gerbil Saga

Last night I was reminding the kids that today was Fast Sunday when Sammy piped up about the three times in his life that he has fasted. Once for my Grandma, his Mormor, once for a woman in our ward who the kids call "Aunt Jana", and once for George, our she-gerbil.

A little over a month ago Nancy, the other gerbil, got out of the cage. Sadly this escaping was turning into a regular event (under the fridge is the favorite hiding place). Needless to say, I wasn't very happy, especially when it was going on a week and she was still on the lam.

One morning we were all ready for our school Opening, a rare event when all the morning chores were done, the baby was napping and we had nothing scheduled for the entire morning except to read some books and play some games that I had pulled out. Just as I was getting settled in, Mason came sobbing to me holding a very cold and lethargic George.

I was certain that she was a goner. She had recently been on the lam herself (found UNDER MY BED), and I thought that perhaps she had gotten injured in the recapture. I had Mason put her under his shirt next to his skin to see if he could warm her up, but really that was more so that he would feel better giving him something to do to try to help her. I tried to prepare the kids for the inevitable demise of their beloved she-gerbil, and we all (including me) took turns holding her and trying to make her as comfortable as possible for when she would leave us. I found an old, soft sock that we put her in so that she would be easier to hold, and we passed it around every so often, telling things that we remembered about George.

After over an hour of this, I stepped out of the room to call Stephen and let him know the state of our kids, and while I was gone, every child said a prayer for George. Also, I found out later, every child decided to fast so that George would get better and not die. Soon I was called back into the room, "Mom! She's moving!" Sure enough, she had a little more life, but I was still convinced she wasn't going to last long, so tried to keep the kids from getting too excited. However, as I held her and felt her moving all around and saw her eating again, my hard heart was softened and I realized that God really does hear the pleas of his little ones.

Not every prayer they offer will have the same results, obviously, because neither my Grandma or Aunt Jana are still here, but maybe my kids needed this small miracle to look back on to realize that God does hear and answer their prayers.

We later found out from our veterinarian friend that she possibly might have been going into hibernation, and warming her up was just what she needed to snap out of it. Even if that was the case, I still choose to believe that a loving Father in heaven was showing some of his faithful little ones that he cares about what is important to them. And that is knowledge worth having!

Random life snippets

Being sick and having to stay home from church results in my doing my family history...aka, blogging. This is the third Sunday in a row that my family hasn't been together at church! First Elise, Sammy & Lincoln had hand, foot & mouth. Stephen stayed home with them because I was playing organ that day. I left Trevor, too, because it is difficult to play the organ with a wiggly 7-month-old. Last Sunday Mason had hand, foot & mouth, so I stayed home with him and Trevor. Today I am sick, so kept the baby home with me. Yeeha.

Anyhoo, here's the fun we've been having!

We passed 100,000 miles on the van! It's all that driving to ballet and back...

I love walking in on scenes like this:

Here is my sweet baby Trevor! Yesterday we discovered that his two bottom middle teeth have come in! That explains the fussiness the last few days...

Sometimes I get preoccupied doing other things and so the 2-year-old has to step in and take care of other important responsibilities.

Lincoln is pretty sure that if he can't see me, I can't see him...with his binky in his mouth. Sometimes he walks through the kitchen covering his eyes so that I won't notice that he has his binky off of his bed. 

Um...maybe I need to get some more boy dress up in our dress-up chest!

This kid is just CUTE!! His hair is getting so long that he has to brush it out of his eyes now. This morning Elise combed his hair and put a bobby pin in it to keep the hair away from his eyes. He wasn't very happy with me when I took it out. :) It curls so beautifully when it is humid out!