When I am Baptized

This last month our now 8 year old, Andrew was baptized. He was very excited and took it very seriously. Sometimes when he realizes he did something not nice I look over and see him with his arms folded and head bowed. "What are you doing?" I asked him once. "I'm saying sorry to Heavenly Father." he says. No big deal.

Some family and  friends were able to come to the baptism and we had everyone over to our house afterwards for lunch and cake. It was a good day.

William Is 3!

This last week our little William turned 3 years old! We had a little family party at home. The main present that he got was a Cars 2 scooter for him to ride with his brothers outside. He is so fun and cute and independent sometimes. He very much lives up to him name. We are working on potty training but I don't think it will happen until he "wills" it to. Ha.

Yes, 3 cars, 3 years old!

We often have a hard time getting him to open his eyes for pics. As soon as we say "smile" he closes his eyes.  So we usually have to catch him by surprise.

It's Great To Be Eight

My little boy turns EIGHT! (insert obligatory sensitive mama line here) He's grown so tall, smart, and mature. I don't know what I am going to do when he turns 16. 

The week he turned eight he decided that I'm not Mommy anymore and KC isn't Daddy, we are Mom and Dad. And he is very good about only using those terms. 

We opened presents as a family the night before his birthday with Grandma and Grandpa. Then on his birthday he got to have a friend party. There was no theme. It was just meant to be "All About Andrew" and it was. The cake was plenty green (His favorite color since Isaac has picked blue.) and it wasn't too unsightly. I had issues with the frosting. Anyway he loved it all and had a great time.

I just realized why I seem to often have lousy cakes for Andrew's birthday. He is the beginning of the birthday season in the house and I'm a little out of practice.. that must be it.

Long Awaited Day

The long awaited day has come. Isaac finally got to start kindergarten. Ever since Andrew started school Isaac has been wanting to go to school too. He is excited to be able to walk home with his brother and he loves his teacher. The only thing is that he doesn't like how he has to wait until after lunch everyday to be able to go.

Of Course

Will is walking finally!

Wait... scratch that.
Here he is the day after he broke his left leg on a trampoline last Friday. He needed some Motrin for a couple of days, but he's in no pain now as far as I can tell.

And here he is yesterday after he got is cool blue waterproof hard cast. So Will won't be doing any real walking for 3 more weeks. He can sorta crawl. On the bright side he has developed a nice way of telling me he's awake in his crib without having to cry. The hard cast makes a nice loud sound on the bars of the crib, so when he's bored and awake he just bangs away.

Problem Solved

"Mommy, Will turned off the TV!"

"Will, don't change the channel!"

"It's too loud! Will turned it up!"

Problem Solved.

Crawling With A New Doo

William is 1 year old this week. Wow, time flies! A couple of weeks ago he got is first hair-cut. That baby hair was just crazy all the time. He looked like a little mad scientist.

He looks so much older now.

The week after that he finally started crawling, much to the dismay of his grandma who was babysitting him for a week. She was hoping for a happy stationary baby. Oh well, we can't stop progress. I'm sad he won't be walking at one like Andrew was, but I am also happy he won't be walking at one. More time to baby proof the house. I'll share pictures of his little birthday party. I'm sure he'll love his cake.

Here he is showing off is crawling skills along with his waving skills. He's pretty narcissistic as I can always guarantee a wave if he sees himself in the mirror.

Kindergarten Romance Update

Andrew is still developing his kindergarten crush. Despite not really wanting to make a special valentine for Purple Coat girl (I'll call her that because she wears a purple coat), he told KC the other day that he would like Purple Coat girl but KC couldn't have her because she was born at a different day. I think he means that she is too young for KC. KC pointed out to Andrew that he has already found a special girl so he didn't need to worry about daddy. Did Andrew just stake his claim? Is it like how male animals in the wild will say to all the other males.. hey this one is mine!?

The next day while driving to a family outing Andrew announces that he thinks he loves Purple Coat girl.

"Andrew, what do you like about her?" I asked.

"I like her hair," he sighs.

"What else to like about her?" I continued.

"I like her face. And her smile. I like it when she smiles. I think she likes it when I smile. I think she loves me too."

KC and I had to hold back the giggles and shock at the romancer we are raising. KC says his first crush wasn't until 2nd grade. I can't remember if I even had a crush in elementary school. All I can say is that we are going to need to watch this kid he is going to be a ladies man.

A Change of Heart

Andrew has a lot of simple child-like faith. Sometimes he adds odd requests to his prayers. He prays that no one he knows will ever die or that he will always live with his mommy and daddy. With his faith, the fact that he prayed for it, no question, it will happen. For the first request I told him how everyone dies eventually, so he amended his prayer to say only let the old people die. That's nice of him.

Regarding the second prayerful request I've told him that when he gets married he'll want to move out of the house, but he could stay with us forever if he wants. His response is that he'll never get married. No big deal, right? Of course we all know that when finds the right girl and wants some independence that would change, I just didn't think he'd change his mind so quickly.

Enter the new girl. Only a week after the new girl came to Andrew's kindergarten class he told us that he was going to marry her. He would talk about her sometimes and he made a Christmas card for her. I thought he might have forgotten about her since he has been on winter break and track break, but just last week after reading the scripture telling us to love one another he mentioned again that he was going to marry the new girl. KC didn't realize that he'd already need to be dishing out advice on girls, but here we were. KC advised Andrew not to mention marriage just yet, he didn't want to scare her off. He suggested that instead he be friends with her. Good advice Daddy. Andrew says he still likes boys better than girls, I mean he still 5 years old, but there is something about this girl than made Andrew peg her for his future wife. Go Andrew.

First Day

It's hard to believe that it's been 5 1/2 years since I held this baby boy, small and helpless in my arms. I look at William who looks so much like Andrew did as a baby and wonder how we got here.

Andrew has been ready and waiting for this day for years. He learned to recognize all his letters by 2 1/2 and knew his numbers 1-10 before Isaac was born. He was ready, and today was finally the day.

I asked him how it went. "It was good." I had to probe a little more. "We read 3 stories." and finally his dissapointment, "I didn't get to play in the room yet or on the playground." We agreed to get there earlier tomorrow (we were almost late) so he could have time to play on the playground.

Today marks the beginning of a new phase for him and for me. I am now a mom of a school age kid. From now on I will be dealing with homework, projects, school bells, homework, teachers, PTA, and homework. And so will he. He will also be dealing with the new social experiences. I worry about that part. What will he learn from those other kids? Will he bring home garbage words to teach Isaac? Will he learn too early about things 5 year-olds have no business knowing about? I know it happens. I guess I will have to take the bad with the good.

I'm excited for him to learn. To learn to love learning. I hope that happens. I hope he learns to make new friends and learns what a best friend is. I hope he learns to try things even though they are hard. I hope he learns of the joy from accomplishing something even though it was difficult. Here's to hope, here's to our First Day.

The Safe Side

I wouldn't really describe myself as an over-protective parent. I am intrigued and sorta like the idea of Free Range Kids. But if I plan on giving my kids some freedom in the future, I need to make sure they have the right information and tools to deal with the real world.

So, for a recent Family Home Evening lesson, KC and I wanted to discuss stranger safety with the boys. I found some free amateurish videos on youtube.com but wasn't satisfied completely with the messages. I didn't want to scare my boys from ever talking to people. I didn't want them to run screaming "STRANGER, STRANGER" if an adult tried to talk to them. So I kept on looking. I found on youtube a preview of the Safe Side video called Stranger Safety. It is made by Julie Clark of Baby Einstein fame and John Walsh of America's Most Wanted. It looked sorta fun and interesting, so I picked it up from the library and we showed it to the boys. Not only was it educational, but the boys really enjoyed watching it. We had it for a week and Andrew must have watched it at least 8 times.

Inside there is a pamphlet with an article from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, by Nancy McBride. As a mother of two small kids I was surprised to learn for example that they don't actually support the "stranger-danger" message. The article also says:

When we tell children to “never talk to strangers,” we have effectively eliminated a key source of help for them if they are in trouble. If they’re lost they may be surrounded by many “strangers” who could conceivably help them if they would only ask for it.

This is why I liked the Safe Side video. Instead of teaching the kids to be afraid of everyone it tells them what to watch out for. It's awesome too that the video teaches about "Kinda knows." Statistically children are most often harmed/taken by someone they know. The video teaches how although the child may kinda know someone they shouldn't completely trust them unless they check with their "safe-side adults."

Mostly I like that it's not boring or scary, which is important in helping the kids to actually learn. Check out the whole article, it's not long, and if you want, check out the video. It might be a good idea to talk about this now in the spring before our kids start heading out to the playgrounds. I think I'll make it a yearly spring tradition in our family.

Effects of Nostalgia

Don't we all get nostalgic now and then for our younger years, our years of innocence, our childhood and all that came with it? We remember our friends, our favorite toys, or favorite places to play, and of course our favorite TV cartoons. Now, thanks to the wonderfulness of the internet you can find almost anything online, especially on Youtube.

Periodically KC and I will spend a few minutes looking up our favorite cartoons and watching the opening credits or some clips from the shows. They are never what you remember them to be. I can't believe I actually enjoyed some of them. I think some shows though are classic. They still inspire the imagination and delight in a little boy or girl.

One of those shows I guess is He-Man. I never really watched it as a kid, though I think I watched She-ra a bit. KC says He-Man was his favorite cartoon when he was about 5 or so. So it's no suprise when the other day KC pulled up the opening credits to He-Man on youtube to show the boys. He was hoping to find an episode to show them, but didn't have any luck. For some reason I remembered seeing that Fancast.com had old cartoons on it and sure enough they have a bunch of He-Man episodes available to watch. So we all gathered around the computer screen and watched it.

Now it's no wonder then, that the night before last I had a certain song in my head all night and the next day, and I had certain phrases run through my head willy nilly. Why? Andrew and Isaac have been watching episodes of He-Man on the computer every chance they get. Isaac has been pointing his play sword in the air and trying to repeat the phrase "By the power of Grayskull!" He only get's out the skull part though. It's cute. They've really been into swords lately and since He-Man uses a Magic Sword, well it's a no brainer they they are drawn to it.

I have to leave the room when they watch it. It annoys the heck outtta me. Why to do they care so much to protect or conquer a land that has no plants and is filled with craggy rocks and mud? Why do they live like they are in stone age/medieval times but they have flying vehicles and computer guidance/targeting systems. Why is the cat/tiger so afraid? Why is Skeletor's voice so high pitched and annoying? What is the deal with those circle shapes on the women's outfits? If you've seen it, you know what I mean. I could go on, but I won't.

There is one redeeming thing about the show. At the end of each episode they have a short moral or uplifting message about something that happened in the show. That is something that a lot of the cartoons out there should have. Still, I'm hoping that this phase blows over soon and I can enjoy more episodes of Wow, Wow Wubbzy and The Backyardigans again. I get those songs stuck in my head too, but they don't annoy me as much.

Kindergarten Here We Come!

Yesterday we celebrated Andrew's 5th birthday with some of my family visiting. Last year we had a friend party for his birthday, this year was just a family party. Grandma and Papa came from Southern Utah to visit for the day and they brought Andrew's cousin Dean with them. We had a great time bowling. Andrew was old enough to handle the ball himself although he couldn't get much speed on the ball. Suprisingly Isaac didn't run off more than once and was a good little boy. I would have never thought the day would come. We went home and had a pizza and chicken nuggets lunch with grapes and hawaiian punch. All Andrew's choice. We then had cake and cake batter flavored ice cream and finally he got to open presents. KC and I got him a new bike since we sorta broke his old one trying this and the old one was a garage sale special. We'll have to work on the no training wheels thing this summer.
Now that Andrew has turned 5 he is quite anxious to go to kindergarten. I feel bad having to explain to him that he has to wait 6 months before he can go. I think he understands though. In the meantime we spend a little time each day doing pages from a Kindergarten workbook.

Happy Birthday Andrew!

Duckies

So recently Isaac has ended up with his own little family of rubber ducks. He calls them his "duckies." The first ducks to join our family were the blue and the green one. I bought them for the boys for Easter this year since they needed something to play with in the tub other than the shark and the killer whale that doesn't swim anymore. Andrew thought his was okay and played with it, but Isaac stuck with his and soon adopted Andrew's blue one as well.

The next duck to join the little family was the larger yellow one. We were shopping at D.I. when I found the duck for Isaac to play with since he was getting bored. He was attached immediately and I couldn't bear to part him with the duck so we paid the $.50 and took him home.

Than, while we were in Hawaii, Grandma found out about his duck family and how important they were to him. (Even now he's upset because he saw the picture of his duckies and he can't find one.) While at Thanksgiving point Grandma bought him the tiny yellow baby duckie. That same week she brought the black duck which has sunglasses, horns, a puka shell necklace, and the word AXE on his chest. Uncle Rich had this at home and she figured he'd want Isaac to have it. He's on a mission and so doesn't have much say in the matter. Anyway his flock quickly grew in one week. This last week he added one more prize duckie. Grandma bought him a key chain duckie about the size of the baby yellow one. It's not a rubber duckie, but rather it is electronic and brought a big smile to Isaac's face. You press a button on it's side and a LED in it's mouth lights up and it says "Qua-Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack."

At least two duckies accompany him to bed every night. I let him take a ducky on car trips and even let him take the quieter small duckie to church today. His flock is so large that when he tries to carry them all, one inevitably falls and when he reaches to pick it up another falls and so on until he gets upset. So now we have a duckie bucket for him to carry them all together. What a cute little family.

Pacifier Gone

Well Isaac is off the pacifier during both day and night. I decided that since he is now 2 years old he shouldn't have it anymore, especially since it was fast becoming his best friend, even when he didn't have it during the day. He has always been a easy child when it comes to going to sleep. This is mostly thanks to the pacifier.

The night I took it away I didn't know what to expect. He asked for it at least 5 times. "Fire?" he'd say. I told him that I couldn't find it, it was lost, it went bye-bye. I guess he accepted my answers eventually. So now at bedtime sans pacifier I give him a bit of milk in his crib and luckily he doesn't protest much. He's been sleeping better at night as well, since he's not waking up needing help to look for his "fire." It has been nice, so pacifier problem solved.

Isaac Turns Two

Last week Isaac officially turned two years old. I can't believe the little guy is already two. My parents, sister and her kids came to celebrate the weekend before his birthday. We had cupcakes, opened presents and played outside with bubbles. The weather was actually really nice that day which has been really hit and miss lately. Here is a picture of the boys and their cousins on one of our rarely warm spring days. The boys sure love seeing their cousins and grandparents.

For more celebrations, the next weekend we met up with some friends at Kangaroo Zoo in Pleasant Grove and had a fun two hours playing. Isaac is fearless even with the biggest slides. He could climb up the ladder and go down the steep slide all by himself. He and Andrew LOVED it.

The boys also had their yearly check-up last week and here are the updated measurements for them.

Andrew - 4 yrs old
weight - 37 lbs - 57 %ile
height - 42 in. - 77 %ile

Isaac - 2 yrs old
weight - 34 lbs - 97 %ile
height - 37 in. - 97 %ile

Big 4 Year Old

Andrew turned 4 years old this past week. We were visiting Grandma on the day of his birthday. When we'd say "Happy Birthday" to him he'd say "No... it's not my birthday yet."
"When will it be your birthday Andrew?"
"When I get my cake and blow out the candles," he says. I guess it's gotta be official with him. So after dinner we finally got out the cake and he got to finally be 4. Nevermind that months before he was saying he was 4 already. I guess he was tired of waiting for his birthday, but once he realized his real birthday was getting closer he consented to being 3 again for a while. He refused to even try any of the special ice cream cake we got him. We sorta knew he'd refuse so mommy and daddy chose the flavor.

Five days later we had a real birthday party for Andrew with some of his friends. Surprisingly he ate 3 cupcakes that day, I guess he's willing to eat some cake now. But no ice cream for that boy. He blew out 4 candles again and announced to another mother that he was now 5 years old since he blew out more candles. Nice try buddy.

The birthday party theme was Disney Pixar's Cars. Lightning McQueen was every where. I made a poster size McQueen for the kids to color. They did a good job for a bunch of 3 & 4 year olds. They played with cars of all types and we had a lot of fun with balloons. What's a party without a bunch of balloon wielding sword fighters?

Pacifier Problem

Minutes after he was born, Isaac was sucking his fingers. Some babies don't like pacifiers, but there was no question whether or not Isaac would take one. He loved to suck on his pacifiers, two at a time if he could manage it. Isaac is also very cuddly both in a good way and a not so good way. Sometimes he'll just cling to me as a 28 lb toddler and insist on being cuddled and held. Sometimes I just can't do it, so instead I'll try to distract him with a combination of his pacifier and something interesting.

My husband and I went on a trip with his family for over a week this past summer. My mom watched the boys for me at her house. She made the rule with him that the pacifier stayed in his crib and he only got it at nap times or at night. From what I understand he followed my mom around the house ( he doesn't like to be alone in a room) and whined/cried. She refused to carry him around, he's just too big to do that and he didn't have his pacifier either. I understand that by the end of the week though he was getting used to this. YEAH!

BUT old habits die hard and I tried to keep the pacifier away but I just couldn't do it for long enough. Soon I was turning to it when I just needed him to stop clinging and crying long enough for whatever task I was trying to get done. So now he's 1 1/2 and his pacifiers are becoming good friends. If he has one and finds another he'll switch them.. then he looks at the old one and switches back, and so on until he find something else to play with. If he sees one on the counter he'll find a way up there to get it. He just loves them, he doesn't really need them, except to help him go to sleep, but he really likes them. I like them too.

My husband along with my mom, who gets after me when she sees him with it, are both saying that I need to take him off it, cold turkey. I hear this and my mind says.... "But, but, but... what will I do?"

So I guess it comes down to this... the problem is more breaking my pacifier habit than breaking his. It seems a lot of parenting involves training the parents more than training the kids. I need to figure out how I can be Isaac's mommy without resorting the pacifier. Right now I don't have enough resolve to go cold turkey. I think for now I am up to limiting usage to sleeping times, I can do that much.