Hip Hip Hooray! It’s Baptism Day!

Matthew has been looking forward to his baptism for a long time. I think he was even more excited for this than he was for his birthday party which makes me really proud. He has his priorities straight. Due to the fact that we don’t have a stake center right now and are sharing one with another stake, our ward has baptisms on the third Saturday of the month. That means that Matthew got baptized the same week as his birthday. He didn’t have to wait for next month like all the other kids. He was pretty thrilled about that.

After the baptism our families joined us for a lunch in his honor. As it was Matthew’s special day, we arranged it so all the food was Matthew friendly. (Thank you everyone who contributed to that effort. It means a lot to us.) We had everyone wash their hands right before we ate so it would stay Matthew friendly and for once in his life he was able to eat everything and go back for as many servings as he wanted. Afterward, I asked him how it was. His response: “It wasn’t awesome….I’m just kidding. It was awesome!!!!” It made all the extra effort worth it. And it made my eyes well up a little…darn cry baby gene.

Today was a great day. And I have one happy eight year old. 

(I had hopes of getting a decent family picture, but Malia was being a turkey and it didn’t happen. Ah, life with a three year old.)

Eight is Great!

In case you didn’t know, Matthew is totally into football right now. So deciding on a theme for his birthday party was pretty much a no brainer. And because the Super Bowl just happened, Pinterest was filled with football related party ideas. So Matthew and I went through a bunch and decided on some of our favorites. We had an assortment of party favors as well as some rockin’ football cupcakes and even (dairy free) ice cream sandwiches made to look like footballs. I think all the kids had a great time. 

The down side to the whole even is that fact that we gave the kids whistles as a party favor and gave them one rule, a rule that they all knew without being told: no whistles in the house. Which was all good and fine until one of our neighbors called the cops on us. Really. I might laugh about it someday, but I’m not there yet. I just think it’s ridiculous to call the cops for a bunch of eight year olds blowing whistles outside and 4 0’clock in the afternoon. And couldn’t they just walk across the street and talk to us in person?! Of course not. Better just call the police. But I digress. It was a fun party.

We did the whole birthday thing with my family yesterday and Matthew had another great Pinterest inspired football cake. It was honestly one of the easiest cakes I’ve ever decorated and Matthew loved it. And as per usual, he cheesed it up while we were singing the birthday song to him. (Don’t ask me what Nathan’s doing. I have no idea.)

Today was Matthew’s actual birthday and he got his presents from us. He got some Seattle Seahawks sheets and a kendama. Kev took the kids to the park in the afternoon (no school today) and Matthew chose stove top lasagna, which is his favorite food right now, for dinner. I think one of Matthew's favorite "presents" is that he no longer has to sit in the booster seat in the car. For him, that is a huge deal! So happy birthday kid! We love you!

Slam Dunk!

The very first of the experiences the boys got for Christmas was last night. Kevin took Matthew to a BYU basketball game. with a trip to the bookstore and dinner in the food court at the Wilk to get things started, it was a full evening. Matthew was one happy kid.

I Don’t Know About Everyone Else…

…but I’m soooo done with this flu season. Kev was sick the week before Christmas. Malia and Matthew were sick the week of Christmas. The week after Christmas was pretty good except for all the lingering coughs. Then all the kids went back to school and it has been super not fun. Nathan missed school last week Thursday and Friday because he was sick. On Tuesday I got a call from preschool, the one where they tell you your child threw up at school. Malia is pretty well recovered today but Matthew came home from school with a fever. So round and round it goes….

I think I need a break.

We're Going There Someday

Due to all the sickness we've had, we didn't get to see Kev's parents until yesterday. They had a family gift for us this year, one that was perfect for our family of Lego-philes. It was a faux Lego set that makes the Salt Lake Temple. It had over 1700 pieces and it took us about 6 hours over two days to build it. It was a very serious task, but one we all did together.

Building a strong foundation

The walls begin to rise
 

 Nearing the top
 

 Raising the roof…which was much harder than it looked.
 

 The finishing touch (Malia crowning our temple with the “Angel Ramoni”)

Kev's mom told us as we built that she hopes we can all meet in the temple someday. That is my hope as well. I've never been in the temple with all my siblings. It's just one of those things that isn't going to happen because not all of us have made the same life choices. But I'm hopeful that my children will make choices that will allow us to gather there at some future day. The soonest we could all gather in the temple will be in nine years when Malia turns twelve. Of course, in nine years Nathan could still be on a mission and Daniel could be married and living anywhere (yikes!). So putting something on the calendar is a bit premature. But I'm an optimist. I'll pencil it in-we'll meet at some time at some temple and do baptisms. Because who wouldn’t want to be seen in public with this crew?

Once our temple was built, we found the perfect place for it. It can remind us of where we want to meet and why.

Year's End

As another year comes to a close, I find myself thinking about what the past year has brought to us.

Kevin has been at Adobe for over a year now. He has too much to do and not enough time, but he seems to be valued by many of the people he works with. He spent ten days in India in October meeting and working with the team of Indian employees he works with on a regular basis. He has discovered that like all jobs, there are pros and cons.

Daniel has grown a lot in the past year, both literally and figuratively. He is now taller than me and takes great pleasure in that fact. As an eighth grader he is firmly ensconced in middle school, is doing great, and still loves school. Knowing that high school credits begin accumulating in ninth grade, he is already making plans for the classes he wants to take so he will be able to participate in the programs that interest him.

Nathan is also looking ahead. Over the course of the past year he has grown from a little boy into a young man. He is excited to start seventh grade in the fall and with registration coming up in the next month or two, he has already decided what his electives will be.

Matthew is still as energetic as ever and although I still struggle to understand him, we are having fewer conflicts. As always, some days we get along better than others, but every bit of progress is good. He has grown at ease in his new school and is striving to gain independence in as many ways as possible. He is getting braver in many ways and little by little he is learning to deal with his fears and anxieties.

Malia has crossed the line from being a toddler to a preschooler. She loves school and is making friends of her very own. She makes me laugh regularly and I love her company. It seems that she is growing up far too quickly, but she'll still sit in my lap while I read stories and I intend to hold on to that for as long as I can.

As for me, the headaches are fewer in number and less intense. I continue to search for ways to make things even better and although I'm not where I would like to be, I'm grateful for the time I've regained and the days when I'm headache free. As my children get older, our days have become more hectic and I spend a good amount of brainpower making sure everyone is where they need to be when they need to be there.

Overall, I feel we've been very blessed in the past year. Like everyone we've had our struggles but relatively speaking, they have been very small.

Another Random Comment I Never Thought I'd Hear Myself Say

"There's a dirty sock in the Christmas tree. "

Sigh. Life with boys can be interesting. And dirty. Their bathroom isn't quite as bad as a gas station, but there are times when it's bad enough that Malia is reluctant to get down to business. As most girls are, she's a fan of a tidy bowl.

Solitary Holiday

At last the fevers have broken! Maybe it was the snow that brought the cool. My kids sure were excited about it although Matthew and Malia were both bummed that they couldn’t go out and play in it. After three days of fever, building a snowman is not on the to-do list. Even if it is the first real snow of the season. And it is a Christmas snow as well.

With all our Christmas visitors (expect for Santa, of course) warned off due to the plague upon our house, we had a not exactly calm and/or quiet day but it was pretty laid back. It started early (long gone are the days when my children blissfully slept until they were fully refreshed on Christmas morning). In fact, Nathan was up, showered and dressed by 6 a.m. and that was about two hours after he actually woke up.

In addition to the normal silly stuff filling her stocking, Malia was the proud recipient of a Fisher Price Little People Castle. The princesses sing, dance, and talk. She thinks it is wonderful. And she is not the only one who has played with the princesses today. All three of my boys had to have a turn as well.

Here she is showing off the new doll purse I made her. Be sure to check out her awesome outfit. She picked it herself. And her uncombed hair is one of my Christmas day concessions: don’t make her stop playing long enough to get her hair combed. 

Matthew received a remote control car. He has a little Lightning Mcqueen rc car that my brother Adam gave him for Christmas about four years ago and he has literally driven that thing to death. When the gears got so stripped it wouldn’t drive, Kev helped him fix it as much as possible (these toys are never designed with repair in mind) and he has continued to drive it even though it is pretty sad sounding. So Santa picked a perfect car-one that drives super fast and is repairable. Believe me, the look on his face in the picture in no way expresses his excitement about this particular gift. He has been driving it as much as possible around battery recharging times, is trying to learn how to prevent crashes (this thing goes fast) and purposely 4-wheeling over the detritus littering our family room (including the princess castle). Believe me, he has driven over all of our toes at least once today.

Another winning gift was the flag football set that Nathan gave him. His face in this picture captures pretty well how he feels about it.

Nathan is definitely moving into teenager territory. He was super duper excited about food, in particular a bag of Cadbury chocolates. Daniel got a similar bag for his birthday and Nathan liked them so much that he asked for a bag of his very own for Christmas. It made it onto his wish list and everything.

While the chocolate was the sweetest gift, the iPod Nano was definitely the most rockin’. Nathan has been asking for a way to listen to music and general conference for months now. It would appear that Santa heard is request. Nathan was really excited about getting his own iPod, possibly even more excited than he was about the chocolate. ;-)

Daniel also received an iPod Nano, yellow instead of the blue that Nathan got. He was pretty excited about that although the pictures definitely don’t reflect how much he likes it. Both boys got an iTunes gift card to accompany their iPods and a portable speaker so they don’t always have to use the earbuds. Daniel also got some Star Trek models that he has been wanting.

Kev and I decided that instead of more stuff, we would give the boys “experiences” for Christmas this year. Matthew gets to go to one BYU basketball game and one BYU football game. As he has turned into an avid BYU fan in the past year, he is pretty excited. Nathan will get to choose one show at Hale Center Theatre and one at The Desert Star Playhouse. He has already looked up what shows will be performed this year and is having a hard time deciding which ones to choose. Daniel’s was a bit different but totally tailored to his interests. He got a one year membership to Origami USA, the national origami club. The membership includes several monthly publications, access to online resources and the opportunity to check out books from the origami library located in New York. We just need to pay for shipping. Kev made a gift certificate for each boy and I think that they are more excited about their experience gifts than anything else. This is definitely something we will be doing again.

We also gave Nathan and Matthew loft beds to replace their bunk bed. Their room is just small enough that the bunk bed, dressers, and toy bins take up all the space. Not only is there no room to play in there, but neither boy has any space that he can call his own. So putting loft beds in will allow them to have all the space underneath as their own private space. I’m hoping it will be a good thing for them.

As for the grownups, I received the iPad Mini I’ve been wanting and Kev got a new hard drive with tons of storage space so he can continue building our home computer network the way he wants.

This afternoon we discovered our next door neighbor snow blowing our driveway. We have great neighbors. We expressed our thanks and wished him a Merry Christmas.  A few minutes later there was a knock on our door and our neighbor presented us with this:

He says that he is good at snowblowing but not so good at finding newspapers. Yeah, we haven’t really been out for the past few days which means we didn’t even think about picking up the newspapers. We all got a good laugh out of it.

As the day winds down, I can honestly say that we had a good day. Matthew is already in need of some parts for his rc car. Nathan and Daniel have filled their iPods with their own personal perfect mix of music. Malia has finally calmed down and is headed for sleep. There are presents strewn around the house and skid marks on the ballroom floor. So yeah, good day.